The Life and Times of Queen Victoria; vol. 3 of 4

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Title: The Life and Times of Queen Victoria; vol. 3 of 4
Author: Wilson, Robert Pierpont
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Life and Times of Queen Victoria; vol. 3 of 4" ***

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[Illustration: H. R. H. THE PRINCESS OF WALES.

_From a Photograph by Messrs. W. & D. Downey, London._]

THE

LIFE AND TIMES

QUEEN VICTORIA.

ROBERT WILSON.

Illustrated.

VOL. III.

[Illustration]

CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED:

_LONDON, PARIS & MELBOURNE._

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

LORD DERBY’S SECOND ADMINISTRATION. PAGE

A Commercial Crisis--Suspension of the Bank Act--The Fall of
Lucknow--Sir Hugh Rose in Central India--Last Days of the
Rebellion--The Operations in China--The Queen’s Personal Direction of
Affairs--Palmerston’s waning Popularity--Attacks on Lord Canning--The
Orsini Plot--French Menaces to England--The Conspiracy Bill--Defeat
of the Ministry--The Second Derby-Disraeli Government--Abandonment of
the Conspiracy Bill--The Queen’s Opposition to the India Bill--The
Oudh Proclamation and Ellenborough’s “Secret Despatch”--A Tropical
Summer and an Exhausted Legislature--Confirmation of the Prince
of Wales--The Queen at Birmingham and Leeds--The Dispute between
France and England about the Principalities--The Queen’s Visit to
Cherbourg--The Royal Visit to Prussia--The Meeting with the Princess
Frederick William--A Royal “Middie”--The Indian Proclamation--The
Queen at Balmoral--Donati’s Comet--The Controversy over the Indian
Army--Abdication of the King of Prussia--The Queen’s Letter to the
Prince of Wales--France and Portugal--Failing Health of the Prince
Consort 1

CHAPTER II.

THE ITALIAN REVOLUTION.

Napoleon’s New Year’s Reception--The Secret _Pacte de Famille_--Victor
Emmanuel and the _Grido di Dolore_--The Queen’s Views on the Italian
Movement--The Queen’s Letter to Napoleon--Meeting of Parliament--Cavour
Threatens Napoleon--Appeal of Prussia to the Queen for Advice--Mr.
Disraeli’s Reform Bill--Lord John Russell’s Amendment--Defeat of the
Government--An Appeal to the Country--The Queen Criticises Austria’s
Blunders--War at Last--The General Election--Reconciliation of
Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell--Fall of the Derby-Disraeli
Administration--The Palmerston-Russell Ministry--Austrian Defeats and
French Victories--The Peace of Villafranca--Palmerston Duped--Illness
of the Duchess of Kent--The Budget--The Queen and Palmerston--Triumph
of the Queen’s Policy--The Holiday at Balmoral--Dancing in the New
Year 28

CHAPTER III.

THE COURT AND THE CABINET.

The Queen’s Distrust of French Policy--Her Conferences with
Lord Clarendon--The French Pamphlet on “The Pope and the
Congress”--Palmerston’s Proposal of an Alliance Offensive and Defensive
with France--Intriguing between Palmerston and Persigny--Recall
of Cavour--Affairs in China--Mr. Cobden’s Commercial Treaty with
France--Cession of Nice and Savoy to France--The Anglo-French Alliance
at an End--Lord John Russell’s Reform Bill--Threatened Rupture with
France--Russia Attempts to Re-open the Eastern Question--Garibaldi’s
Invasion of the Two Sicilies--Collapse of the Neapolitan Monarchy--The
Piedmontese Invade the Papal States--Annexation of the Sicilies to
Sardinia--Meeting between Napoleon III. and the German Sovereigns at
Baden--A New Holy Alliance--The Mahometan Atrocities in Syria--The
Macdonald Scandal--Palmerston’s Fortification Scheme--The Lords Reject
the Bill Abolishing the Paper Duty--The Volunteer Movement--Reviews
in Hyde Park and Edinburgh--The Queen at Wimbledon--The Prince of
Wales’s Tour in Canada and the United States--Betrothal of the Princess
Alice--The Queen and her Grandchild--Serious Accident to the Prince
Consort--Illness of the Queen 43

CHAPTER IV.

THE DEATH OF THE PRINCE CONSORT.

England in 1861--The Jumble of Parties--Secret Alliance Between
Palmerston and the Tories--Opening of Parliament--The Prince Consort
and the “Two Old Italian Masters”--Lady William Russell’s _Salon_--The
Proposed Sale of Venice--The Fall of Gaeta--Prussia and Italy--Death of
Cavour--A _Casus Belli_ against France--Napoleon in the East--Denmark
and the Duchies--The Queen’s Private Sorrows--Last Illness and Death
of the Duchess of Kent--Renewed Attacks in the Press on Prince
Albert--Palmerston Accused of Tampering with Despatches--Anecdote
of Lord Derby and Lord Granville--The Budget--Repeal of the Paper
Duty--Palmerston’s “Grudge” Against Prince Albert--The Marriage of
the Princess Alice announced--The Queen and Her Social Duties--Two
Drawing-Rooms and Two Investitures--A Season of Mourning--Death of Lord
Herbert of Lea--Lord John Russell’s Peerage--Reform and the Working
Classes--Ministerial Changes--The Queen’s Tour in Ireland--The Queen
and German Unity--Coronation of the King of Prussia--Death of the
King of Portugal--Fatigue of the Prince Consort--Signs of His Last
Illness--The Queen at Her Husband’s Sick-Bed--A Mournful Vigil--The
Prince Consort’s Last Words--Scene at the Death-Bed--The Sorrow of the
Country--The Queen’s Despair--Her Removal from Windsor--Prince Albert’s
Character and Career--His Funeral--The Scene at the Grave--The Queen
and the Princess Alice 73

CHAPTER V.

WAR AND FAMINE.

Outbreak of Civil War in the United States--Origin of the
Dispute--The Missouri Compromise--Effect of the “Gold Rush” on the
Extension of Slavery--Colonising Nebraska--The Struggle in “Bleeding
Kansas”--Assault on Senator Sumner--The Wyandotte Constitution--The
Dred Scott Case--Election of Mr. Lincoln as President--Secession
of South Carolina--Organisation of the Southern Confederacy--The
Firing of the First Shot--Capture of Fort Sumter--Lincoln’s Call to
Arms--Opinion in England--The _Trent_ Affair--The Queen and the Prince
Consort avert War--Opening of Parliament--Bitter Controversy over the
Education Code--Parliament and the Civil War--The Cotton Famine--A
Relief Bill--War Expenditure--Mr. Disraeli denounces Lord Palmerston’s
“Bloated Armaments”--A Budget without a Surplus--The Fortifications at
Spithead--Floating versus Fixed Forts--A Mexican Adventure--Revolution
in Greece--Bismarck’s Visit to London--Anecdote of Bismarck and Mr.
Disraeli--Progress of the American War--Mr. Peabody’s Benefactions--The
Exhibition of 1862--The Prince of Wales’s Tour in the East--The Hartley
Colliery Accident--Marriage of the Princess Alice--The Queen’s Visit
to Belgium--Her Meeting with the Princess Alexandra of Denmark--The
Queen’s Visit to Gotha--Removal of the Prince Consort’s Remains to the
Mausoleum at Frogmore 111

CHAPTER VI.

THE MARRIAGE OF THE PRINCE OF WALES.

England in 1863--The Prince of Wales Summoned as a Peer of
Parliament--His Introduction to the House of Lords--Cession of the
Ionian Islands to Greece--Mr. Disraeli’s Policy--The Prince of Wales’s
Income--The Dowry of the Princess--Approaching Marriage of the Prince
of Wales--The Voyage of the “Sea-King’s Daughter”--Reception of the
Princess Alexandra at Gravesend--Her Entry into London--The Scene in
the City--The West End _en Fête_--Loyalty of Clubland--Accident to the
Royal Party at Slough--The High Churchmen and the Queen--Objections
to a Royal Marriage in Lent--The Dispensing Power of the Primate--A
Visit to Frogmore--The Queen at the Prince of Wales’s Marriage--The
Scene in St. George’s Chapel--The Wedding Presents--The Ceremony--The
Wedding Guests hustled by Roughs--Riots in Ireland--Illuminated
London--Foreign Policy--The Polish Question--The Russian Rebuff to
Lord Palmerston--Napoleon III. Proposes a Congress of Sovereigns--Lord
Russell Condemns the Proposal--The Death-Knell of the Anglo-French
Alliance--France and Mexico and the Archduke Maximilian 146

CHAPTER VII.

LORD PALMERSTON’S LAST CONTEST WITH THE QUEEN.

The Sleswig-Holstein Question--The Danish Succession--Palmerston’s
Partisanship--The “Danification” of the Duchies--The Letters-Patent of
Christian VIII.--The Revolution of ’48--The Sleswig-Holstein Treaty
of Berlin--Salic Law in the Duchies--Palmerston’s Intrigue with the
Russian Ambassador--The Protocol of 1850--The Queen’s Objections
to it--Prince Albert’s Advice to the Prince of Noër--The Treaty of
London--Lord Malmesbury’s Fatal Blunder--His Mistake as to the Mandate
of the Diet--Letters-Patent of Frederick VII.--His Death--Accession
of Christian IX.--Revolt of the Duchies--Proclamation of the Duke
of Augustenburg as Sovereign--Mr. Gladstone’s Popular Budget--Death
of Sir George Cornewall Lewis--The Queen’s Letter to Lady Theresa
Lewis--The Dispute with Brazil--The Prison Ministers Bill--A South
Kensington Job--Hoodwinking the Commons--A “Scene” in the House
of Commons--A Ministerial Defeat--Sir George Grey and the City
Police--The Civil War in America--Escape of the _Alabama_--Illegal
Seizure of the _Alexandra_--Blockade Running--Proclamation Abolishing
Slavery--Progress of the War--Net Results of the Campaigns 164

CHAPTER VIII.

THE DANISH WAR.

Stagnant Politics--Excitement over the Danish War--Attitude of the
Queen--Withdrawal of the Danes from Holstein--Lord Wodehouse’s
Mission--The _Quarterly Review_ advocates War--Mr. Disraeli
Repudiates a War Policy--Lord Palmerston’s Secret Plans--The Case
against Germany--The Queen’s Warnings--Mr. Cobden’s Arguments--Lord
Russell’s “Demands”--Palmerston drafts a Warlike Queen’s Speech--The
Queen Refuses to Sanction it--Lord Derby Summoned to Osborne--He is
Pledged to a Peace Policy--Austria and Prussia in Conflict with the
Diet--The Occupation of Sleswig--War at Last--Retreat of the Danes
to Düppel--Palmerston’s Protests Answered by German Victories--The
Invasion of Jutland--Storming of the Düppel Redoubts--Excitement in
London--Garibaldi’s Visit to London--Garibaldi and the Dowager Duchess
of Sutherland--Anecdotes of Garibaldi’s Visit--Clarendon’s Visit to
Napoleon III.--Expulsion of Garibaldi by Palmerston--Napoleon III.
Agrees to Accept the Proposal for a Conference--Triumph of the Queen’s
Peace Policy--Palmerston’s Last Struggle--His Ministry Saved by
Surrender to Mr. Cobden--The Treaty of Vienna--End of the War 186

CHAPTER IX.

THE HEIR-PRESUMPTIVE.

Disputes with American Belligerents--The Southern
Privateers--Uneasiness of the Queen--Federal Recruiting in
Ireland--Mr. Gladstone’s Budget--Revival of the Reform Agitation--Mr.
Gladstone Joins the Reformers--“Essays and Reviews”--A Heresy-Hunt
in Convocation--A Ribald Chancellor--The Parliamentary Duel between
Wilberforce and Westbury--The Vote of Censure on Mr. Lowe--The
Five Under-Secretaries and the House of Commons--Prorogation of
Parliament--The Strife in the United States--Gambling in Cotton--A
Commercial Panic in England--The Battle of Chancellorsville--Sherman’s
March through Georgia--The Canadian Raiders--The Presidential
Election--Birth of the Heir-Presumptive--Baptism of the
Heir-Presumptive--The Queen’s Gift to her Little Grandson--The Queen
and the Floods at Sheffield--The Murder of Mr. Briggs--The Queen
Refuses a Reprieve to the Murderer--The Queen’s Letter to the Princess
Louis--John Brown and the Queen’s Pony--Dr. Norman McLeod’s Message
from the Queen--An Anniversary of Sorrow and Sympathy 211

CHAPTER X.

THE DEATH OF PALMERSTON.

Opening of Parliament--Lord Russell and the American
Government--Catholicism and Conservatism--Mr. Disraeli angles
for the Irish Vote--Palmerston on Tenant Right--Another Panic
in Piccadilly--Death of Cobden--Failure of the “Manchester
School”--A Prosperity Budget and a Round Surplus--End of the
American War--Moderation of the Victors--Assassination of President
Lincoln--Reorganising the South--Conflict between President Johnson and
the Republican Party--The Mexican Empire and the United States--The
Danish Question--The Convention of Gastein--Bismarck’s Interview
with the Duke of Augustenburg--The Mystery of Biarritz--Lord
Chancellor Westbury’s Fall--Death and Character of Palmerston--The New
Ministry--Mr. Gladstone Leader of the Commons--The Rinderpest--The
Fenian Conspiracy--The Queen’s Letter on Railway Accidents--Laxity of
Administration in the Queen’s Household--Birth of Prince George of
Wales--Majority of Prince Alfred--The Queen at Gotha--The Betrothal
of the Princess Helena--The Last Illness and Death of King Leopold
of Belgium--His Character and Career--Suppressing a Rebellion with a
Carpet-Bag 231

CHAPTER XI.

A STOP-GAP ADMINISTRATION.

End of the Era of Compromise--Dawn of the new Epoch of Reform--Opening
of Parliament by the Queen--The Queen’s Nervous Prostration at
Osborne--Introduction of the Reform Bill--Hostility of the House of
Commons--Dissentient Liberals in “the Cave of Adullam”--Defeat of
the Reform Bill--Resignation of the Ministry--Lord Derby forms a
Cabinet--His attempted Coalition with the Whig Dukes--Domestic Policy
during the Session--The House of Commons and the Rinderpest--Another
Prosperity Budget--Large Remissions of Taxation--Coercing Ireland--The
White Terror in Jamaica--Marriage of the Princess Helena--The Financial
Embarrassment of the Princess Louis of Hesse--The Queen Intercedes
with Prussia on behalf of Hesse-Darmstadt--The Queen’s Gift to Mr.
Peabody--The Queen’s Visit to Aldershot--The Foundation of the Albert
Medal--Marriage of the Princess Mary of Cambridge--The Queen’s first
Telegram to the President of the United States--The Queen’s Visit to
Aberdeen and Wolverhampton 252

CHAPTER XII.

THE TIDE OF DEMOCRACY.

Stemming the Tide of Democracy--Lord Derby and Reform--The
Reform League--The Riots in Hyde Park--Cowing the Ministry--The
Adullamites--Mr. Disraeli’s Resolutions--Crises in the Cabinet--The Ten
Minutes Bill--The Government Measure--Mr. Gladstone’s Alterations--A
Leap in the Dark--The Movement in Favour of German Unity--The
Austro-Prussian War--The Luxembourg Question--Execution of the Emperor
Maximilian--Mr. Disraeli’s Budget--Academic Discussions of Irish
Grievances--Fenian Outrages at Manchester and Clerkenwell--Rattening at
Sheffield--Prince Arthur Passes his Military Examination--Illness of
the Princess of Wales--Founding of the Royal Albert Hall--The Sultan
in England--Abdul Aziz, K.G.--Visit of the Queen to the Duchess of
Roxburghe--Dr. Macleod at Balmoral--Prince Arthur ill of Smallpox--The
Queen Keeping Hallowe’en--Her Majesty Visits Lady Palmerston 269

CHAPTER XIII.

THE NEW ERA OF REFORM.

A “Little War” in Abyssinia--King Theodore’s Arrest of Vice-Consul
Cameron--The Unanswered Letter to the Queen--A Skilful but
Expensive General--Sir Robert Napier’s Expedition--An Autumnal
Session--Addition to the Income Tax--Parliament in 1868--A Spiritless
Legislature--Fishing for a Policy--Apologetic Ministers--Mr. Bright
on Repeal--The Irish Church Question--Fenian Alarms--Illness
and Resignation of Lord Derby--Mr. Disraeli Prime Minister--His
Quarrel with Lord Chelmsford--Lord Derby Arbitrates--The
“Giant Chancellor”--Mr. Disraeli’s New Policy--Discontented
Adullamites--Public Executions--Lord Mayo and Concurrent
Endowment--“The Pill to Cure the Earthquake”--Mr. Gladstone Attacks
the Government--The Irish Church Resolutions--Resignation or
Dissolution--Mr. Disraeli’s “No Popery” Cry--Lord Chelmsford’s Bad
Pun--Defeat of the Ministry--Mr. Disraeli and the Queen--“Scenes”
in the House of Commons--Charges of Treason--Mr. Disraeli’s
Relations with the Queen--A Parliamentary Duel between Mr. Disraeli
and Mr. Bright--The Dissolution of Parliament--Mr. Ward Hunt’s
Budget--Conclusion of the Abyssinian War--The General Election--Triumph
of Mr. Gladstone--Resignation of the Ministry--Mr. Gladstone’s New
Cabinet--The Queen’s Politeness to Mr. Bright--Illness of Prince
Leopold--Attempted Assassination of the Duke of Edinburgh--The
Queen’s Book--The Queen Accused of Heresy--The West-End Tradesmen
and the Queen--Mr. Reardon, M.P., suggests Abdication--A Bungled
Volunteer Review at Windsor--A Hot London Season--Serious Illness
of the Queen--Her Tour in Switzerland--Death of the Archbishop of
Canterbury--Conflict between the Queen and Mr. Disraeli as to Church
Patronage--The Revolution in Spain--Rupture between Turkey and
Greece--Another War-Cloud in the East 300

CHAPTER XIV.

A HOPEFUL YEAR.

Hopefulness all round--Ministers at the Fishmongers’--The Queen’s
Speech--The Legislative Bill of Fare--The Queen and Mr. Gladstone’s
Irish Church Policy--Release of Fenians--Mr. Gladstone’s Scheme for
Disestablishing the Irish Church--The Debate in the Commons--The
Second Reading Carried--The Bill in Committee--Read a Third Time--The
Lords and the Bill--Amendments of the Peers--The Lords Bought
Off--The Bill becomes Law--Mr. Lowe’s First Budget--The Endowed
Schools Bill--The Habitual Criminals Act--The Lords and the Commons’
Legislation--Official Hostility to Reforming Ministers--Weak Members
of the Cabinet--Mr. Reverdy Johnson and the _Alabama_ Claims--The
Policy of “Masterly Inactivity”--Liberalism in France--Prince Leopold’s
Illness--The Queen’s Interview with Mr. Carlyle--Visit of Ismail Pasha
to the Queen--The Peabody Statue--Prince Alfred in Australia--The
Prince of Wales and Court Dress--Death of Lord Derby--Death
of Lady Palmerston--Opening of Blackfriars Bridge and Holborn
Viaduct--O’Donovan Rossa, M.P.--Orangemen and Fenians 325

CHAPTER XV.

FALL OF THE SECOND EMPIRE.

Social condition of the Country in 1870--Mr. Bright’s “Six Omnibuses
in Temple Bar”--Opening of Parliament--Mr. Gladstone’s Irish Land
Bill--Amendments to the Bill--Dual-Ownership Established--The Bill
and the House of Lords--The Revolt of Lord Salisbury--The Education
Bill--Mutiny of the Liberal Dissenters--Mr. Lowe’s Second Budget--The
Civil Service opened to Competition--Mr. Cardwell’s Failure at the War
Office--The Queen and the Army--Mr. Childers and Admiralty Reform--Mr.
Baxter and Navy Contracts--The Wreck of the _Captain_--Lord Granville
and the Colonies--Death of Lord Clarendon--The Franco-Prussian
War--Collapse of the French Armies--Sedan--Fall of the Bonapartist
Dynasty--Proclamation of the Third Republic--Investment of Paris--The
Government of National Defence at Tours--M. Gambetta Rouses Prostrate
France--Gallant Stand of the Mobiles--A Passing Glimpse of Victory--The
Queen and the War--Prussia and England--Russia Repudiates the Black Sea
Clauses of the Treaty of Paris--Papal Infallibility and the Italian
Occupation of Rome--King William Proclaimed German Emperor--Opening of
London University--Betrothal of the Princess Louise--Death of General
Grey--Death of Dickens--The Novelist and the Queen--Garden Party at
Windsor Castle--The Red River Expedition 354

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

PAGE

The Prince Consort (_After the Photograph by
Mayall_) _Frontispiece_

Balmoral Castle, from the North, looking towards
Lochnagar (_After a Photograph by G. W.
Wilson and Co., Aberdeen_) 1

The Fortress of Gwalior 5

Lord Canning 8

Attempted Assassination of the Emperor of the
French 9

View in Windsor Castle: the Inner Cloisters,
looking West 13

The Queen’s Visit to Birmingham: The Procession
passing along New Street 17

Visit of the Queen to the Emperor and Empress of
the French at Cherbourg 20

Osborne House (_From a Photograph by J. Valentine
and Sons, Dundee_) 21

Potsdam 24

The Queen leaving the Town Hall, Leeds 25

Victor Emmanuel 29

The Guard-Room, St. James’s Palace (_From a
Photograph by H. N. King_) 33

Turin 36

Lord Granville 37

St. George’s Hall, Windsor Castle 41

The Queen Opening Glasgow Waterworks at Loch
Katrine 44

View on Loch Katrine: The Walk by the Shore 45

The Royal Exchange, Manchester 49

General Garibaldi 52

The Curfew Tower, Windsor Castle 53

Pope Pius IX. 57

Volunteer Review in the Queen’s Park, Edinburgh
(_From the Print published by Messrs. McFarlane
and Erskine, Edinburgh_) 61

The Volunteer Camp, Wimbledon 64

The Queen at Wimbledon 65

President Buchanan 68

Frogmore House (_From a Photograph by J.
Valentine and Sons, Dundee_) 69

The Queen and her Little Grandson, Prince
Wilhelm of Prussia _To face_ 70

The Queen’s Private Sitting-Room, Osborne (_From
a Photograph by Hughes and Mullins, Ryde_) 73

St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, from the River 76

Mr. (afterwards Viscount) Cardwell (_From a
Photograph by the London Stereoscopic
Company_) 81

Balmoral Castle, from the South-West (_From a
Photograph by G. W. Wilson and Co.,
Aberdeen_) 84

The Royal Tour in Ireland: the Visit to Ross
Castle, Killarney 85

The Eagle’s Nest, Killarney (_After a Photograph
by W. Lawrence, Dublin_) 88

King William of Prussia (afterwards German
Emperor) 89

Industrial Museum, Edinburgh 92

The Queen holding the First Investiture of the
Order of the Star of India 93

The Princess Alice Reading to her Father 97

Cambridge Cottage, Kew 101

The Princess Alice (_From the Photograph by
Mayall_) 105

St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, showing the Royal
Gallery and Altar 108

Funeral of the Prince Consort: Procession in the
Nave of St. George’s Chapel 109

Mr. Lincoln 113

The _San Jacinto_ stopping the _Trent_ 117

The Clock Tower, Westminster Palace, 1870 121

Mr. Seward 124

Queen Anne’s Room, St. James’s Palace (_From a
Photograph by H. N. King_) 125

View in Berlin: the Palace Bridge and Pleasure
Garden 129

Mr. Peabody 133

The Exhibition Building of 1862 136

The Prince of Wales at the Pyramids 137

Marriage of the Princess Alice 140

Prince Louis of Hesse-Darmstadt 141

Reinhardsbrunn, near Gotha 145

The Vandyke Room, Windsor Castle 149

Entry of the Princess Alexandra into London: the
Procession passing Temple Bar 153

The Princess of Wales (_From a Photograph taken
about the time of her Marriage_) 156

Marlborough House, from the Garden 157

Marriage of the Prince of Wales _To face_ 158

Corridor, Osborne House (_After a Photograph by
J. Valentine and Sons, Dundee_) 161

Frederick Charles, Duke of Augustenburg 165

The Exchange, Copenhagen 168

The Harbour, Copenhagen 169

General Grant 172

Christiansborg Castle, Copenhagen 173

Memorial of the Great Exhibition in the Royal
Horticultural Society’s Gardens, South Kensington 177

Visit of the Queen to Netley Hospital _To face_ 179

The Queen Unveiling the Statue of Prince Albert
at Aberdeen 181

Sir Charles Phipps 184

The Albert Bridge, Windsor 185

Kronborg Castle, Elsinore 188

Christian IX., King of Denmark 189

The Prussians Storming the Redoubts of Düppel 193

Garibaldi’s Reception in Trafalgar Square, London 196

Kiel 197

Count Beust 201

Windsor Castle, from the Berkshire Shore 205

Fredericksborg Castle, Elsinore 209

The Guard Room, Windsor Castle 213

Oliver King’s Chantry, St. George’s Chapel,
Windsor 216

Mr. Lowe (afterwards Lord Sherbrooke) 217

The James River and Country near Richmond 220

General Sherman 221

The Royal Nursery, Osborne (_From a Photograph
by Hughes and Mullins, Ryde_) 225

The Queen at Osborne (_After W. Holl’s Engraving
of the Original Portrait by Graefle. By Permission
of Mr. Mitchell, Old Bond Street, W._) 229

Midhurst, Sussex: Birthplace of Cobden 233

General Robert Lee 237

Biarritz 241

The International Exhibition, Dublin (1865) 245

The Queen Unveiling the Statue of the Prince
Consort at Coburg 248

Opening of Parliament in 1866: the Queen at the
Peers’ Entrance, Westminster Palace 252

Mr. John Stuart Mill 253

Prince Christian (_From a Photograph by W. and
D. Downey_) 257

Marriage of the Princess Helena 260

Princess Christian (_From a Photograph by W. and
D. Downey_) 261

The Duchess of Teck (_From a Photograph by W.
and D. Downey_) 265

Great Demonstration at the Reformers’ Tree in
Hyde Park 272

Lord Carnarvon (_From a Photograph by the
London Stereoscopic Company_) 273

Mr. Disraeli introducing his Reform Bill in the
House of Commons 276

Council Chamber, Osborne (_After a Photograph
by F. G. C. Stuart, Southampton_) 277

Prague 281

Last Moments of the Emperor Maximilian (_After
the Picture by Jean-Paul Laurens_) 284

Lord Naas (afterwards Earl of Mayo) 285

The Queen laying the Foundation Stone of the
Royal Albert Hall 289

Arrival of the Queen at Kelso 292

Visit of the Queen to Melrose Abbey 293

The Queen investing Abdul Aziz with the Order
of the Garter _To face_ 294

The Ball-room, Balmoral (_From a Photograph by
G. W. Wilson and Co._) 296

The Queen unveiling the Statue of the Prince
Consort at Balmoral 297

The Queen Keeping Hallowe’en _To face_ 299

The Prince Consort Memorial at Balmoral 299

Sir Robert Napier (afterwards Lord Napier of
Magdala) 301

St. James’s Palace 305

Mr. Gathorne-Hardy (afterwards Lord Cranbrook) 309

The Queen Reviewing the Volunteers in the Great
Park, Windsor 313

The Queen Inspecting the _Galatea_ in Osborne Bay 317

The Cathedral, Lincoln 321

Windsor Castle, from Thames Street, and “Bit”
of the Outer Walls 324

Mr. Chichester Fortescue (afterwards Lord Carlingford) 329

Choir of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin 332

Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin 333

Dr. Wilberforce, Bishop of Winchester (_From a
Photograph by S. A. Walker_) 337

The Victoria Embankment, London 341

The Queen’s Drawing-Room, Osborne (_From a
Photograph by Hughes and Mullins, Ryde,
Isle of Wight_) 344

Ismail Pasha 345

The Tapestry Room, St. James’s Palace (_From a
Photograph by H. N. King_) 348

The Queen Opening Holborn Viaduct 349

The Queen Opening Blackfriars Bridge 353

Blackfriars Bridge, London 357

Mr. Disraeli (afterwards Lord Beaconsfield) (_From
the Bust by J. E. Boehm, R.A., in the possession
of the Queen_) 361

Cowes, Isle of Wight 364

Sedan 368

The French Troops Leaving Metz 369

Versailles, 1871: Proclaiming King William German
Emperor 373

Charles Dickens 380

Garden Party at Windsor Castle 381

[Illustration: THE PRINCE CONSORT.

(_After the Photograph by Mayall._)]

[Illustration: BALMORAL CASTLE, FROM THE NORTH, LOOKING TOWARDS
LOCHNAGAR.

(_After a Photograph by G. W. Wilson and Co., Aberdeen._)]

THE

LIFE AND TIMES OF QUEEN VICTORIA

CHAPTER I.

LORD DERBY’S SECOND ADMINISTRATION.

A Commercial Crisis--Suspension of the Bank Act--The Fall of
Lucknow--Sir Hugh Rose in Central India--Last Days of the
Rebellion--The Operations in China--The Queen’s Personal Direction
of Affairs--Palmerston’s waning Popularity--Attacks on Lord
Canning--The Orsini Plot--French Menaces to England--The Conspiracy
Bill--Defeat of the Ministry--The Second Derby-Disraeli
Government--Abandonment of the Conspiracy Bill--The Queen’s
Opposition to the India Bill--The Oudh Proclamation and
Ellenborough’s “Secret Despatch”--A Tropical Summer and an
Exhausted Legislature--Confirmation of the Prince of Wales--The
Queen at Birmingham and Leeds--The Dispute between France and
England about the Principalities--The Queen’s Visit to
Cherbourg--The Royal Visit to Prussia--The Meeting with the
Princess Frederick William--A Royal “Middie”--The Indian
Proclamation--The Queen at Balmoral--Donati’s Comet--The
Controversy over the Indian Army--Abdication of the King of
Prussia--The Queen’s Letter to the Prince of Wales--France and
Portugal--Failing Health of the Prince Consort.

Towards the end of 1857 the commercial credit of the country was
severely shaken. The great railway companies in America sank under the
burden of debenture debts: when they failed to pay their creditors, the
banks were unable to give gold in exchange for their convertible issue
of notes, and then private firms of the highest standing rapidly tumbled
into insolvency. The effect of these disasters on English commercial
credit was most serious. Houses engaged in American commerce that had
been rashly over-trading on the capital of their creditors, fell in
rapid succession, dragging down others in their fall. The Western Bank
of Scotland stopped payment, and spread ruin far and wide through the
districts of which Glasgow is the business centre. The failure of this
establishment revealed the fact that gigantic frauds had been
perpetrated by the auditors, who had certified the existence of a
fictitious surplus of £2,000,000. A panic in Ireland, together with
these disasters in Scotland, brought the crisis to a head in England.
The sudden demand for gold at the Bank of England alarmed the
Government, which, on the 12th of November, suspended the Bank Act,
limiting the issue of notes.

It has been already mentioned that in 1847, when a similar course was
adopted, the mere notification of it restored confidence, and the Bank
did not take advantage of the licence granted to it. The crisis of 1857,
however, was more serious, for fresh notes in excess of the legal issue
were promptly put in circulation.[1] But the suspension of the Bank
Charter Act by the Executive necessitated an application to Parliament
for a Bill of Indemnity. Hence Parliament was summoned to meet on the
3rd of December. The Queen was under the impression that fresh light
would be thrown on the crisis by the debates in both Houses; but there
was really nothing new that could be said on the subject. As the Prince
Consort observed in one of his letters, “Long prosperity had made all
bankers, speculators, and capitalists careless, and now they are being
unpleasantly reminded of natural laws which have been violated, and are
asserting themselves.” Other matters besides the Indemnity Bill were
mentioned in the Royal Speech; but, after passing that measure,
Parliament separated on the 12th of January, 1858, to meet again on the
4th of February.

The business of suppressing the Mutiny was carried on vigorously in
1858. After Campbell’s victory over the Gwalior army at the end of 1857,
he remained for two months at Cawnpore, whilst his reinforcements were
coming to him, and the surrounding districts were being swept by flying
columns. Then with an overwhelming force of artillery he moved forward
swiftly to effect the final capture of Lucknow.[2] On the 4th of March
the last of the siege train reached that city, and operations began in
real earnest, ending with the capture of the third line of defence on
the 14th of March. The place was virtually taken on the 15th; but most
of the rebels had escaped. The Queen of Oudh, with 7,000 men, still
clung to the Palace of the Moosee Bágh, and the fanatical Moulvee of
Fyzabad yet held the heart of the city. Outram captured the Queen’s
position, but not the Queen herself, whilst Sir Edward Lugard drove the
Moulvee from his stronghold. Campbell’s loss was 177 killed and 505
wounded, and of the enemy 3,000 were buried, though no exact account of
their wounded could be ascertained. On the 23rd of March General Grant
overtook and routed a large body of fugitives on the road to Seetápoor,
which brought operations to an end in this region.

The mutineers had now contrived to concentrate at Bareilly, with Khan
Bahádoor Khan, Prince Féroze, of Delhi, the Queen of Oudh, the fanatical
Moulvee, and the Nana Sahib of Bithoor, as leaders. Bareilly, however,
suffered the fate of Lucknow, the leaders again escaping. The rebel Köer
Singh was hunted out of Báhar and the jungle round Oudh, by Brigadier
Douglas, after much harassing irregular fighting. During May and June
the rebels contrived, greatly to the surprise of the Government, to
concentrate in force at different places in the most unexpected manner.
Driven out of the Upper Provinces, they tried to find refuge in the
eastern Gangetic districts, but at every turn they were met and
dispersed by flying columns told off to watch them.

It was, however, in Central India that the sword of vengeance was plied
most ruthlessly. Sir Hugh Rose, with the army of Bombay and the
Hyderabad Contingent, had, early in 1858, begun his march from Indore,
hoping to reach Lucknow in time to take part in its capture. He had,
however, to devote his attention to the insurgents of Central India, and
conduct a campaign over the most rugged and difficult ground. He
relieved Saugor on the 3rd of February. He invested the formidable
fortress of Jhansi, the Ranee, or Queen, of which was, as Sir Hugh
himself said, “the best man of the war.” On the 1st of April he
defeated, in spite of great odds against him, a rebel army that
attempted to raise the siege. On the 3rd he stormed a small breach in
the walls, the Ranee effecting her escape into the jungle. On the 4th he
carried the citadel, and took possession of the town. The investment was
so complete that escape was impossible, and, as at the Secunderbund, the
mutineers, to the number of 5,000, were all massacred.[3]

The Ranee of Jhansi and Tantia Topee had now concentrated an army of
20,000 men at Kalpi, and held an entrenched position at Kunch. Here, on
the 7th of May, Rose defeated them, and his pursuit was so fierce and
unresting that hardly a single fugitive escaped. Another rally was made
at Kalpi, which was seized on the 23rd of May, the flying Sepoys being
cut and shot down by hundreds, no quarter being given or taken.
“Soldiers,” said Sir Hugh Rose, in his proclamation to the Central India
Field Force, “you have marched more than a thousand miles, and taken
more than a hundred guns; you have forced your way through mountain
passes and intricate jungles, and over rivers; you have captured the
strongest forts, and beat the enemy, no matter what the odds, wherever
you met him; you have restored extensive districts to the Government,
and peace and order now reign where before for twelve months were
tyranny and rebellion; you have done all this, and you have never had a
check.” Led by a dandy, who might almost be termed the Alcibiades of the
Indian army, the Central India Field Force had carried fire and sword
from the shores of Western India to the waters of the Jumna, and
literally quenched the spirit of the insurrection in blood. But fresh
work awaited Rose and his followers. Tantia Topee had organised a
conspiracy against Scindia at Gwalior, whose contingent had, early in
the Mutiny, revolted from his standard. Instead of waiting for British
help, Scindia insisted on striking at the conspirators with such troops
as he had still attached to his household. When he attacked the enemy at
Barragaom, his followers deserted him, and he had to fly, with a small
escort, to Dhólpoor, leaving the great fortress of Gwalior, with its
vast stores of arms and munitions of war, to be occupied by the rebels.
This gave fresh life to the Mutiny: the Nana Sahib promptly proclaimed
himself Peishwa, and took the field with a new army of 18,000 men,
strengthened by the superb artillery of Gwalior. But the news of this
terrible misfortune did not daunt Sir Hugh Rose. He immediately resumed
the command of the Central Field Force, which he had laid down, and made
a dash for Gwalior. On the 16th of June he surprised the rebels at
Morar, where he waited for one of his brigades, which came up on the
17th. He drove the enemy before him, like chaff before the wind, tearing
them to pieces by fierce onsets of cavalry, in one of which a trooper of
the 8th Hussars slew the dreaded Ranee of Jhansi, who fell fighting in
male disguise. On the 18th the rebel army was in full retreat, and on
the 20th Scindia took possession of his capital, the sack of which by
the rebels cost him the loss of £500,000 of treasure, jewels, and other
property. Nana Sahib’s broken army alone kept up a faint semblance of
rebellion in Oudh towards the end of 1858.

Nor were British arms less fortunate elsewhere than in India. The
operations at Canton, which had been suspended by the Mutiny, were
successfully ended at the beginning of the year, a small French
contingent acting as our allies against the Chinese. Commissioner Yeh
was captured along with the city of Canton, in which Admiral Sir Michael
Seymour established a provisional government. But the Imperial
authorities affecting to consider the dispute a purely local one between
the British Consul and the Imperial Commissioner, refused to come to
terms. Lord Elgin accordingly crossed the bar of the Peiho river with a
strong naval force, proclaiming his intention of attacking Pekin itself.
The Imperial Government, therefore, made haste to conclude the Treaty of
Tien-tsin on the 26th of June, which formed a new basis for British
commercial intercourse with Eastern Asia.[4] The interest of the Queen
in this achievement was heightened by the fact that the treaty was
brought to her at Balmoral (20th of August), by Mr. Frederick Bruce,
Lord Elgin’s younger brother and secretary, also brother to Colonel
Bruce, governor to the Prince of Wales, and a confidential friend of the
Royal Family. A Commercial Treaty with Japan followed, which completed
the triumph of Lord Elgin’s energetic and adroit diplomacy.

[Illustration: THE FORTRESS OF GWALIOR.]

Home and Foreign Affairs, however, brought more trouble and annoyance to
the Queen than the operations of war in the East. In fact, at this
period of her career, her Majesty found it more necessary than ever it
had been to devote her best energies to the public service. In a
conversation with Mr. Greville during the autumnal recess of 1857, Lord
Clarendon said that “the manner in which the Queen in her own name, but
with the assistance of the Prince, exercised her functions, was
exceedingly good, and well became her position, and was eminently
useful. She held each minister to the discharge of his duty and his
responsibility to her, and constantly desired to be furnished with
accurate and detailed information about all important matters, keeping a
record of all the reports that were made to her, and constantly
recurring to them; _e.g._, she would desire to know what the state of
the navy was, and what ships were in readiness for active service, and
generally the state of each, ordering returns to be submitted to her
from all the arsenals and dockyards, and again weeks and months
afterwards referring to these returns, and desiring to have everything
relating to them explained and accounted for, and so throughout every
department. In this practice Clarendon told me he had encouraged her
strenuously. This is what none of her predecessors ever did, and it is
in fact the act of Prince Albert, who is to all intents and purposes
King, only acting entirely in her name. All his views and notions are
those of a Constitutional Sovereign, and he fulfils the duties of one,
and at the same time makes the Crown an entity, and discharges the
functions which properly belong to the Sovereign. I told Clarendon that
I had been told the Prince had upon many occasions rendered the most
important services to the Government, and had repeatedly prevented them
getting into scrapes of various sorts. He said it was perfectly true,
and that he had written some of the ablest papers he had ever read.”[5]

The Queen, however, like the Prince Consort, was uneasy as to the
stability of the Government. But she had erroneously formed an opinion,
which was indeed shared by many others, that the danger to be
apprehended was from the decay of Lord Palmerston’s health. “Clarendon,”
writes Mr. Greville in November, 1857, “told me of a conversation he had
recently with the Queen _à propos_ of Palmerston’s health, concerning
which her Majesty was very uneasy, and what could be done in the not
impossible contingency of his breaking down. It is a curious change from
what we saw a few years ago, that she has become almost affectionately
anxious about the health of Palmerston, whose death might then have been
an event to have been hailed with satisfaction. Clarendon said she might
well be solicitous about it, for if anything happened to Palmerston, she
would be placed in the greatest difficulty. She said that in such a case
she should look to _him_, and expect him to replace Palmerston, on which
Clarendon said he was glad she had broached the subject, as it gave him
an opportunity of saying what he was very anxious to impress upon her
mind, and that was, the absolute impossibility of his undertaking such
an office, against which he enumerated various objections. He told her
that Derby could not form a Government, and if she had the misfortune to
lose Palmerston, nothing remained for her to do but to send for John
Russell, and put him at the head of the Government. She expressed her
great repugnance to this, and especially to make him Prime Minister.
Clarendon then entreated her to conquer her repugnance, and to be
persuaded that it would never do to offer him anything else, which he
neither would nor could accept; that she necessarily was to have a man
who could lead the House of Commons, and that there was no other but
him; that Lord John had consented to take a subordinate office under
Lord Aberdeen, who was his senior in age, and occupied a high position,
but he would never consent to take office under him (Clarendon), and the
proposal he would consider as an insult. For every reason, therefore, he
urged her, if driven to apply to him at all, to do it handsomely, to
place the whole thing in his hands, and to give him her full confidence
and support. He appears to have convinced her that this is the proper
course, and he gave me to understand that if Lord John acts with
prudence and moderation all the present Government would accept him for
their head.”[6]

The real danger, as will soon be seen, which menaced the Ministry was
not Palmerston’s decaying health, but his waning popularity. The Party
of Reform early in 1858 had become convinced that nothing was to be
hoped for from him beyond empty and evasive promises. They were
therefore, when Parliament reassembled on the 4th of February, simply
waiting for a pretext to turn him out of office.[7] While the Radicals
were mutinous, Mr. Disraeli, through the medium of Mr. C. Greville, was
intriguing with the younger Whigs[8] to form a Coalition.[9] Palmerston
had also incurred much unpopularity by appointing Lord Clanricarde to
the office of Lord Privy Seal; in fact, it was known that this
appointment would have been laid hold of as a pretext for moving a
resolution which might destroy the Ministry. Of course, when Parliament
met no division of opinion existed as to the propriety of passing
addresses congratulating the Queen on her daughter’s marriage. But when,
on the 8th of February, resolutions were moved thanking the civil and
military officers in India for the ability with which they had dealt
with the Mutiny, some of the Tories,[10] let us hope reluctantly, led by
Lord Derby and Mr. Disraeli, made themselves the mouth-pieces of the
“White Terror” at Calcutta, and opposed a vote of thanks to Lord
Canning. His policy had been objected to because it was not sufficiently
bloodthirsty; therefore, argued his critics, it was rash to pass a vote
of thanks to him. The vote was carried, but it was clear that the Indian
policy of the Government would bring trouble on their heads. The Indian
government must be transferred to the Crown, and as Mr. Vernon Smith, a
man of limited capacity, was the Minister responsible for India, the
prospect was not thought by experienced Anglo-Indians to be an alluring
one. We ought to wait till we had stamped out the last traces of the
Mutiny, it was contended by Lord Ellenborough, before we brought India
directly under the Government of the Queen. Still, Ministers defeated a
resolution to postpone their India Bill, and nothing seemed fairer than
their prospects, though they were even then (18th of February), on the
brink of destruction. The blow came when Palmerston, desirous of
conciliating the French Emperor, introduced a Bill to alter the Law of
Conspiracy.

[Illustration: LORD CANNING.]

The history of this fateful measure is as follows:--Ten days before the
marriage of the Princess Royal, a small group of conspirators in England
carried out a plan for assassinating the Emperor of the French in the
Rue

[Illustration: ATTEMPTED ASSASSINATION OF THE EMPEROR OF THE FRENCH.]

Lepelletier, Paris, by exploding hand-grenades under his carriage. The
Emperor and Empress escaped, but ten persons were killed, and 156 were
wounded. The plot had been concocted by Felix Orsini in England.
Therefore, the followers of the Emperor, whose fortunes depended on his
life, denounced the English nation as Orsini’s accomplices. The Emperor
himself was so unmanned by the incident, that after he drove home to the
Tuileries, he and the Empress, on retiring to their room, wept bitterly
over the wretched prospect before them. His terror probably prevented
him from appreciating the fact, that if his own police could not protect
him from Orsini, it was not likely that the police of a foreign country
would be much more efficient. It may be, too, that the ease with which
he had forced Palmerston to accept a humiliating settlement of the
Question of the Principalities deluded him into the idea that it would
be equally easy to compel him to restrict the freedom of Englishmen, in
the interests of the Bonapartist dynasty.[11] He may also have imagined
that England’s difficulties in the East would render Palmerston’s
Government more complaisant than the Tory Ministry showed itself on this
matter in 1853. His calculations, however arrived at, proved to be
correct. The French Government addressed menaces on the subject of
harbouring refugees to Sardinia, Switzerland, and Belgium. On the 20th
of January Walewski wrote a despatch to Persigny, which he had to
communicate to Lord Clarendon, and which not only accused England of
deliberately sheltering the assassins of the French Emperor, but also
asserted that the English Government ought to assist that of France, in
averting “a repetition of such guilty enterprises.” Instead of answering
this despatch in the high-spirited tone which Lord Malmesbury had taken
in his conversation with the Emperor in 1853, a reply of a timid and
indefinite character was privately sent through what was called the
“usual official channels of personal communication.” The substance of it
was that the Government needed no inducement to amend the English law of
conspiracy, and that the Attorney-General had the matter in hand
already. The assumption that the English Government was deliberately
aiding and abetting a gang of assassins was an insult which Lord
Palmerston, as the exponent of a spirited foreign policy, was expected
to resent. His failure to resent it gave his enemies an opportunity of
recalling his _Civis Romanes Sum_ doctrine, and holding him up to
contempt. But at first it was not known that he had shown the white
feather in his dealings with the French Emperor. Addresses from the
Army, burning with rancorous insults to England, had been presented to
the Emperor, and published in the _Moniteur_. The Emperor finding that
these insults, which were only intended for home consumption, had been
republished in England, where he feared they might inflame popular
feeling, instructed an expression of regret to be sent to the British
Government. In introducing the Conspiracy to Murder Bill, Lord
Palmerston (18th of February), carried the first reading by leading the
House of Commons to believe that this Imperial apology was adequate. He
did not think it worth while to explain that it had not been inserted in
the _Moniteur_, where the insults and menaces of the French Colonels had
appeared, and that the French people were thus fully under the delusion
that their vaporous threats had coerced England into restricting the
liberty of her subjects at their bidding. Later on, this deception was
discovered. Walewski’s despatch, by an inconceivable blunder, was laid
before the House, which also found out that it had never been answered
with spirit and dignity. The anger of the Representatives of the people
then rose to white heat; and when Mr. Milner Gibson moved a resolution
of censure, which had been drafted by Sir J. Graham and Lord John
Russell on the 19th of February, it was carried by a majority of 19, in
a House of 459. Lord Palmerston and the Cabinet immediately resigned.

At first the Queen, knowing the difficulty of forming a new Government,
was reluctant to accept their resignation. She contended--very
properly--that it was a bad precedent for a Government to go out on the
strength of a vote which was hardly constitutional. The treatment of a
despatch was, in her Majesty’s opinion, purely a question for the
Executive to decide. The House of Commons had but a very dubious right
to touch it at all; at any rate, no Ministry was bound by the
Constitution to resign because of a Vote of Censure from either House of
Parliament on such a question.

There can be no doubt that the Queen’s view was the correct one, and it
is now known that Lord Eversley, the ablest Speaker who has in her
Majesty’s reign presided over the House of Commons, actually advised Mr.
Speaker Denison to rule Mr. Gibson’s motion out of order, on the very
grounds which seemed to the Queen to justify Lord Palmerston in ignoring
the censure.[12] On the other hand, her Majesty had to admit the fact
that Lord Palmerston and Lord Clarendon had been maladroit in their
handling of the whole affair. They should have answered Walewski’s
despatch more formally than in a private letter from Clarendon to
Cowley. They ought at the outset to have pleaded the constitutional
privilege of the Executive, and refusing to produce the despatch in
Parliament, have challenged the Opposition to a vote of censure.
Moreover, the Queen knew only too well by this time that if Palmerston
refused to resign on Mr. Gibson’s motion, he would be turned out on one
to abolish the office of Lord Privy Seal, Lord Clanricarde’s appointment
to which had given great offence.[13] Thus, though it was in some
respects objectionable to sanction a Ministerial resignation because the
House of Commons censured, not the policy of the Government, but an
administrative act of the Executive,[14] the Queen bent to
circumstances, and sent for Lord Derby to form a Cabinet. Lord Derby,
though he took office, did not desire it, because he could only reign on
sufferance. His party, strictly speaking, was in a minority of about two
to one in the House of Commons, and his Government would be at the mercy
of casual combinations among the factions of the Opposition. He had to
fall back on his old Administration (minus Sir E. B. Lytton).[15]

A painful quarrel between Sir E. B. Lytton and his wife had enlisted
considerable public sympathy on the side of the lady, so that his
re-election for Hertford was a little doubtful. When offered the
Colonial Secretaryship, Sir E. B. Lytton gave Lord Derby a hint on the
subject, and Lord Derby, under the impression that Sir E. B. Lytton
considered his re-election impossible, induced Lord Stanley to accept
the Colonial Office.[16] Lord Grey would have joined Lord Derby had it
not been for his distrust of Mr. Disraeli; and he told Lady Tankerville
that Mr. Gladstone would have also joined the new Ministry, “had he been
offered the leadership of the Commons.”[17] If Lord Palmerston reckoned
on the reluctance of the Queen to trust a Derby-Disraeli Ministry with
the conduct of affairs, he fell into a grave error. Mr. Greville, who,
like many politicians, held the Derby-Disraeli combination in contempt,
admits that during this crisis the Queen’s conduct “was certainly
curious, and justifies them in saying that it was by her express desire
that Derby undertook the formation of the Government. If Palmerston and
his Cabinet were actuated by the motives and expectations which I
ascribe to them, her Majesty certainly did not play into their hands in
that game. When Derby set before her all the difficulties of his
situation, and entreated her again to reflect upon it, a word from her
would have induced him (without having anything to complain of) to throw
it back into Palmerston’s hands. But the word she did speak was decisive
as to his going on, and there is no reason to believe that she was
playing a deep game, and calculating on his favour. Nor do I believe
that she would herself have liked to see Palmerston all-powerful. She
can hardly have forgotten how inclined he has always been to abuse his
power, and how much she has suffered from his exercise of it. Even when
he was to a certain degree under control, and although she seemed to be
quite reconciled to him, and to be anxious for the stability of his
Government, it is difficult to know what her real feelings (or rather
those of the Prince) were, and it is more than probable that her anxiety
for the success of Palmerston’s Government was more on account of the
members of it, whom she personally liked, and whom she was very
reluctant to lose, than out of any partiality for the Premier himself.
To Clarendon she is really attached, and Granville she likes very much;
most of the rest she regards with indifference.”[18]

When the new Ministry took office they soon announced that they would
drop the Conspiracy to Murder Bill, and answer the Walewski despatch.
The

[Illustration: VIEW IN WINDSOR CASTLE: THE INNER CLOISTERS, LOOKING
WEST.]

temper of the English people was such as to render it impossible, after
what had been said on both sides, to proceed with Lord Palmerston’s
Bill. Moreover, Lord John Russell and Mr. Gladstone had put themselves
at the head of 140 Members pledged to use all the forms of the House of
Commons for the purpose of obstructing any measure of the sort, and the
case was one where obstruction by keeping open a sore between two
nations would soon render it an unhealable wound.[19] As for Walewski’s
despatch, Mr. Milner Gibson’s motion had censured Lord Palmerston’s
Government for not answering it, so Lord Palmerston’s successors, who
had supported that motion, were bound to reply to it. Their difficulties
were complicated by the foolish behaviour of De Persigny, the French
Ambassador. He was a strong partisan of Palmerston’s, and he went about
London drawing-rooms denouncing the Tory Government in the most violent
terms. Nay, he made a practice of communicating to Lord Palmerston
everything which passed between himself and Lord Malmesbury in their
official conversations, and Lord Palmerston did not scruple to use
information obtained by this dishonourable violation of diplomatic
rules; nor did he shrink from making himself De Persigny’s accomplice in
these questionable transactions. Lord Malmesbury felt himself so
completely embarrassed by such proceedings that he caused Lord Cowley to
privately inform the French Emperor that he must in future decline to
transact business through De Persigny. Lord Malmesbury said plainly,
that he must communicate directly through Lord Cowley or Count Walewski
in Paris, for De Persigny at this time not only carried his confidential
conversation to Palmerston, but Palmerston actually instructed him how
to embarrass the English Government in attempting to resist dictatorial
pressure from France. Lord Malmesbury’s spirited protest was well-timed
and highly effective.[20] Acting through Lord Cowley, Lord Malmesbury
arranged with Count Walewski a form of reply to the despatch which would
adequately meet the demands of the English people, and yet give the
French Government an opportunity of honourably repudiating any intention
of wounding British susceptibilities. On hearing of this, Persigny, who
had pledged himself to restore Palmerston to power by forcing the Tory
Government to pass the Conspiracy Bill in a week, resigned. To his
surprise and disgust his resignation was accepted, and Marshal
Pélissier, Duke of Malakoff, was sent to England in his place. This was
another triumph for the Tory Ministry, because Palmerston had reckoned
on Walewski appointing Moustier, French Ambassador at Berlin, to the
Court of St. James’s when Persigny resigned, and as Moustier was, like
Walewski, virtually a Russian agent, fresh troubles would soon have been
manufactured for Lord Malmesbury. Napoleon III., however, insisted on
sending a personal representative, who from his Crimean services would
not be unacceptable to the Queen and the English people. He, therefore,
selected Pélissier,[21] who, though ignorant of diplomacy, was not
likely to fall into Persigny’s indiscretions, and whose appointment was
received by the Queen as a token of renewed goodwill on the part of
France. This attempt of Palmerston’s to drive a Ministry from office by
getting a Foreign Government to menace it with hostility,[22] having
ended in ignominious defeat, he and his party soon showed how bitterly
they resented the failure of their conspiracy with the French Emperor
and his Ambassador against English liberty. When Mr. Disraeli announced
the settlement of the quarrel with France in the House of Commons, on
the 13th of March, the Opposition received it sullenly, and immediately
raised a bitter attack on Lord Malmesbury for not procuring the release
of the English engineers who were imprisoned in the _Cagliari_.[23]
Their arrest was illegal, and Lord Malmesbury, as soon as he obtained
the opinion of the law officers of the Crown, not only procured their
release, but liberal compensation for the annoyance to which they had
been put.

Where the Government broke down was in attempting to deal with the
future administration of India; and it is a fact that had they but
listened to the Queen’s advice, who strongly opposed their policy, they
would have avoided a defeat which served to convince the people that the
evil reputation of the Derby-Disraeli group for legislative incapacity
was only too well founded. The Tories had opposed Palmerston’s India
Bill, transferring the government of India to the Crown, so they were
forced to bring in one of their own. Palmerston’s Indian Council
consisted of nominated officials of high rank and ripe experience. The
Tory Bill, which was devised by Lord Ellenborough, introduced into the
Council a fantastic elective element. Four out of the Council of
eighteen were to be chosen by holders of Indian Stock, and by Indian
military and civil servants of ten years’ standing, and five were to be
elected by the commercial constituencies of London, Glasgow, Liverpool,
Manchester, and Belfast. The Queen warned the Cabinet that these
provisions were fatal to their Bill. The selection of the constituencies
was arbitrary, and other cities would in time agitate for representation
on the Council. The turmoil of democratic elections was not likely to
influence for good Imperial policy in a country about which the electors
could at best know little. But the Cabinet held that the electoral
clauses would secure the Radical support necessary to carry the Bill,
and the Queen, reluctant to bring about another Ministerial crisis, left
the matter in the hands of her Ministers. But when Mr. Disraeli, on the
26th of March, introduced the Bill, to his surprise, the Radicals
objected as strongly as the Queen to the electoral clauses. Mr. Roebuck
complained that they gave a sham colour of democracy to what was really
a despotic Government. Mr. Bright said they “savoured of what was
generally called claptrap.” Anxious, however, to keep the Tories in
power, lest Lord Palmerston and his followers might return to office,
the Radicals refused to embarrass Mr. Disraeli[24] on this point, and
urged the Government to reconsider it during the Easter recess. Most
assiduously did Lady Palmerston endeavour to induce Lord John Russell to
coalesce with Lord Palmerston during the recess for the purpose of
defeating the Ministry on the India Bill; but her intrigues were in
vain. On the contrary, Lord John determined to bring in a series of
Resolutions on which the Ministry might base a Bill, and when Parliament
re-assembled on the 12th of April he confidentially communicated them
through Mr. Edward Horsman to Mr. Disraeli, who had himself resolved to
adopt the same course. Mr. Disraeli was only too willing to be thus
extricated from a difficulty by one of the leaders of the Opposition.
But the House of Commons considered that as the India Bill was now
removed from the arena of party strife, it would be wisest to let the
Government prepare the Resolutions. This was done, and the debate on
them began on the 30th of April, and went on favourably.

The Budget, though it showed a deficit of £4,000,000, which was met by a
tax on bankers’ cheques, and by equalising the Irish spirit duty, gave
the Ministry no trouble. The acquittal of Dr. Bernard in April, who had
been arrested by Lord Palmerston’s Government on a charge of conspiring
with Orsini to murder the French Emperor, embarrassed Lord Malmesbury,
for the jury who tried Bernard refused to convict in the teeth of clear
evidence of guilt. But Napoleon III., recognising that the action of the
jury was simply the “retort courteous” to Walewski’s maladroit demand
that an English Government should alter English laws at the bidding of a
foreign autocrat, wisely ignored the incident, and accepted Pélissier’s
view of it, which was that “one must be callous to this sort of thing,
and let the water run under the bridge.”[25] Then the tide of
Ministerial success suddenly turned, and the Cabinet was nearly wrecked
by the indiscretion of its most brilliant but erratic member, Lord
Ellenborough, who had succeeded Mr. Vernon Smith at the Indian Board of
Control.

In 1857 Lord Canning had incurred the odium of panic-stricken Englishmen
at Calcutta, because in his repressive measures he mingled justice with
severity. In June, 1857, when he gagged the Native press, he gagged the
English press as well. In August, when disarming Calcutta, he compelled

[Illustration: THE QUEEN’S VISIT TO BIRMINGHAM: THE PROCESSION PASSING
ALONG NEW STREET.]

Europeans, as well as Natives, to take out licences to carry arms, and
in July he issued orders to stop the indiscriminate slaughter of
mutineers, distinguishing between the cases of those whose guilt was of
varying degrees of intensity. A storm of abuse accordingly broke over
his head, and the English in Calcutta petitioned for the recall of
“Clemency Canning.” The British army in India, with its reinforcements,
was but a handful of men among millions. Indiscriminate proscription of
the Natives, such as was clamoured for, would have driven the whole of
India into mutiny; in other words, it would have cost England her Indian
Empire. The Queen and the Cabinet, however, supported Canning, and
matters went well with him for a time. But in the spring of 1858, when
Lucknow fell, another attack was made on him from a different point of
view. He had drawn up a proclamation confiscating the lands of all
landowners in Oudh save those who had been loyal to England, and those
who would immediately return to their allegiance, and help to put down
the rebellion. Lord Ellenborough, ignoring the saving clauses in the
proclamation, sent Canning a “Secret Despatch,” bitterly condemning the
apostle of “clemency” as a heartless tyrant, and even casting doubts
upon the title by which Oudh was held by England. He permitted the
Secret Despatch to be made public; and, what was still worse, Mr.
Disraeli, with singular lack of patriotism, proclaimed in the House of
Commons that the Government disapproved of Canning’s policy. Such a
declaration, made at such a moment, was almost as mischievous as if the
Government had telegraphed out to India, that they desired the Natives
to organise another revolt.

The Queen’s indignation at the conduct of both Ministers was not
diminished by the fact that neither of them had waited to receive
Canning’s despatch, explaining at length the reasons for his policy.
Notices of resolution, censuring the Ministry, were given in both
Houses, and one member of the Cabinet (Lord Malmesbury) wrote personally
to Lord Canning, begging him, on behalf of his colleagues, not to quit
his post. The defeat of the Government, in fact, was only averted by the
sacrifice of Ellenborough, who, to “save his colleagues, volunteered to
play the part of Jonah.”[26] Mr. Gladstone was offered his place by Lord
Derby, but on his refusing to join the Government, Lord Stanley became
Ellenborough’s successor, Sir E. B. Lytton going to the Colonial Office.
Yet in view of Mr. Disraeli’s denunciation of Canning’s policy, even
Ellenborough’s resignation would not have saved the Ministry, had it not
been that the Radicals and Peelites, along with Lord John Russell,
refused to carry the matter farther, because, as they frankly said, they
did not desire to let Palmerston and his faction return to power.[27]

On the 17th of June the India Bill, based on the resolutions of the
Government, and vesting the sole dominion of India in the Crown, was
introduced by Lord Stanley, and it passed into law on the 2nd of August.

Another measure was passed in July, though opposed rather venomously by
the Tories in the House of Lords--namely, the Bill providing that either
House might resolve that henceforth Jewish members of Parliament might
omit from the Parliamentary Oath the words, “and I make this declaration
on the true faith of a Christian.” This ended a long and bitter
controversy. On the 26th of July Baron Lionel Nathan de Rothschild came
to the table of the House of Commons, and was sworn on the Old
Testament, the House having agreed to resolutions in terms of the new
Act.[28]

The exceptional heat of the summer soon exhausted the energies of
legislators. Mephitic odours from the Thames even caused some to demand
that the Houses of Parliament should be shifted to another site. “We
have,” writes Lord Malmesbury, on the 27th of June, “ordered large
quantities of lime to be thrown into the Thames; for no works can be
begun till the hot weather is over. The stench is perfectly intolerable,
although Madame Ristori, coming back one night from a dinner at
Greenwich, given by Lord Hardwicke, sniffed the air with delight, saying
it reminded her of her ‘dear Venice.’” Perhaps this nuisance induced the
House of Commons to pass with unlooked for rapidity a Main Drainage
Bill, which was to prevent sewage from being turned into the Thames as
it passed through London. All intrigues set on foot to reconcile Lord
Palmerston to Lord John Russell,[29] and the Radicals to both, failed,
so the Tory Ministry successfully weathered the storms of faction, and
closed the Session, on the whole, with credit, on the 30th of July.

The family life of the Court had been brightened early in the year by
the cordial welcome which the Queen’s eldest daughter had received in
her new home in Prussia. Projects for a visit to her and her husband
were formed by the Queen and the Prince Consort, which public duty
compelled them to abandon month after month. On Maundy Thursday the
Prince of Wales was confirmed at Windsor, having acquitted himself well
during his examination by the Archbishop. After a fortnight’s tour in
Ireland, it was arranged that he should live in the White Lodge,
Richmond Park, and prepare for his military examination, his companions
being Lord Valletort, eldest son of Lord Mount-Edgecumbe, Major
Teesdale, R.E., one of the heroes of Kars, Major R. Loyd-Lindsay
(afterwards Lord Wantage), V.C., and Mr. Gibbs, the Prince’s tutor. In
May a visit from the beautiful Queen of Portugal charmed all hearts, and
during the Whitsuntide holiday, when the Prince Consort went to pay a
flying visit to Coburg, the Queen solaced her loneliness by visiting
Prince Alfred at Alverbank, a cottage opposite the Isle of Wight, where
he was pursuing his naval studies. Delightful letters came to the Queen
from Babelsberg, describing the married happiness of her daughter, who
received the Prince Consort there, and from whence he returned to London
on the 8th of June.

On the 14th, her Majesty paid her promised visit to Birmingham, and to
Lord Leigh at Stoneleigh Abbey. It was smiling summer weather when she
drove from Coventry through Shakespeare’s country to her host’s house,
where

[Illustration: VISIT OF THE QUEEN TO THE EMPEROR AND EMPRESS OF THE
FRENCH AT CHERBOURG.]

she was delighted with her reception. Next day she went by train to
Birmingham, when, wonderful to relate, the sun shone through a smokeless
though sultry atmosphere. As for the arrangements for her reception, she
writes, “all was admirably done--handsomer even than Manchester. The
cheering was tremendous.” Loyal addresses were presented at the Town
Hall, where, seated on an extemporised throne, her Majesty knighted the
Mayor. The Royal Party next proceeded to Aston Hall and Park, “now to be
converted,” writes the Queen, “into a People’s Museum and Park, and to
obtain which the working people had worked very hard, and subscribed
very largely.” Here six of the working men associated with the managers
of the proceedings were presented to the Queen, who conversed with them
affably, and then proclaimed the Park open. “Quite a pattern lady!”
“What a darling!”--such were among the exclamations, writes the Queen,
with which she was greeted by the crowd. After visiting many places of
interest in the district, the Queen returned to Buckingham Palace on the
16th, greatly impressed with the welcome she had received from the most
democratic and republican community in England. This visit had a marked
political influence. It gave a great though unseen impetus to the
movement for Reform, and many thoughtful Conservatives now began to
suspect that there was less danger in giving votes to the loyal artizans
of Birmingham, than to the lower middle class whom the Whigs desired to
enfranchise.

[Illustration: OSBORNE HOUSE.

(_From a Photograph by J. Valentine and Sons, Dundee._)]

In May the Emperor of the French had sent the Queen an invitation to
come and inspect the fortifications at Cherbourg. At this time the
friction between France and England had been somewhat increased by a
divergence of view between the two countries as to the settlement of the
Danubian Principalities. England, by opposing their union, had irritated
France. France, by refusing to admit that the engagements entered into
by Napoleon III. at Osborne in 1857 bound her to support the English
view, had annoyed England.[30] It was, however, thought that the Queen’s
personal popularity in France, and her influence with the Emperor, might
bring about friendlier relations between the Governments, and the
Ministry pressed her to accept the Imperial invitation. Writing on the
5th of August, the day after the Queen’s arrival at Cherbourg, Lord
Malmesbury, who was one of her party, says, “It blew hard in the night,
but subsided towards morning. The Queen not ill. The approach to
Cherbourg very fine. Arrived there at 7 p.m. At 8 the Emperor and
Empress came on board the Royal yacht without any suite. Nobody was
admitted. Marshal Pélissier, who went in without any invitation, was
immediately turned out by the Emperor.” What passed at this interview,
however, was an embarrassing inquiry about the feeling against France in
England. “We smiled,” writes the Queen of herself and her husband, “and
said the feeling was much better, but that this very place caused alarm,
and that those unhappy addresses of the Colonels had done incalculable
mischief.” The grand effect of the saluting cannon seems to have
impressed the Queen, and, says Lord Malmesbury, “when the Emperor left
the Queen’s yacht, the electric light was thrown on the Emperor’s barge,
following it the whole way into the harbour; the light shining only on
the barge, whilst all around remained in darkness.” The Emperor, adds
Lord Malmesbury, “was very friendly in his manner; but both he and the
Empress could not digest some of the articles in the _Times_ which had
been offensive, especially against her, and I tried to make them
understand what freedom the Press had in England, and how independent it
was of all private and most public men.” As for the Queen, she says in
her Diary that, after this grave visit she “went below,” and “read and
nearly finished that most interesting book ‘Jane Eyre.’” On the morrow
thunderous salutes smote her ears as she was dressing, and when she went
on deck the harbour was literally swarming with craft brave with gala
array. “Next morning,” writes Lord Malmesbury of this day’s proceedings,
“the Queen, Prince Albert, the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Cambridge,
Sir John Pakington, and myself breakfasted at the Préfecture. After
which the Royal Personages drove over the town.... Returned to the Royal
yacht, and accompanied the Queen to dinner on board the _Bretagne_.
Among the officers at dinner was General Macmahon.” Here the Queen was
rendered very nervous because Prince Albert had to make a complimentary
speech in reply to the toast of her health, for at that moment every eye
in Europe was on Cherbourg, and every ear straining for echoes of Royal
and Imperial conversations on which might hang the dread issues of war.
“I shook so,” writes the Queen, “that I could not drink my cup of
coffee.”[31] All went off well, however, and the kindliest words on both
sides were spoken. The display of 25,000 francs’ worth of fireworks
ended a brilliant but fatiguing day. August 6th was devoted to
leave-taking, amidst a complimentary cannonade, and the Queen got home
in time to greet Prince Alfred on his birthday at Osborne. “The
evening,” she writes, “was very warm and calm. Dear Affie was on the
pier, and we found all the other children, including Baby (Princess
Beatrice), standing at the door.” A visit of inspection to Prince
Alfred’s birthday presents, a little birthday fête and dance on the
terrace, adds the Queen, formed “a delightful finale to our
expedition.”[32] But the visit was a mistake, though, as the Ministry
insisted on it, the blame was theirs alone. It produced an abundant crop
of alarms and attacks in the press on the menacing preparations for war
which had been seen at Cherbourg. It caused the Queen to have a
controversy with Lord Derby, who would pay no heed to her appeal to
provide a counterpoise to the threatening stronghold which she had
inspected.

A visit--long promised and long looked for--to the Prince and Princess
Frederick William of Prussia followed. Her Majesty’s suite arrived at
Potsdam on the 14th of August, and on the same evening the Queen and
Prince Albert arrived at Babelsberg, where they were received with a
warmth of welcome by their Prussian relatives that made the Queen, as
she herself says, feel as if she were at home. The meeting between her
and her daughter brought a moment of supreme delight to both. Each day
spent in the happy circle of the Prince and Princess of Prussia seems to
have knit the heart of the Queen closer to the family of which her
eldest daughter was so obviously a cherished member. Every day some
fresh mark of attention was paid to the Queen and her husband by their
hosts, who seemed to exhaust their ingenuity in devising expedients for
making her visit pleasant to her. Though this visit was purely a private
one, the people gave her as cordial a reception as the Court, until at
last her Majesty began to feel sad at the approaching termination of
such a charming holiday. But on the 28th of August the last day came,
and, writes the Prince Consort, “the parting was very painful.” The
Queen and the Princess Royal wept in each other’s arms, though her
Majesty says, with a pathetic reference to the conflicting duties of
sovereignty and womanhood, “all would be comparatively easy were it not
for the one thought that I cannot be with her at that very critical
moment when every mother goes to her child.”[33] Dover was reached on
the 31st, from whence the Queen went on to Portsmouth, and thence to
Osborne, where they found Prince Alfred, who had passed his
examination--especially the mathematical part of it--with great
distinction, eager to tell them he had been appointed to the _Euryalus_.
He was waiting for his mother, writes the Queen, “in his middie’s
jacket, cap, and dirk, half-blushing, and looking very happy. He is a
little pulled down from these three days’ hard examination, which only
terminated to-day.... We felt very proud, for it is a particularly hard
examination.”[34]

[Illustration: POTSDAM.]

Only one anxiety had intruded itself during the Prussian tour--the issue
of the Queen’s Proclamation to the Indian people on assuming the
government of India. She objected strongly to the draft of it which was
submitted to her, and begged Lord Derby to write one out for her in “his
own excellent language,” keeping in view “that it is a female Sovereign
who speaks to more than a hundred millions of Eastern people on assuming
the direct government over them after a bloody civil war, giving them
pledges which her future reign is to redeem.” Such a Proclamation
should, says her Majesty, emphasise the ideas of generosity,
benevolence, religious toleration, liberty, and equality before the law.
What offended her deeply in the draft was a menace reminding the Indian
people that she had “the power of undermining” native religions and
customs. Her Majesty, writes Lord Malmesbury by her directions, “would
prefer that the subject should be introduced by a declaration in the
sense that the deep attachment which her Majesty feels to her own
religion, and the comfort and happiness which she derives from its
consolations, will preclude her from any attempt to interfere with
native religions.” The name of the official personage who drew up this
blundering and exasperating Proclamation, which the Queen had the good
sense and good taste to cancel, need not be mentioned. It is but just to
Lord Derby to say that when the Queen’s objections were telegraphed to
him he examined the document, and so completely agreed with her Majesty
that he re-wrote the Proclamation in a manner that anticipated her
detailed instructions. A few additions were made to it by the Queen, and
when it was issued it was hailed with delight by the Natives as the
Magna Charta of India.

[Illustration: THE QUEEN LEAVING THE TOWN HALL, LEEDS.]

On the 6th of September the Queen and Prince Albert proceeded to Leeds
to open the splendid Town Hall which the people of that borough had
built, and where they were welcomed by the most picturesque Mayor in
England, who in his robes and bearing, wrote the Queen, was “the
personification of a Venetian Doge.” Needless to say then that, after
the Hall was opened, Mr. Mayor Fairbairn was knighted. The Royal Family
next sped northwards to Balmoral, where Prince Albert brought down his
first stag on the 14th, and where the whole household gazed nightly at
Donati’s comet, which blazed with peculiar brilliancy in the clear and
“nimble air” of the Highlands. Among the superstitious mountaineers it
was held to be a portent of war and pestilence. At Balmoral the Queen
became involved in a discussion with her Ministers as to the future of
the Indian Army. Who was to command it--the Queen through the British
Commander-in-Chief, or the Queen through the Secretary of State in
Council, as successors to the old East India Company and Board of
Control? Her Majesty stoutly contended that the union between the
British and Indian Armies should be completed by their being placed
under the same supreme authority--namely, the Commander-in-Chief in
India. The Indian Council grasping at patronage, however, held that
though the Commanders-in-Chief in the Presidencies should not be
subordinate to the Commander-in-Chief in India, except in respect of the
Queen’s troops under their order, over the Native troops in their
presidencies their authority must be supreme. Lord Clyde took the
Queen’s view of the matter, and so did General Peel, War Secretary, and
also the Prince Consort, and in 1860, when the controversy ended, it was
her view that prevailed. Towards the end of the Balmoral holiday the
Queen and her husband were greatly delighted to find that their
much-loved friend, the Prince of Prussia, had finally been chosen Prince
Regent in succession to his brother, the king, who had become too infirm
in mind and body to hold the reins of Government. The Prince Regent
(afterwards German Emperor) and Prince Albert were not only warm
friends, but were in close confidential correspondence on public
affairs, and the Queen and her husband alike looked to him as the only
possible deliverer of Prussia from Absolutist Administrations dominated
by Russian ascendency. Their counsels had a powerful influence on the
Prussian Regent’s policy at the outset of his career, when he dismissed
the Manteuffel Ministry, and initiated an era of moderate constitutional
progress in his country. Indirectly, they conferred a marked benefit on
this country at the same time. The foreign policy of Prussia, which had
up till now seemed to be antipathetic to England, changed. Without
abating any of their zeal for their respective interests, the Foreign
Offices of the two countries found it much easier than it had been to
work together in matters of general interest. This cordiality between
the Courts of Berlin and St. James’s was promoted by the kindness which
the Prince Regent bestowed on the Prince of Wales when, in November, he
proceeded to Berlin to visit his sister. He returned, not only bearing
with him a confidential letter from the Prince Regent to his father, but
with it the Order of the Black Eagle, which had been, greatly to his
delight, bestowed upon him. He had just completed his eighteenth year,
and had been promoted to a colonelcy in the army. Colonel Bruce was now
his governor--his tutor, Mr. Gibbs, having retired. The Prince had, in
fact, become emancipated from pupilage, and Mr. Greville referring to
this event says in his “Memoirs,” “I hear the Queen has written a letter
to the Prince of Wales announcing to him his emancipation from parental
authority and control, and that it is one of the most admirable letters
ever penned. She tells him that he may have thought the rule they
adopted for his education a severe one, but that his welfare was their
only object; and well knowing to what seductions of flattery he would
eventually be exposed, they wished to prepare and strengthen his mind
against them, that he was now to consider himself his own master, and
that they should never intrude any advice upon him, although always
ready to give it him whenever he thought fit to seek it. It was a very
long letter all in that line, and it seems to have made a profound
impression on the Prince, and to have touched his feelings to the quick.
He brought it to Gerald Wellesley in floods of tears, and the effect it
produced is a proof of the wisdom which dictated its composition.”[35]

A fresh cause of disagreement had, however, now arisen with France. The
seizure of a French slaver, called the _Charles-et-Georges_, by the
Portuguese authorities at Mozambique, tempted the French Government to
demand its surrender, and an indemnity whilst her status was _sub
judice_. Coercion was threatened by the appearance of a French squadron
in the Tagus, and an offer on the part of Portugal to submit to
arbitration was refused. Englishmen in these circumstances gave vent to
much indignation against a revival of the old brutal methods of
Bonapartism in dealing with a small Power, and this indignation was
shared by the Queen, though it was prudently veiled, her personal
relations with the Portuguese Court being of an unusually cordial
character. Lord Malmesbury was also well known not only to be a partisan
of the French alliance, but a personal friend of the French Emperor.
This led many to suspect that the British Government had played into the
hands of France; and Lord Malmesbury’s policy was, in truth, so
spiritless in defence of Portugal, that the Portuguese, fearing to waste
time in appealing for the good offices of England, yielded to the
overbearing menaces of France. At the same time, it is quite clear, from
a sentence in one of the Prince Consort’s letters to Baron Stockmar,
that the Court, on the whole, approved of the Foreign Secretary’s
policy, which, at all events, kept the country clear of war. The loyal
reception of the Queen’s Proclamation in India on the 17th of October,
and the end of the rebellion in Oudh, gladdened the closing months of
1858. Over these, however, the first symptoms of the Prince Consort’s
failing health projected the slowly-advancing shadow, that was so soon
to shroud the remainder of the Queen’s career in widowed sorrow.

CHAPTER II.

THE ITALIAN REVOLUTION.

Napoleon’s New Year’s Reception--The Secret _pacte de
famille_--Victor Emmanuel and the _Grido di Dolore_--The Queen’s
Views on the Italian Movement--The Queen’s Letter to
Napoleon--Meeting of Parliament--Cavour Threatens Napoleon--Appeal
of Prussia to the Queen for Advice--Mr. Disraeli’s Reform
Bill--Lord John Russell’s Amendment--Defeat of the Government--An
Appeal to the Country--The Queen Criticises Austria’s Blunders--War
at Last--The General Election--Reconciliation of Lord Palmerston
and Lord John Russell--Fall of the Derby-Disraeli
Administration--The Palmerston-Russell Ministry--Austrian Defeats
and French Victories--The Peace of Villafranca--Palmerston
Duped--Illness of the Duchess of Kent--The Budget--The Queen and
Palmerston--Triumph of the Queen’s Policy--The Holiday at
Balmoral--Dancing in the New Year.

Not easily will the world forget the New Year’s Day of 1859. “I regret,”
said the French Emperor to Baron Hubner, the Austrian Ambassador, at the
reception at the Tuileries, “that the relations between our two
countries are not more satisfactory; but I beg you to assure the Emperor
(of Austria) that they in no respect alter my feelings of friendship to
himself.” Taken in connection with the rumoured results of Continental
intrigues, but one interpretation could be put on these words. The
restlessness of France was to be appeased by a war for the deliverance
of Italy from the Hapsburgs, and the bombs of Orsini had forced the
Emperor to be faithful to his forgotten engagements to his old comrades
among the Carbonari. The Emperor’s own story was that he felt convinced
there could be no peace in Europe unless the Territorial Settlement of
1815 was revised. He professed to have aimed at effecting that object by
the regeneration of Poland. The Crimean War having, however, proved this
scheme to be futile, his policy was thenceforth directed to the
deliverance of Italy from Austrian servitude. In either case the waters
of diplomacy would be troubled, and it would be easy to fish out of them
something that might partially compensate France for what she lost in
1815. But the truth was that, at his secret interview with Count Cavour,
at Plombières, in the autumn of 1858, the Emperor had entered into an
engagement to defend Piedmont, if attacked by Austria, and to establish
under the Sardinian Crown a Kingdom of Northern Italy, the price for
this aid being the cession of Savoy and Nice to France. At this meeting
the marriage of Prince Napoleon to the Princess Clothilde, daughter of
the King of Italy, was discussed, but not definitely arranged. The
announcement of the coming marriage was, however, made to the Queen by
the French Emperor on the 31st of December, 1858. On the 23rd of
January, 1859, the formal request for the Princess Clothilde’s hand was
made. On the 30th the wedding was celebrated, and on the 3rd of February
the Prince and Princess Napoleon returned to Paris. On the evening
before the marriage, Napoleon III. was said to have signed a _pacte de
famille_, promising aid offensive and defensive to Sardinia, Victor
Emmanuel pledging himself to cede to France Savoy and Nice, in return
for territorial acquisitions in Lombardy.[36] Thus the French Emperor
was bound to Sardinia as with “hoops of steel,” when the European crisis
in 1859 became acute, and Lord Malmesbury imagined that he could compose
it by diplomacy.

[Illustration: VICTOR EMMANUEL.]

After the Imperial declarations to Baron Hubner, Victor Emmanuel, on the
10th of January, in his Address to his Parliament, had said, “While we
respect treaties, we are not insensible to the cry of suffering (_Grido
di dolore_) which comes to us from so many parts of Italy.” Austrian
troops forthwith began to swarm into the passes of the Tyrol, and to
form on the line of the Ticino. Russia encouraged France to the utmost,
and from conversations with Lord Palmerston and Lord Clarendon during
their visit in autumn to Compiègne, the French Emperor felt convinced
that the powerful party in England, led by Palmerston, would give him
that moral support which the Queen and her Ministers denied him.[37] The
Courts of St. James’s and Berlin were cold friends to the cause of
Italian freedom. To them any war which upset the Settlement of 1815 was
like the letting out of waters. The victory of either party could bode
no good for Prussia, under whose leadership the Queen was even then
hopeful that Germany would yet form a united Empire. The triumph of the
Hapsburgs would strengthen their position in Germany, and as Herr von
Bismarck said, this must mean that “our Kings will again become Electors
and vassals of Austria.”[38] The victory of France, on the other hand,
would tempt Napoleon III. to seize Belgium and the Rhine Provinces.

In Germany public opinion was, on the whole, pro-Austrian. In England,
popular feeling, stimulated by the Liberal Party, was decidedly
Anti-Austrian. The view of the Tory Ministry was that of Lord
Malmesbury, who thought that it was as wicked to dispute the right of
Austria to her Italian provinces, as to question that of England to
Ireland. Frenchmen, again, were as little inclined to go to war for “an
idea” in Lombardy as in the Crimea.

It would be tedious to follow the tangled skein of intrigue that finally
ended in war. At the outset the advantage lay with Austria, because if
she had struck quickly and sharply she might have crushed Sardinia, ere
France could have come to her rescue. Protracted negotiation deprived
Austria of this advantage, so Napoleon III. welcomed the proposal of
England to find a diplomatic solution of the Italian Question--all the
more readily that his failure to obtain pledges of absolute neutrality
from England and Prussia, caused him to waver from his purpose. It was
in the hope that he might be induced, when in this state of mind, to
insert a pacific clause in his address to the Chambers, that the Queen,
on the 4th of February, wrote to him suggesting this course,[39] in a
letter thanking him for his congratulations on the birth of the Princess
Royal’s son. Napoleon’s reply was friendly but evasive. He professed
great friendship for England, and respect for treaties, but virtually
reserved to himself the right to interpret them in his own interests. So
matters stood at the beginning of the Session of 1859.

Parliament had been called together on the 5th of February. Ministers
were undoubtedly discredited by a popular suspicion that they were using
the influence of England to buttress up Austrian tyranny in Italy. The
impartial impotence of Lord Malmesbury’s policy, as subsequently
revealed in his despatches, however, showed that these suspicions were
unfounded. The question of Reform had been stirred during the autumnal
recess by Mr. Bright. But his violent attacks on the propertied classes
had roused the fiercest antagonism, and probably did more to retard than
advance the cause he had at heart. Yet the Government could not afford
to dispense with the support of the Party of Parliamentary Reform, and
so Mr. Disraeli’s determination to deal with the question was intimated
in the Queen’s Speech. Lord Granville, Lord Palmerston, and Lord John
Russell, though speaking less hopefully than Mr. Disraeli of the efforts
of the Government to preserve peace, alike deprecated a war for the
expulsion of Austria from North Italy, where her position was secured to
her by the Treaty of 1815. But they argued that she had no right to go
beyond that Treaty, and that the presence of Austrian and French armies
in Central Italy, on which they imposed a government that was hateful to
the people, was most dangerous to the peace of the world. The Emperor’s
speech to the French Chambers, as the Prince Consort said, was “meant to
look peaceful”--but that was all. “Not a word,” wrote Lord Malmesbury
“is said about Treaties, but a good deal about the interests and honour
of France.”[40] Indeed, Victor Emmanuel and Cavour fancied they detected
in it signs of wavering. The former threatened to abdicate, and the
latter to resign, after disclosing to the world the secret compact of
Plombières and the _pacte de famille_, signed on the eve of the Princess
Clothilde’s marriage. This threat, together with Cavour’s
Mephistophelean allusions to the vengeance of the Carbonari, invariably
brought the Emperor back to his original resolve, and defeated the
efforts of British diplomacy to avert war. Meanwhile, the Prince Regent
William had been pressed by the French Emperor to hold aloof from
Austria. Rival parties in Prussia were trying to drag him in contrary
directions, and at last he appealed confidentially to his friends, the
Queen and the Prince Consort, for advice, saying, “I anxiously await
your answer, for it will be decisive for us.”[41] It is important to
study this correspondence, because at the time the Queen and Prince
Consort were denounced in many quarters, where French influence was at
work, for intriguing through the Courts of Berlin and Brussels to get up
a great German League against the liberties of Italy. England, replied
the Prince Consort, would not now go with France, no matter how far
Austria put herself in the wrong. Prussia would be well advised, thought
the Prince, to take the same line. In the meantime, let German public
opinion, of which Napoleon stood much in awe, on the question, be
elicited by encouraging the freest discussion in Germany, and when the
crisis came, let that opinion guide Prussia. Prussia and the German
States, the Prince Consort thought, should adopt an attitude of armed
neutrality--ready to strike a blow for the protection of the Rhine
provinces before a victorious France could quite clear her hands of a
defeated Austria. Prussia and Germany, argues the Prince in another
letter, owe no duty to Austria in respect of Italy. But Austria owes
them a duty as a German State bound to assist in the defence of Germany
from French aggression. Ere Prussia sided with Austria, an Austrian army
must be ready to advance on the Rhine, and Germany must be permitted to
exercise a distinct influence on Austrian policy in Italy. The Prince
Regent of Prussia treated the Prince Consort’s views as “decisive,” and,
as will be subsequently seen, by acting on them he not only increased
the influence of Prussia in Germany, but virtually brought the war
between France and Austria to a sudden close. In the meantime,
Parliament, with great generosity and patriotic spirit, refused to
embarrass Ministers by debating the Italian Question, and at the request
of the French Emperor, Lord Cowley was sent to Vienna to mediate between
France and Austria.

On the 28th of February Mr. Disraeli expounded his Reform Bill, the
adoption of which compelled Mr. Walpole and Mr. Henley to retire from
the Cabinet. The great blunder of the Whig Reform Bill of 1832 was that
it excluded the working classes--without whose support the Bill could
never have been forced on the Crown--from political power. The object of
a practical Reform Bill was therefore simple. It was to lower the
franchise, so as to give votes to the working classes, and then readjust
the distribution of power in the constituencies in terms of this reduced
franchise. Mr. Disraeli, however, produced a fantastic scheme, in which
every concession given with the right hand was taken back with the left.
The county franchise was reduced to £10, but then as a set-off the
freeholders in towns were no longer to vote for the counties. The
franchise in towns was not reduced, but a series of what Mr. Bright
called “fancy franchises’ was created, with a view to render the
representation of “interests” predominant.[42] Certain constituencies
were to have additional members, and some small boroughs with two
members were to lose one. Nobody was satisfied with the measure, so Lord
John Russell on the 10th of March gave notice that he would move an
amendment to the motion for the Second Reading, condemning the
disturbance of the freehold franchise, and demanding a greater extension
of the suffrage than Mr. Disraeli contemplated. All sections of the
Opposition were able to vote for the resolution. Lord John Russell, who
imagined he enjoyed a monopoly of the question of Reform, and that
nobody should deal with it but himself, wanted to carry the Resolution
and reject the Bill. Lord Palmerston was willing to vote for the
Resolution and go on with the Bill. “I do not,” he said, “want them [the
Ministry] to resign. I say to them, as I think Voltaire said of a
Minister who had incurred his displeasure, ‘I won’t punish him; I won’t
send him to prison; I condemn him to keep his place.’” Mr. Gladstone
refused

[Illustration: THE GUARD-ROOM, ST. JAMES’S PALACE. (_From a Photograph
by H. N. King._)]

to support the Resolution, because he said he wanted the question of
Reform settled, and it would be quite possible to re-model the Bill in
Committee, and Mr. Roebuck took the same view. Mr. Bright, however,
thinking that any settlement arrived at in 1859 would be too favourable
to the territorial interest, supported the Resolution in order to quash
the Bill. Sir James Graham, who had drafted the Resolution, made by far
the most statesmanlike speech 111 the debate. He argued that it was of
no use to lower the borough franchise unless it were reduced so that no
further reduction could be demanded, and suggested that the municipal
rating franchise would be the best to adopt. On the 1st of April the
Government by this coalition of factions was defeated by a vote of 330
to 291, and, undeterred by Lord Palmerston’s threat to stop supplies,
Mr. Disraeli on the 4th of the month intimated that the Ministry would
appeal to the country.

Partisans of the Government had attempted to make capital out of the
disturbed state of the Continent, and had spoken as if it were wicked to
oppose a bad Reform Bill at a time when Lord Malmesbury was mediating
between armed nations. As a matter of fact, Lord Malmesbury was only
permitted to amuse himself with futile mediation, which was to be
protracted till France was ready to attack Austria, and Austria was
lured into an attack on Piedmont, that would give France an excuse for
fulfilling the secret compact with Cavour at Plombières. When Lord
Cowley returned from Vienna he brought the assent of Austria (1), to
withdraw her troops from the Roman States; (2), to support a reforming
policy in Italy; and (3), to promise not to assail Sardinia. His mission
would have been successful had not Napoleon in the meantime manufactured
failure for it. He gave a hint to Russia which caused her to propose a
Congress for the settlement of all questions at issue between France and
Austria, and Lord Cowley’s plans were put out of the field. A Congress,
by protracting negotiations, exposed Austria to the exhausting drain of
her armaments, whilst France was perfecting her arrangements for falling
upon her. Time, too, might bring about a change of Ministry in England,
where the substitution of a warm ally like Lord Palmerston for a Tory
Cabinet whose sympathies were, if anything, in favour of Austria, would
be an advantage to France.

It was in these circumstances that the Queen reluctantly consented to a
dissolution, when Mr. Disraeli and Lord Derby convinced her that they
could not, after Lord Palmerston’s insolent speech, honourably go on
with their Reform Bill. In fact, they pointed out that, even if they
resigned, the Whigs would have to dissolve Parliament themselves in a
few months to carry, against the opposition of the House of Lords, their
own alternative measure of Reform, to which they were pledged. “The
Congress truly does not dance,” observes the Prince Consort, in one of
his shrewd letters to Stockmar. The fact is, that whenever Cavour heard
of it, he warned the Emperor that if he played false, he (Cavour) would
return to Turin, place his resignation in Victor Emmanuel’s hands,
proceed to the United States, and not only charge the Emperor with
luring the Sardinian Government into a ruinous warlike policy by
promises of assistance, but that he would publish documentary proofs of
his charges to the whole world. As Prince Albert said, Napoleon had
“sold himself to the devil,” and “Cavour can do with his honour what he
pleases.”[43] Hence, France would no longer support a proposal that
Sardinia should disarm, and when Austria proposed simultaneous
disarmament all round, the Emperor’s reply was, that the forces of
France were not yet on a war footing. At last, Napoleon assented to this
project, on condition that Sardinia and the other Italian States were
heard in the Congress, which left the issue in the hands of Austria.
The tension of the situation was now extreme, and telegrams came pouring
in every hour to the Queen, whose nerves were sorely strained by the
excitement of the crisis. Just before the dissolution, explanations of a
somewhat unsatisfactory nature were given in both Houses of Parliament
on the 18th of April, and next day (the 19th), Austria took the fatal
and aggressive step which, as the Queen predicted, would turn public
opinion against her. Instead of accepting the Congress, as France and
Sardinia had accepted it, she called on Sardinia to disarm within three
days, otherwise an Austrian army would march on Turin. Had Austria
attacked at once she might have crushed her enemy before France could
come to her aid. She hesitated and was lost. The effect of Count Buol’s
ultimatum on England was electric. The Ministry, despite its
pro-Austrian sympathies, hastened to protest against the invasion of
Sardinia, and the Queen, in a letter to King Leopold, reflected the
opinion of the people, when she said “though it was originally the
wicked folly of Russia and France that brought about this fearful
crisis, it is the madness and blindness of Austria that has brought on
the war now.”[44] But this “madness and blindness” would not have
deterred Austria from allowing the small Italian States to have a
consultative representation at the Congress, had she been sure that a
friendly Ministry would be in power in England. She, however, was afraid
to weaken her position on the eve of Lord Palmerston’s possible return
to office.[45] On the 29th Austrian troops crossed the Ticino. “All
Italy is up,” writes Lord Malmesbury in his Diary: a feeble effort on
his part to patch up negotiations for a Congress was rejected by France,
though accepted by Austria, and the game of war began in earnest. In
England, Ministers were blamed for having encouraged by their sympathy
the obstinacy of Austria, which led her to break the peace. As a matter
of fact, Lord Malmesbury’s efforts had been directed to pacify the
combatants, to localise the war, and to prevent the German States, whose
people were clamouring to be led to the conquest of Alsace, from joining
in the fray.[46]

The General Election resulted in a gain of twenty-nine seats to the Tory
Party, but this still left them in a minority whenever all sections of
the Opposition chose to combine against them. The Liberal Party, tired
of dissension, put pressure upon the two leaders by whose long rivalry
it had been

[Illustration: TURIN.]

caused, for the purpose of reconciling them, and accordingly Lord
Palmerston and Lord John Russell--after being urged by his brother, the
Duke of Bedford--agreed that either would serve under the other. At a
meeting in Willis’s Rooms, on the 5th of June, the union of all sections
of the Party was consummated, and an Amendment to the Address, declaring
their want of confidence in the Ministry, was drafted and agreed to.
Parliament met on the 6th of June. Next night Lord Hartington in the
House of Commons moved this Amendment, which, after a debate lasting
over three nights, was carried on the 10th of June by a majority of
thirteen in a house of 643. The Government resigned, and the Queen, who
was not particularly anxious to entrust either Lord John Russell or Lord
Palmerston with the Premiership, invited Lord Granville to form a
Ministry. Lord Palmerston very generously consented to serve under Lord
Granville, but Lord John Russell refused. He had agreed to serve under
Palmerston if he were appointed to the Foreign Office, but under Lord
Granville he must at least be Leader of the House of Commons. As Lord
Palmerston would not accept a peerage, and as it was impossible to ask
him to abandon the Leadership of the Liberal Party in the

[Illustration: LORD GRANVILLE.]

Lower House which he had held so long, Lord Granville retired from the
field. The Queen then sent for Lord Palmerston, who formed a Ministry
consisting of Lord John Russell, Lord Campbell, Sir G. C. Lewis, Sir
George Grey, Sir Charles Wood, the Duke of Newcastle, the Duke of
Argyll, Lord Elgin, Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Sidney Herbert, Mr. Cardwell, the
Duke of Somerset, and Mr. Milner Gibson. A place--the Presidency of the
Board of Trade--was offered to Mr. Cobden, which he declined. The first
five represented the Whigs; the next six represented the Peelites;
Messrs. Gibson and Cobden were selected to conciliate the Radicals; and
there could be no doubt that, tested by individual capacity, the
combination was one of the strongest ever formed. The Queen deeply
regretted the exclusion of Lord Clarendon from the Cabinet, and Mr.
Greville says that Lord John Russell’s selfish determination to take the
Foreign Office kept Clarendon out. This is hardly just. Lord
Clarendon’s pro-Austrian sympathies, and his opposition to Palmerston’s
foreign policy, rendered him ineligible for office at the time. The
change was attended by one unpleasant incident. The substance of the
Queen’s conversations with Lord Granville found their way into the
press, and her Majesty’s indignation at this betrayal of her confidence
was not concealed. It was clear that some of those with whom Lord
Granville had been in negotiation had not kept faith with him, and in
the House of Lords (17th of June) he expressed his regret, without,
however, divulging the name of the culprit who had betrayed him.

The war in the North of Italy had in the meantime been raging furiously.
An uninterrupted series of defeats led Austria to the crowning disaster
of Solferino (June 24th), and forced her to take refuge in the
Quadrilateral. The losses of the French army had been heavy, and a weary
struggle before the famous Four Fortresses was not inviting. The victory
of Magenta had forced Prussia to mobilise her forces, and Solferino
decided her to adopt a policy of “armed mediation”--the object of which
was to concert with England and Russia terms of peace reconciling
Austrian rights with Italian liberties, and forcing these terms on the
combatants. In the end of May the Queen, depressed by the reverses of
Austria, had been anxious that England should take her side, but had
fortunately been dissuaded from pressing her views on the Government by
Lord Malmesbury, who told her plainly that “the country would not go to
war even in support of Italian independence, and there would not be ten
men in the House of Commons who would do so on behalf of Austria.”[47]
For the German States intervention was, however, hardly avoidable, and
so the French Emperor prudently began to negotiate for peace.

On the 6th of July Persigny submitted to Lord John Russell a proposal
that England should ask for an armistice on terms which the Emperor was
willing to grant, but which the Austrian Ambassador, Count Apponyi,
rejected. England also declined to sanction them because, in Lord
Palmerston’s opinion, they ignored the wishes of Italy.[48] The Emperor
then signed an armistice with the Austrians for seven days on the 8th of
July, and arranged for a meeting with the Austrian Emperor on the 11th.
On the 10th Persigny insidiously renewed his negotiations for the “moral
support” of England in the new turn of affairs. Lord Malmesbury, who had
the story from Persigny, says he “went to Lord Palmerston and said that
the time was come for mediation, and suggested conditions, namely,
Venice and its territories to be taken from Austria, not annexed to
Sardinia, but made into a separate and independent State. There were
other conditions, but this was the principal one.[49] That Lord
Palmerston agreed to this, and rode down to Richmond to tell Lord John
Russell, who was equally delighted; and that the proposal was adopted
by them and sent to the Queen, who was at Aldershot, which occasioned
some delay. That her Majesty refused her consent, saying the time was
not yet come to make these proposals, as the fortresses were not yet
taken. That, however, in the meantime, Persigny had telegraphed the
consent of the English Government to his master, who immediately asked
for an interview with the Emperor of Austria, showed him Persigny’s
despatch, saying, ‘Here are the conditions proposed by England, and
agreed to also by Prussia. Now listen to mine, which, though those of an
enemy, are much more favourable. So let us settle everything together
without reference to the neutral Powers, whose conditions are not nearly
so advantageous to you as those I am ready to grant.’ The Emperor of
Austria, not suspecting any reservation, and not knowing that the Queen
had refused her consent to these proposals, which, though agreed to by
her Government, were suggested by Persigny, evidently to give his master
the opportunity of outbidding us, and making Francis Joseph think that
he was thrown over by England and Prussia, accepted the offer, and peace
was instantly concluded.”[50] There cannot be any doubt that the Queen,
though unaware that Persigny was merely intending to use Palmerston as a
dupe, was right in refusing her consent to these sham proposals. The
Emperor of Austria, it is known, would not have accepted them. But in
that case “moral support” of them, recklessly promised by Palmerston,
might have laid us open to the charge of having abandoned our strict and
scrupulous neutrality. By the Peace of Villafranca, which was arranged
at the meeting of the Emperors, Venice was left as an Austrian State,
but was to enter an Italian Confederation, presided over by the Pope;
Lombardy was ceded to France, who might cede it to Sardinia, and the
Dukes of Tuscany and Modena were to be restored. The verdict of the
Parisian _flaneurs_ was that “France had made a superb war, and Austria
a superb peace.” Victor Emmanuel ground his teeth with rage when he
found he had to accept this arrangement, adding, after his signature,
the significant words, “I ratify this convention in all that concerns
myself.” Cavour placed his resignation in the King’s hands, and left the
camp for Turin, after a stormy interview with the French Emperor.
“Arrêtez-moi, et vous serez forcé de retourner en France par le Tyrol,”
he said, when Napoleon threatened to put him under arrest for his
insolent language. Palmerston, in a letter to Persigny, protested
against the arrangement with impotent rage.[51] The Prince Consort,
however, cynically observed that the Italian Question was not quite
settled yet, and that a Confederation with the Pope at the head of it
was only “a bad joke.” The Queen soothed Lord Palmerston, in his bitter
disappointment, by pointing out to him that his ally had now legalised
in Italy that very Austrian influence which it was the object of the
Palmerstonian policy to expel, but, she added, as Lord Palmerston had
not protested against the war, he could not protest against the peace,
unless it were considered wise to “make it appear as if to persecute
Austria were a personal object with the First Minister of the Crown.”
To Lord John Russell she wrote in terms that must have been as gall and
bitterness to Palmerston, who had, in defiance of her objections,
consented to give “moral support” to Persigny’s sham proposals for
peace. The Emperor Napoleon, she observed, by his prudence and
victories, had created for himself a formidable position. “It is
remarkable,” she adds, “that he has acted towards Austria now just as he
did towards Russia, after the fall of Sebastopol. But if it was our lot
then to be left alone to act the part of the extortioner, while he acted
that of the generous victor, the Queen is doubly glad that we should not
now have fallen into the trap to ask from Austria, as friends and
neutrals, concessions which he was ready to waive.”[52]

Still, her Majesty did not regard the anxious events of the year with
unmixed regret. It was a gratifying fact that the Indian Mutiny had been
suppressed, and on the 14th of April the thanks of Parliament were voted
to those who had saved our Indian Empire. The Queen, in conveying her
personal thanks to Lord Canning, laid before him her project for
founding the Order of the Star of India. A visit from her eldest
daughter had brightened her birthday festivities--saddened though these
were by the illness of the Duchess of Kent, who had been attacked by
erysipelas. The Government had begun to strengthen the defences of the
country, and the spontaneous uprising of the people, which originated
the Volunteer Movement, placed at her disposal the nucleus of a superb
defensive army, to the organisation of which the Prince Consort now
began to direct his attention. Mr. Gladstone’s Budget, too, though it
necessitated a ninepenny income-tax[53] to meet exceptional naval and
military expenditure, was passed ungrudgingly by Parliament, though, of
course, it increased the popular antipathy to the French Emperor which
the Peace of Villafranca had excited.

In vain did Napoleon III. endeavour to induce England to propose a
Congress or a Conference for the purpose of settling the Italian
Question in a manner that would allay Italian discontent. Lord
Palmerston and Lord John Russell would have fallen into this trap also,
but for the tenacity with which the Queen urged her objections to their
policy. Walewski fortunately admitted to Lord Cowley that the French and
Austrian Emperors had agreed not to submit the Peace they had made to a
Congress. “Two emperors,” wrote the Queen to Lord John Russell (20th
July), “who were at war with each other have suddenly concluded
personally a peace, and we have before us merely the account of one of
them through his Minister. This Minister’s account admits that his
master pledged his word on certain points, but thinks it not binding if
England will propose its being broken. This is a duty which honour
forbids us to undertake.” The Cabinet then so far yielded to the Queen’s
reasoning that they agreed to hold aloof from the whole business, till
the arrangement between the two Emperors was embodied in the Treaty of
Zurich. A debate in the House of Commons (8th August) showed that
Parliament, on the whole, approved of this course. On the 13th came the
prorogation of the Legislature, which enabled the Queen and her husband
to make a short excursion to the Channel Islands.

[Illustration: ST. GEORGE’S HALL, WINDSOR CASTLE.]

A grave conflict of opinion now arose between the Queen and Lord John
Russell. Lord John, like Lord Palmerston, was desirous of re-arranging
the affairs of Italy in terms of an understanding with France. In other
words, he was desirous of neutralising the Treaty of Zurich by getting
one of its signatories to join him in breaking those of its conditions
which were favourable to the other signatory. No doubt it was difficult
to persuade the Central Italian States to abide by a treaty that handed
them back to the oppressors whom they had got rid of. But the problem of
reconciling the people to their petty despots was one which the Queen
argued should be solved, not by England, who did not create it, but by
France and Austria, who did. Again, after some controversy, she
succeeded in overruling fresh plans for intervention which Lord
Palmerston and Lord John Russell had mooted,[54] and thus matters were
left when the Court reached Balmoral on the 31st of August. Hardly had
the first week of her holiday passed by when the Queen discovered that
Palmerston had broached his project for annexing the Italian Duchies to
Sardinia in a private letter to Walewski, who, however, frankly said
such a proposal would prevent Austria from signing any treaty, and thus
lead to a renewal of the war. She wrote to Lord John Russell condemning
Palmerston’s indiscretion, and pointing out that Walewski himself
suggested that annexation of Savoy to France would be the natural
compensation for annexing the Duchies to Sardinia--a compensation which
would be odious to England, but which would be justified on the ground,
that Palmerston’s policy rendered it necessary. But Tuscany and Romagna
desired annexation to Sardinia, and Napoleon accordingly suggested that
a Congress should be summoned to consider the matter. Lord Palmerston
agreed to this project, and though the Queen did not oppose Palmerston,
she did not conceal her opinion that the object of the Congress was to
induce England to do for the Italians what Napoleon had promised but had
failed to do. She, however, induced the Cabinet to warn Napoleon that
England would not take on herself his self-imposed duty to his clients
in the revolted States. They, in the meanwhile, calmly carried on their
government in the name of the Sardinian king, and in open defiance of
the compact of Villafranca.

