THE COURT AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS.
Lord George Bentinck’s Imprudence--French Intrigues in
Portugal--England and the Junta--A Vulgar Suspicion--The Duke of
Wellington and National Defences--The Duke’s Threatened
Resignation--The Queen Soothes Him--Famine in the Queen’s
Kitchen--Royal Hospitalities--The Queen’s Country Dance--A German
Impostor--Discovery of Chloroform--The Royal Visit to
Cambridge--Prince Albert’s Installation as Chancellor of the
University--Awkward Dons--Anecdotes of the Queen at
Cambridge--Royalty and Heraldry--The Visit to Scotland--Highland
Loyalty--A Desolate Retreat--Politics and Sport at Ardverikie--A
New Departure in Foreign Policy--Lord Minto’s Mission--The Queen’s
Views--Prince Albert’s Caution to Lord John Russell--The Queen’s
Amusements at Ardverikie--A Regretful Adieu--Home Again
During 1847-48, Foreign Affairs chiefly occupied the attention of the
Queen and Prince Albert. The annexation of Cracow, long meditated by
Metternich, was rendered easy to Austria by the coolness which had
sprung up between England and France. It was felt that French and
English protests, though presented, must be unavailing, because every
one knew neither Power would go to war for the sake of Poland. Mr. Hume
brought the incident under the notice of the House of Commons, his
proposal being to stop the payments to Russia by Great Britain on
account of the Russo-Dutch Loan--in other words, to fine Russia for
sanctioning Austria’s evil-doing. It was the subject of a debate which
would have been tame but for Lord George Bentinck’s imprudent eulogium
on the three despotic Powers--which vastly displeased his Party, and as
Lord Palmerston, in a letter to Lord Normanby, said, extinguished him as
a candidate for office.[79] Hume’s motion was not pressed to a division.
French influence had been at work in Portugal to estrange the Queen from
her English alliance. The dynastic connection between the Houses of
Coburg and Braganza rendered Portuguese affairs intensely interesting to
Queen Victoria at this time. The King Consort of Portugal--Prince
Ferdinand, son of the younger brother of the reigning Duke of
Coburg--had, it was rumoured, quarrelled with the Queen, who was tempted
to carry out in her dominions the arbitrary policy of the Bourbons. The
people rebelled; and in view of a possible Franco-Spanish intervention,
England, not uninfluenced by the views of Queen Victoria and Prince
Albert, stepped in between the Portuguese Sovereign and her people.
English intervention was at the outset purely diplomatic. It was limited
to the arrangement of a compromise between the contending parties.
Ultimately our diplomacy was successful; but the proposals of the
English Envoy were finally rejected by the Portuguese Junta, and a
Protocol was drawn up with Portugal, Spain, and France, for the purpose
of bringing the Junta to submission. The General Election was now
impending in England, and it was feared that on a motion in the House of
Commons, censuring the Government for interfering to coerce the Junta, a
combination of Protectionists and Radicals with Lord Palmerston’s
enemies would defeat the Government. Sir Robert Peel held some anxious
conferences with Prince Albert on the subject; and the Queen was afraid
lest a vulgar suspicion might get abroad that the policy of her
Government had been dominated, not by British but by Coburg interests.
Luckily, no serious coercion was needed, and the Junta finally submitted
on the 30th of June.
It was on the 11th of June that Mr. Joseph Hume brought forward his
motion attacking the Portuguese policy of the Government. The debate was
fierce and bitter. Peel, who spoke eloquently on the side of the
Ministry, privately warned Prince Albert that Mr. Hume might carry his
motion. Lord John Russell wrote to the Queen, saying she must be
prepared to receive his resignation by the end of the week; and in the
House of Lords also the attack was led by Lord Stanley, with
characteristic impetuosity. Naturally, then, everybody was amazed when,
after three days’ furious wrangling, the debate ended in a count-out in
the House of Commons, and the defeat of Lord Stanley in the House of
Lords by a majority of twenty. This ridiculous result was due to some
misunderstanding between Mr. Hume and Lord George Bentinck, who
permitted the “count-out,” and it led to endless recriminations. On the
5th of July, Mr. Bernal Osborne brought Portuguese affairs before
Parliament once more; and then Lord Palmerston, who had not spoken in
the three days’ debate, explained his policy. His object, he said, was
neither to serve the Portuguese Crown nor oppress the Portuguese nation.
He found Portugal a prey to wasting anarchy. But as it was most
important that Portugal should be a strong ally of England in
maintaining the balance of power, he had felt justified in interfering
between the Queen and her people, in order to gain for the latter the
constitutional securities which by the advice of bad Councillors her
Majesty had suspended. In bringing the war to a peaceful termination, in
transferring the struggle from the field of battle to the arena of
Parliamentary debate, the Government seems to have fairly earned, if it
did not freely receive, the thanks both of England and Portugal.
