THE NEW DEPARTURE.
An _Annus Mirabilis_--Breaking up of the Old Parties--The
Tory-Parnellite Alliance--Mr. Chamberlain’s Socialism--The
Doctrine of “Ransom”--Effect of the Reform Bill and Seats
Bill--Enthroning the “Sovereign People”--Three Reform Struggles:
1832, 1867, 1885--“One Man One Vote”--Another Vote of Censure--A
Barren Victory--Retreat from the Soudan--The Dispute with
Russia--Komaroff at Penjdeh--The Vote of Credit--On the Verge of
War--Mr. Gladstone’s Compromise with Russia--Threatened Renewal
of the Crimes Act--The Tory Intrigue with the Parnellites--The
Tory Chiefs Decide to Oppose Coercion--Wrangling in the
Cabinet--Mr. Childers’ Budget--A Yawning Deficit--Increasing
the Spirit Duties--Readjusting the Succession Duties--Combined
Attack by Tories and Parnellites on the Budget--Defeat of the
Government and Fall of Mr. Gladstone’s Ministry--The Scene in the
Commons--The Tories in Power--Lord Salisbury’s Government--Places
for the Fourth Party--Mr. Parnell Demands his Price--Abandoning
Lord Spencer--Re-opening the Question of the Maamtrasna
Murders--Concessions to the Parnellites--The New Budget--Sir H. D.
Wolff sent to Cairo--The Criminal Law Amendment Act--Court Life in
1885--Affairs at Home and Abroad--The Fall of Khartoum--Death of
General Gordon--Beginning of the Burmese Question--Rebellion in
Canada--Marriage of the Princess Beatrice--The Battenbergs.
After the compromise had been arranged between the rival political
leaders on the Franchise Bill and the Bill for the Redistribution
of Seats, it has been said that Parliament adjourned to the 19th of
February, 1885--an _annus mirabilis_ in the Queen’s reign. It witnessed
the final settlement of the Reform Question which the Whigs left
unsettled in 1832. It witnessed the amazing development of the Home
Rule movement in Ireland under two influences. The first was extended
Franchise. The second was the alliance between the Parnellites and
the Tory Party, which had grown out of the intrigues of Lord Randolph
Churchill, Sir H. Drummond Wolff, and Mr. Rowland Winn, the Tory whip,
with Mr. Justin McCarthy, and other Irish Nationalist leaders. Every
day brought forth a new outward and visible sign of this alliance, and
in Ireland, when it was bruited about that the Tories were ready not
only to attack and overthrow Lord Spencer, who was still upholding
English authority at Dublin Castle almost in the same sense that
General Gordon was upholding it at Khartoum, the result was inevitable.
The large class of Irishmen who from motives of self-interest, business
connection, or personal feeling were willing to stand by the English
Government in Dublin so long as they felt sure that England would
stand by them, began to waver in their allegiance. Like the same sort
of people in the Soudan, and even in Khartoum when they saw Gordon
abandoned by those who were supposed to be truest to him, they began to
make terms with their Mahdi. If the Tories were buying the Parnellite
vote to-day, the Liberals would soon be found bidding higher for it
to-morrow, and Irishmen, whose interests and timidity alone served
to keep them loyal to Dublin Castle so long as they felt absolutely
certain of the support of both political parties in England, began in
1885 to stream over to Mr. Parnell’s camp. The stream was obviously
swollen when a coalition of the Parnellites and Tories expelled Mr.
Gladstone’s Government from office, and when it was known that the
Parnellite vote had been obtained on the faith of a promise from the
Tory leaders that they would not only abandon the Crimes Act if they
came into office, but join Mr. Parnell in opposing Mr. Gladstone’s
Government if it sought to renew it. The year also witnessed the end
of the Egyptian tragedy, the conquest of Burmah, the semi-Socialistic
propaganda of Mr. Chamberlain, the General Election which made Mr.
Parnell master of Ireland, and shattered the English Party system that
had been built up after 1846, and the rumoured adoption of Home Rule as
a part of Mr. Gladstone’s programme.
During the first weeks of 1885--the winter recess, as it might be
called--Mr. Chamberlain spread terror through the land by making a
strong Socialistic appeal to the new Electors. He was evidently bent
on breaking up the old Liberal Party--perhaps he saw his way to the
formation of a new democratic faction into which many of the “Tory
democracy,” created by Lord Randolph Churchill, might drift. Signs were
not wanting that a coalition between these successful politicians was
in certain circumstances quite a possible contingency. In the meantime,
Mr. Chamberlain and his followers preached what he called the “doctrine
of ransom.” This meant that when a man became rich he was to purchase
the privilege of keeping his wealth by paying taxes now borne by the
poor, and if need be by providing new taxes in order to give the poor
a larger share of the comforts and enjoyments of life than fell to
their lot. Mr. Chamberlain in fact offered to “ransom” the thrifty
classes from confiscation provided they taxed themselves to give the
poor free libraries, pleasure-gardens, education, improved dwellings
at “fair rents,” allotments of land, and work and employment in time
of distress. It was part of his scheme to abolish indirect taxation.
His lieutenant, Mr. Jesse Collings, formulated the portion of it which
dealt with the land by popularising the idea that it was the duty of
the ratepayers to set up agricultural labourers in the business of
farming with “three acres and a cow” to start with. Government, in
fact, was, according to Mr. Chamberlain and Mr. Collings, to act as a
kind of glorified Cooperative Store, or “Universal Provider” for the
proletariat.
When the House of Commons met on the 19th of February there was a
general desire to make rapid progress with the Reform Bills. Efforts
to secure the representation of minorities, to oppose an increase in
the members of the House, to cut down the representation of Ireland,
to disfranchise the Universities, were resisted, and the alliance of
the two Front Benches crushed all opposition. One member only was
successful in carrying an amendment. This was Mr. Raikes, who had been
Chairman of Committees in Lord Beaconsfield’s Government, and who now
succeeded in reducing the perpetual penalties inflicted on voters in
corrupt boroughs. On the 11th of May the Seats Bill was read a third
time, and when it went to the House of Lords it was speedily passed.
The Tories, who objected to the compromise, found spokesmen in Mr.
James Lowther, Mr. Chaplin, and Mr. Raikes. The opposition of the
last-named was the most active, but it merely resulted in effecting a
few changes in the nomenclature of the Bill, and in what the _Times_
termed “his more than paternal solicitude for the leisurely progress of
the measure.”
No measure of reform proposed in the Queen’s reign by a responsible
politician was ever designed to produce such a mighty change in the
British Constitution as the Reform Bill of 1885. Lord Grey and Lord
John Russell, by their Bill in 1832, added not quite half a million
voters to the Electorate of the United Kingdom. The Reform Bill of
1867 increased the Electorate from 1,136,000 to 2,448,000. In 1885 it
had grown to be 3,000,000, and to this number Mr. Gladstone’s Bill
added 2,000,000 new voters.[204] The Seats Bill, which distributed
the 5,000,000 electors into electoral groups, was a much more complex
measure. The chief difficulties were two in number. First, there was
that of determining the standard by which the claim of a borough to
separate representation could be conceded; secondly, there was the
difficulty of discovering how votes should be cast in towns possessing
more than one member. Here curious contrasts can be drawn between the
old order and the new.
