I
In 1851 the Prince's fortunes reached their high-water mark. The success
of the Great Exhibition enormously increased his reputation and seemed
to assure him henceforward a leading place in the national life. But
before the year was out another triumph, in a very different sphere of
action, was also his. This triumph, big with fateful consequences, was
itself the outcome of a series of complicated circumstances which had
been gathering to a climax for many years.
The unpopularity of Albert in high society had not diminished with time.
Aristocratic persons continued to regard him with disfavour; and he on
his side, withdrew further and further into a contemptuous reserve. For
a moment, indeed, it appeared as if the dislike of the upper classes
was about to be suddenly converted into cordiality; for they learnt with
amazement that the Prince, during a country visit, had ridden to hounds
and acquitted himself remarkably well. They had always taken it for
granted that his horsemanship was of some second-rate foreign quality,
and here he was jumping five-barred gates and tearing after the fox
as if he had been born and bred in Leicestershire. They could hardly
believe it; was it possible that they had made a mistake, and that
Albert was a good fellow after all? Had he wished to be thought so he
would certainly have seized this opportunity, purchased several hunters,
and used them constantly. But he had no such desire; hunting bored
him, and made Victoria nervous. He continued, as before, to ride, as he
himself put it, for exercise or convenience, not for amusement; and it
was agreed that though the Prince, no doubt, could keep in his saddle
well enough, he was no sportsman.
This was a serious matter. It was not merely that Albert was laughed at
by fine ladies and sneered at by fine gentlemen; it was not merely that
Victoria, who before her marriage had cut some figure in society, had,
under her husband's influence, almost completely given it up. Since
Charles the Second the sovereigns of England had, with a single
exception, always been unfashionable; and the fact that the exception
was George the Fourth seemed to give an added significance to the rule.
What was grave was not the lack of fashion, but the lack of other
and more important qualities. The hostility of the upper classes was
symptomatic of an antagonism more profound than one of manners or
even of tastes. The Prince, in a word, was un-English. What that word
precisely meant it was difficult to say; but the fact was patent to
every eye. Lord Palmerston, also, was not fashionable; the great
Whig aristocrats looked askance at him, and only tolerated him as an
unpleasant necessity thrust upon them by fate. But Lord Palmerston was
English through and through, there was something in him that expressed,
with extraordinary vigour, the fundamental qualities of the English
race. And he was the very antithesis of the Prince. By a curious chance
it so happened that this typical Englishman was brought into closer
contact than any other of his countrymen with the alien from over
the sea. It thus fell out that differences which, in more fortunate
circumstances, might have been smoothed away and obliterated, became
accentuated to the highest pitch. All the mysterious forces in Albert's
soul leapt out to do battle with his adversary, and, in the long and
violent conflict that followed, it almost seemed as if he was struggling
with England herself.
Palmerston's whole life had been spent in the government of the country.
At twenty-two he had been a Minister; at twenty-five he had been offered
the Chancellorship of the Exchequer, which, with that prudence which
formed so unexpected a part of his character, he had declined to accept.
His first spell of office had lasted uninterruptedly for twenty-one
years. When Lord Grey came into power he received the Foreign
Secretaryship, a post which he continued to occupy, with two intervals,
for another twenty-one years. Throughout this period his reputation
with the public had steadily grown, and when, in 1846, he became Foreign
Secretary for the third time, his position in the country was almost,
if not quite, on an equality with that of the Prime Minister, Lord John
Russell. He was a tall, big man of sixty-two, with a jaunty air, a large
face, dyed whiskers, and a long sardonic upper lip. His private life was
far from respectable, but he had greatly strengthened his position
in society by marrying, late in life, Lady Cowper, the sister of Lord
Melbourne, and one of the most influential of the Whig hostesses.
Powerful, experienced, and supremely self-confident, he naturally
paid very little attention to Albert. Why should he? The Prince was
interested in foreign affairs? Very well, then; let the Prince pay
attention to him--to him, who had been a Cabinet Minister when Albert
was in the cradle, who was the chosen leader of a great nation, and who
had never failed in anything he had undertaken in the whole course of
his life. Not that he wanted the Prince's attention--far from it: so far
as he could see, Albert was merely a young foreigner, who suffered from
having no vices, and whose only claim to distinction was that he had
happened to marry the Queen of England. This estimate, as he found out
to his cost, was a mistaken one. Albert was by no means insignificant,
and, behind Albert, there was another figure by no means insignificant
either--there was Stockmar.
But Palmerston, busy with his plans, his ambitions, and the management
of a great department, brushed all such considerations on one side; it
was his favourite method of action. He lived by instinct--by a quick eye
and a strong hand, a dexterous management of every crisis as it arose, a
half-unconscious sense of the vital elements in a situation. He was very
bold; and nothing gave him more exhilaration than to steer the ship of
state in a high wind, on a rough sea, with every stitch of canvas on her
that she could carry. But there is a point beyond which boldness becomes
rashness--a point perceptible only to intuition and not to reason;
and beyond that point Palmerston never went. When he saw that the cast
demanded it, he could go slow--very slow indeed in fact, his whole
career, so full of vigorous adventure, was nevertheless a masterly
example of the proverb, "tout vient a point a qui sait attendre." But
when he decided to go quick, nobody went quicker. One day, returning
from Osborne, he found that he had missed the train to London; he
ordered a special, but the station master told him that to put a special
train upon the line at that time of day would be dangerous and he
could not allow it. Palmerston insisted declaring that he had important
business in London, which could not wait. The station-master supported
by all the officials, continued to demur the company, he said, could
not possibly take the responsibility. "On MY responsibility, then!" said
Palmerston, in his off-hand, peremptory way whereupon the station-master
ordered up the train and the Foreign Secretary reached London in time
for his work, without an accident. The story, is typical of the happy
valiance with which he conducted both his own affairs and those of
the nation. "England," he used to say, "is strong enough to brave
consequences." Apparently, under Palmerston's guidance, she was. While
the officials protested and shook in their shoes, he would wave them
away with his airy "MY responsibility!" and carry the country swiftly
along the line of his choice, to a triumphant destination--without an
accident. His immense popularity was the result partly of his diplomatic
successes, partly of his extraordinary personal affability, but chiefly
of the genuine intensity with which he responded to the feelings and
supported the interests of his countrymen. The public knew that it had
in Lord Palmerston not only a high-mettled master, but also a devoted
servant--that he was, in every sense of the word, a public man. When he
was Prime Minister, he noticed that iron hurdles had been put up on
the grass in the Green Park; he immediately wrote to the Minister
responsible, ordering, in the severest language, their instant removal,
declaring that they were "an intolerable nuisance," and that the purpose
of the grass was "to be walked upon freely and without restraint by the
people, old and young, for whose enjoyment the parks are maintained."
