GOVERNMENT UNDER DIFFICULTIES.
A Lull Before the Storm--Dissent in the Dumps--Disastrous
Bye-Elections--The Queen’s Speech--The Irish University
Bill--Defeat of the Government--Resignation of the Ministry--Mr.
Disraeli’s Failure to Form a Cabinet--The Queen and the
Crisis--Lord Derby as a Possible Premier--Mr. Gladstone Returns to
Office--Power Passes to the House of Lords--Grave Administration
Scandals--The Zanzibar Mail Contract--Misappropriation of the Post
Office Savings Banks’ Balances--Mr. Gladstone Reconstructs his
Ministry--The Financial Achievements of his Administration--The
Queen and the Prince of Wales--Debts of the Heir Apparent--The
Queen’s Scheme for Meeting the Prince’s Expenditure on her
Behalf--The Queen and Foreign Decorations--Death of Napoleon
III.--The Queen at the East End--The Blue-Coat Boys at Buckingham
Palace--The Coming of the Shah--Astounding Rumours of his Progress
through Europe--The Queen’s Reception of the Persian Monarch--How
the Shah was Entertained--His Departure from England--Marriage of
the Duke of Edinburgh--Public Entry of the Duchess into London.
When the Session of 1873 opened, it is a curious fact that in London
the universal complaint was that politics had become depressingly dull.
But the lull really presaged a storm, in which the Government was
wrecked. It was known that Mr. Gladstone intended to make the question
of Irish University education the chief business of the Session, and
it was admitted that next to this question the one of most consequence
to the Government was that which was raised by the Dissenters, who
demanded the extension of School Boards, and the establishment of
compulsory education all over England, together with the repeal of the
25th clause of Mr. Forster’s Education Act. The bye-elections, which
had been disastrous to the Ministry, showed that the Dissenters were in
revolt, and that they “sulked in their tents,” instead of supporting
Ministerial candidates. The Irish University Bill could not possibly
be carried without Nonconformist support, and that could obviously not
be hoped for if anything like “concurrent endowment” for the Roman
Catholics defaced it. On the other hand, if the revenues of Trinity
College were shared with Catholic scholars, Liberals like Mr. Fawcett
and Mr. Vernon Harcourt would support Mr. Disraeli in opposing the
measure. The Cabinet resolved to neutralise the expected secession of
the small Fawcett-Harcourt group, by rendering their Bill acceptable
to their powerful Nonconformist contingent, and Liberal tacticians
were full of joyful anticipations when it leaked out that this plan
was contemplated. As will be seen, one important contingency was never
taken into consideration--the possible desertion of Mr. Gladstone’s
Roman Catholic followers; and yet it was their desertion which wrecked
the Bill and destroyed the Government.
[Illustration: QUEEN’S COLLEGE, CORK.
(_From a Photograph by W. Lawrence, Dublin._)]
The Queen’s speech was read to Parliament by Commission on the 6th of
February, and it promised an Irish Education Bill, a Judicature Bill,
a Land Transfer Bill, an Education Amendment Act, a Local Taxation
Bill, and a Railway Regulation Bill. In the debate on the Address the
Opposition leaders dwelt mainly on foreign questions, pressing the
Government to say whether they were prepared to recommend the rules
under which the _Alabama_ case had been decided to the European
Powers; and if so, whether they would recommend them as interpreted
by the legal advisers of the Crown, or as interpreted by the majority
of the arbitrators. Mr. Gladstone first said that the rules had been
recommended for adoption by the Powers, but without any special
construction being put on them. Then he had to correct himself before
the debate closed, by explaining that he had made a mistake, for the
rules had not yet been brought under the notice of Foreign Governments.
This confession naturally forced the public to conclude that the Tories
could not be far wrong when they declared that foreign affairs were
neglected because Lord Granville was indolent and Mr. Gladstone neither
knew nor cared anything about them.
[Illustration: PROFESSOR FAWCETT.
(_From a Photograph by the London Stereoscopic Company._)]
On the 13th of February Mr. Gladstone introduced the Irish University
Education Bill. It affiliated several other educational institutions
besides Trinity College to the University of Dublin. Two of the Queen’s
Colleges, established by Sir Robert Peel, were to be associated
with the University, and the Queen’s University itself was to be
abolished. Queen’s College at Galway was to be suppressed, because
it had failed to attract students to its classrooms. The so-called
Catholic University and several other Roman Catholic seminaries were
also, in the same manner, to be attached to the Dublin University.
The new University was to have an income of £50,000 a year, a fourth
of which was taken from Trinity College, a fourth from the endowment
for Queen’s University, three-eighths from the Irish Church surplus,
whilst fees, it was expected, would make up the balance. It was
to have professors for teaching in Dublin all academical subjects
excepting history and mental philosophy, which were tabooed as too
controversial for Ireland. Bursaries, Scholarships, and Fellowships
were liberally endowed. Tests were to be abolished, the Theological
Faculty of Trinity College was to be transferred--with an endowment--to
the Disestablished Church, and the prohibited subjects, History and
Philosophy, were not to be compulsory in examinations for degrees.
The constituency of the University was to consist of all graduates of
the affiliated colleges. The governing council of twenty-five was to
be nominated in the Bill, after which, vacancies were to be filled
up alternately by co-optation and Crown nomination. After ten years,
however, equal numbers of the council were to be chosen, by the Crown,
by co-optation, by the professors, and by the graduates. The Bill,
according to the Bishop of Peterborough--by far the ablest Protestant
ecclesiastic Ireland has produced in the Victorian period--“was as
good as could be under the circumstances,” and “ought to have pleased
all parties.”[49] Unfortunately it pleased nobody, and its weak point
was obvious. It attempted to provide for separate denominational
education in the affiliated colleges, and for mixed secular education
in Trinity College and the University of Dublin, to which they were
affiliated--the one system being as incompatible with the other as
an acid with an alkali. As Mr. Gathorne-Hardy said, the exclusion of
History and Philosophy rendered the new University a monster _cui
lumen ademptum_. The proposal to make the Irish Viceroy its Chancellor
recalled, he declared, the lines of Milton,
“Its shape,
If shape it can be called, which shape had none
Distinguishable in feature, joint, or limb--”
all the more that
“What seemed its head,
The likeness of a kingly crown had on.”
