Queen Victoria
by
Lytton Strachey
Part 3 out of 4
that he had become disagreeable to the Queen, not on account of his person,
but of his political doings--to which the Queen assented." Then the Prince
suggested that there was a danger of the Cabinet breaking up, and of Lord
Palmerston returning to office as Prime Minister. But on that point Lord John
was reassuring: he "thought Lord Palmerston too old to do much in the future
(having passed his sixty-fifth year)." Eventually it was decided that nothing
could be done for the present, but that the UTMOST SECRECY must be observed;
and so the conclave ended.
At last, in 1850, deliverance seemed to be at hand. There were signs that the
public were growing weary of the alarums and excursions of Palmerston's
diplomacy; and when his support of Don Pacifico, a British subject, in a
quarrel with the Greek Government, seemed to be upon the point of involving
the country in a war not only with Greece but also with France, and possibly
with Russia into the bargain, a heavy cloud of distrust and displeasure
appeared to be gathering and about to burst over his head. A motion directed
against him in the House of Lords was passed by a substantial majority. The
question was next to be discussed in the House of Commons, where another
adverse vote was not improbable, and would seal the doom of the Minister.
Palmerston received the attack with complete nonchalance, and then, at the
last possible moment, he struck. In a speech of over four hours, in which
exposition, invective, argument, declamation, plain talk and resounding
eloquence were mingled together with consummate art and extraordinary
felicity, he annihilated his enemies. The hostile motion was defeated, and
Palmerston was once more the hero of the hour. Simultaneously, Atropos herself
conspired to favour him. Sir Robert Peel was thrown from his horse and killed.
By this tragic chance, Palmerston saw the one rival great enough to cope with
him removed from his path. He judged--and judged rightly--that he was the most
popular man in England; and when Lord John revived the project of his
exchanging the Foreign Office for some other position in the Cabinet, he
absolutely refused to stir.
Great was the disappointment of Albert; great was the indignation of Victoria.
"The House of Commons," she wrote, "is becoming very unmanageable and
troublesome." The Prince, perceiving that Palmerston was more firmly fixed in
the saddle than ever, decided that something drastic must be done. Five months
before, the prescient Baron had drawn up, in case of emergency, a memorandum,
which had been carefully docketed, and placed in a pigeon-hole ready to hand.
The emergency had now arisen, and the memorandum must be used. The Queen
copied out the words of Stockmar, and sent them to the Prime Minister,
requesting him to show her letter to Palmerston. "She thinks it right," she
wrote, "in order TO PREVENT ANY MISTAKE for the FUTURE, shortly to explain
WHAT IT IS SHE EXPECTS FROM HER FOREIGN SECRETARY. She requires: (1) That he
will distinctly state what he proposes in a given case, in order that the
Queen may know as distinctly to WHAT she has given her Royal sanction; (2)
Having ONCE GIVEN her sanction to a measure, that it be not arbitrarily
altered or modified by the Minister; such an act she must consider as failing
in sincerity towards the Crown, and justly to be visited by the exercise of
her Constitutional right of dismissing that Minister." Lord John Russell did
as he was bid, and forwarded the Queen's letter to Lord Palmerston. This
transaction, which was of grave constitutional significance, was entirely
unknown to the outside world.
If Palmerston had been a sensitive man, he would probably have resigned on the
receipt of the Queen's missive. But he was far from sensitive; he loved power,
and his power was greater than ever; an unerring instinct told him that this
was not the time to go. Nevertheless, he was seriously perturbed. He
understood at last that he was struggling with a formidable adversary, whose
skill and strength, unless they were mollified, might do irreparable injury to
his career. He therefore wrote to Lord John, briefly acquiescing in the
Queen's requirements--"I have taken a copy of this memorandum of the Queen and
will not fail to attend to the directions which it contains"--and at the same
time, he asked for an interview with the Prince. Albert at once summoned him
to the Palace, and was astonished to observe, as he noted in a memorandum,
that when Palmerston entered the room "he was very much agitated, shook, and
had tears in his eyes, so as quite to move me, who never under any
circumstances had known him otherwise than with a bland smile on his face."
The old statesman was profuse in protestations and excuses; the young one was
coldly polite. At last, after a long and inconclusive conversation, the
Prince, drawing himself up, said that, in order to give Lord Palmerston "an
example of what the Queen wanted," he would "ask him a question point-blank."
Lord Palmerston waited in respectful silence, while the Prince proceeded as
follows: "You are aware that the Queen has objected to the Protocol about
Schleswig, and of the grounds on which she has done so. Her opinion has been
overruled, the Protocol stating the desire of the Great Powers to see the
integrity of the Danish monarchy preserved has been signed, and upon this the
King of Denmark has invaded Schleswig, where the war is raging. If Holstein is
attacked also, which is likely, the Germans will not be restrained from flying
to her assistance; Russia has menaced to interfere with arms, if the
Schleswigers are successful. What will you do, if this emergency arises
(provoking most likely an European war), and which will arise very probably
when we shall be at Balmoral and Lord John in another part of Scotland? The
Queen expects from your foresight that you have contemplated this possibility,
and requires a categorical answer as to what you would do in the event
supposed." Strangely enough, to this pointblank question, the Foreign
Secretary appeared to be unable to reply. The whole matter, he said, was
extremely complicated, and the contingencies mentioned by His Royal Highness
were very unlikely to arise. The Prince persisted; but it was useless; for a
full hour he struggled to extract a categorical answer, until at length
Palmerston bowed himself out of the room. Albert threw up his hands in shocked
amazement: what could one do with such a man?
What indeed? For, in spite of all his apologies and all his promises, within a
few weeks the incorrigible reprobate was at his tricks again. The Austrian
General Haynau, notorious as a rigorous suppressor of rebellion in Hungary and
Italy, and in particular as a flogger of women, came to England and took it
into his head to pay a visit to Messrs. Barclay and Perkins's brewery. The
features of "General Hyena," as he was everywhere called--his grim thin face,
his enormous pepper-and-salt moustaches--had gained a horrid celebrity; and it
so happened that among the clerks at the brewery there was a refugee from
Vienna, who had given his fellow-workers a first-hand account of the General's
characteristics. The Austrian Ambassador, scenting danger, begged his friend
not to appear in public, or, if he must do so, to cut off his moustaches
first. But the General would take no advice. He went to the brewery, was
immediately recognised, surrounded by a crowd of angry draymen, pushed about,
shouted at, punched in the ribs, and pulled by the moustaches until, bolting
down an alley with the mob at his heels brandishing brooms and roaring
"Hyena!" he managed to take refuge in a public house, whence he was removed
under the protection of several policemen. The Austrian Government was angry
and demanded explanations. Palmerston, who, of course, was privately delighted
by the incident, replied regretting what had occurred, but adding that in his
opinion the General had "evinced a want of propriety in coming to England at
the present moment;" and he delivered his note to the Ambassador without
having previously submitted it to the Queen or to the Prime Minister.
Naturally, when this was discovered, there was a serious storm. The Prince was
especially indignant; the conduct of the draymen he regarded, with disgust and
alarm, as "a slight foretaste of what an unregulated mass of illiterate people
is capable;" and Palmerston was requested by Lord John to withdraw his note,
and to substitute for it another from which all censure of the General had
been omitted. On this the Foreign Secretary threatened resignation, but the
Prime Minister was firm. For a moment the royal hopes rose high, only to be
dashed to the ground again by the cruel compliance of the enemy. Palmerston,
suddenly lamblike, agreed to everything; the note was withdrawn and altered,
and peace was patched up once more.
It lasted for a year, and then, in October, 1851, the arrival of Kossuth in
England brought on another crisis. Palmerston's desire to receive the
Hungarian patriot at his house in London was vetoed by Lord John; once more
there was a sharp struggle; once more Palmerston, after threatening
resignation, yielded. But still the insubordinate man could not keep quiet. A
few weeks later a deputation of Radicals from Finsbury and Islington waited on
him at the Foreign Office and presented him with an address, in which the
Emperors of Austria and Russia were stigmatised as "odious and detestable
assassins" and "merciless tyrants and despots." The Foreign Secretary in his
reply, while mildly deprecating these expressions, allowed his real sentiments
to appear with a most undiplomatic insouciance There was an immediate scandal,
and the Court flowed over with rage and vituperation. "I think," said the
Baron, "the man has been for some time insane." Victoria, in an agitated
letter, urged Lord John to assert his authority. But Lord John perceived that
on this matter the Foreign Secretary had the support of public opinion, and he
judged it wiser to bide his time.
He had not long to wait. The culmination of the long series of conflicts,
threats, and exacerbations came before the year was out. On December 2, Louis
Napoleon's coup d'etat took place in Paris; and on the following day
Palmerston, without consulting anybody, expressed in a conversation with the
French Ambassador his approval of Napoleon's act. Two days later, he was
instructed by the Prime Minister, in accordance with a letter from the Queen,
that it was the policy of the English Government to maintain an attitude of
strict neutrality towards the affairs of France. Nevertheless, in an official
despatch to the British Amambassador in Paris, he repeated the approval of the
coup d'etat which he had already given verbally to the French Ambassador in
London. This despatch was submitted neither to the Queen nor to the Prime
Minister. Lord John's patience, as he himself said, "was drained to the last
drop." He dismissed Lord Palmerston.
Victoria was in ecstasies; and Albert knew that the triumph was his even more
than Lord John's. It was his wish that Lord Granville, a young man whom he
believed to be pliant to his influence, should be Palmerston's successor; and
Lord Granville was appointed. Henceforward, it seemed that the Prince would
have his way in foreign affairs. After years of struggle and mortification,
success greeted him on every hand. In his family, he was an adored master; in
the country, the Great Exhibition had brought him respect and glory; and now
in the secret seats of power he had gained a new supremacy. He had wrestled
with the terrible Lord Palmerston, the embodiment of all that was most hostile
to him in the spirit of England, and his redoubtable opponent had been
overthrown. Was England herself at his feet? It might be so; and yet... it is
said that the sons of England have a certain tiresome quality: they never know
when they are beaten. It was odd, but Palmerston was positively still jaunty.
Was it possible? Could he believe, in his blind arro--gance, that even his
ignominious dismissal from office was something that could be brushed aside?
III
The Prince's triumph was short-lived. A few weeks later, owing to Palmerston's
influence, the Government was defeated in the House, and Lord John resigned.
Then, after a short interval, a coalition between the Whigs and the followers
of Peel came into power, under the premiership of Lord Aberdeen. Once more,
Palmerston was in the Cabinet. It was true that he did not return to the
Foreign Office; that was something to the good; in the Home Department it
might be hoped that his activities would be less dangerous and disagreeable.
But the Foreign Secretary was no longer the complacent Granville; and in Lord
Clarendon the Prince knew that he had a Minister to deal with, who, discreet
and courteous as he was, had a mind of his own. These changes, however, were
merely the preliminaries of a far more serious development.
Events, on every side, were moving towards a catastrophe. Suddenly the nation
found itself under the awful shadow of imminent war. For several months, amid
the shifting mysteries of diplomacy and the perplexed agitations of politics,
the issue grew more doubtful and more dark, while the national temper was
strained to the breaking-point. At the very crisis of the long and ominous
negotiations, it was announced that Lord Palmerston had resigned. Then the
pent-up fury of the people burst forth. They had felt that in the terrible
complexity of events they were being guided by weak and embarrassed counsels;
but they had been reassured by the knowledge that at the centre of power there
was one man with strength, with courage, with determination, in whom they
could put their trust. They now learnt that that man was no longer among their
leaders. Why? In their rage, anxiety, and nervous exhaustion, they looked
round desperately for some hidden and horrible explanation of what had
occurred. They suspected plots, they smelt treachery in the air. It was easy
to guess the object upon which their frenzy would vent itself. Was there not a
foreigner in the highest of high places, a foreigner whose hostility to their
own adored champion was unrelenting and unconcealed? The moment that
Palmerston's resignation was known, there was a universal outcry and an
extraordinary tempest of anger and hatred burst, with unparalleled violence,
upon the head of the Prince.
It was everywhere asserted and believed that the Queen's husband was a traitor
to the country, that he was a tool of the Russian Court, that in obedience to
Russian influences he had forced Palmerston out of the Government, and that he
was directing the foreign policy of England in the interests of England's
enemies. For many weeks these accusations filled the whole of the press;
repeated at public meetings, elaborated in private talk, they flew over the
country, growing every moment more extreme and more improbable. While
respectable newspapers thundered out their grave invectives, halfpenny
broadsides, hawked through the streets of London, re-echoed in doggerel
vulgarity the same sentiments and the same suspicions[*]. At last the wildest
rumours began to spread.
[*]"The Turkish war both far and near Has played the very deuce then,
And little Al, the royal pal, They say has turned a Russian; Old
Aberdeen, as may be seen, Looks woeful pale and yellow, And Old John
Bull had his belly full Of dirty Russian tallow."
Chorus: "We'll send him home and make him groan, Oh, Al! you've played
the deuce then; The German lad has acted sad And turned tail with the
Russians." * * * * * * "Last Monday night, all in a
fright, Al out of bed did tumble. The German lad was raving mad,
How he did groan and grumble! He cried to Vic, 'I've cut my stick: To
St. Petersburg go right slap.' When Vic, 'tis said, jumped out of bed,
And wopped him with her night-cap."
From Lovely Albert! a broadside preserved at the British Museum.
In January, 1854, it was whispered that the Prince had been seized, that he
had been found guilty of high treason, that he was to be committed to the
Tower. The Queen herself, some declared, had been arrested, and large crowds
actually collected round the Tower to watch the incarceration of the royal
miscreants.[*]
[*]"You Jolly Turks, now go to work,
And show the Bear your power.
It is rumoured over Britain's isle
That A------ is in the Tower;
The postmen some suspicion had,
And opened the two letters,
'Twas a pity sad the German lad
Should not have known much better!"
Lovely Albert!
