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Title: Life of Her Majesty Queen Victoria

Author: Dame Millicent Garrett Fawcett

Release date: January 29, 2022 [eBook #67277]

Language: English

Original publication: United States: Roberts Brothers, 1895

Credits: Charlene Taylor and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE OF HER MAJESTY QUEEN VICTORIA ***





  LIFE OF HER MAJESTY
  QUEEN VICTORIA.


  [Illustration: HER MAJESTY, QUEEN VICTORIA.]




  LIFE OF HER MAJESTY

  QUEEN VICTORIA.


  BY

  MILLICENT GARRETT FAWCETT.

  [Illustration: Decorative Image]


  BOSTON:

  ROBERTS BROTHERS.

  1895.




  _Copyright, 1895_,
  BY ROBERTS BROTHERS.

  _All rights reserved._

  University Press:
  JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.




PREFACE.


It would have been impossible, within the limits of this little book,
to narrate, even in barest outline, all the events of the Queen’s long
life and reign. In attempting to deal with so large a subject in so
short a space, I have therefore thought it best to dwell on what may
be considered the formative influences on the Queen’s character in her
early life, and in later years to refer only to political and personal
events, in so far as they illustrate her character and her conception
of her political functions. Even with this limitation, I am fully aware
how far short I have come of being able to produce a worthy record of
a noble life. I will only add that I begun this little book with a
feeling towards Her Majesty of sincere veneration and gratitude, and
that this feeling has been deepened by studying more closely than I had
done before the ideal place of the Crown in the English Constitution,
as a power above party, and the important part the Queen has taken now
for nearly sixty years in making this ideal a reality. It is not too
much to say that, by her sagacity and persistent devotion to duty, she
has created modern constitutionalism, and more than any other single
person has made England and the English monarchy what they now are.

A list of the books referred to will be found after the chronological
table. Among them it is almost unnecessary to say that I am especially
indebted to “The Early Years of the Prince Consort,” by General Grey,
and to “The Life of the Prince Consort,” by Sir Theodore Martin. I also
desire to express my respectful thanks to H. R. H. Princess Christian,
for help very graciously and kindly given in the selection of a
portrait for this little volume.

  MILLICENT GARRETT FAWCETT.

  _April, 1895._




  CONTENTS.


  CHAPTER                                          PAGE

  I. THE QUEEN’S IMMEDIATE PREDECESSORS               9

  II. CHILDHOOD AND EDUCATION                        28

  III. ACCESSION TO THE THRONE                       41

  IV. LOVE AND POLITICS                              56

  V. ROCKS AHEAD                                     71

  VI. THE PRINCE                                     79

  VII. THE QUEEN AND PEEL                            94

  VIII. STOCKMAR                                    104

  IX. THE NURSERY                                   119

  X. HOME LIFE.--OSBORNE AND BALMORAL               132

  XI. FORTY-THREE TO FORTY-EIGHT                    144

  XII. PALMERSTON                                   156

  XIII. PEACE AND WAR                               173

  XIV. A NATION OF SHOPKEEPERS                      192

  XV. THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH             201

  XVI. DOMESTIC LIFE AFTER 1861                     215

  XVII. THE WARP AND WOOF OF HOME AND POLITICS      227

  XVIII. THE QUEEN AND THE EMPIRE                   244

  CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF EVENTS                     257

  BOOKS OF REFERENCE                                261




  VICTORIA.




CHAPTER I.

THE QUEEN’S IMMEDIATE PREDECESSORS.


Every now and then, on the birth of a male heir to any of the great
historic kingdoms of Europe, the newspapers and the makers of public
speeches break forth into rejoicing and thanksgiving that the country
in question is secured from all the perils and evils supposed to be
associated with the reign of a female Sovereign. It is of little
importance, perhaps, that this attitude of mind conveys but a poor
compliment to our Queen and other living Queens and Queen Regents; but
it is not a little curious that the popular opinion to which these
articles and speeches give expression, namely, that the chances are
that any man will make a better Sovereign than any woman, is wholly
contrary to experience; it is hardly going too far to say that in every
country in which the succession to the Crown has been open to women,
some of the greatest, most capable, and most patriotic Sovereigns
have been queens. The names of Isabella of Spain, of Maria Theresa of
Austria, will rise in this connection to every mind; and, little as
she is to be admired as a woman, Catherine II. of Russia showed that
she thoroughly understood the art of reigning. Her vices would have
excited little remark had she been a king instead of a queen. It is
an unconscious tribute to the higher standard of conduct queens have
taught the world to expect from them, that while the historic muse
stands aghast at the private life of the Russian Empress, she is only
very mildly scandalized by a Charles V. or a Henry IV., thinking, with
much justice, that their great qualities as rulers serve to cover their
multitude of sins as private individuals. The brief which history could
produce on behalf of Queens, as successful rulers, can be argued also
from the negative side. The Salic law did not, to say the least, save
the French monarchy from ruin. How far the overthrow of that monarchy
was due to a combination of incompetence and depravity in various
proportions in the descendants of the Capets from the Regent Orleans
onwards towards the Revolution, is a question which must be decided by
others. Carlyle’s view of the cause of the Revolution was that it was
due to “every scoundrel that had lived, and, quack-like, pretended to
be doing, and had only been eating and misdoing, in all provinces of
life, as shoeblack or as sovereign lord, each in his degree, from the
time of Charlemagne and earlier.” Women no doubt produced their share
of quacks and charlatans in the humble ranks of this long procession of
misdoers, but not as sovereigns, because, with the superior logic of
the Gallic mind, the French people not only believed the accession of a
woman to the throne to be a misfortune, but guarded themselves against
the calamity by the Salic law. The fact affords a fresh proof that
logic is a poor thing to be ruled by, because of the liability, which
cannot be eliminated from human affairs, of making a mistake in the
premises. The English plan, though less logical, is more practically
successful. We speak and write as if a nation could not suffer a
greater misfortune than to have a woman at the head of the State; but
we do nothing to bar the female succession, with the result that out of
our five Queens Regnant we have had three of eminent distinction as
compared with any other Sovereign; and of these three, one ranks with
the very greatest of the statesmen who deserve to be remembered as the
Makers of England.

Something more can be claimed than that the Salic law did not prevent
the overthrow of the French monarchy. It is probable that the female
succession to the throne did save the English monarchy in 1837. Failing
the Queen, the next heir would have been the Duke of Cumberland, and
from all the records of the time, it does not suffice to say that he
was unpopular, he was simply hated,--and with justice. He appears to
have conceived it to be his function in Hanover “to cut the wings of
the democracy;” if he had succeeded to the English throne and adopted
the same policy here, he would have brought the whole fabric of the
monarchy about his ears. He was equally without private and public
virtues. The Duke of Wellington once asked George IV. why the Duke of
Cumberland was so unpopular. The King replied, “Because there never was
a father well with his son, or husband with his wife, or lover with
his mistress, or friend with his friend, that he did not try to make
mischief between them.”

The political power which has in various countries devolved on queens
calls to mind one thing that ought to be remembered in discussions
upon the hereditary principle in government. Within its own prescribed
limitations it applies the democratic maxim, _la carrière ouverte aux
talents_, much more completely than any nominally democratic form of
government, and thus has repeatedly given, in our own history, a chance
to an able woman to prove that in statesmanship, courage, sense of
responsibility, and devotion to duty, she is capable of ruling in such
a way as to strengthen her empire and throne by carrying the devoted
affection of all classes of her subjects.

Twice in the history of England have extraordinary efforts been made to
avert the supposed misfortune of a female heir to the throne; and twice
has the “divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will,”
decreed that these efforts should be in vain, and the dreaded national
misfortune has turned out to be a great national blessing. Mr. Froude
tells us that five out of Henry VIII.’s six marriages were contracted
in consequence of his patriotic desire to secure the succession to the
throne in the male line. But when the feeble flame of Edward VI.’s life
was extinguished, four women stood next in the succession, and England
acquired at a most critical moment of her history, in the person of
Elizabeth, perhaps the greatest Sovereign who has ever occupied the
throne of this country.

The second occasion was after the death of the Princess Charlotte in
1817. George III., with his fifteen children, had not then a single
heir in the second generation. It would not be correct to say that
the Royal Dukes were then married by Act of Parliament, no Act of
Parliament was necessary; but political pressure was brought on them
to marry, and Parliament granted them extra allowances of sums varying
from £10,000 to £6,000 a year, and in May and June, 1818, the marriages
took place of the Duke of Cambridge to the Princess Augusta of Hesse,
of the Duke of Clarence (afterwards William IV.) to Princess Adelaide
of Saxe-Meiningen, and of the Duke of Kent to Princess Victoria,
daughter of the Duke of Saxe-Coburg, widow of the Prince of Leiningen,
and sister of Prince Leopold, the husband of Princess Charlotte. The
marriage of the Duke of Kent is the only one of these that immediately
concerns us. As the fourth son of George III., his children would,
under ordinary circumstances, have had but a remote prospect of
succeeding to the throne. But of his elder brothers, the Prince
Regent had, in consequence of the death of Princess Charlotte, become
childless, the Duke of York was also childless, the Duke of Clarence,
whose marriage was contracted on the same day as that of the Duke of
Kent, 13th June, 1818, took precedence of him as an elder brother,
and if he had had legitimate heirs they would have succeeded to the
throne. The Princess (afterwards Queen) Adelaide was not childless.
She bore two children, but they died in their infancy; and thus the
only child of the Duke and Duchess of Kent, the Princess Alexandrina
Victoria, became heiress-presumptive of the English throne. The Duke
of Kent took the strongest interest in his baby girl’s chances of the
succession. Before the birth of the child he urged upon his wife, who
was then resident at Amorbach in Bavaria, that the possible future
King or Queen of England ought to be born on English soil, and then
she consented to remove to Kensington; it is said he was so keenly
anxious for her safety that he drove her carriage the whole of the
land journey between Amorbach and Kensington with his own hands. At
the present day we should perhaps say that the chances of safety lay
with the professional rather than with the amateur coachman; but the
Duke proved his efficiency in handling the reins, and brought his wife
in safety to London, where, on the 24th May, 1819, the baby was born
who is now Queen of England. It should be noted that the Duchess was
attended in her confinement by a woman, following the custom of her
own country in this matter, and that the same _accoucheuse_, Madam
Charlotte Siebold, attended a few months later upon the Duchess of
Coburg when she gave birth to the child who in after years became
Prince Consort. There are several little anecdotes which illustrate
the Duke of Kent’s appreciation of the important place his little girl
was born to fill. He wanted the baby to be called Elizabeth, because
it was the name of the greatest of England’s Queens, and therefore a
popular name with the English people; there were, however, godfathers,
Royal and Imperial, who overruled him as to the naming of the child.
These were the Emperor of Russia (Alexander I.) and the Prince Regent,
and it was therefore proposed to call the baby, Alexandrina Georgiana.
But George, Prince Regent, objected to his name standing second to
any other, however distinguished. His brother, on the other hand,
insisted that Alexandrina should be the first of the baby’s names. In
consequence of this dispute the little Princess was so fortunate as
to escape bearing the name of Georgiana at all; when she was handed
to the Archbishop at the font the Prince Regent only gave the name of
Alexandrina. The baby’s father, however, intervened, and requested
that another name might be added, with the result that, as a kind of
afterthought, her mother’s name was, as it were, thrown in, and the
little Princess was christened Alexandrina Victoria. It was in this
way that the name Victoria, then almost unknown in England, was given
to the baby, and has since become familiar in our mouths as household
words. The Duke declined to allow the congratulations that were
showered on him at the birth of his child to be tempered by regrets
that the daughter was not a son. In reply to a letter conceived in
this vein from his chaplain, Dr. Prince, the Duke wrote at the same
time that “I assure you how truly sensible I am of the kind and
flattering intentions of those who are prompted to express a degree of
disappointment from the circumstance of the child not proving to be a
son instead of a daughter. I feel it due to myself to declare that such
sentiments are not in unison with my own, for I am decidedly of opinion
that the decrees of Providence are at all times wisest and best.” As
this was addressed to a clergyman and a Doctor of Divinity, it may be
inferred that Her Majesty’s father was not without a sense of humor.
Another story of the Duke is that, playing with his baby when she was
a few months old, he held her high in his arms and said, “Look at her
well, for she will be the Queen of England.” It must be remembered,
however, that at this time there was no certainty that the children
of the Duke and Duchess of Clarence would not survive the perils of
infancy; moreover, if the Duke of Kent had lived to have a son, the
boy would have become the heir in preference to his sister. The Duke’s
strongly marked feeling of fatherly pride and affection is almost the
only trait in his character by which we are able at this distance
of time to conjure him up out of the mists of bygone years.[1] This
feeling was soon to receive a melancholy illustration. The Duke and
Duchess, with their baby daughter, removed from Kensington to Sidmouth
to spend the winter of 1819-20. Returning home on a January day, with
boots wet with snow, the Duke caught a severe chill from playing with
his baby, instead of changing his boots.[2] The illness developed into
acute pneumonia, of which he died in January, 1820, leaving his wife a
stranger in a strange land, hardly able to speak the English language,
sole guardian of England’s future Queen. The Duchess of Kent must have
been a woman of considerable strength of character and power of will.
She was in an extremely lonely and difficult position. Pecuniarily,
her chief legacy from her husband consisted of his debts, which the
allowance made then by Parliament was not sufficiently ample to enable
her to pay.

Her brother, then Prince Leopold, widower of Princess Charlotte, and
afterwards King of the Belgians, supplemented her income from his
own purse. The Duchess and her children (she had two by her first
marriage) were frequently his guests at Claremont and elsewhere,
and the Queen speaks of these visits as the happiest periods of her
childhood. After a few years the death of the children of the Duke
and Duchess of Clarence made it practically certain that the Princess
Victoria would become Queen. The Court of George IV. was not one which
the Duchess of Kent could frequent with any satisfaction; she was on
bad terms with him, and he often threatened to take her child away
from her. His character made him quite capable of doing this; he was
equally heartless and despotic. Matters were not greatly improved as to
personal relations between the Sovereign and herself when William IV.
became King; the Princess Victoria did not even attend his coronation.
There was a strong feeling of antagonism between the Duchess of Kent
and William IV., which occasionally broke out into very unseemly
manifestations, especially on the King’s side. His was not a character
which could claim respect, and still less evoke enthusiasm. As Duke of
Clarence, he had lived for more than twenty years with Mrs. Jordan, the
actress, by whom he had ten sons and daughters. His affection for them
showed the best side of his character. He did not disown them; they
bore the name of Fitz Clarence, and as soon as he was able he provided
liberally for them. Greville says that his sons, with one exception,
repaid his kindness with insolence and ingratitude. His affection
for them did not prevent his desertion of their mother. He separated
from her without any apparent cause, and endeavored to bring about a
marriage between himself and a half-crazy woman of large fortune. The
Prince Regent is said to have been the main plot of this scheme, which
was never carried out. During the earlier part of his connection with
Mrs. Jordan, the Duke of Clarence made her an allowance of £1,000 a
year. At the suggestion of George III. he is said to have proposed by
letter to Mrs. Jordan to reduce this sum to £500. Her reply was to send
him the bottom part of a play-bill, on which were these words, “No
money returned after the rising of the curtain.” When he was a young
man on active service in the navy and in command of a ship, he had
twice absented himself from foreign stations without leave, and the
Admiralty were at their wits’ end to know how to deal with him.

The death of the Princess Charlotte in 1817, and later the death of
the Duke of York, gave political importance to the Duke of Clarence’s
existence, and he was one of the batch of Royal Dukes who married, as
we have seen, in 1818, not without unseemly haggling with the House of
Commons as to the additional allowance to be voted for his support.
The £10,000 a year proposed by the Government was cut down to £6,000
by a vote of 193 to 184. Lord Castlereagh then rose and said that
“Since the House had thought proper to refuse the larger sum to the
Duke of Clarence, he believed he might say that the negotiation for
the marriage might be considered at an end;” and on the next day
his Lordship announced to the House that “the Duke declined availing
himself of the inadequate sum which had been voted to him.” However,
as the only practical reply to this was a vote by the House granting
£6,000 a year to the Duke of Cambridge, and declining any grant
at all for the unpopular Duke of Cumberland, the Duke of Clarence
appears to have thought better of his refusal of the grant, and the
marriage accordingly took place. But there can be no surprise, under
the circumstances, that such a union and the character it revealed
awakened no popular interest. It should be said, however, that when
he became King it was generally remarked that his elevation improved
him. He became, Greville says, “most composed and rational, if not
more dignified in his behavior.” People began to like him, if not
for his virtues, at any rate on account of the contrast he presented
to his predecessor. His best qualities were frankness and honesty,
and he also had the real and rather rare generosity of not bearing a
grudge against those who had baffled or defeated him. Thus the Duke
of Wellington had, when Prime Minister, removed the Duke of Clarence
from the office of Lord High Admiral; but though exceedingly angry at
the time, he never bore any grudge against the Duke of Wellington, or
wreaked vengeance upon him in any way when he had the power to do so.
On the contrary, when he became King he gave the Duke his fullest and
most cordial confidence, retained him as Prime Minister, and took an
early opportunity of publicly showing him honor by dining at Apsley
House. It is the more pleasant to recall this instance of magnanimity
on the part of William IV. because the annals of the time are full
to overflowing of stories to the discredit of nearly all the sons of
George III. The character of George IV. is well known. His quarrels
with his wife and attempt to pass an Act of Divorce against her are
notorious. In ghastly contrast to the pageantry of his coronation, in
which it was said £240,000 were spent, those who were present speak
of the thrill of horror which ran through the assembly when Queen
Caroline was heard knocking at the door of the Abbey for the admittance
which was refused her. “There was sudden silence and consternation;
it was like the handwriting on the wall.” George IV. was almost
equally contemptible in every relation of life. His Ministers could
with difficulty induce him to give attention to necessary business.
“Indolent, cowardly, selfish, unfeeling dog” are the words by which he
is described by the clerk of his Council. He delighted in keeping those
who had business to transact with him waiting for hours while he was
chatting about horses, or betting, or any trivial matter. Greville,
after many years of close knowledge of George IV., says of him: “The
littleness of his character prevents his displaying the dangerous
faults that belong to great minds; but with vices and weaknesses of
the lowest and most contemptible order it would be difficult to find
a disposition more abundantly furnished.” It is probably not too much
to say that no one loved him living, or mourned him dead. Of his
funeral Greville says in his cynical way: “The attendance was not very
numerous, and when they had all got together in St. George’s Hall, a
gayer company I never beheld.... Merry were all, as merry as grigs.”
The King’s brothers were not a very great improvement on the King. The
Royal Dukes seemed to vie with each other in unseemly and indecorous
behavior. On one occasion, in July, 1829, they attacked each other
violently in the House of Lords, that is, “Clarence and Sussex attacked
Cumberland, and he them very vehemently, and they used towards each
other language which nobody else could have ventured to employ; so
it was a very droll scene.” With such brothers-in-law the position
of the Duchess of Kent must have been one of great difficulty and
loneliness, and she was, consequently, thrown, more perhaps than she
would otherwise have been, to rely for advice and companionship on her
own brother, Prince Leopold. This Prince and his confidential secretary
and friend, Stockmar, afterwards Baron Stockmar, were the trusted
counsellors of the Duchess of Kent with regard to the education of
Princess Victoria and her preparation for the difficult and responsible
position she was afterwards to occupy. The quarrels and disputes that
constantly arose between the Duchess of Kent and William IV. may have
been attributable to faults on both sides; but the most innocent and
indeed laudable actions of the Duchess, with regard to her daughter’s
training, seem to have been made the excuse for all kinds of complaint
and acrimony on the part of the King. For instance, the Duchess felt
that it was proper that her daughter, in view of the position she
would hereafter occupy, should see as much as possible of the places
of interest and importance in the kingdom she would be destined in
time to reign over. Accordingly, she took the young Princess about
to the chief manufacturing centres, as well as to places of historic
interest, and localities where the rural beauty of England was to be
seen in its greatest perfection. In this way she visited Birmingham,
Worcester, Coventry, Shrewsbury, Chester, Lichfield, and Oxford, as
well as Malvern, Brighton, Tunbridge Wells, Kenilworth, Powis Castle,
Wynnstay, Anglesey, and the Isle of Wight. It appears, however, that
these apparently praiseworthy proceedings gave great offence at Court.
The Duchess was supposed to seek more attention than her position
justified her in demanding. A Council was summoned at Windsor on one
occasion (in 1833) for the sole purpose of checking the manifestations
of loyalty which the appearance of the Duchess and her daughter
provoked. The King was devoured by spleen on hearing that salutes had
been fired at the Isle of Wight in honor of these progresses of the
heiress-presumptive and her mother. After absurd negotiations on the
subject between the King and his sister-in-law, when neither had the
good grace to give way, the fleet was commanded, by Order in Council,
not to salute the Royal Standard unless the King or Queen was on board.
On another occasion, offence seems to have been taken by the King where
none was intended, because an address, received by the Duchess in 1835
at Burghley, alluded to her daughter as “destined to mount the throne
of these realms.” It was an additional offence that Sir John Conroy,
the Duchess’s controller of the household, “handed the answer, just
as the Prime Minister does to the King.” With every action, even on
the part of others, thus misinterpreted, it was no wonder that the
Duchess could have no cordial feelings towards her husband’s family.
George IV. openly showed his dislike for her, the Duke of Cumberland
never lost an opportunity of aggravating the unfriendliness of their
relations. When William IV. succeeded, the Duchess of Kent wrote to
the Duke of Wellington, as Prime Minister, to request that she might
be treated as a Dowager Princess of Wales, with an income suitable
for herself and her daughter, for whom she also asked recognition as
heiress to the throne. These requests met with a positive refusal, at
which the Duchess expressed considerable vexation. Afterwards, when
a Regency Bill was brought forward to provide for the event of the
death of the King while the Princess Victoria was still a minor,
although the right thing was done, and the Duchess was named Regent,
the old feeling of hostility was not removed between herself and the
King and his brothers, and during nearly the whole of William IV.’s
seven years’ reign there were constant bickerings and disputes between
Windsor and Kensington. Matters were made worse by William’s love of
making speeches, in which he set forth, with more vigor than dignity,
his grievances, or what he considered such. Greville says he had a
passion for speechifying, and had a considerable facility in expressing
himself, but that what he said was generally useless or improper. An
instance in point is to be found in the “Life of Archbishop Tait,”
who wrote in his diary, December 4th, 1856, that Dr. Langley told him
that when he did homage to William IV. on his first appointment as
Bishop, no sooner had he risen from his knees than the King suddenly
addressed him in a loud voice thus: “Bishop of Ripon, I charge you, as
you shall answer before Almighty God, that you never by word or deed
give encouragement to those d----d Whigs, who would upset the Church
of England.” Even when proposing the Princess Victoria’s health and
speaking kindly of her, he could not resist the public announcement
that he had not seen so much of her as he could have wished (Aug.,
1836). On another occasion he loudly and publicly expressed to the
Duchess his strong disapprobation of her having appropriated apartments
at Kensington Palace beyond those which had been assigned to her, and
spoke of what she had done as “an unwarrantable liberty.” A still worse
outbreak shortly followed. At his birthday banquet in 1836, in the
presence of a hundred people, with the Duchess of Kent sitting next to
him and the Princess Victoria opposite, he expressed with more vigor
than delicacy the hope that he might live nine months longer, so that
the Princess might attain her majority, and the regency of the Duchess
never come into operation. He referred to the Duchess as “a person
now near me who is surrounded by evil advisers, and who is herself
incompetent to act with propriety in the station in which she would
be placed.” A great deal more in the same style followed; “an awful
philippic,” Greville calls it, “uttered with a loud voice and excited
manner.” The King’s animosity against the Duchess was extended to, and
may perhaps have been provoked by, her brother. He had given offence
by calling on Queen Caroline after the conclusion of the evidence
against her in the House of Lords. He appears himself to have thought
the action required an excuse, and says, “But how abandon entirely the
mother of Princess Charlotte, who, _though she knew her mother well_,
loved her very much?” George IV. was furious, and never forgave his
son-in-law. William IV. shared his brother’s sentiments in regard to
Leopold, and invariably treated him with coldness, and sometimes with
rudeness that amounted to brutality. After he had become King of the
Belgians, Leopold visited William IV. at Windsor, and during dinner
made an innocent request for water. The King asked, “What’s that you
are drinking, sir?” “Water, sir.” “God d---- it!” rejoined the other
King, “why don’t you drink wine? I never allow any one to drink water
at my table.” The King of the Belgians must have felt like a man living
among wild beasts, and it is not surprising to read that he did not
sleep at Windsor that night, but went away in the evening. There was
not a subject on which they were agreed. William IV. was a Tory of
the Tories; Prince Leopold was a Whig. King William’s chief political
interest was the preservation of the slave trade; Prince Leopold was
deeply interested in its abolition. The same antagonism between them
ran through all subjects, great and small.

These anecdotes of the coarseness and brutality of the Queen’s
immediate predecessors have been recalled for the purpose of
illustrating the extreme difficulty of the position in which the
Duchess of Kent found herself from the time of her husband’s death
to that of her daughter’s accession. It also serves to explain an
expression used in after years by the Queen in reference to her choice
of the name of Leopold for her youngest son, where she says, “It is the
name which is dearest to me after Albert, one which recalls the almost
only happy days of my sad childhood.” But if the Princess Victoria
was unfortunate in some of her uncles, her uncle Leopold went far to
redress the balance. At one time the prospect before him, as husband
of Princess Charlotte, had been identical with the position afterwards
occupied by Prince Albert. He had become a naturalized Englishman, and
he had given great thought and study to English Constitutional history,
and particularly to the duties and responsibilities of a Constitutional
monarch. He had strong personal ambition, disciplined by ability and
conscientiousness. In 1817 the death of his wife dashed the cup of
ambition from his lips. A contemporary letter speaks of him as Adam
“turned out of Paradise without his Eve.” From the important position
of husband of the Heiress Apparent he sunk in one day to that of a
subordinate member of the Royal Family, necessarily, as we have seen,
out of sympathy with them and aloof from them. “Seekest thou great
things for thyself? Seek them not,” was the lesson of 1817 to him. With
great power of personal abnegation, his disappointment did not imbitter
him, his ambition did not turn sour. He transferred it and all his
plans and all his interest in English constitutionalism to a little
niece and nephew who were born respectively on the 24th of May and
26th of August, 1819. The little Victoria at Kensington and the little
Albert at Coburg were destined by their uncle Leopold almost from their
birth to play the part that would have been filled by the Princess
Charlotte and himself but for her early death. He had, of course, no
absolute power to bring this marriage about, but he earnestly desired
it, and prepared the way for it by every means at his command. He won,
as he deserved to win, the Princess Victoria’s most ardent affection.
She has told us herself how she “adored” her uncle. He took his mother,
the Duchess Dowager of Coburg, a very able woman, into his confidence.
She wholly shared his views and hopes. From the time he was three years
old Prince Albert was accustomed to the idea that when he was old
enough he was to marry his cousin, Princess Victoria of England. The
first mention of Prince Albert as a husband was made to the Queen by
her uncle Leopold. The education of both children was conducted with
this end in view. This was no doubt a chief bone of contention between
Prince Leopold and his sister the Duchess of Kent on the one hand, and
the King and his party on the other. For William IV. highly disapproved
of the proposed union, and did everything in his power to stop it,
proposing in succession no fewer than five other marriages for the
young Princess. It throws a light too on his resentment at the degree
to which the Princess Victoria was withdrawn from his Court, so that
hardly any influence could reach her antagonistic to that of her uncle
Leopold. William IV.’s explosions of rage against the Duchess of Kent
are illustrative of this; they are those of a stupid man, nominally in
a position of authority, but baffled and outwitted, and consequently
furious. It was well for the Princess Victoria and for England too
that he was not the predominant influence in her education; but it
is not difficult to understand his wrath. The game of cross purposes
was constantly going on, and the King was constantly being worsted.
The Duchess of Kent selected as her daughter’s tutor the Rev. George
Davys. The King objected that the education of the heiress-presumptive
to the throne should be under the care of some distinguished prelate.
The Duchess acquiesced, and, while retaining the services of Dr. Davys,
intimated that there would be no objection on her part to his receiving
the highest ecclesiastical preferment. A very extensive knowledge
of human nature is not needed to know that this sort of thing is to
the last degree irritating, nor that the fact of the Duchess and her
brother being generally in the right, and the King generally in the
wrong, was not soothing to the latter.[3]

In this too stormy atmosphere the heiress of England was reared. Her
naturally happy disposition and healthy physical constitution carried
her through with less disadvantage than other less happily endowed
natures would have sustained. Among other relatives who were uniformly
kind and considerate to the young Princess special mention should be
made of the Duke of York, whom she loved like a second father. His
death, in 1827, was her first real sorrow as a child. Queen Adelaide
also was uniformly kind and loving to her niece. Her own two baby
girls had died in their infancy, and she transferred a good deal of
motherly tenderness to Princess Victoria. A meaner nature would have
resented the place of her own child being filled by another; but Queen
Adelaide showed none of this littleness, and welcomed her niece with
cordiality to her rightful place beside the throne. When the second
of Queen Adelaide’s own little girls died, she wrote to the Duchess
of Kent, “My children are dead, but yours lives, and she is mine,
too!” The simple words give the note of a truly noble nature. In 1831,
when King William prorogued his first Parliament, Queen Adelaide and
Princess Victoria watched from the windows of the Palace the progress
of the Royal procession. “The people cheered the Queen lustily, but,
forgetting herself, that gracious lady took the young Princess Victoria
by the hand, led her to the front of the balcony, and introduced her
to the happy and loyal multitude.”[4] On several other occasions Queen
Adelaide showed a noble, queenly, and motherly spirit towards the young
Princess. In 1837 and onwards, Queen Victoria was able, by a number of
little nameless acts of kindness and of love, to cheer and soothe the
declining years of the Queen Dowager.

[1] The Duke of Kent was chiefly known in the army for his extreme
insistence in military etiquette, discipline, dress, and equipments.
He was, however, the first to abandon flogging, and to establish a
regimental school.--_Dictionary of National Biography._

[2] In reminiscences contributed by the King of the Belgians, as an
appendix to “Early Years of the Prince Consort,” it is stated that the
Duke’s fatal cold was caught when visiting Salisbury Cathedral.

[3] It should be remarked that whatever the faults and shortcomings of
William IV. may have been, the Queen herself never refers to him but in
terms of affection and gratitude.

[4] G. Barnett Smith, “Life of Her Majesty Queen Victoria.”




CHAPTER II.

CHILDHOOD AND EDUCATION.


The previous chapter dwelt upon some serious drawbacks to the Queen’s
happiness as a child. But if she was unfortunate in living in an
atmosphere too highly charged with contention, her childhood was in
another respect remarkably fortunate. Very few heirs to the throne have
been brought up from infancy with an education carefully designed as
a preparation for their future exalted station, combined with almost
all the simplicity and domesticity of private life. But this unusual
combination was secured for the Queen by the circumstances of her
childhood. At the time of her birth the chances were decidedly against
her succession. Even down to the last few months of his life, William
IV. continued to speak of her as “Heiress Presumptive,” not as “Heiress
Apparent” to the throne. He never probably completely relinquished the
hope of having a child of his own to succeed him. In 1835 there had
been rumors, which seemed well authenticated, that Queen Adelaide was
about to give birth to a child. The absence of absolute certainty in
the Princess Victoria’s prospects of the succession, the reluctance
of her uncles and of Parliament to establish her and her mother with
an income suitable to their rank and her future position, all worked
together, in combination with the good sense of her mother, to secure
for the little Princess a childhood free from much of the pomp,
formality, and flattery from which an heir to the throne seldom even
partially escapes.

While she was thus protected from many of the disadvantages associated
with her rank, its advantages were not neglected. The Duchess of
Kent gathered about her at Kensington Palace a great many of the
representatives of the foremost minds of the day in literature,
science, and in social reform. Nearly all the memoirs of distinguished
men and women of that period contain some mention of their gracious
reception at Kensington Palace by the Duchess, and the interest they
had felt in seeing the little Princess. Among those who were received
in this way may be mentioned Sir Walter Scott, Wilberforce, and Mrs.
Somerville.

The Duchess of Kent made the suitable education of her child the one
absorbing object of her life; and she seems to have realized that
education does not consist in merely learning facts or acquiring
accomplishments, but should also aim at forming the character and
disciplining the whole nature, so that it may acquire conscientiousness
and the strength which comes from self-government. Keeping this
end ever in view, and aided, no doubt, by a responsiveness in the
child’s own nature, the little Princess was trained in those habits
of strict personal integrity which are the only unfailing safeguard
for truthfulness and fundamental honesty in regard to money and
other possessions. All observers who have been brought into personal
relationship with the Queen speak of her as possessing one of the most
transparently truthful natures they have ever known. The Right Hon.
John Bright, with his Quaker-bred traditions as to literal exactitude
in word and deed, said that this was the trait in her character of
which he carried away the most vivid impression. An anecdote is given
in “The Life of Bishop Wilberforce,” illustrative of the Queen’s
truthfulness as a child. Dr. Davys, Bishop of Peterborough, formerly
preceptor to Princess Victoria, told Dr. Wilberforce that when he was
teaching her, one day the little Princess was very anxious that the
lesson should be over, and was rather troublesome. The Duchess of Kent
came in and asked how she had behaved. Baroness Lehzen, the governess,
replied that once she had been rather naughty. The Princess touched her
and said, “No, Lehzen, _twice_; don’t you remember?”

The financial side of truthfulness is honesty; and here again the
Queen has instituted a new order of things in English royalty. We are
so accustomed to the sway of a Sovereign who regards it as dishonest
to owe more than she is ready and willing to pay, that we have
almost forgotten that this was very far from being the case with her
predecessors. Even the highly respectable Prince Leopold could not live
within his income of £50,000 a year, and was £83,000 in debt when he
became King of the Belgians in 1831.

Great attention was given to exactitude with regard to money in the
Queen’s early training. There are many stories of the little Princess
visiting shops and relinquishing some desired purchase because she had
not money enough to pay for it. One of these anecdotes is preserved
at Tunbridge Wells, and tells how the Princess Victoria, not having
money enough to buy some greatly desired toy, so far went beyond her
accustomed self-control as to ask the shopkeeper to reserve it for
her till she had received a fresh instalment of her allowance for
pocket-money, and that the child came on her donkey as early as seven
o’clock in the morning to claim possession of the object she had
set her heart on, the very instant she had the money to pay for it.
Perhaps these lessons had their source from the frugal German Court of
Coburg; but whatever their origin, they have stood the Queen in good
stead, and have enabled her to set a perpetual good example to her
subjects of the blessedness of obedience to the injunction, “owe no man
anything.” It must not be forgotten, too, that she was not, throughout
her girlhood, without an object lesson in the disagreeable consequences
of extravagance. Her father had died in debt, and unless his creditors
differed from the race of creditors in general, they did not fail
during the seventeen years which elapsed between the Duke’s death and
his daughter’s accession to remind his widow of the fact. One of the
first acts of the young Queen on ascending the throne was to pay her
father’s debts, contracted before she was born.

The scrupulousness with regard to money which was enjoined on her as
a child has been one of the Queen’s many claims to the loyalty of
her people. Miss Martineau, in her “Thirty Years’ Peace” (written
about 1845), speaking of this aspect of Her Majesty’s education and
character, has said, “Such things are no trifles. The energy and
conscientiousness brought out by such training are blessings to a whole
people; and a multitude of her more elderly subjects, to this day,
feel a sort of delighted surprise as every year goes by without any
irritation on any hand about regal extravagance--without any whispered
stories of loans to the Sovereign--without any mournful tales of ruined
tradesmen and exasperated creditors.”

A trifling circumstance may here be mentioned illustrative of the
Queen’s economy in personal expenditure. A Paris dressmaker, of
world-wide fame, recently (1893) brought an action against a rival who
was trading under the same name. In the course of evidence given at
the trial the celebrated _modiste_ stated that he had made dresses for
every Royal lady in Europe except Her Majesty the Queen of England.
Indeed, every one who has seen the Queen, either in public or private,
will agree that she is not indebted either to the dressmaker or
milliner for the regal dignity which undoubtedly marks her bearing.

Of the Queen’s personal appearance as a child and young woman we have
many contemporary records. Some of these speak in enthusiastic terms of
her extreme loveliness as a child. One lady writes of a recent visit to
the widowed Duchess: “The child is so noble and magnificent a creature
that one cannot help feeling an inward conviction that she is to be
Queen some day or other.” Other writers speak of her lovely complexion,
fair hair, and large expressive eyes. Greville is less complimentary;
but he was writing of a later period. Speaking of a child’s ball given
at Court for the little Queen of Portugal in 1829, he says: “It was
pretty enough, and I saw for the first time ... our little Victoria....
Our little Princess is a short, plain-looking child, and not near
so good-looking as the Portuguese.” It was when this ball was first
talked of that Lady Maria Conyngham gave dire offence to George IV. by
saying, “Do give it, sir; it will be so nice to see the _two little_
Queens dancing together.” There is no necessary inconsistency in these
different accounts of Princess Victoria’s appearance. It is possible
that a lovely infant may have become a plain child at ten years old.
Of her appearance as she approached womanhood, Mr. N. P. Willis, an
American, writing in 1835, describing his visit to Ascot, says: “In one
of the intervals I walked under the King’s stand, and saw Her Majesty
the Queen (Adelaide) and the young Princess Victoria very distinctly.
They were leaning over the railing, listening to a ballad-singer, and
seeming to be as much interested and amused as any simple country folk
would be.... The Princess is much better looking than any picture
of her in the shops, and for the heir to such a crown as that of
England, quite unnecessarily pretty and interesting.”

[Illustration: Victoria Aug: 10th 1835.]

Carlyle, in a private letter to his brother (April, 1838), gave a vivid
picture of the girl-Queen as he saw her then:--

 “Going through the Green Park yesterday, I saw her little Majesty
 taking her ... departure for Windsor. I had seen her another day at
 Hyde Park Corner coming in from the daily ride. She is decidedly a
 pretty-looking little creature: health, clearness, graceful timidity,
 looking out from her young face, ‘frail cockle on the black bottomless
 deluges.’ One could not help some interest in her, situated as mortal
 seldom was.”

Writing of a later period, Baroness Bunsen, describing the scene in the
House of Lords at the opening of Parliament in 1842, says:--

 “The opening of Parliament was the thing from which I expected
 most, and I was not disappointed. The throngs in the streets, in
 the windows, in every place people could stand upon, all looking
 so pleased; the splendid Horse Guards, the Grenadiers of the Guard
 ... the Yeomen of the Body-Guard. Then in the House of Lords, the
 Peers in their robes, the beautifully dressed ladies with many very
 beautiful faces; lastly, the procession of the Queen’s entry, and
 herself, looking worthy and fit to be the converging point of so many
 rays of grandeur. It is self-evident that she is not tall, but were
 she ever so tall, she could not have more grace and dignity.... The
 composure with which she filled the throne while awaiting the Commons
 I much admired; it was a test--no fidget, no apathy. Then her voice
 and enunciation cannot be more perfect. In short, it cannot be said
 that she _did well_, but that she _was the Queen_,--she was and felt
 herself to be the descendant of her ancestors.”

These last words exactly describe Her Majesty’s bearing in age as well
as in youth; and it is this, her intellectual grasp of the situation
she fills as the highest officer of the State and the wearer of the
crown of the Plantagenets, Tudors, and Stuarts, that renders her
dignity so entirely independent of mere trappings and finery. It has
been remarked that on the occasion of her public appearances, the Queen
may have been the worst-dressed lady present, and have had by her side
or in the immediate background a galaxy of fair women dressed with
all the art that Paris or London could command, and yet she has looked
every inch the Queen, and they have looked milliner’s advertisements.
She has over and over again proved that the saying, “Fine feathers make
fine birds,” is not universally true.

In those portions of the Queen’s Journals which have been published,
evidence is not wanting of that pride of race which, if we have
interpreted it aright, is the true source of Her Majesty’s dignity of
bearing. On one of her journeys through the Highlands, General Ponsonby
reminded her that the great-great-grandfathers of the men who were
showing her every possible mark of loyalty and affection, had lost
their heads for trying to dethrone the Queen’s great-great-grandfather.
“Yes,” adds the Queen, “and _I_ feel a sort of reverence in going
over these scenes in this most beautiful country which I am proud to
call my own, where there was such devoted loyalty to the family of
my ancestors; for Stuart blood is in my veins, and I am _now_ their
representative, and the people are as devoted and loyal to me as they
were to that unhappy race.”

Returning to the subject of the influence of the Queen’s early
education and character, the remarkable degree to which her natural
conscientiousness was developed is noticeable in a great variety of
directions. Her extreme punctuality is an instance in point. She never
wastes the time of others by keeping them waiting for her. Punctuality
has been described as “the courtesy of kings,” and it is a courtesy in
which the Queen is unfailing. Her care for her servants and household
is another manifestation of her conscientiousness. Her “Leaves from the
Journal of our Life in the Highlands,” and the subsequent book, “More
Leaves,” are full of little touches illustrative of the Queen’s care
for those dependent upon her, and her readiness to acknowledge the
value of their services. Sir Arthur Helps, writing the introduction
to the first of these volumes, draws attention to this feature of
the Queen’s character. He says: “Perhaps there is no person in these
realms who takes a more deep and abiding interest in the welfare of the
household committed to his charge than our gracious Queen does in hers,
or who feels more keenly what are the reciprocal duties of masters and
servants.”

In one of the Queen’s letters to Dean Stanley, on the occasion of the
death of a valued servant of his, she says: “I am one of those who
think the loss of a faithful servant the loss of a friend, and one who
can never be replaced.” In 1858, on their first journey to Prussia,
to visit the Princess Royal after her marriage, the Queen and Prince
heard of the sudden death of a valuable servant of the latter, who had
been with him since his childhood. The Queen wrote in her Journal: “I
turn sick now in writing it.... He died suddenly on Saturday at Morges
of _angina pectoris_. I burst into tears. All day long the tears would
rush every moment to my eyes, and this dreadful reality came to throw a
gloom over the long-wished-for day of meeting with our dear child....
I cannot think of my dear husband without Cart! He seemed part of
himself. We were so thankful for and proud of this good, faithful old
servant.... A sad breakfast we had indeed.”[5]

The Duchess of Kent made the education of the Princess her one end and
aim during the minority of the latter. She was hardly ever out of her
mother’s sight, sleeping in her mother’s room, having her supper, at a
little table, by the side of her mother at dinner. She was instructed
in the usual educational subjects, besides, what was then unusual for
a girl, Latin, Greek, and mathematics. From an early age she spoke
French and German with fluency; the latter indeed was almost another
mother tongue. All her life she has shown delight in languages, and
her subjects, especially those in Asia, were very interested to hear
that, even in old age, she had begun to make a systematic study of
Hindustani. From an early age she acquired considerable proficiency in
drawing and music, and developed in youth a pleasant _mezzo-soprano_
voice. One of Mendelssohn’s letters to his family describes his visit
to the Queen and Prince Consort at Buckingham Palace in 1842. She
offered to sing one of his songs, and he handed her the album to choose
one. “And which,” writes Mendelssohn, “did she choose? ‘_Schöner und
schöner schmäckt sich’!_” The exclamation mark is due to the fact that
this song was not by Mendelssohn at all, but by his sister Fanny.
Germany in the forties would have been scandalized by a woman’s name
on the titlepage even of a song, so that Mendelssohn’s album of songs
was enriched by those which had been composed by his sister. The letter
continues: “She [the Queen] sang it quite charmingly, in strict time
and tune, and with very good execution. Only ... where it goes down to
D and comes up again chromatically she sang D sharp each time.... With
the exception of this little mistake, it was really charming, and the
last long G I never heard better, or purer, or more natural from any
amateur. Then I was obliged to confess that Fanny had written the song
(which I found very hard, but pride must have a fall), and begged her
to sing one of my own also.”

In the Queen’s early childhood the knowledge that she was the probable
heir to the throne was carefully kept from her. In Lockhart’s “Life
of Scott” the following entry is given from Scott’s Journal, May 19th,
1828: “Dined with the Duchess of Kent. I was very kindly received
by Prince Leopold, and presented to the Princess Victoria, the Heir
Apparent to the crown, as things now stand.... This little lady is
educating with much care, and watched so closely that no busy maid has
a moment to whisper, ‘You are heir of England.’ I suspect if we could
dissect the little heart we should find some pigeon or other bird of
the heir had carried the matter.” The Queen has given her own authority
for saying that this very natural surmise was mistaken, and has allowed
the publication of the following letter from Her Majesty’s governess,
Baroness Lehzen, which contains one of the most interesting anecdotes
of the Queen’s childhood.

The Regency Bill, which made the Duchess of Kent Regent in the event
of the death of William IV. without direct heirs while the Princess
was still a minor, was passing through Parliament in 1830, and the
occasion suggested to the governess that the time had come when her
little charge should be made aware of her prospect of succeeding to
the throne. Baroness Lehzen wrote in a letter to the Queen, dated 2nd
December, 1867:--

 “I then said to the Duchess of Kent that now, for the first time,
 your Majesty ought to know your place in the succession. Her Royal
 Highness agreed with me, and I put the genealogical table into the
 historical book. When Mr. Davys [the Queen’s instructor, afterwards
 Bishop of Peterborough] was gone, the Princess Victoria opened the
 book again as usual, and, seeing the additional paper, said, ‘I never
 saw that before.’ ‘It was not thought necessary you should, Princess,’
 I answered. ‘I see I am nearer the throne than I thought.’ ‘So it is,
 madam,’ I said. After some moments the Princess answered, ‘Now, many a
 child would boast; but they don’t know the difficulty. There is much
 splendor, but there is more responsibility.’ The Princess, having
 lifted up the forefinger of her right hand while she spoke, gave me
 that little hand, saying, ‘_I will be good_. I understand why you
 urged me so much to learn, even Latin. My aunts Augusta and Mary never
 did, but you told me that Latin is the foundation of English grammar
 and of all the elegant expressions, and I learned it as you wished it;
 but I understand all better now.’ And the Princess gave me her hand,
 repeating, ‘I will be good.’”

This anecdote gives the key-note to the Queen’s character. Her childish
resolve, _I will be good_, has been the secret of her strength
throughout her reign. She has never shrunk from anything which has
presented itself to her in the light of a duty. When she became Queen
she did not go through her business in a perfunctory way, giving her
signature without question to whatever documents were placed before
her. She required all the State business explained to her to such a
degree that Lord Melbourne, her first Prime Minister, said laughingly
that he would rather manage ten kings than one queen. On one occasion,
in the early years of her reign, the Minister urged her to sign some
document on the grounds of “expediency.” She looked up quietly, and
said, “I have been taught to judge between what is right and what
is wrong, but ‘expediency’ is a word I neither wish to hear nor to
understand.” Another word which she objected to was “trouble.” Mrs.
Jameson relates that one of the Ministers told her that he once carried
the Queen some papers to sign, and said something about managing so as
to give Her Majesty “less trouble.” She looked up from her papers, and
said, “Pray never let me hear those words again; never mention the word
‘trouble.’ Only tell me how the thing is to be done and done rightly,
and I will do it if I can.” This has been her principle throughout her
reign: to do her work as well as she knew how to do it, without sparing
herself either trouble or responsibility.

It is not only the larger questions of State policy that she follows
now, after more than fifty years of sovereignty, with all the knowledge
which long experience gives, but she bestows close attention to the
details of organization in the different departments of the Government.
If any change is proposed of which she does not see the bearing or
the necessity, she requires to have the reasons which prompted it
laid before her, and would withhold her sanction unless her judgment
were convinced. She is a constant and indefatigable worker, and those
in attendance upon her have frequently expressed their surprise at
her continuing at her work late into the night, and yet being almost
unfailingly at her post again in the early morning. The child raising
her little hand, and saying, “I will be good,” has been in this and
in many other ways the mother to the woman. The solemn words of the
Coronation Service have not been profaned by her as so many monarchs
have profaned them. The Archbishop, delivering the Sword of State into
the Sovereign’s hand at the Coronation, says: “Receive this kingly
sword, brought now from the altar of God, and delivered to you by the
hands of us, the servants and bishops of God, though unworthy. With
this sword do justice, stop the growth of iniquity, protect the holy
Church of God, help and defend widows and orphans, restore the things
that are gone to decay, maintain the things that are restored, punish
and reform what is amiss, and confirm what is in good order; that doing
these things you may be glorious in all virtue, and so faithfully serve
our Lord Jesus Christ in this life that you may reign forever with Him
in the life which is to come.” All through the Queen’s reign these
words have been turned into actions; they have inspired her to do her
duty faithfully and courageously and with unfailing self-sacrifice
of her own inclinations and wishes. By so living she has revived the
feeling of personal affection and loyalty to the throne on the part
of her subjects which her immediate predecessors had done much to
destroy. When we reflect upon the contrast which the pure-minded,
pure-hearted girl presented to them we shall be able to understand
something of the keen emotion of joyful loyalty which was evoked at her
accession. But this will be the subject of the next chapter.

[5] Life of the Prince Consort, vi. 280, 281.




CHAPTER III.

ACCESSION TO THE THRONE.


It is not easy to realize that in the lifetime of our own fathers
and mothers there was in England a plot to change the succession and
secure the crown for the “wicked uncle,” to the exclusion of the
rightful heir. The whole story savors of romance, or at any rate of
a much earlier period in our history, when John Lackland or Richard
the Hunchback cheated their young nephews of crown and life. Yet the
evidence of history on this point is unmistakable. In 1835 a plot was
discovered and laid bare in Parliament, mainly by Joseph Hume, which
had for its aim to secure the crown for the Duke of Cumberland and set
aside the claims of Princess Victoria. The Duke, to do him justice,
does not seem to have supposed that his personal merits and attractions
would cause him to be made king by acclamation. But he appears to have
thought he could ride in on the top of a wave of fanaticism got up over
a No-popery cry. The passing of Catholic Emancipation in 1829 by the
Tory Government of the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel was not
accomplished without a great deal of real terror and misgiving that
this act of plain justice to their Roman Catholic fellow-subjects was
a breaking down of the barriers against Papal aggression, and that it
was merely a step towards undoing the work of the Reformation. Orange
Lodges, which up to that time had little vigorous existence out of
Ireland, spread all over England, and were formed even in the army.
The Duke of Cumberland, a precious champion for any sort of religion,
was their grand master. But he was not inconsistent: he had his own
personal aggrandizement in view, and appealed to fanaticism, bigotry,
and ignorance to help him to attain it. If he was acting a part, he
understood his own character, and was not acting out of it. But he
and the Orange Lodges too completely misunderstood the nation they
were living in. The saying of Charles II. to his brother, afterwards
James II., might have shown them their mistake: “They will never kill
me to make you king.” When hard pressed by political necessity, the
English people have not shrunk from revolutionary changes in their
constitution; but they would never have embarked on a revolution with
the object of placing Ernest, Duke of Cumberland, on the throne. The
ridiculous plot was rendered still more ridiculous by the assertion
made by the conspirators that they feared the Duke of Wellington
intended to seize the crown for himself;[6] that the Iron Duke, the
most sternly upright and devotedly loyal of subjects, meant to depose
William IV., set aside the little Princess Victoria, and become Emperor
of the English, as Bonaparte had become Emperor of the French. The
assertion had only to be made, and made publicly, to be drowned in the
ridicule it excited. However, the plot of the Orange Lodges, the Duke
of Cumberland’s association with it, the unveiling of the scheme in
the House of Commons by Joseph Hume, and Lord John Russell’s masterly
dealing with the whole matter, was a nine days’ wonder in 1835. An
address to the King was unanimously agreed to, praying him to dissolve
the Orange Lodges; even the Orangemen in the House assented to this,
and Greville says Lord John’s dignified eloquence melted them to
tears. The Duke of Cumberland, seeing which way his cat had jumped,
hastened to assure the Home Secretary that the dissolution of the
societies of which he was Grand Master had his entire approval and
acquiescence, and the whole of the foolish business appeared at an end.

