DEATH OF THE KING OF PRUSSIA
On January 2, 1861, died the King of Prussia, Frederick William IV, and
his brother, the Prince Regent, succeeded as William I. Prince Frederick
William became Crown Prince of Prussia, and henceforth the Princess
Royal was called, both in England and in Germany, the Crown Princess.
In the _Letters of Queen Victoria_ there is a most impressive account,
written by the Princess Royal, and there published for the first time,
of the death of the King of Prussia. The event moved her the more deeply
because, not only was she present at the death-bed, but it was really
her first sight of death.
The King had been ailing so long that those about him had ceased to be
specially anxious. On Monday evening, December 31, the Prince and
Princess Frederick William were sitting at tea with the Prince Regent
and the Princess of Prussia, when there was brought bad news from San
Souci, but still nothing to make them particularly uneasy. In the middle
of the night, or rather early next morning, they were called up with the
intelligence that all hope for the King had been abandoned.
Without waiting for any kind of carriage, although, as the Princess
notes, there were twelve degrees of cold Réaumur, she and Prince
Frederick William hurried on foot to the Prince of Prussia's palace.
From thence they went in a special train to Potsdam. There they found
the King dying, and the members of the Royal family standing round
watching the death struggle. The painful scene went on till five the
next afternoon, when Prince Frederick William wisely sent the Princess
off to bed. At one o'clock in the morning of January 2 they were again
called, with the news that the King had not many minutes more to live.
The letter in which all these facts are recorded is a remarkable
composition, especially when it is remembered that the writer was only
twenty. We may be sure that any thought of literary effect was far from
her, and yet no one, reading it now after the lapse of so many years,
can be insensible to the poignancy of this simple, unstudied, almost
artless description of the scene in the death-chamber--the dim lamp; the
silence broken only by the crackling of the fire and the death-rattle;
the Queen, Elizabeth, continually wiping the perspiration from the dying
man's forehead.
But the letter also shows how really noble was the new Crown Princess's
outlook on life. She speaks with the warmest affection of her
parents-in-law: "May God bless and preserve them, and may theirs be a
long and happy reign," and she goes on to describe the King as he lay
dead, peaceful and quiet like a sleeping child. She could hardly bring
herself to believe that this was really death, "that which I had so
often shuddered at and felt afraid of"; there was nothing dreadful or
appalling, only a heavenly calm and peace.
The Crown Princess also speaks with deep feeling for the Queen Dowager,
who had never really liked her, and who, as we know, had been in
sympathy so pro-Russian all through the Crimean War. But this grief
brought the two together as perhaps nothing else could have done, and
the Princess says: "She was so kind to me, kinder than she has ever been
yet, and said I was like her own child and a comfort to her."
Prince Albert was evidently greatly moved by his daughter's letter. In
his reply he reminds her that in one of the most impressive experiences
of life she was now older than himself. "The more frequently you look
upon the body, the stronger will be your conviction that yonder casing
is not the _man_, yea, that it is scarcely conceivable how it can have
been. In seeing and observing the approach of death, as you have been
called upon to do, you have become older in experience than myself. I
have never seen anyone die." To Stockmar the Prince wrote that "The
Princess, now Crown Princess, has in the late trying time at Berlin
again behaved quite admirably, and receives on all sides the most entire
recognition."
That same eventful January of 1861, the Princess lost two firm and
loyal friends in Lord and Lady Bloomfield. She parted with them with
great regret, and presented to Lady Bloomfield a bust of little Prince
William done by herself.
At that time it must indeed have seemed to the Crown Princess as if all
her own and her husband's hopes and aspirations for a full and useful
public life were about to be amply fulfilled. The new King had not only
always been an affectionate father to his only son and heir, but he had
also been marked among the princes of his time for his liberal opinions
and English sympathies.
The third anniversary of the Crown Princess's marriage came very soon
after the death of the old King, and writing on that day to her mother
she said: "Every time our dear wedding day returns I feel so happy and
thankful--and live every moment of that blessed and
never-to-be-forgotten day over again in thought. I love to dwell on
every minute of the day; not a hope has been disappointed, not an
expectation that has not been realised, and much more--that few can
say--and I _am_ thankful as I ought to be."