These fantastic hallucinations, the result of the fevered atmosphere of
approaching war, were devoid of any basis in actual fact. Palmerston's
resignition had been in all probability totally disconnected with foreign
policy; it had certainly been entirely spontaneous, and had surprised the
Court as much as the nation. Nor had Albert's influence been used in any way
to favour the interests of Russia. As often happens in such cases, the
Government had been swinging backwards and forwards between two incompatible
policies--that of non-interference and that of threats supported by
force--either of which, if consistently followed, might well have had a
successful and peaceful issue, but which, mingled together, could only lead to
war. Albert, with characteristic scrupulosity, attempted to thread his way
through the complicated labyrinth of European diplomacy, and eventually was
lost in the maze. But so was the whole of the Cabinet; and, when war came, his
anti-Russian feelings were quite as vehement as those of the most bellicose of
Englishmen.
Nevertheless, though the specific charges levelled against the Prince were
without foundation, there were underlying elements in the situation which
explained, if they did not justify, the popular state of mind. It was true
that the Queen's husband was a foreigner, who had been brought up in a foreign
Court, was impregnated with foreign ideas, and was closely related to a
multitude of foreign princes. Clearly this, though perhaps an unavoidable, was
an undesirable, state of affairs; nor were the objections to it merely
theoretical; it had in fact produced unpleasant consequences of a serious
kind. The Prince's German proclivities were perpetually lamented by English
Ministers; Lord Palmerston, Lord Clarendon, Lord Aberdeen, all told the same
tale; and it was constantly necessary, in grave questions of national policy,
to combat the prepossessions of a Court in which German views and German
sentiments held a disproportionate place. As for Palmerston, his language on
this topic was apt to be unbridled. At the height of his annoyance over his
resignation, he roundly declared that he had been made a victim to foreign
intrigue. He afterwards toned down this accusation; but the mere fact that
such a suggestion from such a quarter was possible at all showed to what
unfortunate consequences Albert's foreign birth and foreign upbringing might
lead.
But this was not all. A constitutional question of the most profound
importance was raised by the position of the Prince in England. His presence
gave a new prominence to an old problem--the precise definition of the
functions and the powers of the Crown. Those functions and powers had become,
in effect, his; and what sort of use was he making of them? His views as to
the place of the Crown in the Constitution are easily ascertainable; for they
were Stockmar's; and it happens that we possess a detailed account of
Stockmar's opinions upon the subject in a long letter addressed by him to the
Prince at the time of this very crisis, just before the outbreak of the
Crimean War. Constitutional Monarchy, according to the Baron, had suffered an
eclipse since the passing of the Reform Bill. It was now "constantly in danger
of becoming a pure Ministerial Government." The old race of Tories, who "had a
direct interest in upholding the prerogatives of the Crown," had died out; and
the Whigs were "nothing but partly conscious, partly unconscious Republicans,
who stand in the same relation to the Throne as the wolf does to the lamb."
There was a rule that it was unconstitutional to introduce "the name and
person of the irresponsible Sovereign" into parliamentary debates on
constitutional matters; this was "a constitutional fiction, which, although
undoubtedly of old standing, was fraught with danger"; and the Baron warned
the Prince that "if the English Crown permit a Whig Ministry to follow this
rule in practice, without exception, you must not wonder if in a little time
you find the majority of the people impressed with the belief that the King,
in the view of the law, is nothing but a mandarin figure, which has to nod its
head in assent, or shake it in denial, as his Minister pleases." To prevent
this from happening, it was of extreme importance, said the Baron, "that no
opportunity should be let slip of vindicating the legitimate position of the
Crown." "And this is not hard to do," he added, "and can never embarrass a
Minister where such straightforward loyal personages as the Queen and the
Prince are concerned." In his opinion, the very lowest claim of the Royal
Prerogative should include "a right on the part of the King to be the
permanent President of his Ministerial Council." The Sovereign ought to be "in
the position of a permanent Premier, who takes rank above the temporary head
of the Cabinet, and in matters of discipline exercises supreme authority." The
Sovereign "may even take a part in the initiation and the maturing of the
Government measures; for it would be unreasonable to expect that a king,
himself as able, as accomplished, and as patriotic as the best of his
Ministers, should be prevented from making use of these qualities at the
deliberations of his Council." "The judicious exercise of this right,"
concluded the Baron, "which certainly requires a master mind, would not only
be the best guarantee for Constitutional Monarchy, but would raise it to a
height of power, stability, and symmetry, which has never been attained."
Now it may be that this reading of the Constitution is a possible one, though
indeed it is hard to see how it can be made compatible with the fundamental
doctrine of ministerial responsibility. William III presided over his Council,
and he was a constitutional monarch; and it seems that Stockmar had in his
mind a conception of the Crown which would have given it a place in the
Constitution analogous to that which it filled at the time of William III. But
it is clear that such a theory, which would invest the Crown with more power
than it possessed even under George III, runs counter to the whole development
of English public life since the Revolution; and the fact that it was held by
Stockmar, and instilled by him into Albert, was of very serious importance.
For there was good reason to believe not only that these doctrines were held
by Albert in theory, but that he was making a deliberate and sustained attempt
to give them practical validity. The history of the struggle between the Crown
and Palmerston provided startling evidence that this was the case. That
struggle reached its culmination when, in Stockmar's memorandum of 1850, the
Queen asserted her "constitutional right" to dismiss the Foreign Secretary if
he altered a despatch which had received her sanction. The memorandum was, in
fact, a plain declaration that the Crown intended to act independently of the
Prime Minister. Lord John Russell, anxious at all costs to strengthen himself
against Palmerston, accepted the memorandum, and thereby implicitly allowed
the claim of the Crown. More than that; after the dismissal of Palmerston,
among the grounds on which Lord John justified that dismissal in the House of
Commons he gave a prominent place to the memorandum of 1850. It became
apparent that the displeasure of the Sovereign might be a reason for the
removal of a powerful and popular Minister. It seemed indeed as if, under the
guidance of Stockmar and Albert, the "Constitutional Monarchy" might in very
truth be rising "to a height of power, stability, and symmetry, which had
never been attained."
But this new development in the position of the Crown, grave as it was in
itself, was rendered peculiarly disquieting by the unusual circumstances which
surrounded it. For the functions of the Crown were now, in effect, being
exercised by a person unknown to the Constitution, who wielded over the
Sovereign an undefined and unbounded influence. The fact that this person was
the Sovereign's husband, while it explained his influence and even made it
inevitable, by no means diminished its strange and momentous import. An
ambiguous, prepotent figure had come to disturb the ancient, subtle, and
jealously guarded balance of the English Constitution. Such had been the
unexpected outcome of the tentative and fainthearted opening of Albert's
political life. He himself made no attempt to minimise either the multiplicity
or the significance of the functions he performed. He considered that it was
his duty, he told the Duke of Wellington in 1850, to "sink his OWN INDIVIDUAL
existence in that of his wife--assume no separate responsibility before the
public, but make his position entirely a part of hers--fill up every gap
which, as a woman, she would naturally leave in the exercise of her regal
functions--continually and anxiously watch every part of the public business,
in order to be able to advise and assist her at any moment in any of the
multifarious and difficult questions or duties brought before her, sometimes
international, sometimes political, or social, or personal. As the natural
head of her family, superintendent of her household, manager of her private
affairs, sole CONFIDENTIAL adviser in politics, and only assistant in her
communications with the officers of the Government, he is, besides, the
husband of the Queen, the tutor of the royal children, the private secretary
of the Sovereign, and her permanent minister." Stockmar's pupil had assuredly
gone far and learnt well. Stockmar's pupil!--precisely; the public, painfully
aware of Albert's predominance, had grown, too, uneasily conscious that
Victoria's master had a master of his own. Deep in the darkness the Baron
loomed. Another foreigner! Decidedly, there were elements in the situation
which went far to justify the popular alarm. A foreign Baron controlled a
foreign Prince, and the foreign Prince controlled the Crown of England. And
the Crown itself was creeping forward ominously; and when, from under its
shadow, the Baron and the Prince had frowned, a great Minister, beloved of the
people, had fallen. Where was all this to end?
Within a few weeks Palmerston withdrew his resignation, and the public frenzy
subsided as quickly as it had arisen. When Parliament met, the leaders of both
the parties in both the Houses made speeches in favour of the Prince,
asserting his unimpeachable loyalty to the country and vindicating his right
to advise the Sovereign in all matters of State. Victoria was delighted. "The
position of my beloved lord and master," she told the Baron, "has been defined
for once amid all and his merits have been acknowledged on all sides most
duly. There was an immense concourse of people assembled when we went to the
House of Lords, and the people were very friendly." Immediately afterwards,
the country finally plunged into the Crimean War. In the struggle that
followed, Albert's patriotism was put beyond a doubt, and the animosities of
the past were forgotten. But the war had another consequence, less gratifying
to the royal couple: it crowned the ambition of Lord Palmerston. In 1855, the
man who five years before had been pronounced by Lord John Russell to be "too
old to do much in the future," became Prime Minister of England, and, with one
short interval, remained in that position for ten years.
CHAPTER VI. LAST YEARS OF PRINCE CONSORT
I
The weak-willed youth who took no interest in polities and never read a
newspaper had grown into a man of unbending determination whose tireless
energies were incessantly concentrated upon the laborious business of
government and the highest questions of State. He was busy now from morning
till night. In the winter, before the dawn, he was to be seen, seated at his
writing-table, working by the light of the green reading--lamp which he had
brought over with him from Germany, and the construction of which he had much
improved by an ingenious device. Victoria was early too, but she was not so
early as Albert; and when, in the chill darkness, she took her seat at her own
writing-table, placed side by side with his, she invariably found upon it a
neat pile of papers arranged for her inspection and her signature. The day,
thus begun, continued in unremitting industry. At breakfast, the
newspapers--the once hated newspapers--made their appearance, and the Prince,
absorbed in their perusal, would answer no questions, or, if an article struck
him, would read it aloud. After, that there were ministers and secretaries to
interview; there was a vast correspondence to be carried on; there were
numerous memoranda to be made. Victoria, treasuring every word, preserving
every letter, was all breathless attention and eager obedience. Sometimes
Albert would actually ask her advice. He consulted her about his English:
"Lese recht aufmerksam, und sage wenn irgend ein Fehler ist,"[*] he would say;
or, as he handed her a draft for her signature, he would observe, "Ich hab'
Dir hier ein Draft gemacht, lese es mal! Ich dachte es ware recht so."[**]
Thus the diligent, scrupulous, absorbing hours passed by. Fewer and fewer grew
the moments of recreation and of exercise. The demands of society were
narrowed down to the smallest limits, and even then but grudgingly attended
to. It was no longer a mere pleasure, it was a positive necessity, to go to
bed as early as possible in order to be up and at work on the morrow betimes.
[*] "Read this carefully, and tell me if there are any mistakes in it."
[**] "Here is a draft I have made for you. Read it. I should think this would
do."
The important and exacting business of government, which became at last the
dominating preoccupation in Albert's mind, still left unimpaired his old
tastes and interests; he remained devoted to art, to science, to philosophy,
and a multitude of subsidiary activities showed how his energies increased as
the demands upon them grew. For whenever duty called, the Prince was all
alertness. With indefatigable perseverance he opened museums, laid the
foundation stones of hospitals, made speeches to the Royal Agricultural
Society, and attended meetings of the British Association. The National
Gallery particularly interested him: he drew up careful regulations for the
arrangement of the pictures according to schools; and he attempted--though in
vain--to have the whole collection transported to South Kensington. Feodora,
now the Princess Hohenlohe, after a visit to England, expressed in a letter to
Victoria her admiration of Albert both as a private and a public character.
Nor did she rely only on her own opinion. "I must just copy out," she said,
"what Mr. Klumpp wrote to me some little time ago, and which is quite
true--'Prince Albert is one of the few Royal personages who can sacrifice to
any principle (as soon as it has become evident to them to be good and noble)
all those notions (or sentiments) to which others, owing to their
narrow-mindedness, or to the prejudices of their rank, are so thoroughly
inclined strongly to cling.' There is something so truly religious in this,"
the Princess added, "as well as humane and just, most soothing to my feelings
which are so often hurt and disturbed by what I hear and see."
Victoria, from the depth of her heart, subscribed to all the eulogies of
Feodora and Mr. Klumpp. She only found that they were insufficient. As she
watched her beloved Albert, after toiling with state documents and public
functions, devoting every spare moment of his time to domestic duties, to
artistic appreciation, and to intellectual improvements; as she listened to
him cracking his jokes at the luncheon table, or playing Mendelssohn on the
organ, or pointing out the merits of Sir Edwin Landseer's pictures; as she
followed him round while he gave instructions about the breeding of cattle, or
decided that the Gainsboroughs must be hung higher up so that the
Winterhalters might be properly seen--she felt perfectly certain that no other
wife had ever had such a husband. His mind was apparently capable of
everything, and she was hardly surprised to learn that he had made an
important discovery for the conversion of sewage into agricultural manure.
Filtration from below upwards, he explained, through some appropriate medium,
which retained the solids and set free the fluid sewage for irrigation, was
the principle of the scheme. "All previous plans," he said, "would have cost
millions; mine costs next to nothing." Unfortunately, owing to a slight
miscalculation, the invention proved to be impracticable; but Albert's
intelligence was unrebuffed, and he passed on, to plunge with all his
accustomed ardour into a prolonged study of the rudiments of lithography.
