THE FIRST RUSSELL ADMINISTRATION.
The Transfer of Ministerial Offices--The Whigs Patronise Mr.
Cobden--A Radical in the New Cabinet--The Peelites Refuse to Take
Office--Lord Campbell as Chancellor of the Duchy--Anecdote of his
Installation--Lord John Russell’s Deportment to the Queen--His
Modest Programme--The Abolition of the Sugar Duties--Bishop
Wilberforce and Slave-grown Sugar--Outrages in Ireland--The Whigs
become Coercionists--Their Arms Act--Mutiny among
Ministerialists--The Bill Dropped--The Alternative Policy--Relief
Works for Ireland--A Military Scandal--Indignation in the
Country--Abuse of Corporal Punishment in the Army--“The Cat” in the
House of Commons--The Queen’s Views on Military Punishment--The
Queen and a Deserter’s Death-warrant--Captain Layard’s Motion--The
Duke of Wellington’s Interference--Restrictions on the use of the
Lash--England and the Colonies--Canada and Free Trade--Nova Scotia
and the Potato Famine--The Halifax, Quebec, and Montreal
Railway--The New Zealand War--The Caffre War--The Expedition to
Borneo--End of the Anglo-Chinese Difficulty--The “Spanish
Marriages” and the Treaty of Utrecht--Louis Philippe’s Intrigues
with the Queen Dowager Christina--Secret History of the
Conspiracy--M. Guizot’s Pretext--How the English Minister at Madrid
was Deceived--Lord Palmerston’s Indiscreet Despatch--The Queen’s
Cutting Letter to the Queen Marie Amélie--Metternich’s Caustic
Epigram--The Prince Consort’s Resentment against the King of the
French--End of the Anglo-French Alliance--Fall of the Republic of
Cracow.
Lord John Russell had no serious difficulty on this occasion in forming
a Ministry. The transfer of Ministerial offices was effected at
Buckingham Palace on the 6th of July, 1846. Some recognition was due to
the Anti-Corn-Law League for the aid it had given the Whigs in their
contest for supremacy with the Party which had allied itself with the
Protectionists. An office of Cabinet rank would have been offered to Mr.
Cobden, but he was desirous of obtaining some respite from the severe
strain of political life. His private affairs had suffered from his
devotion to the public service, and, as his biographer admits, it would
have been difficult to appoint to a high office in the State a
politician whose friends were at the time collecting a public
subscription on his behalf. Mr. Villiers was offered a place, but
refused it. Lord John Russell finally induced Mr. Milner Gibson to
represent the Free Trade Party in the Government, as Vice-President of
the Board of Trade--a post devoid of high dignity and strong influence.
Three of Sir Robert Peel’s colleagues--Mr. Sidney Herbert, Lord
Dalhousie, and Lord Lincoln--were invited to join the Government as a
concession to the feeling of those who demanded a coalition. The
invitation was declined. It was, in truth, one that could not have been
honourably accepted, and, therefore, it should never have been made.
There was no reason to suppose that these statesmen were ready to
remodel their views on Coercion, as suddenly as they had recast their
opinions about Corn.
Leaving Mr. Milner Gibson out of account, we may say that the new
Ministry was of the conventional Whig type, the only notable addition to
it being Lord Grey, who by this time had overcome his objections to
serve in the same Cabinet with Lord Palmerston as Foreign
Secretary.[52] Lord Lansdowne, as Lord Privy Seal, led the Party in the
House of Lords; Sir George Grey went to the Home Office, a perilous post
in times of popular distress and discontent; Mr. C. Wood--afterwards
Lord Halifax--became
[Illustration: LORD MACAULAY.]
Chancellor of the Exchequer; Mr.--afterwards Lord--Macaulay,
Postmaster-General; Lord Bessborough, Lord Lieutenant, and Mr.