[Illustration: PRINCE HENRY OF BATTENBERG.
(_From a Photograph by Theodor Prümm, Berlin._)]
Redistribution of seats in 1832 meant the transfer of a vast body of
power from the aristocracy to the middle-class, and the liberation of
the Commons from the despotism of the Peers, who ruled it through the
nominees who represented their pocket boroughs. Little wonder that the
sweeping disfranchisement of these constituencies brought the country
to the verge of revolution. In 1867 it was not the aristocracy but the
middle-class which dreaded the kind of disfranchisement that proceeds
from destroying the separate representation or reducing the redundant
representation of a constituency. Hence, though the contest in 1867 was
warm, it was not fierce. But in 1885, on the other hand, no popular
excitement could be raised over the question of Redistribution, and
the nation grew sick of the controversy as to whether a Seats Bill
should be taken before, with, or after a Franchise Bill. And yet the
redistribution of power proposed
[Illustration: PRINCESS BEATRICE.
(_From a Photograph by Hughes and Mullins, Ryde._)]
by Mr. Gladstone’s Bill in 1885, and which sprang from the compromise
with the Opposition in December, 1884, effected changes vaster by far
than those that shook Society to its foundation in 1832. In 1832,
what nearly came to civil war was waged over 143 seats, liberated by
disfranchisement for redistribution.[205] In 1885 Mr. Gladstone had
178 seats representing 26·5 per cent. of the representation of the
country to redistribute. Of this number more than half--about 96--were
given to the counties, whose Electorate had been enormously increased
by the absorption of small boroughs, as well as by the extension of
household franchise, whereas in 1832, the counties only pulled 56 of
the liberated seats out of the scramble. Of the boroughs which Mr.
Gladstone disfranchised, 20 had their representation cut down to one
member in 1832, and two, Kendal and Whitby--which Lord John Russell
created as new boroughs--lost their separate representation in 1885.
The great merit of the Bill was that, as far as possible, it created
single-member constituencies on the basis of population, which was as
close an approach to equal electoral districts as Mr. Gladstone could
make. Large towns, instead of being treated as single electoral units
with cumulative voting, were cut up into single-member constituencies
as nearly as possible equal in point of population. The Bills for
Scotland and Ireland were drawn on the same lines, but adapted to local
circumstances.
Up to Whitsuntide Government business was sadly in arrears--foreign
questions diverting attention from domestic legislation. The fall of
Khartoum, the retreat of Lord Wolseley’s advance column in the Soudan,
the defeats and disasters of the campaign, the deaths of Generals
Gordon, Stewart, and Earle, together with wild rumours of an Arab
invasion of Egypt, excited Parliament to a state of high tension. The
Government called out the Reserves, announced that they would crush
the Mahdi, and ordered the war against Osman Digna to be renewed.
The Opposition in the last week of February brought forward a vote
of censure on the Ministerial policy in Egypt, calling on Ministers
to recognise British responsibility for Egypt and those parts of the
Soudan which were necessary for the security of Egypt. Mr. Gladstone
evaded any positive declaration of policy, and the Liberal party
spoke with two voices, some being for complete withdrawal from Egypt,
others being in favour of administering its affairs in the name of the
Khedive, but none being bold enough to advocate any permanent course of
action. The Ministry were saved from defeat by 302 votes to 288, and
this narrow majority was a warning of their coming doom.
A dispute then arose as to the plan adopted for rescuing Egypt from
a financial crisis. This plan was embodied in a convention with the
Powers and assented to by the Porte, by which a loan of £9,000,000
under International guarantee was advanced to Egypt to save her from
bankruptcy, in consideration of which the Powers agreed to suspend the
Law of Liquidation and cut down the interest on all Egyptian securities
by 5 per cent. That on the Suez Bonds payable to the English Government
was, however, reduced by 10 per cent. The arrangement was to last for
two years, and if Egypt was still bankrupt in 1887, then her affairs
would be subject to an International inquiry. No care had been taken
to prevent the International guarantee of the loan carrying with it
the right of International intervention in Egypt, though Ministers
repudiated the suggestion that it did. The Convention was, however,
approved by the House of Commons by a vote of 294 to 246. Soon after
this the diplomatic hostility of France, Russia, and Germany, caused
Mr. Gladstone’s Government suddenly to limit their responsibilities in
Egypt. Operations in the Red Sea were countermanded, the Suakim-Berber
railway was stopped, and it was decided to abandon Dongola and fix the
Egyptian frontier at Wady-Halfa. Mr. Gladstone, or rather Lord Derby
and Lord Granville, had produced the diplomatic isolation of England
at a most inconvenient moment, when a dispute with Russia over the
Afghan boundary reached a critical stage. The negotiations for settling
the boundary had been delayed because the Russian Commissioners under
various pretexts avoided meeting Sir Peter Lumsden, the British
Commissioner, on the frontier. Meanwhile Russian troops were stealthily
advancing and taking possession of the debateable land. English
protests against these tactics ended in an announcement from Mr.
Gladstone, on the 13th of March, that it had been agreed by Russia that
no further advances should be made on either side--the Russians having
then occupied Zulficar and Pul-i-Khisti, and entrenched themselves
near Penjdeh. Early in April it seemed that the Russian General
(Komaroff) on the Kushk, in defiance of the agreement, took Penjdeh.
This was resented by Mr. Gladstone as an “unprovoked aggression” on
the Ameer, and a violation of a binding pledge to the English Foreign
Office. The Government, therefore, called out the Reserves, and asked
and received a Vote of Credit for £11,000,000 sterling (27th of April),
to enable them to defend the interests and honour of the country
against Muscovite perfidy.[206] Mr. Gladstone’s passionate outburst of
patriotism, in which he declared that till the aggression at Penjdeh
were atoned for he could not “close the book and say we will not look
into it any more,” silenced criticism. He was fortunate enough also to
carry a large vote of credit for the Egyptian account through the House
on the tide of excitement he had raised in asking for the vote against
Russia. But his hot fit was soon succeeded by a cool one. He agreed to
“close the book” in terms of a compromise by which Russia was permitted
to hold all that she had furtively seized, pending a delimitation to
be effected in London,[207] the understanding being, however, that
Russia would surrender Zulficar to the Ameer. As to Komaroff’s attack
on Penjdeh, Russia agreed to submit to the arbitration of the King of
Denmark the question whether it constituted a breach of the agreement
announced by Mr. Gladstone on the 13th of March, but the inquiry was to
be conducted so as “not to place gallant officers on their trial.” The
only gratifying incidents in this painful transaction were the generous
offers of armed support that were made to England by her autonomous
colonies, and by the princes and peoples of India.