The dispute between France and England over the Spanish marriages, the
personal quarrel between Lord Normanby, the English Ambassador at Paris,
and M. Guizot, and the deep distrust of Lord Palmerston, which poisoned
the mind of Louis Philippe, bore bad fruits. Lord Normanby allied
himself more closely than ever with M. Thiers and the leaders of the
Opposition in the French Chambers, who harried the Government with their
attacks. M. Guizot began to lean for support on the Northern Powers, and
he cultivated the fatal friendship of Metternich. His policy was thus
one under which revolution naturally ripened. The unsatisfactory state
of our foreign relations rendered the Duke of Wellington most anxious
about the defence of the country; in fact, he was, says Charles
Greville, “haunted” by it night and day. Lord Clarendon and Lord
Palmerston[80] were with the Duke. The Chancellor of the Exchequer was
against him; as for Lord John Russell, he was neutral.
In January, 1848, the Duke of Wellington, however, startled the country
by a letter which he had addressed to General Sir John Burgoyne early in
1847 on the unfortified state of England. At that moment, he averred,
the fleet was the only defence the nation possessed. He doubted if 5,000
men of all arms could be sent into the field, unless we left those on
duty, including the Royal Guards, without any reliefs whatever. He
pleaded for the organisation of a militia force at least 150,000 strong,
and for strengthening the defences of the South Coast from the North
Foreland to Portsmouth. This letter was a private one. Lady Burgoyne and
her daughters, however, had distributed copies of it among their
friends, and one Pigou, “a meddling zealot,” says Mr. Greville, “who
does nothing but read Blue Books and write letters to the _Times_,” got
hold of a copy and printed it in the newspapers, much to the annoyance
of the Duke and Lord John Russell. The Duke of Wellington all through
the latter half of the year had indeed given the Ministry and the Queen
some uneasiness, and this might have had serious consequences, but for
the fine tact and delicate social diplomacy of her Majesty. Enfeebled by
age and anxious as to the defences of the country, which the Government
persisted in neglecting, the “Great Captain” querulously threatened to
resign--a step which the Queen dreaded because she considered that it
would greatly reduce public confidence in the Government. A statue in
the worst possible taste had been put up on the archway opposite Apsley
House--the first equestrian statue, indeed, ever erected in England to a
subject. It was put there only provisionally, but the Duke held that to
take it down would be an insult to him, and this further strengthened
his resolution to retire. The Queen, however, was “excessively kind to
him,” and her winning courtesies soothed the irritated veteran. “On
Monday,” says Mr. Greville, writing on the 19th of June, “his
granddaughter was christened at the Palace, and the Queen dined with him
in the evening. She had written him a very pretty letter, expressing her
wish to be godmother to the child, saying that she wished her to be
called Victoria, which name was so peculiarly appropriate to a
granddaughter of his.” After that the country was no longer disturbed by
rumours of the Duke’s impending resignation.
Of Court life outside the sphere of politics, in this year of distress,
we gain some interesting glimpses in the Memoirs and Diaries of the
period. In February wheat was selling at 102 shillings a quarter, and in
May the Queen herself says she had been obliged to limit the allowance
of bread to every one in the Palace to one pound a day, “and only
secondary flour to be used in the Royal kitchen.” Still a generous but
not ostentatious hospitality was dispensed by her Majesty all through
this dismal season. The Baroness Bunsen says, in her Diary, on the 1st
of March, 1847:--“We dined at Buckingham Palace
[Illustration: PRINCE METTERNICH.]
on Monday, where there was a ball in the evening--that is, a small
dancing party, only Lady Rosebery and the Ladies Primrose coming in the
evening, in addition to those at dinner. The Queen danced with her usual
spirit and activity, and that obliged other people to do their best, and
thus the ball was a pretty sight, inspirited by excellent music.”
Another description of a Royal dinner-party at this time is given by
Lord Campbell, in his Autobiography.[81] Writing to his brother, Sir
George
[Illustration: KING’S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE FROM THE “BACKS.”]
Campbell, on the 22nd of March, 1847, he gives us a bright glimpse of
Palace life. “You will see,” he says, “by the _Court Circular_ that Mary
and Loo and I dined at the Palace on Saturday. The invitation only came
on Friday, and we were engaged to dine with Sir John Hobhouse. There is
not much to tell to gratify your curiosity. On our arrival a little
before eight, we were shown into the picture gallery, where the company
assembled. Burnes, who acted as Master of the Ceremonies, arranged what
gentleman should take what lady. He said, ‘Dinner is ordered to be on
the table at ten minutes past eight, but I bet you the Queen will not be
here till twenty to twenty-five minutes after. She always thinks she can
dress in ten minutes, but she takes about double the time.’ True enough,
it was nearly twenty-five minutes after eight before she appeared. She
shook hands with the ladies, bowed to the gentlemen, and proceeded to
the _salle à manger_. I had to take in Lady Emily de Burgh, and was
third on her Majesty’s right--Prince Edward of Saxe-Weimar and my
partner being between us. The greatest delicacy we had was some very
nice oatcake. There was a Highland piper standing behind her Majesty’s
chair, but he did not play as at ‘State dinners.’ We had likewise some
Edinburgh ale. The Queen and the ladies withdrawing, Prince Albert came
over to her side of the table, and we remained behind about a quarter of
an hour; but we rose within the hour from the time of our sitting down.
