<SPAN name="startofbook"></SPAN>
<p><br/></p>
<h1> QUEEN VICTORIA </h1>
<p><br/></p>
<h2> By Lytton Strachey </h2>
<p><br/></p>
<h4>
New York Harcourt, Brace And Company, 1921
</h4>
<p><br/></p>
<hr />
<p><br/></p>
<h2> Contents </h2>
<h4>
<SPAN href="#link2H_4_0001"> QUEEN VICTORIA </SPAN>
</h4>
<table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto">
<tr>
<td>
<SPAN href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I </SPAN>
</td>
<td>
ANTECEDENTS
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<SPAN href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II </SPAN>
</td>
<td>
CHILDHOOD
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<SPAN href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III </SPAN>
</td>
<td>
LORD MELBOURNE
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<SPAN href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV </SPAN>
</td>
<td>
MARRIAGE
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<SPAN href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V </SPAN>
</td>
<td>
LORD PALMERSTON
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<SPAN href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI </SPAN>
</td>
<td>
LAST YEARS OF PRINCE CONSORT
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<SPAN href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII </SPAN>
</td>
<td>
WIDOWHOOD
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<SPAN href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER VIII </SPAN>
</td>
<td>
GLADSTONE AND LORD BEACONSFIELD
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<SPAN href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER IX </SPAN>
</td>
<td>
OLD AGE
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<SPAN href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER X </SPAN>
</td>
<td>
THE END
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<p><SPAN href="#link2H_BIBL"> BIBLIOGRAPHY AND LIST OF REFERENCES IN THE NOTES,
ARRANGED </SPAN></p>
<p><br/></p>
<hr />
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"></SPAN> <br/> <br/></p>
<h1> QUEEN VICTORIA </h1>
<p><SPAN name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001"></SPAN></p>
<h2> CHAPTER I. ANTECEDENTS </h2>
<h3> I </h3>
<p>On November 6, 1817, died the Princess Charlotte, only child of the Prince
Regent, and heir to the crown of England. Her short life had hardly been a
happy one. By nature impulsive, capricious, and vehement, she had always
longed for liberty; and she had never possessed it. She had been brought
up among violent family quarrels, had been early separated from her
disreputable and eccentric mother, and handed over to the care of her
disreputable and selfish father. When she was seventeen, he decided to
marry her off to the Prince of Orange; she, at first, acquiesced; but,
suddenly falling in love with Prince Augustus of Prussia, she determined
to break off the engagement. This was not her first love affair, for she
had previously carried on a clandestine correspondence with a Captain
Hess. Prince Augustus was already married, morganatically, but she did not
know it, and he did not tell her. While she was spinning out the
negotiations with the Prince of Orange, the allied sovereign—it was
June, 1814—arrived in London to celebrate their victory. Among them,
in the suite of the Emperor of Russia, was the young and handsome Prince
Leopold of Saxe-Coburg. He made several attempts to attract the notice of
the Princess, but she, with her heart elsewhere, paid very little
attention. Next month the Prince Regent, discovering that his daughter was
having secret meetings with Prince Augustus, suddenly appeared upon the
scene and, after dismissing her household, sentenced her to a strict
seclusion in Windsor Park. "God Almighty grant me patience!" she
exclaimed, falling on her knees in an agony of agitation: then she jumped
up, ran down the backstairs and out into the street, hailed a passing cab,
and drove to her mother's house in Bayswater. She was discovered, pursued,
and at length, yielding to the persuasions of her uncles, the Dukes of
York and Sussex, of Brougham, and of the Bishop of Salisbury, she returned
to Carlton House at two o'clock in the morning. She was immured at
Windsor, but no more was heard of the Prince of Orange. Prince Augustus,
too, disappeared. The way was at last open to Prince Leopold of
Saxe-Coburg.</p>
<p>This Prince was clever enough to get round the Regent, to impress the
Ministers, and to make friends with another of the Princess's uncles, the
Duke of Kent. Through the Duke he was able to communicate privately with
the Princess, who now declared that he was necessary to her happiness.
When, after Waterloo, he was in Paris, the Duke's aide-de-camp carried
letters backwards and forwards across the Channel. In January 1816 he was
invited to England, and in May the marriage took place.</p>
<p>The character of Prince Leopold contrasted strangely with that of his
wife. The younger son of a German princeling, he was at this time
twenty-six years of age; he had served with distinction in the war against
Napoleon; he had shown considerable diplomatic skill at the Congress of
Vienna; and he was now to try his hand at the task of taming a tumultuous
Princess. Cold and formal in manner, collected in speech, careful in
action, he soon dominated the wild, impetuous, generous creature by his
side. There was much in her, he found, of which he could not approve. She
quizzed, she stamped, she roared with laughter; she had very little of
that self-command which is especially required of princes; her manners
were abominable. Of the latter he was a good judge, having moved, as he
himself explained to his niece many years later, in the best society of
Europe, being in fact "what is called in French de la fleur des pois."
There was continual friction, but every scene ended in the same way.
Standing before him like a rebellious boy in petticoats, her body pushed
forward, her hands behind her back, with flaming cheeks and sparkling
eyes, she would declare at last that she was ready to do whatever he
wanted. "If you wish it, I will do it," she would say. "I want nothing for
myself," he invariably answered; "When I press something on you, it is
from a conviction that it is for your interest and for your good."</p>
<p>Among the members of the household at Claremont, near Esher, where the
royal pair were established, was a young German physician, Christian
Friedrich Stockmar. He was the son of a minor magistrate in Coburg, and,
after taking part as a medical officer in the war, he had settled down as
a doctor in his native town. Here he had met Prince Leopold, who had been
struck by his ability, and, on his marriage, brought him to England as his
personal physician. A curious fate awaited this young man; many were the
gifts which the future held in store for him—many and various—influence,
power, mystery, unhappiness, a broken heart. At Claremont his position was
a very humble one; but the Princess took a fancy to him, called him
"Stocky," and romped with him along the corridors. Dyspeptic by
constitution, melancholic by temperament, he could yet be lively on
occasion, and was known as a wit in Coburg. He was virtuous, too, and
served the royal menage with approbation. "My master," he wrote in his
diary, "is the best of all husbands in all the five quarters of the globe;
and his wife bears him an amount of love, the greatness of which can only
be compared with the English national debt." Before long he gave proof of
another quality—a quality which was to colour the whole of his
life-cautious sagacity. When, in the spring of 1817, it was known that the
Princess was expecting a child, the post of one of her
physicians-in-ordinary was offered to him, and he had the good sense to
refuse it. He perceived that his colleagues would be jealous of him, that
his advice would probably not be taken, but that, if anything were to go
wrong, it would be certainly the foreign doctor who would be blamed. Very
soon, indeed, he came to the opinion that the low diet and constant
bleedings, to which the unfortunate Princess was subjected, were an error;
he drew the Prince aside, and begged him to communicate this opinion to
the English doctors; but it was useless. The fashionable lowering
treatment was continued for months. On November 5, at nine o'clock in the
evening, after a labour of over fifty hours, the Princess was delivered of
a dead boy. At midnight her exhausted strength gave way. When, at last,
Stockmar consented to see her; he went in, and found her obviously dying,
while the doctors were plying her with wine. She seized his hand and
pressed it. "They have made me tipsy," she said. After a little he left
her, and was already in the next room when he heard her call out in her
loud voice: "Stocky! Stocky!" As he ran back the death-rattle was in her
throat. She tossed herself violently from side to side; then suddenly drew
up her legs, and it was over.</p>
<p>The Prince, after hours of watching, had left the room for a few moments'
rest; and Stockmar had now to tell him that his wife was dead. At first he
could not be made to realise what had happened. On their way to her room
he sank down on a chair while Stockmar knelt beside him: it was all a
dream; it was impossible. At last, by the bed, he, too, knelt down and
kissed the cold hands. Then rising and exclaiming, "Now I am quite
desolate. Promise me never to leave me," he threw himself into Stockmar's
arms.</p>
<p>II</p>
<p>The tragedy at Claremont was of a most upsetting kind. The royal
kaleidoscope had suddenly shifted, and nobody could tell how the new
pattern would arrange itself. The succession to the throne, which had
seemed so satisfactorily settled, now became a matter of urgent doubt.</p>
<p>George III was still living, an aged lunatic, at Windsor, completely
impervious to the impressions of the outer world. Of his seven sons, the
youngest was of more than middle age, and none had legitimate offspring.
The outlook, therefore, was ambiguous. It seemed highly improbable that
the Prince Regent, who had lately been obliged to abandon his stays, and
presented a preposterous figure of debauched obesity, could ever again,
even on the supposition that he divorced his wife and re-married, become
the father of a family. Besides the Duke of Kent, who must be noticed
separately, the other brothers, in order of seniority, were the Dukes of
York, Clarence, Cumberland, Sussex, and Cambridge; their situations and
prospects require a brief description. The Duke of York, whose escapades
in times past with Mrs. Clarke and the army had brought him into trouble,
now divided his life between London and a large, extravagantly ordered and
extremely uncomfortable country house where he occupied himself with
racing, whist, and improper stories. He was remarkable among the princes
for one reason: he was the only one of them—so we are informed by a
highly competent observer—who had the feelings of a gentleman. He
had been long married to the Princess Royal of Prussia, a lady who rarely
went to bed and was perpetually surrounded by vast numbers of dogs,
parrots, and monkeys. They had no children. The Duke of Clarence had lived
for many years in complete obscurity with Mrs. Jordan, the actress, in
Bushey Park. By her he had had a large family of sons and daughters, and
had appeared, in effect to be married to her, when he suddenly separated
from her and offered to marry Miss Wykeham, a crazy woman of large
fortune, who, however, would have nothing to say to him. Shortly
afterwards Mrs. Jordan died in distressed circumstances in Paris. The Duke
of Cumberland was probably the most unpopular man in England. Hideously
ugly, with a distorted eye, he was bad-tempered and vindictive in private,
a violent reactionary in politics, and was subsequently suspected of
murdering his valet and of having carried on an amorous intrigue of an
extremely scandalous kind. He had lately married a German Princess, but
there were as yet no children by the marriage. The Duke of Sussex had
mildly literary tastes and collected books. He had married Lady Augusta
Murray, by whom he had two children, but the marriage, under the Royal
Marriages Act, was declared void. On Lady Augusta's death, he married Lady
Cecilia Buggin; she changed her name to Underwood, but this marriage also
was void. Of the Duke of Cambridge, the youngest of the brothers, not very
much was known. He lived in Hanover, wore a blonde wig, chattered and
fidgeted a great deal, and was unmarried.</p>
<p>Besides his seven sons, George III had five surviving daughters. Of these,
two—the Queen of Wurtemberg and the Duchess of Gloucester—were
married and childless. The three unmarried princesses—Augusta,
Elizabeth, and Sophia—were all over forty.</p>
<p>III</p>
<p>The fourth son of George III was Edward, Duke of Kent. He was now fifty
years of age—a tall, stout, vigorous man, highly-coloured, with
bushy eyebrows, a bald top to his head, and what hair he had carefully
dyed a glossy black. His dress was extremely neat, and in his whole
appearance there was a rigidity which did not belie his character. He had
spent his early life in the army—at Gibraltar, in Canada, in the
West Indies—and, under the influence of military training, had
become at first a disciplinarian and at last a martinet. In 1802, having
been sent to Gibraltar to restore order in a mutinous garrison, he was
recalled for undue severity, and his active career had come to an end.
Since then he had spent his life regulating his domestic arrangements with
great exactitude, busying himself with the affairs of his numerous
dependents, designing clocks, and struggling to restore order to his
finances, for, in spite of his being, as someone said who knew him well
"regle comme du papier a musique," and in spite of an income of L24,000 a
year, he was hopelessly in debt. He had quarrelled with most of his
brothers, particularly with the Prince Regent, and it was only natural
that he should have joined the political Opposition and become a pillar of
the Whigs.</p>
<p>What his political opinions may actually have been is open to doubt; it
has often been asserted that he was a Liberal, or even a Radical; and, if
we are to believe Robert Owen, he was a necessitarian Socialist. His
relations with Owen—the shrewd, gullible, high-minded, wrong-headed,
illustrious and preposterous father of Socialism and Co-operation—were
curious and characteristic. He talked of visiting the Mills at New Lanark,
he did, in fact, preside at one of Owen's public meetings; he corresponded
with him on confidential terms, and he even (so Owen assures us) returned,
after his death, from "the sphere of spirits" to give encouragement to the
Owenites on earth. "In an especial manner," says Owen, "I have to name the
very anxious feelings of the spirit of his Royal Highness the Late Duke of
Kent (who early informed me that there were no titles in the spititual
spheres into which he had entered), to benefit, not a class, a sect, a
party, or any particular country, but the whole of the human race, through
futurity." "His whole spirit-proceeding with me has been most beautiful,"
Owen adds, "making his own appointments; and never in one instance has
this spirit not been punctual to the minute he had named." But Owen was of
a sanguine temperament. He also numbered among his proselytes President
Jefferson, Prince Metternich, and Napoleon; so that some uncertainty must
still linger over the Duke of Kent's views. But there is no uncertainty
about another circumstance: his Royal Highness borrowed from Robert Owen,
on various occasions, various sums of money which were never repaid and
amounted in all to several hundred pounds.</p>
<p>After the death of the Princess Charlotte it was clearly important, for
more than one reason, that the Duke of Kent should marry. From the point
of view of the nation, the lack of heirs in the reigning family seemed to
make the step almost obligatory; it was also likely to be highly expedient
from the point of view of the Duke. To marry as a public duty, for the
sake of the royal succession, would surely deserve some recognition from a
grateful country. When the Duke of York had married he had received a
settlement of L25,000 a year. Why should not the Duke of Kent look forward
to an equal sum? But the situation was not quite simple. There was the
Duke of Clarence to be considered; he was the elder brother, and, if HE
married, would clearly have the prior claim. On the other hand, if the
Duke of Kent married, it was important to remember that he would be making
a serious sacrifice: a lady was involved.</p>
<p>The Duke, reflecting upon all these matters with careful attention,
happened, about a month after his niece's death, to visit Brussels, and
learnt that Mr. Creevey was staying in the town. Mr. Creevey was a close
friend of the leading Whigs and an inveterate gossip; and it occurred to
the Duke that there could be no better channel through which to
communicate his views upon the situation to political circles at home.
Apparently it did not occur to him that Mr. Creevey was malicious and
might keep a diary. He therefore sent for him on some trivial pretext, and
a remarkable conversation ensued.</p>
<p>After referring to the death of the Princess, to the improbability of the
Regent's seeking a divorce, to the childlessness of the Duke of York, and
to the possibility of the Duke of Clarence marrying, the Duke adverted to
his own position. "Should the Duke of Clarence not marry," he said, "the
next prince in succession is myself, and although I trust I shall be at
all times ready to obey any call my country may make upon me, God only
knows the sacrifice it will be to make, whenever I shall think it my duty
to become a married man. It is now seven and twenty years that Madame St.
Laurent and I have lived together: we are of the same age, and have been
in all climates, and in all difficulties together, and you may well
imagine, Mr. Creevey, the pang it will occasion me to part with her. I put
it to your own feelings—in the event of any separation between you
and Mrs. Creevey... As for Madame St. Laurent herself, I protest I don't
know what is to become of her if a marriage is to be forced upon me; her
feelings are already so agitated upon the subject." The Duke went on to
describe how, one morning, a day or two after the Princess Charlotte's
death, a paragraph had appeared in the Morning Chronicle, alluding to the
possibility of his marriage. He had received the newspaper at breakfast
together with his letters, and "I did as is my constant practice, I threw
the newspaper across the table to Madame St. Laurent, and began to open
and read my letters. I had not done so but a very short time, when my
attention was called to an extraordinary noise and a strong convulsive
movement in Madame St. Laurent's throat. For a short time I entertained
serious apprehensions for her safety; and when, upon her recovery, I
enquired into the occasion of this attack, she pointed to the article in
the Morning Chronicle."</p>
<p>The Duke then returned to the subject of the Duke of Clarence. "My brother
the Duke of Clarence is the elder brother, and has certainly the right to
marry if he chooses, and I would not interfere with him on any account. If
he wishes to be king—to be married and have children, poor man—God
help him! Let him do so. For myself—I am a man of no ambition, and
wish only to remain as I am... Easter, you know, falls very early this
year—the 22nd of March. If the Duke of Clarence does not take any
step before that time, I must find some pretext to reconcile Madame St.
Laurent to my going to England for a short time. When once there, it will
be easy for me to consult with my friends as to the proper steps to be
taken. Should the Duke of Clarence do nothing before that time as to
marrying it will become my duty, no doubt, to take some measures upon the
subject myself." Two names, the Duke said, had been mentioned in this
connection—those of the Princess of Baden and the Princess of
Saxe-Coburg. The latter, he thought, would perhaps be the better of the
two, from the circumstance of Prince Leopold being so popular with the
nation; but before any other steps were taken, he hoped and expected to
see justice done to Madame St. Laurent. "She is," he explained, "of very
good family, and has never been an actress, and I am the first and only
person who ever lived with her. Her disinterestedness, too, has been equal
to her fidelity. When she first came to me it was upon L100 a year. That
sum was afterwards raised to L400 and finally to L1000; but when my debts
made it necessary for me to sacrifice a great part of my income, Madame
St. Laurent insisted upon again returning to her income of L400 a year. If
Madame St. Laurent is to return to live amongst her friends, it must be in
such a state of independence as to command their respect. I shall not
require very much, but a certain number of servants and a carriage are
essentials." As to his own settlement, the Duke observed that he would
expect the Duke of York's marriage to be considered the precedent. "That,"
he said, "was a marriage for the succession, and L25,000 for income was
settled, in addition to all his other income, purely on that account. I
shall be contented with the same arrangement, without making any demands
grounded on the difference of the value of money in 1792 and at present.
As for the payment of my debts," the Duke concluded, "I don't call them
great. The nation, on the contrary, is greatly my debtor." Here a clock
struck, and seemed to remind the Duke that he had an appointment; he rose,
and Mr. Creevey left him.</p>
<p>Who could keep such a communication secret? Certainly not Mr. Creevey. He
hurried off to tell the Duke of Wellington, who was very much amused, and
he wrote a long account of it to Lord Sefton, who received the letter
"very apropos," while a surgeon was sounding his bladder to ascertain
whether he had a stone. "I never saw a fellow more astonished than he
was," wrote Lord Sefton in his reply, "at seeing me laugh as soon as the
operation was over. Nothing could be more first-rate than the royal
Edward's ingenuousness. One does not know which to admire most—the
delicacy of his attachment to Madame St. Laurent, the refinement of his
sentiments towards the Duke of Clarence, or his own perfect
disinterestedness in pecuniary matters."</p>
<p>As it turned out, both the brothers decided to marry. The Duke of Kent,
selecting the Princess of Saxe-Coburg in preference to the Princess of
Baden, was united to her on May 29, 1818. On June 11, the Duke of Clarence
followed suit with a daughter of the Duke of Saxe-Meiningen. But they were
disappointed in their financial expectations; for though the Government
brought forward proposals to increase their allowances, together with that
of the Duke of Cumberland, the motions were defeated in the House of
Commons. At this the Duke of Wellington was not surprised. "By God!" he
said, "there is a great deal to be said about that. They are the damnedest
millstones about the necks of any Government that can be imagined. They
have insulted—PERSONALLY insulted—two-thirds of the gentlemen
of England, and how can it be wondered at that they take their revenge
upon them in the House of Commons? It is their only opportunity, and I
think, by God! they are quite right to use it." Eventually, however,
Parliament increased the Duke of Kent's annuity by L6000. The subsequent
history of Madame St. Laurent has not transpired.</p>
<p>IV</p>
<p>The new Duchess of Kent, Victoria Mary Louisa, was a daughter of Francis,
Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, and a sister of Prince Leopold. The family
was an ancient one, being a branch of the great House of Wettin, which
since the eleventh century had ruled over the March of Meissen on the
Elbe. In the fifteenth century the whole possessions of the House had been
divided between the Albertine and Ernestine branches: from the former
descended the electors and kings of Saxony; the latter, ruling over
Thuringia, became further subdivided into five branches, of which the
duchy of Saxe-Coburg was one. This principality was very small, containing
about 60,000 inhabitants, but it enjoyed independent and sovereign rights.
During the disturbed years which followed the French Revolution, its
affairs became terribly involved. The Duke was extravagant, and kept open
house for the swarms of refugees, who fled eastward over Germany as the
French power advanced. Among these was the Prince of Leiningen, an elderly
beau, whose domains on the Moselle had been seized by the French, but who
was granted in compensation the territory of Amorbach in Lower Franconia.
In 1803 he married the Princess Victoria, at that time seventeen years of
age. Three years later Duke Francis died a ruined man. The Napoleonic
harrow passed over Saxe-Coburg. The duchy was seized by the French, and
the ducal family were reduced to beggary, almost to starvation. At the
same time the little principality of Amorbach was devastated by the
French, Russian, and Austrian armies, marching and counter-marching across
it. For years there was hardly a cow in the country, nor enough grass to
feed a flock of geese. Such was the desperate plight of the family which,
a generation later, was to have gained a foothold in half the reigning
Houses of Europe. The Napoleonic harrow had indeed done its work, the seed
was planted; and the crop would have surprised Napoleon. Prince Leopold,
thrown upon his own resources at fifteen, made a career for himself and
married the heiress of England. The Princess of Leiningen, struggling at
Amorbach with poverty, military requisitions, and a futile husband,
developed an independence of character and a tenacity of purpose which
were to prove useful in very different circumstances. In 1814, her husband
died, leaving her with two children and the regency of the principality.
After her brother's marriage with the Princess Charlotte, it was proposed
that she should marry the Duke of Kent; but she declined, on the ground
that the guardianship of her children and the management of her domains
made other ties undesirable. The Princess Charlotte's death, however,
altered the case; and when the Duke of Kent renewed his offer, she
accepted it. She was thirty-two years old—short, stout, with brown
eyes and hair, and rosy cheeks, cheerful and voluble, and gorgeously
attired in rustling silks and bright velvets.</p>
<p>She was certainly fortunate in her contented disposition; for she was
fated, all through her life, to have much to put up with. Her second
marriage, with its dubious prospects, seemed at first to be chiefly a
source of difficulties and discomforts. The Duke, declaring that he was
still too poor to live in England, moved about with uneasy precision
through Belgium and Germany, attending parades and inspecting barracks in
a neat military cap, while the English notabilities looked askance, and
the Duke of Wellington dubbed him the Corporal. "God damme!" he exclaimed
to Mr. Creevey, "d'ye know what his sisters call him? By God! they call
him Joseph Surface!" At Valenciennes, where there was a review and a great
dinner, the Duchess arrived with an old and ugly lady-in-waiting, and the
Duke of Wellington found himself in a difficulty. "Who the devil is to
take out the maid of honour?" he kept asking; but at last he thought of a
solution. "Damme, Freemantle, find out the mayor and let him do it." So
the Mayor of Valenciennes was brought up for the purpose, and—so we
learn from Mr. Creevey—"a capital figure he was." A few days later,
at Brussels, Mr. Creevey himself had an unfortunate experience. A military
school was to be inspected—before breakfast. The company assembled;
everything was highly satisfactory; but the Duke of Kent continued for so
long examining every detail and asking meticulous question after
meticulous question, that Mr. Creevey at last could bear it no longer, and
whispered to his neighbour that he was damned hungry. The Duke of
Wellington heard him, and was delighted. "I recommend you," he said,
"whenever you start with the royal family in a morning, and particularly
with THE CORPORAL, always to breakfast first." He and his staff, it turned
out, had taken that precaution, and the great man amused himself, while
the stream of royal inquiries poured on, by pointing at Mr. Creevey from
time to time with the remark, "Voila le monsieur qui n'a pas dejeune!"</p>
<p>Settled down at last at Amorbach, the time hung heavily on the Duke's
hands. The establishment was small, the country was impoverished; even
clock-making grew tedious at last. He brooded—for in spite of his
piety the Duke was not without a vein of superstition—over the
prophecy of a gipsy at Gibraltar who told him that he was to have many
losses and crosses, that he was to die in happiness, and that his only
child was to be a great queen. Before long it became clear that a child
was to be expected: the Duke decided that it should be born in England.
Funds were lacking for the journey, but his determination was not to be
set aside. Come what might, he declared, his child must be English-born. A
carriage was hired, and the Duke himself mounted the box. Inside were the
Duchess, her daughter Feodora, a girl of fourteen, with maids, nurses,
lap-dogs, and canaries. Off they drove—through Germany, through
France: bad roads, cheap inns, were nothing to the rigorous Duke and the
equable, abundant Duchess. The Channel was crossed, London was reached in
safety. The authorities provided a set of rooms in Kensington Palace; and
there, on May 24, 1819, a female infant was born.</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002"></SPAN></p>
<h2> CHAPTER II. CHILDHOOD </h2>
<h3> I </h3>
<p>The child who, in these not very impressive circumstances, appeared in the
world, received but scant attention. There was small reason to foresee her
destiny. The Duchess of Clarence, two months before, had given birth to a
daughter, this infant, indeed, had died almost immediately; but it seemed
highly probable that the Duchess would again become a mother; and so it
actually fell out. More than this, the Duchess of Kent was young, and the
Duke was strong; there was every likelihood that before long a brother
would follow, to snatch her faint chance of the succession from the little
princess.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, the Duke had other views: there were prophecies... At any
rate, he would christen the child Elizabeth, a name of happy augury. In
this, however, he reckoned without the Regent, who, seeing a chance of
annoying his brother, suddenly announced that he himself would be present
at the baptism, and signified at the same time that one of the godfathers
was to be the Emperor Alexander of Russia. And so when the ceremony took
place, and the Archbishop of Canterbury asked by what name he was to
baptise the child, the Regent replied "Alexandria." At this the Duke
ventured to suggest that another name might be added. "Certainly," said
the Regent; "Georgina?" "Or Elizabeth?" said the Duke. There was a pause,
during which the Archbishop, with the baby in his lawn sleeves, looked
with some uneasiness from one Prince to the other. "Very well, then," said
the Regent at last, "call her after her mother. But Alexandrina must come
first." Thus, to the disgust of her father, the child was christened
Alexandrina Victoria.</p>
<p>The Duke had other subjects of disgust. The meagre grant of the Commons
had by no means put an end to his financial distresses. It was to be
feared that his services were not appreciated by the nation. His debts
continued to grow. For many years he had lived upon L7000 a year; but now
his expenses were exactly doubled; he could make no further reductions; as
it was, there was not a single servant in his meagre grant establishment
who was idle for a moment from morning to night. He poured out his griefs
in a long letter to Robert Owen, whose sympathy had the great merit of
being practical. "I now candidly state," he wrote, "that, after viewing
the subject in every possible way, I am satisfied that, to continue to
live in England, even in the quiet way in which we are going on, WITHOUT
SPLENDOUR, and WITHOUT SHOW, NOTHING SHORT OF DOUBLING THE SEVEN THOUSAND
POUNDS WILL DO, REDUCTION BEING IMPOSSIBLE." It was clear that he would be
obliged to sell his house for L51,300, if that failed, he would go and
live on the Continent. "If my services are useful to my country, it surely
becomes THOSE WHO HAVE THE POWER to support me in substantiating those
just claims I have for the very extensive losses and privations I have
experienced, during the very long period of my professional servitude in
the Colonies; and if this is not attainable, IT IS A CLEAR PROOF TO ME
THAT THEY ARE THEY ARE NOT APPRECIATED; and under that impression I shall
not scruple, in DUE time, to resume my retirement abroad, when the Duchess
and myself shall have fulfilled our duties in establishing the ENGLISH
birth of my child, and giving it material nutriment on the soil of Old
England; and which we shall certainly repeat, if Providence destines, to
give us any further increase of family."</p>
<p>In the meantime, he decided to spend the winter at Sidmouth, "in order,"
he told Owen, "that the Duchess may have the benefit of tepid sea bathing,
and our infant that of sea air, on the fine coast of Devonshire, during
the months of the year that are so odious in London." In December the move
was made. With the new year, the Duke remembered another prophecy. In
1820, a fortune-teller had told him, two members of the Royal Family would
die. Who would they be? He speculated on the various possibilities: The
King, it was plain, could not live much longer; and the Duchess of York
had been attacked by a mortal disease. Probably it would be the King and
the Duchess of York; or perhaps the King and the Duke of York; or the King
and the Regent. He himself was one of the healthiest men in England. "My
brothers," he declared, "are not so strong as I am; I have lived a regular
life. I shall outlive them all. The crown will come to me and my
children." He went out for a walk, and got his feet wet. On coming home,
he neglected to change his stockings. He caught cold, inflammation of the
lungs set in, and on January 22 he was a dying man. By a curious chance,
young Dr. Stockmar was staying in the house at the time; two years before,
he had stood by the death-bed of the Princess Charlotte; and now he was
watching the Duke of Kent in his agony. On Stockmar's advice, a will was
hastily prepared. The Duke's earthly possessions were of a negative
character; but it was important that the guardianship of the unwitting
child, whose fortunes were now so strangely changing, should be assured to
the Duchess. The Duke was just able to understand the document, and to
append his signature. Having inquired whether his writing was perfectly
clear, he became unconscious, and breathed his last on the following
morning! Six days later came the fulfilment of the second half of the
gipsy's prophecy. The long, unhappy, and inglorious life of George the
Third of England was ended.</p>
<p>II</p>
<p>Such was the confusion of affairs at Sidmouth, that the Duchess found
herself without the means of returning to London. Prince Leopold hurried
down, and himself conducted his sister and her family, by slow and bitter
stages, to Kensington. The widowed lady, in her voluminous blacks, needed
all her equanimity to support her. Her prospects were more dubious than
ever. She had L6000 a year of her own; but her husband's debts loomed
before her like a mountain. Soon she learnt that the Duchess of Clarence
was once more expecting a child. What had she to look forward to in
England? Why should she remain in a foreign country, among strangers,
whose language she could not speak, whose customs she could not
understand? Surely it would be best to return to Amorbach, and there,
among her own people, bring up her daughters in economical obscurity. But
she was an inveterate optimist; she had spent her life in struggles, and
would not be daunted now; and besides, she adored her baby. "C'est mon
bonheur, mes delices, mon existence," she declared; the darling should be
brought up as an English princess, whatever lot awaited her. Prince
Leopold came forward nobly with an offer of an additional L3000 a year;
and the Duchess remained at Kensington.</p>
<p>The child herself was extremely fat, and bore a remarkable resemblance to
her grandfather. "C'est l'image du feu Roi!" exclaimed the Duchess. "C'est
le Roi Georges en jupons," echoed the surrounding ladies, as the little
creature waddled with difficulty from one to the other.</p>
<p>Before long, the world began to be slightly interested in the nursery at
Kensington. When, early in 1821, the Duchess of Clarence's second child,
the Princess Elizabeth, died within three months of its birth, the
interest increased. Great forces and fierce antagonisms seemed to be
moving, obscurely, about the royal cradle. It was a time of faction and
anger, of violent repression and profound discontent. A powerful movement,
which had for long been checked by adverse circumstances, was now
spreading throughout the country. New passions, new desires, were abroad;
or rather old passions and old desires, reincarnated with a new potency:
love of freedom, hatred of injustice, hope for the future of man. The
mighty still sat proudly in their seats, dispensing their ancient tyranny;
but a storm was gathering out of the darkness, and already there was
lightning in the sky. But the vastest forces must needs operate through
frail human instruments; and it seemed for many years as if the great
cause of English liberalism hung upon the life of the little girl at
Kensington. She alone stood between the country and her terrible uncle,
the Duke of Cumberland, the hideous embodiment of reaction. Inevitably,
the Duchess of Kent threw in her lot with her husband's party; Whig
leaders, Radical agitators, rallied round her; she was intimate with the
bold Lord Durham, she was on friendly terms with the redoubtable O'Connell
himself. She received Wilberforce-though, to be sure, she did not ask him
to sit down. She declared in public that she put her faith in "the
liberties of the People." It was certain that the young Princess would be
brought up in the way that she should go; yet there, close behind the
throne, waiting, sinister, was the Duke of Cumberland. Brougham, looking
forward into the future in his scurrilous fashion, hinted at dreadful
possibilities. "I never prayed so heartily for a Prince before," he wrote,
on hearing that George IV had been attacked by illness. "If he had gone,
all the troubles of these villains (the Tory Ministers) went with him, and
they had Fred. I (the Duke of York) their own man for his life. He (Fred.
I) won't live long either; that Prince of Blackguards, 'Brother William,'
is as bad a life, so we come in the course of nature to be ASSASSINATED by
King Ernest I or Regent Ernest (the Duke of Cumberland)." Such thoughts
were not peculiar to Brougham; in the seething state of public feeling,
they constantly leapt to the surface; and, even so late as the year
previous to her accession, the Radical newspapers were full of suggestions
that the Princess Victoria was in danger from the machinations of her
wicked uncle.</p>
<p>But no echo of these conflicts and forebodings reached the little Drina—for
so she was called in the family circle—as she played with her dolls,
or scampered down the passages, or rode on the donkey her uncle York had
given her along the avenues of Kensington Gardens The fair-haired,
blue-eyed child was idolised by her nurses, and her mother's ladies, and
her sister Feodora; and for a few years there was danger, in spite of her
mother's strictness, of her being spoilt. From time to time, she would fly
into a violent passion, stamp her little foot, and set everyone at
defiance; whatever they might say, she would not learn her letters—no,
she WOULD NOT; afterwards, she was very sorry, and burst into tears; but
her letters remained unlearnt. When she was five years old, however, a
change came, with the appearance of Fraulein Lehzen. This lady, who was
the daughter of a Hanoverian clergyman, and had previously been the
Princess Feodora's governess, soon succeeded in instilling a new spirit
into her charge. At first, indeed, she was appalled by the little
Princess's outbursts of temper; never in her life, she declared, had she
seen such a passionate and naughty child. Then she observed something
else; the child was extraordinarily truthful; whatever punishment might
follow, she never told a lie. Firm, very firm, the new governess yet had
the sense to see that all the firmness in the world would be useless,
unless she could win her way into little Drina's heart. She did so, and
there were no more difficulties. Drina learnt her letters like an angel;
and she learnt other things as well. The Baroness de Spath taught her how
to make little board boxes and decorate them with tinsel and painted
flowers; her mother taught her religion. Sitting in the pew every Sunday
morning, the child of six was seen listening in rapt attention to the
clergyman's endless sermon, for she was to be examined upon it in the
afternoon. The Duchess was determined that her daughter, from the earliest
possible moment, should be prepared for her high station in a way that
would commend itself to the most respectable; her good, plain, thrifty
German mind recoiled with horror and amazement from the shameless
junketings at Carlton House; Drina should never be allowed to forget for a
moment the virtues of simplicity, regularity, propriety, and devotion. The
little girl, however, was really in small need of such lessons, for she
was naturally simple and orderly, she was pious without difficulty, and
her sense of propriety was keen. She understood very well the niceties of
her own position. When, a child of six, Lady Jane Ellice was taken by her
grandmother to Kensington Palace, she was put to play with the Princess
Victoria, who was the same age as herself. The young visitor, ignorant of
etiquette, began to make free with the toys on the floor, in a way which
was a little too familiar; but "You must not touch those," she was quickly
told, "they are mine; and I may call you Jane, but you must not call me
Victoria." The Princess's most constant playmate was Victoire, the
daughter of Sir John Conroy, the Duchess's major-domo. The two girls were
very fond of one another; they would walk hand in hand together in
Kensington Gardens. But little Drina was perfectly aware for which of them
it was that they were followed, at a respectful distance, by a gigantic
scarlet flunkey.</p>
<p>Warm-hearted, responsive, she loved her dear Lehzen, and she loved her
dear Feodora, and her dear Victoire, and her dear Madame de Spath. And her
dear Mamma, of course, she loved her too; it was her duty; and yet—she
could not tell why it was—she was always happier when she was
staying with her Uncle Leopold at Claremont. There old Mrs. Louis, who,
years ago, had waited on her Cousin Charlotte, petted her to her heart's
content; and her uncle himself was wonderfully kind to her, talking to her
seriously and gently, almost as if she were a grown-up person. She and
Feodora invariably wept when the too-short visit was over, and they were
obliged to return to the dutiful monotony, and the affectionate
supervision of Kensington. But sometimes when her mother had to stay at
home, she was allowed to go out driving all alone with her dear Feodora
and her dear Lehzen, and she could talk and look as she liked, and it was
very delightful.</p>
<p>The visits to Claremont were frequent enough; but one day, on a special
occasion, she paid one of a rarer and more exciting kind. When she was
seven years old, she and her mother and sister were asked by the King to
go down to Windsor. George IV, who had transferred his fraternal
ill-temper to his sister-in-law and her family, had at last grown tired of
sulking, and decided to be agreeable. The old rip, bewigged and gouty,
ornate and enormous, with his jewelled mistress by his side and his
flaunting court about him, received the tiny creature who was one day to
hold in those same halls a very different state. "Give me your little
paw," he said; and two ages touched. Next morning, driving in his phaeton
with the Duchess of Gloucester, he met the Duchess of Kent and her child
in the Park. "Pop her in," were his orders, which, to the terror of the
mother and the delight of the daughter, were immediately obeyed. Off they
dashed to Virginia Water, where there was a great barge, full of lords and
ladies fishing, and another barge with a band; and the King ogled Feodora,
and praised her manners, and then turned to his own small niece. "What is
your favourite tune? The band shall play it." "God save the King, sir,"
was the instant answer. The Princess's reply has been praised as an early
example of a tact which was afterwards famous. But she was a very truthful
child, and perhaps it was her genuine opinion.</p>
<p>III</p>
<p>In 1827 the Duke of York, who had found some consolation for the loss of
his wife in the sympathy of the Duchess of Rutland, died, leaving behind
him the unfinished immensity of Stafford House and L200,000 worth of
debts. Three years later George IV also disappeared, and the Duke of
Clarence reigned in his stead. The new Queen, it was now clear, would in
all probability never again be a mother; the Princess Victoria, therefore,
was recognised by Parliament as heir-presumptive; and the Duchess of Kent,
whose annuity had been doubled five years previously, was now given an
additional L10,000 for the maintenance of the Princess, and was appointed
regent, in case of the death of the King before the majority of her
daughter. At the same time a great convulsion took place in the
constitution of the State. The power of the Tories, who had dominated
England for more than forty years, suddenly began to crumble. In the
tremendous struggle that followed, it seemed for a moment as if the
tradition of generations might be snapped, as if the blind tenacity of the
reactionaries and the determined fury of their enemies could have no other
issue than revolution. But the forces of compromise triumphed: the Reform
Bill was passed. The centre of gravity in the constitution was shifted
towards the middle classes; the Whigs came into power; and the complexion
of the Government assumed a Liberal tinge. One of the results of this new
state of affairs was a change in the position of the Duchess of Kent and
her daughter. From being the protegees of an opposition clique, they
became assets of the official majority of the nation. The Princess
Victoria was henceforward the living symbol of the victory of the middle
classes.</p>
<p>The Duke of Cumberland, on the other hand, suffered a corresponding
eclipse: his claws had been pared by the Reform Act. He grew insignificant
and almost harmless, though his ugliness remained; he was the wicked uncle
still—but only of a story.</p>
<p>The Duchess's own liberalism was not very profound. She followed naturally
in the footsteps of her husband, repeating with conviction the catchwords
of her husband's clever friends and the generalisations of her clever
brother Leopold. She herself had no pretensions to cleverness; she did not
understand very much about the Poor Law and the Slave Trade and Political
Economy; but she hoped that she did her duty; and she hoped—she
ardently hoped—that the same might be said of Victoria. Her
educational conceptions were those of Dr. Arnold, whose views were just
then beginning to permeate society. Dr. Arnold's object was, first and
foremost, to make his pupils "in the highest and truest sense of the
words, Christian gentlemen," intellectual refinements might follow. The
Duchess felt convinced that it was her supreme duty in life to make quite
sure that her daughter should grow up into a Christian queen. To this task
she bent all her energies; and, as the child developed, she flattered
herself that her efforts were not unsuccessful. When the Princess was
eleven, she desired the Bishops of London and Lincoln to submit her
daughter to an examination, and report upon the progress that had been
made. "I feel the time to be now come," the Duchess explained, in a letter
obviously drawn up by her own hand, "that what has been done should be put
to some test, that if anything has been done in error of judgment it may
be corrected, and that the plan for the future should be open to
consideration and revision... I attend almost always myself every lesson,
or a part; and as the lady about the Princess is a competent person, she
assists Her in preparing Her lessons, for the various masters, as I
resolved to act in that manner so as to be Her Governess myself. When she
was at a proper age she commenced attending Divine Service regularly with
me, and I have every feeling that she has religion at Her heart, that she
is morally impressed with it to that degree, that she is less liable to
error by its application to her feelings as a Child capable of
reflection." "The general bent of Her character," added the Duchess, "is
strength of intellect, capable of receiving with ease, information, and
with a peculiar readiness in coming to a very just and benignant decision
on any point Her opinion is asked on. Her adherence to truth is of so
marked a character that I feel no apprehension of that Bulwark being
broken down by any circumstances." The Bishops attended at the Palace, and
the result of their examination was all that could be wished. "In
answering a great variety of questions proposed to her," they reported,
"the Princess displayed an accurate knowledge of the most important
features of Scripture History, and of the leading truths and precepts of
the Christian Religion as taught by the Church of England, as well as an
acquaintance with the Chronology and principal facts of English History
remarkable in so young a person. To questions in Geography, the use of the
Globes, Arithmetic, and Latin Grammar, the answers which the Princess
returned were equally satisfactory." They did not believe that the
Duchess's plan of education was susceptible of any improvement; and the
Archbishop of Canterbury, who was also consulted, came to the same
gratifying conclusion.</p>
<p>One important step, however, remained to be taken. So far, as the Duchess
explained to the Bishops, the Princess had been kept in ignorance of the
station that she was likely to fill. "She is aware of its duties, and that
a Sovereign should live for others; so that when Her innocent mind
receives the impression of Her future fate, she receives it with a mind
formed to be sensible of what is to be expected from Her, and it is to be
hoped, she will be too well grounded in Her principles to be dazzled with
the station she is to look to." In the following year it was decided that
she should be enlightened on this point. The well—known scene
followed: the history lesson, the genealogical table of the Kings of
England slipped beforehand by the governess into the book, the Princess's
surprise, her inquiries, her final realisation of the facts. When the
child at last understood, she was silent for a moment, and then she spoke:
"I will be good," she said. The words were something more than a
conventional protestation, something more than the expression of a
superimposed desire; they were, in their limitation and their intensity,
their egotism and their humility, an instinctive summary of the dominating
qualities of a life. "I cried much on learning it," her Majesty noted long
afterwards. No doubt, while the others were present, even her dear Lehzen,
the little girl kept up her self-command; and then crept away somewhere to
ease her heart of an inward, unfamiliar agitation, with a handkerchief,
out of her mother's sight.</p>
<p>But her mother's sight was by no means an easy thing to escape. Morning
and evening, day and night, there was no relaxation of the maternal
vigilance. The child grew into the girl, the girl into the young woman;
but still she slept in her mother's bedroom; still she had no place
allowed her where she might sit or work by herself. An extraordinary
watchfulness surrounded her every step: up to the day of her accession,
she never went downstairs without someone beside her holding her hand.
