STORM AND SUNSHINE.
[Illustration: St. James's Palace.]
The beneficent changes we have briefly described were but just
inaugurated, and their possible power for good was as yet hardly
divined, when the young Queen entered into that marriage which we may
well deem the happiest action of her life, and the most fruitful of
good to her people, looking to the extraordinary character of the
husband of her choice, and to the unobtrusive but always advantageous
influence which his great and wise spirit exercised on our national
life.
The marriage had been anxiously desired, and the way for it
judiciously prepared, but it was in no sense forced on either of the
contracting parties by their elders who so desired it. Prince Albert
of Saxe-Coburg, second son of the Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, the
Queen's maternal uncle, was nearly of an age with his royal cousin;
he had already, young as he was, given evidence of a rare superiority
of nature; he had been excellently trained; and there is no doubt
that Leopold, king of the Belgians, his uncle, and the Queen's, did
most earnestly desire to see the young heiress of the British throne,
for whom he had a peculiar tenderness, united to the one person whose
position and whose character combined to point him out as the fit
partner for her high and difficult destinies. What tact, what
patience, and what power of self-suppression the Queen of England's
husband would need to exercise, no one could better judge than
Leopold, the widowed husband of Princess Charlotte; no one could more
fully have exemplified these qualities than the prince in whom
Leopold's penetration divined them.
The cousins had already met, in 1836, when their mutual attraction
had been sufficiently strong; and in 1839, when Prince Albert, with
his elder brother Ernest, was again visiting England, the impression
already produced became ineffaceably deep. The Queen, whom her great
rank compelled to take the initiative, was not very long in making up
her mind when and how to act. Her favoured suitor himself, writing to
a dear relative, relates how she performed the trying task, inviting
him to render her intensely happy by making "the _sacrifice_ of
sharing her life with her, for she said she looked on it as a
sacrifice. The joyous openness with which she told me this enchanted
me, and I was quite carried away by it." This was on October 15th;
nearly six weeks after, on November 23rd, she made to her assembled
Privy Council the formal declaration of her intended marriage. There
is something particularly touching in even the driest description of
this scene; the betrothed bride wearing a simple morning dress,
having on her arm a bracelet containing Prince Albert's portrait,
which helped to give her courage; her voice, as she read the
declaration clear, sweet, and penetrating as ever, but her hands
trembling so excessively that it was surprising she could read the
paper she held. It was a trying task, but not so difficult as that
which had devolved on her a short time before, when, in virtue of her
sovereign rank, she had first to speak the words of fate that bound
her to her suitor.
[Illustration: Prince Albert.]
Endowed with every charm of person, mind, and manner that can win and
keep affection, Prince Albert was able, in marrying the Queen, who
loved him and whom he loved, to secure for her a happiness rare in
any rank, rarest of all on the cold heights of royalty. This was not
all; he was the worthy partner of her greatness. Himself highly
cultivated in every sense, he watched with keenest interest over the
advance of all cultivation in the land of his adoption, and
identified himself with every movement to improve its condition. His
was the soul of a statesman--wide, lofty, far-seeing, patient;
surveying all great things, disdaining no small things, but with
tireless industry pursuing after all necessary knowledge. Add to
these intellectual excellences the moral graces of ideal purity of
life, chivalrous faithfulness of heart, magnanimous self-suppression,
and fervent piety, and we have a slight outline of a character which,
in the order of Providence, acted very strongly and with a still
living force on the destinies of nineteenth-century England. The
Queen had good reasons for the feeling of "confidence and comfort"
that shone in the glance she turned on her bridegroom as they walked
away, man and wife at last, from the altar of the Chapel Royal, on
February 10th, 1840. The union she then entered into immeasurably
enhanced her popularity, and strengthened her position as surely as
it expanded her nature. Not many years elapsed before Sir Robert Peel
could tell her that, in spite of the inroads of democracy, the
monarchy had never been safer, nor had any sovereign been so beloved,
because "the Queen's domestic life was so happy, and its example so
good." Only the Searcher of hearts knoweth how great has been the
holy power of a pure, fair, and noble example constantly shining in
the high places of the land.
[Illustration: The Queen in her Wedding-Dress. _After the Picture by_
Drummond.]
