A YEAR OF EXCITEMENT AND PANIC.
Cassandras in the Service Clubs--The Tories and the Queen’s
Speech--Lord John Russell’s Triumph--The Militia Bill--Defeat of
the Russell Ministry--Fall of the Whig Cabinet--Palmerston’s “Tit
for Tat”--A Protectionist Government--Novices in Office--A Cabinet
of Affairs--Mr. Disraeli’s Budget--Lord John Russell’s Fatal
Blunder--The Second Burmese War--Dalhousie’s Designs on Burmah--How
the Quarrel Grew--Lambert’s Indiscretion--The Attack on
Rangoon--Fall of the Citadel--Annexation--Desultory
Warfare--Dissolution of Parliament--The General Election--Equipoise
of Parties--Factions and Free Trade--Palmerston’s
Forecasts--Forcing the Hand of the Ministry--Death of the Duke of
Wellington--The Queen’s Grief--The Nation in Mourning--The
Lying-in-State--Shocking Scenes--The Funeral Pageant--The Ceremony
in St. Paul’s--A Veteran in Tears--The Laureate’s Votive
Wreath--Review of the Duke’s Character.
Eighteen hundred and fifty-two was a year fruitful in alarms and
excitement. The excitement arose from the discovery of gold in Australia
towards the end of the year 1851, and from the rich supplies of the
precious metal which came pouring in from the new El Dorado. The alarms
arose from the unsettled state of affairs abroad, the tortuous policy of
Louis Napoleon, and Cassandra-like warnings from military writers that
the national defences were utterly untrustworthy. A troublesome Caffre
War at the Cape had also been draining away the best blood of the army
during eighteen months, and absorbing troops who could be ill spared at
home.
Parliament met on the 3rd of February, and members, of course, could
talk of nothing save the rupture between Lord Palmerston and the
Ministry. The Queen’s Speech suggested, as topics of legislation,
certain Reports of Commissions on the practice and proceedings in the
Supreme Court of Law and
[Illustration: HARNESSING THE BLACK HORSES AT THE ROYAL MEWS, BUCKINGHAM
PALACE.
(_After the Painting by Charles Lutyens, in the Possession of the Earl
of Bradford._)]
Equity, the reorganisation of the Government of New Zealand, and
Parliamentary Reform. Why, asked the Tories, was there no allusion to
agricultural distress? Was it not absurd to congratulate the country on
the fact that remission of import duties had not diminished revenue,
when revenue was only maintained by the unpopular and iniquitous Income
Tax? Why was no notice taken of the open and ostentatious defiance by
the Roman Catholics of the Act against Papal Aggression? For the
tranquillity of Ireland the Government surely ought not to take credit,
inasmuch as it was due to the exodus of the Irish people to America. As
for Parliamentary Reform, Lord Derby declared contemptuously that there
were not 500 reasonable men in the country who wanted a new Reform Bill.
These criticisms, however, fell flat. The one question of the hour was,
Why had the Foreign Secretary resigned? and explanations were given by
Lord John Russell and Lord Palmerston. “In all my experience,” says Mr.
Greville, writing of this incident, “I never recollect such a triumph as
Lord John Russell achieved, and such complete discomfiture as
Palmerston’s.... Palmerston was weak and inefficient, and it is pretty
certain he was taken by surprise, and was unprepared for all that John
Russell brought forward. Not a man of weight or influence said a word
for him, nobody but Milnes [afterwards Lord Houghton] and [Lord] Dudley
Stuart. The Queen’s letter was decisive, for it was evident his conduct
must have been intolerable to elicit such charges and rebukes; and it
cannot fail to strike everybody that no man of common spirit, and who
felt a consciousness of innocence, would have brooked anything so
insulting.”[49]
But Palmerston, though a fallen Minister, was not the man to sit meekly
under such a mortification. As he said himself, he would soon give Lord
John Russell “tit for tat.” His chance for retaliation came when the
arbitrary acts of the Prince-President of the French Republic roused the
fighting instincts of the English people. A wave of panic ran over the
country, and it was asserted that as Charles Louis Bonaparte had founded
his power by the sword, so by free use of the sword must he keep it. M.
Berryer had expressed in the Chamber the taunt which was freely
whispered through France, that the Prince-President’s aim was to
establish an “Empire without genius and without military glory.” Surely,
then, Englishmen argued, France under this unscrupulous usurper must be
forced into war, in order to divert her attention from the bondage in
which she is held by her Autocrat and his army. But if France must needs
make war so that the French people may get military glory in
compensation for civil liberty, a war on England, whose Press teemed
with insulting criticisms on the brutality of the _coup d’état_, was of
all wars the one most likely to be popular with the French soldiery.