Labouchere, Chief Secretary for Ireland. John, Lord Campbell, joined the
Ministry as Chancellor of the Duchy. He says:--“I ought to have been
satisfied, for I received two seals--one for the Duchy of Lancaster, and
one for the County Palatine of Lancaster. My ignorance of the double
honour which awaited me caused an awkward accident; for when the Queen
put two velvet bags into my hand, I grasped one only, and the other,
with its heavy weight, fell down on the floor, and might have bruised
the Royal toes; but Prince Albert good-naturedly picked it up and
restored it to me.”[53] The programme of the Government was modest and
practical, and independent men were gratified to find that social
questions, such as the housing of the poor, and popular education,
figured in it prominently. But it rested on no very solid basis, for it
was supported by the Peelites against the Protectionists, and by the
Protectionists against the Peelites. As for its own immediate followers,
they shared the opinion of Mr. Bickham Escott, who, when Lord John
Russell explained his position to the House, warned the Government
significantly that previous Whig Ministries had failed for two reasons:
they startled the people by proclaiming novel principles, and then
disgusted the country by insisting on applying them prematurely. It has
been said that the Ministry was not in favour at Court, and that Lord
John Russell had reason to regret that he was not a _persona grata_ with
her Majesty. Such statements are quite unfounded, for the Queen
supported her new Ministers as loyally as her old ones. Writing on the
relations between her Majesty and her Prime Minister at this time, Lord
Campbell says:--“He (Lord John Russell) has always risen with the
occasion, and now very worthily fills the office of Prime Minister. His
deportment to the Queen is most respectful, but he always remembers that
as _she_ can do no wrong _he_ is responsible for all measures of her
Government. He is enough at Court to show that he enjoys the
Constitutional confidence of the Sovereign without being domiciled there
as a _favourite_.”
The first question that demanded attention was that of the Sugar Duties.
Lord John Russell, on the 20th of July, proposed a plan, the essence of
which was a gradual reduction of the differential duties on foreign
sugar, till they reached a vanishing point in 1851, when all kinds of
sugar, whether of British or foreign growth, would be taxed equally. The
Protectionists opposed this project on plain Protectionist principles.
But the Peelites, though generally of opinion that the free-grown sugar
deserved to be protected a little longer against slave-grown sugar,
supported the Government, mainly because they thought a change of
Ministry and a general election would be injurious to the country,
whilst parties were in a confused state of transition. The second
reading of the Bill was therefore carried in the House of Commons by a
majority of 130; though in the House of Lords the measure was saved only
by a majority of 18. In the Upper House the Government suffered
considerably from the opposition of Dr. Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of
Oxford, whose brilliant speech, coming as it did from a strong Free
Trader, turned many votes. His views, which were shared not only by a
large body of impartial and philanthropic Liberals, but were even
supposed to find favour at Court, where he exercised at that time great
influence over Prince Albert, are worth reproducing. Writing to Miss
Noel before the debate, he said:--“I am at present convinced (1) that no
extension of Free Trade could be more beneficial to our poor producers
and poor consumers at home than that to the Brazils; (2) that the
probable effect of the same measure would ultimately benefit our Indian
Colonies; (3) that the refusal of the measure will lead either to a
dissolution of Parliament or a resignation of the Ministry, both very
injurious at this moment--that I therefore earnestly desire to support
the motion. But that I am _at present_ convinced that the opening of
this trade would lead at once and certainly to a great extension of the
Brazilian and Cuban slave trade, and that no demonstrated advantages to
be gained or losses to be incurred can for a single instant make me
hesitate as to giving the most emphatic negative possible to such a
proposal.” The fallacy here is obvious. It sprang from the assumption
that a nation is bound to apply its own standard of morality to the
commercial institutions and customs of foreign countries, and restrict
its foreign trade to those cases where foreigners accept that standard.
The universal application of such a principle would soon annihilate
commerce as a civilising agency in the world. The United States might
refuse to trade with England, because she permitted landlords to evict
Irish peasants from rack-rented farms. We might have been called on to
buy no tallow or hides from Russia, because they were produced by serfs.
To be consistent, the Bishop of Oxford should have demanded cessation of
traffic, not only with slave States but with all free States that traded
with them. It was curiously illogical to argue that by fettering trade
we could free the slave.