It was admitted by Mr. Gladstone that only non-contentious legislation
could be taken during the Session. Still, he made one exception. He
announced that he intended to renew certain “valuable and equitable
provisions of the Irish Crimes Act.” This decision arrived at, after
much discussion in the Cabinet, hurried the Ministry to their fate.
The Parnellites privately obtained assurances from some of their
influential Tory allies that if the Irish votes were so cast as to
destroy Mr. Gladstone’s Government, the Tory Government that came after
it would allow the Crimes Act to lapse, and would abandon Coercion. The
Tory leaders, according to Lord Randolph Churchill, met and resolved
to oppose any proposal to renew the Crimes Act or continue coercive
legislation for Ireland.[208] But it was desirable for them to avoid
the too open manifestation of their alliance with the Parnellites on
a question of supporting the Government in upholding law and order
in Ireland. Now that the Coalition was ready to strike, a side issue
had to be discovered on which united action might be taken without
scandal. This was furnished by Mr. Childers. It happened that, after
Whitsuntide, the Cabinet was wrangling over something else besides
Coercion--namely, the Budget--and the financial situation was not, it
must be confessed, a pleasant one. A violent popular agitation in the
autumn against the Admiralty, had produced a panic about the weakness
of the Navy.[209] Lord Northbrook had then promised to make important
additions to the Navy. Some steps were also to be taken to protect
British coaling stations abroad--and all this helped to increase the
Estimates. The Vote of Credit of £11,000,000 aggravated Mr. Childers’
difficulties. He had, in short, to face a deficit of a million in
his accounts for 1884-85, and, with a falling revenue, an expenditure
in the coming year of £100,000,000! The country remembering Mr.
Gladstone’s furious denunciations of Lord Beaconsfield’s administration
for running up public expenditure to £81,000,000 in 1879-80, was
profoundly chagrined to find that under an economic Liberal Government,
expenditure had been run up in 1885 to £100,000,000. The discussions in
the Cabinet as to how the money should be raised ended in the adoption
of the principle that Labour as well as Property must share the
burden. Mr. Childers, therefore, raised the Income Tax to 8d. in the
£, equalised the death duties on land and personal property, putting a
special tax on Corporations instead of succession duty, and imposed a
stamp duty on moveable securities. These changes, he explained in his
Budget speech (April 30th), would
[Illustration: THE QUEEN IN HER STATE ROBES (1887).
(_From the Photograph by Walery, Regent Street._)]
[Illustration: MR. GLADSTONE.
(_From a Photograph by Elliott and Fry._)]
bring him in £6,000,000 of fresh revenue. By adding two shillings a
gallon to the duty on spirits, and a shilling a barrel to the duty
on beer, he expected to obtain £1,650,000. But this still left him
with a deficit of £15,000,000 to meet. He took £4,600,000 from the
Sinking Fund to meet it--leaving a balance of £3,000,000 to be paid
out of the annual revenue. The landed gentry attacked the Budget
because it levelled up the succession duties on land till they were
equal to those on personal property. The liquor trade attacked the
changes in the duties on spirits and beer--so that an excellent
opportunity had arisen for the Tory-Parnellite coalition to deal a
fatal blow at the Government on another issue than that of continuing
Coercion. Mr. Childers finding that only £9,000,000 of the Vote of
Credit (£11,000,000) would be needed, offered to halve the increase
on the spirit duty, and limit the increased beer duty to a year--but
without avail. Sir M. Hicks-Beach moved an amendment which united all
the forces of the Opposition and the Parnellites, and defeated the
Ministry on the 8th of June, by a vote of 264 to 252. Lord Randolph
Churchill’s[210] speech at Bow on the 3rd of June, was taken as a good
guarantee that the Irish Party need not fear a Coercion Bill from the
Tories if they got into office. “But,” writes Mr. T. P. O’Connor, “even
with so strong an assumption the cautious and realistic leader of the
Irish Party was not satisfied; and the Irish Members did not go into
the Lobby to vote against a Liberal Ministry about to propose coercion
until there was an assurance, definite, distinct, unmistakable, that
there would be no coercion from their successors.” The scene when
the numbers were announced will never be forgotten by those who were
present. When it was known that the Government was defeated, the
pent-up excitement of the House found vent in a terrific uproar. “Lord
Randolph Churchill,” writes Mr. Lucy, “leapt on to the bench, and,
waving his hat madly above his head, uproariously cheered. Mr. Healy
followed his example, and presently all the Irish members, and nearly
all the Conservatives below the gangway, were standing on the benches
waving hats and pocket-handkerchiefs and raising a deafening cheer.
This was renewed when the figures were read out by Mr. Winn, and again
when they were proclaimed from the Chair. From the Irish camp rose
cries of ‘Buckshot! Buckshot!’ and ‘Coercion!’ These had no relevancy
to the Budget Scheme; but they showed that the Irish members had not
forgotten Mr. Forster, and that this was their hour of victory rather
than the triumph of the Tories. Lord Randolph Churchill threatened
to go mad with joy. He wrung the hand of the impassive Rowland Winn,
who regarded him with a kindly curious smile, as if he were some wild
animal. Mr. Gladstone had resumed his letter,[211] and went on calmly
writing whilst the clerk at the table proceeded to run through the
Orders of the Day as if nothing particular had happened. But the House
was in no mood for business. Cries for the adjournment filled the
House, and Mr. Gladstone, still holding his letter in one hand and the
pen in the other, moved the adjournment, and the crowd surged through
the doorway, the Conservatives still tumultuously cheering.”[212]
On the following day (9th of June) Mr. Gladstone told the House that
the defeat of the previous evening had caused the Cabinet to submit “a
dutiful communication” to the Queen, then at Balmoral, but as an answer
to it must take some time to reach London, he moved an adjournment
till Friday (12th of June). Strangely enough, the resignation of the
Ministry was unattended by any popular excitement. It was perfectly
well known that the new Cabinet would be merely a stopgap Government,
powerless to do anything except wind up the business of Parliament
before the General Election. On the 12th of June the House was in
quite a cheerful humour when it met to hear from Mr. Gladstone that
the Queen had accepted the resignation of his Cabinet. It was curious
that even this last act of his Ministerial life in the Parliament of
1880-85 was not free from blunder. “Her Majesty’s gracious reply,” said
Mr. Gladstone, “was made upon the 11th accepting the resignation of
_Lord Salisbury_” a slip of the tongue which the Premier had to correct
amidst shouts of laughter. At first the Queen was unwilling to accept
the resignation of the Government. She could not admit that Ministers
were free to throw the State into confusion because of a defeat on
an Amendment to a Budget. In fact, it is not quite Constitutional to
coerce the free judgment of the Commons on the financial proposals
of Government by threatening Ministerial resignation if these are
not slavishly accepted in detail. Such a practice virtually ties the
hands of the House of Commons as guardians of the public purse. The
Queen, therefore, sought a personal interview with Mr. Gladstone, to
hear his full justification for the course he had adopted, but on his
instructing Lord Hartington to proceed to Balmoral, her Majesty’s
request was withdrawn. It now became apparent to her that the crisis
was too serious to be dealt with from Balmoral. In the last weeks
of the Session Parliamentary time was so valuable that it could not
prudently be wasted over a stagnant interregnum protracted by the
journeyings to and fro of Royal couriers between Aberdeenshire and
London. It was accordingly announced that the Queen would return
to Windsor at once--following the course she adopted in 1866, when
confronted with a similar inconvenience. Her Majesty arrived at
Windsor on the 17th of June, when Lord Salisbury had an interview
with her. On the following day he and Mr. Gladstone both waited on
the Sovereign--Mr. Gladstone delivering up the seals of office. There
was, however, a difficulty to be overcome in the transfer of power
which had been created by a tactical blunder of Lord Salisbury’s.