A snuff-box was twice carried round and offered to all the gentlemen;
Prince Albert, to my surprise, took a pinch. On returning to the gallery
we had tea and coffee. The Queen then came up and talked to me.... She
does the honours of her palace with infinite sweetness and grace--and
considering what she is, both in public and domestic life, I do not
think she is sufficiently loved and respected. Prince Albert took me to
task for my impatience to get into the new House of Lords, but I think I
pacified him complimenting his taste. A dance followed. The Queen
chiefly delighted in a romping sort of country dance called the
_Tempête_. She withdrew a little before twelve, and we went off to Lady
Palmerston’s.”
Again, writing on the eventful day when the Royal Household had been put
on short rations, the Baroness Bunsen, in a letter to her mother,
says:--“Last night we were asked to the Queen Dowager’s, who had invited
a small party, at which the Queen was present and the Duchess of
Gloucester. The object was to give a German named Löwe, who had come
with prodigious recommendations from Coburg, opportunity of showing his
musical talent, and it turned out that he had none to show”[82]--not by
any means the first imported adventurer who has tried to take advantage
of the Queen’s good nature, and her sympathy for Art.
The great scientific event of the year was a discovery in which the
Queen not only took a deep personal interest, but the application of
which she subsequently used her influence to popularise. It was the
substitution of the use of chloroform for ether as an anæsthetic agent
in operative surgery. Chloroform was first introduced into Great Britain
by Dr. James Young Simpson, Professor of Midwifery in the University of
Edinburgh, and he claimed for it several advantages over ether. A
smaller quantity produced unconsciousness. It acted more rapidly, and
was less evanescent than ether. It was alleged to be safer, though this
is still a matter of doubt. The old masters of surgery used to consider
a surgical operation the opprobrium of their art. By rendering all
operations painless, Simpson did not remove this opprobrium, though he
reduced it to a minimum.
Two great events in the domestic life of the Court in 1847 were the
visit to Cambridge and the visit to Scotland, which took place after
Parliament was dissolved. Baron Stockmar was not the only quiet observer
who had noticed that Prince Albert had “made great strides lately.”
Learned men in England had come to recognise in the thoughtful and
scholarly young Prince a choice and kindred spirit. On the 12th of
February, 1847, his Royal Highness was deeply gratified to receive from
Dr. Whewell, the Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, a letter asking
permission to nominate him for the vacant Chancellorship of the
University. Acting quite independently of Dr. Whewell, Lord Lansdowne
sent a similar request, and Mr. Anson, Prince Albert’s secretary,
received a communication from the Bishop of London (Blomfield), assuring
him that a great many of the leading members of the University were
deeply interested in the election of his Royal Highness, and would
consider his acceptance of office alike honourable and advantageous to
Cambridge. The Queen was touched with these expressions of kindly
feeling, for if there had ever been a shadow over her happiness, it had
been due to a lurking suspicion that her husband was not fairly
appreciated by the people, among whom for her sake he had elected to
work out a career of self-effacement. Here, at last, it seemed to her
Majesty, there was an indication that her husband’s high qualities were
meeting with their just reward. The offer of the Chancellorship of
Cambridge she regarded as an honour conferred on the Prince for his own
sake rather than for hers--as the first mark of distinction won by him
in England, outside the sphere and range of her influence.
This feeling was strengthened when, on the 18th of February, there
arrived at Buckingham Palace an address, signed by all the most
distinguished resident members of the University, urging the Prince to
accept nomination. But in Cambridge, as elsewhere, little local
jealousies often rob great movements of some of their grace and
sweetness. St. John’s, ever envious of Trinity, thought the University
should have a Chancellor of its choosing, and had accordingly put Lord
Powis in nomination. The Prince, not quite estimating these petty
academic rivalries at their true value, shrank from the competition, and
ordered his name to be withdrawn. Dr. Whewell and his supporters,
however, disregarded this request, and insisted on going to the poll
against the Prince’s wishes, which put them at a signal disadvantage.
The contest was keen--perhaps one might even say a trifle
acrimonious--but it ended in the triumph of the Prince, whose supporters
defeated Lord Powis by a vote of 953 to 837. Nineteen out of
thirty-seven wranglers, and sixteen out of twenty-four professors, voted
for the Prince. The resident vote was three to one in his favour, so
that, as is usual in
[Illustration: ST. JOHN’S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.]
University elections, the strength of the “Marplots” lay in the rural
electorate. Still, the Prince had scruples about accepting the office.
