THE FIRST YEAR OF MARRIED LIFE.
Difficulties of the Early Married Life of Prince Albert--His
Unpopularity in Certain Quarters--Attempt to Suppress Duelling in
the Army--Position of the Prince in the Royal Household--Want of
Supervision in the Management of the Palace--Introduction of
Reforms, on the Initiative of Prince Albert--Duties Assumed by the
Prince--Domestic Life--Post Office Reform--Defective State of the
Service Previous to 1840--Rowland Hill and the Penny
Post--Opposition to the New Scheme--Introduction of the Lower Rate
of Postage--General Features and Effects of the Change--Measure for
the Protection of Children Employed in Chimney-sweeping--Attempt of
Edward Oxford to Shoot the Queen--Appointment of Prince Albert as
Regent under certain Eventualities--Life and Studies at
Windsor--Birth of the Princess Royal--Devotion of the Prince to her
Majesty--Christmas at Windsor (1840)--Christening of the
Princess--Accident to Prince Albert--The Eastern Question: Turkey
and Egypt--Removal of the Body of Napoleon I. from St. Helena to
Paris--Rise and Development of the Agitation for Free Trade.
Having stayed three days at Windsor Castle, her Majesty and the Prince
returned to Buckingham Palace. On the 28th of February the Duke of
Coburg left for Germany, and his son had now to enter on the ordinary
routine of life, such as life is in that exalted station. The position
of the Prince was no doubt extremely difficult, and at first it appeared
almost unbearably irksome. Nothing could surpass the mutual love and
confidence of the newly-wedded pair, and, as regarded the great mass of
the English people, the bridegroom was popular. But he was scanned with
jealous dislike by a large section of the aristocracy; he had not the
particular kind of disposition best fitted for overcoming that dislike;
and some of the incidents which preceded his arrival in England were
certainly of a nature to vex and discourage. On the whole, he bore his
probation well; yet we now know that, in private, he used expressions of
annoyance which showed how deeply he had been wounded. His letter to the
Queen, complaining of the appointment of Mr. Anson as his Private
Secretary, was rather querulous in tone, however just in argument. In
another letter to her Majesty, written from Brussels on the 1st of
February, 1840, he spoke of the vote on Colonel Sibthorp’s amendment
with respect to the annuity as “most unseemly”--which it clearly was
not; and in May of the same year he wrote to his friend Prince
Löwenstein that he was “only the husband, and not the master in the
house.” All these opposing facts and feelings boded evil for the future.
In some degree, the very virtues of Prince Albert’s character stood in
the way of his rapidly making friends, though a feeling of respect was
not slow in arising. His manners were reserved and distant, and people
mistook for haughtiness what was nothing more than the disinclination of
a reflective and sequestered nature to enter heartily into the
promiscuous and not always very sincere intercourse of what is called
general society. He was considered cold and ungenial, and it is probable
that to some he really was so. To those whom he truly loved, and whose
natures were sympathetic with his own, he could be a most delightful
companion; but this, of course, was no compensation to courtiers who
expected to find in him a facile man of the world, but whose frivolities
repelled and wearied him. In truth, he was something of a formalist, and
formalism is the quality, of all others, which generally makes
Englishmen feel most uneasy. One of his favourite ideas was to promote
the abolition of duelling in the British army by the substitution of
courts of arbitration on questions of personal honour. The Duke of
Wellington and other leaders gave some heed to this proposal; but it had
no great prospect of success, and in time ceased to be talked about.
Nevertheless, it must be allowed that the agitation of this subject by
Prince Albert, in 1843, co-operated with other causes to put down the
foolish and wicked practice against which his Royal Highness sought to
make provision. When Queen Victoria ascended the throne, duelling was
frequent. In twelve or thirteen years, it had almost entirely died out,
killed by the ridicule and the awakened moral sense of all reasonable
men.
The question of the Prince’s position in the Royal Household was
indisputably one of no little importance. The young husband possessed
(as we find it stated by one well qualified to speak on the subject) “no
independent authority by right of his position, and could exercise none,
even within his own household, without trenching upon the privileges of
others, who were not always disposed to admit of interference. This
could scarcely fail to embarrass his position in the midst of a vast
Royal establishment, which had inherited many of the abuses of former
reigns, and where he found much of which he could not approve, but yet
was without the power to rectify. And as behind every abuse there is
always some one interested in maintaining it, he could not but be aware
that he was regarded with no friendly eyes by those who were in that
position, and who naturally dreaded the presence among them of one so
visibly intolerant of worthlessness and incapacity.”[10] The consequence
was that the Prince sometimes found himself in collision with
functionaries who would scarcely allow him any authority whatever, and
especially with Madame Lehzen, then the Private Secretary of the Queen,
who seems to have presumed too much on her Majesty’s affection for her
former governess. Confusion and extravagance, delay and discomfort,
reigned within the Palace; the Queen and the Prince were equally
inconvenienced and annoyed; yet, although some reforms were effected at
an earlier period, it was not until 1844 that the system was radically
altered.