It was in this spirit that, as Foreign Secretary, he watched over the
interests of Englishmen abroad. Nothing could be more agreeable for
Englishmen; but foreign governments were less pleased. They found Lord
Palmerston interfering, exasperating, and alarming. In Paris they spoke
with bated breath of "ce terrible milord Palmerston;" and in Germany
they made a little song about him--
"Hat der Teufel einen Sohn,
So ist er sicher Palmerston."
But their complaints, their threats, and their agitations were all
in vain. Palmerston, with his upper lip sardonically curving, braved
consequences, and held on his course.
The first diplomatic crisis which arose after his return to office,
though the Prince and the Queen were closely concerned with it, passed
off without serious disagreement between the Court and the Minister. For
some years past a curious problem had been perplexing the chanceries
of Europe. Spain, ever since the time of Napoleon a prey to civil
convulsions, had settled down for a short interval to a state of
comparative quiet under the rule of Christina, the Queen Mother, and her
daughter Isabella, the young Queen. In 1846, the question of
Isabella's marriage, which had for long been the subject of diplomatic
speculations, suddenly became acute. Various candidates for her hand
were proposed--among others, two cousins of her own, another Spanish
prince, and Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, a first cousin of Victoria's
and Albert's; for different reasons, however, none of these young men
seemed altogether satisfactory. Isabella was not yet sixteen; and it
might have been supposed that her marriage could be put off for a few
years more; but this was considered to be out of the question. "Vous
ne savez pas," said a high authority, "ce que c'est que ces princesses
espagnoles; elles ont le diable au corps, et on a toujours dit que si
nous ne nous hations pas, l'heritier viendrait avant le mari." It might
also have been supposed that the young Queen's marriage was a matter to
be settled by herself, her mother, and the Spanish Government; but
this again was far from being the case. It had become, by one of those
periodical reversions to the ways of the eighteenth century, which,
it is rumoured, are still not unknown in diplomacy, a question of
dominating importance in the foreign policies both of France and
England. For several years, Louis Philippe and his Prime Minister Guizot
had been privately maturing a very subtle plan. It was the object of the
French King to repeat the glorious coup of Louis XIV, and to abolish
the Pyrenees by placing one of his grandsons on the throne of Spain.
In order to bring this about, he did not venture to suggest that his
younger son, the Duc de Montpensier, should marry Isabella; that would
have been too obvious a move, which would have raised immediate and
insurmountable opposition. He therefore proposed that Isabella
should marry her cousin, the Duke of Cadiz, while Montpensier married
Isabella's younger sister, the Infanta Fernanda; and pray, what possible
objection could there be to that? The wily old King whispered into
the chaste ears of Guizot the key to the secret; he had good reason to
believe that the Duke of Cadiz was incapable of having children, and
therefore the offspring of Fernanda would inherit the Spanish crown.
Guizot rubbed his hands, and began at once to set the necessary springs
in motion; but, of course, the whole scheme was very soon divulged and
understood. The English Government took an extremely serious view of
the matter; the balance of power was clearly at stake, and the French
intrigue must be frustrated at all hazards. A diplomatic struggle of
great intensity followed; and it occasionally appeared that a second War
of the Spanish Succession was about to break out. This was avoided,
but the consequences of this strange imbroglio were far-reaching and
completely different from what any of the parties concerned could have
guessed.
In the course of the long and intricate negotiations there was one point
upon which Louis Philippe laid a special stress--the candidature of
Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg. The prospect of a marriage between a
Coburg Prince and the Queen of Spain was, he declared, at least as
threatening to the balance of power in Europe as that of a marriage
between the Duc de Montpensier and the Infanta; and, indeed, there was
much to be said for this contention. The ruin which had fallen upon the
House of Coburg during the Napoleonic wars had apparently only served
to multiply its vitality, for that princely family had by now extended
itself over Europe in an extraordinary manner. King Leopold was firmly
fixed in Belgium; his niece was Queen of England; one of his nephews
was the husband of the Queen of England, and another the husband of the
Queen of Portugal; yet another was Duke of Wurtemberg. Where was this
to end? There seemed to be a Coburg Trust ready to send out one of
its members at any moment to fill up any vacant place among the ruling
families of Europe. And even beyond Europe there were signs of this
infection spreading. An American who had arrived in Brussels had assured
King Leopold that there was a strong feeling in the United States in
favour of monarchy instead of the misrule of mobs, and had suggested, to
the delight of His Majesty, that some branch of the Coburg family might
be available for the position. That danger might, perhaps, be remote;
but the Spanish danger was close at hand; and if Prince Leopold were to
marry Queen Isabella the position of France would be one of humiliation,
if not of positive danger. Such were the asseverations of Louis
Philippe. The English Government had no wish to support Prince Leopold,
and though Albert and Victoria had some hankerings for the match, the
wisdom of Stockmar had induced them to give up all thoughts of it. The
way thus seemed open for a settlement: England would be reasonable about
Leopold, if France would be reasonable about Montpensier. At the Chateau
d'Eu, the agreement was made, in a series of conversations between the
King and Guizot on the one side, and the Queen, the Prince, and Lord
Aberdeen on the other. Aberdeen, as Foreign Minister, declared that
England would neither recognise nor support Prince Leopold as a
candidate for the hand of the Queen of Spain; while Louis Philippe
solemnly promised, both to Aberdeen and to Victoria, that the Duc de
Montpensier should not marry the Infanta Fernanda until after the Queen
was married and had issue. All went well, and the crisis seemed to be
over, when the whole question was suddenly re-opened by Palmerston,
who had succeeded Aberdeen at the Foreign Office. In a despatch to
the English Minister at Madrid, he mentioned, in a list of possible
candidates for Queen Isabella's hand, Prince Leopold of Coburg; and
at the same time he took occasion to denounce in violent language the
tyranny and incompetence of the Spanish Government. This despatch,
indiscreet in any case, was rendered infinitely more so by being
communicated to Guizot. Louis Philippe saw his opportunity and pounced
on it. Though there was nothing in Palmerston's language to show that he
either recognised or supported Prince Leopold, the King at once assumed
that the English had broken their engagement, and that he was therefore
free to do likewise. He then sent the despatch to the Queen Mother,
declared that the English were intriguing for the Coburg marriage, bade
her mark the animosity of Palmerston against the Spanish Government, and
urged her to escape from her difficulties and ensure the friendship
of France by marrying Isabella to the Duke of Cadiz and Fernanda
to Montpensier. The Queen Mother, alarmed and furious, was easily
convinced. There was only one difficulty: Isabella loathed the very
sight of her cousin. But this was soon surmounted; there was a wild
supper-party at the Palace, and in the course of it the young girl was
induced to consent to anything that was asked of her. Shortly after, and
on the same day, both the marriages took place.