Plainness and regularity ruled the household. The hours, the days, the
years passed slowly and methodically by. The dolls—the innumerable
dolls, each one so neatly dressed, each one with its name so punctiliously
entered in the catalogue—were laid aside, and a little music and a
little dancing took their place. Taglioni came, to give grace and dignity
to the figure, and Lablache, to train the piping treble upon his own rich
bass. The Dean of Chester, the official preceptor, continued his endless
instruction in Scripture history, while the Duchess of Northumberland, the
official governess, presided over every lesson with becoming solemnity.
Without doubt, the Princess's main achievement during her school-days was
linguistic. German was naturally the first language with which she was
familiar; but English and French quickly followed; and she became
virtually trilingual, though her mastery of English grammar remained
incomplete. At the same time, she acquired a working knowledge of Italian
and some smattering of Latin. Nevertheless, she did not read very much. It
was not an occupation that she cared for; partly, perhaps, because the
books that were given her were all either sermons, which were very dull,
or poetry, which was incomprehensible. Novels were strictly forbidden.
Lord Durham persuaded her mother to get her some of Miss Martineau's
tales, illustrating the truths of Political Economy, and they delighted
her; but it is to be feared that it was the unaccustomed pleasure of the
story that filled her mind, and that she never really mastered the theory
of exchanges or the nature of rent.</p>
<p>It was her misfortune that the mental atmosphere which surrounded her
during these years of adolescence was almost entirely feminine. No father,
no brother, was there to break in upon the gentle monotony of the daily
round with impetuosity, with rudeness, with careless laughter and wafts of
freedom from the outside world. The Princess was never called by a voice
that was loud and growling; never felt, as a matter of course, a hard
rough cheek on her own soft one; never climbed a wall with a boy. The
visits to Claremont—delicious little escapes into male society—came
to an end when she was eleven years old and Prince Leopold left England to
be King of the Belgians. She loved him still; he was still "il mio secondo
padre or, rather, solo padre, for he is indeed like my real father, as I
have none;" but his fatherliness now came to her dimly and indirectly,
through the cold channel of correspondence. Henceforward female duty,
female elegance, female enthusiasm, hemmed her completely in; and her
spirit, amid the enclosing folds, was hardly reached by those two great
influences, without which no growing life can truly prosper—humour
and imagination. The Baroness Lehzen—for she had been raised to that
rank in the Hanoverian nobility by George IV before he died—was the
real centre of the Princess's world. When Feodora married, when Uncle
Leopold went to Belgium, the Baroness was left without a competitor. The
Princess gave her mother her dutiful regards; but Lehzen had her heart.
The voluble, shrewd daughter of the pastor in Hanover, lavishing her
devotion on her royal charge, had reaped her reward in an unbounded
confidence and a passionate adoration. The girl would have gone through
fire for her "PRECIOUS Lehzen," the "best and truest friend," she
declared, that she had had since her birth. Her journal, begun when she
was thirteen, where she registered day by day the small succession of her
doings and her sentiments, bears on every page of it the traces of the
Baroness and her circumambient influence. The young creature that one sees
there, self-depicted in ingenuous clarity, with her sincerity, her
simplicity, her quick affections and pious resolutions, might almost have
been the daughter of a German pastor herself. Her enjoyments, her
admirations, her engouements were of the kind that clothed themselves
naturally in underlinings and exclamation marks. "It was a DELIGHTFUL
ride. We cantered a good deal. SWEET LITTLE ROSY WENT BEAUTIFULLY!! We
came home at a 1/4 past 1... At 20 minutes to 7 we went out to the
Opera... Rubini came on and sang a song out of 'Anna Boulena' QUITE
BEAUTIFULLY. We came home at 1/2 past 11." In her comments on her
readings, the mind of the Baroness is clearly revealed. One day, by some
mistake, she was allowed to take up a volume of memoirs by Fanny Kemble.
"It is certainly very pertly and oddly written. One would imagine by the
style that the authoress must be very pert, and not well bred; for there
are so many vulgar expressions in it. It is a great pity that a person
endowed with so much talent, as Mrs. Butler really is, should turn it to
so little account and publish a book which is so full of trash and
nonsense which can only do her harm. I stayed up till 20 minutes past 9."
Madame de Sevigne's letters, which the Baroness read aloud, met with more
approval. "How truly elegant and natural her style is! It is so full of
naivete, cleverness, and grace." But her highest admiration was reserved
for the Bishop of Chester's 'Exposition of the Gospel of St. Matthew.' "It
is a very fine book indeed. Just the sort of one I like; which is just
plain and comprehensible and full of truth and good feeling. It is not one
of those learned books in which you have to cavil at almost every
paragraph. Lehzen gave it me on the Sunday that I took the Sacrament." A
few weeks previously she had been confirmed, and she described the event
as follows: "I felt that my confirmation was one of the most solemn and
important events and acts in my life; and that I trusted that it might
have a salutary effect on my mind. I felt deeply repentant for all what I
had done which was wrong and trusted in God Almighty to strengthen my
heart and mind; and to forsake all that is bad and follow all that is
virtuous and right. I went with the firm determination to become a true
Christian, to try and comfort my dear Mamma in all her griefs, trials, and
anxieties, and to become a dutiful and affectionate daughter to her. Also
to be obedient to DEAR Lehzen, who has done so much for me. I was dressed
in a white lace dress, with a white crepe bonnet with a wreath of white
roses round it. I went in the chariot with my dear Mamma and the others
followed in another carriage." One seems to hold in one's hand a small
smooth crystal pebble, without a flaw and without a scintillation, and so
transparent that one can see through it at a glance.</p>
<p>Yet perhaps, after all, to the discerning eye, the purity would not be
absolute. The careful searcher might detect, in the virgin soil, the first
faint traces of an unexpected vein. In that conventual existence visits
were exciting events; and, as the Duchess had many relatives, they were
not infrequent; aunts and uncles would often appear from Germany, and
cousins too. When the Princess was fourteen she was delighted by the
arrival of a couple of boys from Wurtemberg, the Princes Alexander and
Ernst, sons of her mother's sister and the reigning duke. "They are both
EXTREMELY TALL," she noted, "Alexander is VERY HANDSOME, and Ernst has a
VERY KIND EXPRESSION. They are both extremely AMIABLE." And their
departure filled her with corresponding regrets. "We saw them get into the
barge, and watched them sailing away for some time on the beach. They were
so amiable and so pleasant to have in the house; they were ALWAYS
SATISFIED, ALWAYS GOOD-HUMOURED; Alexander took such care of me in getting
out of the boat, and rode next to me; so did Ernst." Two years later, two
other cousins arrived, the Princes Ferdinand and Augustus. "Dear
Ferdinand," the Princess wrote, "has elicited universal admiration from
all parties... He is so very unaffected, and has such a very distinguished
appearance and carriage. They are both very dear and charming young men.
Augustus is very amiable, too, and, when known, shows much good sense." On
another occasion, "Dear Ferdinand came and sat near me and talked so
dearly and sensibly. I do SO love him. Dear Augustus sat near me and
talked with me, and he is also a dear good young man, and is very
handsome." She could not quite decide which was the handsomer of the two.
"On the whole," she concluded, "I think Ferdinand handsomer than Augustus,
his eyes are so beautiful, and he has such a lively clever expression;
BOTH have such a sweet expression; Ferdinand has something QUITE BEAUTIFUL
in his expression when he speaks and smiles, and he is SO good." However,
it was perhaps best to say that they were "both very handsome and VERY
DEAR." But shortly afterwards two more cousins arrived, who threw all the
rest into the shade. These were the Princes Ernest and Albert, sons of her
mother's eldest brother, the Duke of Saxe-Coburg. This time the Princess
was more particular in her observations. "Ernest," she remarked, "is as
tall as Ferdinand and Augustus; he has dark hair, and fine dark eyes and
eyebrows, but the nose and mouth are not good; he has a most kind, honest,
and intelligent expression in his countenance, and has a very good figure.
Albert, who is just as tall as Ernest but stouter, is extremely handsome;
his hair is about the same colour as mine; his eyes are large and blue,
and he has a beautiful nose and a very sweet mouth with fine teeth; but
the charm of his countenance is his expression, which is most delightful;
c'est a la fois full of goodness and sweetness, and very clever and
intelligent." "Both my cousins," she added, "are so kind and good; they
are much more formes and men of the world than Augustus; they speak
English very well, and I speak it with them. Ernest will be 18 years old
on the 21st of June, and Albert 17 on the 26th of August. Dear Uncle
Ernest made me the present of a most delightful Lory, which is so tame
that it remains on your hand and you may put your finger into its beak, or
do anything with it, without its ever attempting to bite. It is larger
than Mamma's grey parrot." A little later, "I sat between my dear cousins
on the sofa and we looked at drawings. They both draw very well,
particularly Albert, and are both exceedingly fond of music; they play
very nicely on the piano. The more I see them the more I am delighted with
them, and the more I love them... It is delightful to be with them; they
are so fond of being occupied too; they are quite an example for any young
person." When, after a stay of three weeks, the time came for the young
men and their father to return to Germany, the moment of parting was a
melancholy one. "It was our last HAPPY HAPPY breakfast, with this dear
Uncle and those DEAREST beloved cousins, whom I DO love so VERY VERY
dearly; MUCH MORE DEARLY than any other cousins in the WORLD. Dearly as I
love Ferdinand, and also good Augustus, I love Ernest and Albert MORE than
them, oh yes, MUCH MORE... They have both learnt a good deal, and are very
clever, naturally clever, particularly Albert, who is the most reflecting
of the two, and they like very much talking about serious and instructive
things and yet are so VERY VERY merry and gay and happy, like young people
ought to be; Albert always used to have some fun and some clever witty
answer at breakfast and everywhere; he used to play and fondle Dash so
funnily too... Dearest Albert was playing on the piano when I came down.
At 11 dear Uncle, my DEAREST BELOVED cousins, and Charles, left us,
accompanied by Count Kolowrat. I embraced both my dearest cousins most
warmly, as also my dear Uncle. I cried bitterly, very bitterly." The
Princes shared her ecstasies and her italics between them; but it is clear
enough where her secret preference lay. "Particularly Albert!" She was
just seventeen; and deep was the impression left upon that budding
organism by the young man's charm and goodness and accomplishments, and
his large blue eyes and beautiful nose, and his sweet mouth and fine
teeth.</p>
<p>IV</p>
<p>King William could not away with his sister-in-law, and the Duchess fully
returned his antipathy. Without considerable tact and considerable
forbearance their relative positions were well calculated to cause
ill-feeling; and there was very little tact in the composition of the
Duchess, and no forbearance at all in that of his Majesty. A bursting,
bubbling old gentleman, with quarterdeck gestures, round rolling eyes, and
a head like a pineapple, his sudden elevation to the throne after
fifty-six years of utter insignificance had almost sent him crazy. His
natural exuberance completely got the best of him; he rushed about doing
preposterous things in an extraordinary manner, spreading amusement and
terror in every direction, and talking all the time. His tongue was
decidedly Hanoverian, with its repetitions, its catchwords—"That's
quite another thing! That's quite another thing!"—its rattling
indomitability, its loud indiscreetness. His speeches, made repeatedly at
the most inopportune junctures, and filled pell-mell with all the fancies
and furies that happened at the moment to be whisking about in his head,
were the consternation of Ministers. He was one part blackguard, people
said, and three parts buffoon; but those who knew him better could not
help liking him—he meant well; and he was really good-humoured and
kind-hearted, if you took him the right way. If you took him the wrong
way, however, you must look out for squalls, as the Duchess of Kent
discovered.</p>
<p>She had no notion of how to deal with him—could not understand him
in the least. Occupied with her own position, her own responsibilities,
her duty, and her daughter, she had no attention to spare for the peppery
susceptibilities of a foolish, disreputable old man. She was the mother of
the heiress of England; and it was for him to recognise the fact—to
put her at once upon a proper footing—to give her the precedence of
a dowager Princess of Wales, with a large annuity from the privy purse. It
did not occur to her that such pretensions might be galling to a king who
had no legitimate child of his own, and who yet had not altogether
abandoned the hope of having one. She pressed on, with bulky vigour, along
the course she had laid out. Sir John Conroy, an Irishman with no judgment
and a great deal of self-importance, was her intimate counsellor, and
egged her on. It was advisable that Victoria should become acquainted with
the various districts of England, and through several summers a succession
of tours—in the West, in the Midlands, in Wales—were arranged
for her. The intention of the plan was excellent, but its execution was
unfortunate. The journeys, advertised in the Press, attracting
enthusiastic crowds, and involving official receptions, took on the air of
royal progresses. Addresses were presented by loyal citizens, the
delighted Duchess, swelling in sweeping feathers and almost obliterating
the diminutive Princess, read aloud, in her German accent, gracious
replies prepared beforehand by Sir John, who, bustling and ridiculous,
seemed to be mingling the roles of major-domo and Prime Minister.
Naturally the King fumed over his newspaper at Windsor. "That woman is a
nuisance!" he exclaimed. Poor Queen Adelaide, amiable though disappointed,
did her best to smooth things down, changed the subject, and wrote
affectionate letters to Victoria; but it was useless. News arrived that
the Duchess of Kent, sailing in the Solent, had insisted that whenever her
yacht appeared it should be received by royal salutes from all the
men-of-war and all the forts. The King declared that these continual
poppings must cease; the Premier and the First Lord of the Admiralty were
consulted; and they wrote privately to the Duchess, begging her to waive
her rights. But she would not hear of it; Sir John Conroy was adamant. "As
her Royal Highness's CONFIDENTIAL ADVISER," he said, "I cannot recommend
her to give way on this point." Eventually the King, in a great state of
excitement, issued a special Order in Council, prohibiting the firing of
royal salutes to any ships except those which carried the reigning
sovereign or his consort on board.</p>
<p>When King William quarrelled with his Whig Ministers the situation grew
still more embittered, for now the Duchess, in addition to her other
shortcomings, was the political partisan of his enemies. In 1836 he made
an attempt to prepare the ground for a match between the Princess Victoria
and one of the sons of the Prince of Orange, and at the same time did his
best to prevent the visit of the young Coburg princes to Kensington. He
failed in both these objects; and the only result of his efforts was to
raise the anger of the King of the Belgians, who, forgetting for a moment
his royal reserve, addressed an indignant letter on the subject to his
niece. "I am really ASTONISHED," he wrote, "at the conduct of your old
Uncle the King; this invitation of the Prince of Orange and his sons, this
forcing him on others, is very extraordinary... Not later than yesterday I
got a half-official communication from England, insinuating that it would
be HIGHLY desirable that the visit of YOUR relatives SHOULD NOT TAKE PLACE
THIS YEAR—qu'en dites-vous? The relations of the Queen and the King,
therefore, to the God-knows-what degree, are to come in shoals and rule
the land, when YOUR RELATIONS are to be FORBIDDEN the country, and that
when, as you know, the whole of your relations have ever been very dutiful
and kind to the King. Really and truly I never heard or saw anything like
it, and I hope it will a LITTLE ROUSE YOUR SPIRIT; now that slavery is
even abolished in the British Colonies, I do not comprehend WHY YOUR LOT
ALONE SHOULD BE TO BE KEPT A WHITE LITTLE SLAVEY IN ENGLAND, for the
pleasure of the Court, who never bought you, as I am not aware of their
ever having gone to any expense on that head, or the King's ever having
SPENT A SIXPENCE FOR YOUR EXISTENCE... Oh, consistency and political or
OTHER HONESTY, where must one look for you!"</p>
<p>Shortly afterwards King Leopold came to England himself, and his reception
was as cold at Windsor as it was warm at Kensington. "To hear dear Uncle
speak on any subject," the Princess wrote in her diary, "is like reading a
highly instructive book; his conversation is so enlightened, so clear. He
is universally admitted to be one of the first politicians now extant. He
speaks so mildly, yet firmly and impartially, about politics. Uncle tells
me that Belgium is quite a pattern for its organisation, its industry, and
prosperity; the finances are in the greatest perfection. Uncle is so
beloved and revered by his Belgian subjects, that it must be a great
compensation for all his extreme trouble." But her other uncle by no means
shared her sentiments. He could not, he said, put up with a water-drinker;
and King Leopold would touch no wine. "What's that you're drinking, sir?"
he asked him one day at dinner. "Water, sir." "God damn it, sir!" was the
rejoinder. "Why don't you drink wine? I never allow anybody to drink water
at my table."</p>
<p>It was clear that before very long there would be a great explosion; and
in the hot days of August it came. The Duchess and the Princess had gone
down to stay at Windsor for the King's birthday party, and the King
himself, who was in London for the day to prorogue Parliament, paid a
visit at Kensington Palace in their absence. There he found that the
Duchess had just appropriated, against his express orders, a suite of
seventeen apartments for her own use. He was extremely angry, and, when he
returned to Windsor, after greeting the Princess with affection, he
publicly rebuked the Duchess for what she had done. But this was little to
what followed. On the next day was the birthday banquet; there were a
hundred guests; the Duchess of Kent sat on the King's right hand, and the
Princess Victoria opposite. At the end of the dinner, in reply to the
toast of the King's health, he rose, and, in a long, loud, passionate
speech, poured out the vials of his wrath upon the Duchess. She had, he
declared, insulted him—grossly and continually; she had kept the
Princess away from him in the most improper manner; she was surrounded by
evil advisers, and was incompetent to act with propriety in the high
station which she filled; but he would bear it no longer; he would have
her to know he was King; he was determined that his authority should be
respected; henceforward the Princess should attend at every Court function
with the utmost regularity; and he hoped to God that his life might be
spared for six months longer, so that the calamity of a regency might be
avoided, and the functions of the Crown pass directly to the
heiress-presumptive instead of into the hands of the "person now near
him," upon whose conduct and capacity no reliance whatever could be
placed. The flood of vituperation rushed on for what seemed an
interminable period, while the Queen blushed scarlet, the Princess burst
into tears, and the hundred guests sat aghast. The Duchess said not a word
until the tirade was over and the company had retired; then in a tornado
of rage and mortification, she called for her carriage and announced her
immediate return to Kensington. It was only with the utmost difficulty
that some show of a reconciliation was patched up, and the outraged lady
was prevailed upon to put off her departure till the morrow.</p>
<p>Her troubles, however, were not over when she had shaken the dust of
Windsor from her feet. In her own household she was pursued by bitterness
and vexation of spirit. The apartments at Kensington were seething with
subdued disaffection, with jealousies and animosities virulently
intensified by long years of propinquity and spite.</p>
<p>There was a deadly feud between Sir John Conroy and Baroness Lehzen. But
that was not all. The Duchess had grown too fond of her Major-Domo. There
were familiarities, and one day the Princess Victoria discovered the fact.
She confided what she had seen to the Baroness, and to the Baroness's
beloved ally, Madame de Spath. Unfortunately, Madame de Spath could not
hold her tongue, and was actually foolish enough to reprove the Duchess;
whereupon she was instantly dismissed. It was not so easy to get rid of
the Baroness. That lady, prudent and reserved, maintained an
irreproachable demeanour. Her position was strongly entrenched; she had
managed to secure the support of the King; and Sir John found that he
could do nothing against her. But henceforward the household was divided
into two camps.(*) The Duchess supported Sir John with all the abundance
of her authority; but the Baroness, too, had an adherent who could not be
neglected. The Princess Victoria said nothing, but she had been much
attached to Madame de Spath, and she adored her Lehzen. The Duchess knew
only too well that in this horrid embroilment her daughter was against
her. Chagrin, annoyance, moral reprobation, tossed her to and fro. She did
her best to console herself with Sir John's affectionate loquacity, or
with the sharp remarks of Lady Flora Hastings, one of her maids of honour,
who had no love for the Baroness. The subject lent itself to satire; for
the pastor's daughter, with all her airs of stiff superiority, had habits
which betrayed her origin. Her passion for caraway seeds, for instance,
was uncontrollable. Little bags of them came over to her from Hanover, and
she sprinkled them on her bread and butter, her cabbage, and even her
roast beef. Lady Flora could not resist a caustic observation; it was
repeated to the Baroness, who pursed her lips in fury, and so the mischief
grew.</p>
<p>(*) Greville, IV, 21; and August 15, 1839 (unpublished).<br/>
"The cause of the Queen's alienation from the Duchess and<br/>
hatred of Conroy, the Duke (of Wellington) said, was<br/>
unquestionably owing to her having witnessed some<br/>
familiarities between them. What she had seen she repeated<br/>
to Baroness Spaeth, and Spaeth not only did not hold her<br/>
tongue, but (he thinks) remonstrated with the Duchess<br/>
herself on the subject. The consequence was that they got<br/>
rid of Spaeth, and they would have got rid of Lehzen, too,<br/>
if they had been able, but Lehzen, who knew very well what<br/>
was going on, was prudent enough not to commit herself, and<br/>
who was, besides, powerfully protected by George IV and<br/>
William IV, so that they did not dare to attempt to expel<br/>
her."<br/></p>
<p>V</p>
<p>The King had prayed that he might live till his niece was of age; and a
few days before her eighteenth birthday—the date of her legal
majority—a sudden attack of illness very nearly carried him off. He
recovered, however, and the Princess was able to go through her birthday
festivities—a state ball and a drawing-room—with unperturbed
enjoyment. "Count Zichy," she noted in her diary, "is very good-looking in
uniform, but not in plain clothes. Count Waldstein looks remarkably well
in his pretty Hungarian uniform." With the latter young gentleman she
wished to dance, but there was an insurmountable difficulty. "He could not
dance quadrilles, and, as in my station I unfortunately cannot valse and
gallop, I could not dance with him." Her birthday present from the King
was of a pleasing nature, but it led to a painful domestic scene. In spite
of the anger of her Belgian uncle, she had remained upon good terms with
her English one. He had always been very kind to her, and the fact that he
had quarrelled with her mother did not appear to be a reason for disliking
him. He was, she said, "odd, very odd and singular," but "his intentions
were often ill interpreted." He now wrote her a letter, offering her an
allowance of L10,000 a year, which he proposed should be at her own
disposal, and independent of her mother. Lord Conyngham, the Lord
Chamberlain, was instructed to deliver the letter into the Princess's own
hands. When he arrived at Kensington, he was ushered into the presence of
the Duchess and the Princess, and, when he produced the letter, the
Duchess put out her hand to take it. Lord Conyngham begged her Royal
Highness's pardon, and repeated the King's commands. Thereupon the Duchess
drew back, and the Princess took the letter. She immediately wrote to her
uncle, accepting his kind proposal. The Duchess was much displeased; L4000
a year, she said, would be quite enough for Victoria; as for the remaining
L6000, it would be only proper that she should have that herself.</p>
<p>King William had thrown off his illness, and returned to his normal life.
Once more the royal circle at Windsor—their Majesties, the elder
Princesses, and some unfortunate Ambassadress or Minister's wife—might
be seen ranged for hours round a mahogany table, while the Queen netted a
purse, and the King slept, occasionally waking from his slumbers to
observe "Exactly so, ma'am, exactly so!" But this recovery was of short
duration. The old man suddenly collapsed; with no specific symptoms
besides an extreme weakness, he yet showed no power of rallying; and it
was clear to everyone that his death was now close at hand.</p>
<p>All eyes, all thoughts, turned towards the Princess Victoria; but she
still remained, shut away in the seclusion of Kensington, a small, unknown
figure, lost in the large shadow of her mother's domination. The preceding
year had in fact been an important one in her development. The soft
tendrils of her mind had for the first time begun to stretch out towards
unchildish things. In this King Leopold encouraged her. After his return
to Brussels, he had resumed his correspondance in a more serious strain;
he discussed the details of foreign politics; he laid down the duties of
kingship; he pointed out the iniquitous foolishness of the newspaper
press. On the latter subject, indeed, he wrote with some asperity. "If all
the editors," he said, "of the papers in the countries where the liberty
of the press exists were to be assembled, we should have a crew to which
you would NOT confide a dog that you would value, still less your honour
and reputation." On the functions of a monarch, his views were
unexceptionable. "The business of the highest in a State," he wrote, "is
certainly, in my opinion, to act with great impartiality and a spirit of
justice for the good of all." At the same time the Princess's tastes were
opening out. Though she was still passionately devoted to riding and
dancing, she now began to have a genuine love of music as well, and to
drink in the roulades and arias of the Italian opera with high enthusiasm.
She even enjoyed reading poetry—at any rate, the poetry of Sir
Walter Scott.</p>
<p>When King Leopold learnt that King William's death was approaching, he
wrote several long letters of excellent advice to his niece. "In every
letter I shall write to you," he said, "I mean to repeat to you, as a
FUNDAMENTAL RULE, TO BE FIRM, AND COURAGEOUS, AND HONEST, AS YOU HAVE BEEN
TILL NOW." For the rest, in the crisis that was approaching, she was not
to be alarmed, but to trust in her "good natural sense and the TRUTH" of
her character; she was to do nothing in a hurry; to hurt no one's
amour-propre, and to continue her confidence in the Whig administration!
Not content with letters, however, King Leopold determined that the
Princess should not lack personal guidance, and sent over to her aid the
trusted friend whom, twenty years before, he had taken to his heart by the
death-bed at Claremont. Thus, once again, as if in accordance with some
preordained destiny, the figure of Stockmar is discernible—inevitably
present at a momentous hour.</p>
<p>On June 18, the King was visibly sinking. The Archbishop of Canterbury was
by his side, with all the comforts of the church. Nor did the holy words
fall upon a rebellious spirit; for many years his Majesty had been a
devout believer. "When I was a young man," he once explained at a public
banquet, "as well as I can remember, I believed in nothing but pleasure
and folly—nothing at all. But when I went to sea, got into a gale,
and saw the wonders of the mighty deep, then I believed; and I have been a
sincere Christian ever since." It was the anniversary of the Battle of
Waterloo, and the dying man remembered it. He should be glad to live, he
said, over that day; he would never see another sunset. "I hope your
Majesty may live to see many," said Dr. Chambers. "Oh! that's quite
another thing, that's quite another thing," was the answer. One other
sunset he did live to see; and he died in the early hours of the following
morning. It was on June 20, 1837.</p>
<p>When all was over, the Archbishop and the Lord Chamberlain ordered a
carriage, and drove post-haste from Windsor to Kensington. They arrived at
the Palace at five o'clock, and it was only with considerable difficulty
that they gained admittance. At six the Duchess woke up her daughter, and
told her that the Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Conyngham were there,
and wished to see her. She got out of bed, put on her dressing-gown, and
went, alone, into the room where the messengers were standing. Lord
Conyngham fell on his knees, and officially announced the death of the
King; the Archbishop added some personal details. Looking at the bending,
murmuring dignitaries before her, she knew that she was Queen of England.
"Since it has pleased Providence," she wrote that day in her journal, "to
place me in this station, I shall do my utmost to fulfil my duty towards
my country; I am very young, and perhaps in many, though not in all
things, inexperienced, but I am sure, that very few have more real good
will and more real desire to do what is fit and right than I have." But
there was scant time for resolutions and reflections. At once, affairs
were thick upon her. Stockmar came to breakfast, and gave some good
advice. She wrote a letter to her uncle Leopold, and a hurried note to her
sister Feodora. A letter came from the Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne,
announcing his approaching arrival. He came at nine, in full court dress,
and kissed her hand. She saw him alone, and repeated to him the lesson
which, no doubt, the faithful Stockmar had taught her at breakfast. "It
has long been my intention to retain your Lordship and the rest of the
present Ministry at the head of affairs;" whereupon Lord Melbourne again
kissed her hand and shortly after left her. She then wrote a letter of
condolence to Queen Adelaide. At eleven, Lord Melbourne came again; and at
half-past eleven she went downstairs into the red saloon to hold her first
Council. The great assembly of lords and notables, bishops, generals, and
Ministers of State, saw the doors thrown open and a very short, very slim
girl in deep plain mourning come into the room alone and move forward to
her seat with extraordinary dignity and grace; they saw a countenance, not
beautiful, but prepossessing—fair hair, blue prominent eyes, a small
curved nose, an open mouth revealing the upper teeth, a tiny chin, a clear
complexion, and, over all, the strangely mingled signs of innocence, of
gravity, of youth, and of composure; they heard a high unwavering voice
reading aloud with perfect clarity; and then, the ceremony was over, they
saw the small figure rise and, with the same consummate grace, the same
amazing dignity, pass out from among them, as she had come in, alone.</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003"></SPAN></p>
<h2> CHAPTER III. LORD MELBOURNE </h2>
<h3> I </h3>
<p>The new queen was almost entirely unknown to her subjects. In her public
appearances her mother had invariably dominated the scene. Her private
life had been that of a novice in a convent: hardly a human being from the
outside world had ever spoken to her; and no human being at all, except
her mother and the Baroness Lehzen, had ever been alone with her in a
room. Thus it was not only the public at large that was in ignorance of
everything concerning her; the inner circles of statesmen and officials
and high-born ladies were equally in the dark. When she suddenly emerged
from this deep obscurity, the impression that she created was immediate
and profound. Her bearing at her first Council filled the whole gathering
with astonishment and admiration; the Duke of Wellington, Sir Robert Peel,
even the savage Croker, even the cold and caustic Greville—all were
completely carried away. Everything that was reported of her subsequent
proceedings seemed to be of no less happy augury. Her perceptions were
quick, her decisions were sensible, her language was discreet; she
performed her royal duties with extraordinary facility. Among the outside
public there was a great wave of enthusiasm. Sentiment and romance were
coming into fashion; and the spectacle of the little girl-queen, innocent,
modest, with fair hair and pink cheeks, driving through her capital,
filled the hearts of the beholders with raptures of affectionate loyalty.
What, above all, struck everybody with overwhelming force was the contrast
between Queen Victoria and her uncles. The nasty old men, debauched and
selfish, pig-headed and ridiculous, with their perpetual burden of debts,
confusions, and disreputabilities—they had vanished like the snows
of winter, and here at last, crowned and radiant, was the spring. Lord
John Russell, in an elaborate oration, gave voice to the general
sentiment. He hoped that Victoria might prove an Elizabeth without her
tyranny, an Anne without her weakness. He asked England to pray that the
illustrious Princess who had just ascended the throne with the purest
intentions and the justest desires might see slavery abolished, crime
diminished, and education improved. He trusted that her people would
henceforward derive their strength, their conduct, and their loyalty from
enlightened religious and moral principles, and that, so fortified, the
reign of Victoria might prove celebrated to posterity and to all the
nations of the earth.</p>
<p>Very soon, however, there were signs that the future might turn out to be
not quite so simple and roseate as a delighted public dreamed. The
"illustrious Princess" might perhaps, after all, have something within her
which squared ill with the easy vision of a well-conducted heroine in an
edifying story-book. The purest intentions and the justest desires? No
doubt; but was that all? To those who watched closely, for instance, there
might be something ominous in the curious contour of that little mouth.
When, after her first Council, she crossed the ante-room and found her
mother waiting for her, she said, "And now, Mamma, am I really and truly
Queen?" "You see, my dear, that it is so." "Then, dear Mamma, I hope you
will grant me the first request I make to you, as Queen. Let me be by
myself for an hour." For an hour she remained in solitude. Then she
reappeared, and gave a significant order: her bed was to be moved out of
her mother's room. It was the doom of the Duchess of Kent. The long years
of waiting were over at last; the moment of a lifetime had come; her
daughter was Queen of England; and that very moment brought her own
annihilation. She found herself, absolutely and irretrievably, shut off
from every vestige of influence, of confidence, of power. She was
surrounded, indeed, by all the outward signs of respect and consideration;
but that only made the inward truth of her position the more intolerable.
Through the mingled formalities of Court etiquette and filial duty, she
could never penetrate to Victoria. She was unable to conceal her
disappointment and her rage. "Il n'y a plus d'avenir pour moi," she
exclaimed to Madame de Lieven; "je ne suis plus rien." For eighteen years,
she said, this child had been the sole object of her existence, of her
thoughts, her hopes, and now—no! she would not be comforted, she had
lost everything, she was to the last degree unhappy. Sailing, so gallantly
and so pertinaciously, through the buffeting storms of life, the stately
vessel, with sails still swelling and pennons flying, had put into harbour
at last; to find there nothing—a land of bleak desolation.</p>
<p>Within a month of the accession, the realities of the new situation
assumed a visible shape. The whole royal household moved from Kensington
to Buckingham Palace, and, in the new abode, the Duchess of Kent was given
a suite of apartments entirely separate from the Queen's. By Victoria
herself the change was welcomed, though, at the moment of departure, she
could afford to be sentimental. "Though I rejoice to go into B. P. for
many reasons," she wrote in her diary, "it is not without feelings of
regret that I shall bid adieu for ever to this my birthplace, where I have
been born and bred, and to which I am really attached!" Her memory
lingered for a moment over visions of the past: her sister's wedding,
pleasant balls and delicious concerts and there were other recollections.
"I have gone through painful and disagreeable scenes here, 'tis true," she
concluded, "but still I am fond of the poor old palace."</p>
<p>At the same time she took another decided step. She had determined that
she would see no more of Sir John Conroy. She rewarded his past services
with liberality: he was given a baronetcy and a pension of L3000 a year;
he remained a member of the Duchess's household, but his personal
intercourse with the Queen came to an abrupt conclusion.</p>
<p>II</p>
<p>It was clear that these interior changes—whatever else they might
betoken—marked the triumph of one person—the Baroness Lehzen.
The pastor's daughter observed the ruin of her enemies. Discreet and
victorious, she remained in possession of the field. More closely than
ever did she cleave to the side of her mistress, her pupil, and her
friend; and in the recesses of the palace her mysterious figure was at
once invisible and omnipresent. When the Queen's Ministers came in at one
door, the Baroness went out by another; when they retired, she immediately
returned. Nobody knew—nobody ever will know—the precise extent
and the precise nature of her influence. She herself declared that she
never discussed public affairs with the Queen, that she was concerned with
private matters only—with private letters and the details of private
life. Certainly her hand is everywhere discernible in Victoria's early
correspondence. The Journal is written in the style of a child; the
Letters are not so simple; they are the work of a child, rearranged—with
the minimum of alteration, no doubt, and yet perceptibly—by a
governess. And the governess was no fool: narrow, jealous, provincial, she
might be; but she was an acute and vigorous woman, who had gained by a
peculiar insight, a peculiar ascendancy. That ascendancy she meant to
keep. No doubt it was true that technically she took no part in public
business; but the distinction between what is public and what is private
is always a subtle one; and in the case of a reigning sovereign—as
the next few years were to show—it is often imaginary. Considering
all things—the characters of the persons, and the character of the
times—it was something more than a mere matter of private interest
that the bedroom of Baroness Lehzen at Buckingham Palace should have been
next door to the bedroom of the Queen.</p>
<p>But the influence wielded by the Baroness, supreme as it seemed within its
own sphere, was not unlimited; there were other forces at work. For one
thing, the faithful Stockmar had taken up his residence in the palace.
During the twenty years which had elapsed since the death of the Princess
Charlotte, his experiences had been varied and remarkable. The unknown
counsellor of a disappointed princeling had gradually risen to a position
of European importance. His devotion to his master had been not only whole—hearted
but cautious and wise. It was Stockmar's advice that had kept Prince
Leopold in England during the critical years which followed his wife's
death, and had thus secured to him the essential requisite of a point
d'appui in the country of his adoption. It was Stockmar's discretion which
had smoothed over the embarrassments surrounding the Prince's acceptance
and rejection of the Greek crown. It was Stockmar who had induced the
Prince to become the constitutional Sovereign of Belgium. Above all, it
was Stockmar's tact, honesty, and diplomatic skill which, through a long
series of arduous and complicated negotiations, had led to the guarantee
of Belgian neutrality by the Great Powers. His labours had been rewarded
by a German barony and by the complete confidence of King Leopold. Nor was
it only in Brussels that he was treated with respect and listened to with
attention. The statesmen who governed England—Lord Grey, Sir Robert
Peel, Lord Palmerston, Lord Melbourne—had learnt to put a high value
upon his probity and his intelligence. "He is one of the cleverest fellows
I ever saw," said Lord Melbourne, "the most discreet man, the most
well-judging, and most cool man." And Lord Palmerston cited Baron Stockmar
as the only absolutely disinterested man he had come across in life, At
last he was able to retire to Coburg, and to enjoy for a few years the
society of the wife and children whom his labours in the service of his
master had hitherto only allowed him to visit at long intervals for a
month or two at a time. But in 1836 he had been again entrusted with an
important negotiation, which he had brought to a successful conclusion in
the marriage of Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg, a nephew of King
Leopold's, with Queen Maria II of Portugal. The House of Coburg was
beginning to spread over Europe; and the establishment of the Baron at
Buckingham Palace in 1837 was to be the prelude of another and a more
momentous advance.</p>
<p>King Leopold and his counsellor provide in their careers an example of the
curious diversity of human ambitions. The desires of man are wonderfully
various; but no less various are the means by which those desires may
reach satisfaction: and so the work of the world gets done. The correct
mind of Leopold craved for the whole apparatus of royalty. Mere power
would have held no attractions for him; he must be an actual king—the
crowned head of a people. It was not enough to do; it was essential also
to be recognised; anything else would not be fitting. The greatness that
he dreamt of was surrounded by every appropriate circumstance. To be a
Majesty, to be a cousin of Sovereigns, to marry a Bourbon for diplomatic
ends, to correspond with the Queen of England, to be very stiff and very
punctual, to found a dynasty, to bore ambassadresses into fits, to live,
on the highest pinnacle, an exemplary life devoted to the public service—such
were his objects, and such, in fact, were his achievements. The "Marquis
Peu-a-peu," as George IV called him, had what he wanted. But this would
never have been the case if it had not happened that the ambition of
Stockmar took a form exactly complementary to his own. The sovereignty
that the Baron sought for was by no means obvious. The satisfaction of his
essential being lay in obscurity, in invisibility—in passing,
unobserved, through a hidden entrance, into the very central chamber of
power, and in sitting there, quietly, pulling the subtle strings that set
the wheels of the whole world in motion. A very few people, in very high
places, and exceptionally well-informed, knew that Baron Stockmar was a
most important person: that was enough. The fortunes of the master and the
servant, intimately interacting, rose together. The Baron's secret skill
had given Leopold his unexceptionable kingdom; and Leopold, in his turn,
as time went on, was able to furnish the Baron with more and more keys to
more and more back doors.</p>
<p>Stockmar took up his abode in the Palace partly as the emissary of King
Leopold, but more particularly as the friend and adviser of a queen who
was almost a child, and who, no doubt, would be much in need of advice and
friendship. For it would be a mistake to suppose that either of these two
men was actuated by a vulgar selfishness. The King, indeed, was very well
aware on which side his bread was buttered; during an adventurous and
chequered life he had acquired a shrewd knowledge of the world's workings;
and he was ready enough to use that knowledge to strengthen his position
and to spread his influence. But then, the firmer his position and the
wider his influence, the better for Europe; of that he was quite certain.
