ACCESSION TO THE THRONE.
It is not easy to realize that in the lifetime of our own fathers
and mothers there was in England a plot to change the succession and
secure the crown for the “wicked uncle,” to the exclusion of the
rightful heir. The whole story savors of romance, or at any rate of
a much earlier period in our history, when John Lackland or Richard
the Hunchback cheated their young nephews of crown and life. Yet the
evidence of history on this point is unmistakable. In 1835 a plot was
discovered and laid bare in Parliament, mainly by Joseph Hume, which
had for its aim to secure the crown for the Duke of Cumberland and set
aside the claims of Princess Victoria. The Duke, to do him justice,
does not seem to have supposed that his personal merits and attractions
would cause him to be made king by acclamation. But he appears to have
thought he could ride in on the top of a wave of fanaticism got up over
a No-popery cry. The passing of Catholic Emancipation in 1829 by the
Tory Government of the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel was not
accomplished without a great deal of real terror and misgiving that
this act of plain justice to their Roman Catholic fellow-subjects was
a breaking down of the barriers against Papal aggression, and that it
was merely a step towards undoing the work of the Reformation. Orange
Lodges, which up to that time had little vigorous existence out of
Ireland, spread all over England, and were formed even in the army.
The Duke of Cumberland, a precious champion for any sort of religion,
was their grand master. But he was not inconsistent: he had his own
personal aggrandizement in view, and appealed to fanaticism, bigotry,
and ignorance to help him to attain it. If he was acting a part, he
understood his own character, and was not acting out of it. But he
and the Orange Lodges too completely misunderstood the nation they
were living in. The saying of Charles II. to his brother, afterwards
James II., might have shown them their mistake: “They will never kill
me to make you king.” When hard pressed by political necessity, the
English people have not shrunk from revolutionary changes in their
constitution; but they would never have embarked on a revolution with
the object of placing Ernest, Duke of Cumberland, on the throne. The
ridiculous plot was rendered still more ridiculous by the assertion
made by the conspirators that they feared the Duke of Wellington
intended to seize the crown for himself;[6] that the Iron Duke, the
most sternly upright and devotedly loyal of subjects, meant to depose
William IV., set aside the little Princess Victoria, and become Emperor
of the English, as Bonaparte had become Emperor of the French. The
assertion had only to be made, and made publicly, to be drowned in the
ridicule it excited. However, the plot of the Orange Lodges, the Duke
of Cumberland’s association with it, the unveiling of the scheme in
the House of Commons by Joseph Hume, and Lord John Russell’s masterly
dealing with the whole matter, was a nine days’ wonder in 1835. An
address to the King was unanimously agreed to, praying him to dissolve
the Orange Lodges; even the Orangemen in the House assented to this,
and Greville says Lord John’s dignified eloquence melted them to
tears. The Duke of Cumberland, seeing which way his cat had jumped,
hastened to assure the Home Secretary that the dissolution of the
societies of which he was Grand Master had his entire approval and
acquiescence, and the whole of the foolish business appeared at an end.
But this was not so. The elements of disturbance were quite genuine,
and had not been removed even by a resolution of the House of Commons:
these were the Duke of Cumberland’s treachery and his No-popery
nightmare. The original scheme had been to depose William IV. on the
pretext that his giving the Royal Assent to the Reform Bill of 1832 was
a symptom of insanity; the next step, the setting aside of the claims
of Princess Victoria, was rendered attractive to the Duke of Cumberland
by the fact that she was a girl, and young; when, therefore, in 1837,
William IV. was removed by death, another futile attempt was made to
raise the No-popery cry against the accession of the Queen. Her uncle
Leopold, King of the Belgians, had recently married Louise, daughter of
Louis Philippe, a Roman Catholic Princess. Another member of the Coburg
family, Prince Ferdinand, cousin of Prince Albert, had also, quite
recently, made a Roman Catholic marriage with Maria, Queen of Portugal.
This at any rate showed that the Coburg family, who were known to
have great influence with Princess Victoria, were not so exclusively
Protestant as the Royal Family of England. But high as party feeling
ran at the time, the bare suspicion that any treachery was intended to
the young Queen caused a popular outburst of passionate loyalty such as
had not been seen since the House of Brunswick had reigned in England.