From such reasoning it was but a corollary that England was, as usual,
utterly unprepared for attack, and a panic-cry was accordingly revived
in favour of strengthening her defensive forces. Yielding to this cry,
Lord John Russell introduced his celebrated Militia Bill, which
organised a local as distinguished from a general militia--that is to
say, a force whose regiments could be called on for service, not in any
part of the United Kingdom, but only in their own counties. This was the
weak point of the scheme, and the Duke of Wellington did not conceal his
bad opinion of it. Fortified by the Duke’s moral support, Lord
Palmerston assailed the Militia Bill of the Government with relentless
ferocity. On the 20th of February he carried against the Government, by
a majority of nine, an amendment in favour of organising a general
instead of a local militia, and Lord John Russell resigned on the 23rd
of February. Thus fell the last Whig Cabinet that has ruled England--all
succeeding Liberal Ministries being either coalitions of Whigs,
Peelites, and Radicals, or of Whigs and Radicals alone.
For reasons which have been already given, the times were not propitious
for a coalition of this sort. The Queen had therefore no option but to
send for Lord Derby, and ask him to form a Protectionist Ministry. She
was, of course, deeply sensible of the fact that by recent declarations
in favour of Protection, no Ministry of which he was the head could
command the confidence of the nation. Indeed, Lord Derby himself was
aware of this. But as his followers had joined Lord Palmerston in
ejecting the Whigs, he felt that he could not in honour shrink from the
embarrassing task of forming a Cabinet to govern the country, with a
certain majority against him in the House of Commons, and a dubious
majority at his back in the House of Lords. A futile attempt was made to
induce Lord Palmerston to join the Tory Cabinet--the Queen agreeing to
accept him as a Minister, provided he did not go to the Foreign Office,
and was not entrusted with the leadership of the House of Commons.
Palmerston refused all Lord Derby’s overtures, because he did not care
to cast in his lot with a Party which was committed to Protection. One
Tory leader, however, shared none of Lord Derby’s fears for the future.
Writing in his Diary on the 20th of February, Lord Malmesbury
says:--“Went to Disraeli’s after breakfast, and found him in a state of
delight at the idea of coming into office. He said he ‘felt just like a
young girl going to her first ball,’ constantly repeating, ‘now we have
got a _status_.’”
The chief appointments in the new Cabinet were as follows:--The Earl of
Derby, Prime Minister; Lord St. Leonards, Lord Chancellor; Mr. Disraeli,
Chancellor of the Exchequer, as to which the joke current in Society at
the time was “that Benjamin’s mess will be five times as great as the
others;”[50] the Earl of Malmesbury, Foreign Secretary; Sir John
Pakington, Colonial Secretary; Mr. Spencer Walpole, Home Secretary; Mr.
Herries, President of the Board of Control;[51] Earl of Lonsdale, Lord
Privy Seal. The only members of the Cabinet who had ever held office
before were Lord Derby and Lord Lonsdale, and the country was anxious as
to the competence of a Cabinet of novices to carry on the Government of
the Queen. “The new Government,” writes Mr. Greville, “is treated with
great contempt, and many of the appointments are pitiable.” Sir George
Cornewall Lewis, in a letter to Sir Edmund Head, remarks that “the chief
effect of the change has been that Graham and Cardwell have come to sit
among the Whigs, while Gladstone and Sidney Herbert sit below the
gangway.”[52] As for Lord Palmerston--though he got Lady Palmerston to
invite Lord John Russell to one of her parties, and otherwise showed in
public some desire to be reconciled to him--he told Lord Clarendon
privately that “John Russell had given him his independence, and he
meant to avail himself of that advantage.”[53] Moreover, to add to Lord
Derby’s perplexities, there soon arose great complaints against Mr.
Disraeli as Leader of the House of Commons. “They say,” writes Mr.
Greville, “that he does not play his part as Leader with tact and
propriety, and treats his opponents impudently and uncourteously.”