Soon after the accession of William I, Herr Max Duncker was formally
attached to the Crown Prince as a channel of communication in State
matters. Duncker had been Professor of History at the Universities of
Halle and Tübingen, and had also obtained some practical experience of
politics as a member of the Frankfort and Erfurt Diet, and as a Prussian
deputy. He had indeed been chosen by Stockmar for the position of
confidential adviser to the Prince, with whom and with the Princess he
was already in favour; and he saw in his new post an opportunity of
sowing seed which might one day spring up and bear fruit an
hundred-fold.
In March the death of the Duchess of Kent deprived the Crown Princess of
a grandmother to whom she had been very warmly attached, and with whom
was associated all the events of her happy childhood and girlhood.
On receiving the unexpected news, for the Duchess of Kent had only been
really ill a few hours, the Princess started for England, not entirely
with the approval of her father-in-law. The Prince Consort, who in this
matter of his daughter's relations to her father-in-law always showed
exceptional tact, wrote and thanked the King: "Her stay here has been a
great comfort and delight to us in our sorrow and bereavement, and we
are truly grateful for it."
The problem of the Schleswig-Holstein duchies and the unfortunate
Macdonald affair combined to draw England and Prussia still further
apart. It is true that the latter was formally settled in May, but the
bad feeling it created was not appeased. Lord Palmerston said in the
House that the conduct of the Prussian Government had been a blunder as
well as a crime, while the Prussian Foreign Minister (Baron von
Schleinitz), then on the eve of his retirement, retaliated with a stiff
rejoinder.
A leading article in the _Times_, backing up Palmerston's view, is
described by Prince Albert, in a letter to Berlin, as "studiedly
insulting." At the same time the Prince saw clearly that Schleinitz had
made a mistake in mixing up the Macdonald affair with _la haute
politique_. "In Germany the idea of the State in the abstract is a thing
divine; here it means the freedom of the individual citizen." And he
goes on to say that the feeling in England ought to teach Prussia that
mere talk will not do.
"Prussia has been always talking of being the only natural and real ally
of England, but since 1815 she has taken no part in any European
question. Prussia sets up a claim to stand at the head of Germany, but
she is not German in her conduct. The Zollverein was the only really
German action to which she can point. She leads Germany, not upon the
path of liberty and constitutional development, which Germany (Prussia
included) requires and desires. I can imagine that with the high
military pretensions to which she has laid claim for the last forty-five
years, she suffers under an oppressive consciousness that her army is
the only one which during this long period has not been called into
action. I repeat, however, that a large, liberal, generous policy is
the preliminary condition for an alliance with England, for hegemony in
Germany, and for her military renown."
[Illustration: HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS
PRINCE FREDERICK WILLIAM OF PRUSSIA
PAINTED AT BUCKINGHAM PALACE, JUNE 1857, BY WINTERHALTER]
These were the views with which the Crown Princess was steadily
indoctrinated. It is possible that she found them a little too cool and
impartially objective for her patriotism, but if so, there is no trace
of such disagreement in Prince Albert's correspondence.
It was fortunate that Prussian opinion was at this time distracted by
the thought of the coming coronation of the new King. The ceremony
raised certain questions which, though nominally concerned with mere
ceremonial, possessed in reality considerable importance from a
constitutional point of view. The principal question was whether the
oath of allegiance traditionally taken by the estates of the realm was
consistent with the new constitutional law desired by the King.
Apparently the King wished the oath to be taken, but was dissuaded by
his Ministers, and it was decided that his Majesty should simply be
crowned at Königsberg in the presence of the Landtag.
In July, 1861, the Crown Prince, who had gone with the Crown Princess to
pay a visit to Queen Victoria, wrote from Osborne a long and remarkable
letter to his father, a passage in which shows how constantly he
consulted his wife on questions of high politics.