The warmth of this feeling in the curious warp and woof of human
affairs was increased by the fact that to be ardently devoted to the
young Queen was to be ardently opposed to all the works and ways of the
Duke of Cumberland, to be in favor of religious liberty and toleration,
to support the Reform Bill and the abolition of slavery. It was Whig
to be loyal to the Queen, Tory to be, if not disloyal, full of doubts
and fears, imagining that with a young girl at the helm, known to be
in sympathy with Whig principles, the ship of State was bound to split
on anarchy and popery. These fears very soon disappeared as the Queen
showed she had a mind and will of her own, and was no mere puppet in
the hands of her Ministers. If at the outset of her reign she showed
strong Whig tendencies, she was not long in grasping the fact that, as
Sovereign, she was Queen of the whole people, and not the mere head of
a party.
There was, however, enough of revolutionary storm in the atmosphere
to justify the _Times_ in endeavoring to allay the fears of the
ultra-Protestant party by reminding them that for the Queen to turn
Papist, “or in any manner to follow the footsteps of the Coburg family”
in marrying a Papist, “would involve an immediate forfeiture of the
British Crown.” This situation of affairs had the rather curious result
of making the Irish among the most intensely loyal of the young Queen’s
subjects. O’Connell’s stentorian voice was heard leading the cheers
of the crowd outside St. James’s Palace on the day she was proclaimed
Queen. He declared later, in a public speech, that if it were necessary
he could get “five hundred thousand brave Irishmen to defend the life,
the honor, and the person of the beloved young lady by whom England’s
throne is now filled.” Mr. Harry Grattan, son of the famous orator of
the Irish Parliament of 1782-1800, thought the Tories so bent on the
Queen’s destruction that “If Her Majesty were once placed in the hands
of the Tories, I would not give an _orange-peel_ for her life.” The
expression “orange-peel” was, no doubt, a reference to the _soubriquet_
his Irish opponents had bestowed upon Sir Robert Peel on account of his
stanch Protestantism.
These extraordinary ebullitions of party feeling would be hardly worth
recording but for the explanation they afford of subsequent events
relating to the establishment of Prince Albert, and for the curious
contrast they offer to the feelings of political parties at the present
time. They also explain why quiet, peace-loving people, taking no
special interest in party politics, were so devoutly thankful that the
operation of the Salic law in Hanover separated that kingdom from the
Crown of England and enabled us to get quit of the Duke of Cumberland.
No paper and no party ever pretended to regret him; indeed, it must
have become abundantly obvious that his departure was, in a special
degree, advantageous to his own party. He could be nothing but a source
of weakness to them. “A man’s foes are those of his own household” is
even more true of political than of private affairs. The anxiety of
the Tories to get rid of the Duke of Cumberland is well illustrated
by one of Greville’s anecdotes. When the late King (William IV.) had
evidently only a few days to live, the Duke of Cumberland consulted
the Duke of Wellington as to what he should do. “I told him the best
thing he could do was to go away as fast as he could. ‘Go instantly,’
I said, ‘and take care _you don’t get pelted_.’” He did go instantly,
and his first act as King of Hanover was to suspend the constitution of
the country and turn out of their chairs in Göttingen University seven
distinguished professors for the crime of holding Liberal opinions.
No wonder the Duke of Wellington felt this sort of Toryism would
manufacture Liberals and Radicals by the thousand in England.
The story has often been told of how the Queen received the news of her
accession, and of the extraordinarily favorable impression she produced
by the youthful dignity and grace with which she presided at her first
Council.