[Illustration: SIDNEY HERBERT. (_After the Statue by Foley._)]
The new Government promised the Queen that they would wind up the
affairs of the Session as quickly as possible, and as a dissolution was
objectionable at that critical moment, they assured her that they would
bring forward no contentious business. They introduced a Militia Bill,
designed to meet the objections of Lord Palmerston to the measure of
Lord John Russell. Though Mr. Walpole, the Minister in charge of the
Bill, covered the Cabinet with ridicule by proposing that every
militiaman who served two years should get a vote for the county in
which he was enrolled, public contempt was diverted from the Ministry to
the Opposition. By an inconceivable blunder, Lord John Russell, without
consulting with his colleagues, came down to the House of Commons and
opposed the second reading of a Bill, to the principle of which he knew
the majority were already committed by the vote that had expelled him
from office. He thus gave Lord Palmerston an opportunity of making a
bitter attack on him. He also led his Party to a defeat as sure as it
was disastrous. He discovered dissensions and divisions of opinion among
his followers, the exposure of which not only demoralised them, but
weakened public confidence in them as a competent governing
organisation. This blunder settled the destiny of Lord John Russell. All
sections of the Opposition now joined Mr. Bright in saying that Lord
John must never again be permitted to lead the Liberal Party. The
incident, unimportant as it seems, was of high historic significance. It
rendered the Coalition Ministry under Lord Aberdeen inevitable. It
rendered Whig Cabinets henceforth impossible in England.
[Illustration: ST. ALBANS, FROM VERULAM.]
Mr. Disraeli’s Budget speech was a brilliant performance which pleased
everybody but his own Party. Its principal point was to provide for the
continuance of the Income Tax for one year. But what made it interesting
was its glowing eulogy of the Free Trade measures of Sir Robert Peel,
not to mention the elaborate statistics by which Mr. Disraeli, while
silent on the Corn Duties, proved that incomparable benefits had been
conferred on the country by Peel’s tariffs, and by his reductions of
import duties. The oration was, of course, a bid for the accession of
Palmerston and the Peelites to the Tory Party. “Disraeli’s speech on
introducing his Budget,” writes Lord Malmesbury, “has produced a bad
effect in the country, for the farmers, though reconciled to giving up
Protection, expected relief in other ways, and he does not give a hint
at any measure for their advantage.”[54] A night or two afterwards, Mr.
Disraeli had therefore to make a vague recantation of his change of
opinions, and at a Mansion House dinner Lord Derby did his best to
explain away the Budget speech of his embarrassing colleague, by an
elaborate exposition of the doctrine of compromise, on which he said
British institutions were founded.
During the first part of the Parliamentary Session of 1852 the cause of
Parliamentary Reform made but little progress. Mr. Hume, on the 25th of
March, moved for leave to bring in a Bill for the extension of the
Franchise. Though he tried to galvanise his party into vigorous life by
a scornful and defiant retort to Lord Derby’s recent attack on
democracy,[55] the discussion of the subject was felt to be academic
rather than practical, and his motion was rejected by a vote of 244 to
39. A similar fate attended Mr. Locke King when he, too, brought in his
motion to assimilate the County and Borough Franchise. Several debates
were devoted to the question of the prevalence of bribery at elections,
and Lord John Russell’s Bill, empowering the Crown to direct a
Commission of Inquiry into any place at which an Election Committee
reported the existence of bribery, was carried through both Houses of
Parliament. The disfranchisement of Sudbury and St. Albans for corrupt
practices had left four seats in the House of Commons to dispose of. Mr.
Disraeli’s scheme for allocating them to the West Riding of Yorkshire
and the Southern Division of Lancashire was, however, rejected on Mr.
Gladstone’s amendment--a defeat which was a sharp reminder to the
Ministry that, so long as they were in a minority and refused to
dissolve Parliament, they could not hope to control the House of Commons
when contentious business came before it.
An attack on the endowment of Maynooth College by Mr. Spooner, who
demanded an inquiry into the system of education pursued at that
seminary, wasted much time. Both parties, with a General Election
impending, shrank from offending the Roman Catholic voters too deeply.
Yet they were equally afraid of displeasing the aggressive Protestantism
of the country. After repeated adjournments the matter dropped, chiefly
owing to a significant threat from Mr. Gladstone and Lord John Russell,
that to attack Maynooth was to reopen the whole question of the
distribution of ecclesiastical endowments in Ireland, a question the
discussion of which could not be advantageous to the Anglican minority
in that kingdom. A barren debate on the remission of the Hop Duty, and
Mr. Milner Gibson’s failure to carry resolutions condemning the Paper
Duty, the Duty on advertisements, and the Stamp Duty on newspapers,
together with Mr. Disraeli’s success in carrying his provisional Budget,
continuing the Income Tax for one year, sum up the financial business of
the Session. By the end of June all the measures which the Government
had proposed to pass were disposed of.