Hardly had Lord John Russell’s Government settled down in office when
they were alarmed by the disturbed state of Ireland, where evictions and
famine were goading the peasantry on to agrarian outrages. The Whigs
were embarrassed by their opposition to Sir Robert Peel’s Coercion Bill,
because they had justified their tactics by belittling the disorder and
lawlessness which that measure was designed to repress. Many of their
own supporters accordingly complained bitterly when Ministers, on the
7th of August, invited the House to prolong the expiring Irish Arms Act
till May, 1847. Lord John Russell’s only excuse was, that there was a
distinction to be drawn between the proposal of new coercive
legislation, and a request to prolong an existing law, without which it
was impossible to curb the mania for buying arms and ammunition which
was seizing the Irish peasantry. The spirit and tone of the Opposition
speeches during the debate on Peel’s coercive measure conveyed, and were
meant to convey, to the people of England and Ireland the impression
that the Whigs were opposed, not merely to a Coercion Bill, but to a
coercive policy, and the distinction between proposing new and
prolonging old but expiring repressive legislation was generally felt to
be a distinction without a difference. Lord Seymour forced Lord John
Russell to withdraw the clauses in the Arms Act relating to domiciliary
visits and the branding of arms; but, though this enabled the
Government to carry the second reading of the measure on the 10th of
August, it was ultimately abandoned on the 17th. On that day the
Government fell back on an alternative policy. They introduced a
remedial scheme for the purpose of empowering local authorities
(baronial sessions) to employ the destitute Irish people on relief works
started by State advances, to be repaid in ten years at 3½ per cent. To
meet the case of poor districts where repayment was impossible, an
appropriation of £50,000--a ridiculously small sum--was set aside for
grants in aid. Parliament, in sheer weariness, sanctioned this project,
although it was warned that the scheme would divert public money from
the improvement of the land to the construction of useless roads and
bridges, and tempt the peasantry to neglect husbandry for well-paid
labour on superfluous public works. As Mr. Disraeli subsequently said,
its effect was to set a population as great as that of Holland to break
stones on the roads, and, he might have added, on good roads, that were
too often broken up that they might be unnecessarily remetalled.
Towards the end of the Session the House of Commons plunged into a
somewhat exciting controversy over the abuse of corporal punishment in
the army. This arose out of the revolting disclosures which were made at
an inquest which Mr. Wakley, M.P., Coroner for Middlesex, insisted on
holding on the body of a soldier named Whyte, who, on the 15th of July,
had died from the effects of 150 lashes which had been administered to
him by order of a court-martial. A storm of passionate wrath swept
through the land when the truth, in spite of vain efforts at concealment
on the part of the military authorities, was revealed. The Duke of
Wellington, when he heard of the affair, exclaimed to Mr. Fox Maule,
Secretary of State for War, “This shall not occur again. Though I
believe that corporal punishment cannot be dispensed with, yet I will
not sanction that degree of it which shall lead to loss of life and
limb.” In fact, his Grace had reason to fear that the Queen’s
indignation would be roused by this scandalous occurrence, for he knew
only too well that she held very pronounced views, not altogether in
accord with his own, on the subject of military punishment. On one
occasion, for instance, when the Duke brought her a soldier’s
death-warrant to sign, she asked him, with tears in her eyes, if there
was nothing to be said on behalf of the man. The Duke explained that he
was an incorrigible deserter, but, after being pressed by her Majesty,
admitted that the culprit’s comrades spoke well of him in other
respects. Her Majesty replied, eagerly, “Oh, your Grace, I am so glad to
hear that,” and, with trembling hand, rapidly scribbled the word
“Pardoned” across the fatal scroll, and signed her name with a sigh of
relief and a smile of satisfaction. Captain Layard therefore felt sure
of his ground when, on the 3rd of August, he rose in the House of
Commons to move an Address to the Crown complaining of the use of the
lash in the army. His motion was withdrawn, but Dr. Bowring immediately
gave notice
[Illustration: PARDONED: THE QUEEN AND THE DESERTER’S DEATH-WARRANT.
(_See p. 248._)]
of another motion for the abolition of corporal punishment in the
Service. It never came on for discussion, because the Duke of Wellington
interposed, and appeased public feeling, by issuing an order restricting
the powers of courts-martial, and prohibiting them from inflicting more
than fifty lashes even in the worst cases.
