1847-52
On January 1, 1847, Lady John wrote in her diary that the year was
beginning most prosperously for her and those dearest to her. "Within my
own home all is peace and happiness." About a month later she became
dangerously ill in London.
LONDON, _February_ 21, 1847
I have been very ill since I last wrote.... I felt that life was
still dear to me for the sake of those I love and of those who
depend on me.... I saw the look of agony of my dearest husband; I
thought of my heart's treasure--my darling boy; I thought of my
other beloved children; I thought of those still earlier loved--my
dear, dear Papa and Mama, brothers and sisters. But I was calm and
ready to go, if such should be God's will.... Dr. Rigby has been
not only the most skilful doctor, but the kindest friend.
In the spring of this year, 1847, the Queen offered Pembroke Lodge to the
Prime Minister. He accepted with thankfulness, and throughout life both he
and Lady John felt deep gratitude to the Queen for their beautiful home.
Pembroke Lodge is a long, low, irregular white house on the edge of the
high ground which forms the western limit of Richmond Park. Added to and
altered many times, it has no unity of plan, but it has kept a character of
its own, an air of cheerful seclusion and homely eighteenth-century
dignity. On the eastern side it is screened from the road by shrubs and
trees; on the other side, standing as it does upon the top of the steep,
wooded ridge above the Thames Valley, its windows overlook a thousand
fields, through which the placid river winds, now flowing between flat open
banks, now past groups of trees, or by gardens where here and there the
corner of an old brick house shows among cedars. The grounds are long
rather than wide, and comprise the slope towards the valley and the stretch
along the summit of the ridge, where beech, oak, and chestnut shade with
their green and solemn presences a garden of shorn turf and border flowers.
Walking beneath them, you see between their stems part of some slow-sailing
cloud or glimpses of the distant plain; as you descend, the gardens,
village, and river near below. There is a peculiar charm in these steep
woods, where the tops of some trees are level with the eye, while the
branches of others are overhead. As the paths go down the slope they lose
their garden-like trimness among bracken and brambles. An oak fence
separates the grounds of Pembroke Lodge from the surrounding park.
It was indeed a perfect home for a statesman. When wearied or troubled with
political cares and anxieties, the fresh breezes, the natural beauties, and
the peace of Pembroke Lodge often helped to bring calm and repose to his
mind. What better prospect can his windows command than the valley of the
Thames from Richmond Hill, the view Argyll showed Jeanie Deans, which drew
from her the admission "it was braw rich feeding for the cows," though she
herself would as soon have been looking at "the craigs of Arthur's Seat and
the sea coming ayont them, as at a' that muckle trees." Certainly no home
was ever more appreciated and loved than Pembroke Lodge, both by Lord and
Lady John Russell and their children. Long afterwards Lady John wrote:
In March, 1847, the Queen offered him Pembroke Lodge for life, a
deed for which we have been yearly and daily more grateful. He and
I were convinced that it added years to his life, and the happiness
it has given us all cannot be measured. I think it was a year or
two before the Queen offered us Pembroke Lodge that we came down
for a few days for a change of air for some of the children to the
Star and Garter. John and I, in one of our strolls in the park, sat
under a big oak-tree while the children played round us. We were at
that time often in perplexity about a country home for the summer
and autumn, to which we could send them before we ourselves could
leave London.... From our bench under the oak we looked into the
grounds of Pembroke Lodge, and we said to one another that would be
the place for us. When it became ours indeed we often thought of
this, and the oak has ever since been called the "Wishing Tree."
[31] ... From the time that Pembroke Lodge became ours we used only
to keep the children in town from the meeting of Parliament till
Easter, and settle the younger ones at Pembroke Lodge, and we
ourselves slept there Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays with as
much regularity as other engagements allowed. This obliged us to
give up most dinner engagements in London, and we regretted the
consequent loss of society. At the same time he always felt the
need of those evenings and mornings of rest and change and country
air (besides those welcome and blessed Sundays) after Parliamentary
and official toil, rather than of heated and crowded rooms and late
hours; and he had the happy power of throwing off public cares and
giving his whole heart to the enjoyment of his strolls in the
garden, walks and rides in the park, and the little interests of
the children. [32]
[31] When Pembroke Lodge was offered to them they remembered--with surprise
and delight at its fulfilment--the wish of that day, known to themselves
alone.
[32] Appendix at end of chapter.
The short Whitsuntide holiday was spent in settling in at Pembroke Lodge.
_Lady John Russell to Lady Mary Abercromby_
PEMBROKE LODGE, _October_ 29, 1847
... You would not wonder so much at his [Lord John's] silence
lately, if you knew what nobody but English Ministers' wives
_can_ know or conceive, how incessantly either his mind or
body or both have been at work on financial affairs.
He has gone to town every morning early, Sunday included; worked
hard the whole day in Downing Street, writing long letters and
seeing one man and one deputation after another, on these most
difficult and most harassing subjects--only returning here for tea,
and with no time for any other correspondence but that between tea
and bed, when a little rest and amusement is almost necessary for
him--then waking in the night to think of bullion and Exchequer
Bills till time to get up. Now this great anxiety is partly over;
for when once he has taken a resolution, after all the reflection
and consideration he can give to a subject, he feels that he has
done his best, and awaits its success or failure with comparative
ease of mind.
The difficulties of this Ministry have been briefly stated at the close of
the last chapter; working with a precarious majority, they had to cope with
starvation and revolt in Ireland, Chartism in England, and disturbances
abroad.
In December, 1847, they passed their Irish Coercion Bill. [33] The passing
of this Bill was one of the few occasions on which Lady John could not
convince herself that her husband's policy was the wisest one.
[33] "The state of Ireland was chaotic, and Lord Clarendon (Lord
Lieutenant) was demanding a stringent measure of coercion. He did not get
it.... The two Bills [Sir Robert Peel's in 1846 and the Bill of 1847] were
so entirely different that to call them by a common name, though perhaps
inevitable, is also inevitably misleading" ("History of Modern England,"
Herbert Paul, vol. i, chap. iv. See also Walpole's "Life of Lord John
Russell," vol. i, chap, xvii.)
Subsequently, during the enforcement of the Act, the bitterness of the
attacks upon her husband, who, she knew, wished Ireland well, and the sight
of his anxiety, made her for a time less sympathetic with the Irish; but
she did not, and could not, approve of the Government's action at the time.
Among Irishmen, a Government which had first opposed a Tory Coercion Bill,
and when in power proposed one themselves, might well excite indignation.
Ireland was already in a state so miserable that the horrors of a civil war
with a bare chance of better things beyond must have seemed well worth
risking to her people, now the party which had hitherto befriended them had
adopted the policy of their oppressors.
On February 26, 1848, the news that Louis Philippe had been deposed reached
the House of Commons. "This is what would have happened here," said Sir
Robert Peel, "if these gentlemen [pointing to the Protectionists] had had
their way." The astonishment was great, and the fear increased that the
Chartist movement and Irish troubles would lead to revolution at home.
The immediate cause of the revolution in France had been Louis Philippe's
opposition to electoral reform; only one Frenchman in about a hundred and
fifty possessed a vote under his reign. "Royalty having been packed off in
a hackney coach," the mildest of Parisian mobs contented itself with
smashing the King's bust, breaking furniture, and firing at the clock of
the Tuileries that it might register permanently upon its face the
propitious moment of his departure. He had embarked the next day for
England, shaven and in green spectacles, and landed upon our shores under
the modest pseudonym of "William Smith." England did not welcome him. His
Spanish marriage intrigues had naturally not made him a favourite, and his
enemy, Palmerston, was at the Foreign Office. Two days afterwards Louis
Napoleon Bonaparte left England to pay his respects to the Provisional
Government. "I hasten," he wrote in memorable words, "I hasten from exile
to place myself under the flag of the Republic just proclaimed. Without
other ambition than that of being useful to my country, I announce my
arrival to the members of the Provisional Government, and assure them of my
devotion to the cause which they represent." He was, however, courteously
requested to withdraw from France, since the law banishing the Napoleon
family had not yet been repealed, a circumstance which enabled him to
return to England in time to enrol himself in the cause of law and order as
a special constable at the Chartist meeting.
