Why did Victoria scream while coming down from the stairs
Answers
Victoria’s childhood was filled with ridiculous forms of etiquette implemented by her mother: Princess Victoire of Saxe-Coburg and her closest adviser: Sir John Conroy. This was known as ‘The Kensington system' that had a dark meaning behind it all.
The Kensington system had forbidden the young princess of various privileges that a child of her age and status had. For example, she was not allowed to see other children but her half sister and brother Feodora and Charles, the Prince of Leiningen and Conroy's daughter who she hated alike her father and referred to her as ‘Mrs Conroy’ she was also forbidden to attend her uncles' George IV and William IV's courts and would also have her food tasted for fears of it being posioned and of course; did not walk down the stairs alone without a chaperon to watch over her for they feared that she would slip and tumble to the floor.
The ‘public' reason behind this was that she was being protected from her ambitious uncle: The Duke of Cumberland who was loathed by her mother and Conroy for he was rumoured to be planning an assassination on the princess who would succeed William V. The Duke of Cumberland did not fancy the idea of being second to a teenage girl or an heir to a girl who might as well have been her grand daughter. This complicated tension between uncle and niece resulted to the establishment of the Kensington system.
But the ‘domestic’ reason behind it was that Conroy wanted the influence of the Queen upon her succession which would generally be soon, with regard to William V's fragile health and since the Queen who would be young and inexperienced in government affairs due to her isolation from the royal courts would indirectly rule the country on the queen's behalf. But Victoria rebelled after years of pressure and subduction. She only escaped the furry of the Kensington system when she ascended the throne in 1837 when she was only 18, young but constitutionally able without any regent as Conroy hoped