Parliament was prorogued on the 28th of August, the Lord Chancellor
reading the Queen’s Speech. Her Majesty congratulated both Houses on the
passing of the Corn Law Bill, on the settlement of the Oregon dispute,
on the victories in India, and, oddly enough, on “a considerable
diminution of crime and outrage in Ireland”--a significant commentary on
the abortive attempt of Lord John Russell to prolong the existing Irish
Arms Act.
During 1846 the relations between England and her Colonies were, save in
one instance, undisturbed, though in Canada some traces of the bitter
feeling engendered by the rebellion were still discernible. The
Governor, Lord Metcalfe, had incurred considerable unpopularity, because
he had not consulted the Ministry as to filling certain offices, which
he maintained were Crown appointments. The old disputes, too, which
arose out of attempts to charge compensation to rebels on the fund set
aside for compensating loyalists for losses suffered during the
rebellion, had left rankling memories behind them. Lord Metcalfe, on his
death, was succeeded by Lord Cathcart, who opened the Second Session of
the Second Canadian Parliament on the 20th of March. His Excellency’s
speech hardly pleased his audience. He referred, naturally, with great
good feeling, to the death of his predecessor, Lord Metcalfe. But this
only incited the minority to bring forward an amendment, which, while
expressing regret at Lord Metcalfe’s death, omitted all reference
whatever to the manner in which he had discharged his duties. Though the
Colony had no reason, said the representatives of this party, to love
military governors, yet they had no objection to congratulate Lord
Cathcart on his own appointment. Objectionable, however, as _his_
military education might be to them, it could not, they declared, render
him as objectionable as Lord Metcalfe, whose political training and
experience were purely Oriental. The one topic of high Imperial
importance dealt with by Lord Cathcart was his reference to the adoption
of Free Trade by the mother country. The Canadians, it may be said,
viewed the new commercial policy of Sir Robert Peel with the utmost
alarm. The doctrine of buying in the cheapest market and selling in the
dearest had no charms for them, for they were afraid that if the duties
were taken off which gave colonial a preference over foreign grain,
Canada would be ruined by American competition. On the 12th of May the
Canadian Legislative Assembly accordingly adopted an Address, which gave
forcible expression to the dismal prediction that Free Trade with
England must impoverish Canada, and thus depress one of the best markets
then open to English commerce. Mutterings of secession even ran through
the Address: it warned the Crown that, when the Canadians found they
could not successfully compete with the United States in the only market
open to them, they would naturally begin to doubt whether it was “a
paramount advantage” to remain subjects of the British Empire.
Undoubtedly the Free Trade policy of Peel, whatever good it may have
done, had one baneful effect. It alienated the Canadian Colonists from
the mother country.
In Nova Scotia the Governor, Lord Falkland, when he met the Legislative
Assembly on the 10th of January, had, like the Queen at home, to lament
the prevalence of distress due to the failure of the potato crop. But
otherwise the Colonists had a good harvest, not only from the land, but
from the sea. It was to this Parliament that the Government suggested
the construction of a railway from Halifax to Quebec and Montreal--the
first development of the policy which, by linking the different
provinces of British America by bands of iron roads, rendered
confederation possible.
New Zealand was the only Colony which gave her Majesty and her Ministers
much serious concern during 1846. It was a dependency which was
originally meant to be colonised as an experimental test of Mr.
Wakefield’s theories.[54] A Company was formed for this purpose, and its
administrators were to use the proceeds of land sales, to import labour
in fair proportion to the land appropriated. They were also to see that
settlers did not, by dispersal, degenerate into squatters. The first
ruler of the settlement, Governor Hobson and his officials annoyed the
Company in the most provoking manner. They selected the land for
emigrants foolishly, and they neglected to appropriate £40,000 from land
sales to the immigration service. His successor, Captain Fitzroy, found
the Colony with a debt of £68,000, an expenditure of £20,000 a year, and
a population of 15,000. He issued £15,000 worth of paper money, which he
made a legal tender; upset the terms on which settlers had bought native
lands; refused on various pretexts to let emigrants, who had paid the
Company cash for their lands in England, settle on them when they came
out; encouraged native turbulence by ill-timed displays of sympathy; and
suppressed a local Volunteer Force, offering the Colony, as a
substitute, fifty soldiers, to protect a region 200 miles long, and
inhabited by 10,000 persons. In fact, instead of governing the Colony,
the Governor had virtually made war on the Colonists, whose hostility to
him was pronounced and unconcealed. Perhaps they were a little unjust to
him, for the circumstances in which he was placed were full of
difficulty. He had to confront a large disaffected aboriginal
population. He had only a handful of troops to support him, and there
were no places of refuge or defence for the Colonists to fly to.
