THE ADMINISTRATION OF SIR ROBERT PEEL.
Renewed Popularity of the Queen--Services of Prince Albert--A
Volunteer Poet Laureate--Birth of the Princess Alice--The Whig
Deficit, and how Sir Robert Peel dealt with it--The Income Tax, and
Reduction of Duties--The Sliding Scale--Advance of Free Trade
Principles--Assassination of Mr. Drummond--The Question of Criminal
Insanity--Sir Robert Peel and Mr. Cobden--Disturbances in South
Wales: “Rebecca” and her Daughters--Condition of Women in Mines and
Collieries--Lord Ashley and the Factories Act--Opinion of the Queen
and Prince Albert on the Qualities of Sir Robert Peel--Levees held
by the Prince--The Frescoes for the Houses of
Parliament--Encouragement of Fresco-Painting by the Queen and
Prince Albert--The Summer House in the Gardens of Buckingham
Palace--Visit of her Majesty and the Prince to Louis Philippe at
the Château d’Eu--The Duke of Wellington on the Necessity for a
Council of Regency--Designs of France on the Succession to the
Spanish Throne--Dishonest Engagement of the French King--English
Opinion completely Misled--Royal Visits to Belgium, to Cambridge,
and to the Midlands--The Prince as a Fox-hunter--Model
Farming--Events in India: Wars in Scinde and Gwalior.
A very important and very happy result of Prince Albert’s influence was
seen in the revived popularity of the Queen after a few years had
passed. In 1839, as the reader is aware, the feeling with which her
Majesty was regarded by a wide section of the people revealed a danger
of no inconsiderable magnitude, and threatened to give a peculiarly
acrid character to political discussion. By 1842 this sentiment had very
nearly disappeared; and the change was largely due to the companionship
and advice of the Queen’s consort. We must not forget, however, the
excellent guidance which the Prince himself received from Baron
Stockmar; and although Englishmen cannot but have felt a little jealous
that their political and social state was so much influenced by
foreigners, they must have been none the less grateful for the fact, let
it come how it might. For the improved state of public feeling Prince
Albert obtained no credit at the time. The people knew very little about
him, and the aristocracy, who had opportunities of seeing his Royal
Highness, considered him somewhat cold and haughty. The opinion was not
altogether unwarranted, though it proceeded from a misapprehension. A
certain reserve of manner resulted almost inevitably from the severe
moral restrictions which the Prince laid upon himself; but who would not
purchase so great a gain at the cost of a few external attractions, not
necessarily associated with the higher virtues?
During the first few years of her reign the Queen had not the benefit
(such as it is) of those poetical eulogiums which are reasonably to be
expected by a court which maintains a Poet Laureate. Although Southey,
the then holder of the office, did not die until 1843, his mental state
had for some years been such as to render all intellectual work
impossible. In this interregnum of Parnassus, Leigh Hunt--who, a
generation earlier, had been imprisoned for libelling the Prince Regent,
but who was converted to courtliness by the liberal development of
modern times--addressed some verses to the Queen, in the earliest of
which, with the quaint familiarity of his genius, he commends her
Majesty for possessing “the ripe Guelph cheek, and good, straight
Coburg brow,” which were held to be significant of “pleasure and
reason.” The poet afterwards alludes to the recent birth of the Princess
Royal in lines of touching beauty. Still speaking of the Queen herself,
he writes:--
“May her own soul, this instant, while I sing,
Be smiling, as beneath some angel’s wing,
O’er the dear life in life, the small, sweet, new,
Unselfish self, the filial self of two,
Bliss of her future eyes, her pillow’d gaze,
On whom a mother’s heart thinks close, and prays.”
Another poem, more particularly addressed to the Princess Royal, “Three
Visions occasioned by the Birth and Christening of the Prince of Wales,”
and some “Lines on the Birth of the Princess Alice” (which occurred on
the 25th of April, 1843), appeared in due succession. But the poetical
interregnum came to an end in the spring of 1843, when, owing to the
death of Southey, Wordsworth succeeded to the post; and the volunteer
lyrist was heard no more on such topics. His few courtly poems are
singularly pervaded by that profound faith in the speedy coming of a
kind of golden age of peace, wisdom, health, gentleness, and universal
prosperity, which characterised the earlier years of the present
century, and especially the mind of Leigh Hunt, but which, in the
disappointments and gathering melancholy of the present day, wears an
aspect at once mournful and tender. The conclusion of the poem to the
Princess Alice is worth quoting, because of the sad failure of its
aspiration, combined with its remarkable truthfulness in other respects.
Still harping on that wondrous age of human perfection which seems as
far off as ever, the poet exclaims:--
“Thee, meantime, fair child of one
Fit to see that golden sun,
Thee may no worse lot befall
Than a long life, April all;
Fuller, much, of hopes than fears,
Kind in smiles and kind in tears,
Graceful, cheerful, ever new,
Heaven and earth both kept in view,
While the poor look up, and bless
Thy celestial bounteousness.