The news burst like a bomb on the English Government, who saw with rage
and mortification that they had been completely outmanoeuvred by the
crafty King. Victoria, in particular, was outraged. Not only had she
been the personal recipient of Louis Philippe's pledge, but he had won
his way to her heart by presenting the Prince of Wales with a box of
soldiers and sending the Princess Royal a beautiful Parisian doll with
eyes that opened and shut. And now insult was added to injury. The Queen
of the French wrote her a formal letter, calmly announcing, as a family
event in which she was sure Victoria would be interested, the marriage
of her son, Montpensier--"qui ajoutera a notre bonheur interieur, le
seul vrai dans ce monde, et que vous, madame, savez si bien apprecier."
But the English Queen had not long to wait for her revenge. Within
eighteen months the monarchy of Louis Philippe, discredited, unpopular,
and fatally weakened by the withdrawal of English support, was swept
into limbo, while he and his family threw themselves as suppliant
fugitives at the feet of Victoria.
II
In this affair both the Queen and the Prince had been too much occupied
with the delinquencies of Louis Philippe to have any wrath to spare
for those of Palmerston; and, indeed, on the main issue, Palmerston's
attitude and their own had been in complete agreement. But in this the
case was unique. In every other foreign complication--and they were many
and serious--during the ensuing years, the differences between the royal
couple and the Foreign Secretary were constant and profound. There was a
sharp quarrel over Portugal, where violently hostile parties were flying
at each other's throats. The royal sympathy was naturally enlisted on
behalf of the Queen and her Coburg husband, while Palmerston gave his
support to the progressive elements in the country. It was not until
1848, however, that the strain became really serious. In that year of
revolutions, when, in all directions and with alarming frequency, crowns
kept rolling off royal heads, Albert and Victoria were appalled to find
that the policy of England was persistently directed--in Germany,
in Switzerland, in Austria, in Italy, in Sicily--so as to favour the
insurgent forces. The situation, indeed, was just such a one as the soul
of Palmerston loved. There was danger and excitement, the necessity
of decision, the opportunity for action, on every hand. A disciple of
Canning, with an English gentleman's contempt and dislike of foreign
potentates deep in his heart, the spectacle of the popular uprisings,
and of the oppressors bundled ignominiously out of the palaces they had
disgraced, gave him unbounded pleasure, and he was determined that there
should be no doubt whatever, all over the Continent, on which side in
the great struggle England stood. It was not that he had the slightest
tincture in him of philosophical radicalism; he had no philosophical
tinctures of any kind; he was quite content to be inconsistent--to be a
Conservative at home and a Liberal abroad. There were very good reasons
for keeping the Irish in their places; but what had that to do with it?
The point was this--when any decent man read an account of the political
prisons in Naples his gorge rose. He did not want war; but he saw that
without war a skilful and determined use of England's power might do
much to further the cause of the Liberals in Europe. It was a difficult
and a hazardous game to play, but he set about playing it with delighted
alacrity. And then, to his intense annoyance, just as he needed all
his nerve and all possible freedom of action, he found himself being
hampered and distracted at every turn by... those people at Osborne.
He saw what it was; the opposition was systematic and informed, and
the Queen alone would have been incapable of it; the Prince was at the
bottom of the whole thing. It was exceedingly vexatious; but Palmerston
was in a hurry, and could not wait; the Prince, if he would insist upon
interfering, must be brushed on one side.
Albert was very angry. He highly disapproved both of Palmerston's policy
and of his methods of action. He was opposed to absolutism; but in his
opinion Palmerston's proceedings were simply calculated to substitute
for absolutism, all over Europe, something no better and very possibly
worse--the anarchy of faction and mob violence. The dangers of
this revolutionary ferment were grave; even in England Chartism was
rampant--a sinister movement, which might at any moment upset the
Constitution and abolish the Monarchy. Surely, with such dangers at
home, this was a very bad time to choose for encouraging lawlessness
abroad. He naturally took a particular interest in Germany. His
instincts, his affections, his prepossessions, were ineradicably German;
Stockmar was deeply involved in German politics; and he had a multitude
of relatives among the ruling German families, who, from the midst of
the hurly-burly of revolution, wrote him long and agitated letters once
a week. Having considered the question of Germany's future from every
point of view, he came to the conclusion, under Stockmar's guidance,
that the great aim for every lover of Germany should be her unification
under the sovereignty of Prussia. The intricacy of the situation was
extreme, and the possibilities of good or evil which every hour might
bring forth were incalculable; yet he saw with horror that Palmerston
neither understood nor cared to understand the niceties of this
momentous problem, but rushed on blindly, dealing blows to right and
left, quite--so far as he could see--without system, and even without
motive--except, indeed, a totally unreasonable distrust of the Prussian
State.
But his disagreement with the details of Palmerston's policy was in
reality merely a symptom of the fundamental differences between the
characters of the two men. In Albert's eyes Palmerston was a coarse,
reckless egotist, whose combined arrogance and ignorance must
inevitably have their issue in folly and disaster. Nothing could be more
antipathetic to him than a mind so strangely lacking in patience, in
reflection, in principle, and in the habits of ratiocination. For to him
it was intolerable to think in a hurry, to jump to slapdash decisions,
to act on instincts that could not be explained. Everything must be done
in due order, with careful premeditation; the premises of the position
must first be firmly established; and he must reach the correct
conclusion by a regular series of rational steps. In complicated
questions--and what questions, rightly looked at, were not
complicated?--to commit one's thoughts to paper was the wisest course,
and it was the course which Albert, laborious though it might be,
invariably adopted. It was as well, too, to draw up a reasoned statement
after an event, as well as before it; and accordingly, whatever
happened, it was always found that the Prince had made a memorandum.
