THE DIFFICULTIES OF A YOUNG SOVEREIGN.
Decline in the Popularity of the Queen--Its Causes--Her Majesty
Accused of Encouraging the Papists--Alleged Design to Assassinate
the Monarch--Disloyal Toryism--Honourable Conduct of the
Queen--Fatal Riots at Canterbury, owing to the Pretensions of John
Nicholls Thom--Preparations for the Coronation--The Ceremony at
Westminster Abbey--Incidents of the Day--Mismanagement at
Coronations--Development of Steam Navigation and the Railway
System--Prorogation of Parliament in August, 1838--Difficult
Position of the Government--Rise of Chartism--Appearance of Mr.
Gladstone and Mr. Disraeli in the Political Arena--Failure of Mr.
Disraeli’s First Speech--“Conservatives” and “Liberals”--Capture of
Aden, in Southern Arabia--Wars with China, owing to the Smuggling
of Opium into that Country by the Anglo-Indians--Troubles in
Jamaica--Bill for Suspending the Constitution--Defeat and
Resignation of the Melbourne Government--Ineffectual Attempt of Sir
Robert Peel to Form a Cabinet--The Question of the Bedchamber
Women--Reinstatement of the Melbourne Administration.
Nothing could exceed the popularity of the Queen at the beginning of her
reign. Her youth, her innocence, the novelty of her duties and the
difficulty of her position, all appealed with a commanding tenderness to
every manly instinct and every womanly sympathy. But after a while a
change occurred in the national sentiment, which was not altogether
inexcusable on the part of the public, though it did some injustice to
the sovereign. Many enthusiasts expected more than they had any right to
expect, and were disappointed because the Queen did not at once do
wonders for the removal of grievances, and the cure of national
distress. Beyond these vague impressions, however, there were some real
causes of complaint, or at least of apprehension. It was seen very
clearly that the young monarch had placed herself too unreservedly in
the hands of one political connection. The offices about the Queen’s
person were filled by ladies belonging to the families of the chief
Ministers. People said that Lord Melbourne was too much at the Palace;
that he sought to occupy the position of a
[Illustration: THE EARL OF DURHAM.]
Mentor in all things; and that in the General Election the Queen showed
a partiality for certain candidates who belonged to the faction then in
power. Ministers and their supporters did really use the name and
supposed leanings of her Majesty as a means of bolstering up a Cabinet
which they knew to be generally unpopular; and persons were found to ask
whether the English Court was always to be the appendage of an
aristocratic coterie.
Under the influence of these feelings, some men were unmanly enough to
attack the Queen in public with shameful imputations. The excitement,
which began during the elections of 1837, had become almost frantic in
1839. The Orangemen of Ireland, and the ultra-Protestants of England,
believed, or affected to believe, that the sovereign was being
influenced to destroy the reformed religion, and re-establish Papacy
throughout her dominions. The Melbourne Administration supported
religious liberty; to some extent, its members leant for support upon
the Irish vote; the Queen favoured Lord Melbourne: therefore, her
Majesty was inclined to Rome. Such were the stages by which these
hot-headed reasoners
[Illustration: THE THRONE-ROOM, BUCKINGHAM PALACE.]
arrived at their conclusion. Some placed their hopes in the Tory party;
others openly declared that the Tories, could they only get possession
of the sovereign, would poison her, and change the succession. Men
recollected with an uneasy feeling that, in 1835, Mr. Joseph Hume, a
conspicuous Radical member of Parliament, detected and unmasked an
Orange plot for setting aside the rights of the Princess Victoria, and
giving the crown to the Duke of Cumberland, on the ridiculous plea that,
unless some such step were taken, the Duke of Wellington might seize the
regal power for himself. The investigations which the Government were
compelled to make raised a strong suspicion that the Duke of Cumberland
was privy to this traitorous scheme. The English people were so
delighted when he left for Hanover, after the death of William IV., that
a cheap medal was struck to commemorate the event; and his despotic
rule in the small German kingdom amply justified their fears. Nothing
more, it would seem, was to be dreaded from the fifth son of George
III.; yet apprehensions of a conspiracy still remained.
It is a remarkable feature of the times that during all this commotion
the Liberals were the loyal and courtly party, while many of the Tories
indulged in fierce invectives against the monarch. On the one side, the
Irish agitator, Daniel O’Connell, vaunted in the course of 1839 that he
could bring together five hundred thousand of his countrymen to defend
the life and honour of “the beloved young lady” who filled the English
throne; on the other, a Mr. Bradshaw, member for Canterbury in the Tory
interest, alleged, without any circumlocution, that the countenance of
Queen Victoria, the ruler of Protestant England, was given to “Irish
Papists and Rapparees,” her Majesty, he added, being “Queen only of a
faction, and as much of a partisan as the Lord Chancellor himself.”
This, indeed, was by no means the worst of the speaker’s utterances; but
his wildest flights of vituperation were received with enthusiastic
cheers. It is but fair, however, to add that he afterwards apologised
for his bad manners. At a meeting held at the Freemasons’ Tavern,
presided over by Lord Stanhope, a Chartist orator proposed to open a
subscription for presenting the Queen with a skipping-rope and a
birch-rod. Other persons spoke with equal violence, and in some
instances the authorities even found it necessary to warn military
officers, and civil servants of the Crown, against such disloyal
utterances. One very painful incident occurred towards the end of June,
1839, when her Majesty was hissed on Ascot racecourse. It was
represented to her that the Duchess of Montrose and Lady Sarah Ingestre
were amongst the persons so acting; the Queen therefore showed her
displeasure to those ladies at a State ball. The slander was apparently
traced to Lady Lichfield, who denied it, first by word, and then by
writing. With the letter in her hand, the Duchess went to the Palace,
and required an audience of her Majesty, but, after being kept waiting a
couple of hours, was refused, on the advice of Lord Melbourne. She was
extremely angry, and insisted that a written statement should be laid
before the Queen. These circumstances increased the unpopularity of the
monarch, and she was coldly received at the prorogation of Parliament.