And besides, he was a constitutional monarch; and it would be highly
indecorous in a constitutional monarch to have any aims that were low or
personal.</p>
<p>As for Stockmar, the disinterestedness which Palmerston had noted was
undoubtedly a basic element in his character. The ordinary schemer is
always an optimist; and Stockmar, racked by dyspepsia and haunted by
gloomy forebodings, was a constitutionally melancholy man. A schemer, no
doubt, he was; but he schemed distrustfully, splenetically, to do good. To
do good! What nobler end could a man scheme for? Yet it is perilous to
scheme at all.</p>
<p>With Lehzen to supervise every detail of her conduct, with Stockmar in the
next room, so full of wisdom and experience of affairs, with her Uncle
Leopold's letters, too, pouring out so constantly their stream of
encouragements, general reflections, and highly valuable tips, Victoria,
even had she been without other guidance, would have stood in no lack of
private counsellor. But other guidance she had; for all these influences
paled before a new star, of the first magnitude, which, rising suddenly
upon her horizon, immediately dominated her life.</p>
<p>III</p>
<p>William Lamb, Viscount Melbourne, was fifty-eight years of age, and had
been for the last three years Prime Minister of England. In every outward
respect he was one of the most fortunate of mankind. He had been born into
the midst of riches, brilliance, and power. His mother, fascinating and
intelligent, had been a great Whig hostess, and he had been bred up as a
member of that radiant society which, during the last quarter of the
eighteenth century, concentrated within itself the ultimate perfections of
a hundred years of triumphant aristocracy. Nature had given him beauty and
brains; the unexpected death of an elder brother brought him wealth, a
peerage, and the possibility of high advancement. Within that charmed
circle, whatever one's personal disabilities, it was difficult to fail;
and to him, with all his advantages, success was well-nigh unavoidable.
With little effort, he attained political eminence. On the triumph of the
Whigs he became one of the leading members of the Government; and when
Lord Grey retired from the premiership he quietly stepped into the vacant
place. Nor was it only in the visible signs of fortune that Fate had been
kind to him. Bound to succeed, and to succeed easily, he was gifted with
so fine a nature that his success became him. His mind, at once supple and
copious, his temperament, at once calm and sensitive, enabled him not
merely to work, but to live with perfect facility and with the grace of
strength. In society he was a notable talker, a captivating companion, a
charming man. If one looked deeper, one saw at once that he was not
ordinary, that the piquancies of his conversation and his manner—his
free-and-easy vaguenesses, his abrupt questions, his lollings and
loungings, his innumerable oaths—were something more than an amusing
ornament, were the outward manifestation of an individuality that was
fundamental.</p>
<p>The precise nature of this individuality was very difficult to gauge: it
was dubious, complex, perhaps self—contradictory. Certainly there
was an ironical discordance between the inner history of the man and his
apparent fortunes. He owed all he had to his birth, and his birth was
shameful; it was known well enough that his mother had passionately loved
Lord Egremont, and that Lord Melbourne was not his father. His marriage,
which had seemed to be the crown of his youthful ardours, was a long,
miserable, desperate failure: the incredible Lady Caroline, "With
pleasures too refined to please, With too much spirit to be e'er at ease,
With too much quickness to be ever taught, With too much thinking to have
common thought," was very nearly the destruction of his life. When at last
he emerged from the anguish and confusion of her folly, her extravagance,
her rage, her despair, and her devotion, he was left alone with endless
memories of intermingled farce and tragedy, and an only son, who was an
imbecile. But there was something else that he owed to Lady Caroline.
While she whirled with Byron in a hectic frenzy of love and fashion, he
had stayed at home in an indulgence bordering on cynicism, and occupied
his solitude with reading. It was thus that he had acquired those habits
of study, that love of learning, and that wide and accurate knowledge of
ancient and modern literature, which formed so unexpected a part of his
mental equipment. His passion for reading never deserted him; even when he
was Prime Minister he found time to master every new important book. With
an incongruousness that was characteristic, his favourite study was
theology. An accomplished classical scholar, he was deeply read in the
Fathers of the Church; heavy volumes of commentary and exegesis he
examined with scrupulous diligence; and at any odd moment he might be
found turning over the pages of the Bible. To the ladies whom he most
liked, he would lend some learned work on the Revelation, crammed with
marginal notes in his own hand, or Dr. Lardner's "Observations upon the
Jewish Errors with respect to the Conversion of Mary Magdalene." The more
pious among them had high hopes that these studies would lead him into the
right way; but of this there were no symptoms in his after-dinner
conversations.</p>
<p>The paradox of his political career was no less curious. By temperament an
aristocrat, by conviction a conservative, he came to power as the leader
of the popular party, the party of change. He had profoundly disliked the
Reform Bill, which he had only accepted at last as a necessary evil; and
the Reform Bill lay at the root of the very existence, of the very
meaning, of his government. He was far too sceptical to believe in
progress of any kind. Things were best as they were or rather, they were
least bad. "You'd better try to do no good," was one of his dictums, "and
then you'll get into no scrapes." Education at best was futile; education
of the poor was positively dangerous. The factory children? "Oh, if you'd
only have the goodness to leave them alone!" Free Trade was a delusion;
the ballot was nonsense; and there was no such thing as a democracy.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, he was not a reactionary; he was simply an opportunist. The
whole duty of government, he said, was "to prevent crime and to preserve
contracts." All one could really hope to do was to carry on. He himself
carried on in a remarkable manner—with perpetual compromises, with
fluctuations and contradictions, with every kind of weakness, and yet with
shrewdness, with gentleness, even with conscientiousness, and a light and
airy mastery of men and of events. He conducted the transactions of
business with extraordinary nonchalance. Important persons, ushered up for
some grave interview, found him in a towselled bed, littered with books
and papers, or vaguely shaving in a dressing-room; but, when they went
downstairs again, they would realise that somehow or other they had been
pumped. When he had to receive a deputation, he could hardly ever do so
with becoming gravity. The worthy delegates of the tallow-chandlers, or
the Society for the Abolition of Capital Punishment, were distressed and
mortified when, in the midst of their speeches, the Prime Minister became
absorbed in blowing a feather, or suddenly cracked an unseemly joke. How
could they have guessed that he had spent the night before diligently
getting up the details of their case? He hated patronage and the making of
appointments—a feeling rare in Ministers. "As for the Bishops," he
burst out, "I positively believe they die to vex me." But when at last the
appointment was made, it was made with keen discrimination. His colleagues
observed another symptom—was it of his irresponsibility or his
wisdom? He went to sleep in the Cabinet.</p>
<p>Probably, if he had been born a little earlier, he would have been a
simpler and a happier man. As it was, he was a child of the eighteenth
century whose lot was cast in a new, difficult, unsympathetic age. He was
an autumn rose. With all his gracious amenity, his humour, his
happy-go-lucky ways, a deep disquietude possessed him. A sentimental
cynic, a sceptical believer, he was restless and melancholy at heart.
Above all, he could never harden himself; those sensitive petals shivered
in every wind. Whatever else he might be, one thing was certain: Lord
Melbourne was always human, supremely human—too human, perhaps.</p>
<p>And now, with old age upon him, his life took a sudden, new, extraordinary
turn. He became, in the twinkling of an eye, the intimate adviser and the
daily companion of a young girl who had stepped all at once from a nursery
to a throne. His relations with women had been, like everything else about
him, ambiguous. Nobody had ever been able quite to gauge the shifting,
emotional complexities of his married life; Lady Caroline vanished; but
his peculiar susceptibilities remained. Female society of some kind or
other was necessary to him, and he did not stint himself; a great part of
every day was invariably spent in it. The feminine element in him made it
easy, made it natural and inevitable for him to be the friend of a great
many women; but the masculine element in him was strong as well. In such
circumstances it is also easy, it is even natural, perhaps it is even
inevitable, to be something more than a friend. There were rumours and
combustions. Lord Melbourne was twice a co-respondent in a divorce action;
but on each occasion he won his suit. The lovely Lady Brandon, the unhappy
and brilliant Mrs. Norton... the law exonerated them both. Beyond that
hung an impenetrable veil. But at any rate it was clear that, with such a
record, the Prime Minister's position in Buckingham Palace must be a
highly delicate one. However, he was used to delicacies, and he met the
situation with consummate success. His behaviour was from the first moment
impeccable. His manner towards the young Queen mingled, with perfect
facility, the watchfulness and the respect of a statesman and a courtier
with the tender solicitude of a parent. He was at once reverential and
affectionate, at once the servant and the guide. At the same time the
habits of his life underwent a surprising change. His comfortable,
unpunctual days became subject to the unaltering routine of a palace; no
longer did he sprawl on sofas; not a single "damn" escaped his lips. The
man of the world who had been the friend of Byron and the regent, the
talker whose paradoxes had held Holland House enthralled, the cynic whose
ribaldries had enlivened so many deep potations, the lover whose soft
words had captivated such beauty and such passion and such wit, might now
be seen, evening after evening, talking with infinite politeness to a
schoolgirl, bolt upright, amid the silence and the rigidity of Court
etiquette.</p>
<p>IV</p>
<p>On her side, Victoria was instantaneously fascinated by Lord Melbourne.
The good report of Stockmar had no doubt prepared the way; Lehzen was
wisely propitiated; and the first highly favourable impression was never
afterwards belied. She found him perfect; and perfect in her sight he
remained. Her absolute and unconcealed adoration was very natural; what
innocent young creature could have resisted, in any circumstances, the
charm and the devotion of such a man? But, in her situation, there was a
special influence which gave a peculiar glow to all she felt. After years
of emptiness and dullness and suppression, she had come suddenly, in the
heyday of youth, into freedom and power. She was mistress of herself, of
great domains and palaces; she was Queen of England. Responsibilities and
difficulties she might have, no doubt, and in heavy measure; but one
feeling dominated and absorbed all others—the feeling of joy.
Everything pleased her. She was in high spirits from morning till night.
Mr. Creevey, grown old now, and very near his end, catching a glimpse of
her at Brighton, was much amused, in his sharp fashion, by the ingenuous
gaiety of "little Vic." "A more homely little being you never beheld, when
she is at her ease, and she is evidently dying to be always more so. She
laughs in real earnest, opening her mouth as wide as it can go, showing
not very pretty gums... She eats quite as heartily as she laughs, I think
I may say she gobbles... She blushes and laughs every instant in so
natural a way as to disarm anybody." But it was not merely when she was
laughing or gobbling that she enjoyed herself; the performance of her
official duties gave her intense satisfaction. "I really have immensely to
do," she wrote in her Journal a few days after her accession; "I receive
so many communications from my Ministers, but I like it very much." And
again, a week later, "I repeat what I said before that I have so many
communications from the Ministers, and from me to them, and I get so many
papers to sign every day, that I have always a very great deal to do. I
delight in this work." Through the girl's immaturity the vigorous
predestined tastes of the woman were pushing themselves into existence
with eager velocity, with delicious force.</p>
<p>One detail of her happy situation deserves particular mention. Apart from
the splendour of her social position and the momentousness of her
political one, she was a person of great wealth. As soon as Parliament
met, an annuity of L385,000 was settled upon her. When the expenses of her
household had been discharged, she was left with L68,000 a year of her
own. She enjoyed besides the revenues of the Duchy of Lancaster, which
amounted annually to over L27,000. The first use to which she put her
money was characteristic: she paid off her father's debts. In money
matters, no less than in other matters, she was determined to be correct.
She had the instincts of a man of business; and she never could have borne
to be in a position that was financially unsound.</p>
<p>With youth and happiness gilding every hour, the days passed merrily
enough. And each day hinged upon Lord Melbourne. Her diary shows us, with
undiminished clarity, the life of the young sovereign during the early
months of her reign—a life satisfactorily regular, full of
delightful business, a life of simple pleasures, mostly physical—riding,
eating, dancing—a quick, easy, highly unsophisticated life,
sufficient unto itself. The light of the morning is upon it; and, in the
rosy radiance, the figure of "Lord M." emerges, glorified and supreme. If
she is the heroine of the story, he is the hero; but indeed they are more
than hero and heroine, for there are no other characters at all. Lehzen,
the Baron, Uncle Leopold, are unsubstantial shadows—the incidental
supers of the piece. Her paradise was peopled by two persons, and surely
that was enough. One sees them together still, a curious couple, strangely
united in those artless pages, under the magical illumination of that dawn
of eighty years ago: the polished high fine gentleman with the whitening
hair and whiskers and the thick dark eyebrows and the mobile lips and the
big expressive eyes; and beside him the tiny Queen—fair, slim,
elegant, active, in her plain girl's dress and little tippet, looking up
at him earnestly, adoringly, with eyes blue and projecting, and half-open
mouth. So they appear upon every page of the Journal; upon every page Lord
M. is present, Lord M. is speaking, Lord M. is being amusing, instructive,
delightful, and affectionate at once, while Victoria drinks in the honied
words, laughs till she shows her gums, tries hard to remember, and runs
off, as soon as she is left alone, to put it all down. Their long
conversations touched upon a multitude of topics. Lord M. would criticise
books, throw out a remark or two on the British Constitution, make some
passing reflections on human life, and tell story after story of the great
people of the eighteenth century. Then there would be business a despatch
perhaps from Lord Durham in Canada, which Lord M. would read. But first he
must explain a little. "He said that I must know that Canada originally
belonged to the French, and was only ceded to the English in 1760, when it
was taken in an expedition under Wolfe: 'a very daring enterprise,' he
said. Canada was then entirely French, and the British only came
afterwards... Lord M. explained this very clearly (and much better than I
have done) and said a good deal more about it. He then read me Durham's
despatch, which is a very long one and took him more than 1/2 an hour to
read. Lord M. read it beautifully with that fine soft voice of his, and
with so much expression, so that it is needless to say I was much
interested by it." And then the talk would take a more personal turn. Lord
M. would describe his boyhood, and she would learn that "he wore his hair
long, as all boys then did, till he was 17; (how handsome he must have
looked!)." Or she would find out about his queer tastes and habits—how
he never carried a watch, which seemed quite extraordinary. "'I always ask
the servant what o'clock it is, and then he tells me what he likes,' said
Lord M." Or, as the rooks wheeled about round the trees, "in a manner
which indicated rain," he would say that he could sit looking at them for
an hour, and "was quite surprised at my disliking them. M. said, 'The
rooks are my delight.'"</p>
<p>The day's routine, whether in London or at Windsor, was almost invariable.
The morning was devoted to business and Lord M. In the afternoon the whole
Court went out riding. The Queen, in her velvet riding—habit and a
top-hat with a veil draped about the brim, headed the cavalcade; and Lord
M. rode beside her. The lively troupe went fast and far, to the extreme
exhilaration of Her Majesty. Back in the Palace again, there was still
time for a little more fun before dinner—a game of battledore and
shuttlecock perhaps, or a romp along the galleries with some children.
Dinner came, and the ceremonial decidedly tightened. The gentleman of
highest rank sat on the right hand of the Queen; on her left—it soon
became an established rule—sat Lord Melbourne. After the ladies had
left the dining-room, the gentlemen were not permitted to remain behind
for very long; indeed, the short time allowed them for their wine-drinking
formed the subject—so it was rumoured—of one of the very few
disputes between the Queen and her Prime Minister;(*) but her
determination carried the day, and from that moment after-dinner
drunkenness began to go out of fashion. When the company was reassembled
in the drawing-room the etiquette was stiff. For a few moments the Queen
spoke in turn to each one of her guests; and during these short uneasy
colloquies the aridity of royalty was apt to become painfully evident. One
night Mr. Greville, the Clerk of the Privy Council, was present; his turn
soon came; the middle-aged, hard-faced viveur was addressed by his young
hostess. "Have you been riding to-day, Mr. Greville?" asked the Queen.
"No, Madam, I have not," replied Mr. Greville. "It was a fine day,"
continued the Queen. "Yes, Madam, a very fine day," said Mr. Greville. "It
was rather cold, though," said the Queen. "It was rather cold, Madam,"
said Mr. Greville. "Your sister, Lady Frances Egerton, rides, I think,
doesn't she?" said the Queen. "She does ride sometimes, Madam," said Mr.
Greville. There was a pause, after which Mr. Greville ventured to take the
lead, though he did not venture to change the subject. "Has your Majesty
been riding today?" asked Mr. Greville. "Oh yes, a very long ride,"
answered the Queen with animation. "Has your Majesty got a nice horse?"
said Mr. Greville. "Oh, a very nice horse," said the Queen. It was over.
Her Majesty gave a smile and an inclination of the head, Mr. Greville a
profound bow, and the next conversation began with the next gentleman.
When all the guests had been disposed of, the Duchess of Kent sat down to
her whist, while everybody else was ranged about the round table. Lord
Melbourne sat beside the Queen, and talked pertinaciously—very often
a propos to the contents of one of the large albums of engravings with
which the round table was covered—until it was half-past eleven and
time to go to bed.</p>
<p>(*) The Duke of Bedford told Greville he was "sure there was<br/>
a battle between her and Melbourne... He is sure there was<br/>
one about the men's sitting after dinner, for he heard her<br/>
say to him rather angrily, 'it is a horrid custom-' but when<br/>
the ladies left the room (he dined there) directions were<br/>
given that the men should remain five minutes longer."<br/>
Greville Memoirs, February 26, 1840 (unpublished).<br/></p>
<p>Occasionally, there were little diversions: the evening might be spent at
the opera or at the play. Next morning the royal critic was careful to
note down her impressions. "It was Shakespeare's tragedy of Hamlet, and we
came in at the beginning of it. Mr. Charles Kean (son of old Kean) acted
the part of Hamlet, and I must say beautifully. His conception of this
very difficult, and I may almost say incomprehensible, character is
admirable; his delivery of all the fine long speeches quite beautiful; he
is excessively graceful and all his actions and attitudes are good, though
not at all good-looking in face... I came away just as Hamlet was over."
Later on, she went to see Macready in King Lear. The story was new to her;
she knew nothing about it, and at first she took very little interest in
what was passing on the stage; she preferred to chatter and laugh with the
Lord Chamberlain. But, as the play went on, her mood changed; her
attention was fixed, and then she laughed no more. Yet she was puzzled; it
seemed a strange, a horrible business. What did Lord M. think? Lord M.
thought it was a very fine play, but to be sure, "a rough, coarse play,
written for those times, with exaggerated characters." "I'm glad you've
seen it," he added. But, undoubtedly, the evenings which she enjoyed most
were those on which there was dancing. She was always ready enough to
seize any excuse—the arrival of cousins—a birthday—a
gathering of young people—to give the command for that. Then, when
the band played, and the figures of the dancers swayed to the music, and
she felt her own figure swaying too, with youthful spirits so close on
every side—then her happiness reached its height, her eyes sparkled,
she must go on and on into the small hours of the morning. For a moment
Lord M. himself was forgotten.</p>
<p>V</p>
<p>The months flew past. The summer was over: "the pleasantest summer I EVER
passed in MY LIFE, and I shall never forget this first summer of my
reign." With surprising rapidity, another summer was upon her. The
coronation came and went—a curious dream. The antique, intricate,
endless ceremonial worked itself out as best it could, like some machine
of gigantic complexity which was a little out of order. The small central
figure went through her gyrations. She sat; she walked; she prayed; she
carried about an orb that was almost too heavy to hold; the Archbishop of
Canterbury came and crushed a ring upon the wrong finger, so that she was
ready to cry out with the pain; old Lord Rolle tripped up in his mantle
and fell down the steps as he was doing homage; she was taken into a side
chapel, where the altar was covered with a table-cloth, sandwiches, and
bottles of wine; she perceived Lehzen in an upper box and exchanged a
smile with her as she sat, robed and crowned, on the Confessor's throne.
"I shall ever remember this day as the PROUDEST of my life," she noted.
But the pride was soon merged once more in youth and simplicity. When she
returned to Buckingham Palace at last she was not tired; she ran up to her
private rooms, doffed her splendours, and gave her dog Dash its evening
bath.</p>
<p>Life flowed on again with its accustomed smoothness—though, of
course, the smoothness was occasionally disturbed. For one thing, there
was the distressing behaviour of Uncle Leopold. The King of the Belgians
had not been able to resist attempting to make use of his family position
to further his diplomatic ends. But, indeed, why should there be any
question of resisting? Was not such a course of conduct, far from being a
temptation, simply "selon les regles?" What were royal marriages for, if
they did not enable sovereigns, in spite of the hindrances of
constitutions, to control foreign politics? For the highest purposes, of
course; that was understood. The Queen of England was his niece—more
than that—almost his daughter; his confidential agent was living, in
a position of intimate favour, at her court. Surely, in such
circumstances, it would be preposterous, it would be positively incorrect,
to lose the opportunity of bending to his wishes by means of personal
influence, behind the backs of the English Ministers, the foreign policy
of England.</p>
<p>He set about the task with becoming precautions. He continued in his
letters his admirable advice. Within a few days of her accession, he
recommended the young Queen to lay emphasis, on every possible occasion,
upon her English birth; to praise the English nation; "the Established
Church I also recommend strongly; you cannot, without PLEDGING yourself to
anything PARTICULAR, SAY TOO MUCH ON THE SUBJECT." And then "before you
decide on anything important I should be glad if you would consult me;
this would also have the advantage of giving you time;" nothing was more
injurious than to be hurried into wrong decisions unawares. His niece
replied at once with all the accustomed warmth of her affection; but she
wrote hurriedly—and, perhaps, a trifle vaguely too. "YOUR advice is
always of the GREATEST IMPORTANCE to me," she said.</p>
<p>Had he, possibly, gone too far? He could not be certain; perhaps Victoria
HAD been hurried. In any case, he would be careful; he would draw back—"pour
mieux sauter" he added to himself with a smile. In his next letters he
made no reference to his suggestion of consultations with himself; he
merely pointed out the wisdom, in general, of refusing to decide upon
important questions off-hand. So far, his advice was taken; and it was
noticed that the Queen, when applications were made to her, rarely gave an
immediate answer. Even with Lord Melbourne, it was the same; when he asked
for her opinion upon any subject, she would reply that she would think it
over, and tell him her conclusions next day.</p>
<p>King Leopold's counsels continued. The Princess de Lieven, he said, was a
dangerous woman; there was reason to think that she would make attempts to
pry into what did not concern her, let Victoria beware. "A rule which I
cannot sufficiently recommend is NEVER TO PERMIT people to speak on
subjects concerning yourself or your affairs, without you having yourself
desired them to do so." Should such a thing occur, "change the
conversation, and make the individual feel that he has made a mistake."
This piece of advice was also taken; for it fell out as the King had
predicted. Madame de Lieven sought an audience, and appeared to be verging
towards confidential topics; whereupon the Queen, becoming slightly
embarrassed, talked of nothing but commonplaces. The individual felt that
she had made a mistake.</p>
<p>The King's next warning was remarkable. Letters, he pointed out, are
almost invariably read in the post. This was inconvenient, no doubt; but
the fact, once properly grasped, was not without its advantages. "I will
give you an example: we are still plagued by Prussia concerning those
fortresses; now to tell the Prussian Government many things, which we
SHOULD NOT LIKE to tell them officially, the Minister is going to write a
despatch to our man at Berlin, sending it BY POST; the Prussians ARE SURE
to read it, and to learn in this way what we wish them to hear. Analogous
circumstances might very probably occur in England. I tell you the TRICK,"
wrote His Majesty, "that you should be able to guard against it." Such
were the subtleties of constitutional sovereignty.</p>
<p>It seemed that the time had come for another step. The King's next letter
was full of foreign politics—the situation in Spain and Portugal,
the character of Louis Philippe; and he received a favourable answer.
Victoria, it is true, began by saying that she had shown the POLITICAL
PART of his letter to Lord Melbourne; but she proceeded to a discussion of
foreign affairs. It appeared that she was not unwilling to exchange
observations on such matters with her uncle. So far so good. But King
Leopold was still cautious; though a crisis was impending in his
diplomacy, he still hung back; at last, however, he could keep silence no
longer. It was of the utmost importance to him that, in his manoeuvrings
with France and Holland, he should have, or at any rate appear to have,
English support. But the English Government appeared to adopt a neutral
attitude; it was too bad; not to be for him was to be against him, could
they not see that? Yet, perhaps, they were only wavering, and a little
pressure upon them from Victoria might still save all. He determined to
put the case before her, delicately yet forcibly—just as he saw it
himself. "All I want from your kind Majesty," he wrote, "is, that you will
OCCASIONALLY express to your Ministers, and particularly to good Lord
Melbourne, that, as far as it is COMPATIBLE with the interests of your own
dominions, you do NOT wish that your Government should take the lead in
such measures as might in a short time bring on the DESTRUCTION of this
country, as well as that of your uncle and his family." The result of this
appeal was unexpected; there was dead silence for more than a week. When
Victoria at last wrote, she was prodigal of her affection. "It would,
indeed, my dearest Uncle, be VERY WRONG of you, if you thought my feelings
of warm and devoted attachment to you, and of great affection for you,
could be changed—nothing can ever change them"—but her
references to foreign politics, though they were lengthy and elaborate,
were non-committal in the extreme; they were almost cast in an official
and diplomatic form. Her Ministers, she said, entirely shared her views
upon the subject; she understood and sympathised with the difficulties of
her beloved uncle's position; and he might rest assured "that both Lord
Melbourne and Lord Palmerston are most anxious at all times for the
prosperity and welfare of Belgium." That was all. The King in his reply
declared himself delighted, and re-echoed the affectionate protestations
of his niece. "My dearest and most beloved Victoria," he said, "you have
written me a VERY DEAR and long letter, which has given me GREAT PLEASURE
AND SATISFACTION." He would not admit that he had had a rebuff.</p>
<p>A few months later the crisis came. King Leopold determined to make a bold
push, and to carry Victoria with him, this time, by a display of royal
vigour and avuncular authority. In an abrupt, an almost peremptory letter,
he laid his case, once more, before his niece. "You know from experience,"
he wrote, "that I NEVER ASK ANYTHING OF YOU... But, as I said before, if
we are not careful we may see serious consequences which may affect more
or less everybody, and THIS ought to be the object of our most anxious
attention. I remain, my dear Victoria, your affectionate uncle, Leopold
R." The Queen immediately despatched this letter to Lord Melbourne, who
replied with a carefully thought-out form of words, signifying nothing
whatever, which, he suggested, she should send to her uncle. She did so,
copying out the elaborate formula, with a liberal scattering of "dear
Uncles" interspersed; and she concluded her letter with a message of
"affectionate love to Aunt Louise and the children." Then at last King
Leopold was obliged to recognise the facts. His next letter contained no
reference at all to politics. "I am glad," he wrote, "to find that you
like Brighton better than last year. I think Brighton very agreeable at
this time of the year, till the east winds set in. The pavilion, besides,
is comfortable; that cannot be denied. Before my marriage, it was there
that I met the Regent. Charlotte afterwards came with old Queen Charlotte.
How distant all this already, but still how present to one's memory." Like
poor Madame de Lieven, His Majesty felt that he had made a mistake.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, he could not quite give up all hope. Another opportunity
offered, and he made another effort—but there was not very much
conviction in it, and it was immediately crushed. "My dear Uncle," the
Queen wrote, "I have to thank you for your last letter which I received on
Sunday. Though you seem not to dislike my political sparks, I think it is
better not to increase them, as they might finally take fire, particularly
as I see with regret that upon this one subject we cannot agree. I shall,
therefore, limit myself to my expressions of very sincere wishes for the
welfare and prosperity of Belgium." After that, it was clear that there
was no more to be said. Henceforward there is audible in the King's
letters a curiously elegiac note. "My dearest Victoria, your DELIGHTFUL
little letter has just arrived and went like AN ARROW TO MY HEART. Yes, my
beloved Victoria! I DO LOVE YOU TENDERLY... I love you FOR YOURSELF, and I
love in you the dear child whose welfare I tenderly watched." He had gone
through much; yet, if life had its disappointments, it had its
satisfactions too. "I have all the honours that can be given, and I am,
politically speaking, very solidly established." But there were other
things besides politics, there were romantic yearnings in his heart. "The
only longing I still have is for the Orient, where I perhaps shall once
end my life, rising in the west and setting in the east." As for his
devotion to his niece, that could never end. "I never press my services on
you, nor my councils, though I may say with some truth that from the
extraordinary fate which the higher powers had ordained for me, my
experience, both political and of private life, is great. I am ALWAYS
READY to be useful to you when and where and it may be, and I repeat it,
ALL I WANT IN RETURN IS SOME LITTLE SINCERE AFFECTION FROM YOU."</p>
<p>VI</p>
<p>The correspondence with King Leopold was significant of much that still
lay partly hidden in the character of Victoria. Her attitude towards her
uncle had never wavered for a moment. To all his advances she had
presented an absolutely unyielding front. The foreign policy of England
was not his province; it was hers and her Ministers'; his insinuations,
his entreaties, his struggles—all were quite useless; and he must
understand that this was so. The rigidity of her position was the more
striking owing to the respectfulness and the affection with which it was
accompanied. From start to finish the unmoved Queen remained the devoted
niece. Leopold himself must have envied such perfect correctitude; but
what may be admirable in an elderly statesman is alarming in a maiden of
nineteen. And privileged observers were not without their fears. The
strange mixture of ingenuous light-heartedness and fixed determination, of
frankness and reticence, of childishness and pride, seemed to augur a
future that was perplexed and full of dangers. As time passed the less
pleasant qualities in this curious composition revealed themselves more
often and more seriously. There were signs of an imperious, a peremptory
temper, an egotism that was strong and hard. It was noticed that the
palace etiquette, far from relaxing, grew ever more and more inflexible.
By some, this was attributed to Lehzen's influence; but, if that was so,
Lehzen had a willing pupil; for the slightest infringements of the
freezing rules of regularity and deference were invariably and immediately
visited by the sharp and haughty glances of the Queen. Yet Her Majesty's
eyes, crushing as they could be, were less crushing than her mouth. The
self-will depicted in those small projecting teeth and that small receding
chin was of a more dismaying kind than that which a powerful jaw betokens;
it was a self—will imperturbable, impenetrable, unintelligent; a
self-will dangerously akin to obstinacy. And the obstinacy of monarchs is
not as that of other men.</p>
<p>Within two years of her accession, the storm-clouds which, from the first,
had been dimly visible on the horizon, gathered and burst. Victoria's
relations with her mother had not improved. The Duchess of Kent, still
surrounded by all the galling appearances of filial consideration,
remained in Buckingham Palace a discarded figure, powerless and
inconsolable. Sir John Conroy, banished from the presence of the Queen,
still presided over the Duchess's household, and the hostilities of
Kensington continued unabated in the new surroundings. Lady Flora Hastings
still cracked her malicious jokes; the animosity of the Baroness was still
unappeased. One day, Lady Flora found the joke was turned against her.
Early in 1839, travelling in the suite of the Duchess, she had returned
from Scotland in the same carriage with Sir John. A change in her figure
became the subject of an unseemly jest; tongues wagged; and the jest grew
serious. It was whispered that Lady Flora was with child. The state of her
health seemed to confirm the suspicion; she consulted Sir James Clark, the
royal physician, and, after the consultation, Sir James let his tongue
wag, too. On this, the scandal flared up sky-high. Everyone was talking;
the Baroness was not surprised; the Duchess rallied tumultuously to the
support of her lady; the Queen was informed. At last the extraordinary
expedient of a medical examination was resorted to, during which Sir
James, according to Lady Flora, behaved with brutal rudeness, while a
second doctor was extremely polite. Finally, both physicians signed a
certificate entirely exculpating the lady. But this was by no means the
end of the business. The Hastings family, socially a very powerful one,
threw itself into the fray with all the fury of outraged pride and injured
innocence; Lord Hastings insisted upon an audience of the Queen, wrote to
the papers, and demanded the dismissal of Sir James Clark. The Queen
expressed her regret to Lady Flora, but Sir James Clark was not dismissed.
The tide of opinion turned violently against the Queen and her advisers;
high society was disgusted by all this washing of dirty linen in
Buckingham Palace; the public at large was indignant at the ill-treatment
of Lady Flora. By the end of March, the popularity, so radiant and so
abundant, with which the young Sovereign had begun her reign, had entirely
disappeared.</p>
<p>There can be no doubt that a great lack of discretion had been shown by
the Court. Ill-natured tittle-tattle, which should have been instantly
nipped in the bud, had been allowed to assume disgraceful proportions; and
the Throne itself had become involved in the personal malignities of the
palace. A particularly awkward question had been raised by the position of
Sir James Clark. The Duke of Wellington, upon whom it was customary to
fall back, in cases of great difficulty in high places, had been consulted
upon this question, and he had given it as his opinion that, as it would
be impossible to remove Sir James without a public enquiry, Sir James must
certainly stay where he was. Probably the Duke was right; but the fact
that the peccant doctor continued in the Queen's service made the Hastings
family irreconcilable and produced an unpleasant impression of unrepentant
error upon the public mind. As for Victoria, she was very young and quite
inexperienced; and she can hardly be blamed for having failed to control
an extremely difficult situation. That was clearly Lord Melbourne's task;
he was a man of the world, and, with vigilance and circumspection, he
might have quietly put out the ugly flames while they were still
smouldering. He did not do so; he was lazy and easy-going; the Baroness
was persistent, and he let things slide. But doubtless his position was
not an easy one; passions ran high in the palace; and Victoria was not
only very young, she was very headstrong, too. Did he possess the magic
bridle which would curb that fiery steed? He could not be certain. And
then, suddenly, another violent crisis revealed more unmistakably than
ever the nature of the mind with which he had to deal.</p>
<p>VII</p>
<p>The Queen had for long been haunted by a terror that the day might come
when she would be obliged to part with her Minister. Ever since the
passage of the Reform Bill, the power of the Whig Government had steadily
declined. The General Election of 1837 had left them with a very small
majority in the House of Commons; since then, they had been in constant
difflculties—abroad, at home, in Ireland; the Radical group had
grown hostile; it became highly doubtful how much longer they could
survive. The Queen watched the development of events in great anxiety. She
was a Whig by birth, by upbringing, by every association, public and
private; and, even if those ties had never existed, the mere fact that
Lord M. was the head of the Whigs would have amply sufficed to determine
her politics. The fall of the Whigs would mean a sad upset for Lord M. But
it would have a still more terrible consequence: Lord M. would have to
leave her; and the daily, the hourly, presence of Lord M. had become an
integral part of her life. Six months after her accession she had noted in
her diary "I shall be very sorry to lose him even for one night;" and this
feeling of personal dependence on her Minister steadily increased. In
these circumstances it was natural that she should have become a Whig
partisan. Of the wider significance of political questions she knew
nothing; all she saw was that her friends were in office and about her,
and that it would be dreadful if they ceased to be so. "I cannot say," she
wrote when a critical division was impending, "(though I feel confident of
our success) how low, how sad I feel, when I think of the possibility of
this excellent and truly kind man not remaining my Minister! Yet I trust
fervently that He who has so wonderfully protected me through such
manifold difficulties will not now desert me! I should have liked to have
expressed to Lord M. my anxiety, but the tears were nearer than words
throughout the time I saw him, and I felt I should have choked, had I
attempted to say anything." Lord Melbourne realised clearly enough how
undesirable was such a state of mind in a constitutional sovereign who
might be called upon at any moment to receive as her Ministers the leaders
of the opposite party; he did what he could to cool her ardour; but in
vain.</p>
<p>With considerable lack of foresight, too, he had himself helped to bring
about this unfortunate condition of affairs. From the moment of her
accession, he had surrounded the Queen with ladies of his own party; the
Mistress of the Robes and all the Ladies of the Bedchamber were Whigs. In
the ordinary course, the Queen never saw a Tory: eventually she took pains
never to see one in any circumstances. She disliked the whole tribe; and
she did not conceal the fact. She particularly disliked Sir Robert Peel,
who would almost certainly be the next Prime Minister. His manners were
detestable, and he wanted to turn out Lord M. His supporters, without
exception, were equally bad; and as for Sir James Graham, she could not
bear the sight of him; he was exactly like Sir John Conroy.</p>
<p>The affair of Lady Flora intensified these party rumours still further.
The Hastings were Tories, and Lord Melbourne and the Court were attacked
by the Tory press in unmeasured language. The Queen's sectarian zeal
proportionately increased. But the dreaded hour was now fast approaching.
Early in May the Ministers were visibly tottering; on a vital point of
policy they could only secure a majority of five in the House of Commons;
they determined to resign. When Victoria heard the news she burst into
tears. Was it possible, then, that all was over? Was she, indeed, about to
see Lord M. for the last time? Lord M. came; and it is a curious fact
that, even in this crowning moment of misery and agitation, the precise
girl noted, to the minute, the exact time of the arrival and the departure
of her beloved Minister. The conversation was touching and prolonged; but
it could only end in one way—the Queen must send for the Duke of
Wellington. When, next morning, the Duke came, he advised her Majesty to
send for Sir Robert Peel. She was in "a state of dreadful grief," but she
swallowed down her tears, and braced herself, with royal resolution, for
the odious, odious interview.</p>
<p>Peel was by nature reserved, proud, and shy. His manners were not perfect,
and he knew it; he was easily embarrassed, and, at such moments, he grew
even more stiff and formal than before, while his feet mechanically
performed upon the carpet a dancing-master's measure. Anxious as he now
was to win the Queen's good graces, his very anxiety to do so made the
attainment of his object the more difficult. He entirely failed to make
any headway whatever with the haughty hostile girl before him. She coldly
noted that he appeared to be unhappy and "put out," and, while he stood in
painful fixity, with an occasional uneasy pointing of the toe, her heart
sank within her at the sight of that manner, "Oh! how different, how
dreadfully different, to the frank, open, natural, and most kind warm
manner of Lord Melbourne." Nevertheless, the audience passed without
disaster. Only at one point had there been some slight hint of a
disagreement. Peel had decided that a change would be necessary in the
composition of the royal Household: the Queen must no longer be entirely
surrounded by the wives and sisters of his opponents; some, at any rate,
of the Ladies of the Bedchamber should be friendly to his Government. When
this matter was touched upon, the Queen had intimated that she wished her
Household to remain unchanged; to which Sir Robert had replied that the
question could be settled later, and shortly afterwards withdrew to
arrange the details of his Cabinet. While he was present, Victoria had
remained, as she herself said, "very much collected, civil and high, and
betrayed no agitation;" but as soon as she was alone she completely broke
down. Then she pulled herself together to write to Lord Melbourne an
account of all that had happened, and of her own wretchedness. "She
feels," she said, "Lord Melbourne will understand it, amongst enemies to
those she most relied on and most esteemed; but what is worst of all is
the being deprived of seeing Lord Melbourne as she used to do."</p>
<p>Lord Melbourne replied with a very wise letter. He attempted to calm the
Queen and to induce her to accept the new position gracefully; and he had
nothing but good words for the Tory leaders. As for the question of the
Ladies of the Household, the Queen, he said, should strongly urge what she
desired, as it was a matter which concerned her personally, "but," he
added, "if Sir Robert is unable to concede it, it will not do to refuse
and to put off the negotiation upon it." On this point there can be little
doubt that Lord Melbourne was right. The question was a complicated and
subtle one, and it had never arisen before; but subsequent constitutional
practice has determined that a Queen Regnant must accede to the wishes of
her Prime Minister as to the personnel of the female part of her
Household. Lord Melbourne's wisdom, however, was wasted. The Queen would
not be soothed, and still less would she take advice. It was outrageous of
the Tories to want to deprive her of her Ladies, and that night she made
up her mind that, whatever Sir Robert might say, she would refuse to
consent to the removal of a single one of them. Accordingly, when, next
morning, Peel appeared again, she was ready for action. He began by
detailing the Cabinet appointments, and then he added "Now, ma'am, about
the Ladies-" when the Queen sharply interrupted him. "I cannot give up any
of my Ladies," she said. "What, ma'am!" said Sir Robert, "does your
Majesty mean to retain them all?" "All," said the Queen. Sir Robert's face
worked strangely; he could not conceal his agitation. "The Mistress of the
Robes and the Ladies of the Bedchamber?" he brought out at last. "All,"
replied once more her Majesty. It was in vain that Peel pleaded and
argued; in vain that he spoke, growing every moment more pompous and
uneasy, of the constitution, and Queens Regnant, and the public interest;
in vain that he danced his pathetic minuet. She was adamant; but he, too,
through all his embarrassment, showed no sign of yielding; and when at
last he left her nothing had been decided—the whole formation of the
Government was hanging in the wind. A frenzy of excitement now seized upon
Victoria. Sir Robert, she believed in her fury, had tried to outwit her,
to take her friends from her, to impose his will upon her own; but that
was not all: she had suddenly perceived, while the poor man was moving so
uneasily before her, the one thing that she was desperately longing for—a
loop-hole of escape. She seized a pen and dashed off a note to Lord
Melbourne.</p>
<p>"Sir Robert has behaved very ill," she wrote, "he insisted on my giving up
my Ladies, to which I replied that I never would consent, and I never saw
a man so frightened... I was calm but very decided, and I think you would
have been pleased to see my composure and great firmness; the Queen of
England will not submit to such trickery. Keep yourself in readiness, for
you may soon be wanted." Hardly had she finished when the Duke of
Wellington was announced. "Well, Ma'am," he said as he entered, "I am very
sorry to find there is a difficulty." "Oh!" she instantly replied, "he
began it, not me." She felt that only one thing now was needed: she must
be firm. And firm she was. The venerable conqueror of Napoleon was
outfaced by the relentless equanimity of a girl in her teens. He could not
move the Queen one inch. At last, she even ventured to rally him. "Is Sir
Robert so weak," she asked, "that even the Ladies must be of his opinion?"