There was in fact no master of the Royal dwelling, because there were
too many masters. The control of affairs was divided by the Lord
Steward, the Lord Chamberlain, and the Master of the Horse; but no one
of these was superior to the other two, and each acted in his department
with entire independence. As their position was bound up with that of
the Ministry, change was frequent, and an adverse vote in the House of
Commons, on a question wholly political, would deprive the Queen of
servants who were perhaps only just beginning to understand their work;
for the appointments were made solely on party grounds, and
[Illustration: BUCKINGHAM PALACE--GARDEN FRONT.]
without any reference to fitness for the post. The apportionment of
functions and responsibilities was often most bewildering in its nicety
and complex elaboration; so that particular matters would be left
without any supervision whatever, because it was impossible to determine
whose business it was to look after them. Baron Stockmar, who, early in
1841, had drawn up a Memorandum on the subject at the request of the
Queen and Prince Albert, wrote, with a certain sense of humour in the
midst of his grave exposition, that the Lord Steward found the fuel and
laid the fire, while the Lord Chamberlain lighted it; that, in the same
manner, the Lord Chamberlain provided all the lamps, while it was the
duty of the Lord Steward to clean, trim, and light them. The commonest
repairs, such as are required in every house, could not be executed
without the order passing through so many hands that months frequently
elapsed before the desired result could be effected. The state of
things, indeed, was such that Dickens’s Circumlocution Office can hardly
be regarded as an exaggeration.
“As neither the Lord Chamberlain nor the Master of the Horse,” said
Baron Stockmar, “has a regular deputy residing in the Palace, more than
two-thirds of all the male and female servants are left without a master
in the house. They can come and go off duty as they choose; they can
remain absent hours and hours on their days of waiting, or they may
commit any excess or irregularity; there is nobody to observe, to
correct, or to reprimand them. There is no officer responsible for the
cleanliness, order, and security of the rooms and offices throughout the
Palace.” The laxity of the system was so extreme as to be attended by
certain very positive dangers. During the years 1840-41, a young
chimney-sweep was more than once discovered hiding in one of the
apartments. “The boy Jones” became the talk of the town; but the
incident was decidedly unpleasant, although the lad does not seem to
have had any evil intent. No such circumstance could have happened with
any proper system of supervision; but of system there was positively
none. Yet it was a matter of the utmost difficulty to bring about a
change in this chaos of incompetence and corruption; and Sir Robert
Peel, when consulted on the subject in 1841, deprecated any reform which
should seem to impair the authority of the great officers of State.
Prince Albert, however, held resolutely to his purpose, and, about the
close of 1844, the heads of the several departments were induced to
confer on the Master of the Household absolute authority over the whole
internal economy of the Palace. From that time forward the Royal
dwelling was managed with intelligence and economy.
In relation to the State the position of the Prince was even more beset
with thorns than in respect of his domestic arrangements. It was
impossible that he should cut himself off from all interest in the great
events of the time; yet he had no place in the Constitution, and it was
most necessary that he should avoid even the semblance of interfering in
the politics of the country on which he had been affiliated. His own
idea was to constitute himself the Private Secretary and confidential
adviser of the Queen; and this was the position which, after a while, he
actually filled. He read the foreign despatches which it is the duty of
Government to submit to the sovereign before sending them out; he wrote
notes for the guidance of her Majesty’s judgment, and in many ways
assisted the youth and inexperience of one who had been called, without
much preparation, to the discharge of onerous duties. The suggestions of
the Prince were not seldom accepted by Ministers; though of course it
was necessary to regard them as coming from the Queen, as, indeed, by
adoption they did. The domestic life of this period was cheered and
exalted by reading, by music, by art, and by frequent visits to the
theatre, especially to witness the plays of Shakespeare, then
interpreted by a school of actors who in these days have scarcely any
successors. Occasional visits to Claremont relieved the oppressive
monotony of London existence.