Yet, if people could have set aside their prejudices and passions, they
would have found abundant evidence that the nature of the Queen was
instinct with just and honourable feelings. She had been accustomed from
childhood to live strictly within her income, and to deny herself any
little gratification which could not be at once paid for in ready money.
The same habit of virtuous prudence continued after her accession to the
throne; and out of her savings she was enabled, during her first year of
regal power, to discharge the heavy debts of her father, contracted
before she was born. With respect to this matter, however, it should be
mentioned that, according to a statement in the _Morning Post_, the Duke
of Kent’s executors had succeeded in Chancery in establishing their
claim against the Crown to the mines of Cape Breton, which had been made
over to his Royal Highness for a period of sixty years dating from 1826,
and that therefore the Crown must either have paid the Duke’s debts, or
suffered the mines to be worked for the benefit of the creditors. The
Queen also paid her mother’s debts, which, however, were in some
respects her own, since they had in the main been incurred on her
behalf. With a truly liberal and generous feeling, she continued to the
natural children of William IV. by Mrs. Jordan the allowance of £500 a
year each which had been granted them by the King. What was really
regrettable in the early part of the Queen’s reign was the completeness
with which the new sovereign placed herself in the hands of Lord
Melbourne and his clique, and which seemed for a time to set her in the
light of a partisan. But what else could be expected of one so young, so
inexperienced, so incapable by early training to assume all at once the
full responsibilities of royalty? The fault was with the advisers,
rather than with the advised.
The General Election of 1837 failed to rescue the Government from the
difficult position they had long occupied. Threatened by the Radicals,
who considered they did not move fast enough, they were obliged to lean
for assistance on the Conservatives, without whose help they would often
have been left in a minority. Ministers felt the ignominy of their lot,
but were unable to amend it; and a painful set of incidents in the
spring of 1838 gave occasion for a sharp attack on the Home Office. A
few years previously, a person called John Nicholls Thom left his home
in Cornwall, and settled in Kent, where he described himself as Sir
William Courtenay, Knight of Malta. He was in truth a religious madman,
claiming to be the King of Jerusalem, or, in other words, the Messiah;
and multitudes of persons, belonging for the most part, though not
entirely, to the poor and ignorant classes, believed in his assertions.
Dressed in a fantastical costume, he went about the country, haranguing
the people, and violently denouncing the Poor Law. He persuaded many of
the farmers and yeomen that he was entitled to some of the finest
estates in Kent, and that he would shortly be established as a great
chieftain, when all the people on his lands should live rent-free. To
the still more credulous he spoke of himself as Jesus Christ, and
pointed in confirmation to certain marks in his hands and side, which he
described as the wounds inflicted by the nails of the cross. Crowds
followed him about, believing in his foolish miracles; some actually
paid him divine honours; but a tragedy was approaching. On the 31st of
May, 1838, Thom shot a constable who had interfered in his proceedings.
The military were then summoned from Canterbury, when the rioters
retreated into Bossenden Wood; a lieutenant who endeavoured to arrest
the maniac was also shot dead; and a riot ensued, in which several
persons, including Thom himself, were killed by the fire of the
soldiers, and others wounded. It afterwards appeared that the man had
previously been confined as a lunatic, but had been liberated the year
before by Lord John Russell, acting as Home Secretary. For this, the
latter was severely censured by the Opposition in Parliament, and a
select committee was appointed to inquire into the circumstances; but it
was generally agreed that the Minister was not to blame in the matter.
In the first half of 1838, attention was drawn away from many
distracting controversies by the preparations for crowning the new
sovereign. The
[Illustration: THE CORONATION CHAIR, WESTMINSTER ABBEY.]
imagination of the populace was powerfully affected by the thought of
this gorgeous ceremony, and a Radical paper of the time observed that
the commonalty had gone “coronation-mad.” Political economists, however,
fixed their thoughts upon the question of expense, and it was resolved
that the charges should fall far short of those incurred for George IV.,
which amounted to £243,000. The crowning of his successor had cost the
nation no more than £50,000; but it was stated in Parliament that the
expenses for Victoria would be about £70,000--an increase on the
previous reign due to the desire of Ministers to enable the great
[Illustration: THE CORONATION OF THE QUEEN. (_After the Painting by Sir
George Hayter._) [_See p. 43._]]
mass of the people to share in what was described as a national
festivity. Some important alterations were introduced into the
programme. The procession of the estates of the realm was to be struck
out, and the accustomed banquet in Westminster Hall, with its feudal
observances, was likewise marked for omission. To compensate for these
losses, it was arranged that there should be a procession through the
streets which all could see. The new arrangements were objected to by
some of the upper classes; but there can be no question that the
popularity of the show was greatly enhanced by these concessions to the
wishes of the majority.