But naturally it was upon his children that his private interests and those of
Victoria were concentrated most vigorously. The royal nurseries showed no sign
of emptying. The birth of the Prince Arthur in 1850 was followed, three years
later, by that of the Prince Leopold; and in 1857 the Princess Beatrice was
born. A family of nine must be, in any circumstances, a grave responsibility;
and the Prince realised to the full how much the high destinies of his
offspring intensified the need of parental care. It was inevitable that he
should believe profoundly in the importance of education; he himself had been
the product of education; Stockmar had made him what he was; it was for him,
in his turn, to be a Stockmar--to be even more than a Stockmar--to the young
creatures he had brought into the world. Victoria would assist him; a
Stockmar, no doubt, she could hardly be; but she could be perpetually
vigilant, she could mingle strictness with her affection, and she could always
set a good example. These considerations, of course, applied pre-eminently to
the education of the Prince of Wales. How tremendous was the significance of
every particle of influence which went to the making of the future King of
England! Albert set to work with a will. But, watching with Victoria the
minutest details of the physical, intellectual, and moral training of his
children, he soon perceived, to his distress, that there was something
unsatisfactory in the development of his eldest son. The Princess Royal was an
extremely intelligent child; but Bertie, though he was good-humoured and
gentle, seemed to display a deep-seated repugnance to every form of mental
exertion. This was most regrettable, but the remedy was obvious: the parental
efforts must be redoubled; instruction must be multiplied; not for a single
instant must the educational pressure be allowed to relax. Accordingly, more
tutors were selected, the curriculum was revised, the time-table of studies
was rearranged, elaborate memoranda dealing with every possible contingency
were drawn up. It was above all essential that there should be no slackness:
"Work," said the Prince, " must be work." And work indeed it was. The boy grew
up amid a ceaseless round of paradigms, syntactical exercises, dates,
genealogical tables, and lists of capes. Constant notes flew backwards and
forwards between the Prince, the Queen, and tile tutors, with inquiries, with
reports of progress, with detailed recommendations; and these notes were all
carefully preserved for future reference. It was, besides, vital that the heir
to the throne should be protected from the slightest possibility of
contamination from the outside world. The Prince of Wales was not as other
boys; he might, occasionally, be allowed to invite some sons of the nobility,
boys of good character, to play with him in the garden of Buckingham Palace;
but his father presided, with alarming precision, over their sports. In short,
every possible precaution was taken, every conceivable effort was made. Yet,
strange to say, the object of all this vigilance and solicitude continued to
be unsatisfactory--appeared, in fact, to be positively growing worse. It was
certainly very odd: the more lessons that Bertie had to do, the less he did
them; and the more carefully he was guarded against excitements and
frivolities, the more desirous of mere amusement he seemed to become. Albert
was deeply grieved and Victoria was sometimes very angry; but grief and anger
produced no more effect than supervision and time-tables. The Prince of Wales,
in spite of everything, grew up into manhood without the faintest sign of
"adherence to and perseverance in the plan both of studies and life-" as one
of the Royal memoranda put it--which had been laid down with such
extraordinary forethought by his father.
II
Against the insidious worries of politics, the boredom of society functions,
and the pompous publicity of state ceremonies, Osborne had afforded a welcome
refuge; but it soon appeared that even Osborne was too little removed from the
world. After all, the Solent was a feeble barrier. Oh, for some distant, some
almost inaccessible sanctuary, where, in true domestic privacy, one could make
happy holiday, just as if--or at least very, very, nearly--one were anybody
else! Victoria, ever since, together with Albert, she had visited Scotland in
the early years of her marriage, had felt that her heart was in the Highlands.
She had returned to them a few years later, and her passion had grown. How
romantic they were! And how Albert enjoyed them too! His spirits rose quite
wonderfully as soon as he found himself among the hills and the conifers. "It
is a happiness to see him," she wrote. "Oh! What can equal the beauties of
nature!" she exclaimed in her journal, during one of these visits. "What
enjoyment there is in them! Albert enjoys it so much; he is in ecstasies
here." "Albert said," she noted next day, "that the chief beauty of mountain
scenery consists in its frequent changes. We came home at six o'clock." Then
she went on a longer expedition--up to the very top of a high hill. "It was
quite romantic. Here we were with only this Highlander behind us holding the
ponies (for we got off twice and walked about). . . . We came home at
half-past eleven,--the most delightful, most romantic ride and walk I ever
had. I had never been up such a mountain, and then the day was so fine." The
Highlanders, too, were such astonishing people. They "never make
difficulties," she noted, "but are cheerful, and happy, and merry, and ready
to walk, and run, and do anything." As for Albert he "highly appreciated the
good-breeding, simplicity, and intelligence, which make it so pleasant and
even instructive to talk to them." "We were always in the habit," wrote Her
Majesty, "of conversing with the Highlanders--with whom one comes so much in
contact in the Highlands." She loved everything about them--their customs,
their dress, their dances, even their musical instruments. "There were nine
pipers at the castle," she wrote after staying with Lord Breadalbane;
"sometimes one and sometimes three played. They always played about
breakfast-time, again during the morning, at luncheon, and also whenever we
went in and out; again before dinner, and during most of dinner-time. We both
have become quite fond of the bag-pipes.
It was quite impossible not to wish to return to such pleasures again and
again; and in 1848 the Queen took a lease of Balmoral House, a small residence
near Braemar in the wilds of Aberdeenshire. Four years later she bought the
place outright. Now she could be really happy every summer; now she could be
simple and at her ease; now she could be romantic every evening, and dote upon
Albert, without a single distraction, all day long. The diminutive scale of
the house was in itself a charm. Nothing was more amusing than to find oneself
living in two or three little sitting--rooms, with the children crammed away
upstairs, and the minister in attendance with only a tiny bedroom to do all
his work in. And then to be able to run in and out of doors as one liked, and
to sketch, and to walk, and to watch the red deer coming so surprisingly
close, and to pay visits to the cottagers! And occasionally one could be more
adventurous still--one could go and stay for a night or two at the Bothie at
Alt-na-giuthasach--a mere couple of huts with "a wooden addition"--and only
eleven people in the whole party! And there were mountains to be climbed and
cairns to be built in solemn pomp. "At last, when the cairn, which is, I
think, seven or eight feet high, was nearly completed, Albert climbed up to
the top of it, and placed the last stone; after which three cheers were given.
It was a gay, pretty, and touching sight; and I felt almost inclined to cry.
The view was so beautiful over the dear hills; the day so fine; the whole so
gemuthlich." And in the evening there were sword-dances and reels.
But Albert had determined to pull down the little old house, and to build in
its place a castle of his own designing. With great ceremony, in accordance
with a memorandum drawn up by the Prince for the occasion, the
foundation-stone of the new edifice was laid, and by 1855 it was habitable.
Spacious, built of granite in the Scotch baronial style, with a tower 100 feet
high, and minor turrets and castellated gables, the castle was skilfully
arranged to command the finest views of the surrounding mountains and of the
neighbouring river Dee. Upon the interior decorations Albert and Victoria
lavished all their care. The wall and the floors were of pitch-pine, and
covered with specially manufactured tartars. The Balmoral tartan, in red and
grey, designed by the Prince, and the Victoria tartan, with a white stripe,
designed by the Queen, were to be seen in every room: there were tartan
curtains, and tartan chair-covers, and even tartan linoleums. Occasionally the
Royal Stuart tartan appeared, for Her Majesty always maintained that she was
an ardent Jacobite. Water-colour sketches by Victoria hung upon the walls,
together with innumerable stags' antlers, and the head of a boar, which had
been shot by Albert in Germany. In an alcove in the hall, stood a life-sized
statue of Albert in Highland dress.
Victoria declared that it was perfection. "Every year," she wrote, "my heart
becomes more fixed in this dear paradise, and so much more so now, that ALL
has become my dear Albert's own creation, own work, own building, own
lay-out... and his great taste, and the impress of his dear hand, have been
stamped everywhere."
And here, in very truth, her happiest days were passed. In after years, when
she looked back upon them, a kind of glory, a radiance as of an unearthly
holiness, seemed to glow about these golden hours. Each hallowed moment stood
out clear, beautiful, eternally significant. For, at the time, every
experience there, sentimental, or grave, or trivial, had come upon her with a
peculiar vividness, like a flashing of marvellous lights. Albert's
stalkings--an evening walk when she lost her way--Vicky sitting down on a
wasps' nest--a torchlight dance--with what intensity such things, and ten
thousand like them, impressed themselves upon her eager consciousness! And how
she flew to her journal to note them down! The news of the Duke's death! What
a moment--when, as she sat sketching after a picnic by a loch in the lonely
hills, Lord Derby's letter had been brought to her, and she had learnt that
"ENGLAND'S, or rather BRITAIN'S pride, her glory, her hero, the greatest man
she had ever produced, was no morel." For such were here reflections upon the
"old rebel" of former days. But that past had been utterly obliterated--no
faintest memory of it remained. For years she had looked up to the Duke as a
figure almost superhuman. Had he not been a supporter of good Sir Robert? Had
he not asked Albert to succeed him as commander-in-chief? And what a proud
moment it had been when he stood as sponsor to her son Arthur, who was born on
his eighty-first birthday! So now she filled a whole page of her diary with
panegyrical regrets. "His position was the highest a subject ever had--above
party--looked up to by all--revered by the whole nation--the friend of the
Sovereign... The Crown never possessed--and I fear never WILL--so DEVOTED,
loyal, and faithful a subject, so staunch a supporter! To US his loss is
IRREPARABLE... To Albert he showed the greatest kindness and the utmost
confidence... Not an eye will be dry in the whole country." These were serious
thoughts; but they were soon succeeded by others hardly less moving--by events
as impossible to forget--by Mr. MacLeod's sermon on Nicodemus--by the gift of
a red flannel petticoat to Mrs. P. Farquharson, and another to old Kitty Kear.
But, without doubt, most memorable, most delightful of all were the
expeditions--the rare, exciting expeditions up distant mountains, across broad
rivers, through strange country, and lasting several days. With only two
gillies--Grant and Brown--for servants, and with assumed names. It was more
like something in a story than real life. "We had decided to call ourselves
LORD AND LADY CHURCHILL AND AND PARTY--Lady Churchill passing as MISS SPENCER
and General Grey as DR. GREY! Brown once forgot this and called me 'Your
Majesty' as I was getting into the carriage, and Grant on the box once called
Albert 'Your Royal Highness,' which set us off laughing, but no one observed
it." Strong, vigorous, enthusiastic, bringing, so it seemed, good fortune with
her--the Highlanders declared she had "a lucky foot"--she relished
everything--the scrambles and the views and the contretemps and the rough inns
with their coarse fare and Brown and Grant waiting at table. She could have
gone on for ever and ever, absolutely happy with Albert beside her and Brown
at her pony's head. But the time came for turning homewards, alas! the time
came for going back to England. She could hardly bear it; she sat disconsolate
in her room and watched the snow falling. The last day! Oh! If only she could
be snowed up!
III
The Crimean War brought new experiences, and most of them were pleasant ones.
It was pleasant to be patriotic and pugnacious, to look out appropriate
prayers to be read in the churches, to have news of glorious victories, and to
know oneself, more proudly than ever, the representative of England. With that
spontaneity of feeling which was so peculiarly her own, Victoria poured out
her emotion, her admiration, her pity, her love, upon her "dear soldiers."
When she gave them their medals her exultation knew no bounds. "Noble
fellows!" she wrote to the King of the Belgians, "I own I feel as if these
were MY OWN CHILDREN; my heart beats for THEM as for my NEAREST and DEAREST.
They were so touched, so pleased; many, I hear, cried--and they won't hear of
giving up their medals to have their names engraved upon them for fear they
should not receive the IDENTICAL ONE put into THEIR HANDS BY ME, which is
quite touching. Several came by in a sadly mutilated state." She and they were
at one. They felt that she had done them a splendid honour, and she, with
perfect genuineness, shared their feeling. Albert's attitude towards such
things was different; there was an austerity in him which quite prohibited the
expansions of emotion. When General Williams returned from the heroic defence
of Kars and was presented at Court, the quick, stiff, distant bow with which
the Prince received him struck like ice upon the beholders. He was a stranger
still.
But he had other things to occupy him, more important, surely, than the
personal impressions of military officers and people who went to Court. He was
at work--ceaselessly at work--on the tremendous task of carrying through the
war to a successful conclusion. State papers, despatches, memoranda, poured
from him in an overwhelming stream. Between 1853 and 1857 fifty folio volumes
were filled with the comments of his pen upon the Eastern question. Nothing
would induce him to stop. Weary ministers staggered under the load of his
advice; but his advice continued, piling itself up over their writing-tables,
and flowing out upon them from red box after red box. Nor was it advice to be
ignored. The talent for administration which had reorganised the royal palaces
and planned the Great Exhibition asserted itself no less in the confused
complexities of war. Again and again the Prince's suggestions, rejected or
unheeded at first, were adopted under the stress of circumstances and found to
be full of value. The enrolment of a foreign legion, the establishment of a
depot for troops at Malta, the institution of periodical reports and tabulated
returns as to the condition of the army at Sebastopol--such were the
contrivances and the achievements of his indefatigable brain. He went further:
in a lengthy minute he laid down the lines for a radical reform in the entire
administration of the army. This was premature, but his proposal that "a camp
of evolution" should be created, in which troops should be concentrated and
drilled, proved to be the germ of Aldershot.
Meanwhile Victoria had made a new friend: she had suddenly been captivated by
Napoleon III. Her dislike of him had been strong at first. She considered that
he was a disreputable adventurer who had usurped the throne of poor old Louis
Philippe; and besides he was hand-in-glove with Lord Palmerston. For a long
time, although he was her ally, she was unwilling to meet him; but at last a
visit of the Emperor and Empress to England was arranged. Directly he appeared
at Windsor her heart began to soften. She found that she was charmed by his
quiet manners, his low, soft voice, and by the soothing simplicity of his
conversation. The good-will of England was essential to the Emperor's position
in Europe, and he had determined to fascinate the Queen. He succeeded. There
was something deep within her which responded immediately and vehemently to
natures that offered a romantic contrast with her own. Her adoration of Lord
Melbourne was intimately interwoven with her half-unconscious appreciation of
the exciting unlikeness between herself and that sophisticated, subtle,
aristocratical old man. Very different was the quality of her unlikeness to
Napoleon; but its quantity was at least as great. From behind the vast
solidity of her respectability, her conventionality, her established
happiness, she peered out with a strange delicious pleasure at that
unfamiliar, darkly-glittering foreign object, moving so meteorically before
her, an ambiguous creature of wilfulness and Destiny. And, to her surprise,
where she had dreaded antagonisms, she discovered only sympathies. He was, she
said, "so quiet, so simple, naif even, so pleased to be informed about things
he does not know, so gentle, so full of tact, dignity, and modesty, so full of
kind attention towards us, never saying a word, or doing a thing, which could
put me out... There is something fascinating, melancholy, and engaging which
draws you to him, in spite of any prevention you may have against him, and
certainly without the assistance of any outward appearance, though I like his
face." She observed that he rode "extremely well, and looks well on horseback,
as he sits high." And he danced "with great dignity and spirit." Above all, he
listened to Albert; listened with the most respectful attention; showed, in
fact, how pleased he was "to be informed about things he did not know;" and
afterwards was heard to declare that he had never met the Prince's equal. On
one occasion, indeed--but only on one--he had seemed to grow slightly restive.