And, when all thy days are done,
And sadness views thy setting sun,
Mayst thou greet thy mother’s eyes,
And endless May in Paradise.”
Shortly after the birth of the Princess Alice the Queen wrote to the
King of the Belgians:--“Albert has been, as usual, all kindness and
goodness. Our little baby is to be called Alice, an old English name,
and the other names are to be Maud (another old English name, and the
same as Matilda), and Mary, as she was born on Aunt Gloucester’s
birthday. The sponsors are to be the King of Hanover, Ernestus Primus
(now the Duke of Coburg), poor Princess Sophia Matilda, and Feodore; and
the christening [is] to be on the 2nd of June.” The ceremony went off
very well; but the King of Hanover arrived too late to be present. In
after years the Princess Alice became the wife of the Grand Duke of
Hesse, and was well known for her intelligent benevolence and charity.
She died on the 14th of December, 1878.
Unfettered by indirect influences, the Government of Sir Robert Peel was
[Illustration: LOBBY OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.]
now acquiring the confidence of the country by the masterly way in which
its chief handled the great questions of the hour. One of the first
things to be dealt with was the financial deficit left by the Whigs,
which had reached the alarming total of more than ten millions for the
previous six years. This was met by the creation of an Income Tax of
sevenpence in the pound; and in the memorable statement which Sir Robert
Peel made to the House of Commons on the 11th of March, 1842, a
confident expectation was held out that the proceeds of such an impost
would not merely fill up the deficit, but yield a surplus such as would
enable the Ministry to reduce the taxes on commodities to an immense
extent. All incomes below £150 were to be exempt from the new, or
rather the revived, tax; but no distinction was made between the
precarious income resulting from trades, professions, and employments,
and that derived from the much more assured source of landed and other
property. This was regarded by the professional and mercantile classes
as an injustice; but though the tax was not popular, most persons were
compelled to admit that they saw no other way out of the difficulty. Sir
Robert Peel argued that the maximum of indirect taxation had been
reached, and that to accumulate further duties on the necessaries and
luxuries of life would be productive of the greatest injury to trade,
while to reduce them would operate as a stimulus to manufactures and to
commerce. If, then, indirect taxation was shut out by the very
circumstances of the case, a tax on income was all that remained. Such
an impost, amounting to no less than ten per cent. on the income of the
country, was cheerfully borne during the war with Bonaparte; yet people
thought it hard that, with no war at all, they were to be subjected to
the same vexatious demand, though at the much lower rate of something
less than three per cent. It was understood at the time that the tax was
not to last beyond three, or at the most five, years; but in fact it has
never been taken off to this day, though varying in amount from time to
time. We must never forget, however, that its existence, unpleasant and
objectionable as it is in some respects, has enabled successive
Governments to remove many millions of taxation, which hampered trade,
and seriously enhanced the price of necessaries. In the year now passing
under notice (1842), Sir Robert Peel reduced the Customs duties on 750
out of 1,200 articles, and entirely abolished the duties on some minor
foreign commodities. The reduction of indirect taxation in the ensuing
three years was about £12,000,000.
While thus opening a new and in many ways better prospect to the
country, the Premier still clung to Protectionist measures with regard
to foreign corn. On the 9th of February--a month before the introduction
of the new Tariff--he brought forward his Sliding Scale, by which the
duties on foreign wheat, oats, and barley, rose or fell according to the
cheapness or dearness of what was grown at home. The arrangement gave
satisfaction to no one. Mr. Cobden and his followers would accept
nothing but absolute freedom of trade; the landed proprietors were
content with nothing short of absolute Protection; and between these two
extremes were the Whigs, who preferred--for the present, at least--the
low fixed duty which they had proposed the year before. Nevertheless,
Peel carried his Sliding Scale, for he had a good party vote at his
back. The members of the Anti-Corn-Law League, however, had the greatest
cause for rejoicing, for it was evident that matters were moving in the
direction of Free Trade. People began to talk of the Corn Laws as
doomed, and even Sir Robert Peel, in his speech of March 11th, when
introducing his Tariff proposals, observed:--“I believe that on the
general principle of Free Trade there is now no great difference of
opinion, and that all agree in the general rule that we should purchase
in the cheapest market, and sell in the dearest.” He still held back
from applying this rule to corn; but no one could doubt how his mind was
tending, and some four years later he began that beneficent course of
Free Trade legislation which Liberal Governments afterwards perfected.
The Leaguers acquired fresh spirit from the prospect of approaching
triumph, and renewed meetings were held, both in London and the
provinces.