A few weeks before the marriage of Prince Albert, a social and
administrative reform had been begun in Great Britain, which must have
possessed a very deep interest for his humane and liberal mind. For many
years, the Postage system of the country had been in a state wholly
inadequate to the requirements of modern civilisation. When a regular
Post Office was established in the reign of Charles I. (all
communication until then being occasional and precarious), the number of
persons who could read and write was small, and the needs of the public
were proportionably trivial. But in the middle of the nineteenth century
it was imperative that the transmission of letters should be cheap,
rapid, and facile. Facile and cheap it certainly was not, and before the
full elaboration of the railway system there could be no rapidity in the
modern sense of the term. Education was spreading; yet, to relatives and
friends divided by a few miles, the expense of a letter was so great
that, in many instances, people forbore from writing altogether, or
resorted to a number of curious and dishonest tricks for sending and
obtaining some sort of intelligence without paying for it. Within a
small radius of Charing Cross, London, letters of moderate weight could
be transmitted for twopence; but beyond these bounds the tariff was so
high as to be prohibitory to all humble folk. The variations in the
scale were determined not merely by distance, but also by the weight,
and even the size of a letter. For transmission between London and
Brighton the charge was eightpence, while nothing could be sent from
London to Aberdeen under one shilling and threepence-halfpenny; and the
letters so taxed were not to exceed a single sheet, or they paid extra.
Peers, members of the House of Commons, and Cabinet Ministers, had the
right of “franking,” as the phrase was; that is, by writing their names
on the outsides of letters, whether their own or those of other persons,
they could secure their free conveyance. In the case of Ministers this
privilege was without limits; in the other cases, the right was confined
to a certain proportion of letters in the course of the year. The system
of franking was bad in every way. It deprived the revenue of what was
legitimately its due; it caused a large amount of petty vexation to the
holders of the privilege; it humiliated those who went begging for the
favour; and it spared the very people who were best able to afford the
expenses of the post.
No one requires to be told that, taking the whole mass of the
population, there were but few persons sufficiently intimate with the
great ones of the earth to obtain franks. The less fortunate were
therefore driven to expedients of their own to evade a pressure which
they were unable to bear. Illicit agencies for
[Illustration: PRINCE ALBERT’S MUSIC ROOM, BUCKINGHAM PALACE.
(_From a Photograph by Mr. H. N. King._)]
the transmission of letters at a cheaper rate were formed in various
parts of the kingdom, and these were much employed by mercantile and
manufacturing firms, who saved largely by the device. People lower in
the scale exercised their wits in a number of contrivances, which were
often extremely ingenious, and which it is impossible either to defend,
or seriously to accuse. Newspapers were marked with strange dots and
other understood symbols, which conveyed a few general facts from the
sender to the recipient. Sometimes two or three words were written on
one of the margins; but this was very likely to be detected. A much
safer plan was to despatch a blank sheet of paper duly directed, the
mere sight of which would sufficiently assure B, who received, that A,
who sent, was alive and well. The letter could then be at once returned
to the postman, on the plea that the postage could not be afforded. An
incident of this nature came under the observation of Coleridge when
wandering about the
[Illustration: MR. (AFTERWARDS SIR) ROWLAND HILL.]
Lake district in the days of his early manhood; and there can be little
doubt that the same thing was frequently done in many successive years.
The evils of the Postal system were slightly mitigated by these
stratagems, but only slightly; and, as a rule, the poor were almost
entirely deprived of the knowledge of one another, if fifty miles or so
separated the brother from the sister, or the mother from the son.
Nevertheless, the revenue suffered from the several schemes for evading
the high rates of postage. Between 1815 and 1835 the population of Great
Britain increased thirty per cent.; education had made some progress;
and travelling was so much more common that the stage-coach duty (though
the railway system had begun by the latter year) had increased one
hundred and twenty-eight per cent. Yet during the same time the receipts
of the Post Office underwent no augmentation whatever, if, indeed, they
did not fall off. It is clear, therefore, that the secret and illicit
post must have enjoyed a good deal of patronage, though rather in the
middle than the lower class. The objections to the Postal system were
many and glaring. It was needlessly onerous, the average charge on every
letter throughout the United Kingdom being as much as sixpence-farthing;
it encouraged fraud; it hindered the natural intercommunication of the
poor; it was capricious and uncertain in its operation; and it included
a great deal of most offensive spying, to ascertain whether suspected
letters contained more than the regulation number of pages. Still, owing
to the force of habit, it survived years of obloquy, until a genius
arose capable of organising a better method.
Mr. Rowland Hill (subsequently Sir Rowland) was the third son of Mr.