In a diplomatic conversation, "I expatiated a little on the Holstein
question," wrote the Prince in a memorandum, "which appeared to bore the
Emperor as 'tres compliquee.'"
Victoria, too, became much attached to the Empress, whose looks and graces she
admired without a touch of jealousy. Eugenie, indeed, in the plenitude of her
beauty, exquisitely dressed in wonderful Parisian crinolines which set off to
perfection her tall and willowy figure, might well have caused some
heart-burning in the breast of her hostess, who, very short, rather stout,
quite plain, in garish middle-class garments, could hardly be expected to feel
at her best in such company. But Victoria had no misgivings. To her it
mattered nothing that her face turned red in the heat and that her purple
pork-pie hat was of last year's fashion, while Eugenie, cool and modish,
floated in an infinitude of flounces by her side. She was Queen of England,
and was not that enough? It certainly seemed to be; true majesty was hers, and
she knew it. More than once, when the two were together in public, it was the
woman to whom, as it seemed, nature and art had given so little, who, by the
sheer force of an inherent grandeur, completely threw her adorned and
beautiful companion into the shade.
There were tears when the moment came for parting, and Victoria felt "quite
wehmuthig," as her guests went away from Windsor. But before long she and
Albert paid a return visit to France, where everything was very delightful,
and she drove incognito through the streets of Paris in a "common bonnet," and
saw a play in the theatre at St. Cloud, and, one evening, at a great party
given by the Emperor in her honour at the Chateau of Versailles, talked a
little to a distinguished-looking Prussian gentleman, whose name was Bismarck.
Her rooms were furnished so much to her taste that she declared they gave her
quite a home feeling--that, if her little dog were there, she should really
imagine herself at home. Nothing was said, but three days later her little dog
barked a welcome to her as she entered the apartments. The Emperor himself,
sparing neither trouble nor expense, had personally arranged the charming
surprise. Such were his attentions. She returned to England more enchanted
than ever. "Strange indeed," she exclaimed, "are the dispensations and ways of
Providence!"
The alliance prospered, and the war drew towards a conclusion. Both the Queen
and the Prince, it is true, were most anxious that there should not be a
premature peace. When Lord Aberdeen wished to open negotiations Albert
attacked him in a "geharnischten" letter, while Victoria rode about on
horseback reviewing the troops. At last, however, Sebastopol was captured. The
news reached Balmoral late at night, and "in a few minutes Albert and all the
gentlemen in every species of attire sallied forth, followed by all the
servants, and gradually by all the population of the village-keepers, gillies,
workmen--"up to the top of the cairn." A bonfire was lighted, the pipes were
played, and guns were shot off. "About three-quarters of an hour after Albert
came down and said the scene had been wild and exciting beyond everything. The
people had been drinking healths in whisky and were in great ecstasy." The
"great ecstasy," perhaps, would be replaced by other feelings next morning;
but at any rate the war was over--though, to be sure, its end seemed as
difficult to account for as its beginning. The dispensations and ways of
Providence continued to be strange.
IV
An unexpected consequence of the war was a complete change in the relations
between the royal pair and Palmerston. The Prince and the Minister drew
together over their hostility to Russia, and thus it came about that when
Victoria found it necessary to summon her old enemy to form an administration
she did so without reluctance. The premiership, too, had a sobering effect
upon Palmerston; he grew less impatient and dictatorial; considered with
attention the suggestions of the Crown, and was, besides, genuinely impressed
by the Prince's ability and knowledge. Friction, no doubt, there still
occasionally was, for, while the Queen and the Prince devoted themselves to
foreign politics as much as ever, their views, when the war was over, became
once more antagonistic to those of the Prime Minister. This was especially the
case with regard to Italy. Albert, theoretically the friend of constitutional
government, distrusted Cavour, was horrified by Garibaldi, and dreaded the
danger of England being drawn into war with Austria. Palmerston, on the other
hand, was eager for Italian independence; but he was no longer at the Foreign
Office, and the brunt of the royal displeasure had now to be borne by Lord
John Russell. In a few years the situation had curiously altered. It was Lord
John who now filled the subordinate and the ungrateful role; but the Foreign
Secretary, in his struggle with the Crown, was supported, instead of opposed,
by the Prime Minister. Nevertheless the struggle was fierce, and the policy,
by which the vigorous sympathy of England became one of the decisive factors
in the final achievement of Italian unity, was only carried through in face of
the violent opposition of the Court.
Towards the other European storm-centre, also, the Prince's attitude continued
to be very different to that of Palmerston. Albert's great wish was for a
united Germany under the leadership of a constitutional and virtuous Prussia;
Palmerston did not think that there was much to be said for the scheme, but he
took no particular interest in German politics, and was ready enough to agree
to a proposal which was warmly supported by both the Prince and the
Queen--that the royal Houses of England and Prussia should be united by the
marriage of the Princess Royal with the Prussian Crown Prince. Accordingly,
when the Princess was not yet fifteen, the Prince, a young man of twenty-four,
came over on a visit to Balmoral, and the betrothal took place. Two years
later, in 1857, the marriage was celebrated. At the last moment, however, it
seemed that there might be a hitch. It was pointed out in Prussia that it was
customary for Princes of the blood royal to be married in Berlin, and it was
suggested that there was no reason why the present case should be treated as
an exception. When this reached the ears of Victoria, she was speechless with
indignation. In a note, emphatic even for Her Majesty, she instructed the
Foreign Secretary to tell the Prussian Ambassador "not to ENTERTAIN the
POSSIBILITY of such a question... The Queen NEVER could consent to it, both
for public and for private reasons, and the assumption of its being TOO MUCH
for a Prince Royal of Prussia to come over to marry the Princess Royal of
Great Britain in England is too ABSURD to say the least. . . Whatever may be
the usual practice of Prussian princes, it is not EVERY day that one marries
the eldest daughter of the Queen of England. The question must therefore be
considered as settled and closed." It was, and the wedding took place in St.
James's Chapel. There were great festivities--illuminations, state concerts,
immense crowds, and general rejoicings. At Windsor a magnificent banquet was
given to the bride and bridegroom in the Waterloo room, at which, Victoria
noted in her diary, "everybody was most friendly and kind about Vicky and full
of the universal enthusiasm, of which the Duke of Buccleuch gave us most
pleasing instances, he having been in the very thick of the crowd and among
the lowest of the low." Her feelings during several days had been growing more
and more emotional, and when the time came for the young couple to depart she
very nearly broke down--but not quite. "Poor dear child!" she wrote
afterwards. "I clasped her in my arms and blessed her, and knew not what to
say. I kissed good Fritz and pressed his hand again and again. He was unable
to speak and the tears were in his eyes. I embraced them both again at the
carriage door, and Albert got into the carriage, an open one, with them and
Bertie... The band struck up. I wished good-bye to the good Perponchers.
General Schreckenstein was much affected. I pressed his hand, and the good
Dean's, and then went quickly upstairs."
Albert, as well as General Schreckenstein, was much affected. He was losing
his favourite child, whose opening intelligence had already begun to display a
marked resemblance to his own--an adoring pupil, who, in a few years, might
have become an almost adequate companion. An ironic fate had determined that
the daughter who was taken from him should be sympathetic, clever, interested
in the arts and sciences, and endowed with a strong taste for memoranda, while
not a single one of these qualities could be discovered in the son who
remained. For certainly the Prince of Wales did not take after his father.
Victoria's prayer had been unanswered, and with each succeeding year it became
more obvious that Bertie was a true scion of the House of Brunswick. But these
evidences of innate characteristics only served to redouble the efforts of his
parents; it still might not be too late to incline the young branch, by
ceaseless pressure and careful fastenings, to grow in the proper direction.
Everything was tried. The boy was sent on a continental tour with a picked
body of tutors, but the results were unsatisfactory. At his father's request
he kept a diary which, on his return, was inspected by the Prince. It was
found to be distressingly meagre: what a multitude of highly interesting
reflections might have been arranged under the heading: "The First Prince of
Wales visiting the Pope!" But there was not a single one. "Le jeune prince
plaisit a tout le monde," old Metternich reported to Guizot, "mais avait l'air
embarrasse et tres triste." On his seventeenth birthday a memorandum was drawn
up over the names of the Queen and the Prince informing their eldest son that
he was now entering upon the period of manhood, and directing him henceforward
to perform the duties of a Christian gentleman. "Life is composed of duties,"
said the memorandum, "and in the due, punctual and cheerful performance of
them the true Christian, true soldier, and true gentleman is recognised... A
new sphere of life will open for you in which you will have to be taught what
to do and what not to do, a subject requiring study more important than any in
which you have hitherto been engaged." On receipt of the memorandum Bertie
burst into tears. At the same time another memorandum was drawn up, headed
"confidential: for the guidance of the gentlemen appointed to attend on the
Prince of Wales." This long and elaborate document laid down "certain
principles" by which the "conduct and demeanour" of the gentlemen were to be
regulated "and which it is thought may conduce to the benefit of the Prince of
Wales." "The qualities which distinguish a gentleman in society," continued
this remarkable paper, "are:--
(1) His appearance, his deportment and dress. (2) The character of his
relations with, and treatment of, others. (3) His desire and power to acquit
himself creditably in conversation or whatever is the occupation of the
society with which he mixes."
A minute and detailed analysis of these subheadings followed, filling several
pages, and the memorandum ended with a final exhortation to the gentlemen: "If
they will duly appreciate the responsibility of their position, and taking the
points above laid down as the outline, will exercise their own good sense in
acting UPON ALL OCCASIONS all upon these principles, thinking no point of
detail too minute to be important, but maintaining one steady consistent line
of conduct they may render essential service to the young Prince and justify
the flattering selection made by the royal parents." A year later the young
Prince was sent to Oxford, where the greatest care was taken that he should
not mix with the undergraduates. Yes, everything had been tried--everything...
with one single exception. The experiment had never been made of letting
Bertie enjoy himself. But why should it have been? "Life is composed of
duties." What possible place could there be for enjoyment in the existence of
a Prince of Wales?
The same year which deprived Albert of the Princess Royal brought him another
and a still more serious loss. The Baron had paid his last visit to England.
For twenty years, as he himself said in a letter to the King of the Belgians,
he had performed "the laborious and exhausting office of a paternal friend and
trusted adviser" to the Prince and the Queen. He was seventy; he was tired,
physically and mentally; it was time to go. He returned to his home in Coburg,
exchanging, once for all, the momentous secrecies of European statecraft for
the little-tattle of a provincial capital and the gossip of family life. In
his stiff chair by the fire he nodded now over old stories--not of emperors
and generals--but of neighbours and relatives and the domestic adventures of
long ago--the burning of his father's library--and the goat that ran upstairs
to his sister's room and ran twice round the table and then ran down again.
Dyspepsia and depression still attacked him; but, looking back over his life,
he was not dissatisfied. His conscience was clear. "I have worked as long as I
had strength to work," he said, "and for a purpose no one can impugn. The
consciousness of this is my reward--the only one which I desired to earn."
Apparently, indeed, his "purpose" had been accomplished. By his wisdom, his
patience, and his example he had brought about, in the fullness of time, the
miraculous metamorphosis of which he had dreamed. The Prince was his creation.
An indefatigable toiler, presiding, for the highest ends, over a great
nation--that was his achievement; and he looked upon his work and it was good.
But had the Baron no misgivings? Did he never wonder whether, perhaps, he
might have accomplished not too little but too much? How subtle and how
dangerous are the snares which fate lays for the wariest of men! Albert,
certainly, seemed to be everything that Stockmar could have wished--virtuous,
industrious, persevering, intelligent. And yet--why was it--all was not well
with him? He was sick at heart.
For in spite of everything he had never reached to happiness. His work, for
which at last he came to crave with an almost morbid appetite, was a solace
and not a cure; the dragon of his dissatisfaction devoured with dark relish
that ever-growing tribute of laborious days and nights; but it was hungry
still. The causes of his melancholy were hidden, mysterious, unanalysable
perhaps--too deeply rooted in the innermost recesses of his temperament for
the eye of reason to apprehend. There were contradictions in his nature,
which, to some of those who knew him best, made him seem an inexplicable
enigma: he was severe and gentle; he was modest and scornful; he longed for
affection and he was cold. He was lonely, not merely with the loneliness of
exile but with the loneliness of conscious and unrecognised superiority. He
had the pride, at once resigned and overweening, of a doctrinaire. And yet to
say that he was simply a doctrinaire would be a false description; for the
pure doctrinaire rejoices always in an internal contentment, and Albert was
very far from doing that. There was something that he wanted and that he could
never get. What was it? Some absolute, some ineffable sympathy? Some
extraordinary, some sublime success? Possibly, it was a mixture of both. To
dominate and to be understood! To conquer, by the same triumphant influence,
the submission and the appreciation of men--that would be worth while indeed!
But, to such imaginations, he saw too clearly how faint were the responses of
his actual environment. Who was there who appreciated him, really and truly?
Who COULD appreciate him in England? And, if the gentle virtue of an inward
excellence availed so little, could he expect more from the hard ways of skill
and force? The terrible land of his exile loomed before him a frigid, an
impregnable mass. Doubtless he had made some slight impression: it was true
that he had gained the respect of his fellow workers, that his probity, his
industry, his exactitude, had been recognised, that he was a highly
influential, an extremely important man. But how far, how very far, was all
this from the goal of his ambitions! How feeble and futile his efforts seemed
against the enormous coagulation of dullness, of folly, of slackness, of
ignorance, of confusion that confronted him! He might have the strength or the
ingenuity to make some small change for the better here or there--to rearrange
some detail, to abolish some anomaly, to insist upon some obvious reform; but
the heart of the appalling organism remained untouched. England lumbered on,
impervious and self-satisfied, in her old intolerable course. He threw himself
across the path of the monster with rigid purpose and set teeth, but he was
brushed aside. Yes! even Palmerston was still unconquered--was still there to
afflict him with his jauntiness, his muddle-headedness, his utter lack of
principle. It was too much. Neither nature nor the Baron had given him a
sanguine spirit; the seeds of pessimism, once lodged within him, flourished in
a propitious soil. He
"questioned things, and did not find
One that would answer to his mind;
And all the world appeared unkind."