The Crown Prince begs the King not to regard the coronation with
repugnance on account of the omission of the oath of allegiance. He
describes the act of assuming the crown as a despotic act, and as solemn
proof that the crown is not conferred by any earthly power, in spite of
the prerogatives abandoned in 1848. He goes on to argue that the
ceremony will compel the Great Powers to show deference to Prussia by
sending ambassadors, and that therefore it ought to take place in
Berlin. In this way it would exhibit the development of Prussia.
Frederick I, by being crowned at Königsberg, marked the beginning of a
new era for the State, but now a coronation at Berlin would mark the new
future which opened out for Prussia as the defender of the united German
territories. The Crown Prince advised that the King and Queen should go
to Königsberg before the coronation in Berlin, either to receive the
oath of allegiance or to hold a great reception, and then he goes on:
"I have ventured, dear father, to express my opinion quite frankly,
though you may perhaps be surprised by my strong inclination for the
coronation ceremony. The fact is simply that I have often calmly
discussed this with Vicky as the only desirable conclusion, when I saw
the increasing difficulties arising in your mind with reference to the
oath of allegiance."
These opinions of the Crown Prince's, in which his wife evidently
concurred, would hardly have been approved by Prince Albert. They show
the future Emperor Frederick in a new light--no longer as the liberal
constitutionalist, the firm admirer of England's free polity, but as the
champion of the divine right of the Hohenzollerns, with a splendid
vision of a united Germany under the military protection of Prussia. At
the same time there is that qualifying sentence in which the Crown
Prince refers to the plan of a coronation at Berlin almost as if he and
his wife had been driven to recommend it as the only solution of the
King's difficulties regarding the oath of allegiance.
The whole question becomes the more interesting in the light of a
remarkable piece of dynastic history which was revealed for the first
time at the jubilee celebrations of the Emperor William II in June,
1913, in an address by Professor Hintze at the Berlin University. It
seems that his Imperial Majesty was informed, before his father's death
in 1888, that upon that event a sealed document of high importance would
be placed in his hands. When he read it, he found that it was the
political testament of his great-uncle, King Frederick William IV of
Prussia, brother of the Emperor who made united Germany.
As its name implies, the paper contained King Frederick William's advice
to his successors on the Throne of Prussia. Part at least of these
counsels was deemed to be possibly so seductive to Sovereigns of a
certain temperament that the Emperor William II felt it his duty to
commit the whole paper to the flames. The Royal testator, who inherited
from his mother, Queen Louise, an exceedingly exalted idea of the rights
of the Crown, recommended his successors to revoke the written
Constitution which he himself had granted his people. But he had a high
sense of the obligations of his kingly word and of his Royal oath, and
accordingly he advised any of them who might take the step to take it
before he had sworn to observe the Constitution at his coronation.
The Emperors William I and Frederick III seem to have been content with
ignoring the testament. It was left for their successor, William II,
fearful lest it might one day tempt some "young and inexperienced ruler"
into dangerous paths, to destroy it. His apprehensions were curiously
strong. He felt, he told Professor Hintz, as if he had a barrel of
gunpowder in his house, and he knew no peace until he had got rid of the
terrible document.
We need not discuss here whether these apprehensions were well founded.
What is of the highest interest is the knowledge, thus come to light
after so many years, of this extraordinary political testament. It had
unquestionably been read at this time, July, 1861, by the new King
William I, and it is equally certain that it had not then been read by
the Crown Prince and Crown Princess. Probably the knowledge of the
document would have modified the views expressed in the Crown Prince's
letter from Osborne. In any case, it seems so far to have influenced the
new King that he rejected his son's advice and adhered to his decision
in favour of a coronation at Königsberg, which duly took place there
with all suitable pomp on October 18.
Among the very few published letters of the Crown Princess is one which
she wrote to her mother describing the ceremony. She modestly declares
herself "a very bad hand at descriptions," but no one who reads the
letter now would possibly agree with that. On the contrary, she shows
the same remarkably vivid and picturesque power of narration of which we
had an example in her account of the death-bed of King Frederick William
IV.