But this was not so. The elements of disturbance were quite genuine,
and had not been removed even by a resolution of the House of Commons:
these were the Duke of Cumberland’s treachery and his No-popery
nightmare. The original scheme had been to depose William IV. on the
pretext that his giving the Royal Assent to the Reform Bill of 1832 was
a symptom of insanity; the next step, the setting aside of the claims
of Princess Victoria, was rendered attractive to the Duke of Cumberland
by the fact that she was a girl, and young; when, therefore, in 1837,
William IV. was removed by death, another futile attempt was made to
raise the No-popery cry against the accession of the Queen. Her uncle
Leopold, King of the Belgians, had recently married Louise, daughter of
Louis Philippe, a Roman Catholic Princess. Another member of the Coburg
family, Prince Ferdinand, cousin of Prince Albert, had also, quite
recently, made a Roman Catholic marriage with Maria, Queen of Portugal.
This at any rate showed that the Coburg family, who were known to
have great influence with Princess Victoria, were not so exclusively
Protestant as the Royal Family of England. But high as party feeling
ran at the time, the bare suspicion that any treachery was intended to
the young Queen caused a popular outburst of passionate loyalty such as
had not been seen since the House of Brunswick had reigned in England.
The warmth of this feeling in the curious warp and woof of human
affairs was increased by the fact that to be ardently devoted to the
young Queen was to be ardently opposed to all the works and ways of the
Duke of Cumberland, to be in favor of religious liberty and toleration,
to support the Reform Bill and the abolition of slavery. It was Whig
to be loyal to the Queen, Tory to be, if not disloyal, full of doubts
and fears, imagining that with a young girl at the helm, known to be
in sympathy with Whig principles, the ship of State was bound to split
on anarchy and popery. These fears very soon disappeared as the Queen
showed she had a mind and will of her own, and was no mere puppet in
the hands of her Ministers. If at the outset of her reign she showed
strong Whig tendencies, she was not long in grasping the fact that, as
Sovereign, she was Queen of the whole people, and not the mere head of
a party.

There was, however, enough of revolutionary storm in the atmosphere
to justify the _Times_ in endeavoring to allay the fears of the
ultra-Protestant party by reminding them that for the Queen to turn
Papist, “or in any manner to follow the footsteps of the Coburg family”
in marrying a Papist, “would involve an immediate forfeiture of the
British Crown.” This situation of affairs had the rather curious result
of making the Irish among the most intensely loyal of the young Queen’s
subjects. O’Connell’s stentorian voice was heard leading the cheers
of the crowd outside St. James’s Palace on the day she was proclaimed
Queen. He declared later, in a public speech, that if it were necessary
he could get “five hundred thousand brave Irishmen to defend the life,
the honor, and the person of the beloved young lady by whom England’s
throne is now filled.” Mr. Harry Grattan, son of the famous orator of
the Irish Parliament of 1782-1800, thought the Tories so bent on the
Queen’s destruction that “If Her Majesty were once placed in the hands
of the Tories, I would not give an _orange-peel_ for her life.” The
expression “orange-peel” was, no doubt, a reference to the _soubriquet_
his Irish opponents had bestowed upon Sir Robert Peel on account of his
stanch Protestantism.

These extraordinary ebullitions of party feeling would be hardly worth
recording but for the explanation they afford of subsequent events
relating to the establishment of Prince Albert, and for the curious
contrast they offer to the feelings of political parties at the present
time. They also explain why quiet, peace-loving people, taking no
special interest in party politics, were so devoutly thankful that the
operation of the Salic law in Hanover separated that kingdom from the
Crown of England and enabled us to get quit of the Duke of Cumberland.
No paper and no party ever pretended to regret him; indeed, it must
have become abundantly obvious that his departure was, in a special
degree, advantageous to his own party. He could be nothing but a source
of weakness to them. “A man’s foes are those of his own household” is
even more true of political than of private affairs. The anxiety of
the Tories to get rid of the Duke of Cumberland is well illustrated
by one of Greville’s anecdotes. When the late King (William IV.) had
evidently only a few days to live, the Duke of Cumberland consulted
the Duke of Wellington as to what he should do. “I told him the best
thing he could do was to go away as fast as he could. ‘Go instantly,’
I said, ‘and take care _you don’t get pelted_.’” He did go instantly,
and his first act as King of Hanover was to suspend the constitution of
the country and turn out of their chairs in Göttingen University seven
distinguished professors for the crime of holding Liberal opinions.
No wonder the Duke of Wellington felt this sort of Toryism would
manufacture Liberals and Radicals by the thousand in England.

The story has often been told of how the Queen received the news of her
accession, and of the extraordinarily favorable impression she produced
by the youthful dignity and grace with which she presided at her first
Council.

William IV. expired at Windsor about 2.30 A. M. on Tuesday, June
20th, 1837. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Howley, and the Lord
Chamberlain, the Marquis of Conyngham, almost immediately “set out to
announce the event to their young Sovereign. They reached Kensington
Palace at about five; they knocked, they rang, they thumped for a
considerable time before they could rouse the porter at the gates. They
were again kept waiting in the courtyard, then turned into one of the
lower rooms, where they seemed to be forgotten by everybody. They rang
the bell, and desired that the attendant of the Princess Victoria might
be sent to inform H. R. H. that they requested an audience on business
of importance. After another delay, and another ringing to inquire
the cause, the attendant was summoned, who stated that the _Princess_
was in such a sweet sleep she could not venture to disturb her. They
then said, ‘We are come to the _Queen_ on business of State, and even
her sleep must give way to that.’ It did; and to prove that _she_ did
not keep them waiting, in a few minutes she came into the room in a
loose white nightgown and shawl, her nightcap thrown off, and her hair
falling on her shoulders, her feet in slippers, tears in her eyes, but
perfectly collected and dignified.”[7] Another account states that the
Queen’s first words to the Archbishop on hearing his announcement were,
“I beg your Grace to pray for me,” and that her first request to her
mother after she had learned that she was Queen was that she might be
left for two hours quite alone. On the same day, about eleven o’clock
in the morning, she held her first Council; and it may be noted that
in Miss Wynn’s account of this ceremony it is stated that the first of
her subjects who paid her homage was the Duke of Cumberland, who knelt
and kissed her hand. “I suppose,” says Miss Wynn, “he was not King of
Hanover when he knelt to her.” The Diarist goes on to mention that
the next to offer homage was the Duke of Sussex; but the young Queen
would not allow him to kneel, but rose herself and kissed him on the
forehead. This, however, differs slightly from Greville’s account of
the Queen’s first Council, which must be now quoted:--

 “_June 21st._ The King died at twenty minutes after two yesterday
 morning, and the young Queen met the Council at Kensington Palace at
 eleven. Never was anything like the first impression she produced,
 or the chorus of praise and admiration which is raised about her
 manner and behavior, and certainly not without justice. It was
 very extraordinary, and something far beyond what was looked for.
 Her extreme youth and inexperience, and the ignorance of the world
 concerning her, naturally excited intense curiosity to see how she
 would act on this trying occasion, and there was a considerable
 assemblage at the Palace, notwithstanding the short notice that
 was given. The first thing to be done was to teach her her lesson,
 which, for this purpose, Melbourne had himself to learn. I gave him
 the Council papers, and explained all that was to be done; and he
 went and explained all this to her. He asked her if she would come
 into the room accompanied by the great officers of State, but she
 said she would come in alone. When the Lords were assembled the Lord
 President informed them of the King’s death, and suggested, as they
 were so numerous, that a few of them should repair to the presence
 of the Queen and inform her of the event, and that their Lordships
 were assembled in consequence; and accordingly the two Royal Dukes,
 the two Archbishops, the Chancellor, and Melbourne went with him.
 The Queen received him in the adjoining room alone. As soon as they
 had returned, the proclamation was read and the usual order passed,
 when the doors were thrown open and the Queen entered, accompanied
 by her two uncles, who advanced to meet her. She bowed to the Lords,
 took her seat, and then read her speech in a clear, distinct, and
 audible voice, and without any appearance of fear or embarrassment.
 She was quite plainly dressed, and in mourning. After she had read
 her speech and taken and signed the oath for the security of the
 Church of Scotland, the Privy Councillors were sworn, the two Royal
 Dukes first by themselves; and as these two old men, her uncles,
 knelt before her, swearing allegiance and kissing her hand, I saw her
 blush up to the eyes, as if she felt the contrast between their civil
 and their natural relations. This was the only sign of emotion which
 she evinced. Her manner to them was very graceful and engaging; she
 kissed them both, and rose from her chair and moved towards the Duke
 of Sussex, who was farthest from her, and too infirm to reach her.
 She seemed rather bewildered at the multitude of men who were sworn,
 and who came, one after another, to kiss her hand; but she did not
 speak to anybody, nor did she make the slightest difference in her
 manner, or show any in her countenance to any individual of any rank,
 station, or party. I particularly watched her when Melbourne and the
 Ministers, and the Duke of Wellington and Peel approached her.[8] She
 went through the whole ceremony, occasionally looking to Melbourne
 for instruction when she had any doubt what to do, which hardly
 ever occurred, and with perfect calmness and self-possession, but
 at the same time with a graceful modesty and propriety particularly
 interesting and ingratiating. When the business was done she retired
 as she had entered, and I could see that nobody was in the adjoining
 room.... Peel likewise said how amazed he was at her manner and
 behavior, at her apparent deep sense of her situation, her modesty,
 and at the same time her firmness. She appeared, in fact, to be
 awed, but not daunted; and afterwards the Duke of Wellington told me
 the same thing, and added that if she had been his own daughter he
 could not have desired to see her perform her part better. It was
 settled that she was to hold a Council at St. James’s this day, and
 be proclaimed there at ten o’clock: and she expressed a wish to see
 Lord Albemarle, who went to her and told her he was come to take her
 orders. She said, ‘I have no orders to give; you know all this so much
 better than I do that I leave it all to you. I am to be at St. James’s
 at ten to-morrow, and must beg you to find me a conveyance proper for
 the occasion.’ Accordingly he went and fetched her in State with a
 great escort.... At twelve o’clock she held a Council, at which she
 presided with as much ease as if she had been doing nothing else all
 her life; and though Lord Lansdowne and my colleague had contrived
 between them to make some confusion with the Council papers, she
 was not put out by it. She looked very well, and though so small a
 stature, and without much pretension to beauty, the gracefulness of
 her manner and the good expression of her countenance give her, on
 the whole, a very agreeable appearance, and with her youth inspire an
 excessive interest in all who approach her, which I can’t help feeling
 myself. After the Council she received the Archbishops and Bishops,
 and after them the Judges. They all kissed her hand, but she said
 nothing to any of them; very different in this from her predecessor,
 who used to harangue them all, and had a speech ready for everybody.”

Greville then describes the young Queen’s thoughtful consideration for
everything that could soothe and cheer the Queen Dowager, and adds:--

 “In short, she appears to act with every sort of good taste and good
 feeling, as well as good sense; and, as far as it has gone, nothing
 can be more favorable than the impression she has made, and nothing
 can promise better than her manner and conduct do, though it would
 be rash to count too confidently upon her judgment and discretion in
 more weighty matters. No contrast can be greater than that between
 the personal demeanor of the present and the late Sovereigns at their
 respective accessions. William IV. was a man who, coming to the throne
 at the mature age of sixty-five, was so excited by the exaltation
 that he nearly went mad, and distinguished himself by a thousand
 extravagances of language and conduct to the alarm or amusement of
 all who witnessed his strange freaks.... The young Queen, who might
 well be either dazzled or confounded with the grandeur and novelty of
 her situation, seems neither the one nor the other, and behaves with
 a decorum and propriety beyond her years, and with all the sedateness
 and dignity, the want of which was so conspicuous in her uncle.”

In this vivid personal description by an eye-witness we see in the
grave dignity of the young girl the same dutiful child who, at eleven
years old, had said, when she learned her future destiny, “There is
much splendor, but there is more responsibility,” and, lifting her
little hand, added, “I will be good.”

Greville describes the impression made by the young Queen within
the Palace upon her Ministers and servants. Miss Martineau, another
contemporary, describes the impression produced outside the Palace,
on the crowd in the streets who came to witness the ceremony of the
proclamation. She refers to the intense joy of whatever was sound
and wholesome in the nation, that the ill-doing sons of George III.
no longer occupied the throne, and that it was filled instead by a
young girl, prudent, virtuous, and conscientious, reared in health,
simplicity, and purity. She says even exaggerated hopes were awakened
by the change; people seemed to expect that the fact of having a
virtuous Sovereign, strong in the energies of youth, was in itself a
guarantee that all was to go well: “That the Lords were to work well
with the Commons, the people were to be educated, everybody was to have
employment and food, all reforms were to be carried through, and she
herself would never do anything wrong or make any mistakes.”

Those who represented that it was an injustice to the Queen to expect
her to work miracles--

 “were thought cold and grudging in their loyalty, and the gust of
 national joy swept them out of sight. In truth, they themselves felt
 the danger of being carried adrift from their justice and prudence
 when they met their Queen face to face at her proclamation. As she
 stood at the window of St. James’s Palace ... her pale face wet with
 tears, but calm and simply grave,--her plain black dress and bands of
 brown hair giving an air of Quaker-like neatness which enhanced the
 gravity,--it was scarcely possible not to form wild hopes from such an
 aspect of sedateness--not to forget that, even if imperfection in the
 Sovereign herself were out of the question, there were limitations in
 her position which must make her powerless for the redemption of her
 people, except through a wise choice of advisers, and the incalculable
 influence of a virtuous example shining abroad from the pinnacle of
 society.”

The young Queen’s character came out in everything she did. Reference
has already been made to her tender consideration towards the Dowager
Queen Adelaide. The Queen addressed a letter of condolence to her on
her husband’s death, and addressed it to “Her Majesty the Queen.” It
was pointed out to her that the correct address would be “Her Majesty
the Queen Dowager.” “I am quite aware,” said Queen Victoria, “of Her
Majesty’s altered character, but I will not be the first person to
remind her of it.” She placed Windsor Castle at the disposal of Queen
Adelaide for as long as it suited her health and convenience. But while
yielding with the utmost grace on various little matters in which her
doing so might serve to soothe and console the Queen Dowager, the
young Queen showed a knowledge of her own position and what was due
to it in substantial privilege, no less than on points of etiquette,
that quite astonished her Ministers. Thus when she went for the first
time after her accession to visit the Queen Dowager at Windsor, she
told Lord Melbourne that as the flag on the Round Tower was half-mast
high, it might be thought necessary to elevate it on her arrival, and
she desired Lord Melbourne to send orders beforehand that this should
not be done. Melbourne “had never thought of the flag or knew anything
about it, but it showed her knowledge of forms, and her attention to
trifles.”

The numerous children of the late King resigned into her hands their
various appointments, and the pensions that had been allowed them. She
accepted these resignations to show her right to do so, and afterwards
reappointed them, behaving with the greatest kindness and liberality.
Greville speaks over and over again of the remarkable union she
presented of womanly sympathy, girlish _naïveté_, and queenly dignity.
He says every one who was about her was warmly attached to her, “but
that all feel the impossibility of for a moment losing sight of the
respect which they owe her. She never ceases to be a queen, but is
always the most charming, cheerful, obliging, unaffected queen in the
world.” The tears which she shed at her proclamation were due to the
intense emotion awakened by her position; they by no means betokened a
morbid or hysterical temperament. The records of the early years of the
Queen’s reign constantly speak of her gayety and good spirits. At her
coronation, in 1838, she is said to have looked as radiant as a girl on
her birthday.

The demise of the Crown necessitated a dissolution of Parliament. A
general election took place in August, 1837, in which the Whigs were
again returned to power, but by a reduced majority.

Lord Melbourne was again Prime Minister, and continued to act as the
Queen’s chief adviser and counsellor, not only in public affairs, but
also on every personal matter in which she felt she needed the advice
of an experienced man of the world. There were some who regretted the
Queen’s extreme reliance on Lord Melbourne, looking upon him as a man
of an essentially frivolous and volatile nature; those who held this
opinion appear to have misjudged him, but the mistake was one for
which Lord Melbourne himself was chiefly responsible. He deliberately
put on an affectation of foolish frivolity on many of his appearances
in public. He would blow a feather about or toy with a sofa-cushion
when he was receiving a solemn deputation, with apparently the express
object of producing the impression that he was incapable of giving
serious attention to serious things. He had to be found out, detected
in earnestness as rogues are detected in dishonesty, by close and
careful watching when he believed himself unobserved. Sydney Smith
was one of those who unmasked him, and showed that with all his air
of being hopelessly idle and trivial, he really was an honest and
diligent Minister. In his important position as Prime Minister to the
girl-Queen, he showed tact, discretion, and devotion, and won her
complete confidence and friendship. Until the Queen’s marriage, he
virtually combined the functions of Private Secretary to the Queen with
those of Prime Minister. He was much more her intimate friend than a
Prime Minister had ever been to a Sovereign before. He saw her every
day, dined with her constantly, and sat next her at table, and had the
art of explaining all the business of State without boring her with
sermons and long speeches. He never treated her, as Mr. Brett has said,
as if she were a public meeting. He had first made a very favorable
impression upon her on the occasion of the last of the unfortunate
disputes which took place between William IV. and the Duchess of Kent.
Early in June, 1837, Princess Victoria, having then attained her
majority, the King offered to settle £10,000 a year on her. The Duchess
wished that £6,000 of this should be for herself, and £4,000 for the
Princess. There were the usual unseemly squabbles, and neither would
give way. Melbourne conducted the business on the part of the King, and
although he must have known that the Princess Victoria would be Queen
in a very short time, he yet defended his master’s views and interests
with a warmth and tenacity which proved him to be no time-server. It
is equally to his credit and to that of the young Queen that this
circumstance was the foundation of the full confidence and esteem which
she afterwards placed in him. Greville describes their relations as
being almost like those of father and daughter. “I have no doubt he is
passionately fond of her, as he might be of his daughter if he had one,
and the more because he is a man with the capacity for loving, without
having anything in the world to love. It is become his province to
educate, instruct, and form the most interesting mind and character in
the world.... It is a great proof of the discretion and purity of his
conduct and behavior that he is admired, respected, and liked by the
whole Court.”

If Melbourne was, in the eyes of the world, the Queen’s tutor in
statesmanship, there was another behind the scenes no less assiduously
devoting himself to her instruction. Shortly before the late King’s
death, Peel had expressed a hope that Leopold would not come over
immediately on his niece’s accession, as his influence and interference
would cause jealousy and heart-burning. Leopold did not come, for the
excellent reason that he was there already in the person, _alter ego_,
of the faithful friend and trusted servant, Baron Stockmar. Stockmar,
though at one time somewhat doubtful whether Prince Albert would
prove the right Consort for the Queen of England, had by this time
thoroughly identified himself with the realization of Leopold’s dream
of reproducing in Victoria and Albert the loves and hopes and ambitions
which had been so cruelly crushed at Claremont in 1817. Charlotte and
Leopold were to live again in Victoria and Albert. But in order that
the dream should come true, it was necessary that Stockmar and Leopold
should have their hand on the “very pulse of the machine,” the hearts
and the characters of the two young people themselves. King Leopold
had Prince Albert with him in Brussels for ten months, from June,
1836, while Stockmar proceeded to Kensington to be with the Princess
immediately she attained her majority, to aid her by his counsel and
advice. Her accession, which followed within less than a month, found
him still with her; and from henceforth until her happy marriage in
1840 his time was spent with one or other of the young people. To
the end of his life he spent much time with them, and remained their
intimate friend and most trusted counsellor in all matters, both public
and domestic.

Stockmar, besides his share in bringing about the marriage of the Queen
with her cousin, had an extremely important political influence on
her, in thoroughly grounding her in the principles of constitutional
monarchy. Although no Englishman, it was a case of _plus royaliste
que le Roi_. He was more English than the English in his grasp of,
and devotion to, our system of government. He wrote to the Prince in
1854: “I love and honor the English Constitution from conviction;
... in my eyes it is the foundation-corner-cope-stone of the entire
political civilization of the human race, present and to come.” He
was untiring in impressing upon the Queen, and later on the Prince,
that the Sovereign belongs, or should belong, to no party. She must be
equally loyal to her Ministers, to whatever party they may belong. Her
experience at the head of the State will enable her to detect among her
statesmen those who have the good of their country sincerely at heart,
while differing, as human beings must differ, as to the means by which
that good is to be attained. There will be some in all parties who make
the honor and welfare of their country their first object, and there
are some in all parties who are wishing to dishonor and injure their
country, if they think they perceive party advantage to be gained by
doing so. To the first of these the Sovereign’s confidence should be
given, irrespective of party differences.

Leopold and Stockmar between them formulated the position of a
constitutional monarch much more definitely than it had ever been
formulated before. Their pupils were the Queen and her husband, towards
whose union events were now rapidly tending.

[6] In 1829 the Duke of Cumberland had tried to excite George IV.’s
jealousy of the Duke of Wellington by habitually speaking of him to his
royal brother as “King Arthur.”

[7] Diaries of a Lady of Quality, by Miss Wynn.

[8] This is evidently in reference to the general belief that the Queen
was a strong partisan of the Whig party.




CHAPTER IV.

LOVE AND POLITICS.


The first important political event of the Queen’s reign was the
insurrection in Canada, which broke out in the late autumn of 1837. The
Queen has herself told us that, notwithstanding all King Leopold’s and
Stockmar’s instructions, she was at this time an ardent Whig in her
political sympathies; but the history of the Canadian insurrection,
while ultimately showing the value of colonial self-government as a
safeguard against rebellion, demonstrated the wisdom of their maxims
that it was the duty of a constitutional Sovereign to keep aloof
from party, and also was one of a series of events which revealed to
the Queen the real character of many of the able statesmen of both
parties by whom she was surrounded. The first effect of the policy of
the Whig Government in Canada was disastrous to them as a Ministry.
The Earl of Durham, whom they had appointed High Commissioner, with
very large powers to deal with the insurrection, showed a masterly
grasp of principles, combined with a total want of judgment in detail.
His failure in details was at first all that was apparent; he went
far beyond his large legal powers; his ordinances were disallowed by
Parliament, and he resigned his office, publishing, before he left his
official residence at Quebec, a proclamation attacking the Government
which had appointed him. Almost the only group of politicians who
supported him at home were the Radicals, who, in or out of Parliament,
were influenced by J. S. North.

In the House of Lords the ultra-Liberal Brougham joined with the
ultra-Tory Lyndhurst in scathing attacks on Lord Durham and the
Government. It was soon evident that Brougham rejoiced in any national
calamity in Canada or elsewhere if it afforded him means of damaging
the party of which he was a former member. The Duke of Wellington, on
the other hand, had a single eye to his country’s welfare. The Canadian
insurrection placed her in difficulty and danger; and his first thought
was how to get her out of the difficulty, and avert the danger. He
entirely sunk all party considerations in national objects, and as
even his enemies were obliged to confess, “that man’s first object is
to serve his country, with a sword if necessary, or with a pickaxe.”
In the first debate in the Lords on Canada, Brougham “delivered a
tremendous philippic of three hours. The Duke of Wellington made a
very noble speech, just as it befitted him to make at such a moment,
and of course it bitterly mortified and provoked the Tories, who would
have had him make a party question of it, and thought of nothing but
abusing, vilifying, and embarrassing the Government.” On the next
occasion, when another party field-day was arranged in the House of
Lords, the Duke was expected to make some amends to his party, and
explain away the moderation of his former speech; but he made a second
speech quite as moderate as the first. Greville’s mother told the
Duke how angry his party were with him for what he had said, and his
only reply was, “Depend upon it, it was true.” This was the course
invariably pursued by the Duke; in times of danger he dropped all party
considerations, and thought of nothing but how to serve his country.
When the China War broke out in 1840, when the Whigs were in office, he
supported the Government in the House of Lords with all the strength
he could command. Greville told him that his own party were to the last
degree annoyed and provoked by his speech. He replied: “I know that
well enough, and I don’t care _one damn.... I have not time not to do
what is right_.”

Peel had shown the same spirit during the general election that
followed the Queen’s accession. Certain low Tories of the baser sort
had not hesitated to make party capital out of the unpopularity of the
New Poor Law, passed by the Whigs in 1834. Peel would have nothing to
do with this; for though the Act could not but be unpopular in certain
quarters, he was convinced of its necessity, and wholly discountenanced
the attacks upon it.

These two incidents in the political warfare of the first months of
her reign must have had a considerable influence in forming the young
Queen’s judgment on men and parties. Events framed themselves into
a sort of new version of the judgment of Solomon, and enabled her
to distinguish between the real and false patriots, between those
statesmen who really loved their country and acted on conviction, and
those who only pretended to love, and acted from self-interest.

A very brief review of the chief political events of 1837-40 will
serve to show of what an absorbing nature they must have been to the
Queen. The Anti-Corn Law agitation was just beginning to show its
great importance; in antagonism with this, and parallel with it, was
the more or less revolutionary Chartist movement, associated in these
early years of the reign with riots at Birmingham, Manchester, and
Newport, Monmouthshire. The country was in a very disturbed state;
the Government was weak, and inspired no confidence; moreover, the
perennial trouble in Ireland was just then in a more than usually acute
stage.

Besides these larger political interests, there were others of a
character more personal to the Queen herself, which must for a time
have occupied and interested her almost to the exclusion of even more
weighty matters. The gorgeous ceremonial of the coronation took place
in June, 1838. The cheers of the Londoners in honor of Marshal Soult
on that occasion, curiously enough, did something to produce a more
friendly feeling between France and England, and paved the way for an
alliance between the two countries. There are such a number of graphic
accounts by eye-witnesses of the coronation that it is unnecessary here
to attempt to reproduce them. As usual, the spectators saw what they
brought with them the capacity to see. One gives a detailed account of
the pageant, the floods of golden light, illuminating gold and jewels
and velvety robes; another sees a young life dedicating itself to the
public service. Lord Shaftesbury was one of these latter; the note in
his diary on the coronation is: “It has been a wonderful period, ... an
idle pageant, forsooth? As idle as the coronation of King Solomon, or
the dedication of his temple.”

A purely domestic affair, in 1839, must have caused the Queen much
anxiety and trouble. One of the ladies attendant on the Duchess of
Kent, Lady Flora Hastings, was accused of being with child; and she
was ordered not to appear at Court till she could clear herself of the
imputation. Subsequent medical examination proved the entire innocence
of the unfortunate lady, who was suffering from a disease of which
modern surgical skill has very largely reduced the perils. At that
time, however, it was supposed to be beyond all human aid, and the poor
lady died within a very few months after the humiliation to which she
had been subjected. There was naturally an intensely strong feeling
of commiseration for her. No one was to blame exactly in the matter;
one can quite understand the determination of those who felt themselves
the natural protectors of the young Queen, to guard her Court from
the scandals and disgraces of a loose standard of conduct; but it was
generally felt that a little more tact, a little more kindness, even
supposing the poor lady to have been guilty, would have prevented the
report being blazoned all over London and England in the way it was.
This scandal very much weakened the Ministry in the estimation of the
country, rather unjustly as it seems to us now; for the whole matter
was one relating to the Queen’s private establishment, and not to her
political advisers. It was a delicate matter which ought to have been
dealt with by an experienced woman, possessed of good feeling and good
sense. But Lord Melbourne was blamed, and people said, “What is the use
of the Prime Minister being domiciled in the Palace, unless he is able
to prevent the shame and mortification of such blunders?”

Another of the incidents of 1839 was as much domestic as political. The
famous Bedchamber question excited the Houses of Parliament and the
country to a degree which it is difficult now to understand. It was
one of _Life’s little poems_ that the course which events took in this
matter led the Whigs to champion Tory principles, and _vice versa_.
Lord Melbourne’s Government was virtually defeated on his Jamaica
Bill, in May, 1839. Lord Melbourne resigned, and advised the Queen to
send for the Duke of Wellington. His opinion had been expressed on a
former occasion, that he and Peel would not make good Ministers to a
Sovereign who was a young girl. “I have no small-talk,” he had said,
“and Peel has no manners.” The sturdy old lion had yet to learn that a
woman could appreciate something beyond small-talk. When he saw the
Queen after Melbourne’s resignation, she told him she was very sorry to
lose Lord Melbourne, who had been almost like a father to her since her
accession; the Duke was greatly pleased with her frankness, but excused
himself from serving her, on the grounds of his age and deafness. He
also said that the Prime Minister ought to be leader of the House of
Commons, and advised her to send for Peel, which she accordingly did.
The want of manners proved more serious than the want of small-talk,
for Sir Robert Peel, mainly through a misunderstanding, presently found
himself involved in what almost amounted to a personal quarrel with
the Queen about the appointment of the ladies of her household. She
thought he wanted to dismiss all her old friends, and even her private
attendants. She imagined that it might be proposed to deprive her of
the services of her former governess, Baroness Lehzen, who had now
become one of her secretaries. She felt bound to make a stand against
what she considered an encroachment on her independence. The Duke of
Wellington and Peel saw her again together, but made no impression on
her. If they had explained that Peel only wished to remove the ladies
who held the offices that are now recognized as political, the dispute
would never have arisen; but as it was there was a deadlock. The Queen
wrote to Melbourne: “Do not fear that I was not calm and composed. They
wanted to deprive me of my ladies, and I suppose they would deprive
me next of my dressers and my housemaids; they wished to treat me
like a girl, but I will show them that I am Queen of England!” Lord
Melbourne and Lord John Russell advised the Queen that she was quite
right, and supported her in her determination not to give way; so that
the Whigs found themselves defending the principle that the will of
the Sovereign is paramount over the advice of her Ministers and public
considerations; while the Tories were defending the opposite doctrine.
Angry discussions took place in both Houses; Lord Brougham in the
House of Lords opening the sluice-gates in a three hours’ speech that
Greville calls “a boiling torrent of rage, disdain, and hatred.” The
end of it was that Sir Robert Peel declined to undertake to form a
Government, and Lord Melbourne was recalled; he had been in a very weak
position before; but he was still further weakened by the events that
had just taken place.

In after years the Queen, with her accustomed generosity, took the
whole blame upon herself. Curiously enough, it was Lord John Russell,
who had, in 1839, encouraged the Queen in the line she took on the
Bedchamber question, who asked her in 1854, if she had not been advised
by some one else in the matter. “She replied with great candor and
_naïveté_, ‘No, it was entirely my own foolishness.’”

These events excited the whole country to an extraordinary degree, and
it is not astonishing that they were intensely absorbing to the Queen,
and that she therefore, for the time, dismissed from her mind all
thoughts of marriage. Indeed, she wrote to her uncle Leopold in July,
1839, stating very strongly her intention to defer her marriage for
some years. To Stockmar also the Queen expressed the same intention.
These diplomatists do not appear to have argued the matter with Her
Majesty; but they thought they knew how to shake her resolution. She
had only once seen her cousin Albert, when he had come over to England
with his father and his elder brother, Ernest, for a few weeks’ visit
to the Duchess of Kent, in 1836. He was then a boy, very stout, as
the Queen herself has told us, but amiable, natural, unaffected, and
merry. He had now (1839) greatly improved in appearance and developed
in character, and Leopold determined on sending him to England again
on a second visit to his cousin. After his first visit the Princess,
as she then was, had written to her uncle Leopold in a strain which
showed that she thought her future marriage with her cousin Albert
was a practical certainty; she begged her uncle “to take care of the
health of one now so dear to me, and to take him under your special
protection;” and she added she trusted “all would go prosperously and
well on this subject, now of so much importance to me.”

The Prince wrote immediately on the Queen’s accession to congratulate
his “dearest cousin,” and to remind her that in her hands now lay “the
happiness of millions.” But he said nothing of his own happiness;
nothing was settled, and the correspondence between the cousins was
suffered to drop. The Queen generously blames herself for this. A
memorandum made by Her Majesty to “The Early Years of the Prince
Consort” is very characteristic. “Nor can the Queen now,” she writes,
“think without indignation against herself of her wish to keep the
Prince waiting for probably three or four years, at the risk of ruining
all his prospects for life, until she might feel inclined to marry!
And the Prince has since told her that he came over in 1839 with the
intention of telling her that if she could not then make up her mind,
she must understand that he could not wait now for a decision, as he
had done at a former period when their marriage was first talked about.”

It is probable that no one but the Queen herself thinks she was to
blame in the matter. She had seen her cousin only when he was a boy of
seventeen, and she a girl of the same age. She had acquiesced in the
wish of her closest advisers that she should regard him as her future
husband, but she had at the time of her accession no strong personal
feeling in the matter. She did not feel then, as she felt afterwards,
that the happiness of her whole future life was involved in this union;
and absorbed as she must have been in the intense interest of being
the centre of the inner circle of politics, and in learning the duties
and going through the ceremonials of her new position, it is no wonder
that for a time she dismissed all thoughts of marriage. Indeed, the
happiness of what she so often called her “blessed marriage” might have
been marred had she not waited till her heart spoke.

The Prince Consort’s was a singularly pure and disinterested nature.
As a child he possessed a remarkable degree of beauty, and a natural
disposition almost without flaw. All the associates of his youth agree
in speaking of his perfect moral purity, combined with gayety and
courage; but he was not one of those preternaturally perfect children
who hardly exist out of books, and even these are generally destined to
an early grave. His childish letters and diaries record that he fought
with his brother and cried over his lessons like other little boys.
When he was only five years old his father and mother separated, and
were afterwards divorced. He was henceforth separated entirely from his
mother, who died in 1831. Prince Albert resembled his mother in person
and mind, and although so early taken from her, he retained through
life the strongest feeling of affection for her, and one of his first
gifts to the Queen was a little pin which had belonged to his mother.
She was beautiful, intelligent, and warm-hearted, and had a great fund
of drollery and power of mimicry, which her younger son inherited from
her.

Two very affectionate grandmothers, or rather a grandmother and a
step-grandmother, did what in them lay to supply the mothering of which
the Prince and his elder brother were deprived through the unfortunate
difference between their parents. The two children were fortunate in
possessing as a tutor a Herr Florschutz, of Coburg, one of those men
who have something of the woman’s tenderness for little children. He
was often seen playing the part more of a kind nurse than that of a
tutor, and carrying the little Albert in his arms.

The greatest care was bestowed upon Prince Albert’s education; his
grandmother and his uncle Leopold kept constantly before their eyes
and in their hearts the destiny for which they intended him. He
pursued his studies of mathematics, jurisprudence, and constitutional
government partly under tutors, but also at Brussels under his uncle’s
own immediate supervision, and later at the University of Bonn. When
it was decided that his education should be carried on in a somewhat
wider atmosphere than the little Court of Coburg could afford, Berlin
was not selected because it was both “priggish” and “profligate;”
Vienna was rejected on account of its peculiar relations towards
Germany; the choice fell on Brussels, because he could here study the
constitutionalism which would afterwards be such an important factor in
his life as husband of the Queen of England. As early as 1836 Stockmar
congratulated Leopold that the young Prince was beginning to acquire
“something of an English look.”

When Princess Victoria became Queen in 1837, her marriage with her
cousin began to form a topic of gossip; and in order to divert
attention from it, King Leopold sent Prince Albert and his brother for
a prolonged tour over South Germany, Switzerland, and Italy. In 1838
King Leopold had a long conversation with his nephew on the subject
of the projected marriage, and found that he looked at the whole
question from the “most elevated and honorable point of view.” “If I
am not mistaken in him,” wrote the King to Stockmar, “he possesses
all the qualities required to fit him for the position which he will
occupy in England. His understanding is sound, his apprehension clear
and rapid, and his heart is in the right place.” The young Prince said
he was quite ready to submit to any delay in the marriage which the
Queen might desire, but that he felt that he had a right to demand
some definite assurance from her as to her ultimate intentions. He
had no fancy to play the ridiculous part so often forced upon Queen
Elizabeth’s numerous suitors, of hanging about her for years, having
his matrimonial prospects talked of all over Europe, in order at
the end to learn that the lady had never had the least intention of
marrying him.

It was either to obtain this definite assurance from the Queen herself,
or to withdraw entirely from the whole affair, that he came to
England, again accompanied by his brother, Prince Ernest, on October
10th, 1839. On the 15th he was the Queen’s betrothed husband. All the
Queen’s reasons for desiring the postponement of her marriage with
her cousin vanished in his presence; they were overwhelmed by the
irresistible feeling inspired by the Prince. In the memorandum by the
Queen previously quoted in part, she had stated that no worse school
for a young girl, or one more detrimental to all natural feelings and
affections, could be imagined than that of being Queen at eighteen.
Very few persons are qualified to express an opinion on the point, but
it is quite certain that being Queen at eighteen had neither destroyed
Her Majesty’s capacity of loving, nor her power of inspiring love. The
letters of the two young lovers to their friends, to announce their
engagement, are full of the music of overflowing happiness. They both
wrote to Stockmar. The Queen said: “Albert has completely won my heart,
and all was settled between us this morning.... I feel certain he will
make me very happy. I wish I could say I felt as certain of my making
him happy, but I shall do my best.” The Prince’s letter says: “Victoria
is so good and kind to me that I am often puzzled to believe that I
should be the object of so much affection.... More, or more seriously,
I cannot write. I am at this moment too bewildered to do so.

  “Das Auge sicht den Himmel offen,
  Es schwelgt das Herz in Seligkeit.”[9]

The Queen’s position made it necessary for her to offer herself in
marriage to her cousin, not to wait till he sought her love. In her
letter to her uncle Leopold, she tells him, “My mind is quite made
up. I told Albert this morning of it. The warm affection he showed
me on learning this, gave me great pleasure. He seems perfection,
and I think I have the prospect of very great happiness before me. I
love him MORE than I can say, and shall do everything in my power to
render this sacrifice (for such, in my opinion, it is) as small as I
can.... The last few days have passed like a dream to me, and I am so
much bewildered by it all that I know hardly how to write, but I do
feel very happy.... Lord Melbourne, whom I have of course consulted
about the whole affair, quite approves my choice, and expresses great
satisfaction at this event, which he thinks in every way highly
desirable. Lord Melbourne has acted in this business, as he has
always done towards me, with the greatest kindness and affection. We
also think it better, and Albert quite approves of it, that we should
be married very soon after Parliament meets, about the beginning of
February.”

King Leopold’s answer applied to himself the words of old Simeon,
“Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace.” The dearest wish
of his heart was as good as accomplished.

The Prince avowed his engagement to his grandmother, the Dowager
Duchess of Gotha, in these words: “The Queen sent for me alone to
her room a few days ago, and declared to me in a genuine outburst of
love and affection that I had gained her whole heart, and would make
her intensely happy if I would make the sacrifice of sharing her life
with her, for she said she looked on it as a sacrifice; the only thing
that troubled her was that she did not think she was worthy of me. The
joyous openness of manner in which she told me this quite enchanted
me, and I was quite carried away by it. She is really most good and
amiable, and I am quite sure Heaven has not given me into evil hands,
and that we shall be happy together. Since that moment Victoria does
whatever she fancies I should wish or like, and we talk together a
great deal about our future life, which she promises me to make as
happy as possible.” In these letters one feels that her tone is more
generous than his. The Queen’s letters, then in the first blush of
love, and always wherever her husband is concerned, breathe the spirit
of Elsa’s self-dedication, “_Dir geb’ ich Alles, was ich brie!_”

She had then, and preserved to the end of their happy life together,
unbounded belief in him and pride in him. To her he was the most
beautiful, the wisest and best of human beings. He was always to her
“my precious Albert,” “my incomparable Albert,” “my beloved Albert,
looking so handsome in his uniform.” Sometimes, even in very happy
marriages, the King of the fireside has to descend from his throne
when the babies arrive; the wife becomes less the wife and more the
mother. This was never so in the case of the Queen; her husband was
always first and foremost in her heart. She wrote after many years
of marriage, during one of the Prince Consort’s short absences from
home, “You cannot think how much this costs me, nor how completely
forlorn I am and feel when he is away, or how I count the hours till
he returns. All the numerous children are as nothing to me when he is
away. It seems as if the whole life of the house and home were gone.”
King Leopold had read her rightly, when he wrote immediately after her
engagement, that she was one to whom a happy home life was in a special
degree indispensable. The cares and anxieties of her political duties
made it more necessary for her happiness than even for that of most
women, to have her home hallowed by the sympathy, support, advice, and
affection of the husband who never ceased to be her lover.

Most women can sympathize with what the Queen must have felt when she
had to announce to her Council her intended marriage. This took place
on November 23d 1839. There was a large attendance, eighty Councillors
being present. Greville describes the scene in his usual graphic
manner: “The folding-doors were thrown open, and the Queen came in,
attired in a plain morning gown, but wearing a bracelet containing
Prince Albert’s picture. She read the declaration in a clear, sonorous,
sweet-toned voice, but her hands trembled so excessively that I wonder
she was able to read the paper which she held. Lord Lansdowne made a
little speech, asking her permission to have the declaration made
public. She bowed assent, placed the paper in his hands, and then
retired.”[10]

The Queen describes the same scene in her Journal; it will be seen
she confirms Greville in every particular. “Precisely at two,” the
Queen writes, “I went in; the room was full, but I hardly knew who was
there. Lord Melbourne I saw looking kindly at me, with tears in his
eyes, but he was not near me. I then read my short declaration. I felt
my hands shake, but I did not make one mistake. I felt most happy and
thankful when it was over. Lord Lansdowne then rose, and in the name
of the Privy Council asked that this most gracious and most welcome
communication might be printed. I then left the room, the whole thing
not lasting above two or three minutes.” She adds that the Prince’s
picture in her bracelet “seemed to give me courage at the Council.”
The Prince, with the Queen’s entire approval, determined to take no
English title, thinking that bearing his own name would more distinctly
mark his individuality and independence. At this time he felt, as he
expressed it in one of his family letters, that whatever changes were
in store for him, he should always remain “a true German, a true Coburg
and Gotha man.” However sincere and natural this feeling may have been,
he learned later thoroughly to identify himself with the country of
his adoption, and that the true realization of his personality lay in
sinking his own individual existence in that of his wife.

[9]

  Heaven opens on the ravished eye,
  The heart is all entranced in bliss.

  SCHILLER: _Song of the Bell_.

[10] Greville Memoirs, vol. i., 2d series, p. 247.




CHAPTER V.

ROCKS AHEAD.


The proverbial troubles that mar the course of true love were not
realized in the case of the Queen and Prince Consort, at least so
far as their personal relations were concerned. But there were some
difficulties and annoyances in store for them from outside influences.
A foolish attempt was made to circulate the report that the Prince
was a Roman Catholic. When the announcement of the Queen’s intended
marriage was made to Parliament, it contained no reference to the
Prince’s religious faith, and the omission was severely commented on in
both Houses. The Queen thought her subjects were as well informed as
she was herself upon the history of the House of Coburg, and believed
that the attachment of the Prince’s family to the principles of the
Reformation was notorious. In the susceptible state of the public
mind at that time, and in the light of current events, it was perhaps
an error of judgment not to mention the Prince’s Protestantism in
the announcement of the marriage. Even when it was demonstrated that
the Prince was Protestant to the backbone, the Ministry were soundly
accused of suppressing all mention of the fact in order to retain the
support of the Irish Roman Catholic members in the House of Commons.
The Whig Government was tottering to its fall, and Lady Holland’s witty
description of the political situation was that in the coming appeal to
the country they had “nothing to rely on but the Queen and Paddy.” Even
the Duke of Wellington, who usually kept his head when other people
lost theirs, moved and carried an amendment in the House of Lords to
insert the word “Protestant” in the address in reply to the Queen’s
speech announcing her intended marriage, “thus showing the public,” he
said, “that this was still a Protestant State.”

This little outbreak was only a temporary vexation; but there appeared
to be serious cause for alarm in another quarter. There was, about
1839, a remarkable outbreak of real disloyalty in the Tory party; it
arose partly, no doubt, from the Queen’s known sympathy with the Whigs;
but one cannot help suspecting that it was augmented by the elements
of social corruption which had flourished in the atmosphere of the two
previous reigns. When Prince Albert’s household were being selected,
the only conditions which he insisted on were that it should not be
formed exclusively of one party, and that it should consist of men of
rank, “well educated and of high character.” This limited the range of
choice, more perhaps than the young Prince was aware of, and did not
increase his popularity among those who were excluded.

A non-gambling, non-drinking, pure-hearted, and clean-living young
couple would have against them much that had enjoyed the sunshine of
Court favor under the son of George III. The hounds of the “Great
Goddess Lubricity” were in full cry against the Court. The undeserved
humiliation suffered by poor Lady Flora Hastings gave them an advantage
they were not slow to make the most of; it gave them the cover they run
best in.

Added to this source of unpopularity which had in it nothing of a
party character, there was another of a strictly party nature. The
Bedchamber question, the Queen’s dislike of Peel, and her desire to
keep Lord Melbourne in office, still further aggravated the situation,
and, towards the end of 1839, Tory members of Parliament broke out
into speeches containing violent personal attacks upon the Queen. One
of these, “_Victorippicks_,” delivered at a Conservative dinner at
Canterbury, Greville describes as “violent and indecent,” “a tissue of
folly and impertinence;” it was, however, received by the assembled
company with shouts of applause. The chief offender on this occasion,
Mr. Bradshaw, was called out by Mr. Horsman, a strong Whig and M.P. for
Cockermouth; but matters were made worse, as far as the Tory party were
concerned, by the fact that Bradshaw’s second was Colonel Gurwood, the
confidential friend and secretary of the Duke of Wellington. Another
striking manifestation of Tory disloyalty was given about the same time
at Shrewsbury, when at a public dinner the company present refused to
drink the health of the newly appointed Lord Lieutenant because he was
the husband of one of the Ladies of the Bedchamber, the Duchess of
Sutherland, with whom the Queen had refused to part when Sir Robert
Peel was endeavoring to form a Government in 1839. Stockmar, Greville,
and other observers of the current of English politics marked with
alarm the decay of loyalty in the party whose traditional principles
led them in an exactly contrary direction.

These fears were augmented by events in the House of Lords and House
of Commons, relating to Prince Albert’s position and establishment. In
the House of Commons, Lord John Russell proposed on the part of the
Government an allowance from Parliament for Prince Albert of £50,000
a year. This was the sum which had been voted for Prince Leopold
on his marriage with Princess Charlotte. Prince George of Denmark,
husband of Queen Anne, had enjoyed this income, and the same sum had
been voted for a succession of Queens Consort. It seems to have been
overlooked that the circumstances of the present case were not quite
parallel to these. The Civil List had been readjusted at the beginning
of the Queen’s reign, not in the direction of increasing it, but on a
scale that was believed not only to be ample, but to allow an ample
margin for all contingencies; in Prince Albert’s case no separate
establishment would be needed, and only a very moderate household.
Moreover, even if no account were taken of the exceptional commercial
distress prevailing at the time,[11] the Ministry would have done well
to realize that the time had gone by when the passing of huge sums
for the Royal Family would go through as a matter of course. But the
Government did not take heed of any of these things, nor did they take
the precaution of consulting the leaders of opposition as to their
view on the matter; on the contrary, Lord John Russell insisted on
going on even when he knew he would be beaten, and irritated the Tory
party by taunting them with disloyalty. When the vote of £50,000 was
proposed, Mr. Hume moved to reduce to £21,000. This was negatived, but
an amendment by Colonel Sibthorpe to reduce the vote to £30,000 was
supported by Sir Robert Peel and other leading members of the Tory
party, and carried by 262 to 158. It was not a strictly party division,
for the majority was composed in part of Whigs and Radicals, as well as
Tories. Still it was anticipated that the division would set the Prince
against the Tory party. This, however, was not the case. His vexation
on hearing of the vote was based on the fear that it indicated that his
marriage with the Queen was unpopular in England, and when he learned
that this was not the case, he did not allow the matter to disturb him
in any way, although, as will be seen later, he did not forget it. It
will be seen that the fact that Sir Robert Peel had taken a prominent
part in reducing the vote did not prejudice the Prince against that
statesman. When the time came, eighteen months later, that Peel was
called on again to form a Cabinet, he was rather uncomfortable in
meeting the Prince. But he found not a single trace of any personal
soreness in his demeanor. “On the contrary, his communications were
of that frank and cordial character which at once placed the Minister
at his ease, and made him feel assured that not only was no grudge
entertained, but that he might count henceforward on being treated as a
friend.”

The curious in such matters will here note a parallel between the
foundation of the Queen’s esteem for Melbourne (page 53) and the
Prince’s esteem for Peel.