William IV. expired at Windsor about 2.30 A. M. on Tuesday, June
20th, 1837. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Howley, and the Lord
Chamberlain, the Marquis of Conyngham, almost immediately “set out to
announce the event to their young Sovereign. They reached Kensington
Palace at about five; they knocked, they rang, they thumped for a
considerable time before they could rouse the porter at the gates. They
were again kept waiting in the courtyard, then turned into one of the
lower rooms, where they seemed to be forgotten by everybody. They rang
the bell, and desired that the attendant of the Princess Victoria might
be sent to inform H. R. H. that they requested an audience on business
of importance. After another delay, and another ringing to inquire
the cause, the attendant was summoned, who stated that the _Princess_
was in such a sweet sleep she could not venture to disturb her. They
then said, ‘We are come to the _Queen_ on business of State, and even
her sleep must give way to that.’ It did; and to prove that _she_ did
not keep them waiting, in a few minutes she came into the room in a
loose white nightgown and shawl, her nightcap thrown off, and her hair
falling on her shoulders, her feet in slippers, tears in her eyes, but
perfectly collected and dignified.”[7] Another account states that the
Queen’s first words to the Archbishop on hearing his announcement were,
“I beg your Grace to pray for me,” and that her first request to her
mother after she had learned that she was Queen was that she might be
left for two hours quite alone. On the same day, about eleven o’clock
in the morning, she held her first Council; and it may be noted that
in Miss Wynn’s account of this ceremony it is stated that the first of
her subjects who paid her homage was the Duke of Cumberland, who knelt
and kissed her hand. “I suppose,” says Miss Wynn, “he was not King of
Hanover when he knelt to her.” The Diarist goes on to mention that
the next to offer homage was the Duke of Sussex; but the young Queen
would not allow him to kneel, but rose herself and kissed him on the
forehead. This, however, differs slightly from Greville’s account of
the Queen’s first Council, which must be now quoted:--
“_June 21st._ The King died at twenty minutes after two yesterday
morning, and the young Queen met the Council at Kensington Palace at
eleven. Never was anything like the first impression she produced,
or the chorus of praise and admiration which is raised about her
manner and behavior, and certainly not without justice. It was
very extraordinary, and something far beyond what was looked for.
Her extreme youth and inexperience, and the ignorance of the world
concerning her, naturally excited intense curiosity to see how she
would act on this trying occasion, and there was a considerable
assemblage at the Palace, notwithstanding the short notice that
was given. The first thing to be done was to teach her her lesson,
which, for this purpose, Melbourne had himself to learn. I gave him
the Council papers, and explained all that was to be done; and he
went and explained all this to her. He asked her if she would come
into the room accompanied by the great officers of State, but she
said she would come in alone. When the Lords were assembled the Lord
President informed them of the King’s death, and suggested, as they
were so numerous, that a few of them should repair to the presence
of the Queen and inform her of the event, and that their Lordships
were assembled in consequence; and accordingly the two Royal Dukes,
the two Archbishops, the Chancellor, and Melbourne went with him.
The Queen received him in the adjoining room alone. As soon as they
had returned, the proclamation was read and the usual order passed,
when the doors were thrown open and the Queen entered, accompanied
by her two uncles, who advanced to meet her. She bowed to the Lords,
took her seat, and then read her speech in a clear, distinct, and
audible voice, and without any appearance of fear or embarrassment.
She was quite plainly dressed, and in mourning. After she had read
her speech and taken and signed the oath for the security of the
Church of Scotland, the Privy Councillors were sworn, the two Royal
Dukes first by themselves; and as these two old men, her uncles,
knelt before her, swearing allegiance and kissing her hand, I saw her
blush up to the eyes, as if she felt the contrast between their civil
and their natural relations. This was the only sign of emotion which
she evinced. Her manner to them was very graceful and engaging; she
kissed them both, and rose from her chair and moved towards the Duke
of Sussex, who was farthest from her, and too infirm to reach her.
