SOME EPOCH-MARKING LEGISLATION.
The Colonies and Party Government--The Movement for Autonomy--Lord
John Russell’s Colonial Bill--Tory Opposition to Colonial
Federation--Mr. Adderley’s Plan--Mr. Gladstone’s Scheme for
Colonial Church Courts--The Colonial Bills Mangled in the House of
Lords--More English Doles for Ireland--An Irish Reform Bill--Lord
John Russell Proposes to Abolish the Lord Lieutenancy--The Queen’s
Irish Policy--Her offer to Establish a Royal Residence in
Ireland--The Bungled Budget--The Demand for Retrenchment--The
Tories Insist on a Reduction of Official Salaries--Lord John
Russell’s Commission on Establishments--The Queen and the
Church--The Ecclesiastical Appeals Bill--The “Gorham Case”--Death
of Peel--The Queen’s Sorrow--A Nation in Mourning--Peel’s Character
and Career--The Queen’s Alarm about Prince Albert’s Health--The
Queen at Work--The Queen’s Reading-Lamp.
Far more interesting, however, was the Colonial legislation of the
Government in 1850, which indeed might be termed epoch-marking. The
Queen had at the opening of the Session indicated in her Speech from the
Throne that a measure extending Constitutional government to the
Colonies would be introduced. It was known that she was personally of
opinion that the Colonies were giving promise of a growth so rapid, that
it would be impossible for any length of time to hold them in the
leading-strings of the Colonial Office. The incessant attacks which had
been made on Lord Grey in Parliament and in the Press merely served to
confirm the Queen in this opinion. It was, therefore, with great
satisfaction that she discovered that men of light and leading on both
sides of the House of Commons were so far agreed on the subject, that it
was deemed practicable by Lord John Russell to minimise the friction
between the Colonies and the Colonial Office, by conceding to the
Colonists large powers of representative self-government. Lord John
Russell explained the scheme which embodied these ideas on the 8th of
February. To the Cape Colony he granted two Chambers. The first was
representative, and elected under a property qualification. The second,
or Legislative Council, was to be elected by persons with a higher
property qualification, who had been named by the Crown or municipal
bodies for magisterial and municipal offices as individuals of weight
and influence. For Australia he proposed a system under which there
should be only one Legislative Council, two-thirds elected by the
people, and one-third named by the Governor, on the pattern of the
system adopted by New South Wales, but with power to the Colonists to
change to the bi-cameral or two-Chamber system if they preferred it.
Provision was made for constituting, on petition of any two Colonies, a
Federal Assembly representing all the Colonial Legislatures, to frame a
common tariff, or initiate a common policy for dealing with waste lands.
It was in introducing this great scheme that Lord John Russell said
that, whilst reserving questions of military defence, the central idea
of his Colonial policy was this: political freedom can be best promoted
in the Colonies by acting on the general rule, that while the Imperial
Government must be their representative in all foreign relations, it
will interfere in their domestic affairs no further than may be
manifestly necessary to prevent a conflict in the State itself.
By finally and formally establishing this principle, the Government of
the Queen did all that was humanly possible to repair the wrong done to
England and the English people by her grandfather, George III., who
flung away, not a crown, as did James II., but a virgin continent, to
gratify an absolutist prejudice.
The Bill passed the House of Commons, though the scheme was open to
objection. Had it not been open to objection, it would have been a
perfect Bill, “that faultless monster,” to adapt Pope’s line, “which the
world ne’er saw.” On the whole, however, it was wonderfully well
received. Its opponents objected mainly to the adoption of the
uni-cameral instead of the bi-cameral system, namely, that of governing
by one instead of by two Legislative Assemblies. Why, it was asked,
should Australia be limited to one Legislative Assembly when the Cape
was permitted to have two? Another objection was to the introduction of
a Federative Assembly, which was opposed bitterly as a novelty even by
Tory politicians like Mr. Disraeli, who in after-years strongly
advocated Imperial Federation. Another more valid objection urged by
Radicals like Sir W. Molesworth, was that the scheme gave the Colonial
Office too much power. There was good sense in his contention, supported
by Tories like Mr. Adderley (afterwards Lord Norton), that the Colonial
Parliament should not only be vested with all legislative powers which
were _not_ Imperial, but that this should be done by mentioning the
powers that _were_ Imperial, and leaving everything not mentioned in
that category, to be considered as Colonial. This point gave rise to an
able and thoughtful debate on the report of the Bill after it emerged
from
[Illustration: VIEW IN PHŒNIX PARK, DUBLIN.]
Committee, in which it may be interesting to state that Mr. Gladstone
delivered a speech in support of the Tory-Radical opposition, which may
be said to contain the germs of the principle on which his Irish Home
Rule Bill of 1886 was based. On the other hand, to Mr. Gladstone must be
credited the oddest and most ridiculous of all the amendments to the
measure. His ecclesiasticism induced him to propose that in every Colony
the Church of England be authorised to form a synod independent of the
Imperial or Colonial Government, and empowered to make laws binding on
Anglican Colonists. The idea of empowering the Anglican Church courts in
our free Colonies to make regulations, quite independently of the Crown
or the Colony, which were to be not only binding _in foro conscientiæ_,
but were also to have the force of law, in Royal and Colonial courts,
was not only mediæval, but monstrous. Yet it was only rejected by 187 to
182. Perhaps this accounted for what was by far the most trenchant
speech made in opposition to the Bill, that of the Bishop of Oxford in
the House of Lords, though even he did not venture to reject the
measure, his proposal being merely to refer
[Illustration: MR. HORSMAN.]
it to a Committee. It was a speech that would have defeated the
Government, but for Lord Grey’s conciliatory offer to go on with the
Bill even if the House struck out the clause enabling Colonial
Legislatures to alter their constitution, and the clause enabling the
Colonists to form a Federative Assembly. This won for the Government a
majority of 13. As the clause sanctioning a Federative Assembly was
carried in the Lords, against the bitter opposition of the Tories, only
by a majority of one, it was eventually abandoned. They further marred
the Bill by conferring exceptional political privileges on wealthy
squatters, and by prohibiting any Legislative Chamber from eliminating
its non-elective element. The interesting thing to notice is how the
Tory Party of the day completely stamped out the germ of that Imperial
policy of Colonial confederation which Lord John Russell and Lord Grey
so wisely strove to plant. As “amended” by the Lords, the Bill passed
into law, much to the satisfaction of the Queen, who, when she
sanctioned the measure, felt sure that a vigilant personal
superintendence of the details of Colonial, as well as foreign affairs,
would not thereafter be added to the already arduous duties and
anxieties of the Sovereign.