He had told the Queen that if he took office he must exact from Mr.
Gladstone a pledge that the Opposition would not embarrass her new
Ministry by attacks, but loyally co-operate with it in the conduct of
its business. Mr. Gladstone refused to waive his right of criticism,
and he pointed out that he could not, even if he tried, arbitrarily
dispose of the will of his supporters. All he could promise was that
he would endeavour to give the new Cabinet “fair play,” and deal with
it on its merits. But Lord Salisbury was not at first satisfied with
this arrangement, and the country was soon startled by hearing that he
had revived the crisis, and that even at the eleventh hour he would
withdraw his consent to serve as Premier. The Queen here intervened and
persuaded him to abandon his pragmatic objections to Mr. Gladstone’s
assurances.[213]
The Ministry was formed after some fierce struggles in the Tory
Party. Lord Randolph Churchill and his group not only insisted on
having high offices, but they demanded the expulsion of Sir Stafford
Northcote from the leadership of the House of Commons. Sir M.
Hicks-Beach deserted his old chief, and not only went over to his
enemies, but even offered himself as a candidate for his vacant post.
The result was that Lord Salisbury became Premier and Secretary for
Foreign Affairs, Sir Stafford Northcote became Earl of Iddesleigh,
and was appointed First Lord of the Treasury. Sir Hardinge Giffard
was made Lord Chancellor; Lord Cranbrook, President of the Council;
Lord Harrowby, Lord Privy Seal; Sir Richard Cross, Home Secretary;
the Duke of Richmond, President of the Board of Trade; Colonel
Stanley, Colonial Secretary; Lord Randolph Churchill, Secretary of
State for India; Mr. W. H. Smith, Secretary of State for War; Sir
M. Hicks-Beach, Chancellor of the Exchequer and Leader of the House
of Commons; Lord Carnarvon, Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland; Lord John
Manners, Postmaster-General; Lord George Hamilton, First Lord of the
Admiralty; Mr. E. Stanhope, Vice-President of the Council of Education;
Mr. A. J. Balfour, President of the Local Government Board; Sir W.
Hart Dyke, Chief Secretary for Ireland; Mr. Ashmead Bartlett, a Civil
Lord of the Admiralty; Mr. Webster and Mr. J. E. Gorst, Attorney-and
Solicitor-General. Sir H. D. Wolff was sent on a special mission for
no very well-defined purpose to Egypt, so that every member of the
Fourth Party, who had organised the obstructive alliance between the
Parnellites and the Tories, was handsomely rewarded with remunerative
places. Sir H. D. Wolff’s appointment was severely criticised at the
time, partly because of his intimate connection with the Anglo-Egyptian
Bank. The only other striking incident in the crisis was that Mr.
Gladstone was offered an earldom by the Queen--an honour which,
however, he declined.[214]
[Illustration: DRAWING-ROOM IN BUCKINGHAM PALACE.]
Very soon after Ministers took office Mr. Parnell exacted his price,
and they had to pay it. The Crimes Act was abandoned. It was announced
that the Irish Labourers’ Act would be pressed on. Lord Ashbourne[215]
promised to bring in a Land Purchase Bill. The Maamtrasna murders,
and the cases of those condemned on account of them, were to be
reconsidered--a somewhat momentous decision, for Lord Spencer’s
refusal to revise the sentence in these cases had been upheld by both
Parties as a crucial point in the policy of maintaining law and order
in Ireland. When the Government threw over Lord Spencer, and not only
refused to defend him from Mr. Parnell’s attacks, but through Lord
Randolph Churchill disparaged his resolute Irish policy, it was clear
that great Party changes were impending. Obviously no English Minister
could again feel confident in governing Ireland with a firm and
dauntless hand, after the Tories had flung Lord Spencer to the lions
of Nationalism. Supported by Mr. Parnell and his followers, Ministers
had no difficulty in hurrying through Supply. The Budget was revised
in terms of the decision of the 9th of June, and Lord George Hamilton
discovered a gross blunder in the accounts at the Admiralty, where Lord
Northbrook had spent £900,000--part of the Vote of Credit--in excess of
his estimates without having the faintest suspicion that he was doing
anything of the sort.[216] Lord Ashbourne’s Land Bill stipulated that
when all the money was advanced by the State to the purchasing tenants,
one-fifth of it should be retained by the Land Commission till the
instalments were repaid. The Scottish Sanitary Bill passed. So did a
Bill brought in by Lord Salisbury to embody the non-contentious points
of the recommendations of the Commission on Housing the Poor. A Bill
was also passed to relieve electors from disqualification on the ground
that they had obtained Poor Law medical relief, and the Session closed
with the demoralisation of parties on the 14th of August.
No event in 1885 gave the Queen more concern than the failure of Lord
Wolseley’s attempt to relieve Khartoum. The story of General Gordon’s
mission to the Soudan has already been partially told. It was on the
18th of January, 1884, that he was instructed by the Cabinet to proceed
to Khartoum to extricate the beleaguered garrisons. He writes, “It
cannot be said I was ordered to go. The subject was too complex for
any order. It was, ‘Will you go and try?’ and my answer was ‘Only too
delighted.’”[217] The truth is that Gordon doubted whether 20,000
Egyptian troops and colonists could be got out of the Soudan by a
process of pacific evacuation. Still, if any one might achieve the
feat he could, and to please the Government, he consented to “go and
try.” His and their idea was that by restoring the old native families
to power he might buy a safe-conduct for the garrisons. On the 8th of
February, when he arrived at Abu Hamed, he found that the country was
less disorganised than he had supposed it to be when discussing its
prospects with Cabinet Ministers in London. Therefore he suggested that
a light suzerainty should be exercised over the Soudan, for a time
at least, by the Khedive’s officers. This conviction grew stronger
when he reached Berber. He then said that his mission could not be
carried out with credit to England unless some form of government less
heterogeneous than that of the native chiefs were established, in place
of the Egyptian administration which he was sent to withdraw. Hence,
he suggested that Zebehr Pasha should be appointed Ruler of the Soudan
under certain conditions, and he chose Zebehr because he was not such
an atrocious slave-trader as the Mahdi; because he might be more easily
curbed, and because his high descent from the Abbasides enabled him
to exercise real authority over the Soudanese. Sir Evelyn Baring and
Nubar Pasha agreed with Gordon. So did Lord Wolseley. Mr. Gladstone and
Lord Kimberley too, though they had no love for Zebehr, thought that
Gordon’s opinion ought to be deferred to, but Lord Hartington only gave
them a feeble, half-hearted support, and Lord Granville’s opposition to
Gordon’s policy carried the Cabinet against Mr. Gladstone. Hence Zebehr
was not sent. Zebehr naturally took this decision of the Cabinet as
an insult, and forthwith, opened up a treasonable correspondence with
the Mahdi, the discovery of which led to his arrest and deportation to
Gibraltar on the 14th of March, 1885.