Lord Derby’s first Government may have consisted of novices, but it
evidently did excellent practical work as a Cabinet of affairs. For
between its accession to office and the dissolution of Parliament it
passed the Militia Act, the New Zealand Constitution Act, several good
Law Reforms, including an Act to simplify special pleading and to amend
procedure in the Common Law Courts, an Act extending the jurisdiction of
County Courts, and another to abolish the office of the Masters in the
Court of Chancery. Besides these, they passed useful Acts for improving
the water supply of London, and restricting intramural interments.
Parliament was prorogued by the Queen in person on the 1st of July, one
of the most interesting passages in her speech referring to the origin
of the second Burmese war, and the capture of Rangoon and
Martaban--events the record of which need not detain us long.
The second Burmese war ostensibly arose out of a complaint made to the
Indian Government by a Mr. Sheppard, master of a Madras trading
vessel.[56] He alleged that he had been imprisoned and fined by the
Governor of Rangoon on the false charge of having thrown a man
overboard. This was followed by other complaints from British subjects,
who had been ill-used by the Burmese authorities, and the Rangoon
merchants declared that, unless they were protected against the lawless
exactions of the Governor’s subordinates and dependants--who had been
told by him to get money as best they could, seeing he had none with
which to pay their salaries--they must abandon all efforts to trade in
the country. The Governor-General of India came to the conclusion that
these complaints were justifiable, and easily proved that the Treaty of
Yandaboo, made at the end of the first Burmese war, had been violated.
Commodore Lambert was accordingly sent in H.M.S. _Fox_ and two steamers
to Rangoon, with a courteous message seeking reparation from the King of
Ava, on account of the conduct of the Governor of Rangoon. The request
was refused, and it was followed by a more peremptory demand. The Court
of Ava replied in a conciliatory tone, recalled the Governor of Rangoon,
and appointed a new one, who treated Commander Fishbourne, Lambert’s
second in command, with some discourtesy. Commodore Lambert forthwith
blockaded Rangoon, and seized a vessel belonging to the Burmese
king.[57] On the 10th of January, four days after the blockade was
established, the _Fox_ was compelled to destroy a hostile stockade on
the river. After some diplomatic fencing between the Indian Government
and the King of Ava, an ultimatum was sent to his Majesty. He still
refused to make any concessions, and war was declared.
[Illustration: VIEW NEAR RANGOON.]
General Goodwin, with a contingent from the Bengal Army, sailed from
[Illustration: MAJOR FRASER’S STORMING PARTY CARRYING THE STOCKADE IN
FRONT OF RANGOON.]
India for the mouth of the Irawaddy on the 28th of March. He arrived
there on the 2nd of April, and on the 5th stormed and captured Martaban,
where the enemy, five thousand strong, fought behind a river line of
defences extending over 800 yards. In the meantime, General Goodwin had
been reinforced by a contingent from Madras, and Commodore Lambert had
destroyed the stockades on the Rangoon river. It was then determined to
attack Rangoon on the 9th of April. On the 11th, Rear-Admiral Austen
cleared the way for the army by destroying the whole line of river
defences on both banks. On the 12th three regiments of infantry and part
of the artillery were landed, and the contest was, to the surprise of
the General, commenced by the Burmese, who left their stockades and
attacked the flanks of our advance. A strong stockade which stood in the
way was carried, after severe losses. Major Fraser, Commanding Engineer,
took the ladders to the fort, and mounting its defences alone, attracted
by his gallantry the storming party round him which drove the enemy from
the position. The troops were ordered to march on Rangoon, but by a
different road from that on which the Burmese had made preparations to
meet them. They carried by assault the Grand Pagoda, the fall of which
citadel made us masters of the town. All the posts on the river fell
into our hands in turn, and on the 27th of July Lord Dalhousie, the
Governor-General of India, arrived at Rangoon, and congratulated the
army on its victories. He then returned to Calcutta. On the 9th of
October General Goodwin occupied Prome with a strong force, and in
November an expedition was sent against Pegu, which was taken, after
some sharp fighting, on the 20th of that month. After this victory Lord
Dalhousie annexed the whole province to the British dominions; indeed,
had it not been that he had an objection to expose British India to
contact with the frontier of China, he would probably have annexed the
whole of Burmah. Our small garrison at Pegu was then subjected to
harassing attacks by the Burmese, and the war dragged slowly on. The
Burmese always fled to the jungle whenever our men attacked them,
returning to annoy our troops whenever they fell back on their quarters.