On which the Duke made a brief and humble expostulation, bowed low, and
departed.</p>
<p>Had she won? Time would show; and in the meantime she scribbled down
another letter. "Lord Melbourne must not think the Queen rash in her
conduct... The Queen felt this was an attempt to see whether she could be
led and managed like a child."(*) The Tories were not only wicked but
ridiculous. Peel, having, as she understood, expressed a wish to remove
only those members of the Household who were in Parliament, now objected
to her Ladies. "I should like to know," she exclaimed in triumphant scorn,
"if they mean to give the Ladies seats in Parliament?"</p>
<p>(*) The exclamation "They wished to treat me like a girl,<br/>
but I will show them that I am Queen of England!" often<br/>
quoted as the Queen's, is apocryphal. It is merely part of<br/>
Greville's summary of the two letters to Melbourne. It may<br/>
be noted that the phrase "the Queen of England will not<br/>
submit to such trickery" is omitted in "Girlhood," and in<br/>
general there are numerous verbal discrepancies between the<br/>
versions of the journal and the letters in the two books.<br/></p>
<p>The end of the crisis was now fast approaching. Sir Robert returned, and
told her that if she insisted upon retaining all her Ladies he could not
form a Government. She replied that she would send him her final decision
in writing. Next morning the late Whig Cabinet met. Lord Melbourne read to
them the Queen's letters, and the group of elderly politicians were
overcome by an extraordinary wave of enthusiasm. They knew very well that,
to say the least, it was highly doubtful whether the Queen had acted in
strict accordance with the constitution; that in doing what she had done
she had brushed aside Lord Melbourne's advice; that, in reality, there was
no public reason whatever why they should go back upon their decision to
resign. But such considerations vanished before the passionate urgency of
Victoria. The intensity of her determination swept them headlong down the
stream of her desire. They unanimously felt that "it was impossible to
abandon such a Queen and such a woman." Forgetting that they were no
longer her Majesty's Ministers, they took the unprecedented course of
advising the Queen by letter to put an end to her negotiation with Sir
Robert Peel. She did so; all was over; she had triumphed. That evening
there was a ball at the Palace. Everyone was present. "Peel and the Duke
of Wellington came by looking very much put out." She was perfectly happy;
Lord M. was Prime Minister once more, and he was by her side.</p>
<p>VIII</p>
<p>Happiness had returned with Lord M., but it was happiness in the midst of
agitation. The domestic imbroglio continued unabated, until at last the
Duke, rejected as a Minister, was called in once again in his old capacity
as moral physician to the family. Something was accomplished when, at
last, he induced Sir John Conroy to resign his place about the Duchess of
Kent and leave the Palace for ever; something more when he persuaded the
Queen to write an affectionate letter to her mother. The way seemed open
for a reconciliation, but the Duchess was stormy still. She didn't believe
that Victoria had written that letter; it was not in her handwriting; and
she sent for the Duke to tell him so. The Duke, assuring her that the
letter was genuine, begged her to forget the past. But that was not so
easy. "What am I to do if Lord Melbourne comes up to me?" "Do, ma'am? Why,
receive him with civility." Well, she would make an effort... "But what am
I to do if Victoria asks me to shake hands with Lehzen?" "Do, ma'am? Why,
take her in your arms and kiss her." "What!" The Duchess bristled in every
feather, and then she burst into a hearty laugh. "No, ma'am, no," said the
Duke, laughing too. "I don't mean you are to take Lehzen in your arms and
kiss her, but the Queen." The Duke might perhaps have succeeded, had not
all attempts at conciliation been rendered hopeless by a tragical event.
Lady Flora, it was discovered, had been suffering from a terrible internal
malady, which now grew rapidly worse. There could be little doubt that she
was dying. The Queen's unpopularity reached an extraordinary height. More
than once she was publicly insulted. "Mrs. Melbourne," was shouted at her
when she appeared at her balcony; and, at Ascot, she was hissed by the
Duchess of Montrose and Lady Sarah Ingestre as she passed. Lady Flora
died. The whole scandal burst out again with redoubled vehemence; while,
in the Palace, the two parties were henceforth divided by an impassable, a
Stygian, gulf.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, Lord M. was back, and every trouble faded under the
enchantment of his presence and his conversation. He, on his side, had
gone through much; and his distresses were intensified by a consciousness
of his own shortcomings. He realised clearly enough that, if he had
intervened at the right moment, the Hastings scandal might have been
averted; and, in the bedchamber crisis, he knew that he had allowed his
judgment to be overruled and his conduct to be swayed by private feelings
and the impetuosity of Victoria. But he was not one to suffer too acutely
from the pangs of conscience. In spite of the dullness and the formality
of the Court, his relationship with the Queen had come to be the
dominating interest in his life; to have been deprived of it would have
been heartrending; that dread eventuality had been—somehow—avoided;
he was installed once more, in a kind of triumph; let him enjoy the
fleeting hours to the full! And so, cherished by the favour of a sovereign
and warmed by the adoration of a girl, the autumn rose, in those autumn
months of 1839, came to a wondrous blooming. The petals expanded,
beautifully, for the last time. For the last time in this unlooked—for,
this incongruous, this almost incredible intercourse, the old epicure
tasted the exquisiteness of romance. To watch, to teach, to restrain, to
encourage the royal young creature beside him—that was much; to feel
with such a constant intimacy the impact of her quick affection, her
radiant vitality—that was more; most of all, perhaps, was it good to
linger vaguely in humorous contemplation, in idle apostrophe, to talk
disconnectedly, to make a little joke about an apple or a furbelow, to
dream. The springs of his sensibility, hidden deep within him, were
overflowing. Often, as he bent over her hand and kissed it, he found
himself in tears.</p>
<p>Upon Victoria, with all her impermeability, it was inevitable that such a
companionship should have produced, eventually, an effect. She was no
longer the simple schoolgirl of two years since. The change was visible
even in her public demeanour. Her expression, once "ingenuous and serene,"
now appeared to a shrewd observer to be "bold and discontented." She had
learnt something of the pleasures of power and the pains of it; but that
was not all. Lord Melbourne with his gentle instruction had sought to lead
her into the paths of wisdom and moderation, but the whole unconscious
movement of his character had swayed her in a very different direction.
The hard clear pebble, subjected for so long and so constantly to that
encircling and insidious fluidity, had suffered a curious corrosion; it
seemed to be actually growing a little soft and a little clouded. Humanity
and fallibility are infectious things; was it possible that Lehzen's prim
pupil had caught them? That she was beginning to listen to siren voices?
That the secret impulses of self-expression, of self-indulgence even, were
mastering her life? For a moment the child of a new age looked back, and
wavered towards the eighteenth century. It was the most critical moment of
her career. Had those influences lasted, the development of her character,
the history of her life, would have been completely changed.</p>
<p>And why should they not last? She, for one, was very anxious that they
should. Let them last for ever! She was surrounded by Whigs, she was free
to do whatever she wanted, she had Lord M.; she could not believe that she
could ever be happier. Any change would be for the worse; and the worst
change of all... no, she would not hear of it; it would be quite
intolerable, it would upset everything, if she were to marry. And yet
everyone seemed to want her to—the general public, the Ministers,
her Saxe-Coburg relations—it was always the same story. Of course,
she knew very well that there were excellent reasons for it. For one
thing, if she remained childless, and were to die, her uncle Cumberland,
who was now the King of Hanover, would succeed to the Throne of England.
That, no doubt, would be a most unpleasant event; and she entirely
sympathised with everybody who wished to avoid it. But there was no hurry;
naturally, she would marry in the end—but not just yet—not for
three or four years. What was tiresome was that her uncle Leopold had
apparently determined, not only that she ought to marry, but that her
cousin Albert ought to be her husband. That was very like her uncle
Leopold, who wanted to have a finger in every pie; and it was true that
long ago, in far-off days, before her accession even, she had written to
him in a way which might well have encouraged him in such a notion. She
had told him then that Albert possessed "every quality that could be
desired to render her perfectly happy," and had begged her "dearest uncle
to take care of the health of one, now so dear to me, and to take him
under your special protection," adding, "I hope and trust all will go on
prosperously and well on this subject of so much importance to me." But
that had been years ago, when she was a mere child; perhaps, indeed, to
judge from the language, the letter had been dictated by Lehzen; at any
rate, her feelings, and all the circumstances, had now entirely changed.
Albert hardly interested her at all.</p>
<p>In later life the Queen declared that she had never for a moment dreamt of
marrying anyone but her cousin; her letters and diaries tell a very
different story. On August 26, 1837, she wrote in her journal: "To-day is
my dearest cousin Albert's 18th birthday, and I pray Heaven to pour its
choicest blessings on his beloved head!" In the subsequent years, however,
the date passes unnoticed. It had been arranged that Stockmar should
accompany the Prince to Italy, and the faithful Baron left her side for
that purpose. He wrote to her more than once with sympathetic descriptions
of his young companion; but her mind was by this time made up. She liked
and admired Albert very much, but she did not want to marry him. "At
present," she told Lord Melbourne in April, 1839, "my feeling is quite
against ever marrying." When her cousin's Italian tour came to an end, she
began to grow nervous; she knew that, according to a long-standing
engagement, his next journey would be to England. He would probably arrive
in the autumn, and by July her uneasiness was intense. She determined to
write to her uncle, in order to make her position clear. It must be
understood she said, that "there is no no engagement between us." If she
should like Albert, she could "make no final promise this year, for, at
the very earliest, any such event could not take place till two or three
years hence." She had, she said, "a great repugnance" to change her
present position; and, if she should not like him, she was "very anxious
that it should be understood that she would not be guilty of any breach of
promise, for she never gave any." To Lord Melbourne she was more explicit.
She told him that she "had no great wish to see Albert, as the whole
subject was an odious one;" she hated to have to decide about it; and she
repeated once again that seeing Albert would be "a disagreeable thing."
But there was no escaping the horrid business; the visit must be made, and
she must see him. The summer slipped by and was over; it was the autumn
already; on the evening of October 10 Albert, accompanied by his brother
Ernest, arrived at Windsor.</p>
<p>Albert arrived; and the whole structure of her existence crumbled into
nothingness like a house of cards. He was beautiful—she gasped—she
knew no more. Then, in a flash, a thousand mysteries were revealed to her;
the past, the present, rushed upon her with a new significance; the
delusions of years were abolished, and an extraordinary, an irresistible
certitude leapt into being in the light of those blue eyes, the smile of
that lovely mouth. The succeeding hours passed in a rapture. She was able
to observe a few more details—the "exquisite nose," the "delicate
moustachios and slight but very slight whiskers," the "beautiful figure,
broad in the shoulders and a fine waist." She rode with him, danced with
him, talked with him, and it was all perfection. She had no shadow of a
doubt. He had come on a Thursday evening, and on the following Sunday
morning she told Lord Melbourne that she had "a good deal changed her
opinion as to marrying." Next morning, she told him that she had made up
her mind to marry Albert. The morning after that, she sent for her cousin.
She received him alone, and "after a few minutes I said to him that I
thought he must be aware why I wished them to come here—and that it
would make me too happy if he would consent to what I wished (to marry
me.)" Then "we embraced each other, and he was so kind, so affectionate."
She said that she was quite unworthy of him, while he murmured that he
would be very happy "Das Leben mit dir zu zubringen." They parted, and she
felt "the happiest of human beings," when Lord M. came in. At first she
beat about the bush, and talked of the weather, and indifferent subjects.
Somehow or other she felt a little nervous with her old friend. At last,
summoning up her courage, she said, "I have got well through this with
Albert." "Oh! you have," said Lord M.</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004"></SPAN></p>
<h2> CHAPTER IV. MARRIAGE </h2>
<h3> I </h3>
<p>It was decidedly a family match. Prince Francis Charles Augustus Albert
Emmanuel of Saxe-Coburg—Gotha—for such was his full title—had
been born just three months after his cousin Victoria, and the same
midwife had assisted at the two births. The children's grandmother, the
Dowager Duchess of Coburg, had from the first looked forward to their
marriage, as they grew up, the Duke, the Duchess of Kent, and King Leopold
came equally to desire it. The Prince, ever since the time when, as a
child of three, his nurse had told him that some day "the little English
May flower" would be his wife, had never thought of marrying anyone else.
When eventually Baron Stockmar himself signified his assent, the affair
seemed as good as settled.</p>
<p>The Duke had one other child—Prince Ernest, Albert's senior by one
year, and heir to the principality. The Duchess was a sprightly and
beautiful woman, with fair hair and blue eyes; Albert was very like her
and was her declared favourite. But in his fifth year he was parted from
her for ever. The ducal court was not noted for the strictness of its
morals; the Duke was a man of gallantry, and it was rumoured that the
Duchess followed her husband's example. There were scandals: one of the
Court Chamberlains, a charming and cultivated man of Jewish extraction,
was talked of; at last there was a separation, followed by a divorce. The
Duchess retired to Paris, and died unhappily in 1831. Her memory was
always very dear to Albert.</p>
<p>He grew up a pretty, clever, and high-spirited boy. Usually well-behaved,
he was, however, sometimes violent. He had a will of his own, and asserted
it; his elder brother was less passionate, less purposeful, and, in their
wrangles, it was Albert who came out top. The two boys, living for the
most part in one or other of the Duke's country houses, among pretty hills
and woods and streams, had been at a very early age—Albert was less
than four—separated from their nurses and put under a tutor, in
whose charge they remained until they went to the University. They were
brought up in a simple and unostentatious manner, for the Duke was poor
and the duchy very small and very insignificant. Before long it became
evident that Albert was a model lad. Intelligent and painstaking, he had
been touched by the moral earnestness of his generation; at the age of
eleven he surprised his father by telling him that he hoped to make
himself "a good and useful man." And yet he was not over-serious; though,
perhaps, he had little humour, he was full of fun—of practical jokes
and mimicry. He was no milksop; he rode, and shot, and fenced; above all
did he delight in being out of doors, and never was he happier than in his
long rambles with his brother through the wild country round his beloved
Rosenau—stalking the deer, admiring the scenery, and returning laden
with specimens for his natural history collection. He was, besides,
passionately fond of music. In one particular it was observed that he did
not take after his father: owing either to his peculiar upbringing or to a
more fundamental idiosyncrasy he had a marked distaste for the opposite
sex. At the age of five, at a children's dance, he screamed with disgust
and anger when a little girl was led up to him for a partner; and though,
later on, he grew more successful in disguising such feelings, the
feelings remained.</p>
<p>The brothers were very popular in Coburg, and, when the time came for them
to be confirmed, the preliminary examination which, according to ancient
custom, was held in public in the "Giants' Hall" of the Castle, was
attended by an enthusiastic crowd of functionaries, clergy, delegates from
the villages of the duchy, and miscellaneous onlookers. There were also
present, besides the Duke and the Dowager Duchess, their Serene Highnesses
the Princes Alexander and Ernest of Wurtemberg, Prince Leiningen, Princess
Hohenlohe-Langenburg, and Princess Hohenlohe-Schillingsfurst. Dr. Jacobi,
the Court chaplain, presided at an altar, simply but appropriately
decorated, which had been placed at the end of the hall; and the
proceedings began by the choir singing the first verse of the hymn, "Come,
Holy Ghost." After some introductory remarks, Dr. Jacobi began the
examination. "The dignified and decorous bearing of the Princes," we are
told in a contemporary account, "their strict attention to the questions,
the frankness, decision, and correctness of their answers, produced a deep
impression on the numerous assembly. Nothing was more striking in their
answers than the evidence they gave of deep feeling and of inward strength
of conviction. The questions put by the examiner were not such as to be
met by a simple 'yes' or 'no.' They were carefully considered in order to
give the audience a clear insight into the views and feelings of,the young
princes. One of the most touching moments was when the examiner asked the
hereditary prince whether he intended steadfastly to hold to the
Evangelical Church, and the Prince answered not only 'Yes!' but added in a
clear and decided tone: 'I and my brother are firmly resolved ever to
remain faithful to the acknowledged truth.' The examination having lasted
an hour, Dr. Jacobi made some concluding observations, followed by a short
prayer; the second and third verses of the opening hymn were sung; and the
ceremony was over. The Princes, stepping down from the altar, were
embraced by the Duke and the Dowager Duchess; after which the loyal
inhabitants of Coburg dispersed, well satisfied with their entertainment."</p>
<p>Albert's mental development now proceeded apace. In his seventeenth year
he began a careful study of German literature and German philosophy. He
set about, he told his tutor, "to follow the thoughts of the great
Klopstock into their depths—though in this, for the most part," he
modestly added, "I do not succeed." He wrote an essay on the "Mode of
Thought of the Germans, and a Sketch of the History of German
Civilisation," "making use," he said, "in its general outlines, of the
divisions which the treatment of the subject itself demands," and
concluding with "a retrospect of the shortcomings of our time, with an
appeal to every one to correct those shortcomings in his own case, and
thus set a good example to others." Placed for some months under the care
of King Leopold at Brussels, he came under the influence of Adolphe
Quetelet, a mathematical professor, who was particularly interested in the
application of the laws of probability to political and moral phenomena;
this line of inquiry attracted the Prince, and the friendship thus begun
continued till the end of his life. From Brussels he went to the
University of Bonn, where he was speedily distinguished both by his
intellectual and his social activities; his energies were absorbed in
metaphysics, law, political economy, music, fencing, and amateur
theatricals. Thirty years later his fellow—students recalled with
delight the fits of laughter into which they had been sent by Prince
Albert's mimicry. The verve with which his Serene Highness reproduced the
tones and gestures of one of the professors who used to point to a picture
of a row of houses in Venice with the remark, "That is the Ponte-Realte,"
and of another who fell down in a race and was obliged to look for his
spectacles, was especially appreciated.</p>
<p>After a year at Bonn, the time had come for a foreign tour, and Baron
Stockmar arrived from England to accompany the Prince on an expedition to
Italy. The Baron had been already, two years previously, consulted by King
Leopold as to his views upon the proposed marriage of Albert and Victoria.
His reply had been remarkable. With a characteristic foresight, a
characteristic absence of optimism, a characteristic sense of the moral
elements in the situation, Stockmar had pointed out what were, in his
opinion, the conditions essential to make the marriage a success. Albert,
he wrote, "was a fine young fellow, well grown for his age, with agreeable
and valuable qualities; and it was probable that in a few years he would
turn out a strong handsome man, of a kindly, simple, yet dignified
demeanour. Thus, externally, he possesses all that pleases the sex, and at
all times and in all countries must please." Supposing, therefore, that
Victoria herself was in favour of the marriage, the further question arose
as to whether Albert's mental qualities were such as to fit him for the
position of husband of the Queen of England. On this point, continued the
Baron, one heard much to his credit; the Prince was said to be discreet
and intelligent; but all such judgments were necessarily partial, and the
Baron preferred to reserve his opinion until he could come to a
trustworthy conclusion from personal observation. And then he added: "But
all this is not enough. The young man ought to have not merely great
ability, but a right ambition, and great force of will as well. To pursue
for a lifetime a political career so arduous demands more than energy and
inclination—it demands also that earnest frame of mind which is
ready of its own accord to sacrifice mere pleasure to real usefulness. If
he is not satisfied hereafter with the consciousness of having achieved
one of the most influential positions in Europe, how often will he feel
tempted to repent his adventure! If he does not from the very outset
accept it as a vocation of grave responsibility, on the efficient
performance of which his honour and happiness depend, there is small
likelihood of his succeeding."</p>
<p>Such were the views of Stockmar on the qualifications necessary for the
due fulfilment of that destiny which Albert's family had marked out for
him; and he hoped, during the tour in Italy, to come to some conclusion as
to how far the prince possessed them. Albert on his side was much
impressed by the Baron, whom he had previously seen but rarely; he also
became acquainted, for the first time in his life, with a young
Englishman, Lieutenant Francis Seymour, who had been engaged to accompany
him, whom he found sehr liebens-wurdig, and with whom he struck up a warm
friendship. He delighted in the galleries and scenery of Florence, though
with Rome he was less impressed. "But for some beautiful palaces," he
said, "it might just as well be any town in Germany." In an interview with
Pope Gregory XVI, he took the opportunity of displaying his erudition.
When the Pope observed that the Greeks had taken their art from the
Etruscans, Albert replied that, on the contrary, in his opinion, they had
borrowed from the Egyptians: his Holiness politely acquiesced. Wherever he
went he was eager to increase his knowledge, and, at a ball in Florence,
he was observed paying no attention whatever to the ladies, and deep in
conversation with the learned Signor Capponi. "Voila un prince dont nous
pouvons etre fiers," said the Grand Duke of Tuscany, who was standing by:
"la belle danseuse l'attend, le savant l'occupe."</p>
<p>On his return to Germany, Stockmar's observations, imparted to King
Leopold, were still critical. Albert, he said, was intelligent, kind, and
amiable; he was full of the best intentions and the noblest resolutions,
and his judgment was in many things beyond his years. But great exertion
was repugnant to him; he seemed to be too willing to spare himself, and
his good resolutions too often came to nothing. It was particularly
unfortunate that he took not the slightest interest in politics, and never
read a newspaper. In his manners, too, there was still room for
improvement. "He will always," said the Baron, "have more success with men
than with women, in whose society he shows too little empressement, and is
too indifferent and retiring." One other feature of the case was noted by
the keen eye of the old physician: the Prince's constitution was not a
strong one. Yet, on the whole, he was favourable to the projected
marriage. But by now the chief obstacle seemed to lie in another quarter,
Victoria was apparently determined to commit herself to nothing. And so it
happened that when Albert went to England he had made up his mind to
withdraw entirely from the affair. Nothing would induce him, he confessed
to a friend, to be kept vaguely waiting; he would break it all off at
once. His reception at Windsor threw an entirely new light upon the
situation. The wheel of fortune turned with a sudden rapidity; and he
found, in the arms of Victoria, the irrevocable assurance of his
overwhelming fate.</p>
<p>II</p>
<p>He was not in love with her. Affection, gratitude, the natural reactions
to the unqualified devotion of a lively young cousin who was also a queen—such
feelings possessed him, but the ardours of reciprocal passion were not
his. Though he found that he liked Victoria very much, what immediately
interested him in his curious position was less her than himself. Dazzled
and delighted, riding, dancing, singing, laughing, amid the splendours of
Windsor, he was aware of a new sensation—the stirrings of ambition
in his breast. His place would indeed be a high, an enviable one! And
then, on the instant, came another thought. The teaching of religion, the
admonitions of Stockmar, his own inmost convictions, all spoke with the
same utterance. He would not be there to please himself, but for a very
different purpose—to do good. He must be "noble, manly, and princely
in all things," he would have "to live and to sacrifice himself for the
benefit of his new country;" to "use his powers and endeavours for a great
object—that of promoting the welfare of multitudes of his
fellowmen." One serious thought led on to another. The wealth and the
bustle of the English Court might be delightful for the moment, but, after
all, it was Coburg that had his heart. "While I shall be untiring," he
wrote to his grandmother, "in my efforts and labours for the country to
which I shall in future belong, and where I am called to so high a
position, I shall never cease ein treuer Deutscher, Coburger, Gothaner zu
sein." And now he must part from Coburg for ever! Sobered and sad, he
sought relief in his brother Ernest's company; the two young men would
shut themselves up together, and, sitting down at the pianoforte, would
escape from the present and the future in the sweet familiar gaiety of a
Haydn duet.</p>
<p>They returned to Germany; and while Albert, for a few farewell months,
enjoyed, for the last time, the happiness of home, Victoria, for the last
time, resumed her old life in London and Windsor. She corresponded daily
with her future husband in a mingled flow of German and English; but the
accustomed routine reasserted itself; the business and the pleasures of
the day would brook no interruption; Lord M. was once more constantly
beside her; and the Tories were as intolerable as ever. Indeed, they were
more so. For now, in these final moments, the old feud burst out with
redoubled fury. The impetuous sovereign found, to her chagrin, that there
might be disadvantages in being the declared enemy of one of the great
parties in the State. On two occasions, the Tories directly thwarted her
in a matter on which she had set her heart. She wished her husband's rank
to be axed by statute, and their opposition prevented it. She wished her
husband to receive a settlement from the nation of L50,000 a year; and,
again owing to the Tories, he was only allowed L30,000. It was too bad.
When the question was discussed in Parliament, it had been pointed out
that the bulk of the population was suffering from great poverty, and that
L30,000 was the whole revenue of Coburg; but her uncle Leopold had been
given L50,000, and it would be monstrous to give Albert less. Sir Robert
Peel—it might have been expected—had had the effrontery to
speak and vote for the smaller sum. She was very angry; and determined to
revenge herself by omitting to invite a single Tory to her wedding. She
would make an exception in favour of old Lord Liverpool, but even the Duke
of Wellington she refused to ask. When it was represented to her that it
would amount to a national scandal if the Duke were absent from her
wedding, she was angrier than ever. "What! That old rebel! I won't have
him:" she was reported to have said. Eventually she was induced to send
him an invitation; but she made no attempt to conceal the bitterness of
her feelings, and the Duke himself was only too well aware of all that had
passed.</p>
<p>Nor was it only against the Tories that her irritation rose. As the time
for her wedding approached, her temper grew steadily sharper and more
arbitrary. Queen Adelaide annoyed her. King Leopold, too, was "ungracious"
in his correspondence; "Dear Uncle," she told Albert, "is given to believe
that he must rule the roost everywhere. However," she added with asperity,
"that is not a necessity." Even Albert himself was not impeccable.
Engulfed in Coburgs, he failed to appreciate the complexity of English
affairs. There were difficulties about his household. He had a notion that
he ought not to be surrounded by violent Whigs; very likely, but he would
not understand that the only alternatives to violent Whigs were violent
Tories; and it would be preposterous if his Lords and Gentlemen were to be
found voting against the Queen's. He wanted to appoint his own Private
Secretary. But how could he choose the right person? Lord M. was obviously
best qualified to make the appointment; and Lord M. had decided that the
Prince should take over his own Private Secretary—George Anson, a
staunch Whig. Albert protested, but it was useless; Victoria simply
announced that Anson was appointed, and instructed Lehzen to send the
Prince an explanation of the details of the case.</p>
<p>Then, again, he had written anxiously upon the necessity of maintaining
unspotted the moral purity of the Court. Lord M's pupil considered that
dear Albert was strait-laced, and, in a brisk Anglo-German missive, set
forth her own views. "I like Lady A. very much," she told him, "only she
is a little strict awl particular, and too severe towards others, which is
not right; for I think one ought always to be indulgent towards other
people, as I always think, if we had not been well taken care of, we might
also have gone astray. That is always my feeling. Yet it is always right
to show that one does not like to see what is obviously wrong; but it is
very dangerous to be too severe, and I am certain that as a rule such
people always greatly regret that in their youth they have not been so
careful as they ought to have been. I have explained this so badly and
written it so badly, that I fear you will hardly be able to make it out."</p>
<p>On one other matter she was insistent. Since the affair of Lady Flora
Hastings, a sad fate had overtaken Sir James Clark. His flourishing
practice had quite collapsed; nobody would go to him any more. But the
Queen remained faithful. She would show the world how little she cared for
their disapproval, and she desired Albert to make "poor Clark" his
physician in ordinary. He did as he was told; but, as it turned out, the
appointment was not a happy one.</p>
<p>The wedding-day was fixed, and it was time for Albert to tear himself away
from his family and the scenes of his childhood. With an aching heart, he
had revisited his beloved haunts—the woods and the valleys where he
had spent so many happy hours shooting rabbits and collecting botanical
specimens; in deep depression, he had sat through the farewell banquets in
the Palace and listened to the Freischutz performed by the State band. It
was time to go. The streets were packed as he drove through them; for a
short space his eyes were gladdened by a sea of friendly German faces, and
his ears by a gathering volume of good guttural sounds. He stopped to bid
a last adieu to his grandmother. It was a heartrending moment. "Albert!
Albert!" she shrieked, and fell fainting into the arms of her attendants
as his carriage drove away. He was whirled rapidly to his destiny. At
Calais a steamboat awaited him, and, together with his father and his
brother, he stepped, dejected, on board. A little later, he was more
dejected still. The crossing was a very rough one; the Duke went hurriedly
below; while the two Princes, we are told, lay on either side of the cabin
staircase "in an almost helpless state." At Dover a large crowd was
collected on the pier, and "it was by no common effort that Prince Albert,
who had continued to suffer up to the last moment, got up to bow to the
people." His sense of duty triumphed. It was a curious omen: his whole
life in England was foreshadowed as he landed on English ground.</p>
<p>Meanwhile Victoria, in growing agitation, was a prey to temper and to
nerves. She grew feverish, and at last Sir James Clark pronounced that she
was going to have the measles. But, once again, Sir James's diagnosis was
incorrect. It was not the measles that were attacking her, but a very
different malady; she was suddenly prostrated by alarm, regret, and doubt.
For two years she had been her own mistress—the two happiest years,
by far, of her life. And now it was all to end! She was to come under an
alien domination—she would have to promise that she would honour and
obey... someone, who might, after all, thwart her, oppose her—and
how dreadful that would be! Why had she embarked on this hazardous
experiment? Why had she not been contented with Lord M.? No doubt, she
loved Albert; but she loved power too. At any rate, one thing was certain:
she might be Albert's wife, but she would always be Queen of England. He
reappeared, in an exquisite uniform, and her hesitations melted in his
presence like mist before the sun. On February 10, 1840, the marriage took
place. The wedded pair drove down to Windsor; but they were not, of
course, entirely alone. They were accompanied by their suites, and, in
particular, by two persons—the Baron Stockmar and the Baroness
Lehzen.</p>
<p>III</p>
<p>Albert had foreseen that his married life would not be all plain sailing;
but he had by no means realised the gravity and the complication of the
difficulties which he would have to face. Politically, he was a cipher.
Lord Melbourne was not only Prime Minister, he was in effect the Private
Secretary of the Queen, and thus controlled the whole of the political
existence of the sovereign. A queen's husband was an entity unknown to the
British Constitution. In State affairs there seemed to be no place for
him; nor was Victoria herself at all unwilling that this should be so.
"The English," she had told the Prince when, during their engagement, a
proposal had been made to give him a peerage, "are very jealous of any
foreigner interfering in the government of this country, and have already
in some of the papers expressed a hope that you would not interfere. Now,
though I know you never would, still, if you were a Peer, they would all
say, the Prince meant to play a political part. I know you never would!"
In reality, she was not quite so certain; but she wished Albert to
understand her views. He would, she hoped, make a perfect husband; but, as
for governing the country, he would see that she and Lord M. between them
could manage that very well, without his help.</p>
<p>But it was not only in politics that the Prince discovered that the part
cut out for him was a negligible one. Even as a husband, he found, his
functions were to be of an extremely limited kind. Over the whole of
Victoria's private life the Baroness reigned supreme; and she had not the
slightest intention of allowing that supremacy to be diminished by one
iota. Since the accession, her power had greatly increased. Besides the
undefined and enormous influence which she exercised through her
management of the Queen's private correspondence, she was now the
superintendent of the royal establishment and controlled the important
office of Privy Purse. Albert very soon perceived that he was not master
in his own house. Every detail of his own and his wife's existence was
supervised by a third person: nothing could be done until the consent of
Lehzen had first been obtained. And Victoria, who adored Lehzen with
unabated intensity, saw nothing in all this that was wrong.</p>
<p>Nor was the Prince happier in his social surroundings. A shy young
foreigner, awkward in ladies' company, unexpansive and self-opinionated,
it was improbable that, in any circumstances, he would have been a society
success. His appearance, too, was against him. Though in the eyes of
Victoria he was the mirror of manly beauty, her subjects, whose eyes were
of a less Teutonic cast, did not agree with her. To them—and
particularly to the high-born ladies and gentlemen who naturally saw him
most—what was immediately and distressingly striking in Albert's
face and figure and whole demeanour was his un-English look. His features
were regular, no doubt, but there was something smooth and smug about
them; he was tall, but he was clumsily put together, and he walked with a
slight slouch. Really, they thought, this youth was more like some kind of
foreign tenor than anything else. These were serious disadvantages; but
the line of conduct which the Prince adopted from the first moment of his
arrival was far from calculated to dispel them. Owing partly to a natural
awkwardness, partly to a fear of undue familiarity, and partly to a desire
to be absolutely correct, his manners were infused with an extraordinary
stiffness and formality. Whenever he appeared in company, he seemed to be
surrounded by a thick hedge of prickly etiquette. He never went out into
ordinary society; he never walked in the streets of London; he was
invariably accompanied by an equerry when he rode or drove. He wanted to
be irreproachable and, if that involved friendlessness, it could not be
helped. Besides, he had no very high opinion of the English. So far as he
could see, they cared for nothing but fox-hunting and Sunday observances;
they oscillated between an undue frivolity and an undue gloom; if you
spoke to them of friendly joyousness they stared; and they did not
understand either the Laws of Thought or the wit of a German University.
Since it was clear that with such people he could have very little in
common, there was no reason whatever for relaxing in their favour the
rules of etiquette. In strict privacy, he could be natural and charming;
Seymour and Anson were devoted to him, and he returned their affection;
but they were subordinates—the receivers of his confidences and the
agents of his will. From the support and the solace of true companionship
he was utterly cut off.</p>
<p>A friend, indeed, he had—or rather, a mentor. The Baron, established
once more in the royal residence, was determined to work with as
wholehearted a detachment for the Prince's benefit as, more than twenty
years before, he had worked for his uncle's. The situations then and now,
similar in many respects, were yet full of differences. Perhaps in either
case the difficulties to be encountered were equally great; but the
present problem was the more complex and the more interesting. The young
doctor who, unknown and insignificant, had nothing at the back of him but
his own wits and the friendship of an unimportant Prince, had been
replaced by the accomplished confidant of kings and ministers, ripe in
years, in reputation, and in the wisdom of a vast experience. It was
possible for him to treat Albert with something of the affectionate
authority of a father; but, on the other hand, Albert was no Leopold. As
the Baron was very well aware, he had none of his uncle's rigidity of
ambition, none of his overweening impulse to be personally great. He was
virtuous and well-intentioned; he was clever and well-informed; but he
took no interest in politics, and there were no signs that he possessed
any commanding force of character. Left to himself, he would almost
certainly have subsided into a high-minded nonentity, an aimless
dilettante busy over culture, a palace appendage without influence or
power. But he was not left to himself: Stockmar saw to that. For ever at
his pupil's elbow, the hidden Baron pushed him forward, with tireless
pressure, along the path which had been trod by Leopold so many years ago.
But, this time, the goal at the end of it was something more than the
mediocre royalty that Leopold had reached. The prize which Stockmar, with
all the energy of disinterested devotion, had determined should be
Albert's was a tremendous prize indeed.</p>
<p>The beginning of the undertaking proved to be the most arduous part of it.
Albert was easily dispirited: what was the use of struggling to perform in
a role which bored him and which, it was quite clear, nobody but the dear
good Baron had any desire that he should take up? It was simpler, and it
saved a great deal of trouble, to let things slide. But Stockmar would not
have it. Incessantly, he harped upon two strings—Albert's sense of
duty and his personal pride. Had the Prince forgotten the noble aims to
which his life was to be devoted? And was he going to allow himself, his
wife, his family, his whole existence, to be governed by Baroness Lehzen?
The latter consideration was a potent one. Albert had never been
accustomed to giving way; and now, more than ever before, it would be
humiliating to do so. Not only was he constantly exasperated by the
position of the Baroness in the royal household; there was another and a
still more serious cause of complaint. He was, he knew very well, his
wife's intellectual superior, and yet he found, to his intense annoyance,
that there were parts of her mind over which he exercised no influence.
When, urged on by the Baron, he attempted to discuss politics with
Victoria, she eluded the subject, drifted into generalities, and then
began to talk of something else. She was treating him as she had once
treated their uncle Leopold. When at last he protested, she replied that
her conduct was merely the result of indolence; that when she was with him
she could not bear to bother her head with anything so dull as politics.
The excuse was worse than the fault: was he the wife and she the husband?
It almost seemed so. But the Baron declared that the root of the mischief
was Lehzen: that it was she who encouraged the Queen to have secrets; who
did worse—undermined the natural ingenuousness of Victoria, and
induced her to give, unconsciously no doubt, false reasons to explain away
her conduct.</p>
<p>Minor disagreements made matters worse. The royal couple differed in their
tastes. Albert, brought up in a regime of Spartan simplicity and early
hours, found the great Court functions intolerably wearisome, and was
invariably observed to be nodding on the sofa at half-past ten; while the
Queen's favourite form of enjoyment was to dance through the night, and
then, going out into the portico of the Palace, watch the sun rise behind
St. Paul's and the towers of Westminster. She loved London and he detested
it. It was only in Windsor that he felt he could really breathe; but
Windsor too had its terrors: though during the day there he could paint
and walk and play on the piano, after dinner black tedium descended like a
pall. He would have liked to summon distinguished scientific and literary
men to his presence, and after ascertaining their views upon various
points of art and learning, to set forth his own; but unfortunately
Victoria "had no fancy to encourage such people;" knowing that she was
unequal to taking a part in their conversation, she insisted that the
evening routine should remain unaltered; the regulation interchange of
platitudes with official persons was followed as usual by the round table
and the books of engravings, while the Prince, with one of his attendants,
played game after game of double chess.</p>
<p>It was only natural that in so peculiar a situation, in which the elements
of power, passion, and pride were so strangely apportioned, there should
have been occasionally something more than mere irritation—a
struggle of angry wills. Victoria, no more than Albert, was in the habit
of playing second fiddle. Her arbitrary temper flashed out. Her vitality,
her obstinacy, her overweening sense of her own position, might well have
beaten down before them his superiorities and his rights. But she fought
at a disadvantage; she was, in very truth, no longer her own mistress; a
profound preoccupation dominated her, seizing upon her inmost purposes for
its own extraordinary ends. She was madly in love. The details of those
curious battles are unknown to us; but Prince Ernest, who remained in
England with his brother for some months, noted them with a friendly and
startled eye. One story, indeed, survives, ill-authenticated and perhaps
mythical, yet summing up, as such stories often do, the central facts of
the case. When, in wrath, the Prince one day had locked himself into his
room, Victoria, no less furious, knocked on the door to be admitted. "Who
is there?" he asked. "The Queen of England" was the answer. He did not
move, and again there was a hail of knocks. The question and the answer
were repeated many times; but at last there was a pause, and then a
gentler knocking. "Who is there?" came once more the relentless question.