Ireland, as usual, was this Session the object or victim of an
eleemosynary financial policy. She had hanging over her, in the shape of
relief loans made during ten years, an unliquidated debt of £4,483,000.
Besides that, some of the Poor Law Unions were so burdened with debt
contracted for local purposes--frequently purposes of jobbery--that they
needed help. Lord John Russell therefore proposed to consolidate the
unliquidated local debts since 1839, and, subject to existing conditions
of interest, extend the period of repayment to forty years. For the
immediate relief of bankrupt and semi-bankrupt Unions he proposed
another advance from the Treasury of £300,000. The justification for
these loans, which were sanctioned, was that the Irish landowners could
not pay the interest on the local debt, in addition to the existing
poor-rates.
Ireland having been decimated by famine and emigration, it was
considered that it would not be unsafe to lower her elective franchise
to one of £8 of annual rateable value, more especially as such a
proposal tended to conciliate, without concession, the Radical agitators
for Parliamentary reform in England. It did not, however, conciliate Mr.
Hume, who caustically reminded Sir William Somerville, the Chief
Secretary for Ireland, when he introduced the Irish Franchise Bill, that
it put the franchise on a narrower basis than that of Cape Colony, and
contended that Irishmen should at least be treated as generously as
Hottentots. The Bill enacted that instead of each voter being compelled
to claim registration, local authorities should make up lists of voters,
subject to the usual objections--in other words, that the rate-book
should be a self-acting register. The Tories failed in their attack on
the Bill in the House of Commons; but in the Lords they succeeded in
raising the qualification to £15, and in altering the registration
clause so that new voters must each claim to be registered before they
were put on the voters’ roll. The two Houses ultimately accepted a
compromise. The Government agreed to increase the qualification from £8
to £12, and the Tories agreed to abandon their alteration of the
registration clauses.
On the 18th of May, Lord John Russell brought in a memorable Bill to
abolish the office of Lord-Lieutenant--an office the maintenance of
which has undoubtedly given an Imperial sanction to the Separatist
principle in Ireland. The idea of the Whigs was that the Lord-Lieutenant
was an anachronism. The Minister representing Ireland in the House of
Commons, though popularly called Secretary for Ireland, is really and
legally only Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant. Sometimes he sits
in the Cabinet when the Lord-Lieutenant does not, and then he is his
master’s superior. The Lord-Lieutenant, argued Lord John, had all the
responsibility, but never the freedom of action of a Minister of the
Crown, and the abolition of his office would facilitate that blending of
the Irish and Imperial administrations, which would go far to destroy
the Separatist feeling in Ireland. The Queen was very much inclined to
favour this step, and for a curious reason. Her Irish tour had impressed
her with the fact that her social influence in Ireland might be turned
to good account in winning the hearts of a chivalrous and generous
people, thereby converting the golden link of the Crown into a healing
institution of conciliation. But it was somewhat embarrassing to all
parties for the Sovereign to reside regularly in a country, in which the
official head of the State was her own Viceroy. Were the Viceroyalty
abolished, the Queen promised Lord John Russell that she would from time
to time visit Ireland in State, and keep up the Viceregal Lodge in
Phœnix Park as a Royal Palace. As for the business of Ireland, it would,
according to Lord John, be best carried on by a fourth Secretary of
State. The Tories opposed the Bill, because they contended that Lord
Clarendon’s success in governing Ireland proved that the Viceroyalty was
useful, and because the creation of a fourth Secretary of State was
objectionable, for it would necessitate an expensive administrative
establishment, and perchance lead to conflicts of authority between the
Irish Secretary and the Home Secretary. The Irish members were divided
in opinion. Some supported and some opposed the Bill, because it might
tend to stimulate Nationalism. Others supported and opposed it for
precisely the opposite reason. A third section, as to whose sincerity
there could be no doubt, opposed it because it would spoil the trade of
Dublin. The general feeling of the country was expressed by Peel, who
said he was willing that the experiment should be made, though he said
so with hesitancy, but he was also desirous, if it were possible, to see
the Irish Administration merged in the Home Office, and not conducted by
a fourth Secretary of State.[17] The measure was read a second time by a
vote of 295 to 70, but introduced as it was when the country was in a
fever of excitement over Lord Palmerston’s foreign quarrels, the country
took little interest in it, and it was not pressed further.
Lord Clarendon having in October, 1849, dismissed from the Commission of
the Peers, Lord Roden and other Orange magistrates who had been privy to
a fray at Dolly’s Brae in the preceding July, their case was brought
before the House of Lords this Session by Lord Stanley, on the 12th of
July. Stanley delivered a bitter attack on Lord Clarendon, but when he
made it clear that he did not propose to do anything more than move for
papers and correspondence relating to the affair, it was obvious that he
had forced on a debate merely to gratify his Orange supporters. Lord
Clarendon defended himself successfully, and convinced everybody that he
had simply done his duty as an impartial administrator.
The financial condition of the country was so favourable that Sir C.
[Illustration: THE FUNERAL OF SIR ROBERT PEEL: THE TENANTRY ASSEMBLING
AT THE LODGE, DRAYTON MANOR.]
Wood, in his Budget Speech of 15th March, said there was a surplus at
his disposal of £2,225,000. His estimates for the coming year, on the
basis of existing taxation and anticipated expenditure, led him to
expect a surplus of £1,500,000. Therefore, there was room for some
remission of taxes. The first charge on a surplus, he held ought to be
for the reduction of the National Debt--and for that purpose he set
aside half his hoped-for surplus. As to the rest, he proposed to exhaust
it: first, in reducing the Stamp Duties on the Transfer of Land, and on
mortgages under £1,000, and in converting the Stamp Duty on leases into
a uniform one of ½ per cent.; and secondly, in ameliorating the lot of
the badly-housed labouring classes by repealing the tax on bricks.
