ADVICE FROM ENGLAND
The year 1860 was on the whole a happy one for the Princess Royal. It
brought her a long visit from her parents and the birth of her eldest
daughter, but on the other side of the account the relations between her
two countries, England and Prussia, became perceptibly worse.
For the New Year her father sent her one of his customary letters of
sagacious counsel, in which may be detected a certain note of uneasiness
as to the development of his daughter's powers of self-control:
"You enter upon the New Year with hopes, which God will surely
graciously suffer to be fulfilled, but you do also with good
resolutions, whose fulfilment lies within your own hand and must
necessarily contribute to your success, also happiness, in this
suffering and difficult world. Hold firmly by these resolutions, and
evermore cherish the determination, with which comes also strength, to
exercise unlimited control over yourself, that the moral law may govern
and the propensity obey,--the end and aim of all education and culture,
as we long ago discovered and reasoned out together."
It is remarkable that early in this year Prince Frederick William
appears to have been for a time the centre of the hopes of the
reactionary party. The Junkers actually planned to bring about the
resignation of the Prince Regent, and to induce Prince Frederick William
to assume the supreme power and govern without a constitution, which
formed the great obstacle to their military ambitions. This scheme
argued an extraordinary misapprehension, not only of Prince Frederick
William's honest, straightforward character, but also of all his
political ideals. He was, especially at this period of his life, a pure
Constitutionalist, with a profound admiration for the free polity of
England, and it would be difficult to imagine any form of government
which would have seemed both to him and to his wife more immoral, as
well as more certain to entail a counter-revolution, than a military
dictatorship. It is perhaps not without significance that in March a
British warship was launched at Portsmouth and was named _Frederick
William_ by way of compliment to the husband of the Princess Royal.
In June there was a parade at the Königsberg garrison, at which the
Prince Regent said to his son, "Fritz, I appoint you to the First
Infantry Regiment, the oldest Corps in the service," and about a month
afterwards the young commander was promoted to the rank of
Lieutenant-General.
The Princess Royal's eldest daughter was born on July 24, and was
christened Victoria Augusta Charlotte, being known as Princess
Charlotte till her marriage in 1878 to the Hereditary Prince of
Saxe-Meiningen. Queen Victoria records the news of the baby's birth in
her usual vivid style:
"Soon after we sat down to breakfast came a telegram from Fritz--Vicky
had got a daughter at 8.10, and both were well! What joy! Children
jumping about--everyone delighted--so thankful and relieved."
Only the day before there had come a letter from the Princess Royal
containing the intelligence that Prince Louis of Hesse was ardently
desirous of paying his addresses to Princess Alice, the Princess Royal's
much-loved sister and companion of her childhood. To this Prince Albert
refers in writing to his daughter:
"Only two words of hearty joy can I offer to the dear newly-made mother,
and these come from an overflowing heart. The little daughter is a
kindly gift from heaven, that will (as I trust) procure for you many a
happy hour in the days to come. The telegraph speaks only of your doing
well; may this be so in the fullest sense!
"Upon the subject of your last interesting and most important letter, I
have replied to Fritz, who will communicate to you as much of my answer
as is good for you under present circumstances. Alice is very grateful
for your love and kindness to her, and the young man behaves in a manner
truly admirable."
A few days later the anxious father writes to the young mother one of
his curious medical homilies:
"I hope you are very quiet, and keep this well in mind, that although
you are well, and feel yourself well, the body has to take on a new
conformation, and the nervous system a new life. Only rest of brain,
heart, and body, along with good nourishment, and its assimilation by
regular undisturbed digestion, can restore the animal forces. My
physiological treatise should not bore you, for it is always good to
keep the GREAT PRINCIPLES in view, in accordance with which we have to
regulate our actions."
But it was not all physiological treatise that was despatched from
Osborne to Berlin. The Prince has an amusing reference to the busy
importance with which the little Princess Beatrice, who was then three
and a quarter years old, regarded the arrival of her first niece:
"The little girl must be a darling. Little maidens are much prettier
than boys. I advise her to model herself after her Aunt Beatrice. That
excellent lady has now not a moment to spare. 'I have no time,' she
says, when she is asked for anything, 'I must write letters to my
niece.'