The coronation took place on the 28th of June. Although the day began
with clouds and some rain, the weather afterwards cleared, and the
pageantry was seen to great advantage. The streets were lined with
spectators; an unbroken row of carriages moved on towards the Abbey; and
the windows were crowded with on-lookers. At ten o’clock A.M., the Royal
procession started from Buckingham Palace, and, passing up Constitution
Hill, proceeded along Piccadilly, St. James’s Street, Pall Mall,
Cockspur Street, Charing Cross, Whitehall, and Parliament Street, to the
west door of the grand old historic structure where the ceremonial was
to take place. The carriages of the Ambassadors Extraordinary attracted
much attention, especially that of Marshal Soult, which, so far as the
framework was concerned, appears to have been the same as that used on
occasions of state by the last great Prince of the House of Condé, one
of the most famous military commanders of the seventeenth century. The
gallant adversary of Wellington in the wars of the Peninsula was
everywhere received with the heartiest cheers, and was so deeply touched
by this cordiality of feeling on the part of his old opponents, that
some years after he declared himself, in the French Chamber, a warm
partisan of the English alliance. Westminster Abbey had been brilliantly
decorated for the occasion. The ancient aisles glowed and shone with
crimson and purple hangings, with cloth of gold, and with the jewels,
velvets, and plumes of the peeresses; and when the procession entered at
the west door, the effect was both magnificent and solemn.
It was half-past eleven when her Majesty reached the Abbey. Retiring for
a space into the robing-room, she issued forth clad in the Royal robes
of crimson velvet, lined with ermine, and embroidered with gold lace.
Round her neck she wore the collars of the Garter, Thistle, Bath, and
St. Patrick, and on her head a circlet of gold. It is mentioned that she
looked very animated; and assuredly the scene was one well calculated to
impress even the mind of a sovereign with a sense of lofty and almost
overwhelming grandeur. The noble, time-honoured building, with half the
history of England in its monuments and its memories, appealed
powerfully to the moral sentiment; while the splendour of the
decorations and the costumes was such as to hold the Turkish Ambassador
entranced for some minutes. The peers and great officials, with their
pages and other attendants, were gorgeously dressed; so also were the
Foreign Ministers and their suites, and, in particular, Prince Esterhazy
glittered with diamonds to his very boot-heels. Her train upborne by
the daughters of eight peers, preceded by the regalia, the Princes of
the blood-royal, and the great officers of State, and followed by the
ladies of the Court and the gentlemen-at-arms, the Queen advanced slowly
to the centre of the choir, and, amidst the chanting of anthems, moved
towards a chair placed midway between the chair of homage and the altar,
where, kneeling on a faldstool, she engaged in private devotion. The
ceremony of the coronation then commenced.
The first act was that which is called “the Recognition.” Accompanied by
some of the chief civil dignitaries, the Archbishop of Canterbury
advanced, and said, “Sirs, I here present unto you Queen Victoria, the
undoubted Queen of this realm; wherefore, all you who are come this day
to do your homage, are you willing to do the same?” The question was
answered by loud cries of “God save Queen Victoria!” and, after some
further observances, her Majesty made her offerings to the Church, in
the shape of a golden altar-cloth, and an ingot of gold of a pound
weight. The strictly religious part of the ceremony followed, and, at
the conclusion of a sermon preached by the Bishop of London, the Oath
was administered in the manner usual on such occasions. The Queen then
knelt again upon the faldstool, while the choir sang, “Veni, Creator
Spiritus;” after which came the Anointing. Her Majesty seated herself in
the historic chair of King Edward I., while the Dukes of Buccleuch and
Rutland, and the Marquises of Anglesey and Exeter (all being Knights of
the Garter), held a cloth of gold over her head. The Dean of Westminster
next took the ampulla from the altar, and poured some of the oil into
the anointing-spoon; whereupon the Archbishop anointed the head and
hands of the Queen, marking them with the cross, and pronouncing the
words,--“Be thou anointed with holy oil, as kings, priests, and prophets
were anointed,” etc. A prayer or blessing was then uttered, and the
investiture with the Royal Robe, the rendering of the Orb, and the
delivery of the Ring and Sceptre, were the next ceremonies. The placing
of the Crown on the sovereign’s head was one of the most striking
incidents of the day. As the Queen knelt, and the crown was placed on
her brow, a ray of sunlight fell on her face, and, being reflected from
the diamonds, made a kind of halo round her head.[7] At the same moment,
the peers assumed their coronets, the Bishops their caps, and the
Kings-of-Arms their crowns, thus adding greatly to the richness and
dignity of the spectacle. Loud cheers were echoed from every part of the
Abbey; trumpets sounded, drums beat; and the Tower and Park guns were
fired by signal.
The Benediction, the Enthroning, and the formal rendering of Homage, now
ensued. The last of these ceremonies had a singularly feudal character.
First, the Archbishop of Canterbury knelt, and did homage for himself
and the other Lords Spiritual; then the uncles of the Queen, the Dukes
of Sussex and Cambridge, removed their coronets, and, without kneeling,
made a vow of fealty in these words:--“I do become your liege man, of
life and limb, and of earthly worship; and faith and truth I will bear
unto you, to live and die, against all manner of folks. So help me God!”