In the early part of 1843 a very painful incident occurred, which
excited the liveliest sympathy of the Queen and Prince Albert, and which
for a time seemed to place the life of Sir Robert Peel in jeopardy. On
the 20th of January, a man named Daniel McNaughten shot Mr. Edward
Drummond, the private secretary of the Premier, as he was passing along
Whitehall between the Admiralty and the Horse Guards. The unfortunate
gentleman expired on the 25th of the same month, and some were found to
maintain that the fatal issue was due more to the bleeding ordered by
his medical attendants than to the effects of the pistol-shot. However
this may have been, it is certain that the practice of phlebotomy
decreased shortly after this melancholy event, and has never since
regained the position it once held in medical practice. McNaughten, on
being seized, and conveyed to the nearest police-station, declared that
the Tories had been persecuting him for many years, and that that was
his justification for committing the act. From this expression, and some
others to which he gave utterance, it was inferred that his intention
was to shoot Sir Robert Peel, and that he mistook Mr. Drummond for the
First Minister, to whom the secretary seems to have borne some slight
resemblance. The public mind was much excited by what appeared to be a
deliberate attempt to make the head of the Government personally
responsible for a supposed, and doubtless an imaginary, wrong. Taken in
conjunction with the recent attacks upon the Queen, the crime was
thought by many to reveal a widespread conspiracy against the deepest
principles of social order, and the alarm in Court circles, and amongst
the members of the Administration, was naturally very great. Of course
there was exaggeration in this feeling; matters were not really so bad
as they appeared. But for some time it was considered necessary that Sir
Robert Peel should be guarded by policemen in plain clothes, and
measures were taken to protect the Court. Alluding to the assassination
in a letter to King Leopold, dated January 31st, the Queen
observes:--“Poor Drummond is universally regretted. Indeed, I seldom
remember so strong an interest (beginning with ourselves) being taken
in, and so much feeling so generally shown towards, a private
individual. People can hardly think of anything else. I trust it will
have the beneficial effect of making people feel the difference between
complete madness, which deprives a man of _all_ sense, and madness which
does _not_ prevent a man from knowing right from wrong.” This
distinction does not seem to have been present to the minds of the jury
before whom McNaughten was tried early in March. They returned a verdict
that the prisoner was “Not guilty, on the ground of insanity;” and he
was ordered to be kept in confinement during her Majesty’s pleasure. The
public, however, were greatly
[Illustration: “REBECCA” RIOT IN SOUTH WALES. (_See p. 138_)]
discontented with this finding; and the general question, as to what was
to be considered the standard of irresponsible mania, was submitted to
the whole of the Judges, who were desired to answer the question, “If a
person under an insane delusion as to existing facts commits an offence
in consequence thereof, is he thereby excused?” The answer was given on
the 19th of July, 1843,
[Illustration: LORD ASHLEY (AFTERWARDS EARL OF SHAFTESBURY).]
when an unanimous opinion was pronounced, that he was equally liable
with the person of sane mind.
Lady Peel was made very ill by the terrible event of January; and the
habitual equanimity of Sir Robert himself underwent some disturbance.
This was seen on the 16th of February, during the debate on Lord
Howick’s motion for a Committee of the whole House to consider the
reference in the Queen’s Speech at the opening of Parliament (February
2nd) to the long-continued depression of manufacturing industry. In the
course of the discussion, Mr. Cobden said that he held Sir Robert Peel
personally responsible for the existing lamentable and dangerous state
of affairs. The words were not well chosen; but the Premier, who was out
of health at the time, and suffering from anxiety and sorrow,
passionately leapt to the conclusion that Mr. Cobden was uttering a
thinly-veiled incentive to his assassination. The distinguished Free
Trader denied the imputation, received a direct contradiction from his
adversary, and ultimately explained, in the midst of great confusion,
that what he meant was that the right honourable Baronet was responsible
by virtue of his office. The time was one of abnormal excitement, and
great allowance must be made both for Peel and Cobden, but especially
for the former. Only a few weeks later, Mr. Goulburn, the Chancellor of
the Exchequer, applied at Bow Street Police Office for a warrant to
arrest a retired officer of the navy, who had threatened to shoot him.
The unsettled condition of the country was shown by some disturbances
which occurred about this time in South Wales. The small farmers in that
portion of the Principality complained much of the heavy road-taxes
which had been recently imposed. The tolls were often so onerous as to
absorb the profit arising from the commodities which these humble people
took to market. A number of gates had been set up, which were generally
believed to be beyond the provisions of the law; and as these were
destroyed with impunity, many people resolved to make a crusade against
_all_ toll-gates, wheresoever they might be found. In a wild and
thinly-peopled country like Wales, authority is necessarily weak; and
the conspirators against the gates were able to carry out their projects
with less interference than would have been encountered in many other
parts of the island. But it was considered advisable that these
operations should take place after dark, and the winter of 1842-3 was
rendered memorable by a series of successful attacks upon the toll-bars,
attended by circumstances which were at once picturesque and alarming.