"It will make you laugh, if I tell you that I have christened a black
mare Ayah (as black nurse). I lately asked the groom what was the
horse's name, which I had forgotten. 'Haya,' was the answer. 'What?' I
asked. 'We spell it Hay, Why, Hay.' You should call your Westphalian
nurse, 'Hay, Why, Hay!'"
It had been arranged that the Queen and Prince Albert should pay their
visit to their daughter and son-in-law at Coburg at the end of
September. By a most unfortunate chance there had occurred about the
middle of the month one of those "incidents" which are sometimes, when
mishandled by officialdom and magnified by offended national pride,
allowed to exercise an influence ludicrously disproportionate to their
real triviality. The Macdonald affair, as it was called, at one moment
threatened to bring about a serious breach between England and Prussia,
and as it was unquestionably one of the causes of the dislike and
suspicion with which the Princess Royal was to be regarded by a section
of the Prussians, it is worth while to record it in some detail.
A Scottish gentleman, a certain Captain Macdonald, had a dispute about a
seat in a railway carriage at Bonn. He knew no German, was ignorant of
Prussian law, and very likely behaved, or was considered by the
authorities to have behaved, in an autocratic manner. However that may
be, he was not only ejected from the carriage but was committed to
prison, where he remained from September 12 to 18. On the 18th he was
tried and fined twenty thalers and costs. The English residents at Bonn
warmly espoused his cause, and Captain Macdonald seems, apart from the
original dispute, to have had reason to complain of violence used to him
and also of his treatment while in prison. It was also particularly
unfortunate that at the trial the Staatsprocurator, or public
prosecutor, should have denounced the behaviour when abroad of English
people generally. "The English residing and travelling," he said, "are
notorious for the rudeness, impudence, and boorish arrogance of their
conduct."
This accusation, whether well founded or not, naturally seemed to
English lawyers and the English public a piece of gratuitous
irrelevance, intended merely to excite prejudice against Captain
Macdonald. It is impossible now to apportion the blame for the way in
which the incident was allowed to embitter public opinion in both
countries. The affair dragged on for months--indeed, it was not finally
disposed of till the following May. There were questions in Parliament,
Lord Palmerston was extremely angry, and an article in the _Times_
served to pour oil on the flame.
In the circumstances the incident inevitably rather dashed the joy of
the happy family party at Coburg. The Queen conferred with Lord John
Russell, then Foreign Secretary, whom she had brought with her, and she
alludes in her journal to "the ejection and imprisonment (unfairly, it
seems) of a Captain Macdonald, and the subsequent offensive behaviour of
the authorities. It has led to ill blood, and much correspondence, but
Lord John is very reasonable about it, and not inclined to do anything
rash. These foreign governments are very arbitrary and violent, and our
people apt to give offence, and to pay no regard to the laws of the
country."
The Queen and Prince Albert arrived at Coburg on September 25, and the
Princess Royal delighted in visiting with her father the scenes of his
boyhood. She went with the guns to a drive of wild boars, and almost
every day there was an expedition to some interesting place in all the
relief of _incognito_. One day Prince Albert had a narrow escape. He was
alone in an open carriage when the horses ran away. With great presence
of mind, he jumped out, and happily got off with nothing worse than a
few cuts and bruises. Gustav Freytag, the distinguished German novelist
and dramatist, was received, and the Queen records that there was much
conversation with him after dinner. As we shall see later, Freytag was
admitted to the confidence of the Princess Royal and her husband, and he
repaid their kindness in strange fashion.