It was hinted by the would-be wise, in the early days of Her
Majesty's married life, that it would be idle to look for the royally
maternal feeling of an Elizabeth towards her people in a wedded
constitutional sovereign. The judgment was a mistake. The formal
limitations of our Queen's prerogative, sedulously as she has
respected them, have never destroyed her sense of responsibility;
wifehood and motherhood have not contracted her sympathies, but have
deepened and widened them. The very sorrows of her domestic life have
knit her in fellowship with other mourners. No great calamity can
befall her humblest subjects, and she hear of it, but there comes the
answering flash of tender pity. She is more truly the mother of her
people, having walked on a level with them, and with "Love, who is of
the valley," than if she had chosen to dwell alone and aloof.
[Illustration: Sir Robert Peel.]
For some years after her marriage the Queen's private life shows like
a little isle of brightness in the midst of a stormy sea. Within and
without our borders there was small prospect of settled peace at the
very time of that marriage. We have said that Lord Melbourne was
still Premier; but he and his Ministry had resigned office in the
previous May, and had only come back to it in consequence of a
curious misunderstanding known as "the Bedchamber difficulty." Sir
Robert Peel, who was summoned to form a Ministry on Melbourne's
defeat and resignation, had asked from Her Majesty the dismissal of
two ladies of her household, the wives of prominent members of the
departing Whig Government; but his request conveyed to her mind the
sense that he designed to deprive her of all her actual attendants,
and against this imagined proposal she set herself energetically.
"She could not consent to a course which she conceived to be contrary
to usage, and which was repugnant to her feelings." Peel on his part
remained firm in his opinion as to the real necessity for the change
which he had advocated. From the deadlock produced by mere
misunderstanding there seemed at the time only one way of escaping;
the defeated Whig Government returned to office. But Ministers who
resumed power only because, "as gentlemen," they felt bound to do so,
had little chance of retaining it. In September 1841, Lord Melbourne
was superseded in the premiership by Sir Robert Peel, and then gave a
final proof how single-minded was his loyal devotion by advising the
new Prime Minister as to the tone and style likely to commend him to
their royal mistress--a tone of clear straightforwardness. "The
Queen," said Melbourne--who knew of what he was speaking, if any
statesman then did--"is not conceited; she is aware there are many
things she cannot understand, and likes them explained to her
elementarily, not at length and in detail, but shortly and clearly."
The counsel was given and was accepted with equal good feeling, such
as was honourable to all concerned; and the Sovereign learned, as
years went on, to repose a singular confidence in the Minister with
whom her first relations had been so unpropitious, but whose real
honesty, ability, and loyalty soon approved themselves to her clear
perceptions, which no prejudice has long been able to obscure.
We are told that in later years Her Majesty referred to the
disagreeable incident we have just related as one that could not have
occurred, if she had had beside her Prince Albert "to talk to and
employ in explaining matters," while she refused the suggestion that
her impulsive resistance had been advised by any one about her. "It
was entirely my own foolishness," [Footnote] she is said to have
added--words breathing that perfect simplicity of candour which has
always been one of her most strongly marked characteristics.
[Footnote: "Greville Memoirs," Third Part, vol. i.]
Though the matter caused a great sensation at the time, and gave rise
to some dismal prophesyings, it was of no permanent importance, and
is chiefly noted here because it throws a strong light on Her
Majesty's need of such an ever-present aid as she had now secured in
the husband wise beyond his years, who well understood his
constitutional position, and was resolute to keep within it, avoiding
entanglement with any party, and fulfilling with equal impartiality
and ability the duties of private secretary to his Sovereign-wife.
The Melbourne Ministry had had to contend with difficulties
sufficiently serious, and of these the grimmest and greatest remained
still unsettled. At the outset of the reign a rebellion in Canada had
required strong repression; and we had taken the first step on a bad
road by entering into those disputes as to our right to force the
opium traffic on China, which soon involved us in a disastrously
successful war with that country. On the other hand, our Indian
Government had begun an un-called-for interference with the affairs
of Afghanistan, which, successful at first, resulted in a series of
humiliating reverses to our arms, culminating in one of the most
terrible disasters that have ever befallen a British force--the
wholesale massacre of General Elphinstone's defeated and retreating
army on its passage through the terrible mountain gorge known as the
Pass of Koord Cabul. It was on January 13th, 1842, that the single
survivor of this massacre appeared, a half-fainting man, drooping
over the neck of his wearied pony, before the fort of Jellalabad,
which General Sale still held for the English. He only was "escaped
alone" to tell the hideous tale. The ill-advised and ill-managed
enterprise which thus terminated had extended over more than three
years, had cost us many noble lives, in particular that of the
much-lamented Alexander Burnes, had condemned many English women and
children to a long and cruel captivity among the savage foe, and had
absolutely failed as to the object for which it was undertaken--the
instalment of Shah Soojah, a mere British tool, as ruler of
Afghanistan, in place of the chief desired by the Afghan people, Dost
Mahomed. When the disasters to our arms had been retrieved, as
retrieved they were with exemplary promptness, and when the surviving
prisoners were redeemed from their hard captivity, it was deemed
sound policy for us to attempt no longer to "force a sovereign on a
reluctant people," and to remain content with that limit which
"nature appears to have assigned" to our Indian empire on its
north-western border. Later adventures in the same field have not
resulted so happily as to prove that these views were incorrect. Our
prestige was seriously damaged in Hindostan by this first Afghan war,
and was only partially re-established in the campaign against the
Sikhs several years later, despite the dramatic grandeur of that
"piece of Indian history" which resulted in our annexation of the
Punjaub in 1846--a solid advantage balanced by the unpleasant fact
that English soldiers had been proved not invincible by natives.