Thomas Wright Hill, of Kidderminster, and afterwards of Birmingham, and
brother of Matthew Davenport Hill, an eminent lawyer, politician, and
reformer, whose name is identified with the more humane treatment of
juvenile offenders. Delicate in health from his childhood, young Rowland
showed a premature genius for figures, and a still greater genius for
organisation. In 1833, when about thirty-eight years of age, he was
appointed Secretary to the South Australian Commission, and was largely
instrumental in founding the colony of South Australia. It was about
this time that his attention was first directed towards the Postal
system, and early in 1837 he published a pamphlet on “Post Office
Reform: its Importance and Practicability.” He had observed that the
number of letters passing through the post bore a ridiculously small
proportion to the number of the population. His mathematical mind
induced him to make calculations as to the cost of conveyance; and he
found that the expense of transit on each individual letter between
London and Edinburgh--a distance of four hundred miles--was not more
than the thirty-sixth part of a penny. Indeed, the cost was but little
enhanced by distance; and Mr. Hill therefore came to the conclusion
that, if the rates of postage were reduced to the lowest, if the
despatch of letters were made more frequent, and the speed of conveyance
were increased, the revenue would gain instead of lose, to say nothing
of the social boon.
Starting from his well-ascertained datum, that thirty-six letters could
be carried from London to Edinburgh at a cost of a penny, Mr. Hill
strongly urged the desirability of adopting a uniform rate of postage
within the limits of the United Kingdom. That this rate should not be
more than a penny, followed naturally from the proved facts of the case,
and from the obvious justice of giving the public the advantage of a
cheapness which would actually benefit instead of injuring the revenue.
Nevertheless, the opposition to be encountered proved very serious and
harassing. All the persons engaged in the old system were pledged to
resist the new; and it appears to have been really thought that a Penny
Post would entail such difficulties in its organisation as to be
practically impossible. The Postmaster-General, Lord Lichfield, declared
in the House of Lords that the proposed scheme was the wildest and most
extravagant he had ever known. In the opinion of this official, and of
several others, the necessary expenses would be absolutely overwhelming,
while, owing to the immeasurable increase of correspondence, no building
would be large enough to receive the clerks and the letters. This very
argument, however, clearly implied that there was a public want which
the existing system did not supply. On the other hand, many believed
that there would be very little increase in the number of letters, and
that there was, in fact, no real demand for any change whatever.
Some persons, from whom a greater liberality might have been expected,
were as antagonistic to the scheme as if they had been Post Office
officials. The Rev. Sydney Smith, who had been a reformer in his earlier
days, but who was now getting old, spoke of the plan as “nonsensical,”
and as needlessly entailing a loss of a million to the revenue. Rowland
Hill, however, was not a man to be deterred by any amount of difficulty.
He had convinced himself, and ultimately he convinced others, that
letters might be sent to any part of Great Britain and Ireland for the
sum of one penny, and that yet there would be a profit of two hundred
per cent. The uniformity of charge would in itself save a large amount
of time and trouble; and if the postage could be paid in advance, there
would be a still further gain in general convenience. The idea of a
penny letter-stamp was suggested to Mr. Hill by a proposal put forth
some years before by Mr. Charles Knight, the eminent author and
publisher, who thought that the best way of collecting a penny postage
on newspapers would be by the use of stamped covers. This plan was
ultimately adopted for letters, and people at the present day, if they
think at all upon the subject, are astonished how their forefathers
could have gone on from year to year without a method at once so cheap,
so simple, and so admirably adapted to the necessities of the case.
As Mr. Hill was not himself a member of Parliament, it was essential to
his scheme that he should get a spokesman or two in that Assembly. He
was well served by Mr. Warburton and Mr. Wallace, who frequently brought
the subject before the attention of the House of Commons. In February,
1838, Mr. Wallace moved for a select committee to investigate and report
upon the proposed scheme of postal reform; but, as the Government
declared that the matter was under their consideration, the motion was
not carried. Public attention, however, was by this time strongly
directed towards the subject, and numerous petitions were sent up to
Parliament from very influential bodies, praying that the law might be
altered. The Melbourne Ministry began to see that the subject was one
which must shortly be taken in hand, whether in a greater or a less
degree. The natural inclination was, of course, to treat it in the
slightest degree possible, and various minor reforms were proposed,
which only showed that the official position was getting insecure, but
yet that there was a strong disinclination to sanction any radical
change. At length, on the 5th of July, 1839, the Chancellor of the
Exchequer, in bringing forward the annual Budget at an unusually late
period of the session, proposed a resolution declaring it to be
expedient “to reduce the postage on letters to one uniform rate of one
penny, charged upon every letter of a weight to be hereafter fixed by
law; Parliamentary privileges of franking being abolished, and official
franking strictly regulated; this House pledging itself at the same time
to make good any deficiency of revenue which may be occasioned by such
an alteration in the rates of the existing duties.” The evidence
obtained by a committee of the House had shown the absolute need and the
entire practicability of Rowland Hill’s plan. The demand for the
adoption of that plan was now universal, and the Government could no
longer resist a change which was supported by convincing reasons. The
requisite Act of Parliament was rapidly passed, and the law received the
Queen’s sanction before the end of August.