Auckland and Wellington would thus, he thought, have been destroyed by
the overpowering forces which the natives were ready to launch against
the British settlers, forces which nothing could restrain, save moral
influence wielded by a conciliatory Government. However, the feeling
against Captain Fitzroy in the Colony was so strong that he was
recalled, and Captain Grey was sent out in his stead. His arrival was
hailed with delight, for it was supposed to inaugurate a new era in New
Zealand.
Governor Grey, soon after he entered on his duties, began to coerce the
turbulent chiefs, whom Captain Fitzroy had attempted to subdue by
diplomacy.
[Illustration: VIEW IN NEW ZEALAND: NEW PLYMOUTH AND MOUNT EGMONT.]
and on the 10th of January Captain Despard attacked the fortified Pah or
camp of the rebel chief Kawiti, with a force of 1,100 men, aided by a
large number of native allies. The combat lasted for two days, for the
rebels fought with extraordinary tenacity, but ultimately they had to
yield. Our losses were twelve men killed and thirty wounded. The natives
conducted their operations in a manner that recalled Fenimore Cooper’s
descriptions of Indian fighting; and their chiefs and priests harangued
them every night in the ancient Homeric fashion. The reckless daring
displayed by our men was the subject of many anecdotes. One of the
sailors belonging to H.M.S. _Castor_, for example, climbed up to the top
of the stockade during the battle, and from that coign of vantage kept
up a damaging fire on the enemy. Colonel Wynard, who was marching past,
shouted out to the man to come down at once. Instead of doing that, he
coolly hailed the Colonel sailor-fashion, saying, “Oh! no, your honour.
This is the best place to see ’em. You jest come up and ’ave a look,
sir.” When the day was won the man came down without a scratch. It
[Illustration: VIEW IN CANTON: THE BRITISH CONSULATE.]
was then discovered, however, that his cap had been shot off, that his
coat had four bullet holes in it, and that the palisade on which he had
perched was riddled with bullets. The success of our arms was followed
by the immediate submission of the rebel chiefs. This was notified in a
proclamation issued by Governor Grey on the 23rd of January, in which he
granted a free pardon “to all concerned in the late rebellion, who may
now return in peace and safety to their houses, where, so long as they
conduct themselves properly, they shall remain unmolested in their
persons and properties.”
In South Africa a Caffre war or rising broke out in April, 1846, the
natives attacking Graham’s Town with remarkable audacity. A sharp
struggle for the possession of the frontier of the Cape Colony raged for
some time, but the Caffres were finally beaten in an engagement at Fish
River, and, though they continued to be troublesome, they were
throughout the year successfully held in check by Colonial levies.
Early in the year the Sultan of Borneo, acting under bad advice, caused
an attack to be made on his uncles, Muda Hassim and Bimdureen, who were
the leaders of what might be called the Anglophile or British party in
the State. They were murdered along with their families and dependents.
The Sultan immediately began to prepare to defend his territory against
any English troops that might come to avenge the death of our allies.