At first the Bill was very well received, and there was a general
disposition to admit that, in view of the limiting conditions of the
problem, it was impossible to find a solution less offensive to the
Protestants, and more generous to the Catholics of Ireland. But in a
few days it became apparent that the measure was doomed. Ministers
had been led to believe by their colleague, Mr. Monsell, who was
the spokesman of the Catholic clergy, that the compromise would be
accepted by them. But the Catholic Bishops met in secret, and decided
to oppose the Bill.[50] As the Catholics opposed it for giving them
too little, the Protestants opposed it because it gave the Catholics
too much. The apostles of culture opposed it because it cut History
and Philosophy out of the University curriculum, and in doing so they
furnished all discontented Liberals with a good non-political excuse
for voting against the Government. The Bill was defeated on the 12th of
March by a vote of 287 to 284, the votes of 36 Catholic Members and 9
Liberals[51] having turned the scale. To the very last moment the issue
was uncertain, because it was known that if Mr. Gladstone had offered
to abandon the teaching clauses of the Bill, he would have won over a
sufficient number of Catholic votes to carry it.[52]
Mr. Gladstone’s defeat was followed by the resignation of his Ministry,
and the crisis was a most embarrassing one for the Queen. Mr. Disraeli,
when sent for by the Sovereign, attempted to form a Cabinet, but
did not succeed, mainly because Mr. Gathorne-Hardy objected to the
party holding office on sufferance. When Mr. Disraeli reported his
failure to the Queen, she again consulted Mr. Gladstone, who, however,
suggested that some other Conservative leader--obviously hinting at
Lord Derby--might succeed where Mr. Disraeli had failed. But Lord Derby
was at Nice when the crisis became acute; and though the Tory Party
felt that he was in a special sense their natural leader at such a
juncture,[53] they knew that it was decidedly inconvenient for the
Prime Minister to be a member of the Upper House, and that he would
refuse to enter into anything like rivalry with Mr. Disraeli. Yet a
restful Ministry, competent in administration, under a cool-headed,
sensible Conservative aristocrat, was what the majority of the people,
alarmed by harassed “vested interests,” desired at the time. Be that
as it may, Mr. Disraeli, when appealed to a second time by the Queen,
refused to assist her out of the difficulty, and Mr. Gladstone was
again summoned to the rescue. He returned to power with his Cabinet
unchanged and disavowed any intention to dissolve Parliament. Mr.
Disraeli’s refusal to take office had given the Queen infinite anxiety,
and his defence of his conduct was lame and halting. He was, he said,
in a minority; he had not a policy, and could not get one ready till
he had been for some time in office, so that he might see what was to
be done. He did not desire to experience the humiliation of governing
the country under a _régime_ of hostile resolutions. The Queen and
the country were alike conscious of the flimsiness of these excuses.
Mr. Disraeli never met the question--which, to the Queen, seemed
unanswerable--Why did he paralyse the existing Administration, if he
was not prepared to put another in its place?
[Illustration: QUEEN’S COLLEGE, GALWAY.]
Mr. Disraeli in refusing to govern England himself whilst he prevented
Mr. Gladstone from governing it, was pursuing a policy which was as
unconstitutional as it was unpatriotic. When he said he could not take
office because he must dissolve in May in any case, and that he could
not dissolve because he had not a policy to go to the country with, and
when he explained that till he had time to study the archives of the
Foreign Office he could not tell what ought to be done with questions
such as the Russian advance on Khiva, and the Three Rules of the
Washington Treaty, men smiled cynically. They asked each other if Lord
Palmerston in 1869 was afraid to take the place of the Tory Government
because he wanted time to form an opinion on Lord Malmesbury’s policy
towards the Italian war of Liberation. Yet Mr. Disraeli gave a truthful
account of his motives. He had no policy. Hence when he dissolved
Parliament, as he was bound to do after winding up the business of
the Session, he must have gone to the country on a purely personal
issue between himself and Mr. Gladstone. Doubtless at a time when the
nation was getting wearied of restless statesmen, a contest of the sort
would have been disastrous to Mr. Gladstone, but not when raised by
Mr. Disraeli, who was notoriously even flightier than his antagonist.
To have won a General Election on such an issue the Tories must have
fought under Lord Derby’s banner. Mr. Disraeli, however, had no
intention of giving way to Lord Derby, and his followers did not dare
to put him aside, more especially as he had in view a clever scheme of
strategy. His idea was to force Mr. Gladstone to dissolve on a positive
programme, and then to defeat him by a running fire of destructive
criticism. These tactics might bring the Tories back to office under
his own leadership, absolutely uncommitted to any definite policy
whatever.
When Mr. Gladstone resumed office it was soon seen that he had not
only wrecked his party, but compromised the _prestige_ of the House of
Commons. His was admittedly a weakened and discredited Ministry. It had
been one of Mr. Disraeli’s favourite theories that whenever a feeble
Ministry attempted to govern England, power passed from Parliament
to the Crown. At one time, no doubt, the theory seemed plausible
enough, but the Session of 1873 completely upset it. No sooner had
Mr. Gladstone returned to office than power passed from the Crown and
the House of Commons to the House of Lords. The will of the Peers was
supreme over all. They said or did what they pleased, and quashed Bill
after Bill without the least regard to the sentiments of the Queen,
the desire of the Commons, or the interests of the country. The Peers
rejected the Bill improving Church organisation contemptuously, though
it had passed the Commons without a division. By asserting obsolete
privileges of appellate jurisdiction over Scotland and Ireland, they
disfigured the Judicature Bill, which consolidated the law courts and
constituted a high court of appeal. They destroyed Mr. Stansfeld’s
useful Rating Bill almost without debate. They opened a way for the
reintroduction of purchase in the army, rejected the Landlord and
Tenant Bill without even seeing it, and quashed a Bill, promoted by Mr.