LONDON, _February_ 26, 1848
We and everybody much taken up with the startling and in some
respects terrible events in France. The regency of the Duchess of
Orleans rejected by the Chambers, or rather by the Côté Gauche, and
a republic proclaimed. Sad loss of life in Paris--the King and
Queen fled to Eu--Guizot, it is said, to Brussels. We dined at the
Palace, and found the Queen and Prince, the Duchess of Kent, Duke
and Duchess of Saxe Coburg, thinking of course of little else--and
almost equally _of course_, full of nothing but indignation
against the French nation and Guizot, nothing but pity for the King
and Queen and royal family, and nothing but fears for the rest of
Europe from the infection of such an example. I sat next the Duke
of Coburg, who more particularly took this _class_ view with
very little reasoning and a great deal of declamation. Said he
should not care if Guizot lost his head, and much in the same
spirit. The Queen spoke with much good sense and good feeling, if
not with perfect impartiality.
_Lady John Russell to Lady Mary Abercromby_
LONDON, _March_ 3, 1848
How anxious you must be as to the effect which the extraordinary
events in France will have upon Italy. They have been so rapid and
unexpected that all power of reasoning upon them has been lost in
wonder. Some pity must inevitably be felt for any man "fallen from
his high estate"; but if, as I trust, the report of Louis
Philippe's safety and arrival in England is true, his share of it
will be as small as ever fell to the lot of a King in misfortune;
for the opinion that he has deserved it is general. It is seldom
that history gives so distinct a lesson of retribution. You know
what London is in a ferment of exciting events, and can therefore
pretty well imagine the constant succession of reports, true and
false, from hour to hour, the unceasing cries of the newsmen with
2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th editions of all the newspapers, the running
about of friends to one another's houses, the continual crossing of
notes in the streets, each asking the same questions, the hopes and
fears and the conjectures one hears and utters during the course of
the day, and the state of blank, weary stupidity to which one is
reduced by the end of it. What _I_ mind most in it all is the
immense additional anxiety and responsibility it brings upon my
poor husband, who feels it even more than he would have done any
other year from being still, I grieve to say, less strong and well
owing to his influenza still hanging about him.
_Lady John Russell to Lady Minto_
PEMBROKE LODGE, _March_ 29, 1848
John returned to dinner, but some hours later than I expected him,
which in times like these, when each hour may bring an account of a
_new_ revolution _somewhere_, or worst of all, of a
rebellion in Ireland, is a trial to a Minister's wife. However, the
reason was simply that Prince Albert had detained him talking. ...
Of course we talked a great deal with our visitors of France,
Italy, Germany, and Ireland; but happily, engrossing as these
topics are, the bright sun and blue sky and shining river and
opening leaves and birds and squirrels _would_ have their
share of attention, and give some rest to our minds.
_Lady John Russell to Lady Mary Abercromby_
PEMBROKE LODGE, _March_ 31, 1848
The preparations for rebellion in Ireland are most alarming, and
John's usually calm and _hopeful_ spirit more nearly fails him
on that subject than any other. The speeches and writings of the
Young Ireland leaders are so _extravagantly_ seditious, and so
grossly false as to the behaviour of England generally, and the
present Ministry in particular to Ireland, that I cannot but hope
they may defeat their own objects.... Poor people, the more deeply
one feels for the starving and destitute millions among them and
admires their patience and resignation, and the more bitterly one
resents the misgovernment under which the whole nation suffered for
hundreds of years, the fruits of which we are now reaping, the less
one can excuse those reckless ones who are now misleading them, who
must and _do_ know that the present Ministers have not looked
on with indifference and let famine and fever rage at will; that
the subject of Ireland is _not_ one to which the Houses of
Parliament never give a day's or an hour's thought, but that on the
contrary, _her_ interests and happiness are daily and nightly
the object of more intense anxiety and earnest endeavours on the
part of her rulers than any portion of the Empire. We have had a
week of such real spring with all its enjoyments, and to-day is so
much finer and milder than ever, that the notion of streets and
smoke and noise is odious. However, we have enough to go for,
private and public. May God prosper the good cause of peace and
freedom all over Europe.
The European revolutionary movement of 1848 did not prove serious in
England. What actually took place was a mild mass meeting on Kennington
Common, well kept within the bounds of decorum by an army of citizen
police. In Ireland, a rough-and-tumble fight between Smith O'Brien's
followers and the police was all that came of the dreaded rebellion. But
before these events took place the future looked ominous, especially to
those responsible for what might happen.
_Lady John Russell to Lady Mary Abercromby_
_April_ 8, 1848
John had a late night in the House, and made two speeches on the
unpleasant subjects of the Chartist meeting next Monday and Sir
George Grey's "Security of the Crown" Bill; both of which ought to
do good, from their mild and _whiggish_ tone, in spite of the
sadly _un_-whiggish nature of the topics; the very, last to
which one would wish a Whig Government to have to turn its
attention. All minds are full of next Monday, and at this moment we
have not a manservant in the house, as they are summoned to a
meeting to learn their duties as special constables for that day. I
find it difficult to be in the least frightened, and I trust I am
right. The only thing I dread is being long without knowing what
John is about, and as he would be equally unwilling to know nothing
about me, in case of any march upon this house or any other
disagreeable demonstration against the Prime Minister, we have
arranged that I am to go to Downing Street with him in the morning
and remain all day there, as that is the place he will most easily
come to from the House of Commons. My spirits have been much
lowered about the whole thing this morning, as Mr. Trevelyan has
been here and persuaded John that it would be madness for me either
to remain in this house or go to Downing Street, both of which
would be _marks_ in case of a fight.
Mr. Trevelyan is very seriously alarmed, and talks of the effect
the sound of the _cannon_ might have upon me, and has
persuaded Lady Mary Wood to go to his house on Clapham Common. I do
not yet know what the other Ministers' wives are going to do, but I
_do_ know that I think Milton quite right in saying:
"The wife, where danger or dishonour lurks,
Safest and seemliest by her husband bides."
However, I must do as I am bid, or at least I must do what makes
_him_ easiest.
LONDON, _April_ 9, 1848
Hardly knew how much I had been thinking of to-morrow till I had to
read aloud the prayers for Queen, country, and Parliament.
_Lady John Russell to Lady Mary Abercromby_
DOWNING STREET, _Monday_, 3 _o'clock_
Well, here we are after all, Lady Grey, Lady Mary Wood, and I, with
much easier minds than we have had for many days.
Everything has ended quietly; the meeting has dispersed at the
persuasion of its leaders, who took fright. Fergus O'Connor
especially has shown himself the most abject blusterer, and came
pale and haggard and almost crying to speak to Sir George Grey--and
told him how anxious he was that all should come to a peaceable
end.
It seems too good to be true, after the various alarming reports
and conjectures. Of course there will still be _some_ anxiety
until the night is well over, and till we see whether the Chartist
spirit rises again after this failure. To begin at the beginning, I
ought to tell you that hearing a great clattering at six this
morning I got up, and looked out, and saw immense numbers of
Lancers ride from the West into Belgrave Square, which they left to
go to their destination somewhere about Portland Place, after
performing many pretty manoeuvres which I did not understand. Many
foot soldiers passed by. I admired the sight, but silently prayed
that their services might not be required. We packed the brougham
full of mattresses and blankets, as it seemed likely that we should
have to sleep here. Now we have little doubt of getting home.
_Lady John Russell to Lady Mary Abercromby_
LONDON, _April_ 12, 1848
Yesterday was chiefly spent in receiving visits and congratulations
without end, and very welcome they were. John and I had also a good
long walk to freshen him up for a hard day in the House of
Commons....