Having touched the crown on the Queen’s head, they kissed her left
cheek, and retired. The other peers then performed their homage
kneeling, the senior of each rank pronouncing the words. It was at this
part of the day’s proceedings that an awkward incident occurred--an
incident, however, which served to bring out an amiable trait in the
sovereign’s character. As Lord Rolle, then upwards of eighty, was
ascending the steps to the throne, he stumbled and fell. The Queen,
forgetting all the ceremonious pomp of the occasion, started forward as
if to save him, held out her hand for him to kiss, and expressed a hope
that his Lordship was not hurt. Some rather obvious puns were made on
the correspondence of the noble Lord’s involuntary action with the title
which he bore; and even his daughter was heard to remark, after it had
been ascertained that no damage was done, “Oh, it’s nothing! It’s only
part of his tenure to play the _roll_ at the Coronation.”
While the Lords were doing homage, the Earl of Surrey, Treasurer of the
Household, threw silver medals about the choir and lower galleries,
which led to a good deal of rather unseemly scrambling. The choir then
sang an anthem, and the Queen received two sceptres from the Dukes of
Norfolk and Richmond. Next, divesting herself of her crown, she knelt at
the altar, and, after two of the Bishops had read the Gospel and Epistle
of the Communion Service, made further offerings to the Church. She then
received the Sacrament; the final blessing was given; and the choir sang
the anthem, “Hallelujah! for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth.” Quitting
the throne, and passing into the chapel of Edward the Confessor, while
the organ played a solemn yet triumphant strain, her Majesty was
relieved of her Imperial Robe of State, and arrayed in one of purple
velvet. Thus adorned, with the crown upon her head, the sceptre with the
cross in the right hand, and the orb in the left, the Queen presented
herself at the west door of the Abbey, and, delivering the regalia to
gentlemen who attended from the Jewel Office, re-entered the State
carriage on her return to the Palace. It was by this time nearly four
o’clock, but the streets were still crowded with sight-seers. The peers
now wore their coronets, and the Queen her crown; the latter of which
(together with the coronets of the Royal Family) blazed with diamonds
and other precious stones. State dinners, balls, fireworks,
illuminations, feasts to the poor, and a fair in Hyde Park, lasting four
days, which was visited by the Queen herself, followed the splendid
ceremony of which Westminster Abbey had been the theatre.
In many respects, the proceedings in the Abbey were grand and
impressive; but Mr. Greville, the clerk of the Council, lets us a little
behind the scenes in the Second Part of his Memoirs. “The different
actors in the ceremonial,” he writes, “were very imperfect in their
parts, and had neglected to rehearse them. Lord John Thynne, who
officiated for the Dean of Westminster, told me that
[Illustration: THE QUEEN RECEIVING THE SACRAMENT AT HER CORONATION.
(_After the Painting by C. R. Leslie, R.A._)]
nobody knew what was to be done except the Archbishop and himself (who
had rehearsed), Lord Willoughby (who is experienced in these matters),
and the Duke of Wellington; and consequently there was a continual
difficulty and embarrassment, and the Queen never knew what she was to
do next. They made her leave her chair, and enter into St. Edward’s
Chapel, before the prayers were concluded, much to the discomfiture of
the Archbishop. She said to [Lord] John Thynne,
[Illustration: THE DUCHESS OF KENT.]
‘Pray tell me what I am to do, for they don’t know;’ and at the end,
when the orb was put into her hand, she said to him, ‘What am I to do
with it?’ ‘Your Majesty is to carry it, if you please, in your hand.’
‘Am I?’ she said; ‘it is very heavy.’ The ruby ring was made for her
little finger instead of the fourth, on which the rubric prescribes that
it should be put. When the Archbishop was to put it on, she extended the
former, but he said it must be on the latter. She said it was too small,
and she could not get it on. He said it was right to put it there, and,
as he insisted, she yielded, but had first to take off her other rings,
and then this was forced on; but it hurt her very much, and as soon as
the ceremony was over she was obliged to bathe her finger in iced water
in order to get it off. The noise and confusion were very great when the
medals were thrown about by Lord Surrey, everybody scrambling with all
their might and main to get them, and none more vigorously than the
Maids of Honour.”
There can be no doubt that on all these occasions mistakes and omissions
are numerous. What accidents may have attended the coronation of Queen
Elizabeth it is impossible to say, for there were no Memoir-writers in
those days; but, in several of his letters, Horace Walpole gives some
amusing anecdotes of the unpreparedness of the Court officials at the
coronation of George III. In a communication to Sir Horace Mann, dated
September 28th, 1761, he says:--“The heralds were so ignorant of their
business, that, though pensioned for nothing but to register lords and
ladies, and what belongs to them, they advertised in the newspaper for
the Christian names and places of abode of the peeresses. The King
complained of such omissions, and of the want of precedents: Lord
Effingham, the Earl Marshal, told him it was true there had been great
neglect in that office, but he had now taken such care of registering
directions that _next coronation_ would be conducted with the greatest
order imaginable. The King was so diverted with this flattering speech
that he made the Earl repeat it several times.”
On the 4th of September, 1838, the King and Queen of the Belgians paid a
visit to England. They landed at Ramsgate, and were escorted by Lord
Torrington to the Queen at Windsor Castle, where they remained the
guests of her Majesty. A fortnight later, a military review took place
in Windsor Little Park, when the Queen appeared on horseback in the
Windsor uniform, with the badge and ribbon of the Order of the Garter.
She had King Leopold, in a Field Marshal’s uniform, on her right, and
Lord Hill, Commander of the Forces, on her left, followed by the Duke of
Wellington and Lord Palmerston. The King and Queen of the Belgians left
the Castle on the 20th, and embarked the following day for Ostend. It
was a great delight to the English sovereign to have King Leopold as a
visitor, for his advice on affairs of State was highly valuable.