Nevertheless, there was to be an intermediate period, during which the
charge for postage would be at the rate of fourpence for each letter,
half an ounce in weight, within the entire area of the United Kingdom.
This was to save the Post Office from being deluged by a flood of penny
letters, for which the officials would not be all at once prepared. But
on the 10th of January, 1840, the postage was fixed at the uniform rate
of one penny per letter not exceeding half an ounce in weight--a limit
which in 1865 was widened to one ounce. Mulready, the painter, furnished
a design for an official envelope, which, however, was found to be
inconvenient, and was speedily laid aside. The affixed penny stamp was
introduced on the 6th of May, and the system was then fairly
launched--as fairly, that is, as official jealousy would suffer it to
be. Franking was abolished with the introduction of the new method; and,
although the Queen was still entitled to this privilege, she immediately
relinquished it, with that good feeling which has always distinguished
her Majesty’s relations towards her people. The aristocracy, and others
who had enjoyed the invidious right, found even the penny postage a
serious addition to their expenses; but the merchant, the manufacturer,
the tradesman, the middle classes generally, and the poor, were suddenly
invested with a benefit of which they had long been unjustly deprived,
and which proved of the highest value in all the ordinary transactions
of life.
Another social reform in which her Majesty and Prince Albert must have
taken the deepest interest was in some degree associated with the year
1840. On the 7th of August an Act of Parliament was passed with
reference to the employment of children in the sweeping of chimneys. By
the terms of this Act, it was made unlawful for master-sweeps to take
apprentices under sixteen years of age, and no individual under
twenty-one was to ascend a chimney after July 1st, 1842. The law was
made more stringent in 1864; but in the meanwhile it had done an immense
amount of good. The barbarity of the system it supplanted was great
indeed. Boys of tender years, whose ordinary treatment by their
employers was of the roughest kind, were compelled, often by acts of
extreme violence, to ascend chimneys for the purpose of brushing down
the soot. Cases were known in which these poor little creatures were
lost and stifled in the dark, cavernous, and winding passages which they
had to thread. At the
[Illustration: RECEPTION OF THE QUEEN IN HYDE PARK AFTER THE NEWS OF
OXFORD’S ATTEMPT ON HER LIFE.]
best, the suffering was great, and entailed diseases of the joints, of
the eyes, and of the respiratory organs. The system was wholly
inexcusable, for the ramoneur, or jointed brush, now in general use, had
been known for several years. It required an Act of Parliament, however,
to enforce the introduction of this machine, and to protect the
unfortunate children; though, in a very few years after the alteration,
respectable householders wondered how they could have tolerated the
abominable cruelty to which the climbing-boys were subjected.
Between the introduction of the new Postal system and the passing of the
Bill for the protection of youthful sweeps, her Majesty had been exposed
to a danger and an affront which she had probably never anticipated,
though it has been repeated several times since. On the 10th of June,
1840, the Queen was driving up Constitution Hill, in company with Prince
Albert, when she was twice fired at by a pot-boy, seventeen years of
age, named Edward Oxford. Her Majesty turned very pale, and, between the
firing of the first and second shots, rose up in the carriage; but
Prince Albert immediately pulled her down by his side. A pleasing
impression was produced at the time by the thoughtfulness of the Queen
in ordering the carriage to be at once driven to the residence of the
Duchess of Kent, that her mother, who might have heard some rumour of
the occurrence, should see that she was safe. On afterwards driving
through Hyde Park, her Majesty had a most enthusiastic reception from
the fashionable company in the Row. She was ultimately escorted home by
a crowd consisting of all classes, and repeated shouts revealed the
cordiality of the public feeling. On the offender being examined next
day before the Privy Council, he said that, although there were many
witnesses against him, they contradicted each other in several important
particulars. It appeared that he belonged to a secret society called
“Young England,” the rules of which prescribed that every member should,
when ordered to attend a meeting, be armed with a brace of loaded
pistols and a sword, and should also be provided with a black crape cap,
to cover the face. This society, however, does not seem to have had any
wide ramifications, and was probably nothing more than an association of
foolish young people, actuated as much by vanity as by malice. On the
10th of July, Oxford was tried for high treason in its most aggravated
form, including an attempt on the very life of her Majesty. The defence
was based on an allegation of insanity, though there can be little doubt
that Oxford was not insane in any true sense of the word. He was ordered
to be kept in a lunatic asylum during her Majesty’s pleasure; but in
1868 he was set at liberty, on condition of going abroad. It is a
discreditable fact that even members of Parliament applied for locks of
his hair when it was cut off previous to his confinement. Many persons
considered that he ought to have been hanged, and, when similar attempts
were made some two years later, Oxford himself expressed an opinion
that, had he been executed, there would have been no more shooting at
the Queen. In this opinion he was probably right; but the extreme
tenderness of the modern conscience forbade the execution of one whose
criminal folly had, after all, effected no real mischief. After a while,
Oxford seems to have recognised the wickedness of his act, which he
attributed to inordinate vanity; and during his long confinement he
learned the art of graining, and even taught himself some modern
languages. His attempt, however, was a very grave evil, and, even
supposing there had been no bullets in the pistols (as Oxford, perhaps
truthfully, alleged), might have produced serious consequences. “My
chief anxiety,” wrote Prince Albert shortly afterwards, “was lest the
fright should have been injurious to the Queen in her present state.”