After the refusal to send Zebehr to the Soudan, the Government seem
to have treated Gordon as if they desired to provoke him to take the
bit in his mouth, and in a fit of indignation leave Khartoum without
definite orders. Had he done so Ministers could have successfully
argued that having deserted his post without authority, they were
no longer responsible for him. This game was keenly played between
Gordon at Khartoum and Mr. Gladstone’s Cabinet in London, aided by the
Egyptian Government and its English advisers, Egerton and Baring, at
Cairo. But every point in it was won by Gordon, who in March warned
Egerton and Baring that they must decide quickly, for the sands were
running fast in the hour-glass. He also put in their hands a plan for
getting the Government out of the difficulty without sending a relief
expedition. He had not at that time so far committed the people at
Khartoum against the Mahdi that it would be dangerous to leave them
to make terms with the False Prophet. He had to prevent his armed
steamers from falling into the Mahdi’s hands, and Khartoum from being
utilised as a base of operations against Lower Egypt. He therefore told
the Government that if they held Berber, and accepted his proposal as
to Zebehr, it was worth while to keep him (Gordon) at Khartoum. But
if not, then he warned his masters that it was useless to hold on to
Khartoum, for, he wrote, “it is impossible for me to help the other
garrisons, and I shall only be sacrificing the whole of the troops and
_employés_ here. In the latter case your order to me had better be
to evacuate Khartoum.” On receipt of that order he proposed to send
his intrepid lieutenant, Colonel Stewart, and the fugitives who wished
to return to Egypt, down the Nile to Berber. He himself, and as many
of his black troops as would go with him, were then to take the armed
steamers, and the munitions of war from the arsenal of Khartoum, and
make their escape southwards up the White Nile. He guaranteed, in that
event, to hold the Bahr Gazelle country and Equatorial regions against
the slave-traders, and pin the Mahdi in Khartoum by organising a negro
State in his rear, which, like the Congo Free State, he suggested might
be put under Belgian protection. But he warned the Government that if
this plan were to be attempted he must get the order to quit Khartoum
at once, for in a few days the way of retreat to Berber would be
closed. The order never came. In fact, the only order he got from his
superiors at this time, was to hold on to Khartoum till further notice.
Had the instructions which he asked for been sent, there would have
been no Nile Expedition with its many disasters, including the fall of
Khartoum, and the massacre of its inhabitants.[218]
The tardy resolution to send a Relief Expedition to Khartoum has
already been alluded to. On the 16th of December, 1884, Lord Wolseley
joined the camp which had been pitched at Korti by Brigadier-General
Sir Herbert Stewart, and received intelligence from Gordon, informing
him that four steamers with their guns were waiting for the expedition
at Metamneh, and that Khartoum could hold out with ease for forty
days after the date of the letter (November 4th). It was not till the
30th of December that Stewart was able to dash into the desert with
the Camel Corps to seize the wells of Gakdul. On the 31st a message
from Gordon, dated the 29th of October, arrived, showing that Khartoum
still held out, but that he was in dire straits, and, on the 1st of
January, 1885, the first boats with the Black Watch reached Korti. On
the 3rd General Earle left to join his force which was proceeding up
the river to Berber. On the 5th the Naval Brigade arrived, and Sir
Herbert Stewart returned from Gakdul. On the 8th he began his march
across the Bayuda Desert with a motley force of 120 officers and 1,900
men. The Mahdi, on hearing of the occupation of Gakdul on the 2nd of
January, resolved to crush Stewart’s force at the end of its Desert
march, and Lord Wolseley’s eccentric tactics gave him thirteen clear
days in which to concentrate his forces at Abu Klea, where he barred
the way to Metamneh.[219] It was not till the 16th of January that
Stewart got touch of the enemy at Abu Klea. During the night our men
were harassed by the Arab sharp-shooters, and next day Stewart was
artfully drawn into a difficult position, and forced to march out in
square formation and give his antagonist battle. When our skirmishers
were within 200 yards of the enemy’s flags, the square was halted to
let its rear close up. Then, to the amazement of everybody, the Arabs
sprang forth from the ravine where they had been hiding, as Roderick
Dhu’s warriors rose from the heather. Stewart’s skirmishers ran back in
hot haste. The Arabs charged furiously, and, when slightly checked at a
distance of about 80 yards, they suddenly swept round to the right and
broke the rear face and angle of the British square. For a moment there
was dreadful confusion, and had the camels not checked the Arab onset
Stewart’s force would have been annihilated, like the army of Hicks
Pasha at El Obeid. However, the enemy were beaten back with great loss
of life, and the day was saved. It was in this affray that Colonel Fred
Burnaby lost his life. The square was broken first, because the Gardner
gun at the corner jammed, and was useless after the tenth round;
secondly, because General Stewart foolishly trusted cavalry men and
seamen to hold the exposed angles;[220] thirdly, because the cartridges
of some of the rifles jammed, and shook the soldier’s confidence in his
weapon.
