The Early Years of His Royal Highness the Prince Consort

PRINCE ERNEST was barely five years old, and Prince Albert not yet four, when the change alluded to at the end of the last chapter took place, and the young princes were removed from the care of the nurse to whom they had been hitherto intrusted to that of Herr Florschütz of Coburg.

It is generally a severe trial to a child to be separated for the first time from the nurse by whom it has been hitherto tended and cared for; but the Prince, even as a child, showed a great dislike to being in the charge of women, and rejoiced instead of sorrowing over the contemplated change.^* His gentle and docile temper, too --his natural tenderness of heart and readiness to love those from whom he experienced kindness--soon led him to attach himself with all the warmth of a loving nature to his new instructor; and it was a source of just and honest pride to the tutor, that the attachment and friendship thus begun endured till the last moment of the Prince's life. Not that the Prince ever forgot--it was not in his nature to forget--her to whom his infancy

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