One good effect was the increased popularity both of the Queen and of
her husband, who were received with genuine enthusiasm whenever they
appeared in public.
The condition of her Majesty in the summer of 1840 rendered it advisable
that a Regency should be appointed, in case of her approaching
confinement terminating in a manner which all would have deplored. The
Queen’s own wish was that Prince Albert should be named as Regent; but
of course it was necessary to carry a Bill to this effect through
Parliament, and it was feared that, as in the case of the Naturalisation
Bill and the measure for granting an annuity, there might be some
difficulties of a vexatious nature, unless an understanding could be
previously arrived at with the leaders of the Opposition. The Duke of
Sussex was known to dislike conferring this position on Prince Albert,
and to favour the idea of creating a Council of Regency, in which he
himself would be a prominent member. Baron Stockmar, therefore, opened
communications with Sir Robert Peel and the Duke of Wellington, and the
matter was speedily arranged. A Bill appointing Prince Albert to the
office of Regent in the case supposed was introduced into the Upper
House on the 13th of July, and passed with no other dissentient voice
than that of the Duke of Sussex. The measure was equally successful in
the House of Commons, and it was generally agreed that the father, as
the natural guardian of any offspring, was the fittest person to
exercise supreme power in the name of the Royal infant, until he or she
had attained the legal majority. On the other hand, there was the
objection that the actual ruler of the country during many years would
be a born foreigner; but, as this had happened several times before in
the history of England, it was held to be no serious obstacle to an
arrangement otherwise satisfactory.
On the 11th of September, Prince Albert was made a member of the Privy
Council, and, having been recently appointed to the Colonelcy of the
11th Hussars, he went out from time to time with a squadron of the 1st
Life Guards in Windsor Park, in order to make himself acquainted with
the forms of English drill, and the words of command. During the same
autumn months, he was much occupied with a series of readings on the
laws and Constitution of England, under the care of Mr. Selwyn, a
distinguished writer on jurisprudence. He and the Queen were then
residing at Windsor, the green and woody surroundings of which were an
endless source of delight to the Prince. But an event was now
approaching which rendered a return to Buckingham Palace advisable. The
London residence of her Majesty was re-entered on the 13th of November,
and, during the same month, Baron Stockmar, who had left England for his
home in Coburg at the beginning of August, returned to London at the
urgent solicitation of the Prince, who desired to have that admirable
friend and counsellor at hand during a period of natural anxiety. On the
21st of November, 1840, the Princess Royal was born, and, although the
Prince was a little disappointed at the infant not being a son, the
feeling was but momentary. His devotion to the Queen during her
confinement was constant, and beyond all praise. He generally dined with
the Duchess of Kent, refused to go out in the evening, and was always at
hand if anything were required. “No one but himself,” says a memorandum
by her Majesty in an official work on the Prince’s early life, “ever
lifted her from her bed to her sofa, and he always helped to wheel her
on her bed or sofa into the next room. For this purpose he would come
instantly when sent for from any part of the house. As years went on,
and he became overwhelmed with work (for his attentions were the same in
all the Queen’s subsequent confinements), this was often done at much
inconvenience to himself; but he ever came with a sweet smile on his
face. In short, his care of her was like that of a mother; nor could
there be a kinder, wiser, or more judicious nurse.”[11] Her Majesty
recovered so rapidly that the Court removed to Windsor Castle for the
Christmas holidays. The Prince was always much interested in the
ceremonies of that season, and it was now that the pretty German custom
of setting up Christmas-trees, as a graceful means of distributing
little presents both to old and young, was introduced into England. The
Court returned to Buckingham Palace on the 23rd of January, 1841, and
Parliament was opened by the Queen in person on the 26th. Her Majesty
had but recently told the Prince that in former days she was only too
happy to be in London, and felt wretched at leaving it; but that since
the hour of their marriage she was unhappy at leaving the country, and
could be content never to go to town. This pleased him, as showing an
increasing solidity of mind, which found greater pleasure in the quiet
yet joyous delights of the country than in the giddy amusements of the
metropolis.