The year 1838 was signalised, among other things, by some events showing
the rapid change which science was making in the habits of society. On
the 23rd of April, the _Great Western_ steamer arrived at New York,
after a voyage of fifteen clear days. This famous ship, and the
_Sirius_, whose voyage was simultaneous almost to a day, were the first
vessels which had crossed the Atlantic by steam-power alone, sails
having been used in combination with steam on previous occasions. The
_Great Western_ was in those days the largest steamer ever known, her
tonnage being equal to that of the largest merchant-ships. She was built
at Bristol, and sailed from that port on the 7th of April. When she
entered the harbour of New York, she had still a surplus of one hundred
and forty-eight tons of coal on board, and the problem was solved as to
whether a steamer could be constructed large enough to carry sufficient
fuel for so long a voyage. The size, tonnage, and speed of this historic
vessel have been greatly surpassed in later times; but the fact of a
ship crossing the Atlantic in fifteen days was a very genuine
astonishment to the people of 1838. Two years later (1840), the Cunard
line of steamers was established at Liverpool, which soon entirely
eclipsed Bristol as the great commercial port on the western side of
England, and as the packet-station for the American service. Another
interesting feature of the year 1838 was the opening of the London and
Birmingham Railway throughout its entire length. The precise date was
the 17th of September, and thenceforward the railway system progressed
rapidly. The line in question, however, was not the first that had been
placed at the disposal of the public. The original railway for the use
of passengers was that constructed by Edward Pease and George Stephenson
between Stockton and Darlington, and opened on the 27th of September,
1825. The next was the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, commenced in
October, 1826, and opened on the 15th of September, 1830--on which
occasion, Mr. Huskisson, a prominent statesman of the time, was
accidentally killed. Nevertheless, the development of the system is
associated almost entirely with the reign of Queen Victoria, and we
hardly think of railways as belonging, even in their inception, to an
earlier period.
The Parliamentary Session of 1838 came to a close on the 16th of August.
Having taken her seat on the throne, the Queen was addressed by the
Speaker of the House of Commons on the subject of the suspension of the
constitution of Lower Canada (which had been set aside as a preliminary
to the introduction of more liberal arrangements when the rebellion
should be suppressed), and on some other matters of less general
interest. Her Majesty gave the Royal assent to a number of Bills, and
then proceeded to read the Speech, which presents nothing of importance.
The Government were heartily glad to be free for some months from the
criticism and the menaces of a Parliament not very cordially inclined
towards Lord Melbourne and his colleagues. When the House of Commons
reassembled after the General Election in 1837, Ministers found
themselves with a majority of only twelve. Conservative support saved
them from discomfiture on several occasions; but this very fact was not
unnaturally considered fatal to their reputation as Whigs. The breach
between the Cabinet and the advanced section of the party became wider
and more impassable during the session of 1838: the recess, therefore,
came as an immense relief. In addition to their troubles in the Lower
House, Ministers had to encounter, in the other branch of the
Legislature, the invectives of Lord Brougham, who had quarrelled with
his old friends in consequence of not being reappointed to the
Chancellorship in 1835. The affairs of Canada, moreover, had brought the
Whigs into collision with Lord Durham, whose nature was almost as
passionate and imperious as that of Brougham himself. Their demerits
were probably not so great as their enemies tried to show; but the
conduct of affairs was weak, and Tories and Radicals were alike
dissatisfied, though often for the most diverse reasons.
A good deal of discontent, also, was growing up in the country itself.
The price of bread was high; wages were low; trade was not prosperous;
and the operation of the new Poor Law was considered unnecessarily
harsh. In the autumn of 1838, meetings were held in various localities,
at which some of the speakers addressed inflammatory language to the
assembled people, who belonged to the artisan and labouring classes. A
body of men had arisen, calling themselves Chartists. They demanded a
Charter of popular rights, the six points of
[Illustration: NEWARK CASTLE.]
which were Manhood Suffrage, Vote by Ballot, Annual Parliaments, Payment
of Members, Abolition of the Property Qualification, and Equal Electoral
Districts. Several of these objects have since been carried out, either
wholly or nearly so; but, in the days of which we write, they seemed
dangerous and visionary in the highest degree. The middle classes, who
had carried the Reform Bill of 1832 with the assistance of the grades
below them, considered that enough had been done when their own
interests were satisfied. A reaction had set in, and the prosperous were
afraid of advancing on to the paths of revolution. Even Lord John
Russell declared against further organic changes, and, in the absence of
any leaders of distinguished social status, the humbler orders took the
agitation into their own hands. A sentiment of vague discontent arose
very speedily after the passing of the great measure which changed the
representation. Bad harvests and general distress gave acrimony to the
spirit of political discussion, and in the summer of 1838 a committee of
six Members of Parliament and six working men, assembling at Birmingham,
prepared a Bill embodying their views of what
[Illustration: MR. DISRAELI IN HIS YOUTH. (_After the Portrait by
Maclise_.)]
was required by the country in general, and the labouring classes in
particular. This was the document which soon afterwards received the
name of “the People’s Charter”--on the suggestion, it is said, of Daniel
O’Connell. The direction of the movement fell into the hands of the more
violent members. Physical force was threatened; torchlight meetings were
held; processions were formed, in which guns, pikes, and other weapons
were openly displayed; and on the 12th of December the Government
issued a proclamation against all such gatherings. Chartism, however,
was not destroyed by this measure. Some degree of truth pervaded its
extravagance, and its influence has been felt in later days.