His candidature had been carried on against his express desire, and he
harped on the idea that victory, without some approach to unanimity,
could only give rise to discord in the University. His friends, however,
urged him to take office, and they had a powerful ally in the Queen. As
Sir R. Peel said at the time, “to decline the office would give a
triumph to the partisans of Lord Powis--who would feel no gratitude for
the concession--and would cause deep mortification and disappointment to
all those who voted for the Prince, and of whom the greater number
cannot be held responsible for the nomination of the Prince against his
declared wishes.” The smallness of the majority was, of course,
[Illustration: THE PRINCE-CHANCELLOR OF CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESENTING
AN ADDRESS TO THE QUEEN. (_See p. 311._)]
largely due to the fact that the Trinity party had pressed the Prince’s
candidature after he had publicly withdrawn. They were, in fact, asking
electors to vote for a candidate whose acceptance of office if elected
was doubtful. On the other hand, the Prince could not force his
partisans to stop proceedings, except by publicly declaring that in no
circumstances would he accept, even if chosen, the Chancellorship of the
University, which would have been justly construed into an insult to
Cambridge. Ultimately the Prince agreed to take office, and on the 25th
of March the ceremony of inauguration took place at Buckingham Palace,
where the Vice-Chancellor, Dr. Philpott, at the head of an imposing
academic deputation, presented the Prince with the Letters Patent of his
office. The venerable Laureate, Wordsworth, himself a Cambridge man,
kindly responded to a suggestion that he should write the Installation
Ode, and, as he observed in a letter to Colonel Phipps, “retouch a harp,
which I will not say with Tasso, oppressed by misfortunes and years, has
been hung up upon a cypress, but which has, however, been for some time
laid aside.” That he excluded the Ode from his collected works indicates
that he felt the ancient founts of inspiration had almost run dry, and
yet there are many passages of stately beauty in the poem. It begins by
referring to the rescue of Europe from the grasp of Napoleon, and to the
wail of sorrow that resounded through England when the Princess
Charlotte died:--
“Flower and bud together fall--
A nation’s hopes lie crushed in Claremont’s desolate hall.”
Then a noble strophe announces the birth of the Princess Victoria, and
celebrates her happy destiny:--
Love, the treasure worth possessing
More than all the world beside;
This shall be her dearest blessing,
Oft to Royal heads denied.”
But the strength and resonance of the Ode chiefly lie in the passages
addressed to the Prince in relation to his duties:--
“Albert, in thy race we cherish
A nation’s strength that will not perish
While England’s sceptred line
True to the King of Kings is found;
Like that wise ancestor of thine
Who threw the Saxon shield o’er Luther’s life,
When first above the yells of bigot strife
The trumpet of the Living Word
Assumed a voice of deep portentous sound,
From, gladdened Elbe to startled Tiber heard.”
Brilliant sunshine gilded those joyful July days when the Queen and her
husband set out with a gay and gladsome party for the ceremony of
Installation. “The great Railway King, Mr. Hudson himself,” writes the
Queen in her Diary, took charge of their train. But perhaps the freshest
and brightest account of the journey, and of the proceedings all
through, is that of the Baroness Bunsen, a gifted lady who accompanied
the Royal party, and who was an eye-witness of what occurred. In a
letter to her mother, under date the 8th of July, 1847, she says:--“On
Monday morning we were at the station before nine, just before Prince
Waldemar, the Duke of Saxe-Weimar, and Prince of Oldenburg arrived, for
whom the Queen had added a special train, and one of those carriages
called Royal, like a long omnibus, just holding the Princes, their
gentlemen aides-de-camp, Bishop Stanley, and Sir George Grey, Prince
Löwenstein, and ourselves. The station was a curious spectacle, as
usual--all ranks and materials of human society hurrying and jostling or
standing together. Our little Aaron Elphick, advanced from a college at
Hurstmonceux to be knife-cleaner at Oak Hill, from thence brought to
London last year, grown and dressed into a sort of embryo footman, and
_lent_ to Prince Löwenstein for the journey to Cambridge, stood guarding
the Prince’s portmanteau, whilst close by, talking across Aaron, stood
three Princes and a Bishop. As we shot along, every station and bridge
and resting-place and spot of shade was peopled with eager faces
watching for the Queen, and decorated with flowers; but the largest and
the brightest, and the gayest and most excited assemblage, was at the
Cambridge Station itself, and from thence along the streets to Trinity
College the degree of ornament and crowd and excitement was always
increasing. I think I never saw so many children before in one morning,
and I felt so much moved at the spectacle of such a mass of life
collected together and animated by one feeling, and that a joyous one,
that I was at a loss to conceive ‘how any woman’s sides can bear the
beating of so strong a throb’ as must attend the consciousness of being
the object of all that excitement and the centre of attraction for all
those eyes; but the Queen has Royal strength of nerve. We met the
well-fed magistrates and yeomanry going to await the Queen, as they
desired to fetch her from the station, and walk in procession before her
into the town. We saw her entrance into Trinity College as we stood at
the window of the Lodge, and the academic crowd, in picturesque dresses,
were as loud and rejoicing as any mob could have been. Soon after I went
with Mrs. Whewell, Lady Hardwicke, and Lady Monteagle, to take our
places in the yet vacant Great Hall of Trinity, where the Queen came to
receive the Chancellor’s address, and a few minutes after she had placed
herself on the Throne (_i.e._, arm-chair under a canopy at the raised
extremity of the Hall). Prince Albert, as Chancellor, entered from the
opposite end, in a beautiful dress of black and gold, with a long train
held up, made a graceful bow, and read an address, to which she read an
answer with a peculiar emphasis, uttering _approbation_ of the choice of
a Chancellor made by Cambridge! Both kept their countenances admirably,
and she only smiled upon the Prince at the close, when all was over, and
she had let all the heads of houses kiss her hand, which they did with
exquisite variety of awkwardness, all but one or two. Afterwards, the
Queen dined with the Vice-Chancellor in the hall of a small college,
where but comparatively few could be admitted. My husband was among the
invited, but not myself, and I was very glad to dine with Mrs. Whewell,
Lady Monteagle, and three of their suite--Colonel Phipps, Mr. Anson, and
Meyer. Later in the evening I enjoyed a walk in the beautiful garden
belonging to the Lodge, where flowers, planted and cared for
[Illustration: DR. WHEWELL.]