Vernon Harcourt and supported by the Government, to protect working men
against being imprisoned under the law of conspiracy for non-statutable
offences committed in the course of a strike. And the curious thing was
that from the day Mr. Gladstone returned to office to lead a moribund
Ministry and a disorganised House of Commons, the people submitted
without a murmur to the resolute and decisive despotism of the Peers.
Thus it came to pass that when the Session ended the Ministry seemed
to have sunk into a dismal swamp of humiliation--a humiliation which
was intensified by administrative scandals and internal feuds. It was
shown that Mr. Lowe, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, prepared plans of
his own for public works, without consulting the Public Works Office.
Mr. Ayrton, as head of that Department, in his place in the House of
Commons, repudiated all responsibility for the votes of money for his
department which were altered without his knowledge and consent by
Mr. Lowe. There was a painful “scene” in the House of Commons at the
end of July when these disclosures were made, and when Mr. Ward Hunt
formally asked the Government if its Chancellor of the Exchequer and
Chief Commissioner of Works were on speaking terms. Mr. Baxter created
another scandal by suddenly resigning office as Financial Secretary
to the Treasury, because Mr. Lowe had ignored him in the matter of
the Zanzibar mail contract. Mr. Lowe was proved to have given the
contract for carrying letters from the Cape to Zanzibar to the Union
Steam Company for £26,000, whereas the British India Steam Company
had offered to do the work for £16,000. Mr. Lowe declared he had
never heard of the offer; yet Lord Kimberley, the Secretary for the
Colonies, knew of it, and the tender was transmitted by the Indian
Postmaster-General to Mr. Monsell, the British Postmaster-General, who
passed it on to the Treasury. At the Treasury Mr. Lowe concealed the
papers relating to the contract from Mr. Baxter, avowedly because he
was known to be hostile to it. A Committee of the House investigated
the scandal, and disallowed the contract. This affair was also
accompanied by the final revelation of the truth as to what was known
as the telegraph scandal.
In spring the working classes were profoundly disturbed by a rumour
that the Government had seized the Savings Banks balances, and were
building great extensions of telegraph lines with the money without
consulting Parliament on the subject. The foundation for the story
was a discovery made by the Auditor-General of Public Accounts. He
reported that the Telegraph Department of the Post Office had for some
time evaded the control of the House of Commons over its expenditure.
Instead of submitting to the House estimates for proposed works,
and asking for a vote on account, Mr. Scudamore, the Chief of the
Department, a brilliant but too zealous official, took whatever money
he wanted from the Post Office receipts, and spent it as he pleased
on works of extension and improvement. He submitted no estimates
in detail, but always asked the House of Commons for a sum for new
works, which enabled him to replace the Post Office receipts which he
had used. A large portion of the money thus spent was taken from the
Savings Banks balances which everybody understood were always paid in
for safety to the Commissioners of National Debt, who invested them
in Consols. Though no money was missing, it shook public confidence
in the Government to find its administrative power so feeble that it
could not prevent its own servants from tampering with the Savings
Banks Deposits, and further investigation aggravated the scandal. It
was shown that Lord Hartington when Postmaster-General had, like Mr.
Monsell, allowed Mr. Scudamore to manage the Telegraph Department
without any supervision, and that the Treasury had so far condoned
this gross and culpable negligence that when it did business with
Mr. Scudamore it communicated with him directly, and not through
either Lord Hartington or Mr. Monsell, who had meekly submitted to be
treated as official “dummies.” It was shown that the Treasury knew of
Mr. Scudamore’s irregularities in 1871, and condoned them; that in
1872 it knew of them again, and acted so feebly that even Mr. Lowe
admitted he regretted his lack of firmness. It was utterly impossible
to defend the conduct of Mr. Lowe, Lord Hartington, Mr. Monsell, and
the Chief Commissioner of National Debt, for countenancing these
grave irregularities, and the scandal was simply disastrous to the
administrative _prestige_ of the Ministry.
The Queen was alarmed at the dismal prospect of ruling England by means
of a Cabinet so hopelessly discredited, and Mr. Gladstone was equally
conscious of the gravity of the situation. Whenever Parliament was
prorogued he tried to parry attacks on the administrative incapacity of
his Cabinet by reconstructing it. To the great relief of the Queen, he
himself took the Chancellorship of the Exchequer into his own hands,
so that the public might have a guarantee that the era of chaos at
the Treasury was closed.[54] Mr. Bruce was elevated to the Peerage as
Lord Aberdare, and became President of the Council, Lord Ripon having
retired for private reasons. Mr. Childers (also for private reasons)
vacated the Chancellorship of the Duchy of Lancaster, and Mr. Bright
took his place and re-entered the Cabinet. Mr. Lowe was removed to the
Home Office, and ere the year closed Mr. Adam became Chief Commissioner
of Works, Mr. Ayrton taking the office of Judge-Advocate-General. Mr.
Monsell also retired from the Postmaster-Generalship, and was succeeded
by Dr. Lyon Playfair. The death of Sir William Bovill, Chief Justice
of the Common Pleas, in November, elevated Sir J. D. Coleridge to the
Bench. Mr. Henry James accordingly became Attorney-General, and, to
the amazement of the Bar, he was succeeded as Solicitor-General by Mr.
Vernon Harcourt, whose attacks on the Ministry had thus met with their
reward.
Mr. Gladstone’s hope was to reinvigorate the Government with a little
new blood, and rehabilitate it by means of his influence and reputation
as a financial administrator and Mr. Bright’s personal popularity among
the Nonconformists. Yet the financial work of the Government alone,
when administrative
[Illustration: VIEWS IN WINDSOR: OLD MARKET STREET, AND THE TOWN HALL,
FROM HIGH STREET.]
blunders were detached from it, and relegated to their true place in
political perspective, ought to have won for them the gratitude of the
nation. Mr. Vernon Harcourt, who perpetually harassed the Ministry
because of its growing expenditure--like many financial critics
with an imperfect knowledge of book-keeping--failed to see that the
apparent growth was not real because much of it was a mere matter of
accounting.[55]
[Illustration: SANDRINGHAM HOUSE.]