The leader of the movement called himself “Rebecca,” from a strange
misapplication of a passage in Genesis, and dressed himself in women’s
clothes. Several of his followers were similarly disguised, and those
who preserved their proper character as men wore masks over their faces.
In the middle of the night the toll-keepers were aroused by a disorderly
mob, armed with guns, and bearing torches, saws, and hatchets. Not only
were the gates cut down and thrown on the adjacent land, but the
toll-houses also were destroyed, and the occupants obliged to finish
their night’s rest, if they could finish it at all, in the open field,
or on the bleak hill-side. So general was the support given to these
rioters that the police and soldiery were frequently baffled in their
endeavours to come up with them. But at first no personal outrages were
committed. Unfortunately, however, a much worse spirit afterwards set
in. Some Chartist emissaries were sent into South Wales; political
ideas, having reference to the abolition of tithes, of Church rates, and
of the existing Poor Law, were mixed up with the original objects of the
association; and in the autumn of 1843 incendiarism and murder marked
the progress of this disorderly band. At the same period, however, the
gang were severely handled by the military; and when some exemplary
punishments had been passed upon the principal rioters, a more lawful
state of mind began to set in. The Government, on the other hand,
showed a disposition to leniency, and in the following year an amended
Turnpike Act for South Wales removed the grievances which had been the
original excuse for the outbreak.
The greatest sufferers are usually silent; it is others who discover
their miseries, bring them into the light of day, and procure their
amendment. Such was the case with the workers in mines and collieries,
an inquiry into whose state was conducted by a Commission, whose report
was published in the early part of 1842. It appeared from this report
that, in some of the coal-mines, women and girls were employed as beasts
of burden. By means of a chain passing between the legs, and connected
with a belt strapped round their waists, they were compelled to drag to
and fro, on hands and knees, and often for fourteen or sixteen hours a
day, trucks heavily laden with coal, through passages too low to permit
of these persons going upright. They were nearly naked, their clothing
consisting of nothing more than a pair of trousers made of sacking.
Their bodies were encrusted with the grime of the coal-dust, and many
were completely unsexed, and presented chests that were as flat as those
of men. By far the greater part of their lives was passed underground,
in the black and cavernous recesses of the mine; and the morality of
these unhappy creatures was equal to their physical degradation.
Children were also employed, and treated with even greater brutality.
Overworked and beaten by their cruel taskmasters, these children grew up
stunted and diseased, and it was evident that nothing but widespread
ruin, both of body and soul, could result from a system so monstrously
opposed to all the laws of nature. The statesman who procured the
Commission of Inquiry was Lord Ashley, afterwards still more famous as
Earl of Shaftesbury; and it was he who subsequently introduced and
carried the Mines and Collieries Act, by which women and girls were
forbidden to be employed in any form of mining or colliery labour, and
the employment of boys was not to be permitted under the age of ten
years. Moreover, the term of apprenticeship was limited, and the
Secretary of State was empowered to appoint Inspectors of Mines and
Collieries, that the provisions of the Bill should not be evaded by
those interested in defeating them. The Act was passed in 1842, but did
not come into operation until 1843. Its effect was unquestionably good;
yet it was found difficult to restrain many women from continuing the
work to which they had been accustomed, and which perhaps they could not
readily exchange for anything better. The Mines and Collieries Act was a
measure in which we may be certain that the Queen, as a woman and a
mother, took the deepest interest, and it is equally beyond question
that the benevolent and clear-seeing mind of Prince Albert was also
enlisted on behalf of sufferers of so peculiar and helpless an order.
It was at this time that great attention began to be paid to social as
apart from political questions. Lord Ashley devoted a good deal of pains
to effecting a limitation of the daily labour of women and young persons
in factories. He ultimately obtained from the Government, in 1844, a
Factories Act which threw some protection around children who had
previously been employed to an extent, and for a number of successive
hours, terribly injurious to their physical and moral health. It was the
desire of Sir James Graham, the Home Secretary, to engraft upon this
Bill certain provisions for the education of young persons engaged in
the large manufacturing establishments of the country; but, owing to the
opposition of the Dissenters, who feared that the influence of the
Church would be unduly extended, it was found necessary to abandon the
proposed clauses. Even with respect to the main objects of the Bill,
there was considerable opposition; for the bigoted adherents of
political economy would not tolerate a measure which interfered with
what they regarded as the right of contract between the employers and
the employed. Their principle was doubtless a good one in the main; but
children are so much under the influence of others that some departure
from the rule was necessary in their case, especially as it was well
known that the evil and the suffering were great. The more bitter
opponents of Lord Ashley argued that he ought to look nearer home; that
the peasantry on his father’s estates, to which in due course he would
succeed, were in a worse condition than the female and juvenile
operatives in the factories; that the aristocratic reformer knew nothing
about manufacturing life; and that in truth there was not much to
complain of. But the fact that the agricultural labourers on the lands
of Lord Ashley’s father were poor and miserable, was no reason why Lord
Ashley should not interest himself in another class of sufferers; while,
as to the condition of the children in the seats of manufacturing
industry, there could be no question, to any impartial mind, that it was
such as to render the interposition of the law imperatively necessary.