in the best manner, combine with fine trees and picturesque
architecture. The Queen went to a concert, contrived as an extra
opportunity of showing her to the public. On Tuesday morning all were up
early to breakfast at nine (but I had crept into the garden and admired
the abundance of roses long before that), to be ready before ten at the
distribution of prizes and performance of the Installation Ode in the
Senate House. The English prize poem, by a Mr. Day, on Sir Thomas More,
had really merit besides the merit of the subject. The Installation Ode
I thought quite affecting, because the selection of striking points is
founded on fact, and all exaggeration and _humbug_ were avoided.... Then
the Queen dined in the Great Hall of Trinity, and splendid did the Great
Hall look--330 people at various tables.... In the afternoon we had all
been at luncheon at Downing College, and enjoyed dancing in a refreshing
shade, and the spectacle of cheerful crowds in brilliant sunshine. The
Queen came thither and walked round to see the Horticultural Show, and
to show herself and the Chancellor.
[Illustration: THE QUEEN IN THE WOODWARDIAN MUSEUM. (_See p. 315._)]
After this was the real dinner, the Queen and her immediate suite at a
table across the raised end of the Hall, all the rest at tables
lengthways. At the Queen’s table the names were put on places, and
anxious was the moment before one could find one’s place. I was directed
by Lord Spencer to take one between him and the Duke of Buccleuch, and
found myself in very agreeable neighbourhood.
“Yesterday morning I went with the Duchess of Sutherland and Lady Desart
through the Library, King’s Chapel, Clare Hall, and the beautiful avenue
and gardens--with combinations of trees, architecture, green turf,
flowers, and water--which, under such a sun and sky as we had, could
nowhere be finer. The Duchess was conducted by Dr. Whewell, Lady Desart
by Lord Abercorn, and my honoured self by _Dr. Meyer in uniform_ (as all
had been attending the Chancellor’s levee in the morning), and we
passed among the admiring crowd who followed us at a respectful
distance, for the hero, Sir Harry Smith, as Lord Fortescue said, was
taken for the Duke of Wellington. Till twelve we walked, and at one the
Queen set out, through the Cloisters, and Hall and Library of Trinity
College, to pass through the gardens and avenues, which had been
connected for the occasion, by a temporary bridge over the river, with
those of St. John’s, and we followed her, thus having the best
opportunity of seeing everything, and in particular the joyous crowd
that grouped among the noble trees. Then the Queen sat down to luncheon
in a tent, and we were placed at her table. The only other piece of
diplomacy was Van de Weyer; but Madame Van de W. did not come, being
unable to undertake the fatigue. The Queen returned by Trinity Lodge,
and left for good at three, and as soon as we could afterwards we drove
away with Prince Waldemar. I could still tell much of Cambridge, of the
charms of its trim gardens, and of how well the Queen looked, and how
pleased, and how well she was dressed, and how perfect in grace and
movements.”
Another little vignette of the stately academic pageant, in which the
Queen shone as a sweet and charming figure, is rapidly sketched by
another eye-witness. Bishop Wilberforce, writing to Miss Noel, July 5th,
1847,[83] says:--
“The Cambridge scene was very interesting. There was such a burst of
loyalty, and it so told on the Queen and the Prince. C. would not there
have thought that he looked cold. It was quite clear that they both felt
it was something new; that he had earned, and not she given, a true
English honour; and so he looked so pleased and she so triumphant. There
were also some pretty interludes--when he presented the address and she
beamed upon him, and once half smiled, and then covered the smile with a
gentle dignity, and then she said, in her clear, musical voice, ‘The
choice which the University has made of its Chancellor has my most
entire approbation.’”
The Royal lady’s voice may have been clear and distinct, but, as a
matter of fact, she was thrilled with nervous excitement, quite unusual
to her, and evidently due to the fulness of her heart in sharing her
husband’s first great personal triumph over English prejudices. “I
cannot say,” the Queen records in her Diary, “how it agitated and
embarrassed me to receive this address, and hear it read by my beloved
Albert, who walked in at the head of the University, and who looked dear
and beautiful in his robes, which were carried by Colonel Phipps and
Colonel Seymour. Albert went through it all admirably--almost absurd,
however, as it was for us.” And the same thought shines through the last
entry which the Queen makes with reference to the event. “We had spent,”
she writes in her Diary, “a truly pleasant and most interesting time. To
see my Albert honoured and esteemed, as he deserves, gives me the
deepest satisfaction.... We reached Buckingham Palace at half-past four,
and found the children all well. I felt tired and _étourdie_. We walked
a little in the garden, then dined alone, and spent a dear, peaceful,
happy evening.”
Here, perhaps, it may be permissible to say that Cambridge has ever been
endeared to her Majesty by reason of many pleasant associations of her
early married life which gather round it. As has been stated in a
previous Chapter, it was at Cambridge in October, 1843, that Prince
Albert first gained any insight into the English University system,
during a visit which he and the Queen paid, quite informally, to Dr.