During their five years of power the Government had remitted £9,000,000
of taxation. They had reduced a chaotic Naval Administration to
something resembling order, and not far removed from efficiency; and
yet at the Admiralty there had been a saving of £1,500,000 on the
Estimates of their predecessors. They had taken the Army out of pawn
to its officers by abolishing Purchase, and had laid the basis for a
compact military organisation; yet they had saved £2,300,000 a year at
the War Office. The Army and Navy, though by no means efficient, were
much more efficient than they had been when Mr. Gladstone’s Ministry
came to power; and yet they were costing the country £4,000,000
less a year.[56] In spite of the great increase in Civil Service
expenditure--much of which, like the Education Vote, being morally
rather than financially reproductive, showed no “results” in figures
on the credit side of the public ledger--there had been since 1857
a decrease in the drain on the taxes of about £1,500,000.[57] Mr.
Lowe’s last Budget in 1873 did not discredit the Ministry. In spite
of his reductions of taxation in the previous year, he had obtained
£2,000,000 more than his estimated income. For the coming year (1873-4)
he estimated a surplus of £4,746,000; but he could promise no great
remission of taxation, for he had to pay the damages (£3,000,000) which
had been awarded at Geneva to the United States Government. Still, he
halved the sugar duties and took another penny off the Income Tax.
With all his faults, he was accordingly entitled to claim credit
for reducing the Income Tax to the lowest point it had ever touched
(threepence in the £) since it had been imposed by Peel in 1842.
And yet Mr. Lowe could not, even with such a Budget, refrain from
expressing his thankfulness in an acrid gibe against the populace.
Referring to the marvellous increase in the receipts from Customs and
Excise, he said he had been able to produce a good Budget because the
nation had drunk itself out of debt.
Apart from the political strife and Ministerial embarrassments which
so severely taxed the nerves of the Queen, life at Court was not very
eventful. Indeed, it centred chiefly round the Prince and Princess
of Wales, who were discharging vicariously and with great popular
acceptance most of the social duties of the Crown. This fact was
recognised by the Queen herself in a curious indirect kind of way.
The Prince of Wales, though very far from being a spendthrift, has
never shrunk from incurring expenditure which, in his judgment, was
necessary to maintain the dignity and _prestige_ of the Crown in a
manner worthy of the great nation whose Sovereignty is his heritage.
But he has always refrained from appealing to Parliament for subsidies
and subventions, either for himself or his family, other than those
to which he is equitably and legally entitled by his official
position in the State. This was all the more creditable to him, for
two reasons. He was surrounded by companions, some of whom did not
scruple to take advantage of his generosity. A considerable section
of the public during the controversy that raged over the Princess
Louise’s dowry had expressed a strong opinion in favour of limiting
future Royal grants to an additional allowance to the Heir Apparent,
for the purpose of meeting the unanticipated expenditure which he had
incurred by taking the Queen’s place as the head of English Society.
Sandringham, moreover, had not turned out a remunerative property, and
the Prince was therefore under strong temptations to give a favouring
ear to unwise counsels on this delicate subject. These, however, he
put aside with manly common sense, and his affairs were arranged on
a business-like basis, which would have met with the approval of his
father, who was always of opinion that matters of the sort were best
managed inside the family circle. The only public indication that was
given of arrangements which must necessarily be spoken of with great
reserve was afforded by Mr. Gladstone when, on the 21st of July, he
introduced a Bill enabling the Queen to bequeath real property to the
Prince of Wales, so that he could alienate it at will. The obvious
advantage of such a measure was that it imparted a fresh elasticity to
the financial resources of the Heir Apparent. For he had discovered
a fact hitherto unrevealed in the history of his dynasty in England,
namely, that though the Sovereign could bequeath to the Heir Apparent
alienable personality, such as hard cash, land or real property
so bequeathed, became, when vested in his person on ascending the
Throne, the property of the State, and therefore inalienable. In fact,
supposing the Queen had left Balmoral, an estate which she and her
husband bought out of their private purse, to her eldest son, then,
though it had been her own private property, it must become public
property whenever the Prince of Wales became King. The state of the
law on the subject was inequitable and inconvenient. For if the Queen
wished to aid her eldest son in meeting expenses which he was every day
incurring on her behalf, she had either to sell her private estates,
endeared to her by a thousand tender family associations, or appeal
to Parliament for a grant, a course which was as objectionable to her
as to the Prince. On the other hand, if these private estates, when
inherited by the Prince at her death, could be treated as private
property, the Heir Apparent could easily obtain any additional
subsidies he might need, by mortgaging his expectations. And yet the
generous intentions of the Queen, and the honest purposes of the Prince
which formed the motives for the Bill, were snappishly and churlishly
misrepresented by several Radicals, and by at least one aristocratic
Whig. Mr. George Anderson opposed the Bill because Sovereigns kept
their wills secret. Sir Charles Dilke objected to it because he said it
allowed the indefinite accumulation of private property in the hands
of the Sovereign. His argument, in fact, came to this, that profligacy
in the Monarch should be encouraged by the posthumous confiscation
of his private estates. As for Mr. Bouverie, he asked what business
the Sovereign had to possess large private means? The Bill, however,
passed, and an incident which at one time threatened to be unpleasant
for the Queen and her children was discreetly closed.