Stewart’s losses, especially in camels, were so heavy that his first
idea was to halt at Abu Klea for reinforcements. But he decided to push
on, even at the risk of leaving his wounded behind him. The wells of
Abu Klea were occupied, and it was then ascertained that the 10,000
Arabs who had been defeated, were but the advanced guard of a great
army near Metamneh. Papers were discovered, among which was a letter
from the Emir of Berber to the Mahdi, showing that Stewart’s occupation
of Gakdul had caused the concentration of the Arabs in force at Abu
Klea. The expedition was thus at the outset marred by a fatal blunder
in generalship. If Stewart had gone straight across the Bayuda Desert,
without wasting time at Gakdul, he would have had no enemy barring his
path to Metamneh. By letting the Mahdi’s troops concentrate at Abu
Klea, he met with the check that delayed his progress till it was too
late to save Khartoum.[221]
On the 18th of January Stewart made a forced night march towards the
Nile, which he hoped to strike three miles above Metamneh. His column
got into terrible disorder in the dark, for men and cattle were utterly
exhausted from hunger and want of sleep. At 7 a.m. it came within
sight of Metamneh--men and horses and camels being scarcely able to
walk. It was resolved to rest for breakfast before attacking the town,
but the Arabs closed round Stewart’s zareba, and poured in a dropping
fire, which did serious execution. At 10.15 a.m. Stewart himself was
shot, and the command was assumed by Sir Charles Wilson, Chief of the
Intelligence Department, who happened to be the senior colonel on the
field. Sir Charles Wilson, though an officer in the Royal Engineers,
was really a scholar and diplomatist who had spent most of his life
in civil employment. Still, he did not shrink from the task which
an unforeseen accident imposed on him. He undertook the strategic
direction of the column, but prudently handed over the tactical control
to Colonel Boscawen of the Guards. Having fortified the zareba, Wilson
quickly formed his main body into a square, and determined to make
a dash for the Nile. Had he not ventured on this perilous step, the
whole column must have perished from thirst. Every inch of the way had
to be contested, but happily Wilson’s frigid temperament seemed to
have in some degree communicated itself to his men. Hence, the same
troops who at Abu Klea under Stewart’s showy but exciting leadership
got out of hand and fired wildly, were soon calm and steady, and held
in complete check by their officers. They had not proceeded far when
swarms of Arabs, as at Abu Klea, charged down upon the square from a
ridge at a place known as Abu Kru. At first Wilson’s troops began to
fire at random as at Abu Klea, and no shot told. Then he ordered the
bugles to sound “Cease firing,” and the officers coolly kept the men
at rest for five minutes, which steadied their nerves. By this time
the enemy had come within 300 yards of the square, from which volley
after volley was now suddenly poured forth, and with such deliberation
that the Arab spearmen turned and fled, not one of them getting within
fifty yards of Wilson’s position. This is the only instance where
British troops in the Soudan won a complete victory without being
themselves touched by sword or spear. The square now hastened on to
the river, and camped for the night. Next day (20th) they carried
water to their wounded comrades in the zareba. They then conveyed them
down to the camp by the Nile,[222] where they found some of Gordon’s
steamers waiting for them. Wilson’s force was now in a sorry plight,
and before he took command discontent was smouldering in its ranks. It
had been kept toiling and fighting for four days with little food and
less sleep. It had lost in killed and wounded one-tenth of its number.
And now with its General disabled, it found itself encumbered by a
heavy train of wounded, without means of communication with its base,
menaced by a formidable fortress, and assured that two great armies
were closing on it from Berber and Khartoum. Little wonder that the
soldiers murmured sulkily that they had been led into a trap. Wilson’s
orders were, that on arriving at the river he must proceed to Khartoum
with a small detachment, the mere exhibition of whose red coats Lord
Wolseley imagined would cause the Mahdi to raise the siege. But Wilson
was not to let his men even sleep in Khartoum, and he was only to
stay there long enough to confer with Gordon! In plain English, Lord
Wolseley ordered him to march twenty or thirty men into Khartoum and
come away again, after telling Gordon, who was every day awaiting his
doom, that he must expect no effective succour till far on in March.
Wilson, however, resolved, like a loyal commander, not to desert his
comrades until he had seen them safely entrenched--and till he had, by
reconnoitring, allayed their dread of an attack from Berber. The Naval
Brigade was so disabled that he was forced to use Gordon’s crews for
the steamers, and, in obedience to Gordon’s instructions, he had to
weed out of these crews all untrustworthy Egyptians. He had also to
reconnoitre the fortress of Metamneh.
This work kept Wilson busy till the 24th of January, when he proceeded
up the Nile, arriving on the 28th of January within a mile and a half
of Khartoum. He found that the city had fallen on the 26th, when the
Buri gate had been opened by treachery to the Mahdi’s troops, who
had rushed in and made the streets of the doomed town run red with
blood. Gordon it seems was killed, on refusing to surrender, by a
small party of Baggarahs, who met him coming out of his palace. While
reconnoitring Khartoum, Wilson’s two steamers were so hotly engaged
with the enemy’s batteries that he was forced to turn back.[223] On the
return voyage he adroitly foiled the plans of some of his followers who
attempted to betray him to the Mahdi, but unfortunately his steamers
were wrecked, it is supposed, by the treachery of his pilots. He
was, however, rescued by Lord Charles Beresford in one of the armed
vessels from Gubat, to which Wilson brought back his party without loss
of life.[224] Wilson found his force in safety, but sadly depressed
because they had heard nothing from headquarters. He immediately
proceeded thither in terms of his instructions, to report the fall of
Khartoum to Lord Wolseley, and urge him to relieve Gubat without delay.
[Illustration: MAP OF THE WAR IN THE SOUDAN.]
Little need be said of the fall of Khartoum--the crowning disaster
of the campaign. Gordon’s Journals show how, alone and unaided, in
defending the city, during a siege that lasted 319 days, he kept at bay
the swarming hordes of the Mahdi. The romantic record of his life amply
illustrates his higher qualities--the chivalry and loyalty; the sweet,
gentle manners, the kindliness of heart, the stainless honour, the
infinite self-abnegation, the patient endurance, the stubborn valour,
the natural and acquired military skill that made him
“A soldier fit to stand by Cæsar
And give direction.”
His Khartoum “Journals” show more than that. They prove that from first
to last through the long series of transactions that led up to the fall
of the city, Gordon was the only man who kept his head cool, who acted
from firm set purpose, who was not afraid to look on the facts with
naked eyes, whose inexhaustible ingenuity in dealing practically with
every fresh difficulty as it arose never failed him or his masters,
and whose shrewd and sagacious prevision was never once ignored, save
at the cost of cruel suffering to those who refused his guidance.[225]
Valour and virtue such as his can indeed “outbuild the Pyramids.” Of
the millions of English men and English women, who mourned over the
heroic defender of Khartoum, none grieved more bitterly for his loss
than the Queen. To his sister she wrote as follows:--
“Osborne, 17th February, 1885.
“DEAR MISS GORDON,--_How_ shall I write to you, or how shall I attempt
to express _what I feel_! To _think_ of your dear, noble, heroic
Brother, who served his country and his Queen so truly, so heroically,
with a self-sacrifice so edifying to the world, not having been
rescued. That the promises of support were not fulfilled--which I so
frequently and constantly pressed on those who asked him to go--is to
me _grief inexpressible_!--indeed, it has made me ill! My heart bleeds
for you, his Sister, who have gone through so many anxieties on his
account, and who loved the dear Brother as he deserved to be. You are
all so good and trustful, and have such strong faith, that you will be
sustained even now, when real absolute evidence of your dear Brother’s
death does not exist--but I fear there cannot be much doubt of it.
Some day I hope to see you again to tell you all I cannot express. My
daughter Beatrice, who has felt quite as I do, wishes me to express her
deepest sympathy with you. I hear so many expressions of sorrow and
sympathy from _abroad_; from my eldest daughter, the Crown Princess,
and from my Cousin, the King of the Belgians, the very warmest. Would
you express to your other Sisters and your elder Brother my true
sympathy, and what I do so keenly feel--the _stain_ left upon England
for your dear Brother’s cruel, though heroic, fate!--Ever, dear Miss
Gordon, yours sincerely and sympathisingly,
“V.R.I.”[226]
After Gordon’s death public interest in the “sad Soudan” slowly faded.