It is about this period, or a little earlier, that we become aware of
two great names in modern statesmanship, one of which is still potent in
the political world, while the other has but recently passed into the
sphere of completed history. Mr. Gladstone--then a young man of
twenty-three--was returned for Newark, in December, 1832, to the first
reformed Parliament. He was then a Conservative, with the same High
Church leanings which, in the midst of considerable changes on other
subjects, he has manifested ever since. His ability, his mental culture,
and his habits of business, attracted the attention of Sir Robert Peel,
who, in his short-lived Administration of 1834-5, made him a Junior Lord
of the Treasury, and afterwards Under-Secretary for Colonial Affairs;
but it was not until the beginning of Victoria’s reign that he became
conspicuous. Probably no one--not even himself--could at that time have
anticipated the greatness he was subsequently to achieve; but he was
slowly maturing his powers, and acquiring that extraordinary knowledge
of public affairs for which he has since been famous.
His rival, Mr. Disraeli, afterwards Lord Beaconsfield, did not enter
Parliament until the latter half of 1837--the first Parliament of the
reign of Queen Victoria. He was the son of Isaac D’Israeli, an author of
distinction, the descendant of a family of Jews, formerly connected with
Spain and Italy. Isaac having quarrelled with the Wardens of the
Synagogue, his son Benjamin was brought up as a Christian from an early
period of his life. By 1837-8, he had made a name for himself by a
variety of novels, embodying those political and social ideas which
afterwards influenced his conduct as a public man--a sort of Toryism,
with an infusion of democratic sympathy. It was as a species of Radical,
though with Tory support, that he first endeavoured to obtain a seat in
the House of Commons; but a few years later he found no difficulty in
displaying the Conservative colours without reserve. The inconsistency,
though of course not susceptible of being entirely explained away, was
hardly so extreme as might at first appear. Mr. Disraeli hated the
Whigs, and objected to several features of the Reform Bill, as giving
too much power to the middle classes, and too little to the working
classes, and as tending in this way to the increased predominance of the
great Whig families. He appeared, therefore, to be attacking the same
enemy, whether from a Radical or a Tory platform. In a letter written on
the 17th of January, 1874, this was the explanation given by Mr.
Disraeli himself. “It seemed to me,” he said, “that the borough
constituency of Lord Grey was essentially, and purposely, a Dissenting
and low Whig constituency, consisting of the principal employers of
labour, and that the ballot was the only instrument to extricate us from
these difficulties.” Probably, Mr. Disraeli was consistent from his own
point of view, and in his devotion to certain leading ideas; but it is
equally obvious that he was resolved to get into Parliament, and that he
addressed his appeal at different times to different supporters.
The future Lord Beaconsfield was thirty-three years of age when he
entered the House of Commons as the Conservative Member for Maidstone.
He was five years older than Mr. Gladstone, and began his Parliamentary
career five years later; but, from the close of 1837 to the summer of
1876, when Mr. Disraeli was advanced to the Peerage, both were members
of the Lower House, except during the short interval between Mr.
Gladstone’s retirement from Newark in 1846 and his election for Oxford
University in 1847. The appearance of the representative for Maidstone
did not create a favourable impression. He was a dandy, of the type
existing in those days, with the addition of a certain Hebrew
extravagance and gorgeousness. His long black hair, his sallow
countenance, his bottle-green coat and white waistcoat, his profusion of
rings and gold chains, his strange gestures and general exaggeration of
manner, excited a sense of the ludicrous which was not fortunate for the
new-comer. His first attempt at oratory had a disastrous termination. A
few years earlier, O’Connell had patronised young Disraeli; but they
afterwards quarrelled on political grounds, and, in reply to a savage
attack on himself by the Irish agitator, Mr. Disraeli had declared that,
as soon as he obtained a seat in the House of Commons, he would inflict
on that demagogue such a “castigation” as would make him repent the
insults to which he had given utterance. On the 7th of December, 1837,
during an Irish debate, he rose to acquit himself of this engagement.
The speech had been elaborately prepared, but was too high-flown for the
taste of the House. Certain it is that there were frequent interruptions
and bursts of laughter; but a good deal of the disturbance appears to
have originated with the Irish followers of Mr. O’Connell. The new
member struggled bravely for a long time against this ungenerous
opposition, but at length gave way, in these memorable words addressed
to the Speaker:--“I am not at all surprised, Sir, at the reception I
have met with. I have begun several times many things, and I have often
succeeded at last. Ay, Sir, and, though I sit down now, the time will
come when you will hear me.”
The great figures of Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Disraeli have occupied such
prominent positions during the reign of Queen Victoria, that it has
seemed necessary to make special reference to their rise as politicians.
At this period, both sat on the Conservative side of the House. But
their Conservatism was of two very different orders; Mr. Gladstone’s
being more of the steady, orthodox kind, while Mr. Disraeli’s shot forth
into novelties and unexpected developments, touching on autocracy in one
direction, and on democratic power in another. The term “Conservative,”
it may be here remarked, arose about the commencement of the Queen’s
reign, or at any rate not long before. Since 1832, also, it had been not
unusual for certain enthusiasts of the opposite party to call themselves
Liberals; but the older members of both bodies preferred the historic
appellations of Whig and Tory. “Radical” was another term belonging to
the same epoch; so that we find, at the beginning of the Victorian era,
all the party watchwords which are still active in the political arena.