Save for these anxious diplomatic perplexities, the Balmoral holiday was
a highly enjoyable one, notable for long mountain excursions, of which
the Queen’s ascent of Ben Macdhui was one of the most striking. The
Prince Consort’s address to the British Association at Aberdeen was well
received, and it was followed by a Highland gathering of philosophers at
Balmoral, whose _fête_ was, however, marred by tempestuous weather. On
the journey south the Queen opened, on the 14th of October, the great
waterworks at Loch Katrine for the supply of Glasgow--works on a scale
of magnificence not unworthy of the Roman Empire. After a pleasant, but
brief sojourn in Wales, the Queen and her husband reached Windsor on the
17th, pleased to find that the Prince and Princess Frederick William
proposed soon to visit them. They came on the 9th of November--when the
birthday of the Prince of Wales was celebrated--and stayed till the 3rd
of December. The last month of the year was spent at Osborne, till
Christmastide came round, when the Royal Family removed to Windsor,
where, writes the Prince Consort in his Diary, “we danced in the New
Year.”

CHAPTER III.

THE COURT AND THE CABINET.

The Queen’s Distrust of French Policy--Her Conferences with Lord
Clarendon--The French Pamphlet on “The Pope and the
Congress”--Palmerston’s Proposal of an Alliance Offensive and
Defensive with France--Intriguing between Palmerston and
Persigny--Recall of Cavour--Affairs in China--Mr. Cobden’s
Commercial Treaty with France--Cession of Nice and Savoy to
France--The Anglo-French Alliance at an End--Lord John Russell’s
Reform Bill--Threatened Rupture with France--Russia Attempts to
Re-open the Eastern Question--Garibaldi’s Invasion of the Two
Sicilies--Collapse of the Neapolitan Monarchy--The Piedmontese
Invade the Papal States--Annexation of the Sicilies to
Sardinia--Meeting between Napoleon III. and the German Sovereigns
at Baden--A New Holy Alliance--The Mahometan Atrocities in
Syria--The Macdonald Scandal--Palmerston’s Fortification
Scheme--The Lords Reject the Bill Abolishing the Paper Duty--The
Volunteer Movement--Reviews in Hyde Park and Edinburgh--The Queen
at Wimbledon--The Prince of Wales’s Tour in Canada and the United
States--Betrothal of the Princess Alice--The Queen and her
Grandchild--Serious Accident to the Prince Consort--Illness of the
Queen.

Although the new year (1860) opened brightly for commercial England, the
political outlook was far from cheerful. The Cabinet and the Queen were
by no means in harmony on Foreign affairs, and Ministers were themselves
far from being agreed as to a Reform policy. Lord Palmerston, Lord John
Russell, Mr. Gladstone, and Mr. Milner Gibson were violently
anti-Austrian. They were so eager to win credit for establishing a free
kingdom in Northern Italy, that they were easy dupes in the hands of the
French Emperor, whose design it was to achieve this end, so that whilst
the credit should be his, the risk should be theirs. The Queen, on the
other hand, was profoundly distrustful of French policy. She persisted
in seeing in it nothing save a scheme for getting England to “pull the
chestnuts out of the fire” for France. Her view was that the Italian
people were now masters of the situation. Their old rulers could not be
restored save by force, which Napoleon did not dare to use, and which
Austria, weakened in her finances, and menaced by a Hungarian rising,
was also afraid to apply. The solution of the Italian question in the
opinion of the Queen might be safely left to the natural course of
events, and the duty of England was done when she frankly expressed her
sympathy with the Italian struggle for constitutional freedom. Napoleon,
however, after promising to make Italy “free from the Alps to the
Adriatic,” could hardly leave her to free herself as she was doing. His
engagements to Austria on the other hand rendered it difficult for him
to interfere actively. But it would have suited his convenience
admirably if he were able to interfere with an ally, and on the basis of
a proposal which originated with England, for then he might be able to
offer a plausible excuse for not abiding by the pact of Villafranca. The
game of diplomacy during this period was played, by France insinuating
projects of interference to Lord Palmerston, so that they might seem to
have originated with him, and by Lord Palmerston putting them into Lord
John Russell’s mind, so that Lord John, who was at

[Illustration: THE QUEEN OPENING GLASGOW WATERWORKS AT LOCH KATRINE.]

the Foreign Office, might seem to the Queen to be the originator of
them. There is reason to believe that the Queen quite understood her
Prime Minister’s tactics. Mr. Greville gives a graphic sketch of her
relations to her Ministers during this period of controversy, in his
record of a conversation which he had with Lord Clarendon about a
confidential visit he paid to Osborne in the previous summer. “The
Queen,” writes Mr. Greville, “was delighted to have him (Clarendon) with
her again, and to have a good long confidential talk with him, for it
seems she finds less satisfaction in her intercourse with either
Palmerston or Lord John. The relations of these two are now most
intimate and complete. Palmerston, taking advantage of Russell’s
ignorance of Foreign Affairs, used to suggest a project to him. Russell
would bring this before the Cabinet as his own, and Palmerston would
support it as if the case was quite new to him.” At Osborne Clarendon
“was unfortunately attacked by gout, and confined to his room. He was
sitting there with Lady Clarendon, when Lady Gainsborough came in and
told him that she was desired by the Queen to beg he would, if possible,
move into the next room [the lady-in-waiting’s room] and establish
himself there; that the Queen would come in, when all the ladies present
were to go away and leave

[Illustration: VIEW ON LOCH KATRINE: THE WALK BY THE SHORE.]

her _tête-à-tête_ with him. All this was done, and she remained there an
hour and a half talking over everything, pouring all her confidences
into his ears, and asking for his advice about everything. He said he
had endeavoured to do as much good as he could, by smoothing down her
irritation about things she did not like. As an example, he mentioned
that while the Prince was with him a box was brought in with a despatch
from Lord John which the Prince was to read. He did so with strong marks
of displeasure, and then read it to Clarendon, saying they could not
approve of it, and must return it to Lord John. Clarendon begged him not
to do this; that it was not the way to deal with him, and it would be
better to see what it contained that was really good and proper, and to
suggest emendations as to the rest. He persuaded the Prince to do this,
advised him what to say, and in the end Lord John adopted all the
suggestions they made to him. On another occasion the Queen had received
a very touching letter from the Duchess of Parma, imploring her
protection and good offices, which she had sent to Lord John, desiring
he would write an answer for her to make to it. He sent a very short,
cold answer, which the Queen would not send. She asked Clarendon to
write a suitable one for her, which he did, but insisted that she should
send it to Lord John as her own. She did so, Lord John approved, and so
this matter was settled.”[55]

An “inspired” pamphlet on the “Pope and the Congress” had appeared in
Paris, pointing to a re-arrangement of the Italian Provinces, that not
only alarmed Austria, but caused her to decline to enter the Congress
altogether, unless France would disavow her complicity with such
schemes. The moment, therefore, was opportune for a fresh combination,
and the Emperor’s new plan was one to settle the Italian Question by a
triple alliance between England, France, and Sardinia, which would
guarantee the latter Power against all foreign intervention in Italy. At
a meeting of the Liberal Cabinet this insidious project was broached by
Lord Palmerston[56] on the 3rd of January, who was willing to enter into
it even at the risk of war. The compact was long an affair of mystery,
but light is thrown on it by a letter from Lord Derby to Lord Malmesbury
(January 15th, 1860), in which Lord Derby says, “I return the well-known
handwriting enclosed in your letter of the 13th. The information there
given tallies with what I have received from other quarters, among
others from Madame de Flahault, whom I met at Bretby. The offer of a
_commercial treaty_ was, however, coupled, though she did not tell me
so, with the proposal of an alliance, _offensive and defensive_, with
France, and a joint guarantee of the independence of Central Italy!
Cowley came here specially to urge the adoption of these two measures;
but my latest intelligence is that they were debated in the Cabinet on
Tuesday last, strenuously urged by Palmerston and J. Russell, who had
confidently assured the Cabinet of their success, acquiesced in by
Gladstone, by the double inducement of his Italo-mania and his Free
Trade policy, but on discussion rejected by a majority of the
Cabinet.”[57]

The enlightened obstinacy with which the Queen pressed her objections to
this wild scheme caused it to be abandoned, and for the courage and
tenacity with which she maintained her position at that crisis England
can never be too grateful. She foresaw, what Palmerston ignored, the
inevitable conflict between Prussia and France, which she hoped and
believed would lead to the unification of Germany, and one almost
shudders to think of the position Great Britain would have occupied in
1870, had this offensive and defensive alliance with France been
consummated in 1860. Her Majesty had permitted herself to be dragged by
Palmerston into a war with Russia “for an idea,” with France as an ally.
She could not forget the harsh lesson which that blunder had impressed
on her. She could not forget, as easily as did Palmerston, how that
alliance left England with little control over her action in war, and
still less control over the settlement of the peace which was forced on
her by the sudden desertion of her ally. Thwarted at this point,
Napoleon and Palmerston renewed the attack at another. Persigny came to
Lord John Russell with a suggestion that Austria and France should both
pledge themselves not to interfere in Italy unless under a European
mandate in case of anarchy, and he proposed that this arrangement might
be made “the basis of an agreement between France and England.” The
Queen’s answer was crushing. “If,” she wrote, “France and Austria will
both abstain from interfering in the affairs of Italy, it will be much
the wisest course; but the Queen cannot see why this should require an
agreement to be entered into between France and us, who ought not to
interfere at all.”[58]

As a matter of fact, Austria formally intimated she had no intention of
interfering, and French troops in Rome and Lombardy were the only
foreign troops at the time on Italian territory. But the recklessness of
Palmerston’s intrigues with France cannot be justly appreciated, unless
it is kept in view that Napoleon was now entering into another
arrangement for settling the Italian Question. At Plombières he had
promised Cavour to free Italy from the Alps to the Adriatic on condition
that Sardinia would cede Savoy and Nice to France. This bargain Cavour
repudiated when the Emperor failed to make his word good at Villafranca.
On the 16th of January Victor Emmanuel recalled Cavour to the head of
affairs, and a new compact was made by which Sardinia would cede Nice
and Savoy, as the price of Napoleon’s consent to her annexation of the
revolted Duchies. It is hardly necessary to say that had Lord
Palmerston, who was in ignorance of this compact, contrived to entangle
England in alliance with France, the storm of indignation which swept
over England when the cession of Nice and Savoy was intimated would have
brought about the fall of his Ministry. But when Parliament opened on
the 24th of January, and when Mr. Disraeli, in speaking to the Address,
elicited very plainly the strong feeling of the House against
compromising engagements with France, Lord Palmerston was fortunate in
being able to say that his Government “was totally free from any
engagement whatever with any Foreign Power upon the affairs of Italy.”
He did not deem it necessary to add that for this stroke of luck the
Cabinet owed him no thanks.

The points in the Queen’s Speech which attracted attention after the
Italian Question were the hostilities with China and the Commercial
Treat with France, which Mr. Cobden had negotiated during the fall of
the preceding year. The Treaty with China was to have been ratified at
Pekin. But when our Ambassador attempted to proceed thither he found the
Peiho river blocked, and the Chinese forts not only opened fire, but
repulsed our squadron. A joint expedition was fitted out in conjunction
with France to avenge this defeat, and compel the Chinese Government to
ratify the Treaty at Pekin, and complaints were made that Parliament had
not been consulted before the joint expedition had been decided on. The
history of Mr. Cobden’s Commercial Treaty has been told at great length
elsewhere,[59] so that we need do no more than say it was signed on the
29th of January. Manchester immediately hailed Napoleon III. with the
same effusive admiration that it bestowed on Peel in 1846. The English
press, foreseeing an era of extended trade and permanent peace, ceased
its attacks on the French Emperor, and complimented him so violently,
that M. Baroche told Mr. Cobden its flattery would make the Treaty
unpopular in France. The Treaty was at this stage merely the skeleton of
a reciprocal fiscal arrangement. England gave France coal and iron duty
free. England further agreed to reduce import duties on French wines and
various articles of French manufacture. France, on the other hand,
engaged not only to limit her customs duty to thirty per cent. on the
value of English goods, but by the 13th Article she agreed to convert
_ad valorem_ duties into specific duties by a supplementary convention.
The extent to which, under this Article, duties were reduced would of
course measure the usefulness of the Treaty.

The Treaty, along with the changes in taxation which it would involve,
was explained by Mr. Gladstone in the House of Commons on the 10th of
February. His Budget estimates showed a deficit of over £9,000,000, to
meet which he not only continued the tea and sugar duties, but levied an
Income Tax of 10d. in the pound on incomes over £150 a year, and 7d. on
incomes under that amount. One part of his scheme was to abolish the
Paper duty, but in this he was thwarted by the House of Lords. The
French Treaty compelled him to lower the duty on French spirits and
wines, and to abolish duties on manufactures not subject to excise in
England. He struck 370 articles out of the Tariff list, and reduced and
readjusted those that he retained, which were forty-eight. “The whole of
our recent fiscal history,” according to a high authority on financial
questions, “is a complete vindication of the policy of remitting and
reducing duties, so that nothing should remain on the tariff which did
not contribute a substantial sum to the revenue, and in order that it
might do so, should bear no duty high enough to preclude its passing
into general consumption. By the remissions of 1860 that ideal was
nearly attained. As an example of how the remissions worked, I may
mention that the imports of French wines increased at once by 127 per
cent. on the reduction of the duty. On the whole of the articles on
which the customs duties were repealed in 1860 the immediate increase on
the import duty was 40½ per cent., although the year 1861 was in some
respects a highly unfavourable one in which to judge of the purchasing
capacity of the nation.”[60] This brilliant and successful policy,
however, was opposed bitterly by the Tories and a few Peelites, like Sir
James Graham; and some Whigs, like Lord Clarendon,

[Illustration: THE ROYAL EXCHANGE, MANCHESTER.]

even condemned the policy of the Treaty as unsound.[61] The Queen was
not sanguine about the matter, and the Prince Consort saw in the Treaty
only a device for giving France the supply of coal and iron which she
needed to compete with England in the markets of the world, whereas
England surrendered valuable sources of revenue, without any adequate
compensation. The strongest point against the Treaty was made by Lord
Derby. He complained in the House of Lords that though the arrangement
was based on the assumption that there would be peace between France and
England, the general policy of the Cabinet, as tested by Mr. Gladstone’s
estimates, assumed that war between the two nations was imminent. On a
motion in the House of Commons asserting that it was not expedient to
diminish sources of revenue or add a penny to the Income Tax, the whole
policy of the Treaty and the Budget was challenged, and the opposition
to both defeated by a majority of 116. The theoretical objections to
commercial treaties generally were overcome by Mr. Gladstone’s argument
that by making a small sacrifice of revenue England gained a vast
extension of her export trade. But the real difficulty, of course, lay
in fixing the limits of the duties under the 13th Article of the
Treaty. A Commission was sent to Paris, on which Mr. Cobden agreed to
serve, for the purpose of beating down the duties from the thirty per
cent. maximum to a minimum of as nearly as possible ten per cent., and
it was while this Commission was haggling with the French Commissioners
that Cobden found himself thwarted by the secret hostility of the
Foreign Office, and embarrassed by the bellicose policy of the Cabinet,
which naturally produced ill feeling in France. He resented this action
so bitterly, that he could not bring himself to accept from the
Government the slightest reward for his services as a negotiator after
he had carried out his mission with triumphant success.[62]

At the same time, it is only fair to say that the conduct of Napoleon at
the time was singularly indiscreet. He made it plain that he was about
to annex Nice and Savoy, although when he went to war in Italy he had
protested that he did not seek for extension of territory. The Central
Italian States, however, by voting through their assemblies in favour of
annexation to Sardinia, furnished the French Emperor with an excuse for
annexations, which were only necessary to recompense France for her
expenditure of blood and treasure in the war with Austria. It was
obvious that a great Italian kingdom would now be created in North
Italy, and the Emperor held that he could not leave in its hands the
passes by which France might be invaded. To secure his Alpine frontier,
then, the Emperor insisted on taking Savoy and Nice. The provoking
matter was this: the suggestion that the Central States should by a new
vote in their Assemblies declare their intentions as to their future
came from England. “We are asked,” wrote the Queen, in a sharp letter to
Lord John Russell, “to make proposals about Italy, ‘to lay the basis for
a mutual agreement with France, upon that question, and to enable the
Emperor to release himself from his engagements with Austria.’ In an
evil hour the proposal is made, and is now pleaded as the reason for
France seizing on Savoy.... Sardinia is being aggrandised at the expense
of Austria and the House of Lorraine, and France is to be compensated.
If the passes of the Alps are dangerous to a neighbour, the weaker
power must give them up to the stronger!”[63] The Queen, in fact, feared
that on the same pretext the French Emperor might be led to demand a
rectification of his Rhenish frontier, a demand which she knew must lead
straight to a disastrous European war. A discussion raised by Lord
Normanby in the House of Lords on the 7th of February stirred up the
forces of public opinion against France. As for Cavour, he was helpless.
The consent of France to the enlargement of Sardinia could not be bought
save by the cession of Nice and Savoy, and so they were ceded to France,
despite Cavour’s reluctance, on the 24th of March.

But the Commercial Treaty was not the only project of the Government
which English mistrust of France imperilled. The Ministry was pledged to
bring in a Reform Bill, and at a time when folk were brooding over the
growing restlessness of France, there was little chance of carrying it.
On the 1st of March Lord John Russell expounded his scheme to the House
of Commons for reducing the franchise from £10 to £6, and taking
twenty-five seats from small constituencies returning two members, and
giving them to large constituencies deserving increased representation.
The scheme fell flat in the House of Commons and in the country. It was
cautiously attacked by Mr. Disraeli, who, though he declined to oppose
the Second Reading, suggested that the Bill should be withdrawn. The
supporters of the Ministry had no love for the measure, because if
passed it involved a dissolution. The Second Reading was taken without a
division, but before the stage of Committee was reached Lord John
Russell withdrew the measure, and thus the question of Reform was
shelved for several years to come. Lord John at last admitted that he
had been mistaken in supposing that there was any widespread enthusiasm
for Reform in the country. He, however, failed to see that the
withdrawal of the Bill rendered Palmerston’s tenure of office a little
precarious, for the party of Reform, knowing it could expect no more
from him, had no strong motive for supporting him any further against
the Tories.

In the meantime France was beginning to hint that Prussia should play
the part of Sardinia in Germany. The consent of France, of course, could
be obtained on the same terms as those which Cavour paid for it--the
cession to France of territory on the Rhine. Clearly, it was argued,
Napoleon would give Europe no rest till he had rectified the frontier
assigned to France in 1815, after the fall of the First Empire. Very
soon it became necessary to proclaim that England had no part in these
schemes, and when, on the 26th of March, Lord John Russell declared in
the House of Commons that there was no longer an exclusive alliance with
France, the Queen congratulated him on what was really the triumph of
her own policy. According to her view, a belief that this alliance
existed made the European Powers at all times chary of cooperating with
England. Unfortunately, Lord John Russell’s speech irritated

[Illustration: GENERAL GARIBALDI.]

public opinion in France, and the recriminations of the Press in both
countries caused Persigny to warn Palmerston that war between them would
soon be inevitable. Count Flahault and Lord Palmerston held a
conversation on the subject, in which they discussed the chances of war
in the frankest manner--each vaunting the undeniable superiority of his
country in battle.[64] Count Flahault is supposed to have been impressed
with Palmerston’s demonstration that victory in such a struggle must
rest on English banners, and to have succeeded in soothing down the
angry feeling against England, which then raged at the French Court. The
real reason why all danger of a rupture passed away was that Persigny’s
favourite argument--namely, that war with England meant the

[Illustration: THE CURFEW TOWER, WINDSOR CASTLE.]

destruction of the dynasty--prevailed. Moreover, Napoleon saw plainly
that as every European Power was afraid of France, and as no European
Power had anything to dread from England, Europe in a war between
England and France would not be on the side of the latter Power. But no
sooner did France suggest that the Treaty arrangements of 1815 might be
rectified, than Russia hinted that the same process might be applied
with advantage to the Treaty of 1856. The old pretext for opening up the
Eastern Question--namely, the oppressiveness of the Turkish
Government--lay ready to Russia’s hands. The English Cabinet, in reply
to Russia’s communications on the subject, insisted that the plots of
foreign intriguers in Bosnia, Bulgaria, and Servia were really at the
root of the miseries of the people. Russia, in raising this question,
had assumed that France would help her. But Napoleon’s eyes were fixed
not on the Danube but on the Rhine; so Russian hopes of aid from France
were doomed to disappointment. The next move on the European chess-board
justified the anticipations which the Queen held out after Lord John
Russell’s speech of the 24th of March. Finding that England no longer
leaned solely on France, Austria and Prussia suggested that they should
come to an understanding with England, by which they bound each other to
oppose every future disturbance of frontiers in Europe--a step, however,
which her Majesty shrank from taking. At her suggestion, the Cabinet
agreed to a compact that each of the Powers should give the others
warning of any projected disturbances of territory as soon as they were
heard of, and frankly discuss their bearings; and of these disturbances
one was already imminent in Southern Italy.

“Naples,” Lord Malmesbury writes in his Diary on the 17th of March, “is
in a dreadful state. The tyranny of the present king far exceeds that of
his father, and the exasperation is so great that a revolution may take
place at any moment. But events in the north of Italy have much to say
to these feelings, and naturally encourage the Neapolitans to imitate
them.” In fact, Francis II. had obstinately refused to make the
slightest concession to the popular party in the Kingdom of the Two
Sicilies. Heedless of the revolution in North Italy he upheld in all its
baneful integrity the arbitrary system of his father, King “Bomba.”
Hence in April an insurrection broke out, as Lord Malmesbury predicted,
in Palermo and Messina with the avowed object of joining Sicily to the
new kingdom of Northern Italy. On the 5th of May General Garibaldi, who,
after the cession of his native province of Nice to France, had
renounced all connection with Cavour, sailed from Genoa with 2,000 men
to succour the Sicilian insurgents. “‘Italy and Victor Emmanuel!’” he
said in his proclamation, “that was our battle-cry when we crossed the
Ticino; it will resound to the very depths of Etna.” Landing at Marsala,
he proclaimed himself Dictator in the name of the King of Sardinia, and
Cæsar’s _Veni, vidi, vici_, might well be the record of his triumphal
march to the north. On the 27th he captured Palermo, and then the Island
of Sicily soon passed under his control. Every road was swarming with
patriotic volunteers eager to join Garibaldi’s army, and the Royal
troops, disgusted with the cowardice and incapacity of their leaders,
were wavering in their allegiance to the King. They made a final stand
at Melazzo, after which they took refuge in the citadel of Messina,
where they remained undisturbed at the end of the year. “If we succeed,”
wrote Garibaldi to Victor Emmanuel, “I shall be proud to adorn your
Majesty’s crown with a new and perhaps more brilliant jewel, but always
on the condition that your Majesty will resist your advisers should they
wish to cede this province to the stranger, as they have ceded my native
city, Nice.” The bitter allusion to Cavour’s policy, which had converted
Garibaldi into a Frenchman against his will, is a sufficient answer to
those who have alleged that Cavour was acting at this time in concert
with Garibaldi. The most that can be said is that he knew privately that
a revolutionary attack on the Sicilian monarchy was contemplated, and
finding it to his account to preoccupy Francis II., then threatening
interference in the revolted Roman States, he did not consider it
necessary to prevent Garibaldi’s departure from Genoa.[65] But all the
European Governments believed that Cavour was secretly in league with
Garibaldi, and they pretended to see in the revolution of the Sicilies
an attempt at piratical self-aggrandisement by Sardinia. Sardinian
ambition must be curbed, said the diplomatists; and so Cavour soon found
himself surrounded by embarrassments. Russia hinted at armed
intervention for the protection of the Neapolitan Bourbons. France, in a
paroxysm of virtue, deprecated any extension of Sardinian territory.
England implored Sardinia to take no hand in, and lend no countenance
to, the revolution in the Sicilies, lest France should demand more
compensations in Genoa and the Island of Sardinia itself. When Lord John
Russell pressed this view on the Cabinet of Turin he was probably
ignorant of the fact that Cavour, when he signed the compact ceding
Savoy to France, said, bitterly, “Et maintenant vous voilà nos
complices!” (“Now you are an accomplice”). France had, in fact, been
paid in full for her neutrality; and though Cavour issued a platonic
protest against the conquest of the Sicilies in May, it was obvious that
Victor Emmanuel would never risk his Crown by actively impeding in any
part of Italy the movement for national independence.

The Court of Naples at this crisis seemed paralysed with panic. In
August Garibaldi advanced virtually unopposed, and captured the capital,
the King, with 50,000 troops, retreating to Capua and Gaëta.[66]

Italy, said Mr. Disraeli, in one of the debates in Parliament, “was in a
state far beyond the management of, and settlement of Courts and
Cabinets,” and whilst diplomatists were debating how she could be kept
in bondage, she had freed half of her territory by one daring but
decisive stroke. Flushed with his easy victory, Garibaldi now declared
he would hold South Italy till the whole peninsula was free--till
Austria was expelled from the north-east, and the eagles of France were
chased from the pinnacles of the capital. This declaration forced the
hands of France and Sardinia. Cavour and Napoleon agreed that
intervention in the Papal States and in Naples could not be
postponed.[67] Victor Emmanuel, therefore, summoned the Pope to dismiss
the foreign levies he had organised for the purpose of forcing his
revolted subjects to return to their allegiance. His Holiness refused,
and then Cialdini and Fanti overran Umbria and the Marches, crushed the
Papal army, and forced Lamoriciere to surrender the fortress of Ancona.
Carefully avoiding a collision with Austria and with the French army of
occupation in Rome--a condition attached to the neutrality of Napoleon
III.--the Piedmontese troops marched on to complete the conquest of the
Sicilies, where the King still held out at Gaëta and Capua. When this
had been effected the kingdoms, by a popular vote, decided on annexation
to Sardinia, and Europe acquiesced in the interests of law, order, and
monarchical institutions. Garibaldi, on handing over the Sicilies to
Victor Emmanuel, retired to Caprera, refusing all reward or recompense
for his splendid services to his country, and appealing to Italy to be
ready to renew the struggle for freedom in Venetia next year. But the
prevailing feeling was that a final settlement of the Italian Question
had not yet been arrived at, and would never be arrived at whilst
Austria held Venetia and the French occupied Rome. Knowing well that the
hold of Austria on Venetia was weakened by disaffection in Hungary, the
Emperor of Austria promulgated a general constitution for the Empire,
with separate charters for the various provinces. The scheme, however,
broke down, because it failed to satisfy the popular demand for the
restoration of the rights of Hungary as they existed in 1848.

[Illustration: POPE PIUS IX.]

Early in the summer a remarkable incident in European politics happened
that profoundly agitated the Queen. The French press had suggested that,
provided France was compensated by an extension of frontier on the
Rhine, Prussia might, with her consent, play in Germany the _rôle_
assumed by Sardinia in Italy. When Lord John Russell publicly abandoned
the French alliance, the Queen suggested the substitution for it of an
arrangement between England, Prussia, and Austria, to the effect “that
each should make known to the other two any overture or proposition,
direct, or indirect, which either of the three may receive from France
tending to any change of the existing state of territorial possessions
in Europe, and that no answer should be given to such overture or
proposal until the Government to which it may have been made shall have
had an answer from the other two to the communication so made.”[68]
This arrangement subsisted when the French Emperor suggested to the
Prince Regent of Prussia that they should meet in friendly conference
together at Baden on the 16th of June. The Prince Regent of Prussia met
the French Emperor, not alone, but in company with the Kings of
Wurtemberg, Bavaria, Saxony, and Hanover; the Grand Dukes of Baden,
Saxe-Weimar, and Hesse Darmstadt; and the Dukes of Nassau and
Saxe-Coburg Gotha, and the Prince of Hohenzollern. This, says the
biographer of Prince Bismarck, was a “demonstration for the integrity of
German soil,”[69] and it compelled the French Emperor to suddenly change
his plan, which had been to suggest that Prussia should seize Savoy and
Hanover, and let France rectify her frontier on the Rhine. This design
could not be avowed at such a meeting, so Napoleon contented himself
with assuring the Prince Regent of Prussia that he had no intention of
dissevering any territory from Germany--and giving for the first time
his reasons for violating the pledges of Milan and annexing Nice and
Savoy. The Prince accepted Napoleon’s assurances, saying that he could
immediately restore confidence to Germany by communicating them to the
German sovereigns then in Baden. He also transmitted to the Prince
Consort a private account of the interview, which quite relieved the
anxiety which the conference had caused the Queen.[70]

Following closely on this conference came a letter from the French
Emperor to Persigny for Palmerston’s perusal, in which he strove hard to
reconstruct his English alliance, but to which no other reply was given
than that England gave France credit for good intentions, and would
remain her friend so long as she did not disturb the peace of
Europe.[71] Garibaldi’s invasion of the Sicilies had alarmed Austria.
French conspirators, it was said, were already busy in Hungary and
Russian Poland, and Venetia might be attacked at any moment. In these
circumstances the attitude of Prussia was a matter of supreme concern to
Austria. The unrest of Poland rendered it inconvenient for Russia to
help Austria. Could she hope to induce Prussia to assist her in coercing
her mutinous subjects? The meeting of the Emperor of Austria and the
Prince Regent of Prussia at Töplitz was watched with intense interest by
the Queen, who knew how fatal it would be for Germany if Prussia
suffered herself to be entangled in the non-German affairs of Austria.
The Austrian Emperor, however, did not ask for Prussian aid in the event
of Venetia being attacked by France or Italy, unless, as he hoped,
Prussia “after negotiations,” saw in such an attack a common danger. The
real danger to Prussia was that Austria, after getting a promise of
assistance, might provoke France to attack Italy; but as a matter of
fact, the Prince Regent kept clear of all engagements with Austria at
this interview, about which so much mystery was raised at the time.
According to the private account of it given by the Prince of Prussia to
the Prince Consort, it only led to an exchange of ideas, and to certain
vague promises on the part of the Emperor Francis Joseph, that he would
grant reforms to his provinces.[72] After the fall of the Neapolitan
dynasty had been brought about, the French Emperor let it be known that
whilst he approved of the creation of a strong Italian kingdom, he would
not defend Italy if she attacked Austria. It was, indeed, the knowledge
of this fact which enabled Cavour to hold the Italian Revolution in
hand, for even Garibaldi was not so reckless as to rush into war against
Austria without allies. Still, the Austrians put little faith in
Napoleon’s assurances, and on the 25th of October a meeting between the
rulers of Austria, Russia, and Prussia was held at Warsaw to discuss the
situation.

The rumour which immediately flew round was that the Holy Alliance was
to be revived, that the three Powers were to combine for the revision of
the Treaty of 1856, and, having isolated England, to coerce all
struggling nationalities, and defend Austria in Venetia and Hungary.
This rumour was quite unfounded. The Powers did agree, however, that if
Austria, attacked in Venetia, proved victorious and re-conquered
Lombardy, she could not be asked beforehand to give back Lombardy to
Italy, though the fate of that province might properly be determined by
a Peace Congress. The Prince Regent of Prussia insisted that England
must be kept informed of all their transactions in such a Congress. But
at this meeting there was a decided tendency to isolate England because
of Lord John Russell’s despatch of the 27th of October, and the Russian
Czar pressed forward Prince Gortschakoff’s idea, which was that by
conciliating France, a quadruple alliance might be formed against the
progress of revolution, which Lord John Russell was supposed to have
stimulated. The objection of the Prince Regent of Prussia--who, like the
Austrian Emperor, thought that France ought to give new guarantees
against raising revolutionary disturbances in Europe--to act save in
concert with England, was, however, fatal to Prince Gortschakoff’s
schemes. Prussia, in fact, held obstinately to the opinion that the
friendship of England was of vital importance to the defence of Germany
against French encroachments. These facts are worth noting, for they
explain the just indignation of the Queen against a series of attacks on
Prussia which at this inopportune moment began to appear in the _Times_.
They preyed on the mind of the Prince Consort to such an extent that the
Queen asserts his health gave way, which but served to add to her
sorrows and anxieties.

Yet it is but just to say that the _Times_ was not entirely to blame.
The conduct of the Prussian Government in a matter of painful dispute
between the administrations of the two countries was far from
satisfactory. In September a certain Captain Macdonald quarrelled with
the railway authorities at Bonn about a seat in a railway carriage. He
was violently dragged from his place and cast into prison with arbitrary
brutality. The Public Prosecutor, in dealing with his case, had publicly
accused English residents and travellers in Germany of being notorious
for “rudeness, impudence, and boorish arrogance;” and as the Queen and
her husband were, a few days after that speech was delivered, themselves
tourists in Germany, the Public Prosecutor’s insolence was felt to be
peculiarly obnoxious. The Queen herself, in an entry in her Journal made
during her German tour, says, “Saw Lord John on the subject of a
vexatious circumstance which took place about three weeks ago--namely, a
dispute on the railway at Bonn, and the ejection and imprisonment
(unfairly, it seems) of a Captain Macdonald, and the subsequent
offensive behaviour of the authorities. It has led to ill blood and much
correspondence; but Lord John is very reasonable about it, and not
inclined to do anything rash. These foreign Governments are very
arbitrary and violent, and people are apt to give offence and to pay no
regard to the laws of the country.”[73] Baron Schlenitz, says the Prince
Consort in a letter to Stockmar, “took it [the dispute] very lightly;”
whereas, on the other hand, Lord Palmerston demanded that the judge who
sentenced Captain Macdonald to imprisonment should be dismissed, and
reparation made to the Captain, otherwise diplomatic relations would be
broken off with Prussia. But the Prussian Government kept this
irritating business open for several

[Illustration: VOLUNTEER REVIEW IN THE QUEEN’S PARK, EDINBURGH.

(_From the Print published by Messrs. McFarlane and Erskine,
Edinburgh._)]

months; in fact, they did not settle the affair till May, 1861, and thus
the English Press could not be altogether blamed if its criticisms of
Prussian diplomacy were somewhat caustic.

Springing from the unrest of Europe we find in 1860 a great popular
movement in England in favour of national defence. This found expression
in two forms--in Palmerston’s Fortification Scheme and the rapid
increase of the Volunteer Force. Both schemes were watched by the Queen
with the closest attention, and both were furthered by her to the utmost
of her power, though one of them very nearly shattered the Ministry. In
an article on the History of 1852-60, Mr. Gladstone comments on the
silent conflict that went on during 1860 between the policy that found
expression in the Commercial Treaty with France, and that which was
typified by the Fortification Scheme of Lord Palmerston.[74] The
annexation of Nice and Savoy alarmed the country, and convinced even
Lord Palmerston that the French Emperor had a fixed idea that it was his
mission to rectify the frontier assigned to France in 1815. This might
lead him to cast a hungry eye on Belgium, where already French
intriguers were busy. As Mr. Tennyson sang, in the poem the publication
of which in the _Times_ of the previous year evoked the Volunteer Force,
the word went round:--

“Form! be ready to do or die!
Form! in Freedom’s name and the Queen’s!
True, that we have a faithful ally,
But only the Devil knows what he means.”

France was increasing her army and her navy. The Report of a Royal
Commission on National Defences had early in the year recommended the
construction of fortifications to protect our arsenals and places of
arms. The Cabinet resolved to spend £9,000,000 in carrying out these
works, the money to be raised by a loan to be repaid in twenty years.

The vast fiscal changes involved by the Treaty were based on the
supposition that France would be at peace with us. Yet the Fortification
Scheme clearly rested on the assumption that France would soon involve
us in war. In defence of this contradictory policy Mr. Gladstone writes,
“like the builders of the Second Temple, grasping their tool with one
hand and the sword with the other, we with one hand established
commercial relations with France of unexampled amity and closeness,
while with the other we built ships, constructed fortifications, and
founded volunteers with a silent but well-understood and exclusive view
to an apprehended invasion from France.”[75] He goes on to say that the
augmentation of our forces in 1860 had the advantage “of strengthening
the position of England in the councils of Europe with respect to the
reconstitution of Italy.” But, at the time, he was by no means
favourably disposed to this military expenditure. Lord Palmerston told
the Queen that Mr. Gladstone was threatening to resign if it were
sanctioned; adding that, however much that was to be regretted, “it
would be better to lose Mr. Gladstone than to run the risk of losing
Portsmouth or Plymouth.” He was not satisfied in fact that the danger
was so great as Palmerston and the Party of Panic imagined. He did not
like the mode of raising the money which was proposed. “The struggle in
the forum of his conscience,” writes Mr. Morley, “was long and
severe;”[76] but finally he decided he could do more for the taxpayers’
interest by remaining in the Cabinet and influencing it than by
resigning office; and trivial concessions were made to him which allayed
his scruples. The Prince Consort, writing on the 31st of July to Baron
Stockmar, says, “Gladstone continues in the Ministry, but on the
condition that he shall be free next year to attack and denounce the
fortifications, to the construction of which he this year gives his
assent and the money. Palmerston laughingly yielded this condition to
him.” Accordingly, on the 23rd of July, a resolution was carried in the
House of Commons authorising £2,000,000 to be raised on annuities
terminable in thirty years--this sum being enough to cover the
expenditure possible within the year. Lord Palmerston, in speaking to
the resolution, attacked France with great spirit, though it is unlikely
that if France had really evil designs at the time on England, she would
have given the Government even a year’s grace in which to begin their
costly coast-fortification. One reason why Mr. Gladstone was hostile to
a Fortification Scheme was that it upset all his financial arrangements.
It created a feeling against sacrificing revenue, of which so much had
already been surrendered to carry out the French Treaty.

It was soon evident that the proposal to abolish the Paper Duty was
unpopular in Parliament, and when it passed the third reading by a
majority of nine only, Lord Palmerston warned the Queen, who was on the
side of the minority on this occasion, that the House of Lords would
probably reject it. The Cabinet was not united on the subject, for Lord
Malmesbury states that he was deputed to tell Lady Palmerston that the
Opposition meant to reject it, “for which she thanked us.” Nay, he was
deputed to go further, and promise her their support in the event of Mr.
Gladstone and Mr. Milner Gibson and Lord John Russell resigning either
over the failure of the Paper Duty scheme, or over the withdrawal of the
Reform Bill. When both events became inevitable, the Cabinet was
severely shaken, and all through the early days of June it was expected
that it would be broken up. When the Lords rejected the Paper Duty Bill,
Mr. Gladstone threatened to resign unless the Government and the House
of Commons censured them for meddling with a Bill relating to taxation.
The Peers, however, though they have not the right to initiate Bills
dealing with taxation, have always claimed the right of rejecting them,
and the Commons’ Privilege Committee in their Report of the 29th of June
admitted this right. However, to pacify Mr. Gladstone and the Radicals,
Lord Palmerston introduced a series of Resolutions on the 6th of July in
a speech which Lord Derby said was “the best tight-rope dancing he ever
saw.”[77] These Resolutions affirmed once more the exclusive right of
the House of Commons to impose and remit taxes, and to frame Bills of
Supply, but did not challenge the claim of the Peers to reject them--and
they were carried by a vote of 177 to 138.

[Illustration: THE VOLUNTEER CAMP, WIMBLEDON.]

The feeling of mistrust against France had given a strong impetus to the
Volunteer movement in the country, and in 1860 this found vent in the
great review of the citizen army in Hyde Park, and the formation of the
National Rifle Association at Wimbledon. The review was held on the 23rd
of June, and 20,000 men from all parts of the country attended. The
Queen appeared on the ground at four o’clock in the afternoon with the
King of the Belgians, the Princess Alice, and Prince Arthur, the Prince
Consort riding beside her carriage. In two hours it was over--belying
the Duke of Wellington’s historic doubt whether we had a general who
could get so many men into Hyde Park and out again without “clubbing”
and confusion. Lord Malmesbury says, “I went to Mr. Disraeli’s house in
Grosvenor Gate to see the sight, which was very fine. The enthusiasm of
the men and spectators exceeded all description. There were 20,000
Volunteers, all young men between eighteen and thirty.

[Illustration: THE QUEEN AT WIMBLEDON.]

They went through their evolutions with the greatest steadiness and
precision, and at the final advance in line, when they halted within a
short distance of the Queen, and the bands had ceased playing ‘God Save
the Queen,’ they raised a cheer that might be heard for miles. This was
taken up by the spectators, and the scene was so exciting that the Queen
was quite overcome, and I saw many people the same.”[78] On the 7th of
July her Majesty opened the first meeting of the National Rifle
Association on Wimbledon Common, under the first sunny summer sky of a
peculiarly bleak season. Mr. Whitworth[79] had adjusted one of his
rifles so neatly that when her Majesty pulled the trigger and fired the
first shot at 400 yards she scored a bull’s-eye.[80] Her own prize,
conferring the Champion Marksmanship of England on the winner, was
carried off by Mr. Edward Boss, of the 7th North York Rifles, with a
score of twenty-four points--the greatest possible score being sixty.
The public interest in the meeting, which was, in a sense, a great
volunteer picnic, was indicated by the fact that the admission money
(1s. a head) taken in six days from visitors amounted to £2,000.

Later in the season (7th of August) a grand review of the Scottish
Volunteers was held in the Queen’s Park, Edinburgh, where the smooth
plain on which Holyrood stands picturesquely surrounded by hills and
crags, forms a natural amphitheatre admirably adapted for the popular
enjoyment of a military pageant. All Scotland, so to speak, swarmed into
Edinburgh, to be present at the scene, and contingents even from the
Orkneys and Shetlands and the “storm-tossed Hebrides” were represented
in the ranks of the great citizen army of the northern kingdom. It was
said at the time that Scotland--always a military nation--must have a
mania for volunteering, because she sent more troops to the review than
passed the Queen at Hyde Park. The Queen herself remarked this fact, and
her suite, who had seen the display in Hyde Park, were struck with the
superior _physique_ and drill of the men, though somewhat surprised that
the Highland costume was worn by so few even of the Highland Regiments.
The Queen was accompanied by her mother, the Duchess of Kent, then
living at Cramond, near Edinburgh, the Prince Consort, the Princess
Alice, and Prince Arthur. The Prince Consort rode on the right of her
carriage, and the Duke of Buccleuch, as Captain of the Royal Body-Guard
of Scottish Archers--a corps consisting entirely of nobles and
gentlemen, who have the exclusive right of watching over the Royal
person north of the Tweed--rode on the left hand. The programme was the
same as at Hyde Park, but the surroundings and the enthusiasm of the
troops and the myriads of spectators who covered the hillsides, made the
spectacle more impressive. “It was magnificent,” wrote the Queen to King
Leopold; “finer decidedly than in London.”

Many interesting family events rendered the year 1860 memorable to the
Queen. Of these, one of the most important was the tour of the Prince of
Wales in Canada--a visit which had been promised during the Crimean War,
in answer to a deputation which had invited the Queen to go to the
Colony,[81] and, without avail, begged her to appoint one of her sons
Governor-General.[82] In spring it was decided that the Prince should
proceed to the Far West under the care of the Duke of Newcastle,
Secretary of State for the Colonies, and when the news reached America,
Mr. Buchanan, President of the United States, invited the Prince to
visit the Republic, promising him such a warm welcome as would be most
pleasing to the Queen. The invitation was accepted, but it was intimated
that on his tour the Prince would drop all Royal state and travel under
one of his Scottish titles--Baron Renfrew. On the 2nd of August his
Royal Highness received a hearty greeting from the people of St. John’s,
Newfoundland, the rough fishermen and their wives being especially
enthusiastic in their loyalty. On the 7th, at Halifax, he was pelted
with flowers by cheering crowds till, the Duke of Newcastle said, their
carriage was rapidly filled up with bouquets; in fact, all through
Canada the welcome given to the Queen’s son for the Queen’s sake was
cordial in the extreme. One of the most picturesque incidents of the
tour was the visit to Niagara by night, the Falls being illuminated by
Bengal lights. These were first of all placed between the Falls and the
rock over which they tumble, and turned as if by magic the vast sheet of
water into a mass of incandescent silver, the boiling river itself
gleaming with phosphorescent tints, and the spray rising high in the air
as a thick luminous cloud. Then when the white lights were changed to
crimson, the Falls and rapids were transformed into a seething lurid
river of blood, and the spectators were awed into silence by the
terrific grandeur of the scene. When the Prince crossed to the United
States the people there strove to outdo the Canadian welcome. It was
laughingly said that he would be lucky if he got out of the country
without being asked to “run for President” next year, and the accounts
which the Queen received of the splendid reception at Chicago deeply
moved her. At Cincinnati and St. Louis the crowds were still greater and
more enthusiastic, though quieter and more staid in demeanour than those
in Canada. On the 3rd of October the Prince visited President Buchanan
at Washington, and in company with him stood uncovered before the tomb
of Washington--who had wrested the independence of the continent from
his great-grandfather. In New York no monarch of ancient or modern times
could have received a warmer ovation from his own people, and the
reception at Boston, if less effusive, was not less cordial. The Duke of
Newcastle, in reporting on the results of the tour, attributed its
success first, to the growing feeling of goodwill that was springing up
between Americans and Englishmen--a feeling, alas! to be soon rudely
disturbed by the ungenerous support which the aristocratic classes gave
to the secession of the Southern Slave States, and secondly, added the
Duke, to the “very remarkable love for your Majesty personally, which
pervaded all classes in this country, and which has acted like a spell
upon them when they found your Majesty’s son actually among them.” The
Prince of Wales, in fact, embodied for the American people the romance
of their ancestral past--and their hearts warmed to him from the moment
he set foot on their territory. The President also wrote to the Queen,
telling her how the Prince had passed through the ordeal of the

[Illustration: PRESIDENT BUCHANAN.]

visit--always dignified, always frank, always affable, so that he
“conciliated, wherever he has been, the kindness and respect of a
sensitive and discriminating people.”[83] The Queen in her reply said
that her son could not sufficiently extol the great cordiality with
which he had been received, and she went on to say, “Whilst as a mother
I am most grateful for the kindness shown him, I feel impelled to
express, at the same time, how deeply I have been touched by the many
demonstrations of affection towards myself personally which his presence
has called forth.”[84] The Duke of Newcastle had taken grave
responsibilities on him in connection with the visit, and, as Dr. Acland
told Mr. Charles Sumner, it was therefore for him a personal triumph.
The Queen was evidently of the same opinion, because, on his return,
she testified her appreciation of the tact with which the Duke had
managed the tour by conferring on him the Order of the Garter. A similar
visit paid by Prince Alfred to Cape Town evoked similar expressions of
goodwill from the colonists. Writing to Stockmar the Prince Consort
speaks of the curious coincidence which, in almost the same week, caused
one brother to open the great bridge across the St. Lawrence, and the
other to lay the foundation stone of the breakwater in Cape Town harbour
at the other end of the world. “What a cheering picture,” he writes, “is
here of the progress and expansion of the British race, and of the
useful co-operation of the Royal Family in the civilisation which
England has developed and advanced.”[85]

[Illustration: FROGMORE HOUSE.

(_From a Photograph by J. Valentine and Sons, Dundee._)]

Early in May the Royal Family were visited by Prince Louis of
Hesse-Darmstadt, between whom and the Princess Alice “a natural liking”
had grown up, which was destined to ripen into a warmer feeling. “The
Queen and myself,” observes the Prince Consort in a letter to Baron
Stockmar, “look on as passive spectators, which is undoubtedly our best
course as matters at present stand.” It was, however, an open secret
that they favoured the alliance. In the following November, Prince Louis
came to Windsor as a formal suitor for the hand of the Princess. In her
“Leaves from a Journal” the Queen herself tells the story of the wooing
on the 30th of November. “After dinner,” she says, “while talking to the
gentlemen, I perceived Alice and Louis talking before the fireplace more
earnestly than usual, and when I passed to go to the other room, both
came up to me, and Alice in much agitation said he had proposed to her,
and he begged for my blessing. I could only squeeze his hand and say
‘Certainly,’ and that we would see him in our room later.... Alice came
to our room--agitated but quiet.... Albert sent for Louis to his
room--went first to him, and then called Alice and me in.... Louis has a
warm, noble heart. After talking a little we parted, a most touching,
and, to me, sacred moment.”

The autumnal sojourn at Balmoral was shortened by the Queen’s decision
to visit Germany, where she had now a little grand-daughter added to the
Royal circle. On the 22nd of September the Queen, Prince Consort, and
Princess Alice left Buckingham Palace for Gravesend, Lord John Russell
being Minister in attendance. The flat scenery of the Scheldt, which was
speedily reached, struck her Majesty as being in ugly contrast to the
romantic grandeur of the Aberdeenshire mountains. At Verviers the tour
was saddened by the news of the death of the Dowager Duchess of Coburg,
the Prince Consort’s stepmother. At Aix-la-Chapelle the Prince’s valued
friend, the Prince Regent of Prussia, and his brother, Prince Frederick
Charles, met them; and at Frankfort they were joined by the Princess of
Prussia and Prince Frederick William. As they neared Coburg the Queen
says she felt quite agitated when her husband began to identify each
scene and spot with his life in his old home, now darkly shadowed by
mourning. The Princess Frederick William was here, however, and brought
“the darling little grandchild” for the Queen’s inspection--“such a
darling little love,” writes her Majesty--“a fine, fat child, with a
beautiful white, soft skin, very fine shoulders and limbs, and a very
dear face, like Vicky and Fritz, and also Louise of Baden. He has
Fritz’s eyes and Vicky’s mouth, and very fair, curly hair.” A meeting
with Stockmar, then old and feeble, but fresh in heart and spirits, also
enhanced the enjoyment of the visit. After a fortnight’s residence, the
Queen writes, “Our English people are enchanted with everything, with
the beauty of the country, and of the palaces, the quiet simplicity of
the people, &c.” On the 1st of October the Prince Consort narrowly
escaped being killed. The horses of his carriage ran away with him, and
to save his life he had to jump out when he saw that a collision with a
barrier across the road was inevitable. He was bruised badly, though not
seriously injured. The Queen however, was much alarmed. “Oh! God,” she
writes, “what did I not feel! I could only, and do only, allow the
feelings of gratitude, not those of horror, at what might have happened,
to fill my mind;” and in testimony of her

[Illustration: THE QUEEN AND HER LITTLE GRANDSON, PRINCE WILHELM OF
PRUSSIA.]

gratitude she established a foundation, called the “Victoria-Stift,” in
Coburg. The “Victoria-Stift” consisted of the investment of 12,000
florins (£1,000) in the names of the Burgomaster and chief clergyman of
Coburg. Every year, on the 1st of October--the anniversary of the
Prince’s escape--the interest from this sum is divided among certain
young men and women to help them in their occupations and assist them to
earn a livelihood. Old family friends and all picturesque places in the
neighbourhood were visited; and the Queen’s grandchild, the little
Prince Wilhelm of Prussia, seems to have been a source of never-failing
delight to her Majesty. But on the 9th of October the enjoyment of these
quiet days came to an end, and the Queen and her husband left a spot
endeared to them by many sweet remembrances. This fortnight, writes the
Queen, “with its joys and sorrows, and the fearful episode of my dearest
Albert’s accident, will be for ever deeply engraven on my heart.” On the
return journey they were joined by the Prince Regent of Prussia, who
travelled with them to Mayence. Rain spoiled the beauties of the Rhine;
but when Coblentz was reached the Princess of Prussia was waiting to
solace the Royal Party, who arrived, wet, chilled, and uncomfortable.
The Queen, in fact, had caught a cold, and illness and depression of
spirits due to the parting from her daughter and her beloved grandchild,
Prince Wilhelm, robbed the rest of her holiday of all enjoyment. When
she reached Brussels she could hardly walk, and had to keep to her room
and comfort herself with the “Mill on the Floss” for a day, whilst Dr.
Bayly was treating her for a feverish sore throat. After a dismally
rainy voyage the Royal travellers reached Windsor on the 17th of
October. “Already a week since we left Coburg,” writes the Queen, “and
the dear happy days there belong to the treasured recollections of the
past!”[86]

Politically, though the year had been eventful, it was not without its
compensations. The dying embers of the Indian Mutiny had been
extinguished. The war with China had ended with the capture of Pekin,
the destruction of the Summer Palace, and the ratification of the
Convention of Tchung-Kow and the Treaty of Tien-tsin[87] (24th of
October). “At home with ourselves and with our colonies,” Prince Albert
says in a letter to Stockmar (28th December), “we have every reason to
be satisfied.” One event, indeed, brought grief to the Queen and her
family. This was the death of the venerable Earl of Aberdeen, on the
14th of December. Lord Aberdeen was not only the trusted Minister, but
the valued personal friend of the Queen and her husband. His experience
of public affairs extended from the close of the war with Napoleon to
the beginning of the war with Russia, and no English Minister in modern
times enjoyed in a higher degree the respect and confidence of foreign
Governments and Sovereigns. His stainless integrity and scrupulous
honesty won the confidence of the Prince Consort. The high moral courage
which led him to speak the truth in public, however unpalatable and
unpopular it might be, so endeared him to the Queen that she expressed
her admiration for it on the only occasion when she rebuked him for an
impolitic indulgence in this virtue. Though a Peelite, he differed from
his leader in having greater foresight, and a firmer grip of principle.
Aberdeen did not, like Peel, work aimlessly from sheer expediency. He
had a theory, a guiding idea, which, rightly or wrongly, always pushed
him far in advance of his Party. This theory was that the less people
were meddled with by governments, the happier and more prosperous would
they become. He carried his principle of non-intervention from foreign
to home policy, and acted on the conviction that more good was to be
done by repealing old laws, than by enacting new ones. For the salvation
of the people, he trusted to independence rather than patronage--to
liberty rather than protection. He was blamed for buttressing the petty
despotisms of the Continent, but he was blamed unjustly. He shrank from
shedding English blood, and wasting English treasure in helping
revolutionary movements, and he did so for two reasons. Nations worthy
of freedom, he thought, must free themselves; the patronage of
revolutionary movements must sooner or later involve England in war with
all the Great Powers of Europe. His failure to avert the Crimean War
need not here be dwelt on. It was the great blot on his career. Yet it
is but due to his memory to say, as even Mr. Disraeli admitted, that if
Lord Aberdeen had been head of a Cabinet the members of which all shared
his views, and were all loyal in supporting his policy, the Crimean War
would probably never have broken out. If Aberdeen had been master in his
Cabinet, if he had been served at Constantinople by a loyal Ambassador,
and at St. Petersburg by an Envoy who could have opposed with his own
tact, patience, and cool common sense the monomaniacal ideas and
arguments of the Czar, the conflict between Russia and England could
have been averted.[88]

[Illustration: THE QUEEN’S PRIVATE SITTING-ROOM, OSBORNE.

(_From a Photograph by Hughes and Mullins, Ryde._)]

CHAPTER IV.

THE DEATH OF THE PRINCE CONSORT.

England in 1861--The Jumble of Parties--Secret Alliance Between
Palmerston and the Tories--Opening of Parliament--The Prince
Consort and the “Two Old Italian Masters”--Lady William Russell’s
_Salon_--The Proposed Sale of Venice--The Fall of Gaeta--Prussia
and Italy--Death of Cavour--A _casus belli_ Against
France--Napoleon in the East--Denmark and the Duchies--The Queen’s
Private Sorrows--Last Illness and Death of the Duchess of
Kent--Renewed Attacks in the Press on Prince Albert--Palmerston
Accused of Tampering with Despatches--Anecdote of Lord Derby and
Lord Granville--The Budget--Repeal of the Paper Duty--Palmerston’s
“Grudge” Against Prince Albert--The Marriage of the Princess Alice
announced--The Queen and Her Social Duties--Two Drawing-Rooms and
Two Investitures--A Season of Mourning--Death of Lord Herbert of
Lea--Lord John Russell’s Peerage--Reform and the Working
Classes--Ministerial Changes--The Queen’s Tour in Ireland--The
Queen and German Unity--Coronation of the King of Prussia--Death of
the King of Portugal--Fatigue of the Prince Consort--Signs of His
Last Illness--The Queen at Her Husband’s Sick Bed--A Mournful
Vigil--The Prince Consort’s Last Words--Scene at the Death-Bed--The
Sorrow of the Country--The Queen’s Despair--Her Removal from
Windsor--Prince Albert’s Character and Career--His Funeral--The
Scene at the Grave--The Queen and the Princess Alice.

From her own tranquil island the Queen, at the beginning of 1861, looked
abroad upon a world that was strangely disturbed. It was a world in
which men cried peace when there was no peace. In Europe, French agents
were intriguing with the revolutionary parties in Poland, Hungary, and
the Danubian Principalities. Italian conspirators were busy as usual in
Venetia. The misgovernment of Turkey was again goading her Christian
subjects to despair, and rousing the wrath of Panslavic fanaticism in
Russia. Across the Atlantic the New Year brought with it the severance
of South Carolina from the United States, and the pulse of the British
aristocracy and their social parasites rose high as their golden youth
congratulated each other on the “bursting of the bubble Republic.”[89]
It is true that the harvest had been bad, and that the winter had been
the coldest that had been experienced for half a century. But Free Trade
made food cheap and wages high, so that there was no popular discontent
to trouble the Government. The prospect of a cotton famine in
Lancashire, as the result of a civil war in America, was not thought to
be within the range of practical contingencies. As for political
parties, they were, as Mr. Ashley says, “in a singular jumble at the
period which we have now reached.”[90] The Tories were alarmed by Mr.
Gladstone’s Budgets. These were supposed to be dangerously democratic,
not only because his attack on the Paper Duty seemed designed to
strengthen the power and position of a cheap press, but because in his
financial speeches he seemed to justify the repeal of taxes solely by
his desire to benefit the poor, and his imposition of new burdens by his
desire to punish the rich for being wealthy. Absurd as this suspicion
was, it is necessary to take it seriously, because it had much to do
with creating the unexpected dictatorship of Lord Palmerston.

It was well known that Palmerston’s hostility to reform had well-nigh
driven the Radicals into factious opposition. They had no more to expect
from him, and at any moment they were ready to act against him. They
even offered to combine with the Tories, turn out the Government, and
keep Lord Derby and Mr. Disraeli in power for two years, during which
period they thought the Reform problem would ripen for solution. This
offer was not accepted. In fact, through Lord Malmesbury and Lady
Palmerston, a secret alliance was organised, in terms of which the
Tories agreed to maintain Lord Palmerston in office “if only he would
resist ‘Democratic’ Budgets, and keep his hands from any violent action
against Austria.”[91] This compact was ratified by the people, who,
despite the triumph of the Anglo-French alliance in China, were growing
every day more distrustful of Napoleon’s warlike preparations, which it
was part of Palmerston’s policy to counteract. Mr. Ashley asserts that
Lord Palmerston was “too loyal to enter into any such secret
understanding.” As a matter of fact, the alliance was, on behalf of Lord
Derby and Mr. Disraeli, first tendered by Lord Malmesbury at Lady
Palmerston’s party, on the 12th of May, 1860, when, says Lord
Malmesbury, “Lady Palmerston expressed herself as being very grateful
for the offer.”[92] Count Vitzthum, however, puts the matter beyond
doubt. Writing in 1861, he says:--“The secret agreement between the
Conservatives and Palmerston, which had checked the barren Party contest
of the previous year, was renewed before the Session began, and even
received the secret sanction of the Court. After Lord Palmerston, in
January, had submitted to the Queen and Prince Albert his programme for
the current year, and had promised in particular his vigorous
prosecution of the works for national defence, Disraeli was invited to
Windsor. The Prince, to his no small satisfaction, received the
assurance from the leader of the Opposition that the Tories, though
three hundred strong, had no thoughts of undertaking the Government, so
long as Palmerston continued to safeguard the Conservative interests of
the State. Disraeli added that it rested only with the present Prime
Minister to exercise a power such as none of his predecessors had
wielded since Pitt.”[93] Finally, conclusive proof of the existence of
the alliance is given by the highest living authority on such a
matter--namely, Sir Theodore Martin--who discloses details of the whole
transaction. Sixty members of the House of Commons had apparently
pledged themselves to follow Mr. Cobden’s policy of “democratic
finance,” which was to lessen expenditure by reducing armaments.
Palmerston’s Government was therefore doomed unless an alliance could be
struck up with the Tories. According to the Prince Consort, Mr. Disraeli
said that “the Conservative party was ready not only to give general
support to a steady and patriotic policy, but even to help the Minister
out of scrapes if he got into any.” But, in return, they must, to use
Sir Theodore Martin’s words, “state explicitly the principles of their
policy, and not enter into a line of what he (Mr. Disraeli) termed
democratic finance.”[94] When Mr. Ashley stated that Lord Palmerston was
“too loyal to enter into any such secret understanding,” he must have
neglected to read the letter dated 24th of January, 1861, which the
Prince Consort sent to Lord Palmerston, embodying the terms of the
understanding in question. It is also possible that he did not
anticipate the publication of Lord Malmesbury’s diary, in which, under
date the 14th of March, 1861, there is the following entry:--“The House
of Commons threw out Mr. Locke-King’s Bill for reducing the county
franchise to £10, by a majority of 28. We had agreed with the Government
that, if they helped us to throw out this Bill, we would help them to
pass Lord Palmerston’s Resolution, reversing their former vote on the
payment of the Navy.”[95]

On the 4th of February the Queen came to town for the opening of
Parliament, which took place on the 5th. The Royal Speech, says Count
Vitzthum, “ratified the private agreement (between Palmerston and the
Tories) by making no mention of reform. The skirmishes that took place
during the

[Illustration: ST. GEORGE’S CHAPEL, WINDSOR, FROM THE RIVER.]

Session had therefore no practical importance, and only served to
conceal from the public and the parties themselves the understanding
already effected between the leaders.”[96] Very few points for debate
were raised by the Queen’s Speech. Peace in Europe, it was suggested,
could be preserved by the moderation of the Powers. Syria would soon be
pacified, and thankfulness was expressed at the success of British arms
in China. A sympathetic allusion to the Civil War in America, was
prettily pointed by a reference to the kindly welcome which the Prince
of Wales had received in the United States, and the loyalty of the
Canadians was frankly recognised. Crime, bankruptcy, land transfer, and
rating were the subjects suggested for legislation. The debate on the
Address in both Houses was insincere. Lord Derby made fun of the
Government for coquetting with revolution in Italy, and he ridiculed
Lord John Russell’s inconsistent despatches to Sir James Hudson. “Mr.
Disraeli,” writes Count Vitzthum, “handled the same theme in an academic
fashion in the House of Commons,” but nobody dreamt of seriously
assaulting the Ministerial position. “In Italy strange things are taking
place. It is still the idol of the two ‘old Italian masters,’” wrote the
Prince Consort to Stockmar on the eve of the opening of Parliament.[97]
And yet, when Ministers heard that Cavour had allowed arms to be shipped
from the arsenal at Genoa for the conspirators who were organising an
insurrection in Turkey, they became a little uneasy. No harm, however,
came of this, because the Turkish authorities at Constantinople being
forewarned, seized the arms when they arrived. But the problem of
problems was, what did Napoleon mean to do in Italy? He had opened the
French Chambers with a speech which, describing the annexation of Savoy
as an act done in maintenance of the natural rights of France, created a
panic among the Palmerstonians and their Tory allies. If Savoy--why not
Belgium? was the question which this doctrine of natural rights
suggested to men’s minds. And yet at this time Napoleon’s power was
vastly exaggerated. The priests, who had not forgiven him for enriching
Italy at the expense of the Pope, condemned his policy from their
pulpits. The vulgar luxury and swindling speculations in which the
Imperial _entourage_ indulged, disgusted the educated classes. It was at
this time that those who had hailed the Emperor as the “saviour of
Society” began to call him “Badinguet”--after the bricklayer whose
disguise he had borrowed when escaping from Ham. At one time Palmerston
and Russell imagined they had discovered the solution of the most
pressing of the Italian problems. They thought--or rather the Emperor of
the French persuaded them to think--that Austria might sell Venetia to
Sardinia, and whilst retaining half the purchase price to relieve her
strained finances, with the other half buy Bosnia and the Herzegovina
from the Sultan, who was also in lack of money. The Queen thwarted this
cunning scheme, when Lord John Russell broached it in the end of
December, by pointing out that to suggest the sale of Venetia to
Sardinia, was to record an official opinion that Venetia ought to be in
some way freed from Austrian rule. In the event of Austria refusing to
sell the province this would be used as a justification for wresting
Venetia from her, or for compelling England to press her to give it up.
Palmerston himself came round to this view, and so the Venetian question
was for a time eliminated. But in Italy it soon became clear that France
meant to give Victor Emmanuel freedom to act. Gaeta surrendered in
February when the French fleet was withdrawn--the King and Queen of
Naples being conveyed to Rome. They sought refuge there under the
protection of French bayonets, in the cheerless shelter of the empty
Farnese Palace. Five days after the fall of Gaeta Victor Emmanuel
summoned the first Italian Parliament to Turin, where it met in a large
wooden hall improvised for the occasion. In his speech from the throne
he regretted the recall of the French Minister, but did not pretend to
be downcast by the platonic rebuke of France. As to the protest of
Prussia against his policy, Victor Emmanuel said an ambassador had been
sent to King William “in token of respect for him personally, and of
sympathy with the noble German nation,” which he hoped would become
convinced that Italian unity could not prejudice the rights of other
states. The meaning of this reference in the speech was pointed out by
De la Marmora. He cynically told the Prussian Government at Berlin, that
Italy consoled herself with the thought that she had set an example
which Prussia, in spite of her protests, would find useful “in
conquering the hegemony of Germany.” On the 17th of March the Turin
Parliament proclaimed Victor Emmanuel King of Italy, and two days
afterwards England recognised his position. France delayed her
recognition till June, Napoleon’s chief difficulty being the disposal of
Rome. Opportunity, said Italian statesmen, will open the way to Venice;
and as for Rome, though it must be the capital of free Italy, we only
desire to go there, not at the head of a revolutionary army, but hand in
hand with France. Personally, Napoleon would have wished to evacuate
Rome. Its occupation was a heavy burden on his finances--which had
become seriously embarrassed. To uphold the temporal power of the Pope,
which he had disavowed, against the will of the Italian people, which in
other quarters he had enforced by the sword, put him in a false
position. On the other hand, the priests in France had to be
conciliated, and there was a strong party among Frenchmen who thought
that France should be compensated, by the occupation of Rome, for the
rise of a new naval Power in the Mediterranean.[98] Early in the summer
Cavour, who like Themistocles lived to convert a small state into a
great one, died--his policy being cherished as a sacred legacy by his
successor, Riccasoli. Cavour, however, lived long enough to see the
failure of an intrigue to procure the evacuation of Rome by the cession
of Sardinia to France. Mr. Kinglake in July tried to convince the House
of Commons that this cession was practically agreed on, and he pointed
out that Nelson had declared Malta would be useless to England whenever
the Bay of Cagliari passed into the hands of a great naval power. But
Lord John Russell--in the last speech he ever made in the Lower
House--assured the country that he could find no evidence pointing to
the existence of such a scheme. At the same time he made it plain,
though he did not say so in as many words, that England would regard the
cession of Sardinia to France as a _casus belli_.[99]

Another project was on foot which gave the Queen great uneasiness.
Napoleon--whose brain, said Lord Palmerston once, was as full of schemes
as a warren was full of rabbits--was said to be in favour of creating a
new Eastern State or kingdom, with Constantinople as its capital, and
King Leopold, the Queen’s uncle, as its Sovereign. In that case France
would naturally take Belgium by way of compensation; but the idea, if
ever seriously entertained, was soon consigned to the limbo of vanished
Imperial dreams. The condition of Austria was now rather serious. All
her proposals for reforming the political system of Hungary, relegated
that ancient kingdom to the position of an Austrian province. The
Hungarian people, however, refused to accept this position, and demanded
the restoration of their rights as an independent State under the
Sovereign of Austria, reigning over them as crowned King of Hungary.
Their demand might at any moment take the form of a revolutionary
movement, which would probably re-open the Eastern question, and involve
England in war. Luckily this calamity was averted by the preoccupation
of Napoleon and Victor Emmanuel, who alone had either the power or the
will to raise a revolution in Hungary.

But affairs in the North were much more disquieting. Early in March the
dispute between Denmark and the Duchies of Sleswig-Holstein, which the
Queen and her husband had watched with jealous eyes from its origin,
became acute. The Danish Government was willing to submit the budget for
the Duchies to their local legislatures, on condition that it was not
altered. The German Diet or Bund declared that this was equivalent to an
assertion that territory which was really subject to the authority of
the Bund, was under the exclusive Sovereign authority of Denmark. The
three non-German Great Powers declared that Denmark ought to yield to
the Duchies their constitutional rights, and laid it down that if this
were not done, the German Bund might justly force concessions from
Denmark, by Federal execution in Sleswig-Holstein. Denmark ignored the
award and threats of the Powers, and Prussia took up the cause of the
Sleswigers. In England the Prussian Government was sneered at for
menacing Denmark because she denied the Duchies the right to control
their Budgets, whilst it raised money for its own military purposes
without the consent of its own subjects.

Other than political anxieties made the spring of 1861 dismal to the
Queen. On the 12th of March she had visited her mother, the Duchess of
Kent, at Frogmore, and found her suffering great pain from the effects
of a surgical operation which had been performed to relieve an abscess
in her arm. On the 15th Her Majesty and her husband were inspecting the
Horticultural Society’s gardens at South Kensington, when they were
summoned by Sir James Clark to the bedside of the Duchess of Kent, who
began to develop feverish symptoms. When they arrived they found her
dying. “I knelt before her,” writes the Queen, “kissed her dear hand and
placed it next my cheek; but though she opened her eyes, she did not, I
think, know me.... I went out to sob,” adds Her Majesty, stricken to the
heart at finding, for the first time in her life, her mother had not
received her with a loving smile of recognition. All through the night
the Queen watched by the bedside of the dying Princess, weeping as she
thought of her childhood and its sacred memories, and of the dreadful
blank her mother’s death must make in her life. At eight in the morning
of the next day (the 16th) Prince Albert persuaded the Queen to leave
her mother’s room for a little, and rest. But she could not rest. She
insisted on returning to the sick-room, and when she went back she saw
that her mother was passing away. The heart-beats grew fainter; the eyes
slowly closed, and as the clock struck half-past nine, Prince Albert
took the Queen out of the room, and she knew all was over. For forty-one
years she had not been parted from her mother save for a few brief weeks
at a time. Now they were parted for ever on this side of the grave. “I
seemed,” she writes, “to have lived through a life, to have become old.”
The death of the Duchess of Kent plunged the Royal household in grief.
She died leaving not one dry eye behind her among those who had known
and served and loved her. The Princess Frederick William of Prussia
hurried to her mother’s side, arriving at Windsor on the 18th; and then
from every quarter, letters and messages of condolence came pouring in.
Addresses of sympathy were carried in both Houses of Parliament, and
every effort was made by Ministers to lighten the anxieties of the Queen
at a time when sorrow lay heavily on her heart. The funeral took place
on the 25th, in St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, where the body was laid
till a mausoleum at Frogmore could be built. “I and my girls,” wrote the
Queen to King Leopold on that day, “prayed at home together, and dwelt
on her happiness and peace.” On the 2nd of April the Princess Frederick
William returned to Berlin, and the Queen and her husband retired to
Osborne. The Easter recess had produced a lull in politics, and it might
have been expected that the Queen would have been permitted to mourn her
bereavement in peace. It was not so. On the 12th of April she was deeply
pained to find the _Times_ renewing its old attacks on Prince Albert,
and again accusing him of thwarting Lord Palmerston’s Italian policy in
the interests of his German relatives. For this cruel imputation there
was no warrant, save the fact that Austria persisted in holding Venetia,
which had been guaranteed to her by the pact of Villafranca, in spite of
Lord Palmerston’s recommendation that she should cede the province to
Italy.

[Illustration: MR. (AFTERWARDS VISCOUNT) CARDWELL.

(_From a Photograph by the London Stereoscopic Company._)]

On the 15th of April the Prince Consort, writing to Stockmar, says,
“Home politics have gone asleep.” Before the recess the position of the
Ministry had been easily maintained, simply because Mr. Disraeli was of
opinion that premature Tory attacks on it might heal the schism between
Palmerston and the Radicals. But the weakness of the Cabinet in the
House of Commons was illustrated in March, when Palmerston had--as we
have seen--to help the Tories to throw out Mr. Locke-King’s Bill for
reducing the county franchise to £10, in return for their support of his
resolution reversing an adverse vote on the payment of the Navy. It was
also illustrated by Mr. Dunlop’s motion for an inquiry into the
mutilation of the Afghan Blue Book in 1839. Lord Palmerston (who had
been Foreign Secretary) was accused of having created the disastrous
Afghan War, simply because he would not believe the reports of his own
agents in Afghanistan. To excuse the disasters of the campaign he had
hacked and garbled the despatches in the most unscrupulous manner, so as
to make it appear that these agents reported the very opposite of what
they actually told him. Mr. Dunlop had unearthed evidence to prove this
charge, and he proved it up to the hilt. Palmerston’s only defence was
that the mutilations complained of were quite regular, and were made in
the public interest. “The Commons,” writes Count Vitzthum, “were
extremely indignant, and nothing but Disraeli’s intervention saved the
Ministry. Lord Derby,” Count Vitzthum goes on to say, “is on the most
friendly footing with his political opponent, Lord Granville. The latter
added to a business letter a postscript, with the question, ‘When will
you turn us out?’ The Tory chief answered, ‘I am thinking day and night
how I can manage to keep you in, but it will be devilish
difficult.”[100] Mr. Disraeli had set his face against taking office
till he had a trustworthy majority in the House of Commons that would
enable him to carry out a foreign policy even in the teeth of Lord
Palmerston’s opposition. The aim of the Opposition was, therefore, to
keep Palmerston in power till this majority was obtained. It was feared,
however, that the Government might fall on their Budget, and its
production was awaited with intense interest on the 15th of April, when
Mr. Gladstone made his financial statement. Dismal predictions of a
large deficit had been promulgated. On the contrary, though the revenue
had fallen off considerably, there had been an equivalent saving in
expenditure, and on the year’s work the deficit was only £855,000 when
the accounts were balanced. Mr. Gladstone’s estimates for the current
year, however, after providing for this deficit, showed a surplus on the
basis of existing taxation of about £2,000,000; so he was able to take a
penny off the income-tax, and at last to repeal the Paper Duty, without
incurring the reproach of rashly sacrificing revenue. But to do this he
had to leave the duties on tea and sugar unaltered. To prevent the Peers
from rejecting the repeal of the Paper Duty, he tacked his scheme on to
the Bill containing all his financial proposals. The House of Lords
shrank from rejecting the whole Budget: they passed it grudgingly, after
a feeble and futile threat of opposition from the Duke of Rutland. In
the Commons a majority of 15 in a House of 577 members carried the
Budget of 1861, which is memorable as the one that abolished what was
popularly called “the taxes on knowledge.” The financial debates in the
House did not end till Mr. Gladstone had shown pretty clearly that he
thought too much money was being spent on the Army and Navy. On the
other hand, Lord John Russell took occasion, in a debate on Italian
affairs, to declare that the state of Europe rendered this expenditure
necessary. The assumption here was that events abroad might falsify Mr.
Gladstone’s estimates, which showed a surplus. In that case, as the
Paper Duty could not be re-imposed, any deficit must be met by an
increased income-tax, and it was this fear that rendered the Whigs and
the Tories alike anxious to retain the Paper Duty. But the Cabinet was
too weak to dispense with Mr. Gladstone’s services. As the price of his
allegiance to Palmerston was the repeal of the Paper Duty, and the
consequent humiliation of the House of Lords, who had threatened to
oppose its abolition, Palmerston had to submit to the Paper Duty being
repealed. Still, the Premier was not without his consolations. The
dispute with the Prussian Government over Captain Macdonald’s grievances
had not terminated, and on the 26th of April Lord Palmerston seized the
opportunity it afforded him of making a coarse and undignified attack on
Prussia because her laws, which in Macdonald’s case he admitted had not
been overstepped, were “harsh, unjust, arbitrary, and violent.” This
provoked recriminations in the Berlin Chamber, where Baron Schleinitz
foolishly mixed up Captain Macdonald’s arrest with high policy. To these
recriminations the _Times_ delivered an insulting reply, and, greatly to
the annoyance of the grief-stricken Queen, a rancorous quarrel was thus
developed about a trivial affair between the two Governments, which,
said the Prince Consort, made the “outlook most melancholy.” Mr.
Disraeli told Count Vitzthum that Palmerston’s outburst against Prussia
was delivered in order to annoy the Prince Consort rather than the
Berlin Cabinet, and if that were the fact it must be allowed that his
malignity was eminently successful. It was, in truth, so ill-concealed
at this time that Mr. Disraeli himself said he was puzzled to account
for the Prime Minister’s “grudge” against Prince Albert.[101]

On the 27th of April the Queen announced the approaching marriage of the
Princess Alice and Prince Louis of Hesse-Darmstadt, which was approved
by Parliament on the 4th of May. On the 6th the Princess was voted a
dowry of £30,000 and an annuity of £6,000 a year. During Whitsuntide the
Queen’s birthday was celebrated at Osborne quietly and without the usual
festivities, her holiday being marred not only by the nervous
prostration which affected her after her mother’s death, but by the
illness of Prince Leopold, who was smitten by a severe attack of
measles which he caught from Prince Louis of Hesse.

The death of Cavour on the 6th of June was followed by the recognition
of the kingdom of Italy by France on the 25th in response to an appeal
from Riccasoli. He knew that till this recognition was given, it would
be difficult for the Italian Government to raise the loans necessary to
construct those railways and other public works which were urgently
needed to develope the resources of the new kingdom. This recognition,
however, implied that for a time the Italian question must be shelved.
It was therefore with great satisfaction that England now saw the
triumph of her policy, though this satisfaction was allayed somewhat by
the rumour that Sardinia was to be ceded to France. Sir J. Hudson told
Baron Riccasoli that such a cession would be taken by England as a
_casus belli_, a warning which elicited from him a fervent denial that
Victor Emmanuel would ever sanction such a transaction.

[Illustration: BALMORAL CASTLE, FROM THE SOUTH-WEST.

(_From a Photograph by G. W. Wilson and Co., Aberdeen._)]

Meanwhile the Queen, still sad at heart and depressed in spirits,
struggled bravely to perform her social duties. She held two
Drawing-rooms and two Investitures before June was over. Visitors, too,
came to comfort her in her sorrow. The King of the Belgians and his son,
and the Crown Prince and Princess of Prussia and their children arrived
in midsummer. They were followed in rapid succession by others,
including some members of the Orleans family, the Archduke Maximilian,
and the Archduchess Charlotte, the Princess

[Illustration: THE ROYAL TOUR IN IRELAND: THE VISIT TO ROSS CASTLE,
KILLARNEY.]

Charles of Hesse, and the King of Sweden, who arrived in August. But it
was a year fruitful in sorrow for the Queen and her family. Mr. Sidney
Herbert had early in the year accepted a peerage, and retired to the
Upper House as Lord Herbert of Lea. In July he fell ill, and to the
great grief of the Queen, who regarded him as the future Prime Minister,
died in August. In him the Peelites lost the Bayard of their party. On
the 25th of July a great gap was made in the ranks of the Ministry in
the Lower House by the elevation of Lord John Russell to the peerage as
Earl Russell of Kingston Russell.[102] “The comments of the newspapers,”
wrote Count Vitzthum, “on Lord John Russell’s acceptance of a peerage
read like funeral sermons,” and his farewell speech to the House of
Commons, broadly hinting that England would make the cession of the
island of Sardinia to France a _casus belli_, rang like a thunderclap
through Europe. It was more effective than his farewell address to his
constituents. In this document, when reviewing the exploits of his
career, Lord Russell modestly compared himself to the Emperor Charles
V., who, having been engaged in all the great affairs of his age, and
desiring to see how the world would get on after his death, had the dark
pageant of his funeral prepared, and officiated as his own chief mourner
at the ceremony. One of the last events of the Session was a spirited
debate on the 26th of June on the demand of the Government for £200,000
for new ironclads. Palmerston, by dwelling on the growth of the French
navy, frightened Parliament into granting the money, and the Manchester
Radicals were fain to hold their peace. Mr. Disraeli, however, rather
leant to the Peace Party in this debate. He suggested that diplomacy
might effect a friendly understanding with France which would fix the
relative proportions between the two navies, but his followers, who were
bellicose, listened to him with amazement and anger. It did not occur to
them that he was already speculating on the prospect of being in office
next year, and was preparing the way for a friendly reception at the
Tuileries.

It was a tranquil Session, during which hardly one party division was
challenged in the Lower House. Though Lord John (now Earl) Russell had
virtually abandoned his Reform Bill, the artisans in some of the large
towns still kept alive the agitation for Parliamentary Reform. The
country, however, seemed apathetic on the subject. How to give the best
of the working men votes without at the same time enfranchising those
who were unworthy, seemed to most people an insoluble problem. The
American Civil War and the triumph of the Protectionists in Australia
also rendered Englishmen somewhat sceptical as to the beneficial results
of a democratic franchise. A Bankruptcy Bill was carried. It was not a
party measure, and it was the only Ministerial Bill bearing on domestic
affairs the passing of which in 1861 calls for record. When Parliament
was prorogued on the 6th of August, the only shadow on the horizon of
the future discernible by the Queen was the prospect of a cotton famine
in Lancashire. Her Majesty’s anxiety on this subject was also apparently
shared by Lord Palmerston. Writing to Mr. Milner Gibson about the matter
in June, Lord Palmerston wistfully asked if the Board of Trade or any
other department had any means of helping the country to make good the
deficiency in the cotton supply which the Civil War in America was sure
to cause. “As to our manufacturers,” he writes, “they will do nothing
unless directed and pushed on. They are some of the most helpless and
shortsighted of men. They are like the people who held out their dishes
and prayed that it might rain plum-puddings. They think it is enough to
open their mill-gates, and that cotton will come of its own accord. They
say they have for years been looking to India as a source of supply; but
their looks seem to have had only the effect of the eyes of the
rattlesnake, namely, to paralyse the object looked at, and as yet it has
shown no signs of falling into their jaws.”[103]

On the 16th of August the Crown Prince and Princess of Prussia and their
children left Osborne for Germany. Next day her Majesty, the Prince
Consort, and the Princess Alice visited the grave of the Duchess of Kent
at Frogmore, celebrating there in sorrow a birthday anniversary which
had hitherto brought joy every year to the Royal circle. They placed
wreaths on the tomb, and felt, writes the Queen to King Leopold, “that
it was only the earthly robe of her we loved so much that was there--the
pure, tender, loving spirit is above, and free from all suffering and
woe.... The first birthday in another world, must have been a far
brighter one than any birthday in the poor world below.”[104]

The time had now come when the Queen had to make preparations for a
visit to Ireland which she had planned. On the 21st of August her
Majesty, the Prince Consort, Prince Alfred--fresh from his West Indian
cruise--and the Princesses Alice and Helena, started for Holyhead, which
they reached at seven o’clock in the evening. They arrived at Kingstown
at midnight, and next morning (22nd August), accompanied by Lord
Carlisle, the Lord-Lieutenant, his Chief Secretary, Sir Robert Peel, and
Sir George Brown, Commander of the Forces in Ireland, they proceeded to
Dublin. Despite the wet and stormy weather, the populace gave their
Royal visitors a cordial reception. Next morning (23rd August) the
Prince Consort visited the Curragh Camp to see for himself how the
Prince of Wales was progressing with his military studies there, and the
Queen received a loyal address from the Lord Mayor and Corporation of
Dublin. In the afternoon the Royal party drove through the city, where
crowds cheered them loudly wherever they went, and in the evening they
met at dinner the Duke of Leinster, the Marquis and Marchioness of
Headfort, the Marquis and Marchioness of Kildare, and Lady Charlemont.
On Saturday, the 24th, the Queen herself visited the Curragh Camp, and
reviewed the troops there. As they passed the cavalry one of the bands
began to play an air which had been a favourite with the Duchess of
Kent, and repeated it on marching past. “This,” wrote the Queen in her
Diary, “entirely upset me, and the tears would have flowed freely had I
not checked them by a violent effort. But I felt sad the whole day till
I came to Bertie (the Prince of Wales), who looked so well.”[105] Then
came some field manœuvres, and a visit to “Bertie’s hut,” where the
whole party, with Sir George Brown, General Ridley, Colonels Wetherell,
Browning, and Percy--the latter of whom had the Prince of Wales under
his care--partook of a comfortable luncheon. The Queen thanked Colonel
Percy very warmly “for treating Bertie as he did like any other officer,
for,” she says in her Diary, “I know he keeps him up to his work in a
way, as General Bruce told me, no one else has done; and yet Bertie
likes him very much.” On Sunday afternoon the Queen visited the
Kilmainham Hospital, and on Monday (August 26th) celebrated her
husband’s birthday. “Alas!” she writes to King Leopold, “there is so
much so different this year--nothing festive, and we on a journey, and
separated from many of our children, and my spirits bad.”

[Illustration: THE EAGLE’S NEST, KILLARNEY.

(_After a Photograph by W. Lawrence, Dublin._)]

In the afternoon the Queen and her family left the Viceregal Lodge for
Killarney, and, recording her impressions on the road, her Majesty
dwells on the sparseness of the population, and the scarcity of villages
and towns. At Thurles she notes how the crowd shrieked rather than
cheered, how “wild and dark-looking” the people were, and how handsome
the girls seemed, despite their dishevelled hair. At Killarney the Queen
was received by Lord Castlerosse, Mr. Herbert of Muckross Abbey, the
General commanding the district, and the Mayor, who presented a loyal
address. Guarded by a strong escort of troops, her Majesty drove amidst
cheering crowds to Lord Castlerosse’s house, which was so charmingly
picturesque that she sketched it on her arrival. At dinner in the
evening she met the Roman Catholic Bishop, Dr. Moriarty--whom she
describes as “a tall, stout, and very intelligent, clever man.”--the
Knight of Kerry, and a brother of O’Connell’s, whose views her

[Illustration: KING WILLIAM OF PRUSSIA (AFTERWARDS EMPEROR OF GERMANY).]

Majesty found more to her liking than those of the Liberator. On the
27th the Queen spent most of her time on the lakes in this lovely and
romantic spot--the close, warm, humid atmosphere being the only drawback
to her delightful tour. In the evening Muckross was visited, and next
day (28th August), after driving round Muckross Lake, the Queen went on
that splendid sheet of water, and admired especially the excellent
rowing of the boatmen. Very reluctantly did the Queen bid farewell to
her kind hosts on the 29th of August, when she hastened back to her
yacht at Kingstown. At nine next morning she reached Holyhead, where she
rested, while the Prince Consort and her suite made an excursion to
Carnarvon. Leaving Holyhead in the evening, and travelling all night,
the Royal party reached Balmoral on the 30th of August.

The affairs of Germany had now drifted into such a critical condition
that the Prince Consort felt bound to explain to the King of Prussia the
views of the English Court on this subject. All over the Fatherland the
people, stirred by the success of the movement in Italy for unity, were
forming political clubs, and Prussia, to whom they looked for
leadership, was disappointing them by refusing to reform her internal
administration. Prince Albert, writing to the King of Prussia, took the
popular German view--pointing out how Austria had ever worked for the
purpose of weakening the Fatherland, and how she had once more given to
France, after her victories in Italy, a strong position on the Rhine.
“Is it an evil trait of the spirit of the people,” asks the Prince, “if
they yearn for general unity and active co-operation in what is to
decide their destiny? Do not allow yourself to be annoyed or misled if
here and there the people are guilty of stupid extravagances. They and
you are Germany’s only stay, and the power by which alone the enemy can
be held at bay. It is not a Cavour that Germany needs, but a Stein.” It
has been said that the Queen and her husband were not consistent in
their policy, because, while they showed little sympathy for the
national movement in Italy, they always encouraged the same movement in
Germany. To them it must be remembered that the former movement was an
anti-German one. They believed that if Austria lost Venetia, Galicia,
Hungary, and Poland, Germany would be crushed--because they assumed that
these nations, like the new kingdom of Italy, would be under the hostile
influence of France. The mistake which they made in the case of Italy
lay in supposing that political gratitude is stronger than the love of
national independence.

During this autumn the Prince of Wales visited Germany, ostensibly to be
present at the military manœuvres in the Rhine Provinces, but really to
make the acquaintance of the Princess Alexandra of Denmark at Speyer and
Heidelberg, where she happened to be staying, and where, according to
the Prince Consort, “the young people seem to have taken a warm liking
for each other when they first met.[106] The visit of the King of
Prussia to Compiègne somewhat disturbed the mind of the country, for it
set afloat rumours of an alliance with France, one result of which might
perhaps be a scheme for the unification of Germany, with Belgium and the
Rhine Provinces playing the part which was allotted to Nice and Savoy in
the scheme for unifying Italy. The Queen and her husband, however, knew
that the visit was purely one of ceremonial courtesy, and that no
attempt had been made to inveigle Prussia into any such conspiracy. This
information was communicated to the Cabinet, and soon all disquieting
rumours ceased.

On the 18th of October the King of Prussia was crowned at Königsberg,
and Lord Clarendon, who was present as representing the Queen,
congratulated her Majesty on the charming manner in which the Crown
Princess did homage to her father-in-law. King William I. was desirous
of conferring the Order of the Black Eagle on Lord Clarendon, but the
Queen begged him not to offer it, because it was against the traditions
of the English Foreign Office to permit a subject to accept such a
distinction.[107] Lord Clarendon mixed very freely in society at Berlin,
and was able to report to the Queen that the attacks of the _Times_ on
everything Prussian would have damaged the position of the Crown
Princess, had it not been safeguarded and secured by her own high
personal qualities. These attacks broke out afresh over the King’s
seeming assertion of the principle of Divine Right in his Address to the
Chambers, and Clarendon begged the Queen to remonstrate with Lord
Palmerston, who was supposed to influence the _Times_. Though Lord
Palmerston, in one of his letters, penned a high-spirited reply to a
Royal communication on the subject, it is a curious coincidence that the
attacks of which her Majesty complained suddenly ceased from this
moment.

On leaving Balmoral the Court proceeded to Holyrood, and on the 23rd of
October the Prince Consort laid the foundation stones of the new Post
Office and the Industrial Museum in Edinburgh. The Queen and her family
reached Windsor on the same evening, where her Majesty’s grief broke out
afresh, as it was the first time she had lived at the Castle without
finding her mother at Frogmore. As Sovereign of the Most Exalted Order
of the Star of India, the Queen held her first investiture of Knights at
Windsor Castle on the 1st of November. The difficulty which perplexed
the Indian Government in establishing this Order had been to find for it
a suitable name and an appropriate device. The suggestions of the Prince
Consort had a few months before been in the main adopted, and many
fantastic ideas had been extinguished by the cold _douche_ of his common
sense. It had been settled that the Order was to consist of the Indian
Viceroy as Grand Master, and twenty-five Knights, together with such
extraordinary Knights as the Queen might appoint. The badge was to be an
oval onyx cameo suspended from an Imperial crown in the centre of the
collar, and on the stone Her Majesty’s head was cut in high relief, the
motto being “Heaven’s Light Our Guide.” The jewel was surmounted by a
star, and set in diamonds. The ceremony of investiture was held in high
state. The Queen having previously conferred the Order on the Prince
Consort and the Prince of Wales, entered the Throne Room wearing the
sumptuous Mantle of the Order. After the usual formalities, she invested
with the Insignia, of the Order, Lord Harris, Lord Gough, Lord Clyde,
His Highness the Maharajah Duleep Singh, Sir John Lawrence, and Sir
George Pollock.

[Illustration: INDUSTRIAL MUSEUM, EDINBURGH.]

At Windsor the Prince Consort now began to make arrangements for the
approaching marriage of the Princess Alice, and the journey of Prince
Leopold, then in delicate health, to Cannes. He busied himself also with
the preparation of Marlborough House as a residence for the Prince of
Wales. On the 4th of November he inspected the works at Wellington
College. A brilliant company of guests, including the Grand Duke and
Duchess Constantine, the Duke of Cambridge, Lord Granville, Earl and
Countess Russell, Lord Sydney, and the Baron and Baroness Brunnow, were
at the Castle when the birthday of the Prince of Wales was celebrated on
the 9th. The death of Prince Ferdinand of Portugal, from typhoid fever,
together with sad memories of the late Duchess of Kent, had somewhat
darkened this family festival, and in a few days her Majesty and the
Prince Consort were still further shocked to hear that the King of
Portugal had also fallen a victim to the disease which had cut short his
brother’s life. The attachment which existed between the Prince Consort
and the Portuguese branch of the House of Coburg was close and tender,
and it is certain that the sudden death of King Pedro and his brother
weighed heavily on his heart. The Crown Princess of Prussia was
suffering from illness, brought on by the fatigues and excitement of the
coronation ceremony, and, as the last letter the Prince Consort ever
wrote to Stockmar indicates, this also preyed on his mind. To these
troubles were added certain private vexations, hinted at, but not
specified by Sir Theodore Martin. The Prince began to look ill, and his
irritability amazed his household, every member of which loved him for
his serene temper, his imperturbable good humour, and his invincible
patience. On the 12th of November the Queen

[Illustration: THE QUEEN HOLDING THE FIRST INVESTITURE OF THE ORDER OF
THE STAR OF INDIA.]

began to notice that her husband’s repeated journeys to London were
making him “low and sad.” His sleeplessness returned, and her Majesty
pressed Sir C. Phipps to lighten as much as possible the strain on his
energies. On the 22nd of November he inspected the buildings of
Sandhurst Military College amidst a downpour of rain, and it was at
first thought he here caught the illness which sent him to his grave. On
the 23rd, though complaining of _malaise_, he went out shooting with
Prince Ernest of Leiningen. On the 24th he complained of rheumatic
pains, but walked with the Queen and her family to Frogmore. Next day
(Monday) he went to Cambridge to see the Prince of Wales, who found him
“greatly out of sorts,” and when he came back to Windsor he was so ill
that he could not walk out with the Queen in the afternoon. On the 26th
he was worse; on the 28th he was still worse, and greatly grieved at the
seizure by the Americans of the Confederate Commissioners, who were
passengers in the English mail steamer _Trent_. During the next two days
the Prince still complained of illness, and when, on the 1st of
December, he drafted a memorandum--the last he ever wrote--for the Queen
on the Trent affair, he could scarcely hold his pen. Yet he had
struggled against his malady, and during the two previous days had
appeared among his guests--including the Duc de Nemours, Lord Carlisle,
and Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone--as best he could. But he ate nothing, and
when he went to bed he complained of shivering with cold. On the 2nd of
December Sir James Clark and Dr. Jenner pronounced him to be suffering
from low fever. Curiously enough, when Lord Methuen called on him to
report on the death of the King of Portugal he said he was glad his
disease was not typhoid fever, because he knew he could not survive an
attack. Lord Palmerston was a guest at the Castle on the 2nd, and when
he found that the Prince was still unable to take food or leave his room
he suggested that another physician should be called in. The Queen could
not bring herself to believe that her husband was seriously ill, and on
the 3rd her opinion was confirmed by that of Sir James Clark, for the
Prince slept better that night and so Palmerston’s suggestion was
overruled. Next day even Sir James Clark admitted there was no
improvement, and that the symptoms were discouraging. On the 4th of
December the Queen says she found the Prince “very woebegone and
wretched.” He had not slept, and his appetite had gone. He seemed to
care for nothing save that his daughter, the Princess Alice, should sit
by him and read to him. His irritability extended even to the selection
of books, and it was not till the Princess began to read Scott’s
“Talisman” to him that he was satisfied. Sir James Clark still consoled
the Queen with smooth prognostications; but Dr. Jenner told her that the
Prince must eat because he was simply starving to death. On the 5th he
began to marvel what kind of illness it could be that clung to him so
persistently, and how long it would last. Clark, however, reported that
he was somewhat better, and the Queen was again deceived by delusive
signs of improvement. He still begged the Princess Alice to read to him,
and nothing else seemed to soothe his irritability. On the 6th he rose
early and talked to the Queen about his illness. She told him it sprang
from overwork, to which he replied: “It is too much. You must speak to
the Ministers.”[108] His mind, he remarked, had begun to brood over
Rosenau and the scenes of his childhood, and when he said that the Queen
felt as if her heart were breaking. For by this time the physicians
could not conceal from themselves the gravity of the case. The Prince
was obviously suffering from typhoid fever, and Dr. Jenner broke the
news to her Majesty as softly and kindly as he could. Still, they told
her the symptoms were not bad, and she tried to think of those who had
been smitten with typhoid fever and had survived. On the 7th the Queen
worked hard--harder than ever she had worked in her life; for her
husband’s pen was no longer at her service. She herself has said that
“the tears fell fast” as she sat by his bedside watching him and
thinking of the shipwreck of their plans, “and of the painful loss this
long illness would be, publicly as well as privately.”

On the 8th the Prince felt so well that he begged to be moved into a
larger room, and as he lay in the sunshine he asked the Princess Alice
to play for him some of his favourite German chorales. Tears came to his
eyes as her fingers wandered over the keys. Suddenly he cried out, “_Das
reicht hin_”--“that is enough”--and then the music was mute. Charles
Kingsley preached that Sunday in the Chapel, but the Queen, who attended
service, says in her Diary, “I heard nothing.” In the afternoon she sat
by her husband and read “Peveril of the Peak,” he holding her hand, and
occasionally murmuring words of love and tenderness. Lord Palmerston,
himself disabled with gout, could no longer conceal his anxiety. He and
his colleagues again pressed the Queen to call in some other physician,
and Sir James Clark and Dr. Jenner accordingly sent for Sir H. Holland
and Dr. (afterwards Sir Thomas) Watson. The Prince, after seeing the
latter, spoke hopefully, and told the Queen that he was “quite the right
man”--but still they noticed as a distressing sign that his mind had an
increasing tendency to wander. On the 10th Lord Palmerston again urged
that further medical advice should be obtained, and by this time the
public were becoming alarmed at the condition of the patient. Still, ere
the evening wore away even Dr. Watson admitted that the Prince had
improved. But on the 11th the Queen, on visiting him in the morning to
give him some beef-tea, noticed how his face, “more beautiful than ever,
had grown so thin.” As she assisted him to his sofa, he stopped to look
at a picture on china of the Madonna, saying, “It helps me through half
the day.” The doctors, it seems, felt uneasy towards the evening, when
they discovered that the Prince had begun to breathe with more
difficulty. The Queen read to him during the greater part of the day,
and he manifested great reluctance to let her leave him, even when her
duty called her away for a few minutes. On the 12th the bad symptoms
increased, and Palmerston wrote three letters, in quick succession, to
Sir C. Phipps, each more distracted than the other. On the 13th Dr.
Jenner had to warn the Queen that congestion of the lungs might set in,
and she herself saw that her husband had become much weaker. But all
through the night comforting reports were brought to her, and next
morning, the 14th, Mr. Brown, the Royal apothecary, told her that Prince
Albert was over the crisis. She went straight to his bedside. “I went
in,” she writes, “and never can I forget how beautiful my darling
looked, lying there with his face lit up by the rising sun, his eyes
unusually bright, gazing as it were at unseen objects, and not taking
notice of me.”[109] Hour after hour, as she watched by the sick bed, the
Queen saw that her husband was slowly sinking. Still, in the afternoon
he knew her--for as he laid his weary head on her shoulder, he kissed
her and muttered, “_Gutes frauchen_.” Then his mind would wander, and
then he would doze in brief and troubled snatches of sleep. He took his
children by the hand when they came and kissed him, but it is doubtful
if he now knew them. Late in the afternoon he asked for Sir Charles
Phipps, who came and kissed his hand, whereupon he again closed his
eyes. So he lingered on, the Queen keeping her mournful watch with
breaking heart. At a late hour they changed his bed, and on the Queen
pointing to a favourable sign, Dr. Jenner told her that the Prince’s
breathing rendered all favourable signs of no avail. At last she went to
her room, but returned when she heard the breathing grow worse. The
Prince was partially conscious, for when she kissed him and whispered,
“_Es ist kleines Frauchen_”--“’Tis your own little wife”--he kissed her
also. But he seemed desirous of being left quite undisturbed, and so she
retired to her room to weep. The end was coming fast. Clark soon saw
that a serious change for the worse was setting in, and the Princess
Alice went to summon the Queen. When she came she found the Prince still
breathing, and she knelt at the bedside, taking his cold hand in hers.
On the opposite side knelt the Princess Alice--at the foot of the bed
the Prince of Wales and the Princess Helena. The doctors, Generals Bruce
and Grey, Sir Charles Phipps, the Dean of Windsor, Prince Ernest of
Leiningen, and the faithful valet, Löhlein, stood around hushed and
grief-stricken, and the sobs of those to whom the Prince was dearest
alone broke the stillness of the chamber of death. The dying man’s face
grew serenely soft and reposeful, as his breathing became feebler and
feebler. At last he strove hard to take a long, deep breath. In this
effort he passed away to his last, long rest, as the great clock of the
Castle struck the third quarter after the tenth hour of the night. Those
who heard the doleful chime at the Prince’s deathbed will never forget
it.

“Yet in these ears, till hearing dies,
One set slow bell will seem to toll
The passing of the sweetest soul
That ever look’d with human eyes.”

Of the grief that broke the widowed heart of the Queen it is not
becoming to speak here. The veil of silence must be drawn over a crisis
in her life too sacred, and too tragical even for her children’s eyes.
But through England a great wave of sorrow swept over the hearts of men
when they became conscious of all that the Prince Consort’s death might
imply. Political partisans whose waywardness had harassed the Prince
during his life, were not unmoved by the touching story of his last
days. Some were even ready to drop a remorseful tear over his grave,
when they remembered how eagerly they had, for base party purposes, too
often wounded the proud but gentle heart which would now beat no more.
The voice of calumny was silenced at last. The _Times_ newspaper, which
had pursued the Prince with ungenerous criticism throughout his life,
had, to quote the Queen’s own words in a memorandum which she wrote on
this painful subject, in January, 1862, “the most beautiful articles on
him when he died.” Lord Palmerston also shared in the general grief, and
his biographer says that he felt the death of the Prince Consort most
acutely, and looked upon it as an irreparable loss. Indeed, he was
almost melodramatic in his manifestations of remorse when in presence of
a member of the Royal Family. The Duke of Cambridge,

[Illustration: THE PRINCESS ALICE READING TO HER FATHER.]

for example, considered it his duty to inform Palmerston of the sad
event, and was utterly astounded at the effect the news had on him. He
told Count Vitzthum that “the Prime Minister was so affected that he had
fainted away several times in the presence of the Duke, who expected him
to have a fit of apoplexy, and still fears that his days are numbered.”
Count Vitzthum, however, adds significantly:--“He (Palmerston) recovered
again in the afternoon so far as to be able to receive Baron Brunnow,
who perceived nothing unusual about him.”[110] Mr. Hayward has stated
that the news of the Prince Consort’s death so affected Lord Palmerston
that he had a violent attack of gout.[111] According to Mr. Ashley, the
Prime Minister was suffering from gout before it was suspected that the
Prince Consort was dangerously ill; though, no doubt, Mr. Hayward
rightly accounts for Lord Palmerston’s demonstrative emotion when he
explains that he was afraid of the effect of the Prince’s death on the
Queen. But this apprehension as to the weakness of her Majesty’s nerves
must have quickly worn away, for when he visited her at Osborne, on the
29th of January, 1862, for the first time after the Prince’s death, he
not only neglected to put on mourning, but enhanced the gaiety of his
raiment by wearing green gloves and blue studs.[112]

The English people, however, had on the whole judged the Prince Consort
generously through life, and they mourned over his death with genuine
and unaffected sincerity. Never since the death of the Princess
Charlotte was the grief of the people more widespread and more real.
Friar Francis says of Hero’s supposed death--

“That what we have we prize not to the worth
Whiles we enjoy it, but being lack’d and lost,
Why, then we rack the value.”

Some such feeling as this was universal when, amidst the gloom that
tinged the skirts of the dying year with hues of sorrow, the nation
reviewed Prince Albert’s career, so full of usefulness, of
self-restraint, of high aim, of patriotic purpose, of unselfish
devotion. Very beautiful and touching, too, were the popular expressions
of sympathy which were sent to the widowed Queen, the light of whose
life had been extinguished at one fell stroke.

Till Count Vitzthum’s “Reminiscences” appeared, little that was
authentic had been published as to the personal history of the Queen
during the first days of her widowhood. “Just as the Queen had failed,”
writes Count Vitzthum, who obtained his information from the Duke of
Cambridge, “to recognise the danger till the last moment, so also she
appears not to have realised, for the first few days after all was
over, the full extent of her loss. Her composure was almost unnatural,
and it was not till her return to Osborne that she awoke to the full
consciousness of this unexpected blow. ‘Her Majesty is unnaturally
quiet,’ was the remark of an eye-witness two days after the event.” The
Duchess of Cambridge was the first member of the Royal Family who
ventured to write to the Queen. She described the answer of the Princess
Alice as “heartrending.” Her Majesty sat all day in dumb despair,
staring vacantly round her, and it was only with the utmost difficulty
that the Royal sign manual could be obtained for the most urgent
business. The wise, strong affection and the capable energy of the
Princess Alice, however, spared her Majesty from many anxieties at the
moment when her grief was keenest. Lord Granville was the first Minister
she was able to see, and she transacted some business with him a few
days after the Prince’s death. Sir Charles Phipps, too, strove hard to
lighten the burden of sovereignty for his Royal mistress in the darkest
hours of her life; but his efforts, though well meant, gave rise to
misunderstandings. “I hear,” writes Lord Malmesbury in his Diary, on the
28th of December, “that Ministers have signed a memorial to the Queen
refusing to transact business with her through Sir C. Phipps.” From a
constitutional point of view Palmerston and his colleagues were right in
taking this course. Whether it was generous, or even wise, to annoy the
Queen at such a moment with their cruelly conscientious pedantry is not
a question that admits of much argument.[113] Her Majesty was able to
hold her first Privy Council, after the Prince’s death, on the 11th of
January, the Duke of Newcastle, Lord Granville, and Sir George Grey
being in attendance. The chief point under discussion was that of
summoning Parliament.