She seemed rather bewildered at the multitude of men who were sworn,
and who came, one after another, to kiss her hand; but she did not
speak to anybody, nor did she make the slightest difference in her
manner, or show any in her countenance to any individual of any rank,
station, or party. I particularly watched her when Melbourne and the
Ministers, and the Duke of Wellington and Peel approached her.[8] She
went through the whole ceremony, occasionally looking to Melbourne
for instruction when she had any doubt what to do, which hardly
ever occurred, and with perfect calmness and self-possession, but
at the same time with a graceful modesty and propriety particularly
interesting and ingratiating. When the business was done she retired
as she had entered, and I could see that nobody was in the adjoining
room.... Peel likewise said how amazed he was at her manner and
behavior, at her apparent deep sense of her situation, her modesty,
and at the same time her firmness. She appeared, in fact, to be
awed, but not daunted; and afterwards the Duke of Wellington told me
the same thing, and added that if she had been his own daughter he
could not have desired to see her perform her part better. It was
settled that she was to hold a Council at St. James’s this day, and
be proclaimed there at ten o’clock: and she expressed a wish to see
Lord Albemarle, who went to her and told her he was come to take her
orders. She said, ‘I have no orders to give; you know all this so much
better than I do that I leave it all to you. I am to be at St. James’s
at ten to-morrow, and must beg you to find me a conveyance proper for
the occasion.’ Accordingly he went and fetched her in State with a
great escort.... At twelve o’clock she held a Council, at which she
presided with as much ease as if she had been doing nothing else all
her life; and though Lord Lansdowne and my colleague had contrived
between them to make some confusion with the Council papers, she
was not put out by it. She looked very well, and though so small a
stature, and without much pretension to beauty, the gracefulness of
her manner and the good expression of her countenance give her, on
the whole, a very agreeable appearance, and with her youth inspire an
excessive interest in all who approach her, which I can’t help feeling
myself. After the Council she received the Archbishops and Bishops,
and after them the Judges. They all kissed her hand, but she said
nothing to any of them; very different in this from her predecessor,
who used to harangue them all, and had a speech ready for everybody.”
Greville then describes the young Queen’s thoughtful consideration for
everything that could soothe and cheer the Queen Dowager, and adds:--
“In short, she appears to act with every sort of good taste and good
feeling, as well as good sense; and, as far as it has gone, nothing
can be more favorable than the impression she has made, and nothing
can promise better than her manner and conduct do, though it would
be rash to count too confidently upon her judgment and discretion in
more weighty matters. No contrast can be greater than that between
the personal demeanor of the present and the late Sovereigns at their
respective accessions. William IV. was a man who, coming to the throne
at the mature age of sixty-five, was so excited by the exaltation
that he nearly went mad, and distinguished himself by a thousand
extravagances of language and conduct to the alarm or amusement of
all who witnessed his strange freaks.... The young Queen, who might
well be either dazzled or confounded with the grandeur and novelty of
her situation, seems neither the one nor the other, and behaves with
a decorum and propriety beyond her years, and with all the sedateness
and dignity, the want of which was so conspicuous in her uncle.”
In this vivid personal description by an eye-witness we see in the
grave dignity of the young girl the same dutiful child who, at eleven
years old, had said, when she learned her future destiny, “There is
much splendor, but there is more responsibility,” and, lifting her
little hand, added, “I will be good.”
Greville describes the impression made by the young Queen within
the Palace upon her Ministers and servants. Miss Martineau, another
contemporary, describes the impression produced outside the Palace,
on the crowd in the streets who came to witness the ceremony of the
proclamation. She refers to the intense joy of whatever was sound
and wholesome in the nation, that the ill-doing sons of George III.
no longer occupied the throne, and that it was filled instead by a
young girl, prudent, virtuous, and conscientious, reared in health,
simplicity, and purity. She says even exaggerated hopes were awakened
by the change; people seemed to expect that the fact of having a
virtuous Sovereign, strong in the energies of youth, was in itself a
guarantee that all was to go well: “That the Lords were to work well
with the Commons, the people were to be educated, everybody was to have
employment and food, all reforms were to be carried through, and she
herself would never do anything wrong or make any mistakes.”
Those who represented that it was an injustice to the Queen to expect
her to work miracles--
“were thought cold and grudging in their loyalty, and the gust of
national joy swept them out of sight. In truth, they themselves felt
the danger of being carried adrift from their justice and prudence
when they met their Queen face to face at her proclamation. As she
stood at the window of St. James’s Palace ... her pale face wet with
tears, but calm and simply grave,--her plain black dress and bands of
brown hair giving an air of Quaker-like neatness which enhanced the
gravity,--it was scarcely possible not to form wild hopes from such an
aspect of sedateness--not to forget that, even if imperfection in the
Sovereign herself were out of the question, there were limitations in
her position which must make her powerless for the redemption of her
people, except through a wise choice of advisers, and the incalculable
influence of a virtuous example shining abroad from the pinnacle of
society.”