Sir Thomas Cochrane accordingly determined to proceed to Brunai, the
capital of Borneo, to demand reparation from the Sultan. Accompanied by
Mr. James Brooke (Rajah of Sarawak), H.M.SS. _Spiteful_ and
_Phlegethon_, with Mr. Brooke’s schooner _Royalist_, Sir T. Cochrane,
after a somewhat severe engagement, forced his way past the forts that
guarded the river leading to Brunai. He then landed a party of marines,
who took possession of the town. The Sultan and most of the inhabitants
fled into the interior. An expedition sent to capture him failed, but,
before leaving for China, Sir T. Cochrane issued a proclamation to the
people warning them that the Sultan was at the mercy of the British, and
declaring it to be our intention to return “and act with the extreme of
vigour should he ever again evince hostility to Great Britain.” Sir
Thomas Cochrane next sailed for China, where the turbulent Cantonese
were annoying the European community at Hong Kong. The disturbances in
Canton, news of which reached England in September, were, however,
easily quelled. About the same time her Majesty’s Government was
informed that all questions as to the completion of the Treaty by which
the Chinese war had been settled had been peacefully adjusted. The right
of entry to Canton, which that Treaty had guaranteed to us, had been
withheld by the Chinese, who now formally conceded it peacefully. On our
side preparations were at once made to give up Chusan, which we retained
in pawn so long as the Government at Pekin denied our right to enter
Canton.
In 1846 the foreign policy of Great Britain brought much anxiety to the
Queen. It was the irony of fate that her Government was drifting into
unfriendliness with France, though the Queen personally entertained
sentiments of warm friendship and admiration for King Louis Philippe and
his sons and daughters. But in Switzerland and South America the policy
of England and France was antagonistic. In Portugal a French faction was
striving to undermine British influence, and in Spain the question of
the marriage of Queen Isabella produced a serious estrangement between
the two nations.
Among those who aspired to the hand of the Spanish Queen was the Count
of Trapani, youngest brother of the King of Naples and the Queen
Dowager Christina, and therefore uncle of Queen Isabella. The Queen
Dowager opposed his pretensions; the young Queen herself, like the great
mass of her people, was also averse from an alliance with him. Another
suitor had therefore to be found. England objected to a French prince
being chosen, her traditional policy being hostile to whatever might
bring France and Spain under one crown. France was willing to respect
this objection, provided no prince but a prince of the House of Bourbon
was selected as the Queen’s consort. Here came the difficulty. Of those
princes his Highness of Lucca was ineligible, because he was married
already; the Count of Trapani was ineligible, because the Queen and her
subjects disliked him; the sons of the Don Francisco de Paula, her
Majesty’s uncle--the Duke of Cadiz and the Duke of Seville--were
ineligible because they were both disagreeable to the Queen, and,
according to M. Guizot, compromised by their intimacy with the
Radicals;[55] and Count Montemolin, the son of Don Carlos, was
ineligible, first, because everybody detested him, and, secondly,
because he was formally excluded from the succession by the Spanish
Constitution. How, then, was the French demand that the Queen of Spain
should marry one of the descendants of Philip V. to be satisfied? M.
Guizot admitted, in a despatch to M. de St. Aulaire, that these
difficulties were incontestable; but he added that the Court of Lisbon
was the centre of an intrigue to promote a marriage between the Queen
and Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, whose connection with the Royal
Family of England rendered him objectionable to France. If this project
were further developed, M. Guizot cunningly argued, France would be
freed from the pledge she had given to England, and might then demand
the hand of the Queen of Spain or her sister the Infanta, for a French
prince of the House of Bourbon; in other words, for the Duc de
Montpensier. It was on the perfectly gratuitous and absolutely erroneous
assumption that England was promoting the candidature of the Prince
Leopold, that M. Guizot made ready to play the diplomatic trick which
ultimately destroyed the cordial feeling between England and France.
Louis Philippe had given his Royal word to Queen Victoria at Eu in
September, 1845, that in no case should the Duc de Montpensier marry the
Infanta till the Queen of Spain was herself married, and had children
who might assure the direct succession to her throne. But suddenly, in
the autumn of 1846, it was announced that the Queen of Spain was about
to marry her cousin, the Duke of Cadiz, and that her sister, the
Infanta, was at the same time to marry the Duc de Montpensier.