The River Column under General Earle’s skilful guidance had won a
brilliant little victory at Kirbekan, where, however, its gallant
leader lost his life. He was succeeded by General Brackenbury, who
ascended the river steadily to Abu Hamed. Suddenly, however, Lord
Wolseley ordered both columns to retreat on Korti, and hold Dongola
till his autumn campaign of vengeance against the Mahdi could be
undertaken. Meanwhile, General Graham, with 9,000 men, and an Indian
and Australian Contingent,[227] was to drive back Osman Digna at
Suakin, and lay a railway from that port to Berber. Graham defeated
the Arabs in several engagements, though in one of them the skill with
which the Arabs surprised a zareba almost reproduced the disaster of
Isandhlwana. But the dispute with Russia afforded a plausible excuse
for freeing England from the incubus of the Soudan, and in April Lord
Wolseley evacuated Dongola and fell back on the line of Wady Halfa.
The Suakin railway was abandoned, and when Lord Salisbury’s Government
took office they, too, adhered to the policy of evacuation. The Mahdi
died. Osman Digna became entangled in hostilities with the Abyssinian
Ras Alula, who attempted to raise the siege of Kassala, and for a time
it seemed as if all fears of disturbances on the Egyptian frontier were
dispelled. Towards the end of the year, however, the Arabs attacked an
advanced post beyond Assouan, where they were skilfully repulsed by
General Stephenson at the battle of Kosheh.
Turning to the social events of 1885, the most remarkable was the
sudden announcement on New Year’s Day of the betrothal of the
Princess Beatrice to Prince Henry of Battenberg, the younger brother
of Prince Louis, the husband of the Princess’s niece--Victoria of
Hesse. For fourteen years the Princess Beatrice had been the close
companion of the Queen, and their lives had in time become so closely
intertwined that a separation could hardly be contemplated by either
with equanimity. It was therefore quite natural that Prince Henry of
Battenberg, whose fortune was hardly adequate to the maintenance of a
separate establishment, should permit intimation to be made that he was
to live with the Princess in attendance on the Queen. The announcement
of the marriage was as surprising to the Royal Family as it was to the
people. In the country the old prejudice against the marriage of a
Princess who claimed a dowry from the State, with a person outside the
Royal caste speedily manifested itself. Indeed, the feeling against
the arrangement was even stronger than that which prevailed when the
Princess Louise married the Marquis of Lorne. After all, the latter was
the son of a great noble on whose birth no stain of ambiguity rested.
Prince Henry of Battenberg, on the other hand, was the offspring of
a “morganatic” marriage between Prince Alexander of Hesse and the
Countess Hauke, the granddaughter of a Polish Jew, who had entered the
service of the Hessian Court in a very subordinate capacity. It was
difficult to get the populace to understand that a morganatic marriage
was in a certain sense a legal union--not void, though possibly under
pressure of State exigencies voidable by the Royal husband--that in
fact there was nothing disreputable in such an alliance, save in the
sense in which it is considered a social offence for a great noble
to marry his mother’s scullery-maid. The hostility of the German
Crown Princess and the Court of Berlin to the connection did much to
create an erroneous impression in England as to the status of Prince
Henry. The Prince’s lack of fortune did not redeem his lack of social
position--and it was most unfortunate that his nearest connection with
Royalty was through his cousin the Grand Duke of Hesse. For the divorce
suit raised by the Grand Duke against the Countess de Kalomine, a lady
whom he had “morganatically” married in secret on the very night when
his daughter, the Princess Victoria, was wedded to Prince Louis of
Battenberg, had rendered his family extremely unpopular in England.
That some friction had been created in the Royal Family by the
unexpected introduction of Prince Henry to its circle was soon made
manifest. When Prince Albert Victor of Wales, the Heir-Presumptive
to the Throne, came of age on the 8th of January, neither the Queen,
nor the Princess Beatrice, nor Prince Henry of Battenberg--then
at Osborne--graced with their presence the joyous celebrations at
Sandringham, which were attended by all the other members of the Royal
Family. It was also remarked that Prince Henry left England without
receiving the congratulations of the Prince of Wales on his betrothal.
At a Privy Council, which the Queen held at Osborne on the 26th of
January, her Majesty’s formal consent to her daughter’s marriage was
given.
Preparations had been made early in March for the Queen’s Easter visit
to Darmstadt, but owing to the death of Princess Charles of Hesse,
mother of the Grand Duke, her Majesty’s arrangements were altered,
and it was decided that she should visit Aix-les-Bains first and take
Darmstadt on the return journey. Her Majesty left Windsor on the last
day of March for the Villa Mottet, a charming residence in the grounds
of the Hôtel de l’Europe, Aix-les-Bains, while the Prince and Princess
of Wales spent their Easter in paying a State visit to Ireland. The
Queen’s holiday was sadly broken by the diplomatic controversy with
Russia as to the Afghan frontier. Piles of despatch-boxes were given
to her when she started, and as many as fifty telegraphic messages
a day in cipher were sent to her and answered. Before proceeding
to Darmstadt, her Majesty, who had been using her influence with
the German Court in order to induce Russia to accept an honourable
compromise, offered to return to Windsor if Ministers desired her
presence. Mr. Gladstone was not of opinion that this sacrifice was
necessary, and on the 23rd of April she accordingly proceeded to
Darmstadt, where she again occupied the new Palace on the Platz which
had been built for the Princess Alice. At this time her Majesty was
much grieved at the reckless and bellicose tone of London Society.
She was so anxious to counteract it that the Prince of Wales, knowing
her feeling on the subject, was supposed to have dropped some hints
at Marlborough House which suddenly imparted quite a pacific tone to
the fire-eaters of Piccadilly. Couriers passed so frequently between
the Queen and the German Emperor, who with the Crown Prince gave her
Majesty much sympathetic aid and counsel throughout the crisis, that
the German Press were alarmed lest the Emperor was about to intervene
as a mediator between Russia and England. A war between the two nations
would have been extremely inconvenient to the Royal Family--in fact,
it had been arranged in anticipation of such a calamity that the Duke
and Duchess of Edinburgh must break up their establishment in England,
and retire to Coburg. Another circumstance forced a pacific policy on
the Court. The Duke of Edinburgh had not concealed from the Sovereign
the fact that the Fleet was effective solely on paper. Indeed, had
Admiral Hoskins, who was ordered to hold himself in readiness to
proceed with his squadron to the Baltic, attempted to carry out his
instructions, he would have found himself paralysed, simply because he
had neither efficient guns nor transport. On the 2nd of May the Queen,
returned to Windsor, where she held an anxious consultation with Lord
Granville next day. On the 12th of May her Majesty held a Drawing Room
at Buckingham Palace, but as on previous occasions, she stayed only
a short time, leaving the Princess of Wales as usual to complete the
function.
