It was felt that a
Regent acting for a youthful daughter would need all the power which
could be given her; while, as she could never herself succeed to the
throne, she could be under no temptation, from views of personal
ambition, to misuse the power intrusted to her.
At first sight it seemed a more difficult and delicate question what
course should be pursued with reference to the possible event of the
King dying while the Queen, his widow, was expecting to become a mother.
As has been said above, no precedent was to be found in any former bill;
yet it seemed to be determined by the old constitutional maxim, that the
King never dies. Not even for a moment could the throne be treated as
vacant, and, therefore, it was proposed and determined that in such a
case the Princess Victoria must instantly be proclaimed Queen, and the
Duchess of Kent must instantly assume the authority of Regent; but that,
on the birth of a posthumous child to the Queen Dowager, the Princess
and the Duchess, as a matter of course, should resume their previous
rank, and Queen Adelaide become Regent, and govern in the name of her
new-born infant and sovereign. The strict constitutional correctness of
the principle elaborately and eloquently expounded to the peers by Lord
Lyndhurst was unanimously admitted, and the precedent now set was
followed, with the needful modification, when, ten years afterward, it
became necessary to provide for the possibility of Queen Victoria dying
during the minority of her heir.
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