The fact that the day chosen for the coronation was her husband's
birthday gave the Crown Princess great pleasure, as also that an English
artist, Mr. George Housman Thomas, was commissioned to paint a picture
entitled "Homage of the Princess Royal at the Coronation of the King of
Prussia."
Lord Clarendon, who was the British Special Ambassador on the occasion,
writing to Queen Victoria on the day after the coronation, observed that
"_the_ great feature of the ceremony was the manner in which the
Princess Royal did homage to the King. Lord Clarendon is at a loss for
words to describe to your Majesty the exquisite grace and the intense
emotion with which her Royal Highness gave effect to her feelings on the
occasion. Many an older as well as younger man than Lord Clarendon, who
had not his interest in the Princess Royal, were quite as unable as
himself to repress their emotion at that which was so touching, because
so unaffected and sincere."
Lord Granville also wrote to Prince Albert, "One of the most graceful
and touching sights ever seen was the Princess's salute of the King."
Lord Clarendon added in his letter to the Queen, not very prudently: "If
his Majesty had the mind, the judgment, and the foresight of the
Princess Royal, there would be nothing to fear, and the example and
influence of Prussia would soon be marvellously developed. Lord
Clarendon has had the honour to hold a very long conversation with her
Royal Highness, and has been more than ever astonished at the
_statesmanlike_ and comprehensive views which she takes of the policy of
Prussia, both internal and foreign, and of the _duties_ of a
Constitutional King."
Unfortunately, Prussia was far from desiring the wife of the Heir
Apparent to entertain any views, statesmanlike or other, on either
domestic or foreign policy.
Lord Clarendon also told the Queen that the Princess was appreciated and
beloved by all classes. Every member of the Royal Family, he said, had
spoken of her to him in terms of admiration, and through various
channels he had had opportunities of learning how strong was the feeling
of educated and enlightened people towards her.
There is significance in the English statesman's reference to "educated
and enlightened" people. He must have been aware that the majority of
Prussians of that day were neither educated nor enlightened in his sense
of the words, and that the Princess was really only appreciated by the
small intellectual group who were flattered by the recognition which she
and the Crown Prince bestowed on them. But Lord Clarendon was perhaps
disposed to see everything _en beau_, for the Crown Princess mentions
that the King and Queen showed a marked cordiality to him, contrasting
with the stiff etiquette observed in their reception of the other
Ambassadors.
To return to the Crown Princess's account of the coronation. She
contrives to give in comparatively few words an unforgettable picture of
the _coup d'oeil_ in the chapel--the Knights of the Black Eagle in
their red velvet cloaks, the various colours of the uniforms, and the
diamonds and Court dresses of the ladies, all harmonised by the sun
pouring in through the high windows. The Princess says that she herself
was in gold with ermine and white satin, while one of her ladies wore
blue and the other red velvet. "Dearest Fritz was in a great state of
emotion and excitement, as we all were." The King looked so handsome
and noble with the crown on, and the moment when he put the crown on
the Queen's head was so touching that there was hardly a dry eye in the
chapel.
The Princess's keen sense of humour was stirred by the large assemblage
of princes and other notables. "Half Europe is here, and one sees the
funniest combinations in the world. It is like a happy family shut up in
a cage!" and she mentions as an example the Italian Ambassador sitting
close to a Cardinal. There is also a young prince of Hesse who nearly
dies of fright and shyness among so many people; he at once excites the
sympathy of the warm-hearted Princess, though she herself had no
experience of the agonies of shyness.
But the Princess was even more diverted by a compliment which the King
paid her:
"The King gave me a charming little locket for his hair, and only
think--what will sound most extraordinary, absurd, and incredible to
your ears--made me second _Chef_ of the 2nd Regiment of Hussars! I
laughed so much, because really I thought it was a joke--it seemed so
strange for ladies; but the Regiments like particularly having ladies
for their _Chefs_! The Queen and the Queen Dowager have Regiments, but I
believe I am the first Princess on whom such an honour is conferred."
Possibly the Princess thought at first that she was being appointed
honorary cook to the regiment! In any case it is curious that she
should not have known of the custom of conferring such distinctions on
Royal ladies, which obtains in the British Army as well as on the
Continent.