The general principle has since been extended in many other Acts of
Parliament, even to the protection of women; and the bitter opposition
of former times has become less and less. It is now admitted that
special circumstances call for special legislation; that care for the
young has even yet been insufficiently carried out; and that to
sacrifice tender lives to economical theories is little better than to
repeat in another form the Hindoo worship of Juggernaut. Some slight
extension of the time devoted to education was introduced into the Act
of 1844, in place of the more complete provision which it was originally
intended to make; and the effect of this arrangement was found to be
good, though a still further application of the system would
unquestionably have been better.
As the session of 1843 advanced, the Queen and Prince Albert conceived a
yet higher opinion of the great qualities exhibited by Sir Robert Peel.
Her Majesty described him to the King of the Belgians as “a man who
thinks but little of party, and never of himself.” The Prince, with his
remarkable keenness of judgment, anticipated that it would not be long
ere Peel would quit the Conservative party, or the Conservatives, in the
main, would desert him. In a Memorandum of Mr. Anson’s, dated April
30th, 1843, we read:--“The Prince said yesterday, that Sir Robert Peel
was certainly far from popular with the Conservative party. He, for his
part, had the greater confidence in Sir Robert for the very cause to
which he attributed the want of confidence with which his party regarded
him. It was that Sir Robert was determined to adopt his own line, and
not to be turned aside by the fear of making political enemies, or
losing support. He was determined either to stand or fall by his own
opinion; and the Prince felt that in such a man’s hands the interests of
the Crown were most secure.” In little more than three years it was seen
that Peel did in truth “fall” by devotion to what he considered
necessary to the well-being of the
[Illustration: WESTMINSTER HALL.]
country. By his conversion to Free Trade he lost the support of the
Conservative party, and was expelled from office by a combination which
placed him at a hopeless disadvantage. That he would once more have
risen to the head of affairs, had not an accident cut short his life,
cannot be doubted; but, with the change of Ministry in 1846, his
official existence came to a close.
The state of her health precluded the Queen from opening Parliament in
person on the 2nd of February, 1843, and for the same reason she was
unable to hold the usual spring levees. These were accordingly held by
Prince Albert, as the representative of her Majesty; but some members of
the Court were so much annoyed at the arrangement, which they regarded
as an unwarrantable assumption of Royal functions by the Prince, that
they absented themselves from these ceremonial gatherings. The speedy
recovery of the sovereign after the birth of the Princess Alice soon
enabled her Majesty to occupy once more her proper position at the head
of the Court, and the general opinion of the public was quite in favour
of the step which had been temporarily adopted. This left Prince Albert
free to devote himself with the greater application to his duties as
head of the Royal Commission on the Fine Arts, which had been appointed
with reference to the decoration of the new Houses of Parliament. In the
summer of 1843, several cartoons, on subjects illustrative of English
History and Poetry, were exhibited in Westminster Hall, and prizes were
offered for the best productions. The collection excited great interest,
and large numbers of persons thronged the magnificent old structure, to
scan the designs submitted by the competitors. Those which were
ultimately selected have been executed in fresco for the two Houses;
but, owing either to climate, or to a bad preparation of the colours, or
to both causes combined, these fine works have greatly decayed during
the short period since their execution. Prince Albert took a keen
interest in fresco-painting, and caused a summer-house in the garden of
Buckingham Palace to be decorated in this manner. The result was a
series of eight pictures in illustration of Milton’s “Comus.” The
artists were Sir Edwin Landseer, Maclise, Uwins, Eastlake, Leslie, Sir
William Ross, Dyce, and Stanfield; and the progress of their work was
closely watched by her Majesty and the Prince. Mr. Uwins, in a letter to
a friend, written on the 15th of August, 1843, gives a very interesting
account of the impression produced on his mind by the Queen and her
gifted consort. “The Queen,” he observes, “is full of intelligence, her
observations very acute, and her judgment apparently matured beyond her
age. It has happened to me in life to see something of many Royal
personages, and I must say, with the single exception of the Duke of
Kent, I have never met with any, either in England or on the Continent
of Europe, who have impressed me so favourably as our reigning sovereign
and her young and interesting husband. Coming to us twice a day,
unannounced and without attendants, entirely stripped of all State and
ceremony, courting conversation, and desiring rather reason than
obedience, they have gained our admiration and love.... Our peaceful
pursuits are in accordance with the scene; and the opportunity of
watching our proceedings seems to give a zest to the enjoyment of these
moments snatched from State parade and ceremony. Here, too, the Royal
children are brought out by their nurses, and the whole arrangement
seems like real domestic pleasure.”