_April_ 13, 1848
Again many notes and visits of congratulation and mutual rejoicing
yesterday. God grant that this triumph of the good cause may have
some effect on unhappy, misguided Ireland; there is the weight that
almost crushes John, who opens Lord Clarendon's daily letters with
an uneasiness not to be told.
_Queen Victoria to Lord John Russell_
OSBORNE, _April_ 14, 1848
The Queen has received Lord John Russell's letter of yesterday
evening. She approves that a form of prayer for the present time of
tumult and trouble be ordered. She concludes it is for _peace_
and _quiet_ GENERALLY, which indeed we _may well_ pray
for. A thanksgiving for the failure of any attempts like the
proposed one last Monday, the Queen would not have thought
judicious, as being painful and unlike thanksgiving for
preservation from _foreign war_.
Our accounts from Germany yesterday, from different quarters, were
very distressing and alarming. So much fear of a _total_
subversion of _all_ existing things. But we must not lose
courage or hope.
In the midst of these troubles and forebodings, on the day that the Queen
wrote the above letter to Lord John, their second son, George William
Gilbert, was born.
Lady John was touched by the following letter from Dr. James Simpson (the
eminent physician, later Sir James Simpson), under whose medical care she
had been in Edinburgh some years before.
EDINBURGH, _March_, 1848
I heard from two or three different sources that your Ladyship was
to be blessed by an addition to your family....
I _once_ made a pledge, that I would gladly leave all to watch
and guard over your safety if you desired me. I have not forgotten
the pledge, and am ready to redeem it--but not for fee or
recompense, only for the love and pleasure of being near you at a
time I could possibly show my gratitude by watching over your
valued health and life.... With almost all my medical brethren here
I use chloroform in all cases. None of us, I believe, could now
feel justified in _not_ relieving pain, when God has bestowed
upon us the means of relieving it.
_May_ 16, 1848
With a thankful heart I begin my diary again. Another child has
been added to our blessings--another dear little boy. John was with
me. Oh! his happiness when all was safely over. This child has done
much already to restore his health and strength. Summer weather and
the success of all his political measures for the last anxious
months have also done much.
But the Irish troubles were by no means over; on July 21st Lord John
introduced a Bill for the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act in Ireland.
His case rested on Lord Clarendon's evidence that a rebellion was on the
point of breaking out, and circumstances seem to have justified this
precautionary measure. The Bill was passed without opposition and with the
support of all the prominent men in Parliament.
_July_ 21, 1848
Irish news much the same. A Cabinet at which it was determined to
propose suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act. John accordingly gave
notice of it in the House. I had hoped that a Whig Ministry would
never be driven to such measures. I had hoped that Ireland would
remember my husband's rule for ever with gratitude.
_Lady John Russell to Lady Mary Abercromby_
LONDON, _July_ 28, 1848
I have another letter to thank you for. You really must not
describe the beauties of that place to me any more. It must so
perfectly satisfy the longing for what, after some years of such a
life as ours, seems the height of happiness--repose. I struggle
hard against this longing, but I doubt whether I should do so
successfully without that blessed Pembroke Lodge, from which I
always return newly armed for the turmoil. After all, I am much
more afraid of my husband being overpowered by this longing than
myself. He can so much seldomer indulge in it. He is so much older,
and it is so much more difficult for him to portion out his
employments with any regularity, which is his best preservative
against _fuss_. Yesterday was a most trying day for him, and
the more so as he had looked forward to it as one of rest and
enjoyment. It was Baby's christening-day, and we meant to remain at
Pembroke Lodge after the ceremony to luncheon; but just as we were
going to church came a letter from Sir George Grey with news of the
whole South of Ireland being in rebellion, with horrible additions
of bloodshed, defection of the troops, etc. As it has, thank God,
turned out to be a hoax, a most wicked hoax, of some stockjobbing
or traitorous wretch at Liverpool, I shall not waste your time and
sympathies by telling you of the anxious hours we spent till seven
in the evening, when the truth was made out.
And now let us trust that real rebellion may not be in store. It is
dreadful to think of bloodshed, of loss of life, of the desolation
of one's country and of the many, many imaginable and unimaginable
miseries of civil war; but one thing I feel would be more dreadful
still, weak and womanly as I may be in so feeling--to see one's
husband unable to prevent the miseries, perhaps accusing himself of
them, and sinking, as I know mine _would_, by degrees under
his efforts and his regrets. Let us trust and pray, then, that we
are not doomed to see the reality of so gloomy a picture. It is
always difficult to me to look forward to great political failures
and national misfortunes, perhaps because I have never known any;
but the alarm of yesterday has made them seem more possible.
_Lady John Russell to Lady Mary Abercromby_
LONDON, _August_ 3, 1848
... I do not care for my country or my husband's success a bit more
than is good for me, and I often wonder at and almost blame myself
for not being more disturbed about them.
I know that he does his best, and that is all I care very deeply or
very permanently about; though there may now and then be a more
than commonly anxious day. If I thought him stupid, or mean, or
ignorant, or thoughtless, or indifferent in his trade, I should not
be satisfied with his doing his best even; but as I luckily think
him the contrary of all these things, I am both satisfied and calm,
and his own calm mind helps me to be so. Sometimes I think I care
much more about politics at a distance than when I am mixed up in
them. The fact is that I care very much for the questions
themselves, but grow wearied to death of all the details and
personalities belonging to them, and consequently of the
conversation of lady politicians, made up as it is of these details
and personalities. And the more interested I am in the thing
itself, the more angry I am with the nonsense they talk about it,
and had rather listen to the most humdrum domestic twaddle. Mind, I
mean the regular hardened lady politicians who talk of nothing
else, of whom I could name several, but will not.
PEMBROKE LODGE, _November_ 24, 1848
We have just had a visit from Louis Philippe. He spoke much of
France--said that his wishes were with Louis Bonaparte rather than
with Cavaignac for the presidency.
John expressed some fear of war if Louis Bonaparte should be
elected; the King said he need have none, that France had neither
means nor inclination for war. His account of the dismissal of
Guizot's Ministry was that he said to Guizot "What's to be
done?"--that Guizot gave him three answers: "Je ne peux pas donner
la Réforme. Je ne peux pas laisser dissoudre la garde nationale. Je
ne peux pas laisser tirer les troupes sur la garde nationale." Upon
this he had said to Guizot that he must change his Ministry: "Cela
l'a peut-être un peu blessé--ma foi, je n'en sais rien. Il a dit
que non, que j'étais le maitre."
When he heard that the National Guard said, if the troops fired on
the mob, _they_ would fire on the troops, he knew that "la
chose était finie," and when he went out himself among the National
Guard, to see what the effect of his presence would be, La
Moricière called out to him, "Sire, si vous allez parmi ces gens-là
je ne réponds pas de votre vie. Ils vont tirer sur vous." He
answered whatever might come of it he would "parler à ces braves
gens"; but they surrounded him, grinning and calling out "La
Réforme, nous voulons la Réforme," pointing their bayonets at him
and even over his horse's neck.
_Lady John Russell to Lady Mary Abercromby_
WOBURN ABBEY, _December_ 10, 1848
The great question of the French Presidency is decided, whether for
good or for evil to other countries none can foresee, but certainly
to the disgrace of their own. For here is a man, known only by a
foolish attempt to disturb France, to whom no party gives credit
for either great or good qualities, raised to the highest dignity
in the new Republic, one of the advantages of which was to be that
men should rise by their own merits alone. The common language of
Frenchmen, or at least of French Royalists on the subject, is that
they consider his election as a step to the restoration of
Monarchy--but it is a shabby way of making the step, or it may
prove a false one. You know we have had Louis Philippe and his
family as near neighbours at the Star and Garter for some weeks,
and we have seen him several times, to thank us for our inquiries
after the poor Queen and Princes while they were so ill. Only think
how strange to see this great King, this busy plotter for the glory
of his own family and the degradation of England, taking refuge in
that very England, and sitting in the house of one of those very
Ministers whom he had been so proud of outwitting, giving the
history of "ma chute." This he did with great bitterness;
representing the whole French nation as a mass of place-hunters,
without patriotism and without gratitude, and with no tenderness to
Guizot. There is nothing noble and touching in his manner or
conversation, or I am sure he would have inspired me with more pity
in his fallen state, in spite of many faults as a King. [34]
[34] In later years Lord and Lady John had much friendly intercourse with
the Due d'Aumale, son of Louis Philippe, and with the Comte de Paris and
the Due de Chartres (grandsons of the King), who were neighbours and
welcome visitors at Pembroke Lodge.