We have no means of knowing how the Crown Prince and Crown Princess
regarded the new King's declaration at Königsberg--that declaration
which amounted to an explicit assertion of the divine right of Kings.
But in Queen Victoria's Letters there is a curious revelation of the
anxiety with which Her Majesty regarded the constant attacks of the
_Times_ on everything German, and particularly everything Prussian. She
even wrote to Lord Palmerston about it, suggesting that he might see his
way to remonstrate with the conductors of the journal. "Pam" did see his
way, and he got an entertaining answer from the great Delane, then at
the zenith of his power, which he forwarded to her Majesty. The editor
says that he would not have intruded advice on the Prussians during the
splendid ceremonies of the coronation "had not the King uttered those
surprising anachronisms upon the Divine Right."
We learn from a letter written by Lord Clarendon to Queen Victoria that
the Crown Princess was much alarmed at the state of affairs in Berlin at
this time. The King saw democracy and revolution in every symptom of
opposition to his will. His Ministers were mere clerks, content to
register his decrees, and there was no one from whom he sought advice,
or indeed who was capable or would have the moral courage to give it.
The King would never accept the consequences of representative
government or allow it to be a reality, though at the same time he would
always religiously keep his word and never overturn the institutions he
had sworn to maintain. Such was this experienced statesman's diagnosis
of the situation, arrived at after an audience of the Crown Princess.
The Princess celebrated her twenty-first birthday on November 21, 1861.
In the letter which she received from her father, almost the last which
he was ever to write to her, one detects a pathetic note, as if the
Prince, wearied and out of health, actually foresaw his approaching
death and wished to give her his parting counsel and blessing:
"May your life, which has begun beautifully, expand still further to the
good of others and the contentment of your own mind! True inward
happiness is to be sought only in the internal consciousness of effort
systematically directed to good and useful ends. Success indeed depends
upon the blessing which the Most High sees meet to vouchsafe to our
endeavours. May this success not fail you, and may your outward life
leave you unhurt by the storms, to which the sad heart so often looks
forward with a shrinking dread! Without the basis of health it is
impossible to rear anything stable. Therefore see that you spare
yourself now, so that at some future time you may be able to do more."
The death of Prince Albert on December 14, 1861, at the age of
forty-two, profoundly affected the lives of both his widow, on her now
lonely throne, and his idolized daughter in Berlin. It is evident from
Queen Victoria's correspondence that she was quite unprepared. Her
letters to King Leopold almost up to the last are full of the most
pathetic hopefulness, and she certainly wrote in the same vein of cheery
optimism to Berlin. The blow fell therefore with all the more stunning
effect on both mother and daughter--indeed, it is hard to say which of
the two felt more utterly crushed and broken-hearted.
The Crown Princess, as we have seen, was much more her father's child
than is usual in family life in any station. The tie between them was
something deeper and stronger even than the natural affection of parent
and daughter; he had sedulously formed her mind and tastes, and he had
become the one counsellor to whom she felt she could ever turn in any
perplexity or trouble, sure of his helpful understanding and sympathy.
Very soon after her marriage, in a letter to the Prince of Wales, she
dwelt on their father as the master and leader ever to be respected:
"You don't know," she wrote, "how one longs for a word from him when one
is distant."
Nor did the Princess, like many daughters, allow her marriage to weaken
this tie; indeed, the thought of the physical distance between them
seemed to bring them, if possible, spiritually nearer. For her mother,
the Princess felt the tenderest and most filial affection, writing to
her every day, sometimes twice a day, about the little details of her
personal life. But though she and her father only wrote to one another
once a week, it was to him that she poured out her full self, the total
of her varied interests in politics, literature, science, art, and
philosophy. The citations already made in the preceding pages from the
Prince's letters to her show, not only the many fields over which their
correspondence ranged, but also the singular charm of their mutual
confidence. It would be difficult to find in history a more touching and
beautiful example of spiritual and intellectual communion between father
and daughter.