The Queen was much more seriously annoyed by what took place in the
House of Lords on the question of the Prince’s precedence. This is one
of the matters in which it is impossible for the masses to understand
the classes. It is like the pea and the real princess in Andersen’s
tale. Either you feel it or you do not feel it; but if you do not
feel it, you are not a real princess. Questions of precedence appear
absolutely unimportant to those who are not born with a natural gift
for thinking them important. The Duke of Wellington, even though he
was an aristocrat by birth, never acquired the power of grasping the
enormous importance of precedence and etiquette. When the Earl of
Albemarle, who, as Master of the Horse, was extremely sensitive about
his right of riding in the Queen’s carriage on State occasions, made
himself rather troublesome on the subject, the Duke, who was appealed
to, said: “The Queen can make Lord Albemarle sit at the top of the
coach, or under the coach, behind the coach, or wherever else Her
Majesty pleases.” The Bill for the Prince’s naturalization contained a
clause enabling the Queen to give him precedence over all other members
of the Royal Family. The King of Hanover furiously raged, together
with some of his Royal brothers. Objections were raised in the House
of Lords. The Duke of Wellington thought it was unnecessary to settle
the Prince’s precedence by law, and that the Queen could settle it by
placing the Prince next herself on all occasions. This common-sense
view would have been sufficient for ordinary people; but the fact that
the House of Lords allowed the precedence clauses of the Naturalization
Bill to drop seems to have caused no little trouble and annoyance.
The Queen has added a note to the “Life of the Prince Consort,” in
which she says: “When I was first married, we had much difficulty on
this subject, much bad feeling was shown; several members of the Royal
Family showed bad grace in giving precedence to the Prince, and the
late King of Hanover positively resisted doing so.” The law of England
has provided for the precedence of a Queen Consort, placing her above
all other subjects, and giving her rank and dignity next her husband;
moreover, relieving her of the legal disabilities of a _feme-covert_;
but the law takes no cognizance of the possible existence of a husband
of a Queen Regnant. As far as his legal position was concerned, the
Queen’s husband had no rank except what belonged to him as second son
of the Duke of Coburg. Greville looked up the authorities, and wrote
a pamphlet on the subject, urging that the husband of the Queen ought
to have precedence over all other persons. He thought the Tory party
had made a serious mistake in the line they had taken in the matter.
It was calculated, he said, to accentuate the Queen’s dislike of them
as a party, and he also felt that it was ungracious to give the Prince
so uncordial a reception. It will render him, he said, “as ironical
to them [the Tories] as she is already.” In this prediction events
proved him to have been mistaken. Both the Queen and the Prince were
hurt at what had taken place, but neither of them was imbittered. He
first heard of the cutting down of his annuity in the House of Commons,
and the lapsing of the Precedence Clauses in the Lords accidentally
on taking up a newspaper at Aix, where he stopped for a few hours on
his way to England for his marriage. “We came upon it,” he wrote to
the Queen, February 1st, 1840, “in a newspaper at Aix, where we dined.
In the House of Lords, too, people have made themselves needlessly
disagreeable. All I have time to say is, that, while I possess your
love, they cannot make me unhappy.”

The events just narrated received an importance they did not in
themselves deserve, from the fact that they showed a weakening and
disintegration of the monarchical principle in the party most bound
by their professions to maintain it. Revolutionary doctrines were
almost everywhere making way; a few years later, in 1848, they shook
almost every throne in Europe. Aided by the experience and foresight
of their friend and mentor, Baron Stockmar, the young Queen and her
husband set themselves definitely, consciously, and earnestly to the
task of strengthening the hold of the monarchy by basing it on the
affections of the people, and also by making the crown a real power,
above all party, seeking only to increase the welfare of the masses
of the people, and uphold the power and dignity of the Empire. This
object is expressed over and over again in the numerous letters and
memoranda which passed between the Prince and Stockmar in anticipation
of the marriage, and in the years which immediately succeeded it. The
Prince was convinced that the dignity and stability of the throne could
only be based on the affection and respect of the nation; to earn that
affection and respect, the domestic life of the Sovereign must be
pure and blameless; that moreover the Sovereign must be the partisan
of no party, but have a single eye to the true welfare of her whole
people. We learn incidentally not only that “Melbourne called this
‘nonsense,’”[12] but that he said, “This damned morality is sure to
ruin everything.”[13]

But this only illustrates anew that the wisdom of the man of the world
is often mere foolishness.

In speaking of the Queen’s childhood, attention was drawn to the
peculiarly fortunate circumstances which withdrew her very largely
from the influences of Court life and gave her much of the quiet
simplicity of a private station. If she was fortunate in her childhood
she was still more fortunate in her marriage; not only were she and her
husband life-long lovers, but she found in him a character and will as
strong as her own; he was a sagacious counsellor, a fearless critic, a
far-seeing friend, strengthening her throne by pursuing with her the
ends of a worthy ambition. The warning which they both received from
the events related in this chapter may have been fortunate too, if they
emphasized the resolve they had formed to strengthen the monarchy by
making the throne a throne of justice and purity.

[11] In 1840 wheat was 81_s._ a quarter; wages were low, and trade
depressed; the revenue was steadily falling; deficits were chronic; and
Chartist riots were common occurrences.

[12] Life of the Prince Consort, vol. i. p. 244.

[13] Memorandum by Stockmar, Life of the Prince Consort, vol. ii. p.
550.




CHAPTER VI.

THE PRINCE.


The Queen was married to Prince Albert with every possible circumstance
of pomp and magnificence on February 10th, 1840, in the chapel of St.
James’s Palace. There was a drenching downpour of rain in the morning,
so her subjects, although the sun shone later in the day, did not
learn the expression “Queen’s weather” as early as 1840. Any doubts
the Prince may have entertained as to the popularity of the marriage
with the English people were dispelled by the hearty reception he met
with from the crowd on his landing at Dover, and afterwards in London.
A letter from the Dowager Lady Lyttelton, then a Lady in Waiting,
descriptive of the ceremony, says: “The Queen’s look and manner were
very pleasing, her eyes much swollen by tears, but great happiness in
her countenance; her look of confidence and comfort at the Prince, when
they walked away as man and wife, was very pleasing to see.”

Another account mentions a rather pretty incident: as the Prince and
his bride were returning in their carriage to Buckingham Palace, he
held her hand in his, but in such a way as to leave the wedding-ring
visible to the assembled crowd.

The good effects of the Queen’s marriage soon began to make themselves
felt. The Duchess of Kent had been, almost immediately after the
accession, not without the pang of feeling that her occupation was
gone, and that the child to whom she had devoted herself unceasingly
for eighteen years was taken from her; the Queen was surrounded by
councillors not of her choosing, and was sailing away to regions
of thought and activity where she could not follow. Her daughter’s
marriage and her son-in-law’s thoughtful kindness did much to soothe
these feelings and restore happiness and satisfaction to her heart.

The Prince quickly made a favorable impression upon those with whom
he was brought in contact. The most penetrating observer could detect
in him no trace of coldness or resentment towards those who had taken
an active part in the events detailed in the last chapter. He was
particularly courteous to the Duke of Wellington, who was charmed by
him, and said he had never seen better manners.

Although he bore the rebuffs referred to with perfect good breeding, he
did not forget them. Fourteen years later, after he had been on terms
of the closest intimacy and friendship both with the Duke and Peel, he
brought up the subject in a letter to Stockmar on the probable causes
of an outbreak of hostility against himself, which was very noticeable
in 1854. After enumerating the causes of his unpopularity with the
Protectionists and the Horse Guards, he adds:--

 “Now, however, I come to that important substratum of the people,
 in which these calumnies were certain to have a great effect. A
 very considerable portion of the nation had never given itself the
 trouble to consider what really is the position of the husband of a
 Queen Regnant. When I first came over here I was met by this want of
 knowledge and unwillingness to give a thought to the position of this
 luckless personage. Peel cut down my income, Wellington refused me my
 rank, the Royal Family cried out against the foreign interloper, the
 Whigs in office were only inclined to concede to me just as much space
 as I could stand upon. The Constitution is silent as to the Consort of
 the Queen, even Blackstone ignores him, and yet there he was, and not
 to be done without.”

There can be no doubt as to the difficulties of his position: the least
indiscretion, the least appearance of the usurpation of an authority he
did not legally possess, would have been both exaggerated and bitterly
resented. He was emphatically the wife’s husband, a position which, it
appears, requires more than an average share of magnanimity for a man
to occupy with dignity and ease. His position was one very frequently
occupied by a woman, but very rarely by a man. A bishop’s wife, for
instance, may be a Mrs. Proudie, and goad the most gentle of human
beings into insult and revolt by her arrogant assumption of power;
or she may be her husband’s helper and confidential adviser, and his
right hand in all his work, making friends and winning over enemies in
all directions; to do this needs a good heart, good sense, and tact.
These qualities stood the Prince in good stead; he was, moreover,
strengthened by the aim which he had ever before him, of establishing
the English monarchy on a foundation so firm that the coming storms of
revolution would be unable to shake it.

Politically his position was analogous to that of the Queen’s private
secretary. Previous Sovereigns had had private secretaries of their own
appointment, and the Queen had an absolute right to appoint whom she
chose. It was for her happiness and also for the good of the nation
that she chose her husband, who was also her bosom friend; no one else
could have discharged the duties of the post with so much efficiency.

His firmness, resolution, and self-control would have been remarkable
at any age, but they were especially notable in so young a man. It must
not be forgotten that at the time of his marriage he was six months
under twenty-one. A question arose whether, being under age, he could
be sworn to the Privy Council. But boy as he was in years, he showed
a firmness of character, a grasp of the principles which should rule
his conduct, and a persistence in following them which could not have
been excelled at any age. It was a time, perhaps, when age was less
afraid of youth than it is at present. Delane became editor of _The
Times_ at four-and-twenty. It is only by persistent effort that we
can bring ourselves to believe that two generations earlier Pitt was
really Leader of the House of Commons and Chancellor of the Exchequer,
and had declined to be Prime Minister at three-and-twenty, and became
Prime Minister at five-and-twenty, and held the post uninterruptedly
and with unparalleled power for the next eighteen years. This miracle
has been explained by saying that Pitt was phenomenal; his tutor called
him “Mr. Pitt” when he was seven--he was born old; he did not acquire
caution and judgment, as other people do, with years; he was gifted
with them from his cradle. People have sometimes asked themselves
whether Prince Albert was not “born old” too. It is true we are told
that he had a great fund of drollery in his nature, and a considerable
power of mimicry and a turn for drawing caricatures; we also hear of
one thoroughly boyish prank which he played in 1839, on the very eve
of his engagement--stooping in his travelling carriage when it stopped
to change horses in a little village, so that the inhabitants who
had assembled to see the Prince, saw nothing but his greyhound, Eôs,
looking out of the window. This is exactly what any boy might do; but
he was on the eve of a crisis in his life which caused all boyishness
to be put away. Just as under the weight of a solemn purpose Hamlet
disencumbers himself of all the “trivial fond records” of his youth,
that

  “My commandment all alone shall live
  Within the book and volume of my brain,
  Unmixed with baser matter,”

so the Prince, under the immense responsibilities of his position and
his sense of the difficulty of discharging them, acquired in one
stride, as it were, the qualities which most men arrive at, if they
reach them at all, only after years of experience and effort.

Reference has already been made to his convictions upon the necessity
of preserving the purity of the young Queen’s Court. This was no
effort to himself personally, for he was one of the natures born with
a strong preference for whatsoever things are pure. But in the light
of the scandals of former reigns, he knew the importance, not only of
being free from taint, but of preventing the invention and circulation
of scandalous stories relating to himself and his associates. His
first request about the gentlemen selected to form his household was
that they should be men of good character. He and the Queen always
stipulated for this in regard to those household appointments which
were part of the political patronage of successive Governments. We hear
of this from Greville in his account of the filling of the household
appointments in Sir Robert Peel’s Administration of 1841: “As to
the men, she,” the Queen, “had said she did not care who they were,
provided they were of good character.” A side-light is thrown on the
efficacy of this stipulation by an extract from Lord Shaftesbury’s
Journal, where we read that Peel pressed a household appointment on the
then Lord Ashley, on the express ground that he must fill these places
with men of unblemished character. Lord Ashley grimly records that Lord
----, the hero of a recent scandal, who had himself remarked, “Thank
God, my character is too bad for a household place,” had received a
similar compliment from Peel. Therefore, notwithstanding the express
wishes of the Queen and Prince, it is evident that the aim they had set
before themselves was by no means easy of accomplishment.

In order, not to protect himself, but to protect the throne from
the breath of scandal, the Prince laid down for himself a line of
conduct which must have been very irksome through the degree to which
it infringed his personal freedom. He never went anywhere alone. He
was always accompanied by his equerry. He felt he must not only be
irreproachable, but be able to produce witnesses, if necessary, to
prove that he was so. Mr. Anson, the Prince’s secretary, says that it
was remarked to him in 1842, “by a keen observer of character and by
no means a good-natured one” (possibly Greville), “that it was most
remarkable that the Prince should have been now nearly two years in his
most difficult position, and had never given cause for one word to be
said against him in any respect.”

The idle apprentice very often has something to say not altogether to
the credit of the industrious apprentice; and men have to be forgiven
their good qualities almost as often as their bad. There were not
wanting those who were ready to say that the Prince was--if not a
milksop--at any rate wanting in manliness; and it is rather amusing
to find that he did himself (1843) more good, as far as popularity in
society was concerned, by proving himself a bold rider to hounds, in
the Leicestershire country, than he had done by years of prudence,
caution, and self-effacement.

The difficulties of the Prince’s position were minimized by the
generous confidence and unbounded affection with which the Queen
regarded him. He at once became, and remained till death parted them,
what she herself called her “dearest Life in Life.” She associated him
with herself in all State business that was not strictly ceremonial.
The courtiers quickly appreciated the significance of the fact that
the Queen delighted to honor and elevate him. Her partiality for the
Whigs became a thing of the past. She dissociated herself from party
predilections. Politically, as well as personally, her husband came
first, and it was “staff o’ his conscience” with him that the Sovereign
should be loyal to her Ministers to whatever party they might belong.
Sir Robert Peel, who became Prime Minister in 1841, formed a very high
opinion of the Prince’s strong practical judgment and sagacity, and did
much to encourage the active part which he took in all State business.
Peel and his Foreign Secretary, Lord Aberdeen, were credited with
being Prince Albert’s tutors, in political affairs, and with having
first introduced him into public life. They remarked with satisfaction
how modestly he exercised his ever-increasing authority, and never
gave a decided opinion without first consulting the Queen. By the end
of the Peel Administration the Prince’s association with the Queen
in all State business had become definitely established. It was a
complete partnership; the Ministers always saw the Queen and Prince
together, and “both of them always said _We_--‘We think, or wish, to do
so-and-so; what had we better do?’” &c.

This union was equally close domestically and politically. We have
already seen that to be parted from her husband, even for a day or
two, was a serious trial to the Queen. The Prince went to Liverpool
for a couple of days in 1846, and the Queen wrote to Stockmar in her
husband’s absence, “I feel very lonely without my dear master; and
though I know other people are often separated for a few days, I
feel that it could not make me get accustomed to it.... Without him
everything loses its interest.... It will always be a terrible pang to
me to separate from him, even for a few days, and I pray God never to
let me survive him. I glory in his being seen and loved.” The pathos
of the words in the light of after events needs no emphasis; but no
one who has loved and been loved as she has, should be called unhappy.
It was also to Stockmar that the Prince confided his own most sacred
feelings upon the priceless treasure his marriage had brought him.
Writing to his trusted friend to pour out his grief on the death of
his father, the Duke of Coburg, in 1844, the Prince says: “Just such
is Victoria to me, who feels and shares my grief, and is the treasure
upon which my whole existence rests. The relation in which we stand
to one another leaves nothing to desire. It is a union of heart and
soul, and is therefore noble, and in it the poor children shall find
their cradle, so as to be able one day to insure a like happiness for
themselves.”

When Prince Albert’s political influence first began to be felt, he was
generally supposed to be a Tory; Greville repeatedly speaks of him as
if he were a Tory; but from the wider knowledge which the publication
of his correspondence has given, it is clear that his mind was on many
subjects far in advance of even the Whig statesmanship of the day; for
instance, he was a convinced Free Trader at the time when Melbourne was
declaring that the repeal of the Corn Laws was the most insane proposal
that had ever entered the human brain. He was ardently in favor of
the reform of university education so as to bring the universities
more closely into touch with the needs of modern life. He foresaw that
German unity was the necessary condition of German greatness,[14] and
urged the necessity of the smaller German princes making the sacrifices
requisite to the attainment of this great end, which was not achieved
till nearly ten years after his own death. The Prince was thoroughly
imbued with the sound principle that in politics reform is the best,
indeed the only, safeguard against revolution. His mind, politically,
was not unlike that of Sir Robert Peel, presenting a combination of
Liberal opinions with extreme caution in regard to the time and method
of giving effect to them.

His opinions on matters bearing on religion were wholly free from
narrowness and bigotry. He presented an example of that deepening,
softening, and strengthening of character which modern writers have
described as the special fruit of the Reformation among those peoples
which have really assimilated its principles.[15] His deeply religious
nature was apparent from very early years; in December, 1839, he wrote
from Coburg to the Queen that he was about to take the Sacrament, and
he adds: “God will not take it amiss, if in that serious act, even at
the altar, I think of you; for I will pray to Him for you, and for your
soul’s health, and He will not refuse us His blessing.” All through the
married life of the Queen and Prince, it was their custom when they
received the Sacrament to reserve the day for quietude and privacy.
His sympathies in Church matters were decidedly with the party which
has since been called “Broad.” His influence was always exercised in
support of religious toleration.

In this, as in other matters, the husband and wife were in perfect
accord. In later years her most trusted and confidential friend and
adviser, among Churchmen, was Dean Stanley; and she fully sympathized
with his interpretation of what a National Church ought to be. Highly
as the Queen and Prince appreciated the simplicity and dignity of the
services of the Church of Scotland, they never professed or practised
any approach to Scottish Sabbatarianism. Dr. Wilberforce (afterwards
Bishop of Oxford, and later of Winchester) had attracted the notice of
the Prince by a powerful anti-slavery speech, and he was appointed one
of the Royal Chaplains. Writing from Windsor, after preaching before
the Court on Sunday, February 9th, 1845, he notes in his diary, “Chess
evening, which I regret, not that my own conscience is offended at
it one jot, but that capable of misconstruction.” The views of the
Bishop and the Prince became, as time went on, very widely divergent
on matters relating to religion and Church government; but earlier
in their intercourse they found many subjects in which they were in
hearty accord. The Prince’s views on the functions of the Bishops in
the House of Lords were set forth at length in a remarkable letter to
Dr. Wilberforce, the Dean of Westminster, dated 1845. His opinion was
that the Bishops should not take part in purely political questions,
but should come forward when questions of humanity were at stake, such
as negro emancipation, education, sanitation, recreation, prevention
of cruelty to animals, and factory legislation. “As to religious
affairs,” the Prince added, “he” (the Bishop) “cannot but take an
active part in them; but let that always be the part of a _Christian_,
not a mere _Churchman_; let him never forget the insufficiency of human
knowledge and wisdom, and the impossibility of any man, or even any
Church, to say, ‘I am right, I alone am right.’ Let him therefore be
meek and liberal, and tolerant to other confessions.... He ought to be
a guardian of public morality.... He should likewise boldly admonish
the public, even against its predominant feeling, if this be contrary
to the purest standard of morality.... In this way the Bishops would
become a powerful force in the Lords, and the country would feel that
their presence there supplies a great want, and is a great protection
to the people.”

A letter like this, accompanied as it was by expressions modestly
excusing himself for offering an opinion, is a sufficient revelation of
his character, and of his grasp of principles. It was indeed mainly by
his character that he was able to exercise the influence he did. Dr.
McLeod, in speaking of him after his death, said: “His real strength
lay most of all in his character, or in that which resulted from will
and deliberate choice, springing out of a nature singularly pure, by
God’s grace, from childhood.” It was this which gradually caused him to
stand well with both parties, as the singleness of his aims and life
became apparent. The feeling manifested against him in both Houses of
Parliament before his marriage was changed after closer acquaintance to
one of confidence.

When it was known that the Queen was about to give birth to a child, a
Bill naming the Prince as Regent, in the event of her death leaving an
infant heir, was passed without difficulty, the only dissenting voice
being that of the Duke of Sussex, who felt that the dignity of the
Royal Family would be best promoted by another arrangement. The Prime
Minister assured the Queen that the practical unanimity of Parliament
in naming the Prince as Regent was entirely owing to his own character.
“Three months ago they would not have done it for him.”

Perhaps the smooth passage of the Regency Bill was promoted by another
circumstance. In June, 1840, as the Queen and Prince were driving up
Constitution Hill, in a low carriage, Her Majesty was twice fired at by
a young miscreant named Oxford; neither shot took effect; the Queen
and Prince behaved with admirable courage. She ordered the carriage
to drive at once to the Duchess of Kent, in order to anticipate any
rumor of the attempt which might otherwise have reached her mother.
She then continued her drive in the park, escorted now by an immense
crowd on horseback and on foot, who gave the most vociferous expression
to their feelings of devotion and loyalty. The Queen behaved then,
as always, with perfect courage and self-possession, which naturally
increased the mingled feelings of admiration and sympathy for her, and
anger for the perpetrator of the outrage. One other thought, however,
quickly succeeded these; it was this: If Oxford’s aim had been well
directed, and the fair young life laid low before she had given heirs
to England, there was nothing between the nation and the succession of
the Duke of Cumberland, now King of Hanover, to the throne of England.
The knowledge of the escape the country had had, as well as admiration
for the beautiful courage of the young wife, caused a great wave of
enthusiastic loyalty to herself and her husband, and the practical
result of Oxford’s shot was that the Regency Bill passed through both
Houses without a dissentient voice, except that of the Duke of Sussex.

It was remarked just now that the Prince’s influence was due mainly
to his character; it must not be inferred from this that he was not
also an extremely able and accomplished man. As he came into close
relations with the Queen’s successive Prime Ministers, they one and all
acknowledged the power of his intellect, the extent of his knowledge,
and his grasp of principles. Lord Melbourne, Sir Robert Peel, Lord
John Russell, Lord Aberdeen, Lord Derby, and Lord Palmerston, all
formed the highest opinion of the Prince’s capacity for statesmanship.
With one of them, Lord Palmerston, the Prince was at one time, as is
well known, in sharp conflict with regard to his conduct as Foreign
Secretary, and this makes his testimony to the Prince’s ability of all
the greater value. In 1855, when Palmerston was Prime Minister, one of
his political friends, calling on him, expressed a high opinion of the
abilities of Napoleon III. Palmerston concurred, but said: “We have
a far greater and more extraordinary man nearer home,” referring to
the Prince; he then added, “The Prince would not consider it right to
have obtained the throne as the Emperor has done; but in regard to the
possession of the soundest judgment, the highest intellect, and most
exalted qualities of mind, he is far superior to the Emperor.”

The Prince made an equally favorable personal impression on statesmen
of the Tory party. When Lord Derby was Prime Minister for ten months
in 1852, Lord Malmesbury was Foreign Secretary, and in that capacity
was brought much in contact with the Queen and her husband. He wrote
of the latter, “I never met a man so remarkable for his variety of
information in all subjects, ... with a great fund of humor _quand il
se déboutonne_.”

It was not only in statesmanship that his ability was shown.[16] He was
a good musician, and excelled as a performer, especially on the organ;
Peel was not long in discovering that the Prince was an enthusiastic
admirer of early German art and literature. His interest in the arts
and in industry was demonstrated by the Great Exhibition of 1851,
which was really his creation. As a country gentleman he had not that
absorbing delight in killing animals which then, perhaps, even more
than now, was considered essential to his position; he appears never
to have become a really good shot, and to have enjoyed deer-stalking
and other sport more for the sake of the fine air and exercise they
brought him, than with exclusive passion of the real sportsman. As a
set-off to this, he took the liveliest interest in agriculture and in
stock breeding, and was a frequent visitor at agricultural and cattle
shows. He showed considerable skill as a landscape gardener, and the
beautiful surroundings of Windsor were still further beautified by him,
while the gardens of Buckingham Palace, Osborne, and Balmoral are, to
a large extent, in their present form, his creation. In social matters
he anticipated a good deal of what has been done in more recent years
in the direction of the improvement of workmen’s dwellings, and in his
interest in education and sanitary legislation. Early in his career in
England he gave special attention to the suppression of duelling, and
proposed, as a substitute, the establishment of courts of honor in the
army, where charges could be made and evidence heard in cases which had
formerly led to a personal encounter. The courts of honor were never
established; but the influence of the Prince undoubtedly discouraged
the practice of duelling in England. Up to this time, it had been not
at all uncommon, even between civilians; and there were few of the
leading politicians in either party who had not been “out,” at one time
or another, with a political opponent.

The narrative of the succeeding chapters will further illustrate the
Prince’s character and his multiform activities. Those who had the
opportunity of knowing him intimately never failed to appreciate
his really great qualities; but it is only since his death, and the
publication of his private letters and memoranda, that the general
public have really learned to know him and to understand how he devoted
all his powers to the country of his adoption.

[14] In this respect his political views were far in advance of those
of his English tutors. Greville records a conversation he had in 1849
with Lord Aberdeen about the Prince’s politics. “Aberdeen spoke much of
the Queen and Prince, of course with great praise. He says the Prince’s
views were generally sound and wise, _with one exception, which was his
violent and incorrigible German Unionism_” (Greville, vol. vi. p. 305).

[15] Kidd’s Social Evolution, chap. x.; Marshall’s Principles of
Economics, vol. i. pp. 34, 35.

[16] In Lady Bloomfield’s Reminiscences, she records a conversation she
had with the Prince shortly before his death. “He said his great object
through life had been to learn as much as possible, not with a view
of doing much himself,--as, he observed, any branch of study or art
required a lifetime,--but simply for the sake of appreciating the works
of others; for, he added, without any self-consciousness or vanity,
‘No one knows the difficulties of a thing till they have tried to do
it themselves; and it was with this idea that I learnt oil-painting,
water-color, etching, fresco-painting, chalks, and lithography, and in
music I studied the organ, pianoforte, and violin, thorough-bass, and
singing’” (vol. ii. p. 110).




CHAPTER VII.

THE QUEEN AND PEEL.


From the time of the Queen’s accession, the power of the Whig
Government under Lord Melbourne had been steadily going down. It sank
to zero when they resumed office, in 1839, after Peel had failed to
form a Government in consequence of the dispute over the Ladies of the
Bedchamber. They had been beaten in the Commons and were in a permanent
minority in the Lords; and it was said with justice that they were
holding on, in office but not in power, simply to please the Queen.
It would have been a discreditable position for any Government, but
it was particularly damaging to a Whig Government from the fact that
their party was specially identified with the principle of ministerial
responsibility and a resistance to personal government.

The result of their position was that they were powerless to pass
their measures. They knew they had lost the confidence of the country,
and that the House of Lords could therefore veto the Government Bills
with a light heart. Perhaps this was not altogether painful to Lord
Melbourne. The saying by which he is chiefly remembered by the present
generation, “Why can’t you let it alone?” is not indicative of the
ardent spirit of the reformer. He may have found consolation in the
assistance given by the House of Lords to letting things alone.

Given his position and all its difficulties, Melbourne behaved loyally
and generously to the Queen and to his successors. He knew the days of
his own Government were numbered, and that Peel would succeed him,
and he did his best to bring about a more cordial personal feeling
between the Queen and Peel and the Tory party. The Queen tells us that
to her his word constantly was, “Hold out the olive-branch to them a
little;” with Peel, he tried to induce the shy, proud man to put on a
little of the courtier and the man of the world. At a Court ball in
1840, “Melbourne went up to Peel and whispered to him with the greatest
earnestness, ‘For God’s sake, go and speak to the Queen;’ Peel did not
go, but the entreaty and the refusal were both characteristic.”

When the long-anticipated fall of the Melbourne Administration came,
and the election of 1841 resulted in the return of the Tories to power
with a majority of over 80, Melbourne, who had worked unceasingly to
reconcile the Queen to the impending change, did not desist from his
good offices with her new Ministers.[17] He could not approach them
directly, but he took the opportunity after Peel’s Government had been
formed of giving them a few hints, through Greville. He met Greville
at a dinner-party and took him on one side and said: “‘Have you any
means of speaking to _these chaps_?’ I said, ‘Yes, I can say anything
to them.’ ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I think there are one or two things Peel
ought to be told, and I wish you would tell him. Don’t let him suffer
any appointment he is going to make to be talked about, and don’t
let her hear it through anybody but himself; and whenever he does
anything, or has anything to propose, let him explain to her clearly
his reasons. The Queen is not conceited; she is aware there are many
things she cannot understand, and she likes to have them explained
to her elementarily, not at length and in detail, but shortly and
clearly; neither does she like long audiences, and I never stayed with
her a long time. These things he should attend to, and they will make
matters go on more smoothly.’” Greville conveyed the message, which
was taken in exceedingly good part, and from 1841 onwards till his
death the relations between Sir Robert Peel and the Queen were all
that could be desired. Her former antipathy was changed into cordial
respect and admiration; when he lost his shyness and reserve, and was
able to show himself in his real character, she soon appreciated the
very fine qualities of the man, far transcending in real worth those
of the Minister whom in the beginning of her reign she had so strongly
preferred. When Peel’s Ministry had been in office a few months,
Greville asked Sir James Graham, the Home Secretary, how they were
going on with the Queen. He said, “Very well. They sought for no favor,
and were better without it. She was very civil, very gracious, and
even on two or three little occasions, she had granted favors in a way
indicative of good will.” He said that they treated her with profound
respect and the greatest attention. He made it a rule to address her
as he would a _sensible man_, laying all matters before her, with
the reasons for the advice he tendered, and he thought this was the
most legitimate as well as judicious flattery that could be offered
to her, and such as must gratify her, and the more because there was
no appearance of flattery in it, and nothing but what was right and
proper--so right and proper that it is not easy to see where the
flattery comes in. The way of explaining business to a sensible woman
must be much the same, one would imagine, as the way of explaining it
to a sensible man; but this simple view of the facts was by no means
perceived intuitively in 1841, but was only arrived at by demonstration
from actual experiment. However this may be, when Peel and his
colleagues learned their lesson, they learned it thoroughly. In this
second series of interviews between the Queen and the leaders of the
Tory Party, when a new Ministry was being formed in 1841, all passed
off most satisfactorily. Peel said the Queen behaved perfectly to him;
he was more than satisfied with her bearing towards him. To the Duke of
Wellington she was equally gracious. She reproached him for not taking
office himself, and he assured her that his one object was to serve her
and the country in every way he could, and that he thought he could
do this more effectually by making way for some of the younger men.
It is true that there was still some talk about Peel’s shyness making
the Queen shy; and Greville has a little hit about Peel, after dinner
at Windsor, talking to the Queen in the attitude of a dancing-master
giving a lesson, and says that the Queen would like him better if he
would keep his legs still; but this gossip probably reflects Greville’s
sentiments rather than the Queen’s. Her respect for Peel and attachment
to him grew with her growing knowledge of his character and powers. In
1843 the Queen wrote of him to her uncle, the King of the Belgians, as
“undoubtedly a great statesman, a man who thinks but little of party,
and never of himself.” In February, 1846, Lady Canning, who was then
in Waiting on the Queen, notes in her journal, “The Queen is very keen
about politics, and has an immense admiration for Sir Robert Peel.”

Before the end of his Administration, she not only loyally supported
him in the face of his growing unpopularity with his own party, but
showered every honor upon him that a Sovereign could bestow upon a
Minister. She and the Prince visited him at his house at Drayton.
She became godmother to his grandchild, and would have given him the
Order of the Garter, but that Peel, with the characteristic pride of
humility, intimated his desire that it should not be offered him. He
said that if his acceptance of the honor would increase his power of
serving the Queen he would not hesitate to accept it; but he could not
believe this was the case. Personally, he would prefer not to accept
it; he was a man of the people, and the decoration in his case would
be misapplied. “His heart was not set upon titles of honor or social
distinctions. His reward lay in Her Majesty’s confidence, of which by
many indications she had given him the fullest assurance; and when he
left her service the only distinction he coveted was that she should
say to him, ‘You have been a faithful servant, and have done your duty
to your country and to me.’”

When Peel’s Ministry came to an end in 1846, both the Queen and the
Prince expressed the hope that his leaving office would not interrupt
the cordial relations that had been established between them. His
tragic death, from a fall from his horse, in 1850, was bitterly mourned
in the Palace. The Queen wrote at the time: “Peel is to be buried
to-day. The sorrow and grief at his death are most touching. Every one
seems to have lost a personal friend.” The Prince on the same day wrote
to the same correspondent: “Sir Robert Peel is to be buried to-day. The
feeling in the country is absolutely not to be described. We have lost
our truest friend and trustiest counsellor, the throne its most valiant
defender, the country its most open-minded and greatest statesman.”
The Queen offered a peerage to Lady Peel after her husband’s death,
but she declined the honor, acting in accordance with what she knew
had been his wishes. The Duke of Wellington, in the tribute he paid to
Peel in the House of Lords, spoke with tears streaming down his face;
the chief part of his panegyric on his friend and leader was based on
his unswerving love of truth. It was this quality, together with his
political sagacity, caution, and courage, that had endeared him to
the Queen. No Prime Minister has ever had a more remarkable history.
The election of 1841 was fought on the Corn Laws, and resulted in
the return of Peel with a majority of eighty pledged to Protection.
In four years from that time, after a career of brilliant success as
a Minister, he repealed the Corn Laws which he had been returned to
support, amid the execration of the great bulk of his own party and
even that of a considerable number of his former opponents;[18] and yet
those who knew him best loved him chiefly for his absolute integrity
and love of truth. The explanation lies in the hard logic of facts.
Peel and his immediate followers became convinced they were wrong in
their protective policy; in ordinary times the only right thing for
them to have done would have been to declare their change and its
grounds, resign office and appeal to the country. Some of the Peelites,
as they were called, took this course, so far as was possible, as
private individuals; they declared their change and resigned their
seats. Lord Shaftesbury, then Lord Ashley, was one of these.

He had been returned as a Protectionist and became a Free Trader,
and therefore, quite rightly, resigned his seat, appealing to his
constituents unsuccessfully for re-election. He notes in his diary, “I
shall resign my seat and throw up all my beloved projects for which I
have sacrificed everything that a public man values, all that I had
begun and all that I have designed. Nearly my whole means of doing good
will cease with my membership of Parliament.” He refused an offer of
£2,000 from the then Whip to enable him to fight his seat, because he
would not jeopardize his independence. He was very poor, and he fought
and lost. But to lose like that is to win. Why could not Peel have
done the same? The answer is: The Irish Famine. Just as the Emperor
Nicholas during the Crimean War said that he relied most of all on his
Generals January and February, so Peel’s scruples were conquered by
the Famine. In Ireland in 1845-6 there were millions of people within
measurable distance of death from starvation; the measures of relief
could, under the best of circumstances, only be partially successful;
they would have been terribly hampered by the continuance, even for
another few months, of the import duties on corn. The aim of the Corn
Laws was to make bread dear; the pressing necessity of the moment was
to make it cheap, and pour in food supplies to starving Ireland. Peel’s
feeling may have been, “Better endure the charge of dishonesty rather
than add to the fearful total of those who will die of starvation
in Kerry and Connemara.” As the alarming accounts from Ireland came
pouring in, his first desire was to deal with the matter by opening
the ports by an Order in Council (November, 1845). This would have
been by far the best course; it would have secured a supply of cheap
bread without delay, and the war of words over it in Parliament could
have been protracted to any extent without practical mischief; but
his Cabinet would not agree to it. Then he resigned office (December,
1845), and left with the Queen a paper, to be given to his successor,
stating that he would give every support to the new Minister to effect
a settlement of the question of the Corn Laws. The Queen sent for Lord
John Russell, who, however, failed to form a Government, because Lord
Grey refused to take office if Lord Palmerston were at the Foreign
Office, and Lord Palmerston refused to take any other place. Peel was
therefore recalled. It was thus through the absolute necessity of the
moment that he repealed the Corn Laws which he had been elected to
support. In the House of Commons he confessed the error of his former
opinions, and maintained the duty and dignity of owning one’s self to
have been wrong rather than pretending by casuistical hair-splitting
that there had been no change of opinion when there was so striking a
change in conduct; he bore with magnanimity the reproaches of those who
still shared the error which he had abandoned, and finally appealed to
the facts of the situation, the national calamity of impending famine
in Ireland; he claimed that as the Government were responsible for the
lives of millions of the Queen’s subjects in the sister country, they
felt it impossible to take any other course than that of repeal. The
great bulk of the Tories accused him of dishonesty, but he took with
him the flower of his party, both in regard to intellect and character,
while he earned the enthusiastic gratitude and respect of the great
bulk of the nation, and of the men led by Cobden and Bright and the
Hon. Charles Villiers, who had devoted themselves to the cause of
repeal. Their favorable verdict has been confirmed by posterity. Peel’s
change was an honest change, and he was forced to give effect to it
when he did by the inexorable necessities of famine. He did not make
a _volte face_ for the sake of place and power. But notwithstanding
all that can be urged in his justification, he shattered his party.
The Tories had a majority of eighty in the general election of 1841;
they never secured a similar victory till 1874. They had short tenures
of office in 1852, and again in 1858-9, and in 1866-8; but on each
occasion they had to govern as best they could with a minority in the
House of Commons. They were in the wilderness thirty-three years, and
never regained the Canaan of politicians, except by the aid of the new
electorate called into existence by the Reform Bill of 1867.

When Peel went out of office he requested the Queen, as a personal
favor to himself, never to ask him to form a Government again. He was
not defeated in his great measure; his majority was ninety-seven in the
House of Commons, and forty-seven in the House of Lords. But the day on
which the Corn Bill passed its third reading in the Lords, the Ministry
were defeated in the Commons on a Protection of Life in Ireland Bill,
introduced on account of an outbreak of midnight murders and murderous
attacks, such as are now known by the name of “moonlighting.”

For modesty, dignity, simplicity, and sincerity, Peel’s figure stands
out conspicuous for greatness among the statesmen of this century.
Cobden said of him that he had lost office and saved his country.

His other great achievement was that of reorganizing and simplifying
the fiscal arrangements of the country. It was this that first so
highly recommended him to the Queen and Prince. They were good
economists in their own private affairs, and wished for good order in
national revenue and expenditure also. When Peel succeeded Melbourne,
huge deficits were of constant occurrence; the revenue was falling, and
the expenditure was increasing. Peel evolved order out of this chaos.
He inaugurated the era of financial reform. In 1845 import duties were
levied on no fewer than 1,142 separate articles. Peel and his pupil
and successor, Mr. Gladstone, reduced the number to about five, and
Peel was the first to discover the productiveness and utility of the
income tax, as a means of raising revenue. The Queen most cordially
supported him in his financial reforms, and authorized him to announce
in the House of Commons that she did not wish to be exempted from the
operation of the income tax. We owe to him more than to any other
of the Queen’s Prime Ministers that the national accounts almost
invariably show a balance on the right side. Peel was a man of whom it
was said that it was necessary to know him intimately to know him at
all; and this intimate friendship existed between him and the Queen and
her husband from the time he became Prime Minister, in 1841. It was an
inestimable advantage for the Royal couple that their political tutor
(if one may use the expression) in the early years of the reign was
changed from the kindly but frivolous and complaisant Melbourne to the
earnest and strenuous Peel, a man gifted beyond most with what Matthew
Arnold has called “high seriousness,” a quality without some portion of
which no character has any solid foundation. Peel’s Premiership was a
national blessing from his political and economical achievements while
he held the reins of power; and it was also a blessing from its effect
on the Queen’s political education.

[17] This generosity was thoroughly in keeping with his character.
After Melbourne’s death, Greville tells how he occupied his room at
Brocket, and, “poking about” to see what he could find, came upon
several MS. books of the late Prime Minister. In one of these was
recorded Melbourne’s settled determination “always to stand by his
friend,” and his conviction that it was more necessary to do so “when
they were in the wrong than when they were in the right.”

[18] Lord Melbourne, to whom in 1839 Repeal of the Corn Laws had been
“the maddest of all mad projects,” and who became a Free Trader, for
party purposes, in 1841, spoke of Peel’s change of view at a dinner
party at the Palace with vehemence which even the presence of a lady,
and that lady his Sovereign, could not restrain. “Ma’am, it’s a damned
dishonest act” (Greville, vol. v. p. 359).




CHAPTER VIII.

STOCKMAR.


One of the strongest influences, personal and political, in the Queen’s
earlier life was that of Baron Stockmar. This remarkable man attained,
simply by dint of character, the position of being one of the chief of
the unseen political forces of Europe. Without any official political
position, he was the friend and confidant of statesmen and princes, and
acquired extraordinary influence by his clearness of view and tenacity
of purpose in political concerns, joined with personal honesty and
disinterestedness, and also in a remarkable degree with a singularly
firm grasp of “the inexhaustibly fruitful truth that moral causes
govern the standing and falling of States.”

The formative influences on his character had been the political
misfortunes of Germany under the first Napoleon, in the early part of
the century. As a youth he witnessed the bitter humiliation of his
country, and later the downfall of her oppressor; and from henceforth
the bed-rock of his character was the belief in the existence of a
moral power ruling over the fate of nations and individuals. His son
and biographer narrates an event which influenced Stockmar deeply.
During the Napoleonic tyranny in Germany, he formed one of a group of
enthusiastic young Germans, some of whom broached the possibility of
delivering their country by murdering her oppressor. An old Prussian
officer who was present reproached the lads for their folly: “This is
the talk,” he said, “of very young people;” and he went on to express
his firm confidence that the rule of the French in Germany was in its
very nature evanescent, and must come to an end. His counsel was:
“Trust in the natural course of events,” and be ready to take advantage
of them. Things that are rotten and hollow decay; those that are sound
and healthy flourish and grow. Stockmar saw the crumbling to dust
within a few years of what then appeared the overwhelming strength of
Napoleon, and never forgot the lesson he had learned. All through his
life he really believed what most people profess to believe, that the
wages of sin is death.

From this standpoint of a belief in moral causes as governing the
standing and falling of States, he sought to understand the source of
the political humiliation of Germany, and he found it in the petty
jealousies and childish narrow-mindedness of the little German States.
Once convinced of this, long before the unity of Germany came within
the sphere of practical politics he labored earnestly to bring it
about. He was not slow to perceive that the arrogance of Napoleon and
the shame and despair of Germany brought with them the germ of a better
state of things. In the first place, Napoleon reduced the number of
small German States from something like three hundred to thirty. This
in itself was no small step towards national unity. In the second
place, the anguish and humiliation endured in common by the German
populations animated them with a common purpose to throw off the yoke
of their oppressor. This was a beginning of a new national life. As
Stockmar expressed it, “The people had come to know that hitherto they
had had no Fatherland; and from that hour they cherished the resolve
_to have one_.”

Stockmar never believed that bad morals could be good politics. It
was his creed that wrong-doing brings with it its own inevitable
retribution. Immediately after the _Coup d’état_ in December, 1851, he
said that out of the elements with which its success had been secured,
the devil only could form a stable Government, and that he did not
believe in the possibility of a permanent rule for his black majesty.
His biographer, writing early in 1870, remarks that it yet remained to
be seen whether Stockmar’s prediction would be fulfilled. Within a few
months all doubt on the subject was ended by the cannon of Sedan and
the downfall of the Second Empire.

A character like Stockmar’s, with a fixed political and wholly
impersonal end in view, is never lacking in self-confidence; he never
for a moment swerved from his aim, though after 1848 he realized
that he would never probably live to see it accomplished. The fact
that practical statesmen thought his dream of German unity under the
leadership of Prussia a “bee in his bonnet,” did not in the least
disturb him. He went on diligently “laying the seed corn,” as he
himself described it, in other minds, quietly, almost secretly, knowing
that once planted it would grow. After the downfall of the hopes of
German unity in 1848, Stockmar was not discouraged, nor would he allow
discouragement in others. He used to say, “The Germans are a good
people, easy to govern; and the German Princes who do not understand
this, do not deserve to rule over such a people. Do not be frightened,
for younger ones are quite unable to estimate how great is the progress
which the Germans have made towards political unity. I have lived
through it, and I know this people. You are marching towards a great
future. You will live to see it, not I; but then think of the old man.”

Stockmar’s policy was constantly directed towards:--

 1. German unity under the headship of Prussia; and subsidiary to
 this:--

 2. A cordial understanding and alliance between England and Germany;

 3. The harmonizing of democracy with the throne through constitutional
 monarchy.

An apparent accident enabled him to obtain a place in the world of
European politics, from which he could work for these ends. Born in
1787, the son of a lawyer in the little German town of Coburg, nothing
could have appeared less likely than that Christian Friedrich Stockmar
would have any weight in settling the affairs of nations. But having
been trained for the medical profession, and having distinguished
himself for courage and organizing capacity as an army surgeon, he was
appointed physician in the household of Prince Leopold on the occasion
of his marriage to Princess Charlotte in 1816. This introduced him to
political personages in England. From henceforth we have flashes from
the bull’s-eye lantern of Stockmar’s letters on the great world of
English politics. Nothing escaped his notice, and he gives a series of
vignettes of the Royal circle very different in tone from the formal
adulation which often characterized such productions. The Mulatto
countenance of the Queen-mother, Queen Charlotte; the hideous face of
the Duke of Cumberland, with one eye turned quite out of its place;
the quiet kindliness of the Duke of Kent; the erect figure, with black
hair simply cut, immense hawk’s nose, tightly compressed lips, strong,
massive under-jaw of the Duke of Wellington, with his easy, simple,
friendly manners, and his moderation at table, are all noted; so are
Castlereagh’s bad French and not very good English; the Grand Duke
Nicholas (afterwards the Emperor Nicholas of the Crimean War), “a
singularly handsome, attractive young fellow, ... very well mannered,
with a decided talent for flirting.... When Countess Lieven played
after dinner on the piano he kissed her hand, which struck the English
ladies present as peculiar, but decidedly desirable.” Those who are
apt to take alarm at the advent of “The New Woman” will perhaps learn
with surprise that she is not so very new after all. Mrs. Campbell,
Lady-in-Waiting to Princess Charlotte, “opposes everything she sees and
hears, and meets everything that men can say or do with such persistent
contradiction that we can tell beforehand what will be her answers
to our questions. This lady, however, professed man-hater though she
was, thought with the rest of the women that the Grand Duke Nicholas
was charming.” Mrs. Campbell could not cease praising him. “What an
amiable creature; he is _devilish handsome_. He will be the handsomest
man in Europe,” &c. Stockmar notes the hoidenish manners, good heart,
and strong will of Princess Charlotte. “Handsomer than I expected,
with most peculiar manners, ... laughing a great deal, and talking
still more.” He was, evidently, rather shocked by her want of decorum,
but he noted with satisfaction the simplicity and good taste of her
dress. He was devoted to his master, and predicts that the Princess’s
impressionable, generous nature will develop and improve under his
influence and that of a refined and affectionate home, which the poor
child had never known. The Princess herself said to Stockmar: “My
mother was bad, but she would not have become as bad as she was if my
father had not been infinitely worse.” Stockmar was devoted to Leopold,
and spoke of him in a private letter as “My glorious master, a manly
prince and a princely man.” Leopold, on his side, spoke of Stockmar
as “the most valued physician of his soul and body.” In the Royal
household at Claremont he was treated by both the Prince and Princess
as a friend, and he fulfilled the duties of private secretary as well
as physician to his master. His good sense made him decline to act as
medical adviser to Princess Charlotte. This office should, he felt,
devolve on an English doctor. This may have been either fortunate for
himself or unfortunate for the poor Princess,--probably the latter; as
there are reasons to believe that he would have prescribed a rational
treatment in the place of the purging, bleeding, and general lowering
of the system which caused her death within a few hours of the birth of
her stillborn son. In that dark hour of the loss of all his hopes of
domestic happiness and political ambition, Leopold leant on the firm
devotion of Stockmar. He made Stockmar promise never to forsake him.
Kneeling at the bed where his young wife lay dead, Leopold said, “I am
now quite desolate. Promise me always to stay with me.” He promised.
Again later the Prince reminded him of his promise, and asked him if
he had considered all that it meant. He renewed the promise; but even
in this moment of supreme emotion he was not carried away, for he did
not promise unconditionally. “I said I would never leave him as long as
I saw that he confided in me and loved me, and that I could be of use
to him.” He added, in writing an account of all that had happened to
his sister, “I did not hesitate to promise what he may perhaps claim
forever, or, perhaps, even next year, may find no longer necessary to
him.” Without building too much on his being permanently necessary to
the Prince, he knew that he was necessary to him at the moment. No
elder brother was ever more tender than Stockmar to Leopold at the
time of his bereavement. He never left him, he slept in his room; if
the Prince woke in the night Stockmar got up and talked him to sleep
again. He watched over him morally and physically, and devised remedies
and occupations for him. He encouraged him to stay in England and to
devote himself to the study of the English language and literature
and constitutional history, and to interest himself in the social and
political questions of the day. It is probably a universal experience
that love and service go together. One never loves, either human beings
or causes, till one has done something for them. Therefore the more
Stockmar served Leopold the more he loved him; and the relation between
them became almost unique in Royal annals.

He lived with Leopold almost continuously in England till 1831, when
his master was chosen King of the Belgians; the limited monarchy of the
Belgian Constitution was as much the work of Stockmar as that of the
King. Stockmar returned to England as soon as the birth of the Belgian
monarchy was safely accomplished, to wind up the affairs consequent
on Leopold’s relinquishment of his English annuity; and when this was
completed he retired to Coburg, in 1834. Stockmar had strongly advised
Leopold on ascending the Belgian throne to give up the £50,000 a year
which the House of Commons voted him on his marriage with Princess
Charlotte. Leopold consented to do so, charging it, however, with his
debts, amounting to £83,000, and with the keeping up of Claremont,
the residue to be repaid to the Treasury. Greville’s comment on this
arrangement is that the odds were none of it would ever reach the
Treasury, and that Leopold would be back before the debts were paid.
However, events proved that he had underestimated Leopold’s capacity,
and the durability of the Belgian monarchy. In the storms of 1848, the
constitutional thrones of England and Belgium, both of them owing much
to Stockmar’s political genius, stood firm and strong when nearly every
other in Europe was shaken.

In 1834 it was Stockmar’s purpose to retire into private life at
Coburg; however, we soon find him engaged in arranging a marriage
between Prince Ferdinand of Coburg, a cousin of Prince Albert’s, and
the Queen of Portugal; and in May, 1837, he returned to England to
furnish help and advice to Princess Victoria immediately upon her
attaining her majority. This event took place on May 24th, 1837, and
Stockmar arrived at Kensington on the 25th. The King was even then very
ill, and it was certain that the Princess would soon become Queen.
Stockmar had known her intimately from her birth, and his presence in
England was of the greatest use and assistance to her. George IV. and
William IV. had both employed private secretaries. Stockmar arranged
that no similar appointment should be made by the young Queen, having
in mind that when the time came the proper private secretary would
be found in the person of the future husband. The duties of private
secretary were therefore divided, as had been seen, between himself,
Lord Melbourne, and Baroness Lehzen, formerly the Queen’s governess.

Stockmar’s chief work at this time was that of political tutor to the
Queen. He drilled her in the principles of constitutional monarchy.
In this he was not helped, but was thwarted, by Melbourne, who, as a
strong party man, desired to enlist the Sovereign as a partisan of the
Whigs. Stockmar’s doctrine ever was that the Sovereign was chief, not
of a faction, but of the whole nation; that her moderating influence
should be brought to bear on successive party leaders, who from time
to time might be tempted to sacrifice national interests to party
triumphs; that for “the perfect working of the English constitution,
the Sovereign should not only set the example of a pure and dignified
life, but should be potential in Cabinet and Council, through a breadth
of view, unwarped by the bias, and undistracted by the passions, of
party, and also, in the case of a long reign, through the weight of
an accumulated knowledge and experience, to which not even the most
practised statesmen could lay claim.”

