PUBLIC AND DOMESTIC INTERESTS--FRESH ATTACK UPON THE QUEEN.
The Queen and the Prince were now pledged--alike by principle and
habit--to hard work. They were both early risers, but before her
Majesty joined Prince Albert in their sitting-room, where their
writing-tables stood side by side, we are told he had already, even in
winter, by the light of the green German lamp which he had introduced
into England, prepared many papers to be considered by her Majesty,
and done everything in his power to lighten her labours as a
sovereign.
Lord Campbell describes an audience which he had from the Queen in
February. "I was obliged to make an excursion to Windsor on Saturday,
and have an audience before Prince Albert's lunch. I was with the
Queen in her closet, _solus cum solâ_. But I should first tell
you my difficulty about getting from the station at Slough to the
Castle. When we go down for a council we have a special train and
carriages provided for us. I consulted Morpeth, who answered, 'I can
only tell you how I went last--on the top of an omnibus; but the Queen
was a little shocked.' I asked how she found it out. He said he had
told her himself to amuse her, but that I should be quite _en
règle_ by driving up in a fly or cab. So I drove up in my one horse
conveyance, and the lord-in-waiting announced my arrival to her
Majesty. I was shown into the royal closet, a very small room with one
window, and soon she entered by another door all alone. My business
was the appointment of a sheriff for the County Palatine, which was
soon despatched. We then talked of the state of the finances of the
Duchy, and I ventured to offer her my felicitations on the return of
this auspicious day--her wedding-day. I lunched with the maids of
honour, and got back in time to take a part in very important
deliberations in the Cabinet."
In February, 1849, the Queen opened Parliament in person. Perhaps the
greatest source of anxiety was now the Sikh War, in which the warlike
tribes were gaining advantages over the English troops, though Mooltan
had been reduced the previous month. A drawn battle was fought between
Lord Gough's force and that of Chuttar Singh at Chillianwallah. While
the English were not defeated, their losses in men, guns and standards
were sore and humiliating to the national pride. Sir Charles Napier
was ordered out, and, in spite of bad health, obeyed the order. But in
the meantime Lord Gough had retrieved his losses by winning at
Goojerat a great victory over the Sikhs and Afghans, which in the end
compelled the surrender of the enemy, with the restoration of the
captured guns and standards. On the 29th of March the kingdom of the
Punjaub was proclaimed as existing no longer, and the State was
annexed to British India; while the beneficial influence of Edwardes
and the Lawrences rendered the wild Sikhs more loyal subjects, in a
future time of need, than the trained and petted Sepoy mercenaries
proved themselves.
On the afternoon of the 19th of May, after the Queen had held one of
her most splendid Drawing-rooms, when she was driving in a carriage
with three of her children up Constitution Hill, she was again fired
at by a man standing within the railings of the Green Park. Prince
Albert was on horseback, so far in advance that he did not know what
had occurred, till told of it by the Queen when he assisted her to
alight. But her Majesty did not lose her perfect self-possession. She
stood up, motioned to the coachman, who had stopped the carriage for
an instant, to go on, and then diverted the children's attention by
talking to them. The man who had fired was immediately arrested.
Indeed, he would have been violently assaulted by the mob, had he not
been protected by the police. He proved to be an Irishman, named
Hamilton, from Limerick, who had come over from Ireland five years
before, and worked as a bricklayer's labourer and a navvy both in
England and France. Latterly he had been earning a scanty livelihood
by doing chance jobs. There was this to distinguish him from the other
dastardly assailants of the Queen: he was not a half-crazed, morbidly
conceited boy, though he also had no conceivable motive for what he
did. He appears to have taken his measures, in providing himself with
pistol and powder, from a mere impulse of stolid brutality. His pistol
contained no ball, so that he was tried under the Felon's Act, which
had been provided for such offences, and sentenced to seven years'
transportation.
The education of their children was a subject of much thought and care
to the Queen and Prince Albert. Her Majesty wrote various memoranda on
the question which was of such interest to her. Some of these are
preserved in the life of the Prince Consort. She started with the wise
maxim, "that the children should be brought up as simply and in as
domestic a way as possible; that (not interfering with their lessons)
they should be as much as possible with their parents, and learn to
place their greatest confidence in them in all things." She dwelt upon
a religious training, and held strongly the conviction that "it is
best given to a child, day by day, at its mother's knee." It was a
matter of tender regret to the Queen when "the pressure of public
duty" prevented her from holding this part of her children's education
entirely in her own keeping. "It is already a hard case for me," was
the pathetic reflection of the young mother in reference to the
childhood of the Princess Royal, "that my occupations prevent me being
with her when she says her prayers." At the same time the Queen and
the Prince had strong opinions on the religious training which ought
to be given to their children, and strove to have them carried out.
The Queen wrote, still of the Princess Royal, "I am quite clear that
she should be taught to have great reverence for God and for religion,
but that she should have the feelings of devotion and love which our
Heavenly Father encourages His earthly children to have for Him, and
not one of fear and trembling; and that the thoughts of death and an
after life should not be represented in an alarming and forbidding
view, and that she should be made to know _as yet_ no difference
of creeds, and not think that she can only pray on her knees, or that
those who do not kneel are less fervent and devout in their prayers."
Surely these truly reverent, just, and liberal sentiments on the
religion to be imparted to young children must recommend themselves to
all earnest, thoughtful parents.
In the accompanying engraving the girl-Princesses, Helena and Louise,
who are represented wearing lilies in the breasts of their frocks,
look like sister-lilies--as fresh, pure, and sweet.
In 1849 Mr. Birch, who had been head boy at Eton, taken high honours
at Cambridge, and acted as one of the under masters at Eton, was
appointed tutor to the Prince of Wales when the Prince was eight years
of age.