The leading events in the earlier months of 1839 were the occupation of
Aden, on the 20th of January, by the troops of the East India Company;
the opening of Parliament by the Queen in person on the 5th of February;
and the arrest by the Chinese Government, on the 7th of April, of
Captain Elliot, the superintendent of British trade in China, who was
compelled to deliver up opium to the value of £3,000,000. Aden is a town
and harbour at the south-western extremity of Arabia. It was at that
time a miserable collection of mud huts, containing not more than six
hundred inhabitants, but is now, under English rule, a flourishing and
populous place of trade, a coaling-station of the Anglo-Indian mails,
and a singularly convenient position for communication with Asia and
Africa. A British merchant-vessel having been shipwrecked off the coast
of Aden, the barbarian natives of which plundered and ill-used the crew,
a war-ship was despatched from Bombay in 1838, to oblige the reigning
Sultan (a half-savage potentate) to make restitution. It is evident,
however, that the East Indian authorities were rather glad of the
incident, since it gave them a much-desired pretext for impressing on
the petty sovereign of the country--with that persuasiveness which the
presence of a ship-of-war so greatly facilitates--the desirability (from
our point of view) of ceding Aden and the adjacent lands to the English.
The Sultan agreed to the proposal, but afterwards endeavoured to break
his promise, when he was compelled by force to submit.
Affairs of this nature have always their questionable side; but the
Chinese war was much worse. An English factory was established at Canton
in 1680, and several were in existence in 1839. A factory, in the
Anglo-Indian sense of the word, is not a place of manufacture, but a
place of trade. One of the principal trades we pursued at Canton was the
trade in opium, which, having been grown in India, was smuggled into
China, in defiance of the express prohibition of the Imperial
Government. The use of opium ruined the health, and corrupted the whole
moral nature, of innumerable Chinamen; but the culture and exportation
of the poisonous drug yielded a large revenue to the Indian Government,
as well as a great profit to the traders; and the reasonable wishes of
the Chinese authorities were therefore to be disregarded. Frequent
dissensions arose in consequence; and at length, in 1839, matters came
to a crisis with the arrest of Captain Elliot, and the seizure of the
opium over which he had control. A naval war, ultimately supported by a
military force, soon afterwards broke out between England and China, and
lasted, with brief interruptions, until the 29th of August, 1842, when a
treaty of peace was concluded at Nankin, the Imperial sanction of which
was received on the 15th of September. Amicable relations were thus
re-established for a few years; but at a later period hostilities again
broke out, owing to repeated misunderstandings between the British
authorities and the Chinese Government. By the Treaty of 1842 (the
formal ratifications of which were exchanged between the Emperor and
Queen Victoria on the 22nd of July, 1843), it was provided that Amoy,
Foochow, Ningpo, and Shanghae, should, in addition to Canton, be thrown
open to the British, who were permitted to maintain a consul at each of
the five ports; and that the island of Hong-Kong should belong in
perpetuity to England. We had succeeded by virtue of superior force; yet
such triumphs yield nothing but a feeling of shame to any well-informed
[Illustration: THE COUNCIL CHAMBER, ST. JAMES’S PALACE.]
Englishman whose mind is not vitiated by false reasoning or
self-interest. The Chinese fought in defence of their cities with a
heroism which would have called forth the generous praises of Plutarch;
and the pitiable spectacle of brave men slaying their wives and
children, and then themselves, rather than fall into the hands of the
enemy, should have burnt like red-hot iron into the consciences of the
opium-mongers who provoked the war.
These were matters in which the Queen was not immediately concerned,
though it would be unfitting to omit them from any account of her reign.
But a complication had arisen in Jamaica which led to a Ministerial
crisis in England, involving points of constitutional practice that were
very important to her Majesty’s position. Slavery had been abolished in
Jamaica in the year 1834; but the troubles inseparable from that
detestable system did not cease with its abrogation. The planters
continued to be insolent and cruel. They evaded the new arrangements in
every way they could, and placed themselves in systematic opposition to
the Governors sent out from England, whose duty it was to see the laws
enforced. The House of Assembly defied the Imperial Government, and
ultimately refused to provide for the executive needs of the island
until they were allowed to have their own way in all things. On the
other hand, it is very probable that the negroes were often indolent,
and sometimes presumptuous; though nothing is more surprising than the
temper and self-control exhibited by the poor blacks on finding
themselves suddenly invested with liberty. The Jamaica embroilment was
made all the worse by the imprudence of Lord Sligo, who, while acting as
Governor in 1836, committed a gross violation of the privileges of the
Assembly. He was compelled by the Home Government to apologise, and soon
afterwards gave place to Sir Lionel Smith, who, after a brief period of
popularity, became as much at issue with the Assembly as his
predecessors. The representative body refused to pass the most necessary
laws, and expressed the greatest indignation at a Bill, sanctioned by
the Imperial Parliament, for the regulation of prisons in Jamaica, where
many cruelties were inflicted on the negroes. Nor was this all; for the
unfortunate men of colour were frequently turned out of house and home,
together with their families, and left to starve--a fate not absolutely
impossible, even in the genial climate of a West India island. The state
of things was becoming intolerable, and the Government of Lord Melbourne
struck a venturesome blow.