Technically, it does not appear that England had a right to complain of
this double marriage as a breach of the Treaty of Utrecht. It was, no
doubt, meant to evade and defeat the provisions of that instrument; but
the Treaty itself had never been construed, as Lord Palmerston seemed to
imagine, as a positive prohibition of all intermarriages between the
Royal Families of France and Spain. For example, in 1721 King Louis I.
of Spain married Louisa Elizabeth of Orleans, Mademoiselle de
Montpensier and fourth daughter of the Regent of France. In 1739 Don
Philip, Duke of Parma, a son of Philip V., married Louisa Elizabeth,
eldest daughter of Louis XV. of France. In 1745 the Dauphin of France,
as all the world knows, married Maria Theresa Antonia, Infanta of Spain,
and a daughter of Philip V. In truth, it must be conceded that the
Treaty of Utrecht simply stipulated that the crowns of France and Spain
should not rest on the head of the same sovereign. Even if the Queen’s
marriage were without issue, and a child or descendant of her sister and
the Duc de Montpensier had fallen heir to the French and Spanish
crowns--a somewhat problematical event--the Treaty of Utrecht would have
obviously operated as a bar against his claim. It would have compelled
him to elect which country he should rule over. The intrigue that ended
in this double marriage was regarded by England--nay, by Europe--as a
piece of diplomatic knavery, and both Louis Philippe and M. Guizot
suffered in character and in prestige accordingly.
The Queen was naturally more highly incensed than the nation, because
from her position and her vigilant study of foreign policy she knew more
than her people of the secret history of the affair. The motives of the
chief conspirators in the intrigue--Louis Philippe and the Queen Dowager
Christina--were rather disreputable. They utterly ignored the feelings
and the interests of the young Queen, and treated her as if she were a
chattel to be bartered away for their own aggrandisement. Louis
Philippe’s object was simply to secure for his son a consort whose dowry
would still further enrich the Orleans family, the aggrandisement of his
House being the dominant idea of his diplomacy. The Dowager Queen
Christina had been an unjust steward of the fortune which the Queen and
her sister inherited from their father, King Ferdinand VII., and for her
it was therefore a vital necessity to find husbands for her daughters,
who would not be too curious as to the accuracy of her accounts. It is
believed that when Ferdinand VII. died he was worth £8,000,000 sterling,
and though there is reason to suppose he left a will, no such instrument
was ever found. After his death, however, his property was set down as
being worth only 60,000,000 francs, and by law this was divided between
his daughters. The Queen Dowager was said at the time to have
appropriated not only the balance, but also a considerable proportion of
the rents of the Patrimonio Real, which passed through her hands during
her guardianship of her daughters. Her uncle, Louis Philippe, was
understood to be cognisant of the Queen Dowager’s “economies,” as they
were ironically termed in Spain, and he knew how her illegitimate
offspring had grown rich during the minority of the young Princesses.
Louis Philippe could answer for it that if his son married one of the
Royal sisters, no inconvenient questions would be asked about
settlements. In the Duke of Cadiz he discerned an imbecile Prince of the
House of Bourbon who would be equally pliable and accommodating.
Moreover, he was supposed to be physically unfitted for matrimony, so
that by arranging his marriage with the young Queen, Louis Philippe
presumably calculated that the union would be without issue, which would
place the children by the Queen’s sister and the Duc de Montpensier in
the direct succession to the throne, almost as surely as if Louis
Philippe had arranged that his son should marry Queen Isabella herself.
The pledge which Louis Philippe had given to the Queen of England at Eu
was an obstacle to this heartless project, but the pretext for violating
it was
[Illustration: THE ROYAL PALACE, MADRID.]
ingeniously manufactured by the Queen Dowager Christina. She addressed a
letter, proposing a marriage between Queen Isabella and Leopold of
Saxe-Coburg, to the Duke of Saxe-Coburg, who happened to be on a visit
to the Court of Lisbon. After telling Mr. Bulwer (afterwards Lord
Dalling), the British Minister at Madrid, what this letter contained,
and being warned by him that the English Government could not support
such a proposal, Queen Christina asked him to let her letter go in his
despatch bag, by his messenger. In courtesy he could not refuse this
favour, and Lord Aberdeen, when he heard what had happened, laid the
facts loyally and frankly before M. Guizot. M. Guizot immediately
founded on the incident his monstrous pretext that there was an
Anglo-Portuguese intrigue on foot to marry the Queen of Spain to a
Prince nearly related to the Royal Family of England--the pretext which
released Louis Philippe from the pledge given at the Château d’Eu.