On one occasion he reduced to six pages of foolscap the substance of a
confidential conversation with Sir Robert Peel, and, having read them
aloud to him, asked him to append his signature; Sir Robert, who never
liked to commit himself, became extremely uneasy; upon which the
Prince, understanding that it was necessary to humour the singular
susceptibilities of Englishmen, with great tact dropped that particular
memorandum into the fire. But as for Palmerston, he never even gave one
so much as a chance to read him a memorandum, he positively seemed to
dislike discussion; and, before one knew where one was, without any
warning whatever, he would plunge into some hare-brained, violent
project, which, as likely as not, would logically involve a European
war. Closely connected, too, with this cautious, painstaking
reasonableness of Albert's, was his desire to examine questions
thoroughly from every point of view, to go down to the roots of things,
and to act in strict accordance with some well-defined principle. Under
Stockmar's tutelage he was constantly engaged in enlarging his outlook
and in endeavouring to envisage vital problems both theoretically and
practically--both with precision and with depth. To one whose mind was
thus habitually occupied, the empirical activities of Palmerston, who
had no notion what a principle meant, resembled the incoherent vagaries
of a tiresome child. What did Palmerston know of economics, of science,
of history? What did he care for morality and education? How much
consideration had he devoted in the whole course of his life to the
improvement of the condition of the working-classes and to the general
amelioration of the human race? The answers to such questions were all
too obvious; and yet it is easy to imagine, also, what might have been
Palmerston's jaunty comment. "Ah! your Royal Highness is busy with fine
schemes and beneficent calculations exactly! Well, as for me, I must say
I'm quite satisfied with my morning's work--I've had the iron hurdles
taken out of the Green Park."
The exasperating man, however, preferred to make no comment, and to
proceed in smiling silence on his inexcusable way. The process of
"brushing on one side" very soon came into operation. Important Foreign
Office despatches were either submitted to the Queen so late that there
was no time to correct them, or they were not submitted to her at all;
or, having been submitted, and some passage in them being objected
to and an alteration suggested, they were after all sent off in their
original form. The Queen complained, the Prince complained: both
complained together. It was quite useless. Palmerston was most
apologetic--could not understand how it had occurred--must give the
clerks a wigging--certainly Her Majesty's wishes should be attended to,
and such a thing should never happen again. But, of course, it very soon
happened again, and the royal remonstrances redoubled. Victoria, her
partisan passions thoroughly aroused, imported into her protests a
personal vehemence which those of Albert lacked. Did Lord Palmerston
forget that she was Queen of England? How could she tolerate a state of
affairs in which despatches written in her name were sent abroad without
her approval or even her knowledge? What could be more derogatory to
her position than to be obliged to receive indignant letters from the
crowned heads to whom those despatches were addressed--letters which she
did not know how to answer, since she so thoroughly agreed with them?
She addressed herself to the Prime Minister. "No remonstrance has any
effect with Lord Palmerston," she said. "Lord Palmerston," she told him
on another occasion, "has as usual pretended not to have had time to
submit the draft to the Queen before he had sent it off." She summoned
Lord John to her presence, poured out her indignation, and afterwards,
on the advice of Albert, noted down what had passed in a memorandum: "I
said that I thought that Lord Palmerston often endangered the honour of
England by taking a very prejudiced and one-sided view of a question;
that his writings were always as bitter as gall and did great harm,
which Lord John entirely assented to, and that I often felt quite ill
from anxiety." Then she turned to her uncle. "The state of Germany,"
she wrote in a comprehensive and despairing review of the European
situation, "is dreadful, and one does feel quite ashamed about that once
really so peaceful and happy country. That there are still good people
there I am sure, but they allow themselves to be worked upon in a
frightful and shameful way. In France a crisis seems at hand. WHAT a
very bad figure we cut in this mediation! Really it is quite immoral,
with Ireland quivering in our grasp and ready to throw off her
allegiance at any moment, for us to force Austria to give up her lawful
possessions. What shall we say if Canada, Malta, etc., begin to trouble
us? It hurts me terribly." But what did Lord Palmerston care?
Lord John's position grew more and more irksome. He did not approve of
his colleague's treatment of the Queen. When he begged him to be more
careful, he was met with the reply that 28,000 despatches passed through
the Foreign Office in a single year, that, if every one of these were
to be subjected to the royal criticism, the delay would be most serious,
that, as it was, the waste of time and the worry involved in submitting
drafts to the meticulous examination of Prince Albert was almost too
much for an overworked Minister, and that, as a matter of fact, the
postponement of important decisions owing to this cause had already
produced very unpleasant diplomatic consequences. These excuses would
have impressed Lord John more favourably if he had not himself had to
suffer from a similar neglect. As often as not Palmerston failed to
communicate even to him the most important despatches. The Foreign
Secretary was becoming an almost independent power, acting on his own
initiative, and swaying the policy of England on his own responsibility.
On one occasion, in 1847, he had actually been upon the point of
threatening to break off diplomatic relations with France without
consulting either the Cabinet or the Prime Minister. And such incidents
were constantly recurring. When this became known to the Prince, he saw
that his opportunity had come. If he could only drive in to the utmost
the wedge between the two statesmen, if he could only secure the
alliance of Lord John, then the suppression or the removal of Lord
Palmerston would be almost certain to follow. He set about the business
with all the pertinacity of his nature. Both he and the Queen put every
kind of pressure upon the Prime Minister. They wrote, they harangued,
they relapsed into awful silence. It occurred to them that Lord
Clarendon, an important member of the Cabinet, would be a useful
channel for their griefs. They commanded him to dine at the Palace, and,
directly the meal was over, "the Queen," as he described it afterwards,
"exploded, and went with the utmost vehemence and bitterness into the
whole of Palmerston's conduct, all the effects produced all over the
world, and all her own feelings and sentiments about it." When she had
finished, the Prince took up the tale, with less excitement, but with
equal force. Lord Clarendon found himself in an awkward situation;
he disliked Palmerston's policy, but he was his colleague, and he
disapproved of the attitude of his royal hosts. In his opinion, they
were "wrong in wishing that courtiers rather than Ministers should
conduct the affairs of the country," and he thought that they "laboured
under the curious mistake that the Foreign Office was their peculiar
department, and that they had the right to control, if not to direct,
the foreign policy of England." He, therefore, with extreme politeness,
gave it to be understood that he would not commit himself in any
way. But Lord John, in reality, needed no pressure. Attacked by his
Sovereign, ignored by his Foreign Secretary, he led a miserable life.
