It’s some interesting to realize that QV almost lost her place as Queen. She wasn’t fated to be heir just because her father beat his others to the ‘baby stakes’. The Clarences had a child who was born AFTER Victoria. Princess Elizabeth Georgiana Adelaide, was born at St. James on 10 December 1820. She was 6 premature. This birth displaced her young cousin who had been born 7 months prior. The newspapers even went so far as to talk of a future Queen Bess. The poor Duchess of Clarence (who would become Queen Adelaide) who was so gentle and wanted children so badly, finally seemed destined to have her child after the loss of one child (Charlotte) on the day of her birth and a miscarriage after a few months of pregnancy. (Of her pregnancies only Charlotte and Elizabeth would live long enough to receive a name) A few months later tragedy struck and the young Princess died after a ‘convulsive fit’ in March 1821. The cause of death was given as an ‘entanglement’ of the bowels. The would be another stillbirth, then stillborn twins and finally no more pregnancies. None of this made her bitter towards either her husband’s several illegitimate children nor her young niece who would assume the throne that would’ve belonged to her own children. She was very fond of Victoria and would’ve spent more time with her if the Duchess of Kent had permitted it. Adelaide wrote a charming, albeit sad, note to the Duchess of Kent when Victoria was small, after the death of her own child, saying that since her own children were gone, she considered Victoria "mine, too" so dearly did she love her. The young Victoria had sympathized with her "Aunt Clarence" because she knew "how well she loved children." Victoria would continue to be fond of Adelaide until the latter’s death. There is a story (don’t know if it’s actually true) relating that when Edward VII and Queen Alexandra were walking through Buckingham Palace, they came across a marble statue. This statue depicted one of Adelaide’s lost children in a cradle. Alexandra inquired as to who it was and rumor has it that EVII replied that ’ My dear, if that baby had lived, you and I would not be here!’