During the earlier part of 1849, Lord John suffered from the effects of
overwork, and like most tired statesmen he began to think of taking a
peerage. On July 11th their third son, Francis Albert Rollo Russell, was
born at Pembroke Lodge. The parliamentary recess was an easier period than
they had known since taking office, and they had time to attend to other
projects, although the difficulties with Palmerston at the Foreign Office
were meanwhile coming to a climax.
In August Lord and Lady John founded a school at Petersham, over which she
watched with unflagging interest till her death. They were amused by the
remark of an old gentleman in the neighbourhood, who said that to have a
school at Petersham "would ruin the aristocratic character of the
village"--education and aristocracy being evidently, in his eyes, opposing
forces.
The classes were held at first in a room in the village; the present
building was not erected till 1852.
On August 32nd Lady John wrote in her diary:
Our little school, which had long been planned, was opened in a
room in the village the day before Baby's birthday, July 10th, and
goes on well. We celebrated John's birthday last Saturday by giving
the school-children a tea under the cedar, and a dance on the lawn
afterwards, and very merry they were.
In August and September the Prime Minister spent some weeks at Balmoral,
and wrote as follows on his last day there:
_Lord John Russell to Lady John Russell_
BALMORAL, _September_ 6, 1849
I leave this place to-morrow.... No hostess could be more charming
or more easy than the Queen has been--or more kind and agreeable
than the Prince, and I shall leave this place with increased
attachment to them.
The Queen had been to Ireland in August, and Lord Dufferin wrote an
interesting account of her visit in a letter to Lady John.
_Lord Dufferin to Lady John Russell_
_September_ 10, 1849
As the newspaper reporters have already described all, nay more
than was to be seen on the occasion of the Queen's visit to
Ireland, I need not trouble you with any of my own experiences
during those auspicious days--suffice it to say that the people
were frantic with loyalty and enthusiasm. Indeed, I never witnessed
so touching a sight as when the Queen from her quarter-deck took
leave of the Irish people. It was a sweet, calm, silent evening,
and the sun just setting behind the Wicklow mountains bathed all
things in golden floods of light. Upon the beach were crowded in
thousands the screaming bother-headed people, full of love and
devotion for her, her children, and her house, surging to and fro
like some horrid sea and asking her to come back quick to them, and
bidding her God-speed.... It was a beautiful historical picture,
and one which one thought of for a long time after Queen and ships
and people had vanished away. I suspect that she too must have
thought of it that night as she sat upon the deck and sailed away
into the darkness--and perhaps she wondered as she looked back upon
the land, which ever has been and still is, the dwelling of so much
wrong and misery, whether it should be written in history
hereafter, that in _her_ reign, and under _her_ auspices,
Ireland first became prosperous and her people contented. Directly
after the Queen's departure, I started on a little tour round the
West coast, where I saw such sights as could be seen nowhere else.
The scenery is beautiful and wild.... But after one has been
travelling for a little while in the far West one soon loses all
thought of the scenery, or the climate, or anything else, in
astonishment at the condition of the people. I do most firmly
believe that in no other country under the sun are there to be
found men so wretched in every respect.... All along the West
coast, from North to South, there has been allowed to accumulate on
land utterly unable to support them a dense population, the only
functions of whose lives have been to produce rent and children.
Generation after generation have grown up in ignorance and misery,
while those who lived upon the product of their labours have
laughed and rioted through life as though they had not known that
from them alone could light and civilization descend upon these
poor wretches. I had often heard, as every one has, of the evils of
absenteeism, but till I came and saw its effects I had no notion
how great a crime it is.... They [the absentee landowners] thought
only of themselves and their own enjoyments, they left their people
to grow up and multiply like brute beasts, they stifled in them by
their tyranny all hope and independence and desire of advancement,
they made them cowards and liars, and have now left them to die off
from the face of the earth. Neither can any one living at a
distance have any notion of the utter absence of all public spirit
among the upper classes.... Legislation can do nothing when there
is nothing for it to act upon. Parliament to Ireland is what a
galvanic battery is to a dead body, and it is in vain to make laws
when there is no machinery to work them. A people must be worked up
to a certain point in their dispositions and understandings before
they can be affected by highly civilized legislation.... It is only
individual exertions, and the personal superintendence of wise and
good men, that can ever drill the Irish people into a legislatable
state.... One or two things, however, seem to me pretty certain--
1. That under proper management the Irish peasant can be made
anything of.
2. That, generally speaking, the present class of proprietors must
and will be swept from off the surface of the earth.
3. That in the extreme West the surface is overcrowded, but not at
all so a few miles inland.
4. That reclaiming waste lands and bogs at present is to throw
money away.
I begin to fear I have written a strange rigmarole, but still I
will send it, for though Irish matters cannot interest you as they
do me, yet still a letter is always a pleasant thing to receive,
even only that one may have the satisfaction of looking at the
Queen's head and breaking the seal.
The next entry from Lady John's Diary is dated October 9, 1849.
After tea John told me that he had informed the Cabinet of his plan
for the extension of the suffrage--to be proposed next session. All
looked grave. Sir Charles Wood and Lord Lansdowne expressed some
alarm.... To grant an increase of weight to the people of this
country when revolutions are taking place on all sides, when a
timid Ministry would rather seek to diminish that which they
already have, is to show a noble trust in them, of which I believe
they will nobly prove themselves worthy.
Lord John's determination to carry through this measure himself, rather
than to leave it in the hands of others, was afterwards the cause of the
first defeat of the Whig Government.
_Lady John Russell to Lady Mary Abercromby_
LONDON, _February_ 19, 1850
The weeks are galloping past so much faster even than usual that
there is no keeping pace with them.
I neither read, write, teach, learn, nor do anything--unless indeed
revising visiting books and writing invitations is to be called
something. I want to be with my Mama, to be with my husband, to be
with my children, to be with friends, and to be alone, all at the
same time. I want to read everything, and to write to everybody,
and to walk everywhere, in no time at all. And what is the result?
Why, that I lose the very _power_ not only of _doing_, but
of _thinking_, to a degree that makes me seriously uneasy and
unfits me to be a companion to anybody older or wiser than Wee-wee,
or Baby, whose capacities exactly suit mine. All this sounds as if
I led a life of bustle, which I do _not_--but it is _too
full,_ and there is an end of it. I dare say it is mistaken
vanity to suppose that if it was emptier I should do anything
worthier of record in the political, literary, or educational
line--and at all events it would be hard to find a happier or, I
trust, more thankful heart than mine, my troubles being in fact the
result of many blessings.
The next session opened with the Greek crisis, which Greville described as
"the worst scrape into which Palmerston has ever got himself and his
colleagues. The disgust at it here is universal with those who think at all
about foreign matters: it is past all doubt that it has produced the
strongest feelings of indignation against this country all over Europe, and
the Ministers themselves are conscious what a disgraceful figure they cut,
and are ashamed of it."