With the advent of the dreadful Schleswig-Holstein question--the most
complex in the whole diplomatic history of Europe--his position,
crushed between the upper and the nether mill-stones, grew positively
unbearable. He became anxious above all things to get Palmerston out of
the Foreign Office. But then--supposing Palmerston refused to go?
In a memorandum made by the Prince, at about this time, of an interview
between himself, the Queen, and the Prime Minister, we catch a curious
glimpse of the states of mind of those three high personages--the
anxiety and irritation of Lord John, the vehement acrimony of Victoria,
and the reasonable animosity of Albert--drawn together, as it were,
under the shadow of an unseen Presence, the cause of that celestial
anger--the gay, portentous Palmerston. At one point in the conversation
Lord John observed that he believed the Foreign Secretary would consent
to a change of offices; Lord Palmerston, he said, realised that he had
lost the Queen's confidence--though only on public, and not on personal,
grounds. But on that, the Prince noted, "the Queen interrupted Lord John
by remarking that she distrusted him on PERSONAL grounds also, but I
remarked that Lord Palmerston had so far at least seen rightly; that he
had become disagreeable to the Queen, not on account of his person, but
of his political doings--to which the Queen assented." Then the Prince
suggested that there was a danger of the Cabinet breaking up, and of
Lord Palmerston returning to office as Prime Minister. But on that point
Lord John was reassuring: he "thought Lord Palmerston too old to do much
in the future (having passed his sixty-fifth year)." Eventually it was
decided that nothing could be done for the present, but that the UTMOST
SECRECY must be observed; and so the conclave ended.
At last, in 1850, deliverance seemed to be at hand. There were signs
that the public were growing weary of the alarums and excursions of
Palmerston's diplomacy; and when his support of Don Pacifico, a British
subject, in a quarrel with the Greek Government, seemed to be upon the
point of involving the country in a war not only with Greece but also
with France, and possibly with Russia into the bargain, a heavy cloud
of distrust and displeasure appeared to be gathering and about to burst
over his head. A motion directed against him in the House of Lords was
passed by a substantial majority. The question was next to be discussed
in the House of Commons, where another adverse vote was not improbable,
and would seal the doom of the Minister. Palmerston received the attack
with complete nonchalance, and then, at the last possible moment, he
struck. In a speech of over four hours, in which exposition, invective,
argument, declamation, plain talk and resounding eloquence were mingled
together with consummate art and extraordinary felicity, he annihilated
his enemies. The hostile motion was defeated, and Palmerston was once
more the hero of the hour. Simultaneously, Atropos herself conspired
to favour him. Sir Robert Peel was thrown from his horse and killed. By
this tragic chance, Palmerston saw the one rival great enough to cope
with him removed from his path. He judged--and judged rightly--that
he was the most popular man in England; and when Lord John revived the
project of his exchanging the Foreign Office for some other position in
the Cabinet, he absolutely refused to stir.
Great was the disappointment of Albert; great was the indignation
of Victoria. "The House of Commons," she wrote, "is becoming very
unmanageable and troublesome." The Prince, perceiving that Palmerston
was more firmly fixed in the saddle than ever, decided that something
drastic must be done. Five months before, the prescient Baron had
drawn up, in case of emergency, a memorandum, which had been carefully
docketed, and placed in a pigeon-hole ready to hand. The emergency had
now arisen, and the memorandum must be used. The Queen copied out the
words of Stockmar, and sent them to the Prime Minister, requesting him
to show her letter to Palmerston. "She thinks it right," she wrote, "in
order TO PREVENT ANY MISTAKE for the FUTURE, shortly to explain WHAT
IT IS SHE EXPECTS FROM HER FOREIGN SECRETARY. She requires: (1) That he
will distinctly state what he proposes in a given case, in order
that the Queen may know as distinctly to WHAT she has given her Royal
sanction; (2) Having ONCE GIVEN her sanction to a measure, that it be
not arbitrarily altered or modified by the Minister; such an act she
must consider as failing in sincerity towards the Crown, and justly to
be visited by the exercise of her Constitutional right of dismissing
that Minister." Lord John Russell did as he was bid, and forwarded the
Queen's letter to Lord Palmerston. This transaction, which was of grave
constitutional significance, was entirely unknown to the outside world.
If Palmerston had been a sensitive man, he would probably have resigned
on the receipt of the Queen's missive. But he was far from sensitive; he
loved power, and his power was greater than ever; an unerring instinct
told him that this was not the time to go. Nevertheless, he was
seriously perturbed. He understood at last that he was struggling with
a formidable adversary, whose skill and strength, unless they were
mollified, might do irreparable injury to his career. He therefore wrote
to Lord John, briefly acquiescing in the Queen's requirements--"I have
taken a copy of this memorandum of the Queen and will not fail to attend
to the directions which it contains"--and at the same time, he asked for
an interview with the Prince. Albert at once summoned him to the Palace,
and was astonished to observe, as he noted in a memorandum, that when
Palmerston entered the room "he was very much agitated, shook, and
had tears in his eyes, so as quite to move me, who never under any
circumstances had known him otherwise than with a bland smile on his
face." The old statesman was profuse in protestations and excuses; the
young one was coldly polite. At last, after a long and inconclusive
conversation, the Prince, drawing himself up, said that, in order to
give Lord Palmerston "an example of what the Queen wanted," he would
"ask him a question point-blank." Lord Palmerston waited in respectful
silence, while the Prince proceeded as follows: "You are aware that the
Queen has objected to the Protocol about Schleswig, and of the grounds
on which she has done so. Her opinion has been overruled, the Protocol
stating the desire of the Great Powers to see the integrity of the
Danish monarchy preserved has been signed, and upon this the King of
Denmark has invaded Schleswig, where the war is raging. If Holstein is
attacked also, which is likely, the Germans will not be restrained from
flying to her assistance; Russia has menaced to interfere with arms,
if the Schleswigers are successful. What will you do, if this emergency
arises (provoking most likely an European war), and which will arise
very probably when we shall be at Balmoral and Lord John in another
part of Scotland? The Queen expects from your foresight that you have
contemplated this possibility, and requires a categorical answer as
to what you would do in the event supposed." Strangely enough, to this
pointblank question, the Foreign Secretary appeared to be unable to
reply. The whole matter, he said, was extremely complicated, and the
contingencies mentioned by His Royal Highness were very unlikely to
arise. The Prince persisted; but it was useless; for a full hour he
struggled to extract a categorical answer, until at length Palmerston
bowed himself out of the room. Albert threw up his hands in shocked
amazement: what could one do with such a man?