It was on this visit that the Queen saw her eldest grandchild for the
first time. Writing on September 25, she says:
"Our darling grandchild was brought. Such a little love! He came walking
in at Mrs. Hobbs's [his nurse's] hand, in a little white dress with
black bows, and was so good. He is a fine, fat child, with a beautiful
white soft skin, very fine shoulders and limbs, and a very dear face,
like Vicky and Fritz, and also Louise of Baden. He has Fritz's eyes and
Vicky's mouth, and very fair curly hair. We felt so happy to see him at
last!"
This was the beginning of an enduring friendship between grandmother and
grandson, and no one with any historical imagination can help recalling
the last scene of that friendship, when this fine little boy, grown to
be a mighty Emperor, hastened to share the grief of the English people
at the death-bed of their great Queen.
The Queen was evidently much attracted by the already characteristic
energy of the little Prince, for there are references to him all through
her records of this visit:
"Dear little William came to me as he does every morning. He is such a
darling, so intelligent." "Dear little Wilhelm as usual with me before
dinner--a darling child." "The dear little boy is so intelligent and
pretty, so good and affectionate." "Had a last visit from dear Stockmar.
Towards the end of his stay, dear little William came in and played
about the room." "The darling little boy with us for nearly an hour,
running about so dearly and merrily." "At Cologne our darling little
William was brought into our carriage to bid good-bye. I felt the
parting deeply."
Prince Albert wrote to the Duchess of Kent: "Your great-grandson is a
very pretty, clever child--a compound of both parents, just as it should
be."
Mrs. Georgina Hobbs, the nurse mentioned above, first went to Germany as
a maid in the service of the Princess Royal on her marriage, and was
afterwards promoted to be chief nurse to the Royal children. Prince
William and his brother and sisters were devotedly attached to "Hobbsy,"
as they called her, and it was from "Hobbsy" that they learnt English,
for their parents always talked German to one another.
The Princess Royal, perhaps naturally, preferred to have her children's
nursery arranged and conducted on the English rather than on the German
model, but who can doubt that in this, as in other matters of even less
importance, she would have done better to have studied the
susceptibilities of her adopted country? Indeed, Dr. Hinzpeter, who was
afterwards appointed the tutor of her sons, bears witness that her
nursery management became a great subject of gossip among the Berliners,
and stories were even current of corporal punishment administered before
the Court to princes with dirty faces. It is true that Dr. Hinzpeter
describes these stories as mythical, but the fact that they were
circulated and believed helps to account for the Princess's growing
unpopularity.
At this period Prince Albert was seriously disturbed by the attacks
which the _Times_ was constantly making on Prussia and everything
Prussian. In an article in the _Saturday Review_, recommended by him to
his daughter, it was said: "The only reason the _Times_ ever gives for
its dislike of Prussia, is that the Prussian and English Courts are
connected by personal ties, and that British independence demands that
everything proceeding from the Court should be watched with the most
jealous suspicion."
The Prince was honestly indifferent to the insinuations against himself
by which these attacks were frequently pointed, but he was reasonably
anxious about the bad effect they would have in Germany. Writing to his
daughter on October 24, after his return to England, he refers to the
Macdonald affair, which had already become acute:
"What abominable articles the _Times_ has against Prussia! That of
yesterday upon Warsaw and Schleinitz is positively too wicked. It is the
Bonn story which continues to operate, and a total estrangement between
the two countries may ensue, if a newspaper war be kept up for some time
between the two nations. Feelings, and not arguments, constitute the
basis for actions. An embitterment of feeling between England and
Prussia would be a great misfortune, and yet they are content in Berlin
to make no move in the Bonn affair."
It was only too true that the Prussian Government was in no hurry to
settle the Macdonald affair. The bitterness which it engendered did not
die out till long after its formal termination in May of the following
year, and undoubtedly it contributed far more than was suspected at the
time to increase the delicacy and difficulty of the Princess Royal's
position. It was actually thought in Germany that she inspired the
attacks in the British Press. "This attitude of the English newspapers
preys upon the Princess Royal's spirits and materially affects her
position in Prussia," so wrote Lord Clarendon.
This autumn and winter Prince Albert, in spite of many political and
other anxieties and a sharp attack of illness, faithfully continued to
instruct his daughter in the art of government.