Still, Louis Philippe shrank from taking steps which he was aware must
compromise his reputation; M. Guizot, however, knew how to overcome his
last lingering scruples. To cherish an antipathy to Lord Palmerston, who
had succeeded Lord Aberdeen at the Foreign Office, was a point of honour
with Louis Philippe, who had not forgotten how France was checked in
Syria in 1840, and Lord Palmerston, it must be admitted, indiscreetly
played into M. Guizot’s hands. He wrote on the 18th of December a
despatch to Mr. Bulwer, discussing the marriage of Queen Isabella, and
mentioning--without, however, specially favouring--the candidature of
Prince Leopold, along with that of the various Bourbon Princes. He added
a series of caustic criticisms on the absolutism which tainted the
Government of Spain. A copy of this despatch was given to M. Guizot. He
immediately roused Louis Philippe’s suspicions and distrust by pointing
to its maladroit references to Prince Leopold’s candidature. Then he
sent to Queen Christina a copy of the offensive references to the
absolutism of the Spanish Government. She at once saw, or pretended to
see, in the document indications of an alliance between the English
Government and her enemies the Progressists, which it was quite
reasonable for her to neutralise, by drawing closer the ties between
Spain and France.
Louis Philippe, accordingly, no longer hesitated, nor did the Queen
Dowager, to arrange the marriages of Queen Isabella and her sister to
the Duke of Cadiz and the Duc de Montpensier--in defiance of the pledges
given at the Château d’Eu. The English Government met the announcement
with a diplomatic protest. The King of the French induced Queen Marie
Amélie to announce the “double event” to Queen Victoria, who in reply
sent the following dignified but cutting letter:--
“OSBORNE, _September 10th, 1846_.
“MADAME,--I have just received your Majesty’s letter of the 8th
inst., and I hasten to thank you for it. You will perhaps remember
what passed at Eu between the King and myself; you are aware of the
importance which I have always attached to the maintenance of our
cordial understanding, and the zeal with which I have laboured
towards this end. You have no doubt been informed that we refused
to arrange the marriage between the Queen of Spain and our cousin
Leopold (which the two Queens had eagerly desired), solely with the
object of not departing from a course which would be more agreeable
to the King, although we could not regard that course as the best.
You will therefore easily understand that the sudden announcement
of this double marriage could not fail to cause us surprise and
very keen regret.
“I crave your pardon, Madame, for speaking to you of politics at a
time like this, but I am glad that I can say for myself that I have
always been _sincere_ with you.
“Begging you to present my respectful regards to the King,
“I am, Madame,
“Your Majesty’s most devoted sister and friend.”
The shrewdest comment made on this brilliant diplomatic triumph of
France was Metternich’s. “Tell Guizot from me,” he said, “that one does
not with impunity play little tricks with, great countries”--and
Metternich was right. The loss of the English alliance ruined Louis
Philippe in the eye of public opinion in Europe, and gave courage and
hope to the Liberals in France, who were bent on dethroning him. Austria
took advantage of the estrangement between England and France to absorb
the Republic of Cracow,[56] in defiance of the Treaty of Vienna, so
that, much to the indignation of the French people, they saw, as the
firstfruits of M. Guizot’s diplomacy, the last free banner and city in
Poland vanish from the face of Europe. In England the feeling against
Louis Philippe was one of mingled regret and disgust. The incident,
writes Mr. Greville, “has been a great damper to the Queen’s
_engouement_ for the House of Orleans.”[57] “Nothing more painful,”
wrote the Queen to the Queen of the Belgians, “could possibly have
befallen me than this unhappy difference, both because it has a
character so personal, and because it imposes upon me the duty of
opposing the marriage of a Prince for whom, as well as for all his
family, I entertain so warm a friendship.”[58] “Everybody,” said Lord
Lansdowne writing to Lord Palmerston, “would have to turn over a new
leaf with Louis Philippe.” As for Prince Albert, he felt the blow as a
national insult and a personal wrong, though, according to Baron
Stockmar, both he and the Queen exercised the greatest self-command in
concealing their resentment.[59]