On the 14th of May, Mr. Gladstone carried a resolution in the House
of Commons that an annuity of £6,000 a year should be granted to the
Princess Beatrice on her marriage; and, by way of conciliating the
House, promised that in the next Parliament a Committee would be
appointed to consider the plan on which what he called “secondary
provisions” for the younger members of the Royal Family, should be
made.[228] The proposed annuity was opposed on the old ground that the
Queen was rich enough to support her own family, and Mr. Labouchere
argued that as she never had a right to the hereditary revenues of the
Crown, the plea that she had given up her income for a Civil List was
invalid. But it is certain that in the Royal Speech, at the opening
of Parliament in 1837 the Queen said, “I place unreservedly at your
disposal those hereditary revenues which were transferred to the public
by my immediate predecessor,” and in the Address the Queen was then not
only thanked for her generosity, but promised an adequate Civil List in
return. It was also forgotten that at least four impecunious princely
families--those of the Duke of Albany, Prince Louis, Prince Henry of
Battenberg, and Prince Christian--must be a charge on the private
income of the Queen.[229]
On the 22nd of May the Court went to Balmoral. The Russian dispute was
now compromised, so that the Queen was able to thoroughly enjoy her
Highland visit. She spent much of her time in the cottages and homes
of the peasantry, to whom she was unusually lavish this year with
gifts commemorating her birthday. When she arrived she found that the
celebrated cradle and rope bridge over the Dee at Abergeldie--which
most of the Royal personages in Europe had used at different times--was
removed, and replaced by a substantial footbridge which had been
put up at her expense. But the fall of Mr. Gladstone’s Government
shortened the Queen’s sojourn in Scotland, and she had to return to
Windsor on the 17th of June. Complaints were made that she was absent
in Aberdeenshire when the Ministerial crisis occurred. But the crisis
was unexpected, and since the Prince Consort’s death the Queen has
always preferred Balmoral to Windsor during Ascot Race week. The death
of Prince Frederick Charles (the “Red Prince”) of Prussia, at the
comparatively early age of fifty-seven, deprived Germany of one of her
ablest military tacticians, and sent the English Court into mourning.
He was the father of the Duchess of Connaught, to whom he bequeathed a
large part of his vast wealth. By a strange blunder which gave infinite
annoyance to the Queen, not only did the Prince of Wales appear at
Ascot after the event, but her Majesty’s order that Court mourning
should begin on the 16th was not officially proclaimed till the 18th.
The Royal procession at Ascot on the afternoon of the “Red Prince’s”
death, caused much irritation at the Court of Berlin.
[Illustration: MARRIAGE OF THE PRINCESS BEATRICE.]
On the 9th the Court removed to Osborne--the Queen being desirous of
personally supervising the arrangements for the Princess Beatrice’s
marriage, which was to take place in Whippingham Parish Church. As
there was no precedent for a Royal marriage in a country parish church,
Sir Henry Ponsonby and the Court officials had considerable trouble
in ordering the ceremony. They were further perplexed by the various
instructions which day after day came from the Queen and the Princess.
On the 23rd of July the marriage was solemnised by the Archbishop of
Canterbury, the Bishop of Winchester, the Dean of Windsor, and Canon
Prothero, Vicar of Whippingham. The ceremony was one of demi-state
only; and, although the wedding procession was very pretty, especially
when seen in the golden light of a July day, it was not brilliant.
The nieces of the Princess Beatrice were her bridesmaids, and most of
her near relations were present. The family of Hesse-Darmstadt was
well represented; and, with the exception of Mr. Gladstone, most of
the leading personages in English Society were present. Yet somehow
the ceremony seemed to lack the courtly importance and dignity of
other Royal marriages, and the absence of the German Crown Prince
and Princess, who were not even represented by any of their family,
was only too noticeable. The German Emperor, who had been deeply
incensed by the de Kalomine scandal, had not yet been persuaded to
look kindly on the Court of Darmstadt; but the German Empress, on the
other hand, testified her interest in the bride by sending Princess
Beatrice a Dresden china clock and bracket as a wedding gift. After the
marriage the Queen conferred the Order of the Garter on Prince Henry
of Battenberg--adding one more to the already crowded companionship
of Royal Knights. This distinction had never before been given to a
foreign personage not a monarch _de facto_, or born in the Royal caste,
and there can be no doubt that the other Royal Knights of the family
would have considered the Order of the Bath a more suitable distinction
for Prince Henry.[230] It was also intimated in the _Gazette_ (July
24th, 1885) that Prince Henry would forthwith assume the title of Royal
Highness--a rank, however, which could not be conceded to him outside
of English territory.[231]
It is remarkable that no family objections were raised to the
recognition of Lady Augusta Lennox, who had long been married to Prince
Edward of Saxe-Weimar, as the Princess Edward. Till 1885 she had only
been received in Court as the Countess Dornburg, a title which had been
“created” for her on her marriage, in spite of her high social position
as daughter of the Duke of Richmond, to satisfy the exigencies of
German etiquette.
After the close of the Parliamentary Session, the Court went from
Osborne to Balmoral (August 25th), where the Princess Beatrice and
her husband received a warm Highland reception. Life at Balmoral
was somewhat dull, but in her walks and drives the Queen was now
accompanied by Prince Henry of Battenberg as well as the Princess
Beatrice. When not in attendance on the Queen, the Prince occasionally
found amusement in deerstalking in the Balloch Pine and Abergeldie
grounds. Her Majesty remained at Balmoral till the 18th of November,
when she returned to Windsor to hold a Council, at which she sanctioned
the dissolution of Parliament. On the 9th of December, accompanied
by the Princess Beatrice and Prince Henry of Battenberg, the Queen
presented medals for service in the Soudan to a number of Guardsmen at
Windsor. On the 18th of December she left Windsor for Osborne. It was
now plainly intimated to her Majesty that the royal rank and precedence
conferred on Prince Henry of Battenberg would not be recognised at
Berlin, Vienna, and St. Petersburg, the Courts at which capitals
insisted on treating the marriage of the Princess Beatrice as a purely
“morganatic” one. The difficulties which arose out of this incident
were further aggravated when the Queen permitted the Count and Countess
Gleichen to assume the rank and title of Prince and Princess Victor of
Hohenlohe-Langenberg.[232]
In the spring of 1885 a rebellion of French half-breeds in the Canadian
North-West, led by Riel, one of the pardoned insurgents who had been
engaged in the Red River rising, was suppressed with great skill and
ability by the Canadian Militia, under General Sir Frederick Middleton.
Riel was tried and hanged for treason.
The misrule of Theebaw, the half-crazy King of Burmah, together
with his intrigues with the French--then busy with the conquest of
Tonquin--led to disputes between the Indian and Burmese Governments.
The result was a war which ended in the deposition of King Theebaw and
the annexation of Upper Burmah to the Indian Empire.