He believed that he was a failure and he began to despair.
Yet Stockmar had told him that he must "never relax," and he never would. He
would go on, working to the utmost and striving for the highest, to the bitter
end. His industry grew almost maniacal. Earlier and earlier was the green lamp
lighted; more vast grew the correspondence; more searching the examination of
the newspapers; the interminable memoranda more punctilious, analytical, and
precise. His very recreations became duties. He enjoyed himself by time-table,
went deer-stalking with meticulous gusto, and made puns at lunch--it was the
right thing to do. The mechanism worked with astonishing efficiency, but it
never rested and it was never oiled. In dry exactitude the innumerable
cog-wheels perpetually revolved. No, whatever happened, the Prince would not
relax; he had absorbed the doctrines of Stockmar too thoroughly. He knew what
was right, and, at all costs, he would pursue it. That was certain. But alas!
in this our life what are the certainties? "In nothing be over-zealous!" says
an old Greek. "The due measure in all the works of man is best. For often one
who zealously pushes towards some excellence, though he be pursuing a gain, is
really being led utterly astray by the will of some Power, which makes those
things that are evil seem to him good, and those things seem to him evil that
are for his advantage." Surely, both the Prince and the Baron might have
learnt something from the frigid wisdom of Theognis.
Victoria noticed that her husband sometimes seemed to be depressed and
overworked. She tried to cheer him up. Realising uneasily that he was still
regarded as a foreigner, she hoped that by conferring upon him the title of
Prince Consort (1857) she would improve his position in the country. "The
Queen has a right to claim that her husband should be an Englishman," she
wrote. But unfortunately, in spite of the Royal Letters Patent, Albert
remained as foreign as before; and as the years passed his dejection deepened.
She worked with him, she watched over him, she walked with him through the
woods at Osborne, while he whistled to the nightingales, as he had whistled
once at Rosenau so long ago. When his birthday came round, she took the
greatest pains to choose him presents that he would really like. In 1858, when
he was thirty-nine, she gave him "a picture of Beatrice, life-size, in oil, by
Horsley, a complete collection of photographic views of Gotha and the country
round, which I had taken by Bedford, and a paper-weight of Balmoral granite
and deers' teeth, designed by Vicky." Albert was of course delighted, and his
merriment at the family gathering was more pronounced than ever: and yet...
what was there that was wrong?
No doubt it was his health. He was wearing himself out in the service of the
country; and certainly his constitution, as Stockmar had perceived from the
first, was ill-adapted to meet a serious strain. He was easily upset; he
constantly suffered from minor ailments. His appearance in itself was enough
to indicate the infirmity of his physical powers. The handsome youth of twenty
years since with the flashing eyes and the soft complexion had grown into a
sallow, tired-looking man, whose body, in its stoop and its loose fleshiness,
betrayed the sedentary labourer, and whose head was quite bald on the top.
Unkind critics, who had once compared Albert to an operatic tenor, might have
remarked that there was something of the butler about him now. Beside
Victoria, he presented a painful contrast. She, too, was stout, but it was
with the plumpness of a vigorous matron; and an eager vitality was everywhere
visible--in her energetic bearing, her protruding, enquiring glances, her
small, fat, capable, and commanding hands. If only, by some sympathetic magic,
she could have conveyed into that portly, flabby figure, that desiccated and
discouraged brain, a measure of the stamina and the self-assurance which were
so pre-eminently hers!
But suddenly she was reminded that there were other perils besides those of
ill-health. During a visit to Coburg in 1860, the Prince was very nearly
killed in a carriage accident. He escaped with a few cuts and bruises; but
Victoria's alarm was extreme, though she concealed it. "It is when the Queen
feels most deeply," she wrote afterwards, "that she always appears calmest,
and she could not and dared not allow herself to speak of what might have
been, or even to admit to herself (and she cannot and dare not now) the entire
danger, for her head would turn!" Her agitation, in fact, was only surpassed
by her thankfulness to God. She felt, she said, that she could not rest
"without doing something to mark permanently her feelings," and she decided
that she would endow a charity in Coburg. "L1,000, or even L2,000, given
either at once, or in instalments yearly, would not, in the Queen's opinion,
be too much." Eventually, the smaller sum having been fixed upon, it was
invested in a trust, called the "Victoria-Stift," in the name of the
Burgomaster and chief clergyman of Coburg, who were directed to distribute the
interest yearly among a certain number of young men and women of exemplary
character belonging to the humbler ranks of life.
Shortly afterwards the Queen underwent, for the first time in her life, the
actual experience of close personal loss. Early in 1861 the Duchess of Kent
was taken seriously ill, and in March she died. The event overwhelmed
Victoria. With a morbid intensity, she filled her diary for pages with minute
descriptions of her mother's last hours, her dissolution, and her corpse,
interspersed with vehement apostrophes, and the agitated outpourings of
emotional reflection. In the grief of the present the disagreements of the
past were totally forgotten. It was the horror and the mystery of
Death--Death, present and actual--that seized upon the imagination of the
Queen. Her whole being, so instinct with vitality, recoiled in agony from the
grim spectacle of the triumph of that awful power. Her own mother, with whom
she had lived so closely and so long that she had become a part almost of her
existence, had fallen into nothingness before her very eyes! She tried to
forget, but she could not. Her lamentations continued with a strange
abundance, a strange persistency. It was almost as if, by some mysterious and
unconscious precognition, she realised that for her, in an especial manner,
that grisly Majesty had a dreadful dart in store.
For indeed, before the year was out, a far more terrible blow was to fall upon
her. Albert, who had for long been suffering from sleeplessness, went, on a
cold and drenching day towards the end of November, to inspect the buildings
for the new Military Academy at Sandhurst. On his return, it was clear that
the fatigue and exposure to which he had been subjected had seriously affected
his health. He was attacked by rheumatism, his sleeplessness continued, and he
complained that he felt thoroughly unwell. Three days later a painful duty
obliged him to visit Cambridge. The Prince of Wales, who had been placed at
that University in the previous year, was behaving in such a manner that a
parental visit and a parental admonition had become necessary. The
disappointed father, suffering in mind and body, carried through his task;
but, on his return journey to Windsor, he caught a fatal chill. During the
next week he gradually grew weaker and more miserable. Yet, depressed and
enfeebled as he was, he continued to work. It so happened that at that very
moment a grave diplomatic crisis had arisen. Civil war had broken out in
America, and it seemed as if England, owing to a violent quarrel with the
Northern States, was upon the point of being drawn into the conflict. A severe
despatch by Lord John Russell was submitted to the Queen; and the Prince
perceived that, if it was sent off unaltered, war would be the almost
inevitable consequence. At seven o'clock on the morning of December 1, he rose
from his bed, and with a quavering hand wrote a series of suggestions for the
alteration of the draft, by which its language might be softened, and a way
left open for a peaceful solution of the question. These changes were accepted
by the Government, and war was averted. It was the Prince's last memorandum.
He had always declared that he viewed the prospect of death with equanimity.
"I do not cling to life," he had once said to Victoria. "You do; but I set no
store by it." And then he had 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." He had judged correctly. Before he had been ill many days, he told a
friend that he was convinced he would not recover. He sank and sank.
Nevertheless, if his case had been properly understood and skilfully treated
from the first, he might conceivably have been saved; but the doctors failed
to diagnose his symptoms; and it is noteworthy that his principal physician
was Sir James Clark. When it was suggested that other advice should be taken,
Sir James pooh-poohed the idea: "there was no cause for alarm," he said. But
the strange illness grew worse. At last, after a letter of fierce remonstrance
from Palmerston, Dr. Watson was sent for; and Dr. Watson saw at once that he
had come too late The Prince was in the grip of typhoid fever. "I think that
everything so far is satisfactory," said Sir James Clark.[*]
[*] Clarendon, II, 253-4: "One cannot speak with certainty; but it is horrible
to think that such a life MAY have been sacrificed to Sir J. Clark's selfish
jealousy of every member of his profession." The Earl of Clarendon to the
Duchess of Manchester, December 17, 1861.
The restlessness and the acute suffering of the earlier days gave place to a
settled torpor and an ever--deepening gloom. Once the failing patient asked
for music--"a fine chorale at a distance;" and a piano having been placed in
the adjoining room, Princess Alice played on it some of Luther's hymns, after
which the Prince repeated "The Rock of Ages." Sometimes his mind wandered;
sometimes the distant past came rushing upon him; he heard the birds in the
early morning, and was at Rosenau again, a boy. Or Victoria would come and
read to him "Peveril of the Peak," and he showed that he could follow the
story, and then she would bend over him, and he would murmur "liebes Frauchen"
and "gutes Weibchen," stroking her cheek. Her distress and her agitation were
great, but she was not seriously frightened. Buoyed up by her own abundant
energies, she would not believe that Albert's might prove unequal to the
strain. She refused to face such a hideous possibility. She declined to see
Dr. Watson. Why should she? Had not Sir James Clark assured her that all would
be well? Only two days before the end, which was seen now to be almost
inevitable by everyone about her, she wrote, full of apparent confidence, to
the King of the Belgians: "I do not sit up with him at night," she said, "as I
could be of no use; and there is nothing to cause alarm." The Princess Alice
tried to tell her the truth, but her hopefulness would not be daunted. On the
morning of December 14, Albert, just as she had expected, seemed to be better;
perhaps the crisis was over. But in the course of the day there was a serious
relapse. Then at last she allowed herself to see that she was standing on the
edge of an appalling gulf. The whole family was summoned, and, one after
another, the children took a silent farewell of their father. "It was a
terrible moment," Victoria wrote in her diary, "but, thank God! I was able to
command myself, and to be perfectly calm, and remained sitting by his side."
He murmured something, but she could not hear what it was; she thought he was
speaking in French. Then all at once he began to arrange his hair, "just as he
used to do when well and he was dressing." "Es kleines Frauchen," she
whispered to him; and he seemed to understand. For a moment, towards the
evening, she went into another room, but was immediately called back; she saw
at a glance that a ghastly change had taken place. As she knelt by the bed, he
breathed deeply, breathed gently, breathed at last no more. His features
became perfectly rigid; she shrieked one long wild shriek that rang through
the terror-stricken castle and understood that she had lost him for ever.
CHAPTER VII. WIDOWHOOD
I
The death of the Prince Consort was the central turning-point in the history
of Queen Victoria. She herself felt that her true life had ceased with her
husband's, and that the remainder of her days upon earth was of a twilight
nature--an epilogue to a drama that was done. Nor is it possible that her
biographer should escape a similar impression. For him, too, there is a
darkness over the latter half of that long career. The first forty--two years
of the Queen's life are illuminated by a great and varied quantity of
authentic information. With Albert's death a veil descends. Only occasionally,
at fitful and disconnected intervals, does it lift for a moment or two; a few
main outlines, a few remarkable details may be discerned; the rest is all
conjecture and ambiguity. Thus, though the Queen survived her great
bereavement for almost as many years as she had lived before it, the chronicle
of those years can bear no proportion to the tale of her earlier life. We must
be content in our ignorance with a brief and summary relation.
The sudden removal of the Prince was not merely a matter of overwhelming
personal concern to Victoria; it was an event of national, of European
importance. He was only forty-two, and in the ordinary course of nature he
might have been expected to live at least thirty years longer. Had he done so
it can hardly be doubted that the whole development of the English polity
would have been changed. Already at the time of his death he filled a unique
place in English public life; already among the inner circle of politicians he
was accepted as a necessary and useful part of the mechanism of the State.
Lord Clarendon, for instance, spoke of his death as "a national calamity of
far greater importance than the public dream of," and lamented the loss of his
"sagacity and foresight," which, he declared, would have been "more than ever
valuable" in the event of an American war. And, as time went on, the Prince's
influence must have enormously increased. For, in addition to his intellectual
and moral qualities, he enjoyed, by virtue of his position, one supreme
advantage which every other holder of high office in the country was without:
he was permanent. Politicians came and went, but the Prince was perpetually
installed at the centre of affairs. Who can doubt that, towards the end of the
century, such a man, grown grey in the service of the nation, virtuous,
intelligent, and with the unexampled experience of a whole life-time of
government, would have acquired an extraordinary prestige? If, in his youth,
he had been able to pit the Crown against the mighty Palmerston and to come
off with equal honours from the contest, of what might he not have been
capable in his old age? What Minister, however able, however popular, could
have withstood the wisdom, the irreproachability, the vast prescriptive
authority, of the venerable Prince? It is easy to imagine how, under such a
ruler, an attempt might have been made to convert England into a State as
exactly organised, as elaborately trained, as efficiently equipped, and as
autocratically controlled, as Prussia herself. Then perhaps, eventually, under
some powerful leader--a Gladstone or a Bright--the democratic forces in the
country might have rallied together, and a struggle might have followed in
which the Monarchy would have been shaken to its foundations. Or, on the other
hand, Disraeli's hypothetical prophecy might have come true. "With Prince
Albert," he said, "we have buried our... sovereign. This German Prince has
governed England for twenty-one years with a wisdom and energy such as none of
our kings have ever shown. If he had outlived some of our "old stagers" he
would have given us the blessings of absolute government."
The English Constitution--that indescribable entity--is a living thing,
growing with the growth of men, and assuming ever-varying forms in accordance
with the subtle and complex laws of human character. It is the child of wisdom
and chance. The wise men of 1688 moulded it into the shape we know, but the
chance that George I could not speak English gave it one of its essential
peculiarities--the system of a Cabinet independent of the Crown and
subordinate to the Prime Minister. The wisdom of Lord Grey saved it from
petrifaction and destruction, and set it upon the path of Democracy. Then
chance intervened once more; a female sovereign happened to marry an able and
pertinacious man; and it seemed likely that an element which had been
quiescent within it for years--the element of irresponsible administrative
power--was about to become its predominant characteristic and to change
completely the direction of its growth. But what chance gave chance took away.