It is needless to say that the eighteen-year-old Queen did not at once
appreciate this lofty view of her position and functions. This was
reserved for a later period, after she had learned from some of her own
mistakes, and when she had associated with her as “permanent Minister,”
Stockmar’s other pupil, the Prince to whom, in 1840, she gave her hand
in marriage.

We know that Leopold had long ago settled who The Queen’s husband
should be; but it is characteristic of Stockmar’s independence that
he was at first by no means sure that his master had made the best
choice. He had been so much away from Coburg that he did not know
Prince Albert intimately. Leopold sent him as travelling companion
to the young Prince on his journey to Italy in 1838, but Stockmar
still had his doubts of Prince Albert’s strength and energy. He found
in him a certain lethargy of mind, and disposition to spare himself
both physically and mentally; a tendency to impulsiveness, without
the continuous motive-force to carry through what he had conceived.
He was startled to find in the future husband of the Queen of England
an almost entire want of interest in politics; the Prince, in 1838,
wished there was only one newspaper, _The Augsburg Times_; and he did
not even read that! Stockmar also found the Prince lacking in ease and
grace of manner. He admitted the Prince’s many good qualities and great
intelligence, but wrote, “All this, however, does not yet suffice. He
must not only have great capacity, but true ambition and great strength
of will.... I will watch him closely, and endeavor to become better
acquainted with him. If I find that at all points there is sufficient
stability in him, it becomes a matter of duty that the first step taken
should be to explain to him all the difficulties of the undertaking.”

It is characteristic of Stockmar that even after he was convinced
that he had at first underestimated the Prince, and that it would be
impossible to make a better choice of a husband for the Queen, he
did not allow politics did not exclude morals; the next step after a
suitable education for the Prince was that he should win the affection
of the Princess, so that the marriage should be founded on a stable
basis of mutual love.

Nothing could be more erroneous than to suppose that Stockmar gained
his great influence with the Queen and Prince by judicious flattery.
Affection and admiration he had in abundance for both of them; the
Prince especially he came to love as a son; but his rule of conduct
with them and with all other Royal personages was to speak out fully
and frankly what was in his mind, not at all to echo what he thought
was in theirs. He did not in this nor in other things act so much by
instinct as by settled rule. “If you are consulted by princes to whom
you are attached,” he wrote to the Belgian Minister, M. Van de Weyer,
“give your opinion truthfully, boldly, and without reserve. Should your
opinion not be palatable, do not, to please or conciliate him, deviate
for a moment from what you think the truth.” It was this absolute
sincerity which gave his advice its weight and value. His early letters
to the Prince are characterized by sharp criticism, such as few young
men in any position would take in good part; and it is very much to
the credit of the Prince that he was able to do so; for instance, on
leaving England in 1841, Stockmar wrote a long letter to the Prince, in
the course of which he dwells on the tendency he had observed in him to
be carried away “by impulses and predilections for men and things which
spring from mistaken or perverted feeling. This tendency, which on a
close self-scrutiny you will find to be the result either of weakness
or vanity, should because of its very origin be most strenuously
subdued. The same defect too often leads your Royal Highness, even in
matters of moment, to rest satisfied with mere _talk_, where _action_
is alone appropriate. It is, therefore, not merely unworthy of you, but
extremely mischievous.”

Later, in 1847, although his affection for the Prince had grown
greatly, and his confidence in his character still more, he calls
him sharply to task for regarding the movement in German politics
from a too exclusively dynastic standpoint, and also, with imperfect
information, for expressing an opinion at all; he tells the Prince
that he fails, from lack of knowledge and dynastic prejudice, rightly
to grasp and appreciate the actual present condition and wants of the
German people; that the current of opinion among thinking people in
all classes in Germany was running strongly towards the conviction
that the chief impediments to German national life were the dynastic
sentiments, the pride and self-seeking of the numerous German princes;
he declares that no men are so ignorant as the German princes of what
was going on around them, and that their ignorance, arising from class
prejudice, blinds them to their own true interests, which really lay
in the direction of the development of political liberty among their
people. He implores the Prince not to come out with a ready-made plan
for the regeneration of the Fatherland, which would only betray his
ignorance of the vital facts of the situation, and show him to be out
of harmony with the spirit and tendency of the age. Nothing could be
more outspoken than the whole of the letter, which covers more than
seven pages of the biography of the Prince Consort. It shows Stockmar
at his best as political preceptor to the Prince, and the Prince at his
best as pupil, accepting the lecture with frankness and humility, and
without a trace of resentment.

It appeared from time to time that the Queen was extremely sensitive
as to the precedence of the Prince, especially in relation to foreign
Sovereigns, and that she desired to confer on her husband the title
of King Consort. Stockmar was strongly opposed to this. On a report
reaching him in Coburg in 1845, that the matter was about to be
broached, he wrote to the Prince: “What can it be which has led to the
reopening of that report?... Meanwhile on this head I write a word
of warning and entreaty. Never abandon your firm, lofty, powerful,
impregnable position in order to run after trifles. You have the
substance; stick by it, for the good of your wife and children, and
do not suffer yourself to be seduced even by the wishes of affection
into bartering substance for show.” It was not till 1857 that effect
was given to the wishes of the Queen, and the title of Prince Consort
was conferred on her husband by Letters Patent. In the letter from
the Prince conveying this news to Stockmar he remarks that for nearly
nineteen years he has valued above all others his old friend’s judgment
on matters concerning himself, and he had the satisfaction of learning
that Stockmar’s objection to a change in his title had been abandoned.
Stockmar’s independence of Court forms and ceremonies was illustrated
by his habit of slipping away after his numerous and prolonged visits
to the Queen and her husband, without telling any one he was going or
bidding farewell to his Royal hosts. They would come to his rooms to
find him gone. The same disposition was also shown towards the close
of his life by his entirely ceasing to reply to the Prince Consort’s
constant letters. Stockmar, though not by any means very old, had many
of the infirmities of age, and was disinclined to write; therefore he
did not write, though the Prince frequently begs quite pathetically for
“one little line.”

In the earlier years of the Queen’s married life Stockmar watched her
development and that of her husband with eyes partly parental and
partly pedagogic. He wrote to Bunsen in 1847:--

 “The Prince has made great strides of late.... Place weighty reasons
 before him, and at once he takes a just and rational view, be the
 subject what it may.... He will now and then run against a post and
 bruise his shins, but a man cannot become an experienced soldier
 without having been in battle and getting a few blows.... His temper
 is thoroughly free from passion, and he has so keen and sure an eye
 that he is not likely to lose his way and fall into mistakes. His mind
 becomes every day more active, and he devotes the greater part of his
 time to business, without a murmur. The relations between husband and
 wife are all one could desire. The Queen also improves greatly. She
 gains daily in judgment and experience. The candor, truthfulness,
 honesty, and fairness with which she judges of men and things are
 really delightful, and the impartial self-knowledge with which she
 speaks of herself is thoroughly charming.”

It was Stockmar’s habit, rarely departed from between 1840 to 1856,
to spend the winter months of each year with the Queen and Prince,
and the rest of the year with his own family in Coburg. His political
activity and interests were vigilantly kept up from his own home, but
he compares the outlook on politics in Coburg and London with strong
preference for the latter. London, he says, is a high watch-tower, from
which he could command the whole of Europe, and Coburg, “a little hole
in an old stove.”

He was equally at home in organizing a nursery establishment for the
Queen and Prince, in directing the religious and general education of
the Royal children, in planning and carrying out extensive reforms in
the Royal household, in setting the private financial affairs of the
Sovereign on a sound footing, and in far-reaching schemes of political
development. He often combined the domestic with the political in a
manner that was almost feminine. His chief political object in life was
the unity of Germany under the leadership of Prussia, and secondary
to this, the development of a good understanding between England
and Prussia, and the spread of Constitutional monarchy all over the
Continent. It was indirectly to serve all these ends that he strongly
advised, on the birth of the Prince of Wales, that the King, Frederick
William IV., of Prussia should be invited to England to be godfather
to the young heir. The King of Hanover, we learn, was furious at
this. But Stockmar hoped that the visit of the King of Prussia would
promote friendly personal relations between the two Royal Houses; it
is probable that he already had his eye on the little Princess Royal
as the future bride of Prince Frederick William of Prussia; he also
expected that the King of Prussia would be favorably impressed by the
free political institutions of England, and become less averse to their
establishment in his own country. Stockmar’s method of recommending
Constitutional government to foreign princes was to use every suitable
opportunity for having them invited to the English Court, so that the
advantages of free institutions might insensibly commend themselves
by way of object lessons. Palmerston was also a great admirer of the
free institutions of his country; but his way of recommending them to
foreign governments was to write despatches from the Foreign Office
in London to the English ambassadors in various capitals of Europe,
with instructions that these documents were to be communicated to the
respective governments to which the ambassadors were accredited, to
say how vastly superior the English system of government was to that
pursued by the benighted foreigner. To have the same end in view and
to pursue it by diametrically opposite methods is an almost certain
receipt for personal animosity; and it is not too much to say that
Stockmar and Palmerston were actively hostile to each other all through
the former’s participation in English political life. Yet Palmerston,
along with other English statesmen, cordially acknowledged Stockmar’s
absolute honesty and disinterestedness, and also his great political
capacity. Palmerston spoke of Stockmar to Bunsen as the only perfectly
disinterested character he had ever met with in the political world;
and again on another occasion he said Stockmar had one of the best
political heads he had ever met with. Stockmar did not return the
compliment. He could not forgive Palmerston for pursuing good ends by
wrong methods; he accused him of a narrow insularity, of being flippant
and obstinate at the same time; one good quality he allowed him,--that
he was not a Frenchman. The antagonism between these two opposing
forces in the great world of politics had an important bearing on
the personal history of the Queen and her husband, which will be the
subject of a future chapter.




CHAPTER IX.

THE NURSERY.


The courage of the Queen on the occasion of the attempt by Oxford upon
her life was enhanced by the fact that it took place a few months
before the birth of her first child. The Queen’s natural courage was
perhaps fostered on this and other occasions by her having so much
to do and to think of besides her own personal concerns. During the
months when she was awaiting the birth of her first child, she was
up to the eyes in politics. In 1840 there was a premonitory rumbling
of the storm in the East, which has so frequently broken the rest
of Europe. France was fractious, and imagined herself slighted by
England, and in the summer and autumn of 1840 it looked several
times as if the two countries were on the brink of war. The Queen,
writing to her uncle, the King of the Belgians, said: “I think our
child ought to have, besides its other names, those of Turco-Egypto,
as we think of nothing else.” If it were true that home duties and
political duties were incompatible, the Royal children would have had a
sadly-neglected childhood; but it is a matter of experience that busy
people are usually those who find time for everything, and the Queen
and her husband were no exception to the rule. There is probably not a
mother in England who has given more loving thought and care for her
children’s welfare than Her Majesty has done. The children and her love
for and pride in them are constantly mentioned in the Queen’s Journals.
In the letters from Princess Alice to the Queen, published as a
memorial of the former, she repeatedly refers to her happy childhood
and her desire to pass on a similar training to her own little flock.
Under the date of January 1st, 1865, Princess Alice writes to her
mother: “All the morning I was telling Louis” (her husband) “how it
used to be at home, and how we all assembled outside your dressing-room
door to scream in chorus ‘Prosit Neujahr,’ and to give to you and papa
our drawings, writings, &c., the busy occupation of previous weeks....
Dear papa bit his lip so as not to laugh.”

The Princess Royal, now the Empress Frederick of Germany, was born at
Buckingham Palace on November 21st, 1840. Prince Albert was then having
a course of reading in English law with Mr. Selwyn; the tutor arrived
on November 23d to continue his instructions. The Prince said: “I fear
I cannot read any law to-day.... But you will like to see the little
Princess.” He took the lawyer into the nursery, and, taking the little
hand of the infant in his own, said, “The next time we read it must
be on the rights and duties of a Princess Royal.” The Queen made an
excellent recovery; then, as always, the Prince was her tender guardian
and nurse. No one but himself ever lifted her from her bed to the sofa,
and he always helped to wheel her on her bed or sofa to the next room.
However occupied he was, “he ever came,” writes the Queen, “with a
sweet smile on his face.” In short, his care of her was like that of a
mother, nor could there be a kinder, wiser, or more judicious nurse.

At Christmas this year, Prince Albert naturalized the German custom of
Christmas-trees in England; there is probably hardly a child in England
who has not appreciated their introduction.

It may be imagined that Stockmar had plenty of good advice to give
the young parents. One of his wise saws was, “A man’s education begins
with the first day of his life.” He undertook in the early years of
the Queen’s marriage the organization of the nursery department. In
one of his letters he says: “The nursery gives me more trouble than
the government of a kingdom would do.” The Princess Royal was always
the child nearest his heart. He had an immensely high opinion of her
abilities. “I hold her,” he said, “to be exceptionally gifted, even to
the point of genius.”

Curiously enough, Melbourne was also consulted (1842) by the Queen and
Prince upon the organization of the nursery, and the choice of a lady
to preside over it.

The Princess showed almost from the day of her birth a very remarkable
degree of intelligence. Numerous anecdotes are given of her cleverness
and droll sayings as a little girl. The refrain of most of the stories
about the Royal children is the Princess Royal’s intelligence, and
the merry, happy, affectionate disposition of the Prince of Wales.
The little Princess was christened on the anniversary of her parents’
marriage, February 10, 1841, and received the names of Victoria
Adelaide Mary Louisa. Two days after this, the Prince had a narrow
escape of a painful death, for, in skating on the lake in the gardens
of Buckingham Palace, he broke through the ice into deep water.
Fortunately the Queen, who was on the bank, did not lose her presence
of mind, but did the right thing for affording the Prince the immediate
assistance necessary.

The birth of the Prince of Wales followed very soon after that of
the Princess Royal. On Lord Mayor’s Day, November 9, 1841, the Queen
gave birth to her eldest son. Greville notes with some impatience
that the usual formalities were not observed upon this occasion.
“From some crotchet of Prince Albert’s,” he writes, “they put off
sending intelligence ... till so late that several of the dignitaries
whose duty it was to assist at the birth, arrived after the event
had occurred, particularly the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lord
President of the Council.” The Queen probably thought that this was one
of the customs more honored in the breach than in the observance, and
in this the majority of her subjects would agree with her. The Queen’s
Diary records that on November 21, 1841, the Princess Royal’s first
birthday, “Albert brought in dearest little Pussy (the Princess Royal)
... and placed her on my bed, seating himself next her, and she was
very dear and good. And as my precious invaluable Albert sat there,
and our little love between us, I felt quite moved with happiness and
gratitude to God.” At Christmas time in this year the Queen’s entry is:
“To think that we have two children now, and one who enjoys the sight”
(of the Christmas-trees) “already, is like a dream.” And the Prince,
writing to his father on the same occasion, says: “To-day I have two
children of my own to give presents to, who, they know not why, are
full of happy wonder at the German Christmas-tree and its radiant
candles.”

It has been already noted how and why Stockmar urged the selection of
the King of Prussia as one of the godfathers of the Prince of Wales,
and that the King of Hanover was furious at being passed over. He did
not easily forget it when he considered himself slighted, and when the
Queen, very magnanimously, invited him to be godfather to Princess
Alice in 1843, he vindicated his dignity by arriving too late for the
christening. He further endeavored to balance the account between
his niece and himself by being rude to her husband. Greville says
that one day at Buckingham Palace he proposed to Prince Albert to
take a walk with him in the streets. It has already been mentioned
why the Prince never went anywhere unattended, and the same reason
rendered it undesirable that he should be unaccompanied except by the
King of Hanover. He therefore excused himself, saying they would be
inconvenienced by the crowd of people. The King replied, “Oh, never
mind that. I was still more unpopular than you are now, and I used to
walk about the streets with perfect impunity.” This little pleasantry
was pointed by the fact that a feeling of antagonism against Prince
Albert was growing up in certain sections of the community, which a few
years later reached quite serious dimensions.

It may be mentioned here that the Queen has all through her life shown
herself remarkably free from feeling implacable resentment even against
those whose conduct she has at various times most strongly condemned,
or against whom she may have been prejudiced. This characteristic,
which will be illustrated later by her relations with Lord Palmerston,
Lord Beaconsfield, Louis Philippe, and others, was demonstrated now by
her magnanimity to her uncle Ernest, King of Hanover. He had plotted
against her; had made things uncomfortable for her mother and herself
before her accession; had refused, what she particularly valued, to
yield precedence to her husband; had, in a dog-in-the-manger spirit,
declined, after he became King of Hanover, to give up apartments in St.
James’s Palace which were wanted for the Duchess of Kent; in short, had
lost no opportunity of showing himself unfriendly and disagreeable; yet
when her third child was born, Princess Alice, on April 25th, 1843, she
invited this uncle, who was a personification of the wicked uncle of
fairy tales, to be the new baby’s godfather.

In 1844, very soon after the birth of a fourth child, Prince Alfred,
now Duke of Coburg, the Queen and Prince paid a visit to Scotland,
taking the Princess Royal with them. After this the Royal visits to
various parts of the kingdom were rendered doubly interesting to the
Queen’s subjects by the presence of one or more of the blooming group
of the rapidly growing family of children. The Prince wrote to his
stepmother of this visit to Scotland: “Pussy’s cheeks are on the point
of bursting, they have grown so red and plump; she is learning Gaelic,
but makes wild work with the names of the mountains.”

The Dowager Lady Lyttelton was appointed governess to the Royal
children. One of her letters to her own daughter, dated 1844, begins,
“Dearest mine daughter, as the Prince of Wales would say.” On the third
visit to Scotland, in 1847, the two elder children accompanied their
parents. The Queen says, in “Leaves from a Journal in the Highlands,”
“the children enjoy everything extremely, and bear the novelty and
excitement wonderfully well.” On this occasion the Royal party visited
the Duke and Duchess of Argyll at Inverary, and the Queen writes,
describing their reception, “Outside stood the Marquis of Lome, just
two years old, a dear, white, fat, fair little fellow with reddish
hair, but very delicate features, like both his father and mother; he
is such a merry, independent child.” This was the Queen’s first sight
of her future son-in-law.

On Her Majesty’s first visit to Ireland,[19] in 1849, she took her four
eldest children with her (many of us wish she had gone before and gone
oftener). She received an intensely enthusiastic welcome. The sight
of the Royal squadron entering the magnificent harbor at Kingstown,
and the loyalty of the reception of the Queen on landing, made a deep
impression. _The Times_ said:--

 “It was a sight never to be forgotten,--a sound to be recollected
 forever. Ladies threw aside the old formula of waving a white
 pocket-handkerchief, and cheered for their lives, while the men,
 pressing in so closely as to throng the very edges of the pavilion,
 waved whatever came first to hand,--hat, stick, wand, or coat,--and
 rent the air with shouts of joy which never ceased in energy till
 their Sovereign was out of sight.... The Royal children were objects
 of universal attention and admiration. ‘Oh, Queen, dear!’ screamed a
 stout old lady, ‘make one of them Prince Patrick, and all Ireland will
 die for you.’”

Almost every one has a sovereign remedy for Irish disaffection; but few
are so easy of application as this. The Queen adopted the old lady’s
suggestion; the child born next after the Irish visit, on the Duke
of Wellington’s birthday, May 1st, 1850, was named Arthur after that
great Irishman, and Patrick after Ireland’s patron saint; the Irish
associations of his name were kept up by his taking the title of Duke
of Connaught when he reached man’s estate.

Between the birth of her second and third sons, the Queen had had
two more daughters, the Princesses Helena and Louise (now Princess
Christian of Schleswig-Holstein and Marchioness of Lorne), born
respectively on May 25th, 1846, and March 18th, 1848. The name selected
for the elder of these two new daughters had a double significance.
She was named Helena, not only after her godmother, the Duchess of
Orleans, but also to remind English people of what they sometimes
forget, that the Empress Helena, mother of Constantine, through whom
the Roman Empire was brought over to Christianity, was a British
princess, daughter of Coel, King of Camalodaum (now Colchester). Prior
to the birth of Princess Louise, the Queen had gone through a time of
very serious anxiety in regard to political affairs. The revolutionary
movement of 1848 was at its height, and though England passed through
it safely, yet no one could know at the time that it would do so,
and especially that the Chartist movement would not develop in the
direction of revolutionary violence. In the early months of this year
the Queen had made ready all the rooms at Windsor to receive the
fugitive Royal Family of France, who arrived one after another in so
forlorn a condition that Her Majesty had to clothe as well as shelter
them. The Prince’s step-grandmother, the Dowager Duchess of Gotha,
who had been almost a mother to him in his childhood, died just at
this time. On every side there appeared trouble and misfortune in both
public and private affairs. The Prince wrote on February 29th:--

 “What dismal times are these.... Augustus, Clementine, Nemours, and
 the Duchess of Montpensier, have come to us one by one like people
 shipwrecked. Victoire, Alexander, the King, the Queen, are still
 tossing on the waves, or have drifted to other shores.... France is
 in flames; Belgium is menaced. We have a ministerial, money, and tax
 crisis; and Victoria is on the point of being confined. My heart is
 heavy.”

It was in this depression that the courageous heart of the loving woman
cheered and sustained that of her husband. As soon as she was able to
write after the birth of the new baby, she wrote to her uncle Leopold:--

 “From the first I heard all that passed; my only thoughts and talk
 were politics. But I never was calmer, quieter, or less nervous. Great
 events make me calm; it is only trifles that irritate my nerves.”

The letter in which the Prince announced to Stockmar the birth of
Princess Louise contains an expression which invites criticism;
he writes: “I have good news for you to-day. Victoria was safely
delivered this morning, and _though it be a daughter, still_ my joy
and gratitude are very great,” &c. The Prince is only responsible for
the sentiment, not for the italics; but why should it be necessary to
write in this way of the birth of a daughter even in the dark backward
and abysm of time of 1848? Mr. George Meredith writes of one of his
heroines that she had never gone through the various nursery exercises
in dissimulation, and “had no appearance of praying forgiveness of men
for the original sin of being a woman.” But here we have an even more
perverted sentiment than that presented by a woman apologizing for
being a woman; it is black ingratitude for one of the best gifts God
gives to man when either father or mother begrudges a welcome to a new
baby on account of its sex. The Queen, we gather, did not give little
girls a grudging welcome to this world; on the birth of her first
granddaughter, the Princess Charlotte of Prussia, in 1860, she wrote
of the news that “Vicky had a daughter.” “What joy! Children jumping
about--every one delighted.” The Prince, too, on this occasion wrote
to the Princess Royal of her little daughter, as “a kindly gift from
heaven,” and even says, “Little maidens are much prettier than boys. I
advise her to model herself on her Aunt Beatrice.”

The birth of Prince Arthur, in 1850, has been already mentioned. He was
a magnificent child, and the Queen took all a mother’s pride in his
beauty and his rapid growth. When Lady Canning was in waiting she tells
us of many private visits by the Queen to her in her room to talk about
politics and to show the beauty of the latest new baby; and of Prince
Arthur in particular she wrote on September 1st, 1850: “The children
... are grown very nice and pretty. Prince Arthur is a magnificent
child, and the Queen is quite enchanted to find he is bigger than the
keeper’s child at Balmoral of the same age, whose measurements she
carefully brought back. He has the Royal look I have heard grandmamma
talk about, which I think she said was so remarkable in the Queen when
a baby.”

The two youngest of the Queen’s nine children, Prince Leopold and
Princess Beatrice, were born respectively on 7th April, 1853, and on
14th April, 1857. The Queen’s letter announcing Prince Leopold’s name
to her uncle has already been quoted (see p. 24). She said it would
recall the days of her childhood to hear “Prince Leopold” again;
among his other names the little Prince was given that of Duncan, in
“compliment to dear Scotland.” His delicate constitution was a source
of anxiety from very early years. He was the only one of the flock of
Royal children whose health was not good. It fell to the happy lot of
the Princess Beatrice to be the special pet and plaything of her father
during the last years of his life, and also, as we all know, to be the
companion and solace of her mother in later years when all her other
daughters had married and left her. There are numerous instances in
the later volumes of the “Prince Consort’s Life” of his delight in his
youngest daughter, “the most amusing baby we have had.” He constantly
wrote about her droll ways and sayings to his married daughter in
Berlin. Thus in July, 1859, he wrote: “The little aunt makes daily
strides, and is really too comical. When she tumbles she calls out in
bewilderment, ‘She don’t like it, she don’t like it!’ and she came into
breakfast a short time ago (with her eyes full of tears) moaning, ‘Baby
has been so naughty, poor baby so naughty,’ as one might complain of
being ill, or having slept badly,” &c.

In the seventeen years from 1840 to 1857 the Queen had had nine
children, all but one of good physical constitution, all without
exception of sound mind, and several very markedly above the average
in intellectual vigor and capacity. She herself bore the strain of
her confinements without any permanent deterioration of her natural
vigor. The entry in the “Prince Consort’s Life” in reference to the
Queen’s health after the birth of her children usually is, “The Queen
made a rapid recovery, and was able within a few days to report her
convalescence to her uncle at Brussels,” or, “The Queen’s recovery
was unusually rapid.” Attention is drawn to these facts in order to
controvert the view put forward by the late Mr. Withers Moore, Sir
James Creighton Browne, and others, that intellectual activity on
the part of women is to be discouraged because it is supposed to be
incompatible with the satisfactory discharge of the functions of
maternity. The Queen throughout the whole of her married life down
to the present time, when she has considerably passed the proverbial
three-score years and ten of the allotted span of man’s existence,
has been immersed in political work, often involving decisions of
first-rate importance; she has therefore preserved her vigor of mind
and power of work unimpaired; and it is not unfair to conclude that old
age has come upon her “frosty but kindly,” partly because she never was
satisfied to regard her maternal duties on their physical side only.
A cow, a dog, or a lioness has the physical functions and passions of
maternity developed in all their beauty and perfection; but a human
mother has to aim at being all that animals are to their young, and
something more; if not, she is apt to get into the trough of the wave
of mere animalism, and in this case her children will find, when they
lose their babyhood, they lose their mother too. The Queen has always
as a mother set the best example to her subjects in this respect. Her
motherhood has been no mere craze of baby worship. She has ever kept
in view high aims for her children and grandchildren, encouraging them
to accept nobly the responsibilities and duties of their position. In
one of Princess Alice’s letters to her mother, written in 1870, she
replies to a letter from the Queen upon the bringing up of the little
family at Darmstadt; the letter is interesting as throwing a light upon
the Queen’s own aims in the education of her children. The Princess
writes:--

  “What you say about the education of our girls I entirely agree
  with, and I strive to bring them up totally free from pride of their
  position, which is _nothing_ save what their personal worth can make
  it. I read it to the governess, thinking how good it would be for her
  to hear your opinion.... I feel so entirely as you do on the
  difference of rank, and how all important it is for princes and
  princesses to know that they are nothing better or above others, save
  through their own merit; and that they only have the double duty of
  living for others and being an example good and modest. This I hope
  my children will grow up to.”

We are not, however, left to infer from the Princess’s letters what
were the Queen’s views on the education of her children; the “Prince
Consort’s Life” contains several memoranda written by Her Majesty
herself on the subject. One of these, written in 1844, says: “The
greatest maxim of all is--that the children should be brought up as
simply and in as domestic a way as possible; that (not interfering
with their lessons) they should be as much as possible with their
parents, and learn to place their greatest confidence in them in
all things.” The religious training of the children was given, as
much as circumstances admitted, by the Queen herself; it was based
on endeavoring to implant in the children a loving trust in God as
their Father, avoiding all extreme views, and not entering upon the
differences of creed. Her Majesty does not approve of the Athanasian
Creed forming part of the Church service, and does not suffer it to be
read in her chapels. The Queen’s children were not taught to dwell on
the supernatural features of the Christian religion, but rather upon
the pure and comprehensive morality which it teaches as its essential
and indestructible element; they were taught that the conditions of
belief in the former may and did vary in various stages of human
development, but that the latter was the bed-rock on which the whole
structure was founded.

The Queen and Prince, like other parents, took the keenest and most
intense delight in the evidence given from time to time that their
children had gifts of mind which would have fitted them to excel in
whatever position of life they had been placed. Frequent reference
will be found in the following pages to their pride in the remarkable
intellectual gifts of the Princess Royal, who was described while still
a young girl as having “a statesmanlike mind.” Their boys were trained
as carefully as if no royal road to distinction lay open to them. On
returning from their first visit to their married daughter in Prussia
in 1858, the Queen and Prince were met by the “delightful news that
Affie” (Prince Alfred, aged 14) “had passed an excellent examination”
(into the Navy) “and had received his appointment.” He met his father
and mother at the private pier at Portsmouth “in his middle’s jacket,
cap, and dirk, half blushing and looking very happy. He is a little
pulled down from these three days’ hard examination, which only
terminated to-day.... We felt very proud, as it is a particularly hard
examination.”

[19] The Queen visited Ireland again in 1853 to open the International
Exhibition in Dublin; and a third time in 1861, when the Prince of
Wales was going through a course of military training at the Curragh.




CHAPTER X.

HOME LIFE.--OSBORNE AND BALMORAL.


It has already been remarked that the Queen throughout her reign has
shown herself a thorough woman in being a good domestic economist. It
was quite in accordance with this trait in her character that she and
the Prince very early in their married life set themselves the almost
Herculean task of the reform of the Royal Household. They found it
in thorough disorganization, replete with confusion, discomfort, and
extravagance. Various branches of the domestic service in the palaces
were under the Heads of Government Departments; no one was responsible
for the order and good administration of the whole. To give some idea
of the prevailing confusion, Stockmar’s memorandum on the subject
may be quoted where he points out that the Lord Chamberlain cleans
the inside of the windows, and the Wood and Forests the outside. The
degree of light admitted to the palace therefore depended on a good
understanding between the two. Again, “The Lord Steward finds the
fuel and lays the fire, the Lord Chamberlain lights it.... In the
same manner the Lord Chamberlain provides all the lamps, and the Lord
Steward must clean, trim, and light them.” If a pane of glass in the
scullery had to be replaced, or a broken lock mended, a requisition
had to be signed and counter-signed by no fewer than five different
officials before the expenditure was finally sanctioned by the Woods
and Forests, or the Lord Steward, as the case might be. Some of the
servants were under the Lord Chamberlain, some under the Master of the
Horse, some under the Lord Steward; as neither the first nor second of
these State officials had any permanent representative in the palace,
more than two-thirds of the male and female servants were left without
any master or mistress at all. They came and went as they pleased,
and sometimes remained absent for hours, or were guilty of various
irregularities, and there was no one whose duty it was to control them.
There was no one official responsible for the cleanliness, order,
and security of the palace; and if the dormitories where the footmen
slept, ten and twelve in a room, were turned into scenes of riot and
drunkenness, no one could help it. So little watch was kept over the
various entrances to the palaces, that there was nothing to prevent
people from walking in unobserved, and, as a matter of fact, shortly
after the birth of the Princess Royal, a boy did walk into Buckingham
Palace in this way, and was accidentally discovered at one o’clock in
the morning under a sofa in the room adjoining the Queen’s bedroom.
The stupidity, disorganization, and wastefulness of the whole thing
were boundless; the only redeeming point was that there appeared to
be no corruption. Her Majesty might find it impossible to get her
dining-room warmed because of a coolness between the Lord Chamberlain’s
and the Lord Steward’s departments; but she was not called upon to
pay for fuel she had never received, or for services that had been
discontinued since the death of Queen Anne. Some idea of the scale in
which the housekeeping at Windsor is conducted may be gathered from
the fact that in one year (1842), which does not appear to have been
in any way exceptional, as many as 113,000 people dined there, so that
there was a magnificent scope either for waste or economy. The reform
of the Household was carried out on lines suggested by Stockmar, but
in a manner thoroughly congenial with English precedent. The three
great State officers between whom the control of the Household was
shared, were retained, but their duties were delegated to one official,
the Master of the Household, who was always to be resident at Court,
and who was made responsible for the good government of the Royal
establishments. It is easy to mention in three lines that the thing was
done, but its actual accomplishment was by no means easy. A good deal
of opposition was encountered from the heads of both political parties,
as well as from those more directly interested in the abuses of the
old system, and the efforts of the Queen and her husband to introduce
internal economy and order into their home were not crowned with
success short of three years’ continuous effort, between 1841 and 1844.

The advantages of these reforms in household management could not
but commend themselves to so good an economist as Sir Robert Peel.
In 1844 the Queen had entertained at Windsor, on a scale of becoming
magnificence, the Sovereigns of Russia and France; and Peel had the
satisfaction of announcing in the House that the Royal visits had not
added one farthing to the burdens on the taxpayer. In former times,
during the visit, for instance, of the Allied Sovereigns in 1814, the
country had to pay for the entertainment of the Royal guests; but this
was now changed, and the Queen provided for her Royal and Imperial
guests out of the Civil List.

The little glimpse that has been given of life in a palace, where the
head of the house finds her housemaids under the Lord Steward, and
her pages under the Master of the Horse, enables us to understand
some of the satisfaction which the Queen enjoyed when she became
possessed of country homes, one in the Isle of Wight, and the other in
Scotland, that were entirely her own. When the purchase of Osborne was
just accomplished, the Queen wrote (March 25th, 1845) to her uncle at
Brussels, “It sounds so pleasant to have a place of one’s own, quiet
and retired, and free from all Woods and Forests and other charming
departments, which really are the plague of one’s life.”

The purchase of the estate and the building of the house, costing
something like £200,000, were met by the Queen without difficulty out
of her income, so greatly had her resources been practically increased
by good management and wise economy in the administration of the
household. In the same spirit the estates of the Duchy of Cornwall,
the property of the Prince of Wales, were carefully managed for his
benefit, so that a very large property from them awaited him as soon
as he attained his majority. The Prince Consort’s love for landscape
gardening found ample scope both at Osborne and Balmoral. The work was
for several years a constant source of recreation and delight to him.
Of Osborne in particular, he felt that he could say that the gardens
were his creation; there was hardly a tree in the grounds that had not
been placed there by him. Lady Canning wrote from Osborne in 1846,
in one of her private letters, “You will be pleased to hear of this
rural retreat.... Whatever it is, it perfectly enchants the Queen and
Prince, and you never saw anything so happy as they are with the five
babies playing round about them.” The Royal children had at Osborne a
place that was especially their own, a thing that all children love;
thousands of country homes all over England have some Noah’s Ark or
Pigs’ Paradise, where the boys and girls are masters of the situation,
and may carpenter, paint, cook, and cut their hands and burn their
fingers without let or hindrance from nurses or governesses. The
Royal children at Osborne had their Swiss Cottage. Here the boys had
a forge and a carpenter’s bench, or learnt the art of war by making
fortifications, and the girls had little gardens and kitchens and rooms
for their special games and pastimes; there was also a Natural History
museum which was a source of much interest and delight.

There is another feature of the gardens at Osborne which should be
mentioned, an immense myrtle-tree which was struck from a sprig of
myrtle from the wedding bouquet of the Princess Royal; every Royal
bride in the Queen’s family carries a piece of this myrtle with her to
the altar on her marriage-day. The Queen has twice sent sprays of this
myrtle as far as St. Petersburg, once in 1874, for the bridal bouquet
of her daughter-in-law, the Archduchess Marie, now Duchess of Coburg,
and once in 1894, for the bouquet of her granddaughter, the Princess
Alix of Hesse, now the wife of the Czar of Russia. On the former
occasion the myrtle was intrusted to the care of Lady Augusta Stanley,
and the Queen gave her special instructions how to revive it in tepid
water.

Osborne was a harbor of refuge to which the Queen and Prince could
run for a few days’ rest at any time when they felt their strength
almost exhausted from the constant pressure of political work and
responsibility; but they had an even more dearly loved holiday resort
in their home in the Highlands at Balmoral. The Prince was always
extremely sensitive to good air, and the smoky atmosphere of towns
was peculiarly oppressive to him; he used to exclaim on reaching the
pure country air, “Now I can breathe! Now I am happy!” The fine air
of Dee-side was life and breath to him. In addition to the benefit
to their health, the Royal couple delighted in Scotland for other
reasons, the chief of which was that they could enjoy there a degree
of freedom to which they were strangers elsewhere. Highland loyalty
is compatible with perfectly good manners, and the poor people round
Balmoral did not demonstrate their affection for their Sovereign by
staring at her as if she were a waxwork show, or dogging her carriage
or her footsteps whenever she went beyond her own gates. The Highland
servants combined perfect respect with independence of character. The
Queen delighted in them, and found real friends in several of them. The
Royal family could make little _incognito_ expeditions in Scotland,
and stay at small country inns as Lord and Lady Churchill and party,
without any danger of being found out; or if they were found out,
the people who made the discovery were too well bred to proclaim it,
and showed their loyalty by respecting the wishes of their Sovereign
to enjoy privacy. In the years before the Prince Consort’s death the
Queen’s Ladies-in-Waiting, writing from Scotland, frequently speak of
Her Majesty’s high spirits, her love of dancing, and her enjoyment of
rapid driving.

Lady Canning wrote in the autumn of 1848 from Balmoral:--

 “The Queen has been up a really high mountain to-day, and has come
 down quite fresh after many hours.... The Queen is more and more
 delighted with Balmoral. She makes long expeditions alone with the
 Prince and gamekeepers, and has never been so independent before....
 She went up Loch-na-gar, ... and the same evening entertained all the
 neighbors at dinner, and was as fresh and merry as if she had done
 nothing.”

Four years later, Lady Canning wrote again from Balmoral:--

 “The Queen is fonder than ever of this place, and the Prince’s
 shooting improves. The children are as merry as grigs, and I hear the
 Prince of Wales and Prince Alfred, who live under me, singing away out
 of lesson-time as loud as ever they can.”

Greville gives a description of the Royal Family at Balmoral, which
deserves notice, especially as he had seen so much of Kings and Queens,
and had no great affection for them; he was summoned to Balmoral for a
Council meeting in 1849, before the present house, which is on a larger
scale than the old one, was built; he writes:--

 “Much as I dislike Courts and all that appertains to them, I am
 glad to have made this expedition, and to have seen the Queen and
 Prince in their Highland retreat, where they certainly appear to
 great advantage. The place is very pretty, the house very small.
 They live not merely like private gentlefolks, but like very small
 gentlefolks,--small house, small rooms, small establishment.[20] There
 are no soldiers.... They live with the greatest simplicity and ease.
 The Prince shoots every morning, returns to luncheon, and then they
 walk and drive. The Queen is running in and out of the house all day
 long, and often goes about alone, walks into the cottages, and sits
 down and chats with the old women. I never before was in the society
 of the Prince, or had any conversation with him.... I was greatly
 struck with him. I saw at once (what I had always heard) that he is
 very intelligent and highly cultivated, and, moreover, that he has
 a thoughtful mind, and thinks of subjects worth thinking about. He
 seemed very much at his ease, very gay, pleasant, and without the
 least stiffness or air of dignity.”

He then mentions an excursion in the afternoon in two pony carriages to
the Highland gathering at Braemar, and that the evening wound up with
a visit from a Highland dancing-master, who gave all the party, except
himself and Lord John Russell, lessons in reels.

The Queen’s half-brother, Prince Charles of Leiningen, had been
their companion on one of the very early visits of the Royal Family
to Scotland. He died in 1856, and this loss was the first heart
grief that the Queen had been called upon to endure. She was very
tenderly attached to her half-brother and sister. The letters from
the latter[21] in the “Prince Consort’s Life” indicate that hers
was a noble soul, one of those beautiful natures, strong in love and
spiritual insight, who, whether born in the palace or the cottage, are
as a sheet-anchor to those who are baffled by the waves of sorrow and
suffering.

A rather curious incident in the Queen’s private life may here be
mentioned. A perfect stranger to her, Mr. Neale, died in 1852, and left
her a legacy of £200,000. Her Majesty, on hearing of this, at once
declared that if he had any relatives she would not accept the money;
but it appeared that he had none.

The various attacks that have been made on the Queen’s life belong
more, perhaps, to her private than to her public life, for they have
been the work of half-witted scoundrels rather than of political
desperadoes. In Ireland, when a murder is neither political nor
agrarian, it is sometimes described as “merely a friendly affair;” and
there is an undoubted satisfaction in the fact that the shots fired at
the Queen have had no political aim. The first attempt on her life has
been already recorded. On the second occasion the Queen again displayed
a very remarkable degree of courage, because she drove out alone with
the Prince when she knew that very probably she would be the aim of an
assassin’s bullet. It was in 1842, on Sunday, May 29, the Queen and
Prince were returning from the Chapel Royal, St. James’s, in a carriage
along the Mall, when the Prince distinctly saw a man step out from the
crowd, present a pistol full at them, and pull the trigger. He was only
two paces distant, and the Prince heard the trigger snap, so there was
no mistake about it. Fortunately, the weapon missed fire, and at first
the Prince thought that no one but himself had seen what had happened.
However, the attempt had been seen by two persons in the crowd, a boy
and an old gentleman; the old gentleman did nothing, but the boy came
the next day, and reported what he had seen at the Palace. The Home
Office and the police were communicated with, and there was naturally
a good deal of excitement on the part of the Queen and Prince. They at
once determined not to shut themselves up, but to take their drive as
usual, although they knew that the would-be assassin was at large. The
only difference they made in her usual habits was that they went alone,
without either a Lady-in-Waiting or a Maid of Honor in the carriage.
They took the precaution of giving orders to drive faster than usual,
and the Queen always drove fast, and two equerries on horseback
accompanied the carriage. Nearly at the end of their drive, between
the Green Park and the garden wall of Buckingham Palace, they were
shot at again by the same man who had made the attempt the day before.
When he fired he was only about five paces off. The shot, the Prince
wrote, must have passed under the carriage. The fellow (John Francis)
was immediately seized. He was not crazy, but just a thorough scamp,
“a little swarthy, ill-looking rascal.” The same evening at dinner the
Queen turned to one of her Maids of Honor, who had been rather put
out at not being required to attend the Queen on her drive, and said,
“I dare say, Georgy, you were surprised at not driving with me this
afternoon, but the fact was that as we returned from church yesterday
a man presented a pistol at the carriage window, which flashed in
the pan, and we were so taken by surprise he had time to escape, so
I knew what was hanging over me, and was determined to expose no
life but my own.” The Queen’s uncle, Count Mensdorff, was very proud
of his niece’s courage, and called her _sehr müthig_, which pleased
her very much, coming, as the compliment did, from a soldier who had
seen much service. Greville’s comment on the Queen’s conduct is:
“Very brave, but very imprudent.” A couple of months later, in July,
1842, another of these dastardly attempts was made on Her Majesty’s
life, this time by a hunchback named Bean. Oxford had been treated as
a lunatic, and sent to an asylum; Francis had been found guilty of
high treason, and sentenced to death; but, at the Queen’s strongly
expressed wish, the sentence had been commuted to transportation for
life. This leniency had been made public only the day before Bean’s
attempt, and the circumstance strengthened Her Majesty’s conviction
that an alteration in the law was desirable. Up to this time it was
only possible to deal with these outrages either as lunacy or as
high treason, for which the penalty was death. After Bean’s attempt
a Bill was immediately introduced, and carried, making such offences
punishable, as misdemeanors, by transportation, imprisonment, or
whipping. The substitution of an unromantic, but certain, punishment,
for a dignified, but uncertain one, had the desired effect, and these
scoundrelly attacks upon the Queen ceased to be fashionable in the
criminal world. Feints at attempted assassination were made in 1849 by
an Irish bricklayer, and in 1872 by a lad named O’Connor, who appears
to have been a Fenian; but the weapons used by these worthies were
not charged except with powder. In 1882 a man named Maclean fired at
the Queen as she was entering her carriage at Windsor Station. He was
found on trial to be insane. In June, 1850, she was struck on the face
with a cane by a man named Pate, who had been a lieutenant in the
army. The Prince Consort said this man was “manifestly deranged.” The
chivalrous nature of Peel was strongly moved by the attacks of Francis
and Bean, which took place while he was Prime Minister. After Bean’s
attempt he hurried up to town to see the Prince, and consult with him
on what ought to be done. While he was in conversation with the Prince
the Queen entered the room, and Peel’s emotion was so great that his
habitual self-control left him, and he burst into tears. When it is
remembered that only a few months earlier Greville had said, “Peel is
so shy he makes the Queen shy,” it is impossible not to surmise that
this touch of nature may have brought about the final breaking down of
reserve and coldness between the Queen and her Prime Minister.

In various memoirs of the time, little pictures are given of “the
Queen at Sea.” She is a good sailor, and thoroughly enjoys the element
over which Britannia rules. She likes sailors, and understands them.
Greville tells that nothing could be more easy and agreeable than
her demeanor on board her Royal yacht, “conversing all the time
with perfect ease and good humor, and on all subjects, taking great
interest, and very curious about everything in the ship, dining on
deck in the midst of the sailors, making them dance, talking to the
boatswain, and, in short, doing everything that was popular and
ingratiating.” He complains, however, that she was impatient, and
always wanted to be going ahead, and to do everything quickly; whereas
the genuine sailor has an unfathomable capacity for loafing. Lady
Bloomfield, when Miss Georgina Liddell, attended the Queen as one of
her Maids of Honor on a yachting cruise in 1843. She narrates how the
Queen and her ladies settled themselves for reading and work in a
very comfortable and sheltered place on deck, when they became aware
that the position they had taken up was the subject of something like
consternation to the captain and crew. The Queen laughingly inquired if
there was about to be a mutiny? The captain in the same spirit replied
that he could be answerable for nothing unless Her Majesty would be
graciously pleased to change her seat. The chairs of the ladies were
blockading the grog cupboard! As soon as the Queen was informed of
this, she consented to move her chair, on condition that she was to
share the sailors’ grog. On tasting it she said, “I am afraid I can
only make the same remark I did once before, that I think it would be
very good if it were stronger!” The hint was taken, and the sailors
were of course delighted by the Queen’s good-nature.

One more little home touch must conclude this chapter. Reference has
already been made to the Queen’s reluctance to part from the Prince
even for a few days. When it was necessary for him to leave her, he
kept her constantly supplied with diary-letters, showing that his
thoughts and heart were ever with her. On one of these absences,
occasioned by the death of his father, the Duke of Coburg, in 1844,
Prince Albert was away a fortnight. His own entry in his journal thus
records his return: “Crossed on the 11th. I arrived at six o’clock in
the evening at Windsor. _Great joy._”

[20] The new house at Balmoral was not finished till 1855.

[21] The Princess Feodore of Hohenlohe.




CHAPTER XI.

FORTY-THREE TO FORTY-EIGHT.


The Queen’s first visit to a foreign country took place in September,
1843, when she and the Prince visited Louis Philippe and his family at
Château d’Eu, near Tréport. It was not only the Queen’s first visit to
France, but the first time since the Field of the Cloth of Gold that
an English reigning sovereign had been in France; and even then the
meeting of the two sovereigns had taken place on English territory
near Calais. The Queen was enchanted with everything she saw. She had
to the full all the keen and vivid interest which is almost invariably
awakened by seeing for the first time all those innumerable little
differences in every-day things which make a first foreign visit such a
revelation. If she was delighted with France, she was no less so with
her hosts, the King of the French and his family. She had been for six
years Queen of England, and it was, perhaps, a refreshment to her to
associate with those who were not her subjects, but her equals. She
wrote in her journal, “I feel so gay and happy with these dear people.”
Louis Philippe, on his part, was extremely anxious to make her visit
agreeable to her. He highly appreciated the honor she was conferring on
him. The representatives of the ancient monarchies of Europe did not
view him with any cordiality. He was not king by divine right, but by
the choice of the French people; the rightful King of France, in the
view of the Emperors of Russia and Austria, was the exiled Comte de
Chambord, Henry V. as they called him. Hence Louis Philippe cordially
welcomed the social prestige which he gained by receiving a visit from
the Queen of England. The King expressed his obligations on this score
to Prince Albert over and over again.

The Earl of Aberdeen, the Foreign Secretary of the day, accompanied
the Queen and Prince to France. The English Foreign Office at this
time regarded with apprehension a scheme which they believed Louis
Philippe and his Minister, Guizot, had in view of strengthening
French interests in Spain by marrying one of the King’s sons to the
young Queen Isabella. Louis Philippe, on the occasion of the Queen’s
visit, assured her most positively, and Guizot said the same thing to
Aberdeen, that he had no wish or intention of the kind, that even if
his son were asked in marriage for the Queen of Spain, he would not
consent. The Queen of Spain and her sister the Infanta were then young
girls of thirteen and twelve respectively. The French King’s assurances
to our Queen went so far as a positive promise that even if one of his
sons should eventually marry the Infanta, he should not consent to the
union until after the Queen of Spain was married and had children. It
is necessary to go at length into the wretched story. Louis Philippe
and Guizot covered themselves with infamy. Through their influence
a hateful marriage was forced on Queen Isabella, her consent to it
being, it is said, wrung from her under the influence of intoxication;
from this marriage it was hoped and believed that no children would be
born. At the same time that this so-called marriage was announced, it
was also made public that the Infanta would be married to the Duc de
Montpensier, son of Louis Philippe. The two marriages took place on the
same day, October 10th, 1846. Well might Stockmar write of this odious
transaction, as “a political intrigue which exceeds in immorality and
vulgarity everything brought out in modern times on the theatre of
politics; a part which would have shut out any one who had attempted to
play it in the circle of private life from all respectable society.”

Our Queen was deeply incensed; her whole soul revolted from the
wickedness of the scheme, and she had the added bitterness of feeling
that Louis Philippe had been guilty of personal deception towards
herself. It was he who introduced the subject when she visited him
at Eu, and gave her assurances upon it, unsought by her, and lightly
broken by him. His way of announcing the project to her did not mend
matters. He was ashamed to broach the subject in a formal manner,
and he got his wife to tell the Queen as a detail of family news
in a private and friendly letter, speaking of it as if it were of
no political importance, but simply an event that would add to the
domestic happiness (“_le seul vrai dans ce monde_,” the poor Queen
Marie Amélie was made to say) of the French Royal Family. Our Queen’s
reply was exceeding dignified, severe, short, and self-restrained. It
left no doubt as to her sentiments; and nothing is more indicative of
Louis Philippe’s bad conscience in the matter than the fact, which
he himself admits, that he sat up till four in the morning on three
following nights composing a reply in which he endeavored in vain to
justify himself.[22]

It is of course quite open to doubt whether the English Foreign Office
had been justified in regarding with apprehension the possible
accession of a grandson of Louis Philippe to the troublous royalty of
Spain. Cobden and the school he represented in England did not think it
mattered a straw to England, from the political point of view, whom the
Queen of Spain married. But the transaction could not be looked at as
merely political. It was condemned throughout the length and breadth of
England as grossly immoral, and the disgust it occasioned was all the
greater on account of the pretensions to high motives and to religious
principles assumed by the French King and his Minister.