The baptism of the Princess Royal took place on the 10th of February,
the first anniversary of the Queen’s marriage, when the infant was
christened Victoria Adelaide Mary Louisa. The Prince, in writing, on the
12th of February, 1841, to his grandmother, the Dowager Duchess of
Gotha, said that the christening had gone off very well. “Your little
great-grandchild,” he added, “behaved with great propriety, and like a
Christian. She was awake, but did not cry at all, and seemed to crow
with immense satisfaction at the lights and brilliant uniforms, for she
is very intelligent and observing. The ceremony took place at half-past
six P.M.; and after it there was a dinner, and then we had some
instrumental music. The health of the little one was drunk with great
enthusiasm.” The sponsors at the christening were the Duke of Saxe
Coburg and Gotha (represented in his absence by the Duke of Wellington),
the King of the Belgians, the Queen Dowager, the Duchess of Gloucester,
the Duchess of Kent, and the Duke of Sussex. Only the day before, the
Prince had met with an accident, which might have proved fatal. He was
skating on the ornamental water in Buckingham Palace Gardens, when a
piece of ice, which had been recently broken, and had thinly frozen over
again, gave way as he was passing across it. He had to swim for two or
three minutes, in order to get out; but her Majesty, who was standing on
the bank, showed great presence of mind, and afforded valuable
assistance.
During the last two years, the Queen had been rendered anxious by
[Illustration: CHRISTENING OF THE PRINCESS ROYAL. (_After the Painting
by C. R. Leslie, R.A._)]
complications in the East, which at one time threatened to involve us in
a war with France. The Pasha of Egypt, Mehemet Ali, had for some years
made himself almost independent of the Turkish Sultan, Mahmoud II., and
had annexed the whole of Syria to his recognised dominions. He had an
able, energetic, and martial son (or rather an adopted son) named
Ibrahim Pasha, who repeatedly worsted the Ottoman forces, overran the
larger part of the Turkish dominions in Asia, and even threatened
Constantinople itself. After a while, a compromise was effected, by
which the Egyptians withdrew from their more advanced positions, but
were suffered to retain the province of Syria. This arrangement was
concluded in 1833; but, six years later, Mehemet Ali again rose against
his suzerain. Mahmoud II. expired on the 1st of July, 1839, shortly
after a great battle in Syria, which had ended in the discomfiture of
his army, but of which he had not received intelligence at the time of
his decease. A few days later, the Capitan Pasha, or Lord High Admiral,
Achmet, deserted to Mehemet Ali with the whole of the Turkish fleet, and
the Ottoman Empire might have been rent into fragments, had it not been
for the interposition of England, Russia, Austria, and Prussia, which,
in July, 1840, gave Mehemet Ali to understand that he would not be
permitted to proceed in his career of rebellion and conquest. Thus
assisted, the young Turkish Sultan, Abdul-Medjid, pronounced the
deposition of his Egyptian vassal. Beyrout was bombarded by a combined
English, Austrian, and Turkish fleet, and captured in October. Other
successes followed, and old Mehemet Ali made his submission to superior
power. He was deprived of all his conquests, but permitted to retain
Egypt; and thus a very difficult state of affairs was brought to a
peaceful conclusion about the close of 1840. There had been no little
danger of a rupture with France, owing to the very different views of
the Eastern Question taken by that Power and by England. France dreaded
the establishment of British influence in Egypt, where she desired to
affirm her own superiority; and in the spring of 1840 M. Guizot was sent
on a special mission to London, in the hope of composing matters. The
Queen received him graciously; yet he has left an account of a dinner at
Buckingham Palace, which confirms other descriptions as to the dulness
and languor of those entertainments. His negotiations did not proceed
very happily; but at length the clouds passed off, and, shortly after
the birth of the Princess Royal, all menace of a European war had
entirely disappeared.
A minor but still important incident, belonging to the same period,
tended to the creation of a better feeling between England and France,
and, in a not distant future, helped forward a striking change in the
political condition of the latter country. In May, 1840, during the
reign of Louis Philippe, the body of Napoleon I. was removed, by
permission of the English Government, from the island of St. Helena to
the dominions where the great conqueror had once held such brilliant,
yet disastrous, sway. On the 15th of December, the remains were buried
with solemn pomp in the Hôtel des Invalides, in Paris. A magnificent
monument has since been erected over the grave, and it cannot be
doubted that the enthusiasm awakened by the reception of the mighty
soldier’s ashes had much to do with the subsequent revival of the
Napoleonic Empire.