It will thus appear that there was not too much that was glorious or
encouraging in our external affairs in these early years; but the
internal condition of the country was never less reassuring. The
general discontent of the English lower orders was taking shape as
Chartism--a movement which could not have arisen but for the fierce
suspicion with which the working classes had learnt to regard those
who seemed their superiors in wealth, in rank, or in political power,
and which the higher orders retaliated in dislike and distrust of the
labouring population, whom they considered as seditious enemies of
order and property. The demon of class hatred was never more alive
and busy than in the decade which terminated in 1848.
"The Charter," which was the watchword of hope to so many, and the
very war-note of discord to many more, comprised six points, of which
some at least were sufficiently absurd, while others have virtually
passed into law, quietly and naturally, in due course of time; and if
the universal Age of Gold which ignorant Chartists looked for has not
ensued, at least the anarchy and ruin which their opponents
associated with the dreaded scheme are equally non-existent. So fast
has the time moved that there is now a little difficulty in
understanding the passionate hopes with which the Charter was
associated on the one side, and the panic which it inspired on the
other; and there is much to move wondering compassion in the profound
ignorance which those hopes betrayed, and the not inferior misery
amid which they were cherished. Few persons are now so credulous as
to expect that annual Parliaments or stipendiary members would insure
the universal reign of peace and justice; the people have already
found that vote by ballot and suffrage all but universal have neither
equalised wealth nor abrogated greed and iniquity; and though there
be some dreamers in our midst to-day who look for wonderful
transformations of society to follow on possible reforms, there is
not even in these dreamy schemes the same amazing disproportion of
means to be employed and end to be attained as characterised the
Chartist delusion.
[Illustration: Daniel O'Connell.]
In Ireland men were reposing unbounded faith in another sort of
political panacea for every personal and social evil--the Repeal of
the Union with England, advocated by Daniel O'Connell, with all the
power of his passionate Celtic eloquence, and supported by all his
extraordinary personal influence. Apparently he hoped to carry this
agitation to the same triumphant issue as that for Catholic
emancipation, in which he had taken a conspicuous part; but the new
movement did not, like the old one, appeal immediately and plausibly
to the English sense of fair play and natural justice. A competent
and not unfriendly observer has remarked that O'Connell's "theory and
policy were that Ireland was to be saved by a dictatorship entrusted
to himself." Whether any salvation for the unhappy land did lie in
such a dictatorship was a point on which opinion might well be
divided. English opinion was massively hostile to it; but for years
all the political enthusiasm of Ireland centred in O'Connell and the
cause he upheld. The country might be on the brink of ruin and
starvation, but the peril seemed forgotten while the dream lasted.
The agitator was wont to refer to the Queen in terms of extravagant
loyalty, and it would seem that the feeling was largely shared by his
followers. However futile and vainglorious his scheme and methods may
appear, we must not deny to him a distinction, rare indeed among
Irish agitators, of having steadily disclaimed violence and advocated
orderly and peaceable proceedings. He thought his cause would be
injured, and not advanced, by such outrages as before and since his
day have too often disgraced party warfare in Ireland. His favourite
maxim was that "the man who commits a crime gives strength to the
enemy." This opinion was not heartily endorsed by all his followers.
When it became clear that his dislike of physical force was real,
when he did not defy the Government, at last stirred into hostile
action by the demonstrations he organised, there was an end of his
power over the fiercer spirits whom he had roused against the rule of
"the Saxon"--luckless phrase with which he had enriched the
Anglo-Irish controversy, and misleading as luckless. O'Connell died,
a broken and disappointed man, on his way to Rome in 1847; but the
spirit he had raised and could not rule did not die with him, and the
younger, more turbulent leaders, who had outbid him for popular
approval, continued their anti-English warfare with growing zeal
until the year of fate 1848.