What indeed? For, in spite of all his apologies and all his promises,
within a few weeks the incorrigible reprobate was at his tricks again.
The Austrian General Haynau, notorious as a rigorous suppressor of
rebellion in Hungary and Italy, and in particular as a flogger of women,
came to England and took it into his head to pay a visit to Messrs.
Barclay and Perkins's brewery. The features of "General Hyena," as he
was everywhere called--his grim thin face, his enormous pepper-and-salt
moustaches--had gained a horrid celebrity; and it so happened that among
the clerks at the brewery there was a refugee from Vienna, who had
given his fellow-workers a first-hand account of the General's
characteristics. The Austrian Ambassador, scenting danger, begged his
friend not to appear in public, or, if he must do so, to cut off his
moustaches first. But the General would take no advice. He went to the
brewery, was immediately recognised, surrounded by a crowd of angry
draymen, pushed about, shouted at, punched in the ribs, and pulled by
the moustaches until, bolting down an alley with the mob at his heels
brandishing brooms and roaring "Hyena!" he managed to take refuge in
a public house, whence he was removed under the protection of several
policemen. The Austrian Government was angry and demanded explanations.
Palmerston, who, of course, was privately delighted by the incident,
replied regretting what had occurred, but adding that in his opinion
the General had "evinced a want of propriety in coming to England at
the present moment;" and he delivered his note to the Ambassador without
having previously submitted it to the Queen or to the Prime Minister.
Naturally, when this was discovered, there was a serious storm. The
Prince was especially indignant; the conduct of the draymen he regarded,
with disgust and alarm, as "a slight foretaste of what an unregulated
mass of illiterate people is capable;" and Palmerston was requested by
Lord John to withdraw his note, and to substitute for it another from
which all censure of the General had been omitted. On this the Foreign
Secretary threatened resignation, but the Prime Minister was firm. For a
moment the royal hopes rose high, only to be dashed to the ground again
by the cruel compliance of the enemy. Palmerston, suddenly lamblike,
agreed to everything; the note was withdrawn and altered, and peace was
patched up once more.
It lasted for a year, and then, in October, 1851, the arrival of Kossuth
in England brought on another crisis. Palmerston's desire to receive the
Hungarian patriot at his house in London was vetoed by Lord John; once
more there was a sharp struggle; once more Palmerston, after threatening
resignation, yielded. But still the insubordinate man could not keep
quiet. A few weeks later a deputation of Radicals from Finsbury and
Islington waited on him at the Foreign Office and presented him with an
address, in which the Emperors of Austria and Russia were stigmatised as
"odious and detestable assassins" and "merciless tyrants and despots."
The Foreign Secretary in his reply, while mildly deprecating these
expressions, allowed his real sentiments to appear with a most
undiplomatic insouciance There was an immediate scandal, and the Court
flowed over with rage and vituperation. "I think," said the Baron, "the
man has been for some time insane." Victoria, in an agitated letter,
urged Lord John to assert his authority. But Lord John perceived that on
this matter the Foreign Secretary had the support of public opinion, and
he judged it wiser to bide his time.
He had not long to wait. The culmination of the long series of
conflicts, threats, and exacerbations came before the year was out. On
December 2, Louis Napoleon's coup d'etat took place in Paris; and on
the following day Palmerston, without consulting anybody, expressed in a
conversation with the French Ambassador his approval of Napoleon's act.
Two days later, he was instructed by the Prime Minister, in accordance
with a letter from the Queen, that it was the policy of the English
Government to maintain an attitude of strict neutrality towards the
affairs of France. Nevertheless, in an official despatch to the British
Ambassador in Paris, he repeated the approval of the coup d'etat which
he had already given verbally to the French Ambassador in London. This
despatch was submitted neither to the Queen nor to the Prime Minister.
Lord John's patience, as he himself said, "was drained to the last
drop." He dismissed Lord Palmerston.
Victoria was in ecstasies; and Albert knew that the triumph was his even
more than Lord John's. It was his wish that Lord Granville, a young man
whom he believed to be pliant to his influence, should be Palmerston's
successor; and Lord Granville was appointed. Henceforward, it seemed
that the Prince would have his way in foreign affairs. After years of
struggle and mortification, success greeted him on every hand. In his
family, he was an adored master; in the country, the Great Exhibition
had brought him respect and glory; and now in the secret seats of power
he had gained a new supremacy. He had wrestled with the terrible Lord
Palmerston, the embodiment of all that was most hostile to him in the
spirit of England, and his redoubtable opponent had been overthrown. Was
England herself at his feet? It might be so; and yet... it is said that
the sons of England have a certain tiresome quality: they never know
when they are beaten. It was odd, but Palmerston was positively still
jaunty. Was it possible? Could he believe, in his blind arrogance,
that even his ignominious dismissal from office was something that could
be brushed aside?
III
The Prince's triumph was short-lived. A few weeks later, owing to
Palmerston's influence, the Government was defeated in the House, and
Lord John resigned. Then, after a short interval, a coalition between
the Whigs and the followers of Peel came into power, under the
premiership of Lord Aberdeen. Once more, Palmerston was in the Cabinet.