On the 28th of August--the very day after the prorogation of
Parliament--the Queen and Prince Albert embarked at Southampton, to
spend a short time with the King of the French, who was staying at
Château d’Eu, near Tréport. The voyagers sailed in their new yacht,
_Victoria and Albert_, which was only just finished, but of which we
have heard much in later years. For a couple of days they cruised about
the Isle of Wight, and along the coast of Devonshire, and then,
crossing the Channel, arrived at Tréport on the evening of September
2nd. Louis Philippe came off in his barge to welcome the distinguished
visitors, and was accompanied by several members of his family, by M.
Guizot, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, by Lord Cowley, the English
Ambassador at Paris, and by several officers and others. The English
party were rowed ashore in the French barge, over which the Royal
Standards of France and England floated in genial companionship. The
reception of the Queen was such as almost to overpower her with emotion,
and the whole visit appears to have yielded her Majesty the deepest
satisfaction. The determination of the Queen and Prince Albert to cross
over to France appears to have been unknown to the English Ministers
until shortly before the time of starting. There were, of course, some
rumours of such an intention; but even in the highest quarters they were
disbelieved. In his “Journal,” published in 1857, Mr. Raikes asserts
that the whole affair “was a wily intrigue, managed by Louis Philippe
through the intervention of his daughter, the Queen of the Belgians,
during her frequent visits to Windsor with King Leopold, and was hailed
by him with extreme joy, as the first admission of the King of the
Barricades within the pale of legitimate sovereigns.” The Duke of
Wellington observed to Mr. Raikes, “I was never let into the secret, nor
did I believe the report then in circulation, till at last they sent to
consult my opinion as to forming a Regency during the Queen’s absence. I
immediately referred to precedents as the only proper guide. I told them
that George I., George II. (George III. never went abroad), and George
IV., had all been obliged to appoint Councils of Regency; that Henry
VIII., when he met Francis I. at Ardres, was then master of Calais, as
also when he met Charles V. at Gravelines; so that, in these instances,
Calais being a part of his dominions, he hardly did more than pass his
frontier--not much more than going from one county to the next. Upon
this I decided that the Queen could not quit this country without an Act
of Regency. But she consulted the Crown lawyers, who decided that it was
not necessary.” In days like our own, when the Government of the country
is substantially conducted by the Queen’s responsible Ministers, a
Council of Regency, if the sovereign is to be absent only a few days,
seems entirely unnecessary. The most questionable part of the visit to
France in 1843 was the secrecy in which it was involved until shortly
before the time of departure.
The Queen’s stay in France, which lasted not more than five days,
terminated on the 7th of September. Although courtly writers give one to
understand that the only object of the Queen and Prince Albert was to
make the personal acquaintance of the French King and his family, with
whom they had long maintained cordial relations through the medium of
correspondence, it is evident that at least one matter of politics was
discussed between the two sovereigns and their Ministers. Louis Philippe
was known to entertain a design to marry one of his sons to the Queen of
Spain, or to a Spanish Princess, in the hope of renewing that connection
between the two countries which has long been an alluring dream of
French diplomacy. The project was regarded in England with
[Illustration: THE QUEEN’S VISIT TO FRANCE. (_See p. 143._)]
the utmost disfavour, and somewhat strained relations had ensued. On her
visit to France, the Queen was accompanied by her Foreign Minister, the
Earl of Aberdeen, and the matter was talked over by her Majesty, Prince
Albert, and Lord Aberdeen, on the one hand, and the French monarch and
M. Guizot on the other. In a letter to Baron Stockmar, written shortly
after the return to England, Prince Albert states:--“Little passed of a
political nature, except
[Illustration: THE EARL OF ABERDEEN.]
the declaration of Louis Philippe to Aberdeen that he would not give his
son to Spain, even if he were asked; and Aberdeen’s answer, that,
excepting one of his sons, any aspirant whom Spain might choose would be
acceptable to England.” We know now that the French King’s promise was
shamefully broken a few years later; but there was no reason at the time
to disbelieve his word. England was not unnaturally disquieted by the
prospect of an alliance between France and Spain; France, with equal
reason, objected to the Queen of Spain marrying a Prince of the House of
Coburg, which was the idea favoured by the English Court. Accordingly, a
compromise was arranged by Lord Aberdeen and M. Guizot, when it was
settled that the French King should renounce all pretensions on the
part of any of his sons to the hand of the Queen of Spain; that the
sovereign of that country should choose her husband from the descendants
of Philip V., so as equally to exclude the Coburgs; and that, as
regarded the contemplated marriage of the Duc de Montpensier, youngest
son of Louis Philippe, with the Infanta Donna Maria Louisa, sister of
the Queen of Spain, no such union should take place till the Queen was
married, and had had children; in consideration of which promise, the
Queen of England waived all objections to the marriage of Montpensier.