Though the Budget was ridiculed by the economists, Sir C. Wood’s
proposals were agreed to, with the exception of the alteration in the
Stamp Duties. It was argued successfully that though the new scale of
Stamp Duties would reduce the revenue derived from small sums, they
would increase, out of all proportion to this reduction, the revenue
from large sums, so that under the pretext of reducing, Sir Charles Wood
was actually increasing his revenue. Never was there such haggling and
bungling. Nobody seemed to understand a scheme which was complex in
detail, and explained by a Minister who was indistinct in his
articulation and confused in exposition. Sir Charles Wood had more than
once to withdraw his proposals, and substitute others, but finally he
accepted a reduction of ½ instead of 1 per cent. on legal conveyances,
and 1/8 instead of ½ per cent. on mortgages. The result showed that
his opponents were right, and that he was utterly wrong in his
calculations of the effect his reductions would have on the revenue of
the year.
[Illustration: THE FUNERAL OF SIR ROBERT PEEL: THE CEREMONY IN DRAYTON
BASSETT CHURCH.]
The demand for retrenchment which had been originally raised by the
Radicals, was now emphasised by the Protectionists. Following the
example of some of their party in the Colonies, they saw in an attack on
the cost of establishments, a means of annoying a Free Trade Government,
and perchance of relieving the rural taxpayers, who undoubtedly were
suffering by the loss of Protection. Mr. Henley accordingly first
appeared with a motion to reduce official salaries. Whereupon Lord John
Russell intervened with a motion for a Select Committee to inquire into
the subject. Mr. Disraeli opposed to this an amendment to the effect
that the House had enough information, and that the Government ought not
to shirk the responsibility of initiating, without delay, every
practicable reduction in the cost of establishments. His party followed
him faithfully, though some, like John Wilson Croker, condemned his
tactics and his speech as “Jacobinical.”[18] Mr. Hume also supported
him, but Mr. Bright thought that if a Committee recommended reductions,
they would be more patiently borne by the victims than if they were
enforced by the Government. Mr. Horsman outdid Mr. Disraeli and Mr.
Hume, for he demanded that ecclesiastical establishments should also
come within the purview of the Committee: Lord John, however, carried
his motion. Mr. Cobden then brought forward resolutions in favour of a
general reduction of expenditure, contending that it would be possible
to save £10,000,000 by cutting down expenditure to the standard of 1835.
The Radical financial reformers declared that their object was to reduce
taxation that pressed on Labour and impeded production, and that the
best way of doing that was to curtail expenditure on the Army and Navy,
which were in excess of the strength necessary for National Defence,
provided the Foreign Office pursued a policy of non-intervention. Whigs
and Tories united in defeating Mr. Cobden. Mr. Henry Drummond next, on
behalf of the Protectionist Tories, moved that adequate means be adopted
to reduce taxation, and thereby increase the wage-fund of the country.
His plan was to cut down all official salaries, and revise all burdens
that checked the growth of raw produce. The motion was disposed of by
carrying the “previous question,” because, though some Radicals like Mr.
Hume and Mr. Bright voted for it, most people saw in it a Protectionist
“trap.” Lord Duncan very nearly on a subsequent occasion repealed the
Window Tax,[19] but Mr. Milner Gibson failed in his attack on the Paper
Duty, as did Mr. Cayley in his effort to repeal the Malt Tax.
After much determined opposition from the Tories, with whom Mr.
Gladstone acted on this occasion, the Government succeeded in carrying
the appointment of a Royal Commission to inquire into the condition of
the Universities--a proposal which had the warm support of the Queen and
Prince Albert, in consequence of which some foolish people went about
saying that there was a conspiracy on foot to Germanise the academic
system of England.
The Bishop of London’s Ecclesiastical Appeals Bill, which was introduced
into the House of Lords on the 3rd of June, touched on matters regarding
which the Queen has always been sensitive--the relation of the Church to
the prerogative of the Crown. The principle of the Bill was that
ecclesiastical appeals should be tried, not before the Judicial
Committee of the Privy Council as representing the Queen, but before an
assemblage of Bishops, whose decision should be binding, not merely on
the Judicial Committee, but on the Queen also. This, of course,
destroyed her supremacy over the Established Church of England, a
prerogative of the Crown which has always been tenaciously guarded. The
Bill was rejected. And here it may be well to record what it was that
led to its introduction. It was introduced to tranquillise the High
Churchmen and Tractarians, who were smarting over the decision of the
famous “Gorham case.”
Mr. Gorham had been presented by the Crown to the benefice of Bramford
Speke in August, 1847. When the Bishop examined him, he found that he
was an extreme Low Churchman, and that he denied that spiritual
regeneration was conferred by the sacrament of Baptism; also that his
views on other matters, such as predestination and election, were those
of the narrowest Presbyterian Calvinists. The Bishop of Exeter refused
to institute Mr. Gorham, and, after much litigation, the case was
appealed by him from the Court of Arches to the Judicial Committee, who
decided that Mr. Gorham’s views were not incompatible with the
Thirty-nine Articles. The Judicial Committee on this occasion consisted
of the Archbishops of Canterbury and York and the Bishop of London.
Associated with them were the Master of the Rolls (Lord Langdale), the
Lord Chief Justice (Lord Campbell), Mr. Baron Parke, Vice-Chancellor,
Sir J. Knight Bruce, Dr. Lushington, and the Right Hon. Pemberton Leigh.
The complaint of the Churchmen was that the ruling of a Bishop and an
ecclesiastical court on a disputed point of doctrine was not only
considered, but actually reversed by a secular tribunal the large
majority of whose members were laymen, and the clerical members of which
could not vote, but merely gave their opinion to the lay members who
formed the Judicial Committee. Churchmen passionately resented these
proceedings, and the excitement they raised was fierce and
uncontrollable. The Gorham Appeal Case was the badge of the Church’s
servitude to the State. The Bishop of London’s Bill was an attempt to
remove that badge by constituting a purely ecclesiastical tribunal to
try all ecclesiastical appeals, thereby avoiding the necessity for
submitting them to lay judges.