The Duke of Newcastle, who was a valued friend of the Prince Consort,,
had a quiet conversation with her Majesty early in January, before she
left Windsor for Osborne. “His account of the Queen,” writes Mr. Hayward
in a letter to Lady Emily Peel, “is highly favourable. He said his
private interview left him with the very highest opinion of her strength
of character.”[114] After retiring to Osborne, however, nervous
exhaustion seriously impaired her strength. Lady Ely told Lord
Malmesbury that during the first weeks at Osborne her Majesty seemed
very low and wretched. “She (Lady Ely),” writes Lord Malmesbury on the
4th of February, 1862, “gives a sad report of the poor Queen, who talks
continually about the Prince, and seems to feel comfort in doing so. She
takes great pleasure in the universal feeling of sympathy for her and
sorrow for him shown by all classes.”[115] King Leopold of Belgium came
to Osborne in the end of January, and he endeavoured by his good offices
to bring about an arrangement with Lord Palmerston for facilitating the
transaction of Ministerial business with the Queen. At that time her
health was not actually bad. But the King of the Belgians said that
though she was outwardly composed she was not equal to the strain of
dining at table, even with her half-sister, the Princess Hohenlohe, and
with Prince Louis of Hesse, who were then at Osborne. She seems to have
desired no other companionship in the first weeks of her widowhood save
that of the Princess Alice.

Count Vitzthum was in Lisbon when the tidings of the Prince Consort’s
death arrived, but he returned to London very soon afterwards. He says,
“The consternation I found prevailing among all classes of the people
surpassed my utmost expectations. Mr. Disraeli spoke to me with deep and
heartfelt sorrow of the irreparable loss that England had sustained.
‘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. He was the
permanent Private Secretary, the permanent Prime Minister of the Queen.
If he had outlived some of the ‘old stagers,’ he would have given us,
while retaining all constitutional guarantees, the blessings of absolute
government. Of us younger men who are qualified to enter the Cabinet,
there is not one who would not willingly have bowed to his experience.
We are now in the midst of a change of government. What to-morrow will
bring forth no man can tell. To-day we are sailing in the deepest gloom,
with night and darkness all around us.’” Some very curious details were
collected by Count Vitzthum relating to the Prince Consort’s illness. On
the 15th of January the Duke of Cambridge, who was then staying with his
mother at Kew, invited Count Vitzthum and Count Apponyi to dinner, and
from his conversation the former was able to glean the following
facts:--“The illness,” writes Count Vitzthum, “which snatched away the
Prince so suddenly in his forty-second year was at first nothing but a
gastric fever, as his private librarian, Mr. Ruland, had informed me by
letter on the day before I left for Lisbon. This so-called Windsor
fever, so frequently recurrent at that season in the badly-drained town,
soon, however, became typhoid. The Prince did not seem to be really ill,
though as early as the 23rd or 24th of November his mind strangely
wandered. His valet[116] felt instinctively what was necessary. ‘Living
here will kill your Royal Highness,’ he frequently repeated. ‘You must
leave Windsor and go to Germany for a time to rest and recover
strength.’ These well-meant warnings passed unheeded by the patient, who
showed the listlessness so foreign to his nature, but so characteristic
of this disease. The most serious sign was sleeplessness and a total
want of appetite. All the symptoms show that. I had the same illness
myself last year. My own experience, therefore, makes me convinced that
the sick man, from the indifference he showed for everything, especially
for the preservation of his own life, had no idea of the danger he was
in. This is the peculiarity of typhoid fever, which so completely
shatters the nervous system. It requires, after timely diagnosis,
complete rest and gentle treatment. When once the blood-poisoning has
reached a certain stage no human aid can avail.

[Illustration: CAMBRIDGE COTTAGE, KEW.]

“Above all things the Prince seems to have had no doctor attending him
who was capable of recognising the gravity of the disease in time.
Unfortunately, his physician, Dr. Bayly, had been killed in a railway
accident the year before. Sir James Clark, fifty years before a
distinguished physician of the old school, had virtually retired from
practice, and probably had but a limited knowledge of the advance made
by modern science in the treatment of typhoid diseases. As physician to
the Queen his position had been for twenty years a sinecure. Her Majesty
enjoys such excellent health that she does not know what it is to be
ill. Hence to the last moment she clung to vain hopes in regard to the
condition of her husband, which Sir James very possibly confirmed. In
consequence of the urgent representations of Ministers,[117] Dr. Watson
and Sir Henry Holland were summoned in addition to Dr. Jenner. Sir
Henry Holland is said to have been the first to have had the courage,
when it was too late, to tell the Queen the truth.

“The news of the death of King Dom Pedro, whom the Prince had loved as a
son, had deeply affected him.... As he himself confessed, he hardly
closed his eyes from the time he received the news till the fever
actually set in. The troubles with America also embittered his last
hours. He was so tired that at times he nodded off to sleep when
standing. He felt always cold, and ate scarcely anything. Already in the
autumn at Balmoral he had a presentiment of his death. So strong was
this feeling ten days before he died that he enjoined Princess Alice,
having ascertained that the Queen was not in the room, to write and tell
her sister in Berlin that their father would not recover. The next day
he asked the Princess whether she had done so, and she replied that she
had not. On the 13th, the day before his death, he got up and transacted
some business with his private secretary, Mr. Ruland. The Queen drove
out, and during the drive appeared much easier about her husband’s
condition. On her return she found him in bed, unconscious, and with the
extremities ice-cold. Now for the first time they all realised the
danger. Princess Alice, on her own responsibility, sent for the Prince
of Wales, who was then at Cambridge. Sir Charles Phipps telegraphed
during the night for the Duke of Cambridge, who left London by the first
train on the 14th, and arrived at Windsor at 8 o’clock in the morning.
The alarming symptoms had increased, and the doctors did not conceal
that the Prince had only a few hours to live. The Queen alone still
deceived herself with hopes, and telegraphed early on the 14th to
Berlin, ‘Dear Vic., Papa has had a good night’s rest, and I hope the
danger is over.’” These details are important, because they partially
explain the secret of what has been to many inexplicable--the extreme
sorrow that has clouded the Queen’s life during her long widowhood. It
has been bitter to look back on the past and see how much might have
been done that was left undone to save the life which was far dearer to
her than her own.

As to the public aspects of the Queen’s married life, Count Vitzthum was
favoured with many disclosures from the Duchess of Cambridge. “She
spoke,” writes the Count, “with tears in her eyes, of the almost
unparalleled happiness of his (the Prince Consort’s) twenty years of
married life, now brought to such a sudden end. In all that clear and
sunny sky there was only one cloud. How gladly would the Queen have
shared her crown with the husband who helped her to wear it, and was her
all in all! In vain already, in Sir Robert Peel’s time, had she
expressed her wish to bestow the title of King upon her husband. The
constitutional scruples of the deceased Tory Minister were urged still
more emphatically by Lord Palmerston when, later on, the question was
again mooted. The promotion of the Prince to the title of ‘Prince
Consort’ was the consequence of a compromise. Prince Albert was
naturalised in 1840, and obtained, in the same year, by letters patent,
precedence next to the Queen. Nevertheless, he was not a British prince,
and both at Court and the Privy Council his eldest son, on attaining his
majority, must have taken precedence of him. ‘For the Prince of Wales,’
as the Duke of Cambridge says, ‘is and remains Prince of Wales.’”

“The value which the Queen attached to her husband’s precedence is
explained by the submissive veneration she invariably showed him in
great as well as small affairs. He was complete master in his house, and
the active centre of an Empire whose power extends to every quarter of
the globe. It was a gigantic task for a young German prince to think and
act for all these millions of British subjects. All the threads were
gathered together in his hands. For twenty-one years not a single
despatch was ever sent from the Foreign Office which the Prince had not
seen, studied, and, if necessary, altered. Not a single report of any
importance from an Ambassador was allowed to be kept from him. The
Secretary of State for the Colonies, the Secretary for War, the Home
Secretary, the First Lord of the Admiralty--all handed to him every day
just as large bundles of papers as did the Foreign Office. Everything
was read, commented upon, and discussed. In addition to all this, the
Prince kept up private correspondence with foreign Sovereigns, with
British Ambassadors and Envoys, with the Governor-General of India, and
with the Governors of the various colonies. No appointment in Church and
State, in the Army or the Navy, was ever made without his approbation.
At Court not the smallest thing was done without his order. No British
Cabinet Minister has ever worked so hard during the Session of
Parliament--and that is saying a good deal--as the Prince Consort did
for twenty-one years. And the Ministers come and go; or at any rate, if
frequently and long in office, as was the case with Palmerston and
Russell, they have four or five months’ holiday every year. The Prince
had no holidays at all. He was always in harness.

“The Continental notion that Royalty in England is a sinecure was
signally refuted by the example of Prince Albert. As for the charge
sometimes alleged against him, that owing to his Liberalism he yielded
too much to the Ministers--in other words, to Parliament--it is wholly
groundless. The influence exercised on the Government by the Crown is a
power which makes itself felt, not merely in crises at home and abroad,
but continually. This influence is, however, indirect, and wears a
different garb in England to that which it assumes, for example, in
Russia and France. Prince Albert’s task was all the more difficult,
since his decision depended on unknown data, and he had to reckon with
the changing factors of a constitution the foundations of which have
been undermined for years by the rising waves of democracy. If, in spite
of all this, the Crown’s game, as Prince Metternich expressed it, has
been well played, this result is doubly creditable to the late Prince,
inasmuch as he could only direct the game--not play it himself. With
what tact and skill he did so is proved by the fact that, with the
exception of the British Ministers and a few intimate friends, no one
had any idea of the actual position of the Prince during his lifetime.
Those who knew it were pledged to keep the secret, which now for the
first time since his death has been revealed to the nation.

“As truth appears to have been the most prominent attribute of the
Prince, this necessary game of concealment must have been all the more
painful to him. The daily regard for public opinion gave rise to
misunderstandings, to overcome which required an amount of elasticity
which was bound gradually to weaken. Sparing as the deceased was of
sleep, it is difficult to understand how he found time to grapple with
the mass of business. He could never call an hour his own. The continual
receptions, notwithstanding the uniformity of an almost cloister-like
Court life, no less than the mere physical strain caused by the
continual change of residence, cut up the day into pieces and left
scarcely any time for rest and reflection. The wonder is how he found it
possible, in the midst of these occupations, to attend with labouring
conscientiousness to the cares of government; to conduct personally the
education of nine children; to prosecute his studies in all branches of
human knowledge; to astonish men with the results of these studies; and
at the same time to live, as he did, for art, himself a student, and
constant patron of music, painting, and poetry.”[118]

From these disclosures the following conclusions can now be drawn. The
Prince Consort really killed himself by overwork. The Windsor fever,
which was the proximate cause of his death, was neglected at the outset.
Even when the symptoms were recognised as serious they were
misunderstood and treated feebly by his physicians. Finally, when
competent medical advice was sought, it was sought too late.

Of the Prince Consort’s character, much that is interesting and curious
might be written. “The silent father of our kings to be” was respected
rather than appreciated during his life by the nation he served so well.
Save for the fact that he had no special aptitude for military science,
we might have traced a curious parallelism between the work he did for
England, and that which was done by William of Orange. Prince Albert’s
strength, and perhaps his weakness, really lay in his capacity for
looking at affairs from other than merely conventional British points of
view. His serene intellect had scarcely any bias traceable to prejudice
or vanity. His conclusions were always based on the application of a
finely tempered logical mind, to all the facts of a given case that
could be collected by patient and unceasing industry. A natural love of
justice and truth informed his convictions. Instinctive

[Illustration: THE PRINCESS ALICE.

(_From the Photograph by Mayall._)]

sagacity and wise tolerance characterised his judgments. The good
sense--which, according to Sainte-Beuve, gave form and substance to the
ideas of Louis XIV.--never deserted Prince Albert in any crisis of his
life. His policy was seldom at fault, because its sole aim was to
conserve national as distinguished from dynastic interests. If he erred
during the Crimean War he erred with some of the wisest men of his time.
If he undervalued the promise and potency of the great movement which
led to Italian independence, his mistake was excusable. It was wrapt up
in the tortuous policy of Napoleon III. and Cavour, which was hateful to
him just because it was tortuous, and, moreover, he dreaded any movement
on the Continent which, by letting loose the ungovernable ambition of
the Bonapartist dynasty and giving free play to the aggressive
instincts of France, might again convert Belgium and Germany into “the
cockpit of Europe.” Arnold has said of Sophocles, “He saw life steadily
and saw it whole.” The Prince Consort was almost alone among his
contemporaries by reason of his capacity to see organised society
steadily and to see it whole. He was an omnivorous, desultory reader,
and his education was fortunately neither academical nor technical,
neither exclusively literary nor exclusively scientific. His thirst for
knowledge was unquenchable, and it was gratified under the guidance of a
singularly correct taste. He was constantly corresponding with all sorts
of interesting people, in all ranks of life, who happened to know
anything that was worth knowing. Every business, or pursuit, or calling,
that made men useful to each other, or added comfort, grace, beauty, and
dignity to existence, had an irresistible fascination for him. A clever
critic has said of Edmund Burke what might well be said of Prince
Albert, whose mind, though less imaginative was more reflective.
“Burke’s imagination,” writes Mr. Augustine Birrell, “led him to look
out over the whole land: the legislator devising new laws; the judge
expounding and enforcing old ones; the merchant despatching his goods
and extending his credit; the banker advancing the money of his
customers upon the credit of the merchant; the frugal man slowly
accumulating the store which is to support him in old age; the ancient
institutions of Church and University, with their seemly provisions for
sound learning and pure religion; the parson in his pulpit; the poet
pondering his rhymes; the farmer eyeing his crops; the painter covering
his canvases; the player educating the feelings.”[119] Similarly, when
Prince Albert thought of England or her interests, her aims, and her
mission in the world, it was not the England of St. James’s or St.
Giles’s, of Piccadilly or the slums, or of any special class or order,
that presented itself to his mind. It was the England which the eye of
the historian will see--the England which has been built up and is
maintained by the toil, the self-sacrifice, the enterprise, the
leadership, and the genius of all who in their several stations work for
her with brain and hand. To give these workers peace and security--that
was to the Prince Consort the fundamental problem of statecraft, and the
only true touchstone of policies. His finger was always on the pulse of
the nation, and to every change in its feverish throbbing he was as
sensitive as a physician. His “catholicity of gaze” has done for his
writings and his speeches, what originality of thought and brilliancy of
style have done for those of other men. It has enabled them to stand the
test of time. If he failed to win unbounded popularity during his
lifetime, it was because, as the French say, he had the defects of his
qualities. His lot was not with the idlers of the earth, and he had
little in common either with an aristocracy of pleasure or a democracy
of noisy but futile activities. “Society,” says Dr. Martineau, “has
reason for dismay where there is an ever-widening chasm between the two
summit levels of thought and character.” The Prince Consort’s public
life seemed as if it were planned in order to bridge this chasm. As for
his private life, it is perhaps enough to say that the veneration and
love with which his family, his friends, and his servants regarded him
sufficiently attest its unblemished worth. Of the calumnies that pursued
him almost to the verge of the grave, there is little to add to what has
been already stated in preceding chapters. They never touched his honour
as a gentleman, or his conduct as the head of an illustrious family. All
the attacks which were directed against him were ostensibly directed
against his supposed interference with affairs of State--in the
interests of foreign despots. These attacks were, however, made by the
Iagos of politics, from mixed motives of malignity and self-interest. As
the late Mr. Albany Fonblanque once remarked, they came from those who
had distinguished themselves by their unfailing championship of every
form of despotism, and by their inveterate hatred of liberty “in every
province of politics, and in every part of the world.”[120] Calumny from
such quarters never needed any explanation, and the Prince met it, not
with a defence, but with disdain.

It was on the 23rd of December that the Prince Consort’s remains were
removed from Windsor Castle, and temporarily deposited in the entrance
to the Royal Vault in St. George’s Chapel, where they were to lie until
the completion and consecration of a mausoleum for their reception.
Shortly before noon the gloomy pageant began to file through the gate of
the Norman Tower. It was headed by mourning coaches, containing four of
the Prince’s old servants, followed by an array of coaches with
officials of his suite and household. One of the Queen’s carriages
preceded the hearse. In it was Lord Spencer, who, as the Prince’s Groom
of the Stole, carried his “crown.” His _bâton_, sword, and hat were
borne by Lieut.-Colonel Lord George Lennox, the Prince’s Lord of the
Bedchamber. The hearse, decorated in quiet, good taste with the Prince’s
escutcheons, was escorted by the Second Life Guards, followed by the
Queen’s carriage, the carriages of the Prince of Wales, the Duke of
Cambridge, and the Duchess of Cambridge. The line of route was kept by
the Second Life Guards and Scots Fusiliers with arms reversed. Long ere
the procession reached St. George’s Chapel, the choir was filled by
those who were invited to the ceremony, but not to join in procession,
and the Knights of the Garter were in their stalls. The Royal Family met
in the chapter-room at noon, from which, when the funeral procession was
re-formed, on the arrival of the corpse at the South Park, they were
conducted to their places by the Lord Chamberlain. As before, the
servants and dependents of the Prince headed the procession. They were
followed by servants and officers of the Royal household, in order of
rank, the _bâton_, sword, hat, and crown

[Illustration: ST. GEORGE’S CHAPEL, WINDSOR, SHOWING THE ROYAL GALLERY
AND ALTAR.]

of the Prince being carried immediately before the coffin, which was
preceded by Lord Sydney, her Majesty’s Lord Chamberlain. The
pall-bearers were Sir Charles Phipps, General Grey, General Wylde,
Colonel Francis Seymour, Lord Waterpark, Colonel Hood, Lieut.-Colonel
Dudley de Ros, and Major du Plat, who were respectively Treasurer,
Private Secretary, Groom of the Bedchamber, Lord of the Bedchamber,
Clerk Marshal, and equerries to his Royal Highness. Immediately after
the coffin came Garter King-at-Arms, followed by the Prince of Wales as
chief mourner, who was supported by Prince Arthur, the Duke of
Saxe-Coburg-and-Gotha, and attended by General Bruce, the Crown Prince
of Prussia, the Duke of Brabant, the Count de Flandres, the Duke de
Nemours, Prince Louis of Hesse, Prince Edward of Saxe-Weimar, the Count
Gleichen, and the Maharajah Dhuleep Singh. They were followed by their
suites. On arriving within the choir, the Prince’s crown, _bâton_,
sword, and hat were reverently laid on the coffin, at the head of which
stood the Prince of Wales, with Prince Arthur and the Duke of
Saxe-Coburg-and-Gotha on either side of him. The other illustrious
mourners formed a group behind them. At the foot of the coffin the Lord
Chamberlain stood, and the pall-bearers stood on each side of it. When
the first part of the

[Illustration: FUNERAL OF THE PRINCE CONSORT: PROCESSION IN THE NAVE OF
ST. GEORGE’S CHAPEL.]

service was over, the coffin was lowered into the vault. The Dean of
Windsor having concluded the ritual, Garter-King-at-Arms proclaimed the
style and titles of the Prince, and then the mourners left the chapel,
while the “Dead March” in _Saul_ was played on the organ. Lord
Palmerston’s absence was accounted for by an attack of gout, which had
been aggravated by his grief for the Prince’s death. Severe illness
confined the Duke of Cambridge to his room. The absence of Dr. Jenner,
which was remarked, was due to a melancholy cause. He was detained at
Osborne in constant attendance on the grief-stricken Queen. For during
the first agony of grief that followed the death of the Prince Consort
serious fears were entertained lest the Queen should herself fall ill
and die. “How you suffered,” wrote the Princess Alice to her mother many
long years afterwards, “was dreadful to witness. Never shall I forget
what I went through for you then; it tore my heart in pieces.”[121]
Although the Princess took on herself the management of the household,
and both verbally and by writing strove to transact her mother’s
business, it was obvious that something must be done to rouse her
Majesty from the lethargy of sorrow. King Leopold accordingly insisted
on an immediate change of surroundings, and decided that she must be
taken to Osborne. For a time the Queen resisted this decision. Even the
Princess Alice remonstrated with Sir Charles Phipps against a step which
seemed to her to be cruel. But she yielded at last to King Leopold’s
wishes, and it was indeed through her influence that the Queen was
finally induced to quit Windsor before her husband’s remains were laid
in the grave.[122] “What a blow this has been,” wrote Bishop Wilberforce
to the Hon. Arthur Gordon when describing the scene at St. George’s
Chapel; “all my old affection for him (the Prince Consort) has revived
over his tomb--and for our poor Queen.... The funeral was most deeply
affecting; you saw old dry political eyes, which seemed as if they had
long forgotten how to weep, gradually melting and running down in large
drops of sympathy. The two Princes and the brother (the Duke of
Saxe-Coburg-and-Gotha) and the son-in-law intended (Prince Louis of
Hesse) were all deeply moved.”[123]

CHAPTER V.

WAR AND FAMINE.

Outbreak of Civil War in the United States--Origin of the
Dispute--The Missouri Compromise--Effect of the “Gold Rush” on the
Extension of Slavery--Colonising Nebraska--The Struggle in
“Bleeding Kansas”--Assault on Senator Sumner--The Wyandotte
Constitution--The Dred Scott Case--Election of Mr. Lincoln as
President--Secession of South Carolina--Organisation of the
Southern Confederacy--The Firing of the First Shot--Capture of Fort
Sumter--Lincoln’s Call to Arms--Opinion in England--The _Trent_
Affair--The Queen and the Prince Consort avert War--Opening of
Parliament--Bitter Controversy over the Education Code--Parliament
and the Civil War--The Cotton Famine--A Relief Bill--War
Expenditure--Mr. Disraeli denounces Lord Palmerston’s “Bloated
Armaments”--A Budget without a Surplus--The Fortifications at
Spithead--Floating _versus_ Fixed Forts--A Mexican
Adventure--Revolution in Greece--Bismarck’s Visit to
London--Anecdote of Bismarck and Mr. Disraeli--Progress of the
American War--Mr. Peabody’s Benefactions--The Exhibition of
1862--The Prince of Wales’s Tour in the East--The Hartley Colliery
Accident--Marriage of the Princess Alice--The Queen’s Visit to
Belgium--Her Meeting with the Princess Alexandra of Denmark--The
Queen’s Visit to Gotha--Removal of the Prince Consort’s Remains to
the Mausoleum at Frogmore.

The closing days of 1861 and the opening days of 1862 were days of
feverish excitement. The citizens of the United States were locked in
the deadly and fratricidal strife of Civil War. The passions and
prejudices which divided them into hostile armies, divided their kith
and kin in England into hostile factions. In America the fight between
North and South was waged on the field of battle. In England it was
carried on in the Press, on the Platform, on the floor of the Senate, in
Clubs, in drawing-rooms, by road and rail, in the market-places of the
great cities, and in the ale-houses of quiet rural villages. Roughly
speaking, the classes as opposed to the masses took the side of the
South. Those who view public affairs from the standpoint of privileged
as distinguished from national and popular interests, and who can always
command the facile advocacy of what may be termed the organs of
well-dressed opinion in the London Press, were nearly all arrayed
against the North. At the end of 1861 the nation watched the struggle
with breathless interest, for events had happened which rendered it
probable that England might be dragged into it.

When the United States formed themselves into a Federal Republic each
State dealt as it pleased with the question of slavery. But when new
Territories were annexed it was difficult to say whether slavery should
or should not be recognised in them. The people of the slave States
argued that under the Federal Constitution a citizen of any State had
the right to settle in and transfer his property to any of the partially
organised Territories which were owned in common by all the States.
Slaves were property. Therefore a citizen who had slaves had a right to
hold them in any of the Territories. Soon, however, Territories became
sufficiently populous to be admitted as States. In that case was
slavery to be recognised in them? During the Presidency of Mr. Monroe
(1816) this difficulty became acute. A Bill authorising the Territory of
Missouri to form itself into a State was introduced. Mr. Talmage, of New
York, proposed to insert a clause converting the Territory into a Free
State. The controversy raised on the point was settled in 1820 by the
adoption of what was called “The Missouri Compromise” by which slavery
was prohibited in new States north of latitude 36° 30´. The
slave-owners’ party endeavoured, by making war on Mexico, to increase
the territory available for slavery, and under the Presidency of General
Taylor, who was elected in 1849, they persuaded Congress to virtually
abandon the Missouri Compromise, and permit all Territories, in the
event of becoming States, to decide for themselves whether or not they
should recognise slavery. They based their hopes on the aggressive
activity of their squatters. It was supposed that they would pour more
rapidly into the new Territories than emigrants from the Free States,
and thus in every _plébiscite_ turn the scale in favour of slavery. And
but for an accident the policy of the Southern leaders would have
triumphed, and slavery would not only have been established in the new
Territories contiguous to the Southern States, but even in the
North-West itself. This accident was the discovery of gold in
California. The “gold rush” from the Free States to the Pacific Coast
was not a migration but an exodus, and long ere the Southern squatter
could settle in force in these regions, they were swarming with citizens
from New England. In the Pacific Territories, where slavery must have
been legalised had the Missouri Compromise not been upset by Southern
politicians, it was prohibited by popular vote, and in 1850 California
joined the Union as a Free State. Meanwhile the Fugitive Slave Law had
created much ill-feeling between the Free and other Slave States.[124]
Some of them, like Massachusetts, prohibited its enforcement. But the
two great parties were agreed in abiding by the Fugitive Law, and
maintaining slavery in _statu quo_. During the administration of
President Pierce (who was elected in 1852) the conflict over the
organisation of Kansas and Nebraska into Territories disturbed the
_status quo_. Their people had it in their power to determine the
question of slavery for themselves, and to control the popular vote in
favour of slavery. Missouri, which was a Slave State, therefore poured
pro-slavery emigrants into both Territories. It was alleged that most of
these were sham settlers, and that the pro-slavery vote was tainted by
terrorism and fraud. But be that as it may, a Territorial government in
favour of slavery was organised in Nebraska and Kansas, and President
Pierce appointed Governors pledged to secure the ultimate admission of
these Territories to the Union as Free States. To defeat this
policy settlers from the Free States migrated to Nebraska and
Kansas--“bleeding Kansas,” as it was called in the North--and they were
supplied with arms and money to defend themselves against the “border
ruffians” from Missouri, who naturally objected to their company.
Ultimately there came to be two rival governments in the Territories,
and when in 1856 the anti-slavery party elected their own State
officers, and repudiated all that had been done in the interests of
slavery, President Pierce ordered the Governor to call on Federal troops
to enforce the pro-slavery laws of the Territory.

[Illustration: MR. LINCOLN.]

During the debates in Congress on this subject, Senator Sumner happening
to make a strong speech in favour of the anti-slavery party in Kansas,
was brutally assaulted in his place in the Senate by a slave-owner
called Brooks, a senator from South Carolina. “To me,” said Sir George
Cornewall Lewis of this outrage, writing to Sir Edmund Head, “it seems
the first blow in a civil war,” and it was. In 1857 Mr. Buchanan was
elected President. The Supreme Court of the United States, in the famous
Dred Scott case, decided that negroes had no rights save those which the
Government gave them, and that Congress could no more prohibit a citizen
from taking his slave into any State, than it could prohibit him from
taking there any kind of property whose safe possession was guaranteed
to him by the Constitution.[125] This, of course, intensified the
struggle between North and South for the control of Nebraska and
“bleeding Kansas.” Southern slave-owners saw that they must have an
outlet for their surplus slave population. If they lost Kansas and
Nebraska they must seize Cuba or Mexico, or both, or secede from a Union
in which the Slave States would be in a minority, and at the mercy of
the Free States. The struggle went on till, in 1859, Kansas adopted, by
a majority of 4,000, the Wyandotte Constitution, prohibiting slavery.
President Buchanan seems to have prepared for the worst, because he now
began secretly to pour munitions of war and arms, which were the common
property of the North and the South, into Southern strongholds. The
Democratic party split into a Southern and a Northern wing over the Dred
Scott case, so that in November, 1859, the Republicans elected Mr.
Abraham Lincoln as President, pledged to maintain the principle that
freedom was the normal condition of the Territories, which Congress must
preserve and defend--though slavery in the old Slave States was not
assailed as a domestic institution.

The difference between North and South was thus sharp and clear. The
North desired to maintain the _status quo_ with regard to slavery, and
to prohibit the extension of its area. The South demanded the extension
of its area into the Territories, and all new States that might be
carved out of them. Lincoln’s election was followed, at the beginning of
1860, by the secession of South Carolina. By the end of February, 1861,
her example was imitated by Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas,
Georgia, and Alabama. Tennessee, North Carolina, Arkansas, Kentucky, and
Missouri were wavering. When Congress met, President Buchanan, in his
last Message, explained how events were drifting, denied the right of
the Southern States to secede, but doubted the power of Congress to levy
war on seceding States. The Crittenden compromise was now proposed, but
it came too late.[126] Another attempt was made to conciliate the South
by an amendment to the Constitution, prohibiting Congress from ever
meddling with slavery in the United States. By this time the seceding
States had met at Montgomery, and had organised the Government of the
Confederate States of America. The constitution adopted differed from
that of the United States in that it recognised slavery, extended the
term of the President’s office, and prohibited tariffs for other
purposes than raising revenue.[127] Being producers, not of manufactured
goods, but of raw material, the governing class in the South were
naturally Free Traders. Mr. Jefferson Davis was chosen President, and
Mr. Alexander H. Stephen Vice-President, and their Government prepared
to carry on war. In Congress, the withdrawal of the Southern
representatives enabled the Republicans by large majorities to admit
Kansas as a Free State, to organise Nevada, Colorado, and Dakota as
Territories, and to adopt a new protective tariff mainly in the
interests of the Eastern States and Pennsylvania.

With the exception of two or three small forts, the Government of the
seceding States took quiet possession of all fortresses and places of
arms in their territory. This was easily done, because in most instances
the officers in command, though holding Federal commissions, betrayed
their masters. Major Anderson, however, was an exception. He held Fort
Sumter, in Charleston Harbour, for the Federal Government. Mr. Lincoln
was inaugurated as President on 4th of March, 1861. In his Message to
Congress he said that the Government was determined to relieve Fort
Sumter, and whilst denying the right of the South to secede, he asserted
the right of the Federal Government to preserve the Union. On the 13th
of April, 1861, Fort Sumter was attacked by the rebel, or Confederate
forces, and on the 14th it surrendered. On the 15th Lincoln issued his
first call for troops, and by this time only an insignificant section of
the Democratic Party remained true to their principle that secession was
a constitutional right, and that the Federal Government had no legal
authority to coerce a State. Within a fortnight after the first shot was
fired, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas joined the
South. Small majorities, however, held Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and
Missouri for the North. The capture of Fort Sumter stirred up a war
feeling in the loyal States which astonished the Confederate leaders. So
eagerly did the Northern men respond to Lincoln’s call that the Federal
Government, ere the end of the year, had half a million of troops at its
disposal. As, however, most of the officers of the regular army had gone
over to the South, the Federal troops chiefly consisted of armed mobs of
volunteers.

In England up to this point the main current of public opinion set in
favour of the North. Lord Shaftesbury gave expression to the general
voice when he said, in a letter to the _Times_, “the triumph of the
South meant the consolidation of slavery, and his sympathies,
therefore, were wholly for the North.”[128] But the inflated language in
which Northern partisans discounted their easy conquest of the South,
and denounced the “unnatural rebellion” of the Confederate States,
tended to strengthen the aristocratic faction who were in favour of the
South. It was asked sarcastically if Secession could possibly be more
illegal than the revolt of the Thirteen Colonies from which the Federal
Union sprang? Had not Americans defended, with wearisome iteration, the
sacred right of insurrection in Monarchical countries? Was it consistent
with English Liberalism to scan too closely the legitimate origin of
States, either in the Old world or the New, which having struck out an
independent existence, were prepared to defend it? As for slavery, had
not President Lincoln overruled General Fremont’s order liberating
slaves in Missouri? In fact, the partisans of the South grew bolder
every day. The asperity of the Northern Press and Government, when they
found they could not command the unanimous support of England, favoured
the progress of the Southern cause in England. In concert with the
French Government, Lord Palmerston not only adopted a policy of
neutrality, but recognised each party to the struggle as belligerents.
He would indeed have been foolish to have treated the people of twelve
organised States as a small mob of rioters, and armed ships flying their
flags, as pirates. For this step England was as violently denounced in
the North, as France was fulsomely praised. The classes who have no
anchorage in principles for their plastic opinions were fast veering
round to the side of the South, and Mr. Lincoln’s strong measures, which
caused _Habeas Corpus_ to be suspended in Washington, suppressed
newspapers, and imprisoned persons suspected of disloyalty, helped to
obscure the real issue in the eyes of the English people.

In August the Federal troops attacked the Confederate position south of
the Potomac at Bull’s Run, and were defeated; but the Northern levies
effectually protected Washington, and held down wavering States like
Maryland. Then an incident happened which threatened to extinguish the
small party which among the wealthier classes in England still favoured
the North. On the 8th of November, 1861, Captain Wilkes, of the _San
Jacinto_, a Federal man-of-war, stopped and boarded the English mail
steamer, _Trent_, which had the day before sailed from Havannah with
passengers for Europe. Among these were Messrs. Mason and Slidell,
Envoys accredited by the Confederate Government to the English and
French Courts. Captain Wilkes arrested them and carried them away to the
_San Jacinto_, in spite of the protests of the Commander of the _Trent_.
On the 27th of November, when the news reached England, the partisans of
the Southern States strove hard to lash the country into fury. The
arrest was an outrage, but instead of inquiring whether Captain Wilkes
acted under orders, the sympathisers with the South, headed by the

[Illustration: THE “SAN JACINTO” STOPPING THE “TRENT.”]

Tory Press, clamoured for war against the United States. The popular
excitement increased every day, and the Prince Consort, then sickening
under his last illness, grew anxious as to the result. The Crimean War
had taught him that with popular passions roused, and a bellicose
Minister like Palmerston in power, there was no limit to the folly which
Englishmen might perpetrate. The Queen, who had steadfastly opposed
every suggestion which had been made in the direction of manifesting
sympathy with the Southern Confederacy, became nervous lest her policy
of scrupulous neutrality should be thwarted. She was informed on the
29th of November that the Cabinet were determined to demand reparation,
and Palmerston had indicated that he was ready to assume Captain Wilkes
had been positively instructed by Mr. Lincoln’s Government to insult the
British flag. To the Queen this seemed an absurd assumption. But she
knew that if the idea was in Palmerston’s mind it would most certainly
appear in some offensive form in Lord Russell’s despatches. Yet, if it
was offensively manifested there, it would tempt the United States
Government to refuse reparation--for Mr. Lincoln had also to contend
with a stupid, boastful party in the Northern States, who were as
eagerly clamouring for war with England as the same stupid party in
England were clamouring for war with America.

On the 30th of November, 1861, Lord Russell forwarded the despatches to
Windsor, and they confirmed the Queen’s suspicions. She disliked their
tone, and took them to the Prince Consort, who quite endorsed her
opinion. Though he was so ill that he could hardly hold his pen, he
drafted a Memorandum for the Queen, complaining of the dispatch to the
American Government, and suggesting a more courteous and friendly way of
stating the case against them. Even this draft the Queen herself revised
and slightly toned down. The point on which she and the Prince Consort
insisted was that all through Lord Russell should emphasise the
assumption that as the United States Government could not have intended
to wantonly insult England, they would naturally be desirous of offering
reparation for any breach of international law Captain Wilkes had
committed, either by disobeying or misunderstanding his instructions.
The words of the royal draft were adopted, and with the happiest result.
When the despatch arrived at Washington, Mr. Seward, the Secretary of
State, told Lord Lyons, the British Minister, that the wording of it
meant peace or war. He begged him, therefore, to let him see it
privately before it was presented officially. It was sent to him. After
reading it, Seward went immediately to Lord Lyons and told him that the
tone of the despatch was so courteous and friendly that it would enable
him to avert war, in spite of the recriminatory outcry of the press, the
vote of thanks which Congress had passed to Captain Wilkes, and the
ovations he had received in Northern cities. Seward was now able to
extricate his Government from a false position, by the loophole of
escape which the Prince Consort’s sagacity had opened for him. With some
difficulty he reconciled the Government and people of the North to
admit that Captain Wilkes acted without instructions, that a breach of
international law had been committed, but that the prisoners must be
“cheerfully liberated.” The difficulty of his task was unfortunately
aggravated by the menacing warlike preparations of the English
Government, and the departure of troops for Canada before he had an
opportunity of answering the despatch. On the 9th of January, 1862, the
news that the dispute was settled reached the Queen. She replied, in a
note to Lord Palmerston, that she was sure he would recognise that the
peaceful issue to which the quarrel had been brought was “greatly owing
to her beloved Prince,” whose Memorandum altering the despatch to the
American Government “was the last thing he ever wrote.”[129]
Palmerston’s warlike preparations, which nearly rendered a diplomatic
solution of the difficulty impossible, cost the country £5,000,000.

Although the houses of the _grandes dames_ of politics were opened
earlier than usual in 1862, and politicians flocked to town sooner than
was their custom, it was generally known that the Session would be dull
and uneventful. The death of the Prince Consort overshadowed Society,
and the leaders of both parties generously agreed that political strife
should be suspended till the Queen was better able to bear the anxieties
of party conflicts which lead to Ministerial crises. Lord Russell was
well pleased with the termination of the American quarrel, because it
left the Foreign Office free to assert the ascendency of England in the
councils of Europe. Lord Palmerston was not displeased that his
Government had won a diplomatic victory, for which the public, ignorant
of the true effect of his extravagant military preparations on American
opinion, gave him credit. Rumours had at this time gone abroad that his
health was seriously impaired by the death of the Prince Consort, but
these he was at pains to disperse by his conspicuous energy in the
hunting-field. Lord Derby did not complain of the settlement of the
_Trent_ affair, because he saw it would enable Lord Palmerston to hold
office for life. But the rank and file of the Tory Party, and a small
fringe of aristocratic Whigs, were disappointed, for a war in which
England would have fought on the side of the Southern Confederacy had
been averted. Mr. Disraeli, who has obtained great credit for never
manifesting his sympathies in favour of the slave-holding confederacy,
did not conceal them from his intimate friends. In conversation with
Count Vitzthum he said, “The effects on England (of the American War)
are incalculable. Considering the probable loss to English trade, we
(the Tory leaders) cannot, of course, proclaim openly the satisfaction
we naturally feel at the collapse of Republican institutions. But
speaking privately, we can only congratulate ourselves if the
monarchical principle comes into favour on the other side of the
Atlantic.”[130]

Parliament was opened on the 6th of February, 1862. The Speech from the
Throne touched on the death of the Prince Consort, the termination of
the dispute with the United States, and on the Convention with France
and Spain, the object of which was to obtain redress from Mexico for
wrongs committed by the Mexican Government on foreign residents. It
alluded to a Land Transfer Bill, and vaguely to “other measures of
public usefulness” which would be submitted to Parliament. The debate on
the Address mainly consisted of eloquent eulogies on the late Prince
Consort--Lord Palmerston declaring that it was no exaggeration to say
that so far as the word “perfect” could be applied to human
imperfection, it was applicable to the character of the Prince. Out of
respect to the Queen, politics were but lightly touched, Ministers
promising to give full information as to the blockade of the Confederate
ports, and the Mexican enterprise.

National education, curiously enough, was the first subject that
produced anything like an earnest discussion in Parliament. During the
Recess a Revised Code had been drawn up by Mr. Lowe, which had roused
the wrath of those interested in sectarian education. The objection to
the old system was that the State did not get value for the subsidies
which Parliament voted for Primary Education. Subventions to the
Training Colleges seemed to lessen rather than stimulate voluntary
efforts to maintain them; in fact, 68 per cent. of their cost was now
borne by the State. Of the 2,200,000 children who ought to be in
inspected schools, only 920,000 attended them, and of these only 230,000
received adequate instruction in reading, writing, and arithmetic. The
Revised Code proposed to pay by results. A penny a head was to be given
for each attendance over 100, provided the children (grouped according
to age) passed examinations in reading, writing, and arithmetic. Failure
in any one branch was to lead to the loss of one-third of the grant.
Failure in all was to cut off the whole grant. The sectarian party,
alarmed at the application of Mr. Lowe’s stern practical test to their
work, first of all raised the cry of “Religion in Danger.” But when
Parliament met, the Opposition attacked the Code on the ground that the
Government, by embodying it in an Order in Council, had tried to evade
Parliamentary criticism. This was a futile objection, for the scheme was
not only criticised but modified under the fire of sharp assaults in
both Houses of Parliament. These attacks were ultimately concentrated in
the Resolutions which Mr. Walpole laid before the House of Commons. He
condemned (1), the individual examination of the pupils; (2), the system
of paying exclusively by results; and (3), the plan of grouping by age.
It was, however, admitted on all sides that the existing system could
not be defended. The only point to be decided was as to what was the
right method of altering it. The existing system was neither cheap nor
efficient, but Mr. Lowe contended that his system, if not both, would be
either the one or the other. Ultimately a compromise was arranged. It
was agreed that 4s. a year was to be given on the average annual
attendance of each pupil; that 8s. would be given for reading, writing,
and arithmetic to every pupil who put in 200 attendances, 1s. 3d. being
deducted in case of failure in attendance; and managers were to be
permitted to group pupils for examination as they thought best. Neglect
of religious instruction in Anglican schools would forfeit the grant,
and any future revision of the Code was to be laid before Parliament for
a month before it became operative. In this struggle the Tories,
therefore, carried most of their points.

[Illustration: THE CLOCK TOWER, WESTMINSTER PALACE, 1870.]

The Civil War in America naturally caused many discussions. The Cabinet,
on the whole, were loyal to the policy of the Queen and the Prince
Consort, which was that of scrupulous neutrality. But they were not
quite loyal to her Majesty’s desire that neutrality should be tempered
by generous consideration for the great and unprecedented difficulties
with which President Lincoln’s Administration had to contend. The effect
of the virtual withdrawal of the Queen from public life was soon seen
in the supercilious tone of Lord Russell’s despatches, and in the
latitude of criticism in which Lord Palmerston too frequently indulged
in his references to American affairs in the House of Commons. The
partisans of the Southern States made strenuous efforts to induce the
Government to declare that the blockade of the Southern ports would not
be recognised. But Lord Palmerston and Lord Russell, greatly to their
credit, refused to yield to pressure on this point, although it was
known that the French Emperor would have supported them gladly if they
had yielded. The argument of the Opposition, beaten out over many long
wearisome speeches, simply came to this--that the blockade was
inefficient, and was, therefore, by international law invalid. It will
always be difficult to understand how responsible persons could gravely
maintain that position in face of the fact that Lancashire was starving
because she could not get cotton out of Southern harbours, and that
English trade was suffering because English goods could not get into
them. The affair of the _Trent_ gave rise to a brisk passage at arms
between Mr. Bright and Lord Palmerston. Mr. Bright complained that
whilst the Foreign Office was busy settling the dispute by firm but
conciliatory diplomacy, the War Office and Admiralty were spending
£1,000,000 on provocative preparations for war, which inflamed popular
excitement in America, and really rendered it difficult for the United
States Government to admit that they were in the wrong. “It is not
customary,” said Mr. Bright, “in ordinary life for a person to send a
messenger with a polite message to a friend, or neighbour, or
acquaintance, and at the same time to send a man of portentous strength,
wielding a gigantic club and making every kind of ferocious
gesticulation, and still to profess that all this is done in the most
friendly and courteous manner.” Lord Palmerston’s defence was that Mr.
Lincoln’s Cabinet was in danger of being overawed by mob dictation, and
that the preparations for war which Mr. Bright condemned, neutralised
the pressure of popular passion in the United States Government. A
curious illustration of the provocative tone adopted by the Ministry in
their dealings with the United States was given by their condemnation of
an order issued by General Butler, the military governor of New Orleans.
The ladies of that city, after its occupation by Federal troops, appear
to have been in the habit of publicly insulting their conquerors by
methods which most respectable persons would hesitate to adopt. General
Butler put a stop to these practices by ordering the military
authorities to treat the culprits as if they were loose women plying a
disreputable vocation. What the British Government had to do with the
police arrangements of a foreign army in a foreign city it is not
possible to conceive. Still, Lord Carnarvon, Sir John Walsh, and Mr.
Gregory insisted that the Government should protest against General
Butler’s order; and Lord Palmerston considered he was entitled to
denounce the order as “infamous,” to assert that “Englishmen must blush
to think that it came from a man of the Anglo-Saxon race,” and to
declare that the course which the Cabinet would take “was matter for
consideration.” As Lord Palmerston took no “course,” it is to be
presumed that he preferred to “blush” for General Butler, rather than
run the risk of being snubbed by Mr. Seward. On the 18th of July Mr.
Lindsay, in spite of protests from Mr. Ewart, Mr. Clay, and some others,
persisted in pressing a motion in the House of Commons which, if
carried, would have pledged the Government to mediate between the
belligerents in the interests of the Southern States. The debate was an
elaborate argument on the part of Tory speakers for the recognition of
the Confederate Government. But the responsible leaders of the
Opposition took no part in it, and Lord Palmerston refused to abandon
his policy of neutrality.

Towards the close of the Session it was seen that the operatives of
Lancashire must quickly sink into pauperism. The blockade of the
Southern ports cut off the exports of cotton. The cotton mills in
Lancashire, it was evident, must soon be stopped, and a teeming
industrial population must become a prey to famine. Mr. C. Villiers,
President of the Poor Law Board, accordingly introduced a Bill enabling
Boards of Guardians to meet extraordinary demands for poor law relief.
It provided that any parish which was overburdened by extraordinary
pauperism might claim a subvention from the common fund of the Union to
which it belonged, and that in certain cases one Union might call upon
others in the county for assistance. Mr. Cobden, Mr. Ayrton, and Mr.
Puller were strongly in favour of permitting distressed Unions to raise
money by loans as well as by a rate-in-aid, and Mr. Villiers ultimately
yielded to the pressure which they put on him.[131]

Mr. Gladstone’s Budget was hotly attacked. His estimated
expenditure--including supplementary estimates--for the year 1861-62 had
been £71,374,000. The actual expenditure had been less than that by
£536,000. But still the revenue had only amounted to £69,674,000, so
that there was a deficit of £1,164,000. Had there been no supplementary
estimates voted there would, however, have been a surplus of £335,000.
The harvest had been bad, and the American War had depressed trade.
Hence it was not natural to look for elasticity in the revenue. Yet Mr.
Gladstone estimated the revenue for 1862-63 at £70,190,000. As the
expenditure would be £70,040,000, he could not look for a surplus on the
existing basis of taxation of more than £150,000. He would not, he said,
impose new taxes. But on the other hand he could not remit any old ones.
He even proposed to abolish the duty on hops, and as a set-off readjust
brewers’ licenses, so as to sacrifice by this change only £45,000 of
revenue. His scheme, in fact, consisted of a Budget without a real

[Illustration: MR. SEWARD.]

surplus, and its only popular feature was the simplification of the wine
duties.[132] Why had Mr. Gladstone failed to provide a surplus? Had not
Peel said that one ought always to begin the year with a surplus? Why
was the Paper Duty surrendered, seeing it would have provided a surplus?
Why did Ministers persist in exceptional expenditure when they assured
the country that their relations with the only foreign Government that
could be distrusted were friendly and satisfactory? Our expenditure was
due to distrust of Napoleon III., whose objects were the same as ours.
And yet,

[Illustration: QUEEN ANNE’S ROOM, ST. JAMES’S PALACE.

(_From a Photograph by H. N. King._)]

said Mr. Disraeli, instead of acting cordially in alliance with France
for the purpose of maintaining English influence in the councils of
Europe, Lord Palmerston had tried to attain that end by exerting what
was called the “moral power” of the country, which really meant “bloated
armaments in time of peace.” If the conduct of France justified
distrust, why not go to war with her? If she was not giving us cause for
distrust, why waste money in preparing for war with her? Such were the
questions and arguments which Mr. Disraeli put forward. But Peel’s
doctrine of the surplus was of course never meant to apply to all
circumstances. As for the Paper Duty, to expect Mr. Gladstone to revert
to it was as absurd as to ask Nature to bring back the Mastodon. It was
more difficult to escape from Mr. Disraeli’s dilemma as to the relations
of England and France, but Lord Palmerston satisfied the House at this
time that by outstripping the armaments of France he really freed her
from any temptation she might have to become an enemy. The Radical
Party, however, induced Mr. Stansfeld to move a resolution asserting
that expenditure could be reduced with safety to the country, and the
Tories showed their sympathy with the attack, when Mr. Walpole gave
notice of another expressing a hope that expenditure might be cut down.
Lord Palmerston said such attacks involved the fate of the
Ministry--which settled the matter. Mr. Stansfeld’s resolution was
rejected. Mr. Walpole, loving Lord Palmerston better than retrenchment,
withdrew his motion, for which Mr. Disraeli, to the consternation of his
party, assailed him bitterly, and Lord Palmerston carried unanimously a
vote of confidence in himself.

The fight in March between the Confederate iron-clad _Merrimac_, and the
Federal _Monitor_, indicated that wooden war-ships were henceforth
useless. The Admiralty were therefore pressed to push forward the
construction of iron-clad ships. Nay, it was suggested that the new type
of iron-clads, working guns from revolving turrets, was better for coast
defence than the costly fortifications on which Lord Palmerston had
persisted in spending enormous sums of money. Why not, it was asked,
stop the building of forts at Spithead till the value of iron-cased
gunboats for coast defence had been fully considered? Strong supporters
of Lord Palmerston’s fortification scheme--like Sir J. Hay--declared
that their opinion as to the necessity for the Spithead forts had
changed, because a ship of the _Monitor_ type being a movable fort was
of course more useful than any fixed fortification. Then, if the country
spent, as it would probably have to spend, £20,000,000 on a great
fortification scheme, how were the forts to be manned? Was the House of
Commons prepared to vote for a corresponding increase in the Army? The
Government, however, insisted on getting the money for fortifications
voted, though events subsequently justified the criticism of their
opponents. The economists consoled themselves by making a fierce but
futile assault on the Ministry at the end of the Session, in the course
of which Mr. Cobden declared that Lord Palmerston’s policy was based on
a phantom of French aggression, and that it had cost the country
£100,000,000. Colonial defence was more practically dealt with, for
early in the year the House of Commons adopted a resolution to the
effect that self-governing colonies should in the main provide for their
own defence.

Foreign politics gave rise to no important debate in the House. Abortive
attempts were made to induce the Government to make representations to
Russia on behalf of the Poles, which would probably have led to Russia
imploring the Ministry to deal more generously with Ireland. Partisans
of the Pope and of the deposed Italian despots also indulged in impotent
demonstrations of hostility against the new Kingdom of Italy. A Session
which was from a party point of view almost colourless, ended on the 7th
of August, the only discernible result of its proceedings being an
aggravation of the feud between Lord Palmerston and the Radicals, who,
as Mr. Cobden said, would now be better pleased to see the Tories in
power. But the Tories had no desire to hold office till they were strong
enough to resist Radical dictation. The Queen, too, was more than
usually desirous that, in the circumstances, a Cabinet should remain in
power which could avert Ministerial crises. Thus Lord Palmerston’s
dictatorship was again confirmed.

The policy of intervention in Mexico in conjunction with France and
Spain was not one which found much favour in England, although King
Leopold of Belgium endeavoured to win the Queen over to support it in
the interests of his son-in-law, the Archduke Maximilian of Austria. It
was for this purpose that his Majesty carried on his intrigues at
Osborne early in February. The real object of his policy was to
establish a monarchy in Mexico, and to persuade the Queen that the
Mexicans desired to have Maximilian as their ruler. This, however, was
not divulged at the time, and thus, so far as England was concerned, she
stood committed--despite King Leopold’s secret negotiations at
Osborne--to nothing save to act with Spain and France in obtaining from
Mexico satisfaction for wrongs done to certain British subjects. The
French Emperor, however, was bent on creating a Latin Monarchy in the
New World, under French protection, as a counterpoise to the great
Anglo-Saxon Republic. After the allies landed, dissensions soon became
manifest when the French contingent was doubled. Spain objected to
convert Mexico into a French dependency, nominally under the rule of an
Austrian Archduke. Hence, when the Mexican Government of Juarez offered
to submit to the original demands of the allies, England and Spain
accepted their proposals, and withdrew their forces. The French had
permitted a Mexican conspirator called Almonte to accompany their
expedition, and as his object was to overthrow the Mexican Government,
President Juarez demanded that he should be sent back to Paris. The
French refused, and made the demand an excuse for declining to treat
with the Mexican Government. This, of course, broke up the alliance, and
General Lorencez was ordered to march on Mexico, and enable the natives
to choose a Government with which France could negotiate, which meant
that they were to vote for a French Protectorate under the Archduke
Maximilian. As a preliminary token of their appreciation of this
proposal, the Mexican troops stopped the march of Lorencez at Orizaba.
General Forey, with reinforcements, was accordingly sent out from France
to prosecute the war, which was already unpopular with all Frenchmen who
were not slaves of the Ultramontane Party.

During the last six months of the year, events in Italy and Greece
preoccupied the Cabinet. Indeed, affairs in Greece took a turn that for
the moment roused the Queen from the depths of her sorrow.

Baron Riccasoli, who succeeded Count Cavour, did not hold office long.
The object of his policy was to win Rome for Italy, which rendered him
obnoxious to Napoleon III. Moreover, he was too stiff and formal in his
manners for the loose-living King of Italy, and so his fall was
inevitable. To him succeeded Ratazzi--a Minister who was acceptable to
Napoleon because he thought more of winning back Venice, than of
expelling the French from the Holy City. How far Victor Emmanuel and
Ratazzi participated in an intrigue, the result of which was that
General Garibaldi began to raise the “Party of Action,” is not clear. At
any rate, Garibaldi, at a meeting of a rifle club in Palermo, at which
the Heir Apparent to the Crown was present, announced his intention of
opening a new campaign of liberation. From Sicily he led a band of “Red
Shirts” to the mainland, evidently under the impression that he was to
repeat his former exploits with the secret connivance of the Italian
Government. Before he advanced into the heart of Calabria, he found he
had been deceived. Victor Emmanuel’s troops attacked and dispersed his
irregular forces at Aspromonte, before they came into collision with the
French. Garibaldi himself was wounded, and though at first sent as a
prisoner to Spezia, he was soon afterwards set free, and his “rebellion”
forgiven. Napoleon III. then induced Russia and Prussia to recognise the
Kingdom of Italy. But in November Ratazzi resigned rather than face a
vote of censure, and Farini succeeded him.

Italian intriguers had been busy at Athens fomenting rebellion against
King Otho. Their object was to depose him, and seat Prince Thomas, the
Duke of Genoa, on the throne. Russian and French intrigues seem also to
have been going on. But every conspiracy, whether of native or foreign
origin, had for its object the expulsion of King Otho, whose authority
had been undermined by Palmerston’s treatment in 1850, and whose reign
had done nothing to gratify Greek aspirations for an extension of
territory. Otho’s opposition to progressive reform rendered him an
obstacle to those who thought that Greece in the Ottoman Empire, might
play the part of Piedmont in Italy. He was therefore driven from his
throne, and the Crown of Greece offered to Prince Alfred of England, on
whose behalf it was declined. England, however, showed her goodwill to
Greece by declaring herself ready to surrender the Ionian Islands, an
offer which gave Lord Palmerston an opportunity of emphasising his
belief in “the doctrine of nationalities,” which he had so strenuously
insisted on applying in Italy. In 1863, when the Greeks chose a Danish
Prince for their King, these islands were transferred to Greece.

In Germany the cause of Reform slept. Austria apparently had increased
her influence, because the King of Prussia was in conflict with the
representatives of the Prussian people as to the reorganisation and
strengthening of

[Illustration: VIEW IN BERLIN: THE PALACE BRIDGE AND PLEASURE GARDEN.]

the Army. But Hungary and Venetia had still to be held down by the
sword. The Queen, however much she might regret the contest between the
Crown and the nation in Prussia, did not view it with the scornful
levity that was fashionable at the time in England. She knew that the
carrying out of the military policy of Prussia was the condition
precedent to the incorporation of North Germany under Prussian
leadership. She was well aware that when the Bernstorff Ministry fell,
Count von Bismarck, Prussian Minister at Paris, would become President
of the Council, and she knew what purpose he had in view. Von Bismarck
had, in fact, visited London in July, 1862, and he had conversed freely
and frankly with the leaders of both parties. At a dinner party given by
Baron Brunnow in his honour, he revealed his plans to Mr. Disraeli, who
on the same evening repeated the conversation to Count Vitzthum. “‘I
shall soon,’ said in effect the Prussian statesman, ‘be compelled to
undertake the conduct of the Prussian Government. My first care will be
to reorganise the Army, with or without the help of the Landtag. The
King was right in undertaking this task, but he cannot accomplish it
with his present advisers. As soon as the Army shall have been brought
into such a condition as to inspire respect, I shall seize the first
best pretext to declare war against Austria, dissolve the German Diet,
subdue the minor States, and give national unity to Germany under
Prussian leadership. I have come here to say this to the Queen’s
Ministers.’”[133] Count Vitzthum adds that Mr. Disraeli’s commentary
was, “Take care of that man! he means what he says.” On the other hand,
the late Lord Ampthill--who was present at the dinner--told Mr. Lowe,
the biographer of Prince Bismarck,[134] that Mr. Disraeli described the
Bismarckian policy as the “mere moonshine of a German Baron.”[135] The
Landtag refused to sanction an increase in the Army, for which it saw no
obvious use. The King could not publicly avow why the increase was
wanted. The Cabinet confessed itself helpless in the dilemma, whereupon
the King telegraphed for Count von Bismarck, who was holiday-making in
the Pyrenees, to come to Berlin. He arrived there on the 19th of
September. On the 23rd, after seven days’ debate, the Chamber refused to
vote the Army Estimates and the Ministry resigned. The King’s retort was
the appointment as Prime Minister of the man, whose policy was that of
“blood and iron.” From that moment the history of Continental Europe
took a fresh departure, which was watched by the Queen with anxious
eyes. Like the Prince Consort, her sympathies were with the new Prussian
policy. Only, she would have endeavoured to attain Von Bismarck’s ends
without using his methods. That the Bismarckian methods were adopted in
less than a year after the Prince Consort’s death, only serves to
illustrate how quickly the policy of the Court of Berlin changed after
the King of Prussia was emancipated from Prince Albert’s moderating
influence.

As might be expected, the struggle in America was followed in England
with keen interest, and step by step. The Confederate States found no
difficulty in raising troops, and in supplying them with capable
leaders. They seemed to have raised money on the security of their
stocks of cotton. But they evidently were soon in financial straits, for
Mr. Mason told some of his intimate friends in London in February that
it would be hardly possible for the Confederates to find money for
their troops much longer. The war was then costing them £500,000 a day.
The Federal Government was more prosperous. In a few months it had
800,000 men under arms, and even its enemies bore testimony to the fact
that these troops were always well paid and well fed. General McClellan,
during the autumn and winter of 1861, organised a great army for the
defence of Washington, which was menaced by the Confederate forces.
Instead of dispersing these, McClellan contented himself with watching
them. Early in January the Federals at Mill Springs, Kentucky, foiled an
attempt of the Confederates to attack Ohio. Next month Burnside captured
the Confederate garrison of Roanoke, in North Carolina, and in March he
also took Newbern. Fort Henry, on the Tennessee, and Fort Donelson, on
the Cumberland River, yielded to General Grant, and Pope seized a
Confederate post on the Mississippi, called “Island No. 10.” On the 24th
of February Commodore Farragut, after a brilliant action, forced the
defences of New Orleans, from which the Confederates retreated, and the
city was then occupied by General Butler. So far victory had crowned the
Federal banners. But on the 6th of April the fortune of war favoured the
Confederates, when General Albert Sydney Johnston surprised Grant at
Pittsburg Landing, on the west side of the Tennessee River, opposite to
Savannah. The timely arrival of General Buell and the galling fire of
two Federal gunboats on the river saved Grant’s army from utter
destruction, and when night fell he still stood at bay on the river’s
bank. Next morning (the 7th) he renewed the struggle with characteristic
obstinacy, and drove the Confederates back to their lines at Corinth. In
this action General Johnston was killed. To him succeeded Beauregard,
who for many weeks held, by sheer audacity, the lines at Corinth against
Halleck and 150,000 Federal troops. At last Beauregard and his army
suddenly vanished, leaving Halleck and his lieutenant, Pope, in a state
of stupefaction at their disappearance.[136] The Western States echoed
with the tramp of armed men on both sides, but save for a Confederate
defeat at Corinth in October, and a Federal surrender at Hartville in
December, nothing worth recording happened. The lesson from the year’s
campaign in this region was that the Confederates blundered by trying to
do too much when they attempted to hold the line of the Ohio. Vicksburg
was the only strong post which they retained on the Mississippi. On sea
they were more successful. They nailed iron rails on to the hull of the
old United States warship _Virginia_, and sent her forth in March from
the Navy Yard at Norfolk as the _Merrimac_ to spread terror through the
Federal transport fleet. The United States ironclad, _Monitor_, however,
fought her on the 9th of March and drove her into port. At close
quarters the shot glanced off the protected sides of the ships, and it
was not till the _Monitor_ fired into the unprotected part of the
_Merrimac’s_ hull that she disabled her. This action--as we have
seen--aroused naval critics in England, and convinced them that the
“wooden walls” of the country were obsolete.

Meanwhile great expectations had centred in the Army of the Potomac. Its
leader, McClellan, was one of the most highly trained and scientific
soldiers in the service of the Federal Government. Its numbers were
overwhelming, and yet month after month passed by and it did nothing. It
permitted the Confederates to retreat unmolested from their lines at
Manassas in spring, when McClellan pursued them for two days. He then
suddenly returned to Washington, and made arrangements to convey his
army from the Potomac to the peninsula between York River and James
River. From that point he meant to deliver a crushing blow against
Richmond, the Confederate capital. At this moment President Lincoln
deprived McClellan of the Command-in-Chief, and gave Generals McDowell
and Fremont independent commands in Northern Virginia. It is not fair to
forget, therefore, in criticising McClellan’s movements, that he thus
lost the right to dispose of McDowell’s division as he pleased, for the
protection of his left flank. McClellan’s campaign was unfortunate.
General Joseph Johnston artfully seduced him into the swamps of the
Chickahominy River, where he settled down and entrenched himself behind
earthworks, while Stuart, with the Confederate cavalry, worked round the
Federal right, looted part of their camp, and returned in safety to
Richmond. General Jackson--“Stonewall” Jackson--dashing through the
Shenandoah Valley, had driven the Federals under Banks back to the
Potomac, and was menacing Washington. McDowell, who was hastening to
McClellan’s aid, was suddenly recalled to protect the Federal capital,
and McClellan, whose position was now hopeless, had to retreat, after
repeated attacks, to Harrison’s Landing, on the James River--a manœuvre
which was termed by the New York Press “a strategic movement to the
rear.” He then embarked his army at Aquia Creek, and took it to
Alexandria. To cover McClellan’s retreat, Pope advanced from the Rapidan
to the Rappahannock, but was met by the Confederate General, Robert Lee,
who fought a drawn battle with him at Cedar Mountain on the 9th of
August. Jackson, by a rapid movement westward, crossed the Blue
Mountains and thrust himself between Pope’s rear and Washington, and
again Stuart made a raid on the Federal camp. Pope was now completely
outmanœuvred, so he was fain to fall back on the Potomac and the strong
lines of Washington. Lee pushed on, intending to raise Maryland. He was
checked by McClellan at Antietam, and recrossed the Potomac, but without
being pursued. Jackson now captured the Federal garrison at Harper’s
Ferry.

A month elapsed before McClellan renewed his advance on Richmond, and in
November he was dismissed from his command. Halleck was now
Commander-in-Chief, and Burnside, McClellan’s successor, transferring
the struggle

[Illustration: MR. PEABODY.]

to the Rappahannock, undertook to advance on Richmond--a movement which
was partly forced on him by the Government at Washington, in order to
redeem the _prestige_ it had lost through McClellan’s failures. On the
13th of December he was defeated by Lee with great slaughter at
Fredericksburg, the news of this victory creating much excitement in
England. This ended the campaign for the year. New Orleans was all that
the Federals had to show for two years’ campaigns. Their invasion of
Virginia was rolled back, and the partisans of the Southern States in
England pointed to this fact as a proof that the Union could never be
restored by force. In the Northern States the Abolitionist faction had
now absorbed the Republican Party. Slavery was abolished in the district
of Columbia, and Lincoln was induced to say that he was now ready to
restore the Union with or without slavery. Finally he issued his
proclamation on the 22nd of September, declaring that he would recommend
Congress to pass a Bill to free all slaves in rebel States. In England
the proclamation was sneered at as an act of confiscation, and Lord
Russell sent a despatch to Lord Lyons, scoffing at it with ill-concealed
malice as “a measure of war, and a measure of war of a very questionable
character.” The naval operations of the belligerents also gave Lord
Russell several opportunities for controversy. He waxed very indignant
over the blockade of Charleston harbour, where the Federals had sunk
ships loaded with ballast. In January the Confederate cruiser
_Nashville_, after preying on American commerce, ran into Southampton
Water for repairs. Mr. Adams, the American Minister in London, warned
Lord Russell that her conduct had been almost piratical, to which Lord
Russell replied that as she bore the commission of a recognised
belligerent she would be allowed to make such necessary repairs as would
not increase her fighting power, and that care would be taken to prevent
the Foreign Enlistment Act from being infringed. The excitement created
by the _Trent_ affair was dying out, when the country was startled to
find a United States cruiser, _Tuscarora_, moored in Itchen Creek, and
watching the _Nashville_. Her officers and men were accused of prowling
suspiciously close to the _Nashville_, and people began to ask if the
Government was going to tolerate such an outrage as a naval engagement
in an English creek. Lord Russell warned Mr. Adams that Captain Craven
of the _Tuscarora_ must respect our neutrality, and that whichever ship
left first must have twenty-four hours’ “law” before the other was
allowed to follow. H.M.S. _Dauntless_ and _Shannon_ were sent to
Southampton to overawe Captain Craven, who ultimately put to sea. The
_Nashville_ followed, and thus escaped her antagonist.

A more romantic and perplexing case was that of a British ship, the
_Emilie St. Pierre_. She had sailed from Calcutta for St. John’s, New
Brunswick, and had gone to Charleston to see if the port was blockaded.
The Federal cruiser, _James Adger_, seized her, and put a prize crew on
board. The skipper of the _Emilie St. Pierre_--a Scotsman called
Wilson--aided by the cook and steward, one morning overpowered the prize
crew and their officers by a clever stratagem, and after escaping many
dangers brought the ship safely into Liverpool on the 31st of April.
Wilson for the moment was the idol of the seafaring population, and Mr.
Adams, somewhat nettled at the defeat of the prize crew, demanded the
surrender of the vessel. Lord Russell refused, alleging that the
Government had no legal power to seize her, or “interfere with her
owners in relation to their property in her.”

These controversies rather embittered the relations between Americans
and Englishmen in this country. It was therefore most gratifying to the
Queen to learn that a kind-hearted citizen of the United States, whose
princely charity has endeared his memory to the English-speaking race,
had bestowed on the poor of London a gift of surpassing munificence.
Mr. George Peabody had a high reputation as a merchant in the City,
where his generosity and courageous use of his credit had saved many
firms from ruin in the financial crisis of 1857. In the spring of 1862
he made over to Trustees the sum of £150,000, to be applied for the
benefit of the poor of London, his only stipulation being, that the
management and application of the fund should be free from all sectarian
bias. He did not limit the discretion of the Trustees, though he
suggested that they would best spend the money in providing improved
dwellings for the people. His ideas were not quite carried out, for the
blocks of buildings erected by the Peabody Trustees were soon occupied,
not by the poor of London, but by the lower middle class, who were not
meant by Mr. Peabody to participate in the benefits of his gift.

The 1st of May had been fixed for the opening of the Great Exhibition of
1862, and the ceremony was a somewhat mournful one. The sable liveries
of the lackeys who appeared in the grand procession served to remind the
people of the late Prince Consort, who had been the life and soul of the
project. His place was taken by the Duke of Cambridge and the Crown
Prince of Prussia, who was associated with him by the special request of
the Queen, as one of her representatives. South Kensington was crowded
with sightseers, and it was admitted that the ceremonial was one of the
most imposing pageants that had ever been witnessed. To the daïs, where
the formal business of inauguration was transacted, none but persons in
uniform were admitted, and the scene was therefore bright with rich
masses of colour, glittering with the flashing jewels of knightly Orders
and military decorations. When the Duke of Cambridge and the other
Special Commissioners had taken their seats, the National Anthem was
sung, and Earl Granville, as the representative of the Exhibition
Commissioners, placed an address to the Queen in the hands of his Royal
Highness. To this the Duke replied, alluding in touching terms to the
death of the Prince Consort, and to the affliction which had prostrated
the Queen with sorrow. The brilliant procession then slowly filed down
from the daïs to the eastern dome, where Meyerbeer’s _Overture en forme
de Marche_, written for the occasion, was performed, and Tennyson’s fine
ode, set to music by Professor Sterndale Bennett, was given. Its
allusions to Prince Albert went home to every heart:--

“O silent father of our Kings to be,
Mourn’d in this golden hour of jubilee,
For this, for all, we weep our thanks to thee!
The world-compelling plan was thine,
And lo! the long laborious miles
Of Palace: lo! the giant aisles,
Rich in model and design”--

were lines that gave expression to the feeling of the country with rare
felicity and power. It was admitted on all hands that the building of
the new Exhibition was far grander and far larger than that of 1851.
But on the other hand the witchery of the Palace, with its walls of
crystal and its strong flood of diffused light, had vanished. The roof
and walls of the new building were solid, and these and the windows
“factory-patterned,” as a singer in _Punch_ called them, destroyed the
sensation of unconfined space which one felt on entering the Crystal
Palace of 1851, and which gave to that structure its magical charm.

[Illustration: THE EXHIBITION BUILDING OF 1862.]

On the 14th of June the Prince of Wales, who had completed the Eastern
tour that had been planned for him by his father, returned to England.
He had left Osborne on the 6th of February with General Bruce and a
carefully selected suite, of whom Dr. A. P. Stanley (afterwards Dean of
Westminster), who joined him at Alexandria, was a member. On the 1st of
March he landed at Alexandria, where, despite his _incognito_ as Baron
Renfrew, he was saluted with Royal honours. At Cairo he enjoyed the
hospitality of the Viceroy of Egypt, and on the 4th of March left the
city for the Pyramids, which were reached just as the mysterious outline
of the Sphinx was vanishing in the fading light of sunset. At dawn the
Prince ascended the Great Pyramid without assistance, much to the
amazement of the Bedouins, who asked, sceptically, “Is that the
Governor? If so, why does he go alone?” The party then went up the Nile
as far as the First Cataract, viewing the Temple at Esneh by torchlight.
After Assouan and its antiquities were explored, the Prince returned
down the river, halting three days at Thebes, where he met the Duke and
Duchess of Saxe-Coburg. On the 21st of March a tournament between some
Arnauts and Arab chiefs was held; then Memphis was visited, and Cairo
again reached on the 23rd. After some other excursions the Prince
proceeded to Jerusalem, which he entered on the 31st of March. He was
received by the

[Illustration: THE PRINCE OF WALES AT THE PYRAMIDS.]

Pacha and a picturesque escort of wild horsemen, who kept circling round
the party, brandishing their spears and firing their guns in mimic
combat. His Royal Highness pitched his tent on the northern side of the
city, near the Damascus Gate, and visited all the sacred places--even
those from which Christians are excluded being opened to him.[137] He
left Jerusalem on the 10th of April, and next day arrived at Nablûs, on
the eve of the Samaritan Passover. He ascended Mount Gerizim, and saw
this last vestige of the old Jewish ritual performed, the sun sinking
behind the western hills as the Paschal sheep were sacrificed. On the
15th he encamped at the foot of Mount Carmel, and on Easter eve saw the
sun set on the Sea of Galilee. At Damascus he received but a churlish
welcome from the sullen, fanatical population, and on the 6th of May he
visited Beyrout. On the 10th he landed at Tripoli, and on the 12th
explored the cedar groves of Lebanon. On the 15th the Royal yacht
touched at Rhodes, on the 17th at Patmos, and--after visiting Smyrna,
Constantinople, Athens, Cephalonia, and Malta--the tour ended at
Marseilles. A brief visit was paid to the French Emperor at
Fontainebleau, and on the 14th of June the travellers reached Windsor.
Three days afterwards the Queen heard, to her deep regret, that General
Bruce--long a trusted friend of her family--had died from Syrian fever,
contracted during his journey. He had sacrificed his life to the
chivalrous discharge of his duties as the Prince’s Governor, and the
Queen felt only too keenly that his loss was an irreparable calamity at
a time when his wise guidance and exquisite tact rendered his services
to her eldest son of supreme importance.[138]

During the greater part of the year the Queen led a life of absolute
seclusion. The first public sign of her renewed interest in current
events was given when the tidings of the Hartley Colliery accident sent
a thrill of horror through every English heart. On the 16th of January
the beam of the steam-engine in the Hartley coal-pit snapped. The shaft
was blocked and shattered by the wreck of the machinery, and some two
hundred and four miners were consigned to a lingering death in the
workings, into which the water poured at the rate of 1,500 gallons a
minute. For nine days rescue parties toiled without stint or ceasing to
reach the prisoners. They even heard their efforts to cut their way out,
but were unable to reach them. When a gang was at last able to penetrate
to the workings they found men and boys lying dead in groups, surrounded
by mournful relics and painful records of their last hours of agony. The
male population of three hamlets was swept away; every cottage contained
a coffin, some, alas! more than one, over which widows and orphans
wailed out their hearts in unavailing sorrow. Among the first to express
sympathy with the bereaved ones was the Queen. _Haud ignara mali miseris
succurrere disco_ was probably the thought that flashed across her mind
when she sent her anxious telegraphic messages to the scene of the
disaster, whilst as yet there were hopes that some lives might be saved.
After the funeral, the scene at a great religious meeting held at the
pit was most touching, when the incumbent of Earsdon read to the
assembly of mourners a letter which her Majesty had dictated to Sir
Charles Phipps, and which had been addressed to the head viewer (or
overseer) of the mine. It ran as follows:--

“OSBORNE, _January 23rd, 1862_.

“SIR,--The Queen, in the midst of her own overwhelming grief, has
taken the deepest interest in the mournful accident at Hartley, and
up to the last had hoped that at least a considerable number of the
poor people might have been recovered alive. The appalling news
since received has afflicted the Queen very much.

“Her Majesty commands me to say that her tenderest sympathy is with
the poor widows and mothers, and that her own misery only makes her
feel the more for them.

“Her Majesty hopes that everything will be done, as far as
possible, to alleviate their distress, and her Majesty will have a
sad satisfaction in assisting in such a measure. Pray let us know
what is doing.

“I have the honour to be, your obedient servant,

“C. B. PHIPPS.”

It was estimated that £17,000 would be needed for the relief of the
widows and orphans. In London alone £20,000 was sent to the Lord Mayor,
and by the end of February it was necessary to close the fund, for
upwards of £81,000 had been generously subscribed by the public.[139]

A glimpse of the early days of the Queen’s widowhood is afforded in the
“Diaries” of one of her chaplains in Scotland--the late Dr. Norman
Macleod, Minister of the Barony Parish Kirk, Glasgow. Her Majesty was
advised to retire to Balmoral in the first week of May, and when she
reached her Highland home she commanded the attendance of Dr. Macleod.
He seems to have been somewhat nervous at being called upon to undertake
the delicate duty of offering spiritual consolation to his widowed
Sovereign. On the 12th of May, however, Dr. Macleod, writing to his
wife, says, with a sense of relief, “All has passed well--that is to
say, God enabled me to speak in private and in public to the Queen in
such a way as seemed to me to be truth, the truth in God’s sight; that
which I believe she needed, though I felt it would be very trying to her
spirit to receive it. And what fills me with deepest thanksgiving is
that she has received it, and written to me such a kind, tender letter
of thanks for it.”[140] Writing in his Journal on the 14th of May, Dr.
Macleod jotted down, whilst the facts were fresh in his mind, the chief
incidents of his visit to the Queen at this painful period of her life.
“After dinner,” he says, “I was summoned unexpectedly to the Queen’s
room. She was alone. She met me, and, with an unutterably sad
expression, which filled my eyes with tears, at once began to speak
about the Prince. It is impossible for me to recall distinctly the
sequence or substance of that long conversation. She spoke of his
excellences--his love, his cheerfulness, how he was everything to her.
She said she never shut her eyes to trials, but liked to look them in
the face; how she would never shrink from duty, but that all was at
present done mechanically: that her highest ideas of purity and love
were obtained from him, and that God could not be displeased with her
love. But there was nothing morbid in her grief. I spoke freely to her
about all I felt regarding him--the love of the nation and their
sympathy; and took every opportunity of bringing before her the reality
of God’s love and sympathy, her noble calling as a Queen, the value of
her life to the nation, the blessedness of prayer.”

[Illustration: MARRIAGE OF THE PRINCESS ALICE.]

“Sunday: the whole household, Queen and Royal Family, were assembled at
10.15. A temporary pulpit was erected. I began with a short prayer, then
read Job xxiii., Psalm xlii., beginning and end of John xiv., and end of
Revelation vii. After the Lord’s Prayer I expounded Hebrews xii. 1-12,
and concluded with prayer. The whole Service was less than an hour. I
then, at 12, preached at Crathie[141] on ‘All things are ours.’ In the
evening at Crathie on ‘Awake, thou that sleepest.’ The household
attended both Services.”

“On Monday I had another long interview with the Queen. She was much
more like her old self--cheerful--and full of talk about persons and
things. She, of course, spoke of the Prince. She said that he always
believed he was to die soon, and that he often told her that he had
never any fear of death. I also saw the Princesses Alice and Helen--each
by herself. No words of mine can express the deep sympathy I have for
all these mourners.... The more I hear about the Prince Consort, the
more I agree with what the Queen said to me about him on Monday, ‘that
he really did not seem to comprehend a selfish character or what
selfishness was.’”[142]

[Illustration: PRINCE LOUIS OF HESSE-DARMSTADT.]

After her father’s death, the Princess Alice was so deeply affected by
her mother’s grief and her own bereavement, that for a time Prince Louis
of Hesse thought she would not hold to her engagement with him. However,
this fear soon passed away, and it was duly announced that the Princess
would be married on the 1st of July. The ceremony took place in private
at Osborne, and was performed by the Archbishop of York, in the absence
of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who was suffering from a severe
illness. The Queen attended in deep mourning, but her agitation was so
great that, when the service was ended, she had to be led away to her
room. The Crown Prince of Prussia, all the bride’s brothers and sisters,
the parents, brothers, and sisters of the bridegroom, and many other
near and dear relatives, were present. The Duke of Saxe-Coburg-and-Gotha
gave the Princess, his niece, away at the altar, and the married couple,
after the ceremony was over, drove off quietly to St. Clare, near Ryde,
which Colonel and Lady Catherine Harcourt had placed at their disposal.
There they remained three days. On the 9th of July they left for
Hesse-Darmstadt, accompanied by the kindliest wishes of all classes in
the country, who had watched with sympathy and interest the affectionate
solicitude with which the Princess had solaced the Queen under the first
shock of her bereavement.

“Dear to us all by those calm earnest eyes,
And early thought upon that fair young brow.
Dearer for that where grief was heaviest, thou
Wert sunshine, till he passed where suns shall rise
And set no more: thou, in affection wise
And strong, wert strength to her, who even but now
In the soft accents of thy bridal vow
Heard music of her own heart’s memories.

“Too full of love to own a thought of pride
Is now thy gentle bosom; so ’tis best;
Yet noble is thy choice, O English bride!
And England hails the bridegroom and the guest
A friend--a friend well-loved by him who died.
He blessed you both; your wedlock shall be blessed.”

In these simple and pathetic lines _Punch_, dropping the jester’s cap
and bells, gave graceful expression to the popular feeling with which
the nation bade the Princess good-bye. The parting between mother and
daughter was a mournful one, though both kept their feelings well under
control. Writing from the Royal yacht to bid adieu to the Queen, the
Princess said, “My heart was very full when I took leave of you and all
the dear ones at home; I had not the courage to say a word--but your
loving heart understands what I felt.”[143] And again after she reached
Darmstadt, she recurs to this sad theme. “Away from home,” is the
concluding sentence of one of her letters to the Queen, “I cannot
believe that beloved papa is not there; all is so associated with him.”

Indeed, it may be doubted whether the loss of her daughter’s society for
a time had not a salutary influence on the Queen. It stimulated her to
take a fresh interest in her family life, for a correspondence, intimate
and affectionate, was carried on between mother and daughter, in which
the Queen had to transmit budgets of home news, the mere collecting of
which diverted her thoughts from the heart wound that tortured her. From
this correspondence we gather that in those days the Queen’s life was
full of many gloomy hours. It is clear that the shadow of death at times
fell very darkly on her spirit, and that she poured out her heart to her
daughter without reserve. The Princess Louis of Hesse--as Englishmen had
to learn to call the Princess Alice--on her side sympathised with every
varying mood of her mother’s troubled mind, although her letters
indicate how each reference to her father, whom she had idolised from
her childhood, made her own wounds bleed afresh. She is sedulous in
cheering her mother with accounts of her new home. She enters into all
the Queen’s plans for perpetuating the Prince Consort’s memory. From her
we gather that, outside of public business and family duties, these
plans now filled the Queen’s life. Commissions were given to sculptors
like Mr. Theed to carve busts of the Prince. Marochetti’s equestrian
statue was projected, and the Princess Louis, soon after reaching
Darmstadt, presses the Queen to tell her how it is progressing. The
Queen also makes a collection of the Prince’s speeches, and this again
stimulates the interest of her daughter, who expresses her pleasure at
hearing that Mr. (afterwards Sir Arthur) Helps has been selected by her
mother to write an introduction to them for publication. “What can it
be,” she writes in one of her letters to the Queen, “but beautiful and
elevating if he has rightly entered into the spirit of that pure and
noble being?” But even these occupations failed entirely to divert the
mind of the Queen from brooding over her bereavement, and now and again
her letters, so full of despondency and hopelessness, alarmed her
daughter. To one of these the Princess replies from Auerbach, in the
month of August, as follows:--“Try and gather in the few bright things
you have remaining, and cherish them, for though faint, yet they are
types of that infinite joy still to come. I am sure, dear mamma, the
more you try to appreciate and to find the good in that which God in His
love has _left_ you, the more worthy you will daily become of that which
is in store. That earthly happiness you had is indeed gone for ever, but
you must not think that every ray of it has left you. You have the
privilege, which dear papa knew so well how to value, in your exalted
position, of doing good and living for others, of carrying on his plans,
his wishes, into fulfilment, and as you go on doing your duty, this
will, this must, I feel sure, bring you peace and comfort.”[144]

In the meantime preparations for an interesting and important event in
the Royal Family had to be made. It has been already mentioned that the
Prince of Wales had been much attracted by the fascinating society of
the Princess Alexandra of Sleswig-Holstein-Glücksburg, whom he met
shortly before his father’s death whilst visiting Germany. The feeling
had ripened into a warm attachment, and it soon came to be rumoured that
the lady had listened favourably to his suit as a lover. In autumn it
was decided that the Queen should proceed to the Continent and arrange
the preliminaries of this alliance with the parents of the Princess. It
was also her Majesty’s wish to visit Gotha--consecrated to her now by
many tender memories--as soon as she was able to endure the fatigue of
travel. Lord Russell was selected to accompany her Majesty as Minister
in attendance.

Writing in his Diary on the 1st of September, Count Vitzthum says, “The
Queen, who returned two days ago to Windsor, held a Privy Council there,
in order to make the necessary arrangements for the period of her
absence. Lord Palmerston did not attend this sitting, but has come down
to town to receive her Majesty’s last commands. The Queen embarks to-day
at Woolwich, and goes first to Brussels to meet for the first time the
Princess Alexandra, and her parents. A few days later the Prince of
Wales will also come to Brussels, when the betrothal will be officially
declared. The indiscretion of the newspapers, which speak of the
betrothal as a settled affair before it has actually been announced, has
given great annoyance at Windsor Castle.”[145] The impression which the
youth and beauty of the Danish Princess made on the Queen was most
favourable, and the preliminaries of the marriage were soon arranged.
Her Majesty then proceeded to Germany, where she retired to the little
shooting-box of Reinhardsbrunn, a residence so small that even Lord
Russell had to stay at Gotha for lack of accommodation. In a letter to
Count Vitzthum, he gives us a casual glimpse of the Queen’s retreat. “I
went to Reinhardsbrunn yesterday (17th September),” says Lord Russell,
“and took an opportunity of speaking to the Queen about the proposed
visit of Prince George of Saxony. Her Majesty appreciated the kindness
of the King of Saxony, whom she regarded, she said, in the light of a
relation. The Queen has no room in the house she inhabits to lodge any
one, but if the Prince George could come any day after to-morrow
(Friday), about three o’clock to pay her a visit, she would be happy to
see him. The Prince of Wales is in high spirits, and willingly accepts
congratulations on his marriage.”[146]

In the middle of October the Princess Louis of Hesse-Darmstadt and her
husband came to England, awaiting at Windsor the arrival of the Queen,
who was then at Osborne. The thoughtful affection of the Princess
herself prompted this visit. It was feared that the anniversary of the
Prince Consort’s death might bring on one of those attacks of nervous
prostration from which the Queen suffered, during the first year of her
bereavement, and at such a moment the presence of the Princess Alice
afforded comfort, consolation, and confidence to the Royal family.

On the 18th of December the Queen emerged from her seclusion to
superintend the removal of the Prince Consort’s remains from St.
George’s Chapel to the Mausoleum at Frogmore Park. This sepulchral
edifice had been built by her special directions as a monument of the
affection and reverence which she and her children bore to the dead
Prince. It is cruciform in plan, the arms of the cross radiating from a
central cell, lit by three semi-circular windows in the clerestory, to
the cardinal points of the compass. Polished shafts of cold grey granite
decorate the outside of the building, and on an octagonal roof of copper
a gilded cross gleams on a square-set tower. The transepts are also
square, and lit by a clerestory corresponding with that in the central
cell. Monoliths of Aberdeen and Guernsey granite flank the steps of the
entrance porch, and the whole exterior is faced with polished granites
and parti-coloured masonry. When the Prince’s remains were laid there,
the interior--remarkable for its almost Oriental richness of subdued
colour and for the splendour of its golden decorations--was unfinished,
nor was Marochetti’s recumbent statue of the Prince, which was to be
placed over his sarcophagus, completed.

[Illustration: REINHARDSBRUNN, NEAR GOTHA.]

Early on the morning of the 18th of December the remains of the Prince
were taken from St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, to Frogmore, the ceremony
being conducted in extreme privacy. The coffin was first placed in a
hearse, which was followed by the Prince of Wales and Prince Louis of
Hesse in a mourning coach. The Lord Chamberlain, the Dean of Windsor,
Sir Charles Phipps, Colonel Grey, and other officials and domestics of
the Royal Household formed the rest of the procession. The ceremony was
very brief, simple, and solemn, and when the coffin was placed within
the sarcophagus, the Princes laid upon it floral wreaths, which the
Princesses had woven with their own hands for their father’s grave.

CHAPTER VI.

THE MARRIAGE OF THE PRINCE OF WALES.

England in 1863--The Prince of Wales Summoned as a Peer of
Parliament--His Introduction to the House of Lords--Cession of the
Ionian Islands to Greece--Mr. Disraeli’s Policy--The Prince of
Wales’s Income--The Dowry of the Princess--Approaching Marriage of
the Prince of Wales--The Voyage of the “Sea-King’s
Daughter”--Reception of the Princess Alexandra at Gravesend--Her
Entry into London--The Scene in the City--The West End _en
fête_--Loyalty of Clubland--Accident to the Royal Party at
Slough--The High Churchmen and the Queen--Objections to a Royal
Marriage in Lent--The Dispensing Power of the Primate--A Visit to
Frogmore--The Queen at the Prince of Wales’s Marriage--The Scene in
St. George’s Chapel--The Wedding Presents--The Ceremony--The
Wedding Guests hustled by Roughs--Riots in Ireland--Illuminated
London--Foreign Policy--The Polish Question--The Russian Rebuff to
Lord Palmerston--Napoleon III. Proposes a Congress of
Sovereigns--Lord Russell Condemns the Proposal--The Death-Knell of
the Anglo-French Alliance--France and Mexico and the Archduke
Maximilian.

But for the controversy that was waged in the Press over the Civil War
in America, and the sufferings of Lancashire, where the people were
lying under the blight of the Cotton Famine, the year 1863 would have
presented a record of unruffled calm. The classes and the masses still
wrangled over the rights and wrongs of the Southern States; but the
leaders of political parties, adhering to the policy of neutrality,
discouraged all projects for interfering between the belligerents. The
organs of public opinion in the Northern States bitterly condemned
England because her aristocracy displayed strong Southern sympathies.
The organs of public opinion in the Southern States reviled the English
Government because Lord Russell refused to join the Emperor of the
French in recognising the Southern Confederacy. For some mysterious
reason France, whose policy was thus absolutely hostile to the Federal
Government, was not only popular in the South but in the North. Both
belligerents were, however, surprised to find that events falsified the
anticipations which they had based on the effect of the Cotton Famine.
So far from forcing England to interfere in the struggle, the
destruction of her cotton industry was seen to produce local suffering
rather than national disaster. The foundations of British trade, in
fact, had, by the fiscal policy of Sir Robert Peel and Mr. Gladstone,
been laid so broad and so deep, that the nation easily withstood the
shock from the ruin of its most productive branch of manufacture.
Losses in the cotton trade were more than balanced by increased gains in
other forms of commercial enterprise, and on New Year’s Day the revenue
had increased so unexpectedly, that Mr. Gladstone not only began to
dream of surpluses, but was busy hatching projects for a fresh reduction
of taxation. Indeed, the lavish subscriptions to the fund for relieving
distress in the cotton districts indicated how little the Cotton Famine
had affected the aggregate amount of disposable wealth in the country.
By the end of January this princely fund had reached three-quarters of a
million sterling--a sum which did not, of course, represent the
unestimated contributions of manufacturers who, like Mr. John Bright,
ran their mills on short time at a loss, rather than turn their
workpeople into the streets.

Parliament was opened by Commission on the 8th of February--the first
paragraph in the Queen’s Speech announcing the approaching marriage of
the Prince of Wales to the Princess Alexandra. The offer of the Crown of
Greece to Prince Alfred was alluded to, and the continuance of the Civil
War in America, with its attendant Cotton Famine in Lancashire,
deplored. But as to legislation, the Royal Speech said nothing definite.
All promises were conveyed in Lord Palmerston’s stereotyped formula,
that “various measures of public usefulness and improvement” would be
submitted for the consideration of Parliament. The debates on the
Address attracted less popular interest than the ceremonial proceedings
of the House of Lords, when, on the first day of the Session, the Prince
of Wales took his seat in that august Assembly. The scene on that
occasion was a memorable one. In the side galleries near the Throne the
Duchess of Cambridge, the Princess Mary of Cambridge, and a brilliant
array of Peeresses had secured places. The Foreign Ambassadors and
Ministers and Members of the House of Commons were also well
represented. After the Royal Speech was read the Commissioners retired,
and at about a quarter to four the Lord Chancellor, in his ordinary
black silk robe, wig, and three-cornered hat, entered the House,
preceded by the Great Seal, and seated himself on the woolsack. The
Bishop of Worcester having read the prayers, a brilliant procession of
Peers was then seen defiling from the Prince’s Chamber, and it marched
with slow and stately formality up the floor of the House, led by Sir
Augustus Clifford, Usher of the Black Rod, who was followed by Sir
Charles Young, arrayed in the robes of the Garter-King-at-Arms. He was
followed by an equerry carrying the coronet of the Prince of Wales on a
gorgeously embroidered cushion. Then came the Prince himself, wearing
the scarlet and ermine robes of a Duke over a general officer’s uniform,
and decorated with the insignia of the Garter, the Golden Fleece, and
the Star of India. Accompanying him were the Dukes of Cambridge and
Argyll, the Earls of Derby and Granville, Earl Spencer and Lord
Kingsdown, Lord Willoughby d’Eresby, Hereditary Grand Chamberlain, and
Lord Edmund Howard, representing the infant Duke of Norfolk, as
Hereditary Grand Marshal. As the procession entered the House, the
Peers rose and remained standing during the ceremony--the Lord
Chancellor alone retaining his seat, and wearing his cocked hat. The
Prince bowed, and advancing to the woolsack, delivered his patent of
nobility and writ of summons to the Lord Chancellor. He then returned to
the table where Sir J. Shaw-Lefevre, Clerk of the Parliaments,
administered the oath to him, as Duke of Cornwall and Rothesay, Earl of
Chester and Carrick, and Lord of the Isles. Having signed the roll, the
procession passed round behind the woolsack, till the Prince reached the
right-hand side of the Throne, where he took his seat formally on the
Chair of State reserved for the Heir-Apparent to the Crown. As he seated
himself he placed his hat on his head. Then uncovering he rose, advanced
to the woolsack, and shook hands with the Lord Chancellor, who very
slightly raised his hat as he went through the formal salutation. The
procession then left the House, and business was suspended till five
o’clock, when the Prince reappeared in ordinary walking-dress, with the
Duke of Cambridge, beside whom he sat on one of the cross-benches
throughout the debate on the Address.

In both Houses the Government was attacked, mainly on account of its
foreign policy. The Tories pretended to see in the proposed cession of
the Ionian Islands to Greece the premonitory sign of the fall of the
British Empire. Their argument turned on a strange misconception, not
only of the arrangements made at Vienna in 1815, but of the Queen’s
prerogative. The Ionian Islands were never British territory. They
formed an independent Republic, placed by the European Powers under the
protection of England.[147] But the primary aim of that protectorate was
to foster the spirit of Greek nationality, and not to give Corfu to
England as a place of arms. When the Ionians therefore desired
annexation to Greece, and Greece was able to protect them, England would
have been false to the trust she undertook in 1815, if she had
maintained her protectorate by force. Earl Grey clearly proved that it
was quite within the prerogative of the Queen to cede a protectorate
without consulting Parliament. In fact, as the magnificent island of
Java, which was a possession and not a protectorate, was given to the
Dutch without Parliament being consulted on the subject, it is difficult
to understand why the Opposition raised the question of prerogative in
this instance. Mr. Disraeli’s complaints that certain Ministers--of whom
Mr. Gladstone was one--had made speeches during the recess indicating a

[Illustration: THE VANDYKE ROOM, WINDSOR CASTLE.]

desire to recognise the Confederate Government in the United States,
were more difficult to meet. These speeches compromised the policy of
strict neutrality which had been accepted by the Cabinet, and on that
account they had caused considerable annoyance to the Queen. The absence
of legislative proposals from the Royal Speech naturally gave Lord Derby
a cue for some gibes, which, however, did not in the least affect Lord
Palmerston’s peace of mind. The position of the Tories at this time was
frankly avowed by Mr. Disraeli in a conversation with Count Vitzthum
just before Parliament met. “I have not, indeed,” said Mr. Disraeli,
“yet settled with my friends our plans for the coming Parliamentary
campaign; but I think I can tell you at once that there will be no
serious fighting. Something, of course, may turn up, but at present
there seems to be nothing that could force us to quit our waiting
attitude. We shall not form a weak Ministry a third time. We can wait,
and shall upset nothing. If we take the helm again, we shall do so with
the prospect of a longer and safer tenure. Whether this will happen or
not before Lord Palmerston dies I don’t know; for the present, at any
rate, the old man need fear no serious attack from us.” The change in
strategy here is obvious. In 1862 the policy of the Opposition was
adopted in deference to the general feeling that the Queen should,
during the first days of her widowhood, be spared the anxiety of party
conflicts, which possibly involved Ministerial crises. In 1863 the
Tories adopted the policy of patriotically supporting Lord Palmerston’s
Ministry simply because they were themselves unable to form a strong
Cabinet, and Mr. Disraeli had determined that they must not “form a weak
Ministry a third time.”[148]

But an event was approaching which diverted the minds of the nation from
politics, namely, the marriage of the Prince of Wales, which it was now
known would take place before Easter. The object of one of the first
proposals laid before Parliament was to make an adequate provision for
the future establishment of the Heir-Apparent. A message from the Queen
to both Houses on the subject evoked a loyal congratulatory Address, and
Palmerston himself moved the formal resolutions called for by the
occasion in the House of Commons. He said that the Government considered
that £100,000 a year would be a fair income to allow the Heir-Apparent,
and, as he derived £60,000 a year from the revenues of the Duchy of
Cornwall, the House would be asked to vote only £40,000 a year out of
the Consolidated Fund. For the Princess of Wales, it was proposed that a
separate allowance of £10,000 a year should be sanctioned, and, further,
that in the event of her surviving her husband, a jointure of £30,000
should be secured to her. No objection could be fairly made to an
arrangement which was at once moderate and business-like. Indeed, the
Radicals were agreeably surprised to find that Parliament was not called
on to vote anything approaching the enormous sum which was sanctioned by
the precedent of 1795.[149] As for the domestic arrangements relating to
the marriage, they were proceeding apace, and the nation was pleased to
know that the Queen was able to participate in them with ever-quickening
interest.

It has been said already that during the visit of the Queen to Brussels
in the autumn of 1862, the preliminaries of this marriage had been
arranged, and in November the Princess Alexandra had paid a brief visit
to the Queen at Osborne, where her winsome manners charmed all hearts.
In February, 1863, the King of Denmark and his subjects alike testified
their approval of her marriage by bestowing on her many valuable gifts.
On the 26th the Princess left Copenhagen with the good wishes of all
classes sounding in her ears. The day was kept as a public holiday, and
the crowded streets from the palace to the railway station were gay with
festal flags and garlands. From the windows of the houses the Princess,
who was escorted by her eldest brother, Prince Frederick, was pelted
with bouquets of flowers, and at the station she was met by all
the high functionaries of State, who took leave of her in formal
farewell addresses for which her father, Prince Christian of
Sleswig-Holstein-Glücksburg, Heir-Presumptive to the Danish throne,
returned thanks. The Royal party travelling by Kiel, Hamburg, Hanover,
and Coblentz, reached Brussels on the 2nd of March, where they were
received by the Duchess of Brabant, the Count de Flandres, and the
English and Danish Ambassadors. On the 5th they left for Antwerp, where
they embarked on board the _Victoria and Albert_ yacht and sailed for
Flushing, where Rear-Admiral Smart’s squadron of escort was waiting for
them. At eight in the evening the Royal yacht, which had passed
Flushing, was sighted by the two chief vessels of the escort. Royal
salutes from each awoke the echoes of the deep, yards were manned, and
rockets went hissing up into the air, falling round the Royal yacht in a
sparkling shower of stars. Without stopping for a moment, the bridal
party and their convoy sped on through the darkness, gliding over the
glassy surface of what might have been a summer sea. Before midnight the
_Victoria and Albert_ had anchored in Margate Roads. At eight o’clock in
the morning of the 6th the _Revenge_ and the _Warrior_ were dressed with
flags, and again a royal salute thundered over the waves. Admiral Smart,
by hurrying at racing speed across the North Sea, had earned the
gratitude of the Princess and her companions, for soon after the bridal
party entered English waters the German Ocean was swept by
south-westerly gales. At four o’clock in the afternoon the squadron was
sighted from Sheerness, whereupon the ships at the Nore manned their
yards and saluted. Bonfires blazed along the beach. The word “Welcome”
in letters ten feet high gleamed in the radiance of blue lights, and a
long line of torches glimmered along the sea-wall. Next morning the
Royal yacht, escorted by the _Warrior_, steamed up the Thames, arriving
at Gravesend at noon. Here the Prince of Wales met his bride, and they
landed amidst Royal salutes from the warships. The Mayoress presented
the Princess with a bouquet. The Mayor and municipal dignitaries
presented loyal addresses, but the prettiest part of the ceremony was
the procession from the landing-place to the Royal carriage. A band of
young ladies dressed in white--wearing red burnous cloaks and straw hats
decked with wreaths of oak-leaves--tripped gaily along in advance of the
Princess, strewing her path with flowers. At the railway station the
party was greeted by crowds whose cheers betokened their desire to
welcome the “Sea-King’s daughter.” When the Royal train reached London
it stopped at the Bricklayers’ Arms Station, which was gay with crimson
drapery, and here a boudoir and ante-chamber for the travellers had been
fitted up. Among the brilliant crowd of about 700 privileged persons who
were admitted to the station were the Duke of Cambridge, the Prince of
Prussia, the Duke of Saxe-Coburg, the Count de Flandres, Sir George
Grey, the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs of London, Sir Richard Mayne, Chief
Commissioner of Police, Mr. Layard, and others. Here the Royal party
partook of luncheon, received some congratulatory addresses, and left
the station at five minutes past two o’clock.

There was some fear lest the entry of the Princess into the capital
would not be an unalloyed triumph. The officials of the Court had
contrived to irritate the populace by several of their arrangements. The
people were at first annoyed because they had been told the procession
was to pass through the metropolis at a smart trot. Then the municipal
dignitaries were greatly affronted because in the original plan they
were to have no part in the procession. The reason given for this
prohibition was that the Lord Mayor would necessarily have headed the
pageant, but inasmuch as his unwieldy State coach must proceed at
walking pace, his presence would have prevented the Royal carriages
passing along at high speed. But when the Corporation met and expressed
their anger at this interference with their prerogative, the Court
officials yielded, and so it was arranged that the Lord Mayor and his
train should head the procession as far as Temple Bar. But the moment
the Princess appeared, her grace, her beauty, her charming simplicity of
manners, carried all hearts by storm, and London was quite delirious
with joyful excitement when she came on the scene. As the _cortège_ left
the station it was headed by the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs, and by the
High Bailiff of Southwark, escorted by Horse Guards. Loyal crowds lined
the _route_, which was decked with flags and triumphal arches. The
officials of Southwark left the procession at London Bridge, which had
been decorated in the most lavish manner by the Corporation. Venetian
masts, surmounted by the Danish arms, medallions of the Danish Kings,
tripods of incense, and banners innumerable were seen on all sides. Near
Fishmongers’ Hall, a huge triumphal arch, seventy feet high, spanned the
roadway. It was a gorgeous but somewhat confused mass of allegory and
symbolism, bearing statues of Saxo Grammaticus, Holberg, Thorwaldsen,
and Juel; a group of horses in plaster crowning the whole structure. As
for the centrepiece, it was a fearful and wonderful work of art,
blazoned with gold and flaunting colours. Britannia, surrounded by all
the Pagan gods and goddesses; a portrait of the Queen in widow’s weeds;
banners and heraldic devices and armorial escutcheons, all combined to
make this structure unforgettable. In the City, it must be allowed, the
local authorities rivalled the Court officials in their capacity for
mismanagement. They refused all offers of assistance from the Horse
Guards and the Home Office. Neither the Duke of Cambridge’s Cavalry nor
Sir Richard Mayne’s Police were permitted to keep the crowds in
order--that duty being entrusted to the City Police, the Honourable
Artillery Company, and some Volunteers. Hence the streets were blocked
up, and, according to Lord Malmesbury,[150] “if it had not been for the
good temper of the people some terrible catastrophe must have
occurred.” At the Mansion House a brilliant group of ladies, of whom the
Lady Mayoress was the central figure, was waiting in the portico to
welcome the Princess. Here the procession paused, and a bouquet was
presented to her Royal Highness. But whilst this ceremony was going on,
the authorities lost control of the crowd, and dense masses began to
press on the Royal carriages with such persistency, that the Danish
dignitaries in the train of the Princess were thrown into a panic, which
was, however, allayed by the presence of mind of the Prince of Wales.
The procession then drove on to Temple Bar, which was transformed into a
grand triumphal arch, crowned with a tent of cloth of gold. At the
corners smoking tripods sent up clouds of incense. Here the Civic
dignitaries left the _cortège_, which was then headed by the High
Steward of Westminster and other officials, who fell out at Hyde Park.

[Illustration: ENTRY OF THE PRINCESS ALEXANDRA INTO LONDON: THE
PROCESSION PASSING TEMPLE BAR.]