A question of great importance, which had been growing up for years, was
now acquiring a degree of prominence which renders it advisable that
some notice should be taken of its rise and development. The Corn Laws
of England had long operated not only as a serious interference with the
trade of the country, but as an artificial aggravation of the price of
food. From time to time, various attempts had been made to lighten the
burden by making the tax dependent on the price of native wheat; but the
injury to the populace was always considerable, and the benefit, if
there was any benefit at all, was enjoyed simply by the landowners and
the agricultural class. Strange to say, the great body of the people,
who were chiefly interested in the matter, made little remonstrance
during a long term of years, and it required the persistent efforts of
an organised body to excite the necessary amount of opposition to an
impost which did cruel injustice to the multitude. An association for
obtaining the repeal of the Corn Laws was established in London in 1834,
and other bodies, animated by the same intention, arose in different
parts of the country. Still, their influence was but slight; and it was
not until the work was taken up by men peculiarly fitted to carry on the
discussion, that the country recognised the evils of a system which made
the poor man’s loaf dearer than it ought to be.
In 1804, a small landed proprietor near Midhurst, in Sussex, had a son
born to him, who was afterwards the celebrated Richard Cobden. The boy
was soon introduced to business life in London, and subsequently became
a partner in a Manchester printed-cotton factory, for which he
occasionally travelled. In this way he saw a good deal of the world,
and, being a person of a singularly shrewd, penetrating, and reflective
mind, he discerned the whole fallacy of the Protective system, and
determined to devote his energies to a repeal of the Corn Laws. In 1838,
he and some others brought the matter before the attention of the
Manchester Chamber of Commerce, and from that time forward the question
came into the first rank of public discussion. The following year,
delegates were sent from the manufacturing districts to London, that
their views upon the subject might be brought under the notice of the
Legislature. At that time, Cobden had no seat in the House of Commons;
but the desired reform was ably supported in that assembly by the
brother of the late Earl of Clarendon, Mr. Charles Villiers, who, so far
as Parliament is concerned, may be described as the Father of Free
Trade. On the 19th of February, 1839, Mr. Villiers moved that the House
resolve itself into a Committee of Inquiry on the Corn Laws; and on the
12th of March he moved that certain manufacturers be heard by counsel at
the bar of the House against the Corn Laws, as injurious to their
private interests. Both motions were rejected by large majorities, and
the delegates returned to the North, convinced that nothing would serve
their cause but a systematic campaign, directed against the evils from
which they suffered, together with the great majority of the people.
Hence the creation of the Anti-Corn-Law League, the constitution of
which was adopted on the 20th of March, 1839, at a meeting in
Manchester. The body thus formed was a sort of federation of all similar
bodies existing in different parts of the kingdom. It was agreed that
delegates from the different local associations should from time to time
meet for business at the principal towns
[Illustration: RICHARD COBDEN.
(_From a Photograph by Messrs. W. and D. Downey._)]
represented, and that, with a view to securing unity of action, the
central office of the League should be established in Manchester; to
which office should be entrusted, among other duties, those of engaging
and recommending competent lecturers, and of obtaining the co-operation
of the public press. The two chief leaders of the movement thus set on
foot were Mr. Cobden and Mr. Bright; but there were several others who
lent valuable assistance to the cause. In particular, Captain
(afterwards General) Perronet Thompson, a man of great literary power,
published (originally in 1827, and again in later years) a “Catechism
of the Corn Laws,” which placed the whole argument in a singularly
lucid and compact form before the nation. Numerous tracts, written with
similar objects, were printed in enormous numbers, and dispersed all
over the country. Meetings were held in important towns, and lectures
were delivered by a staff of paid assistants, of whom one of the
principal was the late W. J. Fox, afterwards Member for Oldham--a
journalist of distinction, a ready and effective disputant, and a
speaker gifted with remarkable powers of persuasive eloquence. By the
early part of 1841, the public mind had been to a considerable extent
permeated by the ideas favoured by the League; but a great deal still
remained to be done before either party in the State could be convinced
that the only proper course was to abolish the impost upon corn, and
give the British people the benefit of foreign produce in those years of
scarcity to which their variable climate so frequently condemns them.
The sincerity with which capitalists in the commercial parts of England
adopted Free Trade views was strikingly shown by the large sums of money
subscribed every year for the maintenance of the League, and for the
diffusion of its economic principles. It is true that the manufacturers
had an interest in removing all restrictions upon trade, which at that
time were numerous, and operated to the general disadvantage of
commerce. But in their resistance to injurious enactments they were
fighting the battle of the people themselves, and the reforms which
began a few years later enhanced the prosperity of England, and
materially lessened the menaces of discontent.