And now this great solace and stay of the Princess's life is suddenly
withdrawn from her, practically without any warning. If only she had
known, even suspected, that there was danger, how she would have hurried
to him! No one with any imagination and human sympathy can think of it
without profound pity.
During the first weeks which followed the receipt of the telegram
announcing his death the Crown Princess fell into a silent, listless
state, only rousing herself to bursts of grief which were terrible to
witness. The simple religious faith to which her mother turned could
not, unfortunately, bring her the same consolation. In her extremity it
was on her husband that she leaned. He was untiringly patient and
tender, though it must have been most painful for him to be told that
she felt as if her life was over and she could never be happy again.
It is surely true to say that in these difficult days the Crown Prince
revealed the essential nobility of his character quite as much as he did
in the great spectacular moments of his life--on the stricken field and
in the glory of conquest. Many a husband would have shown a certain
resentment at his wife's absorption in her father, but it is clear that
the Crown Prince, far from feeling any such petty jealousy, brought his
wife the truest consolation by understanding and himself sharing in her
sorrow. He knew what a really remarkable man Prince Albert was, he had
felt the charm of his personality and of his intellectual gifts; and so
we find him looking back on this bereavement, in a letter written some
months later to his old tutor, M. Godet:
"Our whole life is, if such a thing be possible, increasing in happiness
daily. All the tribulation, all the bitterness, of my outside life, and
of what I may call my practical life, I am able to leave behind me when
I reach the door which leads to my 'home.' We had the great grief of
losing my dear father-in-law, the most intimate and tender friend of my
wife, and to me a true second father. It came like a clap of thunder on
our peaceful, happy life. We are now deprived of him whom we thought
would help to guide us during many many years, and now the British
Sovereign is bereft of her only help, while Europe is deprived of one of
her most brilliant and most distinguished minds."
It may reasonably be doubted whether to the Crown Princess the
prolongation of her father's life would have been of great service. We
cannot feel at all sure that in her critical relations with Bismarck,
for instance, his counsel would always have been of the safest kind. He
had not brought her up to be the wife of an autocratic sovereign, still
less that of the wife of an Heir Apparent; she was brought up as might
have been a Prince of Wales in a constitutional country.
By an unfortunate irony of fate, all those who warmly and sincerely
sympathised with the point of view of the Prince Consort, and of herself
and the Crown Prince, were not Prussians; they were--in the phrase then
generally used--Coburgers. This was pre-eminently the case with
Stockmar, and in a less degree with Bunsen and other Liberal Germans.
The mere fact that they were not Prussians discounted any value their
opinions might otherwise have had, both with the then King of Prussia
and with those who surrounded him.
Fortunately for the Crown Princess, the course of public events soon
came to rouse her from her apathy and grief.
Early in that same December which saw the death of the Prince Consort,
the Prussian elections had resulted in large democratic gains, thus
considerably weakening the Ministry. In a memorandum addressed to the
Crown Prince just before he left for England to attend the funeral of
his father-in-law, Duncker prophesied the fall of the Ministry, and for
the first time suggested the plan of calling Bismarck to office. In his
reports during the Ministerial crisis which followed, Duncker warned
both the Crown Prince and the Crown Princess of the danger of trying to
govern at one time with the Liberals and at another with the
Conservatives. He advocated a Ministry composed of business rather than
party men, who would know how to govern as Liberals on a Conservative
basis; and he again urged that Bismarck should be utilised to strengthen
the Ministry.
The Crown Princess after her bereavement seemed to cling the more
closely to the ties which bound her to the land of her birth and of her
father's adoption, and this, as we shall see later, provoked a good deal
of criticism in Berlin. She went to England as often as she could, or
perhaps it would be truer to say as often as her father-in-law could be
induced to give his permission.
Her first visit after the Prince Consort's death was in March, 1862.
Princess Mary of Cambridge went to Windsor especially to see her cousin.
She says: "We found her well, and better in spirits than we expected."
But it must have been a very sad and mournful time, for the Queen was
"rigid as stone, the picture of desolate misery"; and everything
reminded the Crown Princess of the father she had lost.