Clubland was in gala array, and the Princess seemed quite interested
when Marlborough House was pointed out to her by the Prince as her
future home. On the balcony at Cambridge House in Piccadilly Lord and
Lady Palmerston were the most conspicuous figures in a group of
aristocratic sightseers, and were honoured with gracious salutes from
the Royal party. But of all the houses in Piccadilly that of Lord
Willoughby d’Eresby was the most florid in its decoration. It was
decked with evergreens, flags of all nations, and numberless banners.
The wall space under the drawing-room windows was draped with white and
gold, and with blue hangings studded with golden stars. “We went,”
writes Lord Malmesbury, in his Diary, “to Lord Willoughby’s house at a
quarter before one to see the entry of the Princess. The houses along
Piccadilly were decorated, with few exceptions, but I saw nothing really
pretty except Lord Willoughby’s and Lord Cadogan’s. There were a good
many people in the drawing-room. It was the coldest day we have had for
a long time, no sun, with occasional showers, and we were half frozen
standing on the balconies. The Duke of Cambridge rode by two or three
times with his staff, and was greatly cheered. Lord Ranelagh passed at
the head of his brigade of Volunteers. Then appeared the Royal
carriages; and I was never more surprised or disappointed. The first
five contained the suite and brothers and sisters of the Princess
Alexandra; the carriages looked old and shabby, and the horses very
poor, with no trappings, not even rosettes, and no outriders. In short,
the shabbiness of the whole _cortège_ was beyond anything one could
imagine, everybody asking ‘Where is the Master of the Horse?’ The
Princess kept bowing right and left very gracefully. The moment the
procession had passed the crowds dispersed, but there were universal
remarks and compliments on the Princess’s beauty.”[151] Through a double
line of seventeen thousand Volunteers the procession drove to Paddington
Station, and there the Royal Party took the train for Slough, where they
were received by the Princes of Prussia and Hesse, and Princes Arthur
and Leopold. Night was now closing in, and rain fell fast. To add to the
discomforts of the travellers, the horses of the first carriage became
restive. The leaders of the second turned right round on the wheelers,
and great confusion prevailed. All the harness became entangled.
“Altogether,” writes Lord Malmesbury, “everything done by the Court
authorities was bad.” It was past ten o’clock when Eton was reached, the
boys of the College cheering the Princess vociferously, after which the
_cortège_ was met and welcomed at the triumphal arch at Windsor by the
municipal authorities. The shouts of the people and the loyal and royal
town rang in the ears of the Princess as she drove into the Castle. Here
she was received by the Queen and the Princesses Louise and Beatrice,
who had been waiting anxiously for her coming.

Next morning (Sunday) the Queen, her family, and her guests attended
service in the private chapel, where the Bishop of Oxford preached from
the text “Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that
weep.” Wilberforce had to handle his theme with great delicacy and tact,
because the Queen had been sadly annoyed by the carping criticism of
some zealots of the High Church Party. They had taken offence because
her Majesty had permitted her son to be married in Lent, and they even
threatened to absent themselves from all the national festivities that
were to mark the event. The Queen had invoked Wilberforce’s aid in
pacifying these persons, and in a letter to the Bishop of Salisbury he
writes as follows:--“I am _very_ sorry for the time of the marriage, but
everything possible has been done to get it changed, and in vain. I
_think_ the best thing now possible would be for the Archbishop to write
a letter saying that for high State reasons, that time having been
thought necessary, he, as Archbishop, thinks it his duty to express that
he, so far as it is lawful for him to do so, dispenses for that day with
the Church’s ordinary rule, or add that all may, without scruple,
legally devote it to rejoicing.”[152] This advice, however, was not
acted on. But Wilberforce issued a letter to each of his Archdeacons for
the guidance of the clergy in his diocese, in which he said that “any
rejoicing, to be real, must be on the day of the marriage.” He held that
the Archbishop’s Episcopal authority gave him the right to abrogate the
Lenten Fast for such an occasion, and he added that from communications
he had received he considered “that the Primate had exercised his
dispensing power.”[153] Wilberforce’s sermon, however, pleased and
impressed his illustrious audience. In his “Diary,” and in that of Dr.
Macleod, some interesting facts of the Queen’s life at this period are
disclosed. After referring to the sermon on the 8th of March,
Wilberforce writes: “Saw the Queen in the afternoon, and had much talk
with her; always the Prince--expecting him in old places. Large dinner;
after, presented to the Princess Alexandra; she very pleasing--such a
countenance, mien, demeanour, and conversation!” Some days previously
Dr. Macleod had visited her Majesty at Windsor, and she took him, with
Lady Augusta Bruce and the Princess Alice, to the Mausoleum at Frogmore.
“She (the Queen),” writes Dr. Macleod, “had the key, and opened it
herself, undoing the bolts, and alone we entered and stood in silence
beside Marochetti’s beautiful statue of the Prince. I was very much
overcome. She was calm and quiet.... I had a private interview at night
with the Queen. She is so true, so genuine, I wonder not at her sorrow.
To me it is quite natural, and has not a bit of morbid feeling in it. It
but expresses the greatest loss that a Sovereign and wife could
sustain.”[154] The bridal festivities of the Princess were overcast to
some extent by the cloud of melancholy which had settled on the Queen’s
heart.

But there was no lack of joyous display on the part of the public. On
Monday, the 9th of March, the Lord Mayor of London and several members
of the Corporation brought their wedding gift to the Princess--a diamond
necklace

[Illustration: THE PRINCESS OF WALES.

(_From a Photograph taken about the time of her Marriage._)]

and earrings worth £10,000. The Princess spent the day in driving about
the neighbourhood of Windsor, and in the evening there was a splendid
State banquet in St. George’s Hall, followed by a party and a
magnificent show of fireworks in the Home Park. On the 10th the marriage
took place in the Chapel Royal at Windsor, in the presence of a
brilliant assembly, the Queen--shrouded in the deepest mourning--taking
no part in the ceremony, which she watched with tearful eyes from the
Royal closet. Shortly before noon the Archbishop of Canterbury, the
assisting bishops and clergy, entered the Chapel--the prelates walking
to the altar, the Archbishop to the north side, and the Dean of Windsor
to the south. The Chapel was one mass of gorgeous colour, softened in
tone by the rich light that streamed through the painted window of the
choir. Massive sacramental plate of gold and silver, superb golden
candlesticks,

[Illustration: MARLBOROUGH HOUSE, FROM THE GARDEN.]

alms-dishes, quaint and curiously-wrought chalices and patens, were
heaped in a glittering pile on the altar. The reredos, hung with rich
crimson velvet curtains, with its fine panels of Christ and the Woman of
Samaria, the Ascension, and the Institution of the Holy Communion, shone
with the virgin purity of white alabaster. Time and space would fail to
catalogue the dazzling array of Royal and Princely guests, of
Ambassadors and Ministers of State, whose resplendent uniforms and
sparkling decorations almost fatigued the spectator’s eye. The Princess
Alexandra was clad in rich white satin robes, trimmed with Honiton lace
and orange blossoms. Her necklace, earrings, and brooch of pearls and
diamonds were a gift from the Prince of Wales; her rivière of diamonds
was the gift of the Corporation of the City of London. On her wrists
shone three bracelets--two being of opals and diamonds, one of which was
given to her by the Queen, the other by the ladies of Manchester, whilst
the third, of diamonds, was the gift of the ladies of Leeds. Her bouquet
was a magnificent collection of orange blossoms, white rosebuds, lilies
of the valley, and costly orchids, made up at Osborne in accordance with
the Queen’s directions, and throughout, the mass of floral bloom was
relieved by sprigs of the myrtle which had served for the bridal bouquet
of the Princess Royal. The design of the four great flounces of Honiton
lace on her robe was a sequence of cornucopiæ filled with roses,
shamrocks, and thistles, arranged in festoons and interspersed with
these national emblems.[155] As for the Prince of Wales, he wore a
General’s uniform, with the mantle of the Garter, the gold collar and
jewel of that Order, and the decorations of the Golden Fleece and the
Star of India. His chief supporters were the Crown Prince of Prussia,
and the Duke of Saxe-Coburg-and-Gotha. The Princess was led in by her
father, Prince Christian of Denmark, and the Duke of Cambridge, and her
bridesmaids were eight unmarried daughters of Dukes, Marquises, and
Earls, namely, Lady Victoria Scott, Lady Diana Beauclerk, Lady Elina
Bruce, Lady Victoria Howard, Lady Emily Villiers, Lady Agneta Yorke,
Lady Feodore Wellesley, and Lady Eleanor Hare. As the procession reached
the altar, the band and organ performed Handel’s march from _Joseph_.
The choir next sang one of the late Prince Consort’s chorales--Jenny
Lind’s sweet birdlike notes ringing high above all other voices. The
Archbishop then read the service, and when the ring was placed on the
finger of the Princess, distant guns thundered forth a salute, and the
bells of Windsor rang out a peal of joy. After the benediction the Psalm
was chanted with great solemnity, and the united processions of the
bride and bridegroom left the Chapel, the choir singing Beethoven’s
Hallelujah Chorus from the _Mount of Olives_. At the Grand Entrance to
Windsor Castle the bride and bridegroom and their train were received by
the Queen, whose features bore traces of deep emotion, and were by her
conducted to the Green Drawing Room and White Room, where the marriage
was attested in due form by the Royal guests, the ecclesiastical
dignitaries, the Ministers of the Crown, and M. de Bille, the Danish
Minister. Breakfast was served in the Dining Room to the Royal guests,
and in St. George’s Hall to the company present at the ceremony, upwards
of four hundred in number. The wedding cake on the table at St. George’s
Hall is said to have weighed eighty pounds. At four in the afternoon the
Prince and Princess of Wales left for Osborne, amidst hearty cheers from
loyal crowds, who greeted them as they drove along to the station.

Dr. Norman Macleod, describing the ceremony, says in his Diary, “Two
things struck me much. One was the whole of the Royal Princesses
weeping, though concealing their tears with their bouquets, as they saw
their brother, who was to them but their ‘Bertie’ and their dear
father’s son, standing alone, waiting for the bride. The other was the
Queen’s expression as she raised her eyes to heaven, while her husband’s
chorale was sung. She seemed to be with him before the throne of God.”
The Bishop of Oxford, in a letter to Sir Charles Anderson, gives a less
pathetic description of the scene. He writes:--“The ceremony was
certainly the most moving sight I ever saw. The Queen, above all,
looking down, added a wonderful chord of deep feeling to all the lighter
notes of joyfulness and show. Every one behaved quite at their best.
The

[Illustration: MARRIAGE OF THE PRINCE OF WALES.]

Princess of Wales calm, feeling, self-possessed. The Prince with more
depth of manner than ever before. Princess Mary’s entrance was grand.
The little Prince William of Prussia, between his two little uncles[156]
to keep him quiet, both of whom--the Crown Princess told me--he bit on
the bare Highland legs whenever they touched him to keep him
quiet.”[157] There was, however, one jarring incident in the proceedings
which irritated the Queen not a little, and to which reference is made
by Lord Malmesbury and Count Vitzthum. Lord Malmesbury says in his
Diary, “Nothing could exceed the splendour of the scene in St. George’s
Chapel. The foreigners were all much struck with it; it was so grand as
to be overpowering. Mr. Paget confirmed all I had heard of the confusion
on the departure of the special train for London. The Duchess of
Westminster, who had on half a million’s worth of diamonds, could only
find place in a third class carriage, and Lady Palmerston was equally
unfortunate. Count Livradio had his diamond star torn off and stolen by
the roughs.” Count Vitzthum writes, “The confusion at the railway
station when the special train was leaving was incomprehensible. We men
were in full uniform, and the unfortunate ladies in full Court attire
and covered with jewellery. It had never occurred to the police to close
the entrances to the platform, and the returning guests were hemmed in
by a noisy and disorderly crowd.”[158]

In every part of the kingdom the 10th of March was kept as a national
holiday. London and all the great cities were brilliantly
illuminated--in fact, it was only in Ireland that the event was not
marked by universal manifestations of popular loyalty. There was some
rioting in Dublin and Cork; indeed, in the latter city, troops had to be
called out to restore order. The appearance of Edinburgh on the evening
of the 10th was particularly memorable, the “grey metropolis of the
North” naturally lending itself to effective illumination. After a brief
honeymoon at Osborne, the Prince and Princess of Wales returned to
London. But Lord Malmesbury, who describes their entry to St. James’s
Palace, says, the scene struck him “as very melancholy, when one
considered the cause of the Queen’s absence.” A few days afterwards, he
was invited to Windsor Castle. “The Queen,” he writes, “was quite calm
and even cheerful, and looks well, but she complains of not feeling
strong, and being unable to stand much.”

So far as the Queen was able to take an active interest in the
management of the Foreign policy of the country, the only questions to
which she paid close attention were those relating to Poland and the
Duchy of Sleswig-Holstein. For two years rebellious agitators had
disturbed Poland, and at last the Russian Government, in a moment of
irritation, resolved to seize the youth of the upper and middle
classes, who represented the discontented sections of the people, and
drive them into the Imperial Army as conscripts. The rigour with which
this measure was enforced roused a great deal of popular sympathy in
England on behalf of the Poles, and strong pressure was put on the
Government by the Tories, by some Radicals like Mr. Stansfeld, who were
friendly to Continental revolutionary movements, and even by a large
section of the Evangelical party, led by Lord Shaftesbury, to interfere
on behalf of the Polish insurgents. For in February, 1863, the Committee
of the Polish National Insurrection had issued its first proclamation,
after which, Mieroslavski raised the standard of revolt on the Posen
frontier. A pamphlet, called “Napoleon III. et la Pologne,” had been
published in Paris, under the auspices of the French Emperor, and it not
only created a sensation on the Continent, but it roused the suspicions
of the Queen. Palmerston’s personal sympathies were naturally with the
Poles. But, on the other hand, the Queen could not forget that the
restoration of Poland was one of the many devices which the Emperor of
the French had in reserve for upsetting the Treaties of 1815, in order
to give him a pretext for seizing the left bank of the Rhine. It was
not, therefore, from any sympathy for the Czar’s autocratic policy of
repression that the English Court was averse from encouraging the Polish
insurrection, or that the King of Prussia and his Minister, Herr Von
Bismarck, actively aided Russia in coercing the Poles by massing troops
along the frontier of Posen, and delivering up Polish fugitives who fled
to Prussian territory. The Courts of Berlin and St. James’s alike
dreaded a general European war--and to that issue the Queen honestly
believed a policy of intervention must tend. For a time Lord
Palmerston’s Ministry tossed about aimlessly in a vortex of
embarrassments. They were afraid to develop a policy of intervention,
lest it might encourage an outbreak of anti-Russian opinion in England,
and drive them into a war, with Napoleon III. as a self-interested ally.
They were equally afraid that a policy of cold neutrality might be
resented by the populace, whose sympathies were being roused daily on
behalf of Poland. At last they sent a secret agent--Mr. Lawrence
Oliphant--to Poland, to discover the real character of the revolutionary
movement. His report was very discouraging to Lord Palmerston, but it
strengthened the hands of the Queen. Mr. Oliphant found that the
conscription enforced by Russia was really an act of precaution against
an insurrection which had been carefully planned in secret, and was
ordered and guided by a Central Committee of Social Democrats in London.
The movement was not, therefore, a national one in its origin, though
resistance to the conscription had drawn a large body of the nobles and
the middle classes into the ranks of the insurgents. In order to free
themselves from the dictation of the Socialists, they had made
Langiewicz Dictator; but after a time he left them and fled to Austria.
The Committee of Insurrection, which was then formed, had nothing to do
with the Socialist Committee in London, and it was fighting, not for
Constitutional reform under the Czar, but for the restoration of the
Polish

[Illustration: CORRIDOR, OSBORNE HOUSE.

(_After a Photograph by J. Valentine and Sons, Dundee._)]

Kingdom of 1772, an object of which England, as a party to the Treaties
of 1815, could hardly approve. The insurgents had no military
organisation or competent leaders, and they were carrying on guerilla
warfare with the tenacity of despair.[159] As for the peasants, they had
no reason to love their old tyrants, the nobles. For them the Government
of the Czar was a lesser evil than the _régime_ of 1772, and so they
held aloof.[160] Still, some steps had to be taken to satisfy public
opinion and ward off attacks in Parliament. Ministers accordingly
decided to remonstrate gently with Russia--the excuse being that the
Treaties of 1815 gave England a moral right of interference between
Russia and Poland. The policy of France, on the other hand, was
interference, not on the basis of the Treaties of 1815, which, the
Emperor declared in his Speech to the Chambers, were dead, but in the
interests of humanity outraged at the excesses which Poles and Russians
were alike committing. Austria, on the other hand, considered that she
could only approach Russia as a neighbouring Power, like Prussia,
possessing Polish subjects, whose institutions might with advantage be
imitated in Russian Poland. The attitude of Prussia was that of declared
friendliness to Russia.

Thus the Powers were grouped as before the Crimean War: England, France,
and Austria in accord, but each with a different end to serve, and a
different idea underlying their respective policies: Russia and Prussia,
on the other hand, solidly in alliance. Ultimately, Lord Russell
suggested on the 17th of June that Russia might submit the whole Polish
Question to a Conference of the Eight Powers who had signed the Treaty
of Vienna, on the basis of an understanding that there should be an
amnesty, and an armistice, and that moderate constitutional reforms
should be carried out in Poland. The weak point in the proposal was that
Lord Palmerston and Lord Russell ignored the warning of their own secret
agent to the effect that the Poles had no organised leadership. Russia
was therefore able to ask ironically with whom did Lord Russell propose
to negotiate an armistice? and how he did propose to guarantee obedience
to it by migratory bands under guerilla chiefs? It was therefore the
contention of Russia that surrender must precede any negotiations for
peace, and that were it not for the hope of aid from France and England,
the Poles would have long since ceased to resist. Russia, in a word,
refused to accept the basis of negotiations. She offered, however, to
discuss the affairs of Poland with Austria and Prussia--the other
partitioning Powers--probably anticipating the refusal of Austria to
separate herself from England and France. Finally, she declined to
accept any foreign interference whatever in her domestic affairs. Lord
Palmerston and Lord Russell meekly submitted to this rebuff, and
concurred with France and Austria in remonstrating with Russia, on the
grave responsibility she incurred in haughtily rejecting their good
offices.

The speech of the Emperor Napoleon at the opening of the French Chambers
has already been referred to. The sentences alluding to the Treaties of
1815, and to the summoning of a European Congress, not only to settle
the Polish Question, but other questions affecting nationalities
struggling to be free, soon received a practical comment, for in Paris
the Funds fell with startling rapidity. A few days after the speech was
delivered the Emperor addressed a circular to the Powers which fully
justified the warnings that the Queen had given to her Ministers, from
the day the Polish Question was raised. Napoleon, in fact, invited the
Sovereigns of Europe to meet in Congress and settle the affairs of the
Continent, and the tone of the circular, combined with the veiled threat
of war in his speech, really transformed the invitation into a summons.
Italy and Prussia accepted the proposal, the former because she saw in
it an opportunity for wresting Venice from Austria. As for Lord Russell,
he met the project with a refusal couched in terms that stung the French
Emperor to the quick. Writing on the 29th of November, Lord Malmesbury,
in his “Diary,” says, “Mr. Seymour Fitzgerald arrived from Paris, where
he says the refusal of our Government to attend the Congress proposed by
Napoleon, and especially the rude tone of Lord Russell’s despatch, has
created great irritation. The correspondence between the English and
French Governments respecting the Congress is published in to-day’s
papers. Lord Russell’s despatch is published in the _Gazette_, and I am
not surprised that the French are angry; for not only is it very rude,
but it was sent without the least delay, and published in the _Times_
before it was delivered to Drouyn de Lhuys.”[161] The despatches,
however, merely reveal the customary combination of dogmatic argument
with a supercilious affectation of infallibility, which gives a
distinctive mark to all Lord Russell’s diplomatic correspondence.
Napoleon, too, had laid himself open to a rebuff by not sounding England
on his proposal, before he sprang it on the world. Count Vitzthum says
that the despatch was approved at a meeting of the Cabinet on the 19th
of November, after which it was submitted next day to the Queen at
Windsor, who, according to Lord Russell’s statement to the Count, “had
given her assent with pleasure to the refusal to take part in the
Congress.”[162] Still Napoleon was not without his consolations. In
Mexico Forey’s victories enabled the French to bring together a Mexican
Assembly of their partisans, who recommended the establishment of a
mimic Bonapartist Empire under the Archduke Maximilian. This unfortunate
Prince consented to take the Crown, provided the Mexicans sanctioned his
dynasty by a _plébiscite_.

Much more serious for the Queen was the rapid development of the
Sleswig-Holstein Question, as to which her opinions were known in
Society to be in undisguised conflict with those of her Ministers. The
death of Frederick VII. and the succession of the father of the Princess
of Wales to the Danish Crown rendered this question urgent.

CHAPTER VII.

LORD PALMERSTON’S LAST CONTEST WITH THE QUEEN.

The Sleswig-Holstein Question--The Danish Succession--Palmerston’s
Partisanship--The “Danification” of the Duchies--The Letters-Patent
of Christian VIII.--The Revolution of ’48--The Sleswig-Holstein
Treaty of Berlin--Salic Law in the Duchies--Palmerston’s Intrigue
with the Russian Ambassador--The Protocol of 1850--The Queen’s
Objections to it--Prince Albert’s Advice to the Prince of Noër--The
Treaty of London--Lord Malmesbury’s Fatal Blunder--His Mistake as
to the Mandate of the Diet--Letters-Patent of Frederick VII.--His
Death--Accession of Christian IX.--Revolt of the
Duchies--Proclamation of the Duke of Augustenburg as Sovereign--Mr.
Gladstone’s Popular Budget--Death of Sir George Cornewall
Lewis--The Queen’s Letter to Lady Theresa Lewis--The Dispute with
Brazil--The Prison Ministers Bill--A South Kensington
Job--Hoodwinking the Commons--A “Scene” in the House of Commons--A
Ministerial Defeat--Sir George Grey and the City Police--The Civil
War in America--Escape of the _Alabama_--Illegal Seizure of the
_Alexandra_--Blockade Running--Proclamation Abolishing
Slavery--Progress of the War--Net Results of the Campaigns.

Lord Palmerston is said to have declared that only one man in Europe
knew all the history and details of the Sleswig-Holstein Question, and
that his opinion about it seemed to be contrary to common sense. Since
1846 the problem had engaged the subtlest of European diplomatists and
Jurisconsults in chronic controversy. The Kings of Denmark were also
Sovereign Dukes of Sleswig-Holstein, and when they were absolute
monarchs, the Germans in the Duchies were on the same footing as the
Danes. They were equally in bondage. On the death of Frederick VI., in
1839, his great-nephew, Christian VIII., succeeded him as King of
Denmark, and all the subsequent trouble rose from the fact that his only
son, the Prince Frederick, was not likely to have an heir. The question
of the succession was further complicated because the Salic Law which
existed in the German Empire obtained in the Duchies of Sleswig and in
Holstein--the latter, indeed, being actually one of the States of the
Germanic Confederation. The Landgravine Louise of Hesse would, on the
death of Prince Frederick, be the nearest heir to the Danish throne. But
as the Salic Law excluded a woman from the Sovereignty of the Duchies,
her succession must destroy the integrity of Denmark. It was of the
utmost importance to Russia to preserve this integrity, because, in the
first place, the Romanoffs had themselves claims to part of the Duchies,
which, on the extinction of the Royal House of Denmark, might be
extended over the whole country; and, in the second place, if the
Duchies broke away from Denmark they would naturally be absorbed by
Germany, which would thus gain not only a valuable seaboard, but the
formidable naval station of Kiel, from which she might dispute Russian
supremacy in the Baltic. Two leading ideas, therefore, are from this
point seen to dominate diplomacy in treating the question of the
Duchies. The first is the Teutonic idea, which was, by every legitimate
means, to prevent the Duchies from being absorbed by Denmark, and to
draw closer and closer their connection with Germany. The

[Illustration: FREDERICK CHARLES, DUKE OF AUGUSTENBURG.]

second is the Slavonic idea, which was to maintain, at all costs, the
integrity of Denmark, and as far as possible encourage the policy that
promoted a closer union between her and the Duchies. In this conflict of
diplomatic forces the policy of England was vacillating and
inconsistent, and for an excellent reason. Palmerston committed the
fatal blunder of identifying British interests with the veiled designs
of Russia, and he became a violent partisan of Denmark, whose policy was
solely directed to what was called the “Danification” of the Duchies. On
the other hand, the Queen had what Palmerston lacked--patience to master
the complicated facts of the Danish question, and she became convinced
that law and justice were on the side of the German Party in
Sleswig-Holstein. The Prince Consort, again, was perhaps the only
eminent man of his time who detected the hand of Russia in the game of
intrigue at Copenhagen, from which sprang the policy of absorbing the
Duchies against their will. He had the sense to see that British
interests could hardly depend on maintaining the integrity of a small
State like Denmark against the will of its people, and against the
public law of Europe, and with no other practical result than that of
preventing Germany from establishing herself as a rival power to Russia
in the Baltic. Prince Albert’s death merely strengthened the Queen in
her loyalty to his ideas--which in this instance were in harmony with
her own conclusions. Hence, in 1863 and 1864, when the Danish Question
became acute, the Queen and Lord Palmerston were in irreconcilable
conflict, which explains why English policy seemed to the world at the
time, a tissue of unintelligible inconsistencies. Happily for the
English people, this conflict ended in the humiliating defeat of
Palmerston--who, however, fought for his hand to the bitter end, with a
courage and an obstinacy worthy of a better cause. No Tudor Sovereign
ever strove more unweariedly and with more complete success than did the
Queen at this time, to thwart the policy of her Minister, in the
interests of peace, progress, and civilisation.

The first sign of trouble in the Duchies was given in 1846, when
Christian VIII., as the Queen and Prince Consort knew, acting at the
instigation of Russia, issued letters-patent extending the Danish law of
female succession to all his dominions. These letters were a flagrant
outrage on the public law of Europe, which excluded female sovereignty
from his German provinces. Still Germany could only interfere on behalf
of Holstein, which, as one of the States of the Germanic Confederation,
was--as we have seen--under Salic Law. On the other hand, the German
Party in the Duchies agitated against the letters-patent as an
infringement of their autonomy; they demanded the union of the two
Duchies, and their full and final absorption by the German Bund or Diet.
The Diet, however, merely promised to defend their rights in Holstein,
and vindicate the claims of all legal agnates in the succession to the
Sovereignty of the Duchies. The death of Christian VIII. on the 20th of
January, 1848, gave the German Party an opportunity for revolt. A
Provisional Government was formed for the Duchies, and Prussia helped
the Germans in Sleswig-Holstein to expel their Danish masters. The
dispute dragged on till the 2nd of July, 1850, when a Treaty between
Denmark and Prussia was signed at Berlin, vesting the Danish succession
in Prince Christian of Sleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, and on
his issue in the male line by his marriage with Louise, Princess of
Hesse, heiress of the Crown of Denmark, who ceded to him all her rights.
But the rights of the German Federation as regards Holstein and
Lauenburg were not prejudiced by this Treaty. As for the heir to the
Sovereignty of the Duchies under Salic Law--the Duke of Augustenburg--he
sold his claims for 3,500,000 dollars. But obviously such a Treaty had
no validity till it was sanctioned by the German Diet, inasmuch as it
changed the legal succession in Holstein. An acknowledgment of the
principle of maintaining at all hazards the integrity of Denmark, to be
of use, must therefore have European sanction. To pave the way for a
Treaty embodying this sanction Russian diplomacy at once set to work,
and, unfortunately, Palmerston’s indiscretion at this juncture put him
at the mercy of Baron Brunnow, the Russian Minister in London. It will
be remembered that Palmerston’s policy of coercing Greece to recover Don
Pacifico’s bad debts, had caused France to withdraw her Minister from
London. But Russia took up the quarrel quite as fiercely as France, and
Baron Brunnow not only absented himself from the official dinner at the
Foreign Office on the Queen’s birthday, but finding that, through Lady
Palmerston’s agency, means were taken to persuade the Queen that he
meant to insult her personally, Brunnow called on Prince Albert
privately and told him why he could not be present. It need hardly be
said that this explanation did not soften her Majesty’s feeling towards
Palmerston. Then came the censure which the House of Lords passed on him
on the 17th of June. It was morally certain that if Russia followed
France in withdrawing her Minister, the House of Commons would have
confirmed the censure of the Lords, whereupon--condemned alike by the
Crown and by both Houses of Parliament, by the Tories, the Radicals, and
the Peace Party--Palmerston’s career must have ended. And every moment
Brunnow’s demand for his passports was expected. At this crisis
Palmerston, says Count Vitzthum, “turned to the Russian Minister with
the inquiry whether there were no means of reconciling the Cabinet of
St. Petersburg. After some consideration, Brunnow proposed a bargain:
‘Give us Denmark,’ he said, ‘and then we will give you Greece and forget
the past.’ Of course it was not a question of ceding the Danish Kingdom,
but of converting it into a Russian dependency, and giving the Emperor
Nicholas a prospect of obtaining the harbour of Kiel.”[163] But how was
this to be done? The first step was to get the integrity of Denmark
affirmed as a European interest. Playing on Palmerston’s ignorance,
Brunnow invented Russian claims to the Duchies based on those rights to
the Gottorp portion, which the Emperor Paul had surrendered. These
claims, Brunnow said, would be revived by the Czar Nicholas when the
Danish line of kings became extinct with the death of Frederick VII. At
such a suggestion Palmerston entered quite eagerly into the project of
settling the succession to the Danish Crown on the basis (1), of
recognising the integrity of Denmark as a European interest; (2), of
passing over all male heirs to the sovereignty of the whole Danish
Kingdom, in favour of Prince Christian of Glücksburg, the husband of the
female heir. The points in the game which Russian diplomacy scored were
three. The bargain kept Kiel out of German hands, which were alone
strong enough to hold it against Russia. By getting the integrity of
Denmark recognised, Russia rendered it easy for her to demand the whole
kingdom whenever the time came to revive the Czar’s so-called claims to
the Duchies as heir to the House of Gottorp. By getting the sovereignty
of Denmark vested in Christian of Glücksburg, Russia contrived to seat
on the Danish throne a Prince whose line of succession was not unlikely
to fail.

[Illustration: THE EXCHANGE, COPENHAGEN.]

When the bargain was struck France and Sweden recognised it. The Czar,
as usual, “answered” for Prussia and Austria, and it was embodied in the
Protocol of the 4th of July, 1850. The Queen, however, objected most
strenuously to the whole arrangement. She warned her Ministers that it
arbitrarily set aside the legal rights of nineteen agnates nearer in
succession to the childless Frederick VII. than Christian of
Sleswig-Holstein-Glücksburg. The Prince Consort declared in one of his
letters to Stockmar that it violated law, equity, and honour, and
predicted that trouble would spring from it. “But,” writes Count
Vitzthum, “though he alone saw through the Russian game, he shrank from
bringing the direct pressure of his influence to bear on the English
Ministry in a matter which might expose him to the charge of
sympathising too strongly with his Fatherland.” Yet he seems to have
taken very strong means privately to neutralise the policy of Palmerston
and Brunnow. He advised the Prince of Noër, one of the nineteen agnates
who were set aside, to protest formally against the settlement of the
Danish succession, so that the idea of challenging it was at all events
kept alive in

[Illustration: THE HARBOUR, COPENHAGEN.]

Germany. The Prince of Noër warned the Powers that he would only
acquiesce in the new order of succession on condition of its being
stipulated by an International Treaty, similar in principle to that of
Utrecht, that the Czar of Russia should in no case be permitted to wear
the Danish Crown. After the intrigue between Palmerston and the Russian
Minister, it was of course impossible to put this condition, which would
alone have protected British interests, into the Protocol, which was
subsequently expanded into the Treaty of 1852 and signed by Lord
Malmesbury. This Treaty was known as the Treaty of London (8th of May,
1852), and so completely did Palmerston in 1863-64 feel that his policy
and prestige were bound up with it, that he dragged the country to the
verge of war to uphold its provisions. When the Treaty of London was
signed, an inexplicable blunder was made by the Tory Government. The
document was legally worthless unless ratified by the German Diet. But
Lord Malmesbury permitted himself to believe that Austria and Prussia
signed it as mandatories of the Diet, whereas, as a matter of fact, they
took care merely to sign it in their individual capacities, as
independent States. Other German States afterwards gave their sanction
to it, but most of them with the reservation that the ratification of
the Diet--that is, of Germany in her corporate capacity--should be
obtained. Thus Palmerston’s settlement of the Danish succession was a
Treaty which settled nothing, because he and Lord Malmesbury had been
reckless enough to take it for granted that Austria and Prussia, in
signing it, acted on a mandate from Germany, which they had neither
sought nor obtained.

The arrangement of 1852 not only changed the Danish succession, but
before it was made Denmark pledged herself to fulfil all her obligations
to the Diet in regard to Holstein, to respect the old autonomy and
privileges of both Duchies, to maintain their union, and never to
incorporate them into Denmark proper. Frederick VII., under the
influence of the Democratic party and a meddlesome mistress, repeatedly
violated these engagements. He was perpetually attempting to undermine
the independence of the Duchies, and the Diet was perpetually protesting
against his policy.[164] At last, in March, 1863, he issued decrees
dissolving the union of Sleswig and Holstein, and practically
incorporating them in Denmark. Frederick VII. died on the 15th of
November, 1863, and the father of the Princess of Wales succeeded him as
Christian IX. His first act, done under Democratic menaces at
Copenhagen, was to decree that legislative power in respect to the
common affairs of Sleswig and Denmark, was to be vested in the King and
the Danish Rigsraad, and that no law passed by the Rigsraad was to be
dependent upon the passing of a similar law by the legislatures of
either Sleswig or Holstein. This completed the subjection of the Germans
in the Duchies to the Danes, and the very day after Christian IX.
ascended the throne they accordingly retaliated by disputing his right
to rule over them. The young Duke of Augustenburg thereupon claimed the
sovereignty of the Duchies. True, his father had surrendered his rights.
But, it was argued, a hereditary sovereign cannot surrender hereditary
rights without the consent of his heir-apparent--just as the owner of an
entailed estate cannot sell it, without the consent of his heirs in
tail. On the 21st of November the Holstein Legislature refused to swear
allegiance to Christian IX., after which Saxony, Bavaria, Hesse, and
other German States resolved to support the claim of the Duke of
Augustenburg to Holstein, and the Prussian Chambers passed a resolution
in favour of vindicating the rights of the Duchies and of the
Augustenburg family. On the 27th of December the Duke of Augustenburg
was proclaimed Sovereign of Sleswig-Holstein, and on the 30th he made
his entry into Kiel. On the 31st the Danish Cabinet resigned, and a new
Ministry was formed by Bishop Monrad. The question of the Succession, so
far as the German Diet was concerned, was simple enough. For the Diet
the Treaty of London had no existence. Therefore the Landgravine Louise
of Hesse was Queen of Denmark. As the Salic Law excluded her from the
sovereignty of the Duchies, it was for the Diet purely an open question
who had the best right to them.[165]

The domestic policy of the Government was not of much interest in 1863.
Very early in the Session Mr. Gladstone introduced his Budget. The
American War had sent the price of cotton up from 7d. to 2s. 1d. a
pound, and trade was prostrate and stagnant in Lancashire. The
agricultural wealth of Ireland from 1856 to 1860 had been, on the
average, about £39,437,000[166] a year. But in 1863 it had fallen to
£27,327,000--a decrease of £12,000,000, a sum not far short of the
established annual valuation of the country, which was but £13,000,000.
Ireland and Lancashire ought therefore to have made havoc with Mr.
Gladstone’s estimates for the past year. So far from that being the
case, the revenue, under the expansive influence of Free Trade, had
risen to £67,790,000, or £805,000 over the estimates.[167] The
expenditure had been £69,302,000, or £806,000 less than the estimates.
For the coming year Mr. Gladstone accordingly estimated a revenue of
£71,490,000 on the existing basis. Hence he had in view a surplus of
£3,741,000, so that he saw his way to lessen the pressure of taxation on
the people. He therefore reduced the Income Tax from 9d. to 7d. in the
pound, readjusting its incidence so as to give more relief to small
incomes. He reduced the tea duty to 1s. in the pound, and equalised the
duties on chicory and coffee, but his attempts to levy Income Tax on
public charities and trust corporations were defeated[168] after a
somewhat acrid controversy. Mr. Gladstone’s argument was that their
corrupt management really deprived most of the rich incorporated
charities of a right to an appeal _ad misericordium_. He, however,
pressed his point too far. His lurid picture of their administrative
abuses tempted people to doubt whether the penal imposition of a
sevenpenny Income Tax was the best means of dealing with such gigantic
evils.

The lamented death of Sir George Cornewall Lewis in April not only
brought confusion into the Cabinet, but it deprived the Queen of a
valued

[Illustration: GENERAL GRANT.]

friend, whose services she could ill afford to lose. “To me, dear Lady
Theresa,” the Queen says in a letter to Sir George’s widow (15th April),
“this is a heavy loss, a severe blow! My own darling had the very
highest esteem, regard, and respect for dear Sir Cornewall Lewis; we
delighted in his society; we admired his great honesty and fearless
straightforwardness. We had the greatest confidence in him, and since my
terrible misfortune, I clung particularly to characters like his, which
are so rare. I felt he was a friend, and I looked to him as a support,
and a wise and safe counsellor. He is snatched away, and his loss to me
and to the country is irreparable. How little did I think, when I talked
to him the last time here, and he spoke so kindly of my popularity, as
he so kindly expressed it, that I should never see his kind face
again.”[169] He was leader of “the Court Party” in the Cabinet, and was
succeeded at the War Office by Earl de Grey.

[Illustration: CHRISTIANSBORG CASTLE, COPENHAGEN.]

Only one question provoked anything resembling a party division during
the Session, and that was the Prison Ministers Bill. The object of the
measure was to allow prisoners to be attended by clergy of their own
denominations and persuasions. As the Roman Catholics would derive most
benefit from the Bill, it was opposed warmly by a powerful body of the
Tory Party. The Liberals naturally supported the measure, and on this
occasion they were joined by a few of the more enlightened
Conservatives, such as Lord Derby, Mr. Disraeli, Mr. Henley, and Sir
John Pakington. As Mr. Disraeli was at the time favouring an intrigue
for detaching the Roman Catholic Party from the Liberals, it was with
ill-concealed chagrin that he listened to the bigoted attacks of his
followers on the Bill, which was, however, passed. The suspension of
amicable relations with Brazil,[170] the vote for the purchase of the
Exhibition Buildings, the reorganisation of the London police, and the
attitude of the Government to the belligerents in the American Civil
War, were the only other topics that created serious or practical
Parliamentary discussion.

The vote for the purchase of the Exhibition Building of 1862 was
extremely unpopular, and but for the Queen’s influence it would probably
have been rejected by the House of Commons. The country even then viewed
with strong suspicion the tendency to centralise all National
collections in the distant Court suburb of Kensington. It was also
insinuated that the Royal Family had pecuniary interests in building
land, the value of which would be enhanced by creating a Science and Art
Department in this quarter. That insinuation is contradicted by Sir
Theodore Martin, who asserts that Prince Albert never was able to save
any money out of his private income to purchase such lands for his
heirs.[171] This perhaps accounts for what has long been a popular
mystery--the fact that his will was never submitted to Probate. As a
matter of course, if he had no money to leave to his heirs, the Prince
must have left no will that was worth proving. But in 1863 these
insinuations had sunk deep in the public mind, and the manner in which
Lord Palmerston managed the question gave colour to them. He knew that
the proposal to buy the Exhibition Building of 1862 was hateful to the
taxpayers. The edifice was architecturally unfit for the reception of a
permanent national collection of paintings, and its distance from London
rendered all schemes for transferring to it the pictures from the
National Gallery in Trafalgar Square objectionable in the extreme.
Palmerston, however, at the outset disarmed his critics by proposing
merely to buy from the Exhibition Commissioners, for £67,000, the site
of the Exhibition, and it was tolerably cheap for a metropolitan site,
in days when land in the City fetched £119,000 an acre. This site, he
said, was wanted for a building to house the new Patent Office, some
natural history collections from the British Museum, and for a National
Portrait Gallery. Then he asked the House of Commons to vote £120,000
for the purchase of another “lot” of seventeen acres belonging to the
Commissioners adjacent to the Exhibition site, and, finally, he desired
it to vote £80,000 for the building itself. Very artfully he had the
votes put separately, and Mr. Gladstone aided him by positively assuring
the House that the project of buying the building--which was universally
unpopular--was one quite apart from the other projects. By a vote of 267
to 135 the House agreed, but grudgingly, to the purchase of the ground,
intending to fight the taxpayers’ battle on the question of buying the
building. When, however, they came to the vote for the building, Mr.
Gladstone informed them they had no option but to purchase it, for the
contractors were under no obligation to remove it--a fact which Lord
Palmerston had carefully concealed from the House. Members were thus in
possession of a site burdened with a useless building which it was
nobody’s business to remove. If the Government pulled it down, and then
put up another structure in its place, the operation would cost much
more than the £105,000 which were needed to buy and adapt it to public
uses. The House was furious at finding itself trapped by Lord Palmerston
and Mr. Gladstone. Bitter complaints of Courtly jobbery were heard on
all sides, and a Ministerial defeat was the result. Lord Malmesbury,
writing on the 5th of July in his “Diary,” says:--“Several people
called, who told me that the scene in the House of Commons when the
division took place on the vote for the purchase of the Exhibition
Building was extraordinary. Sir Stafford Northcote’s speech[172] was the
signal for a storm, and he was forced to sit down. Disraeli had
canvassed his supporters, telling them that he had a letter in his
pocket from the Queen. This had a disastrous effect, and when he got up
the hooting was so terrific that he could not be heard. Gladstone’s
speech had already excited great indignation, for it showed how
completely the Government had deceived the House when Lord Palmerston
had induced them to vote for the purchase of the land, leaving them
under the delusion that the contractors for the Exhibition were bound to
remove the building if it was not sold within a certain time. Gladstone
had told them that there was no engagement of the sort, and that he
believed they were not obliged to remove it at all. This, whether true
or not, was taken as a menace to force them to buy the building, and
infuriated the House of Commons the more, as Lord Elcho proved that the
purchase would be a most disadvantageous one, entailing an enormous
expense. So the House rose _en masse_, and, after a scene of the utmost
confusion and excitement, defeated the Government by more than two to
one, Gladstone and Disraeli looking equally angry.”[173] It need hardly
be said that Mr. Disraeli’s indiscreet use of the Queen’s name in this
questionable transaction was unwarranted and unwarrantable.

The inefficiency displayed by the City Police at the entry of the
Princess Alexandra into London tempted Sir George Grey to propose that
the Metropolitan and City Forces should be amalgamated under the control
of the Home Office. This was hotly opposed. The Lord Mayor and Mr.
Alderman Sidney protested against a scheme for giving the Home Secretary
control of what might become a large standing army in the City of
London.[174] Other members raised the cry of “centralisation,” and
denounced the measure as an attack on the principle of local
self-government. It was now the turn of London to be assailed, but
Manchester and Birmingham and all other powerful cities would soon share
the fate of the Metropolis. All over England municipal bodies naturally
made common cause with the City of London, and it was soon apparent that
the Government must either bend or break. Luckily it was discovered
that the Bill was not a public but a private Bill, and, as such, subject
in respect of notices to certain Standing Orders which had not been
obeyed. This omission gave Sir George Grey a technical excuse for
withdrawing it.

Vigorous efforts were made during 1863 to induce the Government to
recognise the Southern Confederacy, but they were made in vain. Mr.
Roebuck, in the House of Commons, proposed a motion in favour of
recognition, alleging that in an interview with Napoleon III. he had
discovered that France would co-operate with England for that
purpose--nay, he warned Lord Palmerston that France might recognise the
South without waiting for our co-operation. The Tory Party, though
strongly sympathising with Mr. Roebuck’s views, were restrained by their
leaders from harassing the Cabinet, and it was the general feeling that
Ministers should be left quite free to act. As for the Government,
through Lord Palmerston and Lord Russell, it repeatedly declared that it
was bent on adhering to a policy of scrupulous neutrality. But this was
a matter of some difficulty. Many Englishmen had engaged in the
lucrative trade of blockade-running. When their vessels failed to pass
the Federal cordon round the Southern ports, and were seized, their
owners, as Lord Russell said, “put on an air of injured innocence, and
came to the Foreign Office demanding redress.” In Parliament, too, their
friends attacked Ministers for meekly submitting to violations of
International Law by officers of the Federal Navy, and the investigation
of these cases, especially when the seizures were of doubtful legality,
raised many irritating controversies between the two Governments.
Swift-armed cruisers were built in English ports for the Confederate
States, and then taken out to sea, and fitted with their guns and
armaments. The difficulty of preventing their escape--at all times
serious--was aggravated by the uncertain state of English law on the
subject. One of these cruisers, the _Alabama_, had been allowed to sail
from the Mersey, and had committed fearful depredations on Federal
commerce. The American Government alleged that her escape was due to
Lord Russell’s culpable negligence. The truth was that the Government
meant to arrest the _Alabama_, but owing to the temporary mental
derangement of the Judge Advocate-General there was delay in going
through certain legal formalities, and before this was overcome the ship
had put out to sea. On the other hand, when another vessel of the same
class--the _Alexandra_--was seized, her seizure was pronounced illegal
by the English Law Courts. Lord Russell’s action was either too slow or
too quick, and in each case it served to irritate both North and South.
But the country gave the Government a generous support, recognising
their sincerity in endeavouring to maintain a neutral policy, in spite
of the pressure which was put upon them by Southern partisans.

In America the war dragged slowly on. On the 1st of January Mr.
Lincoln’s Proclamation abolishing slavery in the rebel States took
effect, but without producing a servile insurrection, as was
anticipated. After

[Illustration: MEMORIAL OF THE GREAT EXHIBITION IN THE ROYAL
HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY’S GARDENS, SOUTH KENSINGTON.]

the drawn battle of Murfreesborough, with which the year 1862 closed,
and the Federal defeat at Fredericksburg, the efforts of the North were
chiefly directed against Charleston. In April Admiral Dupont was
repulsed in an attack on the harbour, and in summer Admiral Dahlgren
resumed siege operations, but without success. In May General Hooker led
the Army of the Potomac across the Rappahannock, and took up positions
above and below that held by the Confederates at Fredericksburg. Lee, by
a rapid movement westward, crushed Hooker’s force at Chancellorsville,
and then suddenly doubling back easily defeated Sedgwick’s division
which had occupied Fredericksburg. The Army of the Potomac retraced its
steps across the Rappahannock, and Richmond was no longer menaced. On
the 4th of July Grant captured Vicksburg after a series of brilliant
operations, and then Port Hudson surrendered to Banks. This was a great
gain for the Federals, for not only did they clear the Mississippi of
rebels, but the powerful garrisons, with their material of war, which
President Davis had, by an inconceivable blunder, shut up in the river
forts, fell into their hands. At the beginning of summer Lee outflanked
Hooker, defeated Milroy on the Shenandoah, and then, by a daring
movement, crossed the Potomac, and, to the terror of the Government at
Washington, carried the war into Maryland and Pennsylvania. Hooker was
dismissed, and Meade, summoning all available troops to his standard,
marched in haste to arrest Lee’s progress. They met at Gettysburg,
where, after terrible slaughter, Lee confessed his failure, and
retreated unmolested to Virginia.[175] Beauregard’s successful defence
of Charleston consoled the Confederates for the failure of Lee’s
invasion of Maryland and Pennsylvania, and in September they were
further cheered by Longstreet’s victory over Rosecrans at Chickamauga in
Tennessee. Though the obstinate valour of General Thomas’s division
enabled Rosecrans to rally his troops on Chattanooga heights, the
position of the Federals in Tennessee was perilous. Rosecrans at
Chattanooga, and Burnside at Knoxville, were separated in the midst of a
hostile population, and Lee was hurrying on reinforcements to strengthen
General Bragg, who was threatening the Federal Commanders. On the other
hand, Grant, who had the chief command in this region, was reinforced by
Sherman, and he determined to attack Bragg as the easiest way of
relieving Burnside. This he did on the 23rd of November at Missionary
Ridge, his plan being to overwhelm Bragg’s right by hurling masses of
Sherman’s troops against it till he broke it up. When Sherman was
repulsed, the Federals then attacked the left centre of the Confederate
position, compelling Bragg to retreat to the frontier of Georgia. Grant
then fell back on Chattanooga, Burnside holding his entrenchments at
Knoxville, from which Longstreet drew off his forces. Thus, though the
Northern campaign in Virginia was unsuccessful, the Federals were
masters of the Mississippi and of Tennessee when the year closed. The
Confederate Government, failing to induce Lord Russell to recognise the
Southern States, withdrew their envoy, Mr. Mason, from London.

In early summer (8th May) the Queen and the Princess Alice paid a visit
rather unexpectedly to Netley Hospital, the foundation-stone of which
had been laid seven years before by the late Prince Consort. She visited
ward after ward, conversed with the invalided soldiers in a soft, low
voice, questioning

[Illustration: VISIT OF THE QUEEN TO NETLEY HOSPITAL.]

the officials about their cases, and even penetrated to the married
men’s quarters, where she carefully inquired into the comfort of the
soldiers’ wives and their families. One of the men, in whose case she
had interested herself, was dying, and in broken accents exclaimed, as
she went away, “I thank God that He has allowed me to live long enough
to see your Majesty with my own eyes.” On the 9th of June the Queen and
the younger members of her family came to town from Windsor to inspect
privately the memorial of the Great Exhibition--which also took the
character of a memorial to the late Prince Consort--in the Royal
Horticultural Society’s Gardens at Kensington. It was inaugurated next
day by the Prince and Princess of Wales, attended by a company of ladies
and gentlemen from the Court.

On the 12th of June the Queen received an extraordinary address on the
birthday of the late Prince Consort from the ballast-heavers of the Port
of London, which touched her very deeply. In it they said, “Before he
(Prince Albert) came to our aid we could only get work through a body of
riverside publicans and middlemen, who made us drink before they would
give us a job, made us drink while we were at it, and kept us waiting
for our wages, and drinking after we had done our work, so that we could
only take half our wages home to our families, and that half too often
through a drunkard’s hands.” The Prince, it seems, on getting an appeal
from them, privately persuaded the Government to insert a clause in the
Merchant Shipping Act putting these men under the control of the
Corporation of Trinity House. Then he used his influence in the
Corporation to pass rules for the employment of ballast-heavers, which
met most of their grievances, and he even gave them a house where they
might wait for work, supplied it with papers and books, and helped them
to start a benefit society. The men said in their address that they were
in the habit of celebrating their deliverance from bondage by an annual
treat on the Queen’s birthday, and they added, “Your Majesty will not
wonder that we then think with equal gratitude of our deliverer. He year
by year asked after us, and rejoiced to hear of our improvement while he
lived on earth.” They were, however, desirous of having a portrait of
the Prince to hang in their room, and begged the Queen to give them one.
“We hope,” they said, “your Majesty will excuse our boldness in asking
this favour, but we feel we may speak to our Prince’s wife; and,
therefore, praying you to grant our humble request, we are your
Majesty’s most obedient and faithful servants.” The Queen’s answer came
from her heart. It was as follows:--

“WINDSOR CASTLE, _June 12_.

“MY DEAR SIR,--I have had the honour to lay before her Majesty the
Queen the address from the ballast-heavers of the Port of London,
which you have forwarded to me for presentation. Her Majesty has
been deeply touched by this spontaneous testimony to the active
benevolence of her beloved husband, and amongst all the tokens of
sympathy in her grief, which she has gratefully received from all
classes of her people, no one has been more gratifying to the
Queen, and no one more in harmony with her feelings, than the
simple and unpretending tribute from these honest, hard-working
men. I am commanded to request that you will assure the
ballast-heavers that the interest in their welfare, so especially
displayed by him whose life was employed in endeavouring to benefit
the people of this country, is fully shared by her Majesty, and
that her Majesty rejoices to hear of the happy change in their
moral and social condition. The Queen has the greatest pleasure in
complying with the request contained in the address, and has
ordered two prints of the Prince Consort, one in uniform and one in
ordinary dress, to be framed and presented, to be hung in the room
in which the ballast-heavers wait; to these her Majesty has added
one of herself, as the Queen would wish, in the remembrance of
these grateful men, to be associated with her great and good
husband, whose virtues they have so highly and justly appreciated.

“Believe me, sincerely yours,

“C. B. PHIPPS.”

“Fredk. J. Furnivall, Esq.”

Nor was this the only occasion during the year on which the Queen
manifested her vigilant interest in the lot of her poorer subjects. In
July a wretched woman named Geneive had been forced by her husband to
walk on a rotten tight rope, suspended thirty yards above the ground, at
a Foresters’ Fête in Aston Park, Birmingham. The rope broke, and the
poor creature, who was far advanced in pregnancy, was dashed to pieces
in the most shocking manner. Yet the fête was continued, the Committee
callously determining “to go on with the programme, omitting the
dangerous parts.” On the 25th of July the Mayor of Birmingham was
somewhat startled to receive from Sir C. B. Phipps a letter in the
following terms:--“The Queen has commanded me to express to you the pain
with which her Majesty has read the account of a fatal accident which
has occurred during a fête at Aston Park, Birmingham. Her Majesty cannot
refrain from making known through you her personal feelings of horror
that one of her subjects--a female--should have been sacrificed to the
gratification of the demoralising taste, unfortunately prevalent, for
exhibitions attended with the greatest danger to the performers. Were
any proof wanting that such exhibitions are demoralising, I am commanded
to remark that it would be at once found in the decision arrived at to
continue the festivities, the hilarity, and the sports of the occasion
after an event so melancholy. The Queen trusts that you, in common with
the rest of the townspeople of Birmingham, will use your influence to
prevent in future the degradation to such exhibitions of the Park which
was gladly opened by her Majesty and the beloved Prince Consort, in the
hope that it would be made serviceable for the healthy exercise and
rational recreation of the people.” The Mayor explained that when he
became a patron of the fête he did not know that a dangerous exhibition
was contemplated, and though Aston Park was outside his jurisdiction, he
promised to use his influence to prevent such exhibitions from being
held there in future.

On the 11th of August the Queen left London for Antwerp, from which she
proceeded to Laeken with the King of the Belgians. From Belgium she went
on to Gotha, where she stayed at the Castle of Rosenau till the 7th of
September. On the 8th of the month her Majesty journeyed to
Kranichstein, near Darmstadt, and spent the day with the Princess Louis
of

[Illustration: THE QUEEN UNVEILING THE STATUE OF PRINCE ALBERT AT
ABERDEEN.]

Hesse. Leaving at night, the Queen was in Antwerp early next morning
(9th), and on the 10th at Greenhithe, whence the _Fairy_, steam tender
to the royal yacht, conveyed her to Woolwich. Driving to Nine Elms, she
took train to Windsor, greatly pleased by the hearty greetings she
received from crowds of people at the chief stations on the way. The
autumnal holiday was, as usual, spent at Balmoral, where a kindly and
sympathetic family party gathered round the Queen. Prince Louis of Hesse
and the Princess (Alice) stayed with her at the Castle. The Crown Prince
and Princess of Prussia, with their family, were lodged hard by at
Abergeldie. The Princess Louis of Hesse devoted herself to her mother,
and with characteristic energy endeavoured to dispel the heaviness of
heart which was again settling on her. For this purpose she urged the
Queen to resume the old open-air life among the mountains, from which
she had derived incalculable benefit in times past. The Princess
therefore organised an expedition to Clova, which her mother was induced
to join. The party consisted of the Queen, the Princess Louis of Hesse,
the Princess Helena, the Queen’s coachman, Smith, and her gillie, John
Brown, and “Willem,” a little black page-boy in the service of the
Princess Louis. The excursion was marred by an alarming accident which
befell the party on the way home. The coachman lost his way in the dark,
and about two miles from Altnagiuthasach the carriage was upset--the
Queen being flung violently on her face to the ground. “Alice,” writes
the Queen in her “Journal,” was “soon helped up, by means of tearing all
her clothes to disentangle her; but Lenchen (Princess Helena), who had
also got caught in her dress, called out very piteously, which
frightened me a good deal, but she was also got out with Brown’s
assistance, and neither she nor Alice was at all hurt. I reassured them
that I was not hurt, and urged that we should make the best of it, as it
was an inevitable misfortune.... Meantime the horses were lying on the
ground as if dead, and it was absolutely necessary to get them up again.
Alice, whose coolness was admirable, held one of the lamps while Brown
cut the traces, to the horror of Smith, and the horses were speedily
released, and got up unhurt.” The Queen’s common-sense advice to “make
the best of it” was taken, and the Royal party encamped in this desolate
mountain solitude, while Smith was sent on to get another carriage. Then
the Princesses discovered that their mother had been bruised severely on
the face, and that her right thumb was sprained. “A little claret,” the
Queen says, “was all we could get either to drink or wash my face and
hands.” Luckily, the groom, who had gone on in front with the
“shelties,” or rough little mountain ponies, which the Queen and her
family use for hill climbing, got alarmed at their long absence, and he
very sensibly rode back to see if any accident had happened. When he
came up the Queen insisted on mounting at once and riding all the way
home, which she reached after ten o’clock at night, to find the Crown
Prince of Prussia and Prince Louis of Hesse at the door of the Castle
anxiously looking out for her. A week after this accident (13th of
October) the Queen was present at the inauguration of Marochetti’s
statue to the Prince Consort at Aberdeen. “I could not reconcile it to
myself,” she said, in replying to an address from the subscribers, “to
remain at Balmoral while such a tribute was being paid to his (Prince
Albert’s) memory, without making an exertion to assure you personally of
the deep and heartfelt sense I entertain of your kindness and affection,
and at the same time to proclaim in public the unbounded reverence and
admiration, the devoted love, that fills my heart for him whose loss
must throw a lasting gloom over my future life.” It was a mournful
ceremony for the Queen, whose emotion was so great that she had to
depute Sir George Grey, the Minister in attendance, to read her reply.
Dense crowds of people filled the streets, but forbore to cheer,
greeting the Royal widow merely with silent and respectful sympathy. In
a letter to the Lord Provost of the city, the Queen, on her return to
Balmoral, assured him how fully she appreciated the consideration which
was shown for her feelings, not only by those who took part in the
ceremony, but by the townspeople generally, “on an occasion which was
one of severe and painful trial” for her. During the months of September
and October the Princess Louis of Hesse was in attendance on the Queen,
who was much cheered and benefited by her affectionate companionship.
But her visit came to an end in October, when the Princess, in a letter
to her Majesty written from Buckingham Palace, on her way to Darmstadt,
says of her sojourn, “It was such a happiness to speak to you, and in
return to hear all you had to say, to try and soothe you, and try to
make your burthen lighter.... I can only say again, trust, hope, and be
courageous, and every day will bring something in the fulfilment of your
great duties which will bring you peace and make you feel that you are
not forsaken, that God has heard your prayer, felt for you as a loving
Father would, and that dear papa is not far from you.”[176] The 14th of
December--the anniversary of the Prince Consort’s death--was passed in
deep seclusion by the Queen at Windsor. As the year closed the country
was relieved of all anxiety as to the Cotton Famine in Lancashire. The
crisis had, indeed, passed early in summer, and the nation no longer
feared that the calamity would prove unmanageable. The history of the
Cotton Famine may be termed a history of agreeable disappointments. It
was predicted that the prostration of trade in Lancashire would deal a
mortal blow at English commerce--that the revenue would dwindle to a
vanishing point--that the problem of sustaining vast masses of
pauperised labour, whose pauperism must be but the harbinger of general
bankruptcy among their employers, would prove insoluble--that their
starvation would breed pestilence and lead to outbreaks of violence and
crime, ending with seditious attacks on the Government and all
institutions that upheld law and order. Already it has been shown that
commerce, so far from declining, flourished apace during 1862-63, and
that the revenue increased so rapidly that Mr. Gladstone actually
remitted taxes.

The problem of relieving the distress was solved with ease and
simplicity. There were no epidemics of pestilence, and, save in
Stalybridge, no riotous disturbances. The noble resignation, the heroic
patience of the sufferers, and their perfect confidence in the sympathy
and the helpfulness of their countrymen, in fact compelled the
admiration of the civilised world. In the month of December, 1862, there
were 500,000 cotton operatives receiving relief in Lancashire, and the
loss in wages from lack of employment was estimated at £168,000. Cotton
then came in, though in small quantities, and some mills were able to
run. Emigration and the transference of labour to other employments also
relieved the pressure, so that in June, 1863, only 256,000 persons were
receiving relief in the afflicted districts. At the end of the year this
number was reduced to 180,000. So far from the health of the people
suffering, it rather improved. There was less infant mortality than
usual in the cotton districts, possibly because female operatives, being
thrown out of work, were able to devote more attention to their
children.[177] Enforced

[Illustration: SIR CHARLES PHIPPS.]

sobriety gave the people more power to resist disease, and sanitary
precautions which, at the instance of the Executive Committee in
Manchester, were taken by local authorities also tended to keep the
villages wholesome. The funds by which distress was relieved came from
special local rates levied by consent of Parliament in the unions; from
loans raised by local authorities under Parliamentary sanction, and
spent on public works which gave employment to the operatives; and, last
of all, from voluntary subscriptions, which were sent from all quarters
of the world. At first it was thought that little could be expected from
the cotton districts themselves. “Lancashire,” said Mr. Cobden to Lady
Hatherton, “with its machinery stopped is like a man in a fainting fit.
It would be as natural to attempt to draw money from the one as blood
from the other.”[178] But in one form or another, in voluntary
contributions, rates, loss of wages, depreciation of fixed capital,
business losses, Lancashire spent an aggregate of £12,445,000 in coping
with the Cotton Famine. Lancashire, indeed, raised £1,400,000 of the
voluntary contributions received up to April, 1863, which came to
£2,735,000. The work of administration was chiefly centred in the
Executive Committee at Manchester, the President of which was the Earl
of Derby. The voluntary labour at their command must have been very
great, for the cost of administration came only to 15s. for every £100.
What was afterwards called “the Conservative reaction” in Lancashire set
in after this Fund was distributed, for in time, when the old generation
of Radicals died out, their successors in the districts which had been
saved from starvation by the almoners of the Fund, who were often
zealous Anglicans, nearly all went over to the Tory Party. The Queen did
her utmost to contribute to the success of the Fund, and her joy was
unalloyed when she saw that its administrators had, in the beginning of
1864, averted the disaster that menaced her Northern Duchy.

[Illustration: THE ALBERT BRIDGE, WINDSOR.]

CHAPTER VIII.

THE DANISH WAR.

Stagnant Politics--Excitement over the Danish War--Attitude of the
Queen--Withdrawal of the Danes from Holstein--Lord Wodehouse’s
Mission--The _Quarterly Review_ advocates War--Mr. Disraeli
Repudiates a War Policy--Lord Palmerston’s Secret Plans--The Case
against Germany--The Queen’s Warnings--Mr. Cobden’s Arguments--Lord
Russell’s “Demands”--Palmerston drafts a Warlike Queen’s
Speech--The Queen Refuses to Sanction it--Lord Derby Summoned to
Osborne--He is Pledged to a Peace Policy--Austria and Prussia in
Conflict with the Diet--The Occupation of Sleswig--War at
Last--Retreat of the Danes to Düppel--Palmerston’s Protests
Answered by German Victories--The Invasion of Jutland--Storming of
the Düppel Redoubts--Excitement in London--Garibaldi’s Visit to
London--Garibaldi and the Dowager Duchess of Sutherland--Anecdotes
of Garibaldi’s Visit--Clarendon’s Visit to Napoleon III.--Expulsion
of Garibaldi by Palmerston--Napoleon III. Agrees to Accept the
Proposal for a Conference--Triumph of the Queen’s Peace
Policy--Palmerston’s Last Struggle--His Ministry Saved by Surrender
to Mr. Cobden--The Treaty of Vienna--End of the War.

The year 1864 gives one a vivid illustration of the stagnant condition
of politics in England under Lord Palmerston. The mind of the country
was absorbed in one question, and one only, namely, whether England
should make war in Prussia and Austria to maintain the integrity of
Denmark and uphold the Treaty of London. Ten years before, England had
rushed headlong into war for a cause that was more shameful, and for
“British interests” that were much more visionary than those which were
now at stake. But great progress had been made during these ten years.
The disasters and disgrace which had fallen on the nation during the
Crimean struggle had not been endured for nothing. Englishmen had no
longer boundless confidence in the aristocratic war party, whose clumsy
diplomacy and military incapacity had involved the country in the
inglorious contest with Russia. Moreover, while the Court was neutral in
that struggle, latterly leaning, if to any side, to the side of the war
party, in 1864 the Queen was obstinately determined to keep out of war,
and Palmerston found in her a much more formidable antagonist than
either Mr. Cobden or Mr. Bright. Mr. Morley, in his “Life of Cobden,”
asserts that it was his (Cobden’s) influence, and the pressure brought
to bear on the Ministry by Lancashire, that thwarted Palmerston at the
end of the struggle. Count Vitzthum, on the other hand, credits the
Queen with the honour of defeating the Premier. The truth is that
neither the Queen nor Mr. Cobden, acting alone, could have saved their
country from a fate as melancholy as that which smote Austria to the
dust at Sadowa.[179] But, acting together, though quite independently
of each other, they represented a combination of social and political
forces, which would have crushed not only Palmerston, but his Cabinet,
had he continued to resist them with blind oppugnancy.

At the beginning of the year the Danes, acting on English advice, had
withdrawn from Holstein, where Prussia and Austria had put in Federal
execution on behalf of the Diet. Danish and German troops therefore
faced each other on the Eider, which divided Sleswig from Holstein, and
Europe waited with almost breathless excitement for the first shot that
would kindle the far-darting flames of war. Councils of moderation had
been pressed by Lord Russell on the Danish Government, but in vain. They
were urged by Lord Wodehouse, who had been sent on a special mission to
Copenhagen, to withdraw the Constitution of November which had provoked
the intervention of Germany. His mission was a failure. Politicians at
home and abroad were alarmed by an extraordinary essay known to be from
the pen of Lord Robert Cecil, which appeared in the _Quarterly Review_,
advocating war against Germany on behalf of Denmark, and it was supposed
to represent the policy of the Tory Party. It, however, did not
represent the views of Mr. Disraeli, who, in a confidential conversation
with Count Vitzthum, disowned it, and as for Lord Derby, he had no
well-defined views on the subject. Had it been otherwise, Lord
Palmerston could have easily frightened his Cabinet into war. “Any
doubt,” writes Count Vitzthum, “as to the validity of the Treaty of 1852
offended so deeply the _amour propre_ of the Prime Minister that he was
capable of going any lengths. The plan which he devised, to save his
work, was to attack with one portion of the British ironclad fleet the
North Sea and Baltic coasts of Germany, and with another portion,
Trieste and Venice, to support with English gold Mazzini and Garibaldi
in Italy, and Kossuth in Hungary, and thus kindle a general
conflagration.”[180] This might have been Palmerston’s plan at the
beginning of the year. A few week’s reflection, however, toned it down,
for in a private letter to Lord Russell, dated the 13th of February, it
seems that, though his _animus_ against Germany had not abated, he was
of opinion that “it would be best for us to wait a while before taking
any strong step; though,” he adds, “it is very useful to remind the
Austrians and the Prussians privately of the danger they were running at
home.”[181] A few days after that, in a private letter to the Duke of
Somerset, Palmerston’s plan is found to be still further modified, but
this time in a mischievous direction. It now took the form of sending
the Fleet to Danish waters, with orders to prevent the Germans from
attacking Zealand and Copenhagen.[182] Every word spoken and every line
written on the Sleswig-Holstein Question by Palmerston and Russell at
this juncture, deluded the Danes into the belief that the British
Government were prepared to defend by force of arms the integrity of
Denmark as a British interest. But for this delusion Denmark would not
have obstinately resisted even the most moderate demands which were made
for concessions to the Germans in Sleswig-Holstein.

[Illustration: KRONBORG CASTLE, ELSINORE.]

The case against Austria, Prussia, and the Diet was capable of easy
statement in a popular form. Hence it is not surprising that the large
class of Englishmen who act on what may be called the public schoolboy
theory of high politics took the side of the Danes. Denmark was a small
Power, whereas Austria and Prussia were two large Powers, who were
“bullying” Denmark. Austria, Prussia, and most of the minor States of
Germany did not come into court with clean hands. They had individually
sanctioned the Treaty of London, to which they now objected, because the
German Diet, of which they were members, had not ratified it. They
refused to be bound by it because Denmark had violated antecedent
engagements, made independently of it, and on another subject than the
Danish Succession, with which the Treaty dealt. Austria and Prussia
could hardly be disinterested in coming forward as the champions of
Constitutionalism, and “the doctrine of nationalities” in Sleswig and
Holstein. The Treaty of London of 1852 was the work of England, and to
uphold it by arms was a debt of honour which Englishmen ought to pay.
The big-boy-and-the-small-boy argument was founded on a strange
misconception of the facts. In Holstein and Sleswig the

[Illustration: CHRISTIAN IX., KING OF DENMARK.]

Danes played the part of the big boy who was bullying the little one.
When they were asked to hold their harsh hand by stronger Powers they
pleaded their weakness as an excuse for their tyranny. The bad motives
of the champions of the Sleswig-Holsteiners, however, did not affect the
rights or wrongs of their clients. Moreover, Englishmen quite mistook
the German argument, which was this: The German Powers who sanctioned
the Treaty of London did not allege that it was null and void because
Denmark had not kept the engagements of 1851. They said that Frederick
VII. had died before he had lawfully established in his kingdom the
order of succession which the Treaty sanctioned, and which, had Denmark
stood by her engagements, they would have had no difficulty in
supporting. This being the case, they were, they said, entitled to
repudiate a Treaty which was illegal in the eyes of international law,
till ratified by the German Diet, by the Sleswig-Holsteiners, and by the
heirs to the Duchies who had been set aside by it.

So far as the Queen was concerned, Palmerston’s arguments had no effect
on her mind. She had warned him that the change in the Danish
succession, effected by the Treaty of London, was illegal, and would one
day be disputed. It might have been legalised by a _fait accompli_--that
is to say, if the Germans in the Duchies had been induced to accept the
change by a conciliatory policy. On the contrary, the policy of the
Danes had been so offensively anti-German, that the Sleswig-Holsteiners
were more opposed to the Treaty than ever. Moreover, Germans all over
the Fatherland were with them, and it was therefore idle to ask German
Sovereigns to risk revolution by forcing on Germans in the Duchies an
oppressive foreign government. To propose English intervention was
equally objectionable to the Queen. She was firmly convinced that the
English people wanted peace and not war, and that the integrity of a
petty Northern State was not, in their opinion, essential to their
Imperial existence. Her Majesty laid her finger at the outset on the
point of folly in Palmerston’s policy, which was the maintenance of the
Treaty of 1852. Would Englishmen consent to levy war on the German race
to uphold an instrument which the carelessness of English diplomatists,
in refusing to obtain legal ratifications, had rendered invalid? And
then what would men of business say when asked to bear the burden of
such a war, to uphold a Treaty that thrust dynasty on a people who did
not want it? Curiously enough, the same line of argument was
subsequently taken by Mr. Cobden, though he did not know the secret
history of the Treaty of London. “In 1852,” said he, “by the mischievous
activity of our Foreign Office, seven diplomatists were brought round a
green table in London to settle the destinies of a million of people in
the two provinces of Sleswig and Holstein without the slightest
reference to the wants and wishes, and the tendencies or interests, of
that people. The preamble of the Treaty which was then and there agreed
to, stated that what those seven diplomatists were going to do was to
maintain the integrity of the Danish monarchy, and to sustain the
balance of power in Europe. Kings, emperors, princes, were represented
at that meeting, but the people had not the slightest voice or right in
the matter. They settled the Treaty, the object of which was to draw
closer the bonds between those two provinces and Denmark. The tendency
of the great majority of the people of these provinces--about a million
of them altogether--was altogether in the direction of Germany. From
that time to this year the Treaty was followed by constant agitation and
discord; two wars have sprung out of it, and it has ended in the Treaty
being torn to pieces by two of the Governments who were prominent
parties to the Treaty.”[183] Still, the Queen was so desirous of peace
that she did not refuse her sanction to proposals of compromise which
were from time to time made by Lord Russell, but which proved abortive.
In one of these, addressed to the German Diet on the 31st of December,
1863, Lord Russell said that England “_demands_, in the interests of
peace,” (1), a Conference of the signatory powers in London to compose
the dispute, and (2), the establishment of the _status quo_ till this
Conference finished its labours--one of those “demands” which, according
to Sir Alexander Malet, Herr von Bismarck treated with “disdain.”[184]

Anxious Cabinet meetings were held in January, and reports of
Ministerial dissensions flew round. Projects for giving the Danes
material support seem to have been broached, but, according to Lord
Malmesbury, writing on the 29th of January, the Ministry found “great
difficulties in the opposition of the Queen.”[185] In these
circumstances Lord Palmerston, knowing that the Tory Party were ready to
support him in defending Denmark, began to look to Lord Derby for aid.
To his colleagues he said, “If _we_ do not begin the war, the Tories
will turn us out in order to do it themselves.”[186] But here he was
again foiled. The Queen had an interview with Lord Derby at Osborne,
which ended in the leader of the Opposition becoming convinced that the
integrity of the Danish Kingdom was a mere phrase involving no British
interest which justified a war--an opinion which Mr. Disraeli enforced
in private when he scornfully described the “integrity of Denmark” not
as “a phrase,” but as “humbug.” He told Count Vitzthum, that he believed
if Denmark ever again possessed a fleet she “would fight in the next war
not for England, but for Russia and France.”[187] As for making war with
France for an ally--another Palmerstonian idea--Lord Derby was asked
whether that did not mean sacrificing Antwerp to save Copenhagen? There
thus remained for Palmerston but one more chance of committing the
country before Parliament met, and that was by inserting a bellicose
paragraph into the Royal Speech. Again he was thwarted by the Queen’s
opposition. Her Majesty refused to sanction a threatening speech, and
her objections were sustained by a majority of the Cabinet, much to
Palmerston’s chagrin. “It was not,” says Count Vitzthum, “till the day
before Parliament opened, that her Majesty approved the colourless
speech which was read on her behalf. Every one,” he adds, “was waiting
with the keenest anxiety for the debate on the Address, and the House of
Lords was crowded when Lord Derby (February 4) rose to make his three
hours’ speech. I stood on the steps of the throne, close by the front
railings. It so chanced that Lord Palmerston, who had been fetched by
the Duke of Argyll, was standing next to me, and thus I was able to
watch the impression produced on the Prime Minister by the eloquence of
his opponent. The House listened with breathless silence to Lord Derby’s
solemn admonitions on behalf of peace, in which he enlarged with
statesmanlike tact and rare skill on the proposition that a war with
Germany would be the gravest calamity to England. A perfect storm of
applause was the orator’s reward, and Lord Palmerston left the House in
evident uneasiness.”[188] And no wonder. He knew that his colleagues
would now be all the more disposed for peace, for it was only too
obvious that the result of Lord Derby’s interview with the Queen at
Osborne had been a pledge that he would not permit his party to aid the
Prime Minister in goading the country into war. “That particular
danger,” writes Count Vitzthum, “was over. Twice more, however, in the
course of that Session did Lord Palmerston attempt to drag the Cabinet
along with him and carry his project of a war. Each time he was
outvoted. Thrice did the Queen gain a victory over the would-be Dictator
in the bosom of his own Cabinet.”[189] The criticism of the Tory chiefs
was, however, directed to raise general distrust in Palmerston’s foreign
policy as a whole. Lord Derby described it as one of “meddle and
muddle.” “_Nihil intactum reliquit_,” observed Lord Derby, laughingly,
“_nihil tetigit quod non conturbavit._” In the meantime the whole
question was passing out of the sphere of diplomacy.

On the 14th of January, Austria and Prussia asked the Diet to sanction
the occupation of Sleswig, pending the withdrawal of the obnoxious
Constitution incorporating Sleswig in Danish territory, and all
fulfilment by Denmark of her engagements to respect the civic privileges
of all Germans in the Duchies. The Diet considered that the Danes might
comply with the German demand, and thus recover the Duchies. Hence the
Austro-Prussian proposal was defeated, the ostensible reason given by
the Diet being that it had no jurisdiction beyond Holstein. Prussia and
Austria then intimated that they would themselves occupy Sleswig. The
Prussian Chamber, adopting the view of the Diet, refused to grant the
Government supplies, because, as Herr Schultze-Delitzsch said, this
policy could only lead to the restoration of the Duchies to Denmark. Von
Bismarck’s retort was “_Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta
movebo._[190] If you refuse supplies, the Government will take them in
spite of you.” Austria, eager to recover the military _prestige_ she had
lost in Italy, and alarmed at the progress which democracy was making
every day in the Duchies, perhaps also somewhat afraid lest Prussia
might win all the glory of a strong and resolute pan-German policy,
joined Prussia, thereby striking a mortal blow at the authority of the
moribund Germanic Confederation among the German-speaking race. On the
1st of February the Austro-Prussian Army of occupation crossed the
Eider, which was the answer the allies gave to Lord Russell’s “demand”
for a Conference and the establishment of the _status quo_. Within a
week the Danes were driven northwards behind their fortifications in
Düppel--their last line of defence in Sleswig. Lord

[Illustration: THE PRUSSIANS STORMING THE REDOUBTS OF DÜPPEL.]

Palmerston, who had imagined that they could gain time for him by
holding the Dannewerk, now found that he had made a sad mistake. The
English Government accordingly implored France and Russia to join
England in giving moral and material support to Denmark. But Von
Bismarck, though still opposed by the Prussian Chamber, laughed at
Palmerston’s efforts to roll back the tide of German conquest. “He had,”
as his biographer says, “already taken care to be sure of his men, in
expectation of such a contingency. Russia, as we have seen, had been
laid under a counter-obligation to Prussia by the services of the latter
in the matter of the Polish insurrection.”[191] As for France, she had
been propitiated by a favourable Commercial Treaty, and Napoleon III.
was reminded that it was not Prussia, who had accepted, but England, who
had refused to accept, his project for an European Congress of
Sovereigns in 1863, who had dealt a cruel blow at his _prestige_.
Palmerston now awoke to the painful fact that there was another obstacle
in the way of carrying out a war policy. He and Lord Russell had left
England without a single ally in Europe. In vain did the two Ministers
struggle with their fate. Their protests and their proposals were
answered by German victories. At last, when Jutland was
invaded--territory so sacred that Lord Palmerston and Lord Russell had
resolved to resent its invasion by naval intervention--the Danes offered
to negotiate for peace on the basis of the _status quo_, as established
by the Treaties of 1851-52. Von Bismarck’s answer was that the offer
came too late, for Prussia no longer considered herself bound by
Treaties which war had cancelled. Still, Prussia would not object to a
Conference, but it must be a Conference without a basis or an
armistice--England having insisted on both. The proposal of an armistice
soon had no practical interest. On the 18th of April, after a
destructive cannonade, the Prussians stormed the redoubts of Düppel, and
captured them after half-an-hour’s fighting. The excitement now became
intense in London. Was it possible that the hitherto invincible
diplomacy of Palmerston was destined to fail whenever it was met by an
antagonist who, as Sir A. Malet says, treated “cajolery and menace” with
equal disdain?

“At this juncture,” writes Count Vitzthum, “Lord Palmerston thought fit
to offer a spectacle to the London mob, which was calculated to inflame
still more their revolutionary passions. Mindful of the _panem et
circenses_ of the Roman Emperors, the veteran Premier sought to please
the people by showing them Garibaldi. The latter, who had been released
from his imprisonment after the affair at Aspromonte, was to be
employed, if Palmerston succeeded in carrying through his scheme,
against Venetia, and, if necessary, against Rome. Ovations were showered
on the guerilla leader from the moment of his landing.[192] In London he
was met at the railway station by the Duke of Sutherland, and conducted
in pomp through the leading thoroughfares to Stafford House. Countless
multitudes thronged the streets, and hailed this triumphal procession
with acclamations. There had scarcely been such crowds at the entrance
of the French Emperor and Empress in 1855, or at that of the Princess of
Wales.[193] Garibaldi was lodged like a prince at the Duke of
Sutherland’s mansion. Thither came the most distinguished ladies of the
Whig aristocracy to court the favour of a look or a smile from the fêted
champion of freedom. The Ministers and the leaders of the Opposition met
together at the banquet given in his honour at Stafford House.[194]
London society filled the splendid apartments in the evening, and
thronged round the lion of the day.... Among those most profuse in their
attentions was the Duchess of Sutherland, late Mistress of the Robes,
who gave a luncheon party at Chiswick to the adventurer, and received
him like a king at the door of her mansion dressed in full attire. Lord
Clarendon, not to miss this festivity, postponed his journey to Paris,
where he was to make the last fruitless attempt to induce Napoleon to
take action.[195] There was something indescribably comic in this
exaggerated display of British hero-worship. The only man who was
unaffected by it was Garibaldi himself. The old sailor was not the least
imposed on by it all--not the least impressed. He made his appearance in
the gilded saloons without coat or waistcoat, and paraded in his red
flannel shirt. In the streets he wore his black felt hat, with a red
feather. Festivities and attentions bored him intensely. He made no
secret of his aversion to old women, even though they wore the ermine of
duchesses. After the banquet at Stafford House he said that he was not
accustomed to sit so late and so long at his meals. He called for his
pipe of tobacco. The Dowager Duchess [of Sutherland] overcame her
dislike to tobacco smoke, took Garibaldi into her boudoir, lit his pipe
with her own hands, and never left him till he had finished it.”[196]
This strange episode did not impose on the Queen either, who had reason
to believe that nobody concerned was deceived, except the good-natured
British populace, whose honest hero-worship was being exploited by
Palmerston for diplomatic purposes. The reception of Garibaldi was meant
as a warning to Austria that if invincible in Denmark she was vulnerable
in Venice; to France, that if through pique she thwarted Palmerston’s
diplomacy in Northern Europe, there would soon be trouble brewing for
her at Rome; and to Russia, that if she deserted England she would find
that the spirit of revolution could yet be roused in Poland. How far the
Tory leaders were parties to the imposture is not clear. Lord Malmesbury
tries to persuade us that they took part in it merely from motives of
childish curiosity. A fashionable lion was reported to be in Stafford
House, and so he and his colleagues went there to hear him roar.

One of the most curious projects broached by Lord Palmerston’s
satellites was that of raising a subscription among “the gentry of
England” to furnish Garibaldi with funds for attacking Austria in
Venice, and France in Rome. This scheme, says Lord Shaftesbury, who
euphuistically describes it as one for “furthering his [Garibaldi’s]
Italian purposes,” was quashed by

[Illustration: GARIBALDI’S RECEPTION IN TRAFALGAR SQUARE, LONDON.]

the patriot himself, happily in time to save his credit as well as the
credit of “the gentry of England.” After “many sittings of committees,”
writes Lord Shaftesbury, who was one of the most active of Lord
Palmerston’s agents in this business,[197] “myriads of letters and
private requests, we had in two months obtained payments and promises
for a sum considerably under three thousand pounds.” Whether Lord
Shaftesbury was, like Garibaldi, a tool in Palmerston’s hands it is
impossible to say. But it is a singular fact that we find him writing to
the Duc de Persigny on the 8th of April assuring him “that there is not
in it [Garibaldi’s visit] a notion of politics.” On the other hand, he
himself discloses, in a posthumous Memorandum unearthed by the industry
of his biographer, the whole story of his abortive attempt to raise
subsidies for Garibaldi’s revolutionary designs. Nay, when the Tory
chiefs went to Stafford House to dine with the hero, Lady Shaftesbury,
who was Lady Palmerston’s daughter, appears on the scene laughing at
them for having fallen into a trap.[198]

[Illustration: KIEL.]

But after the lion had roared loud enough to wake the echoes of the
Tuileries, Lord Clarendon was sent to Paris on a private diplomatic
mission. His object was to induce the Emperor Napoleon to support Lord
Palmerston’s proposal for a Conference of the Powers on the
Sleswig-Holstein Question, a scheme which France as yet did not
sanction. It must be allowed that if the German Powers scoffed at the
attempt to frighten them by a Cockney demonstration in favour of
Garibaldi, Lord Palmerston and his envoy seem to have made it serve
their turn in Paris. Napoleon III. agreed at last to support the
Palmerston-Russell scheme of a Conference, provided Palmerston would
send Garibaldi out of England as quickly as possible. This was an
embarrassing condition to fulfil, as the guerilla chief was becoming far
too popular to be treated in such an unceremonious fashion. He had
entered into an engagement to proceed to Manchester, and from thence on
a provincial tour of agitation, which greatly disquieted Napoleon III.,
and which must therefore be stopped. The end of the farce may be told in
Lord Malmesbury’s words. In his Diary on the 20th of April he
writes:--“Garibaldi leaves England on Friday.... Certainly there must be
some intrigue, as Mr. Ferguson, the surgeon, writes a letter to the Duke
of Sutherland--which is published--saying it would be dangerous for
Garibaldi’s health if he exposed himself to the fatigue of an expedition
to Manchester, &c. &c. On the other hand, Dr. Basile, Garibaldi’s own
doctor, says he is perfectly well, and able to undergo all the fatigue
of a journey to the manufacturing towns.”[199] This communication from
Dr. Basile was published, because Garibaldi was naturally angry at
having been overreached by Palmerston and the Whig aristocracy, who
sacrificed him whenever he was of no more use to them as a piece on the
political chessboard. What made matters worse was that Garibaldi felt
certain that, if he had been allowed but one week for agitation in the
provinces, he would have stirred up so much popular feeling that he
could have defied Lord Palmerston to order him home.

As usual in cases where Lord Palmerston was forced to do something that
displeased the populace, it was promptly insinuated far and wide that he
was again the victim of the Court. Garibaldi, it was hinted, had been
expelled in deference to the Queen’s pro-Austrian sympathies. It is but
right to vindicate her Majesty from the absurd suggestions that were
then current, and for that reason it has been deemed expedient to tell
the true story of Garibaldi’s visit to London in 1864. Let it be
admitted, however, that at least one member of the Whig aristocracy
refused to turn against the hero when the _mot d’ordre_ went forth from
Cambridge House that he must be dropped. This was the Dowager Duchess of
Sutherland, who carried the discarded lion away to Cliefden, and tended
him faithfully till he left Plymouth on the 25th of April. It was her
enthusiasm that inspired one of the diners-out of the day with an
anecdote which rendered the wonderful party at Stafford House on the
13th of April almost as memorable as Garibaldi’s presence there. “She”
(the Dowager Duchess), said one of the company, “is noble, richly
jointured, romantic, and a widow--why, then, does she not marry her
hero?” “Ah,” was the reply, “but you forget he has a wife living.”
“That,” said another guest--alleged to have been Lord Palmerston--“is of
no consequence; I have Gladstone here, and can easily get him to explain
her away.” Yet, though the duchess and the mob alike forgot to mourn for
their hero after his expulsion had ceased to be a nine days’ wonder, it
is pleasing to know that their fidelity to his cause was unwavering, and
that their admiration of the man himself was absolutely untarnished by
sordid and selfish calculations.

The project of the Conference on the Sleswig-Holstein Question, now
that France accepted it, was fairly started, and it gave Palmerston a
chance of extricating his Ministry without much ignominy from the
complication in which they had become enmeshed. The Queen favoured it,
as she favoured any arrangement that seemed likely to make for peace;
but, as the Conference was to meet without a basis and without an
armistice--indeed, as the capture of Düppel had made Prussia and Austria
masters of the situation, an armistice was of little consequence--her
Majesty’s view of the issue was not so sanguine as that of her Prime
Minister. “Austria and Prussia,” says Count Vitzthum, “were not sorry to
take advantage of it (the Conference) in order to escape from a false
position, in which they had placed themselves as belligerent Powers and
cosignatories of the London Treaty. Both of them declared their
readiness to attend the Conference, on condition that the German Bund
received, as such, an invitation also. It was the first time since its
existence that the Diet had been invited to attend and vote at a
European Conference. The choice of its representation fell on the Saxon
Minister of State, the most active advocate of the Federal standpoint.
He accepted the choice, but was unable, from the haste with which the
matter was arranged, to reach London on the 20th of April, the day fixed
by the impatient Lord Russell for the opening of the Conference.”[200]

As might be expected, this led to a hitch in the proceedings. Austria
and Prussia alleged that they could not take part in the Conference
until Count Beust appeared on the scene, so that the first meeting of
the diplomatists was ominously abortive. It was not till the 25th of
April that the Conference met for work, and the story of its
transactions is somewhat painful for Englishmen to recall. It soon
became apparent that the real object of the German representatives was
to thwart the policy of the English Government, and tear up the Treaty
of London under the very eyes of their English colleagues. Lord
Palmerston and Lord Russell speedily discovered why the Diet had been
invited for the first time to take part in a European Conference.
Austria and Prussia, being cosignatories of the Treaty of London, found
it a little embarrassing to take the initiative in “denouncing” that
futile instrument; but they put forward Count Beust, as the
representative of the Diet, to repudiate it, and he, on behalf of
corporate Germany, declared that no solution of the problem could be
accepted which did not provide for the complete separation of the
Duchies from Denmark. In vain did Palmerston and Russell resist a demand
that was utterly irreconcilable with the policy of maintaining the
integrity of Denmark which was formulated in the Treaty of London.
Russia and France abandoned them, and it became evident that continued
victory would render the Germans, not more moderate, but more exacting
in their demands. “Lord Clarendon,” writes Count Vitzthum, in his bright
but brief account of the secret history of the Conference, “who, though
nominally second, was in reality the first British plenipotentiary,
induced Lord Russell, with a view of checking the bloodshed, to propose
the separation of Holstein, Lauenburg, and South Sleswig. The
neutrals--Russia and France--agreed to this, but the Danish
representatives declared that their instructions were exhausted, and
thus the matter remained to be settled by the sword.”[201]

Count Vitzthum’s narrative does not seem quite fair to Denmark. The
Danes, it must be noted, have always alleged that they agreed to a
frontier proposed by Lord Clarendon, and accordingly they assumed that
after such a surrender of their position England would defend them and
stand by her own proposition. Lord Russell, however, in his statement of
the 27th June, denied that England had, through Lord Clarendon,
committed herself to maintain this frontier. The fact is that Austria
and Prussia, at a meeting of the Conference on the 17th of May, brought
the proceedings to a deadlock by declaring that they would no longer
recognise the King of Denmark as Sovereign of the Duchies. The neutral
Plenipotentiaries then met privately at Lord Russell’s house and
concocted a compromise by which Denmark should cede Holstein and Sleswig
as far as the Schlei, and that the European Powers should then guarantee
the rest of the Danish Dominions. Denmark accepted this proposal, but
the German Powers, whilst eagerly accepting the principle of separating
the Duchies from Denmark, objected to the frontier. According to a
statement made by Bishop Monrad in the Danish Rigsraad, it is clear the
compromise was not distinctively an English project, though it
originated in Clarendon’s suggestions. But, according to Bishop Monrad,
“Earl Russell promised that neither would he make a proposal himself nor
support the proposal of any other Plenipotentiary which would be less
favourable for Denmark, unless Denmark herself should consent to such
new proposals.” Yet after the boundary of the Schlei had been suggested,
Earl Russell, at a meeting of the Conference, proposed that the question
of the frontier should be submitted to arbitration--the King of the
Belgians being mentioned as arbiter--although Denmark did _not_ consent
to such a proposal. This proposition, partially accepted by Austria and
Prussia, was rejected by Count Beust on behalf of the Diet. France then
proposed that, while Germany should take German and Denmark should keep
Danish Sleswig, the intervening part, with a mixed population, should by
a _plébiscite_ determine its own destiny. This was also rejected by
Denmark, and so the Conference, which met at the request of England
without a basis, separated without a result.

The obstinacy of the Danes, who seem to have built their hopes of
English succour on Lord Palmerston’s marvellous power over a servile
House of Commons, secured the triumph of Austria and Prussia--who up to
this point were encumbered by their signatures to the Treaty of London.
Lord Clarendon’s

[Illustration: COUNT BEUST.]

proposal marked the abandonment of that instrument by the only Power
desirous of abiding by it. The Conference, by its abortive attempts at
solving the Danish problem, therefore, extricated Austria and Prussia
from their false position, for when it broke up the ill-starred Treaty
of London was there and then consigned to what Carlyle calls “the limbo
of dead dogs.” And the curious thing is that Palmerston and Russell seem
to have almost courted a defeat, which shattered the diplomatic
_prestige_ of England for more than a decade. “The Treaty of London,”
writes Count Vitzthum, “might, perhaps, have been saved, had the British
Minister acknowledged from the first that the value of a Treaty,
intended to settle a _quæstio de futuro_, an eventuality of the future,
depended on the circumstances under which that eventuality occurred. A
very different importance attaches to treaties which, like those of
1815, deal with _faits accomplis_ and establish the final results of a
war lasting over many years. Palmerston and Russell committed in their
zeal a political blunder when they declared that to cancel the Treaty of
London was tantamount to unsettling everything else. Had not Napoleon
been then so seriously occupied in Mexico he would have taken the
British Ministers at their word.[202] But be that as it may, the Treaty
was now dead. The Conference had not only united Germany, but also
served as a safety-valve against an explosion in Parliament. The saying
that no change of Ministry is to be thought of after the Ascot Races was
verified anew. The Ascot meeting was now over. Nevertheless, before the
Session came to an end, the Ministers were doomed to suffer a
humiliation without a parallel.”[203] What made this humiliation all the
more mortifying to Palmerston, was that the punishment was to come from
the hateful hand of Cobden.

At the end of June, says Mr. Cobden, “the Prime Minister announced that
he was going to produce the Protocols,[204] and to state the decision of
the Government upon the question. He gave a week’s notice of this
intention, and then I witnessed what has convinced me that we have
effected a revolution in our Foreign policy. The whippers-in--you know
what I mean--those on each side of the House who undertake to take stock
of the number and the opinion of their followers--the whippers-in during
the week were taking soundings of the inclination of members of the
House of Commons. And then came up from the country such a manifestation
of opinion against war, that day after day during that eventful week
member after member from the largest constituencies went to those who
acted for the Government in Parliament, and told them distinctly that
they would not allow war on any such matters as Sleswig and Holstein.
Then came surging up from all the great seats and centres of
manufacturing and commercial activity one unanimous veto upon war for
this matter of Sleswig and Holstein.”[205]

The old device which had served Palmerston so often in his contests with
the Court--that of pitting the infatuation of a bellicose people against
the calm sagacity of a pacific sovereign--could not be employed, and the
Minister was forced to admit that the game on which he had staked his
reputation had gone against him. Hence, writes Mr. Morley, “when Lord
Palmerston came down to the House on that memorable afternoon of the
27th of June, it was to make the profoundly satisfactory but profoundly
humiliating announcement that there was to be no war.” He admitted that
the Government “felt great sympathy for Denmark,” although “she had in
the beginning been in the wrong.” But under a new sovereign she had
shown some desire to act properly, and so, said the Prime Minister, “we
felt that from the beginning to the end of these events she [Denmark]
had been ill-used, and that might had overridden right.” With jaunty
audacity he added that Ministers also knew that the sympathies of the
British nation were in favour of Denmark--for he made no allusion to the
confidential reports of the Ministerial “whips”--and he frankly said “we
should therefore have been glad to have found it possible to recommend
to our Sovereign to take part with Denmark in the approaching struggle.”
But then Denmark had rejected a compromise in the Conference--a
compromise which, however, he did not state, had been almost thrust on
her by Lord Russell, in violation of his own pledges to her--though he
did admit that in rejecting this proposal, her fault was “equally shared
by her antagonists.” Yet other considerations must be looked to--an
admission which illustrated the revolution that had been effected in
English diplomacy since the Crimean War. It did not appear, observed
Lord Palmerston blandly, that the matter in dispute “was one of very
great importance,” (an amazing statement from the author of the Treaty
of London) for “it did not affect the independence of Denmark, and it
went very little beyond what she herself had agreed to.” Now, Lord
Russell had pledged himself not to support any arrangement that went
“beyond what she [Denmark] had agreed to” when she accepted the
compromise arrived at in his house by the plenipotentiaries of the
neutral Powers, and Lord Palmerston’s additional explanation that it
turned “simply on the question to whom a portion of territory should
belong,” provoked a contemptuous titter in the House. But the real truth
had to be confessed at last. Ministers, said Lord Palmerston--who had
led the War Party in Lord Aberdeen’s Cabinet--in advising their
sovereign to levy war, “could not possibly lose sight of the magnitude
of the object--the magnitude of the resistance which would have to be
overcome, and the comparative means which England and its supposed
antagonist would have to bring to bear upon the contest.” They had
discovered that neither France nor Russia would help England in
supporting Denmark. “The whole brunt, therefore,” said Lord Palmerston,
“of the effort to dislodge the German troops, and those who might come
to their assistance, from Sleswig and Holstein, would fall upon this
country alone.” Hence, he continued, “we have not thought it consistent
with our duty to give our Sovereign advice to undertake such an
enterprise.”

The whole scheme of Palmerstonian diplomacy seemed revealed, as if by a
lightning-flash, in all its impotent meddlesomeness. In a matter of no
very great importance concerning a foreign country, England was to talk
daggers, but use none, if her antagonist chanced to be too strong to be
cowed by menaces. The House of Commons instinctively felt that this was
not a policy worthy of a great nation. It received the Prime Minister’s
statement in a manner that convinced him that his spell over it was
broken. He made one final effort to regain his influence by appealing to
its foibles. He accordingly uttered dark and terrible threats of
vengeance if Austria and Prussia attacked “the existence of Denmark as
an independent Power in Europe,” and did other things which everybody
knew they had no temptation to do. “If,” said he, “we should see at
Copenhagen the horrors of a town taken by assault--the destruction of
property, the sacrifice of the lives, not only of its defenders but of
peaceful inhabitants, the confiscation which would arise, the capture of
the Sovereign as a prisoner of war, or events of that kind--I do not
mean to say that if any of these events were likely to happen, the
position of this country might not possibly be a fit subject for
reconsideration.” Then he paused to see if his old trick of rhetoric
would do its work. It failed him, however, and, instead of the cheers
for which he waited, his declamation was greeted with shouts of
contemptuous derision. The cheers did not come till Mr. Disraeli
condemned the utterance as “a continuation of those senseless and
spiritless menaces by which her Majesty’s Government had lowered the
influence of England in the Councils of Europe.” And they came again and
again from every quarter of the House when the Tory leader declared “he
should prefer that the foreign policy of this country should be
conducted by Mr. Cobden and Mr. Bright, for the result would have been
the same as in the hands of her Majesty’s Government, while they would
not have lured on Denmark by fallacious hopes, and exasperated the
German Powers by exaggerated expressions of menace and condemnation of
their conduct.” As for Lord Russell, he seemed to feel his humiliation
so keenly that it was with difficulty he made his statement audible in
the House of Lords. “I heard enough,” writes Lord Malmesbury in his
terse summary of it, “to know that the Government were for peace at any
price, and meant to desert the Danes.”

Of course the Opposition felt bound to challenge the policy of the
Ministry by a vote of censure, though they were far from being unanimous
as to their tactics. Writing on the 3rd of July, Lord Malmesbury
says:--“Lord Derby is so ill with the gout, that he cannot bring on the
question of the correspondence between Denmark and Germany next Friday,
and he has deputed me to do it in his place, and Lords Salisbury,[206]
Donoughmore, Colville, Hardwicke, Carnarvon, and Chelmsford came this
afternoon at one o’clock to consult with me respecting the motion to be
made in the House of Lords. Lord Derby is nervous in consequence of some
objections made by the Duke of Buccleuch and Lord Stanhope, who talk of
a collision between the two Houses, and he fears the Party will not be
unanimous. I am for going on with it, and so were the rest. We adjourned
at two o’clock, when a large meeting took place, I being in the chair.
The two above-named Peers, with Lords Winchester and Bath, made some
difficulties, but ended by giving way, and it was settled unanimously
that the same resolution

[Illustration: WINDSOR CASTLE, FROM THE BERKSHIRE SHORE.]

which Disraeli makes to-day in the Commons is to be moved on Friday in
the Lords. I went yesterday to Disraeli to settle about this, he merely
pointing to a chair. I did not sit down, but gave him the message Lord
Derby had sent, and went away.[207] After the meeting at Lord
Salisbury’s I went to Lord Derby’s to report what had occurred. He was
pleased to hear that the motion was not given up, but he was in such
dreadful pain that I did not stay.”[208] The vote of censure in the
House of Lords was rejected by a majority of 9, and little attention was
paid to the struggle there. But all eyes turned to the arena of strife
in the House of Commons, where the issue was doubtful, and where on the
4th of July Mr. Disraeli moved a Resolution “to express to her Majesty
our great regret that, while the course pursued by her Majesty’s
Government has failed to maintain their avowed policy of upholding the
independence and integrity of Denmark, it has lowered the just influence
of this country in the councils of Europe, and thereby diminished the
securities for peace.” His indictment of Palmerston’s Foreign Policy was
unanswerable. In alliance with France and Russia, England might have
controlled the Danish Question. But Lord Palmerston and Lord Russell,
after annoying Russia because she persecuted Poland, provoked France by
refusing to join her in protecting the Poles from persecution. When the
English Government discovered that France was immovably neutral on the
Danish Question, they should either have declared frankly that they
would, if need be, defend Denmark by force, or, like France, they should
have abstained from either menacing the German Powers, or holding out to
Denmark delusive hopes of succour. The latter, said Mr. Disraeli, would
have been his policy; on the other hand, the British Ministers wavered
between peace and war--indulging in unaccomplished threats and
unfulfilled promises. The undignified part that Lords Palmerston and
Russell made England play at the Conference--which, as Mr. Disraeli
observed, “lasted about as long as a Carnival and, like a Carnival, was
an affair of masks and mystifications,”--laid them open to a disastrous
attack. Palmerston’s first aim was to maintain the integrity of Denmark.
In the Conference the English plenipotentiary was the first to accept
and even suggest her dismemberment. His second aim was professedly to
maintain the independence of Denmark and lessen the risk of a great war
in Europe. In the Conference the English representative, however,
proposed to put Denmark under the joint guarantee of the Great Powers.
“They would,” as Mr. Disraeli pointed out, “have created another Turkey
in Europe, in the same geographical situation, the scene of the same
rival intrigues, and the same fertile source of constant misconceptions
and wars.” Mr. Gladstone virtually acknowledged the diplomatic defeat of
the Government. They had tried, he said in effect, to induce France and
Russia--the natural enemies of England--to join them in going to war
with Germany--her natural ally. But having failed they ceased to menace
the German Powers, who were too strong to be intimidated by Lord
Palmerston.

The resolution was only a party device to drive Ministers from office by
drawing a sensational picture of the degradation to which England had
been exposed by Ministerial diplomacy. Mr. Kinglake, however,
interfered, and proposed a resolution drafted by Cobden evidently for
the purpose of humiliating Palmerston, and yet offering a loophole of
escape from a vote of censure that must, if carried, have cut short his
career, and brought a Tory Ministry with violent anti-German sympathies
back to power. This resolution ironically expressed the satisfaction of
the House that the Queen had been advised not to aid Denmark by force of
arms. Mr. Kinglake then showed Lord Palmerston a list of the Liberals
who intended to vote for Mr. Disraeli’s motion, in the event of the
Government declining to accept what Count Vitzthum calls Mr. Cobden’s
“humiliating absolution,” so that the Prime Minister had but little
choice. “He was bound either to retire from office, or swallow the
bitter pill offered to him by the Manchester School and pledge himself
to maintain the strictest neutrality.”[209] He agreed to swallow the
pill, which Mr. Cobden refused to gild; for in his speech of the 6th of
July Cobden delivered a scathing attack on the futility of Lord
Palmerston’s whole scheme of foreign policy, which had subjected England
to humiliation in all parts of the world. The final demonstration of its
failure, he argued, was the complete justification of those principles
of non-intervention which he and Mr. Bright had preached for many long
and weary years. It was admitted that he laid down with a masterly hand
the foreign policy which future Governments, whether Whig or Tory, would
be compelled by the people to follow. “Our country,” said Cobden, amidst
cheers from every part of the House, “requires peace. Some people think
it is very degrading and very base that an Englishman should speak of
his country as requiring peace, and as being entitled to enjoy its
blessings; and if we allude to our enormous commercial and industrial
engagements as a reason why we should avoid these petty embroilments, we
are told that we are selfish and grovelling in our politics. But I say
we were very wrong to take such measures as were calculated to extend
our commerce, unless we were prepared to use prudential precautions to
keep our varied manufacturing and mercantile operations free from the
mischief of unnecessary war.” England had no armies to spare for
Continental interference. She had 79,000 troops locked up in India. In
China she had two little armies separated by thousands of miles; she had
another detachment in Japan; she had 10,000 men “fighting somebody’s
battles” in New Zealand; she had from 10,000 to 15,000 troops in North
America, “committed as a point of honour to defend a frontier of 1,500
miles against a country which can keep 700,000 men on the field;” she
had also troops at the Cape, the West Indies, West Africa, Malta, and
Gibraltar. Surely the world never saw, said Cobden, such a dispersion of
force as this by a Power that attempted to interfere with Continental
affairs. Hence the time had come for the new departure in foreign
politics, for, with the failure of Lord Palmerston’s Danish policy, it
was clear our whole system of conducting our relations with foreign
countries had broken down. The Foreign Office had lost its credit
abroad. Foreign Governments now knew that its threats and its pledges
were vain and empty, because the real power now lay, not in the Foreign
Office, but in the House of Commons. It was not the Ministry he desired
to change, but the system; so that, though he was prepared to vote
against Mr. Disraeli’s censure, Mr. Cobden, as Lord Robert Cecil
observed, was about as true a friend to the Ministry, as the Ministry
had been to Denmark. The only difference was, that whilst the Government
gave Denmark fair words and no succour, Mr. Cobden had given Lord
Palmerston valuable succour, but no fair words. It was past midnight on
the 9th of July when Palmerston rose to defend his position, but he
added nothing to the debate. As Mr. Evelyn Ashley, his adoring
biographer, says, “he had, in truth, a difficult task. There had been a
conspicuous failure; of that much there could be no doubt. Allies,
colleagues, and circumstances had proved adverse; yet the excuses for
failure could not be laid on any of them. So, with the exception of a
dexterous allusion to the words of the resolution as ‘a gratuitous libel
upon the country by a great Party who hoped to rule it,’ he did not
detain the House for long on the points immediately at issue, but,
dropping the Danish matter altogether, went straight into a history of
the financial triumphs of his Government.”[210] After all, for these he
was indebted to Mr. Gladstone with whom he was rarely in agreement on
matters of general policy; and his obvious evasion of the matter in
dispute was resented by the House, which interrupted him with angry
cries of “Question!” His defence certainly had no bearing on the issue;
but, as Mr. Ashley observes, with unconscious cynicism, “it had all to
do with the Party question, for it decided the votes of doubting men,
who, caring little about Sleswig-Holstein, cared a great deal about
English finance. Anyhow, it commanded success, for the Government got a
majority of eighteen, and thus renewed their lease of power.” Lord
Palmerston had expected only a majority of three, but several Tories had
voted with the Liberals, and eleven abstained from voting at all.
“This,” writes Count Vitzthum, “is explained by the fear of a Roman
Catholic intrigue. The Vatican had been anxious to make use of the
opportunity for overthrowing the hated Premier. Some Monsignori
especially sent from Rome are said to have been busily engaged in the
lobby in inducing the Irish Members to vote with the Opposition. Be
that as it may, a majority of eighteen votes was a godsend so
unexpected, that the Premier begged some young ladies, who had no notion
of what had happened, to congratulate him. Lady Palmerston was delighted
at the hand-shakings lavished on the Prime Minister by the crowd that
thronged the lobby.”