It does not seem ever to have crossed his mind that such instruction,
though admirable in itself, was ill-advised in view of his pupil's
position. The ideal woman in Prussia was then, and still is to a large
extent, one who, conscious of her intellectual inferiority, contents
herself with managing her household and children. If this view obtained
with regard to women in private stations, much more was it considered to
be the duty of princesses of the Royal House to abstain from any active
interest in public affairs. But either Prince Albert did not appreciate
this, or it is possible that he thought his daughter to be freed by her
exceptional ability from the ordinary restrictions and limitations of
her rank. There is yet a third possibility--that he did not altogether
trust his son-in-law's political judgment, and was anxious to give him,
in the troublous times that seemed impending, an help-meet who could
influence him in the right, that is in the Coburg, direction. Whatever
may have been the reason, the Prince certainly continued to the end of
his life to cultivate his daughter's knowledge and grasp of public
affairs.
In December, 1860, the Prince Consort received from Berlin a memorandum
upon the advantages of a law of Ministerial responsibility. Its object
was to remove the apprehensions entertained in high quarters at the
Prussian Court as to the expediency of a measure of this kind. This
memorandum was the work of the Princess Royal, and it is easy to imagine
what a storm of indignation would have arisen in Prussia if by any
accident or indiscretion the knowledge that the Princess had written
such a paper had leaked out.
Still, it was undoubtedly an able piece of work. Sir Theodore Martin
says that it would have been remarkable as the work of an experienced
statesman; and, as the fruit of the liberal political views in which the
Prince had been at pains to train its author, it must have filled his
mind with the happiest auguries for her fulfilment of the great career
which lay before her. "It would have delighted your heart to read it,"
were his words in writing to Baron Stockmar.
To his daughter he sent a long and flattering reply beginning: "It is
remarkably clear and complete, and does you the greatest credit. I agree
with every word of it, and feel sure it must convince everyone who is
open to conviction from sound logic, and prepared to follow what sound
logic dictates."
This pathetic faith in the potency of logic in political affairs is hard
to reconcile with the Prince Consort's earlier and sounder dictum that
feelings, not arguments, constitute the basis for actions. It is evident
from the rest of the letter that the Princess had laid it down that the
responsibility of his advisers does not in fact impair the monarch's
dignity and importance, but is really for him the best of safeguards.
She had gone on to discuss the proposition that the patriarchal relation
in which the monarchs of old were supposed to stand towards their people
was preferable to the constitutional system which interposes the
Minister between the sovereign and his subjects. Her father's comments
on this would have seemed to many Prussians most heretical doctrine to
be imparted to their future Queen.
The patriarchal relation, he says, is pretty much like the idyllic life
of the Arcadian shepherds--a figure of speech, and not much more. It was
the fashionable phrase of an historical transition-period. Monarchy in
the days of Attila, of Charlemagne, of the Hohenstaufen, of the Austrian
Emperors, of Louis XI, XII, XIII, XIV, XV, &c., was as little like a
patriarchal relation as anything could be. On the contrary it was
sovereignty based upon spoliation, war, murder, oppression, and
massacre. That relation was sedulously developed in the small German
States, whose rulers were little more than great landed proprietors,
during a short period in the eighteenth century, and was cherished out
of a sentimental feeling. It then gave way before the Voltairean
philosophy during the reigns of Frederick II, Joseph II, Louis XVI, &c.,
was turned topsy-turvy by the French Revolution, and finally
extinguished in the military despotism of Napoleon.
The Prince went on to say that in the great war of liberation the people
and their princes stood by one another in struggling for the
establishment of civic freedom, first against the foreign oppressor, and
then as citizens in their own country; and the treaties of 1815, as well
as the appeal to the people in 1813, decreed constitutional government
in every country. The charter was granted in France, and special
constitutions were promised in all the States; even to Poland the
promise of one was made, although there, as well as in Prussia and
Austria, that promise was not kept. Then came the Holy Alliance and
introduced reaction into Germany, France, Spain, and Italy, by dint of
sword and Congress (in 1817-1823). Once more the patriarchal relation
was fostered with the sentimentalism of the Kotzebue school, and the
betrayed peoples were required to become good children, because the
Princes styled themselves good fathers! The July Revolution, and all
that has taken place since then, sufficiently demonstrate that the
peoples neither will nor can play the part of children.