But this time the reply was different. "Your wife, Albert." And the door
was immediately opened.</p>
<p>Very gradually the Prince's position changed. He began to find the study
of politics less uninteresting than he had supposed; he read Blackstone,
and took lessons in English Law; he was occasionally present when the
Queen interviewed her Ministers; and at Lord Melbourne's suggestion he was
shown all the despatches relating to Foreign Affairs. Sometimes he would
commit his views to paper, and read them aloud to the Prime Minister, who,
infinitely kind and courteous, listened with attention, but seldom made
any reply. An important step was taken when, before the birth of the
Princess Royal, the Prince, without any opposition in Parliament, was
appointed Regent in case of the death of the Queen. Stockmar, owing to
whose intervention with the Tories this happy result had been brought
about, now felt himself at liberty to take a holiday with his family in
Coburg; but his solicitude, poured out in innumerable letters, still
watched over his pupil from afar. "Dear Prince," he wrote, "I am satisfied
with the news you have sent me. Mistakes, misunderstandings, obstructions,
which come in vexatious opposition to one's views, are always to be taken
for just what they are—namely, natural phenomena of life, which
represent one of its sides, and that the shady one. In overcoming them
with dignity, your mind has to exercise, to train, to enlighten itself;
and your character to gain force, endurance, and the necessary hardness."
The Prince had done well so far; but he must continue in the right path;
above all, he was "never to relax." "Never to relax in putting your
magnanimity to the proof; never to relax in logical separation of what is
great and essential from what is trivial and of no moment; never to relax
in keeping yourself up to a high standard—in the determination,
daily renewed, to be consistent, patient, courageous." It was a hard
programme perhaps, for a young man of twenty-one; and yet there was
something in it which touched the very depths of Albert's soul. He sighed,
but he listened—listened as to the voice of a spiritual director
inspired with divine truth. "The stars which are needful to you now," the
voice continued, "and perhaps for some time to come, are Love, Honesty,
Truth. All those whose minds are warped, or who are destitute of true
feeling, will BE APT TO MISTAKE YOU, and to persuade themselves and the
world that you are not the man you are—or, at least, may become...
Do you, therefore, be on the alert be times, with your eyes open in every
direction... I wish for my Prince a great, noble, warm, and true heart,
such as shall serve as the richest and surest basis for the noblest views
of human nature, and the firmest resolve to give them development."</p>
<p>Before long, the decisive moment came. There was a General Election, and
it became certain that the Tories, at last, must come into power. The
Queen disliked them as much as ever; but, with a large majority in the
House of Commons, they would now be in a position to insist upon their
wishes being attended to. Lord Melbourne himself was the first to realise
the importance of carrying out the inevitable transition with as little
friction as possible; and with his consent, the Prince, following up the
rapprochement which had begun over the Regency Act, opened, through Anson,
a negotiation with Sir Robert Peel. In a series of secret interviews, a
complete understanding was reached upon the difficult and complex question
of the Bedchamber. It was agreed that the constitutional point should not
be raised, but that on the formation of the Tory Government, the principal
Whig ladies should retire, and their places be filled by others appointed
by Sir Robert. Thus, in effect, though not in form, the Crown abandoned
the claims of 1839, and they have never been subsequently put forward. The
transaction was a turning point in the Prince's career. He had conducted
an important negotiation with skill and tact; he had been brought into
close and friendly relations with the new Prime Minister; it was obvious
that a great political future lay before him. Victoria was much impressed
and deeply grateful. "My dearest Angel," she told King Leopold, "is indeed
a great comfort to me. He takes the greatest interest in what goes on,
feeling with and for me, and yet abstaining as he ought from biasing me
either way, though we talk much on the subject, and his judgment is, as
you say, good and mild." She was in need of all the comfort and assistance
he could give her. Lord M. was going, and she could hardly bring herself
to speak to Peel. Yes; she would discuss everything with Albert now!</p>
<p>Stockmar, who had returned to England, watched the departure of Lord
Melbourne with satisfaction. If all went well, the Prince should now wield
a supreme political influence over Victoria. But would all go well?? An
unexpected development put the Baron into a serious fright. When the
dreadful moment finally came, and the Queen, in anguish, bade adieu to her
beloved Minister, it was settled between them that, though it would be
inadvisable to meet very often, they could continue to correspond. Never
were the inconsistencies of Lord Melbourne's character shown more clearly
than in what followed. So long as he was in office, his attitude towards
Peel had been irreproachable; he had done all he could to facilitate the
change of government, he had even, through more than one channel,
transmitted privately to his successful rival advice as to the best means
of winning the Queen's good graces. Yet, no sooner was he in opposition
than his heart failed him. He could not bear the thought of surrendering
altogether the privilege and the pleasure of giving counsel to Victoria—of
being cut off completely from the power and the intimacy which had been
his for so long and in such abundant measure. Though he had declared that
he would be perfectly discreet in his letters, he could not resist taking
advantage of the opening they afforded. He discussed in detail various
public questions, and, in particular, gave the Queen a great deal of
advice in the matter of appointments. This advice was followed. Lord
Melbourne recommended that Lord Heytesbury, who, he said, was an able man,
should be made Ambassador at Vienna; and a week later the Queen wrote to
the Foreign Secretary urging that Lord Heytesbury, whom she believed to be
a very able man, should be employed "on some important mission." Stockmar
was very much alarmed. He wrote a memorandum, pointing out the
unconstitutional nature of Lord Melbourne's proceedings and the unpleasant
position in which the Queen might find herself if they were discovered by
Peel; and he instructed Anson to take this memorandum to the ex-Minister.
Lord Melbourne, lounging on a sofa, read it through with compressed lips.
"This is quite an apple-pie opinion," he said. When Anson ventured to
expostulate further, suggesting that it was unseemly in the leader of the
Opposition to maintain an intimate relationship with the Sovereign, the
old man lost his temper. "God eternally damn it!" he exclaimed, leaping up
from his sofa, and dashing about the room. "Flesh and blood cannot stand
this!" He continued to write to the Queen, as before; and two more violent
bombardments from the Baron were needed before he was brought to reason.
Then, gradually, his letters grew less and less frequent, with fewer and
fewer references to public concerns; at last, they were entirely
innocuous. The Baron smiled; Lord M. had accepted the inevitable.</p>
<p>The Whig Ministry resigned in September, 1841; but more than a year was to
elapse before another and an equally momentous change was effected—the
removal of Lehzen. For, in the end, the mysterious governess was
conquered. The steps are unknown by which Victoria was at last led to
accept her withdrawal with composure—perhaps with relief; but it is
clear that Albert's domestic position must have been greatly strengthened
by the appearance of children. The birth of the Princess Royal had been
followed in November, 1841, by that of the Prince of Wales; and before
very long another baby was expected. The Baroness, with all her affection,
could have but a remote share in such family delights. She lost ground
perceptibly. It was noticed as a phenomenon that, once or twice, when the
Court travelled, she was left behind at Windsor. The Prince was very
cautious; at the change of Ministry, Lord Melbourne had advised him to
choose that moment for decisive action; but he judged it wiser to wait.
Time and the pressure of inevitable circumstances were for him; every day
his predominance grew more assured—and every night. At length he
perceived that he need hesitate no longer—that every wish, every
velleity of his had only to be expressed to be at once Victoria's. He
spoke, and Lehzen vanished for ever. No more would she reign in that royal
heart and those royal halls. No more, watching from a window at Windsor,
would she follow her pupil and her sovereign walking on the terrace among
the obsequious multitude, with the eye of triumphant love. Returning to
her native Hanover she established herself at Buckeburg in a small but
comfortable house, the walls of which were entirely covered by portraits
of Her Majesty. The Baron, in spite of his dyspepsia, smiled again: Albert
was supreme.</p>
<p>IV</p>
<p>The early discords had passed away completely—resolved into the
absolute harmony of married life. Victoria, overcome by a new, an
unimagined revelation, had surrendered her whole soul to her husband. The
beauty and the charm which so suddenly had made her his at first were, she
now saw, no more than but the outward manifestation of the true Albert.
There was an inward beauty, an inward glory which, blind that she was, she
had then but dimly apprehended, but of which now she was aware in every
fibre of her being—he was good—he was great! How could she
ever have dreamt of setting up her will against his wisdom, her ignorance
against his knowledge, her fancies against his perfect taste? Had she
really once loved London and late hours and dissipation? She who now was
only happy in the country, she who jumped out of bed every morning—oh,
so early!—with Albert, to take a walk, before breakfast, with Albert
alone! How wonderful it was to be taught by him! To be told by him which
trees were which; and to learn all about the bees! And then to sit doing
cross-stitch while he read aloud to her Hallam's Constitutional History of
England! Or to listen to him playing on his new organ 'The organ is the
first of instruments,' he said; or to sing to him a song by Mendelssohn,
with a great deal of care over the time and the breathing, and only a very
occasional false note! And, after dinner, to—oh, how good of him! He
had given up his double chess! And so there could be round games at the
round table, or everyone could spend the evening in the most amusing way
imaginable—spinning counters and rings.' When the babies came it was
still more wonderful. Pussy was such a clever little girl ("I am not
Pussy! I am the Princess Royal!" she had angrily exclaimed on one
occasion); and Bertie—well, she could only pray MOST fervently that
the little Prince of Wales would grow up to "resemble his angelic dearest
Father in EVERY, EVERY respect, both in body and mind." Her dear Mamma,
too, had been drawn once more into the family circle, for Albert had
brought about a reconciliation, and the departure of Lehzen had helped to
obliterate the past. In Victoria's eyes, life had become an idyll, and, if
the essential elements of an idyll are happiness, love and simplicity, an
idyll it was; though, indeed, it was of a kind that might have
disconcerted Theocritus. "Albert brought in dearest little Pussy," wrote
Her Majesty in her journal, "in such a smart white merino dress trimmed
with blue, which Mamma had given her, and a pretty cap, and placed her on
my bed, seating himself next to her, and she was very dear and good. And,
as my precious, invaluable Albert sat there, and our little Love between
us, I felt quite moved with happiness and gratitude to God."</p>
<p>The past—the past of only three years since—when she looked
back upon it, seemed a thing so remote and alien that she could explain it
to herself in no other way than as some kind of delusion—an
unfortunate mistake. Turning over an old volume of her diary, she came
upon this sentence—"As for 'the confidence of the Crown,' God knows!
No MINISTER, NO FRIEND, EVER possessed it so entirely as this truly
excellent Lord Melbourne possesses mine!" A pang shot through her—she
seized a pen, and wrote upon the margin—"Reading this again, I
cannot forbear remarking what an artificial sort of happiness MINE was
THEN, and what a blessing it is I have now in my beloved Husband REAL and
solid happiness, which no Politics, no worldly reverses CAN change; it
could not have lasted long as it was then, for after all, kind and
excellent as Lord M. is, and kind as he was to me, it was but in Society
that I had amusement, and I was only living on that superficial resource,
which I THEN FANCIED was happiness! Thank God! for ME and others, this is
changed, and I KNOW WHAT REAL HAPPINESS IS—V. R." How did she know?
What is the distinction between happiness that is real and happiness that
is felt? So a philosopher—Lord M. himself perhaps—might have
inquired. But she was no philosopher, and Lord M. was a phantom, and
Albert was beside her, and that was enough.</p>
<p>Happy, certainly, she was; and she wanted everyone to know it. Her letters
to King Leopold are sprinkled thick with raptures. "Oh! my dearest uncle,
I am sure if you knew HOW happy, how blessed I feel, and how PROUD I feel
in possessing SUCH a perfect being as my husband..." such ecstasies seemed
to gush from her pen unceasingly and almost of their own accord. When, one
day, without thinking, Lady Lyttelton described someone to her as being
"as happy as a queen," and then grew a little confused, "Don't correct
yourself, Lady Lyttelton," said Her Majesty. "A queen IS a very happy
woman."</p>
<p>But this new happiness was no lotus dream. On the contrary, it was
bracing, rather than relaxing. Never before had she felt so acutely the
necessity for doing her duty. She worked more methodically than ever at
the business of State; she watched over her children with untiring
vigilance. She carried on a large correspondence; she was occupied with
her farm—her dairy—a whole multitude of household avocations—from
morning till night. Her active, eager little body hurrying with quick
steps after the long strides of Albert down the corridors and avenues of
Windsor, seemed the very expression of her spirit. Amid all the softness,
the deliciousness of unmixed joy, all the liquescence, the overflowings of
inexhaustible sentiment, her native rigidity remained. "A vein of iron,"
said Lady Lyttelton, who, as royal governess, had good means of
observation, "runs through her most extraordinary character." Sometimes
the delightful routine of domestic existence had to be interrupted. It was
necessary to exchange Windsor for Buckingham Palace, to open Parliament,
or to interview official personages, or, occasionally, to entertain
foreign visitors at the Castle. Then the quiet Court put on a sudden
magnificence, and sovereigns from over the seas—Louis Philippe, or
the King of Prussia, or the King of Saxony—found at Windsor an
entertainment that was indeed a royal one. Few spectacles in Europe, it
was agreed, produced an effect so imposing as the great Waterloo
banqueting hall, crowded with guests in sparkling diamonds and blazing
uniforms, the long walls hung with the stately portraits of heroes, and
the tables loaded with the gorgeous gold plate of the kings of England.
But, in that wealth of splendour, the most imposing spectacle of all was
the Queen. The little hausfrau, who had spent the day before walking out
with her children, inspecting her livestock, practicing shakes at the
piano, and filling up her journal with adoring descriptions of her
husband, suddenly shone forth, without art, without effort, by a
spontaneous and natural transition, the very culmination of Majesty. The
Tsar of Russia himself was deeply impressed. Victoria on her side viewed
with secret awe the tremendous Nicholas. "A great event and a great
compliment HIS visit certainly is," she told her uncle, "and the people
HERE are extremely flattered at it. He is certainly a VERY STRIKING man;
still very handsome. His profile is BEAUTIFUL and his manners MOST
dignified and graceful; extremely civil—quite alarmingly so, as he
is so full of attentions and POLITENESS. But the expression of the EYES is
FORMIDABLE and unlike anything I ever saw before." She and Albert and "the
good King of Saxony," who happened to be there at the same time, and whom,
she said, "we like much—he is so unassuming-" drew together like
tame villatic fowl in the presence of that awful eagle. When he was gone,
they compared notes about his face, his unhappiness, and his despotic
power over millions. Well! She for her part could not help pitying him,
and she thanked God she was Queen of England.</p>
<p>When the time came for returning some of these visits, the royal pair set
forth in their yacht, much to Victoria's satisfaction. "I do love a ship!"
she exclaimed, ran up and down ladders with the greatest agility, and
cracked jokes with the sailors. The Prince was more aloof. They visited
Louis Philippe at the Chateau d'Eu; they visited King Leopold in Brussels.
It happened that a still more remarkable Englishwoman was in the Belgian
capital, but she was not remarked; and Queen Victoria passed unknowing
before the steady gaze of one of the mistresses in M. Heger's pensionnat.
"A little stout, vivacious lady, very plainly dressed—not much
dignity or pretension about her," was Charlotte Bronte's comment as the
royal carriage and six flashed by her, making her wait on the pavement for
a moment, and interrupting the train of her reflections. Victoria was in
high spirits, and even succeeded in instilling a little cheerfulness into
her uncle's sombre Court. King Leopold, indeed, was perfectly contented.
His dearest hopes had been fulfilled; all his ambitions were satisfied;
and for the rest of his life he had only to enjoy, in undisturbed decorum,
his throne, his respectability, the table of precedence, and the punctual
discharge of his irksome duties. But unfortunately the felicity of those
who surrounded him was less complete. His Court, it was murmured, was as
gloomy as a conventicle, and the most dismal of all the sufferers was his
wife. "Pas de plaisanteries, madame!" he had exclaimed to the unfortunate
successor of the Princess Charlotte, when, in the early days of their
marriage, she had attempted a feeble joke. Did she not understand that the
consort of a constitutional sovereign must not be frivolous? She
understood, at last, only too well; and when the startled walls of the
state apartments re-echoed to the chattering and the laughter of Victoria,
the poor lady found that she had almost forgotten how to smile.</p>
<p>Another year, Germany was visited, and Albert displayed the beauties of
his home. When Victoria crossed the frontier, she was much excited—and
she was astonished as well. "To hear the people speak German," she noted
in her diary, "and to see the German soldiers, etc., seemed to me so
singular." Having recovered from this slight shock, she found the country
charming. She was feted everywhere, crowds of the surrounding royalties
swooped down to welcome her, and the prettiest groups of peasant children,
dressed in their best clothes, presented her with bunches of flowers. The
principality of Coburg, with its romantic scenery and its well-behaved
inhabitants, particularly delighted her; and when she woke up one morning
to find herself in "dear Rosenau, my Albert's birthplace," it was "like a
beautiful dream." On her return home, she expatiated, in a letter to King
Leopold, upon the pleasures of the trip, dwelling especially upon the
intensity of her affection for Albert's native land. "I have a feeling,"
she said, "for our dear little Germany, which I cannot describe. I felt it
at Rosenau so much. It is a something which touches me, and which goes to
my heart, and makes me inclined to cry. I never felt at any other place
that sort of pensive pleasure and peace which I felt there. I fear I
almost like it too much."</p>
<p>V</p>
<p>The husband was not so happy as the wife. In spite of the great
improvement in his situation, in spite of a growing family and the
adoration of Victoria, Albert was still a stranger in a strange land, and
the serenity of spiritual satisfaction was denied him. It was something,
no doubt, to have dominated his immediate environment; but it was not
enough; and, besides, in the very completeness of his success, there was a
bitterness. Victoria idolised him; but it was understanding that he craved
for, not idolatry; and how much did Victoria, filled to the brim though
she was with him, understand him? How much does the bucket understand the
well? He was lonely. He went to his organ and improvised with learned
modulations until the sounds, swelling and subsiding through elaborate
cadences, brought some solace to his heart. Then, with the elasticity of
youth, he hurried off to play with the babies, or to design a new pigsty,
or to read aloud the "Church History of Scotland" to Victoria, or to
pirouette before her on one toe, like a ballet-dancer, with a fixed smile,
to show her how she ought to behave when she appeared in public places.
Thus did he amuse himself; but there was one distraction in which he did
not indulge. He never flirted—no, not with the prettiest ladies of
the Court. When, during their engagement, the Queen had remarked with
pride to Lord Melbourne that the Prince paid no attention to any other
woman, the cynic had answered, "No, that sort of thing is apt to come
later;" upon which she had scolded him severely, and then hurried off to
Stockmar to repeat what Lord M. had said. But the Baron had reassured her;
though in other cases, he had replied, that might happen, he did not think
it would in Albert's. And the Baron was right. Throughout their married
life no rival female charms ever had cause to give Victoria one moment's
pang of jealousy.</p>
<p>What more and more absorbed him—bringing with it a curious comfort
of its own—was his work. With the advent of Peel, he began to
intervene actively in the affairs of the State. In more ways than one—in
the cast of their intelligence, in their moral earnestness, even in the
uneasy formalism of their manners—the two men resembled each other;
there was a sympathy between them; and thus Peel was ready enough to
listen to the advice of Stockmar, and to urge the Prince forward into
public life. A royal commission was about to be formed to enquire whether
advantage might not be taken of the rebuilding of the Houses of Parliament
to encourage the Fine Arts in the United Kingdom; and Peel, with great
perspicacity, asked the Prince to preside over it. The work was of a kind
which precisely suited Albert: his love of art, his love of method, his
love of coming into contact—close yet dignified—with
distinguished men—it satisfied them all; and he threw himself into
it con amore. Some of the members of the commission were somewhat alarmed
when, in his opening speech, he pointed out the necessity of dividing the
subjects to be considered into "categories-" the word, they thought,
smacked dangerously of German metaphysics; but their confidence returned
when they observed His Royal Highness's extraordinary technical
acquaintance with the processes of fresco painting. When the question
arose as to whether the decorations upon the walls of the new buildings
should, or should not, have a moral purpose, the Prince spoke strongly for
the affirmative. Although many, he observed, would give but a passing
glance to the works, the painter was not therefore to forget that others
might view them with more thoughtful eyes. This argument convinced the
commission, and it was decided that the subjects to be depicted should be
of an improving nature. The frescoes were carried out in accordance with
the commission's instructions, but unfortunately before very long they had
become, even to the most thoughtful eyes, totally invisible. It seems that
His Royal Highness's technical acquaintance with the processes of fresco
painting was incomplete!</p>
<p>The next task upon which the Prince embarked was a more arduous one: he
determined to reform the organisation of the royal household. This reform
had been long overdue. For years past the confusion, discomfort, and
extravagance in the royal residences, and in Buckingham Palace
particularly, had been scandalous; no reform had been practicable under
the rule of the Baroness; but her functions had now devolved upon the
Prince, and in 1844, he boldly attacked the problem. Three years earlier,
Stockmar, after careful enquiry, had revealed in an elaborate memorandum
an extraordinary state of affairs. The control of the household, it
appeared, was divided in the strangest manner between a number of
authorities, each independent of the other, each possessed of vague and
fluctuating powers, without responsibility, and without co-ordination. Of
these authorities, the most prominent were the Lord Steward and the Lord
Chamberlain—noblemen of high rank and political importance, who
changed office with every administration, who did not reside with the
Court, and had no effective representatives attached to it. The
distribution of their respective functions was uncertain and peculiar. In
Buckingham Palace, it was believed that the Lord Chamberlain had charge of
the whole of the rooms, with the exception of the kitchen, sculleries, and
pantries, which were claimed by the Lord Steward. At the same time, the
outside of the Palace was under the control of neither of these
functionaries—but of the Office of Woods and Forests; and thus,
while the insides of the windows were cleaned by the Department of the
Lord Chamberlain—or possibly, in certain cases, of the Lord Steward—the
Office of Woods and Forests cleaned their outsides. Of the servants, the
housekeepers, the pages, and the housemaids were under the authority of
the Lord Chamberlain; the clerk of the kitchen, the cooks, and the porters
were under that of the Lord Steward; but the footmen, the livery-porters,
and the under-butlers took their orders from yet another official—the
Master of the Horse. Naturally, in these circumstances the service was
extremely defective and the lack of discipline among the servants
disgraceful. They absented themselves for as long as they pleased and
whenever the fancy took them; "and if," as the Baron put it, "smoking,
drinking, and other irregularities occur in the dormitories, where
footmen, etc., sleep ten and twelve in each room, no one can help it." As
for Her Majesty's guests, there was nobody to show them to their rooms,
and they were often left, having utterly lost their way in the complicated
passages, to wander helpless by the hour. The strange divisions of
authority extended not only to persons but to things. The Queen observed
that there was never a fire in the dining-room. She enquired why. The
answer was "the Lord Steward lays the fire, and the Lord Chamberlain
lights it;" the underlings of those two great noblemen having failed to
come to an accommodation, there was no help for it—the Queen must
eat in the cold.</p>
<p>A surprising incident opened everyone's eyes to the confusion and
negligence that reigned in the Palace. A fortnight after the birth of the
Princess Royal the nurse heard a suspicious noise in the room next to the
Queen's bedroom. She called to one of the pages, who, looking under a
large sofa, perceived there a crouching figure "with a most repulsive
appearance." It was "the boy Jones." This enigmatical personage, whose
escapades dominated the newspapers for several ensuing months, and whose
motives and character remained to the end ambiguous, was an undersized lad
of 17, the son of a tailor, who had apparently gained admittance to the
Palace by climbing over the garden wall and walking in through an open
window. Two years before he had paid a similar visit in the guise of a
chimney-sweep. He now declared that he had spent three days in the Palace,
hiding under various beds, that he had "helped himself to soup and other
eatables," and that he had "sat upon the throne, seen the Queen, and heard
the Princess Royal squall." Every detail of the strange affair was eagerly
canvassed. The Times reported that the boy Jones had "from his infancy
been fond of reading," but that "his countenance is exceedingly sullen."
It added: "The sofa under which the boy Jones was discovered, we
understand, is one of the most costly and magnificent material and
workmanship, and ordered expressly for the accommodation of the royal and
illustrious visitors who call to pay their respects to Her Majesty." The
culprit was sent for three months to the "House of Correction." When he
emerged, he immediately returned to Buckingham Palace. He was discovered,
and sent back to the "House of Correction" for another three months, after
which he was offered L4 a week by a music hall to appear upon the stage.
He refused this offer, and shortly afterwards was found by the police
loitering round Buckingham Palace. The authorities acted vigorously, and,
without any trial or process of law, shipped the boy Jones off to sea. A
year later his ship put into Portsmouth to refit, and he at once
disembarked and walked to London. He was re-arrested before he reached the
Palace, and sent back to his ship, the Warspite. On this occasion it was
noticed that he had "much improved in personal appearance and grown quite
corpulent;" and so the boy Jones passed out of history, though we catch
one last glimpse of him in 1844 falling overboard in the night between
Tunis and Algiers. He was fished up again; but it was conjectured—as
one of the Warspite's officers explained in a letter to The Times—that
his fall had not been accidental, but that he had deliberately jumped into
the Mediterranean in order to "see the life-buoy light burning." Of a boy
with such a record, what else could be supposed?</p>
<p>But discomfort and alarm were not the only results of the mismanagement of
the household; the waste, extravagance, and peculation that also flowed
from it were immeasurable. There were preposterous perquisites and
malpractices of every kind. It was, for instance, an ancient and immutable
rule that a candle that had once been lighted should never be lighted
again; what happened to the old candles, nobody knew. Again, the Prince,
examining the accounts, was puzzled by a weekly expenditure of thirty-five
shillings on "Red Room Wine." He enquired into the matter, and after great
difficulty discovered that in the time of George III a room in Windsor
Castle with red hangings had once been used as a guard-room, and that five
shillings a day had been allowed to provide wine for the officers. The
guard had long since been moved elsewhere, but the payment for wine in the
Red Room continued, the money being received by a half-pay officer who
held the sinecure position of under-butler.</p>
<p>After much laborious investigation, and a stiff struggle with the
multitude of vested interests which had been brought into being by long
years of neglect, the Prince succeeded in effecting a complete reform. The
various conflicting authorities were induced to resign their powers into
the hands of a single official, the Master of the Household, who became
responsible for the entire management of the royal palaces. Great
economies were made, and the whole crowd of venerable abuses was swept
away. Among others, the unlucky half-pay officer of the Red Room was, much
to his surprise, given the choice of relinquishing his weekly emolument or
of performing the duties of an under-butler. Even the irregularities among
the footmen, etc., were greatly diminished. There were outcries and
complaints; the Prince was accused of meddling, of injustice, and of
saving candle-ends; but he held on his course, and before long the
admirable administration of the royal household was recognised as a
convincing proof of his perseverance and capacity.</p>
<p>At the same time his activity was increasing enormously in a more
important sphere. He had become the Queen's Private Secretary, her
confidential adviser, her second self. He was now always present at her
interviews with Ministers. He took, like the Queen, a special interest in
foreign policy; but there was no public question in which his influence
was not felt. A double process was at work; while Victoria fell more and
more absolutely under his intellectual predominance, he, simultaneously,
grew more and more completely absorbed by the machinery of high politics—the
incessant and multifarious business of a great State. Nobody any more
could call him a dilettante; he was a worker, a public personage, a man of
affairs. Stockmar noted the change with exultation. "The Prince," he
wrote, "has improved very much lately. He has evidently a head for
politics. He has become, too, far more independent. His mental activity is
constantly on the increase, and he gives the greater part of his time to
business, without complaining."</p>
<p>"The relations between husband and wife," added the Baron, "are all one
could desire."</p>
<p>Long before Peel's ministry came to an end, there had been a complete
change in Victoria's attitude towards him. His appreciation of the Prince
had softened her heart; the sincerity and warmth of his nature, which, in
private intercourse with those whom he wished to please, had the power of
gradually dissipating the awkwardness of his manners, did the rest. She
came in time to regard him with intense feelings of respect and
attachment. She spoke of "our worthy Peel," for whom, she said, she had
"an EXTREME admiration" and who had shown himself "a man of unbounded
LOYALTY, COURAGE patriotism, and HIGH-MINDEDNESS, and his conduct towards
me has been CHIVALROUS almost, I might say." She dreaded his removal from
office almost as frantically as she had once dreaded that of Lord M. It
would be, she declared, a GREAT CALAMITY. Six years before, what would she
have said, if a prophet had told her that the day would come when she
would be horrified by the triumph of the Whigs? Yet there was no escaping
it; she had to face the return of her old friends. In the ministerial
crises of 1845 and 1846, the Prince played a dominating part. Everybody
recognised that he was the real centre of the negotiations—the
actual controller of the forces and the functions of the Crown. The
process by which this result was reached had been so gradual as to be
almost imperceptible; but it may be said with certainty that, by the close
of Peel's administration, Albert had become, in effect, the King of
England.</p>
<p>VI</p>
<p>With the final emergence of the Prince came the final extinction of Lord
Melbourne. A year after his loss of office, he had been struck down by a
paralytic seizure; he had apparently recovered, but his old elasticity had
gone for ever. Moody, restless, and unhappy, he wandered like a ghost
about the town, bursting into soliloquies in public places, or asking odd
questions, suddenly, a propos de bottes. "I'll be hanged if I do it for
you, my Lord," he was heard to say in the hall at Brooks's, standing by
himself, and addressing the air after much thought. "Don't you consider,"
he abruptly asked a fellow-guest at Lady Holland's, leaning across the
dinner-table in a pause of the conversation, "that it was a most damnable
act of Henri Quatre to change his religion with a view to securing the
Crown?" He sat at home, brooding for hours in miserable solitude. He
turned over his books—his classics and his Testaments—but they
brought him no comfort at all. He longed for the return of the past, for
the impossible, for he knew not what, for the devilries of Caro, for the
happy platitudes of Windsor. His friends had left him, and no wonder, he
said in bitterness—the fire was out. He secretly hoped for a return
to power, scanning the newspapers with solicitude, and occasionally making
a speech in the House of Lords. His correspondence with the Queen
continued, and he appeared from time to time at Court; but he was a mere
simulacrum of his former self; "the dream," wrote Victoria, "is past." As
for his political views, they could no longer be tolerated. The Prince was
an ardent Free Trader, and so, of course, was the Queen; and when, dining
at Windsor at the time of the repeal of the Corn Laws, Lord Melbourne
suddenly exclaimed, "Ma'am, it's a damned dishonest act!" everyone was
extremely embarrassed. Her Majesty laughed and tried to change the
conversation, but without avail; Lord Melbourne returned to the charge
again and again with—"I say, Ma'am, it's damned dishonest!"—until
the Queen said "Lord Melbourne, I must beg you not to say anything more on
this subject now;" and then he held his tongue. She was kind to him,
writing him long letters, and always remembering his birthday; but it was
kindness at a distance, and he knew it. He had become "poor Lord
Melbourne." A profound disquietude devoured him. He tried to fix his mind
on the condition of Agriculture and the Oxford Movement. He wrote long
memoranda in utterly undecipherable handwriting. He was convinced that he
had lost all his money, and could not possibly afford to be a Knight of
the Garter. He had run through everything, and yet—if Peel went out,
he might be sent for—why not? He was never sent for. The Whigs
ignored him in their consultations, and the leadership of the party passed
to Lord John Russell. When Lord John became Prime Minister, there was much
politeness, but Lord Melbourne was not asked to join the Cabinet. He bore
the blow with perfect amenity; but he understood, at last, that that was
the end.</p>
<p>For two years more he lingered, sinking slowly into unconsciousness and
imbecility. Sometimes, propped up in his chair, he would be heard to
murmur, with unexpected appositeness, the words of Samson:—</p>
<p>"So much I feel my general spirit droop,<br/>
My hopes all flat, nature within me seems,<br/>
In all her functions weary of herself,<br/>
My race of glory run, and race of shame,<br/>
And I shall shortly be with them that rest."<br/></p>
<p>A few days before his death, Victoria, learning that there was no hope of
his recovery, turned her mind for a little towards that which had once
been Lord M. "You will grieve to hear," she told King Leopold, "that our
good, dear, old friend Melbourne is dying... One cannot forget how good
and kind and amiable he was, and it brings back so many recollections to
my mind, though, God knows! I never wish that time back again."</p>
<p>She was in little danger. The tide of circumstance was flowing now with
irresistible fullness towards a very different consummation. The
seriousness of Albert, the claims of her children, her own inmost
inclinations, and the movement of the whole surrounding world, combined to
urge her forward along the narrow way of public and domestic duty. Her
family steadily increased. Within eighteen months of the birth of the
Prince of Wales the Princess Alice appeared, and a year later the Prince
Alfred, and then the Princess Helena, and, two years afterwards, the
Princess Louise; and still there were signs that the pretty row of royal
infants was not complete. The parents, more and more involved in family
cares and family happiness, found the pomp of Windsor galling, and longed
for some more intimate and remote retreat. On the advice of Peel they
purchased the estate of Osborne, in the Isle of Wight. Their skill and
economy in financial matters had enabled them to lay aside a substantial
sum of money; and they could afford, out of their savings, not merely to
buy the property but to build a new house for themselves and to furnish it
at a cost of L200,000. At Osborne, by the sea-shore, and among the woods,
which Albert, with memories of Rosenau in his mind, had so carefully
planted, the royal family spent every hour that could be snatched from
Windsor and London—delightful hours of deep retirement and peaceful
work. The public looked on with approval. A few aristocrats might sniff or
titter; but with the nation at large the Queen was now once more extremely
popular. The middle-classes, in particular, were pleased. They liked a
love-match; they liked a household which combined the advantages of
royalty and virtue, and in which they seemed to see, reflected as in some
resplendent looking-glass, the ideal image of the very lives they led
themselves. Their own existences, less exalted, but oh! so soothingly
similar, acquired an added excellence, an added succulence, from the early
hours, the regularity, the plain tuckers, the round games, the roast beef
and Yorkshire pudding oft Osborne. It was indeed a model Court. Not only
were its central personages the patterns of propriety, but no breath of
scandal, no shadow of indecorum, might approach its utmost boundaries. For
Victoria, with all the zeal of a convert, upheld now the standard of moral
purity with an inflexibility surpassing, if that were possible, Albert's
own. She blushed to think how she had once believed—how she had once
actually told HIM—that one might be too strict and particular in
such matters, and that one ought to be indulgent towards other people's
dreadful sins. But she was no longer Lord M's pupil: she was Albert's
wife. She was more—the embodiment, the living apex of a new era in
the generations of mankind. The last vestige of the eighteenth century had
disappeared; cynicism and subtlety were shrivelled into powder; and duty,
industry, morality, and domesticity triumphed over them. Even the very
chairs and tables had assumed, with a singular responsiveness, the forms
of prim solidity. The Victorian Age was in full swing.</p>
<p>VII</p>
<p>Only one thing more was needed: material expression must be given to the
new ideals and the new forces so that they might stand revealed, in
visible glory, before the eyes of an astonished world. It was for Albert
to supply this want. He mused, and was inspired: the Great Exhibition came
into his head.</p>
<p>Without consulting anyone, he thought out the details of his conception
with the minutest care. There had been exhibitions before in the world,
but this should surpass them all. It should contain specimens of what
every country could produce in raw materials, in machinery and mechanical
inventions, in manufactures, and in the applied and plastic arts. It
should not be merely useful and ornamental; it should teach a high moral
lesson. It should be an international monument to those supreme blessings
of civilisation—peace, progress, and prosperity. For some time past
the Prince had been devoting much of his attention to the problems of
commerce and industry. He had a taste for machinery of every kind, and his
sharp eye had more than once detected, with the precision of an expert, a
missing cog-wheel in some vast and complicated engine. A visit to
Liverpool, where he opened the Albert Dock, impressed upon his mind the
immensity of modern industrial forces, though in a letter to Victoria
describing his experiences, he was careful to retain his customary
lightness of touch. "As I write," he playfully remarked, "you will be
making your evening toilette, and not be ready in time for dinner. I must
set about the same task, and not, let me hope, with the same result... The
loyalty and enthusiasm of the inhabitants are great; but the heat is
greater still. I am satisfied that if the population of Liverpool had been
weighed this morning, and were to be weighed again now, they would be
found many degrees lighter. The docks are wonderful, and the mass of
shipping incredible." In art and science he had been deeply interested
since boyhood; his reform of the household had put his talent for
organisation beyond a doubt; and thus from every point of view the Prince
was well qualified for his task. Having matured his plans, he summoned a
small committee and laid an outline of his scheme before it. The committee
approved, and the great undertaking was set on foot without delay.</p>
<p>Two years, however, passed before it was completed. For two years the
Prince laboured with extraordinary and incessant energy. At first all went
smoothly. The leading manufacturers warmly took up the idea; the colonies
and the East India Company were sympathetic; the great foreign nations
were eager to send in their contributions; the powerful support of Sir
Robert Peel was obtained, and the use of a site in Hyde Park, selected by
the Prince, was sanctioned by the Government. Out of 234 plans for the
exhibition building, the Prince chose that of Joseph Paxton, famous as a
designer of gigantic conservatories; and the work was on the point of
being put in hand when a series of unexpected difficulties arose.
Opposition to the whole scheme, which had long been smouldering in various
quarters, suddenly burst forth. There was an outcry, headed by The Times,
against the use of the park for the exhibition; for a moment it seemed as
if the building would be relegated to a suburb; but, after a fierce debate
in the House, the supporters of the site in the Park won the day. Then it
appeared that the project lacked a sufficient financial backing; but this
obstacle, too, was surmounted, and eventually L200,000 was subscribed as a
guarantee fund. The enormous glass edifice rose higher and higher,
covering acres and enclosing towering elm trees beneath its roof: and then
the fury of its enemies reached a climax. The fashionable, the cautious,
the Protectionists, the pious, all joined in the hue and cry. It was
pointed out that the Exhibition would serve as a rallying point for all
the ruffians in England, for all the malcontents in Europe; and that on
the day of its opening there would certainly be a riot and probably a
revolution. It was asserted that the glass roof was porous, and that the
droppings of fifty million sparrows would utterly destroy every object
beneath it. Agitated nonconformists declared that the Exhibition was an
arrogant and wicked enterprise which would infallibly bring down God's
punishment upon the nation. Colonel Sibthorpe, in the debate on the
Address, prayed that hail and lightning might descend from heaven on the
accursed thing. The Prince, with unyielding perseverance and infinite
patience, pressed on to his goal. His health was seriously affected; he
suffered from constant sleeplessness; his strength was almost worn out.
But he remembered the injunctions of Stockmar and never relaxed. The
volume of his labours grew more prodigious every day; he toiled at
committees, presided over public meetings, made speeches, and carried on
communications with every corner of the civilised world—and his
efforts were rewarded. On May 1, 1851, the Great Exhibition was opened by
the Queen before an enormous concourse of persons, amid scenes of dazzling
brilliancy and triumphant enthusiasm.</p>
<p>Victoria herself was in a state of excitement which bordered on delirium.
She performed her duties in a trance of joy, gratitude, and amazement,
and, when it was all over, her feelings poured themselves out into her
journal in a torrential flood. The day had been nothing but an endless
succession of glories—or rather one vast glory—one vast
radiation of Albert. Everything she had seen, everything she had felt or
heard, had been so beautiful, so wonderful that even the royal
underlinings broke down under the burden of emphasis, while her
remembering pen rushed on, regardless, from splendour to splendour—the
huge crowds, so well—behaved and loyal-flags of all the nations
floating—the inside of the building, so immense, with myriads of
people and the sun shining through the roof—a little side room,
where we left our shawls—palm-trees and machinery—dear Albert—the
place so big that we could hardly hear the organ—thankfulness to God—a
curious assemblage of political and distinguished men—the March from
Athalie—God bless my dearest Albert, God bless my dearest country!—a
glass fountain—the Duke and Lord Anglesey walking arm in arm—a
beautiful Amazon, in bronze, by Kiss—Mr. Paxton, who might be justly
proud, and rose from being a common gardener's boy—Sir George Grey
in tears, and everybody astonished and delighted.</p>
<p>A striking incident occurred when, after a short prayer by the Archbishop
of Canterbury, the choir of 600 voices burst into the "Hallelujah Chorus."