[Illustration: FREDERICKSBORG CASTLE, ELSINORE.]

The result of the division was hailed with great delight by the country.
To have turned out Palmerston would have brought Lord Derby back to
office, whose followers, it was suspected, would have finally driven him
into war with Germany. To retain Palmerston in power, but by a vote that
humiliated him and destroyed his personal _prestige_, was felt to be in
every way safer for the country than the transference of its Government
to an Opposition which was at once weak and warlike. “However the dice
may fall,” writes Count Vitzthum, “the Prime Minister is disarmed, and
his secret schemes of anger and revenge are condemned. The victory of
the Peace Party is a victory of the Queen. Maligned, insulted, and
reproached for German sympathies, her Majesty has checked the
dictatorship of her Prime Minister, and beaten him three times in his
own Cabinet on the question of war and peace. The Queen has recognised
the true interests, the true wishes of her people, and not allowed
herself to be misled by the gossip of the drawing-rooms, or the
declamations of the daily Press.”[211] As for Lord Palmerston, his
biographer has published some letters which show how bitterly he
resented his defeat. In one of these, addressed to the King of the
Belgians, he rails at Austria and Prussia for taking advantage of the
weakness of Denmark, at Denmark for obstinately putting herself in the
wrong, and at France for not cooperating with England. “One
consequence,” he says, “is clear and certain, that if our good friend
and neighbour at Paris were to take it into his head to deprive Prussia
of her Rhenish provinces, not a finger in England would be stirred, nor
a voice raised, nor a man or a shilling voted, to resist such a
retribution upon the Prussian monarch.” As the Power which seized the
Rhine would have Belgium at its mercy, it would be difficult to imagine
an English Minister addressing to a Belgian Sovereign a more maladroit
expression of impotent discomfiture. Then, in autumn, Palmerston,
replying to a letter from Lord Russell, writes, “You say that with less
timidity around us we might probably have kept Austria quiet on the
Danish affair. Perhaps we might; but then we had no equal pull upon
Prussia, and she would have rallied all the German Powers round her, and
we should equally have failed in saving Denmark.[212] As to Cabinets, if
we had colleagues like those who sat in Pitt’s Cabinet, such as
Westmoreland and others, or such men as those who were with Peel, like
Goulburn and Hardinge, you and I might have our own way on most things;
but when, as is now the case, able men fill every department, such men
will have opinions, and hold to them; but, unfortunately, they are often
too busy with their own department to follow up foreign questions so as
to be fully masters of them, and their conclusions are generally on the
timid side of what ought to be the best.”[213] The further development
of the Danish Question need not be dwelt on here, as it affected the
policy neither of the Cabinet nor of the Court. The Germans resumed the
war as soon as the Conference broke up. Uninterrupted victory put them
in complete possession of the Duchies, to which Denmark finally
renounced all claim by the Treaty of Vienna, which was signed on the
18th of October.

CHAPTER IX.

THE HEIR-PRESUMPTIVE.

Disputes with American Belligerents--The Southern
Privateers--Uneasiness of the Queen--Federal Recruiting in
Ireland--Mr. Gladstone’s Budget--Revival of the Reform
Agitation--Mr. Gladstone Joins the Reformers--“Essays and
Reviews”--A Heresy-Hunt in Convocation--A Ribald Chancellor--The
Parliamentary Duel between Wilberforce and Westbury--The Vote of
Censure on Mr. Lowe--The Five Under-Secretaries and the House of
Commons--Prorogation of Parliament--The Strife in the United
States--Gambling in Cotton--A Commercial Panic in England--The
Battle of Chancellorsville--Sherman’s March through Georgia--The
Canadian Raiders--The Presidential Election--Birth of the
Heir-Presumptive--Baptism of the Heir-Presumptive--The Queen’s Gift
to her Little Grandson--The Queen and the Floods at Sheffield--The
Murder of Mr. Briggs--The Queen Refuses a Reprieve to the
Murderer--The Queen’s Letter to the Princess Louis--John Brown and
the Queen’s Pony--Dr. Norman McLeod’s Message from the Queen--An
Anniversary of Sorrow and Sympathy.

Next in importance to the Danish Question in 1864, were disputes which
rose out of the relations of England to the belligerents in the American
Civil War. The Southern States having no navy fit to cope with that of
the Federal Government, had equipped swift steam cruisers which swept
American commerce from the seas. They ran no risks in scuttling unarmed
merchantmen, and their speed protected them from capture by men-of-war.
The most formidable of these cruisers or privateers, such as the
_Alabama_ and the _Georgia_, had been built in English yards, usually
under the pretence of being destined for some Foreign Power which was at
peace. When they escaped to sea and got their armament on board, they
hoisted their true colours, and set forth to prey on American commerce.
It has been shown how the precautions which the authorities had taken to
prevent the Southern cruisers from escaping were evaded. The
authorities, however, were more successful in arresting certain
steam-rams--which were being built at the yard of Messrs. Laird in
Birkenhead--the sailing of which Mr. Adams warned Lord Russell would be
taken by the Federal Government as an act of war. Lord Monck, then
Viceroy of Canada, in a letter to the late Mr. A. Hayward, says that the
arrest of the rams had produced a good effect in favour of the English
Government on the _official_ mind in America. On the other hand, the
ship-building trade supported Messrs. Laird in denouncing the action of
the authorities; and the Tory Opposition, and the sympathisers with the
Slave States joined the shipbuilders in attacking the Government. These
attacks were futile, but to avoid the annoyance of litigation, the
Government virtually bribed Messrs. Laird into silence by buying the
rams for her Majesty’s service. On the other hand, the partisans of the
Northern States blamed the Government for being too generous in
extending hospitality to the Southern cruisers, or “pirates,” as they
were termed by the extreme Radicals of the period. When the _Georgia_,
a Confederate cruiser, which had been built on the Clyde, and secretly
equipped by a Liverpool firm, put into Liverpool, it was pointed out
that she ought not to be treated as a ship of war. She had been preying
on the commerce of a friendly Power. Like a pirate, she had never taken
her prizes to be condemned in a Prize Court, but had scuttled them on
the high seas. She had never once been in any of the ports of the
belligerent Power under whose flag she sailed, and altogether a very
unpleasant precedent for a great Maritime State was being created by her
reception at Liverpool. The Queen was understood to be somewhat uneasy
on the subject, and Mr. Thomas Baring, on the part of the commercial
community, expressed a similar feeling of discomfort. It was admitted
that the Government had the power to exclude these vessels from English
ports, but Ministers contended that it would be inexpedient to act so
conspicuously in favour of one of the belligerents, between whom they
desired to stand absolutely neutral. The Government could not be induced
to go further than promise to remonstrate with the Confederates on
account of the conduct of their agents in this country.[214] Complaints
were then made that the Federal Government were surreptitiously carrying
on a system of recruiting in Ireland. Of this no proof could be
obtained, because of the cloak which emigration gave to the proceedings
of the American agents. It was well known in Ireland that any
able-bodied labourer who emigrated to New York could get a bounty of
nearly £100 if he joined the colours. Hence, it is difficult to believe
that the American “crimps” had any inducements to effect the enlistment
of Irish recruits at Cork, rather than at New York. There is reason to
think that the “crimps” infested passenger ships and cajoled emigrants
during the voyage to enlist when they arrived at New York. But public
opinion was satisfied that the Government could not effectually stop
proceedings of this sort--especially on imperfect evidence.

In 1864 finance was again the mainstay of Lord Palmerston’s
Administration. Mr. Gladstone had come to be regarded as a kind of
fiscal magician. He rose superior to every reverse of fortune, and he
had an expedient ready to meet every emergency. In spite of monetary
panics, cotton famines, lavish military expenditure, and large
remissions of taxation, the elasticity of the revenue under his
fostering care supplied every deficit almost as soon as it was created.
The public credit of England had never been higher; her finances had
never been more stable or productive. On the 7th of April, when the
Budget was introduced, he spoke to an overflowing House, and

[Illustration: THE GUARD ROOM, WINDSOR CASTLE.]

princes, peers, foreign envoys, and men of distinction in all ranks
gathered together to listen to the orator. The year had been
uneventfully prosperous, and again the balances were on the right side
of the national ledger. The revenue had produced £70,208,000, or
£2,037,000 above the estimates; the expenditure had been £67,056,000, or
£1,227,000 below the estimates. On the existing basis of taxation, Mr.
Gladstone estimated for the coming year a revenue of £69,460,000; but
his estimated expenditure was only £66,890,000, so that there was a
large margin for financial readjustments. He got rid of £20,000 by
modifying the duty on corn and grain and the tax on small licences; he
devoted £1,330,000 to reduce the sugar duties, and by taking a penny off
the Income Tax he sacrificed at once £800,000, though ultimately
£1,200,000; he reduced the duty on fire insurances on stock-in-trade
from 3s. to 1s. 6d. per £, which involved a loss of £283,000. The net
result of his scheme was a loss of revenue of £2,332,000, while the
relief from taxation amounted to £3,000,000. This left him with an
estimated surplus for the coming year of £238,000. The Budget was
popular, not only on its own account, but on account of the masterly
exposition of the financial state of England which accompanied it.
Englishmen read with swelling pride the figures in which Mr. Gladstone
congratulated them on a steady increase of £1,000,000 every year to
their revenue--an increase due to its “inherent vigour.” As for the
movement of trade, it was marvellous, the value of exports and imports
having increased from £377,000,000 in 1871, to £444,000,000 in 1874. Nor
was the Queen capable of concealing her satisfaction at the results of
the great fiscal policy, the responsibility for initiating which, she
and her husband had anxiously shared with Peel. It was the
justification, not only of his foresight, but of their unswerving faith
in his insight and ideas, that since 1842 the trade of her people had
simply been trebled--that what men of business called their “turnover”
had now reached the enormous sum of £1,500,000 for every working day of
the year. It was not surprising that, with such mighty interests at
stake, her Majesty cast her personal influence into the scale against
Lord Palmerston and Lord Russell, who led the War Party in the Cabinet,
and shrank from putting such a vast fabric of industry in jeopardy,
merely to gratify the wounded vanity of a Minister who, having signed an
invalid Treaty, was enraged because it was torn up under his eyes. Mr.
Gladstone carried his Budget, though he failed to carry a useful measure
to substitute the Scottish for the English system of collecting Imperial
taxes.[215] He was successful, however, in spite of the clamour of the
private companies, in passing a beneficial measure removing the
restriction on Government life insurances.[216]

Lord Russell in his speech at Blairgowrie, in the recess of 1863, had
told Reformers that they should “rest and be thankful.” In 1864,
however, they not only refused to follow the advice, but were rewarded
for their enterprise by taking captive no less prominent a personage
than the Chancellor of the Exchequer. There had been the usual debate on
the ballot, in which the old arguments for and against it were set forth
in the old way. Mr. Locke King had revived his scheme for extending the
£20 franchise to counties. But both projects had been rejected, and
everybody felt that the cause of reform was once more shelved, till
suddenly the whole question was quickened into life by Mr. Gladstone’s
unexpected declaration of policy. Mr. Baines, one of the members for
Leeds, had brought in a Bill substituting a £6 for a £10 rental in
boroughs, and it was met by Mr. Cave moving the previous question, on
the ground that the working classes did not need or want any better
representation of their interests than they enjoyed already. Mr.
Gladstone, however, to the consternation of the Whigs and Tories,
intervened in the debate, and declared that he thought there ought to be
“a sensible and considerable addition” to the infinitesimal portion of
the working classes then in possession of the franchise. This he defined
to be such as would have been made by the Government proposal of 1860.
The Whigs grew pale with fear when they heard him, amidst Radical
cheers, declare “that every man who is not presumably incapacitated by
some consideration of personal unfitness or political danger is morally
entitled to come within the pale of the constitution.” The upper stratum
of the working class which was deprived of votes was not inferior to the
lower stratum of the middle class, which had votes--indeed, the one
section of society was as worthy as the other. As Mr. Forster observed,
this speech from the leading member of the Government in the House--Lord
Palmerston was absent on the occasion--rendered it impossible for the
Ministry to set aside the question of Reform much longer. All men saw
that Parties would soon have to join issue and decide whether the
country was to be governed by a Tory Ministry on Tory principles, or by
a Liberal Ministry acting on Conservative ideas and in secret league
with the Conservative Leaders. Mr. Baines’s Bill was got rid of by
carrying the “previous question”--but from that day it was settled that
the reversion of the leadership of the Liberal Party in the Commons must
fall to Mr. Gladstone.

The Session would have been dull and leaden save for a debate with which
the Peers diverted the town in the dog days. On the 15th of July Lord
Houghton, in the House of Lords, protested against Convocation issuing a
synodical condemnation of a now forgotten book entitled “Essays and
Reviews,” in which seven clever clergymen discoursed with mild and
timorous heterodoxy on seven burning theological questions. Current
views were challenged in the light of modern German research and
criticism, and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council had acquitted
two of the authors who had been prosecuted for heresy.[217] Convocation,
however, issued a synodical condemnation of the book which created a
considerable sensation at the time, as it was the first occasion during
a century and a half on which the Church of England asserted her claim
to pronounce authoritatively in controversies of faith. Lord Houghton
challenged the legality of the condemnation, and pressed the Government
to take action in the matter. Lord Chancellor Westbury disposed of the
subject in a provokingly contemptuous statement. There

[Illustration: OLIVER KING’S CHANTRY, ST. GEORGE’S CHAPEL, WINDSOR.]

were, he said, three modes of dealing with Convocation. The first was to
take no notice of its proceedings when they were harmless; the second
was, when it was likely to do mischief, to prorogue it and put an end to
its power; the third was to bring its members to the bar of justice. To
pass such a judgment as had been pronounced on “Essays and Reviews,”
Lord Westbury held was technically a usurpation of the prerogative of
the Crown as the head of the Anglican Church. Hence members of
Convocation had rendered themselves liable to the penalties of
_præmunire_, and to appear as penitents in sackcloth and ashes.
Something like £40,000 in fines, he declared, might be exacted from
them, but still the Government in the circumstances meant to take no
action. _Solvuntur risu tabulæ._ Westbury’s mincing sneering tones would
have sufficed to stir the old Adam in militant ecclesiastics, but it
happened that in describing a synodical judgment he directed a personal
attack with biting wit and bad taste against the Bishop of Oxford. Such
a sentence could not conveniently be dealt with, said Westbury, because
“it was a set of what he might call well-lubricated words, but it was a
sentence so oily, so absurd, and so saponaceous[218] that no one could
grasp it, but, like an eel, it slipped through the fingers. It must mean
something or nothing, and he was glad to be able to tell his noble
friend (Lord Houghton) that it had literally no signification whatever.”
Wilberforce

[Illustration: MR. LOWE (AFTERWARDS LORD SHERBROOKE).]

lifted the gage of battle with the spirit of a trained gladiator of
debate, and he certainly had not the worst of the duel. “If,” said he,
“a man has no respect for himself, he ought at all events to respect the
tribunal before which he speaks, and when the highest representative of
the law of England in your Lordships’ Court, upon a matter involving the
liberties of the subject and the religion of the Realm, and all those
high truths concerning which this discussion is, can think it fitting to
descend to a ribaldry in which he knows that he can safely indulge,
because those to whom he addresses it will have too much respect for
their character to answer it in like sort, I say that this House has
ground to complain of having its high character unnecessarily injured in
the sight of the people of this land by one occupying so high a position
within it.”[219] The edifying spectacle of a Bishop and the Keeper of
the Queen’s Conscience waking the funereal echoes of the House of Lords
with acrimonious personalities naturally enlivened the London season of
1864. Quite a year elapsed before the Bishop of Oxford and Lord Westbury
resumed anything approaching friendly relations.

Two other personal questions marked the history of Parliament during the
year. Lord Robert Cecil carried a resolution virtually censuring Mr.
Robert Lowe (afterwards Lord Sherbrooke), the Vice-President of the
Council, for cutting out of the Reports of Inspectors of Schools all
views which were not in accordance with his own. Mr. Lowe resigned, Mr.
H. A. Bruce being appointed in his place. But subsequently the report of
a Committee exculpated Mr. Lowe, and the Resolution which censured him,
was, on Lord Palmerston’s motion, rescinded. The other personal
discussion arose out of a curious oversight by which five
under-secretaries were placed in the House of Commons. Mr. Disraeli
showed very clearly that, according to law, only four Secretaries of
State and four under-secretaries could sit in the Representative
Chamber, and the Prime Minister had in consequence to redistribute the
Ministerial offices so as to meet the requirements of the Statute. A
Select Committee reported that this breach of the law did not vacate the
seats of any of these officials, but the House passed a Bill of
Indemnity releasing them from any penalty that might possibly attach to
the violation of the established practice.

Parliament was prorogued by Commission on the 29th of July, and it left
the country satisfied with its relations to Foreign Powers and in a
state of expectancy as to domestic reforms. The Eastern Question was
virtually in abeyance in 1864, the ruler of the Danubian principalities
having formed a government on the basis of a revolution organised on a
Napoleonic model. The Ionian Islands were formally ceded by England to
Greece. Russia was stamping out the last embers of the Polish
insurrection, and she had still further ingratiated herself with the
Polish peasants by the Imperial Ukase of the 6th of March, which
released them from the oppressive rights of their landlords. Circassia
was annexed, and the tide of Russian expansion was beginning to set in
the direction of Central Asia. France and Italy by a convention signed
at Paris, had come to an agreement, first, that French troops should
quit Rome, and that Italy should pledge herself to respect the territory
of the Holy See. At the same time Italy resolved to transfer her capital
from Turin to Florence, the reason being that Florence was less exposed
to an attack from France or Austria. The French Emperor had the good
fortune in the course of the year to see his _protégé_, the Archduke
Maximilian crowned in the Mexican capital, and the Latin Empire of the
West recognised by the chief European Powers. The Government of the
United States withheld its recognition, but the House of Representatives
at Washington on the 5th of April passed a resolution declaring that the
people of the United States would never recognise a Monarchy under the
protection of a European Power, which had been established in the
Western Hemisphere on the ruins of an American Republic.

But the truth is, that after the defeat of the War Party on the Danish
Question, the English people in 1864 felt little interest in any foreign
affairs save the Civil War in the United States, which is, however,
hardly a foreign nation to Englishmen. They followed every phase of that
struggle as closely as if it had been one of their own. The commercial
community had good reason for doing so. Cotton was the favourite article
for gambling with, and, when prices had risen to their highest point,
suddenly rumours flew round to the effect that the war was coming to an
end. Both sides were said to be tired of strife, and even Republican
organs and orators began to hint that the end of Mr. Lincoln’s term of
office in March, 1865, and the election of a new President in November,
1864, offered a good opportunity for a truce to hostilities. The
Democratic Party were in favour of assembling a Convention of all the
States to argue the points at issue between North and South, and
everybody began to talk as if the Southern ports would soon be open. The
price of cotton and the prices of other staples that had risen with it
fell at once, and speculators for the rise were ruined. In September the
pressure on the Money Market was enormously increased. The Leeds Bank
failed; general distrust prevailed as to all financial institutions; and
the Bank of England raised its rate of discount to 9 per cent. But when
the weak and unstable firms were eliminated, low prices began to rule
and attract buyers once again, and at the end of the year confidence
revived, and the Bank rate dropped to 6 per cent. The wavering and
tortuous policy of the Cabinet during the Danish Conference certainly
produced one panic in the City during the early part of the year. Till
spring let loose the dogs of war in America, the Northern and Southern
armies were inactive. In April the rank of Lieutenant-General was
conferred by Congress on General Grant, who took supreme command of all
the Federal forces. He resolved to conduct the campaign in Virginia,
while to General Sherman was entrusted the command of the Western army
on the southern frontier of Tennessee. In the beginning of May both
forces made their first move. On the 3rd of May Grant resolved to strike
at Richmond, and he sent Meade with his main body over the Rapidan, so
that he might gain the shelter of the wooded country south of
Chancellorsville before General Lee, who covered Richmond, could attack
him. Lee, however, foiled this movement by his prompt attack of the 5th
and 6th of May, during which days the battle of Chancellorsville raged
without ceasing. The Confederate Generals Longstreet and Jenkins fell in
this fight, the result of which was not quite decisive. On former
occasions, when Burnside and Hooker met with such an attack, they had
shrunk from proceeding farther on the road to Richmond. But Grant was
undaunted by the losses he had suffered, and persistently pressed Lee by
flanking movements, which drove him back step by step. In Grant’s

[Illustration: THE JAMES RIVER AND COUNTRY NEAR RICHMOND.]

own words, he kept “pegging away” till, on the 19th of May, Lee, by an
artful feigned attack on the Federal right, was able to effect a retreat
with his main army to a position twenty miles in front of Richmond.
Grant’s losses during these ten days were enormous. On the 16th of May
33,800 of his wounded were under treatment in the hospitals in various
parts of the country. Lee’s position on the right was covered by a
swamp, and on the left by a rivulet. His front was defended by a curved
line of works, the convexity of which projected forward. Grant’s object
was now to get between Lee and Richmond. Lee’s object was to compel
Grant to attack him before he could reach Richmond, and, as he could
always move on a smaller arc than that on which Grant had to manœuvre,
the strategic advantage was with Lee. He could always keep his face to
the foe, and have the lines of Richmond in his rear as a refuge. On the
line of the Chickahominy, attack followed counter-attack, but it was
observed that in every instance the attacking party failed, for the
configuration of the country enabled troops to entrench themselves
easily. In June Grant suddenly changed his plans, and

[Illustration: GENERAL SHERMAN.]

transferred his whole army to the south side of the James River.[220] He
failed to surprise Petersburg on the 16th of Jane, and he then formed an
entrenched camp on the angle between the James River and the Appomattox.
Lee had now forced him to describe more than half the circuit of
Richmond, and, in spite of all his sacrifices, he was no nearer his
objective point. Concerted movements by Butler on the James River and by
Hunter in the neighbourhood of Lynchburg were foiled by the
Confederates, and Grant’s next attack on Petersburg on the 26th of July
was repelled. In September, however, he pushed his left wing across the
Welden Valley, and menaced the remaining communications between
Richmond and the South. The Confederate General Early about the same
time effected a diversion by crossing the Potomac, and threatening
Washington and Baltimore, but he was driven back by Sheridan. Richmond,
however, was now invested by 100,000 enemies, and night and day the
thundering of cannon broke on the ears of its inhabitants.

In the west the Federals were more successful. Sherman, starting with a
splendid army from Chattanooga in May, drove Johnston before him towards
Atalanta, which was evacuated by the Confederates on the 27th of
September. The Confederate General, Hood, however, by a rapid movement
passed round Sherman’s right wing, and cut his communications with the
North. Whenever Sherman attacked him, Hood turned towards Alabama. Then
the daring and original idea occurred to Sherman to quit Atalanta--which
could not be conveniently held while Hood hovered over his rear--and
march straight onwards through Georgia to the sea. He left Thomas with
20,000 men to hold Hood in Tennessee, whilst he himself with 50,000 men
proceeded to devastate Georgia by fire and sword. His march was marked
by a track of desolation from forty to fifty miles broad. As the year
closed he received the capitulation of Savannah, and demonstrated to the
world by his marvellous strategy that the Southern Confederacy was like
a nut with a hard shell, but no kernel inside. It is the mark of genius
to convert defeat into victory, and this was the feat that Sherman
achieved when Hood, by cutting his communications with the North,
suggested to him the daring stroke by which he pierced the very vitals
of the Confederacy. It need hardly be said that Sherman’s march through
Georgia was represented to the English people by many aristocratic
organs as a retreat, and that his abandonment of Atalanta, when Hood
worked round his right, was hailed by Society as a supreme disaster for
“the bubble Republic.” At sea the Federals were also fortunate. In June
the United States ship of war _Kersarge_ sank the _Alabama_ near
Cherbourg, and the _Wachusett_ captured the _Florida_, though by a
violation of the laws of neutrality, in the harbour of Bahia.
Confederate partisans from Canada had made futile raids on the territory
of New York, thereby increasing the animosity of the Americans against
England. The Canadian authorities no doubt arrested the raiders, but
they also discharged them because of some technical flaw in their
jurisdiction. President Lincoln in July called out a fresh draft of
500,000 men for service, and this did not tend to make the war popular
at the beginning of the year. The enormous sacrifices of life which
Grant’s strategy involved, also strengthened the hands of the Peace
Party or Democrats. When arrangements had to be made for choosing
Presidential candidates there was a strange cleavage of Parties. The old
Abolitionists nominated General Fremont. The Republican Party, however,
at the Baltimore Convention, nominated Mr. Lincoln. The Democrats, on
the other hand, selected General McClellan. His manifesto practically
meant that he desired negotiations to be opened up for the purpose of
restoring the Union with slavery on the old footing--but the Union must
be restored. This alienated a strong faction of Democrats, who were for
peace at any price--even at the price of cutting the Slave States
adrift--and dissolving the Union. General Fremont withdrew, and it was
soon evident, especially when news of Sherman’s successes came in, that
Mr. Lincoln, as the representative of the national war policy, was the
popular favourite.

Very early in the year, on the 8th of January, the Queen had the
gratification of learning that a son and heir had been born to the
Prince and Princess of Wales. The event was not expected by her Majesty
till March, so that no preparations had been made by the Queen or her
Household, at Frogmore--where the Princess was staying at the time--for
the accouchement. “There was no nurse,” writes Lord Malmesbury in his
Diary, “no baby-linen, and no doctor, except Mr. Brown, the Windsor
physician, who attended [the Princess] and brought the child into the
world, for which it is said he will be made a knight and receive £500.
Lady Macclesfield was fortunately in waiting, and as she has had a great
many children, she was probably of use. Lord Granville was the only
Minister in attendance, having come to dine with the Prince, and there
was not time to summon the others, as the Princess was not ill more than
three hours. She had been to see the skating, and did not return to
Frogmore till four o’clock, soon after which she was taken ill.”[221] A
telegram was sent to the Queen at Osborne immediately after the birth of
the little Prince, and next day Frogmore was a scene of busy
excitement--Ministers of State and the chief members of the nobility
thronging in large numbers to offer their congratulations to the Prince
of Wales. All over the kingdom the birth of the Prince was hailed with
demonstrations of joy, and in London, when the news was announced, the
Tower guns fired a double Royal salute. On the 10th of March, the first
anniversary of the marriage of the Prince and Princess of Wales, their
child was christened in the private chapel of Buckingham Palace, the
Queen being present on the occasion. The King of the Belgians was also
there, and among the company were the Duke of Cambridge, Lord
Palmerston, many Ministers of State, and nearly all the representatives
of Foreign Courts. The King of the Belgians and Princess Helena
represented the Crown Prince and Princess of Prussia, who were
sponsors, the others being the Duchess of Cambridge; the Dowager
Duchess of Sleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg; Prince John of
Sleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg representing the King of Denmark;
the Grand Duchess of Mecklenberg-Strelitz representing the Duchess of
Saxe-Coburg and Gotha; Prince Alfred and the Duke of Cambridge. Crimson
velvet, panelled with gold lace, covered the altar of the chapel. The
splendid church plate was displayed, and seats covered with crimson and
gold were arranged within the rail for the Archbishop of Canterbury, the
Bishop of London, and the officiating clergy. Over the altar was hung a
rich piece of tapestry, representing the Baptism of our Saviour. A
fluted white plinth, picked out with gold, supported the font, which was
a tazza of silver-gilt, the rim representing the flowers and leaves of
the water-lily, whilst a group of cherubs were shown playing round the
base. The Queen, who was dressed in black silk and crape, formed a
sombre figure in this brilliant assembly. The Lord Chamberlain and the
Groom of the Stole conducted the infant Prince into the chapel, his
Royal Highness being carried in the arms of his nurse, Mrs. Clark, and
attended by the Countess of Macclesfield, one of the Ladies of the
Bedchamber to the Princess of Wales. The little Prince wore the same
robe of rich Honiton lace which had been used for his father at his
christening. When the Archbishop came to that part of the service for
naming the child, he asked how it should be named. The Queen answered
quite audibly, “Albert Victor Christian Edward,” and his Grace
accordingly baptised it in these names. After the ceremony was over the
company proceeded to the Green Drawing-room and the Picture-gallery, and
shortly afterwards partook of a cold luncheon with the Royal Family in
the supper-room. In the evening the Prince and Princess of Wales gave a
banquet at Marlborough House, where some embarrassment was said at the
time to have been caused by Count Bernstoff, the Prussian Minister,
refusing to drink the health of the King of Denmark. This incident was
for a few days eagerly canvassed by the gossips of clubland, but
Bernstoff himself always denied the tale. In fact, he was so much
annoyed by the persistency with which it was repeated in Society that he
sent an official contradiction to Earl Russell.[222] Among the baptismal
gifts one of the most striking was that which was presented by the Queen
to her little grandson. It was a beautiful little statuette of the
Prince Consort, made to the Queen’s design, and with inscriptions
written by herself. The Prince’s figure is clad in gilt armour, copied
from the effigy of the Earl of Warwick, in St. Mary’s Church, Warwick,
and he is represented as Christian in the “Pilgrim’s Progress.” Round
the plinth is the verse from Timothy--“I have fought the good fight, I
have finished my course, I have kept the faith.” On the stump of an old
oak behind the figure rests Christian’s helmet, while hard by are the
lilies of purity which one always associates with old pictures of the
Pilgrim. Beneath the plinth and in front of the entablature of the
pedestal is the inscription, “Given to Albert Victor Christian Edward on
the occasion of his baptism by Victoria R., his grandmother, and
godmother, in memory of Albert, his beloved grandfather.” Appropriate
verses written by Mrs. Protheroe, wife of the rector of Whippingham, the
Queen’s parish church at Osborne, are inscribed on three of the panels.
Beneath the front panel, over the figures 1864, are inscribed in large
letters the Prince’s name, and the dates of his birth and baptism.
Figures of Faith and Hope, in oxidised silver, stand at the right and
left side of the work, and in a third niche behind is the figure of
Charity. At the side of each figure are lilies in enamel, and on the
frieze over the figure of Faith are the words, “Walk as he walked
in--Faith,” the last word being inscribed beneath the figure. This
pretty conceit is carried all through. For in the same way one reads,
“Strive as he strove in--Hope,” and over the third group one reads,
“Think as he thought in--Charity.” To the right of the Prince of Wales’s
shield is an infant boy looking up at a full-blown rose on a perfect
stem, and beside it a white lily, whilst over the baby fingers droop a
cluster of snowdrops, emblematic of the dawning flower-life of the year.
The rose, shamrock, and thistle are worked into the background.

[Illustration: THE ROYAL NURSERY, OSBORNE.

(_From a Photograph by Hughes and Mullins, Ryde._)]

The day after the ceremony at Buckingham Palace was marked by a
catastrophe which seriously shocked the Queen. The Bradfield reservoir
of the Sheffield Waterworks burst, and the letting loose of its pent-up
waters spread desolation far and wide all along the river from Bradfield
to Sheffield. Whole villages were swept down the Valley of the Don, and
places once populous were suddenly converted into a swamp of mud, with
here and there a broken mill wheel left to mark the site of what had
once been a happy hive of industry. Some of the streets of Sheffield
itself were flooded, and low-lying, open spaces were turned into lakes
dotted with islands formed by rubbish heaps. Wreckage of all kinds and
the corpses of the drowned marked the track of the current. The disaster
was appalling in the suddenness of its occurrence. The first intimation
that hundreds of people had of it was the lifting up of their beds by
the water as they lay asleep in their homes. In Sheffield, during the
stillness of the night, those who were awake said they suddenly heard an
unearthly roar which increased in volume, that this was succeeded by a
hissing noise, as of angry waves dashing on sharp and beetling crags,
and then by weird shrieks, soon followed by the rush of a panic-stricken
crowd, flying with their families from the neighbourhood of the river
for safety, and crying, “Oh, God! the flood! the flood!” Some 270 lives
were lost, and property to the value of £1,000,000 was destroyed. A
relief fund was at once started both in Sheffield and in London, and on
the 16th of January Mr. Roebuck, M.P. for Sheffield, received the
following letter, which testified to the sympathetic interest with which
the Queen had read the accounts of what had happened:--

“SIR,--I have had the honour to submit to her Majesty the Queen
your letter received last night. Her Majesty had already directed
me to make inquiry whether any subscription had been commenced for
the relief of the sufferers by the fearful calamity which has
occurred near Sheffield. The Queen has commanded me to inform you
that it is her Majesty’s intention to contribute £200 towards the
objects advocated in your letter. Her Majesty has commanded me to
add the expression of her deep sympathy for the poor persons thus
suddenly overwhelmed with grief, and exposed to suffering of every
description in consequence of this unexpected and dire calamity. As
I am not aware of the name of the treasurer, I shall be very much
obliged to you if you will take the trouble to forward the enclosed
cheque to the proper quarter.

“I have the honour to be, Sir, your obedient humble servant,
“C. B. PHIPPS.”

An official investigation was made into the cause of the disaster, in
the course of which Mr. Rawlinson, the eminent engineer, said, “Several
causes may have led to the catastrophe--a fractured pipe, a blown or
drawn joint, a creep along the pipes, a pressing down of the pipes in
the puddle-trench by the heavy material on both sides of it, or the
washing away of the outer slope by a landslip, caused by undiscovered
fissures and springs in communication with the interior of the
reservoir, which fissures and springs, if they existed, would become
active for mischief as the water rose in the reservoir.” The general
opinion was that a mistake had been made in laying pipes in the centre
of the embankment upon an artificially compressible material--that the
bursting of some of these pipes caused a great volume of water suddenly
to blow a chasm in the embankment. The celebrated Telford was always
opposed to laying pipes through the embankment of a dam, and there could
be little doubt that the coroner’s jury came to the right conclusion
when they declared in their verdict, that the works had not been
constructed with the engineering skill and attention which their
magnitude and importance demanded.

On the 30th of April the Queen appeared in public for the first time
since the death of the Prince Consort. She visited the gardens of the
Horticultural Society, where a flower-show was going on, but the weather
was bleak and cold and sleety, and the company assembled to see her were
fain to take shelter in the conservatory. She was dressed in deep
mourning, yet the visitors all agreed that her appearance was less
downcast than they had been led to expect, and she was observed to chat
cheerfully with the ladies and gentlemen who were around her. This year,
it may also be observed, the Queen’s birthday was kept in London, with
all the old ceremonies of high state, for the first time since Prince
Albert’s death. The Guards trooped their colours in presence of the
Prince and Princess of Wales, and the church bells of the “three Royal
Parishes” in London--Westminster, Kensington, and St.
Martin’s-in-the-Fields--rang out their most joyous chimes. There was a
floral _fête_ at the Horticultural Gardens, and the houses of Ministers
of State, of the Clubs, the Government Offices, together with the shops
of the Royal tradesmen at the West End, were illuminated as in old
times. From May to August the Queen had enjoyed the company of the
Princess Louis of Hesse, but when autumn set in and Parliament had been
prorogued, the Court migrated to Scotland, and on the 28th of August the
Queen broke her journey at Perth to inaugurate a statue to the Prince
Consort. The Lord Provost and magistrates of the “Fair City,” and all
the local magnates of the county gave her a cordial welcome, and in her
suite were the Princess Helena, the Princess Louise, the Duke and
Duchess of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Princess Beatrice, and Prince Leopold, the
Marchioness of Ely, Sir Charles Wood, and Sir Charles Phipps. After the
Queen uncovered the statue, which was greatly admired, she conferred the
honour of Knighthood on Lord Provost Ross.

The Prince and Princess of Wales left the Highlands in the beginning of
September for Denmark, and the Queen’s holiday was restful and quiet.
The only incident that troubled it seriously was due to the pressure
which was put upon her to save the life of Franz Müller, the murderer of
Mr. Briggs, chief clerk of Messrs. Robarts and Co., the great bankers in
the City. Müller had murdered Mr. Briggs in a railway carriage on the
night of the 9th July, between Fenchurch Street Station and Hackney
Wick, and after robbing his victim threw his body out on the line. He
exchanged Mr. Briggs’ watch-chain for another at the shop of a jeweller
called Death in Cheapside, who identified his photograph. He left a hat
in the carriage which was traced to him. He then fled to America. The
crime was perpetrated with ruthless brutality, and for a time railway
travelling was rendered an agony to nervous passengers. The detective
police had displayed great skill in following up every clue that led
them on the track of the criminal, and their exciting pursuit of him
across the Atlantic, his arrest in New York, his return, his trial, at
which counsel fought for his life with great courage and audacity, his
conviction, his stoical denial of guilt, till at the last moment as the
hangman drew the fatal bolt he uttered his confession, with the halter
tightening round his throat--all contributed to rivet public attention
on this most melodramatic of atrocities. A clever attempt at proving an
_alibi_ had been made by his counsel, and there were some who believed
in Müller’s innocence. The German colony in England took up his case
most warmly, and it was whispered that the Queen herself was among those
who feared that a judicial murder would be committed if Müller were
hanged. For many days nothing else but his chances of being reprieved
were discussed, and the King of Prussia, not to mention several other
German Princes, sent autograph letters to the Queen pressing her to
pardon the assassin. But her Majesty had watched the case carefully. She
refused to interfere with the course of justice, and her prudence was
justified by Müller’s strange confession, made just at the moment when
he leapt into eternity.[223]

The Queen’s correspondence with the Princess Louis of Hesse seems at
this time to have become again overcast by the gloom of her great
sorrow. Amidst the solemn silence of her mountain home, the Queen felt
the loss of the Prince Consort more acutely than while immersed in the
busy life of the political year at Windsor. Her younger children were
growing apace, and she now felt the need of her husband’s wise and
kindly counsel in educating them for their high station. To the Princess
Louis she confided her thoughts, and in one of her Royal Highness’s
letters to the Queen, bearing date 20th of September, the following
passage on the subject occurs:--“... What you say about the poor
sisters, and, indeed, of all the younger ones, is true. The little
brothers and Beatrice are those who have lost most, poor little things!
I can’t bear to think of it, for dear papa, more peculiarly than any
other father, was wanted for his children; and he was the dear friend
and even playfellow besides. Such a loss as ours is indeed unique. Time
only increases its magnitude, and the knowledge of the want is felt more
keenly.”[224] In November the birth of a little grand-daughter at Hesse
(the Princess Elizabeth) gave rise to an affectionate interchange of
letters between the Queen and the Princess Louis, and in one of these
she refers to the efforts made by those round her Majesty to free her
from the tyranny of her sad thoughts. “We are both much pleased,” writes
the Princess Louis to the Queen on the 20th of November, “at the
arrangement about Brown and your pony, and I think it is so sensible. I
am sure it will do you good, and relieve a little the monotony of your
out-of-door existence, besides doing your nerves good. I had long wished
you would do something of the kind, for indeed only driving is not
wholesome.” On the 18th of December Dr. Norman McLeod, writing in his
Diary at Darmstadt, says:--“I was invited

[Illustration: THE QUEEN AT OSBORNE.

(_After W. Holl’s Engraving of the Original Portrait by Graefle. By
Permission of Mr. Mitchell, Old Bond Street, W._)]

by Prince Alfred to spend the fourth anniversary of his father’s death
with him at Darmstadt. The Queen commanded me to see her before I went,
so on Monday I went to Windsor. I told her that the more I was confided
in, the more I felt my responsibility to speak the truth.”[225] Dr.
McLeod was charged with loving messages to the Princess Louis, who, on
December 15, writes to the Queen in reply as follows:--“I had not a
moment to myself to write to you yesterday, and to thank you for the
kind lines you sent me through dear Dr. McLeod. He gave us a most
beautiful service, a sermon giving an outline of dear papa’s noble,
great, and good character, and there were most beautiful allusions to
you in his prayer, in which we all prayed together most earnestly for
you, precious mamma! We talked long together afterwards about dear papa,
and about you, and, though absent, were very near you in thought and
prayer. Dear Vicky[226] talked so lovingly and tenderly of you, of how
home-sick she sometimes felt. She was not with us on that dreadful day
three years ago, and that is so painful to her. Dear Affie[227] was, as
we all were, so much overcome by all Dr. McLeod said. Vicky, Affie,
Louis, and myself sat in the little dining-room; he read to us there.
Fritz had left early in the morning. The day was passed quietly and
peaceably together, and I was most grateful to have dear Vicky and Affie
with me on that day.[228] My dear Louis wishes me to express to you how
tenderly he thought of you, and with what sympathy on this sad
anniversary. Never can we cease talking of home, of you, and of all your
trials.” If these trials were heavy, they were, even in the darkest
hours of the Queen’s life, lightened by the love with which her children
cherished her.

CHAPTER X.

THE DEATH OF PALMERSTON.

Opening of Parliament--Lord Russell and the American
Government--Catholicism and Conservatism--Mr. Disraeli angles for
the Irish Vote--Palmerston on Tenant Right--Another Panic in
Piccadilly--Death of Cobden--Failure of the “Manchester School”--A
Prosperity Budget and a Round Surplus--End of the American
War--Moderation of the Victors--Assassination of President
Lincoln--Reorganising the South--Conflict between President Johnson
and the Republican Party--The Mexican Empire and the United
States--The Danish Question--The Convention of Gastein--Bismarck’s
Interview with the Duke of Augustenburg--The Mystery of
Biarritz--Lord Chancellor Westbury’s Fall--Death and Character of
Palmerston--The New Ministry--Mr. Gladstone Leader of the
Commons--The Rinderpest--The Fenian Conspiracy--The Queen’s Letter
on Railway Accidents--Laxity of Administration in the Queen’s
Household--Birth of Prince George of Wales--Majority of Prince
Alfred--The Queen at Gotha--The Betrothal of the Princess
Helena--The Last Illness and Death of King Leopold of Belgium--His
Character and Career--Suppressing a Rebellion with a Carpet-Bag.

Brighter prospects dawned on the year 1865 than could have been
anticipated. England was at peace with all the world, and in spite of
Lord Palmerston’s irritation against the German Powers, it was certain
that the country would not permit him to engage actively in Continental
broils. The Civil War in America, so disastrous to Lancashire, was
drawing to a close; and though a dubious and desultory conflict with the
Maoris in New Zealand was going on, the scene of strife was far away,
and the struggle but slightly affected the course of business. Trade was
sound and healthy, and the cotton famine had almost disappeared. Lord
Palmerston’s Cabinet still held its ground, and though its aged chief
had begun to show signs of physical decay, his high spirits and
indefatigable energy gave no indication that the end of his career was
at hand. Two of the four or five great ladies of fashion who had for
forty years exercised a far-reaching, though unseen, influence on
political life--Lady Tankerville and Lady Willoughby d’Eresby--had died
in January, within a few days of each other. Lady Palmerston was thus
left as almost the sole representative of those _grandes dames_ of
politics who were the flower and crown of the old order of society, soon
destined to perish under the touch of democratic reform. Parliament was
opened by Commission on the 7th of February. The Speech from the Throne,
which was read by the Lord Chancellor, referred to the Treaty of Peace
between the Emperor of Austria, the King of Prussia, and the King of
Denmark, and declared that no renewed disturbance of the peace of Europe
was to be apprehended. It regretted the conflict with some of the native
tribes in New Zealand, and rejoiced at the tranquillity of our Indian
dominions. It spoke with confidence of the condition of Ireland. The
Message from the Throne further promised the introduction of Bills for
the amendment of the laws relating to patents for inventions, and for
conferring on the county courts an equitable jurisdiction in actions
involving small amounts. A Bill for inquiring into English public
schools was promised, and her Majesty directed that a commission should
be issued to inquire into endowed and other schools in England. Lord
Derby, though he bore traces of suffering from repeated attacks of gout,
was able to speak with fluency and power, but the debates on the
Address, it must be admitted, were not interesting, nor did they evoke
any material opposition. Discussions took place upon the condition of
the Irish peasantry, emigration, the tenure of land, tenant right, and
the Established Church. The approaching triumph of the Northern States
in the American Civil War was plainly foreshadowed by the increasing
civility of Lord Russell’s references to the Federal Government. In a
discussion on our foreign relations, he vindicated the neutral policy
which his Administration had pursued towards both belligerents, but
towards the conqueror his neutrality was now obviously benevolent. He
pointed out how Confederate agents were continually employed either in
building vessels in this country, or in buying merchant ships which
might afterwards be sent to France and other places that they might be
fitted out as armed cruisers against the commerce of the United States,
and this he now discovered gave rise to the “natural irritation” of the
United States against England. The Americans, he said, saw a number of
ships, which had come in some way or another from English ports or
English rivers, afterwards equipped as men-of-war for the purpose of
destroying their sea-borne commerce. It was to be expected that they
should wax angry with us in consequence. Still, Lord Russell urged that
the Government had done everything in their power to prevent this
country from being made the basis of warlike operations against the
Federal Government.

In those days Mr. Pope Hennessy was one of the most active and
aggressive members of the Irish Party. He had been advanced in public
life by the social influence of Cardinal Wiseman, and had attached
himself to the Tories as one of Mr. Disraeli’s partisans. His object was
to revive, if possible, those Nationalist ideas which Mr. Disraeli had
promulgated when bidding for the Irish vote in 1844. Mr. Disraeli’s
object in cultivating his enthusiasm was to use him as an agent in
cementing “the natural alliance between Catholicism and Conservatism,”
which at the time he was most anxious to promote. Early in the Session,
then, a lively discussion was initiated by Mr. Hennessy on Irish
affairs, obviously with the intention of eliciting from the Ministry
declarations that would tend to render Lord Palmerston’s Cabinet
unpopular in Ireland. Mr. Hennessy’s motion was “that this House
observes with regret the decline of the population of Ireland, and will
readily support her Majesty’s Government in any well-devised measure to
stimulate the profitable employment of the people; and that an address
to the Crown be prepared, founded on the foregoing resolution.” The
resolution was supported by a number of speakers, both Irish

[Illustration: MIDHURST, SUSSEX: BIRTHPLACE OF COBDEN.]

and English, among whom were prominent Conservatives, like Sir Stafford
Northcote and Lord Robert Cecil, and prominent Whigs like Sir Patrick
O’Brien and Mr. Monsell. It was opposed on the part of the Government by
Mr. Gladstone, Sir Robert Peel, and Sir George Grey. Sir Stafford
Northcote, in speaking on the motion, indicated very plainly that his
leaders had already begun to angle for the Irish vote. Ireland, said he,
had been crippled by English legislation, and Parliament “ought to
approach this question with a feeling of tenderness,” and a desire to
see how far it was possible to remedy that grievance. Lord Palmerston
concluded the debate with a speech which has been rendered historic by
one of its phrases. He said, “Until by some means there can be provided
in Ireland the same remuneration for labour and the same inducements to
remain which are afforded by other countries, you cannot, by any laws
which you can devise, prevent the people from seeking elsewhere a better
condition of things than exists in their own country. We are told that
tenant right and a great many other things will do it. None of these
things will have the slightest effect. _As to tenant right, I may be
allowed to say that I think it is equivalent to landlord’s wrong._” In
1865 the idea that there was, and ever had been since the conquest of
Ireland, a dual ownership in Irish soil--an ownership which naturally
and equitably follows from the relations of an unimproving landlord to
an improving tenant, had not yet dawned on the English mind.

One of the results of what Lord Russell called the “natural irritation”
of the American people against England was a feeling of much uneasiness
as to the safety of Canada. Confederate agents had attempted to make
raids on Northern territory from Canadian soil. Threats of reprisals had
proceeded from the organs of public opinion in the United States, and
something approaching a panic was created in England, when the Federal
Government gave formal notice that it was their intention to terminate
the Convention under which England and the United States had mutually
agreed not to fit out ships of war on the great lakes. It was also
suggested that the American Government would soon “denounce” in similar
fashion the Treaty of Commerce between the United States and Canada. In
the House of Commons the Government was closely questioned on all these
complications by Sir J. Walsh, who declared that the steps taken by the
Federal Government were tantamount to a declaration of war. Palmerston
tried to soothe these fears, and Earl Russell in the Upper House
lavished conciliatory flattery on the United States, complimenting them
on the patience with which they had endured the unsympathetic demeanour
of England--the most unendurable element in which had been the tone of
superfine insolence that marked his own despatches.[229] Yet all this
time there was perfect tranquillity on the Canadian frontier. The
Canadians did not seem to dread an American attack. The American
Government, under Mr. Lincoln, in spite of the Irish War Party, was
almost fanatically pacific. The truth was, as Mr. Bright said, that
English anxiety as to the safety of Canada was due to a feeling “in our
heart of hearts that we had not behaved generously to our neighbours; a
twitching of the conscience that tended to make cowards of us at this
particular juncture.” As usual the people had to pay for this panic in
Piccadilly. The Government demanded a vote of £200,000 for the defences
of the Canadian frontier, of which Lord Hartington, on behalf of the War
Office, proposed to spend £20,000 in fortifying Quebec. As against the
United States the frontier of Canada was of course practically
indefensible. There was, therefore, reason in the contention of
independent critics that such an expenditure might be regarded by the
Americans as a provoking menace, rather than as a rational precaution.

By a sad coincidence, whilst these discussions were going on, the hand
of death was being laid on the statesman who was of all men most
competent to represent those who doubted the possibility of defending
Canada. Richard Cobden, who declared that it would be just as possible
for the United States to sustain Yorkshire in a war with England, as for
England to enable Canada to contend against the United States, was
sickening with his last illness. On the 2nd of April he died, and with
him passed away the purest, most generous, and most chivalrous paladin
of English Liberalism in the House of Commons. Men of all parties joined
in doing homage to his memory. Mr. Disraeli vied with Mr. Bright in
passing an eulogium on his public services. The Emperor of the French
sent a letter of condolence to his widow. In the United States he was
mourned by the American people as if he had been one of their own
citizens. Mr. Bright said in the House, “I little knew how I loved him
till I lost him,” and it indeed seemed as if this feeling were universal
throughout England. Cobden’s disinterested honesty, the charm of his
sweet and sympathetic nature, the fascination of his earnest, persuasive
and transparently lucid eloquence, his buoyant courage, and his genuine
devotion to the English people, all contributed to build up the fabric
of his reputation and his popularity. His mission in life had been to
beat down the power of the territorial aristocracy, which, in his youth,
ruled England in the interest of a few rival groups of great families.
In their place he imagined he could put a new order of merchant princes
and Captains of Industry--an order of liberal-minded and highly-cultured
men whose fortunes were bound up with the interest of Labour, and whose
public spirit and civil capacity might recall the era of the Medici in
Italy, and of the De Witts in the Low Countries. The leading ideas of
the “Manchester School,” which he was credited with founding, have long
since ceased to influence the English mind, though some of them have had
enough vitality to survive the caprice of circumstances and the course
of time. Cobden’s errors sprang from the fact that he believed that
political power was to be finally centred in and wielded by the
middle-classes. For example, it was for their interests to narrow as
much as possible the Imperial responsibilities of England. Therefore,
whilst he advocated Colonial autonomy it was not with a view to
facilitate Imperial Federation, but to prepare the colonies for an
independent existence, which should at once free us from the expense of
defending them, and enrich us by the profits of their trade. On the
other hand, the working classes regard the colonies as a heritage to be
jealously preserved for their order, and the success of Federalism in
the United States has induced them to dream of making a similar
experiment within the British Empire. Obviously nothing could be more
completely at variance with Cobden’s doctrines than these ideas. His
scheme of policy was in fact faulty, because it was based on enriching a
plutocracy, which, however, has not used its wealth for the purposes he
had in view. It has, on the contrary, spent its resources in imitating
and reproducing the worst qualities of the old feudal nobility, whose
power Cobden desired to destroy. As the result of his policy, and the
triumph of that part of it which accumulated wealth in the hands of the
manufacturing classes, the country had a House of Commons in 1865, which
was as much opposed to Reform as the House of Lords in 1832. For Cobden
the irony of fate could hardly have been more cruel.

The financial statement of the year was preceded by motions in the House
of Commons, for the purpose of obtaining a Parliamentary pledge for the
remission of certain duties, which were considered a blot on the fiscal
system. One was the Malt Tax, for the repeal or modification of which a
desultory agitation had been promoted by the Tories for some years in
the agricultural districts. The other motion was in favour of a further
reduction of the duties on Fire Insurance. Though the Anti-Malt Tax
agitators were beaten, the opponents of the Fire Insurance duties
prevailed against the Government. The public had been informed by the
Royal Speech that the receipts of the revenue had come up to the
estimates; but this information rather understated the fact. The
prosperity of the finances, in truth, had exceeded the most sanguine
calculations of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Remissions of taxation
were consequently looked for, and speculation was busy with conjectures
as to the quarter in which reductions would be proposed. The 27th of
April was appointed for the financial statement, and on that day Mr.
Gladstone presented his accounts and his plans. He had raised a larger
revenue than had ever been raised in England by taxation at any period,
whether of peace or war. In 1864-65 the actual expenditure had been
£66,462,000, being £611,000 less than the estimate. Comparing the
expenditure of the year with the revenue, he found that there was an
apparent surplus of £3,231,000. The estimated revenue had been
£66,128,000, whereas the actual revenue was £70,313,000. It had been
expected that there would be a total loss on the year of £3,080,000,
whereas there had been altogether a gain of £147,000. This showed how
the prosperity of the country was advancing by leaps and bounds. Coming
to the estimate of the income and expenditure of the ensuing year, Mr.
Gladstone said he had to provide for an expenditure of £66,139,000,
while he estimated the revenue at £70,170,000. This showed, on the basis
of existing taxation, a surplus of £4,031,000. That surplus, he stated,
he would dispose of as follows:--He proposed to equalise the stamp duty
on scrip certificates and receipts in the case of English and Foreign
transactions. The stamp on agreements for letting houses would be
reduced to a penny. The tax on appraisements would be graduated, so that
property amounting to £5 would not pay 2s. 6d. but

[Illustration: GENERAL ROBERT LEE.]

3d., and so on upwards. The stamp duty on charter parties would be
reduced to 6d. There were also to be alterations in regard to Marine
Insurance stamps, and stamps on insurances against accidental death,
personal injury, and damages to plate-glass. He refused to reduce the
Malt Tax, but he proposed to lower the Tea Duty by a remission of 6d.
per lb. As to the Income Tax, he admitted that Ministers should do all
they could for its reduction. It was, at present, at the lowest point,
practically, at which it ever stood. It had never been lower than 6d. in
the pound, but still he proposed to remove one-third of it, thus
reducing it to 4d. The final loss to the Exchequer by this reduction of
2d. would be £2,600,000, of which about £1,650,000 would fall upon the
current year. Dealing with the Fire Insurance duty, he pointed out that
it was desirable it should be reduced to a uniform rate of 1s. 6d., and
to this would be added the substitution of a penny stamp in lieu of the
1s. duty on insurance policies. The relief given by the proposed
reductions would be:--On tea, £2,300,000, on Income Tax, £2,600,000, and
on Fire Insurance Duty, £520,000, making a total of £5,420,000, of which
£3,778,000 would fall on this year. Deducting this latter sum from the
estimated surplus, £4,031,000, there would be still a surplus of
£253,000 on the accounts of the coming year.

It was on the 2nd of June that Lord Russell in the House of Lords
declared the Civil War in America at an end, and refused Confederate
vessels any further rights of harbour in English ports. It has been
shown how General Sherman’s devastating march through Georgia exposed
the real weakness of the South. At the end of 1864 Hood’s army was
pining away in Alabama or Tennessee, and Beauregard, with 20,000 men,
alone stood between Sherman’s legions, flushed with victory, and the
harassed and outnumbered army of Lee. On Christmas Day the Confederates
repelled an attack by Butler on Wilmington, but on the 14th of January,
1865, when operations were renewed by General Terry and Admiral Porter,
the key of the position was easily taken, and the Confederates were
deprived of their only free and practicable outlet to the sea. On the
17th of February Charleston was evacuated. Sherman had already set forth
on his march to the north--Beauregard retreating rapidly before him. And
yet, though they thus had victory within their grasp, the leaders of the
North made one last effort to conciliate the South. “Although no
authorised version of the negotiations has ever been given to the
public,” says Mr. Sterne, “it was conceded that, with the single
exception of slavery and submission to the authority of the Union on the
part of the South, every condition that the Southern States could ask
would be submitted to by the North, including the adoption of the
Southern debt and the reimbursement to the Southern slave-holders for
slaves lost.”[230] In a moment of insanity the Southern Government
rejected these generous terms, and so the war went on. Sherman’s
movement to the north enabled Grant to press Lee with effect. He forced
him back to Petersburg and Richmond. On the 1st of April both towns were
captured, and Lee was not only pursued but overtaken and beaten in his
last fight. “General,” wrote Grant to his fallen foe on the 7th of
April, “the result of the last week must convince you of the
hopelessness of further resistance on the part of the army of Northern
Virginia in this struggle. I feel that it is so, and regard it as my
duty to shift from myself the responsibility of any further effusion of
blood, by asking of you the surrender of that portion of the Confederate
States Army known as the Army of Northern Virginia.” The capitulation
was arranged on terms which were extremely generous to the vanquished.
No prisoners were taken. The officers were paroled, and the troops were
all permitted to return home on condition of submitting to the Federal
Government. Within a few days Johnston surrendered to Sherman on the
same terms, and on the 18th of April the war was at an end.

The victors astonished the world by their moderation. Not a single
rebel, save the governor of a military prison, who was convicted of
behaving with revolting brutality to Federal prisoners in the South,
perished on the scaffold. Even the few prominent civilians who were
arrested and imprisoned were soon released. The best men, both in the
Northern and Southern States, vied with each other in promoting a policy
based on conciliation for the future and oblivion for the past. Mr.
Lincoln, who had been re-elected President in the autumn of 1864, began
his second term of office on the 4th of March, 1865. On the evening of
the 14th of April he visited Ford’s Theatre at Washington with Mrs.
Lincoln and another lady and gentleman, and about half-past ten, during
a pause in the performance, he was shot by one Wilkes Booth, who
suddenly entered the President’s box and discharged a pistol at his
head. Booth then leaped on the stage flourishing a dagger, and
exclaiming “_Sic semper tyrannis!_” escaped from the theatre. Mr.
Lincoln never recovered consciousness, and he died on the morning of the
15th.

From every part of the world expressions of sympathy were conveyed to
Mrs. Lincoln and the American people, who had been thus cruelly deprived
of the sagacious and upright statesman whose civic courage and
unquenchable patriotism had saved the Union. The Queen, who had always
admired Mr. Lincoln’s character and career, sent an autograph letter to
Mrs. Lincoln, expressing, with simple and womanly tenderness, her
sympathy for the President’s family.[231] Addresses on the assassination
of the President were presented by both Houses of Parliament to the
Crown, and the Queen in reply to these wrote: “I entirely participate in
the sentiments you have expressed in your address to me on the subject
of the assassination of the President of the United States. I have given
directions to my Minister at Washington to make known to the Government
of that country the feelings which you entertain in common with myself
and my whole people with regard to this deplorable event.” The
miscreants who had conspired against Lincoln’s life had also intended to
assassinate his chief Ministers, and one of them inflicted severe wounds
on Mr. Seward and his son, from which, however, they both recovered.

Mr. Lincoln was succeeded by the Vice-President, Mr. Andrew Johnson,
who, in the first moments of excitement which followed Lincoln’s murder,
charged Mr. Jefferson Davis and the leaders of the South, with being
Booth’s accomplices. These charges, however, were not generally
credited, because it was clear that the life of Lincoln, whose policy
was notoriously one of clemency and moderation, was quite as precious to
the conquered States, as to their conquerors. But undoubtedly the angry
passions which Booth’s crime had stimulated, increased the difficulty of
reorganising the territory now held by the Federal troops. To admit the
Southern States to the Union with their old rights of sovereignty and
autonomy as if nothing had happened was impossible. The negroes, though
free, were unenfranchised, and therefore at the mercy of their old
masters. But the negroes had bled and suffered for the Union during the
war, and they could not be abandoned now. Moreover, Lincoln’s
proclamation abolishing slavery gave them an implied promise of
protection from subsequent oppression. But then the American
Constitution contained no provision for dealing with the difficulty
which the war had created. To enfranchise with a stroke of the pen a
vast ignorant servile population, which had been demoralised by slavery,
was fraught with the utmost peril, not only to American democracy, but
to American civilisation. Again, the States themselves had always
determined the conditions of enfranchisement. As sovereign communities
they had the clearest right to organise their own internal
administration free from all interference from the Federal authorities,
who had no power over them, save that of seeing that they adopted a
republican form of government. The first step taken was to organise the
Freedman’s Bureau with agents all over the South with the object of
protecting the negroes from injustice and oppression. But President
Johnson had spent his life in the Slave State of Tennessee, and he had
many sympathies with the slave-owners. Taking his stand on the letter of
the Constitution, he refused to sanction those methods of reconstruction
which Congress adopted, and sent military governors to rule the
conquered States, until their permanent government was organised. The
fourteenth amendment to the Constitution prohibiting slavery in the
United States was carried in June. But the President vetoed the
Freedman’s Bureau Bill and the Civil Rights Bill, his veto being
overridden by the majority in Congress, in which, however, the Southern
States were not yet represented. In a word, the President was soon in
open conflict with the Republican majority that had carried the country
through the long and bloody war.

[Illustration: BIARRITZ.]

This conflict[232] was eagerly canvassed in all its stages by Englishmen
of all classes, who seemed at this time to take a keener interest in the
fascinating problems of American politics than in their own domestic
affairs. But perhaps nothing appealed more strongly to the imagination
of the people than the ease with which the American people disbanded
their armies, and absorbed a million unpensioned officers and soldiers
at the very moment of victory into the mass of the peaceful civil
population. The calmness, courage, and good sense with which the
Americans set aside the menaces of the war party against England, and
applied themselves to pay off the six hundred millions sterling of their
war debt, further commanded the admiration of the world. Not even in
Mexico could the United States be persuaded to interfere. Their
Government simply refused to recognise that of the Emperor Maximilian,
and accredited a minister to the President of the Mexican Republic, who
still waged a desultory struggle with the Imperial Government and its
French allies. As France, however, had now thought it prudent to
announce the withdrawal of her troops from Mexico, the United States
could afford to wait for the inevitable issue.

The Danish Question, in which the Queen had so deeply interested herself
during the previous year, was easily settled--for a time. Austria and
Prussia agreed to share the spoils of war, and the Duchies were divided
between them. This arrangement, formulated by the Convention of Gastein,
in August, averted war between the allies. As for the views of the minor
States and the claims of the Duke of Augustenburg, they were brusquely
put aside. The Duke had made the fatal mistake of pretending to regard
the services of Prussia in liberating the Duchies as uncalled for. He
even hinted that his cause would otherwise have been much better managed
by the Diet. When he came to Berlin to press his claims at the Prussian
Court, he had an interview with Von Bismarck in the King’s
billiard-room, which ought to have warned him of what was coming.

“At first,” said Bismarck once, “I wanted from him no more than
what the minor Princes conceded in 1866. But he would not yield an
inch (thank Heaven! thought I to myself, and thanks to the wisdom
of his legal advisers).... At first I called him ‘Highness,’ and
was altogether polite. But when he began to make objections about
Kiel Harbour, which we wanted, and would listen to none of our
military demands, I put on a different face. I now titled him
‘Translucency,’ and told him at last, quite coolly, that we could
easily wring the neck of the chicken we ourselves had
hatched.”[233]

The French Government described the Treaty of Gastein as an act of
political “highway robbery and attorneyism.” Lord Russell condemned it
as a mere expression of brute force, and the Fleets of France and
England met and made a foolish demonstration at Cherbourg, by way of
giving point to their diplomatic denunciations of the Convention. It was
merely a temporary arrangement, which gave Prussia time to secure
herself against France before she attempted to expel Austria from North
Germany. At a mysterious interview between Napoleon and Bismarck at
Biarritz, in October, it was supposed that, in return for vague promises
to assist French schemes in Italy and Belgium, the Prussian
Minister--now Count Von Bismarck--had obtained an equally vague pledge
of benevolent neutrality from France.[234]

The last days of the moribund Parliament were enlivened by a grave
personal scandal. Lord Chancellor Westbury was accused of having
improperly and corruptly administered the patronage of his high office,
and two cases were cited against him. One was that of Mr. Leonard
Edmunds, who, though he had heavy defalcations in his accounts, was
allowed to retire on a pension from the Clerkships of Patents and of the
House of Lords, in favour of Westbury’s son. The other case rested on
certain appointments which Westbury had made to offices, and on grants
of retiring pensions in the Leeds Court of Bankruptcy. It was alleged
that the Lord Chancellor, in making these appointments, had been
influenced by family considerations detrimental to the public service.
After receiving the Report of a Select Committee, the House of Commons
censured Lord Westbury, who immediately resigned his office.[235] His
Lordship, when he went to hand over the Great Seal to the Queen, had a
somewhat painful interview with her Majesty. In his Diary, under date
the 7th of July, Bishop Wilberforce writes:--“Going in to the Queen met
Westbury coming out; his fallen look moved my compassion. Later I met
him on the broad staircase looking quite down, as he wandered alone down
to town. But Delane [the editor of the _Times_] told me that going up to
London in the train he was quite uproarious in his jollity, professing
such delight at being free from office, going to enjoy himself, foreign
travel,” &c.

Parliament died of old age. It had exhausted its allotted septennial
span, and was prorogued and dissolved on the 6th of July. The General
Election created little stir or excitement in the country, because no
appeal was made by either party to the constituencies on any vital
question. The election of Mr. John Stuart Mill for Westminster roused
some popular interest. The defeat of Mr. Gladstone at Oxford University
was due to the votes of the non-resident graduates among the country
clergy; and there was a stroke of unconscious irony in the success of
the Opposition at Tiverton, where they managed to give Lord Palmerston a
Tory as a colleague. The Liberals claimed to have carried 367 seats, and
the Tories 290. But all speculation as to what course the new Parliament
might adopt was cut short by the death of Lord Palmerston on the 18th of
October. He was within two days of completing his eighty-first year,
and, as his biographer says, “the half-opened cabinet-box on his table,
and the unfinished letter on his desk, testified that he was at his post
to the last.”[236] He had sat in sixteen Parliaments, and had been
chosen to sit in a seventeenth. He had been a member of every
Administration that had ruled England since 1807, save those of Sir
Robert Peel and Lord Derby, and the voice of the nation rightly decreed
for him the funeral honours of Westminster Abbey. It will always be a
mystery why Palmerston succeeded in establishing, towards the end of his
life, a personal dictatorship over the England which was governed by the
£10 householder. In home politics he took hardly any interest. One day,
for example, at Balmoral, when the Queen asked him for some information
about a serious strike in the North of England, he replied that he had
none; but “Madam,” said he, “I hear that the Russians have crossed the
Pruth.” He was an aristocrat to the core, and his ideas of England’s
mission in the world, and of her interests in the political forces and
conflicts that shaped the destinies of nations, were those, not of a man
of business or of affairs, but of a happy-hearted, reckless, pugnacious
public-school-boy. To coolness, courage, and tenacity of purpose, he,
however, added a dexterity in action that rendered him a successful as
well as

“A daring pilot in extremity.”

In one of his letters to Sir Stratford Canning he reveals the secret of
much of his power when he says, “I believe weakness and irresolution are
on the whole the worst faults that statesmen can have. A man of energy
may make a wrong decision but, like a strong horse that carries you
rashly into a quagmire, he brings you by his sturdiness out on the other
side.” Looking back on his career, it is hard to find one single stroke
of his policy that can be justified by history, with the exception of
the support he generously gave to the cause of Italian unity. The
cornerstone of his policy in his last administrations was the
Anglo-French alliance, and its worthlessness was attested not only by
the enormous military expenditure which Palmerston himself extorted from
the people to ward off a French invasion, but by the fact that the
alliance itself always broke down to the disadvantage of England,
whenever a strain was put upon it. His sympathy with democracy abroad
brought him no credit, for it was insincere. It was displayed mainly in
order to keep the Radical party quiet when the people began to demand
reforms at home. His most wonderful practical achievement was that of
reconciling both Tories and Radicals to the political supremacy of the
extremely moderate Liberals--the Liberals who had been rendered
Conservatives by the prosperity which Free Trade had conferred upon
them. His cleverness in selecting serviceable subordinates, his personal
loyalty to them, his geniality and cheerfulness, his singular gift of
managing the House of Commons, all contributed to consolidate his
influence in the country. His power over the House of Commons was
probably greater than Peel’s. He knew, as if by instinct, in any
emergency the kind of argument that was sure to tell on that Assembly.
He ruled it through its foibles, its prejudices, and its impulses. He
could adapt his style to every passing mood of its fickle temper, and
alike in jest and earnest he was always on the level of its standard of
good taste and fine feeling.

Lord Palmerston’s funeral took place in Westminster Abbey, accompanied
by every mark of respect and honour. The arrangements made for filling
up the vacancies in the Cabinet which were caused by his death were
simple. Earl Russell was called upon by the Queen to assume the post of
Premier. The Earl of Clarendon, then Chancellor of the Duchy of
Lancaster, became Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. Mr. Chichester
Fortescue was made Secretary for Ireland in place of Sir Robert Peel,
who had always warned his colleagues he would join the Tories after
Palmerston’s death. The office of Under-Secretary for the Colonies was
conferred upon Mr. W. E. Forster, M.P. for Bradford. Mr. Heath resigned
the Vice-Presidency of the Board of Trade, in which he was succeeded by
Mr. Goschen. The important position of Leader of the Government in the
House of Commons devolved upon Mr. Gladstone, who had found a seat in
Lancashire. His financial genius had vastly added to the _prestige_ of
Lord Palmerston’s Ministry, and his commanding intellect and fascinating
oratorical power had long before marked him out for the leadership.

[Illustration: THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, DUBLIN (1865).]

Two evil incidents marred the latter portion of the year. These were the
outbreak of the cattle disease which became known as “rinderpest,” in
England and Scotland, and the development of the Fenian conspiracy in
Ireland. Down to the middle of December 5,000 cases of “rinderpest” had
occurred, and most of them had ended fatally. The plague, it is true,
was disappearing in some districts, but in others its ravages were
increasing, and a Royal Commission recommended that all movement of
cattle in the country should be stopped for a time. Local authorities
in many cases suspended fairs and markets.

The history of Ireland after the resignation of Lord Aberdeen was summed
up in the administration of Coercion Acts that were rendered necessary
by outrages which a peasantry infuriated by land clearances and
rack-rents perpetrated. For a time the policy of eviction and emigration
went on unresisted. In 1854 the rebels of ’48 were amnestied, but when
they came back they found that Irishmen regarded them rather as
reactionaries than rebels. As had always been the case in Ireland, the
pendulum of public opinion had now swung over from Anti-Unionism to
Separatism. The failure of ’48, the triumph of the evicting landlords,
the progressive poverty of the people, the treachery of leaders like
Sadlier and Keogh, who were bought up by the Whigs, disgusted Irishmen
with Parliamentary agitation. The Fenian conspiracy was the outcome of
this feeling. It originated among victims of the famine clearances, and
among some of the men of ’48. It was introduced into Ireland during the
Indian Mutiny by Mr. James Stephen, when it was known as the Phœnix
Society. One of his first converts was a Jeremiah Donovan, of
Skibbereen, who afterwards dubbed himself O’Donovan Rossa. He in turn,
induced ninety out of the hundred members of the Skibbereen Club to join
his band. That Society could hardly have conducted its proceedings with
much secrecy at this time, for it was soon denounced from every altar in
the country. The Lord-Lieutenant, however, proclaimed it, and there and
then elevated the Phœnix plotters to the dignity of national heroes. The
leaders were arrested, and on pleading guilty were released with
admonition. But over the Atlantic the Society had taken firmer root
among the victims of evicting landlords, as the Irish Revolutionary
Brotherhood. Yet even there it would have probably perished from the
opposition of the priests and the advocates of open agitation, but for
the cleverness with which its leaders made capital out of the famous
McManus funeral. McManus, one of the most amiable and highly respected
members of the Young Ireland Party, had, after his escape from Van
Diemen’s Land, settled in California, where he died. It was resolved by
his compatriots to exhume his body and convey it to Ireland for burial.
The route of the funeral, from San Francisco to Dublin, was naturally at
every stage the scene of a patriotic Irish demonstration, and by adroit
management the Fenian leaders had contrived to get control of all the
arrangements, so that the reflected _prestige_ of this impressive and
imposing demonstration of Irish nationalism went to their credit. In
Ireland the Society was soon considered to be the only one that had any
real power to help the people, and after the McManus funeral it grew
apace. In 1862 it announced at Chicago its intention of establishing
Irish independence by armed force, and its organ--the _Irish
People_--was founded in Dublin by Messrs. John O’Leary, Thomas Clark
Luby, and Charles James Kickham. For two years the Society was permitted
to carry on its propaganda. Then in September, 1865, Luby, O’Leary,
Kickham, and Stephens were arrested. Ten days after their capture
Stephens escaped from jail by aid of his gaolers, who were also Fenians.
In November the others were tried for treason-felony, and sentenced to
penal servitude for terms varying from ten to twenty years. The
organisation then became a small club in New York, whose leaders
quarrelled amongst themselves. They enjoyed a fictitious importance for
a time, because the Democratic Party and partisans of the Southern
States, invariably professed Fenian sympathies when contesting State
elections.

Two Colonial disputes gave the Government of the day some trouble before
the end of the year. The Assembly of Victoria tried to pass a Protective
Tariff over the veto of the Council, by tacking it on to the Bill
granting the supplies for the year. The Council held to its veto. The
Government was thus left without money for the public service, and
affairs came to a deadlock. In the circumstances the Governor, Sir
Charles Darling, cut the knot of the difficulty by allowing his
Ministers to raise money under the sanction of resolutions passed by the
Assembly, or representative branch of the Legislature. He also entered
into an ingenious arrangement with a bank in Melbourne. The law forbade
voluntary payments from the Treasury which were not authorised by an
Appropriation Bill. But the bank made advances to the Treasury, and then
sued it for recovery. The Treasury of course confessed judgment when
sued, and thus the law was evaded.

An outbreak of negroes in Jamaica had been suppressed with great vigour
by Governor Eyre. But it was soon suspected that he had mistaken a riot
for a revolution, and that the local authorities had acted in violation
of law, and with callous disregard of the dictates of humanity. Eyre was
suspended, and a Royal Commission was sent out at the end of the year to
report on the occurrence.

Though the Queen remained in close seclusion during 1865, she gave more
than one token of the vigilance with which she watched popular
interests. The year 1864 was famous for the number and the serious
character of its railway accidents, and yet it was hopeless to expect a
Palmerstonian Parliament to compel the railway companies to improve
their management. In the circumstances, it occurred to the Queen that
she might effect some good by using her moral influence on behalf of the
travelling public, and she accordingly directed the following letter to
be sent to the chief companies just as the year opened:--

“Sir Charles Phipps has received the commands of her Majesty the
Queen to call the attention of the directors of the ---- to the
increasing number of accidents which have lately occurred upon
different lines of railroad, and to express her Majesty’s warmest
hope that the directors of the ---- will carefully consider every
means of guarding against these misfortunes, which are not at all
the necessary accompaniments of railway travelling. It is not for
her own safety that the Queen has wished to provide in thus calling
the attention of the Company to the late disasters. Her Majesty is
aware that when she travels extraordinary precautions are taken,
but it is on account of her family, of those travelling upon her
service, and of her

[Illustration: THE QUEEN UNVEILING THE STATUE OF THE PRINCE CONSORT AT
COBURG.]

people generally, that she expresses the hope that the same
security may be insured for all as is so carefully provided for
herself. The Queen hopes it is unnecessary for her to recall to the
recollection of the railway directors the heavy responsibility
which they have assumed since they have succeeded in securing the
monopoly of the means of travelling of almost the entire population
of the country.”

On the other hand, evidence was not wanting that her Majesty’s
retirement had led to laxity of administration in her household. On the
4th of March, for example, Lord Malmesbury writes in his Diary:--“All
London is talking of the way in which the Corps Diplomatique has been
invited to the Queen’s reception. It was, as far as I could understand,
in these terms:--‘That the Queen would graciously receive them, _male_
and _female_, at a Court to be held at Buckingham Palace.’ All those
concerned are trying to shift the responsibility upon one another. The
diplomatists have sent their cards of invitation to their respective
Courts, and therefore it has produced a great sensation all over the
world, as the term _mâle et femelle_ is never used in French, except in
speaking of animals.”[237] But her Majesty’s kind and gracious bearing
at this reception, which was held on the 13th of March, did much to
neutralise the impression produced by the rudeness of the Lord
Chamberlain’s Department. On the 14th of March the Queen visited the
Consumptive Hospital at Brompton, bestowing on the patients in the
various wards kindly words of sympathy. Circumstances prevented her from
undertaking a journey to Ireland, where the people would have been
pleased to have welcomed her at the inauguration of an International
Exhibition. She, however, testified her interest in that enterprise by
requesting the Prince of Wales to open the exhibition in Dublin on the
9th of May. Another son was born to the Prince and Princess on the 3rd
of June, and on the 7th of July the infant was baptized in the chapel at
Windsor in presence of the Queen, who named him George Frederick Ernest
Albert. On the 6th of August the Queen’s second son, Prince Alfred,
attained his majority, and was recognised, with her sanction, as heir to
the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.

On the 8th of August the Queen, with Prince Leopold, the Princesses
Helena, Louise, Beatrice, and suite, left England for Germany. She
arrived at Coburg on the 11th, and immediately proceeded to Rosenau. On
the 26th she unveiled the statue which had been set up in memory of the
Prince Consort in the quaint market-place of Coburg. The town was _en
fête_, every house being gay with garlands and banners, and decorated
with trophies of arms and festoons of flowers and evergreens. The troops
paraded the square, while crowds of light-hearted students and
schoolboys, and a great concourse of loyal burghers and honest
country-folk who had assembled to see the ceremony, gave life and colour
to a picturesque scene. The Court carriages bore a brilliant company of
Royal personages. Soon after four o’clock in the afternoon the bells in
all the steeples in the town pealed forth joyous notes; the cannon of
the fortress thundered out a royal salute, and the bands in the square
played the English National Anthem. Then the Queen’s carriage drove up
amidst deafening cheers. She was accompanied by Prince Arthur and the
Princess Beatrice, and was received by the Grand Duke, who led her to
the front of the pavilion that had been prepared for the ceremony. She
was clad in the deepest mourning, and under her bonnet was seen the cap
_à la Marie Stuart_, which about this time she had begun to wear on all
public occasions. The Burgomaster of Coburg presented her with a long
and loyal address. The bells rang, the bands played, the cannon saluted
again, and at a given signal the veil was withdrawn from the polished
bronze statue, which stood out glittering and sparkling in the sultry
sunshine of an autumnal afternoon. Walking up to the monument, the Queen
handed to the Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha the bunch of flowers which had
lain before her on the balcony of the pavilion. These he placed,
together with another bouquet from the Princess Beatrice, on the
pedestal of the statue, and the ceremony was over. On the 8th of
September the Queen left Rosenau with the Princesses Helena and Louise
and Prince Leopold, and stopped _en route_ at Darmstadt, where she was
met by the Prince and Princess Louis of Hesse. Proceeding to Ostend, the
Queen paid a brief visit to King Leopold, after which she embarked at
Antwerp in her yacht for Woolwich.

During the Queen’s autumnal holiday at Balmoral the Prince and Princess
Louis of Hesse again visited her. Later in the year it was announced
that the Princess Helena was to be married to the Prince Christian of
Sleswig-Holstein, second son of the Duke of Augustenburg. “Many thanks,”
writes the Princess Louis to the Queen on the 8th of December, “for your
letter received yesterday with the account of Lenchen’s _verlobung_
[betrothal]. I am so glad she is happy, and I hope every blessing will
rest on them both that one can possibly desire.” It was arranged that
the Queen should lend Frogmore to her daughter, so that she and her
husband might be able to live in England. But the shadow of death was
again brooding over the Royal Household. In the same letter in which the
Princess Louis refers to her sister’s betrothal she writes, “I had a
letter from Marie Brabant two days ago, where she says dear uncle’s
[King Leopold] state is hopeless; but yesterday she telegraphed that he
was rather better. What a loss it would be if he were to be taken from
us, for his very name and existence, though he takes no active part in
politics, are of weight and value.”[238] In England the news of King
Leopold’s illness was received with some concern. The Queen had promised
to open the next Session of Parliament in person, and it was feared that
the death of his Majesty might interfere with a project in which her
subjects of all classes were deeply interested. On the 11th of December
King Leopold died, and on that day the Princess Louis of Hesse, ever
ready to sympathise with her mother’s sorrows, wrote to the Queen,
“Alas! alas! beloved Uncle Leopold is no more! How much for you, for us,
for all, goes with him to the grave! One tie more of those dear old
times is rent! I do feel for you so much, for dear uncle was indeed a
father to you. Now you are head of all the family--it seems incredible,
and that dear papa should not be by your side. The regret for dear Uncle
Leopold is universal--he stood so high in the eyes of all parties; his
life was a history in itself--and now that book is closed.” In another
letter the Princess says, “The more I realise that we shall never see
beloved Uncle Leopold again the sadder I grow. He had, apart from all
his excellent qualities, such a charm as I believe we shall seldom find
again.”

King Leopold’s life was indeed “a history in itself.” He was almost
ostentatiously indifferent to his position--ever impressing on his
subjects that he reigned in their interest rather than in his own. It
has been said that he could always bring them to reason by threatening
to abdicate. The sagacity and tact with which he prevented the Catholics
and the Liberals in Belgium from coming to blows, gave him great
influence in Europe. But that influence was enhanced by his capacity for
diplomatic intrigue, and the opportunities for exercising it which his
curious family connections gave him. Though he began life as one of the
obscurest of the petty Princes of Germany, he had married in succession
the heiress of England and the daughter of the King of the French. By a
double marriage, his children were allied to the Imperial House of
Hapsburg. He was the uncle and mentor of the Queen and the Prince
Consort--indeed, he and Baron Stockmar had brought about their marriage.
His position was supposed to be unassailable from the day when, on being
threatened with a revolution, he calmly began to pack a carpet-bag in
presence of the popular leaders, who thereupon, in a paroxysm of fear,
implored him not to leave the country. Yet, according to Lord
Malmesbury, “the last years of his life were spent in perpetual terror
of Louis Napoleon, and he was constantly alarming our Ministers and
everybody on the subject.”[239]

[Illustration: OPENING OF PARLIAMENT IN 1866: THE QUEEN AT THE PEERS’
ENTRANCE, WESTMINSTER PALACE.]

CHAPTER XI.

A STOP-GAP ADMINISTRATION.

End of the Era of Compromise--Dawn of the new Epoch of
Reform--Opening of Parliament by the Queen--The Queen’s Nervous
Prostration at Osborne--Introduction of the Reform Bill--Hostility
of the House of Commons--Dissentient Liberals in “the Cave of
Adullam”--Defeat of the Reform Bill--Resignation of the
Ministry--Lord Derby forms a Cabinet--His attempted Coalition with
the Whig Dukes--Domestic Policy during the Session--The House of
Commons and the Rinderpest--Another Prosperity Budget--Large
Remissions of Taxation--Coercing Ireland--The White Terror in
Jamaica--Marriage of the Princess Helena--The Financial
Embarrassment of the Princess Louis of Hesse--The Queen Intercedes
with Prussia on behalf of Hesse-Darmstadt--The Queen’s Gift to Mr.
Peabody--The Queen’s Visit to Aldershot--The Foundation of the
Albert Medal--Marriage of the Princess Mary of Cambridge--The
Queen’s first Telegram to the President of the United States--The
Queen’s Visit to Aberdeen and Wolverhampton.

The year 1866 will be memorable as the beginning of the new epoch of
strife, controversy, and political activity which followed the death of
Palmerston. The spell of compromise by which he had paralysed the life
of England was broken, and Mr. Gladstone’s appointment as leader of the
House of Commons filled the working classes with the brightest hopes. It
was known that he was in favour of such an extension of the franchise as
would partially redress

[Illustration: MR. JOHN STUART MILL.]

the wrong done by the Reform Bill of 1832, which deprived Labour of the
political power it enjoyed under the unreformed Parliamentary system. As
one of their representative men has said, “those ameliorations of the
laws for which they [the working classes] had looked in vain during so
many years of Whig rule, when electoral reform was said to be deferred
in favour of legal reforms that were only talked about, had to be
preceded by the enfranchisement of the class whose welfare required
them; and Mr. Gladstone, on his part, was conscious that he could not
carry the important measures which he contemplated without first
strengthening his hands by a considerable extension of the franchise and
redistribution of seats.”[240] Moreover, the civil and military triumph
of the United States, marked by moderation in the hour of victory, and
invincible valour in the press of battle, gave an irresistible impulse
to Democracy in England. But the Party of Reform were well aware that a
fierce struggle lay before them. In 1831-32 the House of Lords was the
enemy that had to be faced. In 1866 the House of Commons was quite as
hostile as the House of Lords, to changes that might affect the power,
privileges, and ease of the comfortable classes. Would the Government
bring in a feeble Reform Bill which could be accepted by the Commons? In
that case the country might look forward to another decade of
stagnation. Would the measure be large and comprehensive? In that case
the opposition of the Commons could be met only by a dissolution. But
supposing, as was not unlikely, that under a £10 franchise a
freshly-elected House proved as hostile to Reform as the old one, what
was to be done? Its opposition could not, like that of the Crown, be
overcome by a refusal of supplies, or like that of the Peers, by the
creation of new members. For such a state of affairs the only possible
remedy might be--Revolution. Such were the speculations and the
forebodings with which thoughtful men greeted the New Year of 1866.

Parliament met on the 1st of February, and Mr. Denison was elected
Speaker. It was known that Lord Russell was anxious to strengthen his
Ministry by giving Mr. Bright a seat in the Cabinet, but his colleagues
objected to this step, and the omen was not auspicious for the Party of
Reform. Writing on the 6th of February in his Diary, Lord Malmesbury
says, “the Queen opened Parliament to-day. She came in a State coach
with her eight cream-coloured horses, but entered by the Peers’
entrance. She was well received, but did not wear her robes, which were
placed on the Throne, and did not read the Speech, which was read by the
Lord Chancellor.”[241] It was the first State ceremony at which the
Queen had assisted since the death of her husband, and the scene in the
Upper House was unusually brilliant. The bright dresses of the
Peeresses, the mass of gorgeous colour on the floor of the House, where
the Peers wore their robes, the flashing lights from glittering orders
and uniforms worn by the splendid company of foreign diplomatists,
afforded a spectacle that gladdened the artistic eye. It was marred only
by the wild and disorderly scramble of the members of the House of
Commons for places. They trooped into the Royal presence like a band of
disorderly roughs let loose from Donnybrook Fair. The Speaker was
hustled aside and jammed against the edge of the Bar as he vainly
attempted to make his obeisance to the Queen. The leading members of the
Government vanished in the struggle, though Sir Charles Wood was
ultimately discovered in an attitude of agony almost impaled on the
sharp carving of an oaken lion rampant. As for the sword of the
Sergeant-at-Arms, it got entangled with everybody’s legs, including his
own.

The reaction which followed the excitement of the ceremony had caused
much nervous depression, and the Queen was accordingly recommended to
seek repose at Osborne. “I am happy to think,” writes the Princess Louis
of Hesse to her mother, in a letter referring to the event, “that you
are quiet at Osborne after all you had gone through. The emotion and all
other feelings recalled by such an event must have been very powerful
and have tried you much. It was noble of you, my darling mama, and the
great effort will bring compensation. Think of the pride and pleasure it
would have given darling papa--the brave example to others not to shrink
from their duty; and it has shown that you felt the intense sympathy
which the English people evinced and still evince in your misfortune.”

It was soon apparent that the question of Reform would exhaust the
energies of the Legislature, and on the 12th of March Mr. Gladstone
introduced what came to be known as the Russell-Gladstone Reform Bill.
It proposed to reduce the County Franchise from £50 rental to £14, and
the Borough Franchise from £10 to £7. It also gave votes to lodgers and
£50 depositors in savings banks. The rate-paying clauses of the Reform
Act were abolished. The Bill, it was estimated, would admit to the
franchise 172,000 new voters in counties, 204,000 in towns, and 24,000
under the Lodger and Savings Banks qualifications, i.e., 400,000 in all.
Of these, one-half belonged to the working classes properly so-called.
The House of Commons was not in a pleasant humour for dealing with
Reform. The timid classes were alarmed by a speech which Mr. Gladstone
delivered during Easter at Liverpool, in which he declared that “the
Government had crossed the Rubicon, broken the bridge, and burned their
boats behind them.” This, it was vowed, meant that he for one was
prepared to roll the Constitution down the inclined plane of Democracy.
The country gentlemen were angry, because they thought the Government
had compensated them shabbily for the losses they suffered from the
Cattle Plague. The plutocracy were in low spirits, because in spring a
great financial collapse had smitten the City. Some country banks had
failed. The greater part of the stock of the London, Chatham, and Dover
Railway was offered in the market for “a mere song.” On the 10th of May
the bank of Messrs. Overend and Gurney stopped payment, with liabilities
amounting to £19,000,000. On the 11th the City was in a frenzy of
despair, and Government had to authorise the Bank of England to issue
notes beyond the legal limit. Other financial institutions perished, and
the blight of bankruptcy fell on the land. English credit on the
Continent was so low that the Foreign Office issued a circular
explaining to foreigners the distinction drawn in England between
insolvency and lack of money. Employers of labour, again, were irritated
against the working classes now claiming the franchise, for Trades
Unions were growing more aggressive and turbulent every day. The Fenian
disturbances in Ireland also gave rise to much uneasiness. The uncertain
condition of the Continent led people to urge that, instead of wasting
time in debating Reform, Parliament ought to make the defensive system
of the Empire effective. Above and beyond all things, it was felt that a
Reform Bill involved a dissolution, and to Members of the House of
Commons who had just spent large sums of money in getting elected, this
was a sufficient temptation to oppose Reform. If we consider the natural
effect of all these different motives and feelings on a House of Commons
elected to support Lord Palmerston’s colourless domestic policy, we can
easily understand why the Russell-Gladstone Bill fared badly. It was
opposed by the Tories and by nominal Liberals like Lord Elcho, Mr. Lowe,
Lord Grosvenor, Mr. Horsman, and Mr. Bouverie. It was finally defeated
in Committee by Lord Dunkellin, who carried a motion substituting a
rating for a rental qualification, the effect of which would have been
to limit the franchise to £9 instead of £7 householders in towns, and to
£16 instead of £14 householders in counties. The Radicals, however, did
not regard the defeat of the measure with much grief, though they had
loyally supported Mr. Gladstone. Their hearts were in truth set on
obtaining a much lower qualification than the Bill offered. Independent
critics again, who had no sympathy with the savage diatribes against the
working classes which the Tories and the Liberal seceders poured forth
day after day, also considered that the Bill had one serious defect. It
did not put the franchise on a basis solid enough to be permanent. To
fix it at £7 to-day was only to start an agitation to-morrow to reduce
it to £3, or to nothing at all. Far better, it was argued, return to the
old Radical programme of Household Suffrage, which, at all events,
possessed the elements of finality. In fact, early in June Ministers saw
that the Bill was doomed, and an intrigue was set on foot between the
Cabinet and the “Adullamites”[242] for the purpose of withdrawing the
Bill, on condition that the Liberal seceders would steadily support the
Ministers on all other questions. After their defeat on the 18th of
June, the Cabinet resigned, and although the Queen was somewhat opposed
to this step, she waived her objections to it.

According to Lord Malmesbury, the Government first of all thought of
dissolving Parliament, but abandoned this idea, fearing they would lose
by it. Lord Malmesbury also says that “the Queen being on a visit to
Osborne for ten days, refused to shorten her stay, and the country
remained for a month with the Government in abeyance. At last her
Majesty returned, and appointed Lord Derby Prime Minister. He tried to
form a coalition with some Whig Dukes, and invited Lord Clarendon and
the Duke of Somerset to join him. They refused. He then did the same by
the Adullamites, most of whom also declined. Young Lord Lansdowne, who
at their head had promised to support him, died suddenly, and this
accident increased his

[Illustration: PRINCE CHRISTIAN.

(_From a Photograph by W. and D. Downey._)]

difficulties. Encouraged by a meeting of twenty-three leading
Conservatives, held at his house, Lord Derby formed the following
Cabinet:--Lord Chancellor, Lord Chelmsford; President of the Council,
Duke of Buckingham; Privy Seal, Lord Malmesbury; Secretary for Home
Affairs, Mr. Walpole; Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Lord Stanley;[243]
Secretary for War, General Peel; Secretary for Colonies, Lord Carnarvon;
Secretary for India, Lord Cranborne; Poor Law Board, Mr. Hardy; Board of
Trade, Sir S. Northcote; Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Disraeli;
Secretary for Ireland, Lord Naas; Board of Works, Lord John Manners;
Admiralty, Sir John Pakington.”[244] Lord Derby himself personally
objected to take office because he could not feel confident of
commanding a majority. Some of his friends, like the Marquis of Bath,
were indeed angry that he had consented to serve again as Premier
without definite pledges of support from the Whigs, whose hostility to
Reform had shattered the last Cabinet.

Up to the time when the change of Ministry took place very little
business had been done. A Bill dealing with the cattle plague had been
introduced by the Home Secretary. It empowered local authorities to kill
infected herds and stop all movement of cattle and all fairs in infected
areas. For cattle thus sacrificed the owners were to receive from local
authorities compensation to the extent of two-thirds of the value, but
in no case was this to exceed £20 a head. The money was to be raised,
one-third by a rate on the counties, one-third by a rate on the towns,
and one-third by the cattle trade itself. The Radical Party admitted the
principle of compensation. But Mr. J. S. Mill contended that if the
infected animal was shown not to be worth two-thirds of what it would
fetch in the market if healthy, the compensation given by the Government
was excessive. The Bill, he also complained, compensated the landed
interest for a loss some share of which the rest of the community, who
were not indemnified, bore in the form of enhanced prices. Then, as the
rate was to be purely local, those who suffered least would pay least,
whereas the burden of recompense would fall heaviest on districts which
suffered most. There could be no doubt that his proposal for a general
rate on the land instead of a local rate was just. Mr. Gladstone,
impressed by these arguments, agreed to limit the compensation to
one-half instead of two-thirds of the value of the slaughtered animals,
and the compromise was grudgingly accepted.

Mr. Gladstone introduced his Budget on the 3rd of May. The income, he
said, had been £67,812,000 and the expenditure £66,474,000, leaving a
surplus of £1,338,000. His estimated loss from remission of taxes had
been very slightly below the actual loss, except in the case of Income
Tax, for the wealth of the nation was now accumulating so rapidly, that
a penny Income Tax, instead of producing £1,000,000, as had always been
the calculation, produced £1,400,000. For the coming year Mr. Gladstone
estimated, on the existing basis of taxation, a revenue of £67,575,000.
His probable expenditure, from an increase of £78,000 in Estimates, he
set down at £66,225,000, so that he had an estimated surplus of
£1,350,000 to dispose of. He therefore repealed the timber duties,
equalised the duties on wines in bottle and in wood, abolished the duty
on pepper, and made a considerable reduction in the tax on carriages. He
calculated that there would be a loss of £502,000 on the conversion of
debt, so that he would, with these changes in taxation, be left with a
surplus of £286,000. The financial debates simply ratified Mr.
Gladstone’s schemes; but they were rendered memorable by Mr. J. S.
Mill’s celebrated speech urging on the House the necessity of reducing
the National Debt as a matter of duty to posterity. One of his chief
arguments was based on the thesis of Mr. Stanley Jevons that succeeding
generations must, at the existing rate of consumption, face a failure in
the coal supply of the country owing to the exhaustion of its
mines.[245]

Early in the year the Government obtained the consent of Parliament to
suspend the Habeas Corpus Act in Ireland, in order to enable the
Executive to deal with the Fenian conspiracy. Mr. Mill, however, though
he supported the Ministry, very pertinently observed that, after it got
fresh powers, it must not go asleep, as it had done for eighteen years,
over Irish grievances. The Bill was passed on the 17th of February. The
next step was to obtain the Queen’s assent immediately. As her Majesty
was at Osborne, this took time, and the Irish Executive could not brook
delay. As soon as the House of Lords had read the Bill a third time, a
telegram was sent to Earl Granville, who was at Osborne, announcing the
result, upon the receipt of which the Queen instantly signed the
document authorising the Commissioners to give her assent to the
measure. In order to allow time for bringing her authorisation to
London, the sitting of the House of Lords was suspended until 11 o’clock
p.m., when it was calculated that the special train with the Queen’s
messenger would arrive in London. Time, however, rolled on, but no
messenger appeared. The hour of midnight struck. Then the clock chimed
the half-hour after twelve, when there entered a clerk bearing a
despatch-box, which the Chancellor nervously opened and from which he
took out the long-expected document. The House of Commons having been
summoned, and about fifty members answering the call, at twenty minutes
to one o’clock on the Sunday morning the Queen’s sanction was
proclaimed, and the Bill became law. Probably no statute was ever passed
with so much celerity as this Irish Coercion Bill--the first Act of the
new Parliament. The powers of the Act had indeed been put into operation
in anticipation of its passing, and on the 16th of February a large
number of arrests were made in Dublin and its vicinity. The mischief
done by the alarms of this period was, however, irretrievable, but, with
the cessation of active movements on the part of the Fenians, a feeling
of contempt for the conspiracy took the place of panic. For a few
months, therefore, the country appeared to subside into its usual
tranquillity.

On the 21st of March the Commissioners who had been investigating the
negro outbreak in Jamaica finished their inquiry. The feeling in London
was as violently in favour of repressive measures against the negroes,
as it had been in favour of the Southerners during the American Civil
War, and against the German Powers during the war in Sleswig-Holstein.
It was therefore with some chagrin that the Party of Panic discovered
that the Commissioners extenuated the action of the negroes. There had
been a planned resistance to the Queen’s authority in Jamaica; but the
chief cause was

[Illustration: MARRIAGE OF THE PRINCESS HELENA. (_See p. 262._)]

not merely the desire for free land, but the want of confidence of the
black population in the tribunals before which cases affecting their
interests were tried. It was shown that, if the insurgents had been
temporarily successful, the suppression of the rebellion would have been
attended with greater loss of life and property than had been recorded.
Hence praise was awarded to Governor Eyre for the vigour and promptitude
with which he put down the rising. But, on the other hand, the
Commissioners strongly condemned the Authorities for continuing martial
law longer than was desirable, for inflicting excessive punishments, for
awarding the death penalty far oftener than was necessary, for
sentencing people to be flogged with reckless barbarity, and for burning
1,000 houses in a wanton and cruel manner. This Report, on the whole,
justified the first suspicions of calm-minded men at home. The Governor
had very skilfully put down the rising before it grew from a riot to a
revolution. Then, carried away by “the White Terror” which Lord Canning
had so coolly withstood at Calcutta during the Indian Mutiny, he had let
the colonial authorities violate the common law, and revel in judicial
murders and other hideous barbarities which are inevitable, though
regrettable, incidents in the suppression of all servile revolts.

[Illustration: PRINCESS CHRISTIAN.

(_From a Photograph by W. and D. Downey._)]

The approaching marriage of the Princess Helena with Prince Christian of
Sleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg, which had been announced in the Queen’s
Speech, gave occasion to messages from the Crown to the two Houses of
Parliament, asking them to make provision for the Princess, and also for
Prince Alfred on his coming of age. Mr. Gladstone, in introducing the
subject to the House of Commons, observed that with respect to the
Princess Helena, “her position was a peculiar one, as she was the eldest
unmarried Princess of the Royal Family when the most crushing calamity
that could befall humanity descended upon her Majesty, and that during
that trial all the prominent qualities of the Princess’s character, her
strength, her wisdom, and her tenderness were put to the test.” Ignoring
to some extent the devotion of the Princess Alice, Mr. Gladstone added
that the Princess Helena “was then, and had been since, the stay and
solace of her illustrious mother.” He therefore proposed to vote her an
annuity of £6,000 a year, in addition to a dowry of £30,000. To Prince
Alfred he proposed to grant an annuity of £15,000 a year. Mr. Disraeli
said that the claim now made only elicited a fresh outflow of sympathy
and affection from a devoted people, and the proposals were at once
agreed to. The marriage of the Princess was solemnised in the chapel
within Windsor Castle, on the 5th of July. A very lengthy procession
entered the church as Handel’s March from _Scipio_ was played. The Queen
wore a rich black _moiré-antique_ dress, interwoven with silver and
trimmed with black crape, and a row of diamonds round the body. A
coronet of diamonds, attached to a long white crape veil, a diamond
necklace and cross, and a brooch composed of a large sapphire set in
diamonds, the riband and star of the Order of the Garter, and the
Victoria and Albert Order completed her adornment. The bride, who wore a
rich dress of white satin, on arriving at the chapel took her place on
the left side of the altar, while the Queen was conducted to the seat
prepared for her near the bride. The Archbishop of Canterbury performed
the service, the bride being given away by the Queen. The Prince and
Princess left for Osborne after the ceremony.

The Queen appreciated the generous devotion of the House of Commons in
so willingly voting a substantial provision for the Princess Helena, all
the more that early in the year the financial embarrassments of the
Princess Louis of Hesse had caused her sore anxiety. Although the
Princess was an excellent house-manager, it was discovered that the
handsome income and dowry which had been granted to her by the House of
Commons, did not suffice for the wants of her husband’s establishment.
Her gentle, uncomplaining nature, ever mindful of the feelings of
others, had led her to conceal her difficulties from the Queen, who,
however, made the painful discovery soon after suggesting some plans for
her daughter’s benefit. These unfortunately could not be entertained.
_Pauperis est numerare pecus_, and the Princess Louis had therefore to
explain her circumstances to her mother. Writing from Darmstadt on the
18th of March she says, “Your idea of Friedrichroda for us was so good,
but, alas! now even that will be impracticable, on account of money.
Louis has had to take up money again at Coutts’s to pay for the house,
and the house is surety. We must live _so_ economically--not going
_anywhere_, or seeing many people, so as to be able to spare as much a
year as we can. England cost us a great deal, as the visit was short
last time. We have sold four carriage horses, and have only six to drive
with now, two of which the ladies constantly want for theatre, visits,
etc., so we are rather badly off in some things. But I should not bore
you with our troubles, which are easy to bear.”[246] The Queen’s nice
tact and quick sympathy were shown in not directly noting these matters.
But when the Princess’s birthday came round, her Majesty did not forget
her daughter’s impecuniosity. Writing to the Queen on the 25th of April
the Princess Louis says, “A thousand thanks for your dear lines, _and
the money_, and charming bas-relief of you, which I think very good. I
thought so much of former birthdays at home in Buckingham Palace. They
were so happy.... The money will go to Louis’ man of business, towards
paying off the furniture, and is indeed very acceptable, more so under
present circumstances than anything else you could give us; and that
part of the furniture,” adds the poor Princess, with the pride of one
who seeks to reconcile herself to accept a birthday gift in the form of
a cheque, “will then all be your present.”[247] In another letter she
endeavours to reassure the Queen as to her embarrassments by speaking
brightly and cheerily of them. “I have made all the summer walking-out
dresses,” she writes--“seven in number, with paletôts for the girls--not
embroidered, but entirely made from beginning to end: likewise the new
necessary flannel shawls for the expected. I manage all the nursery
accounts, and everything myself, which gives me plenty to do, as
everything increases, and on account of the house, we must live very
economically for these next years.” The Princess, as will be seen, was
looking for an early addition to her family, and the Queen felt that her
health was imperilled by the fresh anxiety and the increasing household
drudgery which her straitened circumstances added to the burden of her
social and public duties. Her Majesty, therefore, with characteristic
generosity, herself made arrangements for her daughter’s _accouchement_,
which relieved her of some of her worry. “It is so kind of you,” writes
the Princess, gratefully, to the Queen, “to give Dr. Priestly his fee,
otherwise I would have scruples in giving so large a sum for my own
comfort.” How welcome her mother’s assistance was to the Princess may be
gathered from another passage in one of her letters to the Queen, in
which she says, “The man who built our house has nearly been made
bankrupt, and wants money from us to save him from ruin, and we can
scarcely manage it.”[248] Again the same sad subject crops up some nine
months after the birth of her daughter, which took place during the
Austro-Prussian War. The accumulated anxieties of that dreadful time had
told on the health of the Princess. The Queen had taken charge of the
little ones in the Darmstadt household, and thus freed the Princess from
much care. Hence in autumn we find her rejoicing that the slight change
to Nierstein, Gelbes Haus, has done her good, and adding, “If later,
through your [the Queen’s] kindness, a little journey should be possible
to us, it would be very beneficial to us.” But in a few days she soon
fell ill again, and on the 29th of August she writes to the Queen
saying, “Mountain air Weber wants me to have, and quite away from all
bother; but I fear that is impossible _now_, on account of Louis not
being able to leave--and, then, financially. I have some _heimweh_
[home-sickness] after dear old England, Balmoral, and all at home, I
own, though the joy of being near dear Louis again is so great. But life
is meant for work and not for pleasure, and I learn more and more to be
grateful and content with that which the Almighty sends me, and to find
the sunshine in spite of the clouds.” Nor was the Queen’s generosity
limited to her daughter. She treated the Prince Louis at this time with
great tenderness and sympathy. In one letter from the Princess to the
Queen we find her saying, “We are so pleased at your saying that you
claim Louis as _your_ son. He always considers _himself_ in particular
your child, and if anything helps to stimulate him in doing his duty
well, it is the sincere wish of being worthy to claim and deserve that
title.” And the Queen’s kindness was not confined to words. She gave him
(Prince Louis) the charger that he rode during the war, and helped him
in many ways. “That you sent Louis,” writes the Princess to her on the
16th of September, “besides the pretty souvenir, the money for something
in the house, is really so kind. Our whole dining-room we consider your
present, and it is furnished as like an English one as possible.”
Lastly, when the war ended in the triumph of Prussia, and the Princess
thought that she and her husband, to use her own phrase, would be made
“beggars,” the Queen employed her potent influence at the Court of
Berlin to procure favourable terms for Hesse-Darmstadt in the peace that
followed. But for the Queen, the Grand Duchy would have been blotted out
of the map of Germany as a sovereign State.[249] “We are so grateful,”
says the Princess in one of her letters at this anxious moment in her
husband’s life, “for your having written to good Fritz [the Crown Prince
of Prussia]. What he _can_ do I know he will.”