Even the Principality of Wales had its own peculiar form of
agitation, sometimes accompanied by outrage, during these wild
opening years. The farmers and labourers in Wales were unprosperous
and poor, and in the season of their adversity they found turnpikes
and tolls multiplying on their public roads. They resented what
appeared a cruel imposition with wrathful impatience, and ere long
gave expression to their anger in wild deeds. A text of Scripture
suggested to them a fantastic form of riot. They found that it was
said of old to Rebecca, "Let thy seed possess the gate of those which
hate them," and ere long "Rebecca and her children," men masking in
women's clothes, made fierce war by night on the "gates" they
detested, destroying the turnpikes and driving out their keepers.
These raids were not always bloodless. The Government succeeded in
repressing the rioting, and then, finding that a real grievance had
caused it, did away with the oppressive tolls, and dealt not too
hardly with the captured offenders; leniency which soon restored
Wales to tranquillity.
[Illustration: Richard Cobden.]
[Illustration: John Bright.]
A peaceful, strictly constitutional, and finally successful agitation
ran its steady course in England for several years contemporaneously
with those we have already enumerated. The Anti-Corn-Law League, with
which the names of Cobden and Bright are united as closely as those
two distinguished men were united in friendship, had in 1838 found a
centre eminently favourable to its operations in Manchester. Its
leaders were able, well-informed, and upright men, profoundly
convinced that their cause was just, and that the welfare of the
people was involved in their success or failure. They were men of the
middle class, acquainted intimately with the needs and doings of the
trading community to which they belonged, and therefore at once
better qualified to argue on questions affecting commerce, and less
directly interested in the prosperity of agriculture, than the more
aristocratic leaders of the nation. Both persuasive and successful
speakers, one of them supremely eloquent, they were able to interest
even the lowest populace in questions of political economy, and to
make Free Trade in Corn the idol of popular passion. Their mode of
agitation was eminently reasonable and wise; but it _was_ an
agitation, exciting wild enthusiasm and fierce opposition, and must
be reckoned not among the forces tending to quiet, but among those
that aroused anxious care in the first nine years of the reign. And
it was a terrible calamity that at last placed victory within their
grasp. The blight on the potato first showed itself in 1845--a new,
undreamed-of disaster, probably owing to the long succession of
unfavourable seasons. And the potato blight meant almost certainly
famine in Ireland, where perhaps three-fourths of the population had
no food but this root. The food supply of a whole nation seemed on
the point of being cut off. A loud demand was made for "the opening
of the ports." By existing laws the ports admitted foreign grain
tinder import duties varying in severity inversely with the
fluctuating price of home-grown grain; thus a certain high level in
the cost of corn was artificially maintained. These regulations,
though framed for the protection of the native producer, did not bear
so heavily on the consumer as the law of 1815 which they replaced;
and the principle represented by them had a large following in the
country. But now the argument from famine proved potent to decide the
wavering convictions of some who had long been identified with the
cause of Protection. The champions of Free Trade were sure of triumph
when Sir Robert Peel became one of their converts; and the Corn Bill
which he carried in the June of 1846, granting with some little
reserve and delay the reforms which the Anti-Corn-Law League had been
formed to secure, brought that powerful association to a quiet end.
But the threatening Irish famine and the growing Irish disturbances
remained, to embarrass the Ministry of Lord John Russell, which came
into power within less than a week of that great success of the Tory
Minister, defeated on a question of Irish polity on the very day when
his Corn Bill received the assent of the House of Lords.
[Illustration: Lord John Russell.]
We must not omit, as in passing we chronicle this singular fortune of
a great Minister, to notice the grief with which Her Majesty viewed
this turn of events. Amid all the anxiety of the period, amid her
distress at the cruel sufferings of her servants in India, in
Britain, in Ireland, and her care for their relief, she had had two
sources of consolation: the pure and simple bliss of her home-life,
and the assistance of two most valued counsellors--her husband and
her Prime Minister. One was inseparably at her side, but one must now
leave it; and she and the Prince met their inevitable loss with the
dignified outward acquiescence that was fitting, but with sorrow not
less real. The Queen would have bestowed on Peel as distinguished an
honour as she could confer--the Order of the Garter; Peel deemed it
best to decline it gratefully. "He was from the people and of the
people," and wished so to remain, content if his Queen could say,
"You have been a faithful servant, and have done your duty to the
country and to myself."