In March, the Queen’s refusal to permit the persons who represented
England at the French Exhibition of 1867 to accept decorations, was
made the subject of debate by Lord Houghton in the House of Lords. Her
Majesty’s prejudice against introducing Foreign Orders and titles into
England had often given offence to naturalised stockjobbers and pushing
_parvenus_. She never even took kindly to the use of the title of
“Baron” by the Rothschilds, though she tolerated it for reasons of an
entirely exceptional nature. But if the Orders were admitted the titles
must soon follow, and society might be inundated some day with Russian
“Counts,” who, as the French say, had “a career behind them,” or with
Austrian “Barons,” who had bought their honours out of the profits of
financial gambling. The English Court, for this reason, has such strong
opinions on the point that even English nobles, inheriting foreign
titles, conceal them so successfully that few people ever suspect that
the Duke of Wellington is a Portuguese prince, the head of the House
of Hamilton a French duke, or Lord Denbigh a Prince of an uncrowned
branch of the Imperial House of Hapsburg. It need not be said that Lord
Houghton’s complaints were generally admitted to be frivolous, and that
the Queen’s feeling that she must be the sole fountain of honour in
England, was shared by the nation. If the services which an individual
has rendered abroad have benefited England or mankind, or if it is
possible to form a correct estimate of their value in England, the
Queen held she must either reward them herself, or retain the right to
permit the individual to receive a foreign decoration for them. There
never has been any practical difficulty in dealing with such cases,
and no self-respecting person has ever felt aggrieved because he was
debarred from accepting Foreign Orders.[58]
On the 4th of January the Queen was grieved to hear of the death of
the ex-Emperor of the French, at Chislehurst. Her tender sympathy
was freely bestowed on the ex-Empress, who was prostrated by her
misfortunes and her sorrow. Five years before, the death of this
strange man, whose Imperial life seemed ever shadowed by the great
crime of the _coup d’état_, would have convulsed Europe. Now the world
seemed quite indifferent to it, and when politicians spoke of it, all
they said was that by disorganising the Imperialist party in France,
it lessened the labours of M. Thiers in founding the Third Republic.
The English people, whom Napoleon III. had kept in feverish dread for
two decades, and whose support and friendship he had rewarded with
the perfidy of the Benedetti Treaty, did not pretend to mourn over
his grave. They spoke of his character, which was a moral paradox,
and his career, which was a political crime, without prejudice or
ill-feeling. But as they thought of the horrors of the Crimean War,
the wasted millions which Palmerston spent in fortifying the South
Coast, and the final act of treachery which the German Government had
revealed in July, 1870, there were some who considered that the Queen
might have been less demonstrative in her manifestations of sorrow.
But Her Majesty has never been free from the defects of her qualities.
Quick to resent betrayal, her anger passes away as swiftly, when the
betrayer broken by an avenging Destiny, and prostrate amid the wreck
of his fortunes and his reputation, appeals to her sympathies. When
Louis Philippe stood before her as a hunted fugitive, the Queen forgot
the Spanish marriages. When Charles Louis Bonaparte fled for refuge to
Chislehurst, she was too generous to remember his scheme for stealing
Belgium.
[Illustration: THE QUEEN’S VISIT TO VICTORIA PARK.]
When spring came round, “the great joyless city,” as Mr. Walter Besant
calls the East End of London, was gladdened by the Queen, for on the
2nd of April her Majesty went there to visit Victoria Park. She was
accompanied by the Princess Beatrice, and drove from Buckingham Palace
to the park in an open carriage. Her route was along Pall Mall, Regent
Street, Portland Place, Marylebone Road, and Euston Road to King’s
Cross, up Pentonville Hill to the “Angel” at Islington, beyond which
point along Upper Street, Essex Road, Ball’s Pond Road, through Dalston
and Hackney, surging crowds of people lined both sides of the entire
way. Streamers of gaudy bunting floated overhead from house to house
across Islington Green. The Dalston and Hackney stations of the North
London Railway, the Town Hall, and shops of Hackney were conspicuously
decorated, and it was noticed that the Queen went among the poor of
the East End without any military escort, a feat that few European
Sovereigns would have dared to emulate. At the Town Hall she halted
and received a bouquet, while the people sang the National Anthem.
At the temporary entrance to Victoria Park a triple arch, of triumph
had been erected, deep enough to resemble a long _marquee_ in three
compartments, open at both ends. It was handsomely fitted up in scarlet
and gold, and here was stationed a guard of honour of the Fusiliers,
while an escort of Life Guards was in waiting to conduct her Majesty
round the park. Even the slums in this dismal quarter exhibited meagre
decorations, eloquent alike of loyalty and indigence. A poor shoemaker,
having nothing better to show, hung out his leather apron, on which the
Queen saw with a thrill of interest that he had chalked up in flaming
red letters, “Welcome as flowers in May. The Queen, God bless her.” The
enthusiasm of the populace on this occasion was due to a curious idea
that prevailed all over the East End. This visit, they said, was no
ordinary one, because the Queen had come of her own free will to see
the East End--a very different thing from the East End going westwards
to see her. Hence a hurricane of cheers greeted the Queen wherever she
went, and was more gladsome to her ears than the ornate language of the
loyal addresses which she received. Her Majesty returned by Cambridge
Heath Road, and when she came to Shoreditch the way was rendered almost
impassable by an eager crowd. From Bishopsgate Street to the Bank she
was hailed with passionate loyalty, which seemed to lose all restraint
when on passing the Mansion House she rose in her carriage and
smilingly bowed to the Lord Mayor, who stood in his State robes under
the portico and saluted her. She then drove along the Embankment to
the Palace, having charmed the sadder quarters of London with a visit
which the people took to mean that they were not forgotten or ignored
by their Queen.
On the 3rd of April, at three o’clock in the afternoon, the Duke of
Cambridge, as President of Christ’s Hospital--the famous Blue-coat
School--visited the Queen at Buckingham Palace to present the boys
of the Mathematical School, who had come to exhibit their drawings
and charts to her Majesty. A number of gentlemen connected with
the Hospital had the honour of being presented by the Duke to the
Queen when she entered the Drawing-room. Her Majesty then inspected,
apparently with great interest, the maps and charts which were held
before her by each boy separately.
The foreign curiosity of the London season in 1873 was the Shah of
Persia. Soon after the Queen’s visit to the East End ceased to be
discussed, the coming of the Shah was the favourite topic of talk. At
the end of April his departure from Teheran amidst the blessings of
an overawed crowd of 80,000 subjects was chronicled. On the 12th of
May he was heard of, painfully navigating the waters of the Caspian
in a Russian steamer, and wonderful tales of his progress were told.