The whole transaction seems to have been rather irregular; for
negotiations of this nature are generally conducted between Cabinet and
Cabinet, acting, of course, through their respective Foreign Ministers.
In the present instance, however, the Queen’s visit was kept secret as
long as possible, and the negotiation was then settled by Lord Aberdeen
and M. Guizot quietly talking it over in a French château. The English
visitors seem to have been effectually blinded and lulled to sleep by
the wily courtesies of the French monarch; and we have the authority of
Prince Albert that Lord Aberdeen was “thoroughly satisfied with
everything, and made himself much liked.” A few years later, he made
himself “much liked” in Russia, with which country we were about to go
to war on questions of gravity and moment. But for the present no one
perceived how cleverly we had been tricked, and Lord Brougham wrote
effusively to Prince Albert about “the admirable effects produced by the
late excursion to France, and the sure tendency of this wise measure to
create the best feelings between the two nations.” The Prince himself
believed that such would be the case; yet, the very next year, a war
between France and England became imminent.
On returning from France, her Majesty and the Prince made a short stay
at Brighton, and then started for Belgium on a visit to King Leopold.
Leaving Brighton in the Royal yacht on the 12th of September, they
arrived at Ostend on the 13th, and, after a six days’ tour in Belgium,
during which Bruges, Ghent, Brussels, and Antwerp were visited, returned
to Windsor Castle on the 21st of September. “The old cities of
Flanders,” writes Prince Albert to Baron Stockmar, “had put on their
fairest array, and were very tastefully decorated with tapestries,
flowers, trees, pictures, &c., which, combined with the numerous old
monuments, churches, and convents, and the gay crowds of people,
produced a most peculiar effect. Victoria was greatly interested and
impressed; and the cordiality and friendliness which met us everywhere
could not fail to attract her towards the Belgian people.” The travels
of the Royal couple were now over for a time, and on the 25th of October
Prince Albert accompanied the Queen to Cambridge, where his Royal
Highness received the degree of Doctor of Civil Law. Both were greeted
with marked cordiality, and the Queen afterwards wrote with much
satisfaction of the enthusiasm shown by all classes at that famous
University, and particularly by the undergraduates. In a letter dated
the 4th of November, Professor Sedgwick gave a lively account of the
visit paid by the Royal party to the Woodwardian Museum. “The Queen,” he
said,
[Illustration: PRINCE ALBERT HUNTING NEAR BELVOIR CASTLE.]
“seemed happy and well pleased, and was mightily taken with one or two
of my monsters, especially with the Plesiosaurus and gigantic stag. The
subject was new to her; but the Prince evidently had a good general
knowledge of the old world, and not only asked good questions, and
listened with great courtesy to all I had to say, but in one or two
instances helped me on by pointing to the rare things in my collection,
especially in that part of it which contains the German fossils. I
thought myself very fortunate in being able to exhibit the finest
collection of German fossils to be seen in England. They fairly went the
round of the Museum; neither of them seemed in a hurry, and the Queen
was quite happy to hear her husband talk about a novel subject with so
much knowledge and spirit. He called her back once or twice to look at a
fine impression of a dragon-fly which I have in the Solenhofen slate.
Having glanced at the long succession of our fossils, from the youngest
to the oldest, the party again moved into the lecture-room.” The visit
to Cambridge lasted only three days, and on the 28th of October the
Royal party were back at Windsor.
In the latter days of November, the Queen and Prince Albert visited Sir
Robert Peel at Drayton Manor, the country seat of that statesman. While
staying here, the Prince made a visit to Birmingham on the 20th of the
month. Owing to the turbulent character of that town, where the
principles of Chartism were in the ascendant, and riots had occurred but
recently, Sir James Graham and some members of the Government considered
it imprudent for his Royal Highness to venture into such a vortex of
extravagant opinions. The Prince, however, was not unaware that his
greatest enemies were to be found rather in the upper and official
circles than among the populace; and he therefore did not fear throwing
himself upon the hospitality of the Birmingham people. “The Mayor, who
accompanied the Prince in the carriage,” wrote Mr. Anson on the same
day, “is said to be a Chartist, and to hold extreme views. He said that
the visit had created the greatest enthusiasm;--that it had brought into
unison and harmony opposite political parties, who had shown the deepest
hatred towards each other; and that it had been productive of the
happiest results in Birmingham. He also said he would vouch for the
devoted loyalty of the whole Chartist body. The Queen had not more loyal
subjects in her dominions.” From Drayton Manor, the Royal party
proceeded to Chatsworth, the seat of the Duke of Devonshire, and
afterwards to Belvoir Castle, belonging to the Duke of Rutland. In the
Belvoir neighbourhood, the Prince distinguished himself in the
hunting-field, though he had no great inclination for that kind of
sport. It had been thought that his Royal Highness, as a scholar, and a
man much given to retirement, was scarcely possessed of sufficient
spirit to face the perils of the chase. He had therefore fallen a good
deal in the estimation of men who consider that the larger part of human
virtue is comprised in the ability to preserve a good seat on horseback,
and to clear a five-barred gate with complete indifference as to what
may be on the other side. His performances in the vicinity of Belvoir
Castle completely re-established him in the estimation of these
persons, and, as Baron Stockmar afterwards observed, such a reputation
was not without practical value while fox-hunting continued to be an
English national pursuit. The Prince rode boldly and well, and, while
some others were thrown, kept his saddle to the last.