It was true that he did not return to the Foreign Office; that was
something to the good; in the Home Department it might be hoped that
his activities would be less dangerous and disagreeable. But the Foreign
Secretary was no longer the complacent Granville; and in Lord Clarendon
the Prince knew that he had a Minister to deal with, who, discreet and
courteous as he was, had a mind of his own. These changes, however, were
merely the preliminaries of a far more serious development.
Events, on every side, were moving towards a catastrophe. Suddenly the
nation found itself under the awful shadow of imminent war. For several
months, amid the shifting mysteries of diplomacy and the perplexed
agitations of politics, the issue grew more doubtful and more dark,
while the national temper was strained to the breaking-point. At the
very crisis of the long and ominous negotiations, it was announced that
Lord Palmerston had resigned. Then the pent-up fury of the people burst
forth. They had felt that in the terrible complexity of events they
were being guided by weak and embarrassed counsels; but they had been
reassured by the knowledge that at the centre of power there was one man
with strength, with courage, with determination, in whom they could put
their trust. They now learnt that that man was no longer among their
leaders. Why? In their rage, anxiety, and nervous exhaustion, they
looked round desperately for some hidden and horrible explanation of
what had occurred. They suspected plots, they smelt treachery in the
air. It was easy to guess the object upon which their frenzy would
vent itself. Was there not a foreigner in the highest of high places, a
foreigner whose hostility to their own adored champion was unrelenting
and unconcealed? The moment that Palmerston's resignation was known,
there was a universal outcry and an extraordinary tempest of anger and
hatred burst, with unparalleled violence, upon the head of the Prince.
It was everywhere asserted and believed that the Queen's husband was a
traitor to the country, that he was a tool of the Russian Court, that
in obedience to Russian influences he had forced Palmerston out of the
Government, and that he was directing the foreign policy of England in
the interests of England's enemies. For many weeks these accusations
filled the whole of the press; repeated at public meetings, elaborated
in private talk, they flew over the country, growing every moment more
extreme and more improbable. While respectable newspapers thundered out
their grave invectives, halfpenny broadsides, hawked through the streets
of London, re-echoed in doggerel vulgarity the same sentiments and the
same suspicions(*). At last the wildest rumours began to spread.
(*)"The Turkish war both far and near
Has played the very deuce then,
And little Al, the royal pal,
They say has turned a Russian;
Old Aberdeen, as may be seen,
Looks woeful pale and yellow,
And Old John Bull had his belly full
Of dirty Russian tallow."
Chorus:
"We'll send him home and make him groan,
Oh, Al! you've played the deuce then;
The German lad has acted sad
And turned tail with the Russians."
* * * * *
"Last Monday night, all in a fright,
Al out of bed did tumble.
The German lad was raving mad,
How he did groan and grumble!
He cried to Vic, 'I've cut my stick:
To St. Petersburg go right slap.'
When Vic, 'tis said, jumped out of bed,
And wopped him with her night-cap."
From Lovely Albert! a broadside preserved at the British Museum.
In January, 1854, it was whispered that the Prince had been seized, that
he had been found guilty of high treason, that he was to be committed
to the Tower. The Queen herself, some declared, had been arrested,
and large crowds actually collected round the Tower to watch the
incarceration of the royal miscreants.(*)
(*)"You Jolly Turks, now go to work,
And show the Bear your power.
It is rumoured over Britain's isle
That A------ is in the Tower;
The postmen some suspicion had,
And opened the two letters,
'Twas a pity sad the German lad
Should not have known much better!"
Lovely Albert!
These fantastic hallucinations, the result of the fevered atmosphere of
approaching war, were devoid of any basis in actual fact. Palmerston's
resignation had been in all probability totally disconnected with
foreign policy; it had certainly been entirely spontaneous, and had
surprised the Court as much as the nation. Nor had Albert's influence
been used in any way to favour the interests of Russia. As often happens
in such cases, the Government had been swinging backwards and forwards
between two incompatible policies--that of non-interference and that of
threats supported by force--either of which, if consistently followed,
might well have had a successful and peaceful issue, but which,
mingled together, could only lead to war. Albert, with characteristic
scrupulosity, attempted to thread his way through the complicated
labyrinth of European diplomacy, and eventually was lost in the
maze. But so was the whole of the Cabinet; and, when war came, his
anti-Russian feelings were quite as vehement as those of the most
bellicose of Englishmen.
Nevertheless, though the specific charges levelled against the Prince
were without foundation, there were underlying elements in the situation
which explained, if they did not justify, the popular state of mind. It
was true that the Queen's husband was a foreigner, who had been brought
up in a foreign Court, was impregnated with foreign ideas, and was
closely related to a multitude of foreign princes. Clearly this, though
perhaps an unavoidable, was an undesirable, state of affairs; nor
were the objections to it merely theoretical; it had in fact produced
unpleasant consequences of a serious kind. The Prince's German
proclivities were perpetually lamented by English Ministers; Lord
Palmerston, Lord Clarendon, Lord Aberdeen, all told the same tale; and
it was constantly necessary, in grave questions of national policy, to
combat the prepossessions of a Court in which German views and German
sentiments held a disproportionate place. As for Palmerston, his
language on this topic was apt to be unbridled. At the height of his
annoyance over his resignation, he roundly declared that he had been
made a victim to foreign intrigue. He afterwards toned down this
accusation; but the mere fact that such a suggestion from such a quarter
was possible at all showed to what unfortunate consequences Albert's
foreign birth and foreign upbringing might lead.
But this was not all. A constitutional question of the most profound
importance was raised by the position of the Prince in England. His
presence gave a new prominence to an old problem--the precise definition
of the functions and the powers of the Crown. Those functions and powers
had become, in effect, his; and what sort of use was he making of them?
His views as to the place of the Crown in the Constitution are easily
ascertainable; for they were Stockmar's; and it happens that we possess
a detailed account of Stockmar's opinions upon the subject in a long
letter addressed by him to the Prince at the time of this very crisis,
just before the outbreak of the Crimean War. Constitutional Monarchy,
according to the Baron, had suffered an eclipse since the passing of
the Reform Bill. It was now "constantly in danger of becoming a pure
Ministerial Government." The old race of Tories, who "had a direct
interest in upholding the prerogatives of the Crown," had died out;
and the Whigs were "nothing but partly conscious, partly unconscious
Republicans, who stand in the same relation to the Throne as the wolf
does to the lamb." There was a rule that it was unconstitutional to
introduce "the name and person of the irresponsible Sovereign"
into parliamentary debates on constitutional matters; this was "a
constitutional fiction, which, although undoubtedly of old standing,
was fraught with danger"; and the Baron warned the Prince that "if the
English Crown permit a Whig Ministry to follow this rule in practice,
without exception, you must not wonder if in a little time you find the
majority of the people impressed with the belief that the King, in the
view of the law, is nothing but a mandarin figure, which has to nod
its head in assent, or shake it in denial, as his Minister pleases."