When the Queen prorogued Parliament the shadow of mourning was over both
Houses. Sir Robert Peel had died suddenly on the 2nd of July. Returning
on horseback from a visit to Buckingham Palace on the 29th of June, he
met Miss Ellice, one of Lady Dover’s daughters, on Constitution Hill. As
he bowed to her, his horse shied at the Green Park railings, and threw
him. His fifth rib was broken, and its jagged end pierced the lung with
a mortal wound. He lingered in great agony for three days, and it is
hardly possible to describe the extraordinary sensation his accident and
illness produced throughout the country. Party animosities vanished, and
the nation with one voice joined the Queen in the expressions of sorrow
which came from her when she said, “The country mourns over him as over
a father.”[20]
Peel’s character will, for this generation, be an enigma. Look at one
aspect of it, and it seems as the character of a patriot of the pure
Roman type, who flourished in the days “when none were for a Party, and
all were for the State.” Look at another aspect of it, and it seems as
if it were permeated by the conscious insincerity of the unscrupulous
political intriguer, whose stock-in-trade was Party principle, which he
bought and sold for power in the Parliamentary market. One thing is
clear. His abandonment of Protection could not possibly have been due to
a love of office. He knew too well when he determined to repeal the Corn
Laws, that he doomed himself to political ostracism. Two things seem to
account for Peel’s difficulties with his partisans. He saw clearly, but
he did not see far. He used his influence as a political leader to
become a Minister, but the Minister of the Queen, and not the Minister
of his Party. Long before Catholic Emancipation triumphed he ought to
have seen that its triumph was inevitable, and the same may be said of
the repeal of the Corn Laws. When he suddenly awoke to the fact that in
the one case war, and in the other famine was impending, he reversed his
policy, but he had to change front so quickly that he had not time to
“educate his Party.” On both occasions he had to choose between his
Party and the nation. On neither did he shrink from making his choice as
a patriot, even at the cost of his reputation as a far-seeing statesman,
or a faithful Party leader. Mr. Disraeli said he was not the greatest
statesman, but the greatest Member of Parliament England ever produced.
That was a just estimate of his magical power of mastering and managing
the House of Commons. But it did no justice to his genius for
administration, his vast and accurate knowledge of affairs, and latterly
the serene judicial temper of mind, in which he dealt with the most
agitating and perplexing political problems. Coldness, secretiveness,
and egotism were the only flaws in a character, which otherwise almost
realised the loftiest ideal of British patriotism.
At the beginning of 1850 the Queen became grievously alarmed about the
health of Prince Albert. The toil and anxieties of politics during the
years of revolution and counter-revolution had sadly worn his nervous
system. In addition to his work as confidential private secretary to the
Queen, his own occupations, which have been noticed from time to time in
these pages, had grown more numerous and varied each year. As Mr.
Gladstone once observed of Mr. Ayrton, “he was a cormorant for work.” As
Sir Theodore Martin says, “Ministers and diplomatists found him at every
interview possessed of an encyclopædic range of information, extending
even to the minutest details.” The Court at this time was a rich
treasure-store of information regarding the inner history of Courts and
Embassies on the Continent, on which our diplomatists were grateful to
draw for aid and suggestions, when appointed to difficult and delicate
missions. “But to the claims of politics,” writes Sir Theodore Martin,
“had to be added those which science, art, and questions of social
improvement were constantly forcing upon the Prince’s attention.... He
was habitually an early riser. Even in winter he would be up by seven,
and dispose of a great deal of work before breakfast, by the light of
the green German lamp, the original of which he had brought over with
him, and which has since become so familiar an object in our English
homes.[21] The Queen shared his early habits; but before her Majesty
joined him in the sitting-room, where their writing-tables stood always
side by side, much had, as a rule, been prepared for her
consideration--much done to lighten the pressure of those labours, both
of head and hands, which are inseparable from the discharge of the
Sovereign’s duties.”[22] These labours ultimately produced insomnia or
sleeplessness, and at the beginning of the year the Queen, writing from
Windsor to Baron Stockmar, alludes to a suggestion from their doctor
that his Royal Highness should take a trip to Brussels, and adds:--“For
the sake of his health, which, I assure you, is the cause of my shaken
nerves, I could quite bear this sacrifice. He _must_ be set right before
we go to London, or God knows how ill he may get.”
[Illustration: MEETING OF THE LADIES’ COMMITTEE AT STAFFORD HOUSE IN AID
OF THE GREAT EXHIBITION.]
The Queen’s affectionate desires could not be gratified. The business of
organising the Great Exhibition of 1851 proved more engrossing than had
been anticipated, not merely because the idea at the bottom of it was
her husband’s, but because he was found to be the only man in England
who thoroughly understood the scheme. As Lord Granville, in a letter to
Prince Albert’s secretary, remarked, his Royal Highness seemed to be
almost the only person who had considered the subject as a whole and in
details. “The whole thing,” said Lord Granville, “would fall to pieces
if he left it to itself.”
On the 21st of February a brilliant meeting in support of the
undertaking was held at Willis’s Rooms, which was attended by the
diplomatic representatives of the leading nations. This was followed up
by a grand banquet at the Mansion House, which was attended by the great
dignitaries of State, the Foreign Ambassadors, the Royal Commissioners
for the Exhibition, and the heads of the county and municipal
magistracy. After the Royal Commission had been appointed, the questions
of site, space, and finance were those which pressed for settlement, and
without doubt the last gave the Queen the utmost anxiety. The public,
she saw, must be induced to support the scheme, and meetings be
organised for the purpose of making its advantages known. Prince
Albert’s speech at this banquet, however, struck the key-note of all the
subsequent advocacy which the Exhibition received. The age, said he, was
advancing towards the realisation of a unity of mankind, to be attained
as the result and product, and not by the destruction, of national
characteristics. Science, by abridging distance, was increasing the
communicability of ideas. The principle of the division of labour was
gradually being applied everywhere, giving rise to specialism, but
specialism practised in publicity, and under the stimulus of competition
and capital. Thus was Man winning new powers in fulfilling his mission
in the world--the discovery of Natural Laws and the conquest of Nature
by compliance with them. The central idea of this Exhibition of 1851 was
to give a true test, and a living picture of the point at which
civilised Man had arrived in carrying out his mission, and to serve as a
base of operations for further efforts which might carry Humanity
upwards and onwards to a larger and loftier stage. Such, in a brief
paraphrase, were the views of Prince Albert, and they ran through the
country amidst a chorus of approval. The whole nation responded to the
appeal of his Royal Highness, despite the metaphysics and mysticism
which slightly tinged it, and the delight of the Queen was
correspondingly great. We can easily understand that King Leopold was at
first under the impression that a speech of such stately but restrained
eloquence, rich in thought and fruitful in suggestion, must have been
read. The Queen, however, informed him that he was mistaken. It was, she
says, prepared most carefully and laboriously, and then written down;
after which it was spoken freely and fluently without reference to the
manuscript. “This,” says the Queen, in her letter to the King of the
Belgians, “he does so well that no one believes he is ever nervous,
which he is.” On the 23rd of February a meeting of ladies was held at
Stafford House, under the presidency of the Duchess of Sutherland, with
the object of inviting the women of England to assist in promoting the
success of the Exhibition, and a very influential committee was formed
for this purpose.