Palmerston had ordered the blockade of the Piraeus to extort compensation
from the Greek Government on behalf of Mr. Finlay (afterwards the historian
of Greece), whose land had been commandeered by the King of Greece for his
garden, and on behalf of Don Pacifico, a Maltese Jew (and therefore a
British subject), whose house had been wrecked by an Athenian mob. The
Greek Government had been prepared to pay Compensation in both cases, but
not the figure demanded, which turned out, indeed, on investigation, to be
in gross excess of fair compensation. Palmerston's action nearly threw
Europe into war; Russia protested, and France, who had offered to mediate,
was aggravated by a diplomatic muddle to the verge of breaking off
negotiations. A vote of censure was passed by the Opposition in the House
of Lords, which had the effect of making Lord John take up the cause of
Palmerston in the Commons. The question was discussed in a famous four
days' debate. "It contained," says Mr. Herbert Paul, "the finest of all
Lord Palmerston's speeches, the first great speech of Gladstone, the last
speech of Sir Robert Peel, and the most elaborate of those forensic
harangues, delivered successively at the Bar, in the Senate, and on the
Bench, by the accomplished personage best known as Lord Chief Justice
Cockburn." Lord John, who was always good at a fighting speech, spoke also
with great force. Mr. Roebuck's motion of confidence in the Ministry was
carried, but this success was largely due to the fact that a coalition
between the Peelites and the Protectionists seemed impossible. Had it not
been carried the Whigs would have resigned, and neither of the other two
parties feeling strong enough to succeed them, they did not oppose in force
the motion of confidence.
The day after Peel made his speech he was thrown from his horse on
Constitution Hill, and on July 2nd he died.
_Lady John Russell to Lady Mary Abercromby_
_June_ 20, 1850
... Day of great political excitement. After dinner I took John to
the House and have utterly regretted since that I did not go up to
hear him--for he made what I am quite sure you and Ralph will agree
with me and all whom I have yet spoken to, was a most perfect
answer; and I should have dearly liked to hear the volleys of
cheering which he so well deserved. Now we shall either go out with
honour or stay in with triumph--welcome either.
_Lord Charles Russell [35] to Lady John Russell_
_July_ 13, 1850
As you were not here to hear John move the monument [of Sir Robert
Peel], I must tell you that he succeeded in the opinion of all.
Dizzy has just, in passing my chair, said, "Well, Lord John did
that to perfection. My friends were nervous, I was not; it was a
difficult subject, but one peculiarly fitted for Lord John. He did
as I was sure he would, and pleased all those who sit about me."
[35] Lord John's stepbrother.
PEMBROKE LODGE, _July_ 17, 1850
For the first time since the session began John spent a whole
weekday here, and such a fine one that we enjoyed it thoroughly.
Our roses are still in great beauty, but it is a drying blaze. In
the evening we cried over "David Copperfield" till we were ashamed.
_Lady John Russell to Lady Melgund_
MINTO, October 5, 1850
This whole morning having been spent fox-hunting, and the afternoon
doing something else, I do not exactly remember what, I am obliged
to write to you at the forbidden time (after dinner), instead of
making myself agreeable. What a quantity I have to say to you, and
what a pity to say it all by letter, or, rather, to say a very
small part of it by letter, instead of having you here, as I had
hoped and looked forward to, enjoying daily _gloomy_ talks
with you, such as we always find ourselves indulging in when we are
together.... Though I have scarcely walked a step about the place
from obedience to doctors, I have driven daily with Mama--and such
lovely drives! Oh! the place is in such beauty. I think its
greatest beauty--the trees red, yellow, green, brown, of every
shade, so that each one is seen separately, and the too great
thickness on the rocks is less perceived. This was one of the
brightest mornings, and you know what a hunt is on the rocks when
the sun shines bright, and the rocks look whiter against a blue
sky, and men and horses and hounds place themselves in the most
picturesque positions, and horns and tally-hos echo all round, and
everybody, except the fox, is in spirits. The gentlemen had no
sport, but the ladies a great deal, and I saw more foxes than I had
ever seen before....
Our time here is slipping away fearfully fast--there are so many
impossibilities to be done. I am hungry to see every brother and
sister comfortably and alone, and hungry to be out all day seeing
every old spot and old face in the place and village, and hungry to
be always with Papa and Mama, and hungry to read all the books in
the library--and none of these hungers can be satisfied. We are all
much pleased with Mr. Chichester Fortescue. He is agreeable and
gentlemanlike and good, and Lotty and Harriet got on very well with
him, which is more than I am doing with my letter, for they are
singing me out of all my little sense--"Wha's at the window" was
distracting enough, but "Saw ye the robber" ten times worse.
In September the Papal Bull dividing England into Roman Catholic sees threw
the country into a state of needless excitement. The year had been a very
critical one for the Church of England. The result of the Gorham case,
which marked the failure of the High Church clergy to get their own way
within the Church, hastened the secession to Rome of Manning, James Hope,
and other well-known men. Lord John's letter to the Bishop of Durham, in
which he expressed his own strong Protestant and Erastian principles,
increased his popularity; but it was unfortunate in its effect. It
encouraged the bigoted alarmist outcries which had been started by the
Papal Bull, although his own letter differed in tone from such protests.
The Ecclesiastical Titles Bill, which the Government brought forward in
response to popular feeling, seems to have been one of the idlest measures
that ever wasted the time of Parliament. It remained a dead-letter from the
day it passed, yet at the time no Minister had a chance of leading the
country who was not prepared to support it.
The Budget made the Ministry unpopular at the beginning of the session; and
in February Mr. Locke King succeeded in passing, with the help of the
Radicals, a measure for the extension of the franchise, in spite of
opposition from the Government. Lord John had a measure of his own of a
similar nature in view, as we have seen; but, in spite of his assurance
that he would introduce it during the following year, the Radicals voted
against him on Mr. King's motion, and on February 20th he resigned.
The state of parties was such that no rival coalition was possible. Lord
Stanley was for widening the franchise, but being a Protectionist he could
not work with the Peelites; while Lord Aberdeen would not consent to the
Ecclesiastical Titles Bill, and was impossible as a leader so long as the
anti-Catholic hubble-bubble continued. Lord John was therefore compelled to
resume office.
_Lady John Russell to Lady Mary Abercromby_
PEMBROKE LODGE, _November_ 22, 1850
I am very glad you and Ralph liked John's letter to the Bishop of
Durham. It was necessary for him to speak out, and having all his
life defended the claims of the Roman Catholics to perfect
toleration and equality of civil rights with the other subjects of
the Queen, I should hardly have expected that they would take
offence because he declares himself a Protestant and a despiser of
the superstitious imitation of Roman Catholic ceremonies by
clergymen of the Church of England. Such, however, has not been the
case: and Ireland especially, excited by her priests, has taken
fire at the whole letter, and most of all at the word "mummeries."
The wisest and most moderate of them, however, here, and in Ireland
with Archbishop Murray I hope at their head, will do what they can
to put out the flame. No amount of dislike to any creed can,
happily, for a moment shake one's conviction that complete
toleration to every creed and conviction, and complete charity to
each one of its professors, is the only right and safe rule--the
only one which can make consistency in religious matters possible
at all times and on all occasions. Otherwise it _might_ be
shaken by the new proofs of the insidious, corrupting,
anti-truthful nature and effects of the Roman Catholic belief.
They have shown themselves for ages past in the character and
conditions of the countries where it reigns, and now the Pope's
foolish Bull is the signal for double-dealing and ingratitude among
his spiritual subjects--and consequently for anger and intolerance
among Protestants--wrong, but not quite inexcusable.
_Lady John Russell to Lady Mary Abercromby_
PEMBROKE LODGE, _November_ 29, 1850
Far from wondering at your vacillations of opinion about John's
letter, both he and I felt, on the first appearance of Wiseman's
pastoral letter, that the whole scheme was so ridiculous, the
affectation of power so contemptible, the change of Vicars
Apostolic into Bishops and Archbishops, so impotent for evil to
Protestants, while it might possibly be of use to Roman Catholics,
that ridicule and contempt were the only fit arms for the occasion.
But when he came to consider the chief cause of the measure--that
is, the great and growing evil of Tractarianism--of an established
clergy becoming daily less efficient for the wants of their
parishioners, and more at variance with the laity and with the
spirit of the Church to which they outwardly belong; when the whole
Protestant country showed its anger or fear; when such a man as the
Bishop of Norwich (Hinds), a man so tolerant as to be called by the
intolerant a latitudinarian, came to him to represent the necessity
for some expression of opinion on the part of the Government, and
the immense evils that would result from the want of such an
expression; when, after a calm survey of the state of religion
throughout the country, he thought he saw that it was in his power
to prevent the ruin of the Church of England, not by assuming
popular opinions, but merely by openly avowing his own--then, and
not till then, he wrote his letter--then, and not till then, I felt
he was right to do so.