In hapless Ireland, torn by agitation and scourged by pestilence and
famine, the general misery had reached a point where no fiscal
measures, however wise, could at once alleviate it. The potato famine
held on its dreadful way, and the darkest moment of Irish history
seemed reached in the year when one hundred and seventy thousand
persons perished in that island by hunger or hunger-bred fever. The
new plague affected Great Britain also; but its suffering was
completely overshadowed by the enormous bulk of Irish woe, which the
utmost lavishness of charity seemed scarcely to lessen. That there
should be turbulence and even violence accompanying all this
wretchedness was no way surprising; but in most men's minds the
wretchedness held the larger place, and deservedly so, for the
sedition, when ripe enough, was dealt with sharply, though not
mercilessly, in such a way that ere long all reasonable dread of a
civil war being added to the other horrors, had passed away; and the
country had leisure for such recovery as was possible to a land so
desolate.
[Illustration: Thomas Chalmers.]
There was contemporaneous distress enough and to spare in Great
Britain: failures in Lancashire alone to the amount of £16,000,000;
failures equally heavy in Birmingham, Glasgow, and other great towns;
capital was absorbed by the mad speculations in railway shares; and
even Heaven's gift of an abundant harvest, by at once lowering the
price of corn, helped to depress commerce. Many banks stopped
payment, and even the Bank of England seemed imperilled, saving
itself only by adopting a bold line of policy advised by Government.
At the same time, the Chartist movement was gathering the strength
which was to expend itself in the futile demonstrations of 1848.
[Illustration: John Henry Newman. _From a photograph by_ Mr. H. J.
Whitlock, _Birmingham_.]
But as if it were not enough for every department of political or
commercial life to be so seriously affected, there was now arising
within the English National Church itself a singular movement,
destined to affect the religious history of the land as powerfully,
if not as beneficially, as did the Evangelical revival of the last
century; and the National Kirk of Scotland, after long and stern
contention on the crucial point of civil control in things spiritual,
was ready for that rending in twain from which arose the Free Kirk;
while other religious bodies were torn by the same keen spirit of
strife, the same revolt against ancient order, as that which was
distracting the world of politics. The bitterness of the disruption
in Scotland is well-nigh exhausted, though the controversy enlisted
at the time all the fervid power of a Chalmers; men honour the memory
of the champions, while hoping to see the once sharp differences
composed for ever. But the "Catholic Revival," initiated under the
leadership of Newman, Pusey, and Keble, has proved to be no transient
disturbance: and no figure has in relation to the Church history of
the half-century the same portentous importance as that of John Henry
Newman, whose powerful magnetism, as it attracted or repelled, drew
men towards Romanism or drove them towards Rationalism, his logical
art, made more impressive by the noble eloquence with which he
sometimes adorned it, seeming to leave those who came under his spell
no choice between the two extremes. When he finally decided on
withdrawing himself from the Anglican and giving in his adhesion to
the Roman communion, he set an example that has not yet ceased to be
imitated, to the incalculable damage of the English Establishment.
Happily the massive Nonconformity of the country was hardly touched
either by his influence or his example.
It is pleasant to turn from scenes of doubt and discord, of strife
and sorrow, to that bright domestic life which was now vouchsafed to
the Sovereign, as if in direct compensation for the storms that raved
and beat outside her home--a home now brightened by the presence of
five joyous, healthy children. It is a charming picture of the royal
pair and of the manner of life in the palace--styled by one foreigner
"the one really pleasant, comfortable English house, in which one
feels at one's ease "--that is given us by the finely discerning
Mendelssohn, invited by the Prince to "come and try his organ" before
leaving England in 1842, on which occasion the Queen joined her
husband and his guest at the instrument, enjoying and aiding in their
musical performance, and singing, "quite faultlessly and with
charming feeling and expression," a song written by the great master
who was now paying a farewell visit, with nothing of ceremony in it,
to English royalty. With a few touches Mendelssohn makes us see the
delightful ease and comfort of this royal interior, the Queen
gathering up the sheets of music strewn by the wind over the
floor--the Prince cleverly managing the organ-stops so as to suit the
master while he played--the mighty rocking-horse and the two
birdcages beside the music-laden piano in the Queen's own
sitting-room, beautiful with pictures and richly-bound books--the
pretty difficulty about her finding some of Mendelssohn's own songs
to sing to him, since her music was packed up and taken away to
Claremont--her naïve confession that she had been "so frightened" at
singing before the master,--all are chronicled with not less zest and
affection than the graceful gift of a valuable ring "as a
remembrance" to the artist from the Queen, through Prince Albert. It
is a much more pleasing impression that we thus obtain than can be
given by details of State ceremonial and visits from other
sovereigns. Of these last there was no lack, and the princely
visitors were entertained with all due pomp and splendour; but
neither on account of these costly entertainments nor on behalf of
the royal children did the Sovereign ask the nation for so much as a
shilling, the Civil List sufficing for every unlooked-for outlay, now
that Prince Albert, by dint of persevering effort, had succeeded in
putting the arrangements of the royal household on a satisfactory
footing, sweeping away a vast number of time-honoured, thriftless
expenses, and rendering a wise and generous economy possible.