Events soon confirmed the views of the Queen and Prince, so often
inculcated by Stockmar, that sorrow will always be found dogging sin.
The Spanish marriages took place in October, 1846: in fifteen months
from that time Louis Philippe and the dynasty he hoped to found had
been swept away; the little Spanish daughter-in-law whose son he had
hoped might wear the crown of Spain was, with other members of his
family, fugitive in England, indebted for shelter and even clothing to
our Queen, who forgot all her resentment, and gave them a most kind
welcome. Nothing came about as Louis Philippe had planned. The Queen
of Spain had children; her grandson is now the baby King of Spain, and
Louis Philippe’s great-grandson, exiled from France, is addressing
futile[23] proclamations from English soil, to assure the French people
that when they want him, which they show no sign of doing, he is ready
to ascend the throne of his ancestors. It has been remarked that a
strange fatality attended on many of the chief actors in the Spanish
marriages. The French Minister at Madrid, M. Bresson, committed suicide
in 1847. Louis Philippe and his dynasty were overthrown in 1848.
Queen Isabella was deposed in 1868. Her son, Alfonso XII., married his
cousin Princess Mercedes Montpensier. She died, not without suspicions
of poisoning, within a year of her marriage; and he died, while still
quite a young man, before the birth of his only son by his second
marriage. Before the accession of Alfonso XII., the question of a
successor to Queen Isabella was the proximate cause of the French and
German War of 1870-71.

Cobden, travelling in France very shortly before the outbreak of 1848,
saw nothing which led him to expect any political disturbance; he
believed the future to promise nothing but tranquillity and commercial
development, and that Free Trade spelt “peace on earth.”

Stockmar was a Free Trader too, but he had learnt that that which
is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit
is spirit. He did not look for spiritual results from purely
material causes; and perhaps his vantage-ground on what he called
the watch-tower of London, or even his position at the “hole in the
stove” in Coburg, enabled him to gauge more correctly than Cobden
the political forces of the time. He had foreseen the outbreak of
revolution, as the result to be expected from despotism and bad
government on the Continent, added to the misery and destitution
of the great masses of the people. The storm of 1848 did not find
him unprepared; and in England and Belgium, where the principles of
constitutionalism, as understood and taught by him, had taken firm
hold, were almost the only countries in Europe where revolution did not
get the upper hand.

But although this was so, 1848 was a sufficiently serious time in
England. In Ireland the misery of the people had amounted to actual
famine, and notwithstanding everything that lavish expenditure and
devoted services, both by public servants and private individuals,
could do, hundreds of thousands perished from starvation or its
attendant pestilence. In the Union of Skibbereen nearly the whole
population, 11,000 persons, perished. The shopkeepers of the little
Kerry town of Kenmare told the writer of these pages in 1870 that
during the worst months of the famine of 1847 they seldom took down
their shutters in the morning without finding one or two corpses in the
street, poor things who had been living in the mountains and had just
had strength to crawl down into Kenmare to die. And what was famine in
Ireland was the bitter pinch of scarcity in England and Scotland. In
February, 1847, wheat was 102 shillings a quarter; added to this there
was a general sense of alarm and absence of security, bringing with it
want of capital, want of employment, want of wages. There was hardly
a house, rich or poor, that was not suffering loss; but while to the
rich the loss meant giving up luxuries which only custom had made seem
necessaries, to the poor it meant actual want and privation;[24] when
men are low and miserable, and feel they have nothing to lose, is the
time when revolutionary propaganda works like wildfire among them.
There was an avowedly revolutionary political party in Ireland, always
ready to take advantage of any difficulty the Government might be in,
foreign or domestic, in order to harass and thwart them. “Refuse us
this” (repeal of the Union) O’Connell had said in 1840, when war with
France hung in the balance about the Eastern Question, “and then in
the day of your weakness dare to go to war with the most insignificant
of the powers of Europe.” In 1848, the mantle of O’Connell had fallen
on John Mitchel, who, in his paper called _The United Irishman_, gave
instructions for the successful carrying on of revolutionary street
warfare; he recommended the covering of the streets with broken glass
to lame the horses of the soldiery, and suggested that the citizens
should provide themselves with missiles to throw from the houses;
these, he said, could be used with great effect from the elevation of a
top story, especially if forethought had been used to provide “boiling
water or grease, or, better, cold vitriol if available. Molten lead
is good, but too valuable; it should always be cast in bullets and
allowed to cool.” This and a great deal of similar rubbish was poured
forth day by day, or week by week, in the rebel papers. It would be
harmless enough in an ordinary way; but amid the excitements of 1848,
and addressed to such an excitable people, it might have proved a
spark in a powder magazine. Mr. Mitchel proclaimed his intention of
committing high treason, but he was arrested before he had had an
opportunity of doing so. A deputation of Irish revolutionists was
sent to the Provisional Government in Paris to demand “what they were
sure to obtain, the assistance of 50,000 troops for Ireland.” The
French Government absolutely declined the proposal, and said they
were at peace with Great Britain, and wished to remain so. Mitchel
was sentenced to transportation, and the heads of the deputation to
Paris were found guilty of high treason and sentenced to death. Their
sentences were, however, commuted to transportation, and then the fate
which so often throws a ludicrous aspect over Irish revolutionary
affairs overtook them; they denied the right of the Crown to reduce
the severity of their sentences, and demanded that they should either
be set at liberty, or hanged, drawn, and quartered,--a request which it
is needless to say was disregarded.

But Ireland was not the only source of anxiety; there was a threatening
of riot and pillage in Scotland, and one very serious rising took
place near Glasgow. It was suppressed through the personal and moral
courage of the Sheriff of Lanarkshire, Sir Archibald Alison; but if
it had been successful the whole of the manufacturing district of the
West of Scotland would probably have taken fire. In England danger
appeared to threaten from the Chartist movement. The Chartists gave
notice that they intended to assemble at Kennington Common 500,000
strong, on the 10th April, 1848, and to march thence to the House of
Commons, there to present their petition, which they said had received
nearly 6,000,000 signatures. It is rather significant that Englishmen,
even when they talk revolution, can, when it comes to action, think
of nothing less constitutional than the presenting of a petition to
Parliament. Sampson, the servant in _Romeo and Juliet_, is the typical
English revolutionist. “Is the law on our side if I say--ay?” However,
the Queen, the Ministry, and the whole country were alarmed. In London
thousands of special constables voluntarily enrolled themselves,
as a civil force, to help the military, if need were, to maintain
order. The Duke of Wellington as Commander-in-Chief, directed special
preparations for the defence of London; but with this usual good sense
he took care that not a single extra soldier or piece of artillery
was to be seen on the eventful day. The Admiralty, Horse Guards, and
Treasury were strongly garrisoned and filled with arms; there were 800
men with cannon in Buckingham Palace, and steamers and gunboats lay
in readiness on the river. Country gentlemen garrisoned their London
houses with their gamekeepers armed with double-barrelled guns. As
everybody knows now, it all ended in smoke. The 10th of April, 1848,
came and went; the Chartists met at Kennington, not 500,000, but
about 25,000 strong; their petition contained not six million, but
about two million signatures, a very large proportion of which were
fictitious. About 8,000 men from the mass meeting walked in procession
towards Westminster. On being met on the bridge by a police force, and
informed they would not be allowed to cross in mass, they bowed to the
inevitable, and sent their petition to Parliament in three four-wheeled
cabs! In this humble and unromantic manner ended the English revolution
of ‘48. The whole movement was overwhelmed with ridicule, from which it
never recovered, and the ordinary law-abiding people felt ashamed that
they had allowed themselves ever to believe in its seriousness.

Constitutional government was stronger than it knew itself to be. It
was easy to be wise after the event; but before, many brave hearts had
failed them for fear. The Queen was, of course, specially affected by
events on the Continent, as the monarchs whose rule was being either
overturned or threatened were in many instances her relations and
friends. She wrote on the 6th March to Stockmar, “I am quite well,
indeed particularly so, though God knows we have had since the 25th
enough for a whole life,--anxiety, sorrow, excitement.” On the very
day on which the Queen wrote, a mob had rushed to Buckingham Palace,
breaking lamps and shouting, “Vive la République!” However, their
leader, when arrested, began to cry! so that he could not be considered
a dangerous revolutionist.

It was in the midst of all this excitement that Princess Louise was
born, on March 18th, 1848. With all the fear caused by the anticipation
of the Chartist movement on April 10th, it is not surprising that the
Prime Minister, Lord John Russell, strongly urged the removal of the
Court to Osborne. It is not impossible that the three-weeks-old baby
was even more persuasive than the Prime Minister. However this may
be, the Queen left London for Osborne on April 8th, not without some
criticism from Greville. Greville was nothing if not critical; he
had blamed Sir Robert Peel for resigning in 1844, and thus causing a
ministerial crisis when the Queen was near her confinement, and he now
blamed Lord John Russell for advising the Queen to go to Osborne with
her new-born infant, in anticipation of a Chartist riot in London on
April 10, 1848.

There was an immense feeling of relief all over the country when the
day passed off so quietly. The popular feeling in London was manifested
by the cheers which greeted the Duke of Wellington when he turned out
early the next morning to his post at the Horse Guards. The Prince
wrote to his private secretary on April 11th, “What a glorious day was
yesterday for England.... How mightily this will tell all over the
world!” The utter inability of the revolutionary germ to thrive in
the soil of constitutional liberty was the lesson of 1848. Repeated
illustrations of the same fact have been given in more recent times.
After the explosion in Greenwich Park in 1894, caused by the Frenchman
Bourdin, the police seized an anarchist club near Tottenham Court Road,
and caught a gang of eighty men representing the anarchist propaganda
in London. Every man but one was a foreigner, and the solitary
Englishman was a journalist who had come, not to revolutionize, but to
get copy for his paper!

With characteristic conscientiousness the Queen and her husband did
not rest content with the fact that the social peace of England
was not endangered. They felt there never would have been even the
anticipation of danger, unless there had been much in the condition of
the poorer classes which called for redress. They had not been many
days at Osborne before they sent for Lord Ashley (better known to
this generation as Lord Shaftesbury), and asked his advice as to what
could be done to render more happy the condition of the poor. This was
a subject which, as is well known, was to Lord Ashley, not merely an
occupation, but a passion. His whole life, from youth to old age, was
given to it; almost his last words, at the age of 85, when he knew
he was dying, were: “I cannot bear to leave the world, with all the
misery in it.” The Prince could not, therefore, have sent for a better
counsellor. They had a long conversation in the gardens at Osborne.
The Prince asked for advice, and how he could best assist towards the
common weal. “Now, sir,” replied Lord Ashley, “I have to ask your Royal
Highness whether I am to speak out freely, or to observe Court form.”
“For God’s sake,” said the Prince, “speak out freely.”

Lord Ashley then advised him to throw himself into movements to promote
the social well-being of the masses of the people, and to show in
public that he was doing so. On the Prince asking for more detail,
Lord Ashley urged him to come and see for himself how the poorest
people in London lived; to go into their houses, and he offered himself
to conduct the Prince over houses in St. Giles, near Seven Dials.
He also urged him to take the chair a month later at the meeting of
the Laborers’ Friend Society, and (with the little bit of worldly
wisdom that guileless people so often pride themselves on) to come in
semi-state, with several carriages, four horses, outriders and scarlet
liveries. The Prince felt he ought not to consent to all this without
asking Lord John Russell’s advice; but he gave a conditional consent.
Lord John, however, was hostile, and offered strong opposition to the
Prince acting on Lord Ashley’s advice. However, Lord Ashley stuck to
his guns. He admitted that in any strictly political matter the Prince
was bound to abide by the advice of the Prime Minister, but on a matter
like this he advised the Prince to tell Lord John that “Your Royal
Highness is as good a judge as he is.” Lord Ashley finally prevailed,
and the Prince took the chair at the Laborers’ Friend meeting on May
18th, 1848. The outriders and the scarlet liveries were not omitted,
and the Prince made a speech which Sir Theodore Martin says first
fairly showed the country what he was, and gave a very important
impulse to the manifold movements towards social improvement which have
been so marked a feature of the present reign. Thus out of the “nettle,
danger,” we were enabled “to pluck the flower, safety.”

[22] The poor excuse put forward by Louis Philippe was that the English
Foreign Secretary, then Lord Palmerston, was manœuvring to bring about
a marriage between a Coburg Prince and the Queen of Spain. There was
no foundation for this charge; but Louis Philippe seems to have had a
terror of Lord Palmerston which deprived him of all self-control, and
capacity for judging of evidence.

[23] See _Times_, January 18th, 1895.

[24] Greville anticipated that the troubles of the time would affect
him to the extent of the loss of half his income. He did not whine,
but said, though he should not like it, he hoped and believed he could
accommodate himself to the necessary change in his habits without
repining outwardly or inwardly.




CHAPTER XII.

PALMERSTON.


With none of her Ministers has the Queen ever been in sharper conflict
than with Lord Palmerston. From his third Foreign Secretaryship in 1846
till his dismissal in 1852, the history of their relations was one long
struggle.

Palmerston considered himself the political inheritor of Canning’s
foreign policy, and that he was bound, as the representative of England
to foreign Governments, to be the upholder of political liberty and
the foe of tyranny and oppression all over Europe. In this he carried
with him the whole-hearted sympathy of the mass of English public
opinion. It was not with his opinions and views, but with his way of
giving effect to them, that the Queen quarrelled. But the English
people were not in a position at the time the conflict was going on
to make the distinction. They knew that the Queen and Lord Palmerston
were pulling different ways, and that Lord Palmerston was the friend of
Hungary, and Poland, and Italy; and in proportion as they gave their
sympathy to these countries and to Lord Palmerston, they were hostile
to the Court. Now, as their personal loyalty to the Queen was very
strong, they sought to find a reason for the Queen’s opposition to
Lord Palmerston, and they found it, or thought they found it, in the
person of the Prince. The Queen’s husband was supposed to be a power
behind the throne thwarting the will of her constitutional advisers in
the interests of foreign despots. The popular view was that the Prince
ruled the Queen, and that Stockmar ruled the Prince, and therefore
that the policy of the court was not English, but German. That this
was a complete misunderstanding, the publication of the “Prince
Consort’s Life,” besides many other political memoirs and memoranda,
has abundantly shown. But it was a very natural mistake, and from it
arose, not altogether, it is to be feared, without the connivance of
Lord Palmerston, a degree of hostility against the Prince which reached
an extraordinary height during the early part of the Crimean War.

The question between the Queen and Lord Palmerston is no longer
obscured by side issues; at no time was it based upon a divergence of
political views. What the Queen, and the majority of Lord Palmerston’s
colleagues in the Government, no less than the Queen, objected to, was
his way of sending despatches, calculated seriously to embroil England
with foreign Governments, either entirely without their knowledge
and concurrence, going through the form of submitting despatches to
them for their criticism and approval, and then actually sending off
something entirely different. The despatches submitted by the Foreign
Secretary to the Cabinet and to the Queen, and materially altered
by them, would be sometimes recast by Palmerston in accordance with
his original draft, and thus the Ministers and Sovereign were made
to appear to have consented to that of which they had disapproved.
At other times he would send important despatches to the Queen for
her approval, allowing her quite an inadequate time to digest their
contents, almost forcing the suspicion that he wished her to give her
assent without knowing what they contained. When this practice was
complained of by the Prime Minister, Palmerston excused himself by
saying that the practice of sending off early copies of despatches
for the Queen’s perusal had been discontinued, owing to pressure of
work in the office; “but if it shall require an additional clerk or
two, you must be liberal,” he wrote to Lord John Russell, “and allow
me that assistance.” This plea of economy came rather strangely
from a Foreign Secretary who in 1841 had appointed five new paid
_attachés_ without the smallest necessity, and who in one year had
spent £11,000 in coach-hire to convey messages to overtake the mails
with his letters. The fact is that Lord Palmerston was the sworn
foe of despotism everywhere, except in the Foreign Office, when he
was Foreign Secretary. In the Foreign Office he reigned supreme and
absolute, and would suffer no control either from his colleagues or
his Sovereign. With all this, it was impossible not to like him. He
had a jollity, a _bonhomie_, a complete absence of rancor against
those who had wrestled with him and thrown him, an easy elasticity, a
buoyant faith in himself and in England, which won the hearts of his
countrymen. He made mistakes and went through humiliations that would
have crushed or imbittered any other man, without losing a jot of his
buoyancy and self-confidence. He pursued his own line of policy with
incomparable nerve and tenacity. If he triumphed, he crowed; if he was
defeated, no one would guess it from his demeanor; he would be cutting
his jokes the next day as “game” as ever. No nature could have afforded
a greater contrast to that of the Prince Consort; and while one from
sheer force and vigor, and the other by position and character, were
prominent among the leading politicians of their day, they were certain
to be in sharp and almost perpetual conflict. He thought the Prince’s
hope of German unity a mere dream, impossible of fulfilment, and an
alliance between England and Germany, therefore, entirely useless to
ourselves. This brought them into political conflict just as their
characters brought them into personal conflict. Two or three instances
will suffice to illustrate what Palmerston was at the Foreign Office.
In 1819, the Neapolitans being in insurrections against the infamous
misgovernment under which they suffered, Lord Palmerston supplied
them with war material out of the stores of the English Government
without the knowledge or consent of his colleagues. Now it may be
right or wrong to sympathize with insurgents; but for a Government of
another country to supply them with arms is an act of war, of which no
single Minister has the right to undertake the responsibility. On this
occasion Palmerston was compelled to make a formal official apology to
the King of Naples. A question asked in the House of Commons was the
first intimation the Prime Minister, Lord John Russell, had of what his
colleague had done.

One of the special objects of Palmerston’s abhorrence was Austria; and
it was a state of mind with which there was much sympathy in England.
Neither in Italy nor in Hungary could the English people regard the
Austrian Government otherwise than as a cruel and perfidious tyranny.
This national feeling had burst out in England on the occasion of the
visit to London in 1850 of the Austrian General Haynau. In Italy and
Hungary the name of this man was associated with acts of barbarous
cruelty in putting down the national movement. He was especially
charged, and the charge was universally believed in England, with
the responsibility of having ordered the flogging of women among the
Hungarian insurgents. When in London he made a visit to Barclay’s
brewery. The draymen and other employés got wind who their foreign
visitor was; they gathered together in the yard of the brewery, and
rushed upon him with a torrent of abusive epithets; the general cry
was, “Down with the Austrian butcher;” they dropped a truss of straw
upon him, pelted him with small missiles, and tore his coat, and
knocked his hat over his eyes. He and his friends fought their way out
of the brewery, only to find an equally warm reception outside from the
people in the streets; he was again pelted, struck, and dragged along
the road by his mustache. He finally got shelter in the upper part of
a public-house, and the police contrived his escape by the river. The
general feeling in the country was “serve him right;” but the Queen was
seriously annoyed, and dwelt, not without justice, on the cowardice
of an attack by a whole mob upon a single unarmed man. At the desire
of the Queen, Palmerston expressed in person to the Austrian _chargé
d’affaires_ the regret of the Government at the incident; but at the
same time advised that no prosecution should be instituted by Haynau,
as this would involve a minute recapitulation of the barbarities of
which he was accused. Palmerston’s private opinion on the affair was
expressed in a letter to Sir George Grey, the Home Secretary, in
which he says: “The draymen were wrong in the particular course they
adopted. Instead of striking him, ... they ought to have tossed him in
a blanket, rolled him in the kennel, and then sent him home in a cab,
paying his fare to the hotel.” It may be easily imagined that he did
not cordially respond to an order to send a formal written apology to
the Austrian Government, and there was a prolonged duel between Lord
Palmerston on the one side, and the Prime Minister and the Queen on the
other, upon the wording of it. As originally drafted by Palmerston,
it contained a paragraph implying that it would have shown better
taste on the part of General Haynau to take his autumn holiday nearer
home. This was corrected in the draft by the Prime Minister, and the
correction was indorsed by Her Majesty; the amended despatch was then
returned to the Foreign Secretary, who, in the mean time, had sent off
to the Austrian Government the despatch as originally drawn by himself.
Then began a regular pitched battle. Palmerston said he would rather
resign than withdraw the despatch and substitute the one approved by
the Queen and Prime Minister. Sir Theodore Martin says that Palmerston
ultimately gave way. Greville says he never did. Mr. Evelyn Ashley
says nothing. It is certain that the Haynau incident was for years
considered enough to account for the hostility of Austria to England.
It was for this that Austria alone of all the great Powers refrained
from sending a representative to the Duke of Wellington’s funeral; and
some people thought it was this that prevented her joining her forces
to those of England and France in the Crimean War. But Palmerston was
not long in giving Austria other items to add to her account against
England.

When Kossuth was in England in 1851, he having been the leader of
the unsuccessful Hungarian insurrection against Austria, he was
received with tremendous enthusiasm all over England. The Austrians
were furious, and their anger was intensified by the report that
Lord Palmerston was going to receive him at the Foreign Office.
Many politicians thought that this would be regarded by Austria as
equivalent to a declaration of war. The Cabinet remonstrated, and
Palmerston, to their relief and surprise, yielded. A day or two after
this, Greville saw Lord John Russell and Palmerston at Windsor, “mighty
merry and cordial, laughing and talking together. Those breezes leave
nothing behind, particularly with Palmerston, who never loses his
temper, and treats everything with levity and gayety.” But Palmerston
docile was more dangerous than Palmerston pugnacious. The next week
he was receiving addresses at the Foreign Office from Finsbury and
Islington, thanking him for the protection he had given to Kossuth,
and for the sympathy he had shown to the Hungarian cause. In his
reply he gave warm expression to his sympathy with Hungary, and spoke
of the position of the British Government as that of the “judicious
bottle-holder” during the conflict between Hungary and her foe. The
phrase has been remembered after the occasion on which it was used has
been forgotten. The people applied it to Palmerston himself, and liked
him all the more for it. But the proceeding was strongly and formally
censured in the Cabinet and by the Queen. Her Majesty’s anger was not
appeased by those who told her that although the Emperor of Austria
might be angry, the action of the Foreign Secretary was not unpopular
with the English people. Her Majesty replied:--

 “It is no question with the Queen whether she pleases the Emperor of
 Austria or not, but whether she gives him a just ground of complaint
 or not. And if she does so, she can never believe that this will add
 to her popularity with her own people.”[25]

Lord John communicated the Queen’s views to Lord Palmerston, and he was
especially cautioned as to the future upon “the necessity of a guarded
conduct.” Lord John writing to the Queen was sanguine enough to hope
that this remonstrance would “have its effect upon Lord Palmerston.”
The ink of his letter was hardly dry when like a clap of thunder came
the news of the _coup d’état_ in Paris; Louis Napoleon, then President
of the Republic, had had his political opponents seized in the night
and thrown into prison, nearly 500 persons were shipped off to Cayenne
without any form of trial, thousands were shot down in the streets, and
the Prince President became first by military force and then by popular
election Napoleon III. and Emperor of the French.

The Queen, true to her principles of non-intervention, at once wrote
to the Prime Minister, instructing him to caution Lord Normanby, our
ambassador in Paris, to observe strict neutrality, and to remain
absolutely passive towards the new Government. Lord Palmerston
accordingly sent a despatch to Lord Normanby in that sense. At the
same time, however, that he was sending his despatch to Paris, he was
seeing Count Walewski, the French ambassador in London, and expressing
his entire approbation of the _coup d’état_ and his conviction that the
President could not have acted otherwise than he had done! On the 16th
December he followed this up by a despatch to Lord Normanby, expressing
his conviction that the action of Louis Napoleon was for the benefit
of France and also of the rest of Europe. This despatch was sent off
without the knowledge or approval of the Queen or the Prime Minister,
and in contravention of their express wishes. This was the end. Lord
Palmerston was dismissed, not at the instance of the Queen, but with
her entire approval. Lord John Russell offered him, as a consolation,
the Lord Lieutenantcy of Ireland and a British Peerage, both of which
were curtly declined. The general opinion of the political world was
that Palmerston’s career was over. Disraeli spoke of him in the past
tense, as if he were dead. There was tremendous rejoicing over his fall
in every stronghold of despotism in Europe, especially in Austria,
where the heads of the Government took credit to themselves for his
overthrow, and gave balls in honor of the event; a rhyme was current
in Austria at the time which expresses the feelings Palmerston had
awakened:--

  “Hat der Teufel einen Sohn,
  So ist er sicher Palmerston.”[26]

In the debate in the House of Commons which followed these events,
Lord John made a most successful speech, in which he showed the
impossibility of working with a colleague who deliberately defied
the express views of the whole Cabinet; he read the memorandum drawn
up by the Queen for Lord Palmerston’s guidance on the occasion of a
former dispute. In this paper Her Majesty had claimed her right to
know distinctly what the proposals were to which she was asked to give
her sanction, and, secondly, that, having once given her sanction to
a despatch, it was not to be arbitrarily altered or modified by the
Minister. She also claimed her right to be kept informed of what passed
between the Foreign Secretary and the ambassadors before important
decisions were taken, and to receive the despatches in good time, so
that she could acquaint herself with their contents. Lord John Russell
completely carried the House with him. It was felt that the demands
of the Queen and the Cabinet had been strictly reasonable, and that
it would be impossible to carry on the business of the country on
any other basis. Lord Palmerston practically had no defence, and he
abandoned any attempt to manufacture one. Of the Queen’s memorandum he
said not a word. Greville says the effect of Lord John’s speech was
prodigious, and that Palmerston’s reply was weak and ineffective. He
had resigned the seals of the Foreign Office before Parliament met,
and Lord Granville had been appointed his successor. He bore the whole
position with admirable good temper. He received Lord Granville with
the greatest cordiality, spent three hours with him putting him in
possession of the threads of his diplomacy, spoke of the Court without
bitterness, and in strong terms of the Queen’s “sagacity,” and ended
by offering to give any information or assistance that was in his
power. He pursued the same line of conduct when in a few weeks Lord
John Russell’s Government fell and was succeeded by Lord Derby’s; Lord
Malmesbury becoming Foreign Secretary. Palmerston at once came to see
him, and offered to coach him in Foreign Office policy. He gave the
new Foreign Secretary a masterly sketch of the _status quo_ in Europe,
as well as general hints upon the principles by which English policy
should be guided; the pith of these was, “Keep well with France.” By
this means, though ousted from office, Palmerston remained practically
the director of the policy of the Foreign Office.

All the contemporary records agree upon the main outward and visible
facts; but they are provokingly silent upon Palmerston’s real motives.
He was neither a hot-headed youth, acting on the impulse of the
moment, neither was he “an old man in a hurry;” he was sixty-seven
years old, about the prime of life for a statesman, and steeped to
the lips in an absorbing interest in England’s foreign politics. His
whole tradition had been to oppose despotism and support civil and
political liberty against despots all over Europe. Why did he go out
of his way to establish, so far as he could, a cordial understanding
with a despot who was also an upstart, and whose Government was founded
on violence, and carried on by crushing every vestige of liberty in
France? Some have thought an answer could be found in his hostility
to the Orleans family; but this does Palmerston less than justice. It
is true he hated Louis Philippe, and rejoiced in his fall, which he
attributed to the King’s perfidy about the Spanish marriages. When the
French King was fugitive in England, Palmerston had tried to prevent
his receiving the shelter of Claremont, although the Government really
had no business whatever to interfere, as Claremont had been settled
for his life on Leopold, King of the Belgians, and if he chose to lend
it to his father-in-law, no one else had any business in the matter.
Louis Philippe died in 1850, and in 1851, although Palmerston said the
Orleans Princes were plotting for a restoration, and if Louis Napoleon
had not struck when he did, he would himself have been overthrown, the
excuse was not a good one. Some contend that Palmerston was afraid of
the red spectre in France, and thought Louis Napoleon the only man
capable of laying it. But Palmerston was not afraid of the reds in any
other European country. The real explanation of his conduct must be
sought elsewhere. At the end of 1851, it required no superhuman power
of prophecy, especially to one who surveyed Europe from the watch-tower
of the London Foreign Office, to foresee that the time was approaching
when England would have to face the alternative of either relinquishing
her traditional policy of maintaining the integrity of the Ottoman
Empire, or fight Russia in order to sustain it. Palmerston, it need
hardly be said, was all for fighting; but the question was whether
England would face Russia alone, or whether Russia would restore the
Holy Alliance, and thus lead a combination of European powers against
England; or whether, as a third possibility, England could succeed
in isolating Russia and in obtaining an ally for herself. It is not
extravagant to suppose that it was to make this third possibility a
probability that Palmerston hastened to make friends with a man whom
he could not have trusted, and whose cruelty and despotism he must
have loathed. It was impossible for England to look for any other ally.
Russia, Austria, and Prussia were wild against England, regarding her
as the great stronghold of constitutional principles, and believing
that to her encouragement was due the revolutionary outbreak of 1848.
The immunity of England herself from disorder did not open their
eyes to see that it was their own misgovernment which had produced
revolution. It only rendered them the more furious, as they believed
that England had preached insurrection, while other Governments bore
its penalties. It was touch-and-go in the first year of Napoleon III.’s
reign whether he would try to put himself at the head of a European
combination against us, or whether he would become our ally and fight
one of the other Powers. He certainly believed that war was necessary
in order to divert the attention of France from domestic politics, to
conciliate the army, and thus on both sides to consolidate his own
position. The almost universal feeling in England was that he was
going to fight us. The common opinion was that the new Emperor’s first
thought would be to avenge Waterloo. By 1853, however, Louis Napoleon
had decided not to fight us, but to fight with us against Russia. This
was due more to Palmerston than to any other Englishman.

Greville reports a conversation early in 1853 between himself and
Comte de Flahault (afterwards French ambassador in London), who had
just returned from Paris, where he had been in constant communication
with the Emperor. Flahault said that the rancor and insolence against
England on the part of Austria, Russia, and Prussia, were almost
inconceivable; he added that Louis Napoleon had offered to him in
the first year of his reign a position which it had been the object
of his uncle’s life to attain,--the leadership of a European league
against us; that he decided to decline these flattering overtures,
and to consolidate his alliance with England. Flahault went on to
say that he had supported Louis Napoleon in this determination, and
had represented to him that the Northern Powers had long withheld
any recognition of his Imperial position; whereas England had at
once recognized him, and that if she had not done so, probably the
acknowledgment of the other Powers would have been still further
delayed. Flahault represented to Greville that, greatly to his
surprise, the Emperor had wholly concurred in this view.

It is needless to say that the importance of this conversation is not
derived from its truth, but from its representing what Louis Napoleon
wished to be believed in England in the spring of 1853. He was strongly
desirous for his own purposes of the English alliance, and knew that
it was the only one he could hope for at that time in Europe. So far
from declining flattering proposals from the Czar, his vanity had just
been bitterly wounded by the absolute refusal of the Russian monarch to
greet him as “_mon frère_.”

There can be little doubt that Palmerston availed himself of the
Emperor’s isolated position in Europe, and “captured” him as an ally of
England. It was the wish to secure him more surely that made Palmerston
endeavor in 1852-3 to promote a marriage between Louis Napoleon and the
Queen’s niece, the Princess Adelaide of Hohenlohe. There was a definite
proposal made to bring this about, the Emperor stating that his wish
was to _reserrer les liens entre les deux pays_. The offer was declined
by the Queen on behalf of her niece, on the ground of the latter’s
youth and inexperience. In 1854, another matrimonial project between
the two families was started with the same object, between Princess
Mary of Cambridge and Prince Jerome Napoleon. Malmesbury heard of it,
and said he hoped it was not true, for the sake of the Princess; but it
was strongly pressed by Palmerston on the Queen, and was only put an
end to by the Princess’s absolute refusal to listen to it.

If Palmerston ever believed in the Emperor’s fidelity to the
English alliance, he did not do so permanently.[27] All through the
negotiations which finally led up to the Crimean War, Palmerston and
his coadjutor at Constantinople, Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, urged on
his country, not only to war, but to immediate war. Palmerston knew his
man. It was Louis Napoleon’s present purpose in 1853 and 1854 to fight
on our side; England’s policy, in Lord Palmerston’s view, was to clinch
the matter before he had turned against us.

When Palmerston was dismissed in 1851, his defence of himself in the
House of Commons at the opening of the Session of 1852 was such a
complete failure that people went about saying “Palmerston is smashed.”
But the epithet was misapplied. The Government of which he had been
the life and soul was smashed. In less than three weeks’ time from
the debate on his dismissal, the Government was defeated, and the
Russell Administration resigned. Palmerston wrote to his brother: “Dear
William,--I have had my tit-for-tat with John Russell, and I turned him
out on Friday last.” Lord Derby formed a Government which he invited
Lord Palmerston to join. The offer was declined, but, as already
pointed out, Palmerston continued practically to direct our foreign
policy. The Conservative Government was of very short duration. Before
the year was out, Mr. Disraeli’s Budget was defeated, the Government
resigned, and Lord Aberdeen became the head of a Coalition Government
formed by a union of the Whigs with the Peelites. In this Government,
Lord Palmerston was Home Secretary. Greville mentions that when the
Queen went to Scotland in 1853, she desired that Lord Granville should
be the Minister-in-Attendance, because she did not wish for the
presence of the Home Secretary at Balmoral. But this feeling was not
of long duration. Lord Clarendon, the new Foreign Secretary, labored
diligently to change it. He told the Queen everything he could likely
to make her regard Palmerston in a more favorable light, and showed
her notes and memoranda by him calculated to please her. Lord Aberdeen
also used his influence in the same direction. The Queen is never
implacable, and always ready to recognize good service, and before
the autumn was out Palmerston took his turn as Minister-in-Attendance
on the Queen at Balmoral. An anecdote is told, illustrative of his
continued absorption in foreign politics, although he was now Home
Secretary. The Queen was much interested in some strikes and labor
troubles that were taking place in the North of England, and asked
Palmerston for details about them which, as Home Secretary, he might
be expected to know. However, she found him absolutely without
information. “One morning, after previous inquiries, she said to him,
‘Pray, Lord Palmerston, have you any news?’ To which he replied, ‘No,
Madam, I have heard nothing; but it seems certain _that the Turks have
crossed the Danube_!’” Palmerston was at the Home Office during the
outbreak of cholera in 1854. His measures against it were said to have
been conceived in the spirit of treating Heaven as if it were a Foreign
Power.

Palmerston really directed the foreign policy of England from the
Home Office during the year which led up to the Crimean War. When the
Government refused to take his view, he resigned, ostensibly because
he did not like Lord John Russell’s Reform Bill; really because when
the Turks refused to accept the Vienna note, the majority of the
Cabinet wished to leave them to their fall. Palmerston took an exactly
opposite line, and urged the entry of the allied French and English
fleets into the Black Sea, which really amounted to an act of war. As
soon as he got his own way he rejoined the Government. As some excuse
was necessary to the outer world, he had said he was not prepared to
sit out debates on the Reform Bill in the House of Commons at “_his
time of life_.” Clarendon said that no one had ever before heard him
acknowledge that he had a time of life.

The Queen went heartily with Palmerston in his war policy. She was
convinced of the justice of the Russian War, and that it could not have
been avoided. Her intense interest in its progress will be described
in the coming chapter. It is sufficient here to say that her former
feeling of hostility to Palmerston was very much softened by seeing the
whole-hearted devotion with which he threw himself into the success
of the British arms. As is well known, the events of the war made
Palmerston Prime Minister. She gave him her entire confidence in that
capacity. On the signing of the Treaty of Peace in April, 1856, she
bestowed upon him the Order of the Garter, as a special and public
token of her appreciation of his zealous and able services to his
country.

There was no love lost between Palmerston and Lord John Russell. In
1857-58, there was great uneasiness in the ranks of the Whigs, lest
these two should never be able to overcome their mutual hostility. Lady
William Russell said of them at this time, “They have shaken hands and
embraced, and hate each other more than ever.” However, by degrees the
stronger nature dominated the weaker, and from 1859 till 1865, when
Palmerston died, Lord John may be said to have danced to Palmerston’s
piping.

[25] Letter from the Queen to Lord John Russell, Nov. 21st, 1851.

[26]

  If the Devil has a son,
  Sure his name is Palmerston.

[27] See letter from Lord Palmerston to Lord Clarendon, vol. ii. p.
127, Ashley’s “Life of Palmerston.”




CHAPTER XIII.

PEACE AND WAR.


The year 1851 was memorable to the Queen, for it brought the opening of
the Great Exhibition, the crown of success to prolonged efforts made by
the Prince against all kinds of opposition and misrepresentation. When
first the project was mooted, hardly any one had a good word to say for
it. Members of Parliament in the House of Commons prayed that hail and
lightning might be sent from heaven to destroy it; it was bound to be a
financial failure; it would ruin Hyde Park; it would bring into London
every desperado and bad character in Europe. Its actual success was
beyond all anticipation, and was only heightened by the croaking which
had preceded it. The Queen’s delight knew no bounds, for she felt not
only that the whole thing was a magnificent success, but that it was
owing to the Prince that it was so, and therefore was of the nature of
a personal triumph for him. The Queen wrote about the opening ceremony
as “the great and glorious first of May, the proudest and happiest day
... of my happy life.” In her journal she wrote:--

 “_May 1._ The great event has taken place; a complete and beautiful
 triumph; a glorious and touching sight,--one which I shall ever be
 proud of for my beloved Albert and my country.... Yes; it is a day
 which makes my heart swell with pride and glory and thankfulness.”

The only event with which she felt she could compare it was the
coronation; “but this day’s festival was a thousand times superior.”
The effect produced on her as the view of the interior burst upon her,
she speaks of as--

 “Magical, so vast, so glorious, so touching. One felt--as so many did
 whom I have since spoken to--filled with devotion, more so than by any
 service I have ever heard. The tremendous cheers, the joy expressed
 in every face, the immensity of the building ... the organ (with
 200 instruments and 600 voices, which sounded like nothing), and my
 beloved husband the author of this ‘Peace Festival’: ... all this was
 moving indeed, and it was and is a day to live forever.”

It is interesting to compare this account by Her Majesty of her own
emotion at the opening of the exhibition with an account of how she
impressed a spectator. Dr. Stanley (afterwards Dean Stanley) wrote in a
private letter:--

 “I never had so good a view of the Queen before, and never saw her
 look so thoroughly regal. She stood in front of the chair turning
 round, first to one side and then to the other, with a look of power
 and pride, flushed with a kind of excitement which I never witnessed
 in any other human countenance.”

There were said to have been 34,000 people in the building on the
opening day, and nearly a million on the line of route. The Queen,
with her husband and eldest son and daughter, drove through this huge
multitude with no other guard than one of honor and some policemen who
were there, not so much to keep order as to aid the crowd to keep it
for themselves. The Home Secretary reported to the Queen the next day
that there had not been a single accident, nor had there been a single
case of misconduct of any kind calling for the interference of the
police. It was a magnificent object lesson on the advantages of order
springing out of liberty. Foreigners present were deeply impressed by
the good behavior of the crowd, and also by its loyalty. Jacob Ominum
described a dispute he overheard between a German and a Frenchman as
to whether in England loyalty was a principle or a passion. His own
comment was that it was both,--a principle even when the Crown behaves
badly; “but let it treat the people well, and this quiet principle
becomes a headlong passion, swelling into such enthusiasm as the
Frenchman saw when he jotted down in his notebook, ‘In England loyalty
is a passion.’”

The Duke of Wellington shared with the Royal Family the honors of the
day. He was accompanied, according to Lord Palmerston, by a running
fire of applause from the men, and of waving of handkerchiefs and
kissing of hands from the women. It used to be said that people went
to the exhibition as much to see the Duke of Wellington,[28] who was
a frequent visitor, as for any other purpose. The total number of
visitors to the exhibition during the time it remained open was more
than 6,000,000. An old Cornish woman, Mary Keslynack, not wishing to
trust herself on a railway, _walked_ to London to see the exhibition
and the Queen. Her Majesty notes in her diary the fact that the old
lady’s wish was gratified. She “was at the door to see me,--a most hale
old woman, who was near crying at my looking at her.”

But this “Peace Festival” could not avert the war-cloud that was
hanging over England. It is no part of the scheme of this little
volume to discuss the policy of the Crimean War, but only to relate
the Queen’s part in it, and her intense interest in it. Even this can
only be very briefly and inadequately sketched. Some idea of the labor
devolving upon a conscientious Sovereign in times of national crisis
may be gathered from the fact that the papers at Windsor relating to
the Eastern Question and the Crimean War, covering the period between
1853 and 1857, amount to no fewer than fifty folio volumes.

The Queen, it will be remembered, had entertained the Emperor Nicholas
at Windsor in 1844, and a very favorable personal impression had been
made on both sides. Nicholas had then had a conversation with Peel and
Aberdeen on the condition of the “Sick Man,” as the Czar called Turkey,
and the prospective disposition of his effects. The Czar and the
English Ministers signed a memorandum favorable to the claims of Russia
to protect Christians in Turkish dominions. Nicholas left England
with the impression that he had considerably reduced the antagonism
between England and Russia on the Turkish question. Aberdeen was now
Prime Minister, and the Czar believed the moment to be favorable for
translating into action the scheme which he had laid before the English
Ministers in 1844. Moreover he was doubtless under the impression that
England’s fighting days were over, and that, therefore, whether England
liked the aggression of Russia in the East or not, she would never
resist it by force of arms. During the negotiations which preceded the
war, the Czar took the unusual course of addressing an autograph letter
to the Queen, expressing surprise that any difference should have
arisen between himself and the English Government, and calling upon the
Queen’s “wisdom” and “good faith” to arbitrate between them. The Queen
immediately sent the Czar’s letter to Lord Aberdeen, as well as a draft
of her reply for his approval. Count Nesselrode was very desirous of
learning from our ambassador in St. Petersburg if he knew the tenor
of the Queen’s reply. He answered in the negative, but added, “These
correspondences between Sovereigns are not regular according to our
constitutional notions; but all I can say is, that if Her Majesty were
called upon to write upon the Eastern affair, she would not require her
Ministers’ assistance. The Queen understands these questions as well as
they do.”

The Cabinet were by no means united in their policy. Aberdeen believed
in Nicholas, and was for peace; Palmerston believed in the Turks, and
was for war.[29] Clarendon was the mediator between the two. At first
the Queen and her husband were decidedly sympathetic with Aberdeen’s
policy. They fully acknowledged that the “ignorant, barbarian, and
despotic yoke of the Mussulman” had been a curse to Europe, and agreed
with Lord Aberdeen that the Turkish system was “radically vicious and
inhuman.” Against this view Palmerston exerted all his strength. Little
by little the war fever, fanned by him and favored by events, grew
fiercer and fiercer. It spared neither the palace nor the cottage, and
presently there was hardly a voice raised in England for peace except
those of Bright and Cobden; and their influence was weakened by the
belief that they would be against all war under all circumstances.
There was a very general impression in the country that if Palmerston
had been at the Foreign Office no war would have been necessary.
Certainly experience forces the conviction that the peace-at-any-price
party, when in power, is almost certain to land the country in war;
but in this particular instance it appears probable that Palmerston,
having secured the French alliance, thought the moment for fighting
favorable, and therefore forced on the war; and that he would have done
so equally from the Foreign Office as from the Home Office. His whole
attention and interest were centred on foreign affairs, and there was
an excellent understanding between him and Lord Clarendon, who was
Foreign Secretary.

It is needless to say that the Queen was thoroughly convinced before
war was declared that it could not have been avoided, that our cause
was just, and that the claim of Russia to protect the Christian
subjects of Turkey was a hypocritical cloak to her aggression and
ambition, and that her real object was to seize Constantinople and the
command of the entrance between the Black Sea and Mediterranean, with
an eye ultimately to India and the possessions of England in Asia.

The Queen and Prince were exceedingly indignant with the King of
Prussia for withholding his support and sympathy from England. He was
a man of weak and excitable disposition, and very much influenced by
his brother-in-law, the Czar. The King’s brother, however, then known
as the Prince of Prussia (afterwards the Emperor William), and his son,
Prince Frederic William (afterwards the husband of the Princess Royal),
strongly sympathized with England; and this circumstance naturally
strengthened the warm friendship already existing between them and
the English Royal Family. How distant at this time must have seemed
the realization of Prince Albert’s and Stockmar’s dream of a united
Germany, and of a political alliance between England and Germany.
The Prince, however, never lost sight of his goal. He wrote to his
stepmother at Coburg, who was strongly Russian in her sympathies, “If
there were a _Germany_ and a _German_ Sovereign in Berlin, this [the
war] could never have happened.”

When once war was declared (March, 1854), the Queen threw her whole
heart and soul into the cause. She wished she had sons old enough to
go, two with the army, two with the navy. Lord Aberdeen had sanctioned
the setting apart of a Day of Humiliation and Prayer for the success
of our arms by sea and land. The Queen very strongly and quite
properly deprecated the use of the expression a Day of Humiliation.
She condemned this as savoring of hypocrisy. She believed her policy
to have been directed by unselfishness and honesty, and therefore
felt the only appropriate prayer would be one expressive of our deep
thankfulness for all the benefits we had enjoyed, and entreating the
protection of the Almighty for our forces on sea and land. She equally
objected to imprecations against our enemies, and suggested the use of
a form already in the Prayer Book, “To be used before a Fight at Sea.”

As the war went on, the Queen and the elder Princesses stimulated
the activity of other women throughout England in helping to supply
comforts for the wounded, and various articles of warm clothing to
be distributed among the troops. The Queen also took a keen maternal
interest in the establishment of a fund, afterwards called the
Patriotic Fund, to provide for the orphans of those who were killed
in the war. She neglected no opportunity of showing her interest
in her troops, giving them in person a hearty “Godspeed” on their
departure, and a cordial welcome on their return, and decorating with
her own hands the surviving heroes of the various engagements. Our
soldiers fought with all the old British valor and tenacity, and were
successful in every great engagement; but there was a most frightful
breakdown in the commissariat and stores departments of the army, and
in organization generally. No Wellington or Marlborough was discovered
among our generals, and no Nelson or Duncan among our admirals. The
only notable personalities revealed to the nation by the Crimean War
were those of Florence Nightingale and Dr. W. H. Russell, and the
only new piece of military knowledge, the use of women and special
correspondents in war time. Miss Nightingale and a band of other
ladies, all trained nurses, were sent out at the instance of Mr. Sidney
Herbert to Constantinople, and at once proceeded to take charge of the
great hospital at Scutari; they arrived just in time to receive the
wounded from the battle of Balaklava. Before their arrival all had been
chaos and hugger-mugger, which Miss Nightingale’s “voice of velvet and
will of steel” soon changed to order, and as much comfort and solace
as were possible in such a place. Her gentle tenderness and compassion
aroused a passion of chivalrous worship in the roughest soldiers. One
of them said afterwards to Mr. Sidney Herbert, “She would speak to one
and another, and nod and smile to many more, but she could not do it to
all, you know,--we lay there in hundreds,--but we could kiss her shadow
as it fell, and lay our heads on the pillow again, content.”

The regular red-tapists of the War Office of course opposed the sending
out of Miss Nightingale and the other ladies; there is no record in
the Prince Consort’s Life whether he and the Queen favored her mission
at the outset or not. But it is certain that they, with the rest of
the nation, very speedily recognized the value of the work she was
doing. Her letters from the seat of war were among their sources of
information, and were eagerly scanned by the Queen and her husband.
After the war was over, in the autumn of 1856, she visited the Queen
at Balmoral. The entry in the Prince’s diary is: “She put before us
all the defects of our present military hospital system. We are much
pleased with her; she is extremely modest.” Is it captious to wonder
what they had expected her to be, and if they were surprised to find
that she was not a Madame Sans-Gêne?

The letters of Dr. W. H. Russell in _The Times_ first revealed to
the nation the frightful breakdown in our military organization. The
special correspondent became, from the date of the Crimean War, a force
to be reckoned with. Instead of the cut-and-dried official despatches,
concealing often more than revealing the truth, and intended to lay
before the public only just so much of the facts as the military
authorities thought it good for them to know, the special correspondent
publishes for all the world to read, a vivid daily narrative of facts
in which blunders and incompetence, when they exist, are given quite
as much prominence as good generalship and victory. If England was
disappointed at the evidence given of her want of efficient military
organization, Russia had much more cause to be so. Russia had put her
whole strength into her armaments; she was nothing if not a great
military power; but she was everywhere unsuccessful. One of the most
dramatic incidents during the war was the death of the Czar, on March
2, 1855. It was said that his disease was influenza, followed by
congestion of the lungs; but some people thought he might have been
said to have died of a broken heart. _Punch_’s cartoon, “General
Février turned traitor,” showing Death, in a general’s uniform, laying
his icy hand on his victim, will long be remembered.

The war fever which had fired the whole of England at the beginning of
the campaign perhaps led people to expect more than was possible from
the army. There was a bitter cry of anger and disappointment that our
military successes in the field were not quickly followed up and taken
advantage of by our generals, and especially that the sufferings of
our soldiers were needlessly aggravated by the waste, incompetence, and
utter muddle reigning over the distribution of the food and stores.
Lord Aberdeen, the Prime Minister, was blamed; he had been dragged
into the war, and never really cordially approved it, it was said. Mr.
Gladstone was blamed; he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, and thought
it his duty to provide the war budget out of income; “penny wise and
pound foolish” was the comment on this. War is one of the things that
cannot be done cheap. These and other Ministers who were attacked
could defend themselves in Parliament; but the phials of public wrath
were more especially directed against the Prince, who for months bore
every kind of imputation and false accusation poured out against him
in the press, without having any opportunity of self-defence. Even
before the outbreak of the war, it had been said that he was completely
anti-English in his sympathies; that we, therefore, had a traitor
in our midst, able and willing to use his position on the steps of
the Throne to weaken and humiliate England. So diligently were these
false reports circulated in the press and by word of mouth that they
were the common topic of conversation all over England. At one time a
report was current, and was actually believed, that the Prince had been
impeached for high treason and sent to the Tower. Thousands of people
assembled outside to see his entrance. If this had been the condition
of the public mind before the war began, it is not difficult to imagine
that the disease of suspicion and distrust broke out again after the
beginning of hostilities, when there was so much to criticise in the
organization of the War Department at home. The public wanted a victim,
some one to wreak their anger upon, and the Prince served them for this
purpose. Even so well informed a politician, and so able a man as Mr.
Roebuck, believed, and openly said to the Duke of Newcastle, the War
Minister, that of course every one knew that there was a determination
“in a high quarter” that the Crimean expedition should not succeed.
The Duke thought that the expression, “a high quarter,” was directed
against himself, and said so. “Oh, no,” answered Mr. Roebuck, “I mean a
much higher personage than you; I mean Prince Albert.”