The Consort perished in his prime; and the English Constitution, dropping the
dead limb with hardly a tremor, continued its mysterious life as if he had
never been.
One human being, and one alone, felt the full force of what had happened. The
Baron, by his fireside at Coburg, suddenly saw the tremendous fabric of his
creation crash down into sheer and irremediable ruin. Albert was gone, and he
had lived in vain. Even his blackest hypochondria had never envisioned quite
so miserable a catastrophe. Victoria wrote to him, visited him, tried to
console him by declaring with passionate conviction that she would carry on
her husband's work. He smiled a sad smile and looked into the fire. Then he
murmured that he was going where Albert was--that he would not be long. He
shrank into himself. His children clustered round him and did their best to
comfort him, but it was useless: the Baron's heart was broken. He lingered for
eighteen months, and then, with his pupil, explored the shadow and the dust.
II
With appalling suddenness Victoria had exchanged the serene radiance of
happiness for the utter darkness of woe. In the first dreadful moments those
about her had feared that she might lose her reason, but the iron strain
within her held firm, and in the intervals between the intense paroxysms of
grief it was observed that the Queen was calm. She remembered, too, that
Albert had always disapproved of exaggerated manifestations of feeling, and
her one remaining desire was to do nothing but what he would have wished. Yet
there were moments when her royal anguish would brook no restraints. One day
she sent for the Duchess of Sutherland, and, leading her to the Prince's room,
fell prostrate before his clothes in a flood of weeping, while she adjured the
Duchess to tell her whether the beauty of Albert's character had ever been
surpassed. At other times a feeling akin to indignation swept over her. "The
poor fatherless baby of eight months," she wrote to the King of the Belgians,
"is now the utterly heartbroken and crushed widow of forty-two! My LIFE as a
HAPPY one is ENDED! The world is gone for ME!... Oh! to be cut off in the
prime of life--to see our pure, happy, quiet, domestic life, which ALONE
enabled me to bear my MUCH disliked position, CUT OFF at forty-two--when I HAD
hoped with such instinctive certainty that God never WOULD part us, and would
let us grow old together (though HE always talked of the shortness of
life)--is TOO AWFUL, too cruel!" The tone of outraged Majesty seems to be
discernible. Did she wonder in her heart of hearts how the Deity could have
dared?
But all other emotions gave way before her overmastering determination to
continue, absolutely unchanged, and for the rest of her life on earth, her
reverence, her obedience, her idolatry. "I am anxious to repeat ONE thing,"
she told her uncle, "and THAT ONE is my firm resolve, my IRREVOCABLE DECISION,
viz., that HIS wishes--HIS plans--about everything, HIS views about EVERY
thing are to be MY LAW! And NO HUMAN POWER will make me swerve from WHAT HE
decided and wished." She grew fierce, she grew furious, at the thought of any
possible intrusion between her and her desire. Her uncle was coming to visit
her, and it flashed upon her that HE might try to interfere with her and seek
to "rule the roost" as of old. She would give him a hint. "I am ALSO
DETERMINED," she wrote, "that NO ONE person--may HE be ever so good, ever so
devoted among my servants--is to lead or guide or dictate TO ME. I know HOW he
would disapprove it... Though miserably weak and utterly shattered, my spirit
rises when I think ANY wish or plan of his is to be touched or changed, or I
am to be MADE TO DO anything." She ended her letter in grief and affection.
She was, she said, his "ever wretched but devoted child, Victoria R." And then
she looked at the date: it was the 24th of December. An agonising pang
assailed her, and she dashed down a postcript--"What a Xmas! I won't think of
it."
At first, in the tumult of her distresses, she declared that she could not see
her Ministers, and the Princess Alice, assisted by Sir Charles Phipps, the
keeper of the Privy Purse, performed, to the best of her ability, the
functions of an intermediary. After a few weeks, however, the Cabinet, through
Lord John Russell, ventured to warn the Queen that this could not continue.
She realised that they were right: Albert would have agreed with them; and so
she sent for the Prime Minister. But when Lord Palmerston arrived at Osborne,
in the pink of health, brisk, with his whiskers freshly dyed, and dressed in a
brown overcoat, light grey trousers, green gloves, and blue studs, he did not
create a very good impression.
Nevertheless, she had grown attached to her old enemy, and the thought of a
political change filled her with agitated apprehensions. The Government, she
knew, might fall at any moment; she felt she could not face such an
eventuality; and therefore, six months after the death of the Prince, she took
the unprecedented step of sending a private message to Lord Derby, the leader
of the Opposition, to tell him that she was not in a fit state of mind or body
to undergo the anxiety of a change of Government, and that if he turned the
present Ministers out of office it would be at the risk of sacrificing her
life--or her reason. When this message reached Lord Derby he was considerably
surprised. "Dear me!" was his cynical comment. "I didn't think she was so fond
of them as THAT."
Though the violence of her perturbations gradually subsided, her cheerfulness
did not return. For months, for years, she continued in settled gloom. Her
life became one of almost complete seclusion. Arrayed in thickest crepe, she
passed dolefully from Windsor to Osborne, from Osborne to Balmoral. Rarely
visiting the capital, refusing to take any part in the ceremonies of state,
shutting herself off from the slightest intercourse with society, she became
almost as unknown to her subjects as some potentate of the East. They might
murmur, but they did not understand. What had she to do with empty shows and
vain enjoyments? No! She was absorbed by very different preoccupations. She
was the devoted guardian of a sacred trust. Her place was in the inmost shrine
of the house of mourning--where she alone had the right to enter, where she
could feel the effluence of a mysterious presence, and interpret, however
faintly and feebly, the promptings of a still living soul. That, and that only
was her glorious, her terrible duty. For terrible indeed it was. As the years
passed her depression seemed to deepen and her loneliness to grow more
intense. "I am on a dreary sad pinnacle of solitary grandeur," she said. Again
and again she felt that she could bear her situation no longer--that she would
sink under the strain. And then, instantly, that Voice spoke: and she braced
herself once more to perform, with minute conscientiousness, her grim and holy
task.
Above all else, what she had to do was to make her own the master-impulse of
Albert's life--she must work, as he had worked, in the service of the country.
That vast burden of toil which he had taken upon his shoulders it was now for
her to bear. She assumed the gigantic load; and naturally she staggered under
it. While he had lived, she had worked, indeed, with regularity and
conscientiousness; but it was work made easy, made delicious, by his care, his
forethought, his advice, and his infallibility. The mere sound of his voice,
asking her to sign a paper, had thrilled her; in such a presence she could
have laboured gladly for ever. But now there was a hideous change. Now there
were no neat piles and docketings under the green lamp; now there were no
simple explanations of difficult matters; now there was nobody to tell her
what was right and what was wrong. She had her secretaries, no doubt: there
were Sir Charles Phipps, and General Grey, and Sir Thomas Biddulph; and they
did their best. But they were mere subordinates: the whole weight of
initiative and responsibility rested upon her alone. For so it had to be. "I
am DETERMINED"--had she not declared it?--"that NO ONE person is to lead or
guide or dictate to ME;" anything else would be a betrayal of her trust. She
would follow the Prince in all things. He had refused to delegate authority;
he had examined into every detail with his own eyes; he had made it a rule
never to sign a paper without having first, not merely read it, but made notes
on it too. She would do the same. She sat from morning till night surrounded
by huge heaps of despatch--boxes, reading and writing at her desk--at her
desk, alas! which stood alone now in the room.
Within two years of Albert's death a violent disturbance in foreign politics
put Victoria's faithfulness to a crucial test. The fearful Schleswig-Holstein
dispute, which had been smouldering for more than a decade, showed signs of
bursting out into conflagration. The complexity of the questions at issue was
indescribable. "Only three people," said Palmerston, "have ever really
understood the Schleswig-Holstein business--the Prince Consort, who is dead--a
German professor, who has gone mad--and I, who have forgotten all about it."
But, though the Prince might be dead, had he not left a vicegerent behind him?
Victoria threw herself into the seething embroilment with the vigour of
inspiration. She devoted hours daily to the study of the affair in all its
windings; but she had a clue through the labyrinth: whenever the question had
been discussed, Albert, she recollected it perfectly, had always taken the
side of Prussia. Her course was clear. She became an ardent champion of the
Prussian point of view. It was a legacy from the Prince, she said. She did not
realise that the Prussia of the Prince's day was dead, and that a new Prussia,
the Prussia of Bismarck, was born. Perhaps Palmerston, with his queer
prescience, instinctively apprehended the new danger; at any rate, he and Lord
John were agreed upon the necessity of supporting Denmark against Prussia's
claims. But opinion was sharply divided, not only in the country but in the
Cabinet. For eighteen months the controversy raged; while the Queen, with
persistent vehemence, opposed the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary.
When at last the final crisis arose--when it seemed possible that England
would join forces with Denmark in a war against Prussia--Victoria's agitation
grew febrile in its intensity. Towards her German relatives she preserved a
discreet appearance of impartiality; but she poured out upon her Ministers a
flood of appeals, protests, and expostulations. She invoked the sacred cause
of Peace. "The only chance of preserving peace for Europe," she wrote, "is by
not assisting Denmark, who has brought this entirely upon herself. The Queen
suffers much, and her nerves are more and more totally shattered... But though
all this anxiety is wearing her out, it will not shake her firm purpose of
resisting any attempt to involve this country in a mad and useless combat."
She was, she declared, "prepared to make a stand," even if the resignation of
the Foreign Secretary should follow. "The Queen," she told Lord Granville, "is
completely exhausted by the anxiety and suspense, and misses her beloved
husband's help, advice, support, and love in an overwhelming manner." She was
so worn out by her efforts for peace that she could "hardly hold up her head
or hold her pen." England did not go to war, and Denmark was left to her fate;
but how far the attitude of the Queen contributed to this result it is
impossible, with our present knowledge, to say. On the whole, however, it
seems probable that the determining factor in the situation was the powerful
peace party in the Cabinet rather than the imperious and pathetic pressure of
Victoria.
It is, at any rate, certain that the Queen's enthusiasm for the sacred cause
of peace was short-lived. Within a few months her mind had completely altered.
Her eyes were opened to the true nature of Prussia, whose designs upon Austria
were about to culminate in the Seven Weeks' War. Veering precipitately from
one extreme to the other, she now urged her Ministers to interfere by force of
arms in support of Austria. But she urged in vain.
Her political activity, no more than her social seclusion, was approved by the
public. As the years passed, and the royal mourning remained as unrelieved as
ever, the animadversions grew more general and more severe. It was observed
that the Queen's protracted privacy not only cast a gloom over high society,
not only deprived the populace of its pageantry, but also exercised a highly
deleterious effect upon the dressmaking, millinery, and hosiery trades. This
latter consideration carried great weight. At last, early in 1864, the rumour
spread that Her Majesty was about to go out of mourning, and there was much
rejoicing in the newspapers; but unfortunately it turned out that the rumour
was quite without foundation. Victoria, with her own hand, wrote a letter to
The Times to say so. "This idea," she declared, "cannot be too explicitly
contradicted. "The Queen," the letter continued, "heartily appreciates the
desire of her subjects to see her, and whatever she CAN do to gratify them in
this loyal and affectionate wish, she WILL do... But there are other and
higher duties than those of mere representation which are now thrown upon the
Queen, alone and unassisted--duties which she cannot neglect without injury to
the public service, which weigh unceasingly upon her, overwhelming her with
work and anxiety." The justification might have been considered more cogent
had it not been known that those "other and higher duties" emphasised by the
Queen consisted for the most part of an attempt to counteract the foreign
policy of Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell. A large section--perhaps a
majority--of the nation were violent partisans of Denmark in the
Schleswig-Holstein quarrel; and Victoria's support of Prussia was widely
denounced. A wave of unpopularity, which reminded old observers of the period
preceding the Queen's marriage more than twenty-five years before, was
beginning to rise. The press was rude; Lord Ellenborough attacked the Queen in
the House of Lords; there were curious whispers in high quarters that she had
had thoughts of abdicating--whispers followed by regrets that she had not done
so. Victoria, outraged and injured, felt that she was misunderstood. She was
profoundly unhappy. After Lord Ellenborough's speech, General Grey declared
that he "had never seen the Queen so completely upset." "Oh, how fearful it
is," she herself wrote to Lord Granville, "to be suspected--uncheered--
unguided and unadvised--and how alone the poor Queen feels! " Nevertheless,
suffer as she might, she was as resolute as ever; she would not move by a
hair's breadth from the course that a supreme obligation marked out for her;
she would be faithful to the end.
And so, when Schleswig-Holstein was forgotten, and even the image of the
Prince had begun to grow dim in the fickle memories of men, the solitary
watcher remained immutably concentrated at her peculiar task. The world's
hostility, steadily increasing, was confronted and outfaced by the
impenetrable weeds of Victoria. Would the world never understand? It was not
mere sorrow that kept her so strangely sequestered; it was devotion, it was
self-immolation; it was the laborious legacy of love. Unceasingly the pen
moved over the black-edged paper. The flesh might be weak, but that vast
burden must be borne. And fortunately, if the world would not understand,
there were faithful friends who did. There was Lord Granville, and there was
kind Mr. Theodore Martin. Perhaps Mr. Martin, who was so clever, would find
means to make people realise the facts. She would send him a letter, pointing
out her arduous labours and the difficulties under which she struggled, and
then he might write an article for one of the magazines. "It is not," she told
him in 1863, "the Queen's SORROW that keeps her secluded. It is her
OVERWHELMING WORK and her health, which is greatly shaken by her sorrow, and
the totally overwhelming amount of work and responsibility--work which she
feels really wears her out. Alice Helps was wonderfully struck at the Queen's
room; and if Mrs. Martin will look at it, she can tell Mr. Martin what
surrounds her. From the hour she gets out of bed till she gets into it again
there is work, work, work,--letter-boxes, questions, etc., which are
dreadfully exhausting--and if she had not comparative rest and quiet in the
evening she would most likely not be ALIVE. Her brain is constantly
overtaxed." It was too true.