The young Queen’s character came out in everything she did. Reference
has already been made to her tender consideration towards the Dowager
Queen Adelaide. The Queen addressed a letter of condolence to her on
her husband’s death, and addressed it to “Her Majesty the Queen.” It
was pointed out to her that the correct address would be “Her Majesty
the Queen Dowager.” “I am quite aware,” said Queen Victoria, “of Her
Majesty’s altered character, but I will not be the first person to
remind her of it.” She placed Windsor Castle at the disposal of Queen
Adelaide for as long as it suited her health and convenience. But while
yielding with the utmost grace on various little matters in which her
doing so might serve to soothe and console the Queen Dowager, the
young Queen showed a knowledge of her own position and what was due
to it in substantial privilege, no less than on points of etiquette,
that quite astonished her Ministers. Thus when she went for the first
time after her accession to visit the Queen Dowager at Windsor, she
told Lord Melbourne that as the flag on the Round Tower was half-mast
high, it might be thought necessary to elevate it on her arrival, and
she desired Lord Melbourne to send orders beforehand that this should
not be done. Melbourne “had never thought of the flag or knew anything
about it, but it showed her knowledge of forms, and her attention to
trifles.”
The numerous children of the late King resigned into her hands their
various appointments, and the pensions that had been allowed them. She
accepted these resignations to show her right to do so, and afterwards
reappointed them, behaving with the greatest kindness and liberality.
Greville speaks over and over again of the remarkable union she
presented of womanly sympathy, girlish _naïveté_, and queenly dignity.
He says every one who was about her was warmly attached to her, “but
that all feel the impossibility of for a moment losing sight of the
respect which they owe her. She never ceases to be a queen, but is
always the most charming, cheerful, obliging, unaffected queen in the
world.” The tears which she shed at her proclamation were due to the
intense emotion awakened by her position; they by no means betokened a
morbid or hysterical temperament. The records of the early years of the
Queen’s reign constantly speak of her gayety and good spirits. At her
coronation, in 1838, she is said to have looked as radiant as a girl on
her birthday.
The demise of the Crown necessitated a dissolution of Parliament. A
general election took place in August, 1837, in which the Whigs were
again returned to power, but by a reduced majority.
Lord Melbourne was again Prime Minister, and continued to act as the
Queen’s chief adviser and counsellor, not only in public affairs, but
also on every personal matter in which she felt she needed the advice
of an experienced man of the world. There were some who regretted the
Queen’s extreme reliance on Lord Melbourne, looking upon him as a man
of an essentially frivolous and volatile nature; those who held this
opinion appear to have misjudged him, but the mistake was one for
which Lord Melbourne himself was chiefly responsible. He deliberately
put on an affectation of foolish frivolity on many of his appearances
in public. He would blow a feather about or toy with a sofa-cushion
when he was receiving a solemn deputation, with apparently the express
object of producing the impression that he was incapable of giving
serious attention to serious things. He had to be found out, detected
in earnestness as rogues are detected in dishonesty, by close and
careful watching when he believed himself unobserved. Sydney Smith
was one of those who unmasked him, and showed that with all his air
of being hopelessly idle and trivial, he really was an honest and
diligent Minister. In his important position as Prime Minister to the
girl-Queen, he showed tact, discretion, and devotion, and won her
complete confidence and friendship. Until the Queen’s marriage, he
virtually combined the functions of Private Secretary to the Queen with
those of Prime Minister. He was much more her intimate friend than a
Prime Minister had ever been to a Sovereign before. He saw her every
day, dined with her constantly, and sat next her at table, and had the
art of explaining all the business of State without boring her with
sermons and long speeches. He never treated her, as Mr. Brett has said,
as if she were a public meeting. He had first made a very favorable
impression upon her on the occasion of the last of the unfortunate
disputes which took place between William IV. and the Duchess of Kent.