It has quieted men's fears with regard to the Pope, and directed
them towards Tractarianism. And we are told that a great many (I
think one hundred) of the clergy omitted some of their "mummeries"
on the following Sunday. That word was perhaps ill-chosen, and he
is willing to say so--but I doubt it. Suppose he had omitted it,
some other would have been laid hold of as offensive to men sincere
in their opinions, however mistaken he may think them.
The letter was a Protestant one, and could not give great
satisfaction to Roman Catholics, except such as Lord Beaumont, who
prefers the Queen to the Pope. John has all his life showed himself
a friend to civil and religious liberty, especially that of the
Roman Catholics--and would gladly never have been called upon to
say a word that they could take as an insult to their creed. But it
was a moment in which he had to choose between a temporary offence
to a part of their body and the deserved loss of the confidence of
the Protestant body, to which he heart and soul belongs. He could
scarcely declare his opinion of the Tractarians, who remain in a
Church to which they no longer belong, without indirectly giving
offence to Roman Catholics. But it is against their practices that
his strong disapprobation is declared, and of the mischief of those
practices I dare say you have no idea. I believe many of them, most
of them, to be as pious and excellent men as ever existed; but
their teaching is not likely to make others as pious and excellent
as themselves; and their remaining in the Church obliges them to a
secrecy and hesitation in their teaching that is worse than the
teaching itself, which would disappear if they became honest
Dissenters. I could write pages more upon the subject but have no
time, and I will only beg you not to confound John's letter with
the bigotry and intolerance of many speeches at many meetings. I am
keeping the collection of letters, addresses, etc., that he has
received on the subject--a curious medley, being from all ranks and
degrees of men, some really touching, some laughable.
_Lady John Russell to Lady Mary Abercromby_
LONDON, _February_ 11, 1851
I wonder what you will think of John's speech last Friday. I am
quite surprised at the approbation it meets with here--not that I
do not think it deserved, for surely it was a fine high-minded one,
and at the same time one at no word of which a Roman Catholic, as
such, could take offence--but so many people thought more ought to
be done, and so many others that nothing ought to be done, that I
expected nothing but grumbling. However, the _speech_ is by
most persons distinguished from the _measure_. I have not yet
quite succeeded in persuading myself, or being persuaded, that we
might not have let the whole thing alone; treating an impertinence
_as_ an impertinence, to be met by ridicule or indignation as
each person might incline, but not by legislation. This being my
natural and I hope foolish impulse, I rejoice that the Bill is so
mild that nobody can consider it as an infringement of the
principle of religious liberty, but rather a protest against undue
interference in temporal affairs by Pope, Prelate, or Priest of any
denomination. Lizzy and I went to the House last night. I never
heard John speak with more spirit and effect. Do not you in your
quiet beautiful Nervi look with amazement at the whirl of politics
and parties in which we live? I am sometimes ashamed of the time I
consume in writing invitations and other matters connected with
party-giving--quite as much as John takes to think of speeches,
which affect the welfare of so many thousands. But after all it is
a part of the same trade, one which, though most dangerous to all
that is best in man and woman, may, I trust, be followed in safety
by those who see the dangers. I am sure I see them. God grant we
may both escape them.
In a letter written to Lady Mary Abercromby, more than two years before,
she had expressed her feelings with regard to religious ceremonies. It is
interesting that the word _mummeries_, which excited so much
indignation in Lord John's Durham letter, occurs in this letter.
On January 13, 1848, she wrote:
Many thanks to you for the interesting account of the great
ceremony on Christmas Day in St. Peter's, and of your own feelings
about it. I believe that whatever is _meant_ as an act of
devotion to God, or as an acknowledgment of His greatness and
glory, whether expressed by the simple prayer of a Covenanter on
the hill-side or by the ceremonies of a Catholic priesthood, or
even by the prostrations of a Mahometan, or by the self-torture of
a Hindoo, may and ought to inspire us with respect and with a
devout feeling, at least when the worshippers themselves are pious
and sincere. Otherwise, indeed, if the _mummery_ is more
apparent than the solemnity, I do not see how respect can be felt
by those accustomed to a pure worship, the words and meaning of
which are clear and applicable to rich and poor, high and low....
_Lady John Russell to Lady Mary Abercromby_
LONDON, _April_ 11, 1851
I wonder what you will do with regard to teaching religion to
Maillie when she is older. I am daily more and more convinced of
the folly, or worse than folly, the mischief, of stuffing
children's heads with doctrines some of which we do not believe
ourselves (though we may think we do), others which we do not
understand, while their hearts remain untouched.... Old as Johnny
is, he does not yet go to church. I see with pain, but cannot help
seeing, that from the time a child begins to go to church, the
truth and candour of its religion are apt to suffer.... Oh, how far
we still are from the religion of Christ! How unwilling to believe
that God's ways are not our ways, nor His thoughts our thoughts!
How willing to bring them down to suit not what is divine, but what
is earthly, in ourselves! Yet, happily, we do not feel or act in
consistency with all that we repeat as a lesson upon the subject of
our faith--for man cannot altogether crush the growth of the soul
given by God--and I trust and believe a better time is coming, when
freedom of thought and of word will be as common as they are now
uncommon.
In May Lady John writes of a dinner-party in London where she had a long
conversation with the Russian Ambassador (Baron Brunow) on the Governments
of Russia and England; she ended by hoping for a time "when Russia will be
more like this country than it is now, to which he answered with a start,
and lifting up his hands, 'God forbid! May I never live to see Russia more
like this country! God forbid, my dear Lady _Joan!'"_
To follow the events which led to the fall of the Ministry it is necessary
to look abroad. The power of the Whigs in the House of Commons, such as it
was, was the result of inability of Tories to combine, owing to their
differences concerning Free Trade. The strength of Lord John's Ministry in
the country depended largely upon the foreign policy of Palmerston, who was
disliked and mistrusted by the Court. While Palmerston was defending his
abrupt, highhanded policy towards Greece in the speech which made him the
hero of the hour, a war was going on between Denmark and
Schleswig-Holstein, in which the Prince Consort himself was much
interested. It was a question as to whether Schleswig-Holstein should be
permitted to join the German Federation. Holstein was a German fief,
Schleswig was a Danish fief; unfortunately an old law linked them together
in some mysterious fashion, as indissolubly as Siamese twins. Both wanted
to join the Federation. Holstein had a good legal claim to do as it liked
in this respect, Schleswig a bad one; but the law declared that both must
be under the same government. Prussia interfered on behalf of the duchies;
England, Austria, France, and the Baltic Powers joined in declaring that
the Danish monarchy should not be divided.
The Prince Consort had Prussian sympathies, and he therefore disapproved of
the strong line which Palmerston took up in this matter. It was not only
Palmerston's policy, however, but the independence with which he was
accustomed to carry it out, which annoyed the Court. He was a bad courtier;
he domineered over princelings and kings abroad, and his behaviour to his
own Sovereign did not in any way resemble Disraeli's. He not only "never
contradicted, only sometimes forgot"; on the contrary, he often omitted to
tell the Queen what he was doing, and consequently she found herself in a
false position.
At last the following peremptory reproof was addressed to him:
_Queen Victoria to Lord John Russell,_ [36]
Osborne, _August_ 12, 1850
... The Queen requires, first, that Lord Palmerston will distinctly
state what he proposes in a given case, in order that the Queen may
know as distinctly to what she has given her royal sanction;
secondly, having once given her sanction to a measure, that it be
not arbitrarily altered or modified by the Minister. Such an act
she must consider as failing in sincerity towards the Crown, and
justly to be visited by the exercise of her constitutional right of
dismissing that Minister. She expects to be kept informed of what
passes between him and Foreign Ministers before important decisions
are taken, based upon that intercourse: to receive foreign
dispatches in good time; and to have the drafts for her approval
sent to her in sufficient time to make herself acquainted with
their contents before they must be sent off. The Queen thinks it
best that Lord John Russell should show this letter to Lord
Palmerston.