When Easter arrived the Queen’s anxiety grew greater as she saw the
Prince showing signs of increasing fatigue. At last, yielding to her
importunity, he agreed to leave London and take a brief holiday at
Windsor. But his idea of a holiday was peculiar. It was to devise a
system of draining Osborne, and utilising the sewage, &c., of the
estate.
Age and infirmity had now begun to tell sadly on the Duke of Wellington,
and he had become anxious as to the future of the army. Whilst he was
alive and strong, as he said, he could hold the Commandership-in-chief.
But his position was entirely exceptional for a subject, and in theory
at least the office ought to be vested in the Sovereign, or some one
very near the Throne. Englishmen have ever been a little jealous of
permitting this post to be occupied by a subject. The favour it confers
on him, and the influence which--if he has a magic personality--he may
wield, might, if wedded to ambition, lead to untoward changes. But the
fact that the Sovereign was a woman rendered it impossible to vest the
Commandership-in-chief in the Crown. The Duke, therefore, to the
surprise of the Queen, who apparently had never thought about the
matter, suddenly proposed that arrangements should be made for
installing Prince Albert as his successor. It says much for the sagacity
and good sense of the Queen and Prince that neither of them liked the
proposal--although it was one which would have presented an irresistible
temptation to most young men. The Prince pleaded want of military
experience. The Duke replied that his plan was to appoint under the
Prince, as Chief of the Staff, the general who had most experience in
the army. But this did not seem to weigh much with the Queen. Probably
she knew her husband’s nature better than the Duke, and was perfectly
well aware that he would never permit himself to hold office as an
ornamental “dummy.” The revolution he wrought in Cambridge after he
became Chancellor of the University gives us an indication of what must
have happened in the army had he consented to become the Duke’s
successor. It would be wrong to say that the Queen paid much heed to the
objection on the score of inexperience. Like the Duke, she fully
believed that her husband’s extraordinary power of work, and pertinacity
of resolution, would soon fit him for the post. But, on the other hand,
it was quite clear that the work would absorb all his time. In short, as
the Prince would be certain to insist on doing the duty of the office to
the fullest extent, and on his own responsibility, it was equally
certain that if he became Commander-in-chief, he must abandon all his
other occupations--even the chemical researches on the utilisation of
sewage, in his pursuance of which he imagined at the time that he had
within his grasp a discovery that would immortalise him as a benefactor
of humanity. Moreover, how was the Queen to replace him as her private
secretary? So much assiduous service could not be expected from any
other holder of that office as Prince Albert cheerfully gave, and it was
furthermore an office the duties of which, at a time when the Sovereign
was beginning to wield an ever-increasing consultative and moderating
influence on public affairs, were necessarily augmenting. Then the Queen
also urged that as she believed the Prince was undertaking too much work
already, she could not approve of his burdening himself with more. To
sum up the views of the Queen and her husband on this difficult and
delicate affair: many able generals could do the duty of
Commander-in-chief as well, if not better, than the Prince. Nobody,
however, in the kingdom could possibly do the work he was then doing for
the Queen as well as he did it, and so the flattering proposal was put
aside. Had it been accepted, and had the Prince overhauled the Horse
Guards as he did the University of Cambridge, perhaps the terrible and
shameful disasters of the Crimea might have been avoided. On the other
hand, it may be doubted if even his patient resolution would have
enabled him to reform in so short a time the military administration
which collapsed in 1854. In that case, the Court would have been blamed,
and blamed unjustly, for the departmental catastrophes that still invest
the Crimea with bitter memories for British soldiers.
[Illustration: CAMBRIDGE HOUSE, PICCADILLY (1854).]
On the 1st of May the Duke of Connaught was born. His birthday was
coincident with that of the Duke of Wellington, and he had as his
sponsors two of the most illustrious soldiers of Europe--the great Duke
himself, and Prince William of Prussia, afterwards Emperor of Germany.
The ceremony of baptism took place on the 22nd of June, when the Prince
was christened Arthur William Patrick Albert, the Duke and the Prince of
Prussia both being present.
[Illustration: THE QUEEN AND PRINCE ARTHUR.
(_After Winterhalter, 1850._)]
As spring gave place to summer, the shadow of death fell on the Royal
Family. We have seen how genuine and profound was the Queen’s sorrow
over the death of Peel. But closely following that sad event came the
serious illness of the Duke of Cambridge, a kind-hearted Prince, noted
for his _bonhomie_ and for the profusion of his charities. The Queen was
assiduous in her attentions to her uncle, whom she dearly loved, and one
of her visits to his sick bed accidentally exposed her to a cowardly
outrage. When she was leaving Cambridge House, sad-eyed and sorrowful, a
man suddenly stepped forward and struck at her face with a cane. Her
bonnet protected her somewhat, but her forehead was cruelly bruised by
the assault. “The perpetrator is a dandy,” writes Prince Albert to
Stockmar, “whom you must have often seen in the park, where he makes
himself conspicuous.” He was one Robert Pate, formerly a lieutenant in
the army. After being tried for his offence on the 11th of July, he was
sentenced to seven years’ transportation. No motive could be assigned
for the outrage, and the jury refused to accept Pate’s plea of insanity.
[Illustration: PATE’S ASSAULT ON THE QUEEN.]
The Duke of Cambridge, it may here be said, died on the 8th of July.