At that moment a Chinaman, dressed in full national costume, stepped out
into the middle of the central nave, and, advancing slowly towards the
royal group, did obeisance to Her Majesty. The Queen, much impressed, had
no doubt that he was an eminent mandarin; and, when the final procession
was formed, orders were given that, as no representative of the Celestial
Empire was present, he should be included in the diplomatic cortege. He
accordingly, with the utmost gravity, followed immediately behind the
Ambassadors. He subsequently disappeared, and it was rumoured, among
ill-natured people, that, far from being a mandarin, the fellow was a mere
impostor. But nobody ever really discovered the nature of the comments
that had been lurking behind the matchless impassivity of that yellow
face.</p>
<p>A few days later Victoria poured out her heart to her uncle. The first of
May, she said, was "the GREATEST day in our history, the most BEAUTIFUL
and IMPOSING and TOUCHING spectacle ever seen, and the triumph of my
beloved Albert... It was the HAPPIEST, PROUDEST day in my life, and I can
think of nothing else. Albert's dearest name is immortalised with this
GREAT conception, HIS own, and my OWN dear country SHOWED she was WORTHY
of it. The triumph is IMMENSE."</p>
<p>It was. The enthusiasm was universal; even the bitterest scoffers were
converted, and joined in the chorus of praise. Congratulations from public
bodies poured in; the City of Paris gave a great fete to the Exhibition
committee; and the Queen and the Prince made a triumphal progress through
the North of England. The financial results were equally remarkable. The
total profit made by the Exhibition amounted to a sum of L165,000, which
was employed in the purchase of land for the erection of a permanent
National Museum in South Kensington. During the six months of its
existence in Hyde Park over six million persons visited it, and not a
single accident occurred. But there is an end to all things; and the time
had come for the Crystal Palace to be removed to the salubrious seclusion
of Sydenham. Victoria, sad but resigned, paid her final visit. "It looked
so beautiful," she said. "I could not believe it was the last time I was
to see it. An organ, accompanied by a fine and powerful wind instrument
called the sommerophone, was being played, and it nearly upset me. The
canvas is very dirty, the red curtains are faded and many things are very
much soiled, still the effect is fresh and new as ever and most beautiful.
The glass fountain was already removed... and the sappers and miners were
rolling about the little boxes just as they did at the beginning. It made
us all very melancholy." But more cheerful thoughts followed. When all was
over, she expressed her boundless satisfaction in a dithyrambic letter to
the Prime Minister. Her beloved husband's name, she said, was for ever
immortalised, and that this was universally recognised by the country was
a source to her of immense happiness and gratitude. "She feels grateful to
Providence," Her Majesty concluded, "to have permitted her to be united to
so great, so noble, so excellent a Prince, and this year will ever remain
the proudest and happiest of her life. The day of the closing of the
Exhibition (which the Queen regretted much she could not witness), was the
twelfth anniversary of her betrothal to the Prince, which is a curious
coincidence."</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005"></SPAN></p>
<h2> CHAPTER V. LORD PALMERSTON </h2>
<h3> I </h3>
<p>In 1851 the Prince's fortunes reached their high-water mark. The success
of the Great Exhibition enormously increased his reputation and seemed to
assure him henceforward a leading place in the national life. But before
the year was out another triumph, in a very different sphere of action,
was also his. This triumph, big with fateful consequences, was itself the
outcome of a series of complicated circumstances which had been gathering
to a climax for many years.</p>
<p>The unpopularity of Albert in high society had not diminished with time.
Aristocratic persons continued to regard him with disfavour; and he on his
side, withdrew further and further into a contemptuous reserve. For a
moment, indeed, it appeared as if the dislike of the upper classes was
about to be suddenly converted into cordiality; for they learnt with
amazement that the Prince, during a country visit, had ridden to hounds
and acquitted himself remarkably well. They had always taken it for
granted that his horsemanship was of some second-rate foreign quality, and
here he was jumping five-barred gates and tearing after the fox as if he
had been born and bred in Leicestershire. They could hardly believe it;
was it possible that they had made a mistake, and that Albert was a good
fellow after all? Had he wished to be thought so he would certainly have
seized this opportunity, purchased several hunters, and used them
constantly. But he had no such desire; hunting bored him, and made
Victoria nervous. He continued, as before, to ride, as he himself put it,
for exercise or convenience, not for amusement; and it was agreed that
though the Prince, no doubt, could keep in his saddle well enough, he was
no sportsman.</p>
<p>This was a serious matter. It was not merely that Albert was laughed at by
fine ladies and sneered at by fine gentlemen; it was not merely that
Victoria, who before her marriage had cut some figure in society, had,
under her husband's influence, almost completely given it up. Since
Charles the Second the sovereigns of England had, with a single exception,
always been unfashionable; and the fact that the exception was George the
Fourth seemed to give an added significance to the rule. What was grave
was not the lack of fashion, but the lack of other and more important
qualities. The hostility of the upper classes was symptomatic of an
antagonism more profound than one of manners or even of tastes. The
Prince, in a word, was un-English. What that word precisely meant it was
difficult to say; but the fact was patent to every eye. Lord Palmerston,
also, was not fashionable; the great Whig aristocrats looked askance at
him, and only tolerated him as an unpleasant necessity thrust upon them by
fate. But Lord Palmerston was English through and through, there was
something in him that expressed, with extraordinary vigour, the
fundamental qualities of the English race. And he was the very antithesis
of the Prince. By a curious chance it so happened that this typical
Englishman was brought into closer contact than any other of his
countrymen with the alien from over the sea. It thus fell out that
differences which, in more fortunate circumstances, might have been
smoothed away and obliterated, became accentuated to the highest pitch.
All the mysterious forces in Albert's soul leapt out to do battle with his
adversary, and, in the long and violent conflict that followed, it almost
seemed as if he was struggling with England herself.</p>
<p>Palmerston's whole life had been spent in the government of the country.
At twenty-two he had been a Minister; at twenty-five he had been offered
the Chancellorship of the Exchequer, which, with that prudence which
formed so unexpected a part of his character, he had declined to accept.
His first spell of office had lasted uninterruptedly for twenty-one years.
When Lord Grey came into power he received the Foreign Secretaryship, a
post which he continued to occupy, with two intervals, for another
twenty-one years. Throughout this period his reputation with the public
had steadily grown, and when, in 1846, he became Foreign Secretary for the
third time, his position in the country was almost, if not quite, on an
equality with that of the Prime Minister, Lord John Russell. He was a
tall, big man of sixty-two, with a jaunty air, a large face, dyed
whiskers, and a long sardonic upper lip. His private life was far from
respectable, but he had greatly strengthened his position in society by
marrying, late in life, Lady Cowper, the sister of Lord Melbourne, and one
of the most influential of the Whig hostesses. Powerful, experienced, and
supremely self-confident, he naturally paid very little attention to
Albert. Why should he? The Prince was interested in foreign affairs? Very
well, then; let the Prince pay attention to him—to him, who had been
a Cabinet Minister when Albert was in the cradle, who was the chosen
leader of a great nation, and who had never failed in anything he had
undertaken in the whole course of his life. Not that he wanted the
Prince's attention—far from it: so far as he could see, Albert was
merely a young foreigner, who suffered from having no vices, and whose
only claim to distinction was that he had happened to marry the Queen of
England. This estimate, as he found out to his cost, was a mistaken one.
Albert was by no means insignificant, and, behind Albert, there was
another figure by no means insignificant either—there was Stockmar.</p>
<p>But Palmerston, busy with his plans, his ambitions, and the management of
a great department, brushed all such considerations on one side; it was
his favourite method of action. He lived by instinct—by a quick eye
and a strong hand, a dexterous management of every crisis as it arose, a
half-unconscious sense of the vital elements in a situation. He was very
bold; and nothing gave him more exhilaration than to steer the ship of
state in a high wind, on a rough sea, with every stitch of canvas on her
that she could carry. But there is a point beyond which boldness becomes
rashness—a point perceptible only to intuition and not to reason;
and beyond that point Palmerston never went. When he saw that the cast
demanded it, he could go slow—very slow indeed in fact, his whole
career, so full of vigorous adventure, was nevertheless a masterly example
of the proverb, "tout vient a point a qui sait attendre." But when he
decided to go quick, nobody went quicker. One day, returning from Osborne,
he found that he had missed the train to London; he ordered a special, but
the station master told him that to put a special train upon the line at
that time of day would be dangerous and he could not allow it. Palmerston
insisted declaring that he had important business in London, which could
not wait. The station-master supported by all the officials, continued to
demur the company, he said, could not possibly take the responsibility.
"On MY responsibility, then!" said Palmerston, in his off-hand, peremptory
way whereupon the station-master ordered up the train and the Foreign
Secretary reached London in time for his work, without an accident. The
story, is typical of the happy valiance with which he conducted both his
own affairs and those of the nation. "England," he used to say, "is strong
enough to brave consequences." Apparently, under Palmerston's guidance,
she was. While the officials protested and shook in their shoes, he would
wave them away with his airy "MY responsibility!" and carry the country
swiftly along the line of his choice, to a triumphant destination—without
an accident. His immense popularity was the result partly of his
diplomatic successes, partly of his extraordinary personal affability, but
chiefly of the genuine intensity with which he responded to the feelings
and supported the interests of his countrymen. The public knew that it had
in Lord Palmerston not only a high-mettled master, but also a devoted
servant—that he was, in every sense of the word, a public man. When
he was Prime Minister, he noticed that iron hurdles had been put up on the
grass in the Green Park; he immediately wrote to the Minister responsible,
ordering, in the severest language, their instant removal, declaring that
they were "an intolerable nuisance," and that the purpose of the grass was
"to be walked upon freely and without restraint by the people, old and
young, for whose enjoyment the parks are maintained." It was in this
spirit that, as Foreign Secretary, he watched over the interests of
Englishmen abroad. Nothing could be more agreeable for Englishmen; but
foreign governments were less pleased. They found Lord Palmerston
interfering, exasperating, and alarming. In Paris they spoke with bated
breath of "ce terrible milord Palmerston;" and in Germany they made a
little song about him—</p>
<p>"Hat der Teufel einen Sohn,<br/>
So ist er sicher Palmerston."<br/></p>
<p>But their complaints, their threats, and their agitations were all in
vain. Palmerston, with his upper lip sardonically curving, braved
consequences, and held on his course.</p>
<p>The first diplomatic crisis which arose after his return to office, though
the Prince and the Queen were closely concerned with it, passed off
without serious disagreement between the Court and the Minister. For some
years past a curious problem had been perplexing the chanceries of Europe.
Spain, ever since the time of Napoleon a prey to civil convulsions, had
settled down for a short interval to a state of comparative quiet under
the rule of Christina, the Queen Mother, and her daughter Isabella, the
young Queen. In 1846, the question of Isabella's marriage, which had for
long been the subject of diplomatic speculations, suddenly became acute.
Various candidates for her hand were proposed—among others, two
cousins of her own, another Spanish prince, and Prince Leopold of
Saxe-Coburg, a first cousin of Victoria's and Albert's; for different
reasons, however, none of these young men seemed altogether satisfactory.
Isabella was not yet sixteen; and it might have been supposed that her
marriage could be put off for a few years more; but this was considered to
be out of the question. "Vous ne savez pas," said a high authority, "ce
que c'est que ces princesses espagnoles; elles ont le diable au corps, et
on a toujours dit que si nous ne nous hations pas, l'heritier viendrait
avant le mari." It might also have been supposed that the young Queen's
marriage was a matter to be settled by herself, her mother, and the
Spanish Government; but this again was far from being the case. It had
become, by one of those periodical reversions to the ways of the
eighteenth century, which, it is rumoured, are still not unknown in
diplomacy, a question of dominating importance in the foreign policies
both of France and England. For several years, Louis Philippe and his
Prime Minister Guizot had been privately maturing a very subtle plan. It
was the object of the French King to repeat the glorious coup of Louis
XIV, and to abolish the Pyrenees by placing one of his grandsons on the
throne of Spain. In order to bring this about, he did not venture to
suggest that his younger son, the Duc de Montpensier, should marry
Isabella; that would have been too obvious a move, which would have raised
immediate and insurmountable opposition. He therefore proposed that
Isabella should marry her cousin, the Duke of Cadiz, while Montpensier
married Isabella's younger sister, the Infanta Fernanda; and pray, what
possible objection could there be to that? The wily old King whispered
into the chaste ears of Guizot the key to the secret; he had good reason
to believe that the Duke of Cadiz was incapable of having children, and
therefore the offspring of Fernanda would inherit the Spanish crown.
Guizot rubbed his hands, and began at once to set the necessary springs in
motion; but, of course, the whole scheme was very soon divulged and
understood. The English Government took an extremely serious view of the
matter; the balance of power was clearly at stake, and the French intrigue
must be frustrated at all hazards. A diplomatic struggle of great
intensity followed; and it occasionally appeared that a second War of the
Spanish Succession was about to break out. This was avoided, but the
consequences of this strange imbroglio were far-reaching and completely
different from what any of the parties concerned could have guessed.</p>
<p>In the course of the long and intricate negotiations there was one point
upon which Louis Philippe laid a special stress—the candidature of
Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg. The prospect of a marriage between a Coburg
Prince and the Queen of Spain was, he declared, at least as threatening to
the balance of power in Europe as that of a marriage between the Duc de
Montpensier and the Infanta; and, indeed, there was much to be said for
this contention. The ruin which had fallen upon the House of Coburg during
the Napoleonic wars had apparently only served to multiply its vitality,
for that princely family had by now extended itself over Europe in an
extraordinary manner. King Leopold was firmly fixed in Belgium; his niece
was Queen of England; one of his nephews was the husband of the Queen of
England, and another the husband of the Queen of Portugal; yet another was
Duke of Wurtemberg. Where was this to end? There seemed to be a Coburg
Trust ready to send out one of its members at any moment to fill up any
vacant place among the ruling families of Europe. And even beyond Europe
there were signs of this infection spreading. An American who had arrived
in Brussels had assured King Leopold that there was a strong feeling in
the United States in favour of monarchy instead of the misrule of mobs,
and had suggested, to the delight of His Majesty, that some branch of the
Coburg family might be available for the position. That danger might,
perhaps, be remote; but the Spanish danger was close at hand; and if
Prince Leopold were to marry Queen Isabella the position of France would
be one of humiliation, if not of positive danger. Such were the
asseverations of Louis Philippe. The English Government had no wish to
support Prince Leopold, and though Albert and Victoria had some hankerings
for the match, the wisdom of Stockmar had induced them to give up all
thoughts of it. The way thus seemed open for a settlement: England would
be reasonable about Leopold, if France would be reasonable about
Montpensier. At the Chateau d'Eu, the agreement was made, in a series of
conversations between the King and Guizot on the one side, and the Queen,
the Prince, and Lord Aberdeen on the other. Aberdeen, as Foreign Minister,
declared that England would neither recognise nor support Prince Leopold
as a candidate for the hand of the Queen of Spain; while Louis Philippe
solemnly promised, both to Aberdeen and to Victoria, that the Duc de
Montpensier should not marry the Infanta Fernanda until after the Queen
was married and had issue. All went well, and the crisis seemed to be
over, when the whole question was suddenly re-opened by Palmerston, who
had succeeded Aberdeen at the Foreign Office. In a despatch to the English
Minister at Madrid, he mentioned, in a list of possible candidates for
Queen Isabella's hand, Prince Leopold of Coburg; and at the same time he
took occasion to denounce in violent language the tyranny and incompetence
of the Spanish Government. This despatch, indiscreet in any case, was
rendered infinitely more so by being communicated to Guizot. Louis
Philippe saw his opportunity and pounced on it. Though there was nothing
in Palmerston's language to show that he either recognised or supported
Prince Leopold, the King at once assumed that the English had broken their
engagement, and that he was therefore free to do likewise. He then sent
the despatch to the Queen Mother, declared that the English were
intriguing for the Coburg marriage, bade her mark the animosity of
Palmerston against the Spanish Government, and urged her to escape from
her difficulties and ensure the friendship of France by marrying Isabella
to the Duke of Cadiz and Fernanda to Montpensier. The Queen Mother,
alarmed and furious, was easily convinced. There was only one difficulty:
Isabella loathed the very sight of her cousin. But this was soon
surmounted; there was a wild supper-party at the Palace, and in the course
of it the young girl was induced to consent to anything that was asked of
her. Shortly after, and on the same day, both the marriages took place.</p>
<p>The news burst like a bomb on the English Government, who saw with rage
and mortification that they had been completely outmanoeuvred by the
crafty King. Victoria, in particular, was outraged. Not only had she been
the personal recipient of Louis Philippe's pledge, but he had won his way
to her heart by presenting the Prince of Wales with a box of soldiers and
sending the Princess Royal a beautiful Parisian doll with eyes that opened
and shut. And now insult was added to injury. The Queen of the French
wrote her a formal letter, calmly announcing, as a family event in which
she was sure Victoria would be interested, the marriage of her son,
Montpensier—"qui ajoutera a notre bonheur interieur, le seul vrai
dans ce monde, et que vous, madame, savez si bien apprecier." But the
English Queen had not long to wait for her revenge. Within eighteen months
the monarchy of Louis Philippe, discredited, unpopular, and fatally
weakened by the withdrawal of English support, was swept into limbo, while
he and his family threw themselves as suppliant fugitives at the feet of
Victoria.</p>
<p>II</p>
<p>In this affair both the Queen and the Prince had been too much occupied
with the delinquencies of Louis Philippe to have any wrath to spare for
those of Palmerston; and, indeed, on the main issue, Palmerston's attitude
and their own had been in complete agreement. But in this the case was
unique. In every other foreign complication—and they were many and
serious—during the ensuing years, the differences between the royal
couple and the Foreign Secretary were constant and profound. There was a
sharp quarrel over Portugal, where violently hostile parties were flying
at each other's throats. The royal sympathy was naturally enlisted on
behalf of the Queen and her Coburg husband, while Palmerston gave his
support to the progressive elements in the country. It was not until 1848,
however, that the strain became really serious. In that year of
revolutions, when, in all directions and with alarming frequency, crowns
kept rolling off royal heads, Albert and Victoria were appalled to find
that the policy of England was persistently directed—in Germany, in
Switzerland, in Austria, in Italy, in Sicily—so as to favour the
insurgent forces. The situation, indeed, was just such a one as the soul
of Palmerston loved. There was danger and excitement, the necessity of
decision, the opportunity for action, on every hand. A disciple of
Canning, with an English gentleman's contempt and dislike of foreign
potentates deep in his heart, the spectacle of the popular uprisings, and
of the oppressors bundled ignominiously out of the palaces they had
disgraced, gave him unbounded pleasure, and he was determined that there
should be no doubt whatever, all over the Continent, on which side in the
great struggle England stood. It was not that he had the slightest
tincture in him of philosophical radicalism; he had no philosophical
tinctures of any kind; he was quite content to be inconsistent—to be
a Conservative at home and a Liberal abroad. There were very good reasons
for keeping the Irish in their places; but what had that to do with it?
The point was this—when any decent man read an account of the
political prisons in Naples his gorge rose. He did not want war; but he
saw that without war a skilful and determined use of England's power might
do much to further the cause of the Liberals in Europe. It was a difficult
and a hazardous game to play, but he set about playing it with delighted
alacrity. And then, to his intense annoyance, just as he needed all his
nerve and all possible freedom of action, he found himself being hampered
and distracted at every turn by... those people at Osborne. He saw what it
was; the opposition was systematic and informed, and the Queen alone would
have been incapable of it; the Prince was at the bottom of the whole
thing. It was exceedingly vexatious; but Palmerston was in a hurry, and
could not wait; the Prince, if he would insist upon interfering, must be
brushed on one side.</p>
<p>Albert was very angry. He highly disapproved both of Palmerston's policy
and of his methods of action. He was opposed to absolutism; but in his
opinion Palmerston's proceedings were simply calculated to substitute for
absolutism, all over Europe, something no better and very possibly worse—the
anarchy of faction and mob violence. The dangers of this revolutionary
ferment were grave; even in England Chartism was rampant—a sinister
movement, which might at any moment upset the Constitution and abolish the
Monarchy. Surely, with such dangers at home, this was a very bad time to
choose for encouraging lawlessness abroad. He naturally took a particular
interest in Germany. His instincts, his affections, his prepossessions,
were ineradicably German; Stockmar was deeply involved in German politics;
and he had a multitude of relatives among the ruling German families, who,
from the midst of the hurly-burly of revolution, wrote him long and
agitated letters once a week. Having considered the question of Germany's
future from every point of view, he came to the conclusion, under
Stockmar's guidance, that the great aim for every lover of Germany should
be her unification under the sovereignty of Prussia. The intricacy of the
situation was extreme, and the possibilities of good or evil which every
hour might bring forth were incalculable; yet he saw with horror that
Palmerston neither understood nor cared to understand the niceties of this
momentous problem, but rushed on blindly, dealing blows to right and left,
quite—so far as he could see—without system, and even without
motive—except, indeed, a totally unreasonable distrust of the
Prussian State.</p>
<p>But his disagreement with the details of Palmerston's policy was in
reality merely a symptom of the fundamental differences between the
characters of the two men. In Albert's eyes Palmerston was a coarse,
reckless egotist, whose combined arrogance and ignorance must inevitably
have their issue in folly and disaster. Nothing could be more antipathetic
to him than a mind so strangely lacking in patience, in reflection, in
principle, and in the habits of ratiocination. For to him it was
intolerable to think in a hurry, to jump to slapdash decisions, to act on
instincts that could not be explained. Everything must be done in due
order, with careful premeditation; the premises of the position must first
be firmly established; and he must reach the correct conclusion by a
regular series of rational steps. In complicated questions—and what
questions, rightly looked at, were not complicated?—to commit one's
thoughts to paper was the wisest course, and it was the course which
Albert, laborious though it might be, invariably adopted. It was as well,
too, to draw up a reasoned statement after an event, as well as before it;
and accordingly, whatever happened, it was always found that the Prince
had made a memorandum. On one occasion he reduced to six pages of foolscap
the substance of a confidential conversation with Sir Robert Peel, and,
having read them aloud to him, asked him to append his signature; Sir
Robert, who never liked to commit himself, became extremely uneasy; upon
which the Prince, understanding that it was necessary to humour the
singular susceptibilities of Englishmen, with great tact dropped that
particular memorandum into the fire. But as for Palmerston, he never even
gave one so much as a chance to read him a memorandum, he positively
seemed to dislike discussion; and, before one knew where one was, without
any warning whatever, he would plunge into some hare-brained, violent
project, which, as likely as not, would logically involve a European war.
Closely connected, too, with this cautious, painstaking reasonableness of
Albert's, was his desire to examine questions thoroughly from every point
of view, to go down to the roots of things, and to act in strict
accordance with some well-defined principle. Under Stockmar's tutelage he
was constantly engaged in enlarging his outlook and in endeavouring to
envisage vital problems both theoretically and practically—both with
precision and with depth. To one whose mind was thus habitually occupied,
the empirical activities of Palmerston, who had no notion what a principle
meant, resembled the incoherent vagaries of a tiresome child. What did
Palmerston know of economics, of science, of history? What did he care for
morality and education? How much consideration had he devoted in the whole
course of his life to the improvement of the condition of the
working-classes and to the general amelioration of the human race? The
answers to such questions were all too obvious; and yet it is easy to
imagine, also, what might have been Palmerston's jaunty comment. "Ah! your
Royal Highness is busy with fine schemes and beneficent calculations
exactly! Well, as for me, I must say I'm quite satisfied with my morning's
work—I've had the iron hurdles taken out of the Green Park."</p>
<p>The exasperating man, however, preferred to make no comment, and to
proceed in smiling silence on his inexcusable way. The process of
"brushing on one side" very soon came into operation. Important Foreign
Office despatches were either submitted to the Queen so late that there
was no time to correct them, or they were not submitted to her at all; or,
having been submitted, and some passage in them being objected to and an
alteration suggested, they were after all sent off in their original form.
The Queen complained, the Prince complained: both complained together. It
was quite useless. Palmerston was most apologetic—could not
understand how it had occurred—must give the clerks a wigging—certainly
Her Majesty's wishes should be attended to, and such a thing should never
happen again. But, of course, it very soon happened again, and the royal
remonstrances redoubled. Victoria, her partisan passions thoroughly
aroused, imported into her protests a personal vehemence which those of
Albert lacked. Did Lord Palmerston forget that she was Queen of England?
How could she tolerate a state of affairs in which despatches written in
her name were sent abroad without her approval or even her knowledge? What
could be more derogatory to her position than to be obliged to receive
indignant letters from the crowned heads to whom those despatches were
addressed—letters which she did not know how to answer, since she so
thoroughly agreed with them? She addressed herself to the Prime Minister.
"No remonstrance has any effect with Lord Palmerston," she said. "Lord
Palmerston," she told him on another occasion, "has as usual pretended not
to have had time to submit the draft to the Queen before he had sent it
off." She summoned Lord John to her presence, poured out her indignation,
and afterwards, on the advice of Albert, noted down what had passed in a
memorandum: "I said that I thought that Lord Palmerston often endangered
the honour of England by taking a very prejudiced and one-sided view of a
question; that his writings were always as bitter as gall and did great
harm, which Lord John entirely assented to, and that I often felt quite
ill from anxiety." Then she turned to her uncle. "The state of Germany,"
she wrote in a comprehensive and despairing review of the European
situation, "is dreadful, and one does feel quite ashamed about that once
really so peaceful and happy country. That there are still good people
there I am sure, but they allow themselves to be worked upon in a
frightful and shameful way. In France a crisis seems at hand. WHAT a very
bad figure we cut in this mediation! Really it is quite immoral, with
Ireland quivering in our grasp and ready to throw off her allegiance at
any moment, for us to force Austria to give up her lawful possessions.
What shall we say if Canada, Malta, etc., begin to trouble us? It hurts me
terribly." But what did Lord Palmerston care?</p>
<p>Lord John's position grew more and more irksome. He did not approve of his
colleague's treatment of the Queen. When he begged him to be more careful,
he was met with the reply that 28,000 despatches passed through the
Foreign Office in a single year, that, if every one of these were to be
subjected to the royal criticism, the delay would be most serious, that,
as it was, the waste of time and the worry involved in submitting drafts
to the meticulous examination of Prince Albert was almost too much for an
overworked Minister, and that, as a matter of fact, the postponement of
important decisions owing to this cause had already produced very
unpleasant diplomatic consequences. These excuses would have impressed
Lord John more favourably if he had not himself had to suffer from a
similar neglect. As often as not Palmerston failed to communicate even to
him the most important despatches. The Foreign Secretary was becoming an
almost independent power, acting on his own initiative, and swaying the
policy of England on his own responsibility. On one occasion, in 1847, he
had actually been upon the point of threatening to break off diplomatic
relations with France without consulting either the Cabinet or the Prime
Minister. And such incidents were constantly recurring. When this became
known to the Prince, he saw that his opportunity had come. If he could
only drive in to the utmost the wedge between the two statesmen, if he
could only secure the alliance of Lord John, then the suppression or the
removal of Lord Palmerston would be almost certain to follow. He set about
the business with all the pertinacity of his nature. Both he and the Queen
put every kind of pressure upon the Prime Minister. They wrote, they
harangued, they relapsed into awful silence. It occurred to them that Lord
Clarendon, an important member of the Cabinet, would be a useful channel
for their griefs. They commanded him to dine at the Palace, and, directly
the meal was over, "the Queen," as he described it afterwards, "exploded,
and went with the utmost vehemence and bitterness into the whole of
Palmerston's conduct, all the effects produced all over the world, and all
her own feelings and sentiments about it." When she had finished, the
Prince took up the tale, with less excitement, but with equal force. Lord
Clarendon found himself in an awkward situation; he disliked Palmerston's
policy, but he was his colleague, and he disapproved of the attitude of
his royal hosts. In his opinion, they were "wrong in wishing that
courtiers rather than Ministers should conduct the affairs of the
country," and he thought that they "laboured under the curious mistake
that the Foreign Office was their peculiar department, and that they had
the right to control, if not to direct, the foreign policy of England."
He, therefore, with extreme politeness, gave it to be understood that he
would not commit himself in any way. But Lord John, in reality, needed no
pressure. Attacked by his Sovereign, ignored by his Foreign Secretary, he
led a miserable life. With the advent of the dreadful Schleswig-Holstein
question—the most complex in the whole diplomatic history of Europe—his
position, crushed between the upper and the nether mill-stones, grew
positively unbearable. He became anxious above all things to get
Palmerston out of the Foreign Office. But then—supposing Palmerston
refused to go?</p>
<p>In a memorandum made by the Prince, at about this time, of an interview
between himself, the Queen, and the Prime Minister, we catch a curious
glimpse of the states of mind of those three high personages—the
anxiety and irritation of Lord John, the vehement acrimony of Victoria,
and the reasonable animosity of Albert—drawn together, as it were,
under the shadow of an unseen Presence, the cause of that celestial anger—the
gay, portentous Palmerston. At one point in the conversation Lord John
observed that he believed the Foreign Secretary would consent to a change
of offices; Lord Palmerston, he said, realised that he had lost the
Queen's confidence—though only on public, and not on personal,
grounds. But on that, the Prince noted, "the Queen interrupted Lord John
by remarking that she distrusted him on PERSONAL grounds also, but I
remarked that Lord Palmerston had so far at least seen rightly; 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 Ambassador 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.</p>
<p>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 arrogance, that even his ignominious
dismissal from office was something that could be brushed aside?</p>
<p>III</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>(*)"The Turkish war both far and near<br/>
Has played the very deuce then,<br/>
And little Al, the royal pal,<br/>
They say has turned a Russian;<br/>
Old Aberdeen, as may be seen,<br/>
Looks woeful pale and yellow,<br/>
And Old John Bull had his belly full<br/>
Of dirty Russian tallow."<br/>
<br/>
Chorus:<br/>
"We'll send him home and make him groan,<br/>
Oh, Al! you've played the deuce then;<br/>
The German lad has acted sad<br/>
And turned tail with the Russians."<br/>
<br/></p>
<hr />
<p>"Last Monday night, all in a fright,<br/>
Al out of bed did tumble.<br/>
The German lad was raving mad,<br/>
How he did groan and grumble!<br/>
He cried to Vic, 'I've cut my stick:<br/>
To St. Petersburg go right slap.'<br/>
When Vic, 'tis said, jumped out of bed,<br/>
And wopped him with her night-cap."<br/></p>
<p>From Lovely Albert! a broadside preserved at the British Museum.</p>
<p>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.(*)</p>
<p>(*)"You Jolly Turks, now go to work,<br/>
And show the Bear your power.<br/>
It is rumoured over Britain's isle<br/>
That A——— is in the Tower;<br/>
The postmen some suspicion had,<br/>
And opened the two letters,<br/>
'Twas a pity sad the German lad<br/>
Should not have known much better!"<br/>
Lovely Albert!<br/></p>
<p>These fantastic hallucinations, the result of the fevered atmosphere of
approaching war, were devoid of any basis in actual fact. Palmerston's
resignation 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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."</p>
<p>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."</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006"></SPAN></p>
<h2> CHAPTER VI. LAST YEARS OF PRINCE CONSORT </h2>
<h3> I </h3>
<p>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.</p>
<p>(*) "Read this carefully, and tell me if there are any<br/>
mistakes in it."<br/>
<br/>
(**) "Here is a draft I have made for you. Read it. I should<br/>
think this would do."<br/></p>
<p>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."</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 the 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.</p>
<p>II</p>
<p>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."</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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."</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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!</p>
<p>III</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.'"</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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!"</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>IV</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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."</p>
<p>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:—</p>
<p>(1) His appearance, his deportment and dress.</p>
<p>(2) The character of his relations with, and treatment of, others.</p>
<p>(3) His desire and power to acquit himself creditably in conversation or
whatever is the occupation of the society with which he mixes."</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>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."</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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</p>
<p>"questioned things, and did not find<br/>
One that would answer to his mind;<br/>
And all the world appeared unkind."<br/></p>
<p>He believed that he was a failure and he began to despair.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>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!</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.(*)</p>
<p>(*) Clarendon, II, 253-4: "One cannot speak with certainty;<br/>
but it is horrible to think that such a life MAY have been<br/>
sacrificed to Sir J. Clark's selfish jealousy of every<br/>
member of his profession." The Earl of Clarendon to the<br/>
Duchess of Manchester, December 17, 1861.<br/></p>
<p>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.</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007"></SPAN></p>
<h2> CHAPTER VII. WIDOWHOOD </h2>
<h3> I </h3>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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."</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>II</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>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."</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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."</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>III</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>IV</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Shortly afterwards Mr. Scott found some consolation in building the St.
Pancras Hotel in a style of his own.</p>
<p>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."</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008"></SPAN></p>
<h2> CHAPTER VIII. GLADSTONE AND LORD BEACONSFIELD </h2>
<h3> I </h3>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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."</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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."</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>II</p>
<p>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(*).</p>
<p>(*) In 1889 it was officially stated that the Queen's total<br/>
savings from the Civil List amounted to L824,025, but that<br/>
out of this sum much had been spent on special<br/>
entertainments to foreign visitors. Taking into<br/>
consideration the proceeds from the Duchy of Lancaster,<br/>
which were more than L60,000 a year, the savings of the<br/>
Prince Consort, and Mr. Neild's legacy, it seems probable<br/>
that, at the time of her death, Victoria's private fortune<br/>
approached two million pounds.<br/></p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>III</p>
<p>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 administration the inevitable ebb began. The reaction,
when it came, was sudden and complete. The General Election of 1874
changed the whole face of politics. Mr. Gladstone and the Liberals were
routed; and the Tory party, for the first time for over forty years,
attained an unquestioned supremacy in England. It was obvious that their
surprising triumph was pre-eminently due to the skill and vigour of
Disraeli. He returned to office, no longer the dubious commander of an
insufficient host, but with drums beating and flags flying, a conquering
hero. And as a conquering hero Victoria welcomed her new Prime Minister.</p>
<p>Then there followed six years of excitement, of enchantment, of felicity,
of glory, of romance. The amazing being, who now at last, at the age of
seventy, after a lifetime of extraordinary struggles, had turned into
reality the absurdest of his boyhood's dreams, knew well enough how to
make his own, with absolute completeness, the heart of the Sovereign Lady
whose servant, and whose master, he had so miraculously become. In women's
hearts he had always read as in an open book. His whole career had turned
upon those curious entities; and the more curious they were, the more
intimately at home with them he seemed to be. But Lady Beaconsfield, with
her cracked idolatry, and Mrs. Brydges-Williams, with her clogs, her
corpulence, and her legacy, were gone: an even more remarkable phenomenon
stood in their place. He surveyed what was before him with the eye of a
past-master; and he was not for a moment at a loss. He realised everything—the
interacting complexities of circumstance and character, the pride of place
mingled so inextricably with personal arrogance, the superabundant
emotionalism, the ingenuousness of outlook, the solid, the laborious
respectability, shot through so incongruously by temperamental cravings
for the coloured and the strange, the singular intellectual limitations,
and the mysteriously essential female elements impregnating every particle
of the whole. A smile hovered over his impassive features, and he dubbed
Victoria "the Faery." The name delighted him, for, with that epigrammatic
ambiguity so dear to his heart, it precisely expressed his vision of the
Queen. The Spenserian allusion was very pleasant—the elegant
evocations of Gloriana; but there was more in it than that: there was the
suggestion of a diminutive creature, endowed with magical—and
mythical—properties, and a portentousness almost ridiculously out of
keeping with the rest of her make-up. The Faery, he determined, should
henceforward wave her wand for him alone. Detachment is always a rare
quality, and rarest of all, perhaps, among politicians; but that veteran
egotist possessed it in a supreme degree. Not only did he know what he had
to do, not only did he do it; he was in the audience as well as on the
stage; and he took in with the rich relish of a connoisseur every feature
of the entertaining situation, every phase of the delicate drama, and
every detail of his own consummate performance.</p>
<p>The smile hovered and vanished, and, bowing low with Oriental gravity and
Oriental submissiveness, he set himself to his task. He had understood
from the first that in dealing with the Faery the appropriate method of
approach was the very antithesis of the Gladstonian; and such a method was
naturally his. It was not his habit to harangue and exhort and expatiate
in official conscientiousness; he liked to scatter flowers along the path
of business, to compress a weighty argument into a happy phrase, to
insinuate what was in his mind with an air of friendship and confidential
courtesy. He was nothing if not personal; and he had perceived that
personality was the key that opened the Faery's heart. Accordingly, he
never for a moment allowed his intercourse with her to lose the personal
tone; he invested all the transactions of State with the charms of
familiar conversation; she was always the royal lady, the adored and
revered mistress, he the devoted and respectful friend. When once the
personal relation was firmly established, every difficulty disappeared.
But to maintain that relation uninterruptedly in a smooth and even course
a particular care was necessary: the bearings had to be most assiduously
oiled. Nor was Disraeli in any doubt as to the nature of the lubricant.
"You have heard me called a flatterer," he said to Matthew Arnold, "and it
is true. Everyone likes flattery, and when you come to royalty you should
lay it on with a trowel." He practiced what he preached. His adulation was
incessant, and he applied it in the very thickest slabs. "There is no
honor and no reward," he declared, "that with him can ever equal the
possession of your Majesty's kind thoughts. All his own thoughts and
feelings and duties and affections are now concentrated in your Majesty,
and he desires nothing more for his remaining years than to serve your
Majesty, or, if that service ceases, to live still on its memory as a
period of his existence most interesting and fascinating." "In life," he
told her, "one must have for one's thoughts a sacred depository, and Lord
Beaconsfield ever presumes to seek that in his Sovereign Mistress." She
was not only his own solitary support; she was the one prop of the State.
"If your Majesty is ill," he wrote during a grave political crisis, "he is
sure he will himself break down. All, really, depends upon your Majesty."
"He lives only for Her," he asseverated, "and works only for Her, and
without Her all is lost." When her birthday came he produced an elaborate
confection of hyperbolic compliment. "To-day Lord Beaconsfield ought
fitly, perhaps, to congratulate a powerful Sovereign on her imperial sway,
the vastness of her Empire, and the success and strength of her fleets and
armies. But he cannot, his mind is in another mood. He can only think of
the strangeness of his destiny that it has come to pass that he should be
the servant of one so great, and whose infinite kindness, the brightness
of whose intelligence and the firmness of whose will, have enabled him to
undertake labours to which he otherwise would be quite unequal, and
supported him in all things by a condescending sympathy, which in the hour
of difficulty alike charms and inspires. Upon the Sovereign of many lands
and many hearts may an omnipotent Providence shed every blessing that the
wise can desire and the virtuous deserve!" In those expert hands the
trowel seemed to assume the qualities of some lofty masonic symbol—to
be the ornate and glittering vehicle of verities unrealised by the
profane.</p>
<p>Such tributes were delightful, but they remained in the nebulous region of
words, and Disraeli had determined to give his blandishments a more
significant solidity. He deliberately encouraged those high views of her
own position which had always been native to Victoria's mind and had been
reinforced by the principles of Albert and the doctrines of Stockmar. He
professed to a belief in a theory of the Constitution which gave the
Sovereign a leading place in the councils of government; but his
pronouncements upon the subject were indistinct; and when he emphatically
declared that there ought to be "a real Throne," it was probably with the
mental addition that that throne would be a very unreal one indeed whose
occupant was unamenable to his cajoleries. But the vagueness of his
language was in itself an added stimulant to Victoria. Skilfully confusing
the woman and the Queen, he threw, with a grandiose gesture, the
government of England at her feet, as if in doing so he were performing an
act of personal homage. In his first audience after returning to power, he
assured her that "whatever she wished should be done." When the intricate
Public Worship Regulation Bill was being discussed by the Cabinet, he told
the Faery that his "only object" was "to further your Majesty's wishes in
this matter." When he brought off his great coup over the Suez Canal, he
used expressions which implied that the only gainer by the transaction was
Victoria. "It is just settled," he wrote in triumph; "you have it,
Madam... Four millions sterling! and almost immediately. There was only
one firm that could do it—Rothschilds. They behaved admirably;
advanced the money at a low rate, and the entire interest of the Khedive
is now yours, Madam." Nor did he limit himself to highly-spiced
insinuations. Writing with all the authority of his office, he advised the
Queen that she had the constitutional right to dismiss a Ministry which
was supported by a large majority in the House of Commons, he even urged
her to do so, if, in her opinion, "your Majesty's Government have from
wilfulness, or even from weakness, deceived your Majesty." To the horror
of Mr. Gladstone, he not only kept the Queen informed as to the general
course of business in the Cabinet, but revealed to her the part taken in
its discussions by individual members of it. Lord Derby, the son of the
late Prime Minister and Disraeli's Foreign Secretary, viewed these
developments with grave mistrust. "Is there not," he ventured to write to
his Chief, "just a risk of encouraging her in too large ideas of her
personal power, and too great indifference to what the public expects? I
only ask; it is for you to judge."</p>
<p>As for Victoria, she accepted everything—compliments, flatteries,
Elizabethan prerogatives—without a single qualm. After the long
gloom of her bereavement, after the chill of the Gladstonian discipline,
she expanded to the rays of Disraeli's devotion like a flower in the sun.