In the following May, the Crown Prince, at the special request of Queen
Victoria, represented his father at the Great Exhibition of 1862, but
the Crown Princess, much to her regret, could not accompany him. He had
served as chairman of the committee appointed to secure an adequate
representation of German arts and industries, and had thus greatly
promoted the success of the enterprise.
The Crown Princess, however, went to England at the end of June to be
present at the quiet wedding of her favourite sister, Princess Alice, to
Prince Louis, afterwards Grand Duke of Hesse. It was solemnised at
Osborne on July 1.
On August 14, 1862, a second son, Prince Henry, destined to be Germany's
Sailor Prince, was born. The choice of his name seems to have troubled
his grandmother, Queen Augusta. She wrote to her son from Baden: "My
dear Fritz, your first letter moved me deeply, because of your
affectionate heart, and because of all the particulars it contained
about our beloved Vicky. I certainly anticipated that your son would be
called Albert, for that name, no matter whether it is more or less
German, really ought to be handed down as a legacy from the
never-to-be-forgotten grandfather--and I believe that Queen Victoria
expected it too."
As a matter of fact the baby was christened Albert William Henry, but
probably what Queen Augusta meant was that he ought to have been
generally known as Prince Albert instead of Prince Henry.
It might have been expected that the birth of three healthy children,
two of whom were boys, would have, at least in a measure, disarmed the
hostility with which the Crown Princess was regarded by a powerful
section in Prussia. But these people were dissatisfied because the
arrival of the children naturally strengthened the position of the
Princess, and they also feared that the Princes in the direct line of
succession to the throne would be brought up under English rather than
Prussian influence.
There was, it must be admitted, a certain justification for the belief
that the Crown Princess had never really ceased to be an Englishwoman.
In 1855 there had been presented to Prince Albert a remarkable young
Englishman who was destined to play a considerable part in the life of
the Crown Princess. This was Robert Morier, already well and
affectionately known to Baron Stockmar, who even styled him his "adopted
son." It was natural that Prince Albert should take a warm interest in
the young man who came to him with such credentials--indeed, Morier was
quickly made to understand that the Prince wished him to prepare
himself in every way for diplomatic work in Germany. And in January,
1858, at the time of the Royal marriage, Prince Albert did everything in
his power to have Morier appointed attaché to the British Embassy in
Berlin.
Morier had another good friend in the Princess of Prussia, the Princess
Royal's mother-in-law. She had known, not only Morier but his
distinguished father, for many years, and it was her personal wish,
which she expressed to Lord Clarendon, that the young man should be sent
to Berlin in order that he might be of use to her son and her
daughter-in-law. It need hardly be said that Morier was also on intimate
terms with Ernest von Stockmar, who at the same time was appointed
private secretary to the Princess.
Morier obtained the appointment, and it was the beginning of a lifelong
intimacy with Prince Frederick William and the Princess Royal. He became
and remained one of their most trusted friends and advisers, a fact
which undoubtedly injured his diplomatic career. When, many years later,
it was proposed that Sir Robert Morier, as he had then become, should be
appointed Ambassador in Berlin, his name was the only one which was
absolutely vetoed by the then all-powerful Bismarck.
Probably because Morier had a remarkably strong and original
personality, he at once aroused jealousy, dislike, and suspicion; he was
even said to influence the then dying King, as afterwards he was
supposed to influence King William through Queen Augusta, and the Crown
Prince through the Crown Princess.
When one now reads the very frank letters written by Morier to English
relations and friends, one cannot help feeling an uncomfortable
suspicion that the contents of some of them may have gone back to
Germany, perhaps in exaggerated and distorted versions, in spite of the
great precautions taken to keep their contents secret. One observation
in one of his letters certainly leaked out--namely, that his long
experience of German little statesmen had taught him that "like certain
plain middle-aged women, they delight in nothing so much as to talk with
pretended indignation of attacks supposed to have been made upon their
virtue!" Such judgments, when barbed with a sufficient measure of truth,
are apt to rankle.