Meantime, as if to add to the Queen’s private griefs, an extraordinary
attack was made in the press upon Prince Albert and the Exhibition
Commissioners. The building was to be in Hyde Park, and this invasion of
one of the pleasure-grounds of “the people” was resented. The truth is
that a rich and selfish clique of families dwelling in the neighbourhood
objected to a great public show, likely to attract multitudes of
sightseers, coming between the wind and their nobility, and they
represented “the people” for the occasion. The extent to which they were
sensitive as to the rights of the populace may be indicated by one
suggestion which they made. It was that the Exhibition be transported as
a nuisance to the Isle of Dogs, where “the people” dwell in teeming
masses. At last an attack was organised on the Exhibition Commissioners
in Parliament, and the Queen, knowing well that if it were successful,
the project must be abandoned, was sorely grieved at the folly and
prejudice which inspired the opposition. The _Times_ was very bitter.
Even Mr. Punch, notorious for his sentimental devotion to the Queen,
proved himself a sad recreant on this occasion, and Leech made fun of
the Prince, because the public were a little niggardly with their
subscriptions,[23] which fell far short of £100,000, which was the
lowest estimate tendered for the building. But though the attempt of “a
little knot of selfish persons,” as the Queen calls them in a letter in
which she implores Stockmar to come and comfort her and her husband in
their troubles, to drive the Exhibition out of Hyde Park failed, and
their attacks in Parliament collapsed, the Prince was still “plagued
about the Exhibition,” and the old symptoms of insomnia reappeared,
greatly to the alarm of her Majesty. At last a way out of all their
difficulties was opened up. It was proposed to establish a guarantee
fund to meet any deficit that might be incurred, and on the 12th of June
it was started by a subscription of £50,000 from Messrs. Peto, the
contractors. In a few days the subscriptions sufficed to solve the
financial problem. Ultimately, to the surprise of those who had scoffed
at the Prince’s sanguine anticipations, not only were the guarantors
freed from all responsibility, but when the Exhibition accounts were
closed, the Commissioners found themselves with a balance of a quarter
of a million in hand. The work was accordingly begun without further
delay.
But no sooner had one source of vexation vanished than another was
opened. In August the Queen, mortified at further displays of wayward
recklessness on Lord Palmerston’s part, and failing to inspire the Prime
Minister with enough courage to rebuke him, at last determined to take
the matter in hand herself. Although Palmerston was then at the height
of his popularity, owing to the triumph of his _civis Romanum sum_
doctrine in the Don Pacifico debate, her Majesty penned a Memorandum to
Lord John Russell, which has become historic. It is dated the 16th of
August, and was written at Osborne. In it she accepts Lord Palmerston’s
disavowal of an intention to offer her any disrespect by his past
neglect, but, to prevent fresh mistakes, she deems it as well to say
that in future she requires--
“(1) That he (the Foreign Secretary) will distinctly state what he
proposes in a given case, in order that the Queen may know as distinctly
to what she has given her Royal sanction. (2) Having once given her
sanction to a measure, that it be not arbitrarily altered or modified by
the Minister. Such an act she must consider as failure in sincerity
towards the Crown, and justly to be visited by the exercise of her
Constitutional right of dismissing that Minister. She expects to be kept
informed of what passes between him and the Foreign Ministers before
important decisions are taken based on that intercourse; to receive the
foreign despatches in good time, and to have the drafts for her approval
sent to her in sufficient time to make herself acquainted with their
contents before they must be sent off.” Lord John Russell sent this
Memorandum to Palmerston, who lightly pleaded pressure of business in
palliation of his past faults, but promised to behave better in time to
come. Had he been a man of high spirit or sensitive feelings, he would
have resigned when the Queen’s Memorandum was sent to him. High spirit,
however, was not to be expected from the Minister that sent a British
fleet to coerce Greece, though he dared not utter a word of protest
against the Russian invasion of Hungary,[24] or who, whilst he could be
swift to resent an impertinence from a decrepit Power like Spain,
accepted with the utmost meekness a rebuke from Russia in reference to
the Greek affair, couched in the language of deliberate insult. On the
contrary, whilst his friends gave out that he was manfully fighting the
battle of the people against the Sovereign and the foreign Prince, who
was “the power behind the Throne,” Palmerston was abasing himself before
both. He implored Prince Albert to intercede for him with the Queen in
order that she might grant him an interview. The Prince, in a Memorandum
dated 17th of August, 1850, writes:--
“After the Council for the Speech from the Throne for the Prorogation of
Parliament on the 14th I saw Lord Palmerston, as he had desired it. He
was very _much agitated, shook, and had tears in his eyes_, so as to
quite move me, who never under any circumstances had known him otherwise
than with a bland smile on his face.” It was not the condemnation of his
policy, he told Prince Albert, that affected him most closely. The
“accusation that he had been wanting in his respect to the Queen, whom
he had every reason to respect as his Sovereign, and as a woman whose
virtues he admired, and to whom he was bound by every tie of duty and
gratitude, was an imputation on his honour as a gentleman, and if he
could have made himself guilty of it, he was almost no longer fit to be
tolerated in society.”[25] The “almost” is
[Illustration: LORD JOHN RUSSELL (1850).]
characteristically Palmerstonian. Her Majesty, according to Prince
Albert, did not impute any _intentional_ want of regard to Lord
Palmerston; but her complaint was that he never submitted any question
to her “intact,” that is to say, he always contrived to commit the
Government before the Queen could express an opinion. As her opinion had
of late been at variance with Lord Palmerston’s, this mode of doing
business was to her objectionable. Her Majesty had always been frank
with her Ministers, and when overruled, she had accepted loyally their
decision. “She knew,” said the Prince, “that they were going to battle
together, and that she was going to receive the blows which were aimed
at the Government; and that she had these last years received several
such as no Sovereign of England had before been obliged to put up with,
and which had been most painful to her.” She did not wish to trouble
her Ministers about details. But when principles were settled at their
conferences, she thought she too should be consulted and advised.
Palmerston’s excuse was the old one--want of time; but he said he was
willing to come to the Palace at any moment to Prince Albert, and give
any explanations that might be wanted either to the Queen or her
husband.
If the Prince’s account be correct, the Minister seems to have conducted
himself throughout this interview with hysterical servility, which may,
however, have been simulated. As for his penitence, it was short-lived.