The change in her situation was indeed miraculous. No longer was she
obliged to puzzle for hours over the complicated details of business, for
now she had only to ask Mr. Disraeli for an explanation, and he would give
it her in the most concise, in the most amusing, way. No longer was she
worried by alarming novelties; no longer was she put out at finding
herself treated, by a reverential gentleman in high collars, as if she
were some embodied precedent, with a recondite knowledge of Greek. And her
deliverer was surely the most fascinating of men. The strain of
charlatanism, which had unconsciously captivated her in Napoleon III,
exercised the same enchanting effect in the case of Disraeli. Like a
dram-drinker, whose ordinary life is passed in dull sobriety, her
unsophisticated intelligence gulped down his rococo allurements with
peculiar zest. She became intoxicated, entranced. Believing all that he
told her of herself, she completely regained the self-confidence which had
been slipping away from her throughout the dark period that followed
Albert's death. She swelled with a new elation, while he, conjuring up
before her wonderful Oriental visions, dazzled her eyes with an imperial
grandeur of which she had only dimly dreamed. Under the compelling
influence, her very demeanour altered. Her short, stout figure, with its
folds of black velvet, its muslin streamers, its heavy pearls at the heavy
neck, assumed an almost menacing air. In her countenance, from which the
charm of youth had long since vanished, and which had not yet been
softened by age, the traces of grief, of disappointment, and of
displeasure were still visible, but they were overlaid by looks of
arrogance and sharp lines of peremptory hauteur. Only, when Mr. Disraeli
appeared, the expression changed in an instant, and the forbidding visage
became charged with smiles. For him she would do anything. Yielding to his
encouragements, she began to emerge from her seclusion; she appeared in
London in semi-state, at hospitals and concerts; she opened Parliament;
she reviewed troops and distributed medals at Aldershot. But such public
signs of favour were trivial in comparison with her private attentions.
During his flours of audience, she could hardly restrain her excitement
and delight. "I can only describe my reception," he wrote to a friend on
one occasion, "by telling you that I really thought she was going to
embrace me. She was wreathed with smiles, and, as she tattled, glided
about the room like a bird." In his absence, she talked of him
perpetually, and there was a note of unusual vehemence in her solicitude
for his health. "John Manners," Disraeli told Lady Bradford, "who has just
come from Osborne, says that the Faery only talked of one subject, and
that was her Primo. According to him, it was her gracious opinion that the
Government should make my health a Cabinet question. Dear John seemed
quite surprised at what she said; but you are used to these ebullitions."
She often sent him presents; an illustrated album arrived for him
regularly from Windsor on Christmas Day. But her most valued gifts were
the bunches of spring flowers which, gathered by herself and her ladies in
the woods at Osborne, marked in an especial manner the warmth and
tenderness of her sentiments. Among these it was, he declared, the
primroses that he loved the best. They were, he said, "the ambassadors of
Spring, the gems and jewels of Nature." He liked them, he assured her, "so
much better for their being wild; they seem an offering from the Fauns and
Dryads of Osborne." "They show," he told her, "that your Majesty's sceptre
has touched the enchanted Isle." He sat at dinner with heaped-up bowls of
them on every side, and told his guests that "they were all sent to me
this morning by the Queen from Osborne, as she knows it is my favorite
flower."</p>
<p>As time went on, and as it became clearer and clearer that the Faery's
thraldom was complete, his protestations grew steadily more highly—coloured
and more unabashed. At last he ventured to import into his blandishments a
strain of adoration that was almost avowedly romantic. In phrases of
baroque convolution, he conveyed the message of his heart. "The pressure
of business," he wrote, had "so absorbed and exhausted him, that towards
the hour of post he has not had clearness of mind, and vigour of pen,
adequate to convey his thoughts and facts to the most loved and
illustrious being, who deigns to consider them." She sent him some
primroses, and he replied that he could "truly say they are 'more precious
than rubies,' coming, as they do, and at such a moment, from a Sovereign
whom he adores." She sent him snowdrops, and his sentiment overflowed into
poetry. "Yesterday eve," he wrote, "there appeared, in Whitehall Gardens,
a delicate-looking case, with a royal superscription, which, when he
opened, he thought, at first, that your Majesty had graciously bestowed
upon him the stars of your Majesty's principal orders." And, indeed, he
was so impressed with this graceful illusion, that, having a banquet,
where there were many stars and ribbons, he could not resist the
temptation, by placing some snowdrops on his heart, of showing that, he,
too, was decorated by a gracious Sovereign.</p>
<p>Then, in the middle of the night, it occurred to him, that it might all be
an enchantment, and that, perhaps, it was a Faery gift and came from
another monarch: Queen Titania, gathering flowers, with her Court, in a
soft and sea-girt isle, and sending magic blossoms, which, they say, turn
the heads of those who receive them.</p>
<p>A Faery gift! Did he smile as he wrote the words? Perhaps; and yet it
would be rash to conclude that his perfervid declarations were altogether
without sincerity. Actor and spectator both, the two characters were so
intimately blended together in that odd composition that they formed an
inseparable unity, and it was impossible to say that one of them was less
genuine than the other. With one element, he could coldly appraise the
Faery's intellectual capacity, note with some surprise that she could be
on occasion "most interesting and amusing," and then continue his use of
the trowel with an ironical solemnity; while, with the other, he could be
overwhelmed by the immemorial panoply of royalty, and, thrilling with the
sense of his own strange elevation, dream himself into a gorgeous phantasy
of crowns and powers and chivalric love. When he told Victoria that
"during a somewhat romantic and imaginative life, nothing has ever
occurred to him so interesting as this confidential correspondence with
one so exalted and so inspiring," was he not in earnest after all? When he
wrote to a lady about the Court, "I love the Queen—perhaps the only
person in this world left to me that I do love," was he not creating for
himself an enchanted palace out of the Arabian Nights, full of melancholy
and spangles, in which he actually believed? Victoria's state of mind was
far more simple; untroubled by imaginative yearnings, she never lost
herself in that nebulous region of the spirit where feeling and fancy grow
confused. Her emotions, with all their intensity and all their
exaggeration, retained the plain prosaic texture of everyday life. And it
was fitting that her expression of them should be equally commonplace. She
was, she told her Prime Minister, at the end of an official letter, "yours
aff'ly V. R. and I." In such a phrase the deep reality of her feeling is
instantly manifest. The Faery's feet were on the solid earth; it was the
ruse cynic who was in the air.</p>
<p>He had taught her, however, a lesson, which she had learnt with alarming
rapidity. A second Gloriana, did he call her? Very well, then, she would
show that she deserved the compliment. Disquieting symptoms followed fast.
In May, 1874, the Tsar, whose daughter had just been married to Victoria's
second son, the Duke of Edinburgh, was in London, and, by an unfortunate
error, it had been arranged that his departure should not take place until
two days after the date on which his royal hostess had previously decided
to go to Balmoral. Her Majesty refused to modify her plans. It was pointed
out to her that the Tsar would certainly be offended, that the most
serious consequences might follow; Lord Derby protested; Lord Salisbury,
the Secretary of State for India, was much perturbed. But the Faery was
unconcerned; she had settled to go to Balmoral on the 18th, and on the
18th she would go. At last Disraeli, exercising all his influence, induced
her to agree to stay in London for two days more. "My head is still on my
shoulders," he told Lady Bradford. "The great lady has absolutely
postponed her departure! Everybody had failed, even the Prince of Wales...
and I have no doubt I am not in favour. I can't help it. Salisbury says I
have saved an Afghan War, and Derby compliments me on my unrivalled
triumph." But before very long, on another issue, the triumph was the
Faery's. Disraeli, who had suddenly veered towards a new Imperialism, had
thrown out the suggestion that the Queen of England ought to become the
Empress of India. Victoria seized upon the idea with avidity, and, in
season and out of season, pressed upon her Prime Minister the desirability
of putting his proposal into practice. He demurred; but she was not to be
baulked; and in 1876, in spite of his own unwillingness and that of his
entire Cabinet, he found himself obliged to add to the troubles of a
stormy session by introducing a bill for the alteration of the Royal
Title. His compliance, however, finally conquered the Faery's heart. The
measure was angrily attacked in both Houses, and Victoria was deeply
touched by the untiring energy with which Disraeli defended it. She was,
she said, much grieved by "the worry and annoyance" to which he was
subjected; she feared she was the cause of it; and she would never forget
what she owed to "her kind, good, and considerate friend." At the same
time, her wrath fell on the Opposition. Their conduct, she declared, was
"extraordinary, incomprehensible, and mistaken," and, in an emphatic
sentence which seemed to contradict both itself and all her former
proceedings, she protested that she "would be glad if it were more
generally known that it was HER wish, as people WILL have it, that it has
been FORCED UPON HER!" When the affair was successfully over, the imperial
triumph was celebrated in a suitable manner. On the day of the Delhi
Proclamation, the new Earl of Beaconsfield went to Windsor to dine with
the new Empress of India. That night the Faery, usually so homely in her
attire, appeared in a glittering panoply of enormous uncut jewels, which
had been presented to her by the reigning Princes of her Raj. At the end
of the meal the Prime Minister, breaking through the rules of etiquette,
arose, and in a flowery oration proposed the health of the Queen-Empress.
His audacity was well received, and his speech was rewarded by a smiling
curtsey.</p>
<p>These were significant episodes; but a still more serious manifestation of
Victoria's temper occurred in the following year, during the crowning
crisis of Beaconsfield's life. His growing imperialism, his desire to
magnify the power and prestige of England, his insistence upon a "spirited
foreign policy," had brought him into collision with Russia; the terrible
Eastern Question loomed up; and when war broke out between Russia and
Turkey, the gravity of the situation became extreme. The Prime Minister's
policy was fraught with difficulty and danger. Realising perfectly the
appalling implications of an Anglo-Russian war, he was yet prepared to
face even that eventuality if he could obtain his ends by no other method;
but he believed that Russia in reality was still less desirous of a
rupture, and that, if he played his game with sufficient boldness and
adroitness, she would yield, when it came to the point, all that he
required without a blow. It was clear that the course he had marked out
for himself was full of hazard, and demanded an extraordinary nerve; a
single false step, and either himself, or England, might be plunged in
disaster. But nerve he had never lacked; he began his diplomatic egg-dance
with high assurance; and then he discovered that, besides the Russian
Government, besides the Liberals and Mr. Gladstone, there were two
additional sources of perilous embarrassment with which he would have to
reckon. In the first place there was a strong party in the Cabinet, headed
by Lord Derby, the Foreign Secretary, which was unwilling to take the risk
of war; but his culminating anxiety was the Faery.</p>
<p>From the first, her attitude was uncompromising. The old hatred of Russia,
which had been engendered by the Crimean War, surged up again within her;
she remembered Albert's prolonged animosity; she felt the prickings of her
own greatness; and she flung herself into the turmoil with passionate
heat. Her indignation with the Opposition—with anyone who ventured
to sympathise with the Russians in their quarrel with the Turks—was
unbounded. When anti-Turkish meetings were held in London, presided over
by the Duke of Westminster and Lord Shaftesbury, and attended by Mr.
Gladstone and other prominent Radicals, she considered that "the
Attorney-General ought to be set at these men;" "it can't," she exclaimed,
"be constitutional." Never in her life, not even in the crisis over the
Ladies of the Bedchamber, did she show herself a more furious partisan.
But her displeasure was not reserved for the Radicals; the backsliding
Conservatives equally felt its force. She was even discontented with Lord
Beaconsfield himself. Failing entirely to appreciate the delicate
complexity of his policy, she constantly assailed him with demands for
vigorous action, interpreted each finesse as a sign of weakness, and was
ready at every juncture to let slip the dogs of war. As the situation
developed, her anxiety grew feverish. "The Queen," she wrote, "is feeling
terribly anxious lest delay should cause us to be too late and lose our
prestige for ever! It worries her night and day." "The Faery,"
Beaconsfield told Lady Bradford, "writes every day and telegraphs every
hour; this is almost literally the case." She raged loudly against the
Russians. "And the language," she cried, "the insulting language—used
by the Russians against us! It makes the Queen's blood boil!" "Oh," she
wrote a little later, "if the Queen were a man, she would like to go and
give those Russians, whose word one cannot believe, such a beating! We
shall never be friends again till we have it out. This the Queen feels
sure of."</p>
<p>The unfortunate Prime Minister, urged on to violence by Victoria on one
side, had to deal, on the other, with a Foreign Secretary who was
fundamentally opposed to any policy of active interference at all. Between
the Queen and Lord Derby he held a harassed course. He gained, indeed,
some slight satisfaction in playing on the one against the other—in
stimulating Lord Derby with the Queen's missives, and in appeasing the
Queen by repudiating Lord Derby's opinions; on one occasion he actually
went so far as to compose, at Victoria's request, a letter bitterly
attacking his colleague, which Her Majesty forthwith signed, and sent,
without alteration, to the Foreign Secretary. But such devices only gave a
temporary relief; and it soon became evident that Victoria's martial
ardour was not to be sidetracked by hostilities against Lord Derby;
hostilities against Russia were what she wanted, what she would, what she
must, have. For now, casting aside the last relics of moderation, she
began to attack her friend with a series of extraordinary threats. Not
once, not twice, but many times she held over his head the formidable
menace of her imminent abdication. "If England," she wrote to
Beaconsfield, "is to kiss Russia's feet, she will not be a party to the
humiliation of England and would lay down her crown," and she added that
the Prime Minister might, if he thought fit, repeat her words to the
Cabinet. "This delay," she ejaculated, "this uncertainty by which, abroad,
we are losing our prestige and our position, while Russia is advancing and
will be before Constantinople in no time! Then the Government will be
fearfully blamed and the Queen so humiliated that she thinks she would
abdicate at once. Be bold!" "She feels," she reiterated, "she cannot, as
she before said, remain the Sovereign of a country that is letting itself
down to kiss the feet of the great barbarians, the retarders of all
liberty and civilisation that exists." When the Russians advanced to the
outskirts of Constantinople she fired off three letters in a day demanding
war; and when she learnt that the Cabinet had only decided to send the
Fleet to Gallipoli she declared that "her first impulse" was "to lay down
the thorny crown, which she feels little satisfaction in retaining if the
position of this country is to remain as it is now." It is easy to imagine
the agitating effect of such a correspondence upon Beaconsfield. This was
no longer the Faery; it was a genie whom he had rashly called out of her
bottle, and who was now intent upon showing her supernal power. More than
once, perplexed, dispirited, shattered by illness, he had thoughts of
withdrawing altogether from the game. One thing alone, he told Lady
Bradford, with a wry smile, prevented him. "If I could only," he wrote,
"face the scene which would occur at headquarters if I resigned, I would
do so at once."</p>
<p>He held on, however, to emerge victorious at last. The Queen was pacified;
Lord Derby was replaced by Lord Salisbury; and at the Congress of Berlin
der alte Jude carried all before him. He returned to England in triumph,
and assured the delighted Victoria that she would very soon be, if she was
not already, the "Dictatress of Europe."</p>
<p>But soon there was an unexpected reverse. At the General Election of 1880
the country, mistrustful of the forward policy of the Conservatives, and
carried away by Mr. Gladstone's oratory, returned the Liberals to power.
Victoria was horrified, but within a year she was to be yet more nearly
hit. The grand romance had come to its conclusion. Lord Beaconsfield, worn
out with age and maladies, but moving still, an assiduous mummy, from
dinner-party to dinner-party, suddenly moved no longer. When she knew that
the end was inevitable, she seemed, by a pathetic instinct, to divest
herself of her royalty, and to shrink, with hushed gentleness, beside him,
a woman and nothing more. "I send some Osborne primroses," she wrote to
him with touching simplicity, "and I meant to pay you a little visit this
week, but I thought it better you should be quite quiet and not speak. And
I beg you will be very good and obey the doctors." She would see him, she
said, "when we, come back from Osborne, which won't be long." "Everyone is
so distressed at your not being well," she added; and she was, "Ever yours
very aff'ly V.R.I." When the royal letter was given him, the strange old
comedian, stretched on his bed of death, poised it in his hand, appeared
to consider deeply, and then whispered to those about him, "This ought to
be read to me by a Privy Councillor."</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009"></SPAN></p>
<h2> CHAPTER IX. OLD AGE </h2>
<h3> I </h3>
<p>Meanwhile in Victoria's private life many changes and developments had
taken place. With the marriages of her elder children her family circle
widened; grandchildren appeared; and a multitude of new domestic interests
sprang up. The death of King Leopold in 1865 had removed the predominant
figure of the older generation, and the functions he had performed as the
centre and adviser of a large group of relatives in Germany and in England
devolved upon Victoria. These functions she discharged with unremitting
industry, carrying on an enormous correspondence, and following with
absorbed interest every detail in the lives of the ever-ramifying
cousinhood. And she tasted to the full both the joys and the pains of
family affection. She took a particular delight in her grandchildren, to
whom she showed an indulgence which their parents had not always enjoyed,
though, even to her grandchildren, she could be, when the occasion
demanded it, severe. The eldest of them, the little Prince Wilhelm of
Prussia, was a remarkably headstrong child; he dared to be impertinent
even to his grandmother; and once, when she told him to bow to a visitor
at Osborne, he disobeyed her outright. This would not do: the order was
sternly repeated, and the naughty boy, noticing that his grandmama had
suddenly turned into a most terrifying lady, submitted his will to hers,
and bowed very low indeed.</p>
<p>It would have been well if all the Queen's domestic troubles could have
been got over as easily. Among her more serious distresses was the conduct
of the Prince of Wales. The young man was now independent and married; he
had shaken the parental yoke from his shoulders; he was positively
beginning to do as he liked. Victoria was much perturbed, and her worst
fears seemed to be justified when in 1870 he appeared as a witness in a
society divorce case. It was clear that the heir to the throne had been
mixing with people of whom she did not at all approve. What was to be
done? She saw that it was not only her son that was to blame—that it
was the whole system of society; and so she despatched a letter to Mr.
Delane, the editor of The Times, asking him if he would "frequently WRITE
articles pointing out the IMMENSE danger and evil of the wretched
frivolity and levity of the views and lives of the Higher Classes." And
five years later Mr. Delane did write an article upon that very subject.
Yet it seemed to have very little effect.</p>
<p>Ah! if only the Higher Classes would learn to live as she lived in the
domestic sobriety of her sanctuary at Balmoral! For more and more did she
find solace and refreshment in her Highland domain; and twice yearly, in
the spring and in the autumn, with a sigh of relief, she set her face
northwards, in spite of the humble protests of Ministers, who murmured
vainly in the royal ears that to transact the affairs of State over an
interval of six hundred miles added considerably to the cares of
government. Her ladies, too, felt occasionally a slight reluctance to set
out, for, especially in the early days, the long pilgrimage was not
without its drawbacks. For many years the Queen's conservatism forbade the
continuation of the railway up Deeside, so that the last stages of the
journey had to be accomplished in carriages. But, after all, carriages had
their good points; they were easy, for instance, to get in and out of,
which was an important consideration, for the royal train remained for
long immune from modern conveniences, and when it drew up, on some border
moorland, far from any platform, the highbred dames were obliged to
descend to earth by the perilous foot-board, the only pair of folding
steps being reserved for Her Majesty's saloon. In the days of crinolines
such moments were sometimes awkward; and it was occasionally necessary to
summon Mr. Johnstone, the short and sturdy Manager of the Caledonian
Railway, who, more than once, in a high gale and drenching rain with great
difficulty "pushed up"—as he himself described it—some unlucky
Lady Blanche or Lady Agatha into her compartment. But Victoria cared for
none of these things. She was only intent upon regaining, with the utmost
swiftness, her enchanted Castle, where every spot was charged with
memories, where every memory was sacred, and where life was passed in an
incessant and delightful round of absolutely trivial events.</p>
<p>And it was not only the place that she loved; she was equally attached to
"the simple mountaineers," from whom, she said, "she learnt many a lesson
of resignation and faith." Smith and Grant and Ross and Thompson—she
was devoted to them all; but, beyond the rest, she was devoted to John
Brown. The Prince's gillie had now become the Queen's personal attendant—a
body servant from whom she was never parted, who accompanied her on her
drives, waited on her during the day, and slept in a neighbouring chamber
at night. She liked his strength, his solidity, the sense he gave her of
physical security; she even liked his rugged manners and his rough
unaccommodating speech. She allowed him to take liberties with her which
would have been unthinkable from anybody else. To bully the Queen, to
order her about, to reprimand her—who could dream of venturing upon
such audacities? And yet, when she received such treatment from John
Brown, she positively seemed to enjoy it. The eccentricity appeared to be
extraordinary; but, after all, it is no uncommon thing for an autocratic
dowager to allow some trusted indispensable servant to adopt towards her
an attitude of authority which is jealously forbidden to relatives or
friends: the power of a dependent still remains, by a psychological
sleight-of-hand, one's own power, even when it is exercised over oneself.
When Victoria meekly obeyed the abrupt commands of her henchman to get off
her pony or put on her shawl, was she not displaying, and in the highest
degree, the force of her volition? People might wonder; she could not help
that; this was the manner in which it pleased her to act, and there was an
end of it. To have submitted her judgment to a son or a Minister might
have seemed wiser or more natural; but if she had done so, she
instinctively felt, she would indeed have lost her independence. And yet
upon somebody she longed to depend. Her days were heavy with the long
process of domination. As she drove in silence over the moors she leaned
back in the carriage, oppressed and weary; but what a relief—John
Brown was behind on the rumble, and his strong arm would be there for her
to lean upon when she got out.</p>
<p>He had, too, in her mind, a special connection with Albert. In their
expeditions the Prince had always trusted him more than anyone; the gruff,
kind, hairy Scotsman was, she felt, in some mysterious way, a legacy from
the dead. She came to believe at last—or so it appeared—that
the spirit of Albert was nearer when Brown was near. Often, when seeking
inspiration over some complicated question of political or domestic
import, she would gaze with deep concentration at her late husband's bust.
But it was also noticed that sometimes in such moments of doubt and
hesitation Her Majesty's looks would fix themselves upon John Brown.</p>
<p>Eventually, the "simple mountaineer" became almost a state personage. The
influence which he wielded was not to be overlooked. Lord Beaconsfield was
careful, from time to time, to send courteous messages to "Mr. Brown" in
his letters to the Queen, and the French Government took particular pains
to provide for his comfort during the visits of the English Sovereign to
France. It was only natural that among the elder members of the royal
family he should not have been popular, and that his failings—for
failings he had, though Victoria would never notice his too acute
appreciation of Scotch whisky—should have been the subject of
acrimonious comment at Court. But he served his mistress faithfully, and
to ignore him would be a sign of disrespect to her biographer. For the
Queen, far from making a secret of her affectionate friendship, took care
to publish it to the world. By her orders two gold medals were struck in
his honour; on his death, in 1883, a long and eulogistic obituary notice
of him appeared in the Court Circular; and a Brown memorial brooch—of
gold, with the late gillie's head on one side and the royal monogram on
the other—was designed by Her Majesty for presentation to her
Highland servants and cottagers, to be worn by them on the anniversary of
his death, with a mourning scarf and pins. In the second series of
extracts from the Queen's Highland Journal, published in 1884, her
"devoted personal attendant and faithful friend" appears upon almost every
page, and is in effect the hero of the book. With an absence of reticence
remarkable in royal persons, Victoria seemed to demand, in this private
and delicate matter, the sympathy of the whole nation; and yet—such
is the world—there were those who actually treated the relations
between their Sovereign and her servant as a theme for ribald jests.</p>
<p>II</p>
<p>The busy years hastened away; the traces of Time's unimaginable touch grew
manifest; and old age, approaching, laid a gentle hold upon Victoria. The
grey hair whitened; the mature features mellowed; the short firm figure
amplified and moved more slowly, supported by a stick. And,
simultaneously, in the whole tenour of the Queen's existence an
extraordinary transformation came to pass. The nation's attitude towards
her, critical and even hostile as it had been for so many years,
altogether changed; while there was a corresponding alteration in the
temper of—Victoria's own mind.</p>
<p>Many causes led to this result. Among them were the repeated strokes of
personal misfortune which befell the Queen during a cruelly short space of
years. In 1878 the Princess Alice, who had married in 1862 the Prince
Louis of Hesse-Darmstadt, died in tragic circumstances. In the following
year the Prince Imperial, the only son of the Empress Eugenie, to whom
Victoria, since the catastrophe of 1870, had become devotedly attached,
was killed in the Zulu War. Two years later, in 1881, the Queen lost Lord
Beaconsfield, and, in 1883, John Brown. In 1884 the Prince Leopold, Duke
of Albany, who had been an invalid from birth, died prematurely, shortly
after his marriage. Victoria's cup of sorrows was indeed overflowing; and
the public, as it watched the widowed mother weeping for her children and
her friends, displayed a constantly increasing sympathy.</p>
<p>An event which occurred in 1882 revealed and accentuated the feelings of
the nation. As the Queen, at Windsor, was walking from the train to her
carriage, a youth named Roderick Maclean fired a pistol at her from a
distance of a few yards. An Eton boy struck up Maclean's arm with an
umbrella before the pistol went off; no damage was done, and the culprit
was at once arrested. This was the last of a series of seven attempts upon
the Queen—attempts which, taking place at sporadic intervals over a
period of forty years, resembled one another in a curious manner. All,
with a single exception, were perpetrated by adolescents, whose motives
were apparently not murderous, since, save in the case of Maclean, none of
their pistols was loaded. These unhappy youths, who, after buying their
cheap weapons, stuffed them with gunpowder and paper, and then went off,
with the certainty of immediate detection, to click them in the face of
royalty, present a strange problem to the psychologist. But, though in
each case their actions and their purposes seemed to be so similar, their
fates were remarkably varied. The first of them, Edward Oxford, who fired
at Victoria within a few months of her marriage, was tried for high
treason, declared to be insane, and sent to an asylum for life. It
appears, however, that this sentence did not commend itself to Albert, for
when, two years later, John Francis committed the same of fence, and was
tried upon the same charge, the Prince propounced that there was no
insanity in the matter. "The wretched creature," he told his father, was
"not out of his mind, but a thorough scamp." "I hope," he added, "his
trial will be conducted with the greatest strictness." Apparently it was;
at any rate, the jury shared the view of the Prince, the plea of insanity
was, set aside, and Francis was found guilty of high treason and condemned
to death; but, as there was no proof of an intent to kill or even to
wound, this sentence, after a lengthened deliberation between the Home
Secretary and the Judges, was commuted for one of transportation for life.
As the law stood, these assaults, futile as they were, could only be
treated as high treason; the discrepancy between the actual deed and the
tremendous penalties involved was obviously grotesque; and it was,
besides, clear that a jury, knowing that a verdict of guilty implied a
sentence of death, would tend to the alternative course, and find the
prisoner not guilty but insane—a conclusion which, on the face of
it, would have appeared to be the more reasonable. In 1842, therefore, an
Act was passed making any attempt to hurt the Queen a misdemeanor,
punishable by transportation for seven years, or imprisonment, with or
without hard labour, for a term not exceeding three years—the
misdemeanant, at the discretion of the Court, "to be publicly or privately
whipped, as often, and in such manner and form, as the Court shall direct,
not exceeding thrice." The four subsequent attempts were all dealt with
under this new law; William Bean, in 1842, was sentenced to eighteen
months' imprisonment; William Hamilton, in 1849, was transported for seven
years; and, in 1850, the same sentence was passed upon Lieutenant Robert
Pate, who struck the Queen on the head with his cane in Piccadilly. Pate,
alone among these delinquents, was of mature years; he had held a
commission in the Army, dressed himself as a dandy, and was, the Prince
declared, "manifestly deranged." In 1872 Arthur O'Connor, a youth of
seventeen, fired an unloaded pistol at the Queen outside Buckingham
Palace; he was immediately seized by John Brown, and sentenced to one
year's imprisonment and twenty strokes of the birch rod. It was for his
bravery upon this occasion that Brown was presented with one of his gold
medals. In all these cases the jury had refused to allow the plea of
insanity; but Roderick Maclean's attempt in 1882 had a different issue. On
this occasion the pistol was found to have been loaded, and the public
indignation, emphasised as it was by Victoria's growing popularity, was
particularly great. Either for this or for some other reason the procedure
of the last forty years was abandoned, and Maclean was tried for high
treason. The result was what might have been expected: the jury brought in
a verdict of "not guilty, but insane"; and the prisoner was sent to an
asylum during Her Majesty's pleasure. Their verdict, however, produced a
remarkable consequence. Victoria, who doubtless carried in her mind some
memory of Albert's disapproval of a similar verdict in the case of Oxford,
was very much annoyed. What did the jury mean, she asked, by saying that
Maclean was not guilty? It was perfectly clear that he was guilty—she
had seen him fire off the pistol herself. It was in vain that Her
Majesty's constitutional advisers reminded her of the principle of English
law which lays down that no man can be found guilty of a crime unless he
be proved to have had a criminal intention. Victoria was quite
unconvinced. "If that is the law," she said, "the law must be altered:"
and altered it was. In 1883 an Act was passed changing the form of the
verdict in cases of insanity, and the confusing anomaly remains upon the
Statute Book to this day.</p>
<p>But it was not only through the feelings—commiserating or indignant—of
personal sympathy that the Queen and her people were being drawn more
nearly together; they were beginning, at last, to come to a close and
permanent agreement upon the conduct of public affairs. Mr. Gladstone's
second administration (1880-85) was a succession of failures, ending in
disaster and disgrace; liberalism fell into discredit with the country,
and Victoria perceived with joy that her distrust of her Ministers was
shared by an ever-increasing number of her subjects. During the crisis in
the Sudan, the popular temper was her own. She had been among the first to
urge the necessity of an expedition to Khartoum, and, when the news came
of the catastrophic death of General Gordon, her voice led the chorus of
denunciation which raved against the Government. In her rage, she
despatched a fulminating telegram to Mr. Gladstone, not in the usual
cypher, but open; and her letter of condolence to Miss Gordon, in which
she attacked her Ministers for breach of faith, was widely published. It
was rumoured that she had sent for Lord Hartington, the Secretary of State
for War, and vehemently upbraided him. "She rated me," he was reported to
have told a friend, "as if I'd been a footman." "Why didn't she send for
the butler?" asked his friend. "Oh," was the reply, "the butler generally
manages to keep out of the way on such occasions."</p>
<p>But the day came when it was impossible to keep out of the way any longer.
Mr. Gladstone was defeated, and resigned. Victoria, at a final interview,
received him with her usual amenity, but, besides the formalities demanded
by the occasion, the only remark which she made to him of a personal
nature was to the effect that she supposed Mr. Gladstone would now require
some rest. He remembered with regret how, at a similar audience in 1874,
she had expressed her trust in him as a supporter of the throne; but he
noted the change without surprise. "Her mind and opinions," he wrote in
his diary afterwards, "have since that day been seriously warped."</p>
<p>Such was Mr. Gladstone's view,; but the majority of the nation by no means
agreed with him; and, in the General Election of 1886, they showed
decisively that Victoria's politics were identical with theirs by casting
forth the contrivers of Home Rule—that abomination of desolation—into
outer darkness, and placing Lord Salisbury in power. Victoria's
satisfaction was profound. A flood of new unwonted hopefulness swept over
her, stimulating her vital spirits with a surprising force. Her habit of
life was suddenly altered; abandoning the long seclusion which Disraeli's
persuasions had only momentarily interrupted, she threw herself vigorously
into a multitude of public activities. She appeared at drawing-rooms, at
concerts, at reviews; she laid foundation-stones; she went to Liverpool to
open an international exhibition, driving through the streets in her open
carriage in heavy rain amid vast applauding crowds. Delighted by the
welcome which met her everywhere, she warmed to her work. She visited
Edinburgh, where the ovation of Liverpool was repeated and surpassed. In
London, she opened in high state the Colonial and Indian Exhibition at
South Kensington. On this occasion the ceremonial was particularly
magnificent; a blare of trumpets announced the approach of Her Majesty;
the "Natiohal Anthem" followed; and the Queen, seated on a gorgeous throne
of hammered gold, replied with her own lips to the address that was
presented to her. Then she rose, and, advancing upon the platform with
regal port, acknowledged the acclamations of the great assembly by a
succession of curtseys, of elaborate and commanding grace.</p>
<p>Next year was the fiftieth of her reign, and in June the splendid
anniversary was celebrated in solemn pomp. Victoria, surrounded by the
highest dignitaries of her realm, escorted by a glittering galaxy of kings
and princes, drove through the crowded enthusiasm of the capital to render
thanks to God in Westminster Abbey. In that triumphant hour the last
remaining traces of past antipathies and past disagreements were
altogether swept away. The Queen was hailed at once as the mother of her
people and as the embodied symbol of their imperial greatness; and she
responded to the double sentiment with all the ardour of her spirit.
England and the people of England, she knew it, she felt it, were, in some
wonderful and yet quite simple manner, hers. Exultation, affection,
gratitude, a profound sense of obligation, an unbounded pride—such
were her emotions; and, colouring and intensifying the rest, there was
something else. At last, after so long, happiness—fragmentary,
perhaps, and charged with gravity, but true and unmistakable none the less—had
returned to her. The unaccustomed feeling filled and warmed her
consciousness. When, at Buckingham Palace again, the long ceremony over,
she was asked how she was, "I am very tired, but very happy," she said.</p>
<p>III</p>
<p>And so, after the toils and tempests of the day, a long evening followed—mild,
serene, and lighted with a golden glory. For an unexampled atmosphere of
success and adoration invested the last period of Victoria's life. Her
triumph was the summary, the crown, of a greater triumph—the
culminating prosperity of a nation. The solid splendour of the decade
between Victoria's two jubilees can hardly be paralleled in the annals of
England. The sage counsels of Lord Salisbury seemed to bring with them not
only wealth and power, but security; and the country settled down, with
calm assurance, to the enjoyment of an established grandeur. And—it
was only natural—Victoria settled down too. For she was a part of
the establishment—an essential part as it seemed—a fixture—a
magnificent, immovable sideboard in the huge saloon of state. Without her
the heaped-up banquet of 1890 would have lost its distinctive quality—the
comfortable order of the substantial unambiguous dishes, with their
background of weighty glamour, half out of sight.</p>
<p>Her own existence came to harmonise more and more with what was around
her. Gradually, imperceptibly, Albert receded. It was not that he was
forgotten—that would have been impossible—but that the void
created by his absence grew less agonising, and even, at last, less
obvious. At last Victoria found it possible to regret the bad weather
without immediately reflecting that her "dear Albert always said we could
not alter it, but must leave it as it was;" she could even enjoy a good
breakfast without considering how "dear Albert" would have liked the
buttered eggs. And, as that figure slowly faded, its place was taken,
inevitably, by Victoria's own. Her being, revolving for so many years
round an external object, now changed its motion and found its centre in
itself. It had to be so: her domestic position, the pressure of her public
work, her indomitable sense of duty, made anything else impossible. Her
egotism proclaimed its rights. Her age increased still further the
surrounding deference; and her force of character, emerging at length in
all its plenitude, imposed absolutely upon its environment by the
conscious effort of an imperious will.</p>
<p>Little by little it was noticed that the outward vestiges of Albert's
posthumous domination grew less complete. At Court the stringency of
mourning was relaxed. As the Queen drove through the Park in her open
carriage with her Highlanders behind her, nursery-maids canvassed eagerly
the growing patch of violet velvet in the bonnet with its jet
appurtenances on the small bowing head.</p>
<p>It was in her family that Victoria's ascendancy reached its highest point.
All her offspring were married; the number of her descendants rapidly
increased; there were many marriages in the third generation; and no fewer
than thirty-seven of her great-grandchildren were living at the time of
her death. A picture of the period displays the royal family collected
together in one of the great rooms at Windsor—a crowded company of
more than fifty persons, with the imperial matriarch in their midst. Over
them all she ruled with a most potent sway. The small concerns of the
youngest aroused her passionate interest; and the oldest she treated as if
they were children still. The Prince of Wales, in particular, stood in
tremendous awe of his mother. She had steadily refused to allow him the
slightest participation in the business of government; and he had occupied
himself in other ways. Nor could it be denied that he enjoyed himself—out
of her sight; but, in that redoubtable presence, his abounding manhood
suffered a miserable eclipse. Once, at Osborne, when, owing to no fault of
his, he was too late for a dinner party, he was observed standing behind a
pillar and wiping the sweat from his forehead, trying to nerve himself to
go up to the Queen. When at last he did so, she gave him a stiff nod,
whereupon he vanished immediately behind another pillar, and remained
there until the party broke up. At the time of this incident the Prince of
Wales was over fifty years of age.</p>
<p>It was inevitable that the Queen's domestic activities should occasionally
trench upon the domain of high diplomacy; and this was especially the case
when the interests of her eldest daughter, the Crown Princess of Prussia,
were at stake. The Crown Prince held liberal opinions; he was much
influenced by his wife; and both were detested by Bismarck, who declared
with scurrilous emphasis that the Englishwoman and her mother were a
menace to the Prussian State. The feud was still further intensified when,
on the death of the old Emperor (1888), the Crown Prince succeeded to the
throne. A family entanglement brought on a violent crisis. One of the
daughters of the new Empress had become betrothed to Prince Alexander of
Battenberg, who had lately been ejected from the throne of Bulgaria owing
to the hostility of the Tsar. Victoria, as well as the Empress, highly
approved of the match. Of the two brothers of Prince Alexander, the elder
had married another of her grand-daughters, and the younger was the
husband of her daughter, the Princess Beatrice; she was devoted to the
handsome young man; and she was delighted by the prospect of the third
brother—on the whole the handsomest, she thought, of the three—also
becoming a member of her family. Unfortunately, however, Bismarck was
opposed to the scheme. He perceived that the marriage would endanger the
friendship between Germany and Russia, which was vital to his foreign
policy, and he announced that it must not take place. A fierce struggle
between the Empress and the Chancellor followed. Victoria, whose hatred of
her daughter's enemy was unbounded, came over to Charlottenburg to join in
the fray. Bismarck, over his pipe and lager, snorted out his alarm. The
Queen of England's object, he said, was clearly political—she wished
to estrange Germany and Russia—and very likely she would have her
way. "In family matters," he added, "she is not used to contradiction;"
she would "bring the parson with her in her travelling bag and the
bridegroom in her trunk, and the marriage would come off on the spot." But
the man of blood and iron was not to be thwarted so easily, and he asked
for a private interview with the Queen. The details of their conversation
are unknown; but it is certain that in the course of it Victoria was
forced to realise the meaning of resistance to that formidable personage,
and that she promised to use all her influence to prevent the marriage.
The engagement was broken off; and in the following year Prince Alexander
of Battenberg united himself to Fraulein Loisinger, an actress at the
court theatre of Darmstad.</p>
<p>But such painful incidents were rare. Victoria was growing very old; with
no Albert to guide her, with no Beaconsfield to enflame her, she was
willing enough to abandon the dangerous questions of diplomacy to the
wisdom of Lord Salisbury, and to concentrate her energies upon objects
which touched her more nearly and over which she could exercise an
undisputed control. Her home—her court—the monuments at
Balmoral—the livestock at Windsor—the organisation of her
engagements—the supervision of the multitudinous details of her
daily routine—such matters played now an even greater part in her
existence than before. Her life passed in an extraordinary exactitude.
Every moment of her day was mapped out beforehand; the succession of her
engagements was immutably fixed; the dates of her journeys—to
Osborne, to Balmoral, to the South of France, to Windsor, to London—were
hardly altered from year to year. She demanded from those who surrounded
her a rigid precision in details, and she was preternaturally quick in
detecting the slightest deviation from the rules which she had laid down.