Early in June, 1837, Princess Victoria, having then attained her
majority, the King offered to settle £10,000 a year on her. The Duchess
wished that £6,000 of this should be for herself, and £4,000 for the
Princess. There were the usual unseemly squabbles, and neither would
give way. Melbourne conducted the business on the part of the King, and
although he must have known that the Princess Victoria would be Queen
in a very short time, he yet defended his master’s views and interests
with a warmth and tenacity which proved him to be no time-server. It
is equally to his credit and to that of the young Queen that this
circumstance was the foundation of the full confidence and esteem which
she afterwards placed in him. Greville describes their relations as
being almost like those of father and daughter. “I have no doubt he is
passionately fond of her, as he might be of his daughter if he had one,
and the more because he is a man with the capacity for loving, without
having anything in the world to love. It is become his province to
educate, instruct, and form the most interesting mind and character in
the world.... It is a great proof of the discretion and purity of his
conduct and behavior that he is admired, respected, and liked by the
whole Court.”
If Melbourne was, in the eyes of the world, the Queen’s tutor in
statesmanship, there was another behind the scenes no less assiduously
devoting himself to her instruction. Shortly before the late King’s
death, Peel had expressed a hope that Leopold would not come over
immediately on his niece’s accession, as his influence and interference
would cause jealousy and heart-burning. Leopold did not come, for the
excellent reason that he was there already in the person, _alter ego_,
of the faithful friend and trusted servant, Baron Stockmar. Stockmar,
though at one time somewhat doubtful whether Prince Albert would
prove the right Consort for the Queen of England, had by this time
thoroughly identified himself with the realization of Leopold’s dream
of reproducing in Victoria and Albert the loves and hopes and ambitions
which had been so cruelly crushed at Claremont in 1817. Charlotte and
Leopold were to live again in Victoria and Albert. But in order that
the dream should come true, it was necessary that Stockmar and Leopold
should have their hand on the “very pulse of the machine,” the hearts
and the characters of the two young people themselves. King Leopold
had Prince Albert with him in Brussels for ten months, from June,
1836, while Stockmar proceeded to Kensington to be with the Princess
immediately she attained her majority, to aid her by his counsel and
advice. Her accession, which followed within less than a month, found
him still with her; and from henceforth until her happy marriage in
1840 his time was spent with one or other of the young people. To
the end of his life he spent much time with them, and remained their
intimate friend and most trusted counsellor in all matters, both public
and domestic.
Stockmar, besides his share in bringing about the marriage of the Queen
with her cousin, had an extremely important political influence on
her, in thoroughly grounding her in the principles of constitutional
monarchy. Although no Englishman, it was a case of _plus royaliste
que le Roi_. He was more English than the English in his grasp of,
and devotion to, our system of government. He wrote to the Prince in
1854: “I love and honor the English Constitution from conviction;
... in my eyes it is the foundation-corner-cope-stone of the entire
political civilization of the human race, present and to come.” He
was untiring in impressing upon the Queen, and later on the Prince,
that the Sovereign belongs, or should belong, to no party. She must be
equally loyal to her Ministers, to whatever party they may belong. Her
experience at the head of the State will enable her to detect among her
statesmen those who have the good of their country sincerely at heart,
while differing, as human beings must differ, as to the means by which
that good is to be attained. There will be some in all parties who make
the honor and welfare of their country their first object, and there
are some in all parties who are wishing to dishonor and injure their
country, if they think they perceive party advantage to be gained by
doing so. To the first of these the Sovereign’s confidence should be
given, irrespective of party differences.
Leopold and Stockmar between them formulated the position of a
constitutional monarch much more definitely than it had ever been
formulated before. Their pupils were the Queen and her husband, towards
whose union events were now rapidly tending.
[6] In 1829 the Duke of Cumberland had tried to excite George IV.’s
jealousy of the Duke of Wellington by habitually speaking of him to his
royal brother as “King Arthur.”
[7] Diaries of a Lady of Quality, by Miss Wynn.
[8] This is evidently in reference to the general belief that the Queen
was a strong partisan of the Whig party.