In September he had another quarrel with the Queen over the wording of a
despatch, in which he had foolishly gone out of his way to impugn the
honour of England. This despatch rose out of the Haynau incident. The
Austrian General Haynau had come to England on a visit, and the Radicals
stirred up public feeling against him on account of his brutality in
crushing the Hungarian insurrection, more especially for his cowardly
conduct in stripping women, and flogging them publicly. When he went to
visit the Brewery of Messrs. Barclay and Perkins, the workmen in the
place recognised him. They turned out _en masse_, assaulted, hustled,
and insulted “the Austrian butcher,” till he fled in terror from the
premises, and took refuge in a little public-house, from which the
police smuggled him away. Naturally, Lord Palmerston expressed his
regret to the Austrian Ambassador; but it was also necessary to send a
formal Note on the subject to the Austrian Government. This Note was a
model of Palmerstonian maladroitness. In the first place, it contained
an uncalled-for imputation on the English people, because it admitted
that they were so incapable of courtesy and self-control that no
foreigner was safe in England who happened to be unpopular. Secondly, it
implied that Haynau had been imprudent in visiting England at all. The
Queen, whose views were shared by the Prime Minister, objected to both
of these statements--one as derogatory to the honour of England, the
other as needlessly offensive to Austria. But, on her objecting, she
discovered that it was impossible to alter the Note, which had been sent
to the Austrian Ambassador _before_ the draft had been submitted to her.
The Queen, however, insisted on the withdrawal of the Note, and so did
Lord John Russell. Palmerston first of all tried to browbeat the Prime
Minister by threatening to resign. But when Lord John informed him (16th
of October) that the threat was futile, Palmerston submissively withdrew
the Note, and substituted for it another drawn up in accordance with the
Queen’s views.
Another serious conflict of opinion between the Queen and Lord
Palmerston at this period arose out of the dispute between Denmark and
the German States as to the settlement of Schleswig-Holstein. The German
population of these Duchies had revolted against the petty tyranny of
the Danes, and it was notorious that they were supported secretly by
Prussia. The rebellion was suppressed; and though almost all the
Liberals of Europe were in favour of letting the Duchies be incorporated
in Germany, the Governments of the various Powers took the contrary
view. The Austro-Prussian Convention at Olmütz, of 29th November,
restoring peace and stipulating for the disarmament of the Duchies, left
the matter uncertain; but Austria was obviously for thwarting, whilst
Prussia was for gratifying, the aspirations of the German or national
party in the Duchies. All through this controversy the Queen was
anti-Austrian, and strongly in favour of letting the
Schleswig-Hoisteiners have their own way. Palmerston, and in this he was
powerfully supported by the Tories, was violently pro-Austrian, and used
the influence of England as far as possible to prevent the Duchies
gravitating to Germany. For the moment he was successful. But subsequent
events, as all the world knows, justified the wiser and more liberal
views of the Queen.
On the 26th of August, 1850, Louis Philippe died; in fact, the sad news
of his death greeted the Queen and her husband a few days after their
return from a brief visit to the King of the Belgians at Ostend, and
marred the celebration of Prince Albert’s thirty-first birthday at
Osborne.
On the 27th of August the Royal Family migrated northwards. The Queen
and Prince Albert opened the great railway bridges at Newcastle and
Berwick, and then went on to Edinburgh, where they stayed at Holyrood
Palace.
The reception of the Queen in the “grey metropolis of the North” was
picturesque as well as enthusiastic. The Royal Company of Archers in
their quaint old costume, headed by the Duke of Buccleuch, claimed their
historic right of acting as the Queen’s body-guard, and they surrounded
her carriage as it drove through swarming crowds from the railway
station to the Palace, in which no Queen of Scotland had set foot since
Mary Stuart crossed its threshold, never to return to it again.
Immediately after her arrival, the Queen and her family began to explore
the Palace and its ruined precincts, and she records her delight in her
Diary at discovering in the crumbling Abbey the tomb “of Flora
Macdonald’s mother,” not the Flora Macdonald who assisted the Young
Pretender to escape, but a lady of the Clanranald family, who was then
serving as a Maid of Honour. Next morning the Queen and “the children”
drove round the park, and climbed Arthur’s Seat, and the Prince
proceeded to lay the foundation-stone of the National Gallery of Arts,
whilst the rest of the day was spent in sightseeing. At half-past eight
on the following morning her Majesty started for Balmoral, which she
reached in the afternoon. Here, as Prince Albert says in one of his
letters to Stockmar, they tried to strengthen their hearts amid the
stillness and solemnity of the mountains,[26] and truly they had much
need of rest. The harassing conflicts with Lord Palmerston, the deaths
of Peel, Louis Philippe, Queen Adelaide, the Duke of Cambridge, and the
faithful Anson, and the news that the Queen of the Belgians was dying,
contributed to produce in the Queen great depression of spirits.
The sport on the hills delighted the Prince. The primitive life and
guileless character of the people vastly interested the Queen, who has
left on record her account of several curious excursions she made, and
of the gathering of clansmen at Braemar, which she witnessed. Writing on
the 12th of September, 1850, her Majesty says in her “Leaves from a
Journal of Our Life in the Highlands,” “We lunched early, and then went
at half-past two o’clock, with the children and all our party, except
Lady Douro, to the Gathering at the Castle of Braemar, as we did last
year. The Duffs, Farquharsons, the Leeds’s, and those staying with them,
and Captain Forbes and forty of his men who had come over from Strath
Don, were there. Some of our people were there also. There were the
usual games of ‘putting the stone,’ ‘throwing the hammer’ and ‘caber,’
and racing up the hill of Craig Cheunnich, which was accomplished in
less than six minutes and a half; and we were all much pleased to see
our gillie Duncan,[27] who is an active, good-looking young man, win. He
was far before the others the whole way. It is a fearful exertion. Mr.
Farquharson brought him up to me afterwards. Eighteen or nineteen
started, and it looked very pretty to see them run off in their
different coloured kilts, with their white shirts (the jackets or
doublets they take off for all the games), and scramble up through the
wood, emerging gradually at the edge of it, and climbing the hill.
“After this we went into the Castle, and saw some dancing; the prettiest
was a reel by Mr. Farquharson’s children and some other children, and
the ‘Ghillie Callum,’ beautifully danced by John Athole Farquharson, the
fourth son. The twelve children were all there, including the baby, who
is two years old.
“Mama, Charles, and Ernest joined us at Braemar. Mama enjoys it all very
much; it is her first visit to Scotland. We left after the dancing.”