Such was the irresistible potency of her personality, that anything but
the most implicit obedience to her wishes was felt to be impossible; but
sometimes somebody was unpunctual; and unpunctuality was one of the most
heinous of sins. Then her displeasure—her dreadful displeasure—became
all too visible. At such moments there seemed nothing surprising in her
having been the daughter of a martinet.</p>
<p>But these storms, unnerving as they were while they lasted, were quickly
over, and they grew more and more exceptional. With the return of
happiness a gentle benignity flowed from the aged Queen. Her smile, once
so rare a visitant to those saddened features, flitted over them with an
easy alacrity; the blue eyes beamed; the whole face, starting suddenly
from its pendulous expressionlessness, brightened and softened and cast
over those who watched it an unforgettable charm. For in her last years
there was a fascination in Victoria's amiability which had been lacking
even from the vivid impulse of her youth. Over all who approached her—or
very nearly all—she threw a peculiar spell. Her grandchildren adored
her; her ladies waited upon her with a reverential love. The honour of
serving her obliterated a thousand inconveniences—the monotony of a
court existence, the fatigue of standing, the necessity for a superhuman
attentiveness to the minutia: of time and space. As one did one's
wonderful duty one could forget that one's legs were aching from the
infinitude of the passages at Windsor, or that one's bare arms were
turning blue in the Balmoral cold.</p>
<p>What, above all, seemed to make such service delightful was the detailed
interest which the Queen took in the circumstances of those around her.
Her absorbing passion for the comfortable commonplaces, the small crises,
the recurrent sentimentalities, of domestic life constantly demanded wider
fields for its activity; the sphere of her own family, vast as it was, was
not enough; she became the eager confidante of the household affairs of
her ladies; her sympathies reached out to the palace domestics; even the
housemaids and scullions—so it appeared—were the objects of
her searching inquiries, and of her heartfelt solicitude when their lovers
were ordered to a foreign station, or their aunts suffered from an attack
of rheumatism which was more than usually acute.</p>
<p>Nevertheless the due distinctions of rank were immaculately preserved. The
Queen's mere presence was enough to ensure that; but, in addition, the
dominion of court etiquette was paramount. For that elaborate code, which
had kept Lord Melbourne stiff upon the sofa and ranged the other guests in
silence about the round table according to the order of precedence, was as
punctiliously enforced as ever. Every evening after dinner, the
hearth-rug, sacred to royalty, loomed before the profane in inaccessible
glory, or, on one or two terrific occasions, actually lured them
magnetically forward to the very edge of the abyss. The Queen, at the
fitting moment, moved towards her guests; one after the other they were
led up to her; and, while dialogue followed dialogue in constraint and
embarrassment, the rest of the assembly stood still, without a word. Only
in one particular was the severity of the etiquette allowed to lapse.
Throughout the greater part of the reign the rule that ministers must
stand during their audiences with the Queen had been absolute. When Lord
Derby, the Prime Minister, had an audience of Her Majesty after a serious
illness, he mentioned it afterwards, as a proof of the royal favour, that
the Queen had remarked "How sorry she was she could not ask him to be
seated." Subsequently, Disraeli, after an attack of gout and in a moment
of extreme expansion on the part of Victoria, had been offered a chair;
but he had thought it wise humbly to decline the privilege. In her later
years, however, the Queen invariably asked Mr. Gladstone and Lord
Salisbury to sit down.</p>
<p>Sometimes the solemnity of the evening was diversified by a concert, an
opera, or even a play. One of the most marked indications of Victoria's
enfranchisement from the thraldom of widowhood had been her resumption—after
an interval of thirty years—of the custom of commanding dramatic
companies from London to perform before the Court at Windsor. On such
occasions her spirits rose high. She loved acting; she loved a good plot;
above all, she loved a farce. Engrossed by everything that passed upon the
stage she would follow, with childlike innocence, the unwinding of the
story; or she would assume an air of knowing superiority and exclaim in
triumph, "There! You didn't expect that, did you?" when the denouement
came. Her sense of humour was of a vigorous though primitive kind. She had
been one of the very few persons who had always been able to appreciate
the Prince Consort's jokes; and, when those were cracked no more, she
could still roar with laughter, in the privacy of her household, over some
small piece of fun—some oddity of an ambassador, or some ignorant
Minister's faux pas. When the jest grew subtle she was less pleased; but,
if it approached the confines of the indecorous, the danger was serious.
To take a liberty called down at once Her Majesty's most crushing
disapprobation; and to say something improper was to take the greatest
liberty of all. Then the royal lips sank down at the corners, the royal
eyes stared in astonished protrusion, and in fact, the royal countenance
became inauspicious in the highest degree. The transgressor shuddered into
silence, while the awful "We are not amused" annihilated the dinner table.
Afterwards, in her private entourage, the Queen would observe that the
person in question was, she very much feared, "not discreet"; it was a
verdict from which there was no appeal.</p>
<p>In general, her aesthetic tastes had remained unchanged since the days of
Mendelssohn, Landseer, and Lablache. She still delighted in the roulades
of Italian opera; she still demanded a high standard in the execution of a
pianoforte duet. Her views on painting were decided; Sir Edwin, she
declared, was perfect; she was much impressed by Lord Leighton's manners;
and she profoundly distrusted Mr. Watts. From time to time she ordered
engraved portraits to be taken of members of the royal family; on these
occasions she would have the first proofs submitted to her, and, having
inspected them with minute particularity, she would point out their
mistakes to the artists, indicating at the same time how they might be
corrected. The artists invariably discovered that Her Majesty's
suggestions were of the highest value. In literature her interests were
more restricted. She was devoted to Lord Tennyson; and, as the Prince
Consort had admired George Eliot, she perused "Middlemarch:" she was
disappointed. There is reason to believe, however, that the romances of
another female writer, whose popularity among the humbler classes of Her
Majesty's subjects was at one time enormous, secured, no less, the
approval of Her Majesty. Otherwise she did not read very much.</p>
<p>Once, however, the Queen's attention was drawn to a publication which it
was impossible for her to ignore. "The Greville Memoirs," filled with a
mass of historical information of extraordinary importance, but filled
also with descriptions, which were by no means flattering, of George IV,
William IV, and other royal persons, was brought out by Mr. Reeve.
Victoria read the book, and was appalled. It was, she declared, a
"dreadful and really scandalous book," and she could not say "how
HORRIFIED and INDIGNANT" she was at Greville's "indiscretion, indelicacy,
ingratitude towards friends, betrayal of confidence and shameful
disloyalty towards his Sovereign." She wrote to Disraeli to tell him that
in her opinion it was "VERY IMPORTANT that the book should be severely
censured and discredited." "The tone in which he speaks of royalty," she
added, "is unlike anything one sees in history even, and is most
reprehensible." Her anger was directed with almost equal vehemence against
Mr. Reeve for his having published "such an abominable book," and she
charged Sir Arthur Helps to convey to him her deep displeasure. Mr. Reeve,
however, was impenitent. When Sir Arthur told him that, in the Queen's
opinion, "the book degraded royalty," he replied: "Not at all; it elevates
it by the contrast it offers between the present and the defunct state of
affairs." But this adroit defence failed to make any impression upon
Victoria; and Mr. Reeve, when he retired from the public service, did not
receive the knighthood which custom entitled him to expect. Perhaps if the
Queen had known how many caustic comments upon herself Mr. Reeve had
quietly suppressed in the published Memoirs, she would have been almost
grateful to him; but, in that case, what would she have said of Greville?
Imagination boggles at the thought. As for more modern essays upon the
same topic, Her Majesty, it is to be feared, would have characterised them
as "not discreet."</p>
<p>But as a rule the leisure hours of that active life were occupied with
recreations of a less intangible quality than the study of literature or
the appreciation of art. Victoria was a woman not only of vast property
but of innumerable possessions. She had inherited an immense quantity of
furniture, of ornaments, of china, of plate, of valuable objects of every
kind; her purchases, throughout a long life, made a formidable addition to
these stores; and there flowed in upon her, besides, from every quarter of
the globe, a constant stream of gifts. Over this enormous mass she
exercised an unceasing and minute supervision, and the arrangement and the
contemplation of it, in all its details, filled her with an intimate
satisfaction. The collecting instinct has its roots in the very depths of
human nature; and, in the case of Victoria, it seemed to owe its force to
two of her dominating impulses—the intense sense, which had always
been hers, of her own personality, and the craving which, growing with the
years, had become in her old age almost an obsession, for fixity, for
solidity, for the setting up of palpable barriers against the outrages of
change and time. When she considered the multitudinous objects which
belonged to her, or, better still, when, choosing out some section of them
as the fancy took her, she actually savoured the vivid richness of their
individual qualities, she saw herself deliciously reflected from a million
facets, felt herself magnified miraculously over a boundless area, and was
well pleased. That was just as it should be; but then came the dismaying
thought—everything slips away, crumbles, vanishes; Sevres
dinner-services get broken; even golden basins go unaccountably astray;
even one's self, with all the recollections and experiences that make up
one's being, fluctuates, perishes, dissolves... But no! It could not,
should not be so! There should be no changes and no losses! Nothing should
ever move—neither the past nor the present—and she herself
least of all! And so the tenacious woman, hoarding her valuables, decreed
their immortality with all the resolution of her soul. She would not lose
one memory or one pin.</p>
<p>She gave orders that nothing should be thrown away—and nothing was.
There, in drawer after drawer, in wardrobe after wardrobe, reposed the
dresses of seventy years. But not only the dresses—the furs and the
mantles and subsidiary frills and the muffs and the parasols and the
bonnets—all were ranged in chronological order, dated and complete.
A great cupboard was devoted to the dolls; in the china room at Windsor a
special table held the mugs of her childhood, and her children's mugs as
well. Mementoes of the past surrounded her in serried accumulations. In
every room the tables were powdered thick with the photographs of
relatives; their portraits, revealing them at all ages, covered the walls;
their figures, in solid marble, rose up from pedestals, or gleamed from
brackets in the form of gold and silver statuettes. The dead, in every
shape—in miniatures, in porcelain, in enormous life-size
oil-paintings—were perpetually about her. John Brown stood upon her
writing-table in solid gold. Her favourite horses and dogs, endowed with a
new durability, crowded round her footsteps. Sharp, in silver gilt,
dominated the dinner table; Boy and Boz lay together among unfading
flowers, in bronze. And it was not enough that each particle of the past
should be given the stability of metal or of marble: the whole collection,
in its arrangement, no less than its entity, should be immutably fixed.
There might be additions, but there might never be alterations. No chintz
might change, no carpet, no curtain, be replaced by another; or, if long
use at last made it necessary, the stuffs and the patterns must be so
identically reproduced that the keenest eye might not detect the
difference. No new picture could be hung upon the walls at Windsor, for
those already there had been put in their places by Albert, whose
decisions were eternal. So, indeed, were Victoria's. To ensure that they
should be the aid of the camera was called in. Every single article in the
Queen's possession was photographed from several points of view. These
photographs were submitted to Her Majesty, and when, after careful
inspection, she had approved of them, they were placed in a series of
albums, richly bound. Then, opposite each photograph, an entry was made,
indicating the number of the article, the number of the room in which it
was kept, its exact position in the room and all its principal
characteristics. The fate of every object which had undergone this process
was henceforth irrevocably sealed. The whole multitude, once and for all,
took up its steadfast station. And Victoria, with a gigantic volume or two
of the endless catalogue always beside her, to look through, to ponder
upon, to expatiate over, could feel, with a double contentment, that the
transitoriness of this world had been arrested by the amplitude of her
might.</p>
<p>Thus the collection, ever multiplying, ever encroaching upon new fields of
consciousness, ever rooting itself more firmly in the depths of instinct,
became one of the dominating influences of that strange existence. It was
a collection not merely of things and of thoughts, but of states of mind
and ways of living as well. The celebration of anniversaries grew to be an
important branch of it—of birthdays and marriage days and death
days, each of which demanded its appropriate feeling, which, in its turn,
must be itself expressed in an appropriate outward form. And the form, of
course—the ceremony of rejoicing or lamentation—was
stereotyped with the rest: it was part of the collection. On a certain
day, for instance, flowers must be strewn on John Brown's monument at
Balmoral; and the date of the yearly departure for Scotland was fixed by
that fact. Inevitably it was around the central circumstance of death—death,
the final witness to human mutability—that these commemorative
cravings clustered most thickly. Might not even death itself be humbled,
if one could recall enough—if one asserted, with a sufficiently
passionate and reiterated emphasis, the eternity of love? Accordingly,
every bed in which Victoria slept had attached to it, at the back, on the
right-hand side, above the pillow, a photograph of the head and shoulders
of Albert as he lay dead, surmounted by a wreath of immortelles. At
Balmoral, where memories came crowding so closely, the solid signs of
memory appeared in surprising profusion. Obelisks, pyramids, tombs,
statues, cairns, and seats of inscribed granite, proclaimed Victoria's
dedication to the dead. There, twice a year, on the days that followed her
arrival, a solemn pilgrimage of inspection and meditation was performed.
There, on August 26—Albert's birthday—at the foot of the
bronze statue of him in Highland dress, the Queen, her family, her Court,
her servants, and her tenantry, met together and in silence drank to the
memory of the dead. In England the tokens of remembrance pullulated hardly
less. Not a day passed without some addition to the multifold assemblage—a
gold statuette of Ross, the piper—a life-sized marble group of
Victoria and Albert, in medieval costume, inscribed upon the base with the
words: "Allured to brighter worlds and led the way-" a granite slab in the
shrubbery at Osborne, informing the visitor of "Waldmann: the very
favourite little dachshund of Queen Victoria; who brought him from Baden,
April 1872; died, July 11, 1881."</p>
<p>At Frogmore, the great mausoleum, perpetually enriched, was visited almost
daily by the Queen when the Court was at Windsor. But there was another, a
more secret and a hardly less holy shrine. The suite of rooms which Albert
had occupied in the Castle was kept for ever shut away from the eyes of
any save the most privileged. Within those precincts everything remained
as it had been at the Prince's death; but the mysterious preoccupation of
Victoria had commanded that her husband's clothing should be laid afresh,
each evening, upon the bed, and that, each evening, the water should be
set ready in the basin, as if he were still alive; and this incredible
rite was performed with scrupulous regularity for nearly forty years.</p>
<p>Such was the inner worship; and still the flesh obeyed the spirit; still
the daily hours of labour proclaimed Victoria's consecration to duty and
to the ideal of the dead. Yet, with the years, the sense of self-sacrifice
faded; the natural energies of that ardent being discharged themselves
with satisfaction into the channel of public work; the love of business
which, from her girlhood, had been strong within her, reasserted itself in
all its vigour, and, in her old age, to have been cut off from her papers
and her boxes would have been, not a relief, but an agony to Victoria.
Thus, though toiling Ministers might sigh and suffer, the whole process of
government continued, till the very end, to pass before her. Nor was that
all; ancient precedent had made the validity of an enormous number of
official transactions dependent upon the application of the royal
sign-manual; and a great proportion of the Queen's working hours was spent
in this mechanical task. Nor did she show any desire to diminish it. On
the contrary, she voluntarily resumed the duty of signing commissions in
the army, from which she had been set free by Act of Parliament, and from
which, during the years of middle life, she had abstained. In no case
would she countenance the proposal that she should use a stamp. But, at
last, when the increasing pressure of business made the delays of the
antiquated system intolerable, she consented that, for certain classes of
documents, her oral sanction should be sufficient. Each paper was read
aloud to her, and she said at the end "Approved." Often, for hours at a
time, she would sit, with Albert's bust in front of her, while the word
"Approved" issued at intervals from her lips. The word came forth with a
majestic sonority; for her voice now—how changed from the silvery
treble of her girlhood—was a contralto, full and strong.</p>
<p>IV</p>
<p>The final years were years of apotheosis. In the dazzled imagination of
her subjects Victoria soared aloft towards the regions of divinity through
a nimbus of purest glory. Criticism fell dumb; deficiencies which, twenty
years earlier, would have been universally admitted, were now as
universally ignored. That the nation's idol was a very incomplete
representative of the nation was a circumstance that was hardly noticed,
and yet it was conspicuously true. For the vast changes which, out of the
England of 1837, had produced the England of 1897, seemed scarcely to have
touched the Queen. The immense industrial development of the period, the
significance of which had been so thoroughly understood by Albert, meant
little indeed to Victoria. The amazing scientific movement, which Albert
had appreciated no less, left Victoria perfectly cold. Her conception of
the universe, and of man's place in it, and of the stupendous problems of
nature and philosophy remained, throughout her life, entirely unchanged.
Her religion was the religion which she had learnt from the Baroness
Lehzen and the Duchess of Kent. Here, too, it might have been supposed
that Albert's views might have influenced her. For Albert, in matters of
religion, was advanced. Disbelieving altogether in evil spirits, he had
had his doubts about the miracle of the Gaderene Swine. Stockmar, even,
had thrown out, in a remarkable memorandum on the education of the Prince
of Wales, the suggestion that while the child "must unquestionably be
brought up in the creed of the Church of England," it might nevertheless
be in accordance with the spirit of the times to exclude from his
religious training the inculcation of a belief in "the supernatural
doctrines of Christianity." This, however, would have been going too far;
and all the royal children were brought up in complete orthodoxy. Anything
else would have grieved Victoria, though her own conceptions of the
orthodox were not very precise. But her nature, in which imagination and
subtlety held so small a place, made her instinctively recoil from the
intricate ecstasies of High Anglicanism; and she seemed to feel most at
home in the simple faith of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland. This was
what might have been expected; for Lehzen was the daughter of a Lutheran
pastor, and the Lutherans and the Presbyterians have much in common. For
many years Dr. Norman Macleod, an innocent Scotch minister, was her
principal spiritual adviser; and, when he was taken from her, she drew
much comfort from quiet chats about life and death with the cottagers at
Balmoral. Her piety, absolutely genuine, found what it wanted in the sober
exhortations of old John Grant and the devout saws of Mrs. P. Farquharson.
They possessed the qualities, which, as a child of fourteen, she had so
sincerely admired in the Bishop of Chester's "Exposition of the Gospel of
St. Matthew;" they were "just plain and comprehensible and full of truth
and good feeling." The Queen, who gave her name to the Age of Mill and of
Darwin, never got any further than that.</p>
<p>From the social movements of her time Victoria was equally remote. Towards
the smallest no less than towards the greatest changes she remained
inflexible. During her youth and middle age smoking had been forbidden in
polite society, and so long as she lived she would not withdraw her
anathema against it. Kings might protest; bishops and ambassadors, invited
to Windsor, might be reduced, in the privacy of their bedrooms, to lie
full-length upon the floor and smoke up the chimney—the interdict
continued! It might have been supposed that a female sovereign would have
lent her countenance to one of the most vital of all the reforms to which
her epoch gave birth—the emancipation of women—but, on the
contrary, the mere mention of such a proposal sent the blood rushing to
her head. In 1870, her eye having fallen upon the report of a meeting in
favour of Women's Suffrage, she wrote to Mr. Martin in royal rage—"The
Queen is most anxious to enlist everyone who can speak or write to join in
checking this mad, wicked folly of 'Woman's Rights,' with all its
attendant horrors, on which her poor feeble sex is bent, forgetting every
sense of womanly feeling and propriety. Lady—ought to get a GOOD
WHIPPING. It is a subject which makes the Queen so furious that she cannot
contain herself. God created men and women different—then let them
remain each in their own position. Tennyson has some beautiful lines on
the difference of men and women in 'The Princess.' Woman would become the
most hateful, heartless, and disgusting of human beings were she allowed
to unsex herself; and where would be the protection which man was intended
to give the weaker sex? The Queen is sure that Mrs. Martin agrees with
her." The argument was irrefutable; Mrs. Martin agreed; and yet the canker
spread.</p>
<p>In another direction Victoria's comprehension of the spirit of her age has
been constantly asserted. It was for long the custom for courtly
historians and polite politicians to compliment the Queen upon the
correctness of her attitude towards the Constitution. But such praises
seem hardly to be justified by the facts. In her later years Victoria more
than once alluded with regret to her conduct during the Bedchamber crisis,
and let it be understood that she had grown wiser since. Yet in truth it
is difficult to trace any fundamental change either in her theory or her
practice in constitutional matters throughout her life. The same despotic
and personal spirit which led her to break off the negotiations with Peel
is equally visible in her animosity towards Palmerston, in her threats of
abdication to Disraeli, and in her desire to prosecute the Duke of
Westminster for attending a meeting upon Bulgarian atrocities. The complex
and delicate principles of the Constitution cannot be said to have come
within the compass of her mental faculties; and in the actual developments
which it underwent during her reign she played a passive part. From 1840
to 1861 the power of the Crown steadily increased in England; from 1861 to
1901 it steadily declined. The first process was due to the influence of
the Prince Consort, the second to that of a series of great Ministers.
During the first Victoria was in effect a mere accessory; during the
second the threads of power, which Albert had so laboriously collected,
inevitably fell from her hands into the vigorous grasp of Mr. Gladstone,
Lord Beaconsfield, and Lord Salisbury. Perhaps, absorbed as she was in
routine, and difficult as she found it to distinguish at all clearly
between the trivial and the essential, she was only dimly aware of what
was happening. Yet, at the end of her reign, the Crown was weaker than at
any other time in English history. Paradoxically enough, Victoria received
the highest eulogiums for assenting to a political evolution, which, had
she completely realised its import, would have filled her with supreme
displeasure.</p>
<p>Nevertheless it must not be supposed that she was a second George III. Her
desire to impose her will, vehement as it was, and unlimited by any
principle, was yet checked by a certain shrewdness. She might oppose her
Ministers with extraordinary violence, she might remain utterly impervious
to arguments and supplications; the pertinacity of her resolution might
seem to be unconquerable; but, at the very last moment of all, her
obstinacy would give way. Her innate respect and capacity for business,
and perhaps, too, the memory of Albert's scrupulous avoidance of extreme
courses, prevented her from ever entering an impasse. By instinct she
understood when the facts were too much for her, and to them she
invariably yielded. After all, what else could she do?</p>
<p>But if, in all these ways, the Queen and her epoch were profoundly
separated, the points of contact between them also were not few. Victoria
understood very well the meaning and the attractions of power and
property, and in such learning the English nation, too, had grown to be
more and more proficient. During the last fifteen years of the reign—for
the short Liberal Administration of 1892 was a mere interlude imperialism
was the dominant creed of the country. It was Victoria's as well. In this
direction, if in no other, she had allowed her mind to develop. Under
Disraeli's tutelage the British Dominions over the seas had come to mean
much more to her than ever before, and, in particular, she had grown
enamoured of the East. The thought of India fascinated her; she set to,
and learnt a little Hindustani; she engaged some Indian servants, who
became her inseparable attendants, and one of whom, Munshi Abdul Karim,
eventually almost succeeded to the position which had once been John
Brown's. At the same time, the imperialist temper of the nation invested
her office with a new significance exactly harmonising with her own inmost
proclivities. The English polity was in the main a common-sense structure,
but there was always a corner in it where common-sense could not enter—where,
somehow or other, the ordinary measurements were not applicable and the
ordinary rules did not apply. So our ancestors had laid it down, giving
scope, in their wisdom, to that mystical element which, as it seems, can
never quite be eradicated from the affairs of men. Naturally it was in the
Crown that the mysticism of the English polity was concentrated—the
Crown, with its venerable antiquity, its sacred associations, its imposing
spectacular array. But, for nearly two centuries, common-sense had been
predominant in the great building, and the little, unexplored,
inexplicable corner had attracted small attention. Then, with the rise of
imperialism, there was a change. For imperialism is a faith as well as a
business; as it grew, the mysticism in English public life grew with it;
and simultaneously a new importance began to attach to the Crown. The need
for a symbol—a symbol of England's might, of England's worth, of
England's extraordinary and mysterious destiny—became felt more
urgently than ever before. The Crown was that symbol: and the Crown rested
upon the head of Victoria. Thus it happened that while by the end of the
reign the power of the sovereign had appreciably diminished, the prestige
of the sovereign had enormously grown.</p>
<p>Yet this prestige was not merely the outcome of public changes; it was an
intensely personal matter, too. Victoria was the Queen of England, the
Empress of India, the quintessential pivot round which the whole
magnificent machine was revolving—but how much more besides! For one
thing, she was of a great age—an almost indispensable qualification
for popularity in England. She had given proof of one of the most admired
characteristics of the race—persistent vitality. She had reigned for
sixty years, and she was not out. And then, she was a character. The
outlines of her nature were firmly drawn, and, even through the mists
which envelop royalty, clearly visible. In the popular imagination her
familiar figure filled, with satisfying ease, a distinct and memorable
place. It was, besides, the kind of figure which naturally called forth
the admiring sympathy of the great majority of the nation. Goodness they
prized above every other human quality; and Victoria, who had said that
she would be good at the age of twelve, had kept her word. Duty,
conscience, morality—yes! in the light of those high beacons the
Queen had always lived. She had passed her days in work and not in
pleasure—in public responsibilities and family cares. The standard
of solid virtue which had been set up so long ago amid the domestic
happiness of Osborne had never been lowered for an instant. For more than
half a century no divorced lady had approached the precincts of the Court.
Victoria, indeed, in her enthusiasm for wifely fidelity, had laid down a
still stricter ordinance: she frowned severely upon any widow who married
again. Considering that she herself was the offspring of a widow's second
marriage, this prohibition might be regarded as an eccentricity; but, no
doubt, it was an eccentricity on the right side. The middle classes, firm
in the triple brass of their respectability, rejoiced with a special joy
over the most respectable of Queens. They almost claimed her, indeed, as
one of themselves; but this would have been an exaggeration. For, though
many of her characteristics were most often found among the middle
classes, in other respects—in her manners, for instance—Victoria
was decidedly aristocratic. And, in one important particular, she was
neither aristocratic nor middle-class: her attitude toward herself was
simply regal.</p>
<p>Such qualities were obvious and important; but, in the impact of a
personality, it is something deeper, something fundamental and common to
all its qualities, that really tells. In Victoria, it is easy to discern
the nature of this underlying element: it was a peculiar sincerity. Her
truthfulness, her single-mindedness, the vividness of her emotions and her
unrestrained expression of them, were the varied forms which this central
characteristic assumed. It was her sincerity which gave her at once her
impressiveness, her charm, and her absurdity. She moved through life with
the imposing certitude of one to whom concealment was impossible—either
towards her surroundings or towards herself. There she was, all of her—the
Queen of England, complete and obvious; the world might take her or leave
her; she had nothing more to show, or to explain, or to modify; and, with
her peerless carriage, she swept along her path. And not only was
concealment out of the question; reticence, reserve, even dignity itself,
as it sometimes seemed, might be very well dispensed with. As Lady
Lyttelton said: "There is a transparency in her truth that is very
striking—not a shade of exaggeration in describing feelings or
facts; like very few other people I ever knew. Many may be as true, but I
think it goes often along with some reserve. She talks all out; just as it
is, no more and no less." She talked all out; and she wrote all out, too.
Her letters, in the surprising jet of their expression, remind one of a
turned-on tap. What is within pours forth in an immediate, spontaneous
rush. Her utterly unliterary style has at least the merit of being a
vehicle exactly suited to her thoughts and feelings; and even the
platitude of her phraseology carries with it a curiously personal flavour.
Undoubtedly it was through her writings that she touched the heart of the
public. Not only in her "Highland Journals" where the mild chronicle of
her private proceedings was laid bare without a trace either of
affectation or of embarrassment, but also in those remarkable messages to
the nation which, from time to time, she published in the newspapers, her
people found her very close to them indeed. They felt instinctively
Victoria's irresistible sincerity, and they responded. And in truth it was
an endearing trait.</p>
<p>The personality and the position, too—the wonderful combination of
them—that, perhaps, was what was finally fascinating in the case.
The little old lady, with her white hair and her plain mourning clothes,
in her wheeled chair or her donkey-carriage—one saw her so; and then—close
behind—with their immediate suggestion of singularity, of mystery,
and of power—the Indian servants. That was the familiar vision, and
it was admirable; but, at chosen moments, it was right that the widow of
Windsor should step forth apparent Queen. The last and the most glorious
of such occasions was the Jubilee of 1897. Then, as the splendid
procession passed along, escorting Victoria through the thronged
re-echoing streets of London on her progress of thanksgiving to St. Paul's
Cathedral, the greatness of her realm and the adoration of her subjects
blazed out together. The tears welled to her eyes, and, while the
multitude roared round her, "How kind they are to me! How kind they are!"
she repeated over and over again. That night her message flew over the
Empire: "From my heart I thank my beloved people. May God bless them!" The
long journey was nearly done. But the traveller, who had come so far, and
through such strange experiences, moved on with the old unfaltering step.
The girl, the wife, the aged woman, were the same: vitality,
conscientiousness, pride, and simplicity were hers to the latest hour.</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010"></SPAN></p>
<h2> CHAPTER X. THE END </h2>
<p>The evening had been golden; but, after all, the day was to close in cloud
and tempest. Imperial needs, imperial ambitions, involved the country in
the South African War. There were checks, reverses, bloody disasters; for
a moment the nation was shaken, and the public distresses were felt with
intimate solicitude by the Queen. But her spirit was high, and neither her
courage nor her confidence wavered for a moment. Throwing her self heart
and soul into the struggle, she laboured with redoubled vigour, interested
herself in every detail of the hostilities, and sought by every means in
her power to render service to the national cause. In April 1900, when she
was in her eighty-first year, she made the extraordinary decision to
abandon her annual visit to the South of France, and to go instead to
Ireland, which had provided a particularly large number of recruits to the
armies in the field. She stayed for three weeks in Dublin, driving through
the streets, in spite of the warnings of her advisers, without an armed
escort; and the visit was a complete success. But, in the course of it,
she began, for the first time, to show signs of the fatigue of age.</p>
<p>For the long strain and the unceasing anxiety, brought by the war, made
themselves felt at last. Endowed by nature with a robust constitution,
Victoria, though in periods of depression she had sometimes supposed
herself an invalid, had in reality throughout her life enjoyed remarkably
good health. In her old age, she had suffered from a rheumatic stiffness
of the joints, which had necessitated the use of a stick, and, eventually,
a wheeled chair; but no other ailments attacked her, until, in 1898, her
eyesight began to be affected by incipient cataract. After that, she found
reading more and more difficult, though she could still sign her name, and
even, with some difficulty, write letters. In the summer of 1900, however,
more serious symptoms appeared. Her memory, in whose strength and
precision she had so long prided herself, now sometimes deserted her;
there was a tendency towards aphasia; and, while no specific disease
declared itself, by the autumn there were unmistakable signs of a general
physical decay. Yet, even in these last months, the strain of iron held
firm. The daily work continued; nay, it actually increased; for the Queen,
with an astonishing pertinacity, insisted upon communicating personally
with an ever-growing multitude of men and women who had suffered through
the war.</p>
<p>By the end of the year the last remains of her ebbing strength had almost
deserted her; and through the early days of the opening century it was
clear that her dwindling forces were only kept together by an effort of
will. On January 14, she had at Osborne an hour's interview with Lord
Roberts, who had returned victorious from South Africa a few days before.
She inquired with acute anxiety into all the details of the war; she
appeared to sustain the exertion successfully; but, when the audience was
over, there was a collapse. On the following day her medical attendants
recognised that her state was hopeless; and yet, for two days more, the
indomitable spirit fought on; for two days more she discharged the duties
of a Queen of England. But after that there was an end of working; and
then, and not till then, did the last optimism of those about her break
down. The brain was failing, and life was gently slipping away. Her family
gathered round her; for a little more she lingered, speechless and
apparently insensible; and, on January 22, 1901, she died.</p>
<p>When, two days previously, the news of the approaching end had been made
public, astonished grief had swept over the country. It appeared as if
some monstrous reversal of the course of nature was about to take place.
The vast majority of her subjects had never known a time when Queen
Victoria had not been reigning over them. She had become an indissoluble
part of their whole scheme of things, and that they were about to lose her
appeared a scarcely possible thought. She herself, as she lay blind and
silent, seemed to those who watched her to be divested of all thinking—to
have glided already, unawares, into oblivion. Yet, perhaps, in the secret
chambers of consciousness, she had her thoughts, too. Perhaps her fading
mind called up once more the shadows of the past to float before it, and
retraced, for the last time, the vanished visions of that long history—passing
back and back, through the cloud of years, to older and ever older
memories—to the spring woods at Osborne, so full of primroses for
Lord Beaconsfield—to Lord Palmerston's queer clothes and high
demeanour, and Albert's face under the green lamp, and Albert's first stag
at Balmoral, and Albert in his blue and silver uniform, and the Baron
coming in through a doorway, and Lord M. dreaming at Windsor with the
rooks cawing in the elm-trees, and the Archbishop of Canterbury on his
knees in the dawn, and the old King's turkey-cock ejaculations, and Uncle
Leopold's soft voice at Claremont, and Lehzen with the globes, and her
mother's feathers sweeping down towards her, and a great old
repeater-watch of her father's in its tortoise-shell case, and a yellow
rug, and some friendly flounces of sprigged muslin, and the trees and the
grass at Kensington.</p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_BIBL" id="link2H_BIBL"></SPAN></p>
<h2> BIBLIOGRAPHY AND LIST OF REFERENCES IN THE NOTES, ARRANGED </h2>
<p>ALPHABETICALLY.</p>
<p>Adams. The Education of Henry Adams: an autobiography. 1918.<br/>
<br/>
Ashley. The Life and Correspondence of H.J. Temple, Viscount<br/>
Palmerston. By<br/>
A.E.M. Ashley. 2 vols. 1879.<br/>
<br/>
Bloomfield. Reminiscences of Court and Diplomatic Life. By<br/>
Georgiana, Lady<br/>
Bloomfield. 2 vols. 1883.<br/>
<br/>
Broughton. Recollections of a Long Life. By Lord Brougton.<br/>
Edited by Lady<br/>
Dorchester. 6 vols. 1909-11.<br/>
<br/>
Buckle. The life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield.<br/>
By W.F. Monypenny<br/>
and G.E. Buckle. 6 vols. 1910-20.<br/>
<br/>
Bulow. Gabriele von Bulow, 1791-1887. Berlin. 1893.<br/>
<br/>
Bunsen. A Memoir of Baron Bunsen. By his widow, Frances,<br/>
Baroness Bunsen. 2<br/>
vols. 1868.<br/>
<br/>
Busch. Bismarck: some secret pages of history. By Dr. Moritz<br/>
Busch. (English<br/>
translation.) 8 vols. 1898.<br/>
<br/>
Childers. The Life and Correspondence of the Rt. Hon. Hugh<br/>
C.E. Childers. 2<br/>
vols. 1901.<br/>
<br/>
Clarendon. The Life and Letters of the Fourth Earl of<br/>
Clarendon. By Sir<br/>
Herbert Maxwell. 2 vols. 1913.<br/>
<br/>
Cornhill Magazine, vol. 75.<br/>
<br/>
Crawford. Victoria, Queen and Ruler. By Emily Crawford. 1903.<br/>
<br/>
Creevey. The Creevey Papers. Edited by Sir Herbert Maxwell. 2<br/>
vols. 1904.<br/>
<br/>
Croker. The Croker Papers. Edited by L.J. Jennings. 1884.<br/>
<br/>
Dafforne. The Albert Memorial: its history and description. By<br/>
J. Dafforne.<br/>
1877.<br/>
<br/>
Dalling. The Life of H.J. Temple, Viscount Palmerston. By Lord<br/>
Dalling. 3<br/>
vols. 1871-84.<br/>
<br/>
Dictionary of National Biography.<br/>
<br/>
Disraeli. Lord George Bentinck: a political biography. By B.<br/>
Disraeli. 1852.<br/>
<br/>
Eckardstein. Lebens-Erinnerungen u. Politische<br/>
Denkwurdigheiten. Von Freiherrn<br/>
v. Eckardstein. 2 vols. Leipzig. 1919.<br/>
<br/>
Ernest. Memoirs of Ernest II, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. 4<br/>
vols. 1888.<br/>
(English translation.)<br/>
<br/>
Fitzmaurice. The Life of Earl Granville. By Lord Fitzmaurice.<br/>
2 vols. 1905.<br/>
<br/>
Gaskell. The Life of Charlotte Bronte. By Mrs. Gaskell. 2<br/>
vols. 1857.<br/>
<br/>
Girlhood. The Girlhood of Queen Victoria. Edited by Viscount<br/>
Esher. 2 vols.<br/>
1912.<br/>
<br/>
Gossart. Adolphe Quetelet et le Prince Albert de Saxe-Cobourg.<br/>
Academie Royale<br/>
de Belgique. Bruxelles. 1919.<br/>
<br/>
Granville. Letters of Harriet, Countess Granville. 2 vols. 1894.<br/>
<br/>
Greville. The Greville Memoirs. 8 vols. (Silver Library<br/>
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<br/>
Grey. Early Years of the Prince Consort. By General Charles<br/>
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<br/>
Halle. Life and Letters of Sir Charles Halle. Edited by his<br/>
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<br/>
Hamilton. Parliamentary Reminiscences and Reflections. By Lord<br/>
George<br/>
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<br/>
Hare. The Story of My Life. By Augustus J.C. Hare. 6 vols.<br/>
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<br/>
Haydon. Autobiography of Benjamin Robert Haydon. 3 vols. 1853.<br/>
<br/>
Hayward. Sketches of Eminent Statesmen and Writers. By A.<br/>
Hayward. 2 vols.<br/>
1880.<br/>
<br/>
Huish. The History of the Life and Reign of William the<br/>
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<br/>
Hunt. The Old Court Suburb: or Memorials of Kensington, regal,<br/>
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anecdotal. 2 vols. 1855.<br/>
<br/>
Jerrold, Early Court. The Early Court of Queen Victoria. By<br/>
Clare Jerrold.<br/>
1912.<br/>
<br/>
Jerrold, Married Life. The Married Life of Queen Victoria. By<br/>
Clare Jerrold.<br/>
1913.<br/>
<br/>
Jerrold, Widowhood. The Widowhood of Queen Victoria. By Clare<br/>
Jerrold. 1916.<br/>
<br/>
Kinglake. The Invasion of the Crimea. By A.W. Kinglake. 9<br/>
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<br/>
Knight. The Autobiography of Miss Cornelia Knight. 2 vols. 1861.<br/>
<br/>
Laughton. Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry<br/>
Reeve. By Sir John<br/>
Laughton. 2 vols. 1898.<br/>
<br/>
Leaves. Leaves from the Journal of our Life in the Highlands,<br/>
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1861. By Queen Victoria. Edited by A. Helps. 1868.<br/>
<br/>
Lee. Queen Victoria: a biography. By Sidney Lee. 1902.<br/>
<br/>
Leslie. Autobiographical Recollections by the late Charles<br/>
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<br/>
Letters. The Letters of Queen Victoria. 3 vols. 1908.<br/>
<br/>
Lieven. Letters of Dorothea, Princess Lieven, during her<br/>
residence in London,<br/>
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<br/>
The London Mercury.<br/>
<br/>
Lovely Albert! A Broadside.<br/>
<br/>
Lyttelton. Correspondence of Sarah Spencer, Lady Lyttelton,<br/>
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by Mrs. Hugh Wyndham. 1912.<br/>
<br/>
Martin. The Life of His Royal Highness the Prince Consort. By<br/>
Theodore Martin.<br/>
5 vols. 1875-80.<br/>
<br/>
Martin, Queen Victoria. Queen Victoria as I knew her. By Sir<br/>
Theodore Martin.<br/>
1908.<br/>
<br/>
Martineau. The Autobiography of Harriet Martineau. 3 vols. 1877.<br/>
<br/>
Maxwell. The Hon. Sir Charles Murray, K.C.B.: a memoir. By Sir<br/>
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<br/>
More Leaves. More Leaves from the Journal of a Life in the<br/>
Highlands, from<br/>
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<br/>
Morley. The Life of William Ewart Gladstone. By John Morley. 5<br/>
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<br/>
Murray. Recollections from 1803 to 1837. By the Hon. Amelia<br/>
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<br/>
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<br/>
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<br/>
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<br/>
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<br/>
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<br/>
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<br/>
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<br/>
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<br/>
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<br/>
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<br/>
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<br/>
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<br/>
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<br/>
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<br/>
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<br/>
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<br/>
Walpole. The Life of Lord John Russell. By Sir Spencer<br/>
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<br/>
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<br/>
Wilberforce, William. The Life of William Wilberforce. 5 vols.<br/>
1838.<br/>
<br/>
Wynn. Diaries of a Lady of Quality. By Miss Frances Williams<br/>
Wynn. 1864.<br/></p>
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