Whewell, the Master of Trinity.[84] They had a brilliant reception on
that occasion, some two thousand horsemen accompanying them with shouts
of welcome. The Royal pair had Whewell for a host and a cicerone, and
Prince Albert, in a letter to Baron Stockmar, gives a glowing account of
the enthusiasm with which he was received. Many good stories were told
of the visit in the University after they left. Professor Sedgwick, the
geologist, held some interesting conversation with the Prince in the
Woodwardian Museum, and was quite surprised to find that he was a
geologist of sound culture, who took much pleasure in teaching the Queen
all he knew about the monsters of the Old World, whose history seemed
greatly to interest her. The Professor was, however, nonplussed when her
Majesty asked him where the head of his pet Ichthyosaurus, which he was
unpacking, came from, and was fain to cover his ignorance for the moment
by saying, much to her Majesty’s amusement, that doubtless “it came as a
delegate from the monsters of the lower world to greet her Majesty on
her arrival at the University.”[85]
It was on this occasion that the Queen made the acquaintance of her
rugged but kindly host--the Master of Trinity--a rough diamond who had
raised himself by sheer ability from the humble position of a sizar, to
be virtually the intellectual head of the University. “W. and I,” writes
Mrs. Whewell to her mother,[86] “received commands to dine with the
Queen at eight o’clock; hasty notices were sent out to those whom she
would receive in the evening. At dinner, the Queen, and, still more, the
Prince, asked my husband questions about the University and College, to
which he gave such full answers, and they seemed to take so much
interest in hearing them, that it quite took off the disagreeable effect
of a Royal categorical conversation.... Certainly the Queen and Prince
seemed to like it. After dinner, in the drawing-room, the Queen asked me
if these were prints which lay on the table. I had taken care to place
some interesting ones there, for the chance of her looking at them. The
book she took most notice of was an old book by Sir Edward Stanhope, of
coats-of-arms of our founders and benefactors, which we had got out of
the Muniment Room. I pointed out some of the changes--Henry VIII.’s, for
instance, with the rouge dragon of Cadwallader, the last of the
Britons, for a supporter; James I.’s, with the unicorn. When Prince
Albert came up-stairs she pointed it out to him. He seemed a very good
herald, and told me several foreign coats that had quite puzzled me, and
also Lord and Lady Maybrooke, who are great heralds.” On going away the
Queen gave Mrs. Whewell a pretty bracelet, “saying she wished to give it
to me with her own hands.... She spoke very kindly indeed, and Prince
Albert came and said that the only thing he regretted was the
[Illustration: FALMOUTH HARBOUR.]
shortness of the visit. She proceeded to the door; the Master was on the
stairs. We accompanied them, walking as much backwards as we could.”
This part of the etiquette seems to have severely exercised the kindly
Cambridge dons, unused as they were to Court ceremonial. Sedgwick says,
for example, with reference to the Royal visit to the Woodwardian
Museum, “I will only add that I went through every kind of backward
movement to the admiration of all beholders, only having once trodden on
the hinder part of my cassock, and never once having fallen during my
retrogradations before the face of the Queen. In short, had I been a
king-crab I could not have walked backwards better.” Of the Queen the
brusque old Master of Trinity himself wrote:--“She was very kind in all
her expressions to us; told Cordelia that everything in her apartments
‘was so nice and so comfortable,’ and at parting gave her a very pretty
bracelet. The Prince was very agreeable, intelligent, and conversible,
seemed much interested with all he saw, and talked a good deal about his
German University, Bonn.... At dinner I was opposite the Queen, who
talked easily and cheerfully. I had also a good deal of occasion to talk
to her, in showing her the lions of Cambridge,
[Illustration: THE ROYAL VISIT TO FINGAL’S CAVE. (_See p. 319_)]
which she ran over very rapidly. It is no small matter to provide for
the Queen’s reception, even as we did. We had about forty servants of
the Queen in the house, besides a dozen men belonging to the stable
department who were in the town. The Queen’s coachman is reported to
have said that he had taken her Majesty to many places, but never to
anywhere where she was so well received, or _where the ale was so
good_.”
These little reminiscences of the Queen’s early life are not, when
rightly regarded, altogether trivial. They give us a delightful picture
of a nature doubly royal--royal not merely by birth, but by what birth
can never give--the easy affability of manner, the unaffected
determination to please and be pleased, the true politeness and tender
graces of demeanour which spring from the natural sunshine of the
heart, and before which the pedantries of etiquette seem ghastly
unrealities. Nothing can illustrate her Majesty’s simple geniality of
heart better than a story about her visit to Cambridge, which it may be
remarked Whewell does _not_ tell. He was no courtier, as all the world
knew, and he treated the Queen in the old-fashioned hospitable manner
which the middle-class gentry in England assume towards their guests.
The morning after her arrival he accordingly came down bustling into the
room quite unceremoniously, and, to the horror of the Lords and Ladies
in waiting, ignoring all Court etiquette, he walked up quite coolly and
saluted her with brusque frankness as follows:--“Good-morning, your
Majesty! How d’ye do? Hope your Majesty slept well. Fine morning, isn’t
it?” to which the Queen, to the astonishment of her suite, returned an
equally cordial answer, wreathed in the sweetest of smiles.