[36] "Letters of Queen Victoria," vol. ii, chap. xix.
Palmerston apologized and promised amendment, but he did not resign, nor
did the Prime Minister request him to do so. His foreign policy had
hitherto vigorously befriended liberty on the Continent, and although the
Queen and Prince Consort never strained the constitutional limits of the
prerogative, these limits are elastic and there was a general feeling among
Liberals that the Court might acquire an overwhelming influence in
diplomacy, and that certainly at the moment the Prince Consort's sympathies
were too largely determined by his relationship to foreign royal families.
It is clear, however, that as long as the Crown is an integral part of the
Executive, the Sovereign must have the fullest information upon foreign
affairs. Palmerston had gone a great deal too far.
_Lady John Russell to Lady Mary Abercromby_
LONDON, _March_ 14, 1851
We have now heard from you several times since the _crisis_,
[37] but not since you knew of our reinstatement in place and
power, toil and trouble.... I should hardly have thought it
possible that Ralph, hearing constantly from Lord Palmerston, had
not discovered the change that has come over him since last year,
when he took his stand and won his victory on the principles that
became a Whig Minister, of sympathy with the constitutionalists and
antipathy to the absolutists all over Europe. Ever since that great
debate he has gradually retreated from those principles.... I am
not apt to be politically desponding, but the one thing which now
threatens us is the loss of confidence of the House of Commons and
the country....
[37] The defeat of the Government on Mr. Locke King's motion for the
equalization of the county and borough franchise.
She was not right, however, in her estimate of the dangers which threatened
the Ministry; they came from the Foreign Office and the Court, not from the
Commons.
Kossuth, the leader of the Hungarian Revolution, had been received in
England with great enthusiasm. He made a series of fiery speeches against
the Austrian and Russian Governments, urging that in cases in which foreign
Powers interfered with the internal politics of a country, as they had done
in the case of the Revolution in Hungary, outside nations should combine to
prevent it. This was thoroughly in harmony with Palmerston's foreign
policy. He wished to receive Kossuth at his house, which would have been
tantamount to admitting to a hostile attitude towards Austria and Russia,
who were nominally our friends. Lord John dissuaded him from doing this;
but he did receive deputations at the Foreign Office, who spoke of the
Emperors of Austria and Russia as "odious and detestable assassins." The
Queen was extremely angry.
Windsor Castle, _November_ 13, 1851
The Queen talked long with me about Lord Palmerston and about
Kossuth.
After accusing Lord Palmerston of every kind of fault and folly,
public and private, she said several times, "I have the very worst
opinion of him." I secretly agreed with her in much that she said
of him, but openly defended him when I thought her unjust. I told
her of his steadiness in friendship and constant kindness in word
and deed to those he had known in early life, however separated
from him by time and station. She did not believe it, and said she
knew him to be quite wanting in feeling. This turned out to mean
that his political enmities outlasted the good fortune of his
enemies. She said if he took the part of the revolutionists in some
countries he ought in all, and that while he pretended great
compassion for the oppressed Hungarians and Italians, he would not
care if the Schleswig-Holsteiners were all drowned. I said this was
too common a failing with us all, etc. I allowed that I wished his
faults were not laid on John's shoulders, and John's merits given
to him, as has often been the case--and that it was a pity he
sometimes used unnecessarily provoking language, but I would not
grant that England was despised and hated by all other European
countries.
The Kossuth incident was soon followed by a graver one. On December 1,
1851, Louis Napoleon carried out his _coup d'état._ The Ministry
determined to maintain a strict neutrality in the matter, and a short
dispatch was sent to Lord Normanby instructing him "to make no change in
his relations to the French Government." When this dispatch was shown to
the French Minister, he replied, a little nettled no doubt by the
suggestion that England considered herself to be stretching a point in
recognising the Emperor, that he had already heard from their Ambassador in
London that Lord Palmerston fully approved of the change. In a later
dispatch to Lord Normanby, which had not been shown either to the Queen or
to the Prime Minister, Palmerston repeated his own opinion. Now this was
precisely the kind of conduct for which he had been reproved: in
consequence he was asked to resign. When it came to explanations before
Parliament, Palmerston, to the surprise of everybody, made a meek, halting
defence of his independent conduct. But he bided his time, and when the
Government brought in a Militia Bill, intended to quiet the invasion scare
which the appearance of another Napoleon on the throne of France had
started, he proposed an amendment which they could not accept, and carried
it against them. Lord John Russell resigned and Lord Derby undertook to
form a Government.
Lady John wrote afterwards the following recollections of this crisis:
The breach between John and Lord Palmerston was a calamity to the
country, to the Whig party, and to themselves. And although it had
for some months been a threatening danger on the horizon, I cannot
but feel that there was accident in its actual occurrence. Had we
been in London, or at Pembroke Lodge, and not at Woburn Abbey at
the time, they would have met and talked over the subjects of their
difference. Words spoken might have been equally strong, but would
have been less cutting than words written, and conciliatory
expressions on John's part would have led the way to promises on
Lord Palmerston's to avoid committing his colleagues in future, as
he had done in the case of the coup d'état, and also to avoid any
needless risk of irritating the Queen by neglect in sending
dispatches to the Palace. It was characteristic of my husband to
bear patiently for a long while with difficulties, opposition,
perplexities, doubts raised by those with whom he acted, listening
to them with candour and good temper, and only meeting their
arguments with his own; but, at last, if he failed to convince
them, to take a sudden resolution--either yielding to them entirely
or breaking with them altogether--from which nothing could shake
him, but which, on looking back in after years, did not always seem
to him the best course. My father, who knew him well, once said to
me, half in joke and half in earnest: "Your husband is never so
determined as when he is in the wrong." It was a relief to him to
have done with hesitation and be resolved on any step which this
very anxiety to have done with hesitation led him to believe a
right one at the moment. This habit of mind showed itself in
private as in public matters, and his children and I were often
startled by abrupt decisions on home affairs announced very often
by letter.
In the case of the dismissal of Lord Palmerston, there was but Lord
Palmerston himself who found fault. The rest of the Cabinet were unanimous
in approbation. But there was not one of them whose opinions on foreign
policy were, in John's mind, worth weighing against those of Lord
Palmerston. He and John were always in cordial agreement on the great lines
of foreign policy, so far as I remember, except on Lord Palmerston's
unlucky and unworthy sanction of the _coup d'état_.
They two kept up the character of England as the sturdy guardian of her own
rights against other nations and the champion of freedom and independence
abroad. They did so both before and after the breach of 1851, which was
happily closed in the following year, when they were once more colleagues
in office. On matters of home policy Lord Palmerston remained the Tory he
had been in his earlier days, and this was the cause of many a trial to
John. Indeed, it was a misfortune to him throughout his public career that
his colleagues almost to a man hung back when he would have gone forward;
and many a time he came home dispirited from a Cabinet at which he had been
alone--or with only the support of my father, who always stood stoutly by
him while he remained Cabinet Minister--in the wish to bring before
Parliament measures worthy of the Whig banner of Civil and Religious
Liberty, Progress and Reform. Nothing could exceed John's patience under
the criticisms of his colleagues, who were, most of them, also his friends,
some of them very dear friends--nothing could exceed his readiness to admit
and listen to difference of opinion from them; but it was trying to find
the difference always in one direction, and that a direction hardly
consistent with the character of a Whig Ministry.
The spirit which pervaded the foreign policy of Lord John Russell is shown
in a letter from him to Queen Victoria dated December 29, 1851 [38]:
The grand rule of doing to others as we wish that they should do
unto us is more applicable than any system of political science.