The eminent American merchant, Mr. Peabody, having added to his splendid
gift of the preceding year for the improvements of the dwellings of the
poor of London another munificent donation, her Majesty addressed to him
the following autograph letter:--

“Windsor Castle, March 28, 1866.

“The Queen hears that Mr. Peabody intends shortly to return to
America, and she would be sorry that he should leave England
without being assured by herself how deeply she appreciates the
noble act of more than princely munificence by which he has sought
to relieve the wants of the poorer class of her subjects residing
in London. It is an act, as the Queen believes, wholly without
parallel, and which will carry its best reward in the consciousness
of having contributed so largely to the assistance of those who can
little help themselves.

“The Queen would not, however, have been satisfied without giving
Mr. Peabody some public mark of her sense of his munificence, and
she would gladly have conferred upon him either a baronetcy or the
Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath, but that she understands Mr.
Peabody to feel himself debarred from accepting such distinctions.
It only remains, therefore, for the Queen to give Mr. Peabody the
assurance of her personal feelings, which she would further wish to
mark by asking him to accept a miniature portrait of herself, which
she will desire to have painted for him, and which, when finished,
can either be sent to him to America, or given to him on the
return, which she rejoices to hear he meditates, to the country
that owes him so much.”

[Illustration: THE DUCHESS OF TECK.

(_From a Photograph by W. and D. Downey._)]

In the spring the Queen was well enough to renew her acquaintance with
Aldershot. For the first time during five years she visited the camp.
She reviewed the troops in garrison, and inspected the ranks; after
which the regiments marched past in grand divisions to the music of
their bands. When she had inspected the Infantry, the Queen drove
through the South Camp, by way of the Prince Consort’s Library, to the
Artillery and Cavalry Barracks, and then past the Memorial Church to the
Pavilion, where luncheon was served for her. Again on the 5th of April
the Queen paid a brief and hurried visit to the Camp, in order to
present a new pair of colours to the 89th Regiment. The visit was
strictly private, only a few chief officers being aware that it had been
arranged. Nearly 11,000 men were on the ground, but there were,
comparatively speaking, few spectators. In presenting the colours, the
Queen said, “I have much pleasure in renewing the colours given you many
years ago, relying confidently on the loyal devotion to my service by
which you and all my troops have ever been so distinguished.” Referring
to this event, the Princess Louis, in one of her letters to her mother,
says: “How trying the visit to Aldershot must have been, but it is so
wise and kind of you to go. I cannot think of it without tears in my
eyes. Formerly that was one of the greatest pleasures of my girlhood,
and you and darling papa looked so handsome together. I so enjoyed
following you on those occasions. Such moments I should like to call
back for an instant.”

In April the Albert Medal was founded by her Majesty. According to the
_London Gazette_, it was to be awarded, “in cases where it shall be
considered fit, to such persons as shall endanger their own lives in
saving or endeavouring to save the lives of others from shipwreck or
other perils of the sea.”

On the 12th of June the Queen attended the marriage of the Princess Mary
of Cambridge to the Duke of Teck. This illustrious lady has always been
the most popular of English Princesses--popular alike with the
aristocracy and the mob. Her marriage stirred up a good deal of
interest. It was celebrated very quietly and simply in her own parish
church at Kew, in the midst of the people among whom she had lived from
her childhood, and to whom she had endeared herself by her spirited
geniality, her good and tender heart, and her generous though somewhat
impulsive charities.

On the 27th of June the Queen sent the first message over the telegraph
cable that had been successfully laid between Ireland and the United
States. It ran as follows: “From the Queen, Osborne, to the President of
the United States, Washington.--The Queen congratulates the President on
the successful completion of an undertaking which she hopes may serve as
an additional bond of union between the United States and England.”
President Andrew Johnson replied:--“The President of the United States
acknowledges with profound gratification the receipt of her Majesty’s
despatch, and cordially reciprocates the hope that the cable that now
unites the Eastern and Western hemispheres may serve to strengthen and
perpetuate peace and amity between the Government of England and the
Republic of the United States.” The President’s reply to the Queen
occupied one hour and nine minutes in its transit from Newfoundland to
Osborne. The cable laid in 1865 had been lost, but it had been
successfully raised, and the daily journal of the operations of the
ships comprising the telegraph squadron engaged in recovering it, is a
record in which heroic perseverance, extraordinary mechanical ingenuity,
and able seamanship alike compel admiration.

On the 20th of September the Prince of Wales presided at the unveiling
of a fine marble statue of the Queen at Aberdeen. The subscriptions for
this work of art were collected just after the inauguration of the
memorial to the Prince Consort by the Queen in October, 1863. A thousand
pounds were easily obtained, a large number of the subscribers being
working men. The artist, Mr. Alexander Brodie, a local sculptor,
represented the Queen standing, bearing the sceptre in her right hand,
while with, the other she clasped the folds of a tartan plaid. The
statue stands 8 feet 6 inches in height, is cut from a block of Sicilian
marble, and is placed on a richly-polished pedestal over 10 feet high.
The Prince on the occasion was dressed in Highland costume, and received
hearty cheers from the crowds who greeted him. In accordance with a
unanimous resolution of the Town Council, he received the freedom of the
city. While speaking at the inauguration ceremony, he stated that the
Queen had desired him to say how much she appreciated the motive which
had led the people of Aberdeen to give this lasting evidence of their
attachment, loyalty, and sympathy.

On the 16th of October the Queen herself opened the Aberdeen New
Waterworks at Invercannie, twenty-two miles distant from the “Granite
City,” and a convenient drive of thirty miles from Balmoral. After
receiving an address, her Majesty, speaking in public in her official
capacity for the first time since the death of the Prince Consort,
said:--“I thank you for your dutiful address, and am very sensible of
the fresh mark of the loyal attachment of my neighbours the people of
Aberdeen. I have felt that, at a time when the attention of the country
has been so anxiously directed to the state of the public health, it was
right that I should make an exertion to testify my sense of the
importance of a work so well calculated as this to promote the health
and comfort of your ancient city.” The Queen then, advancing to an
ingenious piece of machinery erected at the edge of the reservoir, gave
several turns to the handle, and in an instant the water came plunging
in, pure and plentiful. The Queen then declared the Aberdeen Waterworks
open.

On the 30th of November her Majesty received an enthusiastic welcome
from her subjects in Wolverhampton, on the occasion of her inaugurating
a statue erected to the Prince Consort. The Queen was accompanied by the
Earl of Derby, Princess Helena, Prince Christian, the Princess Louise,
and the customary suite. Between two and three thousand people were
admitted into the railway station-yard and approaches. At the entrance
there had been built an arch of coal, firmly joined by mortar, with
abutments of pig-iron. Trophies of picks, spades, and other implements
of the collier’s trade were so placed as to give relief to the material
of the arch, which, though not very sightly, was very characteristic of
the local industry. Beyond this was a trophy of coal, thirty feet high,
formed of immense blocks some of them weighing nearly three tons, from
Lord Dudley’s pits. Nothing could exceed the enthusiasm and devotion
displayed by the population. Town and county assembled in the streets.
The colliers, the puddlers, and the forgemen from the iron districts,
the workers in metal, japan, _papier-maché_, and in all the staple
trades of Wolverhampton, lined the barriers, and raised a mighty shout
when the royal carriages appeared. The treacherous weather of an English
November made it, of course, indispensable that the ceremony of
unveiling the statue should be performed and witnessed under cover, and
an amphitheatre had accordingly been constructed which held two thousand
people. The Bishop of Lichfield having offered up a prayer, the Recorder
read an address to the Queen, which she accepted. Lord Derby having
handed her a sword, she next bestowed the accolade on the kneeling
Mayor, who thereupon rose up as Sir John Morris. Before leaving the
pavilion, the Queen desired the Mayor to tell her subjects in
Wolverhampton that she was greatly pleased with her reception, and with
the loyal feeling which had been manifested. A few days afterwards, at a
meeting of the Wolverhampton Council, the Mayor produced a letter which,
though marked “private,” he had obtained permission to read at that
meeting. The letter was from Sir C. Grey. It was dated Windsor Castle,
December 1, and, after stating that an official answer to the address of
the Corporation would be sent, went on to say:--“Her Majesty is anxious
that you should hear, as it were, more directly from herself how much
she was gratified by the heartiness and cordiality of the reception she
met with from every individual of the vast assemblage that yesterday
filled your streets, and how deeply--how very deeply--she was touched by
the proof which the day’s proceedings afforded of the respect and
affection entertained at Wolverhampton for the memory of her beloved
husband. I have also been requested by Princess Christian to say how
much she has been gratified by the kindness shown yesterday to herself
and Prince Christian, and that she will have much pleasure in wearing
the beautiful bracelet presented to her at the station as a remembrance
of a most interesting and gratifying day.” Sir John Morris then read
another letter he had received from Sir Thomas Biddulph, in which the
Queen desired that her condolence might be conveyed to a volunteer who
had met with an accident on the occasion of her visit, and also
expressed her Majesty’s intention to settle upon him an annuity of £20,
payable quarterly. This announcement was naturally received with great
enthusiasm by the Council.

CHAPTER XII.

THE TIDE OF DEMOCRACY.

Stemming the Tide of Democracy--Lord Derby and Reform--The Reform
League--The Riots in Hyde Park--Cowing the Ministry--The
Adullamites--Mr. Disraeli’s Resolutions--Crises in the Cabinet--The
Ten Minutes Bill--The Government Measure--Mr. Gladstone’s
Alterations--A Leap in the Dark--The Movement in Favour of German
Unity--The Austro-Prussian War--The Luxembourg Question--Execution
of the Emperor Maximilian--Mr. Disraeli’s Budget--Academic
Discussions of Irish Grievances--Fenian Outrages at Manchester and
Clerkenwell--Rattening at Sheffield--Prince Arthur Passes his
Military Examination--Illness of the Princess of Wales--Founding of
the Royal Albert Hall--The Sultan in England--Abdul Aziz,
K.G.--Visit of the Queen to the Duchess of Roxburghe--Dr. Macleod
at Balmoral--Prince Arthur ill of Smallpox--The Queen Keeping
Hallowe’en--Her Majesty Visits Lady Palmerston.

When Lord Derby came to power in 1866 he was reported to have said that
it would be his mission “to stem the tide of democracy.” It has,
therefore, been supposed that he was an irreconcilable opponent of
Reform. As he passed an extremely democratic measure of Parliamentary
Reform--thereby, to use his own phrase, “dishing the Whigs”--he has been
accused of the grossest possible tergiversation. What, then, was the
attitude of the Tories to Reform in 1866? The party, as a whole, was
certainly hostile to it. To give votes to people who paid £6 a year for
their houses meant, as Sir E. Bulwer Lytton declared, the
enfranchisement of “poverty and passion.” No speeches stirred the hearts
and sympathies of the Tory party throughout this country so strongly as
those in which Mr. Lowe, and other Adullamites, heaped the coarsest
abuse on the working-classes of England. In those days an English
artisan was spoken of in Tory society with an antipathy stronger even
than that with which the “mean whites” regarded the negroes in the
Southern States. The leaders of the Tory party, however--Lord Derby,
Lord Stanley, Mr. Disraeli, and Mr. Henley--never shared these
prejudices. But what would they do after being called to power by the
declared enemies of Reform? The first public utterances of Ministers did
not throw much light on their intentions. Mr. Disraeli told his
constituents that when the Government attempted to deal with Reform they
would not adopt any foreign pattern--either American or French--as a
model for the Parliamentary institutions of the country. He protested
that he could not discover whether the defeated Bill was based on the
rights of man or the rights of numbers. He seemed to have some notion
that “the estate of the Commons” should, like all other estates, have a
fair share in the Government of the country. But his idea evidently was
to enfranchise not masses but classes, and to give electoral power to
the _élite_ of all the different “orders” of society. Sir Stafford
Northcote was opposed to bringing in any new Reform Bill.[250] Lord
Stanley said bluntly that he had objected to the defeated Bill, because
it made the franchise lower than the House of Commons would endure; and
as for Lord Derby, his opinion was very ambiguous. He had no objection
to see the electorate largely increased. But his difficulty was, that
the agitators who were alone earnest in demanding Reform would never be
satisfied with any Bill which the great parties in the State could unite
in accepting. It was quite clear that he intended to let the matter rest
and ripen. Lord Derby and his colleagues, however, made a fatal mistake
in imagining that they would be allowed to let the matter rest. He
completely miscalculated the strength of the social and political forces
which had been let loose by the death of Lord Palmerston. The nation was
in a condition of suspense and excitement that recalled revolutionary
memories of 1848, and the working-classes had been roused from their
apathy by the speeches in which the Tories and Adullamites had held them
up to contempt. The Reform League promptly set on foot a great popular
agitation, and, to the astonishment of the Adullamites and the Tories,
the reply of the people to the refusal of a £6 franchise was a demand
for “registered residential manhood suffrage and the ballot.” Huge mass
meetings were held all over the country, at which this demand was put
forward, and the temper of the populace rapidly became revolutionary. An
accident brought this unpleasant fact home to the minds of Ministers.

The Reform League, under the leadership of Mr. Edmond Beales--an
energetic barrister, who afterwards became a County Court
Judge--organised a meeting in Hyde Park. On the 22nd of July, 1866,
notices were posted up by order of the Government prohibiting the
Reformers from holding the meeting. On the 23rd the Leaguers,
accompanied by an angry mob, proceeded to the Park and demanded
admission. When this was refused, Mr. Beales and his colleagues tried to
lead the crowd to Trafalgar Square for the purpose of protesting against
the action of the Home Secretary. But the crowd refused to be led. It
took a more summary and effective method of protesting, for it tore down
the railings of Hyde Park and held the ground till it was driven out,
after a desperate fight with the police and Life Guards. It was at first
supposed that this timely exhibition of force would end the conflict;
and Mr. Walpole, the Home Secretary, posted strong patrols of police and
soldiery all over the Park. That step was, of course, quickly resented
by the people. They attacked the police and the troops on the 24th, and
it was not till cavalry were employed that the turmoil was suppressed.
But during the whole day the fashionable people in carriages were pelted
with mud and stones by the “roughs” whenever they made their appearance.
This inglorious warfare went on in the same manner till the 27th, when
the Duke of Cambridge decided to bring up three additional regiments of
cavalry, whereupon it began to dawn on Society that somehow or other
life was not altogether pleasant in the West End of London under the new
“Government of moral order.” The Queen, whose legal right to exclude
people from the Royal Parks was the pretext for the action of the
Government, became extremely nervous as to the effect which the policy
of her Ministers might have on the stability of the Monarchy, and it
finally turned out that the Home Secretary had gone beyond the law, in
vindicating her Majesty’s rights over Hyde Park by military force. Those
rights were secured to the Crown solely by a civil action for trespass.
At the height of the dispute the leaders of the Reform League obtained
an interview with Mr. Walpole, in the course of which that amiable but
misguided Minister shed tears when the grave consequences of his action
became manifest to him. He withdrew his opposition to the use of the
Park. The Reformers held their meetings, and on the 28th of July London
was so quiet and orderly, that no chance visitor would have dreamt that
it had during the week been on the verge of revolution. Parliament was
prorogued on the 11th of August, and the agitation went on throughout
the country.

The Derby-Disraeli Government were by this time completely cowed by the
mob, and they frankly admitted that it was too dangerous to let Reform
alone. Parliament met on the 5th of February, 1867, and was opened by
the Queen, who, though driven in a close carriage from the Palace to
Westminster, was received with the heartiest cheers by crowds of people,
who, despite the wet and dismal weather, came out to greet her as she
passed. The Royal Speech was listened to with suppressed excitement,
especially when the paragraph relating to Reform was read by the Lord
Chancellor. It, however, merely hinted at the introduction of a measure
for extending the Franchise, so that naturally attention was next
concentrated on Mr. Disraeli’s utterances on the vexed question.[251] He
rather amused his opponents by solemnly announcing that the subject of
Reform should no longer be treated as one to determine the fate of
Cabinets.[252] No doubt it was a little difficult to treat such an
announcement seriously, coming from a Minister who had dexterously used
the question for the purpose of upsetting Lord Russell’s Cabinet. Still,
it was the wisest policy that could be adopted in the circumstances, and
its adoption had been strongly pressed on Lord Derby by the Queen
herself. Her Majesty’s view was that the history, especially the recent
history, of the Reform agitation, proved conclusively two things--first,
that no possible Government could by its own effort and authority carry
a Reform Bill; and second, as Mr. Gladstone had himself admitted to her,
that with a £10 franchise it was not likely that a House of Commons
could be obtained with a strong working majority pledged to support a
Reform Ministry. “If,” said Lord Derby, in his speech on the Address, in
words which aptly reflected the

[Illustration: GREAT DEMONSTRATION AT THE REFORMERS’ TREE IN HYDE
PARK.]

opinion of the Sovereign, “we desire to see the representation of the
country placed upon a sound basis; if we desire to see a settlement of
the question, which I will not say shall be final, but which shall
render unnecessary and improbable any further agitation upon the subject
for a very considerable time, then I say this object cannot be attained
by making the question one of party and political strife for the purpose
of obtaining office or Parliamentary majorities. The question must be
examined in a fair, deliberate, and dispassionate spirit; we must be
prepared to give and take, to meet each other’s views, and, above all
things, to cast away all party objects.”

[Illustration: LORD CARNARVON.

(_From a Photograph by the London Stereoscopic Company._)]

The real obstacle had been the Adullamites. But, says Mr. Hayward, in a
letter to Mr. Gladstone, dated the 31st of January, “the Cave has split
already. Elcho, Lord Grosvenor, heading one section with Lowe and
Horsman; Beaumont, Dunkellin, &c., with the other; the numbers about
equal.... Beaumont and Co. would vote for an immediate settlement of the
Reform Question. This he told me. Elcho would consent to no reduction of
the Franchise.”[253] The fate of this small but brilliant party, Bishop
Wilberforce says, inspired Mr. Gladstone with a new commandment--“Thou
shalt not commit Adullamy.”[254]

On the 11th of February Mr. Disraeli explained to the House of Commons
how the Government intended to deal with Reform. He suggested that they
should pass a series of Resolutions admitting the necessity of
increasing the electorate, and of giving more direct representation to
the working-classes, but affirming that it was contrary to the
Constitution to give any single interest in the country dominant power
over the others. His Resolutions were also in favour of basing the
franchise on rating, of plural voting, of the use of voting papers, and
of the extension of borough boundaries. The House of Commons, however,
clearly showed that it desired the Government to bring in a Bill, and
that was plainly the opinion of the public also. Lord Malmesbury writes
on the 16th of February:--“New plan on Reform proposed by Disraeli. Four
franchises, namely, £5 rated house, £50 in savings bank, an educational
franchise, and direct taxation, supposed in its result to give 680,000
voters to property, and 360,000 to democracy. General Peel positively
objects. The press, in a body, abuse our Resolutions.”[255] On the 19th
a Cabinet meeting was held, at which General Peel, finding he was the
only dissentient, withdrew his objections.[256] But public opinion was
against the scheme, and the spirit of dissension was brooding over the
Cabinet. “Meanwhile,” writes Lord Malmesbury, who has given the world
the only authentic account of the secret history of the startling events
which followed, “after a Cabinet held on Saturday, Feb. 22nd, at which
no difficulty occurred, and after Lord Derby’s having gone down to
Windsor to announce unanimity of the Cabinet, on Sunday night Lord
Cranborne informed Lord Carnarvon that he could not agree to the Reform
Bill as it stood, and must resign. Lord Carnarvon did the same, and at
8.30 on Feb. 25th they wrote to Lord Derby to call a Cabinet at twelve
for Lord Cranborne to explain his objections. The confusion may be
conceived, as at 2 p.m. Lord Derby had summoned his party to hear the
new Bill, and Disraeli was to explain it at five in the House of
Commons. It was a paralysis. The dissentients were now joined by
General Peel, who refused to remain [he had dissented from the first],
and in half an hour, at Stanley’s suggestion, they agreed to meet the
M.P.’s with a Bill founded on the £6 and £20 rating, to which the trio
agreed. This crude action exposed us to great condemnation and
ridicule.” The Bill was afterwards nicknamed the “Six Hours Bill,” and
some indiscreet revelations which were made by Sir John Pakington led to
it being scoffed at as “the Ten Minutes Bill.” A more ludicrous blunder
has probably never been committed by any Government, as some of the
Ministers confessed to each other. “No doubt,” writes Lord Malmesbury,
“the best thing in such a position would have been to accept the
resignation of these three able and honourable men (however serious the
loss), and to tell the truth to Parliament, deferring the Bill for a
week. I wrote a strong letter to Lord Derby from Heron Court, begging
him to do this. The following Saturday it was done, and the Dukes of
Richmond and Marlborough and Mr. Corry took the vacant seats in the
Cabinet--the first as Board of Trade, the second as Colonial Secretary,
the third as First Lord of the Admiralty; Northcote, India; and
Pakington, War Office. The statement made by Lords Cranborne and
Carnarvon was that Disraeli and Baxter[257] had completely mistaken
their figures, and that the result would not be what we intended, but
would be perfectly fatal.”

On the 26th of February a meeting of Liberal members, held at Mr.
Gladstone’s house, expressed a very strong opinion against the
Resolutions and against the Bill with the four franchises--“fancy
franchises,” they were called by Mr. Bright and the Radicals--which Mr.
Disraeli had sketched under pressure from Mr. Gladstone on the previous
day. It was resolved to move an amendment to the Resolutions. But on the
same evening Mr. Disraeli foiled this attack by withdrawing them, and by
promising to bring in a Bill next week. This was the “Ten Minutes Bill”
which had just been adopted in haste by the Ministers at their
distracted Councils in Lord Derby’s house. On the 28th of February Lord
John Manners, in a letter to Lord Malmesbury, writes:--“A meeting of
Conservative M.P.’s was held at the Carlton to-day, Sir M. W. Ridley in
the chair; between 120 and 150 present. Much difference of opinion, no
resolutions passed, but a general disposition evinced in favour of rated
residential household suffrage _v._ £6 rating and an equal division of
new seats between the counties and the boroughs. An anxious desire
expressed that we should fix upon the franchise thought best and then
stick to it, declining to carry our opponents’ measure. They (our
opponents) are, I believe, in equal difficulties, and are quite unable
to take office at present.”[258] On the 4th of March it was made known
to the country that Lord Carnarvon, Lord Cranborne, and General Peel had
resigned their seats in the Cabinet; and on the 18th of March Mr.
Disraeli asked and obtained leave to bring in the Bill which the
Government had finally adopted. In the debate on the Second Reading Mr.
Gladstone somewhat haughtily formulated the changes in it which he must
demand. These practically eviscerated the Bill, and at the time it was
not supposed that the Government could with any degree of self-respect
assent to them. But when the Bill went into Committee it was soon
apparent that Mr. Gladstone and his followers meant to force all their
proposals on the Government. Ministers day after day held melancholy and
mournful Cabinet meetings, and it was with rage that the Adullamites saw
the men whom they had brought into office surrendering position after
position.

[Illustration: MR. DISRAELI INTRODUCING HIS REFORM BILL IN THE HOUSE OF
COMMONS.]

“The _laissez aller_ system followed by the Government,” writes Lord
Malmesbury in May, “trying to make the best they could of it, but
constantly yielding something. The Conservative members seem disposed to
adopt anything, and to think that it is ‘in for a penny in for a
pound.’” At each Cabinet meeting it was found that the Bill had become
more Radical; indeed, it seemed as if Tory opposition stimulated Radical
aggressiveness. Nor was the demoralisation confined to the Tory Party.
There was some dread lest the persistent humiliation to which Mr.
Gladstone and his

[Illustration: COUNCIL CHAMBER, OSBORNE.

(_After a Photograph by F. G. C. Stuart, Southampton._)]

subordinates subjected Mr. Disraeli day after day might tempt him to
resign and abandon the Bill. A body of Radicals, called the “Tea Room
Clique,” began to give the Government friendly aid, and so greatly
encumbered Mr. Gladstone’s opposition, that for a time he refused to be
responsible for the leadership of the Liberal Party. The great
difficulty was to apply the Bill to tenants who compounded with their
landlords for their rates. As these householders were not _personally_
rated, they would not be enfranchised. Mr. Gladstone’s idea was to
definitely fix the franchise at a £5 rating limit, and on the 5th of
April Mr. Coleridge was put up to move an instruction to the Committee
to clear the path for Mr. Gladstone’s proposal. The Radicals who met in
the “Tea Room” of the House of Commons forced Mr. Coleridge to give way.
When Mr. Gladstone in Committee proposed his plan, it was defeated by
the defection of the Tea Room Party. Finally, the matter was settled by
Mr. Disraeli putting an end to the practice of compounding for rates, so
that every householder, unless he were a pauper, got a vote. Perhaps the
most graphic view of the struggles, and the confused strife of this
Session when Mr. Disraeli demoralised his own party by perpetual
surrender, and broke up the Opposition under the solvent of intrigue,
is given by Mr. Paul’s comparison of the original provisions of the Bill
and its provisions when it received the Queen’s assent.

ORIGINAL BILL. BILL AS PASSED.

Household franchise in boroughs, conditional Household franchise,
on _two_ years’ residence, and personal payment conditional on
of rates. _one_ year’s residence;
compound householder ,
abolished the occupier
alone being rated.

£15 franchise in counties. £12 franchise in counties.

Educational franchise for graduates or associates _No_ educational franchise.
in Arts of any University of the United
Kingdom, for those who passed senior middle-class
examinations, for clergymen, professional
men, and schoolmasters.

A pecuniary franchise for savings bank depositors _No_ pecuniary franchise.
with balance of £50, fundholders of like
amount, and direct taxpayers to the amount of
£1 per annum.

Dual voting--a provision entitling the holder _No_ dual voting.
of the pecuniary franchise to vote for the same
borough in respect to any franchise involving
occupation of premises, and payment of rates.

Voting papers. _No_ voting papers.

_No_ lodger franchise. A £10 lodger franchise.

_No_ cumulative vote or three-cornered
constituencies, _Four_ three-cornered
these being declared by Mr. Disraeli constituencies.
erroneous in principle and pernicious in practice.

Twenty-three towns under 7,000 in population Thirty-five towns below
to be deprived of one member, and Totnes, 10,000 in population
Reigate, Great Yarmouth, and Lancaster, convicted deprived of one member.
of corrupt practices, to be disfranchised. Eleven boroughs
ultimately disfranchised.

Fourteen of the new seats to be given to Eighteen of the new seats
boroughs, fifteen to counties, and one to London to boroughs, twenty-five
University. to the counties,
and one to London
University, one seat being
afterwards given to Wales,
and seven to Scotland.

_No_ third members to Manchester, Liverpool, Three members given to
Birmingham, and Leeds. Manchester, Liverpool,
Birmingham, and Leeds.[259]

As the Duke of Buccleuch said bitterly, the only part of the Bill which
the Radicals had allowed to stand was “the word ‘Whereas.’” Mr.
Disraeli, in fact, induced his party to tolerate the measure because he
surrounded Household Suffrage with an elaborate series of checks. The
process of removing these one by one, but so gradually that he
familiarised his followers with capitulation, was the process which he
subsequently described in a speech at Edinburgh as that of “educating
his party.” But when the checks disappeared the Conservative Reform Bill
was to all intents and purposes the Bill of Mr. Bright and the advocates
of Household Suffrage pure and simple. In June Lord Malmesbury says,
“After many vicissitudes, the Reform Bill came up to the House of Lords,
and Lord Derby moved the Second Reading without a division, saying it
was ‘a leap in the dark.’ Peers on our side were averse to it, but at a
meeting of them Lord Derby said he would resign if it was rejected.”
That settled the matter. The Bill was ultimately passed on the 15th of
August with only one important amendment--the clause creating the
three-cornered constituencies. The Bills for Scotland and Ireland were
carried in the following year, the Irish franchise being, however, fixed
at £4 in boroughs. At Manchester and Edinburgh Lord Derby and Mr.
Disraeli, during the recess, celebrated the passing of the Bill at great
Conservative festivals, Mr. Disraeli vaunting the success with which he
had “educated” his party up to the point of surrender.

During the struggle for Parliamentary Reform in England another great
democratic movement on the Continent was in full and rapid progress. It
was the movement of the German people in favour of German Unity, which
had been arrested in 1848. The pacific policy of the Queen had saved
England from sharing in Palmerston’s wild scheme to thwart the
aspirations of the German race in 1865. Hence Englishmen could view
critically the strife between the people of Germany, led by Prussia, and
the forces of Teutonic feudalism, organised and made militant by
Austria. But it was impossible for the Queen to be indifferent to the
result of this conflict. The husbands of her daughters were fighting on
different sides. The struggle had been long foreseen by the Prince
Consort, who was a strong partisan of German Unity, and had for years
used all his influence with the Court of Berlin to induce Prussia to
lead the national movement in Germany. In the summer of 1866 Europe felt
that the truce of Gastein was fast coming to an end. Manteuffel was the
Prussian Governor of Holstein. Goblenz was the Austrian Governor of
Sleswig, and the claims of the Augustenburg Pretender--reserved for
future settlement by the Convention of Gastein--soon furnished the
administrators of the two provinces with a fruitful cause of quarrel.
When a popular ovation was accepted by the Prince-Pretender in Sleswig,
Manteuffel harshly reprimanded him. At Kiel in Holstein Austria openly
encouraged the Pretender’s Party in defiance of Prussia. Agitators from
South Germany went about the country, under Austrian patronage, urging
the Holsteiners to shake off the yoke of Prussia. The “conjoint
dominion’ was no longer endurable. Austria proposed to submit the
dispute to the German Diet, a proposal which Prussia rejected, and when
the Powers began to prepare for war, their example was followed by
Italy, who now saw her chance of delivering Venice. In fact, early in
spring, 1866, Italy and Prussia had entered into a secret Treaty
embodying offensive and defensive action against Austria. The French
Emperor knew of the existence of this Treaty, and it was a mystery why
he did not intervene between the disputants. The probability is that he
calculated on being able to interfere with profit to France after
Prussia and Austria had each exhausted themselves in a long and
sanguinary struggle, a reckoning which the sudden collapse of Austria
completely upset. Napoleon III., though ostensibly suggesting a
reference of the dispute to a European Conference, was secretly
intriguing with both Powers. To Prussia he proposed an alliance on the
basis of ceding to France the left bank of the Rhine, including Belgium,
which England was bound to defend by arms. To Austria he offered an
alliance based on the cession of Venice to Italy, in return for
Silesia--a province which every Prussian regards with pride, as one of
the Great Frederick’s spoils of war. And all this time England was under
the delusion that France was still a loyal ally, while the English
Foreign Office was in utter darkness as to the subterranean negotiations
in which Napoleon was engaged. Nothing now made for peace, except the
scruples of the King of Prussia, who was personally attached to the
Austrian Emperor, and who regarded with horror anything approaching
fratricidal strife. The project of a Conference was abandoned because
Austria disliked it. Prussia refused to submit to the arbitration or
jurisdiction of the German Diet, the majority of which took the side of
Austria, and the Austrians accordingly plunged into war, with Bavaria,
Würtemberg, Hanover, Saxony, and many of the smaller States as their
allies. In England fashionable opinion was all in favour of Austria. Her
army, we were assured by the leading organs of the upper classes, was
invincible. As for the troops and the generals of Prussia, they were
spoken of as if they were beneath contempt.

On the 14th of June the Diet, 1866, on the motion of Austria, resolved
to put in Federal execution against Prussia, in Holstein. On the 16th
Prussian troops were marching through Hanover, Hesse-Cassel, and
Hesse-Darmstadt in three columns on Saxony. This swift blow paralysed
the minor States; in fact, Bavaria, with her army of 100,000, was not
ready to come to the help of Austria till the war was over. Western
Germany north of the Maine thus fell an easy prey to Prussian skill and
valour. But that skill and valour were more conspicuously displayed in
the chief theatre of the war. The Austrian commander, Marshal Benedek,
having allowed the Prussians to seize Dresden at the outset, joined the
Austrians in Bohemia. In two columns, one under the “Red Prince”
(Frederick Charles), and the other under the Crown Prince (the “our
Fritz” of the Queen’s family), the Prussians poured like a rapid and
resistless torrent through Saxony and the Silesia passes, in a parallel
line, into the plains of Bohemia. What need to tell the tale? The flower
of the Austrian army--its German troops--was wasted in Venetia. The
Italian and Hungarian regiments in Bohemia were disaffected. The
Prussians had the needle-gun, whereas the Austrians had the old,
slow-firing muzzle-loader. Von Moltke, the ablest strategist in Europe,
directed the Prussian attack, and thus fight after fight was lost by
Austria. On the 3rd of July, 1866, the crowning victory of the war was
won by Prussia at Sadowa, where the Crown Prince, aided by Blumenthal,
played the part of Blucher at Waterloo, and the invincible Austrian
Empire lay prostrate in the dust. In Italy the Austrians were more
successful. They won the battle of Custozza and the sea-fight of
Lissa--victories which were barren of results. Peace was signed at
Prague on the 23rd of August, 1866. Venice had been surrendered to
France, who was to hand it over to Italy. Austria was expelled from
Germany, and the Danish duchies were transferred to Prussia, but with
the proviso that the people of North Sleswig might, if they desired it,
join Denmark. Saxony, however, retained a certain amount of
independence, whereas the smaller States were to be organised into a new
German Confederation under Prussian leadership. Germany north of the
Maine was annexed to Prussia. The triumph of Prussia was immediately
followed by the reorganisation of the French army, and the initiation of
reforms in Austria.

[Illustration: PRAGUE.]

The aim of Lord Derby’s Government had been to withdraw England entirely
from foreign politics, but that did not prevent Englishmen from
rejoicing at the creation of a strong progressive German Power in
Central Europe capable of curbing the restless ambition of France, and
at the defeat of Austria--one of the strongholds of decaying feudalism.
During 1867 the work of consolidating North Germany went on rapidly, and
Baron Beust, the Saxon Minister, was called to carry out the new policy
of reconstruction in Austria. At last the independence of Hungary was
recognised, and the Austrian Emperor having sworn to maintain the
Hungarian Constitution, he was crowned in Pesth as King of this ancient
Monarchy. When Hungary had been conciliated, Baron Beust next proceeded
to frame a constitution for the other provinces of the Empire. One
little cloud, however, arose on the untroubled horizon of the English
Foreign Office. A pending dispute as to the occupation of Luxembourg
tempted Lord Stanley to interfere in Continental affairs during the
spring. The King of Holland was Grand Duke of Luxembourg, and he had
entered into a secret agreement to sell it to France. But the capital of
the province was held by a Prussian garrison, and the new North German
Parliament objected strongly to permit a German province to pass under
French dominion. France, on the other hand, demanded the evacuation of
Luxembourg, and on the 23rd of April, 1867, Lord Stanley wrote to inform
Lord Malmesbury that war was imminent. The Luxembourg Question arose
simply because the French Emperor had been outwitted by Bismarck’s
diplomacy. The claim of France for a cession of German frontier had been
postponed till after the peace with Austria was signed. By giving the
South German States easy and generous terms, Bismarck had induced them
to sign secret Treaties with Prussia, putting their armies at her
disposal should France make war on her. Hence, when M. Benedetti
presented the French claim for compensation in 1866, Bismarck defied his
threats, and as France had neither allies in Germany nor breechloaders
in her arsenals, she had to submit. But in 1867 Napoleon imagined he had
discovered in Luxembourg a door into Germany that could be forced by
diplomacy, and hence the negotiations with the King of Holland, which
had been rendered abortive by the resistance of Prussia. The French
ambassador in London then appealed to Lord Stanley to use his good
offices as mediator, his proposal being that France would cease to press
for the purchase of Luxembourg if Prussia would evacuate the garrison,
which barred one of the military routes from France into Germany.
England advised Prussia to give way. Russia proposed a Conference of the
Powers to settle the question, a proposal which Prussia accepted, and
the more especially as she doubted whether the dissolution of the Bund
which authorised her occupation of Luxembourg had not destroyed her
claim to maintain her garrison there. She had also failed to induce
Austria to enter into an alliance with her, and so she was open to
consider a compromise. Prussia withdrew from the fortress on condition
of its being dismantled and the territory “neutralised,” and the
European guarantee for the neutralisation of Luxembourg was supposed to
be a sufficient compensation for the loss of the fortress. This
arrangement was formulated in the Treaty signed at London on the 11th of
May, 1867, and at the time it enhanced the _prestige_ of the Tory
Government, to whose diplomacy it was greatly due. But, as a matter of
fact, it simply served to embitter the relation of the disputing Powers.
It left Prussia angry because France had ousted her from the fortress.
It left France angry because Prussia had thwarted her attempt to take
the territory. Altogether, the Foreign Policy of France in 1867 was
strangely bungled. Napoleon, by forbidding the King of Italy to
“protect” the Pope against Garibaldian bands, had humiliated a grateful
ally. French troops crushed the Garibaldians at Mentana, and thereby
deeply wounded the susceptibilities of the Italian people. Worst of all,
the Mexican tragedy utterly discredited the French Government in the
eyes of Europe. For when France withdrew her troops from Mexico, under
pressure from the United States, the Emperor Maximilian elected to
remain in the country. His cause soon became hopeless. The Empress
Charlotte undertook a fruitless journey to Europe to beg for succour,
which was denied her. Her husband was finally taken prisoner by the
Mexican Republicans, and shot by order of a court-martial. “There is a
very touching account,” writes Lord Malmesbury on the 10th of July, “in
to-day’s papers of the Emperor Maximilian’s execution. He died like a
Christian and a soldier. His poor wife has become quite insane. The
French expedition to Mexico, and its tragical end are a sad blot on
Louis Napoleon’s career.”[260]

Though the colony of Victoria was still vexed by the conflict between
the two orders of its Legislature, and India was suffering from a famine
in one of its Provinces, the dependencies of England in 1867 enjoyed
profound tranquillity. One of them, indeed, took a new departure in
colonial history. On the 26th of February Lord Carnarvon, carrying out
the policy of his predecessor, passed a Bill through the House of Lords,
incorporating the scattered provinces of Canada into a Federal Dominion.
The financial history of the year, too, was uneventful. Mr. Disraeli
introduced his Budget on the 4th of April, just before the Easter
recess. In the previous year Mr. Gladstone had determined to use the
balance of his surplus for the creation of terminable annuities in order
to extinguish debt. The distracted state of affairs abroad, and the
difficulties of the Government at home had, however, frustrated the
scheme. But it was adopted by Mr. Disraeli in 1867. “He converted
£6,000,000 of stock,” says Mr. A. J. Wilson, “costing £180,000 per annum
in interest, into an annuity of £440,000, expiring in April, 1885. Of
the gross estimated surplus of £1,200,000 he proposed to keep £250,000
against contingencies; and the resolution was wise, for, owing to the
Abyssinian War, and to the increase in the general costliness of the
public services, the year ended with a considerable deficit. Mr.
Disraeli estimated his revenue at £69,340,000, and the actual income was
£69,600,000. But the expenditure, instead of being only £68,134,000, as
estimated, reached £71,759,000. Deducting £2,000,000 charged that year
to the war, the ordinary expenditure still exceeded the estimate by
fully a million and a half, about £700,000 of which was due to the
increased cost of civil administration.”[261] Hence the

[Illustration: LAST MOMENTS OF THE EMPEROR MAXIMILIAN.

(_After the Picture by Jean-Paul Laurens._)]

people said that the old ill-luck of the Tories in finance followed them
still. The days of plump surpluses had vanished, and those of growing
expenditure and dismal deficits had begun. The only remission of
taxation which Mr. Disraeli proposed was the reduction of the Marine
Insurance Duties. The Budget, in fact was a tribute to those who, like
Mr. Mill and Mr. Stanley Jevons, had impressed the public mind that the
time had come when sacrifices must be made not to reduce taxes, but to
pay off National Debt.

[Illustration: LORD NAAS (AFTERWARDS EARL OF MAYO).]

The Session of 1867 was not prolific in Irish legislation. Ministers and
private members once more made futile attempts to unravel the tangled
web of the Land Tenure question. One measure, indeed, of a vigorous and
decided character, was rapidly passed, namely, the Act for continuing
for three months the suspension of the Habeas Corpus in Ireland. But as
to land tenure, Lord Naas, on behalf of the Government, introduced a
Bill very early in the Session to promote the improvement of land by
tenants. The Bill was founded on the principle of the Lands Improvement
Act. There were several kinds of improvements, for the making of which
money was advanced under the Lands Improvement Act. These were, thorough
draining, the reclamation of waste lands, the removal of old and useless
fences, the making of farm roads, and the erection of farmhouses,
dwellings, and other buildings. On the Second Reading of Lord Naas’ Bill
being moved, a considerable diversity of opinion was exhibited with
respect to the tendency and operation of the measure. Several amendments
were proposed and discussed at length, and the debate was adjourned.
Owing, partly to the pressure occasioned by the Reform debates, and
other questions, and partly to a general impression of the futility of
attempting to carry a measure of this description, the Bill was dropped.

Another effort was made, with similar results, by the Marquis of
Clanricarde, who laid on the table of the House of Lords a Bill for
giving facilities for voluntary contracts between landlords and tenants
in Ireland. The Bill did not obtain a second reading. A third attempt to
deal with the difficulty was made by Sir Colman O’Loghlan, who obtained
leave to bring in a Bill, its main object being to encourage the
granting of leases, and to discourage tenancies at will. After much
controversy this measure was also dropped, and the Irish people read the
old moral from these debates, that they must look elsewhere than to
Parliament for the redress of their grievances. An effort was now made
to raise the Irish Church Question. Sir John Gray, on the 7th of May,
moved that the House of Commons on a future day resolve itself into
committee to consider the temporalities and privileges of the
Established Church in Ireland. This was a motion that was not
unattractive to the Whigs, and so Colonel Greville seconded it as a
Protestant who, living in Ireland, felt it his duty to protest in the
strongest manner against the continuance of an unjust establishment. Sir
Frederick Heygate moved the previous question, and then Mr. Gladstone
intervened, giving a hint of his coming Irish policy. He found a
difficulty in supporting the Resolution, not because he questioned the
soundness of it, but because it was an abstract Resolution, and the
House ought not to pass it without having a plan for giving effect to
it. We might, he contended, support a religious establishment to
maintain truth, but we did not support the Irish Protestant
establishment for that purpose only, seeing that we also supported the
Catholic College of Maynooth. We might maintain an established church
because its doctrines were those of the bulk of the people. But that was
notoriously not the case in Ireland. We might keep up an established
church to supply the poorest class of the community with free and cheap
religious teaching. But the Protestant Church in Ireland was the church
of the rich. He trusted the time was not far distant when Parliament
would take the question of the Irish Church up; and when it did he hoped
that “a result would be arrived at which would be a blessing to all.”
This speech, coming from the author of the celebrated work in defence of
established churches, was listened to with consternation by the Tories.
They began to regret that they had “unmuzzled” Mr. Gladstone, to use
Palmerston’s phrase, by turning him out of Oxford. The matter was,
however, shelved for a time, the “previous question” being carried by a
majority of 195 to 183.

That the attack was preconcerted by the Liberal leaders was indicated by
the fact that in the House of Lords Earl Russell, on the 24th of June,
moved an address to the Queen, praying her to order, by Royal
Commission, or otherwise, full information to be procured as to the
revenues of the Established Church in Ireland, with a view to their more
equitable application for the benefit of the Irish people. Lord Russell
hinted that he favoured the application to Ireland of the voluntary
principle, and if that were done he would appropriate the property of
the Church to educational purposes. Lord Cairns, however, declared that
the destruction of the Established Church, whose function it was to
teach Christian truth, would be fatal to the landed interest, and to the
commerce of Ireland with England. But a motion for an address praying
simply for a Royal Commission was agreed to, and the Commission was
issued by the Crown in the ensuing autumn. Meantime, as the _Times_
wrote in 1865, Ireland was “being cleared quietly for the interests and
luxury of humanity.” And yet not too quietly. The progress of Fenianism,
especially in the British Army, was wonderfully rapid. Hundreds of
agitators were carrying on their secret propaganda. Scores of
Irish-American officers were pouring into Ireland, telling the people
that General Sheridan and other hot-headed soldiers of their race in the
United States were eager to interfere on their behalf. Early in 1867
sporadic risings of small, half-armed mobs were put down with ease, and
in the trials which followed the capital sentence passed on those found
guilty was commuted to one of penal servitude, the abstinence of the
rebels from wanton outrage giving the Queen a reasonable ground for
exercising her prerogative of mercy. But the Fenian organisation had
grown to unexpected strength in England, and within a few days after
Ministers announced the Bill suspending Habeas Corpus in Ireland (11th
of February) a band of men, headed by Irish-American officers, would
have surprised and seized the arsenal of Chester Castle, with its 20,000
stand of arms, had not their design been divulged by treachery. In
autumn an event occurred which has to this day been the matter of hot
controversy between Irishmen and Englishmen. The leadership of the
Fenian conspiracy had now passed into the hands of a Colonel Kelly, who
succeeded Mr. Stephens. He was returning from a meeting at Manchester
with his friend Captain Deasy, and they were both arrested by the police
on suspicion of loitering for purposes of burglary. They gave false
names, but it was soon discovered who they were. The Fenians of
Manchester resolved to rescue them, and on the 18th of September the
prison van in which Kelly and Deasy were being conveyed to Salford was
attacked by a body of thirty armed men. The horses were shot. The escort
ran away, and the Fenians then ordered Police Sergeant Brett, who was on
duty inside the van to unlock the door. He refused, and a pistol was
fired at the lock, in order to break it. Unfortunately, the bullet
struck Brett, who died from the wound. Kelly and Deasy made their
escape, and were heard of no more. But in the meantime a crowd had
gathered, and had nearly stoned to death William Philip Allen, one of
the rescuing party, several of whom, including men called Larkin,
Maguire, O’Brien (_alias_ Gould), and Condon (_alias_ Shore), were
captured and tried for the murder of Sergeant Brett. They were all
sentenced to be hanged, though the evidence against them was somewhat
faulty. One of the prisoners (Maguire) was undoubtedly arrested by
mistake, and the newspaper reporters who were present at his trial
petitioned for his release. On further investigation it was found that
the reporters were right, and the man was set free. But three of the
prisoners were executed on the 23rd of November, although they protested
they had not the remotest idea of hurting Sergeant Brett. “Condon,”
writes Mr. T. P. O’Connor, M.P., “in speaking, used a phrase that has
become historic: ‘I have nothing,’ he said, in concluding his speech,
‘to regret or to take back. I can only say, ‘God save Ireland.’ His
companions advanced to the front of the dock, and, raising their hands,
repeated the cry, ‘God save Ireland’”[262]--a phrase that became the
shibboleth or watchword of the Irish Nationalist Party. Condon was
reprieved because he was an American citizen. Numbers of eminent
Englishmen--headed by Mr. John Bright, Mr. Mill, and Mr.
Swinburne--endeavoured to get the others reprieved also, but in vain.
Allen, Larkin, and O’Brien were hanged on the 23rd of November, and
their execution produced a profound impression on the Irish race all
over the world. In the towns in Ireland great and solemn funeral
processions marched through the streets. Mr. T. D. Sullivan wrote the
poem “God save Ireland,” which displaced the National Anthem at Irish
political gatherings. “To an Irishman,” writes Mr. O’Connor, “then a
youth, living in the country house of his fathers, and deeply immersed
in the small concerns of a squire’s daily life, the execution of the
Manchester martyrs was a new birth of political convictions. To him,
brooding from his early days over the history of his country, this
catastrophe came to crystallise impressions into conviction, and to pave
the way from dreams to action. It was the execution of Allen, Larkin,
and O’Brien that gave Mr. Parnell to the service of Ireland.”[263] But
another event happened which made it clear that the Fenian conspiracy
was still formidable. One of its leaders, an Irish-American officer
named Burke, had been captured and cast into Clerkenwell gaol, and his
friends resolved to rescue him. Their agents, on the 13th of December,
placed a barrel of gunpowder opposite the exercising ground of the gaol,
where General Burke was supposed to be walking at the time. They then
blew down the wall. Fortunately for himself, the Government had learned
that a rescue was to be attempted, and the General had accordingly been
removed to another part of the prison, otherwise he would have been
killed. The victims were poor people who lived in the houses opposite
the gaol, of whom twelve were killed and one hundred and twenty
shockingly injured. An ignorant Fenian named Barrett was convicted of
having been implicated in this clumsy plot, and was tried and executed
in front of Newgate. This outrage ruined the Fenian organisation, not
only in England but in Ireland. Many honest Irishmen, who in a fit of
patriotic enthusiasm had joined its ranks, withdrew from a body whose
deep and dark designs they saw were apt to be carried out with the
stupid brutality that marked the Clerkenwell outrage.

[Illustration: THE QUEEN LAYING THE FOUNDATION STONE OF THE ROYAL ALBERT
HALL. (_See p. 292._)]

But the Fenians were not the only outragemongers who frightened the
comfortable classes out of their senses in 1867. The skilled artisans in
many cases had employed their trade organisations to coerce by violence
masters who refused to yield to the demands of their workmen, and
workmen who refused to obey the orders of their Unions. Early in the
year a Commission had been appointed to consider the legal position of
the Unions, which was most unsatisfactory, and a separate Commission,
appointed to investigate outrages which had been perpetrated at
Sheffield, made some astounding revelations. They reported that the
officials of the Sawgrinders’ Union had hired assassins to maim, murder,
or torture people who thwarted the policy of the Union.[264] They
reported that similar barbarities were practised by the officials of the
Brickmakers’ and Bricklayers’ Unions in Manchester. The country rang
with denunciations of the working classes, and “strikes,” such as that
of the London tailors, were carried on with unparalleled acrimony. War
between “the two nations,” to use Mr. Disraeli’s phrase in “Sybil,” was
imminent. It is curious to observe how seldom public writers and
speakers on the conflict between Labour and Capital which then raged,
took the trouble to ascertain the precise position of the artisans in
the struggle. The truth, however, had been told with uncompromising
honesty by the Committee of the House of Commons, who in 1821 had
reported that outlawry made Trades Unionists lawless. In that year it
was true an Act had been passed to legalise workmen’s combinations for
improving wages and reducing the hours of labour. But then this Act gave
the preference to the word of the master in any dispute between him and
his servant, and pedantic judges had made it a dead letter, by ruling
that “all combinations in restraint of trade” were criminal. Nor had
they stopped here. They roused the wrath of the working classes to white
heat in 1867, by ruling in the case of Hornby _v._ Close that Trades
Unions could not even hold property or funds for benevolent purposes. In
fact, at that period, the position of the English working man was one of
almost servile degradation, and under an extended franchise such a state
of things could not last long. On the 5th of March a Conference of
Trades Unionists was held in St. Martin’s Hall, London, to protest
against the decision in Hornby _v._ Close, a meeting which was the germ
of the great Trades Union Congress, that ultimately became a mighty
power in the industrial world.[265]

Early in the year the Queen received with pleasure the intimation that
Prince Arthur had passed his military examination in a manner that did
him great credit. “I am delighted,” writes the Princess Louis to the
Queen on the 13th of January,[266] “to hear of dear Arthur having passed
so good an examination. How proud you must be of him! And the good
Major,[267] who has spared no pains, I know--how pleased he must be!
Arthur has a uniform now, I suppose.” From another passage in a letter
of the Princess’s, one gathers that the cloud of melancholy which
overhung the Queen’s widowed life was beginning to disappear. “I think,”
says the Princess, replying to one of the Queen’s letters on the
subject, “I can understand what you must feel. I know well what those
first three years were--what fearful sufferings, tearing and uprooting
those feelings which had been centred on beloved papa’s existence! It is
indeed as you say ‘a mercy’ that after the long storm a lull and calm
ensues, though the violent pain which is but the reverse of the violent
love seems only to die out with it, and that is likewise better. Yet,
beloved mamma, could it be otherwise? There would be no justice or
mercy, were the first stage of sorrow to be the perpetual one.” Still,
the advancing year brought its own cares to the Royal Family. A Princess
was born to the Prince and Princess of Wales on the 20th of February,
and though the official announcements stated that both mother and child
were doing well, this was by no means the case. The recovery of the
Princess was not satisfactory, and the physicians at last had to admit
that she was suffering from a peculiarly obstinate rheumatic attack,
that sadly undermined her health and strength. The Queen had, as usual,
confided her anxieties to her daughter at Darmstadt, who in reply wrote
as follows:--“The knowledge of dear sweet Alix’s[268] state makes me too
sad. It is hard for them both, and the nursing must be very fatiguing
for Mrs. Clarke. I am so distressed about darling Alix that I really
have no peace. It may and probably will last long, which is so
dreadful.” On the 14th of April the _accouchement_ of the Princess
Christian took place, when she was safely delivered of a little Prince,
the Queen being in close attendance by her bedside all day.

On the 20th of May the Queen laid the first stone of the Hall of Arts
and Sciences at Kensington, now known as the Royal Albert Hall. It was
intended, and has since been used, for scientific and artistic
congresses, both national and international; performances of music,
distribution of prizes by public bodies, agricultural, horticultural,
and industrial exhibitions, and displays of pictures and sculpture. At
the inaugural function 7,000 visitors were arranged in an oval
amphitheatre richly draped, and gay with the bright summer costumes of
the ladies, and with gorgeous official uniforms. Among the guests were
the Foreign Ministers wearing their decorations, the Lord Mayor and
Aldermen in their robes, Lord Derby, Mr. Disraeli, and other Ministers
and Ex-Ministers. The foundation stone bore in gold letters the
inscription, “This stone was laid by her Most Gracious Majesty Queen
Victoria, May 20, 1867.” Accompanied by Princesses Louise and Beatrice
the Queen arrived at the entrance of the building at Kensington Gore at
half-past eleven, where the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Edinburgh
met the party. After receiving an address read by the Prince of Wales,
her Majesty made the following reply, but, contrary to her usual habit,
in a scarcely audible tone of voice:--

“I thank you for your affectionate and dutiful address. It has been
with a struggle that I have nerved myself to a compliance with the
wish that I should take part in this day’s ceremony; but I have
been sustained by the thought that I should assist by my presence
in promoting the accomplishment of his great designs, to whose
memory the gratitude and affection of the country are now rearing a
noble monument, which I trust may yet look down on such a centre of
institutions for the promotion of Art and Science as it was his
fond hope to establish here. It is my wish that this hall should
bear his name, to whom it will have owed its existence, and be
called ‘The Royal Albert Hall of Arts and Sciences.’”

[Illustration: ARRIVAL OF THE QUEEN AT KELSO. (_See p. 295._)]

Amid a flourish of trumpets and the distant booming of twenty-one guns
that had been stationed in Hyde Park, the polished block of granite was
lowered into its place, the Queen declaring it well and truly fixed. The
Archbishop of Canterbury offered up a short prayer, and the band and
chorus delivered the vocal and instrumental music of a composition by
the Prince Consort, entitled “L’lnvocazione all’ Armonia.” The solo
tenor parts were given by Signor Mario with great effect, and the Queen,
while passing through the building, stopped where he stood, and
personally thanked this sweetest of sweet singers.

On the 22nd the Queen and Court left town for Balmoral. Before her
departure she had decided not to invite formally any of the European
Sovereigns who were in Paris visiting the French International
Exhibition, but as the Sultan had intimated his intention of visiting
England, orders were given to make preparations for his reception. The
Court did not remain long in Aberdeenshire. From June to July the
Princess Louis and her husband were in England, and the Queen had to
return to Windsor to receive the Queen of Prussia, who paid her a visit
on the 25th of June.

[Illustration: VISIT OF THE QUEEN TO MELROSE ABBEY. (_See p. 295._)]

On the 13th of July the Sultan Abdul Aziz arrived in London. On the
following day he visited Windsor. The Queen with the younger members of
the Royal Family received his Majesty in the Grand Hall, and on his
alighting she advanced to meet him. He stepped forward with an Eastern
salutation, and kissed her hand, and in the interchange of courtesies
which ensued, the Queen affectionately kissed his Highness, the young
Izzedin Effendi, the Sultan’s son, as did also the Princess Mary of
Teck. The Grand Turk was indeed the lion of the London season of 1867,
for Society was _en fête_ in his honour. On the evening of the 19th,
after being entertained at a splendid banquet given by the Duke of
Cambridge, he attended a grand ball given by the Secretary of State for
India. The members of the Indian Council led the procession in a body by
themselves, and Sir Stafford Northcote then preceded the august party,
at the head of which walked the Sultan, with the Princess Louis of Hesse
on his arm. In the brilliant train that followed Moslem and Christian
Princes were strangely intermixed. The ball was opened by Sir Stafford
Northcote and the Princess Louis, who led off the first quadrille, the
Sultan looking on the scene with melancholy gravity, as if it were a
show got up for his diversion. He, however, did full justice to the
sumptuous supper, after which refreshment he returned to the ball-room,
and about two o’clock took his departure, followed by the more
distinguished guests. The scene at the India Office had been brilliant
as one in Fairyland. But it was marred by one sad incident. Madame
Musurus, the wife of the Turkish Ambassador, when taking some friends
into supper suddenly dropped down dead. On the 20th the Sultan visited
the Volunteer Camp at Wimbledon, and on the 22nd he was entertained by
the Duke of Sutherland, and day after day the town was kept in a state
of giddy excitement by the uninterrupted succession of spectacles and
entertainments provided in honour of the Queen’s Oriental guests. On the
23rd his Majesty left Buckingham Palace, where he had resided twelve
days, and amidst the cheering of the populace took his departure for
Dover. His visit rather obscured that of the Viceroy of Egypt, who was
the guest of the nation at the same time, and was entertained by the
Queen at Windsor on the 8th of July.

Besides the melancholy and tragic death of Madame Musurus there was only
one other disagreeable incident attached to the Sultan’s visit. A grand
naval review at Portsmouth was arranged for his delectation and
instruction on the 17th of July. It was known that the Queen intended to
confer a mark of distinction on her Imperial visitor, but it was
whispered that he was dissatisfied with what her Majesty proposed to do
for him. The whole story has since been told by Lord Malmesbury, who
says that at first the Queen, at Lord Derby’s suggestion, offered to
confer on Abdul Aziz the Star of India. But Fuad Pasha, who was in
attendance on Abdul Aziz, hearing of this went to the Lord Steward and
warned him that the Sultan would consider himself slighted if he were
offered anything but the Garter. Already he had the Bath, and he seemed
to consider the Star of India as an inferior distinction to the Bath.
Lord Derby was remonstrated with, and finally it was settled that when
the Queen received the Sultan on her yacht at the Naval Review she
should give him the Order of the Garter. This was done with great pomp
and ceremony, as Lord Malmesbury says, “in the midst of the howling of
the storm and the roaring of the cannon.” But here another hitch
occurred. No ribbon was ready, so the Queen took the ribbon of Prince
Louis of Hesse and presented it to the Sultan, intending that he should
return it, when a new one could be got for him. “But,” writes Lord
Malmesbury, “the Sultan refused to give it (the ribbon) up, saying

[Illustration: THE QUEEN INVESTING ABDUL AZIZ WITH THE ORDER OF THE
GARTER.]

that the one he had was given to him by the Queen, and that he would
wear no other.”[269]

In July the Empress of the French spent a few days quietly with the
Queen at Osborne, and on the 9th of August the Queen paid a long visit
to the Royal Victoria Hospital at Netley, where she went through the
wards, speaking after her homely fashion to the sick and wounded
soldiers. She took a special interest in one case--that of a man who had
been shot through the lungs at Lucknow, in 1858, but who had continued
to do duty almost down to 1867.

In the end of the month the Queen resolved to pay a visit to the
Scottish Border, an enchanted land of romance and minstrelsy, of fairy
lore, and feudal chivalry. On the 28th of August, accompanied by
Princess Louise, Princess Beatrice, Prince Leopold, Prince and Princess
Christian, and Prince Christian Victor of Sleswig-Holstein, the Queen
left Windsor Castle in the evening for Balmoral. She broke the direct
route by having her special train stopped at Kelso, in order to visit a
valued friend of the Royal Family--the Duchess of Roxburghe. On arriving
at the station, the Queen affectionately kissed the Duchess; and her
procession to Floors Castle was really a triumphal one. In fact, nothing
could have exceeded the heartiness of the greeting which she everywhere
got from the people. A vast crowd filled the Marketplace, where her
Majesty received an address from the magistrates of Kelso. In replying
to it, she said, “I thank you, Mr. Craig, and the town of Kelso; an
answer will be sent to your address.” A little girl, the daughter of the
Baron Bailie of Kelso, was then lifted up to the royal carriage, and
presented to the Queen a large bouquet, which her Majesty received with
an expression of delight. Her arrival at Floors, the seat of the Duke of
Roxburghe, was announced to the town by a royal salute, fired from
Roxburgh Castle. Great illuminations took place in Kelso at night, to
the delight of thousands of country people. On the 22nd the Queen paid a
visit to Melrose Abbey and Abbotsford. On reaching the Priory, she was
received by the Duke of Buccleuch, the proprietor of the ruins and
Lord-Lieutenant of the county. The Queen went to Jedburgh on the 23rd,
and afterwards visited Hartrigge, a place associated with Lord
Chancellor Campbell’s memory. When the royal progress through the land
of Scott and Thomas the Rhymer ended the Court proceeded to Balmoral.

This tour brightened the Queen’s spirits, which seemed to have been
slightly depressed before she left town. She had half hinted in one of
her letters to the Princess Louis that her home was losing its
attractions for some members of her family, and these suspicions the
Princess promptly dispelled in a letter written from St. Moritz. “You
say,” she observes to the Queen, “that our home is dull now for those
who like to amuse themselves. It is _never_ dull, darling mamma, when we
can be with you, for I have indeed never met a

[Illustration: THE BALL-ROOM, BALMORAL.

(_From a Photograph by G. W. Wilson and Co._)]

more agreeable, charming companion. Time always flies by when one is
with you. I hope it is not impertinent my saying so.” In September the
household at Balmoral was saddened by the death of Sir Frederick Bruce,
whose sister, Lady Francis Baillie, was then staying at the Castle. Dr.
Norman Macleod was also a welcome and valued guest at this time, and,
writing in his Diary on the 18th of September, he says, “I had a long
and pleasant interview with the Queen. With my last breath I will uphold
the excellence and nobleness of her character.”[270] Macleod was now
avowedly the Queen’s favourite pastor in Scotland, and there can be
little doubt that his influence over her Majesty’s mind was most
salutary. His visits always brightened the somewhat dull life of the
Castle, and in a letter to his wife (15th October, 1866) he has given a
vivid little autumnal sketch of a Balmoral “interior” in those days. He
says “the Queen is pleased to command me to remain here (Balmoral) till
Tuesday. I found Mr. Cardwell had been in the Barony, and, to the great
amusement of the Queen, he repeated my scold about the singing.[271]
After dinner the Queen invited me to her room, where I found the
Princess Helena and Marchioness of Ely. The Queen sat down to spin at a
wee Scotch wheel, while I read Robert Burns to her--‘Tam O’Shanter,’ and
‘A Man’s a Man for a’ That,’ her favourite. The Prince and Princess of
Hesse sent for me to see their children. The eldest (Victoria), whom I
saw at Darmstadt, is a most sweet child; the youngest (Elizabeth) is a
round, fat ball of loving good-nature. I gave her a real _hobble_,[272]
such as I give Polly. I suppose the little thing never got anything like
it, for she screamed and kicked with a perfect _furore_ of delight,
would go from me to neither father nor mother, or nurse, to their great
merriment, but buried her chubby face in my cheek, until I gave her
another right good _hobble_. They are such dear children. The Prince of
Wales sent me a message asking me to go and see him.... When I was there
the young Prince of Wales fell on the wax cloth after lunch, with such a
thump as left a swollen blue mark on his forehead. He cried for a
minute, and then laughed most bravely. There was no fuss whatever made
about him by mother, father, or any one.... He is a dear sweet child.
All seem to be very happy. We had a great deal of pleasant talk in the
garden.”[273]

[Illustration: THE QUEEN UNVEILING THE STATUE OF THE PRINCE CONSORT AT
BALMORAL. (See p. 298.)]

In October fresh domestic cares were added to the overladen life of the
Sovereign. To one of these, in a letter from Darmstadt, dated 10th
October, 1867, the Princess Louis alludes as follows:--“I can’t find
words to say how sorry I am that dear, sweet Arthur[274] should have the
small-pox! and that you should have this great anxiety and worry. God
grant that the dear boy may get well over it, and that his dear handsome
face be not marked. The Major (Elphinstone) kindly telegraphs daily, and
you can fancy far away how anxious one is. I shall be very anxious to
get a letter with accounts, for I think constantly of him and of you.”
And again, on the 14th, she writes: “How glad I am to see by your letter
that darling Arthur is going on so very well. One can’t be too thankful;
and it is a good thing over, and will spare one’s being anxious about
him on other occasions.” In the same letter there is a reference to
another matter which had caused the Queen some trouble. There had been,
ever since the Danish war, a coolness between the families of her eldest
son and eldest daughter, which her Majesty had strenuously endeavoured
to remove. Her conciliatory efforts were this year crowned with success.
The Prince and Princess of Wales visited the Continent, and met the King
of Prussia. “Bertie and Alix,” writes the Princess Louis, on the 14th
October, “have been here (Darmstadt) since Saturday afternoon, and leave
to-morrow. They go straight to Antwerp, and Bertie is going back to
Brussels to see the cousins. The visit of the King went off very well,
and Alix was pleased with the kindness and civility of the King (of
Prussia). I hear that the meeting was satisfactory to both parties,
which I am heartily glad of. Bearing ill-will is always a mistake,
besides its not being right.”[275] The embarrassments of the Darmstadt
household, however, still continued to grieve the Queen, to whom her
daughter the Princess Louis, confided all her troubles. The Princess had
broken down in health during the autumn of 1867, and, in one of her
letters she tells the Queen that as she does not consider it prudent,
“for financial reasons,”[276] to engage a governess for her daughter,
the Princess Victoria, she has asked Mr. Geyer, who taught her little
black servant Willem, “to give her a lesson every other day.”[277] On
the 18th of October the statue to the Prince Consort, at Balmoral, was
unveiled, with reference to which the Princess Louis, in one of her
letters (26th of October) expresses a hope which was fairly well
realised--to the effect that the ceremony “went off as well as the
weather would permit.”

[Illustration: THE QUEEN KEEPING HALLOWE’EN AT BALMORAL.]

The Scottish festival of Hallowe’en (31st of October) was kept this year
by the Queen with unusual formality. “We had been driving,” she writes,
“but we turned back to be in time for the celebration. Close to Donald
Stewart’s house we were met by two gillies, bearing torches. Louise got
out and took one, walking by the side of the carriage like one of the
witches in _Macbeth_. As we approached Balmoral, the keepers, with their
wives and children, the gillies, and other people, met us, all with
torches, Brown also carrying one. We got out at the house, where Leopold
joined us, and a torch was also given to him. We walked round the house
with Ross playing the pipes, going down the steps of the terrace. Louise
and Leopold went first, then came Jane Ely, and I followed by every one
carrying torches, which had a very pretty effect. After this, a bonfire
was made of all the torches, close to the house, and they danced reels
while Ross played the pipes.”

In December, after returning from Balmoral, the Queen paid a visit to
Claremont and to Lady Palmerston. “The visit to Claremont,” writes the
Princess Louis, “must have been quite peculiar for you; and I can fancy
it bringing back to your mind the recollections of your childhood. In
spring it must be a lovely place, and with gayer papers on the walls,
and a little modern comfort, the house must likewise be very
pleasant.... The account of your visit to Lady Palmerston and to her
daughter is most touching. It is so inexpressibly sad for grandmother
and mother, for it is unnatural for parents to survive their children,
and that makes the grief a so peculiar one, and very hard to bear.”

[Illustration: THE PRINCE CONSORT MEMORIAL AT BALMORAL.]

CHAPTER XIII.

THE NEW ERA OF REFORM.

A “Little War” in Abyssinia--King Theodore’s Arrest of Vice-Consul
Cameron--The Unanswered Letter to the Queen--A Skilful but
Expensive General--Sir Robert Napier’s Expedition--An Autumnal
Session--Addition to the Income Tax--Parliament in 1868--A
Spiritless Legislature--Fishing for a Policy--Apologetic
Ministers--Mr. Bright on Repeal--The Irish Church Question--Fenian
Alarms--Illness and Resignation of Lord Derby--Mr. Disraeli Prime
Minister--His Quarrel with Lord Chelmsford--Lord Derby
Arbitrates--The “Giant Chancellor”--Mr. Disraeli’s New
Policy--Discontented Adullamites--Public Executions--Lord Mayo and
Concurrent Endowment--“The Pill to Cure the Earthquake”--Mr.
Gladstone Attacks the Government--The Irish Church
Resolutions--Resignation or Dissolution--Mr. Disraeli’s “No Popery”
Cry--Lord Chelmsford’s Bad Pun--Defeat of the Ministry--Mr.
Disraeli and the Queen--“Scenes” in the House of Commons--Charges
of Treason--Mr. Disraeli’s Relations with the Queen--A
Parliamentary Duel between Mr. Disraeli and Mr. Bright--The
Dissolution of Parliament--Mr. Ward Hunt’s Budget--Conclusion of
the Abyssinian War--The General Election--Triumph of Mr.
Gladstone--Resignation of the Ministry--Mr. Gladstone’s New
Cabinet--The Queen’s Politeness to Mr. Bright--Illness of Prince
Leopold--Attempted Assassination of the Duke of Edinburgh--The
Queen’s Book--The Queen Accused of Heresy--The West-End Tradesmen
and the Queen--Mr. Reardon, M.P., suggests Abdication--A Bungled
Volunteer Review at Windsor--A Hot London Season--Serious Illness
of the Queen--Her Tour in Switzerland--Death of the Archbishop of
Canterbury--Conflict between the Queen and Mr. Disraeli as to
Church Patronage--The Revolution in Spain--Rupture between Turkey
and Greece--Another War-Cloud in the East.

An autumn Session of Parliament had been held in November, 1867, in
order to vote supplies for one of those “little wars’ in which England
has so frequently been engaged during the Queen’s reign, a war which
arose out of a dispute with the King of Abyssinia. This swarthy and
half-savage potentate had detained in captivity several British
subjects, one of them being Captain Cameron, a British Vice-Consul on
the Red Sea littoral. Theodore of Abyssinia had seized them to mark his
indignation at Lord Russell’s culpable discourtesy in neglecting to
answer a letter which he had addressed to the Queen. Mr. Hormuzd Rassam,
a Syrian emissary of the Foreign Office, had endeavoured to procure the
release of the prisoners, but in his turn he, too, was seized and
compelled to share their fate. When Parliament was prorogued the Queen’s
Speech had intimated that the captives would have to be rescued by
force, and an army of 10,000 men, under Sir Robert Napier, was equipped
at Bombay for that purpose. At the end of 1867 a portion of it had
landed in King Theodore’s country. Napier was a skilful but an expensive
general. At the outset he spent £2,000,000 on his Expedition, and a
further demand for an equal sum was made. Hence Parliament had to be
summoned in November to vote these supplies. An additional penny was put
on the Income Tax, and the Government was authorised to use the
Exchequer balances for the expenses of the campaign. The most caustic
critic of the Ministry was Mr. Lowe, who condemned it for declaring war
without the authority of Parliament.

The New Year (1868) found Parties and politicians preparing for the
great electoral struggle for power. But there could be no General
Election till the new register of voters became operative. Hence the
country passed

[Illustration: SIR ROBERT NAPIER (AFTERWARDS LORD NAPIER OF MAGDALA).]

through a Parliamentary interregnum during which it was ruled by a House
of Commons that had exhausted its mandate, and by its own act had ceased
to represent the bulk of the enfranchised classes. It lacked authority
to legislate, and was too spiritless to intrigue. All that could be done
by its leaders was to prepare the ground for the General Election; in
other words, they began to seek for a policy with which they could go to
the country. Many Cabinet meetings were held in January, but with no
very obvious result. Ministers seemed unable to hit on a programme, and
when Lord Stanley and Mr. Gathorne Hardy addressed a great political
meeting at Bristol on the 22nd, their chief object appeared to be to
apologise for the Reform Act. It had been demanded in a manner that it
would have been dangerous to refuse, and the “innovating impulse” which
it might create would soon spend itself. Such, at least, was Lord
Stanley’s view. The Liberals, on the other hand, had been openly fishing
for a policy. Some, like Mr. Lowe, Mr. Stansfeld, and Mr. Forster,
pressed for radical measures of educational reform. “We must educate our
masters,” said Mr. Lowe, and so he now demanded national compulsory
unsectarian education. A few rising young men, like Mr. Fawcett, gave
prominence to Land Law Reform, the creation of peasant-proprietorship,
abolition of primogeniture, and the like. Mr. Bright, however, like most
thinking men at the time, contended that the Irish Question must hold
the first place in the Liberal programme of the future. The recent
activity of the Fenians, and the discovery that the Irish patriots had
found in America a new fulcrum for their agitation, convinced Englishmen
that a new departure must be taken in Irish policy. Unless England could
dictate a Conspiracy Bill to the United States, the American-Irish could
keep Ireland in revolutionary restlessness so long as Irishmen despaired
of getting grievances redressed by the Imperial Parliament. But what
should be done for Ireland? Some said the Land Question must be settled;
others that concessions to the priesthood in the matter of education
would suffice; others, like Lord Stanley, thought the Irish case was
hopeless, and they talked of the impossibility of conceding anything to
noise and menace.

Mr. Bright’s great speech at Birmingham on the 3rd of February, however,
advanced the position of the Liberal Party in the boldest manner. There
had been some talk of giving Ireland political autonomy, but it had
failed to touch the sense of the nation. Oddly enough, however, Mr.
Bright did not show himself strongly antipathetic to this policy. He was
opposed to the Repeal of the Union, but on the other hand he declared
that Repeal was a course which was open to consideration if remedial
legislation failed. And he was at great pains to prepare the ground for
a Repeal agitation by reconciling the English mind to the discussion of
such a policy. It was for this reason that he dwelt on the fact that
Repeal of the Union with Scotland was once defeated in a full House
merely by a majority of two. That, said Mr. Bright, was a high
precedent, if any one wished to adopt a Repeal agitation as a remedy for
Irish discontent. But in the meantime Mr. Bright’s plans were (1), to
disestablish the Anglican Church in Ireland and secularise its property,
distributing the spoil in fair proportions among the chief sects of
Ireland; (2), as to the land question, he proposed that a Land
Commission should buy up the estates of absentee landlords and sell them
to tenants, who were to pay the purchase-money in a certain term of
years by a slight addition to their rent. In the meantime London was
swarming with special constables. The garrison at Woolwich stood to its
guns every night expecting a Fenian attack from the river. Special
precautions had also to be taken to guard Windsor, and Lord St.
Leonards, with unconscious humour, wrote a letter to the _Times_
imploring the Fenians to confine their operations to Ireland, because by
annoying Englishmen they rendered the Irish cause increasingly unpopular
in England. In these circumstances Ministers committed the fatal mistake
of resolving to do nothing--except pass the Scottish and Irish Reform
Bills, a Boundary Bill, and a Bribery Bill. They said that in two or
three years’ time they might be in a position to consider other matters,
such as that of National Education. The Irish Church could obviously not
be assailed by a Party closely dependent on the goodwill of the English
clergy. As for the Irish Land Question, Lord Stanley disposed of it by
simply declaring that every proposal to deal with it which he would not
like to see applied to England was pure “quackery.”

On the 13th of February Parliament met, and on the 16th the town was
startled to hear alarming accounts of the Prime Minister’s health.
Repeated attacks of gout had broken up his constitution, and on the 24th
of February he resigned, Mr. Disraeli being chosen by the Queen as his
successor. Here again the Queen showed her good sense. A foolish
intrigue had been directed against Mr. Disraeli by some members of his
Party, who having trusted him with carrying out a revolution, refused to
trust him with the work of Government. Neither Lord Stanley nor the Duke
of Richmond--whose names it is understood were mentioned as his
rivals--had Mr. Disraeli’s ability, experience, fame, and dexterity in
managing men. They had in truth no qualification whatever, save their
rank, which could put them in competition with Mr. Disraeli, and the
Queen had naturally grave doubts whether, on the eve of an appeal to the
new Democracy, it would be seemly to go to it with an open declaration
that, when Capacity and Rank competed for the Premiership of England,
Rank must carry the day. Mr. Disraeli’s elevation had been, however,
foreseen by many shrewd observers. During the vacation Bishop
Wilberforce met a brilliant company of statesmen and men of letters at
the late Lord Stanhope’s place at Chevening. The events of the Session
were frequently discussed, and their conversations are summed up by
Wilberforce in his Diary as follows:--“No one even guesses at the
political future: whether a fresh election will strengthen the
Conservatives or not seems altogether doubtful. The most wonderful thing
is the rise of Disraeli. It is not the mere assertion of talent, as you
hear so many say. It seems to me quite beside that. He has been able to
teach the House of Commons almost to ignore Gladstone; and at present
lords it over him, and I am told, says that he will hold him down for
twenty years.”[278]

Mr. Disraeli took an early opportunity of showing his colleagues that he
meant to be master in his own house. His first act set the Tapers and
Tadpoles of the Carlton Club by the ears. He sent Lord Chelmsford--whom
he had not forgiven for his venomous opposition to the emancipation of
the Jews--an intimation that he must resign. His next act was to offer
the Lord Chancellorship to Lord Cairns, in order to strengthen the
debating power of the front Ministerial Bench in the House of Lords.
According to Bishop Wilberforce’s Diary, when Lord Chelmsford handed his
seals to the Queen he held them back for a minute, and said, “I have
been used worse than a menial. I have not even had a month’s
warning.”[279] Certainly he might have been treated with more courtesy,
but technically speaking Mr. Disraeli was well within his right in
dismissing Lord Chelmsford. In 1866, when Lord Derby formed his
Government, Lord Chelmsford took office on the distinct understanding
that one day he must make way for Sir Hugh Cairns. “This being the
case,” says Lord Malmesbury, “he had no right to be angry at Disraeli’s
arrangement, but he was so, and appealed to Lord Derby, who confirmed
the decision as being consistent with his original agreement.” Mr.
Disraeli did not withdraw Sir S. Northcote from the India Office, but
conferred the Chancellorship of the Exchequer on Mr. Ward Hunt. “He is a
giant in body,” writes Lord Malmesbury, “being six feet four, and
weighing twenty stone. When he knelt to kiss hands he was even in that
position taller than the Queen.” A still better qualification for
office, however, was possessed by Mr. Hunt. As the hero of the debates
on the compensation clauses of the Cattle Plague Bill, he had become the
idol of the squirearchy, and his presence in the Cabinet did much to
reconcile them to Mr. Disraeli’s elevation to the Premiership. The
constitution of the Government and disposal of the offices curiously
reflected the influence which the new electors were already exercising
on the ruling classes. The most striking thing about the reconstructed
Ministry was the concentration of its power in the House of Commons. For
the first time for many years there sat in the popular Chamber the Prime
Minister (Mr. Disraeli), the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
(Lord Stanley), the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Ward Hunt), the
Home Secretary (Mr. Hardy, appointed on the retirement of Mr. Walpole),
the War Secretary (Sir J. Pakington), the First Lord of the Admiralty
(Mr. Corry), and the Secretary for India (Sir Stafford Northcote). In
the House of Lords the representatives of the Government held offices of
secondary importance.

The new Prime Minister met his followers in Downing Street on the 5th of
March, and promised them that his policy would be truly Conservative. At
half-past five he rose in the House of Commons, amidst general cheering,
to explain his position, which he did with some superfluous humility. In
Foreign Affairs his policy, he said, would be Lord Stanley’s--one of
peace without isolation--and in Home Affairs it would be “a Liberal
one--a truly Liberal one.” The Reform Bills for Ireland would proceed,
an Education Bill was promised, and on the following Tuesday Lord Mayo
would explain the views of the Cabinet as to Ireland--views which
doubtless would

[Illustration: ST. JAMES’S PALACE, LONDON.]

satisfy “enlightened and temperate men” of all Parties. Some of the
Adullamites thought that a mistake had been made in not attempting to
form a Coalition, and Mr. E. P. Bouverie gave voice to their querulous
discontent. Before the sitting was over, Mr. Hardy succeeded in carrying
a measure in which the Queen was interested--the Bill for abolishing
the demoralising spectacle of public executions. But it was quite clear
that Mr. Gladstone and Lord Russell would now give the new Cabinet no
mercy. Every one therefore felt that the crisis in its fate would be
determined when Lord Mayo expounded its Irish policy. The Irish Church
Question divided Reformers least, and it was known that to this question
Lord Mayo would address himself. There were now three plans before the
country for getting rid of the anomaly of supporting in Ireland out of
national funds, the Church of a small, a rich, and an anti-national
sect. Lords Hardwicke and Ellenborough had proposed to “level up” the
Roman Catholics to an equal footing with the Protestants by raising
£3,000,000 a year for their endowment. Lord Russell proposed to “level
down” the Protestants to the same plane of equality as the Catholics, by
diverting six-eighths of the Protestant endowments to Catholic purposes.
Mr. Bright proposed to secularise all the Protestant endowments and
devote them to purely national purposes, reserving £3,000,000 to break
the fall of the Protestant churches, and provide each Roman Catholic
parish with a small piece of glebe land. On Tuesday, the 10th of March,
Mr. Maguire opened the debate on the affairs of Ireland, and Lord Mayo,
with verbose embarrassment, gave an exposition of Irish policy, which
sealed the fate of the Government. He promised (1) a small Bill for
registering tenants’ improvements and encouraging leasehold tenures,
which nobody treated seriously; (2) Commissions of inquiry into the Land
Question and into the Irish railway system, with a hint at granting
Imperial subsidies to Irish railways; (3) the endowment of a separate
Catholic University; (4) an inquiry into the Irish Church, with a
suggestion that the right policy was to “level up” the Catholics to the
same condition of endowment as the Protestants, and to increase the
_Regium Donum_, or annual subvention of the Presbyterians. As Mr.
Horsman said, Lord Mayo seemed to be looking everywhere for a policy
without being able to find it. Inaction as regards the Church,
procrastination as regards the Land, reaction as regards Education--such
was the Irish policy of the Government. The idea of “levelling up” the
endowments of the Catholics was felt to be impracticable, for it would
have involved an expenditure of about £3,000,000 a year. If this sum
were raised by Irish taxation, the Irish Catholics would naturally
object to pay to their priests through the State the stipends which they
already paid them as free-will offerings. If it were raised by Imperial
taxation, it was hopeless to expect the Protestants of England and
Scotland to endow an Ultramontane Catholic Church in Ireland. The scheme
for a new Catholic University was equally objectionable. It was to have
no connection with the State. Hence it would be a standing challenge to
the accepted national policy of education, which links State control
with State aid. As a remedy for Irish grievances, Mr. Bright likened it
to the pill which Addison’s quack sold “to cure the earthquake.” Mr.
Gladstone attacked the Government with all the eloquence of action. His
policy he declared to be the disestablishment and disendowment of the
Irish Protestant Church, and he announced that he would take the opinion
of the House on a definite proposal for carrying it out. For that
purpose he produced three Resolutions on the 23rd of March, which
affirmed the necessity for creating no new interests in the Irish
Church, “pending the final decision of Parliament.” In a letter to Lord
Dartmouth, Mr. Disraeli met the attack by raising a false issue. It was
not, he said, the Irish Church that was at stake. What Mr. Gladstone
challenged was really “the sacred union of Church and State, which has
hitherto been the chief means of our civilisation, and is the only
security of our liberty.” It was obviously indiscreet for a Tory
Minister to assert that the principle of a State Church was involved in
the maintenance of an ecclesiastical establishment which served no State
purpose whatever, save that of making the Irish people hate England. Mr.
Gladstone’s scheme was to terminate the existence in Ireland of any
salaried or stipendiary clergy paid by the State, whether Catholic or
Protestant; though, by way of compensation for life-interests, he
promised to leave three-fifths of their endowments in the hands of the
Anglican clergy. Lord Stanley moved an amendment which pleaded for
delay. After a new Parliament had been elected, the Government, he said,
would bring in a scheme to reform the Church of Ireland. Coupled with
his admission that “considerable modifications in the temporalities” of
the Irish Church would be necessary, his speech disgusted Mr. Disraeli’s
Orange supporters, and dispirited his English followers. What, asked
Lord Cranborne, would anybody think of a man on the other side of the
hedge, if he expressed an opinion that there must be “considerable
modifications” in the money in the traveller’s purse? Mr. Hardy
completed the confusion of his Party by practically answering Lord
Stanley, and declaring that he, at least, would never lay a sacrilegious
hand on Church temporalities. The “Cave,” too, broke up under pressure
from the constituencies. Even Mr. Lowe assailed the Irish Church,
averring that “the curse of barrenness” was upon it. “Cut it down!” he
exclaimed; “why cumbereth it the ground?”

It is easy to see why Mr. Disraeli’s strategy was at fault. He should
either have nailed up the standard of “No surrender,” or have boldly
said the Irish Church must be disestablished, and appealed to the
country to trust the work to Conservative hands that would deal tenderly
and reverently with such an ancient institution. As it was, he made Lord
Stanley hint that Ministers were ready next Session to produce a plan
which Liberals could accept, and he made Mr. Gathorne-Hardy soothe his
followers with assurances that no harsh hands would ever be laid on the
Irish Church. Mr. Gladstone carried his motion to go into Committee on
his Resolutions, and on the 5th of April Lord Malmesbury writes in his
Diary, “Government has been beaten on Lord Stanley’s amendment. We shall
not resign, but dissolve and meet a new Parliament.” There is some
reason to think that it was the intention of the Government not to
dissolve Parliament till January, 1869, when the new electors came to
power. And it is certain that the Radicals were by no means anxious to
turn Mr. Disraeli out till they had convinced the now yielding Whigs
that the era of inaction had passed away, and that the next Liberal
Executive must be as Liberal as the new Parliament which it was going to
lead. Mr. Disraeli’s course of action at this time was therefore
unintelligible. Though he knew that Mr. Gladstone’s proposal had pleased
the new Democracy, he made no attempt to “educate” his party up to a
compromise[280] with the Opposition, who, after the first flush of
victory, became a little nervous as they saw the great practical
difficulties of Disestablishment looming larger every day. He missed his
golden opportunity and raised a “No Popery” cry, declaring that the
attack on the Irish Church was a conspiracy between the High Churchmen
and the Roman Catholics to destroy the institutions of a Protestant
Monarchy. This naturally alienated the votes of the High Churchmen, who
were mostly Tories.[281] Nor did the Low Churchmen respond to the “No
Popery” cry. They noted that it came from a Government which was
prepared to endow a second Maynooth on a more sumptuous scale than the
first, and from a Statesman who jeered at “the shallow fanaticism” of
the Liberation Society. Perhaps this was fortunate. To have effected a
compromise might have removed some of the practical evils of the Irish
Church. But it would not have removed the sentimental grievance of the
Irish people, who must have regarded even a reformed Protestant Church
Establishment, as a badge of English conquest and a mark of Protestant
ascendency. A war of words and wits between the Prime Minister and Lord
Cranborne, whose invective he dismissed compassionately by saying it
“wanted finish,” did not tend to bring harmony into the Tory party,
which seemed fast breaking into fragments. “The old Government,” said
Lord Chelmsford--a bad though sportive punster--to some friends, “was
the Derby--_this one is the Hoax_.” After the Easter recess Mr. Disraeli
took no notice of his defeat. Mr. Gladstone therefore kept pressing on
his Resolutions, and as they embodied an Address to the Queen, everybody
was speculating as to her answer. After three weeks’ debate the first
Resolution was carried on the morning of the 1st of May by a majority of
65--an increase of 5 on the majority for going into Committee. It was
now impossible to conceal from the Queen that on a vital question the
Cabinet had completely lost the confidence of the House of Commons. That
very day Mr. Disraeli accordingly went to Osborne to see her Majesty,
thereby giving dire

[Illustration: MR. GATHORNE-HARDY (AFTERWARDS LORD CRANBROOK).]

offence to his colleagues, who rightly considered that, following
precedent, he should have called a Cabinet meeting before communicating
with the Sovereign. The Duke of Marlborough, indeed, insisted on
resigning, but was dissuaded from taking that step by Lord
Malmesbury.[282] Then there came a series of sensational “scenes” in the
House of Commons. The position was most embarrassing, for several
reasons. To suspend the creation of fresh interests in the Irish Church
was to interfere with the prerogative of the Queen, who appointed
bishops and archbishops. It was therefore impossible to proceed by Bill
to disestablish the Irish Church. Resolutions had to be first adopted as
the basis of an Address, praying the Queen to permit a measure,
retrenching the prerogatives of the Crown in respect of Irish Church
patronage, to be debated. This prevented the Government from accepting
defeat in the Commons on a Bill, which they could have quashed in the
Lords, on the plea that it would be better to refer the matter to the
new constituencies. In view of the Address to the Crown, which was now
inevitable, Mr. Disraeli had, however, to advise the Queen either to
accept or reject it. If the Queen were advised to accept it, the Tory
Party would be disheartened. It would be said that such advice implied
the Queen’s sanction to some form of disendowment. If the Queen, on the
other hand, were advised to reject the Address, then the Minister would
be responsible for embroiling the Sovereign with a House of Commons, the
majority in which had been rendered aggressive by Parliamentary
victories and popular sympathy. Lord Derby, in a moment of passionate
unwisdom, urged the Ministry to reject the Address when it was drawn up.
The lobbies of the House of Commons and the political clubs were then
electrical with excitement. The leaders of parties almost came into
personal collision with each other. Charges of “treason” were bandied
about, when Tory partisans foolishly declared in private that the Queen
was with them, and would never let the Radicals despoil the Irish
Church. As for the Radicals, they retorted by saying that at the General
Election when they marched to the polls, they would substitute Ebenezer
Elliott’s hymn, “God Save the People,” for the National Anthem, “God
Save the Queen.”

The management of the business by the Prime Minister must have been
maladroit indeed, when it raised such fierce and passionate antagonisms.
But the question was--What advice did Mr. Disraeli really give the Queen
when he saw her at Osborne? His own statement, on Monday the 4th of May,
was so ambiguous that it further compromised the Sovereign, by dragging
her into a war of factions. He said he had a constitutional right to
dissolve a Parliament “elected when he was in Opposition,” and he had
advised the Queen on the previous Friday to dissolve. To render this
course easy he had tendered the resignation of the Ministry--an offer
made, it is now known, without consultation with his colleagues. The
Queen had asked him to give her a day for consideration. Then she had
ordered him not to resign, but had given him permission to dissolve as
soon as the state of public business permitted it. The vital part of the
statement occupied ten minutes in delivery. In it the name of the Queen
was mentioned thirteen times, and it was so used as to convey the idea
that it was her Majesty, and not her Minister, who had decided that a
Cabinet which had lost the confidence of the House of Commons should
hold office in the teeth of a hostile majority. What made matters worse
was that the Duke of Richmond in the Upper House said that the Queen, in
refusing Mr. Disraeli’s resignation, had given him permission to
dissolve “in the event of any difficulties arising.” Again, by the
stupidity or unfaithfulness of her Ministers, was the Queen held up to
public odium. It was immediately inferred from the Duke of Richmond’s
statement that the Sovereign had delegated to her Minister the highest
of her prerogatives--that of dissolving Parliament--not for a special
occasion, all the circumstances of which had been studied by her, but in
a vague general kind of way, to enable him to coerce the Commons of
England, whenever he thought fit. All through the week passionate
conflicts raged in the House, greatly to the vexation of the Queen,
whose attitude had been misrepresented as unconstitutional. On Thursday,
the 7th of May, the two last Resolutions on the Irish Church passed
without a division.[283] In the debate, however, Mr. Disraeli got up a
turbulent “scene,” by dropping quite casually a quiet sarcastic remark
to the effect that those who introduced the Resolutions after throwing
the country into confusion, were already quarrelling over the spoil. Mr.
Bright could no longer restrain himself. He accused Mr. Disraeli of now
abandoning, for the sake of office, the Irish Ecclesiastical policy he
had advocated twenty-five years before.[284] He had talked of his
interviews with the Queen “with a mixture of pompousness and servility,”
but he had deceived his Queen, if he still held the views which he
advocated twenty-five years ago, and he had been guilty of a crime in
skulking behind her authority, after he had pushed her to the front in a
great party struggle. This turned the House into a scene of dreadful
strife, and Mr. Disraeli retorted to the effect that Mr. Bright was not
a gentleman. If Mr. Disraeli really desired to dissolve at this time it
is strange that he missed this opportunity. Mr. Bright’s vituperation,
together with the growing rancour of Mr. Gladstone and his supporters,
might have enabled the Premier to plead the factious violence of his
opponents as an excuse for a penal dissolution. But he did not dissolve.
It was thenceforward clear that if it be a vital principle of the
constitution that the Government must enjoy the confidence and support
of a majority of the House of Commons, the country was without any
constitutional Government at all. Though it was expected up to the last
moment that the Queen would give an evasive reply to the Address on the
Irish Church, her answer was a frank declaration that she did not desire
her interest in the temporalities of the Irish Church to obstruct the
discussion of a Bill for dealing with them. A Suspensory Bill,
preventing the creation of new personal interests, was accordingly
passed by the Commons, though it was rejected by the House of Lords. At
length Mr. Disraeli, after the Whitsuntide holidays, agreed to dissolve
Parliament in October, and Mr. Ward Hunt passed a Bill to facilitate
registration, so that the lists of new voters might be made up on the
1st of November, the new writs for the General Election being issued on
the 9th.

Little remains to be said as to the political events of the year. Mr.
Ward Hunt, in producing his Budget on the 24th of April, admitted that
the expenditure had increased from £66,780,000 in 1866-67 to £71,236,242
in 1867-68. The revenue received in the past year having only amounted
to £69,600,000, there was a deficit of £1,636,000. Of course the
£2,000,000 voted for the Abyssinian War accounted for part of the
increased expenditure. For the rest, most of it arose from the
carelessness of the Government in not insisting on keeping down the
expenditure within the fixed limit of the estimates.[285] As for the
coming year, Mr. Ward Hunt’s estimated expenditure was £70,428,000. To
this had to be added £3,000,000 for the Abyssinian War. From Revenue he
expected to get £71,350,000, so that there was a deficit to make good.
He therefore added twopence to the Income Tax, which within the year he
expected to yield £1,800,000, but which still left him with a probable
deficit to carry over of £278,000. Apart from the increased expenditure
the Budget was a sensible one. On the 9th of June Mr. Hunt also moved
the Second Reading of a Bill enabling the Government to buy all the
telegraph lines in the hands of private companies at their highest price
before the 25th of May next, estimating the cost at between £3,000,000
and £4,000,000.

Reference has already been, made to the Abyssinian Expedition. At first
the public took a dismal view of the enterprise. It was said that the
mixed native and European force would fight well, but that on the road
from the sea to King Theodore’s fortress, it would be bled to death by
mismanagement and maladministration. The result of the expedition was
entirely satisfactory; indeed, there was but one fault to find with it,
namely, that it had cost too much. The Viceroy of India and the Duke of
Cambridge selected one of the ablest engineers in India--Sir Robert
Napier--as Commander-in-Chief, and gave him _carte blanche_. His task
was described as that of building a bridge four hundred miles long
between Annesley Bay and Magdala. As to the road he had to traverse,
when one of the soldiers was told he was marching over the table-land of
Abyssinia, he replied, “Well, the table must have been turned upside
down, and we’re now a-marching over the legs!” Between Napier and his
enemy there were many formidable native chiefs, who could only be
conciliated by consummate diplomatic skill. How he succeeded in doing
that, and in dragging his guns over the mountains by means of elephants,
then used for the first time in African warfare since the days of
Carthage; how he supplied his

[Illustration: THE QUEEN REVIEWING THE VOLUNTEERS IN THE GREAT PARK,
WINDSOR. (_See p._ 318.)]

army with water by boring Artesian wells; how he stormed Magdala with an
impetuous rush on the 12th of April, when King Theodore, having
previously released the captives, committed suicide, need not be now
dwelt on. It was a brilliant little achievement, and the story of it was
read with pride and emotion by the Queen. Napier’s skilful adaptation of
means to ends, and the nicety of his calculations may be simply
illustrated. At the beginning of the war he was asked when he could be
at Magdala. He replied, “About the end of March.” He was asked when he
could get back to Zoulla. He said, “Early in June.” As a matter of fact,
he was at Magdala on the 10th of April, and he returned to Zoulla on the
18th of June, after which the country was at once evacuated. The thanks
of both Houses of Parliament were voted to Sir Robert Napier on the 2nd
of July, Mr. Disraeli complimenting him on having “planted the standard
of St. George on the mountains of Rasselas,” and “led the elephants of
Asia, bearing the artillery of Europe, over African passes which might
have startled the trapper and appalled the hunter of the Alps.” As
trappers hunt the beaver, which lives in water and not in mountains, the
metaphor was a little mixed; but the orator’s intention was good, and
his gaudy phrases served to divert the town during the languor of
perhaps the sultriest London season on record. On the 9th of July Mr.
Disraeli brought to the House a message from the Queen conferring a
Peerage on the leader of the Expedition--who thus became Lord Napier of
Magdala--together with an annuity of £2,000 a year for two lives. As
Napier’s eldest son was an adult, and the usual grant in such cases had
hitherto been for three lives, the Queen’s message was a distinct
concession to the economists.

Parliament was prorogued on the last day of July, and a curious passage
in the Queen’s Speech referred with satisfaction to the fact that the
Government had not seen cause to use the power given them for suspending
_Habeas Corpus_ in Ireland. Then came the struggle for power in the new
democratic constituencies. The usual preparation, said Mr. John Morley,
in a Jeremiad in the _Fortnightly Review_, was made for the unlimited
consumption of beer all over the land. Candidates of the old sort were
put up. Reactionary Whigs, like Mr. Horsman, were suddenly transformed
into iconoclastic Radicals, and were pledging themselves, not merely to
abolish the Irish Church, but even to reform the House of Lords. Tories
boasted that they were the only true democrats. Hardly any new men were
brought to the front, and rich nobodies in many cases thrust aside true
and tried servants of the people. Bloodshed was expected at Blackburn,
and cavalry were drafted into the district. In short, Reform appeared to
have changed nothing, and the first General Election under it seemed
painfully like all its predecessors.

Mr. Disraeli’s Electoral Address, which was issued in October, had three
defects. It appealed to the country to return the Ministry to power in
order to prevent the Pope from becoming master of England--a perfectly
absurd attempt to revive the “bogey” of Papal aggression. It proclaimed
no positive policy, for it merely pledged the Government _not_ to
disestablish the Irish Church. It was as stilted in its rhetoric as
Tancred’s revelation on Mount Sinai. Mr. Gladstone’s Address, issued a
week later, was much more seductive and business-like. It proclaimed a
positive policy of administrative reform and of retrenchment, justified
a policy of conciliation to Ireland, and pressed for the
disestablishment of the Irish Church. The result of the appeal to the
new electors was fatal to the Government. The Liberals carried the
country by a majority of over 100 seats. Lancashire strongly supported
the Conservatives--whereas Yorkshire was strongly Liberal. The Liberals
showed themselves weak in some of the Home Counties where “villadom,” as
Lord Rosebery calls it, reigns supreme. Though the Tory Party was sadly
shattered in Essex, the counties were, however, on the whole,
wonderfully faithful to Mr. Disraeli, and he came within one vote of
dividing with Mr. Gladstone the thirteen electoral boroughs, with a
population between 100,000 and 60,000. The Liberals, on the other hand,
were strongest in boroughs with a population between 60,000 and 20,000,
and in those with a population above 100,000 they captured 41 seats out
of 49. Mr. Gladstone was rejected by South-West Lancashire, but the
Greenwich electors, having taken the precaution to return him, rendered
his defeat of little practical importance. Mr. Mill lost his seat for
Westminster, and thus his Parliamentary career closed, his only
contribution to the Statute-Book being the law compelling railway
companies to attach smoking carriages to passenger trains. Lord
Hartington was beaten in North Lancashire, and Mr. Bernal Osborne, one
of the wits of the House, lost his seat at Nottingham. Scotland returned
only seven Tories, nicknamed by the late Mr. Russel, editor of the
_Scotsman_, the “Seven Champions of Constitutionalism.” Roughly
speaking, the Liberals won in counties where Dissent was strong, whereas
the Tories won in counties where the influence of the Church of England
prevailed. The boroughs that were carried by the Tories were those where
the competition of Irish labour was most felt, or where anti-Papal
agitators had most influence, and in Lancashire, where Anglican clergy
and laymen had, during the Cotton Famine, been most assiduous in
administering the Relief Fund.

Mr. Disraeli met defeat with manliness and dignity. Mr. Gathorne-Hardy
advised him to resign, but Lord Derby, on the other hand, urged him to
hold on to office. On the 28th of November a Cabinet Meeting was held,
and Ministers decided to resign rather than wait to be ejected from
their places by a vote of the House of Commons. The Prime Minister went
down to Windsor on the 2nd of December, and not only tendered the
resignation of the Cabinet to the Queen, but advised her to send for Mr.
Gladstone. In fact, Mr. Disraeli, like a highbred player, having lost
his game paid the stakes without a grudge or a murmur. Mr. Gladstone was
summoned by telegraph to Windsor on the 3rd, and was commissioned to
form a Government. Mr. Disraeli refused all honours for himself, though
he was offered a peerage, but Mrs. Disraeli was created Viscountess
Beaconsfield in her own right. On the 18th of December Parliament met,
and the Ministry was complete. It consisted of fifteen members, of whom
six were peers, one an eldest son of a peer, and eight were Commoners.
The only Radical appointed was Mr. Bright--unless Mr. Gladstone could be
counted a Radical--and in all questions between the middle-class and the
masses Mr. Bright was already a Conservative. It was a Ministry of All
the Talents--formidable in debate, great in administrative capacity, and
strong in intellectual power--but it was unmistakably Whiggish. It was
the Whigs who were first consulted about the disposal of the offices,
and the spirit of Palmerston, who gave Mr. Milner Gibson a seat in his
Cabinet “just to keep the Radicals quiet,” still prevailed. In forming
the Ministry, Mr. Gladstone thus ignored the fact that his Cabinet
inaugurated a new democratic era, in which the relative importance of
Whigs and Radicals had been reversed. By admitting Radicals merely to
minor offices he disappointed the combative wing of his party, whose
unbought zeal had really carried him to power.[286] Some Tories of the
“baser sort” put about the report that the Queen would refuse to receive
Mr. Bright as a Minister. The Queen, however, as if to mark her
disapproval of such insinuations, went out of her way to pay Mr. Bright
special attention when he was presented to her. With delicate tact she
sent word to him that in deference to his hereditary scruples as a
Quaker, she would not expect him to kneel before her when he came to
“kiss hands” on taking office.