The visit to Scotland was arranged in August, after the General Election
brought peace for a time into the political world. On the 11th of August
the Royal party left Osborne in the Royal yacht; “our party,” says
Prince Albert, “being composed of Victoria and myself, the two eldest
children, with Miss Hildyard, Charles (Prince of Leiningen), the Duke
and Duchess of Norfolk, Lady Jocelyn, General Wemyss, and Sir James
Clark.” On the 12th they succeeded, in spite of the mist, in getting
well out towards the Atlantic, but though the Prince, thanks to the
advice of Admiral Sir Charles Napier, whose panacea for sea-sickness was
a glass of port wine, stood the voyage well, some of the party were so
sea-sick that they had to abandon the yacht at Falmouth. On the 13th
they paid a hazardous visit to “the dogs of Scilly”--as one of the party
observed to the Prince, “That is a very good thing over; I should think
you will never care to see them again;” and on the 14th, under brighter
skies and over smoother seas, they neared the Welsh coast, making land
at Milford Haven, and anchoring under the shadow of its red cliffs. The
Prince paid a flying visit to Pembroke Dockyard and Castle, but the
Queen sat on deck sketching, as was often her favourite custom in these
cruises to Scotland. On the 15th they were opposite the Isle of
Anglesea, gazing with silent rapture on the hoary head of Snowdon rising
from the midst of a sea of surrounding verdure. The _Victoria and
Albert_ was then sent to Holyhead, the Royal party proceeding in the
_Fairy_ through the Menai Straits, and passing the old Keep of
Carnarvon, and Plas Newydd, and many other places recalling to the mind
of the Queen touching reminiscences of a Welsh tour which, when Princess
Victoria, she had made with her mother. On the 16th they ran into
Douglas Bay and Ramsey Harbour in the Isle of Man, where, remarks Prince
Albert in a letter to Stockmar, the good people “put in their paper that
I led the Prince Regent (the little Prince of Wales) by the hand.”
“Usually,” he adds humorously, “one has a Regent for an infant; but in
Man it seems precisely the reverse.” On the 17th they were tossing in
wonderment before the beetling cliffs of Ailsa Craig, their ears
deafened by the screams of the sea-birds that wheeled and whirled in
clouds between them and the sun; but as the creatures kept out of range,
“with almost mathematical precision,” says Prince Albert mournfully, not
one fell to his gun. The noble outlines of the Isle of Arran then broke
on their view, and they sped on through Lamlash and Brodick Bays, past
the Isle of Bute, past the Cumbraes, and up the romantic Firth of Clyde,
with its great sea fiords eating their way northwards into the heart of
the Highlands, to Greenock, where, embarking in the _Fairy_, they flew
along to Dumbarton, “pursued in the literal sense by upwards of forty
steamers.” The castle on the old rock here was explored, and the party
then returned to Rothesay Bay, where the people were delighted to see
their young Duke (the Prince of Wales). On the 18th they ran through the
far-famed Kyles of Bute, on to Inverary, where an old-fashioned Highland
welcome awaited them from the Duke and Duchess of Argyll, and a large
family party of old friends. “Outside,” writes the Queen, “stood the
Marquess of Lorne, just two years old, a dear, white, fat, fair little
fellow, with reddish hair, but very delicate features, like both his
mother and father; he is such a merry, independent little child. He had
a black velvet dress and jacket with a sporran, scarf, and Highland
bonnet.” There was luncheon in the castle, stalwart clansmen in their
tartans lining the fine feudal hall with halberts in their hands.
The Royal yacht then glided down Loch Fyne, whose waters sparkled in the
mellow sunshine, the Queen watching, with keen enjoyment, the long
swathes of golden light that fell athwart the mighty shoulders of the
mountains. Lochgilphead, the Sound of Jura, and Staffa were all reached
in turn, and, the weather being fine, they ran into Fingal’s Cave in the
Royal barge, with the Royal standard floating at the stern. “On me,”
observes Prince Albert, “the cave produced a most romantic impression,
on the ladies a very eerie and uncomfortable one.” The Queen
writes:--“At three we anchored close before Staffa, and immediately got
into the barge, with Charles, the children, and the rest of our people,
and rowed towards the cave. As we rounded the point, the wonderful
basaltic formation came into sight.... It (the cave) looked almost awful
as we entered, and the barge heaved up and down on the swell of the
sea.... It was the first time the British standard, with a Queen of
Great Britain and her husband and children, had ever entered Fingal’s
Cave.” Next day rain confined the Queen to her cabin, but in the
afternoon she was able to come on deck and see Loch Linnhe, Loch Eil,
and the entrance to Loch Leven. At Fort William the yacht anchored, and
Prince Albert, with the Prince of Leiningen, went up the grim and gloomy
Pass of Glencoe, haunted by the wraiths of the massacred Macdonalds.