[Illustration: Balmoral.]
Formerly the great officers of the Crown were charged with the
oversight of the commonest domestic business of the palace. Being
non-resident, these overseers did no overseeing, and the actual
servants were practically masterless. Hence arose numberless
vexations and extravagant hindrances. In 1843 this objectionable form
of the division of labour was brought to an end, and one Master of
the household who did his work replaced the many officials who, by a
fiction of etiquette, had been formerly supposed to do everything
while they did and could do nothing. The long-needed reform could not
but be pleasing to the Queen, being quite in harmony with the upright
principles that had always ruled her conduct, she having begun her
reign by paying off the debts of her dead father--debts contracted
not in her lifetime nor on her account, and which a spirit less
purely honourable might therefore have declined to recognise.
[Illustration: Osborne House.]
Thanks to the Prince's able management, the royal pair found it in
their power to purchase for themselves the estate of Osborne, in the
Isle of Wight--a charming retreat all their own, which they could
adorn for their delight with no thought of the thronging public;
where the Prince could farm and build and garden to his heart's
content, and all could escape from the stately restraints of their
burdensome rank, and from "the bitterness people create for
themselves in London." Before very long they found for themselves
that Highland holiday home of Balmoral which was to be so peculiarly
dear, and in which Her Majesty--whose first visit to the _then_
discontented Scotland was deemed quite a risky experiment--was so
completely to win for herself the admiring love of her Scottish
subjects.
At Balmoral Mr. Greville saw them some little time after their
acquisition of the place, and witnesses to the "simplicity and ease"
with which they lived, to the gay good humour that pervaded their
circle--"the Queen running in and out of the house all day long,
often going out alone, walking into the cottages, sitting down and
chatting with the old women," the Prince free from trammels of
etiquette, showing what native charm of manner and what high,
cultivated intelligence were really his. The impression is identical
with that conveyed by Her Majesty's published Journal of that
Highland life; and, though lacking the many graceful details of that
record, the testimony has its own value. Happy indeed was the
Sovereign for whom the black cloud of those years showed such a
silver lining! Other potentates were less happy, both as regarded
their private blessings and their public fortunes.
It would be agreeable to English feelings, but not altogether
consonant with historic truth, if we could leave unnoticed the
scandalous attempts on the Queen's life which marked the earliest
period of her reign and have been renewed in later days. The first
attacks were by far of the most alarming character, but Her Majesty,
whose escape on one occasion seemed due only to her husband's prompt
action, never betrayed any agitation or alarm; and her dauntless
bearing, and the care for others which she manifested by dispensing
with the presence of her usual lady attendants when she anticipated
one of these assaults, immensely increased the already high esteem in
which her people held her. The first assailant, a half-crazy lad of
low station named Oxford, was shut up in a lunatic asylum. For the
second, a man named Francis, the same plea could not be urged; but
the death-sentence he had incurred was commuted to transportation for
life. Almost immediately a deformed lad called Bean followed the
example of Francis. Her Majesty, who had been very earnest to save
the life of the miserable beings attacking her, desired an alteration
in the law as to such assaults; and their penalty was fixed at seven
years' transportation, or imprisonment not exceeding three years, to
which the court was empowered to add a moderate number of
whippings--punishments having no heroic fascination about them, like
that which for heated and shallow brains invested the hideous doom of
"traitors." The expedient proved in a measure successful, none of the
later assaults, discreditable as they are, betraying a really
murderous intention. It has been remarked as a noteworthy
circumstance that popular English monarchs have been more exposed to
such dangers than others who were cordially disliked. It is not
hatred that has prompted these assassins so much as imbecile vanity
and the passion for notoriety, misleading an obscure coxcomb to think
"His glory would be great
According to _her_ greatness whom he quenched."