The Duke immediately endeavored to remove this entirely false
impression, and asked Mr. Roebuck if he were not aware that the Queen
had been ill with anxiety about her troops. The reply was that no one
doubted the Queen’s devotion to her country; that when Lord Cardigan
was at Windsor, one of the Royal children had said to him, “You must
hurry back to Sebastopol and take it, else it will kill mamma.” Yet
almost in the same breath Mr. Roebuck maintained that the Prince was
working behind the Queen’s back against the efficient organization of
the army, in order to prevent the success of her troops.

An expression made use of by the Prince in a public speech, towards
the close of the Crimean War, June, 1855, has become historical. He
contrasted the autocratic power of the Czar of Russia, characterized by
unity of purpose and action, and when desirable by secrecy, with the
Parliamentary Government of the Queen, where every movement of the army
or navy, and every stage of every diplomatic negotiation are publicly
proclaimed, and have to be explained and defended in Parliament; and
he concluded by saying that “Constitutional Government was on its
trial,” and could only come through it triumphantly if the country
granted a patriotic and indulgent confidence to the Ministry. This was
twisted by the Prince’s enemies into an attack on the principles of
constitutionalism; but it really was an appeal to the good sense and
patriotism of the nation, on which, at bottom, Parliamentary Government
must rest.

The Tory and the Radical Press must share the blame of the disgraceful
attacks made upon the Prince. The Queen was bitterly wounded by them.
Greville, no courtier, as many former extracts prove, said he never
remembered anything more atrocious and unjust than these savage libels.
That they had been fostered by the hostility between Palmerston and the
Prince there can be no doubt. One of the lies in circulation was that
there was a pamphlet giving authentic proofs of the Prince’s treachery
to England, that the Prince had bought up all the copies but six, which
were in Palmerston’s possession; whereupon the Prince had made his
peace with Palmerston, in order to secure the continued suppression of
the pamphlet. This called forth an authoritative denial in the columns
of _The Morning Post_ from Lord Palmerston. It is probable that one
motive of the Queen in bestowing the title of Prince Consort upon her
husband in 1857, was to give a practical reply to these slanders. It
would have been well if this had been preceded by an action for libel
against the most conspicuous of the Prince’s traducers; this would have
given a chance of the real author of the libels being run to earth.

The alliance with France during the Crimean War led to the exchange
of visits between the two Courts. The Queen and her husband were
quite captivated by the loveliness and charm of the Empress Eugénie,
and at first thought far better of the Emperor than he deserved. He
laid himself out with considerable adroitness to please the Queen,
and succeeded. The Emperor and Empress visited the Queen at Windsor
in April, 1855. During their visit to England a grand fête was given
in their honor at the Crystal Palace. The Emperor lived in perpetual
dread of assassination, and on this occasion he appears to have
communicated some of his nervous apprehension to the Queen, who wrote
in her diary:--

 “Nothing could have succeeded better. Still I own I felt anxious as we
 passed through the multitude of people who, after all, were very close
 to us. I felt, as I walked on the Emperor’s arm, that I was possibly
 a protection for him. All thoughts of nervousness for myself were
 passed. I only thought of him; and so it is, Albert says, when one
 forgets one’s self, one loses this great and foolish nervousness.”

Her Majesty’s courage and its source are well exemplified in this
passage.

The return visit of the Queen to Paris took place in the autumn of the
same year. She was accompanied by her husband and the Prince of Wales
and the Princess Royal. Some characteristic incidents connected with
the Queen’s visit to Paris ought to be mentioned, especially that,
although overflowing with friendliness and good feeling to the Emperor,
she thought it her duty to explain to him that nothing could shake her
kindly relations with the Orleans family. She told him that she had
been intimate with them when they were in power, and she could not drop
them when they were in adversity. Possibly Louis Napoleon remembered
this conversation in 1870, when he himself was an exile in England, and
experienced the benefit of the Queen’s faithfulness to her friends when
they were in trouble. In this same conversation he opened the subject
of his confiscation of the property of the Orleans family, and the
Queen gave frank expression to her own views on the subject. The Queen
remarks in her diary:--

 “I was very anxious to get out what I had to say on the subject, and
 not to have this untouchable ground between us. Stockmar, so far back
 as last winter, suggested and advised that this course should be
 pursued.”

After these visits letters were frequently interchanged between
the two Sovereigns. In one of his, Louis Napoleon appears to have
plumed himself on the advantages of an absolute monarchy, especially
in conducting negotiations with other States, uncontrolled power of
decision vested in the Sovereign alone, and so on. To which the Queen
rejoined, “There is, however, another side to this picture, in which I
consider I have an advantage which your Majesty has not. Your policy
runs the risk of remaining unsupported by the nation,” and you may
be exposed “to the dangerous alternative of either having to impose
it upon them against their will, or of having suddenly to alter your
course abroad, or even, perhaps, to encounter grave resistance. I,
on the other hand, can allow my policy free scope to work out its
own consequences, certain of the steady and consistent support of
my people, who, having had a share in determining my policy, feel
themselves to be identified with it.” Here, too, there was food for
reflection on the Emperor’s part in after years.

The Royal children greatly enjoyed their visit to Paris, and it is said
that when the time came for their departure the Prince of Wales begged
the Empress to get permission for him and the Princess Royal to be left
behind to prolong their visit. “The Empress said she was afraid this
would be impossible, as the Queen and the Prince would not be able to
do without them;” to which the boy replied, “Not do without us! I don’t
fancy that, for there are six more of us at home, and they don’t want
us.”

Very soon after the return of the Court to Balmoral (10th Sept., 1855)
the Queen and Prince had the intense satisfaction of hearing of the
fall of Sebastopol, an event which brought the end of the war within
measurable distance. Peace was concluded in the following spring.

It was a source of great pride to the Queen to know that England was
stronger at the end of the Crimean War than at the beginning. The
country had learnt by its mistakes, and was not exhausted by its
sacrifices. The Indian Mutiny, which quickly succeeded the Crimean War,
found England more capable of dealing with it than if it had taken
place earlier. This was fully recognized by the Prince Consort. If
those who had accused him of an anti-English spirit could have read
his private letters they would have had their eyes opened. He wrote to
Stockmar August, 1857:--

 “The events in India are a heavy domestic calamity for England. Yet,
 just because of this, there is less reason to despair, as the English
 people surpass all others in Europe in energy and vigor of character:
 and for strong men misfortune serves as a school for instruction and
 improvement.”

The autumn of 1855 brought with it two interesting domestic events
for the Royal Family. The new house at Balmoral was occupied for the
first time; and, what was much more important, a visit from Prince
Frederick William of Prussia resulted in his engagement to the Princess
Royal. She was then under fifteen years of age, and it was thought best
that there should be no formal betrothal, and no public announcement
until after the Princess’s confirmation in the following spring. The
first break into the child-life of a family, by the marriage of one
of its members, is always an event that awakens many emotions. The
Queen and Prince were thoroughly satisfied, and had cause to be, with
their future son-in-law; but the prospect of parting with their eldest
child was a bitter pill. The Prussian Prince was heartily in love,
and went on year after year, till his tragic death in 1888, becoming
more and more a lover and friend to his wife, whom he constantly spoke
of as “the ablest woman in Europe.” Lady Bloomfield, whose husband
was, in 1855, English Ambassador in Berlin, gives an account of the
announcement there by the King at a State dinner of the engagement
between his nephew and the English Princess. Lady Bloomfield says that
the Prince was in such high spirits, and looked so excessively happy,
it was a pleasure to see him. On their arrival in Germany, shortly
after their marriage, he telegraphed to the Queen at Windsor, “The
whole Royal Family is enchanted with my wife.--F. W.” On the occasion
of the Prince of Wales’s wedding, in 1863, the Prince of Prussia was
overflowing with praise of his wife. Bishop Wilberforce noted in his
diary on this occasion, “I was charmed with the Prince of Prussia, and
the warmth of his expressions as to his wife. ‘Bishop,’ he said, ‘with
me it has been one long honeymoon.’”

The story of the betrothal, and how it was associated with the giving
and receiving of a piece of white heather, a proverbial emblem of good
luck, is very prettily told by Her Majesty in “Leaves from the Journal
in the Highlands.” The chief anxiety the parents had in the matter
was on account of the Princess’s extreme youth; but her intellect
and character were unusually developed, and she had, what so often
accompanies fine intellect, a child-like innocence and purity of heart
which specially endeared her to all in her home circle. Prince Albert
wrote at once to Stockmar to tell him the news: “Victoria,” he wrote,
“is greatly excited; still, all goes smoothly and prudently. The Prince
is really in love, and the little lady does her best to please him.”

The engagement was not well received by an important section of the
English Press. So little could the writer of the articles read the
future, that Prussia was sneered at “as a paltry German dynasty,”
Prince Frederick William was described as being in “ignominious
attendance” on his “Imperial Master” the Czar, and it was predicted
that the Princess would become anti-English in feeling, and also, with
not much consistency, that she would be sent back to England at no
distant date, “an exile and a fugitive.” The ignorance of this attack
robbed it of its poignancy. Prince Frederick William and his father
were strongly in accord with the policy of England during the Crimean
War, and consequently very much out of favor at their own Court and in
St. Petersburg.

Prince Albert had always taken the keenest interest in directing the
education of his eldest daughter, and the fact that she was probably
destined to occupy in Prussia a position somewhat similar to his own in
England, strengthened the already strong bonds of union between them.
From the time of her engagement he worked with her daily at historical
subjects, and spared no pains to equip her well for her future duties.
She translated important political pamphlets from German into English
under his direction, and he took undisguised fatherly pride in her
capacity and in her widening interests in life. An accident, which
might have had very serious consequences, happened to the Princess in
1856, which illustrated her self-control and reliance on her father.
As she was sealing a letter she set fire to the muslin sleeve of her
dress, and her right arm was very badly burned; the wound was terrible
to look at, as the muslin was burnt into the flesh; it must have caused
very severe pain, but the Princess never lost her presence of mind or
habitual thoughtfulness for others. She did not utter a cry, and said:
“Don’t frighten mamma, send for papa first.” Her marriage took place
on January 25th, 1858. She was a very youthful bride, having only
lately completed her seventeenth year. Her first child, the present
Emperor William II., was born on January 27th, 1859. His birth nearly
cost the life of his young mother. The Queen’s daughter has not had a
bed of roses in her adopted country, any more than the Queen’s husband
had a bed of roses here. But in both cases cruel misrepresentation on
the part of a section of the public was more than compensated by the
loving appreciation and generous confidence which marriage brought
them. The Princess Royal and the Prince Consort each had many a drop of
bitterness in their cup; but while he lived, Prince Frederick William
was her faithful worshipper, just as the Queen was and is of the Prince
Consort.

On the day of the Princess Royal’s marriage the entry in the Queen’s
Diary runs:--

 “The second most eventful day of my life as regards feelings. I felt
 as if I were being married over again myself, only much more nervous,
 for I had not that blessed feeling which I had then, which raises and
 supports one, of giving myself up for life to him whom I loved and
 worshipped--then and ever!”

Speaking of the ceremony in the Chapel Royal, St. James’s, Her Majesty
adds:--

 “The drums and trumpets played marches, and the organ played others as
 the procession approached and entered; ... the effect was thrilling
 and striking as you heard the music gradually coming nearer and
 nearer. Fritz looked pale and much agitated, but behaved with the
 greatest self-possession, bowing to us, and then kneeling down in
 a most devotional manner. Then came the bride’s procession, and
 our darling Flower looked very touching and lovely, with such an
 innocent, confident, and serious expression. It was beautiful to
 see her kneeling with Fritz, their hands joined.... My last fear of
 being overcome vanished on seeing Vicky’s quiet, calm, and composed
 manner.... Dearest Albert took her by the hand to give her away, _my_
 beloved Albert (who, I saw, felt so strongly), which reminded me
 vividly of having in the same way, proudly, tenderly, confidently,
 most lovingly, knelt by him, on this very same spot, and having our
 hands joined there.”

The Queen and the Prince Consort both recalled the series of important
Royal marriages between German Princes and English Princesses,
beginning with the marriage of Princess Charlotte, heiress to the
throne, to Prince Leopold in 1816, then their own in 1840, and, lastly,
of their child to the heir to the throne of Prussia, in 1858. The
Prince Consort wrote on the wedding-day to the faithful Stockmar:--

 “My heart impels me to send you a line to-day, as I cannot shake
 you by the hand. In a few hours our child will be a wedded wife! a
 work in which you have had a large share, and, I know, will take a
 cordial interest. It is just eighteen years since you subscribed my
 marriage contract, and were present in the same Chapel Royal at my
 union with Victoria. Uncle Leopold, whom you, now forty-two years
 ago, accompanied to London on the occasion of his marriage, will,
 with myself, be one of the bride’s supporters. These reminiscences
 must excite a special feeling within you to-day, with which I hope is
 coupled the conviction that we all gratefully revere in you a dear
 friend and wise counsellor.”

On a bitter winter day, February 2nd, 1858, the Queen and Prince bade
farewell to their darling child on her departure for Germany. The
bride’s exclamation had been, “I think it will kill me to take leave
of dear papa.” Those who witnessed her departure through London and at
Gravesend spoke of her floods of tears, and many a sympathizing thought
went with the daughter of England to her new home.

[28] The Duke of Wellington died in September, 1852, deeply mourned
by the Queen and her husband. The Queen wrote to her uncle, “You will
mourn with us over the loss we and the whole nation have experienced
in the death of the dear and great Duke of Wellington.... He was the
pride, and the good genius, as it were, of this country, the most loyal
and devoted subject, and the stanchest supporter the Crown ever had.
He was to us a true friend and most valuable adviser.... We shall soon
stand sadly alone. Aberdeen is almost the only personal friend of that
kind left to us. Melbourne, Peel, Liverpool, now the Duke, all gone!”

[29] The only criticism ever made by Palmerston on the Turks was that
it was impossible to expect much energy from a people who wore no heels
to their shoes!




CHAPTER XIV.

A NATION OF SHOPKEEPERS.


England had hardly drawn breath from the Crimean War when she was face
to face with the Indian Mutiny. The first symptoms of the outbreak were
observed in February, 1857. By the summer of that year it had attained
appalling dimensions; but the gravity of the calamity brought out the
tenacity of the English character, and it was gradually realized by the
country that no effort and no sacrifice would be too great in order
to preserve intact our hold upon India. The Queen realized this at a
very early period, and urged upon the Prime Minister the undesirability
of reducing our military establishments at a moment when India might
require all our strength. No protracted diplomatic labors, as in the
case of the Crimean War, were thrown upon the Sovereign by the Indian
Mutiny. The Queen’s duty was discharged by keeping a keen look-out
upon the development of the Mutiny, by encouraging the despatch of
ample military reinforcements for India, by cheering the civil and
military commanders there by her constant sympathy and appreciation
of their services, and, above all, when the Mutiny was finally
suppressed, by casting the weight of her influence and authority in the
scale of mercy, and of the policy which gained for Lord Canning, the
Governor-General, the nickname, intended in contempt, but remembered
now as a true title of honor, of “Clemency Canning.”

Her Majesty wrote to Lord Canning fully approving of stern justice
being dealt out to all who had been guilty either of mutiny or of
complicity in the terrible outrages against women and children, but
strongly supporting him in his brave and determined opposition to
vindictive fury against the natives at large, in which too many of the
English in India were tempted to indulge.

When the worst of the Mutiny was over, August, 1858, and an Act
had been passed transferring the Government of India from the East
India Company to the Crown, the time had arrived for the issue of a
Royal Proclamation to the inhabitants of India. The draft of this
Proclamation reached the Queen when she was paying her first visit to
her newly married daughter in Prussia. It will throw a little light on
those who think that the function of a Sovereign in a Constitutional
monarchy is simply to indorse everything submitted by the Ministers,
to learn that the Queen on reading this draft felt that neither
in spirit nor in language was it appropriate to the occasion. Her
objections were set forth in detail to Lord Malmesbury, who was the
Minister-in-Attendance, and the following letter was written by the
Queen to the Prime Minister, Lord Derby:--

  BABELSBERG, 15th Aug., 1858.

 The Queen has asked Lord Malmesbury to explain in detail to Lord Derby
 her objections to the draft of the Proclamation for India. The Queen
 would be glad if Lord Derby would write it himself in his excellent
 language, bearing in mind that it is a small Sovereign who speaks
 to more than a hundred millions of Eastern people on assuming the
 direct Government over them, and, after a bloody civil war, giving
 them pledges which her future reign is to redeem, and explaining the
 principles of her Government. Such a document should breathe feelings
 of generosity, benevolence, and religious toleration, and point out
 the privileges which the Indians will receive in being placed on an
 equality with the subjects of the British Crown, and the prosperity
 following in the train of civilization.

Lord Malmesbury’s memorandum which accompanied this letter goes
more into detail. Referring to the draft of which Her Majesty had
disapproved, Lord Malmesbury remarks that she had specially objected
to the expression that she had the “power of undermining” the Indian
religions. “Her Majesty would prefer that the subject should be
introduced by a declaration in the sense that the deep attachment which
Her Majesty feels to her own religion, and the comfort and happiness
which she derives from its consolations, will preclude her from any
attempt to interfere with the native religions, and that her servants
will be directed to act scrupulously in accordance with her directions.”

It is impossible to imagine a better example than this gives of the
value of the influence of a truly womanly woman upon political affairs.
The amended Proclamation gave great satisfaction to Lord Canning, and
materially aided him in his difficult task of conciliation. He wrote:--

 “To the good effect of the words in which religion is spoken of in the
 Proclamation, Lord Canning looks forward with very sanguine hope. It
 is impossible that the justice, charity, and kindliness, as well as
 the true wisdom which mark these words, should not be appreciated.”

If a mere handful of Englishmen are to continue to hold the two hundred
millions of the various native populations of India, they cannot do
so by mere brute force, but only by convincing the leaders of the
people that the English Government is actuated by feelings of “justice,
charity, and kindliness” towards them. The Queen’s Proclamation
produced the best effect in India. _The Times_ correspondent, writing
upon it, said: “Genuineness of Asiatic feeling is always a problem,
but I have little doubt it is in this instance tolerably sincere. The
people understand an ‘Empress,’ and did not understand the Company;”
he adds that the general opinion among the masses was “that the Queen
_had hanged the Company_!” We have here an example of the informal
use of the title “Empress,” the formal adoption of which caused so
much excitement and opposition in 1876. It is possible, however, that
from the time of the passing of the Government of India Act, 1858, Mr.
Disraeli bore it in mind as an addition he would make to the Queen’s
titles when a favorable opportunity offered. In 1858, when he was
Chancellor of the Exchequer, he wrote to the Queen on the progress of
the Government of India Bill through the House of Commons, and said,
“But it is only the ante-chamber of an imperial palace, and your
Majesty would do well to deign to consider the steps which are now
necessary to influence the opinions and affect the imaginations of the
Indian populations. _The name of your Majesty ought to be impressed
upon their native life._”

The immediate carrying out of the scheme here hinted at was rendered
impossible in consequence of the change of Ministry which took place in
the following year; but eighteen years later, when Disraeli was Prime
Minister, he gave effect to this project as part of a large scheme for
bringing home to the Sovereign and her people in every part of the
world that England had ceased to be a “little world, a precious stone
set in the silver sea,” and had expanded into a gigantic empire.

But the time for this had not come in 1858 and 1859, when affairs
nearer home became again of engrossing interest.

The years which immediately succeeded the Crimean War are full of
evidence of the growing distrust of Louis Napoleon felt by the Queen
and her husband. He had succeeded at the beginning of their intercourse
in producing the impression on them of perfect frankness; but by 1859
they had discovered that he was “born and bred a conspirator,” and
that through all the changes and vicissitudes of life he would ever
be scheming and suspicious. Their eyes must have been opened to his
real character by the quality of the people by whom he was served and
surrounded. Throughout France, with very few exceptions, honest men
and women held aloof from him. Greville speaks of the crowd which
formed his Court as being more “_encanaillées_” than ever. The Prince
Consort saw and lamented this, and endeavored to convince him that no
Sovereign could be great without the aid of great Ministers. But great
Ministers were not to be had for the asking. Louis Napoleon had so
little confidence in his accredited representatives that in matters of
first-class importance they were set on one side, and the business was
conducted by the Emperor in person. This was not astonishing, as honest
men mostly declined to serve him; he had to do as best he could with
inferior material, and naturally could not rely on it in moments of
emergency.

Little by little the true character of Louis Napoleon was revealed
to the Queen, and under these circumstances it is easy to understand
that though the social intercourse between the two Sovereigns was
not abruptly cut short, yet it became very constrained and uneasy.
The Queen and Prince paid two visits to Cherbourg: the first was in
1857, and was entirely private and informal; the Royal couple were
accompanied by six of their children, and the main object of the visit
was holiday-making: but their diaries and letters contain significant
observations upon the great strength of the Cherbourg fortifications,
and the Queen, with her habitual openness, said it made her “very
unhappy” to see the enormous strength and size of the forts; while the
Prince, in more diplomatic language, says the gigantic strength of the
place had given him “grave cause for reflection.” They went home very
strongly impressed by the necessity of increasing our strength both by
sea and land, so that it might not compare so very disadvantageously
with that of our valued ally. Their second visit to Cherbourg was
in the following year, 1858, and was a grand ceremonial; they were
received by the Emperor and Empress in state, nine line-of-battle
ships were drawn up along the breakwater, and all the ugly forts which
dominate the harbor belched forth volleys of gunpowder in their honor,
and also perhaps to demonstrate afresh the extent and strength of the
fortifications. It does not seem to have been a gay visit; the Emperor
was embarrassed, “_boutonné_ and silent and not ready to talk” the
Queen wrote, while the Prince observed, “Empress looks ill: he is out
of humor.” When the inevitable time for speech-making came, and the
Prince Consort had to return thanks for the toast of the Queen’s and
his own health, Her Majesty writes that it was a dreadful moment, which
she hoped never to have to go through again. “He did it very well,
though he hesitated once. I sat shaking, with my eyes _cloués sur la
table_.” The Emperor and Empress were both very nervous, and the Queen
shook so she could not drink her coffee. The reception given to the
Queen was magnificent and uncomfortable in the highest possible degree.
One flight of rockets, a mere incident in a grand display of fireworks,
was said to have cost 25,000 francs. From first to last, the fête
was organized with regard to the highest possible degree of expense.
The Queen and Prince were more than ever impressed that the strength
of Cherbourg was a menace to England, and called the attention of
their own Ministers, who were in attendance, to the obvious necessity
for England to look more sharply to her coast and naval defences.
How thankful Her Majesty must have been when the end of each day’s
festivity was reached! Even in the diary the mere words form a little
oasis, “At twenty minutes to ten we went below, and read and nearly
finished that most interesting book, ‘Jane Eyre.’”

The alarm felt by the Queen and Prince as to the hostile intentions of
Louis Napoleon towards England were fully shared by the nation. After
the attempt by Orsini, early in 1858, to assassinate the Emperor by the
explosion of bombs under his carriage as it was approaching the Opera
House, England was accused of having harbored the conspirators, and
with having thereby encouraged their crime. It was true that Orsini
had come direct from England, and though this did not make England
responsible for him, yet some irritation on the part of France was
quite excusable. This expression of irritation, however, passed all
reasonable bounds. The Emperor received a large number of addresses
from Colonels in the French army congratulating him on his escape; and
these addresses, which were published at full in the official organ
of the French Government, were, in many instances, full of clamorous
demands for war with England. One of these effusions spoke of England
as “the land of impurity, which contains the haunts of monsters which
are sheltered by its laws;” another requested the Emperor to give the
word, and the “infamous haunt in which machinations so infernal are
planned”--that is, London--“should be destroyed forever.”

England’s answer was the Volunteer movement, and the dismissal from
office of Lord Palmerston’s Government, because it was believed to have
been too subservient to the demands of France.

The series of events of 1857 and 1858 were a very curious episode
in our political history. The general election of 1857 had been in
the nature of a personal triumph for Palmerston. The cry had been
“Palmerston, and nothing but Palmerston;” and he had carried everything
before him. Within the ranks of the Liberal party all his leading
opponents, Bright and Cobden representing the Manchester School,
lost their seats. But in less than a year the seemingly all-powerful
Minister was defeated because he had not maintained with sufficient
dignity the honor and independence of England. “Old Civis Romanus,”
as he had been nicknamed, was said to have retreated ignominiously;
the British Lion was depicted with his tail between his legs. There
was a strong outburst of dissatisfaction; for once Palmerston had not
been sufficiently pugnacious: his Government was swept away, and was
replaced by that of Lord Derby.

The Queen and Prince from the first took an immense interest in the
Volunteers; they had always anxiously watched the relatively small
military strength of England, and had urged on successive Governments
the overwhelming importance of not allowing it to sink to a level
incompatible with national security. The spontaneous growth of a
great service for internal defence gave them, therefore, peculiar
satisfaction, as affording evidence that at heart the spirit of the
country was as sound as it had been in the days of the Armada. The
Queen reviewed the English Volunteers in Hyde Park in June, 1860. The
cheering was so tremendous that Her Majesty was quite overcome. She
inaugurated the National Rifle Association in the following month; and
she reviewed the Scottish Volunteers on Arthur’s Seat in August of the
same year.

It was a splendid sight; 22,000 magnificent men, the flower of a hardy
and spirited race; the surrounding amphitheatre of the hillside crowded
with a cheering multitude: no wonder that the Queen was thrilled with
pride and thankfulness. The Duchess of Kent was with her daughter; the
Queen writes that she was so delighted, “dear mamma could be present
at this memorable and never-to-be-forgotten occasion.” It was the last
time they were together at any public ceremonial.

Lord Tennyson interpreted the national feeling by his song, “Riflemen,
form!” and the lines--

  “True, we have got _such_ a faithful ally
  That only the Devil can tell what he means”--

exactly describe the sentiments of most Englishmen towards Louis
Napoleon. It was said that a foreigner expressed surprise at the
military spirit displayed at one of these Volunteer reviews, and said
he had understood that the English were a nation of shopkeepers. A
jolly countryman replied, “So they are, Moosoo; and these are the boys
that keep the shop!”

The Volunteer movement has proved no mere flash in the pan, caused by a
sudden explosion of passing irritation. It has grown and strengthened,
and now, after twenty-six years of existence, it adds more than 200,000
men to the internal defences of the country. The annual meeting of the
National Rifle Association has furnished proof to the world that the
Volunteer force contains a body of skilled marksmen, who, under able
generalship, might turn the scale in many a battle.




CHAPTER XV.

THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH.


The year 1861 closed the book of the happy wedded life of the Queen.
The hand of death lay heavy upon her, and took from her first her
mother, and then her husband. The death of her mother was her first
very great sorrow. Her half-brother, Prince Charles of Leiningen, had
died in 1856; but his life and hers, during his latter years, had lain
very much apart, and though she mourned him deeply and truly, he had
not made part of her life, and his death could not be to her what the
death of her mother was, who had watched over her from childhood, and
with whom she passed part of almost every day; still less could it
bring the loneliness and desolation in which the Queen was left by the
death of her husband, “her dearest life in life,” as she had called him.

The Duchess of Kent died in March, 1861. There is no consolation in
being told that such a loss is common. It is not common to the heart
that has to bear it. The Queen felt, as all must feel when death takes
from them a beloved parent, that part of her life was gone which
nothing could restore. She wrote in the diary so often quoted:--

 “How awful! How mysterious! But what a blessed end! Her gentle spirit
 at rest, her sufferings over! But I--I, wretched child--who had lost
 the mother I so tenderly loved, from whom for these forty-one years
 I had never been parted except for a few weeks, what was my case? My
 childhood--everything seemed to crowd upon me at once. I seemed to
 have lived through a life, to have become old! What I had dreaded and
 fought off the idea of for years, had come, and must be borne. The
 blessed future meeting, and _her_ peace and rest, must henceforward be
 my comfort.”

In a letter to her uncle, the King of the Belgians, now the last
survivor of his generation, the Queen wrote that she felt “so truly
orphaned.” The Queen was sustained in her sorrow by the tender sympathy
of her husband and of her daughter, the Princess Alice, whose strong
and beautiful character, already well known in her home circle, was
to be revealed to the nation a few months later. The Princess was
now entering on womanhood, and had recently been betrothed to Prince
Louis of Hesse, nephew of the reigning Grand Duke. After her lamented
death in 1878, a volume, with extracts from her letters to the Queen,
was published as a memorial. In these she repeatedly recurs to the
fact that when the Duchess of Kent died, the Prince Consort took his
daughter by the hand and led her to the Queen, and told her she “must
comfort mamma.” A few months later, when the place in the Palace of the
husband and father was vacant, the Princess recalled these words, and
accepted them as a sacred trust and bequest. She nobly justified the
confidence her father had reposed in her. In this earlier bereavement
it was her office to comfort and sustain the Queen, who wrote: “Dear,
good Alice was full of intense feeling, tenderness, and distress for
me; she, and all of them, loved ‘grandmamma’ so dearly.”

The Queen and Prince appreciated fully all that the former had owed to
her mother,--the watchful vigilance and wisdom with which, from the
date of her husband’s death, in 1820, the Duchess had devoted herself
to the one object of preparing her baby daughter for the great future
which awaited her. Stockmar had been her friend from the hour of her
bereavement; it was from him that she learned that the illness of her
husband could have no other than a fatal termination; he had stood by
her through the long years of her loneliness, surrounded as she was
by difficulties, jealousies, and misrepresentations; he had always
appreciated her warm heart and innate truthfulness. He wrote of her
that “she was by sheer natural instinct truthful, affectionate, and
friendly, unselfish, sympathetic, and even magnanimous.” All these
testimonies to her worth were recalled now with gratitude and love
by the sorrowing Queen. She was deprived of one solace which she
might have had, the presence of her half-sister, Princess Feodore of
Hohenlohe, the only other surviving child of the Duchess. She had
recently been left a widow (April, 1860), and could not leave Germany.

Lady Augusta Bruce (afterwards Lady Augusta Stanley) had been one of
the Duchess’s ladies-in-waiting, and had been almost a daughter to her
in love, and more than her own daughter could be in tender, watchful
service. The Queen now transferred Lady Augusta to her own household,
nominally as Resident Bed-Chamber Woman, really as assistant secretary;
and from this time a very strong bond of affection was established
between them, which was unbroken until Lady Augusta’s death. The Queen
also received help and consolation from the presence of her eldest
daughter, the Princess Royal, who hurried to her parents on hearing of
their loss. But notwithstanding all consolations, the Queen’s heart was
very sore, and her faithful, tender nature is one which clings with
tenacious gratitude to the memory of precious friends hid in death’s
dateless night. Eleven years after her mother’s death, Her Majesty’s
journal for the 17th August, 1872, has the following entry: “Beloved
mamma’s birthday. That dear mother, so loving and tender and full of
kindness! How often I long for that love!” The Queen did not attend
her mother’s funeral. “I and my girls,” she wrote, “prayed at home.”
A special trial belonging to the position of Royalty must be its
isolation. No subject can be on terms of equality with a Sovereign;
crowned heads are therefore thrown almost wholly on their own immediate
families for that life-giving sympathy and criticism which can hardly
exist in perfection except between equals. To the Queen the loss of
her mother, followed by the loss of her husband, brought the silencing
of the only voices in the world who could say to her, in love, “You
have been wrong, you have made a mistake.” Consider what it must be
never to hear any language except that of homage and respect, never
to listen to plain truths put plainly, never to be laughed at, seldom
to be laughed with; and then imagine what it must be to lose the few
who belong to that close inner circle for whom these formalities are
non-existent.[30] One can only compare it to the position of a man
on a desert island, who, having possessed a Bible or a Shakespeare,
wakes one morning to find them destroyed or carried away by the tide.
It has been sometimes said by English women that the Queen’s loss
when she lost her husband was not greater than that of thousands and
millions of women among her subjects; it has even been said that Her
Majesty’s loss was not so great: some women, at one blow, by the death
of their husbands, are face to face with the wolf of poverty and hunger
for themselves and their children. No one can think lightly of such
anguish; but if the inner history of such lives could be told, would
it not often be found that the curse was turned into a blessing, that
the necessity to seek active work, the friends found in seeking it
and in doing it, gave relief to the heartache, and that the rod of
chastisement had been converted into the staff of strength?

                      “Get leave to work
  In this world,--’tis the best you get at all;
  For God in cursing gives us better gifts
  Than men in benediction. God says, ‘Sweat
  For foreheads;’ men say, ‘Crowns:’ and so we are crowned,
  Ay, gashed by some tormenting circle of steel
  Which snaps with a secret spring. Get work, get work;
  Be sure ’tis better than what you work to get.”

The year preceding the death of the Prince Consort had been, perhaps,
fuller than ever of public and private interests. In the autumn of
1860, the Queen and her husband met their daughter, Princess Frederick
William of Prussia, with her two children, at Coburg. This was the
first sight the Queen had of her grandson, “Dear little William, ...
such a darling, and so intelligent; ... a very pretty, clever child.”
During this visit to Coburg the Prince was in a serious carriage
accident, from which, however, he escaped almost uninjured. The Queen’s
thankfulness is more touching by the light of after events. She gave
1,200 florins to found an annual gift for apprenticing young men and
women in Coburg, to be distributed every year on the anniversary of
her husband’s escape. Tours had been arranged, and were taking place
in 1860, for the Prince of Wales in Canada and the United States, and
for Prince Alfred in Cape Colony; the parents constantly received the
most gratifying news of the impression made by their sons, and the
great loyalty their visits had called forth. Most courteous and cordial
letters on the subject of the Prince of Wales’s visit were exchanged
between the Queen and the President of the United States. The Queen
addressed the President as “My good Friend,” being the nearest approach
which the circumstances admitted to the exclusively royal “_mon cher
frère_.” Special and sympathetic reference was made in both letters
to the young Prince’s visit to the tomb of Washington. Arrangements
were made by the Prince Consort for the Prince of Wales’s residence
on his return from America for a year at the University of Cambridge.
Before this, for the ostensible purpose of allowing the Prince of
Wales to attend the German military manœuvres, it was arranged that
he should have the opportunity of making the acquaintance of the
Princess Alexandra of Denmark. The Prince Consort notes with obvious
satisfaction in his diary “that the young people seem to have taken a
warm liking for one another.”

Plans were also made during this autumn for a visit by the Prince of
Wales to the Holy Land.

The cares of a large family were particularly pressing on the Queen
and Prince during this year. Prince Leopold, who was delicate from his
birth, had a sharp attack of measles, which caused great anxiety. It
was necessary to send him (aged only seven) to Cannes for the winter;
and the choice of suitable people to take charge of the delicate little
lad was necessarily an anxious one. Among the other engagements of this
autumn was included a visit to Ireland, with a hurried excursion to the
Curragh to see the Prince of Wales, who was going through a course of
military training there.

With regard to public affairs, foreign politics were more than
ordinarily absorbing. It was the year of the triumphal entry of
Garibaldi into Naples, and of Victor Emmanuel into the Papal States.
The Queen and Prince followed these events with more anxiety and
less sympathy than the Ministry or the nation. The Prince dubbed Lord
Palmerston and Lord John Russell, “the two old Italian masters.” The
Court seems to have failed to appreciate the constructive greatness of
Garibaldi, and could see in him little more than a kind of picturesque
bandit. The fruit of his labors towards the unification of Italy was
now, however, nearly ripe, and before the death of the Prince Consort
the English Government had acknowledged the title of Victor Emmanuel
as King of Italy. On the Eastern Question the Queen and Prince were
troubled and perplexed by the tendency of Turkey to relapse into all
her old vices of oppression and bad government, and by the evident
hesitation of the French Emperor upon the question whether it would
not be to his interest to throw over the English and form a Russian
alliance.

At home the Queen and Prince were strenuously backing up the Government
in their policy of increasing the naval defences of England and in
protecting our southern coasts by extensive works of fortification.
This policy was opposed by Mr. Bright and Mr. Cobden, from the ranks
of the independent Members of Parliament, and by Mr. Gladstone from
within the Cabinet. Palmerston wrote to the Queen that Mr. Gladstone
had threatened to resign if the new fortifications could not be paid
for out of income; and the Prime Minister added, in a characteristic
passage, “Viscount Palmerston hopes to be able to overcome his
objection; but if that should prove impossible, however great the loss
to the Government by the retirement of Mr. Gladstone, it would be
better to lose Mr. Gladstone than to run the risk of losing Portsmouth
or Plymouth.” Throughout this year, amid the constant pressure of work
of both a public and a private character, and the deluge of despatches
that followed the Royal pair wheresoever they went, there are constant
references to the failing health of the Prince Consort; his digestion
was a perpetual trouble; the Queen kept back details of business from
him if they were of an anxious nature, because she knew they irritated
his delicate stomach. The death of the Duchess of Kent threw a good
deal of extra work upon the Prince; he was left her sole executor, and
masses of papers had to be dealt with without the aid of her secretary
and controller of the household, who had predeceased his mistress by a
few weeks. There was a visible failure of health and energy on the part
of the Prince. “I have been far from well of late;” “my catarrh refuses
to give way;” “yesterday I was too miserable to hold the pen,” are a
few expressions taken at random from his private letters in the year
preceding his death. He did not, however, relax his habit of diligent
work. Summer and winter he rose at seven, and immediately attacked
his correspondence, and the reading and writing of despatches for the
Queen. They worked together, he writing, she correcting and amending.
He would bring letters to the Queen and say, “Read carefully, and tell
me if there be any faults in these” (he was never quite secure, it
seems, about his English); or, “Here is a draft I have made for you.
Read it; I should think it would do.” The last time he rose to work in
the early morning in this way was on December 1, 1861, when he prepared
a draft for the Queen on the _Trent_ affair. Sir Theodore Martin gives
it in facsimile in his fifth volume of the Life of the Prince. It
stands in the Prince’s writing, with the Queen’s corrections. As he
gave it to the Queen he said, “I am so weak I have scarcely been able
to hold the pen.” It was a worthy piece of work to stand as a last
memento of a noble life. It was the time of the outset of the American
Civil War. Great irritation had been produced between the Governments
of England and the United States by the forcible seizure by the latter
on an English ship, the _Trent_, of two envoys from the Southern States
who were proceeding to Europe. It was an entirely unjustifiable piece
of high-handedness, condemned by every rule of International law. The
feeling in England was one of intense indignation, and Lord Palmerston,
then Prime Minister, was not the man to soothe or subdue it. A despatch
for communication to the American Government was sent by the Prime
Minister to the Queen. If it had been delivered, as originally drafted,
the peaceful settlement of the difference between the two countries
would have been rendered extremely difficult, if not impossible. The
Prince Consort virtually remodelled it in such a way as to maintain
all the just demands of this country, but to leave to the Government
of the United States an honorable path of retreat from the false step
which had been taken. This one piece of work alone should keep the
Prince’s memory green in both countries for many a long year. The news
of the pacific settlement of the difference between England and America
reached London on 9th January, 1862, less than a month after the Prince
Consort’s death. The Queen, in communicating with Lord Palmerston on
the subject, could not forbear reminding him that the peaceful issue
of the quarrel was “greatly owing to her beloved Prince.” Palmerston,
in his reply, cordially acknowledged that it was so, and added: “But
these alterations were only one of innumerable instances of the tact
and judgment, and the power of nice discrimination which excited Lord
Palmerston’s constant and unbounded admiration.”

At the very outset of the Prince Consort’s last illness, his spirits
were greatly depressed by the death from typhoid fever of the King
of Portugal, Don Pedro, at the early age of twenty-five, and also of
his brother, Prince Ferdinand. They were the Prince’s cousins, and he
was particularly attached to them, especially to the King, to whom he
stood in almost a paternal relation. The King had married in 1857,
with every apparent prospect of happiness, but his young wife had died
of diphtheria in 1859, and now he and his brother were cut off by
typhoid. The calamity produced an effect on the Prince Consort which
he was unable to shake off. This and other anxieties of a private
nature preyed upon his mind and deprived him of sleep. He noted in
his diary of November 24th that for fourteen days his nights had been
almost sleepless. It was the beginning of the end. Another sign of low
vitality was that he had no strong love of life. He said to the Queen,
not long before his fatal illness, “I do not cling to life. You do; but
I set no store by it. If I knew that those I love were well cared for,
I should be quite ready to die to-morrow;” and he added, “I am sure if
I had a severe illness I should give up at once. I should not struggle
for life. I have no tenacity of life.” The event proved that he was
right. On Monday, November 25th, he paid a hurried visit to the Prince
of Wales at Cambridge. He was then feeling far from well, and entered
in his diary on his return, “_Bin recht elend_” (am very wretched). His
last public appearance was on November 28th, at a review of the Eton
College Volunteers. That it was a great effort to him to fulfil this
engagement is proved by the short note in his diary, the last he ever
made, “Unhappily I must be present.”

The gradually growing anguish of the Queen during the next fortnight
can be traced day by day in the pages of Sir Theodore Martin. At
first she was “so thankful the illness was not fever;” then it became
clear that it _was_ fever,--typhoid fever,--with its accompanying
exhaustion and wandering of mind. She was terribly alarmed, but still
clung desperately to every favorable symptom. She tried to gather what
the doctors really thought, less by what they said than by how they
looked. When they looked grave and sad, “I went to my room and felt as
if my heart must break.” When the doctors spoke frankly to her of the
course which the fever must run before any improvement could be looked
for, “My heart was ready to burst; but I cheered up, remembering how
many people have fever.... Good Alice was very courageous, and tried
to comfort me.” In the earlier days of the Prince’s illness he took
pleasure in being read to, and in hearing music, and the little baby
daughter, Beatrice, was brought in to say her new French verses, and he
held her little hand in his. The Queen recalls with touching minuteness
his tenderness and caressing affection, constantly manifested towards
herself. “_Liebes Fräuchen_,” “_gutes Weibchen_” (dear little wife,
good little wife), he would call her, stroking her face with his wasted
hand. On December 11th the Queen’s diary records that she supported him
while he took his beef-tea. “And he laid his dear head (his beautiful
face, more beautiful than ever, is grown so thin) on my shoulder, and
remained a little while, saying, ‘It is very comfortable so, dear
child!’ which made me very happy.”

His mind often wandered back to the days of his boyhood at the Rocenau;
but at times it would be as clear as ever, and he would speak to the
Queen on public matters, or remind her of some important detail in
connection with her despatches. On December 13th an alarming change
for the worse was noticed, but again he rallied, and again the almost
despairing Queen was tempted to listen to the delusive voice of hope.
The Prince of Wales was summoned by telegraph from Cambridge, by the
Princess Alice acting on her own responsibility, and he travelled
through the night, reaching Windsor at three in the morning of December
14th. Prince Alfred was at Halifax, in Nova Scotia; Prince Leopold was
at Cannes;[31] and the Prince’s darling eldest daughter, the Princess
Royal, was in Prussia, and could not be summoned in time. Little
Princess Beatrice was too young to know what she was losing. But the
other children were gathered round their father’s deathbed. About
half-past five in the afternoon the Prince spoke to the Queen for the
last time. He called her again, “Good little wife,” and kissed her with
a sigh, as if he felt he was leaving her. Then he sank into a sort of
doze, from which he never fully awoke; and the life so inexpressibly
dear to the Queen, and so valuable to his children and to the nation,
gradually ebbed. The end came at a quarter to eleven on Saturday night,
December 14th, 1861. The booming of the great bell of St. Paul’s at
midnight warned London of the calamity that had befallen the Queen and
nation. But the sad news did not reach the general public till later.
Few who were present at morning service on the following day will
forget the thrill of awe and sorrow which ran through the church when
the name of Prince Consort was omitted from the liturgy, and a long
pause was made after the word “widows and orphans.” To many this was
the first intimation of the Prince’s death.

One of the Queen’s chief titles to the love of her people is that she
sorrows with their sorrows:--

  “Queen as true to womanhood as queenhood.
  Glorying with the glories of her people,
  Sorrowing with the sorrows of the lowest.”

The whole nation now mourned with the Queen, and with many the bitter
cup was not unmingled with remorse. The lamentations for the dead are
often sorest when the accusing conscience joins its forces to those
of natural grief. Injustice, misrepresentation, ungenerosity during
life, add an almost intolerable torture to the pain of the mourner.
Fortunately, from this worst anguish the Queen was wholly free. She
could look back over the whole of her twenty-two years’ union with
her beloved Prince, and could find nothing but an unbroken chain of
confidence and love; it may safely be said that she had missed no
opportunity of actively contributing to her husband’s happiness by
every device which ingenious watchful affection could contrive. She
therefore belonged to those mourners of whom it may be truly said that
they are blessed, and shall be comforted. On the last anniversary of
her wedding-day before her husband’s death, the Queen had written to
the King of the Belgians to give renewed expression to the feelings
awakened by the day. She spoke again of “our blessed marriage,” and
“the incalculable blessing” it had brought; and added, “Very few can
say with me that their husband at the end of twenty-one years is not
only full of the friendship, kindness, and affection which a truly
happy marriage brings with it, but of the same tender love as in the
very first days of our marriage.” Death itself could not rob her of
this enormous happiness. It was true he was gone, and she was left
alone to bear the weight of the crown and sceptre unsupported except
by his memory; but for nearly twenty-two years he had been to her in
her own words, “Husband, father, lover, master, friend, adviser, and
guide.” Many will be disposed to murmur, “Happy woman, happy wife,”
even in face of the crushing grief which now overwhelmed her.

[30] The Queen gave expression to this sense of isolation, as a
necessary part of the position of a Sovereign, in a private letter
to the Emperor of the French, dated August, 1857. She wrote, after
thanking the Emperor for his expressions of favorable opinion about
the Prince Consort: “In a position so isolated as ours, we can find
no greater consolation, no support more sure, than the sympathy and
counsel of him or her who is called on to share our lot in life; and
the dear Empress, with her generous impulses, is your guardian angel,
as the Prince is my true friend.”

[31] By a sad coincidence, the governor chosen for Prince Leopold, Sir
Edward Bowater, died on the same day as the Prince Consort. The poor
little boy, on hearing of his father’s death, is said to have exclaimed
in the midst of his tears, “I must go to my mother. I want my mother.”




CHAPTER XVI.

DOMESTIC LIFE AFTER 1861.


After the death of the Prince Consort the available materials for a
life of Her Majesty are much less ample. It is true that in giving
directions to Sir Theodore Martin for writing the Life of the Prince,
Her Majesty’s desire was that only so much of her own life was to be
revealed as was absolutely necessary for the continuity of the story;
but the two lives were so completely one that it was impossible to
write an account of one that was not almost equally an account of
the other. They realized, as long as the Prince lived, the dream of
Tennyson’s “Princess”:

                        “Everywhere
  Two heads in council, two beside the hearth,
  Two in the tangled business of the world,
  Two in the liberal offices of life.”

Sources of information from political memoirs and biographies also
became rarer, till they disappear altogether as we approach recent
years. The burning political questions of the present day cannot be
handled as those can that have been cooling for nearly half-a-century.
Her Majesty’s published diaries and the Memoir of Princess Alice
studiously exclude nearly all references to the multifarious and
constant political duties and interests devolving on the Head of the
State; it is only every now and then and, as it were, accidentally,
that Her Majesty’s political activities, during the thirty-four years
since her husband’s death, have been made known to the mass of her
subjects; whereas, during the twenty-one years of her married life,
they have been set forth in full detail. There is, however, every
reason to know that Her Majesty is fully as active, and certainly has
been as efficient, in the discharge of her political duties since she
has stood alone as she was when her “permanent Minister” was by her
side.

When the blow of her husband’s death fell upon her, the effect on the
Queen was overwhelming. She was stunned by it. In after years she
could hardly remember those dreadful days of the first realization of
her loss; the effect of her anguish was like that of a physical blow,
producing insensibility, or at least the inability to record in the
tables of the memory the sharp pangs she then endured. Her principal
comforter and supporter was her daughter, Princess Alice. In a few
days the young girl of 18 developed into a thoughtful, helpful woman.
She was for a time the medium of communication between the Queen and
her Ministers. Fears were entertained, especially by Leopold, King
of the Belgians, that residence at Windsor would involve risk to the
Queen’s health and even to her life, and he induced her Ministers to
bring great pressure to bear on her to leave the castle and go to
Osborne even before the funeral of the Prince Consort. At first, very
naturally, the Queen entirely declined to entertain the idea; but King
Leopold insisted, and it was finally through the persuasion of the
Princess Alice that the Queen was induced to yield. Broken-hearted
as she was, she did not forget the duty she owed to her country and
family. In after years Princess Alice wrote that it was cruel and wrong
to force her mother to leave Windsor at such a moment; but the motive,
whether misplaced or not, was anxiety for the Queen’s health, and this
was paramount over other considerations. The responsibility thrown on
Princess Alice in two directions, to support and console the Queen,
and also as the medium of communication for a time with the Ministers,
to understand and follow the political movements and events of the
times, wonderfully developed the character of the young girl. To the
end of her life she combined these two characteristics in a pre-eminent
degree. She was one of those women who are born to seek that which
was lost, to bind up that which was broken, and strengthen that which
was sick; and she also took the keenest and most intelligent interest
in politics, following the movements for the unity of Germany, the
development of constitutional liberty in various countries, and the
education and employment of women, not only with sympathy, but with
practical knowledge and a constant wish to forward all these movements
by personal exertions and sacrifices. She was very soon to leave her
mother’s home for her husband’s. Her marriage with Prince Louis of
Hesse took place on July 1st, 1862; but though her home was henceforth
in Germany, the country of her birth remained the country of her heart:
she loved England as the home of liberty and as the country which was
leading the way of advancement both for men and women. It is a touching
incident that, dying as she did at Darmstadt in 1878, her last request
to her husband was that the Union Jack might be laid on her coffin.

Her devotion to the Queen in the hour of her desolation greatly
endeared her to the English people; the memory of that sacred time of
common sorrow made a special bond between the mother and daughter.
It will not be forgotten that when, in 1871, the Prince of Wales had
a desperate attack of the same illness (typhoid fever) that had been
fatal to his father ten years earlier, the Princess Alice helped the
Princess of Wales to nurse him safely through it; the anniversary of
the Prince Consort’s death, December 14th, was the day on which the
illness of his son took a favorable turn. On the first anniversary of
the turning point in the Prince of Wales’s illness, December 14th,
1872, Princess Alice wrote to the Queen that the day must always be
one of mixed recollections and feelings, of thankfulness as well as of
sorrow, and that in both respects it would always be “a day _hallowed_
in our family.” Six years later it was on this very day, December 14th,
1878, that the beloved and gifted Princess breathed her last.