III
To carry on Albert's work--that was her first duty; but there was another,
second only to that, and yet nearer, if possible, to her heart--to impress the
true nature of his genius and character upon the minds of her subjects. She
realised that during his life he had not been properly appreciated; the full
extent of his powers, the supreme quality of his goodness, had been
necessarily concealed; but death had removed the need of barriers, and now her
husband, in his magnificent entirety, should stand revealed to all. She set to
work methodically. She directed Sir Arthur Helps to bring out a collection of
the Prince's speeches and addresses, and the weighty tome appeared in 1862.
Then she commanded General Grey to write an account of the Prince's early
years--from his birth to his marriage; she herself laid down the design of the
book, contributed a number of confidential documents, and added numerous
notes; General Grey obeyed, and the work was completed in 1866. But the
principal part of the story was still untold, and Mr. Martin was forthwith
instructed to write a complete biography of the Prince Consort. Mr. Martin
laboured for fourteen years. The mass of material with which he had to deal
was almost incredible, but he was extremely industrious, and he enjoyed
throughout the gracious assistance of Her Majesty. The first bulky volume was
published in 1874; four others slowly followed; so that it was not until 1880
that the monumental work was finished.
Mr. Martin was rewarded by a knighthood; and yet it was sadly evident that
neither Sir Theodore nor his predecessors had achieved the purpose which the
Queen had in view. Perhaps she was unfortunate in her coadjutors, but, in
reality, the responsibility for the failure must lie with Victoria herself.
Sir Theodore and the others faithfully carried out the task which she had set
them--faithfully put before the public the very image of Albert that filled
her own mind. The fatal drawback was that the public did not find that image
attractive. Victoria's emotional nature, far more remarkable for vigour than
for subtlety, rejecting utterly the qualifications which perspicuity, or
humour, might suggest, could be satisfied with nothing but the absolute and
the categorical. When she disliked she did so with an unequivocal emphasis
which swept the object of her repugnance at once and finally outside the pale
of consideration; and her feelings of affection were equally unmitigated. In
the case of Albert her passion for superlatives reached its height. To have
conceived of him as anything short of perfect--perfect in virtue, in wisdom,
in beauty, in all the glories and graces of man--would have been an
unthinkable blasphemy: perfect he was, and perfect he must be shown to have
been. And so, Sir Arthur, Sir Theodore, and the General painted him. In the
circumstances, and under such supervision, to have done anything else would
have required talents considerably more distinguished than any that those
gentlemen possessed. But that was not all. By a curious mischance Victoria was
also able to press into her service another writer, the distinction of whose
talents was this time beyond a doubt. The Poet Laureate, adopting, either from
complaisance or conviction, the tone of his sovereign, joined in the chorus,
and endowed the royal formula with the magical resonance of verse. This
settled the matter. Henceforward it was impossible to forget that Albert had
worn the white flower of a blameless life.
The result was doubly unfortunate. Victoria, disappointed and chagrined, bore
a grudge against her people for their refusal, in spite of all her efforts, to
rate her husband at his true worth. She did not understand that the picture of
an embodied perfection is distasteful to the majority of mankind. The cause of
this is not so much an envy of the perfect being as a suspicion that he must
be inhuman; and thus it happened that the public, when it saw displayed for
its admiration a figure resembling the sugary hero of a moral story-book
rather than a fellow man of flesh and blood, turned away with a shrug, a
smile, and a flippant ejaculation. But in this the public was the loser as
well as Victoria. For in truth Albert was a far more interesting personage
than the public dreamed. By a curious irony an impeccable waxwork had been
fixed by the Queen's love in the popular imagination, while the creature whom
it represented--the real creature, so full of energy and stress and torment,
so mysterious and so unhappy, and so fallible and so very human--had
altogether disappeared.
IV
Words and books may be ambiguous memorials; but who can misinterpret the
visible solidity of bronze and stone? At Frogmore, near Windsor, where her
mother was buried, Victoria constructed, at the cost of L200,000, a vast and
elaborate mausoleum for herself and her husband. But that was a private and
domestic monument, and the Queen desired that wherever her subjects might be
gathered together they should be reminded of the Prince. Her desire was
gratified; all over the country--at Aberdeen, at Perth, and at
Wolverhampton--statues of the Prince were erected; and the Queen, making an
exception to her rule of retirement, unveiled them herself. Nor did the
capital lag behind. A month after the Prince's death a meeting was called
together at the Mansion House to discuss schemes for honouring his memory.
Opinions, however, were divided upon the subject. Was a statue or an
institution to be preferred? Meanwhile a subscription was opened; an
influential committee was appointed, and the Queen was consulted as to her
wishes in the matter. Her Majesty replied that she would prefer a granite
obelisk, with sculptures at the base, to an institution. But the committee
hesitated: an obelisk, to be worthy of the name, must clearly be a monolith;
and where was the quarry in England capable of furnishing a granite block of
the required size? It was true that there was granite in Russian Finland; but
the committee were advised that it was not adapted to resist exposure to the
open air. On the whole, therefore, they suggested that a Memorial Hall should
be erected, together with a statue of the Prince. Her Majesty assented; but
then another difficulty arose. It was found that not more than L60,000 had
been subscribed--a sum insufficient to defray the double expense. The Hall,
therefore, was abandoned; a statue alone was to be erected; and certain
eminent architects were asked to prepare designs. Eventually the committee had
at their disposal a total sum of L120,000, since the public subscribed another
L10,000, while L50,000 was voted by Parliament. Some years later a joint stock
company was formed and built, as a private speculation, the Albert Hall.
The architect whose design was selected, both by the committee and by the
Queen, was Mr. Gilbert Scott, whose industry, conscientiousness, and genuine
piety had brought him to the head of his profession. His lifelong zeal for the
Gothic style having given him a special prominence, his handiwork was
strikingly visible, not only in a multitude of original buildings, but in most
of the cathedrals of England. Protests, indeed, were occasionally raised
against his renovations; but Mr. Scott replied with such vigour and unction in
articles and pamphlets that not a Dean was unconvinced, and he was permitted
to continue his labours without interruption. On one occasion, however, his
devotion to Gothic had placed him in an unpleasant situation. The Government
offices in Whitehall were to be rebuilt; Mr. Scott competed, and his designs
were successful. Naturally, they were in the Gothic style, combining "a
certain squareness and horizontality of outline" with pillar-mullions, gables,
high-pitched roofs, and dormers; and the drawings, as Mr. Scott himself
observed, "were, perhaps, the best ever sent in to a competition, or nearly
so." After the usual difficulties and delays the work was at last to be put in
hand, when there was a change of Government and Lord Palmerston became Prime
Minister. Lord Palmerston at once sent for Mr. Scott. "Well, Mr. Scott," he
said, in his jaunty way, "I can't have anything to do with this Gothic style.
I must insist on your making a design in the Italian manner, which I am sure
you can do very cleverly." Mr. Scott was appalled; the style of the Italian
renaissance was not only unsightly, it was positively immoral, and he sternly
refused to have anything to do with it. Thereupon Lord Palmerston assumed a
fatherly tone. "Quite true; a Gothic architect can't be expected to put up a
Classical building; I must find someone else." This was intolerable, and Mr.
Scott, on his return home, addressed to the Prime Minister a strongly-worded
letter, in which he dwelt upon his position as an architect, upon his having
won two European competitions, his being an A.R.A., a gold medallist of the
Institute, and a lecturer on architecture at the Royal Academy; but it was
useless--Lord Palmerston did not even reply. It then occurred to Mr. Scott
that, by a judicious mixture, he might, while preserving the essential
character of the Gothic, produce a design which would give a superficial
impression of the Classical style. He did so, but no effect was produced upon
Lord Palmerston. The new design, he said, was "neither one thing nor
'tother--a regular mongrel affair--and he would have nothing to do with it
either." After that Mr. Scott found it necessary to recruit for two months at
Scarborough, "with a course of quinine." He recovered his tone at last, but
only at the cost of his convictions. For the sake of his family he felt that
it was his unfortunate duty to obey the Prime Minister; and, shuddering with
horror, he constructed the Government offices in a strictly Renaissance style.
Shortly afterwards Mr. Scott found some consolation in building the St.
Pancras Hotel in a style of his own.
And now another and yet more satisfactory task was his. "My idea in designing
the Memorial," he wrote, "was to erect a kind of ciborium to protect a statue
of the Prince; and its special characteristic was that the ciborium was
designed in some degree on the principles of the ancient shrines. These
shrines were models of imaginary buildings, such as had never in reality been
erected; and my idea was to realise one of these imaginary structures with its
precious materials, its inlaying, its enamels, etc. etc." His idea was
particularly appropriate since it chanced that a similar conception, though in
the reverse order of magnitude, had occurred to the Prince himself, who had
designed and executed several silver cruet-stands upon the same model. At the
Queen's request a site was chosen in Kensington Gardens as near as possible to
that of the Great Exhibition; and in May, 1864, the first sod was turned. The
work was long, complicated, and difficult; a great number of workmen were
employed, besides several subsidiary sculptors and metal--workers under Mr.
Scott's direction, while at every stage sketches and models were submitted to
Her Majesty, who criticised all the details with minute care, and constantly
suggested improvements. The frieze, which encircled the base of the monument,
was in itself a very serious piece of work. "This," said Mr. Scott, "taken as
a whole, is perhaps one of the most laborious works of sculpture ever
undertaken, consisting, as it does, of a continuous range of figure-sculpture
of the most elaborate description, in the highest alto-relievo of life-size,
of more than 200 feet in length, containing about 170 figures, and executed in
the hardest marble which could be procured." After three years of toil the
memorial was still far from completion, and Mr. Scott thought it advisable to
give a dinner to the workmen, "as a substantial recognition of his
appreciation of their skill and energy." "Two long tables," we are told,
"constructed of scaffold planks, were arranged in the workshops, and covered
with newspapers, for want of table-cloths. Upwards of eighty men sat down.
Beef and mutton, plum pudding and cheese were supplied in abundance, and each
man who desired it had three pints of beer, gingerbeer and lemonade being
provided for the teetotalers, who formed a very considerable proportion...
Several toasts were given and many of the workmen spoke, almost all of them
commencing by "Thanking God that they enjoyed good health;" some alluded to
the temperance that prevailed amongst them, others observed how little
swearing was ever heard, whilst all said how pleased and proud they were to be
engaged on so great a work."
Gradually the edifice approached completion. The one hundred and seventieth
life-size figure in the frieze was chiselled, the granite pillars arose, the
mosaics were inserted in the allegorical pediments, the four colossal statues
representing the greater Christian virtues, the four other colossal statues
representing the greater moral virtues, were hoisted into their positions, the
eight bronzes representing the greater sciences--Astronomy, Chemistry,
Geology, Geometry, Rhetoric, Medicine, Philosophy, and Physiology--were fixed
on their glittering pinnacles, high in air. The statue of Physiology was
particularly admired. "On her left arm," the official description informs us,
"she bears a new-born infant, as a representation of the development of the
highest and most perfect of physiological forms; her hand points towards a
microscope, the instrument which lends its assistance for the investigation of
the minuter forms of animal and vegetable organisms." At last the gilded cross
crowned the dwindling galaxies of superimposed angels, the four continents in
white marble stood at the four corners of the base, and, seven years after its
inception, in July, 1872, the monument was thrown open to the public.
But four more years were to elapse before the central figure was ready to be
placed under its starry canopy. It was designed by Mr. Foley, though in one
particular the sculptor's freedom was restricted by Mr. Scott. "I have chosen
the sitting posture," Mr. Scott said, "as best conveying the idea of dignity
befitting a royal personage." Mr. Foley ably carried out the conception of his
principal. "In the attitude and expression," he said, "the aim has been, with
the individuality of portraiture, to embody rank, character, and
enlightenment, and to convey a sense of that responsive intelligence
indicating an active, rather than a passive, interest in those pursuits of
civilisation illustrated in the surrounding figures, groups, and relievos...
To identify the figure with one of the most memorable undertakings of the
public life of the Prince--the International Exhibition of 1851--a catalogue
of the works collected in that first gathering of the industry of all nations,
is placed in the right hand." The statue was of bronze gilt and weighed nearly
ten tons. It was rightly supposed that the simple word "Albert," cast on the
base, would be a sufficient means of identification.
CHAPTER VIII. GLADSTONE AND LORD BEACONSFIELD
I
Lord Palmerston's laugh--a queer metallic "Ha! ha! ha!" with reverberations in
it from the days of Pitt and the Congress of Vienna--was heard no more in
Piccadilly; Lord John Russell dwindled into senility; Lord Derby tottered from
the stage. A new scene opened; and new protagonists--Mr. Gladstone and Mr.
Disraeli--struggled together in the limelight. Victoria, from her post of
vantage, watched these developments with that passionate and personal interest
which she invariably imported into politics. Her prepossessions were of an
unexpected kind. Mr. Gladstone had been the disciple of her revered Peel, and
had won the approval of Albert; Mr. Disraeli had hounded Sir Robert to his
fall with hideous virulence, and the Prince had pronounced that he "had not
one single element of a gentleman in his composition." Yet she regarded Mr.
Gladstone with a distrust and dislike which steadily deepened, while upon his
rival she lavished an abundance of confidence, esteem, and affection such as
Lord Melbourne himself had hardly known.
Her attitude towards the Tory Minister had suddenly changed when she found
that he alone among public men had divined her feelings at Albert's death. Of
the others she might have said "they pity me and not my grief;" but Mr.
Disraeli had understood; and all his condolences had taken the form of
reverential eulogies of the departed. The Queen declared that he was "the only
person who appreciated the Prince." She began to show him special favour; gave
him and his wife two of the coveted seats in St. George's Chapel at the Prince
of Wales's wedding, and invited him to stay a night at Windsor. When the grant
for the Albert Memorial came before the House of Commons, Disraeli, as leader
of the Opposition, eloquently supported the project. He was rewarded by a copy
of the Prince's speeches, bound in white morocco, with an inscription in the
royal hand. In his letter of thanks he "ventured to touch upon a sacred
theme," and, in a strain which re-echoed with masterly fidelity the sentiments
of his correspondent, dwelt at length upon the absolute perfection of Albert.