He had three wives, and nobody knew how many other ladies in his
train holding brevet-matrimonial rank. Was he going to bring them to
England? If so, could more than one of them be received, and in that
case how were the rest to be disposed of? A cloud of despondency began
to settle over the subordinates in the Lord Chamberlain’s department.
Would it be possible, it was asked, to persuade the Queen to invite
each of the Shah’s wives separately--one to Buckingham Palace, one to
Windsor, and one to Osborne? Later on it was reported that not only
was the Shah bringing his harem, but his Cabinet Ministers also. Was
his visit likely to be free from danger? Might not people begin to
cherish strange fancies, if the Shah thus gave them ocular proof that
an ancient country could get on wonderfully well without a sovereign
and without a government? Gradually astounding rumours of his wealth
were sent round. He had brought only half a million sterling for
pocket-money, because there had just been a famine in Persia; still
the sum would meet the modest wants of his exalted position. Indeed,
through a telegraphic blunder, the sum was first stated as £5,000,000.
He was said to be covered with jewels and precious stones, and he wore
a dagger which blazed with diamonds, so that one could only view it
comfortably through ground glass. In June the officials of the Court
were relieved from a supreme anxiety. Ere he got half-way over Europe
the Shah had sent his harem back to Persia. As he approached England he
was described as looking terribly bored, and his black velvet doublet,
covered with diamonds, and ornamented with emerald epaulettes, was said
by one irreverent journalist to give him the appearance of “a dark
shrub under the early morning dew.” To the good English people he was
a mighty Asiatic potentate, representing an ancient dynasty, and the
popular cry was that he must be impressed with the power of England.
Had they understood that his great grandfather was a petty chief, who
at a time of revolution established a dynasty, and promptly began,
with the aid of his relatives, to ruin Persia, and that their visitor
himself ruled over a country with the population of Ireland and twice
the area of Germany, they might have made themselves less ridiculous.
Mr. Gladstone was even pestered on the subject, and had to turn the
matter off with a smiling suggestion that it would be well to let the
Shah fix his own programme, and not put him in chains when he landed
on our shores. But in Court circles it was whispered with dread that
it might be well to fetter the bedizened barbarian, for he had odd
notions of etiquette, and had even rudely poked the august arm of the
German Empress, when he wanted to call her attention at the theatre to
something on the stage. On the 18th of June, however, the long-expected
guest landed at Dover from Ostend. The cannon of the Channel fleet
thundered forth a salute, and the Duke of Edinburgh and Prince Arthur
welcomed him as he stepped
[Illustration: BLUE-COAT BOYS AT BUCKINGHAM PALACE.]
[Illustration: THE SHAH OF PERSIA PRESENTING HIS SUITE TO THE QUEEN AT
WINDSOR.]
on the pier. His Majesty arrived at Charing Cross in the evening,
and London forthwith went mad about him. It talked and thought about
nothing else, much to the disgust of the Tory wirepullers, who saw with
sorrow the scandal of the Zanzibar mail contract absolutely wasted
on a frivolous metropolis. It may be recorded that when he appeared
the Shah disappointed sightseers, who were looking out for the black
velvet tunic powdered with diamonds, and ornamented with epaulettes of
emeralds. His Majesty, in fact, was clad in a blue military frock-coat,
faced with rows of brilliants and large rubies; his belt and the
scabbard of his scimitar were likewise bright with jewels, and so was
his cap.
The _suite_ of apartments placed at the disposal of his Imperial
Majesty in Buckingham Palace had been put in direct telegraphic
communication with Teheran, and though it was expected he would be
impressed by being able to talk to anybody in his capital without
leaving his room, the arrangement seemed rather to bore him than
otherwise. An infinite variety of entertainments was prepared for him,
and the programme he had to work through seemed too extensive for human
endurance during the last ten days of his visit. On the 20th of June
the Queen, who was at Balmoral when he arrived, came to Windsor to
receive the Persian monarch in State.
The preparations for the Shah’s public welcome were worthy of the
Royal borough. As the train steamed into Windsor Station, the Princes
and others in waiting to receive him welcomed him as he stepped out,
arrayed in a State uniform flashing with gems. The Mayor and Recorder
then read an Address, to which the Shah briefly replied, both the
Address and reply being translated by Sir Henry Rawlinson. Accompanied
by Prince Arthur and Prince Leopold he was driven to the Castle, where
the Queen received him. The reception was held in the White Drawing
Room, and the Shah conferred upon the Queen the Persian Order, and also
the new Order which he had then, with a gallantry hardly to be expected
of an Asiatic, just instituted for ladies. Luncheon was served in the
Oak Room, after which the Queen accompanied her guest to the foot of
the staircase on his leaving the Castle.
In the evening a splendid entertainment was given to his Majesty by the
Lord Mayor at Guildhall, to which 3,000 persons were invited. At this
banquet the Shah was placed on a daïs with the Princess of Wales, the
Lord Mayor on his left hand, and the Czarevna, wife of the Czarewitch,
on his right. The Shah wore a blue uniform with a belt of diamonds,
and the ribbon and Star of the Garter, which had been conferred on him
at Windsor in the afternoon. The scene at the ball which followed was
unusually brilliant and picturesque. When the Shah had taken his seat
the first quadrille was formed. He did not dance, but when the company
had gone through four dances he joined the supper-party. About midnight
his Majesty and the Royal Family left the scene. This magnificent
entertainment was the first of many. The Shah was hurried in rapid
succession to a Review of Artillery at Woolwich, and another of the
Fleet at Spithead, to a State performance at the Italian Opera, to
the International Exhibition, to a concert in the Royal Albert Hall,
and to a Review in Windsor Park of 8,000 troops. At this Review what
impressed him most were the batteries of Light Artillery, the physique
and drill of the Highlanders, and the brilliant skirmishing of the
Rifles. When the spectacle was over he presented his scimitar to the
Duke of Cambridge. An odd sight was witnessed when the Shah visited
the West India Dock and Greenwich on the 25th of June. He went in an
open carriage from Buckingham Palace to the Tower Wharf, and embarked
amidst a salvo of artillery. The river was filled with an extraordinary
collection of ships, barges, boats, and vessels of every description.