All the contemporary records speak of the Queen as having borne her
terrible grief with courage. She is said to have been more outwardly
composed than she had been after the death of her mother. She began
after a few days to transact necessary business. On the 20th December,
one of the family wrote from Windsor that she had signed some papers,
and had seen Lord Granville. One of her political letters to Lord
Palmerston, written in January, 1862, has been already quoted. It is
entirely characteristic of her that her first public utterance after
the death of her husband was an expression of tenderest sympathy with
the wives and children of 204 poor men who were killed in the Hartley
Colliery explosion in January, 1862. Her own misery, the Queen said,
made her feel the more for them. A little later she received visits
of sympathy and condolence from her uncle, King Leopold, and from her
half-sister, Princess Feodore of Hohenlohe. To a nature like hers, work
and the sympathy of loving friends are the best of all balms; but she
was intensely forlorn; she had lost the source of joy and happiness,
and nothing could bring it back. The joyous young woman, radiant with
light-hearted happiness, ceased to exist on December 14th, 1861.
Henceforward our Queen has been a careworn woman, acquainted with
grief. She has herself told how her sad and suffering heart was cheered
by the solemn beauty of her beloved Highlands, and especially that
she was taught many a lesson of resignation and faith by her faithful
Scottish servants. One of these, John Grant, wheeling her chair, or
leading her pony along the mountain paths, taught her that she must not
look upon the days especially associated with her husband’s memory--his
birthday, August 26th, or even the day of his death, December 14th--as
days of mourning. “That’s not the light to look at,” he said, and
helped her to feel that they were beloved and blessed days, because
they were so full of the memories of the blessed past. In recording
this the Queen writes, “There is so much true and strong faith in these
good, simple people.” The lesson was not forgotten, and we find, by
various notes in the diary, that the Queen keeps her husband’s birthday
by trying to make it a happy day for those about her, celebrating it by
giving presents to her children, ladies and gentlemen in attendance,
and servants, so that all should feel they had been borne in mind, and
had received some “remembrance of the dear day.” In the same spirit
of gratitude for past happiness, Her Majesty’s note in her diary for
October 15th, 1867, is, “Our blessed engagement day! A dear and sacred
day--already twenty-eight years ago. How I ever bless it!” In contrast
with this, we find the entry for her own birthday, May 24th, 1863, just
three words, “My poor birthday!”

Chief among her Highland friends, the Queen had the good fortune to
reckon Dr. Norman Macleod. His strong faith and his power of sympathy,
combined with a wonderful gift of expression and indefatigable
kindness, gave him a peculiar power in saying the right thing, and
giving just the help and support that the Queen wanted when she felt
most forlorn. He had also the strong sense of humor which so often
makes the crooked straight, and the rough places plain. The Queen felt
she could talk openly to him about her sorrow; he helped her to look,
not down, but up. When showing him a drawing of the Prince’s mausoleum,
his exclamation was, “Oh, _he_ is not there.” He would lead her away
from her own grief, to realize, and help to soothe, the sorrows of
others. He told her of a beautiful expression of a poor Scottish woman
who had lost her husband and several of her children. The poor woman
had said, referring to her husband’s death, “When _he_ was ta’en, it
made sic a hole in my heart that a’ other sorrows gang lichtly through.”

It is interesting to note that on October 3d, 1869, the Queen asked Dr.
Macleod his opinion of the Marquis of Lorne. The Doctor assured her
that he knew Lord Lorne well, and had prepared him for confirmation,
and thought very highly of him,--“good, excellent and superior in every
way.” Exactly a year from that day, October 3d, 1870, the Princess
Louise became engaged to the Marquis of Lorne, and they were married on
March 21st, 1871.

The Queen was greatly attracted by the simplicity and dignity of the
services of the Scottish Church. She was present at the Communion
Service at Crathie in 1871. The Journal says:--

 “It would be impossible to say how deeply we were impressed by the
 grand simplicity of the service. It was all so truly earnest, and
 no description can do justice to the perfect devotion of the whole
 assemblage. It was most touching, and I longed much to join in it.”

Since 1873, this wish on the part of the Queen has been gratified, and
she has joined in the communion at Crathie every autumn.

Although Princess Alice’s marriage in July, 1862, had deprived the
Queen of the constant companionship of this dearly loved daughter, yet
the Princess continued to spend part of almost every year with her
mother. She returned to England in November, 1862, and stayed with
the Queen till after the birth of her first baby, in April, 1863. The
Queen was a most tender nurse, and always took a special interest in
the granddaughter and god-daughter who had been born under her roof.
It was Princess Alice who encouraged the Queen to emerge a little
from the seclusion to which she had clung since her widowhood. She
promoted little mountain excursions, in which the Queen was induced to
take part, in the autumn of 1863. She, and also the Princess Royal,
accompanied the Queen in the same year to the ceremony of the unveiling
of the Prince’s statue at Aberdeen. It is easy to understand what
a trying ordeal this must have been to the Queen. There were dense
crowds, loyal and kindly, but silent and full of mournful sympathy;
there was no music even,[32] the bands having been forbidden to
play,--such a contrast, as the Queen wrote, to “former blessed times.”
No wonder that she was “terribly nervous, and longed not to have to go
through this fearful ordeal.” The Queen had been present before this at
family ceremonies, the marriages of Princess Alice in 1862, and of the
Prince of Wales on March 10th, 1863; but the first of these had been
of quite a private character, and in the second the Queen had taken no
part, merely watching the service from the Royal Closet in St. George’s
Chapel, Windsor; but this was her first appearance since her husband’s
death at a public ceremony. She “prayed for help.” But, however
painful, she felt it was right that she should make the effort, and it
helped her to overcome her extreme reluctance to take her part once
more in the pageantry and glitter of royalty. Little by little she took
up this burden also, helped and encouraged by her children, and from
1866 has from time to time opened Parliament in person, and taken her
part as Sovereign in the public functions devolving on her position.
There was at one time an undercurrent of rather mean resentment that
she did not, after her widowhood, enter into social gayety and lead
fashionable life as of old. The loss of her direct personal influence
from the social world has been a very real one. But there are limits to
human strength and endurance; and those who grumbled because the Queen
absented herself from the world of fashion, were probably thinking
more of the number and brilliancy of Court functions, and of the
supposed benefit to trade accruing therefrom, than of the value of a
pure-hearted woman’s influence at the head of society. Mr. John Bright
in 1866 gave a trenchant rebuke from a public platform to one of these
grumblers, who asserted at a meeting of working-men that the Queen was
so absorbed in her own grief as to have lost all sympathy with her
people. He said:--

 “I am not accustomed to stand up in defence of those who are the
 possessors of crowns. But I could not sit here and hear that
 observation without a sensation of wonder and of pain. I think there
 has been, by many persons, a great injustice done to the Queen in
 reference to her desolate and widowed position. And I venture to say
 this, that a woman, be she queen of a great realm, or be she the wife
 of one of your laboring men, who can keep alive in her heart a great
 sorrow for the lost object of her life and affection, is not at all
 likely to be wanting in a great and generous sympathy with you.”

The whole meeting responded to the simple, generous words, touching as
they did the chord of universal human feeling.

The Queen’s love for Scotland and the Scottish people has made it
easier for her to take part in ordinary social life in the neighborhood
of Balmoral than in the crowded whirl of London. She has taken part in
the torch-carrying on Halloween, in gillies’ balls, in marriages and
christenings in Scotland, and made herself one with her people there in
all their joys and sorrows. Her faithful Scotch servant, John Brown,
was for many years a familiar figure, in his Highland dress, behind
the Queen’s carriage. He served her with tact and fidelity, which she
rewarded with grateful and unstinted appreciation. He died in 1883. The
last words in “More Leaves from a Journal of a Life in the Highlands,”
are a tribute to his memory; while the book itself is dedicated, “To my
Loyal Highlanders, and especially to the memory of my devoted personal
attendant and faithful friend, John Brown.” She attended the funeral
service held in his mother’s house on the occasion of his father’s
death, and stayed with the widow to soothe and comfort her when the
funeral procession left the house. Only the heavy rain prevented her
accompanying the other mourners to the grave. It is no doubt the
freedom from formality, the genuine simplicity of the life around her
at Balmoral, which makes it congenial to the Queen. There the gayeties
are really gay; the mournings are really sad, dignified, and solemn,
and not a mocking travesty of pretended woe. One of the luxuries the
Queen allows herself in Scotland is the building of what may be called
“pic-nic” houses in attractive situations in the neighborhood. These
are little more than cottages, only just large enough for the Queen,
and one or two of her children, and the necessary attendants and
servants, generally built in wild and rather inaccessible spots among
the hills. One of these, Altnagiathasach, was built before the Prince
Consort’s death. After her widowhood, the Queen felt she could not go
there alone, and she built another at Glassaltshiel, the house-warming
of which she celebrated in 1868. When the little festivity, with its
reel-dancing and whiskey-toddy drinking, was over, the Queen’s Journal
records, “The sad thought struck me that it was the first _widow’s
house_, not built by him” (the Prince), “nor hallowed by his memory.
But I am sure his blessing does rest on it, and on those who live in
it.” Another of these little houses, a much smaller one, with only two
rooms and a kitchen, is Glengeldershiel; it is within a short drive
from Balmoral. In the neighborhood of these retired cottages the Queen
could walk, accompanied by her friends, her children, and her dogs,
without the fear of the tourist or the much-dreaded reporter before her
eyes.

It must not, however, be represented that it was only in Scotland that
Her Majesty found any means of social enjoyment. The following letter
from Thomas Carlyle (first published in _The Athenæum_, in January,
1895) shows that this was not the case. It is too picturesque to be cut
up; the ill-natured and unjust references to Lady Augusta Stanley and
Mrs. Grote must be tolerated for the sake of the rest of the letter.
It would not be characteristic of Carlyle if it were bowdlerized so as
to leave the impression that he was in charity with all mankind. The
letter is addressed to his sister, Mrs. Aitken:--

  CHELSEA, March 11th, 1869.

 DEAR JEAN,--Mary, I find, has inserted for you a small letter along
 with the one that belongs to the Doctor. I have nothing of my own in
 the form of news beyond what that “child of Nature” will have said.

 All busy here,--March winds “snell” as possible (one’s new cape not
 useless), but not unwholesome: fine, dry, and cold, instead of the
 wet, tepid puddle we have long had, and, in consequence, sleep a
 little better than then.

 But my present business is to tell you exclusively of the Queen’s
 interview, for which great object I have only a few minutes. Swift
 then, if my poor hand but would! “Interview” took place this day gone
 a week. Nearly a week before that the Dean and Deaness (who is called
 Lady Augusta Stanley, once Bruce, an active, hard and busy woman)
 drove up here and, in a solemnly mysterious, half-quizzical manner,
 invited me for Thursday, 4th, at 5 P. M.--“must come; a very high,
 indeed highest personage has long been desirous,” &c., &c. I saw well
 enough it was the Queen’s _incognita_, and briefly agreed to come.
 “Half-past four, come you,” and then went their ways.

 Walking up at the set time, I was ushered into that long drawing-room
 in their monastic edifice. I found no Stanley yet there; only at
 the further end a tall old year-pole (?) of a Mrs. Grote, the most
 wooden-headed woman I know in London, or the world, who thinks herself
 very clever, &c., and the sight of whom led me to expect Mr. too, and
 perhaps others, as accordingly in a few minutes fell out. Grote and
 wife, Sir Charles Lyell and ditto, Browning and myself: that I saw
 to be our party. “Better than nothing,” thought I, “these will take
 off the edge of the thing, if edge there be”--which it hadn’t, nor
 threatened to have.

 The Stanleys and we were all in a flow of talk, and some flunkys had
 done setting coffee-pots and tea-cups of a sublime pattern, when
 Her Majesty, punctual to the minute, glided in, escorted by her
 dame-in-waiting (a Duchess Dowager of Athol), and by the Princess
 Louise, decidedly a very pretty young lady, and clever too, as I found
 out in talking to her afterwards. The Queen came softly forward, a
 kindly little smile on her face, gently shook hands with all the
 three women, gently acknowledged with a nod the silent bows of us
 male monsters; and directly in her presence every one was at ease
 again. She is a comely little lady, with a pair of kind, clear, and
 intelligent gray eyes; still looks almost young (in spite of one
 broad wrinkle which shows on each cheek occasionally); is still
 plump; has a fine, low voice, soft; indeed, her whole manner is
 melodiously perfect. It is impossible to imagine a _politer_ little
 woman; nothing the least imperious; all gentle, all sincere, looking
 unembarrassing,--rather attractive even; makes you feel, too (if you
 have any sense in you), that she is Queen.

 After a little word to each of us--to me it was, “Sorry you did not
 see my daughter” (Princess of Prussia), or “all sorry,” perhaps so;
 which led us to Potsdam, Berlin, &c., for an instant or two. To Sir
 Charles Lyell I heard her say, “Gold in Sutherland”--but quickly and
 delicately cut him short in responding. To Browning, “Are you writing
 anything?” (who has just been publishing the absurdest things!) To
 Grote I did not hear what she said, but it was touch-and-go with
 everybody--Majesty visibly _without_ interest, or nearly so, of her
 own.

 After this, coffee (very black and muddy) was handed round, Queen
 and three women taking seats, Queen in the corner of a sofa, Lady
 Deaness in opposite corner, Mrs. Grote in a chair _intrusively_ close
 to Majesty; Lady Lyell modestly at the diagonal corner; we others
 obliged to stand and hover within call.

 Coffee fairly done, Lady Augusta called me gently to come and speak
 to Her Majesty. I obeyed, first asking, as an old, infirmish man, Her
 Majesty’s permission to sit, which was graciously conceded. Nothing
 of the least significance was said, nor _needed_; however, my bit
 of dialogue went very well. “What part of Scotland I came from?”
 “Dumfries (where Majesty might as well go sometimes). Carlisle, _Caer
 Lewel_, a place of about the antiquity of King Solomon (according
 to Milton),” whereat Majesty smiled. Border Ballads and old James
 Pool slightly alluded to, not by name. Glasgow, and grandfather’s
 ride thither, ending in more psalms, and streets vacant at 9½ P.
 M.--hard, sound Presbyterian root of what has now shot up to such a
 monstrously ugly cabbage-tree and hemlock-tree! all which Majesty
 seemed to take rather well: whereupon Mrs. Grote rose good-naturedly
 and brought forward her husband _cheek by jowl_ with Majesty, who
 evidently did not care a straw for him, but kindly asked--“Writing
 anything?” and one heard “Aristotle, now that I have done with Plato”
 (but only for a minimum of time). Majesty herself (and I think apropos
 of some question about my _shaky hand_) said something about her
 own difficulty in writing to dictation, which brought forward Lady
 Lyell and husband, mutually used to the operation; after which, talk
 becoming quite trivial, Majesty gracefully retired with Lady Augusta,
 and, in ten minutes more, returned, to receive our farewell bows,
 which, too, she did very prettily, and sailed out as if moving on
 skates, and bending her head to us with a smile.

 By the underground railway I was home before seven, and out of the
 adventure, with only a headache of little moment.

 Froude tells me there are foolish myths about the poor business,
 especially about my share of it; but this is the real truth, worth
 to me in strictest truth _all but nothing_, in the myths less than
 nothing.

 Tell the Dr. I intended writing him, but it is already (horrible to
 think!) a quarter-past four.

  Adieu, dear Sister,
  Yours ever,      T. C.


[32] It was nearly five years after her husband’s death before the
Queen could bear to listen to music. In 1866, Princess Alice wrote to
her mother: “I am really glad to hear that you can listen to a little
music. Music is such a heavenly thing, and dear Papa loved it so much,
that I can’t but think that now it must be soothing, and bring you near
to him.”




CHAPTER XVII.

THE WARP AND WOOF OF HOME AND POLITICS.


Between 1858 and 1885 all the Queen’s nine children married; and every
one knows that she took just as much delight and interest in their
prospect of forming happy homes of their own as any other mother in her
wide dominions could have done. In other words, politics and political
responsibilities of the weightiest kind have not unsexed her. In
arranging the marriages of her three elder children, Her Majesty had
had the advantage of the knowledge and judgment of the Prince Consort.
It can hardly be by accident that the brides and bridegrooms of our
Royal House have not been brought up in the full blast of the hothouse
atmosphere of Court life. We know that the Queen and Prince Consort
looked upon this atmosphere as dangerous and pernicious, and kept their
own children as much apart from it as was possible; their sons and
daughters-in-law, with one exception, were selected from those who had
not passed their earliest and most impressionable years as the children
of reigning Sovereigns.

It has been already noted that the Queen did not allow her private
inclinations, which would doubtless have been gratified by keeping
the Princess Alice with her, to postpone the marriage which had been
sanctioned by the Prince Consort. Prince Louis, indeed, thought that
his betrothed wife would not have held to her engagement after her
father’s death, seeing how her mother depended on her for comfort
in her great sorrow; but he was mistaken, and the marriage took
place not long after the date originally fixed, July 1st, 1862. In
the autumn of the same year the Queen, who visited her uncle, King
Leopold, at Laeken, arranged to meet, for the first time, her future
daughter-in-law, the Princess Alexandra of Denmark. Later, in 1862,
the beautiful young Princess visited the widowed Queen at Windsor,
and received a mother’s welcome from that warm, tender heart. All
references to the Princess of Wales throughout the Queen’s journals and
the Princess Alice’s letters are most loving and tender. “Dear, sweet,
gentle Alix,” are among the many endearing epithets bestowed on her by
her mother and sister-in-law. The marriage of the Prince and Princess
of Wales on March 10th, 1863, took place in St. George’s Chapel,
Windsor. It was a most magnificent ceremonial, and was the first Royal
marriage celebrated in that Chapel since that of Henry I. in 1122. At
the wedding Prince William of Prussia, aged four, was placed between
his two little uncles, Arthur and Leopold, who were instructed to keep
him quiet. Bishop Wilberforce says that he resented any interference,
and bit his uncles on their “bare Highland legs” if they tried to
control him.

The good feeling among the various members of the English Royal Family
was soon after this put to a severe test. The Schleswig-Holstein
quarrel between Denmark and Germany came to a head in 1864, and war
was declared, with the inevitable result that the little kingdom of
Denmark was completely beaten by her powerful opponents, the combined
Powers of Austria and Prussia. The King of Prussia was father-in-law of
our Princess Royal. She and Princess Alice, as wife of another German
Prince, naturally espoused the German side in the quarrel; the Prince
and Princess of Wales, as naturally, espoused that of Denmark, and
felt that the little kingdom had been unfairly browbeaten and bullied
by its powerful neighbors. There was a very strong feeling in England
in support of Denmark. Lord John Russell had undoubtedly led her on
to suppose that in the event of war, she would receive the armed
assistance of England. A powerful section of the Tory party was also
in favor of war. Votes of censure were moved against the Government in
both Houses; the vote was carried in the Lords, and only averted in
the Commons by a narrow majority. In this crisis, it was the nearest
thing in the world that England was not precipitated into war with
Germany. The Emperor of the French was urging it, and offering his
alliance. He had already begun to talk about the Rhine frontier being
“an absolute necessity” for France, and would have liked nothing better
than an alliance with England against Germany. The Queen averted the
catastrophe, and we learn from Lord Malmesbury’s Memoirs that she
“would not hear of going to war with Germany.” “No doubt,” he adds,
“this country would like to fight for the Danes, and from what is said,
I infer that the Government is inclined to support them also, but
finds great difficulties in the opposition of the Queen.” Her immense
knowledge of foreign politics and grasp of a continuous and definite
line of action saved England from the enormous blunder of involving
this country in war about the succession to the German Duchies.
Probably very few people in England really understood the question
at issue at the time; and it was the Queen’s knowledge and strong
common-sense which saved us from a serious national disaster.

The family aspects of the quarrel called forth the good qualities of
the woman, just as its national aspects had called forth those of the
Queen. The war and the crushing of poor Denmark left a feeling of
soreness and resentment which did not subside for many a year. The war
took place in 1864; it was not till 1867 that there was a friendly
meeting between the King of Prussia and the Prince and Princess of
Wales. Princess Alice wrote from Darmstadt in October of that year:--

 “Bertie and Alex [the Prince and Princess of Wales] have been here
 since Saturday afternoon.... The visit of the King [of Prussia] went
 off very well, and Alex was pleased with the kindness and civility of
 the King. I hear that the meeting was satisfactory to both parties,
 which I am heartily glad of. Bearing ill-will is always a mistake,
 besides its not being right.”

Another marriage in the Royal Family still further complicated the
Schleswig-Holstein question from the domestic point of view, for in
1866 Princess Helena, the Queen’s third daughter, married Prince
Christian of Schleswig-Holstein, the second son of the German claimant
of the Duchies. The Queen gave her daughter away. The Princess and her
husband have made their home in England.

It was in this year that the war between North and South Germany,
headed respectively by Prussia and Austria, about the disposal of the
Schleswig-Holstein Duchies, had the effect of bringing the Queen’s
two sons-in-law, Prince Frederick William of Prussia and Prince
Louis of Hesse, into the field of battle on opposite sides. This was
a severe trial. The Princess Alice’s letters showed that it caused
her intense anguish. She, like her father, longed for the unity of
Germany under the headship of Prussia, and was quite ready to submit
to the sacrifices this would entail on the smaller German Princes;
but this war of brother against brother, and friend against friend,
was a thing which she felt to be too fearful to contemplate. In this
hour of great trial, the love and confidence between the sisters and
their respective husbands never wavered. Prince Louis went to Berlin,
before the actual outbreak of hostilities, to see his brother-in-law,
and he then made sure that though their respective allegiance brought
them into conflict as soldiers, yet as men they would remain brothers
and friends. North Germany under Prussia was, as every one knows,
successful in the conflict, and the victorious Prussian army marched
into Darmstadt just at the time of the birth of Princess Alice’s third
daughter (July 11th, 1866). The newly made mother lay in bed hearing
the shouts of her husband’s victors, at the very time knowing that he
was still under fire, and that she was unable to get any news of his
safety. The christening of the little Princess was put off till it
could take place on the day on which the treaty of peace was ratified
at Berlin; the baby then received the name of Irène, in commemoration
of the event. The poor little Princess of peace had very warlike
godfathers,--the whole of the cavalry brigade which had been commanded
by her father in the late war. It is significant that just before this
war Princess Alice had written to the Queen using the expression: “I
long to ... know that your warm heart is _acting_ for Germany.” That
is the woman all over: to feel, is to translate feeling into action
wherever power to do so is not lacking. The warp and woof of home and
politics are ever conspicuous in the Princess Alice’s letters. When the
Schleswig-Holstein question first began to threaten war, she wrote to
the Queen, filling the first part of the letter with her speculations
on the political situation, and then passing to her baby’s first tooth,
“She makes such faces if one ventures to touch her little mouth;” and
the Princess then goes on to mention some of her activities in trying
to set the hospital at Darmstadt in good order, and to interest the
burgomaster and town councillors in the work, and the provision she was
making for the safety and well-being of poor women in childbirth. She
was indeed a very political woman, and a very womanly politician.

In 1870, when the Franco-German War broke out, the Queen’s sympathies,
it is almost needless to say, went wholly with Germany; she had
looked for the unification of Germany as steadily as old Stockmar
and the Prince Consort, and the year 1871 saw this vision become an
accomplished fact. King William of Prussia was proclaimed the German
Emperor by the assembled German Princes in the banqueting hall of
Versailles.

In 1868, when Prince Alfred was absent in Australia, he was shot at and
wounded by a Fenian named O’Farrell. When telegraphic news of this was
received in cipher at the Colonial Office, it was at first impossible
to make out whether the Prince had been killed or only wounded. Another
telegram on the following day set the worst anxieties at rest, and
further despatches brought word that the ball had been extracted, and
that the Prince was doing well; but it can easily be understood what
a shock the event must have been to the Queen. Prince Alfred, who had
been created a peer under the title of Duke of Edinburgh, married in
1874 the Grand-Duchess Marie, only daughter of Emperor Alexander II of
Russia. In 1893, on the death of the Prince Consort’s brother, Duke
Ernest of Coburg, the Duke of Edinburgh succeeded him, and is now the
reigning Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. When Prince Alfred’s engagement
to the Grand-Duchess Marie was impending, but not yet settled, he
joined his sister, Princess Alice, on a tour in Italy, the Empress of
Russia and her daughter being at Sorrento. Visits were made to them
by the English Prince and Princess; the latter of whom wrote to the
Queen that the bride-elect had an attack of fever, and she added, “We
remained at Rome a day longer on account of poor Alfred. He is very
patient and hopeful.” This was in April, 1873. The betrothal took
place in July of the same year, and the marriage in January, 1874, at
St. Petersburg. This was the only one of the marriages of the Queen’s
children at which she was unable to be present. All the others have
married from their mother’s house. Dean Stanley attended the Duke of
Edinburgh’s marriage, and performed the English part of the service, by
the Queen’s express command.

It was in May, 1873, that the most terrible sorrow fell upon Princess
Alice,--the sudden, violent death of her little boy, Prince Frederick
William (Frittie), aged two and a half years. This dear child had been
born during the Franco-German War; Prince Louis had parted from his
wife to take the command of the Hessian troops in July, 1870. “Frittie”
was born on 7th October, and the husband and wife did not meet again
till the end of the war, March 31st, 1871. In the interval, Princess
Alice had suffered great anxiety on account of the war, and the danger
to which her husband was exposed; she also exerted herself far beyond
her strength in nursing the sick and wounded. But this was not a time
when a generous nature counts the cost of personal services. She was
in the hospital every day, late and early, and besides this, nursed
wounded soldiers in her own house. She faced typhus and small-pox, and
on one occasion (mentioned by Lady Bloomfield) helped to lift a wounded
man who had small-pox full out upon him. The child born during these
months of mental and physical strain was delicate from his birth; he
had a tendency to hemorrhage which was very alarming, and during his
short life he had many illnesses and ailments. He was, perhaps for
this very reason, the special object of his mother’s love. On the May
29th, 1873, Princess Alice having lately returned from her tour in
Italy, her two little boys, Ernie and “Frittie,” were brought to her
room, before she was up, to bid her “Good-morning.” By her wish they
were left in the room to play about. The elder of the two little boys
having run into the adjoining dressing-room, his mother followed him;
during her momentary absence, the younger fell out of the open window
of the bedroom on to the stone terrace below: he was alive when he
was picked up, but was insensible, and only survived a few hours. No
one ever knew exactly how the accident happened, but the horror and
anguish of the poor mother can be imagined. It was a blow from which
she never really recovered. The Queen’s heart bled for her daughter.
The poor Princess wrote to her mother in August, 1873, “Many thanks
for your dear letter! I am feeling so low and weak to-day that kind
words are doubly soothing. You feel so with me, when you understand how
long and deep my grief must be. And does one not grow to love one’s
grief, as having become part of the being one loved,--as if through
_this_ one could still pay a tribute of love to him to make up for the
terrible loss?” All through this cruel anguish she relied with perfect
confidence on her mother’s sympathy. In September, 1873, she wrote to
the Queen, “You ask me if I can play yet? I feel as if I could not, and
I have not yet done so. In my own house it seems to me as if I never
could play again on that piano, where little hands were nearly always
thrust when I wanted to play.... Mary Teck (Duchess of Teck) came to
see me, and remained two nights, so warm-hearted and sympathizing. I
like to talk of him to those who love children, and can understand how
great the gap, how intense the pain, the ending of a bright little
existence causes.” The resemblance between the mother and daughter came
out in their grief. After the Prince Consort’s death, the Queen’s chief
comfort was to speak of him constantly to those who had known and loved
him; and the Princess Alice’s letters continually dwell on her darling
child whom she had lost in such a terrible way.

Several of the Queen’s daughters, notably the Empress Frederick and
Princess Alice, have shown the greatest sympathy with what is known
in England as the women’s movement. They have promoted by every means
in their power improved opportunities of education and employment for
women, and greater social liberty for them. The Queen, it must be
confessed, has never shown that she sympathizes with her daughters in
their attitude on this question. Princess Alice’s letters show that
Her Majesty was rather anxious and nervous about the women’s meetings
and associations promoted by the Princess, and not really pleased
at the ceaseless activity of her daughter’s mind on these subjects.
She inquired anxiously if Princess Alice took counsel with her
mother-in-law, Princess Charles of Hesse, upon them; when the Princess
was studying anatomy and physiology, she, as it were, apologized to her
mother for her interest in them, and said it might even be useful to
be not entirely ignorant on such things: she added that she knew her
mother did not like such studies, but affirmed that for her own part,
instead of finding them disgusting, they filled her with admiration
to see how wonderfully the human body was made. Though, on the whole,
the Queen has been very far from giving encouragement, except by the
magnificent example of her own life and character, to the modern
movement among women for sharing in political work and responsibility,
she testified her interest in their higher education by opening in
person, in 1887, the palatial buildings of Holloway College. It was
rather a singular coincidence that the year in which the Queen did this
(which was also the year of her Jubilee) a young lady, Miss Agneta
Ramsay, occupied the then unprecedented position of Senior Classic in
the University of Cambridge. This made 1887, in a very special degree,
a woman’s year.

Another of the modern women’s movements which the Queen has promoted
is their entrance into the medical profession. In 1881, a medical
missionary from India, Miss Beilby, was the bearer of a message from
the Maharanee of Punnah to the Queen, telling Her Majesty of the
terrible sufferings of Indian women from the want of duly-qualified
women doctors. The Queen was deeply moved by the tale of unnecessary
suffering, and of valuable lives thrown away or blighted by the want of
skilful and properly trained women to attend native women in sickness.
Lord Dufferin was not long after appointed Governor-General of India,
and before he left, the Queen especially charged Lady Dufferin with the
task of instituting a fund to promote a regular supply of fully trained
women doctors for India. This fund was inaugurated by the Marchioness
of Dufferin, and is known by her name, and it has since been under the
special protection of each successive Governor-General’s wife.

During the later years of her reign, Her Majesty has suffered many
bereavements of those near and dear to her. Her uncle, who had been
a second father to her, King Leopold, died in 1865. He had remained
very faithful to his love for England and English constitutionalism.
Many small indications show how his heart clung to the memories of his
first marriage. The eldest daughter of the second marriage was named
Charlotte, after his first wife (she afterwards married the unfortunate
Archduke Maximilian, who assumed the title of Emperor of Mexico, and
was shot by Juarez in 1867). When King Leopold knew he was dying, he
desired that he might be buried at Windsor, by the side of the wife of
his youth; but his wishes were not carried out.

The outbreak of diphtheria at Darmstadt in 1878, in which the Queen
lost her dearly loved second daughter and one of her grandchildren,
has been already referred to. In June, 1879, the Prince Imperial,
only son of the exiled Empress of the French, was killed by the Zulus
in a skirmishing expedition in South Africa. The Queen’s feelings of
grief were all the harder to endure because the young Prince had been
serving with her army. Her sensibility on the point of national honor
was deeply wounded. She was ashamed that the lad had not been defended
by the Englishmen who were with him; her heart bled for the mother who
had lost her only child. The same autumn, with her usual thoughtful
kindness, she induced the widowed Empress Eugénie to accept the loan of
Abergeldie Castle, near Balmoral; and nothing was spared which it was
possible to do to console and cheer her aching heart.

The next great sorrow was the death of Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany,
which took place, almost suddenly, at Cannes, in March, 1884. The
Prince had been delicate from his youth, and more than once had hovered
between life and death. The Princess Alice wrote after one of his
illnesses in 1868:--

 “For a second and even a third time that life has been given again,
 when all feared that it must leave us.... Indeed, from the depth of my
 heart, I thank God with you for having so mercifully spared dear Leo,
 and watched over him when death seemed so near.”

The Prince had seemed to gain strength with years, and in 1882 he
married Princess Helen of Waldeck, sister of the present Queen-Regent
of Holland. A little girl was born to him and his wife in 1883, named
Alice, after the sister whose words of love have just been quoted; but
a little son, born in 1884, did not see the light for some four months
after his father’s death. The Queen’s loving, motherly tenderness
protected and sustained her young daughter-in-law in her sorrow and
loneliness.

Almost as much as for the death of her children, the Queen mourned the
loss of the gallant General Gordon at Khartoum early in 1885. She wrote
from Osborne to Miss Gordon in February of that year:--

 DEAR MISS GORDON,--_How_ shall I write to you, or how shall I attempt
 to express _what I feel_! To think of your dear, noble, heroic
 brother, who served his country and his Queen so truly, so heroically,
 with a self-sacrifice so edifying to the world, not having been
 rescued. That the promises of support were not fulfilled--which I so
 frequently and constantly pressed on those who asked him to go--is to
 me _grief inexpressible!_ indeed, it has made me ill! My heart bleeds
 for you, his sister.... Some day I hope to see you again, to tell you
 all I cannot express.... Would you express to your other sisters and
 your elder brother my true sympathy, and what I do so keenly feel, the
 _stain_ left upon England for your dear brother’s cruel, though heroic
 fate! Ever, dear Miss Gordon, yours sincerely and sympathizingly.

  V. R. I.


A few weeks later, Miss Gordon presented her brother’s Bible (which he
had constantly carried with him) to the Queen, and again Her Majesty
wrote a letter, vivid with her grief and shame and high appreciation
of the hero whose life had been sacrificed. This second letter was
left by Miss Gordon to the nation, and may now be seen, one of the
most interesting of the collection of royal autographs, in the British
Museum. The well-worn Bible now lies open in an enamel and crystal
case, called the St. George’s Casket, in the south corridor of the
private apartments at Windsor.

The death of her dearly loved eldest son-in-law in 1888 was a real
heart-sorrow to the Queen. Those who saw the Jubilee procession in
1887 retain a vivid recollection that among all that splendid retinue
there was no figure more noble and impressive than that of the Prince
Imperial of Germany. His tall figure, martial bearing, and bronzed,
manly face, set off by the white uniform he wore, made him conspicuous
among the crowds of Princes and notabilities. But a cruel disease
had already laid hold of him, and almost exactly a year after his
apparently magnificent physique had attracted universal admiration in
the crowds collected for the Jubilee, he was gathered to his fathers,
and his son, our Queen’s eldest grandson, William II, reigned in his
stead. The Emperor Frederick reigned for three months only; his aged
father, the Emperor William I., having died in March, 1888. Many noble
hopes and ambitions died with the Emperor Frederick. He had been one
of the chief authors of the unity of Germany, and was the constant
representative in German politics of the principle of constitutional
liberty. When he took his bride from England, on a bitter winter’s day
in 1858, the little Princess cried bitterly at parting from her parents
and her native country. Her tears were misinterpreted by the crowd,
from whom a shout proceeded, “If he doesn’t treat you well, come back
to us.” The implied distrust of the Prince was wholly uncalled for;
he adored his wife, and those two shared the burdens and hopes and
responsibilities of their position in a way that any husband and wife
might envy. It had been from first to last a marriage of true minds.

The death of the Duke of Clarence, the eldest son of the Prince and
Princess of Wales, and heir to the throne in the second generation, on
January 14th, 1892, was another heavy blow to the Royal House. The
Duke had only lately become engaged to the Princess Victoria Mary of
Teck, when all the preparations for the wedding were ended by the death
of the bridegroom-elect. Influenza, followed by acute pneumonia, was
the cause. The whole nation mourned with and for the Queen. The tragic
circumstances of the unexpected transition from wedding to funeral,
from the throne to the bier, called forth a genuine expression of deep
feeling from all classes. But just as a discord sometimes serves to
prepare the ear for the full sweetness of a harmony, so in this case
one of the most touching expressions of sympathy was called for by the
refusal of some boorish members of the Miners’ Federation at Stoke to
pass a vote of condolence to the Queen on the death of her grandson and
heir. There were women in the immediate neighborhood, widows of men who
had perished in the Oaks Colliery explosion, twenty-six years earlier.
They retained a lively recollection of the Queen’s sympathy with them
in their bitter grief, and the aid she had given to the fund for their
relief; and to think that any men connected with coal mining should
now refuse to express sympathy with the Queen, was enough, they felt,
to make the very stones cry out. Little accustomed as these poor women
were to address letters to great personages, they sent the following to
Her Majesty:--

 “To our beloved Queen, Victoria.

 “DEAR LADY,--We, the surviving widows and mothers of some of the men
 and boys who lost their lives by the explosion which occurred in the
 Oaks Colliery, near Barnsley, in December, 1866, desire to tell your
 Majesty how stunned we all feel by the cruel and unexpected blow which
 has taken Prince Eddie from his dear grandmother, his loving parents,
 his beloved intended, and an admiring nation. The sad news affected
 us deeply, we all believing that his youthful strength would carry
 him safely through the danger. Dear Lady, we feel more than we can
 express. To tell you that we sincerely condole with your Majesty and
 the Prince and Princess of Wales in your and their sad bereavement
 and great distress is not to tell you all we feel; but the widow of
 Albert the Good and the parents of Prince Eddie will understand what
 we feel when we say that we feel all that widows and mothers feel
 who have lost those who were as dear as life to them. Dear Lady, we
 remember with gratitude all that you did for us Oaks widows in the
 time of our great trouble, and we cannot forget you in yours. We have
 not forgotten that it was you, dear Queen, who set the example, so
 promptly followed by all feeling people, of forming a fund for the
 relief of our distress,--a fund which kept us out of the workhouse
 at the time, and has kept us out ever since. Dear Lady, we cannot
 make you understand how grieved we all are to learn that a miner,
 and that miner a Barnsley miner, though, happily, not a native of
 Barnsley, should have forgotten not only all that you have done for
 the widows and orphans of miners, but also for the suffering, the
 afflicted and desolate of every other class of workers in England, and
 that he should have shown himself so devoid of all human feeling as
 to refuse, and lead others to refuse, your Majesty and poor Eddie’s
 parents one kind word of sympathy in your and their great sorrow. We
 feel ashamed of that man, for he has covered us all with disgrace,
 and filled our hearts with pain. We hope he may live to feel ashamed
 of himself, and to know what it is to be refused any sympathy in any
 great trouble he may have. We wish it were in our power, dear Lady,
 to dry up your tears and comfort you, but that we cannot do. But what
 we can do, and will do, is to pray God, in His mercy and goodness, to
 comfort and strengthen you in this your time of great trouble. Wishing
 your Majesty, the Prince and Princess of Wales, and the Princess
 May, so cruelly bereaved and utterly disconsolate, all the strength,
 consolation, and comfort which God alone can give, and which He never
 fails to give to all who seek Him in truth and sincerity, we remain,
 beloved Queen, your loving and grateful though sorrowing subjects, THE
 OAKS WIDOWS.” (Signed on behalf of the widows by SARAH BRADLEY, one of
 them.)

 “Poor Eddie! to die so young, and so much happiness in prospect. Oh!
 ’tis hard.”

 The secretary to the fund, Mr. G. W. Atkinson, of Barnsley, having
 been requested to forward the letter to Her Majesty, accompanied it
 with a note to Her Majesty’s private secretary, in which he stated
 that “the poor people seemed greatly troubled at the misfortune which
 had befallen the Royal Family of England.”

 The following reply was sent by Her Majesty:--

 “The Queen has been much touched by the genuine feeling of sympathy
 manifested by those connected with the Oaks Colliery which is so
 warmly expressed in the address you have enclosed, and Her Majesty
 commands me to ask you to convey her sincere thanks to the senders for
 their kind words of condolence with her in her sorrow.”[33]

To appreciate all that this touching letter from working-women to their
Queen means, would be to understand the great national work which Her
Majesty has accomplished by her life. The throne has become once more a
living power for good in our national life mainly through the unceasing
devotion to her duty, high character, and practical sagacity of its
present occupant. Compare the warm human feeling of genuine affection
and sorrow which breathes through every line of this letter with
Greville’s description of the funeral of George IV.: “A gayer company I
never beheld.... They were all as merry as grigs,” and so on. Two more
such kings as George IV. would have run out the English monarchy. Mr.
R. L. Stevenson said in one of his stories that the first service a
patriot ought to render his country was to be a good man. Being a good
woman underlies all our Queen’s services to her country, and it is this
which has established her throne in righteousness.

Her Majesty was deeply touched by the many expressions of affectionate
sympathy which reached her from every class and from her subjects all
over the world. She replied by a letter to her people setting forth in
strong and simple words her mingled feelings of grief for her loss,
gratitude for the sympathy expressed by the nation, and her sources of
consolation:--

  OSBORNE, January 26, 1892.

 I must once again give expression to my deep sense of the loyalty
 and affectionate sympathy evinced by my subjects in every part of my
 Empire on an occasion more sad and tragical than any but one which
 has befallen me and mine, as well as the Nation. The overwhelming
 misfortune of my dearly loved Grandson having been thus suddenly
 cut off in the flower of his age, full of promise for the future,
 amiable and gentle, and endearing himself to all, renders it hard
 for his sorely stricken Parents, his dear young Bride, and his fond
 Grandmother to bow in submission to the inscrutable decrees of
 Providence.

 The sympathy of millions, which has been so touchingly and visibly
 expressed, is deeply gratifying at such a time, and I wish, both in
 my own name and that of my children, to express, from my heart, my
 warm gratitude to _all_.

 These testimonies of sympathy with us, and appreciation of my dear
 Grandson, whom I loved as a Son, and whose devotion to me was as great
 as that of a Son, will be a help and consolation to me and mine in our
 affliction.

 My bereavements during the last thirty years of my reign have indeed
 been heavy. Though the labors, anxieties, and responsibilities
 inseparable from my position have been great, yet it is my earnest
 prayer that God may continue to give me health and strength to work
 for the good and happiness of my dear Country and Empire while life
 lasts.

  VICTORIA, R. I.


The noble and touching words of the last sentence fitly recall the
child of eleven years old who, on first learning that she was next in
the succession, lifted her little hand and said, “I will be good.”

The Duke of York, Prince George of Wales, occupies, by the death of
his elder brother, the next place in the succession after his father.
The union, in 1893, of the young Prince with Princess Victoria Mary
of Teck (Princess May, as she was generally called) resulted in the
birth of a son in May, 1894. This baby, who bears the fine historic
title of Prince Edward of York, is now the third in the direct line
of the succession. Pictures of the four generations, the Queen, her
son, grandson, and great-grandson, have ornamented all the illustrated
papers, and have been looked at with loyal interest by millions of
English men and women all over the world who have mingled with their
good wishes to the Royal House a heartfelt prayer that it may yet be
many a long year before the Crown of England passes to another head.

[33] _Times_, January 26th, 1892.




CHAPTER XVIII.

THE QUEEN AND THE EMPIRE.


Reference was made in the last chapter to the celebration of the
Queen’s Jubilee in 1887. It was kept with all kinds of appropriate
festivals in every part of the British Empire. But the centre and
kernel of the whole celebration was the beautiful and touching national
ceremony in Westminster Abbey on June 21st. On the same spot where
as a young girl the Queen had knelt and had sworn fidelity to the
constitution of her kingdom, and to govern according to law, justice,
and mercy, the aged Queen again appeared, followed by a troop of
children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, to return thanks to
the Almighty for the blessings of her reign and the augmenting power,
prosperity, and numbers of her people. In 1837 her people had looked
to her with the enthusiasm of hope; in 1887 they looked upon her
with the enthusiasm of gratitude, with the memory of fifty wonderful
years behind them, griefs and joys in common, common pride in the
greatness and glories of England, common shame for her shortcomings;
but in spite of these a common faith that earth’s best hopes rest with
England, and that her growing greatness promotes the happiness and
well-being of mankind. In this national festival the Queen was felt
to be the emblem of national unity, the one political power in the
nation that is dissociated from party, with its petty squabbles and
ignoble sacrifices. While statesmen too often stand merely for their
party, and may be willing to sacrifice the true and obvious interests
of the whole nation to gain a party majority, the Queen is more and
more felt to stand for the nation that is above and beyond all party.
That was the real meaning of the Jubilee, compared to which personal
congratulations to a lady who had filled an important position with
credit for fifty years held only a very secondary place.

It may be claimed for the Queen that she has realized, as no other
modern Sovereign of this country has done, and as only a section of
the public dimly appreciate, the true value of the Crown as a power
which is above party, and therefore representative of the whole nation.
Her function has been to check Ministers who have been ready to make
national sacrifices to promote party ends; constantly, for instance,
to keep before the heads of successive Governments the importance of
maintaining the efficiency of the national defences. How many Prime
Ministers and Chancellors of the Exchequer may have been tempted to
procure a surplus, and thus obtain for their party the popularity of
a remission of taxation, by neglecting to build ships and keep up our
naval supremacy, but for the unwearying attention given by the Queen
to all matters connected with internal and external defence. When the
records of the later years of this reign come to be fully written,
innumerable proofs will be given to the public that when statesmen
have from time to time disdained to seize a party triumph which would
bring with it a national disaster, they have either been inspired by
the direct counsels of the Queen, or have received from her, after the
event, immediate proof that she has watched their course of conduct
with sympathy and appreciation. All government, including party
government, only exists for the welfare of the governed; that is, the
whole nation. It is quite natural that party leaders should often
forget this; it is the function of the Crown never to forget it, and
to exert all its influence to prevent the interests of the nation being
sacrificed for the supposed benefit of a section of it.

The Queen fully realized, and has over and over again expressed, in the
most definite way, the truth that in England the real ultimate power is
the will of the people. They may decide wrong, but their decision is
the ultimate authority. Her own private opinions on various political
questions have no weight in opposition to the will of the people. A
large number of her Ministers have left on record their experience of
the Queen’s complete loyalty to this fundamental principle. She will
never let her private feelings or opinions stand in the way of her
duty as a constitutional Sovereign. This being so, an impression has
gained ground in some quarters that a Constitutional Monarch is only
a sort of Chinese mandarin, mechanically nodding assent to whatever
is proposed by the Ministers. This is very far from being true. All
the executive officers of the Crown are directly responsible to the
Queen, and she keeps a watchful eye over their departments, requiring
constant reports, and to have proofs of their efficiency submitted to
her. Then in matters involving conflict between parties, she exercises
a moderating influence, inducing the “outs” to use their position with
a due sense of responsibility to national interests, and not to think
that these may be sacrificed for the mere purpose of defeating the
“ins.” In matters involving conflict between the Lords and Commons,
the present Sovereign has again and again prevented matters coming
to a deadlock, reminding the leaders of the House of Lords of the
fundamental fact that the will of the people is the ultimate source of
authority, and inducing the leaders of the House of Commons to act in
a spirit of statesmanlike conciliation and moderation. Two examples
will suffice to show how invaluable the exercise of these functions
may be, and how they serve to oil the rather cumbrous machinery of the
constitution. After the election of 1859, Lord Palmerston was again
returned to power, but with considerably reduced majority compared to
that of 1857. The Conservatives had fought the election with immense
vigor. Their leader, the Earl of Derby, had given £20,000 to the
war-chest for the elections. When the new Parliament met, Lord Derby’s
Government was only beaten on an amendment to the Address by thirteen,
so the parties were very nearly balanced. The Conservatives had
expected to win, and had made immense efforts, and were proportionately
disappointed. The slashing vigor of Lord Derby’s eloquence had gained
for him the title of the Rupert of Debate. The expectation was that he
would lead repeated sallies against the Government; but, contrary to
expectation, he was unusually moderate and pacific. The reason came out
when the last volume of the Greville Memoirs was published, in 1887.
The Queen sent for Lord Derby, when he had left office in 1859, and
entreated him not to use the power he had, from the nearly balanced
state of parties, to upset Lord Palmerston’s Government. She urged
the great objections there were to constant changes, and that in the
critical state of foreign politics nothing ought to be done to weaken
the Government. Lord Derby entirely concurred, and promised to act in
conformity with her wishes. Greville says, “He has entirely done so.
Nothing could be more temperate and harmless than the few remarks he
made on Tuesday night.” The circumstance brings out the value of having
at the head of the State an officer who is neither nominated by, nor
responsible to, party. It also gives a good illustration of the Queen’s
power of subordinating her own private inclinations to the national
welfare; because, although her feelings were softened towards Lord
Palmerston, they were hardly cordial, and she strongly dissented from
the view which he represented with so much vigor on the questions then
at issue between Italy and Austria.

An example of the success of the Queen’s efforts to prevent conflict
between the two Houses of Parliament is given in full detail in the
Life of Archbishop Tait. It will be within the recollection of many
readers that the election of 1868 was fought mainly on the question of
the Disestablishment of the Church in Ireland, and that an enormous
majority was returned to the House of Commons favorable to its
disestablishment. The House of Lords, by a large majority, were in
favor of the Establishment. Here, then, was a fine field for a battle
between the two Houses. The new Parliament was opened on February
16th, 1869. On that morning the Archbishop of Canterbury received an
autograph letter from the Queen, expressing her anxiety on the subject
of the proposed measure, and adding:--

 “The Queen has seen Mr. Gladstone, who shows the most conciliatory
 disposition. He seems to be really moderate in his views, and anxious,
 so far as he can properly and consistently do so, to meet the
 objections of those who would maintain the Irish Church.”