"The Prince," he said, "is the only person whom Mr. Disraeli has ever known
who realised the Ideal. None with whom he is acquainted have ever approached
it. There was in him a union of the manly grace and sublime simplicity, of
chivalry with the intellectual splendour of the Attic Academe. The only
character in English history that would, in some respects, draw near to him is
Sir Philip Sidney: the same high tone, the same universal accomplishments, the
same blended tenderness and vigour, the same rare combination of romantic
energy and classic repose." As for his own acquaintance with the Prince, it
had been, he said, "one of the most satisfactory incidents of his life: full
of refined and beautiful memories, and exercising, as he hopes, over his
remaining existence, a soothing and exalting influence." Victoria was much
affected by "the depth and delicacy of these touches," and henceforward
Disraeli's place in her affections was assured. When, in 1866, the
Conservatives came into office, Disraeli's position as Chancellor of the
Exchequer and leader of the House necessarily brought him into a closer
relation with the Sovereign. Two years later Lord Derby resigned, and
Victoria, with intense delight and peculiar graciousness, welcomed Disraeli as
her First Minister.
But only for nine agitated months did he remain in power. The Ministry, in a
minority in the Commons, was swept out of existence by a general election. Yet
by the end of that short period the ties which bound together the Queen and
her Premier had grown far stronger than ever before; the relationship between
them was now no longer merely that between a grateful mistress and a devoted
servant: they were friends. His official letters, in which the personal
element had always been perceptible, developed into racy records of political
news and social gossip, written, as Lord Clarendon said, "in his best novel
style." Victoria was delighted; she had never, she declared, had such letters
in her life, and had never before known EVERYTHING. In return, she sent him,
when the spring came, several bunches of flowers, picked by her own hands. He
despatched to her a set of his novels, for which, she said, she was "most
grateful, and which she values much." She herself had lately published her
"Leaves from the Journal of our Life in the Highlands," and it was observed
that the Prime Minister, in conversing with Her Majesty at this period,
constantly used the words "we authors, ma'am." Upon political questions, she
was his staunch supporter. "Really there never was such conduct as that of the
Opposition," she wrote. And when the Government was defeated in the House she
was "really shocked at the way in which the House of Commons go on; they
really bring discredit on Constitutional Government." She dreaded the prospect
of a change; she feared that if the Liberals insisted upon disestablishing the
Irish Church, her Coronation Oath might stand in the way. But a change there
had to be, and Victoria vainly tried to console herself for the loss of her
favourite Minister by bestowing a peerage upon Mrs. Disraeli.
Mr. Gladstone was in his shirt-sleeves at Hawarden, cutting down a tree, when
the royal message was brought to him. "Very significant," he remarked, when he
had read the letter, and went on cutting down his tree. His secret thoughts on
the occasion were more explicit, and were committed to his diary. "The
Almighty," he wrote, "seems to sustain and spare me for some purpose of His
own, deeply unworthy as I know myself to be. Glory be to His name."
The Queen, however, did not share her new Minister's view of the Almighty's
intentions. She could not believe that there was any divine purpose to be
detected in the programme of sweeping changes which Mr. Gladstone was
determined to carry out. But what could she do? Mr. Gladstone, with his
daemonic energy and his powerful majority in the House of Commons, was
irresistible; and for five years (1869-74) Victoria found herself condemned to
live in an agitating atmosphere of interminable reform--reform in the Irish
Church and the Irish land system, reform in education, reform in parliamentary
elections, reform in the organisation of the Army and the Navy, reform in the
administration of justice. She disapproved, she struggled, she grew very
angry; she felt that if Albert had been living things would never have
happened so; but her protests and her complaints were alike unavailing. The
mere effort of grappling with the mass of documents which poured in upon her
in an ever-growing flood was terribly exhausting. When the draft of the
lengthy and intricate Irish Church Bill came before her, accompanied by an
explanatory letter from Mr. Gladstone covering a dozen closely-written quarto
pages, she almost despaired. She turned from the Bill to the explanation, and
from the explanation back again to the Bill, and she could not decide which
was the most confusing. But she had to do her duty: she had not only to read,
but to make notes. At last she handed the whole heap of papers to Mr. Martin,
who happened to be staying at Osborne, and requested him to make a precis of
them. When he had done so, her disapproval of the measure became more marked
than ever; but, such was the strength of the Government, she actually found
herself obliged to urge moderation upon the Opposition, lest worse should
ensue.
In the midst of this crisis, when the future of the Irish Church was hanging
in the balance, Victoria's attention was drawn to another proposed reform. It
was suggested that the sailors in the Navy should henceforward be allowed to
wear beards. "Has Mr. Childers ascertained anything on the subject of the
beards?" the Queen wrote anxiously to the First Lord of the Admiralty. On the
whole, Her Majesty was in favour of the change. "Her own personal feeling,"
she wrote, "would be for the beards without the moustaches, as the latter have
rather a soldierlike appearance; but then the object in view would not be
obtained, viz. to prevent the necessity of shaving. Therefore it had better be
as proposed, the entire beard, only it should be kept short and very clean."
After thinking over the question for another week, the Queen wrote a final
letter. She wished, she said, "to make one additional observation respecting
the beards, viz. that on no account should moustaches be allowed without
beards. That must be clearly understood."
Changes in the Navy might be tolerated; to lay hands upon the Army was a more
serious matter. From time immemorial there had been a particularly close
connection between the Army and the Crown; and Albert had devoted even more
time and attention to the details of military business than to the processes
of fresco-painting or the planning of sanitary cottages for the deserving
poor. But now there was to be a great alteration: Mr. Gladstone's fiat had
gone forth, and the Commander-in-Chief was to be removed from his direct
dependence upon the Sovereign, and made subordinate to Parliament and the
Secretary of State for War. Of all the liberal reforms this was the one which
aroused the bitterest resentment in Victoria. She considered that the change
was an attack upon her personal position--almost an attack upon the personal
position of Albert. But she was helpless, and the Prime Minister had his way.
When she heard that the dreadful man had yet another reform in
contemplation--that he was about to abolish the purchase of military
commissions--she could only feel that it was just what might have been
expected. For a moment she hoped that the House of Lords would come to the
rescue; the Peers opposed the change with unexpected vigour; but Mr.
Gladstone, more conscious than ever of the support of the Almighty, was ready
with an ingenious device. The purchase of commissions had been originally
allowed by Royal Warrant; it should now be disallowed by the same agency.
Victoria was faced by a curious dilemma: she abominated the abolition of
purchase; but she was asked to abolish it by an exercise of sovereign power
which was very much to her taste. She did not hesitate for long; and when the
Cabinet, in a formal minute, advised her to sign the Warrant, she did so with
a good grace.
Unacceptable as Mr. Gladstone's policy was, there was something else about him
which was even more displeasing to Victoria. She disliked his personal
demeanour towards herself. It was not that Mr. Gladstone, in his intercourse
with her, was in any degree lacking in courtesy or respect. On the contrary,
an extraordinary reverence impregnated his manner, both in his conversation
and his correspondence with the Sovereign. Indeed, with that deep and
passionate conservatism which, to the very end of his incredible career, gave
such an unexpected colouring to his inexplicable character, Mr. Gladstone
viewed Victoria through a haze of awe which was almost religious--as a
sacrosanct embodiment of venerable traditions--a vital element in the British
Constitution--a Queen by Act of Parliament. But unfortunately the lady did not
appreciate the compliment. The well-known complaint--"He speaks to me as if I
were a public meeting-" whether authentic or no--and the turn of the sentence
is surely a little too epigrammatic to be genuinely Victorian--undoubtedly
expresses the essential element of her antipathy. She had no objection to
being considered as an institution; she was one, and she knew it. But she was
a woman too, and to be considered ONLY as an institution--that was unbearable.
And thus all Mr. Gladstone's zeal and devotion, his ceremonious phrases, his
low bows, his punctilious correctitudes, were utterly wasted; and when, in the
excess of his loyalty, he went further, and imputed to the object of his
veneration, with obsequious blindness, the subtlety of intellect, the wide
reading, the grave enthusiasm, which he himself possessed, the
misunderstanding became complete. The discordance between the actual Victoria
and this strange Divinity made in Mr. Gladstone's image produced disastrous
results. Her discomfort and dislike turned at last into positive animosity,
and, though her manners continued to be perfect, she never for a moment
unbent; while he on his side was overcome with disappointment, perplexity, and
mortification.
Yet his fidelity remained unshaken. When the Cabinet met, the Prime Minister,
filled with his beatific vision, would open the proceedings by reading aloud
the letters which he had received from the Queen upon the questions of the
hour. The assembly sat in absolute silence while, one after another, the royal
missives, with their emphases, their ejaculations, and their grammatical
peculiarities, boomed forth in all the deep solemnity of Mr. Gladstone's
utterance. Not a single comment, of any kind, was ever hazarded; and, after a
fitting pause, the Cabinet proceeded with the business of the day.
II
Little as Victoria appreciated her Prime Minister's attitude towards her, she
found that it had its uses. The popular discontent at her uninterrupted
seclusion had been gathering force for many years, and now burst out in a new
and alarming shape. Republicanism was in the air. Radical opinion in England,
stimulated by the fall of Napoleon III and the establishment of a republican
government in France, suddenly grew more extreme than it ever had been since
1848. It also became for the first time almost respectable. Chartism had been
entirely an affair of the lower classes; but now Members of Parliament,
learned professors, and ladies of title openly avowed the most subversive
views. The monarchy was attacked both in theory and in practice. And it was
attacked at a vital point: it was declared to be too expensive. What benefits,
it was asked, did the nation reap to counterbalance the enormous sums which
were expended upon the Sovereign? Victoria's retirement gave an unpleasant
handle to the argument. It was pointed out that the ceremonial functions of
the Crown had virtually lapsed; and the awkward question remained whether any
of the other functions which it did continue to perform were really worth
L385,000 per annum. The royal balance-sheet was curiously examined. An
anonymous pamphlet entitled "What does she do with it?" appeared, setting
forth the financial position with malicious clarity. The Queen, it stated, was
granted by the Civil List L60,000 a year for her private use; but the rest of
her vast annuity was given, as the Act declared, to enable her "to defray the
expenses of her royal household and to support the honour and dignity of the
Crown." Now it was obvious that, since the death of the Prince, the
expenditure for both these purposes must have been very considerably
diminished, and it was difficult to resist the conclusion that a large sum of
money was diverted annually from the uses for which it had been designed by
Parliament, to swell the private fortune of Victoria. The precise amount of
that private fortune it was impossible to discover; but there was reason to
suppose that it was gigantic; perhaps it reached a total of five million
pounds. The pamphlet protested against such a state of affairs, and its
protests were repeated vigorously in newspapers and at public meetings. Though
it is certain that the estimate of Victoria's riches was much exaggerated, it
is equally certain that she was an exceedingly wealthy woman. She probably
saved L20,000 a year from the Civil List, the revenues of the Duchy of
Lancaster were steadily increasing, she had inherited a considerable property
from the Prince Consort, and she had been left, in 1852, an estate of half a
million by Mr. John Neild, an eccentric miser. In these circumstances it was
not surprising that when, in 1871, Parliament was asked to vote a dowry of
L30,000 to the Princess Louise on her marriage with the eldest son of the Duke
of Argyle, together with an annuity of L6,000, there should have been a
serious outcry[*].
[*] In 1889 it was officially stated that the Queen's total savings from the
Civil List amounted to L824,025, but that out of this sum much had been spent
on special entertainments to foreign visitors. Taking into consideration the
proceeds from the Duchy of Lancaster, which were more than L60,000 a year, the
savings of the Prince Consort, and Mr. Neild's legacy, it seems probable that,
at the time of her death, Victoria's private fortune approached two million
pounds.
In order to conciliate public opinion, the Queen opened Parliament in person,
and the vote was passed almost unanimously. But a few months later another
demand was made: the Prince Arthur had come of age, and the nation was asked
to grant him an annuity of L15,000. The outcry was redoubled. The newspapers
were filled with angry articles; Bradlaugh thundered against "princely
paupers" to one of the largest crowds that had ever been seen in Trafalgar
Square; and Sir Charles Dilke expounded the case for a republic in a speech to
his constituents at Newcastle. The Prince's annuity was ultimately sanctioned
in the House of Commons by a large majority; but a minority of fifty members
voted in favour of reducing the sum to L10,000.
Towards every aspect of this distasteful question, Mr. Gladstone presented an
iron front. He absolutely discountenanced the extreme section of his
followers. He declared that the whole of the Queen's income was justly at her
personal disposal, argued that to complain of royal savings was merely to
encourage royal extravagance, and successfully convoyed through Parliament the
unpopular annuities, which, he pointed out, were strictly in accordance with
precedent. When, in 1872, Sir Charles Dilke once more returned to the charge
in the House of Commons, introducing a motion for a full enquiry into the
Queen's expenditure with a view to a root and branch reform of the Civil List,
the Prime Minister brought all the resources of his powerful and ingenious
eloquence to the support of the Crown. He was completely successful; and amid
a scene of great disorder the motion was ignominiously dismissed. Victoria was
relieved; but she grew no fonder of Mr. Gladstone.
It was perhaps the most miserable moment of her life. The Ministers, the
press, the public, all conspired to vex her, to blame her, to misinterpret her
actions, to be unsympathetic and disrespectful in every way. She was "a
cruelly misunderstood woman," she told Mr. Martin, complaining to him bitterly
of the unjust attacks which were made upon her, and declaring that "the great
worry and anxiety and hard work for ten years, alone, unaided, with increasing
age and never very strong health" were breaking her down, and "almost drove
her to despair." The situation was indeed deplorable. It seemed as if her
whole existence had gone awry; as if an irremediable antagonism had grown up
between the Queen and the nation. If Victoria had died in the early seventies,
there can be little doubt that the voice of the world would have pronounced
her a failure.
III
But she was reserved for a very different fate. The outburst of republicanism
had been in fact the last flicker of an expiring cause. The liberal tide,
which had been flowing steadily ever since the Reform Bill, reached its height
with Mr. Gladstone's first administration; and towards the end of that
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