To prevent this from happening, it was of extreme importance, said
the Baron, "that no opportunity should be let slip of vindicating the
legitimate position of the Crown." "And this is not hard to do," he
added, "and can never embarrass a Minister where such straightforward
loyal personages as the Queen and the Prince are concerned." In his
opinion, the very lowest claim of the Royal Prerogative should include
"a right on the part of the King to be the permanent President of his
Ministerial Council." The Sovereign ought to be "in the position of
a permanent Premier, who takes rank above the temporary head of the
Cabinet, and in matters of discipline exercises supreme authority." The
Sovereign "may even take a part in the initiation and the maturing of
the Government measures; for it would be unreasonable to expect that a
king, himself as able, as accomplished, and as patriotic as the best of
his Ministers, should be prevented from making use of these qualities
at the deliberations of his Council." "The judicious exercise of this
right," concluded the Baron, "which certainly requires a master mind,
would not only be the best guarantee for Constitutional Monarchy, but
would raise it to a height of power, stability, and symmetry, which has
never been attained."
Now it may be that this reading of the Constitution is a possible one,
though indeed it is hard to see how it can be made compatible with the
fundamental doctrine of ministerial responsibility. William III presided
over his Council, and he was a constitutional monarch; and it seems
that Stockmar had in his mind a conception of the Crown which would have
given it a place in the Constitution analogous to that which it filled
at the time of William III. But it is clear that such a theory, which
would invest the Crown with more power than it possessed even under
George III, runs counter to the whole development of English public life
since the Revolution; and the fact that it was held by Stockmar, and
instilled by him into Albert, was of very serious importance. For there
was good reason to believe not only that these doctrines were held by
Albert in theory, but that he was making a deliberate and sustained
attempt to give them practical validity. The history of the struggle
between the Crown and Palmerston provided startling evidence that this
was the case. That struggle reached its culmination when, in Stockmar's
memorandum of 1850, the Queen asserted her "constitutional right"
to dismiss the Foreign Secretary if he altered a despatch which had
received her sanction. The memorandum was, in fact, a plain declaration
that the Crown intended to act independently of the Prime Minister.
Lord John Russell, anxious at all costs to strengthen himself against
Palmerston, accepted the memorandum, and thereby implicitly allowed the
claim of the Crown. More than that; after the dismissal of Palmerston,
among the grounds on which Lord John justified that dismissal in the
House of Commons he gave a prominent place to the memorandum of 1850. It
became apparent that the displeasure of the Sovereign might be a reason
for the removal of a powerful and popular Minister. It seemed indeed
as if, under the guidance of Stockmar and Albert, the "Constitutional
Monarchy" might in very truth be rising "to a height of power,
stability, and symmetry, which had never been attained."
But this new development in the position of the Crown, grave as it
was in itself, was rendered peculiarly disquieting by the unusual
circumstances which surrounded it. For the functions of the Crown were
now, in effect, being exercised by a person unknown to the Constitution,
who wielded over the Sovereign an undefined and unbounded influence. The
fact that this person was the Sovereign's husband, while it explained
his influence and even made it inevitable, by no means diminished its
strange and momentous import. An ambiguous, prepotent figure had come
to disturb the ancient, subtle, and jealously guarded balance of the
English Constitution. Such had been the unexpected outcome of the
tentative and fainthearted opening of Albert's political life. He
himself made no attempt to minimise either the multiplicity or the
significance of the functions he performed. He considered that it was
his duty, he told the Duke of Wellington in 1850, to "sink his
OWN INDIVIDUAL existence in that of his wife--assume no separate
responsibility before the public, but make his position entirely a part
of hers--fill up every gap which, as a woman, she would naturally leave
in the exercise of her regal functions--continually and anxiously watch
every part of the public business, in order to be able to advise and
assist her at any moment in any of the multifarious and difficult
questions or duties brought before her, sometimes international,
sometimes political, or social, or personal. As the natural head of her
family, superintendent of her household, manager of her private affairs,
sole CONFIDENTIAL adviser in politics, and only assistant in her
communications with the officers of the Government, he is, besides,
the husband of the Queen, the tutor of the royal children, the private
secretary of the Sovereign, and her permanent minister."
Stockmar's pupil had assuredly gone far and learnt well. Stockmar's
pupil!--precisely; the public, painfully aware of Albert's predominance,
had grown, too, uneasily conscious that Victoria's master had a master
of his own. Deep in the darkness the Baron loomed. Another foreigner!
Decidedly, there were elements in the situation which went far to
justify the popular alarm. A foreign Baron controlled a foreign Prince,
and the foreign Prince controlled the Crown of England. And the Crown
itself was creeping forward ominously; and when, from under its shadow,
the Baron and the Prince had frowned, a great Minister, beloved of the
people, had fallen. Where was all this to end?
Within a few weeks Palmerston withdrew his resignation, and the public
frenzy subsided as quickly as it had arisen. When Parliament met, the
leaders of both the parties in both the Houses made speeches in favour
of the Prince, asserting his unimpeachable loyalty to the country and
vindicating his right to advise the Sovereign in all matters of State.
Victoria was delighted. "The position of my beloved lord and master,"
she told the Baron, "has been defined for once amid all and his merits
have been acknowledged on all sides most duly. There was an immense
concourse of people assembled when we went to the House of Lords, and
the people were very friendly." Immediately afterwards, the country
finally plunged into the Crimean War. In the struggle that followed,
Albert's patriotism was put beyond a doubt, and the animosities of
the past were forgotten. But the war had another consequence, less
gratifying to the royal couple: it crowned the ambition of Lord
Palmerston. In 1855, the man who five years before had been pronounced
by Lord John Russell to be "too old to do much in the future," became
Prime Minister of England, and, with one short interval, remained in
that position for ten years.