She then pointed out the desirability of a conference between Mr.
Gladstone and the Archbishop on the subject of the forthcoming
Disestablishment Bill; she had already paved the way for this in
conversation with the Prime Minister, and was confident that while
he would strictly maintain the principle of disestablishment, there
were many matters connected with the question which might be open
to discussion and negotiation. The interview between Mr. Gladstone
and the Archbishop took place almost immediately. It is hardly
necessary to draw attention to the sagacity which prompted the Queen
to bring about this meeting before the introduction and publication
of the Bill, rather than after. It is much easier to prevent an
irreconcilable hostility by friendly negotiation, than to charm it away
after it has once sprung into existence. Before seeing Mr. Gladstone,
the Archbishop drew up a short memorandum of four points which he
considered absolutely essential; after the interview he added a note
to his MS. to the effect that he had not read it to Mr. Gladstone,
“As the interview took the form of an exposition of his policy by Mr.
G.” In fact he rehearsed to the Archbishop, on February 19th, 1869,
the famous speech which he made in the House of Commons on March 1st.
The Archbishop, however, heard with great satisfaction that the four
essential conditions which he had noted down prior to the interview,
were practically observed by Mr. Gladstone in his proposed measure.
He immediately communicated this to the Queen, and expressed his
satisfaction upon it, and his desire to aid by any means in his power
a course of moderation and conciliation. The Bill passed through the
House of Commons practically unaltered; all amendments were rejected
by immense majorities; there was, in a word, every indication that the
Bill was a practical expression of the national will. Then came its
fate in the Lords to be considered; and again the Archbishop, by the
Queen’s commands, put himself in communication with the Prime Minister
on the subject, with the view of averting a collision between the
two Houses. The Archbishop gave his strenuous support to the Lords
adopting the policy of passing the second reading, and amending the
Bill in committee. The ordinary Conservative majority in the Lords in
1869 was about sixty; and the practical question was how many of the
opposition could be induced either to abstain from voting or to support
the second reading. Much, the Archbishop wrote to the Queen, would
depend on Lord Granville’s time in introducing the Bill in the Lords.
He ventured to suggest that Her Majesty should represent this to him.
He also wrote to Mr. Disraeli, and begged him to influence his friends
in the House of Lords to allow the Bill to pass a second reading, in
order to amend it in committee. The Archbishop spoke in this sense in
the debate in the Lords, but abstained from voting; Lord Salisbury,
among other well-known Conservative leaders, voted with the Government
in favor of the second reading, which was carried by a majority of
thirty-three. The first danger to the Bill was thus safely passed; but
the acute stage of the fight between the Lords and Commons occurred
over the Lords’ amendments, which were both numerous and important. The
Archbishop was again in almost hourly communication with the Queen,
constantly urged by her that a spirit of moderation must be shown on
_both_ sides, in order to secure a successful issue. In one of his
letters to the Queen, while the war on the amendments was being waged
(July 8th, 1869), the Archbishop suggested that, rather than yield on
one point connected with the endowments, it would be better to defeat
the Bill and risk another year of agitation. The Queen immediately
replied, deprecating this course, and expressing her fear that another
year of political warfare would result in worse, rather than better,
terms being forced upon the Church. She herself had all along favored
the plan of concurrent endowment, but the majority in the House of
Commons was strongly against it, and all the amendments in this
direction introduced by the Lords were disallowed. Mr. Gladstone spoke
with great vehemence in the House of Commons against the whole of the
Lords’ amendments. His unyielding language delighted his followers, and
there was a corresponding feeling of exasperation among his opponents,
especially in the Lords. But when the first heat caused by his speech
had subsided, and the actual points of irreconcilable difference
between the two Houses were calmly considered, it was felt that though
Mr. Gladstone had spoken daggers, he had used none; the Government
were, as a matter of fact, prepared to give way on the clause relating
to the disposal of the surplus, to accord terms more favorable to
the commuting clergy of the Disestablished Church, and to concur in
the postponement of the date of disestablishment. On the other hand,
they nailed their colors to the mast against concurrent endowment.
This indicates the basis of the compromise ultimately arrived at, and
without doubt it was largely due to the efforts made by the Queen to
bring it about. The Archbishop wrote in his diary, July 25th, 1869:--

 “A messenger from Windsor waiting for me with a further letter from
 the Queen about the Irish Church. It is a great blessing that the
 Queen takes such a vivid interest in the welfare of her people, and is
 (_e. g._) so earnest to ward off a collision between the two Houses of
 Parliament.”

He then gives a narrative of his personal activity in bringing about
the compromise, and his negotiations with Lords Salisbury, Cairns,
Grey, and Carnarvon on the one side, and Mr. Gladstone and Lord
Granville on the other, and adds, “We have made the best terms we
could, and, thanks to the Queen, a collision between the two Houses has
been averted.”

Through the publication of the Archbishop’s life, a detailed account of
the Queen’s activity in this matter has been given to the public; but
in order fully to appreciate it, it should be borne in mind that the
circumstances just narrated are only a specimen of what is constantly
going on of the Queen’s unwearying watchfulness over national
interests, so that necessary changes take place without unnecessary
friction and violence. There is a passage in one of the Queen’s letters
to her uncle, published in the “Life of the Prince Consort,” in which
Her Majesty expresses (in 1852) her weariness of political strife, and
says, “We women are not made for governing.” As this passage meets
the eye we can hardly forbear the remembrance that St. Paul wrote of
himself, no doubt sincerely, as the chief of sinners. No Sovereign has
ever shown more diligence, tact, and courage in the fulfilment of Royal
duties than the Queen, and there can be no doubt, not only of her vast
knowledge, but also of her intense interest in her work, and of its
high utility to the nation.

There has been no space in this little book to dwell upon the colonial
expansion of England during the Queen’s reign, nor yet upon the great
development of man’s powers over the forces of nature during the same
period, making the England of to-day more different from the England
of 1819 than the England of 1819 was from the England of Elizabeth.
Neither has space allowed even a reference to the wonderful social
progress that has accompanied this material development. Disraeli was
perhaps the first among statesmen to grasp the fact of what England’s
Colonial and Indian Empire meant, and the new place it gave this
country in the world. It should not, however, be forgotten that the
conception of England as a great Imperial Power is as much due to the
philosopher as to the statesman. Sir John Seeley, in the field of
historical research, has contributed to it as much as the practical
politician. He has pointed out that “the main fact of all facts is the
expansion not only of the English race, but of the English State all
over the globe.” The English people, it has been said, have conquered
and peopled half a world in a fit of absence of mind; and it required
a Jewish statesman and a Cambridge professor to point out to them that
there was anything noticeable in the achievement. Disraeli had not
perceived it in 1852. In that year he, as Chancellor of the Exchequer,
wrote to Lord Malmesbury, as Foreign Secretary, “These wretched
colonies will all be independent in a few years, and are a millstone
round our necks.” What a change between this remainder biscuit of an
effete doctrine of the Manchester School, and the Imperial statesman
of later years! When his life is written it will be interesting to
see when and how he developed the Imperialism with which his name is
now associated. His passing of the Bill in 1876 which made the Queen
Empress of India has been already referred to. The Queen valued him
as a statesman and as a friend more than any Prime Minister since the
days of Sir Robert Peel and Lord Aberdeen. Whether he derived his
Imperialism from her, or she hers from him, will not be known till the
history of both lives can be fully revealed. She honored him with her
regard and friendship, entirely abandoning the distrust and suspicion
with which at the outset of his political career she had regarded him.
In Hughenden Church she placed after his death a memorial tablet with
the following inscription, written by herself:--

  To the dear and honored memory of
  BENJAMIN, EARL OF BEACONSFIELD,
  This memorial is placed by
  His grateful and affectionate Sovereign and Friend,
  Victoria, R. I.
  “Kings love them that speak right.”--Prov. xvi. 13.

She wrote at the time of Lord Beaconsfield’s death to Dean Stanley:--

 “The loss of my dear, great friend ... has completely overwhelmed
 me. His devotion and kindness to me, his wise counsels, his great
 gentleness combined with firmness, his one thought for the honor and
 glory of the country, and his unswerving loyalty to the throne, make
 the death of my dear Lord Beaconsfield a national calamity. My grief
 is great and lasting.”

The Queen’s words, “his one thought for the honor and glory of the
country,” are illustrative of what Her Majesty most values in her
counsellors; they also indicate her conception of Royalty as a means
of representing the nation, and the fusion of party differences. With
the wider and wider extension of the suffrage, the House of Commons
stands in danger, by its very representative character, of representing
only the people who vote for it, and these are only a handful in the
great world of the British Empire. The Queen has 378,000,000 subjects;
of these only about six millions vote for the Members of the House of
Commons. There is danger of the six millions acting with something less
than justice to the unrepresented 372,000,000. The Queen constantly
watches against this danger, and her well-trained eye quickly detects
those among the statesmen of both parties who are able to grasp the
larger conception of the duties of government, who are not prepared to
destroy the Empire to buy a party majority, or who steadily decline
to buy, for example, thirty seats in Lancashire, by the sacrifice
of Indian fiscal interests. To such men she gives her support and
encouragement, and she has consequently been, throughout her long
reign, a steady influence with both parties on the side of prefering
national to party ends.

That she has achieved much in this direction is undoubted, and it
is also undoubted that she has achieved it mainly by the absolute
sincerity of her own character, and by its spontaneous power of
distinguishing between the false and the true, the noble and the
ignoble. With all the temptations of her position, the possession of
almost unlimited power from girlhood, she has chosen to live simply and
to live laboriously; with everything before her that wealth could offer
in the way of pleasure, she has never found her amusements in pursuits
that bring to others sorrow and misery. She has ever been the true
woman, and because a true woman therefore a great Queen.

In the earlier chapters of this little book an attempt was made to
indicate the formative influences on the Queen’s character, and a chief
place was given, in this connection, to Baron Stockmar and to the
Prince Consort. The bed-rock of the character of all three is the value
they put on Love and Duty. Stockmar, towards the close of his life,
wrote:--

 “Were I now to be asked by any young man just entering into life,
 ‘What is the chief good for which it behooves a man to strive?’ my
 only answer would be, ‘Love and Friendship!’ Were he to ask me,
 ‘What is a man’s most priceless possession?’ I must answer, ‘The
 consciousness of having loved and sought the truth, of having yearned
 for the truth for its own sake!’ All else is either vanity or a sick
 man’s dream.”

With a similar unconscious self-revelation, the Prince Consort wrote to
his eldest daughter, almost immediately after her marriage, counselling
her not to think of herself, but to think of duty and service. “If,” he
said, “you have succeeded in winning people’s hearts by friendliness,
simplicity, and courtesy, the secret lay in this, that you were not
thinking of yourself. Hold fast this mystic power; it is a spark from
heaven.” The Queen’s nature was full of responsive sympathy with these
“spirits finely touched to fine issues.” In her correspondence she too
gives her conception of the secret of happiness. Characteristically
enough, she finds her illustration in the person of her husband, and
says how people are struck, not only by his great power and energy,
but also by his great self-denial, and constant wish to work for
others. And “this,” adds the Queen, “is the happiest life. Pining for
what one cannot have, and trying to run after what is pleasantest,
invariably end in disappointment.”

This is the spirit which has enabled Her Majesty to fill her great
position so worthily, and to have been, therefore, of untold service to
the country she has loved so well.




CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF EVENTS.


 1819. Birth of Princess Victoria at Kensington Palace, May 24th.

 1820. Death of Duke of Kent.--Death of George III.--Accession of
 George IV.--Trial of Queen Caroline begun in House of Lords in
 October; abandoned in November.

 1822. Suicide of Lord Londonderry (Castlereagh).--Canning becomes
 Foreign Secretary.

 1826. General Election.--Lord Liverpool Prime Minister.

 1827. Death of Lord Liverpool.--Canning becomes Prime Minister, and
 dies in August of same year.--Lord Goderich succeeds him.

 1828. Duke of Wellington Prime Minister.

 1829. Catholic Emancipation.

 1830. Death of George IV.--Accession of William IV.--Regency Bill
 passed.--Revolution in Paris.--Charles X. deposed.--Louis Philippe,
 King of the French.--General Election.--Whig majority.--Earl Grey
 Prime Minister.

 1831. Prince Leopold (widower of Princess Charlotte) becomes King
 of the Belgians.--First Reform Bill defeated--Dissolution.--Large
 majority in favor of Reform, and Bill immediately reintroduced.

 1832. Reform Bill carried.

 1833. Abolition of Slavery in British Dominions; £20,000,000 voted to
 compensate West Indian slave-owners.

 1834. New Poor Law passed.

 1835. The Orange Plot.--Lord Melbourne Prime Minister.

 1836. First meeting between Princess Victoria and Prince Albert of
 Coburg.

 1837. Death of William IV.--Accession of Queen Victoria, June
 20th.--Insurrection in Canada.

 1838. Coronation.

 1839. Sir Robert Peel’s unsuccessful attempt to form a
 Ministry.--Bedchamber question.--Queen’s betrothal to Prince Albert.

 1840. Queen’s marriage.--Oxford’s attempt on her life.--Birth of
 Princess Royal.

 1841. General Election.--Tory majority.--Sir R. Peel Prime
 Minister.--Birth of Prince of Wales.

 1842. Afghan War.--Queen’s first visit to Scotland.--Second and third
 attempts on her life.

 1843. Birth of Princess Alice.--Queen’s visit to Louis Philippe at
 Château d’Eu.

 1844. Visit of the Czar Nicholas to the Queen at Windsor.--Birth of
 Prince Alfred.--Louis Philippe’s visit to Windsor.

 1845. The Queen’s first visit to Germany.--Peel resigns, but is
 recalled.--Purchase of Osborne.

 1846. Birth of Princess Helena.--Spanish marriages.--Irish
 Famine.--Repeal of the Corn Laws.--Fall of Peel’s Government.--Lord
 John Russell becomes Prime Minister, and Lord Palmerston Foreign
 Secretary.--Lord George Bentinck the leader of Protectionist party.

 1847. Irish famine.--General Election.--Whig majority.

 1848. Revolution in Paris.--Fall of Louis Philippe, who takes refuge
 in England.--Chartist movement in England.--Irish Rebellion.--Birth of
 Princess Louise.--Purchase of Balmoral.

 1849. The Queen’s first visit to Ireland.--Enthusiastic reception.--

 1850. Birth of Prince Arthur.--Death of Sir Robert Peel.

 1851. Opening of Great Exhibition.--_Coup d’État_ in Paris--Dismissal
 of Lord Palmerston.

 1852. Fall of John Russell’s Ministry.--Earl of Derby forms
 Government, which lasts ten months.--General Election.--Earl of
 Aberdeen, Prime Minister.--Death of Duke of Wellington.--Recognition
 of Louis Napoleon as Emperor of the French.

 1853. Birth of Prince Leopold.--Second visit to Ireland.--Outbreak of
 unpopularity against Prince Albert.--Marriage of Louis Napoleon.

 1854. Alliance with Louis Napoleon.--Crimean War.

 1855. Fall of Lord Aberdeen’s Government.--Lord Palmerston Prime
 Minister.--Death of the Czar.--Visits exchanged between English and
 French Courts.--Fall of Sebastopol.--Betrothal of Princess Royal to
 Prince Frederick William of Prussia.--Visit of Victor Emmanuel to
 Windsor.

 1856. Death of Queen’s half-brother.--Birth of Prince Imperial.

 1857. Birth of Princess Beatrice.--Title of Prince Consort conferred
 on Prince Albert.--Indian Mutiny.--General Election.--Palmerston
 triumphant.

 1858. Marriage of Princess Royal.--State visit of Queen to
 Cherbourg.--Visit to Germany to Princess Royal.--Orsini’s attempt to
 assassinate French Emperor.--Fall of Lord Palmerston’s Government
 on Conspiracy Bill.--Earl of Derby’s Second Administration, lasting
 sixteen months.

 1859. Birth of Queen’s first grandchild, now Emperor William II. of
 Germany.--Volunteer Movement.--General Election.--Lord Palmerston
 again Prime Minister.--War between France and Austria on Italian
 Question.

 1860. Betrothal of Princess Alice to Prince Louis of Hesse.--Triumphal
 Entry of Garibaldi into Naples.--Abdication of King of Naples.

 1861. Death of Duchess of Kent.--Visit of the Queen to Coburg.--Third
 visit of Queen to Ireland.--Victor Emmanuel proclaimed King of United
 Italy.--Death of the Prince Consort.--American Civil War.--The _Trent_
 Incident.

 1862. Marriage of Princess Alice.--Crown of Greece offered to Prince
 Alfred.

 1863. Marriage of Prince of Wales to Princess Alexandra
 of Denmark.--Grandchild born (Princess Alice’s child) at
 Windsor.--Unveiling of Prince Consort’s statue in Aberdeen.

 1864. Birth of a son to the Prince and Princess of Wales, heir to the
 throne in the second generation.--Schleswig-Holstein.--War between
 Denmark and Germany.

 1865. Death of King Leopold of Belgium.--Death of Lord
 Palmerston.--General Election.--Lord John Russell Prime Minister.

 1866. Queen opens Parliament in person for first time since her
 widowhood.--Marriage of Princess Helena to Prince Christian of
 Schleswig-Holstein.--Fall of Lord Russell’s Government.--Earl of Derby
 succeeds him.--War between North and South Germany.

 1867. Publication of “Early Years of the Prince Consort.”--Opening
 of Albert Hall.--The Passing of Mr. Disraeli’s Reform Bill, giving
 Household Suffrage in towns.

 1868. Mr. Disraeli Prime Minister.--General Election.--Liberal
 Majority.--Mr. Gladstone becomes Prime Minister.--Attempted
 Assassination of Duke of Edinburgh.

 1869. Disestablishment of Irish Church.

 1870. Franco-German War.--Fall of Louis Napoleon.--English Education
 Act.

 1871. German Unity accomplished.--King William of Prussia declared
 German Emperor at Versailles.--Illness and recovery of the Prince of
 Wales.--Marriage of Princess Louise to Marquis of Lorne.

 1872. Thanksgiving Service for recovery of the Prince of Wales.--Death
 of the Queen’s half-sister, Princess Feodore of Hohenlohe.

 1873. Fatal accident to Princess Alice’s little boy.

 1874. Marriage of Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, to the Grand
 Duchess Marie of Russia.--General Election.--First Conservative
 Majority since 1841.--Lord Beaconsfield (Disraeli) Prime Minister.

 1876. Royal Titles Bill passed.--Bulgarian atrocities.--Servia and
 Montenegro declare war against Turkey.

 1877. Russia declares war against Turkey.

 1878. Death of Princess Alice.--Marriage of the Queen’s eldest
 granddaughter, Princess Charlotte of Prussia.--Treaty of
 Berlin.--Death of Lord Russell.

 1879. Marriage of Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught, to Princess Louise
 of Prussia.--Birth of the Queen’s first great-grandchild.--Death of
 the Prince Imperial in South Africa.

 1880.--General Election.--Large Liberal majority.--Mr. Gladstone Prime
 Minister.

 1881. War in Egypt.--Tel-el-Kebir.

 1882. Marriage of Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany, to Princess Helen of
 Waldeck.--The Queen fired at by a Lunatic.

 1884. Death of Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany.--Birth of his
 posthumous son.--Passing of Mr. Gladstone’s Reform Bill giving
 Household Suffrage in Counties.

 1885. Marriage of Princess Beatrice to Prince Henry of
 Battenberg.--Death of General Gordon at Khartoum.--Fall of Mr.
 Gladstone’s Ministry.--Marquis of Salisbury Prime Minister.--General
 Election.--Parties very nearly balanced.--Mr. Gladstone declares
 himself in favor of Home Rule.

 1886. Lord Salisbury’s Government defeated.--Mr. Gladstone forms
 Government and introduces First Home Rule Bill, defeated in the
 House of Commons, June.--General Election, July.--Large Unionist
 Majority.--Lord Salisbury Prime Minister.

 1887. The Jubilee.

 1888. Death of German Emperor, William I., March.--Accession of the
 Queen’s son-in-law, the Emperor Frederick.--His death, June 15th.

 1892. Death of the Queen’s heir in the second generation, the Duke of
 Clarence.--Death of her son-in-law, Prince Louis of Hesse.--General
 Election.--Liberal majority.--Mr. Gladstone Prime Minister.

 1893. Betrothal and marriage of Duke of York to Princess Victoria Mary
 of Teck.--Second Home Rule Bill defeated in the House of Lords.

 1894. Birth of Prince Edward of York.--Death of the Czar, Alexander
 II.--Accession of the young Czar, Nicholas II.--His marriage to the
 Queen’s granddaughter, Princess Alix of Hesse.--Mr. Gladstone retires,
 and is succeeded in the Premiership by the Earl of Rosebery.




BOOKS OF REFERENCE.


  Early Years of the Prince Consort.
  Life of the Prince Consort.
  Memoir of Princess Alice.
  Leaves from a Journal of our Life in the Highlands.
  More Leaves.
  Earl of Malmesbury’s Autobiography.
  The Greville Memoirs.
  History of Our Own Times. By Mr. J. McCarthy, M. P.
  Life and Letters of Dean Stanley.
  Life of Archbishop Tait.
  Lady Bloomfield’s Reminiscences.
  Diary of a Lady of Quality.
  Miss Martineau’s Thirty Years’ Peace.
  Two Noble Lives.
  Life of the Earl of Shaftesbury.
  Life of Bishop Wilberforce.
  Life of Viscount Palmerston. By Hon. Evelyn Ashley.
  Life of Baron Stockmar.




INDEX.


  Aberdeen, Earl of, 85, 145, 175, 182.

  Aberdeen, unveiling of Prince Consort’s statue at, 221.

  Addresses of the French colonels, 1858, 198.

  Adelaide, Princess, of Hohenlohe, asked in marriage by Napoleon III.,
  168.

  Adelaide, Queen, 12, 13, 27, 28.

  Albany, Duke of. _See_ Leopold.

  Albert, Prince, birth of, 14;
    childhood of, 25, 65;
    education of, 65;
    first visit to England of, 62;
    character of, 64, 81, 86, 89, 255;
    projected marriage, 25, 65;
    tour in Italy, 65;
    second visit to England, betrothal to the Queen, 66, 70;
    rumored to be a Roman Catholic, 71;
    allowance cut down in House of Commons, 74;
    precedence disallowed in House of Lords, 75, 76;
    marriage of, 79;
    favorable impression produced by, 80, 90, 91;
    difficulties of position of, 80;
    growing political influence of, 85;
    Queen’s devotion to, 67, 69, 85;
    political opinions of, 86, 178;
    religious views of, 87;
    accomplishments and tastes of, 91, 92;
    McLeod, Dr., on, 89;
    Stockmar’s influence on, 112, 118;
    title of Prince Consort conferred on, 115;
    devotion of, to his children and home, 120, 143;
    on the strength of Constitutionalism, 153;
    consults Lord Shaftesbury, 154;
    and Lord Palmerston, 156, 171, 209;
    outbreak of unpopularity against, 157, 182, 183;
    and the Great Exhibition, 173;
    on betrothal of his eldest daughter, 188;
    at Cherbourg, 196-7;
    despatch of, on _Trent_ affair, 208;
    death of, 201-12;
    unveiling of statue of, 221.

  Alexandra, Princess of Wales, 206, 217, 228, 239.

  Alfred, Prince, Duke of Edinburgh and Duke of Coburg, 124, 131, 137,
  232, 233.

  Alice, Princess, Grand Duchess of Hesse, 119, 123, 130, 201, 212, 215,
  216, 220, 230, 231, 233, 234, 235.

  Alix, Princess of Hesse Darmstadt, 136.

  Anti-Corn Law agitation, 58, 99, 101.

  Arthur, Prince, Duke of Connaught, 127.

  Ashley, Lord. _See_ Shaftesbury.

  Assassination, attempted, of Prince Alfred in Australia, 232.

  Attempts on the Queen’s life, 89, 90, 119, 139, 140, 141.


  Balmoral, 135, 136, 137, 138.

  Beatrice, Princess Henry of Battenberg, 127, 128.

  Bedchamber question, 60, 72.

  Belgians, King of the. _See_ Leopold.

  Bloomfield, Lady, 91 _n._, 142;
    on betrothal of Prince Frederick William and Princess Royal, 187;
    on Princess Alice, 233.

  Bright, the Rt. Hon. John, 29, 101, 177, 207, 222.

  Brocket, Greville at, 95 _n._

  Brougham, Lord, 57, 62.

  Brown, Mr. John, 223.

  Bunsen, Baron, letter from Stockmar to, 116.

  Bunsen, Baroness, 33.


  Cambridge, marriage of Duke of, 12.

  Cambridge, Princess Mary of, 169, 234.

  Cambridge, Prince of Wales at, 210.

  Canada, insurrection in, 56.

  Canning, Lady, 97, 127, 135.

  Canning, Lord, in India, 192, 194.

  Carlyle, Mr. Thomas, on the Queen, 33, 224-6.

  Caroline, Queen, 19, 23.

  Cart, death of, the Prince’s valet, 35.

  Castlereagh, Viscount, 107.

  Catholic Emancipation, 41.

  Charlotte, Princess, 12, 16, 17, 107-110.

  Charlotte, Princess of Prussia, 127.

  Charlotte, Queen, 107.

  Chartism, 58-74 _n._, 126.

  Cholera, 170.

  Christmas-trees, 120.

  Civil War in the United States, _Trent_ affair, 208.

  Claremont, 109, 166.

  Clarence, Duke of. _See_ William IV.

  Clarence, Duke of, Prince Albert Victor of Wales, 239.

  Clarendon, Earl of, 170, 171, 177.

  Cobden, Richard, 101, 147, 148, 177, 207.

  Coburg, Duchess of, 13, 25.

  Coburg, death of Duke of, 143.

  Coburg, Duke Alfred of. _See_ Alfred.

  Connaught, Duke of. _See_ Arthur.

  Corn Laws, repeal of, 99-101.

  Coronation of George IV., 19.

  Coronation of William IV., 16.

  Coronation of Queen Victoria, 39.

  Coronation service, 39.

  _Coup d’état_, 106, 162, 163.

  Crimean War, 157, 169, 170, 171, 175-187.

  Cumberland, Ernest, Duke of, 11, 18, 41, 45, 47, 76, 107, 122, 123.


  Darmstadt, diphtheria at, 237.

  Davys, Rev. George. _See_ Peterborough, Bishop of.

  Derby, Earl of, 90, 169, 199, 247.

  Disraeli, the Rt. Hon. B., Earl of Beaconsfield, 163, 170, 195, 250,
  252.

  Dufferin, Marchioness of, and medical women in India, 236.

  Durham, Earl of, 56.


  “Early Years of Prince Consort,” 63.

  East India Company extinguished, 193.

  Edinburgh, Duke of. _See_ Alfred.

  Empress Eugénie, 184, 197, 237.

  Empress Frederick, 117, 120, 131, 133, 185, 186, 187, 189, 190, 221.

  Eôs, the Prince’s greyhound, 82.

  Exhibition of 1851, 173.


  Financial Reforms of Sir Robert Peel, 103.

  Fortifications of south coast, 207.

  France, death of Prince Imperial of, 237.

  Franco-German War, 232.

  Frederick William I., King of Prussia, 122, 178.

  Frederick William II., King of Prussia and Emperor of Germany, 187,
  228, 239.


  Garibaldi, 206.

  General Election, 1837, 51.

    “       “       1841, 95.

    “       “       1857, 198.

    “       “       1859, 247.

  George III., 12.

  George IV., 11, 16, 18.

  German Unity, 86, 105, 107, 117, 178, 239.

  Gladstone, the Right Hon. W. E., 103, 182, 207, 248, 249.

  Gordon, death of General, 238.

  Graham, Sir James, Home Secretary, 96.

  Granville, Earl, 164, 169, 218.

  Greville’s account of Queen’s accession, 47;
    description of Queen’s announcement of her betrothal, 69;
    on Royal Family at Balmoral, 138.

  Grey, Earl, 101.

  Guizot and the Spanish marriages, 145.


  Hanover, Ernest, King of. _See_ Cumberland.

  Hartley Colliery explosion, 218.

  Hastings, Lady Flora, 59, 72.

  Haynau, General, 159-161.

  Helen, Princess of Waldeck, Duchess of Albany, 238.

  Helena, Princess (Princess Christian of Schleswig-Holstein), 125, 230.

  Herbert, the Hon. Sidney, 180.

  Hesse, Prince Louis of, 202, 217, 225, 228.

  Hesse, Princess Louis of. _See_ Alice, Princess.

  Hohenlohe, Princess Adelaide of, 168.

  Hohenlohe, Princess Feodore of, 138, 139, 218.

  Holland, Lady, 71.

  Holloway College opened by the Queen, 236.

  Hume, Mr. Joseph, 41, 74.


  Imperial, death of Prince, 237.

  India, Empress of, 194.

  India, medical women for, 236.

  India, Queen’s proclamation after Mutiny, 192.

  Indian Mutiny, 187, 193.

  Ireland, Queen’s visits to, 124, 125, 205.

  Irish Church Disestablishment Bill, 248-51.

  Irish famine, 100, 149.

  Italy, Victor Emmanuel, King of, 206.


  Jameson, Mrs., on the Queen, 38.

  Jordan, Mrs., 17.

  Juarez, 237.

  Jubilee, the Queen’s, 236, 239, 244.


  Kennington Common, Chartist assembly on, in 1848, 151.

  Kent, Duchess of, 16, 17, 20, 21, 29, 35, 37, 79, 123, 200, 201.

  Kent, Duke of, 12, 15, 16, 107.

  Kossuth in England, 161.


  “Leaves from the Journal of our Life in the Highlands,” 34, 188.

  Lehzen, Baroness, 30, 37, 61, 111.

  Leiningen, Prince Charles of, 138.

  Leopold, Prince, afterwards King of the Belgians, 16, 20, 23, 24, 25,
  30, 54, 63, 106, 108, 109, 110, 166, 202, 212, 213, 236.

  Leopold, Prince, Duke of Albany, 24, 128, 206, 212, 236.

  “Life of the Prince Consort,” 76.

  Lorne, Marquis of, 124, 220.

  Louis Philippe, 144, 146, 147, 165, 166.

  Louise, Princess, Marchioness of Lorne, 125, 153, 220.

  Lyndhurst, Lord, 57.

  Lyttleton, the Dowager Lady, 124.


  Malmesbury, Earl of, 91, 165, 169, 193, 229, 253.

  Marie, Archduchess of Russia, Duchess of Coburg, 136, 232.

  Martineau, Miss Harriet, on Queen’s early training, 31;
    on Queen’s accession, 49.

  McLeod, Dr., 89, 220.

  Medical women in India, 236.

  Melbourne, Viscount, 52, 60, 78, 94, 95 _n._, 99 _n._, 111, 121.

  Mendelssohn on the Queen’s singing, 36.

  Mexico, Emperor Maximilian and Empress Charlotte, 237.

  Mill, Mr. J. S., 56.

  Mitchel, Mr. John, 150.

  “More Leaves from a Journal of our Life in the Highlands,” 34, 223.


  Napoleon III., 162, 166, 167, 168, 184, 185, 195-8.

  Neale’s, Mr., legacy to the Queen, 139.

  Neapolitan insurrection and Lord Palmerston, 159.

  Newcastle, Duke of, 183.

  New Poor Law of 1834, 58.

  Nicholas I., Emperor of Russia, 108, 134, 176, 181.

  Nicholas II., Emperor of Russia, 136.

  Nightingale, Miss Florence, 180.

  Nursery establishment, the Queen’s, 117, 119-131.


  Oaks Colliery explosion, letter from widows to Queen, 240.

  O’Connell, Daniel, 44, 149.

  Orange plot in 1835, 41.

  Orleans family, the, 126, 166.

  Orsini plot, the, 198.

  Osborne, purchase of, 135;
    gardens of, 92, 136;
    Swiss cottage at, 135, 136.

  Oxford’s attempt on the Queen’s life, 90, 119.


  Palmerston Administration, defeat of, in 1858, 198, 199.

  Palmerston, Viscount, 91, 101, 118, 146 _n._, 156-172, 177, 184,
  207-209.

  Paris, Queen’s visit to, 185.

  Peel, Sir Robert, 45, 58, 61, 74, 83, 85, 95-103, 134, 142.

  Peterborough, Bishop of, Queen’s preceptor, 29.

  Portugal, death of King of, 210.

  Precedence of Prince Albert disallowed in House of Lords, 77.

  Press attacks on Prince Albert, 183;
    on Princess Royal’s betrothal, 188.

  Prince Consort. _See_ Albert.

  Prince of Wales. _See_ Wales.

  Princess Royal. _See_ Empress Frederick.

  Prussia, Frederick William I., King of. _See_ Frederick William I.

  Prussia, Prince of. _See_ William I., King of, and Emperor of Germany.

  Prussia, Frederick William, King of, and Emperor of Germany. _See_
  Frederick William II.


  Queen. _See_ Victoria.

  Queen’s Titles Act, 195.

  Queen’s Jubilee, 236, 239, 244.


  Reform Bill, Lord Palmerston’s objections to, 171.

  Regency Bill, 1830, 37.

  Regency Bill, 1840, 89.

  Royal Household, reform of, 132-4.

  Russell, Lord John, 42, 61, 62, 101, 158, 161, 163, 171, 229.

  Russell Administration defeated, 1852, 169.

  Russell, Lady William, 171.

  Russell, Dr. W. H., 180.


  Schleswig-Holstein War, 228.

  Schleswig-Holstein, Prince Christian of, 230.

  Schleswig-Holstein, Princess Christian of. _See_ Helena.

  Scotland, disturbances in, in 1848, 151.

  Scotland, Queen’s love of, 137, 219, 223.

  Scott, Sir Walter, reference to Princess Victoria, 37.

  Scottish Church, Queen’s reverence for, 220.

  Sebastopol, 183, 186.

  Seeley, Sir John, 252.

  Shaftesbury, Earl of, 59, 83, 99, 154, 155.

  Spanish marriages, the, 145-8, 166.

  Stanley, Dean, 35, 174, 233.

  Stanley, Lady Augusta, 136, 203.

  Stockmar, Baron, 54, 55, 62, 65, 66, 73, 77, 85, 104-118, 145, 148,
  191, 202, 255.

  Sussex, Duke of, 19, 47, 89, 90.


  Tait, Archbishop of Canterbury, 248.

  Teck, Duchess of. _See_ Cambridge.

  Teck, Princess Victoria Mary of, 234, 240.

  Tory Party, outbreak of disloyalty in, 73.


  _United Irishman, The_, 150.

  United States, Civil War, _Trent_ affair, 208.


  Victor Emmanuel, King of Italy, 206.

  Victoria, Queen, birth of, 13;
    christening of, 14;
    education of, 20, 28, 34;
    great affection of, for her uncle Leopold, 25;
    appearance of, 32, 33;
    Carlyle on, 33, 224-6;
    Baroness Bunsen on, 33;
    care of, for her household and servants, 34;
    as a musician, 36;
    Whig sympathies of, 44, 71;
    accession of, 46;
    consideration of, for Queen Adelaide, 49, 50;
    on the bedchamber question, 62;
    wishes to defer her marriage, 62, 63;
    betrothal to Prince Albert, 66;
    announces her engagement to the Council, 69;
    unpopularity with the Tories, 72, 77;
    marriage of, 79;
    efforts of, to preserve the purity of her Court, 83;
    religious views of, 88, 130, 131, 219;
    and Lord Melbourne, 52, 53, 94;
    and Sir James Graham, 96;
    and Sir Robert Peel, 61, 72, 94-103;
    Stockmar’s influence on, 111-118;
    attempts on life of, 90, 119, 139, 140, 141;
    birth of children, 119-128;
    magnanimity of, 123;
    good health of, 129, 137;
    as a mother, 129, 130, 131;
    legacy to, 139;
    a good sailor, 142, 143;
    first visit to France, 144;
    and Viscount Palmerston, 156-172;
    on the Haynau incident, 161;
    at the opening of the Great Exhibition, 173, 175;
    and Emperor Nicholas, 176;
    disapproves of Day of Humiliation for Crimean War, 178;
    visits Paris, 185;
    and Cherbourg, 196, 197;
    on her daughter’s marriage, 189;
    Indian Proclamation, 193, 194;
    reviews the Volunteers, 199, 200;
    death of mother, 201;
    death of husband, 201-211;
    unveiling the Prince’s statue at Aberdeen, 221;
    children’s marriages, 227;
    prevents war with Germany, 229;
    interest in providing medical women for India, 236;
    letter of, to Miss Gordon, 238;
    letter of, to the nation, on death of Duke of Clarence, 242;
    activity of, in preventing disputes between the Houses of
    Parliament, 246-252;
    on the secret of happiness, 255.

  Villiers, the Hon. Charles, 101.

  Volunteer movement, the, 198.


  Wales, Prince of, 117, 121, 185, 187, 205, 217, 228, 239.

  Wales, Princess of, 206, 215, 228, 239.

  Wellington, Duke of, 18, 41, 42, 45, 57, 60, 71, 107, 125, 151, 161,
  175.

  Whigs, the Queen’s sympathies with, 44, 72.

  Wilberforce, Bishop of Winchester, 29, 88, 188, 228.

  William I., King of Prussia and Emperor of Germany, 178, 239.

  William II., King of Prussia and Emperor of Germany, 205, 228, 239.

  William IV., 12, 16, 17, 18, 20, 22, 23, 24, 46, 51, 111.

  Windsor, housekeeping at, 134.

  Wynn, Miss, account by, of Queen’s accession, 47.


  York, Duchess of, 243.

  York, Duke of, Queen’s uncle, 17.

  York, Duke of, Prince George of Wales, 243.

  York, Prince Edward of, 243.




  _Messrs. Roberts Brothers’ Publications._


  THE RIGHT HONORABLE

  WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE

  A Study from Life

  By HENRY W. LUCY.

  12MO. CLOTH. PORTRAIT. PRICE, $1.25.


The obvious difficulty of writing within the limits of this volume
a sketch of the career of Mr. Gladstone is the superabundance of
material. The task is akin to that of a builder having had placed
at his disposal materials for a palace, with instructions to erect
a cottage residence, leaving out nothing essential to the larger
plan. I have been content, keeping this condition in mind, rapidly to
sketch, in chronological order, the main course of a phenomenally busy
life, enriching the narrative wherever possible with autobiographical
scraps to be found in the library of Mr. Gladstone’s public speeches,
supplementing it by personal notes made over a period of twenty
years, during which I have had unusual opportunities of studying the
subject.--_Author’s Preface._

Mr. Lucy begins with the boyhood and early home life of his subject,
and in a series of twenty-six graphic chapters, some of the titles
of which are “Member for Newark,” “Chancellor of the Exchequer,”
“Premier,” “Pamphleteer,” “The Bradlaugh Blight,” “Egypt,” “The
Kilmainham Treaty,” “The Stop-Gap Government,” “Home Rule,” “In the
House and Out,” Mr. Lucy has drawn, we believe, the most accurate
portrait of one of the greatest men of the century yet drawn, and has
told most graphically, tersely, and at the same time comprehensively,
the story of a great career not yet finished. We have nowhere seen a
better description of Mr. Gladstone’s methods, of his strength and
weakness as a debater, than Mr. Lucy gives us.--_Boston Advertiser._

Mr. Lucy entitles his new book on _Gladstone_ “A Study from Life.” It
is more than this, for the book covers rapidly his whole life, from
birth to the present time, describing with tolerable clearness the
great events of which he has been a part. For an outline biography
the reader will find this narrative satisfactory and readable. But
the greatest interest attaches to those incidents in Gladstone’s life
of which the writer has been an eye-witness. He describes with great
vivacity the parliamentary function known as “drawing old Gladstone
out.”--_Advance._

Roberts Brothers, Boston, have just published an interesting book by
Henry W. Lucy, entitled “Right Honorable W. E. Gladstone: A Study from
Life.” Though not necessarily so intended, this history of Gladstone
is virtually the history of his country during the period of his
ascendency at least, and the book is valuable from that standpoint,
because it is evidently fairly conceived and executed. The sketch of
Mr. Gladstone is that of an admirer, but that will not tell against
it with the world at large, which is alone an admirer of the “Grand
Old Man.” Beginning with his boyhood, it pictures him with friendly
but faithful hand to the end of his career as head of the English
Government, in language which gives an additional charm to the book,
tracing his course from the day he became Member of Parliament till he
was the acknowledged champion of Home Rule, and showing how, as his
mind developed with experience, it cast off original errors growing
larger day by day.--_Brooklyn Citizen._


_Sold by all Booksellers. Mailed, postpaid, on receipt of price, by the
Publishers_,

  ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON.




  PRINCE BISMARCK

  By CHARLES LOWE, M.A.,

  _Author of Alexander III. of Russia, &c._

  12MO. CLOTH. PORTRAIT. PRICE, $1.25.


This work of Mr. Lowe’s responds fully to the need that has been felt,
particularly in this country, for a brief but comprehensive life of
Bismarck. It comes to us from an author of acknowledged reputation,
who has studied the career of the Iron Chancellor with great care,
and undoubtedly possesses knowledge of his subject equal to that of
any other person. It is the second biography he has written of the
Chancellor. His other work appeared about ten years ago in two large
volumes, in which the story of Bismarck’s life and public success was
told exhaustively, full use being made of all material available at
that time.

The work under notice is in no sense an abridgment of the earlier
biography, but is entirely new. In writing it, though, the author has
had the advantage growing out of his previous undertaking, of knowing
his man thoroughly, and this advantage has enabled him to write in a
free and bold style, which is the great charm in a biographical work.
The new work is better than the old in another important respect
also,--it is up to date. In the ten years that have elapsed since the
earlier biography was written, a good deal has been learned about
Bismarck and his associates, and the work they were engaged in, that
runs contrary to the theories and estimates of ten years ago. Mr. Lowe
has made use of this new material.

Still another advantage has been the knowledge that Bismarck’s
political career has ended. The view that is now presented to us is
that of a finished whole,--Bismarck may be spared for years to enjoy
the love of his countrymen and the high esteem of the world, but he
never again will serve the Empire of Germany in a public capacity.

Mr. Lowe’s story closes with an account of the reconciliation between
Emperor William and Bismarck, which was completed a little over a year
ago, when the Emperor sent that famous steel cuirass to Friedrichsruh.
“May the solid steel,” wrote his Majesty, “which is to cover your
breast be regarded as the symbol of German gratitude which enfolds you
with its steadfast loyalty, and to which I, too, desire to give my
eloquent expression.” “I shall don this new breastplate,” replied the
statesman Prince, “as the symbol of your Majesty’s gracious favor, and
leave it to my children as a lasting memento of the same.”

Mr. Lowe is a warm admirer of Bismarck, and his admiration shows itself
in almost every page of his book. We fail to notice, however, that his
prejudice has warped his judgment of persons and events. He has written
a biography that is as fair as anybody could write at this time, and
the fact that he has a warm place in his heart for the Iron Chancellor
certainly is not to his discredit as a man and a historian.--_New York
Times._


_Sold by all Booksellers. Mailed, postpaid, on receipt of price, by the
Publishers_,

  ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON, MASS.




  THE GREAT GOD PAN AND THE INMOST LIGHT.

  BY ARTHUR MACHEN.

  _KEYNOTES SERIES._

  16mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00.


A couple of tales by Arthur Machen, presumably an Englishman, published
æsthetically in this country by Roberts Brothers. They are horror
stories, the horror being of the vague psychologic kind and dependent,
in each case, upon a man of science who tries to effect a change in
individual personality by an operation upon the brain cells. The
implied lesson is that it is dangerous and unwise to seek to probe the
mystery separating mind and matter. These sketches are extremely strong
and we guarantee the “shivers” to anyone who reads them.--_Hartford
Courant._

For two stories of the most marvelous and improbable character, yet
told with wonderful realism and naturalness, the palm for this time
will have to be awarded to Arthur Machen, for “The Great God Pan and
the Inmost Light,” two stories just published in one book. They are
fitting companions to the famous stories by Edgar Allan Poe both in
matter and style. “The Great God Pan” is founded upon an experiment
made upon a girl by which she was enabled for a moment to see the god
Pan, but with most disastrous results, the most wonderful of which
is revealed at the end of the story, and which solution the reader
will eagerly seek to reach. From the first mystery or tragedy follow
in rapid succession. “The Inmost Light” is equally as remarkable for
its imaginative power and perfect air of probability. Anything in the
legitimate line of psychology utterly pales before these stories of
such plausibility.--_Boston Home Journal._

Precisely who the great god Pan of Mr. Machen’s first tale is, we did
not quite discover when we read it, or, discovering, we have forgotten;
but our impression is that under the idea of that primitive great
deity he impersonated, or meant to impersonate, the evil influences
that attach to woman, the fatality of feminine beauty, which, like the
countenance of the great god Pan, is deadly to all who behold it. His
heroine is a beautiful woman, who ruins the souls and bodies of those
over whom she casts her spells, being as good as a Suicide Club, if we
may say so, to those who love her; and to whom she is Death. Something
like this, if not this exactly, is, we take it, the interpretation of
Mr. Machen’s uncanny parable, which is too obscure to justify itself
as an imaginative creation and too morbid to be the production of a
healthy mind. The kind of writing which it illustrates is a bad one,
and this is one of the worst of the kind. It is not terrible, but
horrible.--_R. H. S. in Mail and Express._


_Sold by all Booksellers. Mailed by Publishers_,

  ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON, MASS.




  DISCORDS.

  A Volume of Stories.

  By GEORGE EGERTON, author of “Keynotes.”

  AMERICAN COPYRIGHT EDITION.

  _16mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00._


George Egerton’s new volume entitled “Discords,” a collection of short
stories, is more talked about, just now, than any other fiction of
the day. The collection is really stories for story-writers. They are
precisely the quality which literary folk will wrangle over. Harold
Frederic cables from London to the “New York Times” that the book is
making a profound impression there. It is published on both sides, the
Roberts House bringing it out in Boston. George Egerton, like George
Eliot and George Sand, is a woman’s _nom de plume_. The extraordinary
frankness with which life in general is discussed in these stories not
unnaturally arrests attention.--_Lilian Whiting._

The English woman, known as yet only by the name of George Egerton,
who made something of a stir in the world by a volume of strong
stories called “Keynotes,” has brought out a new book under the rather
uncomfortable title of “Discords.” These stories show us pessimism
run wild; the gloomy things that can happen to a human being are so
dwelt upon as to leave the impression that in the author’s own world
there is no light. The relations of the sexes are treated of in bitter
irony, which develops into actual horror as the pages pass. But in all
this there is a rugged grandeur of style, a keen analysis of motive,
and a deepness of pathos that stamp George Egerton as one of the
greatest women writers of the day. “Discords” has been called a volume
of stories; it is a misnomer, for the book contains merely varying
episodes in lives of men and women, with no plot, no beginning nor
ending.--_Boston Traveller._

This is a new volume of psychological stories from the pen and brains
of George Egerton, the author of “Keynotes.” Evidently the titles of
the author’s books are selected according to musical principles. The
first story in the book is “A Psychological Moment at Three Periods.”
It is all strength rather than sentiment. The story of the child,
of the girl, and of the woman is told, and told by one to whom the
mysteries of the life of each are familiarly known. In their very
truth, as the writer has so subtly analyzed her triple characters, they
sadden one to think that such things must be; yet as they are real,
they are bound to be disclosed by somebody and in due time. The author
betrays remarkable penetrative skill and perception, and dissects the
human heart with a power from whose demonstration the sensitive nature
may instinctively shrink even while fascinated with the narration and
hypnotized by the treatment exhibited.--_Courier._


_Sold by all Booksellers. Mailed by Publishers_,

  ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON, MASS.




  PRINCE ZALESKI.

  BY M. P. SHIEL.

  _Keynotes Series. American Copyright Edition._

  _16mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00._


The three stories by M. P. Shiel, which have just been published in the
Keynotes series, make one of the most remarkable books of the time.
Prince Zaleski, who figures in each, is a striking character, most
artistically and dramatically presented. “The Race of Orven,” the first
story, is one of great power, and it were hardly possible to tell it
more skilfully. “The Stone of the Edmundsbury Monks” is in something
the same vein, mysterious and gruesome. It is in “S. S.,” however, that
the author most fully discloses his marvellous power as a story-teller.
We have read nothing like it since the tales of E. A. Poe; but it is
not an imitation of Poe. We much doubt if the latter ever wrote a story
so strong and thrillingly dramatic.--_Boston Advertiser._

The first of the three tales composing this little volume is entitled
“The Race of Orven,” which supplies the character from whom is
taken the title of the book. The other two are, “The Stone of the
Edmundsbury Monks” and “The S. S.” There are three maxims on the
titlepage, probably one for each of the tales,--one from Isaiah, one
from Cervantes, and one from Sophocles,--but they are a triple key
to the spirit of book altogether. The Prince, however, rules the
contents entirely, pervading them with mysticism of every imaginable
character. The “S. S.” tale is decidedly after the manner of Poe,
full of mysterious problems in murders and suicides, to be treated
with ingenious solutions. There is a morbid tendency running through
the entire trinity, the author seeming to invent characters and
complications only to exhibit his ingenuity in unravelling them, and
in stringing on these ingenious theories the spiritual conceptions
in which he is wont to indulge his thought. But the thought is both
magnetic and bold, and rarely illusive. Hermitages, recluses, silences
and funereal glooms, and the entire family of grotesque thoughts and
things, are not merely wrought into the writer’s canvas, but are his
very staple, the warp and woof composing it. It is an across-the-seas
collection of conceits, skilfully strung on one glittering thread by a
matured thinker. The attempt is made to carve out the mystery of things
from the heart of the outward existence. The men and women on whom the
scalpel is made to work are real flesh-and-blood entities, of such
strong points of character as to be actually necessary in developing
the author’s thought as much as his purpose. The book belongs to the
increasing class that has come in with the introversive habit of modern
thought and speculation--call it spiritual or something else.--_Boston
Courier._


_Sold by all Booksellers. Mailed, postpaid, on receipt of price, by the
Publishers_,

  ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON, MASS.




  THE WOMAN WHO DID.

  BY GRANT ALLEN.

  _Keynotes Series. American Copyright Edition._

  16mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00.


A very remarkable story, which in a coarser hand than its refined and
gifted author could never have been effectively told; for such a hand
could not have sustained the purity of motive, nor have portrayed the
noble, irreproachable character of Herminia Barton.--_Boston Home
Journal._

“The Woman Who Did” is a remarkable and powerful story. It increases
our respect for Mr. Allen’s ability, nor do we feel inclined to join
in throwing stones at him as a perverter of our morals and our social
institutions. However widely we may differ from Mr. Allen’s views on
many important questions, we are bound to recognize his sincerity, and
to respect him accordingly. It is powerful and painful, but it is not
convincing. Herminia Barton is a woman whose nobleness both of mind
and of life we willingly concede; but as she is presented to us by Mr.
Allen, there is unmistakably a flaw in her intellect. This in itself
does not detract from the reality of the picture.--_The Speaker._

In the work itself, every page, and in fact every line, contains
outbursts of intellectual passion that places this author among the
giants of the nineteenth century.--_American Newsman._

Interesting, and at times intense and powerful.--_Buffalo Commercial._

No one can doubt the sincerity of the author.--_Woman’s Journal._

The story is a strong one, very strong, and teaches a lesson that no
one has a right to step aside from the moral path laid out by religion,
the law, and society.--_Boston Times._


_Sold by all Booksellers. Mailed, postpaid, on receipt of price, by the
Publishers_,

  ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON, MASS.




  Transcriber’s Notes

The cover image was created by the transcriber from the title page and
is placed in the public domain.

Inconsistent hyphenization has been fixed. Where possible, the more
common usage within the text was used. Where not possible, the more
common usage at the time of publication was used.

In a few cases, missing or inconsistent puncutuation has been
corrected, mostly in the index and advertisements.

Page 25: “‘uttered with a loud voice and” changed to “uttered with a
loud voice and”

Page 29: ““Life of Her Majesty Queen Victoria.” changed to ““Life of
Her Majesty Queen Victoria.””

Page 46: “the Marquis of Conyingham” changed to “the Marquis of
Conyngham”

Page 52: “though Lord Lansdown” changed to “though Lord Lansdowne”

Page 76: “a remarkable oubtreak of real disloyalty” changed to “a
remarkable outbreak of real disloyalty”

Page 95: “high opinion of the ablities” changed to “high opinion of the
abilities”

Page 116: “who she Queen’s husband should be” changed to “who the
Queen’s husband should be”

Page 140: “for the bouquet of her granddaugher” changed to “for the
bouquet of her granddaughter”

Page 145: “by an Irish brickylayer” changed to “by an Irish bricklayer”

Page 179: “loyalty is a passsion” changed to “loyalty is a passion”

Page 227: “wild and rather inacessible” changed to “wild and rather
inaccessible”



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