The honour of England does not consist in defending every English
officer or English subject, right or wrong, but in taking care that
she does not infringe the rules of justice, and that they are not
infringed against her.
[38] "Letters of Queen Victoria," vol. ii, chap. xx.
Lord and Lady John often regretted that the duties of political life
prevented them from having fuller intercourse with literary friends. There
are short entries in her diaries mentioning the visits of distinguished men
and women, but she seldom had time to write more than a few words. Her
diaries--like her letters--were written with marvellous rapidity, and were,
of course, meant for herself alone. In March, 1852, she writes: "Thackeray
came to read his 'Sterne' and 'Goldsmith' to us--very interesting quiet
evening." And a little later at Pembroke Lodge: "Dickens came to luncheon
and stayed to dinner. He was very agreeable--and more than agreeable--made
us feel how much he is to be liked." Rogers they also saw occasionally, and
the letter which follows is a reply to an invitation to Pembroke Lodge. The
second letter refers to a volume of poems in manuscript, written by Lady
John and illustrated by Lord John's stepdaughter, Mrs. Drummond. He had
lent it to Rogers.
MY DEAR LADY JOHN,--Yes! yes! yes! A thousand thanks to you both! I
need not say how delighted I shall be to avail myself of your
kindness. I would rather share a crust with you and Lord John in
your Paradise then sup in the Apollo with Lucullus
himself--yes--though Cicero and Pompey were to be of the party.
Yours most sincerely,
SAMUEL ROGERS
_Mr. Samuel Rogers to Lord John Russell_
_April_ 15, 1852
MY DEAR FRIEND,--How could you entrust me with anything so
precious, so invaluable, that when I leave it I run back to see if
it is lost? The work of two kindred minds which nor time nor chance
could sever, long may it live a monument of all that is beautiful,
and long may _they_ live to charm and to instruct when I am
gone and forgotten.
Yours ever,
S.R.
The next entry from Lady John's diary is dated March 14, 1852:
Yesterday John read a ballad in _Punch_ giving a very
unfavourable review of his conduct in dismissing Lord Palmerston,
in bringing forward Reform--indeed, in almost all he has done in
office. He felt this more than the attacks of graver and less
independent papers, and said, "That's hard upon a man who has
worked as I have for Reform"; but the moment of discouragement
passed away, and he walked up and down the room repeating Milton's
lines with the spirit and feeling of Milton:
"Yet hate I not a jot of heart or hope,
But steer right onward."
PEMBROKE LODGE
APPENDIX TO CHAPTER VI
My brother and I have here added a few recollections of our old home.
A.R.
Pembroke Lodge, an old-fashioned house, long and low, surrounded by thickly
wooded grounds, stood on the ridge of the hill in Richmond Park overlooking
the Thames Valley and a wide plain beyond. It was approached by a drive
between ancient oaks, limes, and evergreens, and at the entrance was a
two-roomed thatched cottage, long occupied by a hearty old couple employed
on the place, so careful and watchful that an amusing incident occurred one
day when our father and mother were away from home. A lady and gentleman
who were walking in the Park called at the Lodge, and asked for permission
to walk through the grounds. The old lodge-keeper refused, saying she could
not give access to strangers during the absence of the family. The lady
then told her they were friends of Lord and Lady John, but still the old
guardian of the place remained suspicious and obdurate; till, to her
surprise and discomfiture, it came out that the visitors to whom she had so
sturdily refused admission were no other than Queen Victoria and Prince
Albert walking incognito in the Park.
Just outside the Lodge the Crystal Palace on the height of Sydenham could
be seen glittering in the rays of the setting sun. In front of the house,
eastward, were two magnificent poplars, one 100 feet, the other about 96
feet high, rich and ample in foliage, and most delicately expressive of
every kind of wind and weather. They could be seen with a telescope from
Hindhead, about thirty miles south-west. Grand old oaks, of seven hundred
to a thousand years, grew near the house and made plentiful shade;
southwards the grass under them was scarcely visible in May for the
glorious carpet of wild hyacinths, all blue and purple in the chequered
sunlight. Nearly every oak had its name and place in the affection of young
minds. There were also many fine beech-trees in the grounds. On the western
slopes were masses of primroses and violets, also wild strawberries. West
and south, down the hill, was a wilderness, the delight of children,
untended and unspoiled, where birds of many kinds built their nests, where
squirrels, rabbits, hedgehogs, weasels, snakes, wood-pigeons, turtle-doves,
owls, and other life of the woods had never been driven out, and where
visitors hardly ever cared to penetrate. Outside, in Petersham Park, was a
picturesque thatched byre where the cows were milked. Petersham Park was
then quiet and secluded, before the time came for its invasion by London
school treats.
East of the house was a long lawn, secluded from the open Park by a
beautiful, wildly growing hedge of gorse, berberis, bramble, hawthorn, and
wild roses. Further north was a bowling-green, surrounded by hollies,
laburnums, lilacs, rhododendrons, and forest trees; at one end was a
rose-trellis and a raised flower garden. The effect of this bright flower
garden with its setting of green foliage and flowering shrubs, and majestic
old trees surrounding the whole, was very beautiful. At one end, shaded by
two cryptomereas, planted by our father--said by Sir Joseph Hooker to be
among the finest in England--was a long verandah where our mother often sat
in summer with her basket of books, and in winter spread oatmeal for the
birds, which grew very tame and would eat out of her hand. Close by was a
picturesque old thatched summer-house, covered with roses; on each side
were glades of chestnut, hornbeam, and lime trees, and looking westward
Windsor Castle could be seen on the far horizon.
Near the house was a noble cedar, with one particularly fine bough under
the shade of which the Petersham School children and the "Old Scholars" had
their tea on festive occasions, followed by merry games in the grounds. The
view from the house and the West walk, and also from King Henry's Mount,
was most beautiful, especially in the spring and autumn, with the varied
and harmonious tints of the wooded foreground fading away into the soft
blue distance.
It was a glorious Park to live in. The great oaks, the hawthorns, the tall
dense bracken, the wide expanses of grass, the herds of red and fallow
deer, not always undisturbed, made it a paradise for young people. The boys
delighted in the large ponds, full of old carp and tench, with dace and
roach, perch, gudgeons, eels, tadpoles, sticklebacks, and curious creatures
of the weedy bottom. There was the best of riding over the smooth grass in
the open sunny expanses or among the quiet and shady glades. Combe Wood, a
little south of the Park, was then an island of pure country, quite
unfrequented, and an occasional day there was a treat for all.
Pembroke Lodge, the house, was entered by a porch overhung with wistaria;
the walls on each side were covered with laburnums and roses; a long
trellised arch of white roses led to the south lawn, which was sheltered
from the east by holly, lilacs, and a very fine crataegus. From here was
one of the loveliest views in the place, for our mother had made a wide
opening under the arched bough of a fine elm-tree which stood like a grand
old sentinel in the foreground. The bow room on the south side of the house
was occupied by our father during his later years. Here stood the statue of
Italy given by grateful Italians and the silver statuette given by the
ladies of Bedford in recognition of Reform. The West room next the
dining-room had been our father's study during many of his most strenuous
years of office. The floor was heaped high with pyramids of despatch-boxes.
One day some consternation was caused by our pet jackdaw, who had found his
way in and pulled off all the labels, no doubt intending, in mischievous
enjoyment, to tear to shreds despatches of European importance.
Above the bow room was our mother's bedroom; the view from here was
exceedingly beautiful, both near and far, and she was never tired of
standing at the open window looking at the loveliness around her, and
listening to the happy chorus of birds--and to the nightingales answering
each other, and singing day and night, apparently never weary of trying to
gladden the world with their glorious melody.
It was indeed impossible to have a happier or more perfect home; the
freedom, the outdoor life, the games and fun, in which our father and
mother joined in their rare moments of leisure; the hours of reading and
talk with them on the high and deep things of life--all this, and much more
that cannot be expressed, forms a background in the memory of life deeply
treasured and ineffaceable.