The Court returned to Windsor late in the autumn, and one of the first
dismal communications made to her Majesty was that of the death of the
Queen of the Belgians on the 11th of October. “Victoria is greatly
distressed,” writes Prince Albert to Stockmar. “Her aunt was her only
confidante and friend. Sex, age, culture, feeling, rank--in all these
they were so much on a par, that a relation of unconstrained friendship
naturally grew up between them.” This friendship, it may be added,
survived even the treachery of Queen Louise’s father, Louis Philippe, in
the matter of the Spanish marriages.
The end of the year 1850 was marked by another amazing epidemic of
bigotry on the part of the people and the Government, which was very
distressing to the serene and evenly balanced minds of the Queen and her
husband. This was known as the “Papal Aggression movement,” and it is
in these days difficult to understand how a sensible nation could have
been swept into its vortex.
On the 24th of September the Pope issued a Brief re-establishing the
Roman Catholic hierarchy in England. In other words, he substituted
Bishops and Archbishops deriving their titles from their sees, for the
Vicars Apostolic who govern Romish missions in heathen lands. He
partitioned England into sees, very much as the Wesleyans had mapped it
into circuits and districts. The act was purely one of ecclesiastical
administration, and of no concern to any body but the small Roman
Catholic community in England. But prominent leaders of the Church began
to talk about it in extravagant terms, as if it constituted the
spiritual annexation of England to Rome, and as if it were a formal
assertion of the authority of the Pope over that of the Queen. The
Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, Dr. Nicholas Wiseman, and Father
(now Cardinal) Newman, were particularly indiscreet in their references
to the Papal Brief. Dr. Wiseman, for example, issued a pompous Pastoral
“Given out of the Flaminian Gate of Rome,” on the 7th of October,
boasting that “Catholic England had been restored to its orbit in the
ecclesiastical firmament, from which its light had long vanished.”
Dr. Ullathorne, the Bishop of Birmingham, was one of those prelates who
had the sense and tact to see what mischief would spring from Cardinal
Wiseman’s folly, and he did his best to explain the real meaning of the
Papal Brief. But his voice was like that of one crying in the
wilderness. Did not Father Newman, preaching at Dr. Ullathorne’s
enthronisation, say that “the people of England, who for so many years
have been separated from the see of Rome, are about, of their own free
will, to be added to the Holy Church”? Was it not clear, despite the
reasonable explanations of Dr. Ullathorne and others, that what the
Papists really meant was that the Reformation was now reversed, and that
England was reconquered for Rome? Outraged Protestantism, arguing in
this fashion, without distinction of party or sect, accordingly rose in
its wrath, and hurled angry defiance at the Pope. The bigots, taking
advantage of this outburst of popular passion, demanded that the law
should step in and punish the insolent priesthood, who thus challenged
the prerogatives of the Crown.
On the 4th of November, Lord John Russell addressed to the Bishop of
Durham a letter, almost equalling Cardinal Wiseman’s in its folly. The
Prime Minister, in fact, gave expression to the worst phase of
contemporary excitement, and fully endorsed the ridiculous notion that a
prelate, who had but recently been restored to, and even then was kept
on, his throne in Rome by foreign bayonets, had established his
supremacy over England, in a manner inconsistent with the authority of
the Queen. This Durham letter further stimulated the frenzy of
intolerance into which England plunged. Meetings were held everywhere
protesting against Papal aggression, and transmitting loyal addresses to
the Queen. Guy Fawkes’ Day was celebrated with more
[Illustration: THE ROYAL APARTMENTS, HOLYROOD PALACE.
1, Throne Room; 2, Breakfast Parlour; 3, Evening Drawing-room; 4, Grand
Staircase; 5, Morning Drawing-room.]
than usual zeal, and in most towns effigies of the Pope and Cardinal
Wiseman were paraded through hooting crowds, and burnt in bonfires
amidst the derision of the populace. The Universities and the
Corporation of London in December sent deputations in great state to
Windsor to present addresses to the Queen, protesting against insidious
attacks on the authority, prerogatives, and exclusive jurisdiction of
the Crown. The Queen’s replies to these addresses were spirited but
calm, and absolutely free from intolerance. “I would never have
consented,” she tells her “aunt Gloucester” in a letter written after
the deputations had been received, “to say anything which breathed a
spirit of intolerance. Sincerely Protestant as I always have been and
always shall be, and indignant as I am at those who call themselves
Protestants, while they are in fact quite the contrary,[28] I much
regret the unchristian and intolerant spirit exhibited by many people at
the public meetings. I cannot bear to hear the violent abuse of the
Catholic religion, which is so painful and so cruel towards the many
good and innocent Roman Catholics.”[29]
On the last day of December, 1850, the Queen was gratified to hear that
one of her husband’s cherished designs had been carried out. The
building for the International Exhibition had risen from the ground in
Hyde Park with the magical rapidity of a fairy palace. The design which
had been chosen was that of a French artist, and Londoners had looked on
with amazement at the erection of the great central dome of crystal,
which dwarfed even that of St. Paul’s into insignificance. The plan for
carrying out the design was suggested by Mr. Paxton, chief
superintendent of the Duke of Devonshire’s gardens, and it was but an
expansion of the grand conservatory which he had built for his Grace at
Chatsworth. Iron and glass were the materials used for its construction.
The cast-iron columns and girders were all alike--four columns and four
girders being placed in relative positions forming a square of 24 feet,
which could be raised to any height, or expanded laterally in any
required direction, merely by joining other columns and girders to them.
The building, therefore, grew up in multiples of twenty-four, and it
could be taken to pieces just as readily as if it had been a doll’s
house, and put up on any other site in exactly the same form. As a
matter of fact, after the Exhibition was held in 1851, this wonderful
Palace of Crystal was removed to Sydenham, where it has long been one of
the raree-shows of London. The building covered 18 acres of ground, and
gave an exhibiting surface of 21 acres; in truth, it was, within ten
feet, twice the width of St. Paul’s, and four times as long. The
contractors, Messrs. Fox, Henderson, and Co., accepted the order for the
work on the 26th of July, and though there was not a single bar of iron
or pane of glass prepared at that date, they handed the completed
building over to the Commissioners, ready for painting and fitting, on
the last day of the year.