One of the favourite studies of Prince Albert was that of agriculture--a
science which he found in a very backward state in England, and which he
did much to improve. The growing of crops and the rearing of live stock
engaged
[Illustration: CHATSWORTH HOUSE, FROM THE SOUTH-WEST.]
much of his attention, and he established a model farm in Windsor Park,
which showed how much may be effected by intelligent supervision, and a
systematic application of those scientific principles which modern times
have placed at the disposal of enterprising men. At the chief
agricultural shows, his name soon became familiar as a constant and
often successful exhibitor, and nothing gave him greater pleasure than
any notable achievement in this field of human industry. Speaking of the
model works in Windsor Park, a contemporary writer observed that “the
most practical man could not go that pleasant round, from the Flemish
farm to the Norfolk, and so back again by the Home and the Dairy,
without learning something wherever he went.” The farm at Windsor was
established about the end of 1840, and the Prince always took the
greatest interest in the working of his establishment. On the 30th of
October, 1843, he wrote to Baron Stockmar that the prices of cattle were
up again, and that he had netted a very good return from his auction in
the Park. Since the death
[Illustration: LORD GOUGH. (_After the Portrait by Sir Francis Grant,
P.R.A._)]
of his Royal Highness, the farm has been continued with equal zeal by
the Queen; and the Prince of Wales has also shown an intelligent
interest in pursuits and experiments calculated to raise in no slight
degree the productive powers of our country.
While the Queen was gaining a more extended knowledge of her home
dominions, and Prince Albert was interesting himself in many departments
of science and art, some events were passing in India, to which brief
reference should be made. During the Afghan war of 1838-9, the
Anglo-Indian Government intimated its intention to take temporary
possession of Shikarpoor, in Scinde, an independent State in the
north-west of the Peninsula. The Ameers of Hyderabad and Mizpoor
thereupon assented to a treaty which placed them under the control of
Calcutta; but the people themselves never agreed to this sacrifice, and
the British Residency at Hyderabad was attacked in the early part of
1843. Hereupon, the British envoy, Sir Charles James Napier, marched a
large military force against the malcontents, routed them at Meeanee on
the 17th of February, and, by a further victory on March 24th, completed
the subjugation of Scinde. During the next two years, the country
continued in a state of extreme agitation, owing to the depredations of
certain marauding tribes in the west; but these brigands were hunted
down, and at length entirely extirpated, by the conqueror of Scinde,
whose unresting energy and fiery resolution procured from him, from his
half-admiring adversaries, the title of “the Devil’s Brother.” The
administration of the province has greatly improved since then; but it
may be questioned whether its annexation was not an act of high-handed
power, which the concomitant circumstances were insufficient to justify.
In the latter part of the same year, another war broke out in Asia. The
State of Gwalior, situated in Central India, had been under our
protection since 1803; but the death of the native sovereign, in 1843,
produced a degree of anarchy which led to the interposition of the
British Government. Lord Ellenborough made a public announcement that he
could “neither permit the existence of an unfriendly Government with the
territories of Scindia” (the reigning family in that part of Hindostan),
“nor that those territories should be without a Government capable of
coercing its own subjects.” This was on the 20th of December; on the
29th, the army of Gwalior, under the command of Sir Hugh Gough,
Commander-in-Chief, and in presence of the Governor-General, defeated
the native forces at Maharajpoor. On the same day, the left wing of the
army, under Major-General Grey, defeated the enemy at Punniar; and the
strong fort of Gwalior, sometimes called “the Gibraltar of the East,”
was taken by our soldiers. By a treaty concluded in January, 1844, the
native dynasty was permitted to retain 9,000 troops of its own, in
addition to a large contingent under British authority; and Gwalior
still preserves a certain amount of independence, though strictly under
the supervision of the Anglo-Indian Government.