The stirring events now described had severely tried the nerves of the
Queen. Early in the year she had been rendered anxious by a severe
illness of the Prince Leopold, who was at one time so sick that it was
supposed he was dying. Then she was still more shocked and alarmed by
news of an attempt which had been made by a man, O’Farrell, to
assassinate the Duke of Edinburgh (Prince Alfred) on the 12th of March
at Clontarf, near Port Jackson, in New South Wales. O’Farrel’s motives
were never quite satisfactorily explained, though it was said at the
time that he was a Fenian emissary. He was hanged for the crime on the
21st of April, and the Duke, who had been shot in the back, gradually
recovered from his wound.

The great and unexpected popularity with which a little book from the
Queen’s pen--“Leaves from the Journal of our Life in the
Highlands”--containing a diary of her holiday rambles, was received
during the season, gratified her

[Illustration: THE QUEEN INSPECTING THE “GALATEA” IN OSBORNE BAY. (_See
p._ 319.)]

much. It delighted the people, to whom it showed the homely, matronly,
sensible business-like qualities which Englishmen value in the women of
their race, reflected in the daily life of their Sovereign. It was a
book that reproduced the wife and the house-mother rather than the
Monarch, and it was written with great tenderness of feeling and artless
simplicity of expression. The sketches, too, with which it was
illustrated were amazingly popular, and in truth they were really bold
and telling. But the little work had no public importance, save that it
served to establish between the Queen and her people relations that were
not only affectionate, but almost confidential. The extreme High
Churchmen, however, were greatly alarmed to find from the Queen’s
Journals that she had strong leanings to the Presbyterian Church. This
notion was due to the fact that she took great delight in the preaching
and spiritual ministrations of the Scottish Chaplains Royal, who were of
course Presbyterians, and who officiated at the Court when it was in
Aberdeenshire. It was not easy to understand why the High Churchmen
should desire to prevent the Queen from following the bent of her own
mind and heart in such a matter. It was absurd to argue that her
position as Head of the Church of England bound her to Anglican
orthodoxy, for she was also Head of the Church of Scotland. Nor did her
Coronation Oath, which merely binds the Sovereign to uphold the
Protestant faith, restrict her to the services of the Church of England.
The fact is, personages belonging to the great family of European
Princes have so many relationships and cross-currents of sympathy with
kinsfolk of various creeds, that they become instinctively tolerant in
religious matters. Still the attacks of the High Churchmen did neither
the Queen nor her book any harm. It had merely revealed the fact that
she was a Christian woman, personally pious and God-fearing, with a
reverent and almost puritanical sense of duty, though rather
indifferent, perhaps, to external religious forms. The Queen had shown
that she understood the distinction between Christianity and
Churchianity, and hence the outcry of the extreme Anglicans against her
book. The truth was that her Majesty never made any secret of her
personal liking for the ministrations of Dr. A. P. Stanley, Dean of
Westminster, and one of the leaders of the Broad Church Party in the
Church of England. When she exhibited a similar preference for his
Presbyterian friends, Dr. Norman Macleod and Principal Tulloch in the
Scottish Church, her offence was complete in the eyes of violent High
Churchmen.

After receiving the Address based on Mr. Gladstone’s Resolution, and
laying the foundation stone of the new St. Thomas’s Hospital, the Queen
fled to Balmoral to recover from the nervous excitement of political
warfare. It unfortunately happened that when the Scottish Members in
discussing the Scottish Reform Bill substituted a household franchise
pure and simple for a rating franchise, a Ministerial crisis was
produced. Mr. Disraeli, in fact, desired authority to coerce Members by
threatening a dissolution. For this purpose he had to consult the Queen,
and certainly the three days lost in communicating with Balmoral gave
rise to some inconvenience. This tempted Mr. Reardon, M.P. for Athlone,
in the interests of the West End tradesmen, to put a question on the
notice-paper of the House of Commons, as to the cause of the Queen’s
absence from the capital. The Speaker, however, refused to let it
appear, because it impudently suggested her Majesty’s abdication in
favour of the Prince of Wales. In June the Queen had recovered her
health, and on the 22nd she gave a brilliant garden party at Buckingham
Palace. Six hundred invitations were issued, and she received her
company, says Lord Malmesbury, “very graciously.” She was, he adds,
“looking remarkably well, and everybody said she seemed to enjoy her
party.” Two days before that she had reviewed 27,000 Volunteers in
Windsor Park. This affair was very badly managed. There were no
commissariat arrangements, and there was no ambulance. Hungry officers
wandered away to get food, and when the marching past was over, some of
the troops--faint from hunger and thirst, and having lost their
leaders--ignored discipline altogether, and on the return to Datchet
Station heaped vituperation on any officers of rank they came across.

On the 9th of July both Houses of Parliament congratulated the Queen on
the birth of a little grand-daughter, who had been brought into the
world by the Princess of Wales on the 6th. On the same evening (the 9th)
the Duke of Edinburgh, who had brought his ship, the _Galatea_, home,
landed at Osborne and dined with the Queen; and on the 13th she visited
her son’s vessel, which she inspected under his guidance.

The season of 1868 was one of the hottest that had ever been
experienced, and the Queen has all through life suffered so much from
sultry weather, that in summer she has to do most of her work in the
open air under the shade of a verandah or a tent. The heat, together
with the worry of Ministerial crises, again broke down her nerves and
brought on fainting fits, which alarmed her physicians. When Parliament
was prorogued they urged her to go to Switzerland, and on the 6th of
August she reached the Lake of Lucerne, travelling privately under the
title of the Countess of Kent. Writing on the 10th of August to the
Queen, the Princess Louis of Hesse says:--“I have just received your
letter from Lucerne, and hasten to thank you for it. How glad I am that
you admire the beautiful scenery, and that I know it, and can share your
admiration and enjoyment of it in thought with you.” Her Majesty and her
companions--the Princess Louise, Prince Arthur, and Lord Stanley--went
up the Righi and Mount Pilatus, and made a short stay on the Furka Pass.
“How, too, delightful,” writes the Princess Louis of Hesse, “your
expeditions must have been! I do rejoice that, through the change of
weather, you should have been able to see and enjoy all that glorious
scenery. Without your good ponies, Brown, &c., you would have felt how
difficult such ascents are for common mortals, particularly when the
horses slip, and finally sit down. I am sure all this will have done you
good; seeing such totally new beautiful scenery does refresh so
immensely, and the air and exertion--both of which you bear so well
now--will do your health good.” She returned to England on the 11th of
September, having broken her journey at Paris, where she stayed with
Lord Lyons at the British Embassy. “I am so grieved,” writes the
Princess Louis, “that you should have been so unwell on the journey
home. Dear, beautiful Scotland will do you good.” But the return to
Balmoral was not a return to rest. The preparation for the General
Election involved much harassing business, and Mr. Disraeli, Minister in
attendance, was not always in the sweetest humour. On a great many
points he found the Queen rather more difficult to “educate” than his
Party. This gave a tone of acerbity to many of his communications
written at the time, which was quite foreign to his character. In a
letter, dated Balmoral Castle, 28th September, written to Bishop
Wilberforce, Mr. Disraeli, while scolding some High Churchmen for
following Dr. Hook, Dean of Chichester, whom he terms a “provincial
Laud,” because he intrigued with the Party of Disestablishment,
apologises for not having sent it sooner. “I have delayed writing to
you,” he says, “several days because I wanted to get a quiet half-hour;
and there is not a sentence in this in which I have not been
interrupted. Carrying on the government of a country six hundred miles
from the metropolis doubles the labour. The stream of telegrams and
boxes is really appalling.”[287] A collision of will, if not a conflict
of opinion, now occurred between the Queen and Mr. Disraeli regarding
the disposal of certain Church patronage. Dr. Longley, the Archbishop of
Canterbury, had died in October, and the Queen has always claimed the
right of controlling appointments to the see of Canterbury, on the
ground that the Primate is, in a sense, the chief of the Court
Chaplains. At coronations, royal marriages, baptisms, and funerals he
is, of course, the principal celebrant. It was felt all over England
that the time had come for appointing to this great office a man of
strong individuality and firm character, not merely a “Benevolent
Smile,” as one of Dr. Longley’s predecessors--the amiable Howley--had
been called. At the same time, though the public desired to see in the
new Primate a real leader of men, they did not desire a bigot or a
brilliant intriguer, whose life had been consecrated to strategy and
finesse. The Queen not only sympathised with this general feeling, but
she had, with singularly sound judgment, selected as her favourite
candidate perhaps the only prelate in England whose appointment could
satisfy it. Unfortunately Mr. Disraeli ignored the general sentiment of
the nation, and what was still worse, he did not seem to be capable of
suggesting any candidate for the Primacy whose personal qualities
corresponded with the desire of the people. There was a strong party,
headed by the Dean of Chichester (Dr. Hook), who favoured the
candidature of the Bishop of Oxford, far and away the ablest Anglican
ecclesiastic whom England has produced during the Queen’s reign. But at
the time he was, despite his marvellous gifts, “an impossible” aspirant.
His daughter and her husband, Mr. and Mrs. Pye, had just “gone over to
Rome,” and his enemies unjustly insinuated that the Bishop himself was
at heart “a Papist.” His public life had been, to a great extent, one of
finesse and intrigue. He had offended Mr. Disraeli by supporting Mr.
Gladstone’s candidature at Oxford, and it was feared his appointment
would cause the Tory party the loss of many votes in the General
Election then pending. It was said at the time that the Queen,
remembering the argument between Wilberforce and the Prince Consort as
to the miracle of the swine, was personally opposed to his selection.
This, however, was not true. She would have accepted Wilberforce, whose
brilliant intellect, flashing wit and charm of manner fascinated every
one with whom he came in contact, though her personal preferences were
in favour of another prelate. But Mr. Disraeli having expressed his
personal antipathy to the Bishop of Oxford, her Majesty forbore to hint
at his claim. But, in the end, she insisted on the

[Illustration: THE CATHEDRAL, LINCOLN.]

appointment of Dr. Tait, then Bishop of London. Dr. Jackson, Bishop of
Lincoln, was in turn appointed to the see of London, to which
Wilberforce had the strongest claim. To the see of Lincoln, Archdeacon
Wordsworth, a nephew of the poet, and a theological antiquarian of great
repute among the High Churchmen, was preferred. The selection of Dr.
Tait procured for Mr. Disraeli the cordial congratulations of all
parties, and it was admitted even by the Radicals that it immensely
increased the popularity of a moribund Ministry. As a matter of fact,
however, the credit was really due to the Queen, and not to the
Minister. During November Wilberforce was at Blenheim, and in his Diary
he records a conversation which he had with the Duke of Marlborough on
this subject. “The Duke,” writes Bishop Wilberforce, “told me of
Disraeli’s excitement when he came out of the royal closet. Some
struggle about the Primacy. Lord Malmesbury also said that when he spoke
to Disraeli he said, ‘Don’t bring any more bothers before me; I have
enough already to drive a man mad.’” Then a few days later (18th
November) Dr. Wilberforce had a conversation at Windsor with Dean
Wellesley, an ecclesiastic deep in Court secrets, who said to him, with
reference to the struggle for the Primacy, “The Church does not know
what it owes to the Queen. Disraeli has been utterly ignorant, utterly
unprincipled: he rode the Protestant horse one day; then got frightened
that he had gone too far, and was injuring the county elections, so he
went right round and proposed names never heard of. Nothing he would not
have done; but throughout he was most hostile to you [Wilberforce]; he
alone prevented London being offered to you. The Queen looked for
Tait,[288] but would have agreed to you.... Disraeli recommended[289]
... for Canterbury!! The Queen would not have him; then Disraeli agreed,
most reluctantly and with passion, to Tait. Disraeli then proposed
Wordsworth for London. The Queen objected strongly; no experience;
passing over bishops, &c.; then she suggested Jackson and two others,
not you [Wilberforce], because of Disraeli’s expressed hostility, and
Disraeli chose Jackson.... Disraeli opposed Leighton with all his
strength on every separate occasion. The Queen would have greatly liked
him, but Disraeli would not hear of him. You cannot conceive the
appointments he proposed and retracted or was over-ruled in; he pressed
Champneys for Peterborough;[290] he had no other thought than the votes
of the moment; he showed an ignorance about all Church matters, men,
opinions, that was astonishing, making propositions one way and the
other, riding the Protestant horse to gain the boroughs, and then when
he thought he had gone so far to endanger the counties, turning round
and appointing Bright and Gregory; thoroughly unprincipled fellow. I
trust we may never have such a man again.”[291] The importance of Dr.
Tait’s appointment to the Primacy could hardly be exaggerated. In the
great Church controversies he had distinguished himself by his intrepid
and masculine good sense. His orthodoxy was unimpeachable, but whenever
a heretic was being prosecuted his voice was always loud in demanding
fair play and in pleading for toleration. He had congratulated the
Church on being able to utilise Professor Jowett’s irrepressible “love
of truth” and Dr. Pusey’s “personal holiness.” In short, he represented
the national principle of comprehension--the national desire to include
within the State Church all good men, no matter what their theological
views might be, who recognised the divinity of Christ, and were prepared
to abide by the legal ritual of the Reformed Anglican Communion.

On the 3rd of October the infant son of the Princess Mary of Teck was
christened in the dining-room of Kensington Palace, among the sponsors
being the Queen and the Princess of Wales. On the 21st the Crown
Princess of Prussia, travelling as the Countess Lingen, visited England,
and was very warmly greeted wherever she went. Most of her time was
spent at St. Leonards-on-Sea.

On the 5th of December the Queen was informed that Mr. George Peabody
had presented £100,000 to the poor of London. This was his second gift,
so that his whole donation came to £350,000. It was felt that it was
somewhat unfortunate that it had been left to a foreigner to point the
path of duty out to English millionaires. On the other hand, there were
critics who tried to depreciate the practical value of Mr. Peabody’s
charity. The money was to be expended in housing the poor. “But,” said
these critics when the first blocks of Peabody Buildings were built, “it
was not the poor who were housed in them, for clerks and young
middle-class people took the new rooms.” It was apparently not noticed
that the clerks must, in that case, leave their dwellings empty for
others, so that the housing of the poor would in any case be facilitated
by reduced pressure on house accommodation.

The 14th of December was the seventh anniversary of the Prince Consort’s
death. Accordingly the Queen and her family proceeded to the Mausoleum
at Frogmore, which had now been completed, and where a special service
was held. It was a matter of great regret that the Princess Louis of
Hesse had been unable to be present, and she gives expression to that
feeling in one of her letters (20th of November). But she was recovering
from her _accouchement_, and it was impossible for her to leave her
home.

As the year ended, the mind of the country was disturbed by tales of
impending war. The Princess Louis of Hesse and the Crown Prince of
Prussia both warned the Queen of the dangers which menaced Europe.
France had arranged to withdraw her troops from Rome in order to attack
Germany, and a Spanish garrison was to be substituted as the Pope’s
guard. From the letters of the Princess, it is plain that the Queen
comforted her relatives by assuring them that, from her information, it
was clear there would be no war. Napoleon’s scheme for garrisoning Rome
by Spanish troops was upset by the sudden outbreak of a revolution in
Spain, provoked partly by the reactionary policy, but mainly by the
personal misconduct of the Queen Isabella. Violent measures of
repression were adopted to crush the conspiracy. On the 18th of
September a revolt broke out at Cadiz, and the Queen and her dynasty
were dethroned. General Prim and Marshal Serrano formed a Provisional
Government, which, however, relegated to the Cortes the task of
determining the destinies of the nation. Much more serious was the
sudden rupture between Greece and Turkey at the end of the year. It was
remembered that Lord Clarendon--who had been appointed Foreign Secretary
in deference to the Queen’s partiality for him--was the Minister

[Illustration: WINDSOR CASTLE, FROM THAMES STREET, AND “BIT” OF THE
OUTER WALLS.]

under whose guidance England had drifted into the Crimean War. The
re-opening of the Eastern Question immediately after he took office was
considered to be ominous of mischief. For two years there had been
friction between Greece and Turkey, the cause being that the Greeks had
been assisting the Cretan insurgents both with men and money. The Sultan
at last, in a fit of impatience, sent an Ultimatum to Greece threatening
war unless the Government made reparation to Turkey for the support
which it had given to the Cretan rebellion. The Great Powers obtained
for Greece an extension of time for her reply to the 17th of December,
and on that date the Athenian Government rejected the Ultimatum. But the
rise of Germany had altered all the conditions under which Russia as
patron of Greece could attack Constantinople, and it rendered the
Anglo-French alliance no longer desirable. Still a Conference was
proposed by Count Bismarck in the closing days of 1868 to prevent war,
whilst the Greeks were arming in hot haste, and Hobart Pasha was
blockading Syria. The great danger lay in Clarendon’s possible adherence
to Palmerstonian traditions. If he declared for war in defence of Turkey
with France as an ally, the prospect was dismal. Such a policy meant
that England would have to face the combination of Germany, and
perchance Italy with Russia, and it is certain that the Queen, like the
nation, would have resisted it to the last. The Conference did its work
well--as might have been expected. It had been proposed by Bismarck, who
had a reputation for never associating his name with failures, and the
event proved that he had judged rightly of the exigencies of the
nations.

CHAPTER XIV.

A HOPEFUL YEAR.

Hopefulness all round--Ministers at the Fishmongers’--The Queen’s
Speech--The Legislative Bill of Fare--The Queen and Mr. Gladstone’s
Irish Church Policy--Release of Fenians--Mr. Gladstone’s Scheme for
Disestablishing the Irish Church--The Debate in the Commons--The
Second Reading Carried--The Bill in Committee--Read a Third
Time--The Lords and the Bill--Amendments of the Peers--The Lords
Bought Off--The Bill becomes Law--Mr. Lowe’s First Budget--The
Endowed Schools Bill--The Habitual Criminals Act--The Lords and the
Commons’ Legislation--Official Hostility to Reforming
Ministers--Weak Members of the Cabinet--Mr. Reverdy Johnson and the
_Alabama_ Claims--The Policy of “Masterly Inactivity”--Liberalism
in France--Prince Leopold’s Illness--The Queen’s Interview with Mr.
Carlyle--Visit of Ismail Pasha to the Queen--The Peabody
Statue--Prince Alfred in Australia--The Prince of Wales and Court
Dress--Death of Lord Derby--Death of Lady Palmerston--Opening of
Blackfriars Bridge and Holborn Viaduct--O’Donovan Rossa,
M.P.--Orangemen and Fenians.

Hopefulness was the prevailing feeling with which the year 1869 was
hailed by everybody. Politically the country was in a state of
tranquillity. The democracy had won a great victory at the polls, and a
new and brilliant ministry had been called to power to give effect to
the will of the people. Trade, it is true, was still suffering from the
shock of 1866. The supply of raw cotton was scarce, and high prices
lessened the demand for the manufactured article. The policy of the
Trades Unions aggravated the uneasiness of the mercantile community.
Superficial observers began to declare that the Unionists, by hampering
their employers at home, were driving trade abroad, and a demand for
Protection, under the guise of Reciprocity, was heard, though as yet but
faintly, amid the din of controversy. Some of the leading men in great
commercial centres like Manchester were so impressed with the manifest
ignorance of economic principles exhibited in these controversies that
they started a series of evening lectures for working men on political
economy, Professor Stanley Jevons undertaking to deliver the
course.[292] On the other hand, the country was free from all
difficulties as to foreign affairs--even the dispute with the United
States as to the _Alabama_ claims was supposed to be in a fair way of
settlement under the flattering unction of the American Minister’s
post-prandial rhetoric. The first weeks of the year were enlivened by
the trials of election petitions, and the new tribunal of judges
appointed to try on the spot cases of corrupt practices, on the whole,
gave general satisfaction, It was felt that if the new court was a judge
without a jury, the old one--a committee of the House of Commons--was a
jury without a judge, and that in respect of consistency in interpreting
the law and logical application of principles, the new court was a vast
improvement on the old one.

Though everybody knew that the Irish Church Question must overshadow all
others, the utterances of Ministers were eagerly scanned for indications
of policy. The spirit of economy, it soon appeared, would reign supreme
in the administration, for not only did Mr. Goschen at the Poor Law
Board issue orders prohibiting the guardians of the poor in London from
giving relief to the able-bodied poor except under conditions of
task-work, but the Admiralty issued a circular instructing naval
officers to forbid unremunerative and profitless work, and save coals
and stores as much as possible. In his speeches to his constituents in
Renfrewshire, the Home Secretary, Mr. Austin Bruce, proclaimed his
conversion to the ballot; but Mr. Lowe, at Gloucester, seemed to limit
himself to rather stale denunciations of the Tory Party. On the 11th of
February Ministers dined with the Fishmongers’ Company in the City, but
even there their reticence was remarkable. Mr. Gladstone significantly
intimated that the Ministry were encouraged in pursuing their Irish
policy of conciliation, not only by the verdict of the country, but by
“the constitutional character of that Sovereign whose delight it is to
associate herself both with the interests and convictions of her
people.”[293] Mr. Lowe spoke in a caustic saturnine vein about the
difficulty of forcing economy on the servants of the Crown in public
departments: they resented an order to save stores as savouring of
meanness. And then the House of Commons was always too ready to force up
expenditure in detail, whilst clamouring for its reduction in mass. Mr.
Bright observed that the Board of Trade was merely a department that
sent recommendations to people who rarely paid attention to them, and
then launched into an attack on bishops and archbishops, who were, he
said, overpaid, owing to the credulity, if not the liberality, of the
people. His Grace of York had a few days before claimed that the
Episcopal Bench supplied a Liberal element to the House of Lords, and
this seems to have tempted Mr. Bright into his display of spleen.
Altogether, the first impression produced by the Ministerial speeches
was that the Government, though full of good intentions, meant to carry
them out in an arrogant and irritating manner. In the meantime a change
had taken place in the leadership of the Tory Party in the House of
Lords, Lord Malmesbury retiring in favour of Lord Cairns.

On the 16th of February Parliament was opened by Commission, the Royal
Speech being read by the Lord Chancellor. As the Queen did not attend,
it was decided by the Cabinet to propose that Parliament should wait
upon her, and present their Address in reply to the Royal Speech, to her
personally--a somewhat unusual, though not unprecedented, proceeding
when the Queen is herself absent from the opening of Parliament. The
Speech was in style a little flabby, especially where it touched on the
Irish Church Question. No measure of Disestablishment was definitely
promised, but it was announced that Parliament must take in hand the
task of “the adjustment of the ecclesiastical arrangements of Ireland.”
The Speech promised reduced estimates,[294] hinted at the restoration of
Habeas Corpus to Ireland, and it embodied Mr. Austin Bruce’s pledges in
Renfrewshire to bring in a Scottish Education Bill. Perhaps it was
because Ministers strove after brevity that they omitted from the Speech
many measures to which it was generally known they were committed,
_e.g._, Mr. Bruce’s Bill for dealing with Habitual Criminals, Mr.
Goschen’s Poor Law Bill, Mr. Forster’s Middle Class Education Bill, the
Bill abolishing University Tests, a Bill to establish Municipal
Government in Counties, and a Bill abolishing Imprisonment for Debt. The
Address was moved in the House of Commons by Mr. Cowper, selected as a
compliment to the Whigs, and Mr. Mundella, who was chosen to please the
Radical artisans. The debate on the Address was a tame business. The
leaders of the Opposition, desirous of posing as magnanimous adversaries
in defeat, offered no serious criticism. The Government leaders had,
therefore, virtually nothing to reply to. Previous to the moving of the
Address Mr. Gladstone gave notice in the House of Commons that on the
1st of March he should move that the Acts relating to the Irish Church
establishment, and to the Maynooth Grant, and also the Resolutions of
the House of Commons of 1868 be read; that the House should resolve
itself into Committee to consider these Acts and Resolutions. Mr.
Forster, too, gave notice of his Middle Class Education Bill. The
Attorney-General gave notice of a Bankruptcy Bill; Mr. Goschen announced
Bills amending the law assessing Occupiers Holding for short terms, and
equalising the Assessment of Metropolitan Property; and the Home
Secretary announced his Bill for the more effectual Prevention of Crime.
Whatever might be said of the Ministry, it was obviously bent on making
its mark on the Statute book. The House of Lords, indeed, began to take
alarm at the extreme activity of the Commons. They complained that they
were not entrusted with work till after Easter, when the Commons sent
them their Bills to revise in the dog days, and Lord Salisbury angrily
threatened to obstruct Bills if they were not sent up to the Peers in
time for full discussion; but the fault was really that of their
Lordships. As Lord Russell put it, to initiate Liberal Bills in the
Upper House is to secure their rejection; to bring them there after they
have been accepted by large majorities of the House of Commons, gives
them a chance of being passed into law.

When the Committee on the Address brought up their report Mr. Gladstone
moved that the Address be presented by the whole House to the Queen in
person. The Queen’s absence from the opening of a new reformed
Parliament had been taken by various Opposition organs as a proof that
she was inclined to obstruct the policy of the Ministry. That her
Majesty was, as a matter of fact, opposed to Mr. Gladstone’s policy of
Disestablishment is apparent from the Diary of Bishop Wilberforce,
where, under date 20th March, one finds the following entry:--“Back to
Windsor Castle and prepared sermon. Dined with the Queen. A great deal
of talk with the Princess Louise; clever and very agreeable. The Queen
very affable. So sorry Mr. Gladstone started this about Irish Church,
and he is a great friend of yours,” &c. But a still more authoritative
disclosure of the Queen’s personal objections to Mr. Gladstone’s plans
is given in a letter from the Princess Louis of Hesse. Writing on the
25th of April, in reply to a communication on the subject from the
Queen, the Princess says:--“The Irish Church Question, I quite feel with
you, will neither be solved nor settled in this way; and instead of
doing something which would bring the Catholics more under the authority
of the State, they will, I fear, be more powerful.”[295] The Queen’s
consent to come to London and receive the Address in reply to the Royal
Speech in person was accordingly obtained by Mr. Gladstone for the
purpose of taking the sting out of statements which had gone round the
Tory Press as to her Majesty’s opposition to his Irish policy. It hardly
tended to reconcile the Queen to the views of the Cabinet that her
consent to receive the Address was asked in a manner that precluded the
possibility of refusal, save at the risk of insulting the Legislature.
But in this affair Mr. Gladstone was doomed to disappointment. Before
the Address could be presented her Majesty said she must abandon the
idea of coming to town to receive it. Prince Leopold suddenly fell ill,
and as the Queen was reluctant to leave him, the Address was delivered
to her in the usual manner, and answered by her in the stereotyped
terms. Thus it came to pass that the first meeting of the reformed
Parliament was not honoured with any special mark of personal
recognition by the Chief of the State.

[Illustration: MR. CHICHESTER FORTESCUE (AFTERWARDS LORD CARLINGFORD).]

From the 1st of March to the end of July, however, the affairs of
Ireland completely absorbed public attention. As an earnest of their
conciliatory policy, Ministers had allowed the Act suspending Habeas
Corpus in Ireland to expire. In February they pardoned forty-nine of the
Fenian prisoners, selecting the objects of the Queen’s clemency from
those who were dupes as distinguished from ringleaders. This still left
eighty-one prisoners under sentence, and whilst it did not satisfy Irish
hopes, it encouraged a belief that it was comparatively safe to play at
treason in Ireland. As Lady Clanricarde said in a letter to Mr.
Hayward, “the released Fenians are now [April 13] socially, financially,
and in character, in a better position than they were at any other time
of their lives.”[296] The popular notion in Ireland was that they had
cowed the Government. Nor was the Church Question the only one which was
agitating the Irish mind. Shrewd observers had, indeed, warned Ministers
in the autumn of 1868 that the Irish people were even more eager for
Land Reform than the Disestablishment of the Church. Writing to Mr.
Chichester Fortescue on 15th of October, 1868, Mr. Hayward says,
“Froude, who has been two months in Ireland, mostly near Kenmare, says,
that so far as he saw, the Irish Church Question is little thought of in
comparison with the Land Question, and he knows of nothing that could be
proposed in the way of compromise, as the proprietors want to get rid of
their small tenants, and the small tenants want to get rid of the
landlords. Lord Lansdowne’s manager told him that he could make £25,000
a year out of the property by clearing out the cottiers.”[297] It was,
therefore, creditable to Ministers that, when questioned on the subject
in both Houses, they declared that whenever the Church Question was
disposed of, they would try and solve the Irish agrarian problem.

On the 1st of March Mr. Gladstone rose in an eager and crowded House and
moved that the Irish Church Resolutions be read. After that ceremony, he
moved that the House go into Committee to consider them. This being
done, he then proceeded to unfold his plan, in a speech which was a
masterpiece of artistic exposition. Technically speaking, he proposed to
disendow the Irish Church absolutely from the passing of the Act,
because he vested all its property in a Commission, appointed for ten
years. But the Church was to be disestablished at a date fixed by him as
the 1st of January, 1871. Whenever the Act passed the Church would be
quite free to take collective action for its future management, and
whenever it could present the Crown with a scheme of organisation the
Queen would be advised to incorporate it as a Free Church. The
Commission, of course, was to pay the life incomes of the clergy. But
these life incomes under the Bill might be commuted for a fixed sum, to
be handed over to the new Church Corporation. Private gifts made to the
Church since 1660, and all ecclesiastical fabrics, would remain in the
hands of the disestablished clergy. Similar methods for dealing with the
State subsidies to Presbyterian clergymen and professors were proposed,
and the trustees for the Presbyterians and for Maynooth College were to
have fourteen times their annual subvention given to them in full
satisfaction of all claims. The tithe charge was to be sold to the
landlords for twenty-two and a half years’ purchase, the money to be
vested in the Commission. As for the surplus property, or “spoil,” as it
was called, it was to be devoted to keeping up pauper lunatic asylums,
infirmaries, and hospitals for the poor, and asylums for idiots,
institutions which were then chargeable on the country.[298] The
leading idea disposing of the surplus for the benefit of the poor, was
generally admitted to be an ingenious way of meeting the cry of
sacrilegious spoliation.[299] Lord Westbury was, however, said to have
remarked that in taking endowments from the Irish clergy whose
intellects were warped, and giving it to lunatics and idiots who had no
intellects at all, Mr. Gladstone had followed a natural law of
association, and had exhibited a nicely discriminating sense of the
relative value of competing claims on his compassion.

But the country was impervious to all sarcasms of this sort, and it was
lavish in praise of a measure so obviously characterised by breadth of
view as to its ends, and minute completeness and efficiency of detail,
as to its means. The strategic value of Mr. Gladstone’s policy in
passing the Suspensory Bill in 1868 was now apparent to everybody. The
discussions it provoked had armed him at every point, and from the
almost embarrassing returns of dates and materials with which it
furnished him he was able to draw up a measure which was felt to be
complete and symmetrical. He reduced its weak points to a minimum--in
fact, if the principle of the Bill were accepted, it would be very
difficult for the most unscrupulous opposition to wreck it on details.
Mr. Disraeli’s criticism was very mild. He said Mr. Gladstone “had not
wasted a word,” but despite his statement, the Opposition must still
“look on Disestablishment as a great political error,” and on
Disendowment as “sheer confiscation.” Whether intentionally or not, his
tone conveyed an impression that, so far as he was concerned, he would
have been glad, after the verdict of the General Election, to throw over
the Church. But Sir Stafford Northcote a few days afterwards told a
meeting of Middlesex

[Illustration: CHOIR OF ST. PATRICK’S CATHEDRAL, DUBLIN.]

Conservatives that the Bill was a combination of robbery and bribery,
and Sir J. Pakington significantly thanked Providence for the House of
Lords. Mr. Disraeli felt that his resignation before Parliament met,
implied an acceptance of the verdict of the country. To him and to many
others, including the Bishop of Oxford, the Bishop of Peterborough (Dr.
Magee), the two Archbishops, Lord Salisbury, Lord Nelson, “our best
Churchman,” according to Wilberforce, Lord Carnarvon, and the Duke of
Richmond, it seemed unwise to divide the Houses of Parliament against
the principle of a national decision, to which the leaders of the
Opposition bowed when they resigned. They would have preferred to accept
the Bill in principle, and in Committee to have extorted from the
Government the best possible terms for the Church. But the advice of
extreme men prevailed, and so the Tory leaders decided to oppose the
Second Reading of the measure. On the 18th of March Mr. Disraeli moved
its rejection, in a speech remarkable for its brilliancy and the skill
with which he laid bare the weak points of Mr. Gladstone’s plans.

[Illustration: CHRIST CHURCH CATHEDRAL, DUBLIN.]

Yet his followers heard his epigrammatic assault with unconcealed
dismay, and after it was delivered condoled with each other because it
was a fiasco. The fault of the orator was that he gave his Party no
position or counter-scheme behind which they could entrench themselves.
He ignored the cardinal fact of the controversy, that the Irish people
were smarting under a sense of injustice, because their own national
church had been robbed to enrich the ministers of an alien creed. He
conjured up terrible but imaginary revolutionary catastrophes as the
results of the Bill. He dwelt on the value of the Irish Established
Church as a body bound by law to receive the religious pariahs of the
country, an argument that made the blood of most of his lieutenants, who
were pious Churchmen, run cold. Three discontented priesthoods instead
of one, said he, would make themselves organs of Irish discontent;
ignoring the fact that the one priesthood which would _not_ be smarting
was five times as numerous and potent as the other two put together. But
the debate as a whole was unreal and academic. It was more like a bout
with foils than a duel _à outrance_. The speakers who were chiefly
affected by the religious side of the question thought it expedient to
represent the Bill as an alarming attack on property. The champions of
property, on the contrary, represented the Bill as an impious attack on
religion. Three speeches alone maintained the reputation of the
House--those of Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Bright, and Sir R. Palmer. They each
spoke as if they had a heart and a conscience, and were personally
responsible for the moral and political results of their votes. Mr.
Gladstone rested his case on the absolute necessity of redressing a
wrong done by a strong nation to a weak one in an age when might was
right. The Empire as a whole had a moral right in national interests to
prevail over any of its parts. But Ireland, he said, had a right to be
governed so that it might be known to all men that her life was not
hostile but supplementary to that of the Empire. Mr. Bright’s speech was
full of intense Christian feeling. He expressed, in words vibrating with
genuine emotion, his horror at a system which associated any Christian
church with a policy of conquest. As for the charges of robbery, he
disposed of them in the splendid peroration in which he declared that
the plan for disposing of the Church surplus realised his highest ideal
of Christian statesmanship. It applied funds which were misused in
stimulating barren sectarian controversies and enmities, to beneficent
purposes untainted by doctrinal partisanship or dogmatic preferences.
Sir Roundell Palmer surprised every one by his candid admission that a
large measure of disendowment in Ireland was a moral necessity. All
establishment revenues, such as those attached to episcopal sees, the
capitular revenues of cathedrals, and funds for preaching Protestantism
in places where there were no Protestants, he admitted could not justly
be appropriated by a small alien sect in the name of the Irish nation.
But then, he argued with subtlety and power, it was equally unjust to
alienate parochial endowments, which were locally of parochial use in
promoting the objects which they were instituted to further. Sir
Roundell Palmer’s speech, in fact, revealed what would have been a
possible compromise had it not come too late. He suggested that which
Mr. Disraeli had failed to discover--an alternative policy--when he
issued his electoral manifesto staking the fortunes of the Irish Church
on the cry of “No Surrender.” The Second Reading of the Bill was
carried, after a week’s debate, by a majority of 118.[300] _Paucis
carior est fides quam pecunia._ Hence, after this division, the
Churchmen thought there was nothing left to fight for save the money
which the Irish clergy should be allowed to carry with them into the
desert of Disendowment. On Wednesday, the 14th of April, Mr. Disraeli
called the Tory Party together at Lord Lonsdale’s house, and the meeting
agreed not to press private amendments, but to support Mr. Disraeli’s
own proposals which he submitted to the House of Commons next night. He
proposed that the Church, though disendowed, should remain under the
discipline and patronage of the Crown.[301] He demanded a year’s
reprieve from disestablishment. He proposed to compensate permanent
curates, to pay over to the Church a capital sum of four times its net
annual revenue, also a sum equal to fourteen times the annual charges
for repairs; and he demanded that the Church should be allowed to hold
all private property ever given to it, whether in Catholic or Protestant
times. He insisted on compensation for life interests on a more
extravagant scale than the Bill sanctioned, and his proposal as to
tithes was amusingly unscrupulous. One of the great points in his speech
on the Second Reading was, that the Bill, whilst it confiscated the
property of the Church, offered a conciliatory bribe to the landlords.
The tithe rent-charge was sold at twenty-two-and-a-half years’ purchase
to the landlords, on condition that they made it yield the State four
and a half per cent. on its capital value. But to accommodate them Mr.
Gladstone said that if they wished to buy up the tithe but could not pay
the money down for a twenty-two-and-a-half years’ purchase, they could
borrow it from the State, and refund it by paying three per cent. on it
for forty-five years. In other words, Mr. Gladstone charged them three
per cent. for interest, and kept the other one and a half per cent. of
the tithe yield for forty-five years as a sinking fund to wipe out the
original advance. Mr. Disraeli, however, proposed to sell the tithe
rent-charge to the landlords at an average price struck from the records
of the Landed Estates Courts during the past ten years. As rent-charges
sold in the Landed Estates Courts were not sold under the security of
the Government, the price at which landlords would have bought up these
charges under Mr. Disraeli’s amendment would have been about twenty-five
per cent. under that demanded by Mr. Gladstone. The case of the
“permanent curates” seemed to excite much sympathy in the House. Mr.
Gladstone was also at first inclined to yield to, though he ultimately
rejected, an appeal from one of his supporters, Mr. Wykeham Martin, who
desired to let the clergy of the Irish Church keep their glebe houses
when free from building debt, without paying ten years’ purchase for the
site as the Bill provided.

In truth, it was soon seen that it was hopeless to attack the Bill in
Committee. Mr. Gladstone was master of every detail--legal, historical,
and archæological. He showed himself an expert among the experts, and it
appeared that he had foreseen every objection and forestalled every
counter-plan. Mr. Disraeli--who had left much of the work of Opposition
to Mr. Hardy and Dr. Ball--soon grew sick of the discussion, and used
his influence to quicken the progress of the measure, the Third Reading
of which was fixed for May 31st, when it passed by a majority of 114. On
the Queen’s birthday the leading Conservative Peers held a meeting, at
which strong efforts were made to reject the Second Reading of the Bill
in the House of Lords. The ablest peers were, however, in favour of
timely surrender, in the hope that they might extort better terms of
compensation for the Church. That was also the view of the Episcopal
Bench. On the other hand, the Irish Bishops said frankly that feeling
ran so high among their flocks that they did not dare to let the Second
Reading pass unchallenged. To do so, would sacrifice all their moral and
personal influence in the Irish Church. The English Bishops admitted
that they must do whatever their Irish colleagues did, and thus it came
to pass that whilst Dr. Magee, the Bishop of Peterborough, privately
argued in favour of accepting the principle of the Bill, and then making
the best possible terms for disendowment, he delivered in the House of
Lords by far the most eloquent and powerful speech denouncing its
principle from a moral point of view. At another meeting of Tory Peers
held at the Duke of Marlborough’s house, Lord Cairns and Lord Derby
unfortunately induced the majority to sanction the policy of moving the
rejection of the Bill. The debate in the House of Lords lasted all
through the week, beginning on the 14th of June, and it was remarkable
for sustained eloquence and intellectual power. The Bishops, especially
Dr. Magee, carried off the honours of the fray. The Archbishop of
Canterbury produced a strong impression against rejecting the Second
Reading, for the burden of his argument was that the State should
establish a church in order to keep it from becoming fanatical, and then
maintain it only as long as it could do so without defying the will of
the people. The Liberal Peers were timid and feeble, and the case for
passing the Second Reading was really made out by Lord Carnarvon, Lord
Salisbury, the Bishop of St. David’s, the Duke of Richmond, and Lord
Stanhope. Perhaps the most striking point in the discussion was the
clear indication it gave that the Peers, with the exception of Lords
Salisbury and Carnarvon, were at heart partisans of concurrent
endowment, and it was in this direction that most of the Amendments they
proposed pointed, after the Second Reading had been carried by a
majority of 33.[302] Lord Grey, for example, desired to cut out of the
preamble of the Bill the clause forbidding the application of the Church
surplus to religious uses, and Lord Russell wanted to authorise the
purchase, out of the surplus, of churches, parsonages, and graveyards
for all the sects in Ireland.

On going into Committee the Peers forced several amendments on the Bill.
The date at which the Bill was to take effect was changed from 1871 to
1872. Existing Irish Bishops were to hold their seats in the House of
Lords till they died out one by one. Curates’ salaries were not to be
deducted from life interests--an alteration that increased the
compensation to the Church by about £300,000. Life interests were to be
taken at fourteen years’ purchase--the capital value to be paid to the
Church, which would pay the annuities, a clear gain of about £2,000,000
to the Church. Glebes and glebe-houses were

[Illustration: DR. WILBERFORCE, BISHOP OF WINCHESTER.

(_From the Photograph by S. A. Walker._)]

to be handed over to the Irish Church, but when the Duke of Cleveland
proposed that the same provision should be made for the clergy of other
churches in Ireland, he was defeated by a combination of Ministerialists
and Orangemen, who thereby destroyed the principle of religious equality
on which the Bill was founded.[303] On no single amendment, save one,
did the Bishops vote for the Government, and on that one--the amendment
delaying the division of the surplus _sine die_--the only Bishop who
voted for the Ministry was Wilberforce. “Some one,” writes Lord
Malmesbury, “observing him going out with them [Ministers] in the
division, said, ‘The Bishop of Oxford is going the wrong way.’ ‘No,’
observed Lord Chelmsford, ‘it is the road to Winchester.’”[304] After
the Third Reading of the Bill the Lords, however, accepted a
re-amendment by Lord Devon that Irish Bishops should cease to sit in the
Upper House, and Lord Stanhope carried another restoring the principle
of religious equality by granting residences and glebes to Catholics and
Presbyterians. The House of Commons rejected all the important
amendments of the Lords, Mr. Gladstone contemptuously observing that the
Peers seemed to judge affairs from a balloon. A bitter and protracted
struggle between the two Houses was averted by Lord Cairns, who
privately negotiated a compromise with Lord Granville. Its main point
was that in return for the concession of an additional 5 per cent. on
the commutation of life interests (making it 12½ per cent.), the Tory
Peers would let the Bill pass. In plain English, Lord Granville bought
off the opposition of the Peers by a re-endowment of £500,000 for the
Free Protestant Church of Ireland, and the Act received the Royal Assent
by Commission on the 26th of July. It was understood that the Queen was
prepared to use her influence to bring about a compromise less
humiliating to the House of Lords. But the matter was taken out of her
hands. Lord Malmesbury says, “Lord Cairns settled it with Lord
Granville, taking the whole responsibility upon himself, for he never
consulted any of his party, and a great many are much displeased. Lord
Derby was so angry that he left the House.”

Great interest attached this Session to Mr. Lowe’s first Budget. Mr.
Ward Hunt had been mistaken in his estimate of income, for while he
anticipated a revenue of £73,180,000, only £72,591,991 had been
received. But a saving in expenditure of £511,000 almost balanced this
loss of revenue. Mr. Lowe estimated his expenditure for the coming year
at £68,223,000, and, as taxes then stood, his income at £72,855,000, so
that he had a surplus to handle of £4,632,000. Unfortunately, the cost
of the Abyssinian War had been sadly under-estimated by Mr. Disraeli’s
Government, and £4,600,000 of Lord Napier’s bill was still outstanding.
Mr. Lowe’s plan for replenishing reduced balances and meeting unexpected
liabilities whilst still remitting taxes was at once original and
ingenious. Long credit is given for taxes in England. By abolishing this
credit and exacting the full tax within the financial year--that is to
say, by collecting in 1869-70 the half of the tax that in ordinary
circumstances stood over to 1870-71--Mr. Lowe estimated he would have
what he called “windfalls” of £600,000 on assessed taxes, £950,000 on
the land and house tax, and £1,800,000 on income tax, which gave him
£3,350,000. Applying this to the reduction of the Abyssinian War debt he
left of it only £500,000 standing. But the estimated surplus was
£4,632,000, so that even after deducting the Abyssinian debt, he still
had in hand £4,100,000 for remission of taxes, and the replenishment of
the Exchequer balances which Mr. Ward Hunt’s policy had exhausted. Mr.
Lowe therefore remitted the shilling duty on corn, the duty on fire
insurances, the hair powder tax, the duty on tea licences, and a penny
of income tax. The carriage duty he simplified and reduced. The duty on
horses he reduced--an announcement that gave infinite satisfaction to
the House of Commons--and he abolished the special duty on post-horses.
He said that as he could not take off the duty on armorial bearings, “it
appeared to him the best thing he could do was to increase it.” The
perplexing and complex discussion which the scheme provoked, and the
indignation of the small traders at being called upon to pay all their
taxes in full instead of in two half-yearly instalments obscured the
real issue. The real point to consider, however, was whether it was
worth while to pay the April quarter’s taxes in January, in order to get
the remissions which Mr. Lowe promised. The House thought that the gain
was commensurate with the sacrifice, and so the Budget passed without
serious opposition.[305]

That the new House of Commons was leavened by a spirit of reform was
manifest from the record of its legislative achievements. In March Mr.
Forster introduced his Endowed Schools Bill, the gist of which was the
appointment of a Commission, empowered, if need be, to reorganise
compulsorily old endowed schools, and to adapt them to modern
requirements. One curious feature in it marked the growth of opinion on
the education of women. Girls, as well as boys, were to have a fair
share of these endowments. Mr. Austin Bruce, the Home Secretary, passed
an Habitual Criminals Act, in deference to the growing feeling of the
people that the large class who lived by crime were far too gently
treated by the authorities. It put habitual criminals, or persons twice
convicted of crime, under police supervision for seven years, and in
cases of fresh charges threw on them and on receivers of stolen goods
the burden of proving their innocence, a burden that heretofore was laid
on Society. Lord Hartington’s Bill for purchasing the telegraphs carried
out a bad bargain, to which Mr. Ward Hunt had committed the nation.[306]
But all other legislation of importance was wrecked by the House of
Lords. For example, the Commons in 1869 passed a Bill giving married
women control over their own property; the Lords threw it out. The
Commons affirmed the principle of abolishing University Tests; the Lords
again stopped the way. The Commons passed a Bill abolishing the law of
primogeniture; the Lords rejected it. The Commons accepted a Bill rating
all Scottish landowners for the support of a universal unsectarian
compulsory system of education in Scotland; the Lords quashed the
project, which was denounced even by so Liberal a newspaper as the
_Daily Telegraph_ because it was “too revolutionary, too full of
compulsion, and _too Scotch_.” The Commons passed a Bill legalising
marriage with a deceased wife’s sister; here again the Lords undid the
work of the Commons. The questions relating to purity of election,
forced on the country by the revelations made at trials of election
petitions during the recess, were by the Commons referred to a Select
Committee, on the understanding that it would report, as it did report,
in favour of the ballot; but the Lords did not disguise their hostility
to that project either. The first Parliament that met under household
suffrage therefore demonstrated alike the intense devotion of the
Commons and the intense hostility of the Lords to all progressive
legislation.

And yet any shrewd observer could see that the Ministry, despite its
reforming zeal, was not gaining strength in a reforming House of
Commons. The belief in Mr. Gladstone’s ability and earnestness had not
decayed; but his colleagues were busy accumulating a baneful crop of
private hatreds. Mr. Cardwell and Mr. Childers cut down expenditure in
the army and navy, and Mr. Baxter, as Secretary to the Admiralty,
insisted on buying stores for the public on the economical business-like
principles that guide private firms. Mr. Childers found the Admiralty in
a state of chaos. When anything went wrong everybody was generally
responsible, but nobody in particular could be punished. Mr. Childers
fixed responsibility for patronage and discipline, for building and
equipping ships, and for finance on three subordinates. To reduce the
redundant officers he offered to give them a lump sum down, instead of
half-pay, if they would retire. He, or rather Mr. Baxter, laid down the
rule that it was better to buy stores in the open market instead of
contracting for them. As to the fleet, he introduced the principle of
reducing it as much as possible at foreign stations, where it was
difficult to control, and concentrating it as much as possible at home,
where it was easily within reach of his arm. In ship-building he
insisted on concentrating expenditure, not on repair, but on
construction, and on building, not a great many ships of a semi-obsolete
type, but a few heavily-armed and armoured swift vessels, which would be
guaranteed to beat any craft afloat. The Tory Opposition somewhat
unpatriotically joined in the “hue and cry” which every incompetent
official and every useless clerk who was shelved by these reforms raised
against Mr. Childers. The dockyard men actually assaulted Sir C.
Wingfield, Member for Gravesend, because he defended reductions. The
words and deeds of Mr. Childers and Mr. Baxter were misrepresented by
Tory partisans,

[Illustration: THE VICTORIA EMBANKMENT, LONDON.]

who tried to make political capital out of the storm of prejudice which
dispossessed jobbers raised against them. Yet, as a matter of fact,
whereas the Tory Ministry discharged 3,948 dockyard hands, and pensioned
411, Mr. Childers merely pensioned 617 men, aided 666 to emigrate, and
gave gratuities to 117. Forthwith a powerful body of officials, most of
whom had the means of influencing the newspaper press, foreseeing that
the corrupt spending departments were in danger of being reorganised,
began to wage a “paper war” against the Ministry. Mr. Lowe’s vitriolic
insolence to deputations who came to do business with him, his quarrel
with the legal profession over the site of the New Law Courts, his
contemptuous criticism of the Money Market, his proposal to coin a new
sovereign with enough alloy to cover the cost of mintage, and his
determination to collect the income-tax in a lump sum in the January
quarter of the year, also raised up hosts of enemies. Mr. Bruce annoyed
people by his obstinate officialism, and Mr. Ayrton by his overweening
niggardliness, his too obvious desire to effect mean savings meanly, and
his foolish fancy for rubbing pepper into the wounds of those whom he
cut by his sharp tongue. Mr. Bright’s speeches on the Irish Church Bill
should have vastly augmented his reputation; but his indolence as an
administrator was notorious. His resolve to prevent the Board of Trade
from doing any work for the people which it could avoid doing disgusted
Tories and Radicals alike. His opposition to Lord Edward Cecil’s
Resolution in favour of a Bill to check adulteration, based as it was
upon the ideas of the old Whigs, and informed as it was by the
prejudices of the vulgarest type of small tradesman, did much to destroy
his popularity. Adulteration, he said, was only another form of
competition. The use of false weights, as a rule, was a pure
inadvertency, and if traders were to be spied on every hour by
inspectors he (Mr. Bright) would advise them to emigrate. All his
arguments, curiously enough, were those by which the coining of
counterfeit money might be defended, and the effect of them on the
public mind was not favourable to the Cabinet of which he was a member.
Lord Granville, too, had sadly mismanaged the Colonial Office. His
policy of gradually withdrawing Imperial troops from the self-governing
colonies, and teaching them to rely on themselves and their territorial
militias for defence was wise and prudent. But it was carried out with a
lack of tact that irritated the susceptibilities of the Colonists. Lord
Granville hardly concealed his approval of the wild doctrines of
Professor Goldwin Smith to the effect that colonies were a burdensome
nuisance, and that the best thing to do with them was to cut them
adrift. The tone of Colonial Office despatches at this time was
studiously impertinent. As for Lord Granville’s subordinates at
Whitehall, they prided themselves on treating eminent Colonists as if
they were returned convicts. Lord Granville’s refusal to permit a
British regiment to remain in New Zealand, then engaged in a Maori war,
and his recommendation to the Colonists to recognise the independence of
the Maori king, naturally rendered his Colonial policy hateful to all
colonists.

Foreign affairs alone seem to have been prudently managed. The only
serious question with which the Foreign Office had to deal was that of
the _Alabama_ Claims. The Tory Ministry, reversing the somewhat defiant
policy of Lord Russell, had conceded to the American Minister--Mr.
Reverdy Johnson--every claim he was instructed to prefer.[307] This
policy was continued by Lord Clarendon. Mr. Johnson’s method of working
was to stupefy the English nation with gross flattery and with ecstatic
post-prandial outbursts of brotherly love, and then cajole it into
immeasurable concessions. He was a professional diner-out, and he took
in his hosts as well as their dinners. But the American democracy
ignored the concessions their Minister had obtained. Their attention was
fixed on his exaggerated assurances of their goodwill, at a time when
they desired him to convey the impression that they still regarded with
dignified displeasure the unfriendly attitude of England during the
Civil War. The Convention negotiated between Mr. Johnson and the Foreign
Secretary was accordingly denounced by Mr. Sumner in the Senate in a
speech in which he not only demanded an apology from England for
recognising the Confederate States as belligerents, but consequential
damages for all injuries to America, that were indirectly as well as
directly due to the escape of the Confederate cruisers from British
ports. When the Senate refused to ratify the Convention, the reply of
Lord Clarendon was a courteous and decisive refusal to conduct
negotiations on the absurd basis put forward by Mr. Sumner. Mr. Johnson
was recalled. Mr. Motley, the eminent historian, was sent in his stead
to the Court of St. James’s, and towards the end of the year American
public opinion began to favour a reopening of the negotiations on a more
reasonable basis, but at Washington, and not in London.[308]

The India Office, too, under the Duke of Argyle, was managed so as to
add considerably to the _prestige_ of the Government. The affairs of
India had indeed been conducted, since the accession of Sir John
Lawrence to the Viceroyalty, with consummate ability. The struggle for
power in Afghanistan between the descendants of Dost Mahomed had been
watched by Lawrence with masterly inactivity. At last, as if by a
Providential inspiration, Lawrence came to the conclusion, in 1867, that
of all the rival aspirants the fugitive Shere Ali was the one who was to
be favoured by Fortune. He avoided an alliance with the usurper Azim
Khan, and when Shere Ali at last ascended the throne his friendly
overtures were amicably met. When Lord Mayo succeeded Lawrence in 1868,
his appointment was denounced as a Tory job. Mr. Gladstone, with great
generosity, refused to yield to those who pressed him to recall Mr.
Disraeli’s viceroy in 1869, and Lord Mayo developed an unexpected
capacity for government. He carried out Lawrence’s frontier policy only
with greater warmth of feeling. On the 27th of March Shere Ali met Lord
Mayo in durbar at Umballa, and was splendidly entertained. There Lord
Mayo formally recognised his guest’s position, and on behalf of the
Indian Government arranged to supply him with arms and a subsidy of
£120,000 a year to defend his throne.

[Illustration: THE QUEEN’S DRAWING-ROOM, OSBORNE.

(_From a Photograph by Hughes and Mullins, Ryde, Isle of Wight._)]

Foreign affairs had little interest for the Queen in 1869. In Germany
the policy of Von Bismarck was directed to prevent the premature
development of the national sentiment in favour of forming a new German
Empire. France was engaged in hastily reorganising her military system,
and the French Emperor, broken in health and depressed in spirits, had
to meet, with anxious heart, the rising tide of Liberalism, which the
elections that followed the dissolution of the Legislature, showed was
beginning to flow in France. In July, when the Legislative Body met, the
Opposition, which used to number about six, numbered 120, and when they
threatened to attack the Government M. Rouher offered to come to terms
with them.[309] The Emperor’s illness postponed matters for two months,
but meantime the old Ministry resigned in favour of a more Liberal one.
Finally, a still more Liberal one

[Illustration: ISMAIL PASHA.]

was formed by M. Emile Ollivier, at the end of the year, charged with
the mission of transforming Bonapartism into Constitutional Monarchy, on
the basis of Parliamentary Government. In Spain the revolution of the
previous year still dragged on. The financial embarrassments of Italy
had rendered the House of Savoy a little unpopular, but the recovery of
Victor Emmanuel from a perilous illness, and the birth of an heir
presumptive to the Italian Crown, soon restored the popularity of their
Monarchy among the Italians. The Pope attained the summit of his
ambition by assembling at Rome, on the 8th of December, a grand council
of the Latin Church, for the purpose of sanctioning formally the
doctrine of the personal infallibility of the Holy Father, speaking _ex
cathedrâ_ and _quoad sacra_.

We may presume that the Queen’s domestic circle was, early in the year,
alarmed by the strangely sudden illness of Prince Leopold, which
prevented her from receiving in person the Address from the House of
Commons in reply to the Speech from the Throne. No notice of this
illness is, however, taken in the letters of the Princess Louis of
Hesse; in fact, it seems to be the only illness of the Prince to which
that illustrious lady does not allude in her correspondence with the
Queen. The sole reference to Prince Leopold at this period is in a
letter from the Princess to her mother, dated 30th January, in which she
says, “Our thoughts and prayers are so much with you and dear Leopold on
this day [his Confirmation]. May the Almighty bless and protect that
precious boy, and give him health and strength to continue a life so
well begun and so full of promise.” A month later the Queen had sad
tidings of further domestic anxieties from her tender-hearted daughter.
One of her servants had fallen ill, and the Darmstadt household was so
seriously underhanded, that the Princess herself had to drudge in her
nursery. “You will be amused,” she cheerily writes, with an obvious
effort to spare her mother unnecessary anxiety, “when I tell you, that
old Amelung is coming to sleep with baby, and take charge of him; but
she is too old and out of practice to be able to wash and dress him
morning and evening besides, so I do that, and it is, of course, a great
assistance to all my being able to do it, and I don’t mind the trouble.
Of a morning, as Louis is usually out riding or at his office, I take
Victoria and Ella out, who are very good little girls, and very
amusing.”[310] It was fortunate for the amiable Princess that her
illustrious mother had brought her up to be a helpful housemother,
competent at any moment to cope with the _res augustæ domi_.

In the beginning of the year the Queen had an interview with Mr.
Carlyle, in whose sorrowful life Dean Stanley had interested her. Her
Majesty expressed a desire to become personally acquainted with a man
whose genius had shed so much lustre on her reign, and, according to Mr.
Froude, Carlyle felt for the Queen “in her bereavement as she had
remembered him in his own.” The meeting took place in the Westminster
Deanery, and Carlyle’s account of it is as follows:--“The Queen was
really very gracious and pretty in her demeanour throughout; rose
greatly in my esteem by everything that happened; did not fall in any
point. The interview was quietly very mournful to me.”[311]

On the 17th of April the Queen visited Aldershot, and reviewed the
troops stationed there. The weather was so bad in the morning that it
was supposed that the review would be abandoned, but eventually, about
midday, the clouds cleared off and the “Assembly” sounded. The Queen,
accompanied by the Princess Louise and Princess Beatrice, left Windsor a
little before noon, and was escorted by a troop of Life Guards as far as
Bagshot, where a troop of the 5th Dragoon Guards relieved them, and
conducted the Royal party to the camp. Her Majesty drove to the Royal
Pavilion, where she partook of luncheon, and as the weather at this time
was exceedingly threatening--rain falling heavily--the signal was
hoisted at headquarters for the troops to “wait further orders.” At
three o’clock, the weather having somewhat cleared, the review took
place, about 8,000 of all ranks being on parade.

But in spite of diversions of this sort the Queen felt at times the
increasing loneliness of her life. In reply to some expression of this
the Princess Louis writes to her on the 16th of April, “We shall,
indeed, be so pleased, if later you wish to have any of the
grand-daughters with you, to comply with any such wish, for I often
think, so sadly for your dear sake, how lonely it must be when one child
after another grows up and leaves home; and even if they remain, to have
no children in the house is most dreary. Surely you can never lack to
have some from among the many grandchildren; and there are none of us
who would not gladly have our children live under the same roof where we
passed such a happy childhood, with such a loving grandmamma to take
care of them.” In May, however, the secluded life of the Queen was to
some extent brightened and cheered. “How glad I am,” writes the Princess
Louis, “that the dear Countess [Blücher] is with you again; she is the
pleasantest companion possible, and so dear and loving, and she is
devoted to you and dear papa’s memory as never any one was.”

On the 22nd of June Ismail Pasha, Viceroy of Egypt, paid a second visit
to England (his first having taken place in 1867), and during his short
stay of eight days his time was well occupied with _fêtes_, reviews, and
banquets. He was met at Charing Cross by the Prince of Wales with a
royal greeting in the name of the Queen, and drove to Buckingham Palace
amid cheers from the crowd outside the station. On the 24th he left
Buckingham Palace for Windsor Castle on a visit to her Majesty. The
Prince and Princess of Wales and Prince Hassan, the Viceroy’s son,
accompanied him, and with a select party dined with the Queen. On the
26th the Queen entertained the Viceroy with a review of 5,000 troops in
Windsor Great Park. Next day he returned to town and dined with the
Prince and Princess of Wales at Marlborough House. On July 1st, having
taken leave of the Prince and Princess of Wales, Ismail Pasha started on
his return journey. He was at this time endeavouring to strengthen his
independent position in Egypt, and though he met with little
encouragement, he considered it advisable to try and secure English
support against the Sultan.

Her Majesty had taken a deep interest in the statue to Mr. Peabody,
executed by Mr. Story, the American sculptor-poet, which was to be
erected within the precincts of the Royal Exchange, in the City of
London. Accordingly, the Prince of Wales unveiled the memorial on the
23rd of July, and his neat, natural, and polished oratory, especially
his graceful allusions to his own reception in America, attracted some
notice at the time.[312]

[Illustration: THE TAPESTRY ROOM, ST. JAMES’S PALACE (_From a Photograph
by H. N. King._)]

[Illustration: THE QUEEN OPENING HOLBORN VIADUCT.]

In the autumn the Queen enjoyed a series of excursions from
Invertrosachs, to which the Princess Louis of Hesse refers in one of her
letters from Kranichstein. “What charming expeditions you must have
made,” writes the Princess to her Majesty, “in that lovely country. What
I saw of it some years ago I admired so intensely. You can well be proud
of all the beauties of the Highlands, which, have so entirely their own
stamp that no Alpine scenery, however grand, can lessen one’s
appreciation for that of Scotland.... Many thanks for the grouse, which
have just arrived--the first since two years ago!”[313]

During the year the Queen was subjected to considerable annoyance, owing
to the mismanagement which seemed to mar the success of the Duke of
Edinburgh’s tour in Australia. At the time he was shot at by O’Farrell
the Legislature of New South Wales passed at one sitting a
Treason-felony Bill, the provisions of which were of the drastic
character enforced in modern times only by the autocrats of
_opera-bouffe_. But after a while from across the sea whispers of
heart-burnings and discontent were wafted, which first took definite
form in spring, when an ugly item was discovered in the Civil Service
Estimates. It was a sum of £3,500 for gifts and presents made by the
Duke of Edinburgh while voyaging in Australian waters with the
_Galatea_. The Colonists were, not unnaturally, irritated at what they
considered the lack of taste shown in throwing on the Estimates the
expense of those trifling gifts which the Prince had made to several of
the most eminent Australians. Though no defence was formally made for
the Prince, obviously his youth and inexperience accounted, to some
extent, for the unfortunate error.

A visit paid by Prince Arthur to Ireland in summer also led to some
unpleasantness. In Derry the Prince’s appearance seemed to suggest to
the Orangemen the idea that the occasion was one for assailing Mr.
Gladstone and the Ministry, and for making riotous attacks on the
Catholics who retaliated after their kind. The Mayor of Cork, too,
presiding at a dinner given to two released Fenians on the 28th of
April, lauded O’Farrell’s motive in shooting the Duke of Edinburgh. The
observations were so pointedly directed at Prince Arthur’s visit, that
they constituted practically an invitation to assassinate him. The
Government accordingly brought in a Bill on the 5th of May to dismiss
Mr. O’Sullivan from office “as if he were naturally dead,” the first
reading of which Mr. Disraeli, to the consternation of his followers,
showed a desire to resist.[314] Mr. O’Sullivan, however, saved everybody
further trouble by resigning his office.

On the other hand, if two of the Queen’s sons were a little unfortunate
in their experience of popular demonstrations, the Heir Apparent was
fast becoming the idol of Society. It was understood that he had used
his influence in order to bring about a change in Court dress, which was
taken as a concession to the democratic spirit of the age. What was the
origin of the rule compelling unofficial persons to wear a distinctive
dress when presented to the Queen? In the early Georgian period no such
rule existed. Nobody but a gentleman could go to Court, and so people
who were presented, as a matter of course, wore the ordinary dress of a
gentleman, just as officers have always approached the Queen in uniform,
which, in theory, is their ordinary dress. But in time persons who were
not, technically speaking, gentlemen, were presented to the Sovereign.
The introduction of what is now known as “evening dress” for persons of
all grades abolished costume as a mark of rank. Yet the Court still
adhered to the theory that any one presented to the Sovereign must bear
about him an outward and visible sign that he was a gentleman, and as
the ordinary “swallow-tail” coat was common to all classes, the rule was
laid down at Court that what had been the peculiar costume of a
gentleman down to the time of George III. should always be worn. The new
Court costume, as sanctioned by the Lord Chamberlain in February, 1869,
was, however, a compromise between the old fashion of the Georgian
period and the conventional “swallow-tail.” In form and colour the levee
dress resembled an ordinary evening dress. But the material was to be
velvet and not broadcloth, and the collar of the coat was to be straight
and embroidered with gold. The dress sword and cocked hat were still to
be worn. As for the full-dress to be worn at Drawing Rooms, it was also
a compromise. Trousers were not to be worn unless they were decked out
with broad gold stripes down the sides.

On Saturday, the 23rd of October, Lord Derby died in the seventy-first
year of his age, forty-nine years of which had been spent in political
life. For a quarter of a century his name and influence had worked like
a wizard’s spell on the minds and hearts of the Tory Party, and yet, as
a statesman and a legislator, he had done comparatively little.
Passionate unwisdom was too often the leading trait of his policy, but
his impetuous and imperious self-confidence, his stately presence, his
eager spirit, fiery partisanship, and irrepressible pugnacity rendered
him an invaluable Party leader. He passed away amid the wreckage of most
of his political idols, conscious that he had failed in what he had
haughtily asserted was his mission--to stem the tide of democracy. That
a superb air of aristocratic distinction surrounded even his blunders
was perhaps the secret of his success as leader of the House of Lords.
As a fluent, stimulating, passionate speaker, with a style at once
incisive, stately, and sonorous, he ranked as one of the last of the
rhetoricians among the Peers of England.

On the 11th of September the Queen lost a good friend, in whose widowed
life she had frequently displayed her sympathetic interest. That friend
was Lady Palmerston, who had long reigned as the leader of Whig society
in London, and who died at Brocket Hall in her eighty-third year. She
was the last of four great ladies of quality whose social influence did
much to shape the fortunes of their country and the course of
politics--Lady Jersey, Lady Willoughby, Lady Tankerville, and
herself--and who, by a curious coincidence, not only began life
together, and married at the same time, but were firm allies and friends
to the end, and died at the same age.[315] She was, when Countess
Cowper, one of the first six patronesses of Almack’s. She kept at
Panshanger the most brilliant political _salon_ of the time when the
Princess de Lieven, the Duchess de Dino, Talleyrand, Pozzo, Alvanley,
Luttrell, and Lord and Lady Holland were among her closest and most
confidential friends. She was Lord Byron’s patron in 1814, and as the
sister of Melbourne, and the wife of Palmerston, she was the social
centre of Whiggery till within four years of her death. Mr. Hayward has
done ample justice to the pure refinement and sweetness of her
disposition, to the constancy of her friendships, and the easy
placability of her resentments. “For myself,” writes her son-in-law,
Lord Shaftesbury, “I may say that until I lost her, I hardly knew how
much I loved her.”[316] And again in his Diary, Lord Shaftesbury writes,
“forty years have I been her son-in-law, and during all that long time
she has been to me a well-spring of tender friendship and affectionate
service.... Few great men, and no women, except those who have sat on
thrones, have received after death such abundant and sincere testimonies
of admiration, respect, and affection. The Press has teemed with
articles descriptive of her life and character, all radiant with feeling
and expression of real sorrow.”[317] Lady Palmerston, in fact, reaped
the reward of a long career, which she spent for the sole purpose of
making everybody with whom she came in contact, happy. Her second
husband, Lord Palmerston, who to his last hour treated her with the
tender gallantry of a lover, was the hero of her career, and one of the
prettiest stories told of her is to the effect that she once said his
death had prolonged her own existence. Her explanation of the paradox
was, that latterly she had been pursued by the fear that his strength
would give way without his being conscious of it, and that she looked
with horror to the possibility of the man she worshipped sinking into
senility.[318]

On the 6th of November the Queen visited the City of London for the
purpose of opening the new bridge over the Thames at Blackfriars and the
new Viaduct over the Fleet Valley, from Holborn Hill to Newgate Street.
When it was announced in October that this visit would take place, a
rumour was spread abroad to the effect that the unemployed poor of
London were to be organised by agitators so as to line the route which
was to be traversed by the Queen. Curiously enough, the representatives
of the unemployed, greatly to their honour, discouraged this proposal on
the ground that the spectacle would pain the Sovereign deeply at a
moment when she was striving, in spite of her shattered nerves and
sorrowing heart, to do her public duty to the best of her power. Then
it was rumoured that Fenians would interfere with the Royal procession,
but, as a matter of fact, no mishap marred the double ceremony. The
great concourse of people who received the Queen was unusually
enthusiastic, and she herself was obviously charmed with the warmth of
her reception.

[Illustration: THE QUEEN OPENING BLACKFRIARS BRIDGE.]

The year closed with gloomy news from Ireland. The electors of
Tipperary, acting under Fenian intimidation,[319] had returned the
Fenian “convict” Jeremiah O’Donovan, or “O’Donovan Rossa,” as he called
himself, to Parliament, an election which was of course void, and which
was alleged, by opponents of the Ministry, to demonstrate the futility
of Mr. Gladstone’s Irish policy of conciliation. Dark rumours also flew
round to the effect that the Government had in contemplation the
summoning of Parliament and the suspension of Habeas Corpus in Ireland.
The Orangemen, who had resented the disestablishment of the Irish Church
by menaces of rebellion, now threatened to stand aloof in any conflict
between the Crown and the Fenians.[320] At a time when Englishmen were
being persuaded to adopt a conciliatory Irish policy, when, after having
disestablished the Church, they were meditating the disestablishment of
the rack-renting landlords, the Irish people deemed it wise to increase
their demands. They raised the old agitation against the Union. By the
Tipperary election, however, they showed that Repeal was meant to be a
stepping-stone to an Irish Republic, and it was in vain that English
Liberals, who feared lest this extravagance might create a violent
anti-Irish feeling in England, remonstrated with the Nationalist
leaders. They remained--

“Deafer than the blue-eyed cat,
And thrice as blind as any noonday owl.”

CHAPTER XV.

FALL OF THE SECOND EMPIRE.

Social condition of the Country in 1870--Mr. Bright’s “Six
Omnibuses in Temple Bar”--Opening of Parliament--Mr. Gladstone’s
Irish Land Bill--Amendments to the Bill--Dual-Ownership
Established--The Bill and the House of Lords--The Revolt of Lord
Salisbury--The Education Bill--Mutiny of the Liberal
Dissenters--Mr. Lowe’s Second Budget--The Civil Service opened to
Competition--Mr. Cardwell’s Failure at the War Office--The Queen
and the Army--Mr. Childers and Admiralty Reform--Mr. Baxter and
Navy Contracts--The Wreck of the _Captain_--Lord Granville and the
Colonies--Death of Lord Clarendon--The Franco-Prussian
War--Collapse of the French Armies--Sedan--Fall of the Bonapartist
Dynasty--Proclamation of the Third Republic--Investment of
Paris--The Government of National Defence at Tours--M. Gambetta
Rouses Prostrate France--Gallant Stand of the Mobiles--A Passing
Glimpse of Victory--The Queen and the War--Prussia and
England--Russia Repudiates the Black Sea Clauses of the Treaty of
Paris--Papal Infallibility and the Italian Occupation of Rome--King
William Proclaimed German Emperor--Opening of London
University--Betrothal of the Princess Louise--Death of General
Grey--Death of Dickens--The Novelist and the Queen--Garden Party at
Windsor Castle--The Red River Expedition.

If the social condition of Ireland when the year 1870 opened was gloomy,
that of England could not be considered bright. Trade was still bad, and
desponding critics began to hint that it would not for many years
recover from the disaster of 1866. Raw cotton was still scarce and dear,
and high prices had rendered the demand for manufactured goods stagnant.
The feud between the capitalists and the trades unions was still
disturbing the peace of the industrial world, and the political horizon
of the Continent was heavy with the bodeful war cloud that broke during
the latter half of the year in the sudden storm that wrecked the Second
Empire. Irish land tenure, the establishment of a national system of
elementary public instruction in England, and the admission of
candidates to the Civil Service by competitive examination, were the
topics that were most keenly canvassed in the early weeks of the year.
From this discussion it was clear that public opinion was set against
what was derisively called “the one-horse system of legislation”--that
is to say, the exhaustion of the Session by one great measure like the
Irish Church Bill. At least four measures were expected from Parliament
ere the year closed--the Irish Land Bill, the Primary Education Bill,
the Bill abolishing University Tests, and a Bill introducing Election by
Ballot. In the end of 1869 a few changes had occurred in the composition
of the Ministry. Mr. Layard had been appointed Minister to Madrid. To
him Mr. Ayrton succeeded as First Commissioner of Works, while Mr.
Stansfeld took Mr. Ayrton’s place as Financial Secretary to the
Treasury. Lord Cairns resigned the leadership of his Party in the House
of Lords, and it seemed likely that the Duke of Marlborough or the Duke
of Abercorn would be his successor. But from this calamity the Tories
were saved by the self-denial of Lord Cairns, who withdrew his
resignation and resumed his post. Speculation was busy as to the
Ministerial programme, and Mr. Bright’s speeches at Birmingham, in which
he dwelt on the difficulties of legislation, had a depressing effect on
the country. “You cannot drive six omnibuses abreast through Temple
Bar,” was the phrase with which Mr. Bright endeavoured to moderate the
expectations of the people. On the other hand, Mr. Forster, addressing
his constituents at Bradford, endeavoured to neutralise Mr. Bright’s
pleas for delay. It was true, he said, that it was hopeless to drive six
omnibuses abreast through Temple Bar, but that was no reason why they
should not go through one after the other. The “Irish Land Omnibus” said
Mr. Forster, must go through first, after which the “Education Omnibus,”
driven by himself and Lord de Grey, must follow.

Parliament was opened by Commission on the 8th of February with a
Queen’s Speech, from which, at the last moment, paragraphs
congratulating France on the re-establishment of constitutional
government, and rejoicing over the reception of the Duke of Edinburgh in
India, had been mysteriously excised. The Royal Speech promised reduced
estimates, an Irish Land Bill, an Education Bill, a Licensing Bill, a
Land Transfer Bill, an Intestacy Bill, a Bill to legalise Trades Unions,
and a Merchant Shipping Bill. The Ballot Bill was ignored, and the Bill
for the abolition of University Tests dimly alluded to, rather than
definitely promised. In the House of Lords Opposition criticism was in
the main a complaint that the Government had abdicated its functions of
maintaining order in Ireland. In the House of Commons Mr. Disraeli
admitted that the Irish policy of the Cabinet was not _per se_ the cause
of Irish disturbances. But it had been so susceptible to misapprehension
that it had sent Ireland into “spontaneous combustion” and “riotous
hallucination.” It was a policy which had excited the wildest of false
hopes, both as to the Repeal of the Union, and the transference of the
landlords’ property to the tillers of the soil. But both Lord Cairns and
Mr. Disraeli avoided committing their Party either to a demand for
coercive legislation in Ireland, or to any position on the Land Question
that would prevent them from attacking or supporting the Ministerial
Bill when it was produced. On the Liberal benches, however, it was felt
that the only weak point in Mr. Gladstone’s policy touched by his Tory
critics was what he called “the discriminating amnesty” to the Fenian
prisoners. It was generally admitted that if Ministers had only clearly
said at the outset that they did not intend to extend their amnesty, the
hopes that had unsettled and agitated the Irish people during the recess
would never have been raised.

On the 14th of February Mr. Gladstone introduced his Land Bill, which
legalised all Ulster customs of selling tenant-right, gave the tenant a
right to compensation for his improvements and for capricious eviction,
and provided means for peasants buying their holdings through advances
made out of the Irish Church surplus, in cases where the tenant
deposited one-fourth of the purchase-money. Mr. Disraeli was, on the
whole, generous in his treatment of the Bill. Irish landlords, like Lord
Granard, recognised its moderation, and, though they did not quite
approve of its principles, they deprecated all factious opposition. It
was soon seen that the Tory leaders meant to let the measure pass. But
Mr. Disraeli, ever mindful of the great secret of successful leadership,
resolved, with masterly strategic skill, to show his followers “sport”
by advising them, at a meeting held in Lord Lonsdale’s house, to attack
three points. On each of these they were in full accord with him. On one
of them they had a chance of winning; on another they might safely
yield, and yet get great credit for the highest patriotism; whilst on
the third, though defeat was probable, it could not be attended with
dishonour. The first point was that police-cess--incurred to protect
landlords from assassination--which the Bill divided between landlord
and tenant, should be paid by the latter alone. The second was that
where there was doubt about an improvement, the law should presume it
was made by the landlord, and not, as stipulated, by the tenant. The
third was to cut out of the Bill everything that interfered with freedom
of contract. In other words, Mr. Disraeli desired to leave landlords and
tenants free to contract themselves out of the Bill in a country where
the landlord, and not the tenant, was really the only one of the two
contracting parties who could be plausibly called free. Upwards of three
hundred amendments to the Bill were, however, put down before Easter,
and the first clause, legalising Ulster customs, took twelve hours’
debating before it passed the ordeal of Committee. The Government soon
found it necessary to modify the measure so as to separate compensation
for improvements, from compensation for eviction. Then they struck out a
clause which enabled landlords to get rid of all claims by offering a
tenant a thirty-one years’ lease. These changes, Mr. Disraeli alleged,

[Illustration: BLACKFRIARS BRIDGE, LONDON.]

formed a breach of the terms on which he had promised the Government
conditional support, and for a time factious obstruction prevailed.[321]
For the clause enabling landlords to nullify the Bill by offering
leases, Ministers substituted a clause permitting landlord and tenant to
come to a voluntary arrangement for a thirty-one years’ lease, but
allowed the Courts to take this offer of a lease, if it were refused,
into consideration in assessing compensation for eviction. Mr.
Disraeli’s argument here was far-seeing. He said these changes would
tempt the landlords to use ruthlessly the only power left to them by the
Bill--that of eviction for non-payment of a rent which, however, they
were permitted to raise, till it was impossible for any tenant to pay
it. This, indeed, was what happened. At first the Bill, as has been
explained, compensated eviction by the offer of a thirty-one years’
lease. The moment that clause was withdrawn, and eviction was
compensated by damages, it was recognised that occupancy, _per se_, gave
the occupier certain rights in the soil; in other words, the
dual-ownership of landlord and occupier was then recognised as a
principle. A long and weary struggle in Committee, in which the defence
of the Bill was brilliantly conducted by Mr. Gladstone and Mr.
Chichester Fortescue, followed, and the Opposition, aided by some
crotchety Liberals, attempted to smother its principle by loading it
with incompatible details. As Easter drew near, it was despondently
whispered that the measure would have to be abandoned. Under unseen
pressure from the constituencies, however, the action of the House was
quickened after the Easter Recess, and all attempts at re-opening the
controversy over the principles of the Bill under the pretext of
improving it in detail, were crushed. Considerable concessions were made
to the Tories. Mr. Gladstone’s original scheme provided that no tenant
who paid under £100 a year of rent could contract himself out of the
Bill. The Government lowered the limit to £50 of rental. The clause
creating the presumption that improvements were made by the tenant, was
limited as regards those made before the Act took effect. In Committee
nothing was done for tenants who were evicted after it was known the
Land Bill would be brought in. Nothing was done for reclaiming occupiers
under middlemen, whose own tenancies expired with their leases from
superior landlords. But before Parliament adjourned for Whitsuntide the
Bill had passed through the House of Commons substantially unchanged.
The landlords’ friends preferred to accept it as an alternative to
further agrarian agitation, though Mr. Hardy threatened that the House
of Lords would abrogate the penalty on evictions.

Lord Cairns had by this time been compelled through ill-health to
finally resign the leadership of the Tory Party in the Peers, which he
had reluctantly resumed, and the Duke of Richmond had been chosen as his
successor. The new chief’s first speech on the Irish Land Bill was
moderate and business-like, and his proposed amendments were to exempt
all landlords from the Bill if they offered twenty-one instead of
thirty-one years’ leases, to fix a date beyond which no tenant’s claim
for improvements would be considered, to let landlord and tenant settle
their disputes privately, without going into court, and to cut out a
clause limiting distress for rent to persons who had contracted to
submit to it. Though he disapproved of the Bright clauses creating a
peasant proprietory, they were defended by Lord Salisbury and Lord
Cairns. Lord Athlumney, as an Irish proprietor, said the Bill contained
nothing which a humane landlord would object to accept, and the Duke of
Abercorn gave the measure a general support. Lord Derby’s criticism was
more subtle. The Bill did not apply to large farms. That was offering
landlords an inducement to clear out small tenants, for it gave
landlords what the custom of the country had denied them--a moral right
to evict on paying damages for the privilege. Lord Lurgan on the Second
Reading said the Bill no more hurt him than would a Bill legalising his
debts of honour, but Lord Leitrim objected to it “from the title
downwards,” and thought that disputes between landlords and tenants
should be settled by Quarter Sessions--a tribunal composed of landlords
alone. In Committee amendments were passed cutting down the scale of
compensation, denying compensation to assignees not approved by the
landlord (Duke of Richmond), enacting that no tenant paying more than
£50 a year was in any circumstances to get compensation for eviction
(Lord Salisbury), asserting that the presumption of law was to be that
all improvements were made by landlords (Lord Clanricarde), prohibiting
tenants from letting gardens to their labourers (Duke of Richmond), in
fact, with the exception of the Bright clauses, the Peers mangled the
Bill so as to make it utterly useless to the tenants. The excitement
usually stirred up by a conflict between the two Houses grew every day,
and men began to talk of an autumn session, the rapid passing of the
Bill again through the Commons, and a creation of new Peers to force it
through the House of Lords. For this dead-lock Lord Salisbury was
chiefly responsible, for he practically ousted the Duke of Richmond from
the leadership. After a day’s reflection, however, the Peers, influenced
by Lord Cairns and Mr. Disraeli, retreated from the perilous position
they had taken up. They withdrew their amendments on report, accepting
instead a few plausible but transparently illusory compromises suggested
by Lord Granville by way of saving their dignity. The result was that,
for a time, Lord Salisbury was discredited, and the position of the Duke
of Richmond, whose hand he had admittedly forced, was strengthened in
the leadership. The Commons accepted all the amended amendments of the
Peers except three,[322] and so the Bill passed. It marked an epoch in
the political development of England. It was the first great
constructive measure which recognised the right of the poorest class as
distinguished from the middle class, to participate in beneficial
legislation. It recognised the justice of legislating for the interests
of the masses on the principle that it was not safe to leave them to the
mercy of Supply and Demand, and of the economic Moloch of
_laissez-faire_.

The other great measure of the Session--Mr. Forster’s Education
Bill--illustrated the change in the drift of English legislation during
the Victorian age still more strikingly. On the 17th of February Mr.
Forster introduced his Education Bill. The problem to be solved, as Mr.
Forster said, was “how to cover the country with good schools.” The
conditions under which it must be solved were two: (1), the interests of
the parents and children must be harmonised with those of the
ratepayers; and (2), the new system must not be so built up as to
destroy the old one where it was efficient. England was mapped out by
Mr. Forster into school districts.[323] If in any of these more schools
were needed, the people would have a year of grace in which to provide
them, by voluntary subscription. If not, an elected local School Board
would provide them compulsorily, and maintain them out of fees, rates,
and the usual Government “Grants in Aid.” Religious teaching was not
proscribed--the kind and quantity of it to be given, subject to a
Conscience Clause, being left to the Boards. The Boards might also
assist existing schools, or adopt compulsory education if they chose,
and the Bill dealt with children between the ages of five and twelve.
Where districts or Boards refused to provide efficient schooling for the
people, the Education Department was to have power to force them to do
so. The opposition to the Bill centred round the religious question. As
Mr. Lowe said in his speech on the Second Reading, the House agreeing on
the general principle, fixed their whole attention on one narrow point,
like a “fierce herd of cattle in a large meadow deserting the grass
which is abundant about them, and delighting themselves by fighting over
a bed of nettles in a corner of the field.” The opposition of the
Anglican clergy was anticipated. They naturally objected to any system
that gave the parish schoolmaster something approaching the endowed
status of the parish priest, and which released him from abject
servitude to the Church. They could not conceal their hostility to a
scheme of education which was National without being Anglican, and in
which the principle of religious equality, so fatal to the claims of an
Established Church, was not only recognised, but endowed by the State.
But what had not been foreseen was the opposition of the Dissenting
ministers and churches--an opposition that culminated in personal
animosity to Mr. Forster. Representative Dissenters, like Mr.
Winterbotham, told the House that they would prefer to delay the
settlement of the whole question, till the country was prepared to
accept secular education pure and simple. Their belief was that the Bill
would tempt the different religious bodies to fight for control over the
School Boards, so as to influence their decision on the question of
religious teaching, and that in this struggle the Established Church,
from the _prestige_ of its connection with the State, would again assert
its ascendency. The Party of Free Thought, led by Mr. Mill, joined the
Dissenters in their attacks on Mr. Forster, Mr. Mill’s objection to the
Bill being, that under it the whole body of the ratepayers might be
taxed to pay for teaching a particular religion to the majority. Lord
Russell, who also pleaded for delay, advocated

[Illustration: MR. DISRAELI (AFTERWARDS LORD BEACONSFIELD).

(_From the Bust by J. E. Boehm, R.A., in the Possession of the Queen._)]

a compromise which would have legalised formal Bible-reading and
hymn-singing during school-hours, divorced from any distinctive
religious instruction, whereas Mr. Mill and Mr. Fawcett would have
preferred compulsory secularism, to permissive sectarianism.
Bible-reading, without note or comment, it was felt, might be
unobjectionable in the case of children reared in religious families.
But it was obviously useless to the “wastrels” of the gutter whom it
was the primary object of the Bill to instruct. The great majority of
Englishmen believed that moral teaching was a powerful agent for
civilising this class of children, and that though catechisms and
formularies should be excluded from new rate-built schools, it was not
wise to fetter the discretion of the teacher, in explaining the Bible to
the best of his judgment and ability. But as to the old denominational
schools, it was generally admitted that Parliament could not do more
than ask them to separate their sectarian, from their secular
instruction by a “Time-table Conscience Clause.” It would not have been
just to insist that they should submit to be virtually secularised,[324]
under pain of forfeiting their share in the school-rate or the Imperial
Grant in Aid. Mr. Forster was willing to concede vote by ballot for the
Boards, and the Time-table Conscience Clause. But he refused to give
effect to the national feeling in favour of excluding from rate-built
schools denominational creeds and formularies, and leaving religious
teaching to the discretion and good taste of schoolmasters and school
managers. Moreover, he failed to meet the reasonable demand that a
School Board should by law be established in every parish, so as to
provide a competent authority for keeping the education of the district
up to the proper standard of efficiency. At length the Government bent
before the tempest of agitation which the Secularists and Dissenters
raised. Mr. Gladstone accepted an amendment of Mr. Cowper Temple’s,
excluding from all rate-built schools denominational catechisms and
formularies. But instead of limiting the power of denominational
managers to control religious teaching in cases where they did not
supply a large moiety of the school funds, he entirely severed the
connection between these schools and local authorities elected by the
ratepayers. They were to depend on the Imperial Grant alone, but then
this Grant to _all_ schools was to be raised so as to cover not one
third, but about one half of their expenses. Mr. Disraeli, with an eye
to the Radical Secularist “Cave,” scoffed at the compromise as a scheme
for endowing “a new sacerdotal caste.” Lord John Manners lamented that
it would ruin denominational schools. The Dissenters averred it would
encourage them by doubling their Grants in Aid. They seemed to argue
that parents who preferred denominational education should themselves
pay a special price for it, whereas, parents who desired secular
education should get it at the expense of the State. Mr. Gladstone’s
compromise, however, was accepted, and the Bill was passed by both
Houses. But it created a feud between the Dissenters and the Liberal
Party, which irretrievably weakened the Government.

With the exception of a Bill to enable persons in Holy Orders to get rid
of Clerical Disabilities when they desired to quit the ministry of the
Church, and a Coercion Bill for Ireland, the legislative results of the
Session were not of much importance. Mr. Lowe’s second Budget,
introduced on the 11th of April, showed the amazing surplus of
£7,870,000 on the accounts for 1869-70. He had spent out of this sum
£4,300,000 for the Abyssinian War,[325] £1,000,000 in retiring Exchequer
bills, and the remainder in swelling the Exchequer balances in hand at
the Bank, which stood at £8,606,000--a sum which, he admitted, was
excessive. He had sold £3,000,000 of new Consols privately to the
public, and £4,000,000 of them to the National Debt Commissioners, which
enabled him to pay the cost of buying up the telegraphs. To wipe out
this fresh debt of £7,000,000, he had created terminable annuities which
would cease in 1885. For the coming year he estimated a revenue of
£71,450,000 and an expenditure of £67,113,000, so that, if taxes were
not altered, he would have a surplus of £4,337,000. Of this he disposed
by reducing the Income Tax to fourpence in the £, halving the sugar
duties, and altering the tax of 5 per cent. on the passenger receipts of
railway companies to 1 per cent. on their gross receipts. After these
remissions, Mr. Lowe still kept in reserve a probable surplus of
£311,000. He proposed, however, with the consent of the Committee, to
increase the rigour of tax-collection, to substitute for game licences,
licences to carry guns, and to abolish hawkers’ licences and several
other trade licences. The Budget was well received, but it was not one
that strengthened the Government politically. With such a large surplus,
Mr. Lowe might have conciliated the farmers by dealing with the Malt
Tax, more especially as he admitted he owed much of his surplus to the
fall in wheat. In three years it had dropped from 72s. to 42s. a
quarter, and cheap food had produced an increased consumption of
dutiable articles, _i.e._, an “elastic revenue.” Still he was credited
with having influenced one decision of the Ministry which was extremely
popular in the country--their decision to throw the whole Civil Service,
with the exception of the Foreign Office, open to competition, like the
Civil Service of India. This heavy blow at privilege was struck on the
4th of June, when the Queen signed the Order in Council which gave rich
and poor alike the same passport to the service of the State, and
relieved members of Parliament from the annoyance of being pestered for
“nominations” by aggressive constituents.

The management of the defensive services of the country in 1870 further
illustrated the susceptibility of the Ministry to democratic pressure.
Mr. Cardwell, however, failed to get credit for that portion of his work
which was good, mainly because he gave the House of Commons the
impression that he strove to evade inconvenient questions by cloudy
verbosity, that he was too much at the mercy of his official
subordinates, and had not the knowledge or the vigour to check the
accuracy of the soothing and roseate

[Illustration: COWES, ISLE OF WIGHT.]

statements which they poured through his facile lips into the House of
Commons. His estimates (£13,000,000) showed a reduction of £2,000,000,
and, with Reserves and Auxiliaries, he asserted that he had a force of
322,000 men in the nine military districts of the United Kingdom. He
proposed that recruits should serve for six years in the Line, and six
in the Reserve, and he reduced the number of subaltern officers. These
estimates and figures were, however, vitiated by the suspicion that the
strength of the Army was mainly on paper, that it lacked efficient
transport and artillery, and that even when Mr. Cardwell said, as he did
towards the end of the Session, when the Franco-Prussian War created a
panic as to national defences, that he could detach for active service a
perfectly-equipped force of 30,000 men, he had an inadequate conception
of national wants. The Ministerial policy raised up two different
classes of opponents. To conciliate the Radicals, the Government cut
down the Estimates by reducing the fighting power of the Army. The
militant Radicals, however, declared that they desired to increase,
rather than reduce the strength of the Army, and complained that the
money for this purpose was not obtained by checking waste at the War
Office and Horse Guards. The Party of “the Colonels” in the House of
Commons were incensed against the Government for making reductions,
that interfered with their professional interests. In midsummer,
however, Mr. Cardwell effected one reform, by sanctioning which the
Queen won great popularity at the time. Her Majesty, by signing an Order
which made the Duke of Cambridge, Commanding-in-Chief, subordinate to
the Secretary of State for War, ended a conflict which had been waged
for years between the War Office and the Horse Guards. Every Sovereign
of the House of Hanover had fought with stubbornness for the direct
control of the Army, and Parliamentary influence over it was still
indirect. To make it absolute, it would have been necessary to refuse
supplies, and the Secretary of State, as the agent of Parliament, could
only address requests, and not orders, to the Commander-in-Chief. Mr.
Gladstone’s ears were quick to hear the first murmurings of the
democracy against exempting this Department of the State, from
Parliamentary control and supervision. There was also a suspicion abroad
that no reform could be forced on the Army, whilst the Queen’s cousin
held absolute power over it as the Queen’s agent. Rather than give
enemies of the Monarchy a pretext for a Republican agitation based on a
popular cry, Mr. Gladstone advised the Queen to surrender to the
Secretary of State that part of the Royal prerogative by which the
internal discipline of the Army was entirely regulated by her direct
action.

Mr. Childers, not being hampered by a rival authority like that which
the Duke of Cambridge wielded over the army, was able to adopt a
vigorous policy of Reform at the Admiralty. His estimates amounted to
£9,000,000, and for that sum he promised to strengthen the fleet by
fifty of the most powerful iron-clads in the world, and to build at the
rate of 13,000 tons a year till twenty more first-class iron-clads were
afloat. He reduced the clerical staff of his office, effected sweeping
reductions in the dockyards, and instead of keeping vessels in dock,
sent as many to sea as were fit for service. Mr. Baxter, the Secretary
to the Admiralty, abolished the old system of making purchases by
contract, and instead, bought stores in the open market after the manner
of private firms. The outcry raised against both Ministers from the
vested interests which they assailed was loud and deep. Their policy was
unscrupulously misrepresented, and it created for the Government a host
of active and irrepressible enemies. The fatigues of office and the
harassments of the attacks which were made upon him in the House of
Commons for saving the taxpayers’ money, undermined Mr. Childers’ health
in June, and for a month he had to abandon all work. The loss of the
turret-ship _Captain_, one of the most powerful iron-clads in the Navy,
which was capsized off Cape Finisterre in a gale in September, with all
her crew--including her designer, Captain Coles, and Mr. Childers’ son,
who was serving on board as a midshipman--clouded the naval
administration of the Government. The ship went down because she was
overmasted and overweighted, and had not enough freeboard. It was,
moreover, unfortunate that naval experts who had in vain pointed out
these defects to the Admiralty had warned them that she was unsafe
before she was sent to sea.

Lord Granville’s Colonial policy, it has been stated, was directed to
further the severance of the Colonies from the Mother Country. The
controversy was chiefly fought out over New Zealand, which had been
seriously grieved by the withdrawal of Imperial troops when she was
engaged in Maori warfare. After much irritating discussion, Lord
Granville attempted to conciliate the colonists by a niggardly offer of
a guarantee for a loan of £500,000, which was rejected by the Colonial
Commissioners. But in May he became alarmed when he found out that his
policy was forcing separation on the colony, and that the idea of
separation was hateful to the English people. He then offered to
guarantee a loan of £1,200,000, and this was accepted as a token that
the scheme he was supposed to favour--that of cutting the Colonies
adrift--was, for a time, abandoned.[326] But the death of Lord Clarendon
on the 27th of June enabled Mr. Gladstone to transfer Lord Granville to
the Foreign Office, and Lord Kimberley reigned in his stead over the
discontented Colonies.

Lord Clarendon’s death happened at an evil time, for Europe was
distracted by the war between France and Prussia which had at last
broken out. It is a curious fact that at the beginning of the year none
of the diplomatists--not even Von Bismarck himself--had the faintest
suspicion that ere six months had passed, this war would be declared.
The Emperor of the French was watching in July, 1869, with straining
eyes the election of a new Legislature. This election, as we have seen,
ended in the return of a strong Opposition, headed by M. Thiers, M.
Jules Favre, and M. Emile Ollivier, whose criticism of personal
Government drove Napoleon to make popular concessions. A Parliamentary
Constitution was granted, and at the end of the year the Emperor had
induced M. Ollivier and a few moderate Liberals to form a Cabinet
charged with the mission of reconciling Parliamentary Government with
Universal Suffrage and the claims of the Imperial dynasty. The Emperor
discarded the old friends who had been the servile instruments of his
will, but shrewd Liberals still held aloof from the Imperial Court and
Government, apparently distrusting his sincerity. And they were right.
The Emperor considered that his new Liberal Constitution should be
revised by the Senate, and the ever-subservient Senate accordingly
inserted in it a provision authorising the Emperor to “go behind” his
Parliamentary Ministry, and submit any question to a _plébiscite_. This
of course meant that whenever Parliament thwarted the Emperor, he could
set aside its decision and appeal on a confused issue to a hasty vote
of an ignorant democracy, whose verdict was pre-arranged by subservient
Prefects. The new Constitution itself was submitted to such a vote, and
though M. Ollivier remained in office, most of his abler colleagues
resigned. By a majority of five and a quarter millions against a million
and a half, the people cast their suffrages for the Emperor. The issue
on which they voted was nominally whether they approved of the
Constitution reforms which he and the Senate had effected. In reality,
it was whether Napoleon III. should, in spite of Parliament, be allowed
still to rule France from above. The first result of the vote was the
appointment of a Ministry in which M. Ollivier was the sole
representative of Liberal feeling, or Constitutional instincts. The Duc
de Gramont became Minister for Foreign Affairs, and Marshal Lebœuf, the
Minister of War. But fifty thousand soldiers had voted against the
Emperor in the _plébiscite_, and Napoleon III. was accordingly warned
that to conciliate the army something must be done by France to eclipse
the fame which Prussia had won at Sadowa. His envoys and agents in
Germany assured him that the German States hated Prussia, and in their
hearts looked to France for deliverance. As a matter of fact, it was
German hatred of France and the German terror of a French occupation,
that was binding them closer to Prussia. French intrigues might have
delayed the union of Germany, but French aggression was certain to
precipitate it, and yet Napoleon resolved to adopt an aggressive policy.
As for the means, they were ready to his hand. Did not Marshal Lebœuf
report that the re-organised army of France could go anywhere and do
anything? There was not even a button wanting, and the new _chassepot_
and _mitrailleuse_ must annihilate any troops that faced their fire. The
pretext for the quarrel was soon found. Spain had long been looking for
a King. She offered her crown to Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern. On the
6th of July the Duc de Gramont angrily declared in the Legislature that
if Prussia permitted a Prussian Prince to accept the Crown of Spain,
France would consider his acceptance as a cause of war. In vain did the
Opposition warn the Emperor and his Ministers that such a war would be
unjustifiable and disastrous. Paris went into a frenzy of delight at the
prospect of a march to Berlin. Ever anxious to promote the cause of
peace, the Queen personally strove to avert hostilities, and so far as
Prussia was concerned with some success. The English Court and the
English Cabinet induced King William to advise Prince Leopold to refuse
the Spanish Crown. King William’s magnanimity and moderation in making
this concession to the arrogant demands of France were ill-requited. M.
Ollivier, it is true, announced to the Legislature that the dispute was
at an end, and Europe breathed freely. But to the amazement of everybody
it soon appeared that M. Ollivier had been duped, for instead of
crossing the golden bridge of retreat which the King of Prussia
generously built for him, Napoleon put forward a fresh demand. It was
not enough, said he, that Prince Leopold’s candidature should be
withdrawn. King William, as head of the Hohenzollerns, must give a
pledge that he would never in all time coming permit a Hohenzollern to
aspire to the Crown of Spain. The insolent claim was rejected. A
sensational and mendacious statement in the French Ministerial Press, to
the effect that King William had rudely refused even to grant an
audience to the French Ambassador, lashed the Parisians into a warlike
mood. This insult, the Duc de Gramont, amid a tempest of cheering, told
the French Chamber could only be avenged by a war--a war into which M.
Ollivier airily observed he went “with a light heart.” On the 16th of
July the French Declaration of War was delivered at Berlin, and French
armies were moving towards the Rhine, with Parisian screams of “_À
Berlin!_” ringing in their ears.

[Illustration: SEDAN.]

Napoleon commanded in person, with Lebœuf as his lieutenant; Marshal
Macmahon led the right wing, or Army of Strasbourg; Bazaine, with
Frossard, Douay, and De Failly, commanded the corps that held the line
northward as far as Metz and Thionville. The aggressiveness of France
had flung the German States into the arms of Prussia, and Napoleon
delayed his march so long, that he lost his only chance of thrusting
himself between the

[Illustration: THE FRENCH TROOPS LEAVING METZ.]

hosts of Prussia and her South German allies. The administration of the
French army was soon seen to be in confusion, and its strength only on
paper. Its transport and commissariat broke down, and almost from the
outset it acted on the defensive, while the Imperial Staff seemed
ignorant of the geography of their own country. In the meanwhile Von
Bismarck biassed the opinion of England against France by publishing, on
the 25th of July, the draft of a secret Treaty which our ally Napoleon
III. had proposed to the King of Prussia, by which France was to consent
to the union of Prussia, or North Germany, with the States of South
Germany, in consideration of Germany helping France to seize Belgium. As
England stood pledged to defend Belgium, such a proposal revealed a
depth of perfidy which disgusted Europe with Bonapartism.[327] It was a
plot to make war on England, concocted by Napoleon at the very time
(August or September, 1866) when he was pretending to be her ally.[328]
North and South Germany swiftly mobilised their armies under the supreme
command of the King of Prussia, with Von Moltke as Chief of the Staff.
The Crown Prince of Prussia, with Blumenthal as his Chief of Staff, led
the South German troops. His cousin, Prince Frederick Charles, and
General Steinmetz, commanded the corps that marched on the valley of the
Moselle. When the Parisians were vaunting the success of the French
troops in a slight skirmish at Saarbrück, the Crown Prince defeated the
French at Weissenburg on the 4th of August, and on the 6th shattered
Macmahon’s army at Wörth, while Steinmetz--the “blood spendthrift,” as
Bismarck called him--crushed Frossard on Spicheren heights. A German
corps was sent to invest Strasbourg, whither part of Macmahon’s army had
fled. The Crown Prince started after the rest of that ill-fated force,
then retreating on Châlons. The relics of Frossard’s army had fled to
join Bazaine near Metz, whose design was to unite with Macmahon at
Châlons. The Emperor of the French had appointed the Empress as Regent
when he took command in person of the army near Metz. This command he
now resigned to Bazaine. The Legislative Body, infuriated by the defeats
on the frontier, turned the Ministry of Ollivier out of office, and
General Montauban, Duke of Palikao,[329] was called to power. To secure
the Emperor from the political consequences of retreat, Bazaine had
delayed his departure from Metz to Châlons for a fortnight after the
rout at Wörth. This obviously enabled the Germans to come up in time to
prevent him from joining hands with Macmahon. On the 14th Steinmetz held
him for a day at Courcelles. Then Prince Frederick Charles advanced and
harassed Bazaine with impetuous cavalry charges till reinforcements
arrived, which drove the French back on Gravelotte St. Privat. On the
18th the Germans fought and won the battle of Gravelotte, but at the
cost of one-seventh of their effective strength,[330] and finally shut
Bazaine up in Metz. Von Moltke immediately made arrangements to crush
Macmahon’s reorganised army at Châlons. It is due to Macmahon to say
that he himself and the Emperor desired to fall back on Paris, but the
Empress-Regent, fearing that the Emperor’s appearance in Paris, with an
army in retreat, might have bad political results, foolishly insisted on
Macmahon hastening eastwards to Metz to relieve Bazaine. Macmahon obeyed
these orders, and, as might have been expected, was intercepted and
surrounded by the Germans at Sedan, where the Emperor and his army,
after a disastrous fight, surrendered to the King of Prussia as
prisoners of war on the 1st of September. The Second Empire was consumed
in the circle of fire at Sedan. On the 4th of September the Imperial
dynasty was deposed, and a Republic proclaimed. The Empress and the
Ministry fled for their lives, the Empress making good her retreat to
England. A Provisional Government was formed under General Trochu,
Commander of the garrison of Paris, M. Jules Favre, M. Gambetta, and M.
de Rochefort, and M. Thiers undertook to roam over Europe in the futile
attempt to get some of the European Powers to mediate between France and
Prussia.[331] Germany now demanded the cession of Alsace and Lorraine,
and on the 19th of September Paris was invested and practically cut off
from all communication with the rest of France. M. Jules Favre opened up
pacific negotiations with Von Bismarck, but, as he refused to admit that
some transfer of strongholds and territory to Germany was necessary,
they were broken off. “Not an inch of our territory nor a stone of our
fortresses,” was the reply of M. Favre to the Prussian Minister’s
proposals. Bazaine might have escaped from Metz and relieved Paris, but
then the result of his skill and the valour of his army would have been
to strengthen the new-born Republic. He delayed too long, and he also
opened up negotiations with Von Bismarck through a secret envoy, General
Boyer. Bismarck had only one object--to conclude peace with some kind of
French Government which would be strong enough to keep its pledges.
Hence he had been willing to consent to an armistice, so that the
Government of the Republic might, by means of a General Election, obtain
an authoritative mandate from the people. This project having failed, he
was quite willing to conclude a peace with the Imperial Government
covered by Bazaine’s bayonets. He was willing to let Bazaine leave Metz
and proceed with his troops to some place where they might form a
rallying-point for the defeated dynasty.[332] The Empress-Regent in
England was consulted, but she declined to consent to any proposals
which made cession of territory a basis of peace. On the 25th of October
the King of Prussia wrote to the Empress that negotiations were at an
end, and on the 28th the great army of Metz--the last hope of the
Bonapartes--surrendered unconditionally. Bismarck’s policy was now to
foster the Third Republic till it became authoritative enough to
undertake and uphold Treaty obligations.