A proposal was brought before Parliament in 1839 to suspend the
constitution of Jamaica for five years, and to substitute during that
period a provisional government appointed by the Home authorities.
However regrettable in itself, the measure seems to have been justified
by the circumstances; but the weakness of the Government invited attack
on so favourable an opportunity for creating odium. The majority of
twelve with which they commenced the new Parliament had by this time
fallen even lower, and there was enough to say against their Jamaica
policy to give the Opposition an excellent chance of success. The
measure was indeed carried by a majority of five at the sitting of May
6th; but this was equivalent to a defeat, and the Ministry at once
resigned. The announcement of their resolution was made on the 7th of
May, and, on her Majesty sending for the Duke of Wellington on the 8th,
she was advised by him to entrust the formation of a new Cabinet to Sir
Robert Peel. Accepting this counsel, the Queen commanded the attendance
of that statesman at Buckingham Palace, but at the outset encountered
him with the discouraging remark that she was much grieved to part with
her late Ministers, whose conduct she entirely approved. She added,
however, that she felt the step was necessary; that her first object was
the good of the country; that she had perfect confidence in Sir Robert,
and would give him every assistance in her power in carrying on the
Government. Nothing was said on that occasion about the difficulty which
afterwards arose, and the composition of the Cabinet proceeded without
any material obstruction.
The next day, however, while talking over matters with his intended
colleagues, Sir Robert Peel became for the first time aware that the
person of the Queen was surrounded by ladies closely related to the Whig
statesmen recently in office. This was very naturally considered as
involving a special peril to the new Ministry; for, when it was
remembered that the Queen had an avowed partiality for the ideas and
political conduct of Lord Melbourne, it seemed almost inevitable that
ladies so intimately connected with the Melbourne Government would use
their position about her Majesty to prejudice and embarrass the
incomers. In consequence of these apprehensions, Sir Robert Peel brought
the subject before the notice of the sovereign on the same day (May
9th), and stated that, while no change would be required in any of the
appointments below the rank of a Lady of the Bedchamber, he should
expect that all of the higher class would at once resign. If such should
not be the case, he should propose a change, although he thought that in
some instances the absence of political feeling might render any
alteration unnecessary. On the 10th of May, her Majesty wrote to the
Conservative leader:--“The Queen, having considered the proposal made to
her yesterday by Sir Robert Peel, to remove the Ladies of her
Bedchamber, cannot consent to adopt a course which she conceives to be
contrary to usage, and which is repugnant to her feelings.” A few hours
later, Sir Robert addressed a communication to the Queen, relinquishing
his attempt to form a Government, and recapitulating the circumstances
which, in his judgment, rendered that attempt impracticable.
It is difficult to come to any other conclusion than that Sir Robert
Peel was right in the view which he took of this matter. He could not
have carried on the administration of the country under a perpetual
liability to backstairs intrigues. Besides, it was the opinion of very
high authorities on constitutional law that the appointments of the
Royal Household are State appointments, and therefore dependent on the
Ministry of the day. Lord Melbourne and Lord John Russell, however,
advised her Majesty to the contrary, and it was the members of the late
Government, sitting in council by a questionable stretch of powers that
were then merely provisional, who arranged the terms of the letter which
the Queen addressed to Sir Robert Peel on the 10th of May. The leader of
the Conservatives became for a few days the most unpopular man in
England. It was supposed by the Queen, and rather sedulously spread
abroad by the Melbourne party, that Peel desired to remove _all_ her
personal friends and familiar attendants; but, as we have seen, this was
far from being the case. The Whigs endeavoured to create a factitious
sentiment on behalf of the Queen by stating that the ladies whose
dismissal Peel demanded were “the friends of her Majesty’s youth;”
whereas they appear to have been scarcely known to her until their
appointment at the beginning of the new reign. That appointment was made
on purely political grounds, and the Duchess of Kent was not consulted
in the matter. The facts were afterwards made clear by the statesman
chiefly concerned; but a great deal of unmerited odium had been
incurred, and, in particular, Daniel O’Connell and Feargus O’Connor
denounced Sir Robert in unmeasured language, while pouring out fulsome
eulogies on the sovereign whose lawful authority they were a few years
later to dispute. When the truth became known, a strong reaction set in,
and there can be no doubt that what was called the Bedchamber affair was
one of the causes of that temporary unpopularity of the Queen to which
we have before adverted.
The Melbourne Government resumed office on the 11th of May, and lost no
time in adopting a minute in the following terms:--“Her Majesty’s
confidential servants, having taken into consideration the letter
addressed by her Majesty to Sir Robert Peel on the 10th of May, and the
reply of Sir Robert Peel of the same day, are of opinion that, for the
purpose of giving to the Administration that character of efficiency and
stability, and those marks of the constitutional support of the Crown,
which are required to enable it to act usefully to the public service,
it is reasonable that the great officers of the Court, and situations in
the Household held by Members of Parliament, should be included in the
political arrangements made in a change in the Administration; but they
are not of opinion that a similar principle should be applied or
extended to the offices held by ladies in her Majesty’s Household.” Two
years later (at the suggestion of Prince Albert), the question was
settled by a compromise which substantially conceded what Sir Robert
Peel had required. The restored Whigs introduced another Jamaica Bill,
of a less stringent character, which they carried with the assistance,
and under the correction, of the Tories; and the session closed in the
midst of general distraction, and the errors of a feeble rule.
[Illustration: COBURG. (_After a Sketch by Prince Albert._)]