When they returned the Queen landed from the yacht. In a drenching
Scotch mist she was enthusiastically welcomed by a vast gathering of
clansmen in characteristic tartans, and wearing their tribal badges, who
turned out to receive her. By a rough and dreary road the Royal
tourists drove through the mist to their destination--the lonely
shooting-lodge of Ardverikie, by the wildly-beautiful but desolate
shores of Loch Laggan. Ardverikie belonged to Lord Henry Bentinck, but
at the time of the Queen’s visit it was let to Lord Abercorn: its great
charm lay in its being, as the Prince said, a most “un-come-at-able”
place, and here the Royal family, despite the atrocious weather, enjoyed
a pleasant time of freedom and peace. Lord Grey and Lord Palmerston
visited them in turn, and with both the Prince talked gravely on foreign
politics--with the latter more especially, on impending troubles in
Italy.
It was on the 28th of August that the Queen and Prince Albert were
startled by a letter from Lord John Russell, intimating that Lord
Palmerston and he were desirous of sending Lord Minto to Italy as an
unofficial envoy to strengthen and encourage Pope Pius IX. in his
reforming policy. This step, one may say in passing, was the one at
which Mr. Disraeli jeered when he ridiculed the Whigs for sending their
emissary to teach politics to the countrymen of Machiavelli. Her Majesty
and her husband were of opinion that great caution would be necessary in
arranging this mission, as it was illegal for the English Government to
hold direct diplomatic intercourse with the Vatican; but they fully
agreed that the time had come for England to adopt an independent line
in foreign policy. “England’s mission,” wrote the Prince to Lord John
Russell, “is to put herself at the head of the diffusion of civilisation
and the attainment of liberty,” and they felt that it was no longer
possible to adopt a purely passive attitude in the growing contest
between Absolutism, as represented by Austria, and the forces of
Liberalism which were beginning to strain the fetters in which the
policy of Metternich confined them. But England, in the opinion of the
Queen and her husband, was to wisely act the part of a sympathetic
guide, and not push any nation beyond its own march, nor “impose on any
nation what that nation does not itself produce.” But, says the Prince,
boldly, “let her declare herself the protector and friend of all States
engaged in progress, and let them acquire that confidence in England
that she will, if necessary, defend them at her own risk.” Long and
anxiously had these matters been debated between the Queen, her husband,
and Lord Palmerston, who was with them. It was, however, agreed that on
these lines Lord Minto’s instructions should be drawn up, and that
similar instructions should be sent to all our diplomatic agents abroad
for their guidance. The main idea of the new departure in foreign
policy, according to the Prince, was that, whilst England should foster
the cause of constitutional progress abroad, there must be no “pressing
upon any State an advance which is not the result of its own impulse.”
In carrying out this policy Lord Palmerston contrived to embroil England
with every great Power in Europe. That, however, does not prove that the
policy was bad. It merely shows that Lord Palmerston’s methods of
dealing with foreign Governments were deficient alike in tact and
taste--that his diplomacy, in fact, was
[Illustration: PRINCE ALBERT DEER-STALKING IN THE HIGHLANDS.]
tainted with the _taquinerie_, of which M. Bastiat complained so
bitterly to Mr. Cobden some years afterwards, and which ultimately
rendered him as obnoxious personally to the Queen as he became to his
own colleagues. About the end of September the Royal Family returned
home, the Queen carrying with her, despite the bad weather, the
brightest memories of lonely Ardverikie.
How complete, restful, and enjoyable the change of scene and occupation
must have been for the Queen is brightly indicated by Lord Palmerston.
He
[Illustration: HIGHLAND COTTAGES IN LOCHABER.]
told Lord Campbell that her Majesty was greatly delighted with the
Highlands, in spite of the bad weather, and “that she was accustomed to
sally forth for a walk in the midst of a heavy rain, putting a great
hood over her bonnet, and showing nothing of her features but her eyes.
The Prince’s invariable return to luncheon at two o’clock, in spite of
grouse-shooting and deer-stalking, is explained by his voluntary desire
to please the Queen, and by the intense hunger which always assails him
at this hour, when he likes, in the German fashion, to make his
dinner.”[87] One is not surprised, then, that in some of her Majesty’s
letters to her relatives abroad, a note of regret is sounded over the
exchange of this life of perfect freedom, for the ceremony, constraint,
and semi-publicity which make up the daily round of life at Court.
Out of the conversations and discussions with Lord Palmerston and Prince
Leiningen at Ardverikie grew projects for a policy of alliance with
Germany, and foreshadowings of the great movement towards Unity which
the Fatherland was, in the opinion of the Prince, bound to make under
the leadership of Prussia. Nothing can be clearer than the Prince’s
prevision in discussing this theme, or sounder than his arguments for an
Anglo-German alliance, based on geographical and ethnical
considerations. Lord Palmerston apparently agreed that England and
Germany had reason to fear the same enemies, France and Russia, and that
they had therefore an obvious interest in strengthening each other. But
the German Zollverein, excellent as it was as a means of paving the way
for German Unity, imposed prohibitory duties on English goods, and Lord
Palmerston stoutly held that an English Minister would neglect his duty
to his country if he did not use his influence to prevent every German
State not yet in the Customs Union from joining it. To sacrifice the
Zollverein was to destroy the germ of German Unity, and here the
divergence between Palmerston’s views and those of the Court became
patent. He was quite prepared to sacrifice the Zollverein in the cause
of Free Trade. The Court was not.