Though Paris was invested, a delegation of the Government of National
Defence, headed by M. Gambetta, a brilliant and eloquent young advocate,
who leapt into popularity by his attacks on the Emperor during a
political trial, escaped to Tours in a balloon, and on the 9th of
October he set up a civil and military administration for provincial
France. M. Gambetta displayed astounding courage, irrepressible energy,
and the highest practical administrative ability. Armies rose at his
word as if by magic, and a force of from 150,000 to 200,000 men, with
506 guns, under D’Aurelle de Paladines, was concentrated on the Loire.
Had Bazaine only held Metz for another month the siege of Paris must
have been raised. But the fall of Metz liberated the investing army of
Prince Frederick Charles, and Gambetta’s legions were for the most part
raw militiamen. Hence, when D’Aurelle de Paladines drove Von der Tann
out of Orleans he could not follow up his victory. Prince Frederick
Charles came up with the army of Metz, and Manteuffel stood between the
besiegers of Paris and any relief from the south-west. In vain did
D’Aurelle de Paladines and Trochu by concerted movements endeavour to
break the ring of steel which encircled Paris. Their rough, raw peasants
and improvised officers fought with the utmost gallantry, as if in
contrast to the Imperial troops at Sedan and in the battles before Metz,
where the rank and file in too many cases shrank from closing with the
enemy. But they could not stand against the superb troops of the German
States led by the ablest generals in Europe. After the recapture of
Orleans by the Germans on the 4th of December, D’Aurelle de Paladines
was superseded. His army was broken up into two corps, and under
Bourbaki and Chanzy retreated to the south-east and south-west of the
right bank of the Loire. The “Red Prince” (Frederick Charles) pursued
Bourbaki, and the Duke of Mecklenburg, after a series of obstinate
conflicts, pushed Chanzy slowly but surely from his positions near
Marchenoir. The French Government had now to quit Tours and remove to
Bordeaux, whereupon Chanzy retreated westwards. In the north-west,
Faidherbe, the only strategist of signal ability whom the war brought to
the front on the French side, had many toughly contested engagements
with Von Goeben and Manteuffel, in which the Germans usually had the
advantage. But after Christmas the French leader fairly claimed to have
beaten his German antagonists at Noyelles, where he held his main
position in spite of the attacks of the enemy, though he voluntarily
evacuated it next day, and fell back on his old line at Lille.[333]
Werder was not fortunate in the east. He could not hold Nuits, and he
had to let Dijon fall into the hands of Garibaldi, who, in a fit of
Republican enthusiasm, had given his sword to France after the Empire
fell. The net result of the war at the end of the year was this: Paris
was

[Illustration: VERSAILLES, 1871: PROCLAIMING KING WILLIAM GERMAN
EMPEROR.]

completely invested. But, thanks to M. Gambetta’s fiery genius and
practical organising power, France, after the surrender of the regular
troops of the Third Empire, with their trained officers at their head,
had actually more troops in the field than she possessed when Napoleon
III. advanced to Saarbrück. These improvised armies of the infant
Republic consisted of the rawest recruits. But they freed Normandy and
Picardy, and all accounts showed that on the whole they fought with more
pluck than the Imperial legions who surrendered at Metz and Sedan.

The effect of the war on English public opinion was curious. At the
outset Englishmen of the better sort without distinction of class seemed
to sympathise with Prussia. But the Roman Catholics both in Ireland and
England became partisans of France. After Sedan a change took place. The
enthusiasm of the Roman Catholic party rather cooled, whereas the
working-classes and the advanced democrats in England transferred their
moral support from Prussia to France. The Queen, though she felt the
deepest personal sympathy for the fallen Emperor and his consort, was
naturally drawn to the German cause. It was freighted with those high
aspirations after German unity, which had been the central idea of her
husband’s foreign policy. The brilliant victories of the South German
armies had been won under the leadership of her favourite son-in-law, in
whom the romance and chivalry of mediæval Teutonic Knighthood seemed to
live again. The husband of her favourite daughter and constant
correspondent (the Princess Louis) was a Divisional commander in the
great host, whose iron grasp held Bazaine in Metz. Writing in July to
the Queen, the Princess says, “How much I feel for you now, for I know
how truly you must feel for Germany; and _all_ know that every good
thing England does for Germany, and every evil she wards off her, is
owing to your wisdom and experience, and to your true and just feelings.
You would, I am sure, be pleased to hear how universally this is
recognised and appreciated. What would beloved papa have thought of this
war? The unity of Germany, which it has brought about, would please him,
but not the shocking means.”[334] Unfortunately the personal relations
of friendliness which often bind Courts have in these days but slight
influence on the relations that subsist between Governments. The
Prussian Government was not contented with English sympathy. England,
said the Prussians, might by timely diplomatic action have prevented the
outbreak of the war.[335] But she had a selfish motive in eliminating
Imperial France from Europe as a dominating force. Prussia, in crushing
France, was incidentally doing the work of England in defending Belgium,
and hence England made no effort to keep the peace. Then there had been
some trivial exports of arms from England to France, and the Prussian
Minister--forgetting how Prussia had supplied Russia during the Crimean
War--pretended to consider these exports a breach of neutrality. Oddly
enough, though the Americans had engaged much more extensively in this
traffic, Prussia made no complaint against them. The German case, as
argued by Count Bernstoff, was obviously weak. So long as a country
carries on its trade with belligerents, not as a partisan but as a
neutral, it is impossible for diplomacy to stop that trade. Count
Bernstoff, however, argued that as Prussia did not need to buy arms from
England, whereas France did, the English trade in arms with France must
be necessarily one-sided or partisan. His despatches laying down his
eccentric doctrine of “benevolent neutrality” simply amounted to the
assertion of a new principle. The usage had been that the neutral was
free, subject to the usual risks, to trade with either of two
belligerents just as if there were no war at all. The new principle
asserted by Count Bernstoff was that the neutral, before selling a
belligerent anything, must consider carefully whether the transaction
will confer a benefit on him which it is beyond anybody’s power to
confer on the other belligerent on the same terms. Neutral traffic must,
according to the Prussian Foreign Office, cease whenever its results
give one belligerent certain advantages direct and indirect over the
other. Lord Granville had little difficulty in disposing of a chimerical
doctrine which would have cast on a neutral the burden of weighing his
lawful trade with belligerents to see that each got exactly the same
fair share of it. But the absurd paradox was advanced merely to give Von
Bismarck an excuse for conniving at an act of diplomatic hostility to
England, on the part of Russia, his connivance being the price he had to
pay the Czar, who held back Austria, for “benevolent neutrality” in
1870-71.

In the middle of November the Russian Government suddenly issued a
Circular repudiating the clause in the Treaty of Paris which prevented
Russia from keeping a fleet in the Black Sea. Lord Granville protested
with high spirit against the claim of Russia to repudiate any clause in
a Treaty she had signed, save with the consent of the cosignatories.
Austria, Turkey, and Italy supported England, but Bismarck told Mr. Odo
Russell, who was sent on a diplomatic mission to the King of Prussia at
Versailles, that Prussia had always thought the Treaty needlessly harsh
to Russia, and that, as German interests were not involved, he had no
intention of taking any notice of the Russian Circular. “Resolved, as
Bismarck therefore was,” says Mr. Lowe, “to let the Russians have their
own way, and even help them to attain it, his only care was how to do
this in the manner least objectionable to England. The Black Sea Clause
had been knocked on the head, and was already as dead as a door-nail;
but there was no reason why it should be flung into a ditch like a dog,
and not interred with the decent ceremony of undertakers’ woe.... Thus
too, doubtless, thought Bismarck when he proposed that the Powers should
meet and wail a doleful dirge over the lamented body of their lifeless
offspring. Ingenious idea! A coroner’s inquest in the shape of a
diplomatic Conference to sit on the murdered body of the Black Sea
Clause!”[336] Lord Granville’s position was an embarrassing one. It has
already been pointed out that the Black Sea Clause was in many respects
indefensible, and it was not possible to offer the English people any
adequate return for the money and blood that must be spent in waging a
futile war with Russia to maintain the Treaty. Yet the manner in which
Russia had “denounced” it was meant to be humiliating to England, and it
needed some adroit manœuvring to extricate the country from the
situation which had been created for it by the foolish diplomacy of
1856. When the Conference met on the 17th of January, 1871, the
representatives of the Powers kept their gravity when the President
(Lord Granville) said that it met without any foregone conclusions. To
save the honour of England and put on record a formal avowal of
theoretical belief in the sanctity of Treaties, the Conference
unanimously agreed to declare that no State could recede from its
engagements with other States, save with the consent of these States.
Then Russia was released from the obligations of the Black Sea Clause,
which she had already declared she had no intention of respecting.

For a time the revolutionary forces in Spain were stilled by the
election of the Prince Amadeus of Italy (the Duke of Aosta), second son
of Victor Emmanuel, to the throne of the Cortes. The collapse of the
French Empire naturally led to the annexation of Rome by Italy, and it
was a strange coincidence that the year which saw the extinction of the
temporal power of the Pope, saw his spiritual power asserted more firmly
and extensively than ever. The Assembly of Roman Catholic prelates at
Rome known as the Œcumenical Council, met at the beginning of the year
to proclaim the dogma of Papal Infallibility. The opposition to this
proclamation was organised by the most eminent of the English,
American, German, and Hungarian bishops, and at one time it was feared
they would triumph. The Pope had, however, secured a majority of votes
by the somewhat sublunary method of creating new bishops governing
mythical sees. The doctrine of Infallibility was accordingly proclaimed
a few days after the declaration of war by France against Germany, a war
which had been vigorously promoted by the secret agents of the Vatican,
who had acquired a controlling spiritual influence over the French
Empress. After the annexation of Rome by Victor Emmanuel on the 20th of
September, the Pope refused to hold any intercourse with the Italian
Government. Immuring himself in the Leonine City as a voluntary
prisoner, he pathetically appealed for sympathy to the blunted
sensibilities of a wicked world.

As the year wore on, and the German armies strengthened their hold on
France, it became clear that German unity under Prussian leadership was
an accomplished fact. The autumnal negotiations for the absorption of
the South German States in the North German Confederation ended well,
mainly because Bismarck made generous concessions, reserving the
sovereign rights of Bavaria and Wurtemberg, and abandoning on the part
of Prussia an exclusive right to declare war. The King of Bavaria, the
Grand Duke of Baden, and the other Sovereign Princes, then invited King
William of Prussia to assume the Imperial Crown, and on the 18th of
January, 1871, he was proclaimed German Emperor in the Hall of Kings at
Versailles.[337]

During 1870 the Queen emerged from her seclusion on the 11th of May to
open the splendid hall and offices of the University of London in
Burlington Gardens. The ceremonial was conducted with a pomp and dignity
worthy of the occasion. The senate and graduates wore their academic
costume, Mr. Lowe being the only dignitary who appeared in any other
garb. He, however, had donned for the occasion the official robes of the
Chancellor of the Exchequer, a sumptuous garment for which it was
whispered he had been so extravagant as to pay £130. The Queen was
accompanied by the Prince and Princess of Wales, the Princess Louise,
and a brilliant train of distinguished persons. The Chancellor (Lord
Granville) read an address to the Queen. Her Majesty handed him a reply,
and having declared the building open the silver bugles blew a blast of
joy. When the Queen retired, Lord Granville, in distributing the prizes,
referred felicitously to Queen Elizabeth’s visits to Oxford and
Cambridge--those visits during which she is described as “questioning
and answering and scolding not only in Latin but also in Greek.”

In the autumn of the year the Queen in Council gave her consent to the
marriage of the Princess Louise and the Marquess of Lorne, the eldest
son of the Duke of Argyll. When it became known that the Queen had
violated the exclusive traditions of the House of Brunswick, and
reverted to old precedents set by the Plantagenets, the Tudors, and the
Stuarts, who all contracted marriages with subjects, society was greatly
excited. The marriage was regarded as a triumph of aristocratic and
democratic ideas over the monarchical principle--that is to say, of the
triumph of the two ideas that have ever been most popular in England.
The Queen with great tact had consciously or unconsciously responded to
the instinctive feeling that had silently grown among her people. They
had always disliked, though they had never dared to repeal, the Royal
Marriage Act. It was felt to be a sacrifice to expediency--and it was
passed mainly because Englishmen did not desire to see Mrs. FitzHerbert
crowned as Queen of England. The Act bound all the descendants of George
III. who wished to marry to obtain the written consent of the
Sovereign,[338] and it was felt that as Princes and Princesses were very
apt to form _mésalliances_, it would be difficult to maintain the
_prestige_ of the monarchy, save under some such restrictions as the Act
imposed.[339] But when the Royal Family increased and multiplied, so
that the Princess Louise only stood twentieth in the line of succession
to the Queen, it was time to relax the usage. No State interest could,
in such a case, be practically endangered, by permitting a daughter of
England to indulge her personal preferences in the selection of a
husband.

The death of General Grey in the spring of the year was deeply felt by
the Queen. The Princess Louis in one of her letters to her mother says,
“Lady Car (Barrington) wrote to me how very grateful Mrs. Grey was to
you for your great kindness and consideration. In trouble no one can
have a more true and sympathising friend than my beloved mamma always
is. How many hearts has she not gained by this, and how many a poor
sufferer’s burdens has she not lightened!” General Grey’s services as
Private Secretary to the Sovereign, indeed, were such as to render his
death a matter of serious political interest. At this time the Queen
exercised a personal supervision over every department of State, more
especially over the Foreign Office, War Office, Admiralty, and Poor Law
Board. On all matters of importance connected with the administration of
these offices it was her custom to send to the Government of the day her
own views, and such notes of precedents and of the opinions of former
Ministers, as her carefully-kept series of State commonplace books
supplied. It was the duty of General Grey to take the rough drafts of
memoranda as they came from the Queen’s hand, and give them the form of
State papers. In fact, he did the work which the Prince Consort had been
in the habit of doing, and his position was really that of a
supernumerary Minister in attendance at Court, but without a seat in the
Cabinet, and without any responsibility to Parliament. After General
Grey’s death it was suggested that a new Cabinet office should be
created, to be held by a Minister who should have no other duty than
that of residing in personal attendance on the Queen, and acting as her
Private Secretary. The suggestion was happily not pressed, because it
would obviously have led to Constitutional difficulties. The new
Minister must have become either the Queen’s clerk, in which case he
would have been an encumbrance to the Cabinet, or he must have become a
real Minister of State confidentially representing the Sovereign, in
which case he would have become its master. Colonel Ponsonby was
therefore selected to succeed General Grey, and the revival of
Government by favourites, which was the bane of the early years of
George III.’s reign, was prevented.

The death of Charles Dickens on the 9th of June robbed England of a
great humourist, whose genius was consecrated not only to the delight,
but to the service of the English people. It was his mission to soften
the harsh contrasts of society, and quicken the consciences, and touch
the hearts of the governing classes, to whose apathy and ignorance of
life among the poor he traced most “of the oppression that is done under
the sun.” Whether Dickens will survive as an English classic has been
doubted. But no doubt exists as to the qualities which gave him an
unique position among men of letters in the Victorian period. His sense
of humour was singularly keen and delicate. His faculty of observation
exceeded that ever given to mortal man; in fact, what he saw, he saw so
vividly that by his descriptive method he could print it on his reader’s
mind with photographic fidelity. His power of characterisation, it is
true, was limited, but that was because his characterisation was
invariably idiosyncratic. It was always an isolated phase of a character
that impressed him--a single trait to which he gave corporeal reality.
On the other hand,

[Illustration: CHARLES DICKENS.]

there was no limit to his power of producing fresh illustrations of this
phase or trait under an infinite variety of circumstances and
conditions. If he rang the changes on one theme, his capacity for
producing variations on the original air with unfailing freshness, and
seductive spontaneity, imparted some semblance of the roundness and
many-sidedness of Nature even to the oddest of his oddities. But his
sense of colour was faulty, and his passion for melodramatic effect, and
his habit of harping too much on one string of feeling, gave to his
pathos, a false note of theatrical sentimentality. None of his

[Illustration: GARDEN PARTY AT WINDSOR CASTLE.]

readers in England, it may fairly be said, was a more consistent and
devoted admirer of the genius of Dickens than the Queen. Next to Scott
and George Eliot, Dickens was her favourite novelist. It had been her
desire in the early days of her married life to make his acquaintance
personally, but the touch of false pride which marred Dickens’s
character, and rendered him morbidly sensitive as to “patronage,”
prevented their meeting. In 1857, the Queen had been compelled to refuse
her name for the dramatic performance of the _Frozen Deep_, given for
the benefit of Douglas Jerrold,[340] but she offered to allow Dickens
and his company of players to select a room in the Palace and perform
the play there before her and the Court. Dickens begged leave to decline
the offer, as he could not feel easy about the social position of his
daughters at a Court under such circumstances. He suggested that the
Queen might come to the Gallery of Illustrations a week before the
subscription night, with her own friends, and witness a private
performance of the play. “This,” writes Dickens, “with the good sense
that seems to accompany her good nature on all occasions, she resolved
within a few hours to do.” So delighted was the Queen with the
performance that she sent round a kind message to Dickens asking him to
come and see her and receive her thanks personally. “I replied,” says
Dickens, in his account of the affair, “that I was in my farce dress,
and must beg to be excused. Whereupon she sent again, saying that the
dress ‘would not be so ridiculous as that,’ and repeating the request. I
sent my duty in reply, but again hoped her Majesty would have the
kindness to excuse myself presenting myself in a costume and appearance
that was not my own. I was mighty glad to think, when I awoke this
morning, that I had carried the point.” This incident occurred in 1857.

In 1858 the Queen made another attempt to bring the great novelist to
Court. “I was put into a state of much perplexity on Sunday” (30th
March, 1858), writes Dickens. “I don’t know who had spoken to my
informant, but it seems that the Queen is bent upon hearing the ‘Carol’
read, and has expressed her desire to bring it about without offence,
and hesitating about the manner of it, in consequence of my having
begged to be excused from going to her when she sent for me after the
_Frozen Deep_. I parried the thing as well as I could, but being asked
to be prepared with a considerate and obliging answer, as it was known
the request would be preferred, I said, ‘Well, I supposed Colonel Phipps
would speak to me about it, and, if it were he who did so, I should
assure him of my desire to meet any wish of her Majesty, and should
express my hope that she would indulge me by making one of some audience
or other, for I thought an audience necessary to the effect.’ Thus it
stands, but it bothers me.” This difficulty could not be got over,
though the Queen, by buying a copy of the “Carol,” embellished with the
author’s autograph, at the sale of Thackeray’s library, testified to her
interest in the two great humourists of the Victorian age.[341] Indeed,
it was not till 1870, shortly before Dickens’s death, that the novelist
met the Queen. He had brought from his American tour a great many large
photographs of the battle-fields of the Civil War. Having taken a deep
interest in that struggle, and having followed its details closely, her
Majesty, who heard of the photographs through Mr. Arthur Helps (Clerk of
the Privy Council), expressed a desire to see them. Dickens, on hearing
of this from Mr. Helps, at once sent the photographs to Buckingham
Palace, and then received a message from the Queen inviting him to see
her, that she might thank him in person. “The Queen’s kindness,” says
Mr. Forster, “left a strong impression on Dickens. Upon her Majesty
expressing regret not to have heard his readings, Dickens intimated that
they had become now a thing of the past, while he acknowledged
gratefully her Majesty’s compliment in regard to them. She spoke to him
of the impression made upon her by his acting in the _Frozen Deep_, and,
on his stating, in reply to her inquiry, that the little play had not
been very successful on the public stage, said this did not surprise
her, since it no longer had the advantage of his performance in it. Then
arose some mention of some alleged discourtesy shown to Prince Arthur
in New York, and he begged her Majesty not to confound the true
Americans of that city with the Fenian portion of its Irish population,
on which she made the quiet comment that she was sure the people about
the Prince had made too much of the story. He related to her the story
of President Lincoln’s dream the night before his murder. She asked him
to give her his writings, and could she have them that afternoon? but he
begged to be allowed to send a bound copy. Her Majesty then took from a
table her own book on the Highlands, with an autograph inscription to
‘Charles Dickens,’ and saying that the ‘humblest of writers’ would be
ashamed to offer it to ‘one of the greatest,’ but that Mr. Helps, being
asked to give it, had remarked that it would be valued most from
herself, closed the interview by placing it in his hands.” Though
Dickens refused a baronetcy, which the Queen would have gladly conferred
on him, he was persuaded to go to Court. In March, 1870, he writes to a
friend:--“As my Sovereign desires that I should attend the next levee,
don’t faint with amazement if you see my name in that unwonted
connection. I have scrupulously kept myself free for the 2nd of April,
in case you should be accessible.” His name is among those who attended
the levee, and his daughter’s name appears among those who were at the
Drawing Room that followed. “I never saw Mr. Dickens more agreeable,”
says Lady Houghton in a letter to Mr. Forster, “than at a dinner at our
house about a fortnight before his death, when he met the King of the
Belgians and the Prince of Wales, at the special desire of the
latter.”[342]

The chief social function of the season of 1870 was the Garden Party at
Windsor, which took place on the 25th of June. Great preparations were
made for the event. A series of tastefully arranged tents had been
erected on the lawn under the East Terrace, and in the grounds of the
Home Park towards Frogmore, and the State Apartments of the Castle were
also thrown open for the reception of guests, who were conveyed from the
station by forty carriages. They began to arrive about four o’clock, and
the Prince and Princess of Wales and other members of the Royal Family
came on the scene later on. The street and road to the Castle were kept
by a large body of the Metropolitan Police; a guard of honour of the
Scots Fusilier Guards was posted in the quadrangle of the Castle, and
the Yeomen of the Royal Body Guard were on duty inside. The Queen, who
looked well and cheerful, received her visitors in a tent near the wall
of the East Terrace, and was surrounded by members of her family, and
attended by the Lord Chamberlain, the Duchess of Sutherland, and the
Marchioness of Ely. The London Glee and Madrigal Union and her Majesty’s
private band supplied the music that delighted the gay and brilliant
crowd of promenaders, who did not break up and return to town till about
seven o’clock in the evening. It had been expected that the Queen would
be able to attend and open the Thames Embankment early in July, and her
appearance at the Garden Party at Windsor strengthened popular
anticipations. Unfortunately, when the time came round, her Majesty felt
herself unable to endure the strain of the public ceremony, and the
consequence was that, when it was performed on her behalf by the Prince
of Wales (13th July), at least a thousand seats were vacant for which
tickets had been issued.

Ere the year ended the rebellion in the Red River Settlement, or the
“Revolt of the Winnipegers,” as the Americans called them, was quelled.
The history of the rising was as follows:--The Hudson’s Bay Company had
enjoyed powers of proprietorship and exclusive trade in the vast region
extending from the American frontier to the Frozen Ocean. Early in the
century Lord Selkirk had established in the extreme south of this
region, and close to the American line, a colony of mixed blood,
descended from French, Canadian, English, and Scottish parents, servants
of the Company. They squatted on a strip of fertile land on the Red
River, which flows from Minnesota into Lake Winnipeg. These people
increased to the number of 10,000, and they inhabited, perhaps, the most
secluded spot ever reached by European colonists, in the centre of the
North American Continent. They had been ruled by the Company under a
“Governor of Assiniboia,” and a Recorder. In 1869 the Company agreed to
sell all their territorial and sovereign rights in Rupert’s Land to
Canada for £300,000. This cession included the Red River Settlement. The
“Winnipegers” however, objected to be transferred to what they called a
“foreign power,” and they split into two parties--the Canadians, almost
all half-breeds, speaking French and professing the Catholic religion,
and who rose in rebellion, and a minority of English and Scots who
remained loyal. The rebels refused to admit into the district Mr.
Macdougal, who was sent by Canada as Governor. A leading agitator, Louis
Riel, was proclaimed (in February) “President of the Republic of the
North-West,” and the insurgents appealed to the United States for
protection. A contingent under command of Colonel Wolseley was
despatched to suppress the insurrection. The expedition reached Fort
Garry, the headquarters of Riel and his rebel followers, on the 23rd of
August. They were welcomed by the loyal party, and found that Riel
himself had disappeared, with a considerable amount of plunder, into the
neighbouring American territory. The British force was admirably
handled, and did not lose a single man, despite the enormous
difficulties of its march over a rough and broken country. For from its
point of disembarkation in Lake Superior, it had to travel through 600
miles of an unknown wilderness of water, rocks, and forests, where no
supplies were obtainable. The whole expense was under £100,000, of which
one quarter only was to be paid by England. Order was re-established on
the Red River at the end of 1870, and, as the “province of Manitoba,” it
was added to Canada.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] In 1847 the rate of discount had risen to 8 per cent., and the
bullion in the Bank had fallen to £8,313,000. On the 9th of November,
1857, the rate of discount rose to 10 per cent., and yet gold still
flowed out till it sank to £7,171,000. The Bank was authorised to
increase its issue by £21,000,000.

[2] Campbell’s army consisted of 25,000 men, 16,000 being European
troops, the largest number ever brought together in India up to that
time.

[3] Sir H. Rose’s losses were 38 killed, and 215 wounded. The starving
women and children were, however, spared, and, indeed, fed by the
English soldiers, out of their own rations. The massacre of the
garrison was an act of vengeance for the treacherous butchery of the
English in Jhansi, who, on the 4th of June, 1857, had surrendered, on
the assurance that their lives would be spared by the implacable Ranee.
She, however, ordered them to be killed, as at Cawnpore.

[4] The Nankin Treaty of 1842 was confirmed. Ambassadors and diplomatic
agents were by the new Treaty to be appointed at St. James’s and
Pekin, and the British Minister was to be received at Pekin without
being called on to perform any humiliating ceremony. Disrespect to the
British Minister was to be a punishable offence, and Consuls in open
ports were to be respected. Chinese Christians were to be protected,
and not persecuted by the Government, and British subjects were to have
a right of travelling in China under passports. Newchwang, Tang-chow,
Taiwan, Chan-chow, and Kiung-chow were to be, with the ports, opened
by the Treaty of Nankin free to British subjects. British subjects
were permitted to employ Chinamen in any lawful capacity, and British
ships were to trade on the Yang-Tsze river. All questions of right
between British subjects were to be decided by British authorities, but
Chinese criminals were to be punished by the Chinese tribunals. Other
clauses stipulated for a war indemnity to England, for full privileges
of protection to British subjects, and for tariff and customs dues on
goods carried by British ships. After the Treaty was concluded, the
Chinese Emperor evaded his obligation to ratify it, till compelled to
do so by force in 1860.

[5] Greville Memoirs, Third Part, Vol. II., pp. 125, 126.

[6] Greville Memoirs, Third Part, Vol. II., pp. 133, 134.

[7] Palmerston in defeating Mr. Locke King’s motion for leave to bring
in a Reform Bill committed a fatal error. The Cabinet originally meant
to support the scheme, but to insist on raising Mr. King’s £10 county
franchise to £20--which would probably have settled the Reform question
for ten or fifteen years. As it was, by opposing the measure, and
referring Reform to a Cabinet Committee, they disgusted a powerful body
of their own supporters, who felt that the Whigs meant to shelve Reform
altogether.

[8] Lord Granville and the Duke of Argyll.

[9] Greville Memoirs, Third Part, Vol. II., p. 155.

[10] Mr. Henley, one of the ablest members of the Tory Party,
strenuously opposed his leaders on this question, and supported the
vote of thanks to Lord Canning.

[11] It is more than probable that had the Tories been in office
Napoleon III. would never have dreamt of pressing them, as he pressed
Palmerston, to alter the law of Conspiracy so as to harass political
refugees in England. In 1853 he sounded Lord Malmesbury on the subject,
who told him, with manly firmness and frankness, that “Every country
had its own subject on which no cession could be made. The Holy Places
in the East was that of Russia, the refugees was ours, and it was
useless to torment us about an impossibility, for no English Minister
could alter the law at present.”--Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. I.,
p. 392.

[12] Greville Memoirs, Third Part, entry under date 21st February.

[13] See Letter of Prince Consort to Stockmar, Martin’s Life of the
Prince Consort, Chap. LXXXIII.

[14] Her Majesty’s sanction strengthened the hands of the
unconstitutional sections of the Radical and Tory Parties, who have of
late years connived at the progressive usurpation of the functions of
the Executive by the House of Commons, thereby laying the basis for
“Home Rule” agitations in discontented Ireland, and in “neglected”
Wales and Scotland. In the attempt to combine executive with
legislative functions the House of Commons has virtually broken down.

[15] The Cabinet consisted of Lord Derby, Premier; Lord Chelmsford,
Lord Chancellor; Lord Salisbury, President of the Council; Lord
Hardwicke, Lord Privy Seal; Lord Malmesbury, Foreign Secretary; Mr.
Walpole, Home Secretary; Lord Stanley, Colonial Secretary; Sir John
Pakington, First Lord of the Admiralty; General Peel, Secretary of
State for War; Mr. Henley, President of the Board of Trade; Lord John
Manners, First Commissioner of Works; Lord Ellenborough, President of
the Board of Control; and Mr. Disraeli, Chancellor of the Exchequer,
and Leader of the House of Commons.

[16] Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. II., p. 98. Soon afterwards,
however, arrangements were made which enabled Sir E. B. Lytton to take
the Colonial Office, Lord Derby going to the India Office.

[17] Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. II., p. 99.

[18] Greville Memoirs, Third Part, Vol. II., p. 214. The evidence of
Mr. Greville in this instance is that of an unwilling witness. He still
affected, like most independent political thinkers in 1858, to treat a
Derby-Disraeli Cabinet as a burlesque Ministry. For example, he never
condescended to attend as Clerk of the Privy Council after Lord Derby
took office, but allowed his deputy to do duty. When this was pointed
out to Lord Derby, he only laughed, and said “he had not observed his
(Greville’s) absence, as he never knew whether it was John or Thomas
who answered the bell.”--Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. II., p. 153.

[19] Moreover, there was just a chance that Ministers might be beaten,
which would necessarily have brought back Lord John Russell, a prospect
to which Whigs like Lord Clarendon looked forward with horror, because
he would come back with a Reform Bill. See a private letter from Lord
Malmesbury to Lord Cowley in The Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. II.,
p. 100.

[20] See The Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. II., pp. 101, 106, 151,
and 152, for evidence bearing on this grave charge against Palmerston
and Persigny.

[21] The Peelite leaders sneered at the appointment. Mr. Greville
calls Pélissier “a military ruffian, as ignorant of diplomacy as of
astronomy.”--Greville Memoirs, Third Part, Vol. II., p. 181. The
Palmerstonians objected to him because his ignorance of diplomacy
rendered it difficult for them to intrigue with him for the purpose of
embarrassing the Government of their own country.

[22] A few days after the formation of the Derby-Disraeli Ministry,
De Persigny told Clarendon that the Tory Government “had prepared for
themselves an _héritage de rupture_ by the concurrence of their Party
in the vote that had driven Lord Palmerston from power.”--Martin’s
Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. LXXXIV. “The first time I met
him (Persigny) at the Foreign Office,” writes Lord Malmesbury, “he
literally raved, laying his hand on the hilt of his sword (he was
in Court dress), and shouting ‘_C’est la guerre! c’est la guerre!_’
during which scene I sat perfectly silent and unmoved, till he
was blown, which is the best way of meeting such explosions from
foreigners.”--Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. II., p. 106.

[23] The _Cagliari_ was a Sardinian ship fitted out to carry a
revolutionary expedition to stir up Calabria. She was seized by the
Neapolitan Government, and her two English engineers, Messrs. Watts and
Park, were imprisoned.

[24] Mr. Greville hints that the Radicals were subsequently angry at
Lord John Russell for helping Mr. Disraeli out of his difficulty with
the India Bill. On this point he seems to have been misinformed. See
Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort.

[25] The phrase was one used by Pélissier to the Prince Consort. See
Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. LXXXIV.

[26] Walpole’s History of England, Vol. V., p. 428; Holmes’ History of
the Indian Mutiny, p. 454; Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. II., p. 118.

[27] The Talookdars of Oudh were not freeholders, but Crown vassals--in
some cases hereditary--who really farmed the Crown rents as middlemen
between the cultivators and the State. As a matter of abstract right,
Canning’s proclamation, declaring the soil of Oudh to be the sole
property of the British Government, could not be impugned. Nor could
its policy as regards rebel Talookdars be disputed. Still, it is but
fair to say that Outram thought the original draft too sweeping, and
that it might prejudice many claims which it would be prudent to
recognise. Canning allowed Outram to soften the Proclamation, and it
was so discreetly acted on by Outram and his successor, Mr. Robert
Montgomery, that the powerful local aristocracy of Oudh were speedily
pacified. There was, therefore, just a grain of truth in Ellenborough’s
objections to the original draft.

[28] A Resolution of this sort, however, was valid only for the current
Session. Hence it had to be renewed every Session a Jew came to be
sworn. In 1860 a new Act substituted a standing order for a Resolution,
so that Jews could be sworn without any preliminary proceedings. Even
this last relic of bigotry was swept away by the Act 29 & 30 Vict., c.
19, which deleted the words “on the true faith of a Christian” from the
Parliamentary Oath. See Sir Erskine May’s Parliamentary Practice, Sixth
Edition, pp. 189-192.

[29] In May they were induced to shake hands at Mr. Ellice’s (“Bear”
Ellice) house. But Lord Malmesbury says that when the incident was
discussed at Lady Palmerston’s, Lady William Russell observed, “They
have shaken hands, and embraced, and hate each other more than
ever.”--Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. II., p. 120.

[30] After much diplomatic squabbling, a Conference settled the point
on the 10th of August, by establishing the same institutions in both
Principalities, both with separate Ministries and Parliaments. The
first thing the Provinces did was to vote their own union under Prince
Couza--a mortification for England, against the probable occurrence of
which her careless diplomatists had not stipulated.

[31] Her Majesty was not the only one of the guests who had been
shaken. “An absurd occurrence,” writes Lord Malmesbury, “took place
when Sir John Pakington, as First Lord of the Admiralty, landed Lord
Hardwicke and Admiral Dundas in his barge. As he steered her, he kept
time with the men as he would if he had been rowing on the Thames,
bending his body backwards and forwards, and as he approached the
pier, not having given the order ‘Way enough,’ the boat with her whole
force struck the mole, and the two admirals and the whole crew fell
sprawling on their backs. The rage of the two former, after recovering
themselves, was vented with uncontrolled expressions on the unfortunate
First Lord, amidst the laughter of the spectators, who were standing on
the pier.”--Memoirs of an Ex-Minister. Vol II., pp. 129, 130.

[32] Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. LXXXVII.

[33] Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. LXXXVIII.

[34] Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. LXXXVIII.

[35] Greville Memoirs, Third Part, Vol. II., p. 213.

[36] This important secret pact was not unknown to the British
Government. It came into Mr. Kinglake’s possession, and at Lord
Palmerston’s request he gave a copy of it privately to Mr. Seymour
Fitzgerald, who represented the Foreign Office in the House of Commons.
The text was revealed by Lord Malmesbury. The Princess Clothilde made a
grim joke upon her loveless and ill-fated marriage--“Quand on a vendu
l’enfant, on peut bien vendre le berceau.”--Memoirs of an Ex-Minister,
Vol. II., pp. 220, 221, 223.

[37] The intrigue between Lord Palmerston and Napoleon III. at
Compiègne, in November, gave great and justifiable offence to the Tory
Ministry, and was regarded with disapproval by the country.

[38] Lowe’s Life of Bismarck, Vol. I., p. 236.

[39] Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. XC.

[40] Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. II., p. 155.

[41] See Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. XC.

[42] Votes were given to persons who had £10 a year in Bank Stock or
the Funds, or a deposit of £60 in a Savings Bank, or a pension from
the State of £20 a year, and to University graduates, members of the
learned professions, and certain schoolmasters.

[43] Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. XCII.

[44] Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. XCIII.

[45] Lord Palmerston’s organs in the Press were, during this
controversy, virtually official organs of the French Emperor,
and were embarrassing ministers with factious opposition. Lord
Malmesbury, writing in his Diary on the 21st of February, observes,
“Lady Tankerville says that Lady Palmerston told her that the attack
upon the Foreign Policy of our Government, for which her husband had
given notice to-morrow, was made in compliance with the Emperor’s
wish!”--Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. II., p. 158.

[46] Lord Malmesbury warned Prussia that England could not approve
of her going to war with France, and would give her no assistance
in protecting the German coast against an attack by a French or a
Franco-Russian fleet.--See Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, pp. 204, 205.

[47] Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. II., p. 184.

[48] Ashley’s Life of Lord Palmerston, Vol. II., p. 160.

[49] The surrender of Lombardy and the Duchies to Sardinia was one.

[50] Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. II., pp. 200, 201.

[51] Ashley’s Life of Lord Palmerston, Vol. II.

[52] The Queen apparently did not know that, owing to the use which
Napoleon had made of Palmerston’s indiscreet approval of Persigny’s
proposals, the Emperor of Austria was under the impression that we had
been willing to act as extortioners. On the 12th of July, a day before
the Queen wrote her letter to Lord John Russell, the Austrian Emperor
wrote to Napoleon III., thanking him for informing him that England
supported Persigny’s terms. Lord John Russell, in a despatch (July 27),
found it necessary to undeceive the Austrian Government on this point.

[53] It was raised from 5d. to 9d.

[54] Palmerston contended in the end of August that these plans came
within the decision of the Cabinet not to meddle with the Italian
question till after the Treaty of Zurich had been signed. The Queen
held that they did not, and on a Cabinet meeting being hastily summoned
to settle the point, the decision went for the view of the Queen.

[55] Greville Memoirs, Third Part, Vol. II., p. 270.

[56] Ashley’s Life of Palmerston, Vol. II., p. 174.

[57] Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. II., p. 213.

[58] Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. XCVII.

[59] Morley’s Life of Cobden, Chap. XXVI.

[60] The National Budget, by Alexander Johnstone Wilson. London:
Macmillan: 1882, p. 90.

[61] Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. II., p. 216. Morley’s Life of
Cobden, Chap. XXIX.

[62] In a letter to Mr. Bright he says, “To form a fair judgment of
this reckless levity and utter want of dignity and decency on the
part of the Prime Minister, just turn to the volumes of the life
of the first Lord Auckland, who was sent by Pitt to negotiate the
Commercial Treaty with France in 1786. I have not seen the book, but
I can tell you what you will not find in its pages. You will not read
that in the midst of those negotiations Pitt rose in the House, and
declared that he apprehended danger of a sudden and unprovoked attack
on our shores by the French king; that (whilst history told us we had
84,000 men voted for our Navy to the 31,000 in France, and whilst we
had 150,000 riflemen assembled for drill) he, Mr. Pitt, pursued the
eccentric course of proposing that the nation should spend £10,000,000
on fortifications, and that he accompanied this with speeches in the
House in which he imputed treacherous and unprovoked designs upon
us on the part of the monarch with whom his own Plenipotentiary was
then negotiating a Treaty of Commerce in Paris. On the contrary, you
will find Pitt consistently defending, in all its breadth and moral
bearings, his peaceful policy, and it is the most enduring title to
fame that he left in all his public career.”--Morley’s Life of Cobden,
Chap. XXIX.

[63] Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. XCVIII.

[64] Ashley’s Life of Lord Palmerston, Vol. II., p. 190.

[65] Count Vitzthum illustrates the relations between the Republican
conspirators and the Italian Court by the following anecdote:--One
day an English gentleman visited Cavour, who was surprised to find he
knew a great deal about the intrigues of Victor Emmanuel’s Government.
He exclaimed, “How is it that you, a stranger, are acquainted with
secrets which I thought were only known to _one_ man besides the King
and myself--namely, the Republican exile, Mazzini?”--St. Petersburg
and London in the years 1852-1864. Reminiscences of Count Charles
Frederick Vitzthum von Eckstaedt, late Saxon Minister at the Court of
St. James’s: Longmans and Co. (1887).

[66] Count Vitzthum hints that the mysterious collapse of the Royalist
armies in the Sicilies was due to foul play. He says of Garibaldi, “His
jugglery, thanks to the inaction of Europe and the melancholy condition
of the kingdom of the Two Sicilies, met with unexpected success. One
example will suffice. A few weeks after Garibaldi’s entry into Naples,
a former Neapolitan General was arrested at Paris. He had, without
knowing it, paid out some forged banknotes. The examination showed he
had received them from Garibaldi as a bribe. People knew after this
how the latter bought his victories.” Vitzthum seems to have disliked
Garibaldi, and his opinion on the matter is not conclusive. One would
like to have better evidence than the confession of an utterer of
forged notes that he got them from Garibaldi. Even if the story be
true, it only points to what was one justification for the Sicilian
insurrection--the complete demoralisation of the servants of the State.

[67] Cavour’s invasion of the Papal States was inevitable, though
the pretext was flimsy. His subtle justification will be found in
his masterly despatch of the 12th of October, reviewing the affairs
of Italy, in which he dwelt on the advantage of substituting for
the discredited dynasties, an Italian Kingdom that would “rob
revolutionary passions of a theatre where previously most insane
enterprises had chances, if not of success, at least of exciting the
sympathies of all generously-minded men.” In a word, his case was
that Sardinian intervention could alone prevent the national movement
from degenerating into sheer anarchy. Fear, lest Garibaldi might be
induced by Mazzini’s partisans, who had surrounded him, to set up a
Republic, led the European Courts to condone by passive acquiescence
a despatch which postulated the inherent right of a people to depose
an hereditary monarch. France withdrew her Minister from Turin by
way of formally discountenancing the invasion, which, however, had
been secretly arranged at an interview between Napoleon and Cavour
at Chambéry. England alone avowed her approval of Cavour’s policy,
in a despatch which Lord John Russell sent to Sir J. Hudson on the
27th of October, but of which he kept the Queen and his colleagues in
ignorance. The feeling of the country being with Lord John, the Queen
and Lord Palmerston did not find it expedient to resent the affront.
The truth is, that Lord John had previously written a despatch (31st
August) menacing Sardinia if she attacked Austria in Venetia, and
admitting the right of Austria to hold Venetia, which had enraged the
Radicals. So by way of conciliating them he wrote the despatch of the
17th of October, recanting the absolutist doctrines he had promulgated
in August. But personally, Lord John was notoriously a partisan of the
national movement in Italy. “Sir J. Hudson,” writes Lord Malmesbury,
“told me that Lord John virtually encouraged the King (Victor Emmanuel)
to invade Naples, by asking his _aide-de-camp_ at Richmond whether the
King was not _afraid_. This was quite enough to send Victor Emmanuel
_anywhere_.”--Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. II., p. 237.

[68] See the Queen’s letter to Lord Palmerston (3rd June) quoted in
Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. CII.

[69] Lowe’s Life of Bismarck, Vol. I., p. 263.

[70] Another part of Napoleon’s scheme at Baden was to suggest the
partition of Turkey by way of compensating Austria for the loss of
Venetia, an old idea of Talleyrand’s. Russia, however, objected to the
Danubian provinces of Turkey being given to Austria, so the proposal
was not made. The whole scheme would have thus been--the annexation of
Rhenish territory to France, of the northern German States to Prussia,
of the Danubian provinces to Austria, and of Venetia to Italy.

[71] This letter (which was published) was written without the
knowledge of the French Ministry. It was prompted by certain suspicions
which had been expressed as to the Emperor’s good faith in interfering
again in the Eastern Question. In June Europe was shocked to learn that
the Druses, who were Moslems, had massacred thousands of the Christian
Maronites in the Lebanon. The Turks had abetted these atrocities,
their defence being that the Maronites were meditating a rebellion.
On the 9th of July Moslem fanatics, aided by Turkish troops, also
butchered the people in the Christian quarter of Damascus--3,500 males
being slaughtered. The Consulates of France, Austria, Russia, Holland,
Belgium, and Greece were sacked, their inmates finding a refuge in the
house of Abd-el-Kader. Fuad Pasha, the Imperial Ottoman Commissioner,
punished the guilty parties, but the French Emperor also insisted
on sending out troops to keep order in the country. This proposal
was jealously regarded by England, but it was agreed to after much
negotiation--France furnishing 6,000 men, and the other Powers as many
more up to 6,000 as might be necessary, six months being fixed as the
term of the occupation. The Emperor resented our suspicions as to his
motives in occupying Syria, and in his celebrated letter to Persigny
defends their disinterestedness.

[72] “It is high time,” wrote the Prince Consort to the Prince Regent
of Prussia. “It seems to me one of his chief difficulties consists in
the fundamental difference between his and the people’s way of looking
at things. He proposes to make concessions as acts of grace; they, on
the other hand, ask to have a legal _status_, and institutions not
dependent on the good-or ill-will of the Sovereign. They had most of
them Documentary Rights, as they were called, in the Middle Ages,
and as the Revolution of 1848 had overthrown everything, the Emperor
was wrong, when it had been put down, not to return to a state of
things based on law and right, instead of, as it were, legitimising
the Revolution by proclaiming himself as its heir.”--Martin’s Life of
the Prince Consort, Chap. CIV. Lowe’s Life of Bismarck, Vol. I., p.
264, contains a curious letter of Prince Bismarck’s on this interview,
showing how utterly misinformed he was as to its purport.

[73] Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. CVI.

[74] _The English Historical Review_, No. 6, April, 1887, pp. 296-298.

[75] _The English Historical Review_, No. 6, April 1887, p. 297.

[76] Mr. John Morley’s Life of Cobden, Chap. XXIX.

[77] Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. II., pp. 230-231.

[78] Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. II., p. 230.

[79] This great inventor and armourer had been offered £10,000 a year
for life by Napoleon III. if he would go to France and manufacture
his new cannon exclusively for the French. The offer was refused
from patriotic motives, which was perhaps the reason why the British
Government never could be got to behave as fairly to Mr. (afterwards
Sir Joseph) Whitworth’s guns as to those produced by the engineers in
the employment of Mr. (afterwards Sir W.) Armstrong at Elswick.

[80] The growth of the Volunteer Force was striking. The army sneered
at it, and in December, 1859, it was in a sickly condition. In March,
1860, to the surprise and delight of the Queen it had grown to be
70,000 strong, and at a levee she held for volunteer officers, 2,500
were presented to her. Before the end of the summer the force had
increased to 180,000 men, and at the close of the year it had grown to
be 200,000, and this, too, in spite of the fact that the recruits had
to make their first acquaintance with military duties in a spring and
summer notable for stormy and inclement weather.

[81] Canada had fitted out a regiment of infantry for the war.

[82] William IV. was pressed hard by his illegitimate son, the Earl
of Munster, to make him Governor-General of Australasia. He always
refused, for dynastic reasons--alleging that it was not prudent to
create princely viceroys.

[83] Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. CVIII.

[84] Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, _ibid._

[85] Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. CI.

[86] Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. CVI.

[87] The war arose out of an attempt on the part of China to evade
the ratification of the Treaty. The Taku forts were captured by the
French and English allied forces, on the 21st of August, 1860. On the
21st of September, Consul Parkes, Captains Anderson and Brabazon,
Messrs. De Norman, _attaché_ of the Hon. F. Bruce, Mr. Loch, Lord
Elgin’s secretary, and Mr. Bowlby, _Times_ correspondent, were sent to
the Chinese camp, on the invitation of the Chinese, under a flag of
truce, to arrange for Lord Elgin’s journey to Pekin, where peace was
to be made. Anderson, Brabazon, De Norman, Bowlby, and ten troopers
were treacherously murdered. Parkes and Loch were cast into prison,
and treated with odious brutality. That very day General Sir Hope
Grant crushed the forces of the Chinese General, Sang-Ko-lin-sin. On
the 6th of October the French looted the Summer Palace at Pekin, and
on the 18th the English burnt it. The city itself surrendered on the
12th. Heavy indemnities, besides the ratification of the Treaty, were
extorted from the Chinese.

[88] It is a curious fact that Dr. A. B. Granville had diagnosed the
symptoms of the Czar’s hereditary malady--congestion of the brain--in
1853, and he warned Lord Palmerston that his Majesty would die in two
years--a prophecy which came true. Had Nicholas therefore been handled
gently, but firmly, by an accomplished diplomatist loyally carrying out
Aberdeen’s temporising and cautious policy, and had steps been taken to
prevent the Turks and Napoleon from irritating the autocrat at every
turn in events, peace could have been maintained. See on this subject
Count Vitzthum’s Reminiscences, Vol. I., pp. 30, 40.

[89] The phrase, which was a catchword in club-land, and which gave
great offence to our American kinsfolk, was attributed, it is to be
hoped erroneously, to the Marquis of Hartington.

[90] Evelyn Ashley’s Life of Lord Palmerston, Vol. II., p. 205.

[91] Evelyn Ashley’s Life of Lord Palmerston, _ibid._

[92] Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. II., p. 227.

[93] St. Petersburg and London: Reminiscences of Count Vitzthum,
late Saxon Minister at the Court of St. James’s, Vol. II., p. 113
(Longmans), 1887.

[94] Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. CIX.

[95] Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol II., p. 249.

[96] Reminiscences, Vol. II., p. 113.

[97] A passage in Count Vitzthum’s Reminiscences explains the Prince
Consort’s allusion. “Among the elder ladies who in those days exercised
some influence over Government circles,” writes Count Vitzthum, “was
the widow of the former British Ambassador in Berlin, Lady William
Russell. She was a clever, experienced lady, an admirable mother to
her sons, the present Duke of Bedford, and Lord Ampthill, who died
lately as Ambassador at Berlin. Her house was the constant resort of
visitors, who liked to chat with her, even if they did not come, like
her brother-in-law, Lord John Russell, to consult her on politics. As
a Roman Catholic she was no admirer of Cavour or Garibaldi, and used
to laugh at the Italian sympathies of her brother-in-law and Lord
Palmerston, whom she called the ‘old Italian masters.’”--St. Petersburg
and London: 1852-1864: Reminiscences of Count Vitzthum, Vol. II., p.
214.

[98] Others, like the Prince Napoleon, promulgated the theory that in
pursuance of the Imperial policy of tearing up the treaties of 1815
it would be desirable to conciliate Italy. She would be a second-rate
naval power, and the second-rate naval powers would naturally
consolidate round France, who could thus overmaster even England on the
seas. Such views, though officially disavowed by the Emperor, increased
the distrust between England and France.

[99] Mr. Gladstone disapproved of this threat. It is, indeed, very
hard to say how much truth there was in the rumours then afloat as to
the cession of Sardinia. Vitzthum writes, “hitherto he (Napoleon) had
only talked of giving that island to the Pope as an equivalent for the
States of the Church. It was with this view that Pietri, the well known
_entrepreneur du suffrage universel_ in Savoy, had been busy in that
island, and had sent private reports to Napoleon during his visit to
the baths at Vichy.”--Count Vitzthum’s Reminiscences, Vol. II., p. 157.

[100] Count Vitzthum’s Reminiscences, Vol. II., p. 140.

[101] Count Vitzthum’s Reminiscences, Vol. II., p. 145.

[102] Sir George Cornewall Lewis succeeded Lord Herbert at the War
Department. Sir George Grey went to the Home Office, and was succeeded
by Mr. Cardwell as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. Sir R. Peel
succeeded Mr. Cardwell as Irish Secretary. Lord Campbell’s death
elevated Sir R. Bethell to the Lord Chancellorship.

[103] Evelyn Ashley’s Life of Lord Palmerston, Vol. II., p. 211.

[104] Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. CXIII.

[105] Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. CXIV.

[106] Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. CXIV.

[107] The rule originated with Queen Elizabeth, who said she objected
to her dogs wearing anybody else’s collars. Lord Clarendon himself, as
Foreign Minister, had prohibited English servants of the Crown from
accepting Foreign Orders. Lord Clarendon at the Coronation of the Czar
Alexander, the Duke of Northumberland at the Coronation of Charles
X., and Lord Beauvale at that of the Emperor Ferdinand, had to refuse
Foreign Orders. The Duke of Devonshire was allowed to accept one from
the Czar Nicholas at his Coronation, on the ground that, like many
distinguished Englishmen, he was a personal friend of his Imperial
Majesty.

[108] Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. CXVI.

[109] Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. CXVI.

[110] Count Vitzthum’s Reminiscences, Vol. II., p. 182.

[111] A Selection from the Correspondence of Abraham Hayward, Q.C.,
Vol. II., p. 65.

[112] This, says Lord Clarendon in a letter to Mr. Hayward, was
“charmingly characteristic;” but he adds, thinking of the effect on
the mind of the Queen, “they” (the green gloves and blue studs) “will
not have been unobserved, _or_ set down to the credit side of his
account.”--Mr. Hayward’s Correspondence, Vol. II., p. 72.

[113] Malmesbury Memoirs, Vol. II., p. 266.

[114] The Hayward Correspondence, Vol. II., p. 67.

[115] Malmesbury Memoirs, Vol. II., p. 267.

[116] The faithful Coburger, Löhlein, was the only member of the Royal
household who seems to have given advice that would have saved the
Prince’s life had it been acted on.

[117] It is only fair to say that Lord Palmerston was the first to
make these representations. For his views on the Prince’s illness
and the Queen’s doctors, see his letter to Lord Shaftesbury, of 11th
December.--Life and Work of the Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, by Edwin
Hodder. Vol. III., p. 130.

[118] Count Vitzthum’s Reminiscences, Vol. II., pp. 178-185.

[119] Edmund Burke, by Augustine Birrell. _Contemporary Review_, July,
1866, p. 41.

[120] The Life and Labours of Albany Fonblanque, by Edward Barrington
Fonblanque, p. 247.

[121] Alice Grand Duchess of Hesse, Princess of Great Britain and
Ireland. Biographical Sketch and Letters. London: John Murray, 1884, p.
360.

[122] See Memorandum by the Grand Duchess of Baden quoted in Alice
Grand Duchess of Hesse. Biographical Sketch and Letters, pp. 18-19.

[123] The allusion here to the “revival” of Wilberforce’s old affection
may seem curious. The Bishop of Oxford enjoyed more influence and
favour at Court than ever fell to the lot of any ecclesiastic in our
time. He was one of the extremely small group of prominent public
men--Sir Robert Peel, Lord Aberdeen, the Duke of Newcastle, Lord
Clarendon, and Sir George Cornewall Lewis--who enjoyed the Prince’s
close personal friendship. But suddenly, for no apparent reason, the
Prince Consort dropped him, and in one of his letters to Miss Noel the
Bishop gives utterance to his sorrow over his fall at Court. Knowing
Lord Aberdeen’s intimacy with the Prince, he begged his son, the Hon.
Arthur Gordon, to induce his father to intercede for him. The incident
curiously illustrates the Prince Consort’s character. When Lord
Aberdeen opened the subject with his customary tact and delicacy, the
Prince detected his object at once, and stopped him by observing, “He
(the Bishop) does everything for some object. He has a motive for all
his conduct.” Lord Aberdeen replied, “Yes, sir, but when a bad motive?”
which, however, did not lead the Prince to continue the discussion.
Again Lord Aberdeen seized an opportunity of serving the Bishop, and
this time the Prince Consort frankly said he had occasion to doubt the
Bishop’s sincerity--a suspicion that invariably forfeited the Prince’s
confidence. Being pressed by Aberdeen still further, the Prince
said that in early life he detected Wilberforce intriguing for the
preceptorship of the Prince of Wales. Nor was that all. In a discussion
with the Prince on a certain miracle about which he had preached, the
Bishop had unduly modified his views to suit those of the Prince. It is
only fair to Wilberforce to say that, in a letter to the Hon. Arthur
Gordon, he denies the assertion about the preceptorship, but admits
there was some colour in the other part of the Prince’s case. “The
swine sermon,” writes Wilberforce, “was preached in days when he (the
Prince Consort) was most friendly, long before I was Dean or Bishop;
the conversation followed, and a long one it was. He did not say how
entirely he disbelieved in spirits of evil, but raised all possible
objections, which I combated; and the only thing like ‘convenient’
averment I said was that it was far best to believe in a devil who
suggested evil to us; for that otherwise we were driven to make every
man his own devil; and I thought that this view rather touched him.” It
did touch him, but not in the way intended. See Life of Wilberforce, by
his son, Reginald G. Wilberforce, Vol. II., p. 226. For reference to
the Prince’s funeral, see Vol. III., pp. 41-45.

[124] It gave Federal Commissioners power, without judge or jury,
to return fugitive slaves to justice; prohibited State Courts from
testing, on writ of _habeas corpus_, the rights of the person who
claimed the slave in a Free State.

[125] The minority of the Judges seem to have taken a less pedantic
view, and one more in accordance with the policy of the Republic,
which had always been one of compromise with regard to slavery. They
held that it was not by Federal but State law that a negro was made
property. They contended that neither the laws of nature nor of
nations, nor the Constitution of the United States, recognised him as
property, so that the rights of owners over this species of property
must logically be limited to the Territory where, by municipal law,
it was recognised as property.--See The Constitutional History of the
United States, by Simon Stern, of the New York Bar (Cassell and Co.),
p. 190.

[126] According to it, slavery was prohibited north of parallel 36°
30´, but south of this it was to be recognised and never interfered
with by Congress, and the Federal Government would pay for all slaves
rescued from officers after arrest.

[127] There had always been a more or less tacit understanding
that whilst the Northern States were to be allowed to have their
manufactures protected, the Southern States, as a set-off, were to have
slavery tolerated and safeguarded.

[128] Life of Lord Shaftesbury, by Edwin Hodder. Vol. III., p. 136.

[129] At the time, credit was given to M. Thouvenel, the Foreign
Minister of France, for bringing the American Government to reason.
Count Vitzthum, however, states that “the French Ambassador at
Washington knew that at the eleventh hour the American Cabinet would
yield, and had advised his Government to this affect. When Thouvenel,
therefore, in his despatch of December 3rd, represented strongly
the justice of the English demands, he risked little, and only gave
a fresh proof that the Tuileries prefer siding with the gods to
Cato.”--Vitzthum’s Reminiscences, Vol. II., p. 177.

[130] Count Vitzthum’s Reminiscences, Vol. II., p. 146.

[131] It was decided by the House of Commons that the liability to a
rate-in-aid of the other parishes of a Union should arise when the rate
came to 3s. in the £, and that Guardians, subject to the sanction of
the Local Government Board, might raise loans on the security of the
rates, when the aggregate expenditure of the whole Union reached 3s. in
the £ of its rateable property.

[132] Prior to 1860 there were four duties--1s., 1s. 9d., 2s. 5d., and
2s. 11d.--on wines, with varying degrees of alcohol, from 18 up to 42
degrees. In 1862 Mr. Gladstone substituted for these two duties--1s.
a gallon on wines below 26 degrees and 2s. 6d. on wines above 26 and
below 42 degrees.

[133] Count Vitzthum’s Reminiscences, Vol. II., p. 172.

[134] Lowe’s Life of Bismarck, Vol. I., p. 278 (Cassell and Co.).

[135] It is well known that Count Ferrol, in “Endymion,” was drawn from
Prince Bismarck. The novel was written in Lord Beaconsfield’s old age,
and there is a passage in it which curiously confirms Count Vitzthum’s
report of Count von Bismarck’s conversation with Mr. Disraeli. It is as
follows:--“The Count of Ferrol about this time made a visit to England.
He was always a welcome guest there, and had received the greatest
distinction which England could bestow upon a foreigner--he had been
elected an honorary member of White’s. ‘You may have troubles here,’ he
said to Lady Mountfort, ‘but they will pass.... We shall not get off
so cheaply. Everything is quite rotten throughout the Continent. This
year is tranquillity to what the next will be. There is not a throne
in Europe worth a year’s purchase. My worthy master wants me to return
home and be Minister; I am to fashion for him a new Constitution. I
will never have anything to do with new Constitutions; their inventors
are always their first victims. Instead of making a Constitution, he
should make a country, and convert his heterogeneous domains into a
patriotic dominion.’ ‘But how is that to be done?’ ‘There is but one
way--by blood and iron.’ ‘My dear Count, you shock me:’ ‘I shall have
to shock you a great deal more before the inevitable is brought about.’”

[136] Pope at first pretended that he had discovered the line of
Beauregard’s retreat, and had captured his rearguard. This turned out
to be an impudent fabrication, put about to divert attention from the
almost inconceivable incapacity of Halleck, who let his enemy slip
through his fingers after wasting the season in looking at him.

[137] This was difficult to arrange. Even the Sultan did not dare to do
more than recommend Suraya Pasha to admit the Prince to the Sanctuary
of the Patriarchs. For a long time the Pasha refused, but the Prince’s
anger at being balked was so great that Suraya at last consented,
accompanying the party himself with a strong armed escort to protect
his Royal guest from assassination.

[138] General Bruce was the second son of Thomas, Seventh Earl of
Elgin, and brother of the celebrated Governor-General of Canada and
India.

[139] The medical evidence showed that the miners in the pit had died
painlessly from poisoning by carbonic oxide gas. The Coroner’s jury
recommended that all mines should have two shafts instead of one only,
and that engine-beams should be made of wrought, and not of cast iron.

[140] Dr. Macleod’s ministrations at this time extended to other
members of the Royal Family, and appear to have been conducted with the
supple tact characteristic of the true-born Celt. “Your Royal Highness
knows,” he said to one of them, “that I am here as a pastor, and that
it is only as a pastor I am permitted to address you. But as I wish
you to thank me when we meet before God, so would I address you now.”
Again, in his letter to Mrs. Macleod, dated 12th of May, 1862, he
writes:--“Prince Alfred sent for me last night to see him before going
away. Thank God I spoke fully and frankly to him--we were alone--of his
difficulties, temptations, and of his father’s example; what the nation
expected of him; how, if he did God’s will, good and able men would
rally round him; how, if he became selfish, a selfish set of flatterers
would truckle to him and ruin him, while caring only for themselves.
He thanked me for all I said, and wished me to travel with him to-day
to Aberdeen, but the Queen wishes to see me again.”--Life of Norman
Macleod, D.D., by his brother, Rev. Donald Macleod, B.A., 2 vols.
London: Daldy, Isbister, and Co., 1876. Vol. II., p. 123.

[141] The Queen’s parish kirk.

[142] Life of Norman Macleod, Vol. II., pp. 123, 124.

[143] Alice, Grand Duchess of Hesse: Biographical Sketch and Letters,
pp. 27 and 29.

[144] Alice: Grand Duchess of Hesse-Darmstadt. Biographical Sketch and
Letters, p. 37.

[145] Count Vitzthum’s Reminiscences, Vol. II., p. 207.

[146] _Ibid._

[147] The history of the Protectorate is as follows:--After the
downfall of Napoleon I. in 1815, England held six of the Ionian
Islands. Austria offered to undertake their government, because she
said that their position enabled their population to disturb her
Adriatic coast. Count Capo d’Istrias, on behalf of Russia, objected,
and at the time the voice of the Czar Alexander was all-powerful. He
was a strong partisan of Greece, and avowedly so because he believed
that the spirit of Greek nationality would be repressed under Austria,
whereas it would be fostered under England. He insisted on the Ionians
being placed under a British protectorate, so that they might have the
benefit of free institutions.

[148] Count Vitzthum’s Reminiscences, Vol. II., p. 228.

[149] In 1795 the Prince of Wales was voted £138,000 a year. In the
reigns of the Queen’s predecessors the revenues of the Duchy of
Cornwall were absorbed by the Crown. But when the Prince of Wales was
born, the Prince Consort, finding these revenues sadly encumbered,
set them apart for the use of the Heir-Apparent. During his minority
they had been so ably administered by Prince Albert that in 1862 they
yielded a free income of £60,000 a year. This enabled the Government to
cut down the Parliamentary vote to £40,000.

[150] Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. II., p. 294.

[151] Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. II., p. 294

[152] Life of Bishop Wilberforce, Vol. III., p. 86.

[153] This letter did not satisfy all the clergy. Several of them
challenged sharply Wilberforce’s doctrine of the Archepiscopal
dispensing power, and indeed entangled him in controversial
correspondence on the subject. Those interested in the matter will find
Wilberforce’s argument more fully elaborated in a letter quoted in his
“Life,” Vol. III., p. 87. He says he had discovered in his muniment box
at Lavington such a dispensation to one of his own predecessors granted
by Archbishop Laud.

[154] Life of Norman Macleod, D.D., Vol. II., p. 132.

[155] Miss Tucker, of Branscombe, near Sidmouth, was the designer.

[156] Prince Arthur and Prince Leopold, who, as usual on such
occasions, wore the picturesque Highland dress.

[157] Life of Wilberforce, Vol. III., p. 88. In this letter Wilberforce
says he was quite charmed with the manner in which the Crown Prince of
Prussia spoke of his wife. “Bishop,” said he, “with me it has been one
long honeymoon.”

[158] Count Vitzthum’s Reminiscences, Vol. II., p. 215.

[159] For a curious account of Mr. Oliphant’s Secret Mission, see Count
Vitzthum’s Reminiscences, Vol. II., pp. 240, 241.

[160] English writers often draw an analogy between Ireland and
Poland. There is the greatest difference between the position of the
two nationalities. In Poland the Imperial Government has crushed the
nobility, by taking sides with the peasantry. In Ireland the Imperial
Government has striven to hold the country by allying itself with the
territorial aristocracy. Had the peasants joined the nobles in Poland,
Russia could not have resisted the demand for autonomy.

[161] Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. II., p. 308.

[162] Count Vitzthum’s Reminiscences, Vol. II., p. 261.

[163] Count Vitzthum’s Reminiscences, Vol. II., p. 221.

[164] Lowe’s Life of Bismarck, Vol. I., p. 322.

[165] The position of the chief claimants in the Succession may be
illustrated in this way.

[166] This is calculated on the basis of the oats, wheat, and potato
crop, with one-third the actual value of the total: the live stock
added to represent the value of stock for the given current year.

[167] Customs and Income Tax showed an increase, but there was a
decrease on Excise.

[168] This cost the revenue a loss of £216,000.

[169] Quoted by Sir T. Martin in his Life of the Prince Consort, Ch.
CVIII.

[170] When the British ship _Prince of Wales_ was wrecked in June,
1861, on the coast of Rio Grande, it was reported that the crew had
been murdered. A demand was made by the English Foreign Office on
Brazil for compensation. Mr. Christy, the British Minister, happened
to be an imitator of Palmerston’s hectoring manner of negotiating
with weak Powers. His demands were rejected by Brazil because the
compensation claimed was monstrous, and because he sought to impose
conditions which were not compatible with the dignity and honour of
an independent State. Reprisals were then ordered to be made. In the
first instance it seems the Brazilian Government had been guilty of
negligence. But Mr. Christy’s high-handed action soon put England in
the wrong.

[171] Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. LXI.

[172] Sir Stafford was denounced as one of the Exhibition clique. He
moved the reduction of the vote by £25,000--the amount estimates for
altering the building--as a compromise.

[173] Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. II., pp. 299-300.

[174] The strength of the City Police was 1,000 men.

[175] Sir Francis Hastings Doyle tells a curious story which he
obtained from an American officer, whose authority he vouches for
as good, which throws some light on Lee’s failure, which was one of
the turning-points of the war. One of his subordinate generals--“a
hot-tempered, impetuous man”--received a document from Lee containing
the plan of invasion, and giving him orders to carry it out. Something
in these irritated him. He tore up the letter in a rage, and flung the
pieces on the ground. The moment his troops moved on, the pieces were
all picked up by a Northern partisan, pasted together, and conveyed to
the enemy.--Reminiscences and Opinions of Sir F. H. Doyle, p. 340.

[176] Alice: Grand Duchess of Hesse, Biographical Sketch and Letters,
p. 58.

[177] The Registrar-General, in his Quarterly Report of 30th April,
1863, says: “On comparing the returns of the deaths in the eleven
divisions with one exception the deaths were more numerous last quarter
than in the March quarter of 1862; and the single exception is found
in that division where the staple industry, on which half-a-million of
persons are dependent, is overthrown, and for a twelvemonth four-fifths
of that number have subsisted, unless the pittance has been aided by
previous earnings, or sale of household stock, on less than 4d. a day.”

[178] Morley’s Life of Cobden, Chap. XXXI.

[179] Lord Malmesbury, who, like most of the Tories, did his best to
urge the Government to go to war, at this time makes an observation in
his “Diary,” which is refreshing in its frigidity. “It is,” he remarks,
“perhaps as well that we did not enter into this contest, as our army
was not armed at that time like the Prussians, with the breechloader,
and we should probably have suffered in consequence the same disaster
as the Austrians did two years later.”--Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol.
II., pp. 3-5.

[180] Count Vitzthum’s Reminiscences, Vol. II., p. 285.

[181] Ashley’s Life of Palmerston, Vol. II., p. 248.

[182] In criticising Palmerston’s policy of intervention, it is but
just to remember that he was fatally encumbered by his imprudent
declaration in the House of Commons on the 23rd of July, 1862, that if
the Germans attacked the Danes “it would not be with Denmark alone they
would have to contend.”

[183] Cobden’s Speeches, Vol. II., p. 341.

[184] Sir A. Malet’s Overthrow of the Germanic Confederation, p. 96.

[185] Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. II., p. 315.

[186] Count Vitzthum’s Reminiscences, Vol. II., p. 296.

[187] Count Vitzthum’s Reminiscences, Vol. II., p. 297.

[188] Count Vitzthum’s Reminiscences, Vol. II., p. 286.

[189] Count Vitzthum’s Reminiscences, Vol. II., p. 286.

[190] Speech of the 21st of January, 1864.

[191] Lowe’s Life of Prince Bismarck, Vol. I., p. 335.

[192] At Southampton on the 3rd of April.

[193] As a matter of fact, there was no comparison possible between
the crowds in either case. The receptions of the French Emperor and
the Danish Princess were poor and cold compared with that extended
to Garibaldi. It will enable readers of the rising generation to
understand what his welcome was when it is stated that as regards
street crowds and popular enthusiasm, it far surpassed that given to
the Queen on the 21st of June, 1887, when she celebrated her Jubilee in
London.

[194] Lord Malmesbury, in his Diary, has the following entry:--“We
dined at Stafford House to meet Garibaldi. The party consisted of the
Palmerstons, Russells, Gladstones, Argylls, Shaftesburys, Dufferins,
&c., and other Whigs, the Derbys and ourselves being the only
Conservatives, so I greatly fear we have made a mistake, and that our
party will be disgusted at our going. Lady Shaftesbury told me after
dinner, in a _méchante_ manner, that we had fallen into a trap, to
which I answered I was very much obliged to those who laid it, as I
should be very sorry not to have seen Garibaldi.” And on the 15th of
April Lord Malmesbury adds:--“Our party are furious with us and Lord
Derby for dining with the Sutherlands last Wednesday, and Lord Bath has
written to Lord Colville to resign his office of Whip, and says he will
not spend a farthing upon elections. Lord Derby has written him a very
temperate letter.”--Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. II., pp. 320, 321.

[195] With Palmerston in favour of Denmark.

[196] Count Vitzthum’s Reminiscences, Vol. II., p. 289.

[197] Lord Shaftesbury, says his biographer, became Garibaldi’s most
constant companion in London, “never leaving him, in fact, except when
Garibaldi _would_ go to the Opera.”--Hodder’s Life of the Earl of
Shaftesbury, Vol. II., p. 172.

[198] It is curious to note that five days after Lord Shaftesbury
assured the Duc de Persigny that there was no “notion of politics” in
Garibaldi’s visit, and that “had Garibaldi’s appearance here anything
to do with touching that alliance [the alliance between France and
England], I am sure that the people of England would refuse to give
him a welcome,” Garibaldi was entertained at a magnificent popular
demonstration at the Crystal Palace. A sword of honour was presented
to him, of which he said, “I will never unsheathe it in the cause of
tyrants, and will draw it only in support of oppressed nationalities.
_I hope yet to carry it with me to Rome and Venice._” Lord Shaftesbury
was one of the brilliant company of Palmerstonian partisans under whose
auspices this unique non-political ceremony was conducted.

[199] Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. II., p. 322.

[200] Count Vitzthum’s Reminiscences, Vol. II., pp. 289-290.

[201] Count Vitzthum’s Reminiscences, Vol. II., pp. 289-290.

[202] Perhaps this consideration had something to do with the curious
reluctance of France to co-operate with England in the Conference--a
reluctance hitherto attributed to Lord Russell’s curt refusal to take
part in the Napoleonic Conference of 1863.

[203] Count Vitzthum’s Reminiscences, Vol. II., p. 291.

[204] Of the Conference.

[205] Cobden’s Speeches, Vol. II., p. 341.

[206] Father of the present Lord Salisbury.

[207] It is interesting to note how the Tory leaders in the House of
Lords at that time dictated to the whole Party its strategy and policy
at critical moments.

[208] Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. II., pp. 327, 328.

[209] Count Vitzthum’s Reminiscences, Vol. II., p. 292.

[210] Evelyn Ashley’s Life of Lord Palmerston, Vol. II., pp. 254, 255.

[211] Vitzthum’s Reminiscences, Vol. II., p 370.

[212] As a matter of fact, while the Conference was going on and
the war party was rampant in London drawing-rooms, the Germans were
greatly alarmed lest England should interfere. Count Vitzthum, writing
on the 5th of May, says: “A peer who is very favourably disposed to
Germany, said to me yesterday, ‘Take care, for God’s sake, to secure an
armistice as soon as possible. If the question of war or peace were put
to-day in the House of Commons to vote, three-fourths of the members
would vote for war.’ Similar hints have been given to the Prussian
Ambassador from a less unprejudiced quarter. We must not forget
that England, by a blockade of the German and Austrian coasts, at a
comparatively small expense, could exert a serious pressure on Vienna
and Berlin, particularly if the revolution were let loose at the same
time in Italy and Hungary.” Vitzthum’s Reminiscences, Vol. II., p. 357.
See on this point Palmerston’s own account in his letter of 1st of May
to Lord Russell of the interview, in which he menaced Count Apponyi
with naval intervention. Ashley’s Life of Lord Palmerston, Vol. II., p.
249. It is only just to say, that if Palmerston was eager to strike at
the German Powers, he knew perfectly well where to plant a telling blow
on a vulnerable point. Cobden’s argument was that a blockade of the
German coast would be futile because railways had rendered blockades
innocuous, unless, as in America, the blockading Power could command
the internal communications of the enemy.

[213] Ashley’s Life of Palmerston, Vol. II., p. 258.

[214] The Confederate cruisers that had escaped from British ports--the
_Florida_, _Alabama_, _Virginia_, and _Rappahannock_--had taken 187
ships and destroyed property exceeding in value £3,000,000. There was
only one thing distinguishing them from English privateers--namely,
that their chief officers carried Confederate commissions. Some of them
got away because the Courts, from the ambiguous state of our law, could
not condemn them. Others escaped through the delay and negligence of
the authorities.

[215] In England the Queen’s taxes are collected by sending petty local
officials round from door to door. In Scotland the Collector of Taxes
is a high Imperial official, and the people on a specified date go to
his office and pay their taxes. The result is, that though defalcations
are too common in England, they are unknown in Scotland. Whilst in
England a vast fabric of arrears accumulates from year to year and the
revenue comes in driblets, the whole Imperial taxation of Scotland,
including that of the poor Islanders, is paid promptly to the Treasury
within the first fortnight of every January. There are no arrears
except from poverty, and these are trivial.

[216] As the law stood, Government could only grant life insurances to
the amount of £100 to persons who purchased deferred annuities. Mr.
Gladstone abolished that restriction. It is curious that, though the
Bill met with much opposition in the House of Commons, in the Lords it
was welcomed as a boon to the working-classes, who urgently desired the
measure to pass.

[217] One was Dr. Rowland Williams, whose essay on Bunsen’s Biblical
Researches--affirming that the Bible was “an expression of devout
reason, and therefore to be read with reason in freedom”--was supposed
to deny that it was the actual word of God. It also affirmed that “the
doctrine of merit by transfer is a fiction.” The other defendant was
the Rev. H. B. Wilson, whose essay on “Séances Historiques de Genève”
was said to deny that the Holy Scriptures were written under the
inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and to challenge the doctrine of final
judgment and eternal punishment.

[218] Wilberforce’s popular nickname was notoriously “Soapy Sam”--hence
the malignity of Westbury’s attack.

[219] Life of Wilberforce, Vol. III., p. 143.

[220] It was said that at the outset he might have embarked his army
from Washington and transported them without the loss of a single man
to the point he had now reached, after prowling like a wolf for many
weeks round the Confederate lines to the south of Richmond.

[221] Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. II., p. 309.

[222] Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. II., p. 318.

[223] He was executed on the 14th of November, 1864.

[224] Alice: Grand Duchess of Hesse. Biographical Sketch and Letters,
pp. 74, 75.

[225] Life of Dr. Norman McLeod, Vol. II., pp. 176, 177.

[226] Crown Princess of Germany.

[227] Prince Alfred.

[228] The anniversary of the Prince Consort’s death.

[229] Writing to Mr. T. B. Potter on the 23rd of February, Mr. Cobden
says, “Shall I confess the thought that troubles me in connection with
this subject? I have seen with disgust the altered tone with which
America has been treated since she was believed to have committed
suicide, or something like it. In our diplomacy, our Press, and with
our public speakers, all hasten to kick the dead lion. Now in a few
months everybody will know that the North will triumph, and what
troubles me is lest I should live to see our ruling class--which can
understand and respect _power_ better than any other class--grovel once
more, and more basely than before, to the giant of democracy. This
would not only inspire me with disgust and indignation, but with shame
and humiliation. I think I see signs that it is coming. The _Times_ is
less insolent, and Lord Palmerston is more civil.”--Morley’s Life of
Cobden, Chap. XXXIV.

[230] Sterne’s Constitutional History of the United States, p. 199.

[231] A note may be here added with some details of one of the
most startling and tragic events that marked the history of the
English-speaking race during the Queen’s reign. President Lincoln was
assassinated while the play called “Our American Cousin,” memorable
for the late Mr. Sothern’s impersonation of Lord Dundreary, was going
on. The assassin was John Wilkes Booth, a native of Maryland. He was
an actor, and a relative of the celebrated American tragedian, Junius
Brutus Booth. He was a half-crazy partisan of the Southern States,
and had often threatened to kill the President. He fled to St. Mary’s
County, and was ultimately discovered hiding in a barn about three
miles from Port Royal. He and his companions refused to surrender,
and the barn was set on fire. Sergeant Corbet, of the 16th New York
Cavalry, fired his carbine through one of the windows and shot Booth in
the head. He died two hours and a half after he was wounded. His three
companions were tried by court-martial and executed.

[232] “The Civil Rights Bill,” says Mr. Sterne, “declared freedmen
citizens of the United States. The reasons against this declaration
were sound in themselves, because it admitted to the rights of
citizenship a large number of persons whose prior conditions of
servitude and enforced labour made them dangerous citizens. As the
right to vote implies not only the right of the voter to protect
himself against the aggression of others, but also involves the
power, through the instrumentality of taxation, which is placed in
the official hands created by the voters, to confiscate the property
of others, it was apprehended by many that demagogues and adventurers
would win the freemen by illusory promises of personal benefits to give
them their votes, and that by the creation of public debts and the
exercise of the power of taxation, they would mercilessly confiscate
the property of citizens subjected to their sway.”--Constitutional
History and Political Development of the United States, by Simon
Sterne, of the New York Bar. Cassell and Co., pp. 202, 203.

[233] “Bismarck in the Franco-German War,” quoted in Lowe’s Life of
Bismarck, Vol. I., p. 347.

[234] For the conflicting accounts of this interview, see Lowe’s Life
of Bismarck, Vol. I., p. 352.

[235] This scandal, which was one of the sensational events of the
Session of 1865, was made the most of by the Churchmen, to whom
Westbury had been studiously insolent. Some little time after his fall
Westbury met his old antagonist, the Bishop of Oxford, in the lobby
of the House of Lords. He held out his hand, saying, “My Lord Bishop,
as a Christian and a Bishop, you will not refuse to shake hands.”
Wilberforce generously shook hands with him, but that did not put an
end to the war of wit between them. Westbury said, “Do you remember
where we last met?’ “No,” replied Wilberforce. “It was in the hour of
my humiliation, when I was leaving the Queen’s Closet, having given
up the Great Seal. I met you on the stairs as I was coming out, and I
felt inclined to say, ‘Hast thou found me, O mine enemy?’” Wilberforce
retorted, “Does your lordship remember the end of the quotation?” to
which Westbury answered, “We lawyers, my Lord Bishop, are not in the
habit of quoting part of a passage without knowing the whole.” But, as
Wilberforce used to say in telling the story, Westbury no doubt looked
it out in his family Bible when he went home, and found that the end
of the quotation was, “Yea, I have found thee, because thou hast sold
thyself to iniquity.”--See Life of Wilberforce, Vol. III., p. 144.

[236] Life of Lord Palmerston, by the Hon. Evelyn Ashley, Vol. II., p.
273.

[237] Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. II., p. 335.

[238] Alice, Grand Duchess of Hesse, Biographical Sketch and Letters,
p. 111.

[239] Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. II., p. 345.

[240] Forty Years’ Recollections, Literary and Political, by Thomas
Frost, p. 291.

[241] Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. II., p. 347.

[242] When Lord Grosvenor divided the House on an amendment to the
Second Reading of the Bill, he gathered round him a body of nondescript
Liberals--many of whom had been disappointed in their quest of
office--whom Mr. Bright likened to those who took refuge in the cave of
Adullam.

[243] Forty Adullamites had promised to support him.

[244] Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. II., p. 358.

[245] The speech of Mr. Mill struck terror into the hearts of the
reactionary landlords, who had all thought that their rents would go on
rising for centuries to come. For further references, see Letters and
Journals of W. Stanley Jevons, edited by his Wife, pp. 203, 216, 218,
223, and 224, London: Macmillan (1886).

[246] Alice Grand Duchess of Hesse, Princess of Great Britain and
Ireland. Biographical Sketch and Letters, p. 124.

[247] Alice Grand Duchess of Hesse, Princess of Great Britain and
Ireland. Biographical Sketch and Letters, p. 127.

[248] _Ibid._, pp. 127, 131.

[249] Alice Grand Duchess of Hesse, Princess of Great Britain and
Ireland. Biographical Sketch and Letters, pp. 142, 144, 147, 148. 149.

[250] Correspondence of Abraham Hayward, Q.C., Vol. II., p. 148.

[251] Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. II., p. 365.

[252] The History of Reform, by Alexander Paul, p. 199. Routledge, 1884.

[253] Correspondence of Mr. Abraham Hayward, Q.C., Vol. II., p. 158.

[254] Life of Bishop Wilberforce, Vol. III., p. 242.

[255] Memoirs of an ex-Minister, Vol. II., p. 365.

[256] This was a year fruitful in Cabinet meetings. On the 22nd of
January Lord Malmesbury writes, “Cabinets every day to the end of the
month; some at Lord Derby’s, who was ill with the gout.”--Memoirs of an
ex-Minister, _ibid._

[257] Mr. Dudley Baxter, who prepared Mr. Disraeli’s figures for him.

[258] See on this subject a curious letter from Mr. Hayward to Mr.
Gladstone written on the 15th of August, 1866. Mr. Hayward says:--“I
entirely agree in what you say of the House of Commons and the Liberal
party, which is neutralised by the individual crotchets of its
members.”--Correspondence of Mr. Abraham Hayward, Q.C., Vol. II., p.
147.

[259] Mr. Alexander Paul’s History of Reform, pp. 201-203.

[260] Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. II., p. 371.

[261] The National Budget, by A. J. Wilson, p. 95. Macmillan and Co.

[262] The Parnellite Movement, by T. P. O’Connor, M.P., chap. vii.

[263] _Ibid._, p. 137. Popular Edition, Ward and Downey, 1887.

[264] Some of the witnesses under cross-examination broke down and
fainted when confessions of guilt were extorted from them.

[265] It is instructive to look back on the speeches delivered at
this meeting. They give one a vivid idea of the humiliating _status_
of the British workman at that time. The complaints of the speakers
may be summed up thus: (1), whereas the masters’ associations were
free to send circulars to each other urging the dismissal of “marked”
unionists, workmen were, by a recent legal decision, guilty of an
indictable offence if they “picketed” or endeavoured to dissuade each
other from serving a master whose men had struck work; (2), the law of
conspiracy had been so strained as to make an act which when done by an
individual was legal, illegal when done by two or more individuals in
combination; (3), masters who broke contracts were only fined, whereas
breach of contract by workmen was punished by imprisonment.

[266] Alice Grand Duchess of Hesse, Princess of Great Britain and
Ireland. Biographical Sketch and Letters, p. 166.

[267] Afterwards Sir Howard Elphinstone, K.C.B. He was the Prince’s
governor from 1859.

[268] The pet family name of the Princess of Wales--obviously a
contraction of Alexandra.

[269] Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. I., p. 373.

[270] Life of Norman Macleod, D.D., by the Rev. Donald Macleod, B.A.,
Vol. II., p. 252.

[271] The Barony parish of Glasgow was the one of which Macleod was
minister. In one of his sermons, he had told his people that Scripture
commanded them to _sing_ the praises of God, not to _grunt_ them.
“But,” he added, “if you are so constituted physically that it is
impossible for you to sing, but only _grunt_, then it is best to be
silent.”

[272] Scots for _dandle_.

[273] Life of Norman Macleod, D.D., Vol. II., pp. 208, 209.

[274] Now Duke of Connaught.

[275] Alice Grand Duchess of Hesse, Princess of Great Britain and
Ireland. Biographical Sketch and Letters, p. 185.

[276] Alice Grand Duchess of Hesse, Princess of Great Britain and
Ireland. Biographical Sketch and Letters, p. 186, 187.

[277] Willem, who had died a few months before, was a well-known
figure at Balmoral. He was given to the Princess Louis by the Baron
Schenk-Schmittburg, who brought him from Java. Willem was the offspring
of a negro father and a Javanese mother, and was a favourite with the
Queen and her daughter.

[278] Life of Bishop Wilberforce, Vol. III., p. 227.

[279] Life of Bishop Wilberforce, Vol. III., p. 242.

[280] Mr. Bernal Osborne had suggested one. It was to cut down the
Irish Church establishment to five hundred ministers and four bishops.

[281] Writing to Wilberforce on the 9th of September on the subject,
Mr. Disraeli says, “In the great struggle in which I am embarked, it
is a matter of great mortification to me that I am daily crossed, and
generally opposed by the High Church Party. Only think of Dean Hook
opposing Henry Lennox at Chichester.” The Bishop’s answer was that Mr.
Disraeli must expect to lose the High Church vote, seeing that he did
not, in dispensing ecclesiastical prestige, sufficiently consider the
claims of High Churchmen.--Life of Bishop Wilberforce, Vol. II., p. 260.

[282] Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. II., p 381.

[283] The last had been altered to make it clear that the House merely
asked the Crown for leave to discuss a Bill suspending the exercise of
its patronage till the 1st of August, 1869. A new one was added by Mr.
Whitbread affirming the necessity of discontinuing the Maynooth Grant
and the Presbyterian _Regium Donum_.

[284] This was in his 1844 speech, when he advocated Home Rule for
Ireland and the Disestablishment of “an absentee aristocracy and an
alien church.” Mr. Disraeli had been taunted with this phrase early
in the Session, during the first debate on the Irish Question. His
reply was infinitely humorous and audacious. He said of the phrase,
with an exquisite touch of mournful reminiscence, “it appeared to me
at the time I made it that nobody listened to it. It seemed to me I
was pouring water on sand--but it seems now that the water came from a
golden goblet.”

[285] In 1864-65 the Government had kept expenditure within the
estimates by £370,000. They did so the following year by £92,000. But
in 1866-67 the Derby-Disraeli Government let expenditure _exceed_
estimates by £669,000, and in 1867-68 by £537,000. This rather told
against Mr. Disraeli in the General Election.

[286] The Cabinet was composed as follows:--Mr. Gladstone, Prime
Minister; Sir C. Page Wood, Lord Chancellor, with the title of Lord
Hatherley; Mr. Lowe, Chancellor of the Exchequer; Mr. Austen Bruce,
Home Secretary; Lord Clarendon, Secretary for Foreign Affairs (with
Mr. Otway as his Under-Secretary); Lord Granville, Colonial Secretary;
the Duke of Argyll, Secretary for India (with Mr. Grant Duff as
Under-Secretary); Mr. Cardwell, Secretary for War; Mr. Chichester
Fortescue, Irish Secretary; Mr. Childers, First Lord of the Admiralty;
Mr. Goschen, President of the Poor-Law Board; Mr. Bright, President
of the Board of Trade; Lord Hartington, Postmaster-General; Lord
Kimberley, Privy Seal; Earl de Grey, President of the Council.

[287] Life of Bishop Wilberforce, Vol. III., p. 267.

[288] For Canterbury.

[289] It was said that Dr. Ellicott, Bishop of Gloucester, was referred
to here.

[290] It is a curious fact that his appointment of Dr. Magee, Dean
of Cork, to this see brought the Government almost as much credit as
the appointment of Dr. Tait to Canterbury. Dr. Magee was erroneously
supposed to be Mr. Disraeli’s favourite candidate. But in this case
also he seems to have got credit for the Queen’s skill in selection.

[291] Life of Bishop Wilberforce, Vol. III., pp. 265-269.

[292] Letters and Journals of W. J. Stanley Jevons. Edited by his Wife,
p. 246.

[293] Yet at the time the Queen was personally opposed to Mr.
Gladstone’s Irish Church policy, so that his statement was somewhat
misleading. Perhaps he made it to minimise the evil effects that might
be produced by rumours of her Majesty’s hostility to the verdict of the
elections. These rumours were then current.

[294] It described the reductions for the first time in the records of
Queen’s Speeches as having been already made, not as reductions that
were only in contemplation.

[295] Alice Grand Duchess of Hesse, Princess of Great Britain and
Ireland. Biographical Sketch and Letters, p. 214.

[296] Correspondence of Abraham Hayward, Q.C., Vol. II., p. 200.

[297] _Ibid._, p. 191.

[298] It may be well to summarise Mr. Gladstone’s financial statement:--

ASSETS OF THE CHURCH.

(1) Commuted Tithe Rent Charge £9,000,000
(2) Land and Perpetuity Rents 6,200,000
(3) Money 750,000
-----------
£15,950,000
-----------

================================================

CHARGE ON THE CHURCH FUND.
Commuted Life Interests of Bishops, Beneficed
Clergy, &c. £4,900,000
Curates 800,000
Lay Compensations 900,000
Private Endowments to be Repaid 500,000
Presbyterians and Maynooth 1,100,000
Building Charges 250,000
College Expenses of Presbyterians and
Catholics 35,000
Expenses of Commission 200,000
----------
£8,685,000
----------

Thus there was a surplus fund for distribution of, say, £7,500,000,
the interest on which, £311,000, Mr. Gladstone distributed as
follows:--(1), Lunatic Asylums, £185,000; (2), Deaf and Dumb
Institutions, £30,000; (3), Idiot Asylums, £20,000; (4), Nurses for the
Poor, £15,000; (5), Reformatories and Industrial Schools, £10,000; (6),
County Infirmaries, £51,000.

[299] It would seem that Dean Swift anticipated Mr. Gladstone’s notion.
When Vicar of Laracor Swift presented the vicarage with nineteen acres
of land. He had endowed it with certain tithes, which he left in trust
for the established episcopal religion. But he stipulated that in case
of Disestablishment the tithes should be administered “for the benefit
of the poor.” Stella (Esther Johnson), in her will, dated 30th October,
1727, also anticipated Disestablishment. In leaving £1,000 to endow
a chaplaincy in Steevens’ Hospital, Dublin, she provided that if the
Church were disestablished the bequest should be null and void.

[300] Sir Roundell Palmer’s argument was the only one that disturbed
the conscience of the majority. Indeed, the only conceivable answer to
it was that local church endowments, which were really useful in doing
good parochial work, were instituted not for local but for national
reasons. For national reasons such as Mr. Gladstone adduced, they might
be justly resumed by the State to be applied to national purposes.

[301] Mr. Disraeli’s argument was, that a church, to be established,
must have a temporal Sovereign as its head. The Church of Rome was
“established” in Ireland, because the Pope was a temporal Sovereign.
On grounds of religious equality, said Mr. Disraeli, it was necessary
to retain the Queen’s supremacy over the Irish Church, so that it
might enjoy the same status as its Roman rival. His theory of Royal
supremacy over Church discipline and doctrine horrified his High Church
supporters.

[302] There was a majority of all orders for the Bill, except among
Bishops and Viscounts. The vote of the new families was much more
Conservative than that of the old ones.

[303] It is worth noting that the Roman Catholic Peers voted against
all plans for concurrent endowment of Catholicism in any shape or form.

[304] Wilberforce was subsequently promoted to the See of Winchester.
But Chelmsford’s sneer was unjust. Wilberforce thought honestly that
the nation having decided the question of immediate Disestablishment
and Disendowment, delay would simply damage the interests of the Irish
Church, and provoke a futile conflict with the people. Hence he voted
against this amendment.--See Life of Wilberforce, Vol. III., pp.
287-289, and Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. II., p. 408.

[305] It is not generally known that the repeal of the shilling duty on
corn, as indeed many of the ideas on which Mr. Lowe based his Budget
were suggested to him by the late Mr. Stanley Jevons. “Having been
consulted by the Chancellor of the Exchequer,” writes Mrs. Jevons, “as
to the pressure of taxation upon different classes of the people, Mr.
Jevons sent to him on the 13th of March a report which he had prepared
with much care. The result of his inquiries was, that the artisan,
with only a moderate use of beer and tobacco, was less heavily taxed
than the classes above or below him, but that the labourer, if he
only moderately indulged in stimulants, was rather the most heavily
taxed of any class in proportion to his income. Mr. Jevons, therefore,
recommended the repeal of the remaining duty of a shilling a quarter
on corn, which he believed formed an appreciable burden of about one
per cent. of income upon the very poorest class on the borders of
pauperism.” Another proposal of Mr. Lowe’s for re-coining the gold
currency, owing to the defective weight of the coins in circulation,
was also suggested by Mr. Jevons.--See Letters and Journals of W.
Stanley Jevons, edited by his Wife (Macmillan, 1886), pp. 245-248.

[306] According to Lord Hartington’s measure the purchase-money came to
£6,750,000.

[307] They even retreated from the position of Lord Russell, who very
properly refused to admit to arbitration any question as to the right
of England to recognise the South as a belligerent Power--a concession
which was not only an abject surrender of Sovereign rights, but _ultra
vires_ on the part of any Minister.

[308] It was to some extent ignored at the time that for much of the
damage done to American commerce the Federal Navy was to blame. It
afforded the most meagre protection to the American mercantile marine.
Though it was known a few days after its escape that the _Sumter_ was
roaming in West Indian waters, yet off _none_ of the ports it visited
during the next two months was there a Federal war-ship waiting to
sink it. The _Alabama_ did most damage at the points which one would
have thought would be swarming with prowling Federal cruisers, namely,
the Azores, the crossing of the Gulf Stream, the Brazilian Coast,
the “calm belts,” where ships from the South cross the tropics at
the Cape, and in the China seas. Yet in none of these quarters was
Captain Semmes attacked or waited for. Captain Semmes admits in “My
Adventures Afloat,” that but for the gross negligence and incompetence
of the United States Naval Department he could not have done the damage
he did. The admission discounts much of the argument in favour of
supplying swift, unarmoured cruisers in war time.

[309] The Senate was to be assembled to pass Bills which the Opposition
had demanded. The Legislative Body was to control the Budget.
Independent Members were to be allowed to initiate Bills. Ministers,
though not responsible actually to the Legislature, would be allowed to
sit in it.

[310] Alice Grand Duchess of Hesse, Princess of Great Britain and
Ireland. Biographical Sketch and Letters, p. 211.

[311] Carlyle’s Life in London, by J. A. Froude, Vol. III., p. 380.

[312] The speeches on this occasion were all good or eccentric. Mr.
Motley, the United States Minister, for example, said of Mr. Peabody,
“That fortunate as well as most generous of men has discovered a
secret for which misers might sigh in vain--the art of keeping a great
fortune for himself through all time. For I have often thought in this
connection of that famous epitaph inscribed on the monument of an old
Earl of Devonshire commonly called the Good Earl of Devonshire--‘What I
spent I had, what I saved I lost, what I gave away remains with me.’”
When Mr. Story’s turn came to address the company he pointed to his
statue, and merely said “That is my speech.”

[313] Alice Grand Duchess of Hesse, Princess of Great Britain and
Ireland. Biographical Sketch and Letters, p. 221. For a detailed
description of the excursions, see More Leaves from a Journal of a Life
in the Highlands, pp. 116-147.

[314] It was objectionable, he said, because it was a Bill of pains
and penalties for mere words. Government had released the Fenians.
Why, then, object to Irishmen honouring them? He also complained
that the House was asked to act on the _ipse dixit_ of “an Irish
Attorney-General.” Mr. Beresford Hope promptly rebelled against his
leader, and approved of the Bill as a “manly step.” Mr. Gathorne-Hardy
also deserted his chief, and said he would stand by the Government.

[315] Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. II., p. 411. The best sketch
of Lady Palmerston that has appeared was the obituary notice in the
_Times_ of the 15th of September, from the pen of Mr. Abraham Hayward,
Q.C.--See Mr. Hayward’s Correspondence, Vol. II., p. 201, also
Hayward’s Selected Essays, Vol. II. (Longmans, 1878.)

[316] Hayward’s Correspondence, Vol. II., p. 202.

[317] Hodder’s Life and Work of the Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, K.G.,
Vol. III., pp. 251-252. (Cassell and Co., 1886.)

[318] It may be interesting to record that the most brilliant Queen
of Society in the Victorian period was a hard-working, thrifty
house-manager. During her reign she managed personally not only the
sumptuous hospitalities, but the accounts of Cambridge House, Brocket
Hall, and Broadlands, and kept Palmerston’s private affairs in
admirable order. Even her visiting cards were filled up by her own hand
till within a very few years of her death. There was one other trace
of old-fashionedness about her. She was the last lady of quality who
pronounced the word oblige as if it were spelt “obleege.”

[319] Two-thirds of the electors abstained from voting. Jeremiah
Donovan prefixed the aristocratic “O’” to his surname to give himself
social importance. To distinguish him from other O’Donovans the place
of his birth, Rossa, was now added to his name, thus: “Jeremiah
O’Donovan (Rossa).” In England it soon came to be written as if “Rossa”
were actually his surname.

[320] On the 7th of December Mr. W. Johnston, M.P., one of the Orange
leaders, told an Orange Lodge at Derry that between Fenians and Papists
he chose Fenians, and added, amidst enthusiastic cheers, that “it is
no part of the duty of an Orangeman to fire a shot or draw a sword as
between the English Government and the Fenians.”

[321] Mr. Disraeli did not object to compensation for disturbance
when it meant compensation for unexhausted improvements, or for the
“interruption of a course of good husbandry.”

[322] The Commons restored the original scale of compensation for
eviction, the original duration of the lease exempting holdings from
the Bill, and they restricted the permission to settle disputes between
landlord and tenant to cases where they acted in concert, and not to
those in which the offer came from one party alone.

[323] These were (1), in towns, the municipal boroughs; (2), in the
Metropolis, workhouse school districts, or failing these, vestry areas;
and (3), in counties, the civil parishes.

[324] Mr. Winterbotham said that the Dissenters must insist on every
rate-aided school giving no religious instruction except Bible-reading
without note or comment, and that, too, only in terms of “The
Time-table Conscience Clause,” _i.e._, at specified hours before or
after those for secular instruction, so that parents might use the
Conscience Clause without sacrificing the educational interests of
their children.

[325] This left £500,000 still to pay.

[326] Lord Granville had refused New Zealand military aid on the
general principle that the sooner colonies took care of themselves and
became independent the better. To save his dignity, he now said that
the loan was to be advanced for public works, &c. But no device could
conceal his change of front, for obviously advances to help a colony to
build public works, set free its local resources to meet its military
expenditure.

[327] The publication of the Treaty might have damped German enthusiasm
had Germany suspected she was asked to fight France in order to save
Belgium. But Napoleon dissipated that suspicion by proclaiming that the
object of the war was to “maintain Austria in her elevated position” in
Germany, and make the South German States independent.

[328] Von Bismarck, in his despatch of the 28th July, 1870, to Count
Bernstoff, said the Draft Treaty (which also stipulated for the sale
of Luxembourg to France) was communicated to him after the Luxembourg
Question was settled in 1867. But M. Benedetti, in whose handwriting
it was, said it was discussed by Bismarck in 1866, just after Sadowa.
The facts favour Benedetti’s statement of the date. See Lowe’s Life of
Bismarck, Vol. I., p. 423 _et seq._

[329] He was called “Duke of Pillage” after he looted the Summer Palace
of the Chinese Emperor.

[330] The French lost one-eighth.

[331] According to Mr. T. H. S. Escott’s brilliant sketch of the late
Mr. Hayward in the _Fortnightly Review_ for March, 1884, the first
person M. Thiers sounded in England on the subject was Mr. Hayward.
“My friend,” said Hayward, when M. Thiers began to argue about the
balance of power, “put all that stuff out of your head. We care for
none of these things.” Writing to his sister on the 17th of September,
1870, Mr. Hayward says:--“I passed yesterday evening with the Thiers
party, and breakfasted with them this morning. They are himself,
his wife, sister-in-law, and secretary. His mission seems to be to
persuade England to interfere on behalf of France, which England
won’t do. I saw Gladstone yesterday, who told me he _could_ not
mediate, as he knew neither what Prussia meant to demand nor France to
concede.”--Correspondence of Abraham Hayward, Q.C., Vol. II., p. 217.

[332] This proposal he carried against Von Moltke, who sternly demanded
the complete and unconditional surrender of the army of Metz.

[333] It was difficult to say which side won this battle, but on the
whole the balance of advantage rested with Faidherbe. The Germans
appreciated his ability very highly, and their two best generals next
to Von Moltke, were detached to crush him.

[334] Alice Grand Duchess of Hesse, Princess of Great Britain and
Ireland. Biographical Sketch and Letters, p. 243.

[335] Lord Granville has himself admitted that the weak point in the
policy of neutrality adopted by the Government was its starting-point.
The war was plainly and deliberately aggressive on the part of France.
If England had offered to head a league of neutral Powers in joining
Prussia to repel unprovoked French aggression, France would not have
drawn her sword. A great precedent would have been created for the
establishment of an international police of neutrals for keeping the
peace of Europe. At the Lord Mayor’s Banquet on the 9th of November,
Lord Granville discussed this view very honestly and very candidly.
His reply was that the peevish jealousy with which France regarded the
growing power of Germany rendered the outbreak of war inevitable, and
that the menace of the neutral Powers would at best have postponed the
fray for a brief period. But these menaces might have failed, and then
the area of war would have been widened, the combatants multiplied,
and the struggle could not have been conducted, as it was, under the
restraining neutral criticism which did much to temper the passions
and mitigate the horrors of the strife. No doubt this was the national
conviction, and after it had been decided not to join Germany in
preventing France from perpetrating a crime, it was absurd to depart
from neutrality, in order to help France to escape the logical and just
punishment of her own turpitude. The organs of the Tory Opposition,
however, rather unpatriotically tried to make political capital out of
the policy of the Government by teaching the people that the neutrality
of the Cabinet was due to Ministerial cowardice and incapacity.

[336] Lowe’s Life of Bismarck, Vol. I., p. 606.

[337] King William had doubts as to whether he should be called
Emperor of Germany or German Emperor. At last he decided in favour of
the latter, which is his legal and correct title, though the wrong
one--“Emperor of Germany”--is actually used on passports issued
through the British Embassy at Berlin. To have called him “Emperor of
Germany” would have meant that the territories of the German Sovereign
Princes were in a country which belonged to him, whereas no part of
Germany belonged to him save Prussia. The title “German Emperor” was a
concession to the sentiments of autonomy and independence cherished by
the small States. Indeed, the Hohenzollerns, when they became kings,
were in a somewhat similar difficulty. They ought to have been Kings of
Brandenberg. But Brandenberg was part of the old Empire, in which there
could be only one King of the Germans and Holy Roman Emperor. Hence
they took their title from Prussia, a new German colony, but not an
integral part of the German Empire.--For a careful discussion of this
quaint point of punctilio, see Lowe’s Life of Bismarck, Vol. I., pp.
613-618.

[338] But it was so clumsy in wording that it did not bind the
Sovereign. This fact explains the anxiety of Melbourne to see the
young Queen Victoria well married. So far as the law went, after her
accession she might, if she had chosen, have married a lacquey. William
IV., for example, could not have married Mrs. Jordan, who bore a large
family to him, when he was Duke of Clarence. But he could have done so
when he became King.

[339] The restrictions are not of course absolute, for a Prince may
refuse to be bound by them. He may defy the Act and marry a subject
without the consent of the Sovereign. The marriage is then quite valid
for him as a private individual. He could not after it marry anybody
else whilst his wife lived, save at the risk of a prosecution for
bigamy. But the marriage confers no Royal _status_ on his wife, and no
Royal rights of inheritance on his children. The wife of the Duke of
Sussex was simply Lady Augusta Murray, and took merely her own rank as
an earl’s daughter. The wife of the Duke of Cambridge is not Duchess
of Cambridge, but merely Mrs. FitzGeorge, and the Duke’s family take
the name of FitzGeorge, and the rank of Commoners. Yet it would be
impossible for the Duke to marry any one else, even with the consent of
the Queen.

[340] Being for the benefit of an individual, if the Queen had
consented to “bespeak” them she would have been compelled to assent to
an endless number of similar applications, or give a great many people
bitter offence by refusal.

[341] Thackeray’s attacks on the Queen’s family and ancestors
apparently had not rendered him a _persona grata_, like Dickens.

[342] See Forster’s Life of Dickens.

*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Life and Times of Queen Victoria; vol. 3 of 4" ***

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