Crowds, cheering and shouting like crazy beings, swarmed on decks,
rigging, wharves, roadways, and even on the roofs and crane stages of
the warehouses. A striking effect was produced during this trip by the
floating steam fire-engines of the Metropolitan Fire Brigade, which,
closely lashed together, all at once saluted the Shah as he passed, by
casting up many perpendicular jets of water to a great height in the
air. On the evening of this day, by command of the Queen, a State ball
was given at Buckingham Palace, at which the Persian Sovereign and
the British Princes and Princesses were present. After a short visit
to Liverpool, the Shah left England on the 5th of July, no abatement
having taken place in the entertainments in his honour up to the last.
The Shah’s departure from London, and his embarkation for Cherbourg on
board the French Government yacht _Rapide_, was the final act of these
remarkable proceedings. He was accompanied to the Victoria Station by
the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Arthur, the Duke of
Cambridge, and Prince Christian, all in full uniform. The Shah having
been made a Knight of the Garter during his visit to England, her
Majesty presented him with the badge and collar set in diamonds. He in
turn gave his photograph set in diamonds to the Queen and the Prince
of Wales. To Earl Granville he offered his jewelled portrait, but that
wily diplomatist, knowing what was meant, demurely said he could only
accept the portrait if the precious stones were removed from it. London
never had such a lion before or since, and the fuss made over him led
many to imagine that his visit was of high political importance. It
was certainly odd that the heir to the Russian throne, who must have
been satiated with the Shah’s society in St. Petersburg, persisted in
being seen everywhere in his train in London. Perhaps at his interview
with Lord Granville he had asked for some promise of protection against
Russian encroachment, and as it was impossible for Russia to conquer
the Tekke Turcomans unless she could draw her supplies from the Golden
Province of Khorassan, such a promise, if given and kept, would have
effectually barred the march of the Cossack towards Herat. If these
matters were talked of, events subsequently showed that no such
promises had been made, and that Lord Granville, like his predecessors,
firmly adhered to the fatal policy initiated by England in order to
buy the aid of the Czar against Napoleon I.--the policy of abandoning
Persia to Russian “influence.”
It was semi-officially announced in the middle of July that the Duke
of Edinburgh had been betrothed (11th July) to the Grand Duchess Marie
Alexandrovna, the only daughter of the Czar of Russia. The affair had
been the subject of some difficult and delicate negotiations, not so
much because there was some difference of religion between the bride
and bridegroom, but because, being an only daughter, the parents
of the Grand Duchess felt that parting with her would be a bitter
heart-wrench. She was devoted to her father, as he was to her, and it
was said that if he had given his crown to the English Prince he could
not have testified more strongly his esteem for him than he had done
by bestowing on him his daughter’s hand. “I hear,” writes the Princess
Louis of Hesse from Seeheim (9th July), to the Queen, “Affie [the
Duke of Edinburgh] comes on Thursday night. Poor Marie is very happy,
and so quiet.... How I feel for the parents, this only daughter (a
character of _Hingebung_ [perfect devotion] to those she loves)--the
last child entirely at home, as the parents are so much away that the
two youngest, on account of their studies, no longer travel about.”[59]
This alliance was unusually interesting, for the Duke of Edinburgh
was practically within the Royal succession.[60] Nothing but an Act
of Parliament barring him from the succession, such as men talked of
passing against the hated Duke of Cumberland, who conspired with the
loyal Orangemen of Ulster to oust the Queen from the throne, could
prevent the Duke from succeeding to the Crown if the Prince of Wales
and his children did not survive the Queen. There was a very general
feeling that this marriage was worthy of the country. Apart from her
great wealth, the only daughter of the Czar of All the Russias appeared
to the average British elector to be a much more fitting mate for a
Prince who stood very near the English throne, than an impecunious
young lady from a minor Teutonic “dukery”--if we may venture to borrow
a term which Lord Beaconsfield made classical. Thoughtful observers of
public life were grateful to the Queen for establishing a precedent
which enlarged the area of matrimonial selection for English Princes.
Since the reign of George II. this had been so closely limited to
Germany, that the Royal Family of England from generation to generation
had been purely and exclusively German. There was, therefore, no
popular outcry against a Parliamentary settlement for the Duke of
Edinburgh. Mr. Gladstone, on the 29th
[Illustration: THE DUKE OF EDINBURGH.]
of July, carried a resolution in the House of Commons, giving the Duke
of Edinburgh an annuity of £25,000 a year, and securing to the Grand
Duchess Marie £6,000 a year of jointure in the event of her becoming
a widow. The Minister was not met with any formidable opposition.
When Mr. Holt and Mr. Newdegate began to attack the Grand Duchess’s
religion, the House instantly flew into a passion and hooted them
into silence. When the resolution was debated two days afterwards,
Mr. Taylor, who objected to the vote on the ground that the bride was
one of the richest heiresses in Europe, was literally effaced by Mr.
Gladstone. Amid deafening cheers from all parts of the House, he asked
Mr. Taylor if he dared to stand up before his own constituents and beg
the Russian Czar to accept a poor English Prince for a son-in-law on
the plea that his daughter had a large fortune? The grant was carried
by a vote of 170 to 20.
[Illustration: THE DUCHESS OF EDINBURGH.
(_From a Photograph by W. and D. Downey._)]
The marriage itself was solemnised on the 23rd of January, 1874, at
the Czar’s Winter Palace in St. Petersburg in accordance with the
Greek and the Anglican rite. All that wealth and absolute power could
do to invest the ceremony with Imperial pomp and splendour was done.
Among those invited were members of the Holy Synod, and of the High
Clergy of Russia; the members of the Council of the Empire, Senators,
Ambassadors, and other members of the Corps Diplomatique, with the
ladies of their families, general officers, officers of the Guard, of
the Army and Navy. The great Russian ladies wore the national costume,
while the nobles and gentlemen were in full uniform. The Queen of
England was represented by Viscount Sydney and Lady Augusta Stanley.