It must not be thought for a moment that Morier was incorrect in his
official relations in Berlin, but his remarkable ability and strength of
character gave importance to his known Liberal and Constitutional
sympathies. Had he been a diplomatist of merely ordinary qualifications,
there would have been hardly need to mention him at all, but as a matter
of fact he was an important factor in the complex situation of the Crown
Prince and Crown Princess at this period.
A passage in Theodor von Bernhardi's diary, written in November, 1862,
exhibits the feeling in Berlin aroused by the Crown Princess's visits to
England:
"Conversation with Frau Duncker. I showed myself very impatient and
discontented over the repeated long visits the Crown Princess made to
England. 'She has nothing to do there and nothing to seek,' I exclaimed.
Frau Duncker replied: 'The Crown Princess has her own views and her own
will; her views and resolutions are very quickly formed--but when
formed, there is nothing to be done against them.' Further conversation
showed me that the Crown Princess cannot distinguish between our
Three-thaler Diets and the English Parliament; that she thinks
everything here must be just as in England; the Government must ever be
by majority, the Ministry always chosen by the majority--that she tries
to force these views on her husband, and that Max Duncker fights against
it as much as he can. Max Duncker let me see that he is ever trying to
set this young couple by the ears; their ideas cannot be acted upon
here."
The formation in the spring of a new Prussian Cabinet composed entirely
of Conservatives placed the Crown Prince in a considerable difficulty,
because he had openly given his support to the late Liberal Ministry.
Duncker's advice to him was that he should absent himself for a time,
and that he should thereafter be present at the Ministerial councils
without himself taking part in the discussions. This advice was
accepted, and when the Ministry endeavoured to remove Duncker to an
appointment at Bonn University, the Crown Prince prevented it by
emphatically declaring that he did not wish to lose his counsellor.
The events which followed,--the crisis on the subject of military
reforms, and the accession of Bismarck to office,--were regarded by the
Crown Prince with something like dismay, but he was disarmed by the
King's threats of abdication. The Crown Princess's secretary, the
younger Stockmar, in particular, strongly urged that the Crown Prince
should not intervene, as it was essential that he should preserve his
position removed from party strife.
The Crown Prince saw the wisdom of this advice, and on October 15, 1862,
he started with his wife on a long visit to Italy. As the guests of the
Prince of Wales, they joined the English Royal Yacht _Osborne_ at
Marseilles, and went to Sicily and the coast of Africa, including Tunis,
where they visited the Bey at his castle, and the ruins of Carthage. At
Naples the Crown Princess enjoyed herself particularly, sketching and
taking long walks and excursions in all the delights of _incognito_.
November 21, the Princess's twenty-second birthday, was spent by her in
Rome, where the party made a long stay. After visiting other Italian
cities, they returned to Berlin by way of Trieste and Vienna, having
been away altogether rather more than three months.
It was this tour which laid the foundation of the great love for Italy
and for Italian art which henceforth was a marked characteristic of the
Crown Princess.
In the December of 1862 the Crown Prince and Princess made a short stay
in Vienna. The American historian, Motley, was visiting Austria at the
time, and it was characteristic of the Princess that the only person,
outside the Imperial family, whom she desired to see was this brilliant
writer. He gives a charming account of the interview in a letter to his
mother:
"She is rather _petite_, has a fresh young face with pretty features,
fine teeth, and a frank and agreeable smile and an interested, earnest
and intelligent manner. Nothing could be simpler or more natural than
her style, which I should say was the perfection of good breeding."
The Crown Princess told Mr. Motley that she had been reading Froude with
great admiration, and she was surprised to find that, though Motley
admired Froude and had a high opinion of him as an historian, he had
been by no means converted to Froude's view of Henry VIII. The Princess
was evidently disposed to admire that polygamous party, and was also a
great admirer of Queen Elizabeth. The Princess also spoke of Carlyle's
_Frederick the Great_, which she had just read, but we are not told
whether she agreed with Motley's view that Carlyle was a most immoral
writer, owing to his exaggerated reverence for brute force, so often
confounded by him with wisdom and genius.