As for the personal government of absolute Sovereigns, Prince Albert
declared that to be a pure illusion. Nowhere does history present us
with such cases of government by Ministers and favourites as in the most
absolute monarchies, because nowhere can the Minister play so safe a
game. A Court cabal is the only thing he has to fear, and he is well
skilled in the ways by which this is to be strangled. History is full of
examples. Recent instances have occurred where the personal discredit
into which the Sovereign has fallen makes the maintenance of the
monarchy, not as a form of government, but as an effective State
machine, all but impossible. When, as in the case of the King of Naples,
this result has arisen, all that people are able to say in defence is,
"He was surrounded by a bad set, he was badly advised, he did not know
the state the country was in." To what purpose, then, is personal
government, if a man in his own person knows nothing and learns nothing?
The Sovereign should give himself no trouble, said the Prince in
conclusion, about details, but exercise a broad and general
supervision, and see to the settlement of the principles on which action
is to be based. This he can, nay, must do, where he has responsible
Ministers, who are under the necessity of obtaining his sanction to the
system which they pursue and intend to uphold in Parliament. This the
personally ruling Sovereign cannot do, because he is smothered in
details, does not see the wood for the trees, and has no occasion to
come to an agreement with his Ministers about principles and systems,
which to both him and them can only appear to be a great burden and
superfluous nuisance.
How these doctrines would have been regarded by probably the majority of
Prussians appears from another letter which the Prince wrote a fortnight
later. His daughter had sent him an article from the Conservative
_Kreuz-Zeitung_, and on it he comments:
"The article expresses in plain terms the view that _Monarchy_ as an
institution has for that party a value only so long as it is based upon
arbitrary will; and so these people arrive at precisely the same
confession of faith as the Red democrats, by reason of which a Republic
is certain to prove neither more nor less than an arbitrary despotism.
Freedom and order, which are set up as political antitheses, are, on the
contrary, in fact, synonymous, and the necessary consequences of
_legality_. 'The majesty of the law' is an idea which upon the
Continent is not yet comprehended, probably because people cannot
realise to themselves a dead thing as the supreme power, and seek for
_personal_ power in government or people. And yet virtue and morality
are also dead things, which nevertheless have a prerogative and a
vocation to govern living men--_divine laws_, upon which our human laws
ought to be moulded."
Christmas brought the customary exchange of loving gifts. Prince Louis
of Hesse, now the betrothed of Princess Alice, joined the family circle
in England, and Prince Albert writes to his daughter in Berlin:
"Oh! if you, with Fritz and the children, were only with us! Louis was
an accession. He is a very dear good fellow, who pleases us better and
better daily. In my abstraction I call him 'Fritz.' _Your Fritz_ must
not take it amiss, for it is only the personification of a beloved,
newly-bestowed, full-grown son.
"But to return to the dear Christmas festival! Your gifts which were
there have caused the highest delight, and those we have yet to expect
will be looked for with impatience. To the latter belong Wilhelm's bust,
Fritz's boar's head--for which in the meantime I beg you will give the
lucky huntsman my hearty thanks. Wilhelm shall be placed in the light
you wish when he issues (I hope unbroken) from his dusty box. The album,
which arrived yesterday morning, is very precious to us, as it enables
us to live altogether beside you--in imagination.
"Prejudice walking to and fro in flesh and blood is my horror, and,
alas, a phenomenon so common; and people plume themselves so much upon
their prejudices, as signs of decision of character and greatness of
mind, nay of true patriotism; and all the while they are simply the
product of narrowness of intellect and narrowness of heart."