On their arrival at the church the Duke and Grand Duchess took their
places in front of the altar, where were standing the Metropolitan
of St. Petersburg and the chief priests, attired in magnificent
vestments. The Czar and Czarina were on the right of the altar, the
Prince of Wales and the Russian Grand Dukes standing opposite. The most
interesting portions of the ceremony were the handing of the rings to
the bride and bridegroom, the crowning of the Royal couple, and the
procession of the newly wedded pair, with the Metropolitan and clergy,
Prince Arthur, and the Grand Dukes round the analogion or lectern, the
bride and bridegroom carrying lighted candles in their left hands. On
the conclusion of this part of the ceremony, the bride and bridegroom
proceeded to the Salle d’Alexandre, where the Anglican ceremony was
performed by Dean Stanley, the bride being given away by the Emperor,
while Prince Arthur officiated as his brother’s groomsman. The Duke of
Edinburgh and the Grand Duchess Marie used prayer books which had been
sent to them by the Queen, and the Grand Duchess carried a bouquet of
myrtle from the bush at Osborne, which had been so often laid under
tribute for the marriages of the Queen’s children. The wedding-day was
celebrated in the principal towns of Great Britain with much popular
rejoicing.
The Queen deeply regretted her inability to be present at a ceremony
so interesting to her, and, in some respects, momentous for her House.
Nor was she the only member of the Royal circle who entertained the
same feeling. Her daughter, the Princess Louis of Hesse, writing to her
from Darmstadt on the 23rd of January, 1874, says, “On our dear Affie’s
[Prince Alfred’s] birthday, a few tender words. It must seem so strange
to you not to be near him. My thoughts are constantly with them all,
and we have only the _Times_ account, for no one writes here. They are
all too busy, and, of course, all news comes to you. What has Augusta
[Lady Augusta Stanley] written, and Vicky and Bertie? Any extracts or
other newspaper accounts but what we see would be most welcome.... God
bless and protect them, and may all turn out well.” Artless passages
like these are worth quoting, if for no better reason than this,
that they illustrate the strength of the sentiment of domesticity
which has not only bound the Royal children to the Queen, but to each
other, all through life. Even after the Queen had complied with her
daughter’s request, and sent her some letters about the ceremony, the
Princess recurs to the same theme, saying, “Dear Marie [the Duchess of
Edinburgh] seems to make the same impression on _all_. How glad I am
she is so quite what I thought and hoped. Such a wife must make Affie
happy, and do him good, and be a great pleasure to yourself, which I
always liked to think.” And again, a few days later, she writes to the
Queen as follows:--“I have a little time before breakfast to thank you
so much for the enclosures, also the Dean’s [Stanley’s] letter through
Beatrice. We are most grateful for being allowed to hear these most
interesting reports. It brings everything so much nearer. How pleasant
it is to receive only satisfactory reports.”[61]
The Grand Duchess, when she came to her new home, brought her own
weather with her. She was introduced by the Queen to London and the
Londoners on the 12th of March, in the midst of a bleak and blinding
snowstorm. That dense crowds of people should line the street, and
stand for hours in the half-frozen slush, for an opportunity of bidding
the Grand Duchess welcome to her new home, afforded an impressive
testimony to the deep-seated loyalty of the capital. The Queen, the
Grand Duchess, the Duke of Edinburgh, and other members of the Royal
Family, left Windsor Castle at 11 o’clock in closed carriages for
the railway station, under a brilliant escort of Scots Greys. The
Royal train steamed to Paddington terminus, which was all ablaze
with Russian and English colours. The people thronged the windows,
balconies, the house-tops, and the pavements, and each side of the
roadway, all along from Paddington to Buckingham Palace, and the
Queen and the Royal couple showed their appreciation of the splendid
reception which was given to them by braving the snowstorm in an open
landau. The Queen, who was dressed in half-mourning, smilingly bowed
in acknowledgment of the hearty cheering, and the Grand Duchess, who
sat by her side, attired in a purple velvet mantle edged with fur, a
pale blue silk dress and white bonnet, was evidently surprised at the
warm greeting she received. The route was lined by the military and
police. The streets were full of loyal but bedraggled decorations,
and grimly festive with limp flags and illegible mottoes. Nothing
could be more gracious than the smiling demeanour of the Queen and
her new daughter-in-law, and nothing more pitiable than the obvious
discomfort of the poor ladies-in-waiting, who sat palpably shivering
in their carriages. At night the chief thoroughfares were brilliantly
illuminated. “I hope,” writes the Princess Louis of Hesse to the
Queen, “you were not the worse for all your exertions.... Such a
warm reception must have touched Marie, and shown how the English
cling to their Sovereign and her House.” Yet, after the first flush
of excitement had passed away, the Russian Princess began to suffer
from the common complaint of all Northern women--_nostalgia_, or
home-sickness. “Marie must feel it very deeply,” writes the Princess
Louis to the Queen (7th April), “for to leave so delicate and loving a
mother must seem almost wrong. How strange this side of human nature
always seems--leaving all you love most, know best, owe all debts of
gratitude to, for the comparatively unknown! The lot of parents is
indeed hard, and of such self-sacrifice.” This incident seems to have
led to a curious correspondence between the Queen and her daughter, in
which her Majesty apparently gave her some solemn warnings about the
evil done by parents who bring up their daughters for the sole purpose
of marrying them. “This,” observes the Princess Louis in her reply to
her
[Illustration: MARRIAGE OF THE DUKE OF EDINBURGH.
(_From the Picture by N. Chevalier._)]
mother, “is said to be a too prominent feature in the modern English
education of the higher classes.... I want to bring up the girls
without _seeking_ this as the sole object for the future--to feel that
they can fill up their lives so well otherwise.... A marriage for the
sake of marriage is surely the greatest mistake a woman can make....
I know what an absorbing feeling that of devotion to one’s parent is.
When I was at home it filled my whole soul. It does still in a great
degree, and _heimweh_ [home-sickness] does not cease after so long an
absence.”