Our capture of the chief centres of population and defence was not
followed by the submission of the people. There were few roads in the
country. General Goodwin had not adequate transport for his artillery.
The climate had sadly weakened his forces, so that the unexpected
prolongation of the war, however disappointing to the country, was
inevitable.
After the prorogation of Parliament, on the 1st of July, it was
dissolved on the 21st of August. On all important questions the
Government during the Session had held uncertain and ambiguous language,
appealing to the hopes of all parties alike. There was no strong feeling
in the country on any subject save that of Free Trade, and it soon
became apparent that the majority of the electors would not tolerate a
return to Protection, or the imposition of a protective duty on corn.
Still, the Protectionists were able to defeat some very able and
distinguished men, notably Sir George Cornewall Lewis in Herefordshire,
Sir George Grey in Northumberland, and Mr. Cardwell in Liverpool. In
each case their successors were feeble mediocrities. Edinburgh, however,
elected Macaulay without his even becoming a candidate. But though the
Tories did not gain enough seats to enable them to abolish Free Trade,
they had fully 300 staunch supporters who would vote like one man for
their policy. The Opposition was more numerous, but it was split up into
Whigs, Radicals, Peelites, and the Irish brigade, pledged not to give
any vote that might tend to bring Lord John Russell back to office. The
attitude of the Government was very equivocal during the contest. “They
have,” writes Mr. Greville, “sacrificed every other object to that of
catching votes; at one time, and at one place, representing themselves
as Free Traders, in another as Protectionists, and everywhere pandering
to the ignorance and bigotry of the masses by fanning the No Popery
flame. Disraeli announced that he had no thoughts, and never had any, of
attempting to restore Protection in the shape of import duties; but he
made magnificent promises of the great things the Government meant to do
for the farmers and the owners of land--by a scheme the nature and
details of which he refused to reveal.” This scheme was to be one
giving compensation by fiscal arrangements to the landed interest for
the loss of the Corn Duties. Fear of an alliance between the Whigs, the
Peelites, and the Manchester Radicals, on the basis of reduced
expenditure and fresh Reform Bills, caused many Whigs to desert their
Party. The Opposition was in a truly deplorable state. Their resentment
against Lord John Russell, to whose mismanagement they attributed their
electoral reverses, was deep and bitter. Malcontents openly advocated
that the leadership should be transferred to Lord Lansdowne; and Lord
Palmerston said that though he would be willing to join a Lansdowne
Cabinet if formed, he would never serve _under_ Lord John Russell,
though he had no objection to serve _with_ him. Lord Lansdowne’s
hostility to Parliamentary Reform rendered him incapable of leading a
Party that could not afford to dispense with Liberal votes. Moreover, he
objected from chivalrous motives to take the leadership unless Lord John
Russell asked him to do so. Lord John, on the other hand, told Sir J.
Graham that he had made up his mind not to join any Government unless he
was replaced in his post as Premier--an arrangement which would have
simply perpetuated those divisions and dissensions in the Liberal Party
that enabled the Tories to hold office. Lord Palmerston forecast the
fate of the Government with wonderful shrewdness, when he said that the
chances were they would fall on some mountebankish proposal for helping
everybody out of the taxes, without adding to the burdens on the
taxpayer.[58]
The Queen’s Speech, so to speak, showed the cloven hoof of the
Protectionists. One paragraph filled the Free Traders with the darkest
suspicions. It ran as follows:--“It gives me pleasure to be enabled, by
the blessing of Providence, to congratulate you on the generally
improved condition of the country, and especially of the industrious
classes. If you should be of opinion that recent legislation, in
contributing with other causes to this happy result, has at the same
time inflicted unavoidable injury on certain important interests, I
recommend you dispassionately to consider how far it may be practicable
equitably to mitigate that injury, and to enable the industry of the
country to meet successfully that unrestricted competition to which
Parliament in its wisdom has decided that it should be subjected.”
Writing to his wife on the day after the debate on the Address, Mr.
Cobden alluded to this paragraph as “a queer, tricky allusion to the
Free Trade question,” which “brought on a sharp attack upon the
Government last night, and as all parties are agreed to force the
Disraelites, I hope we shall bring matters to an end soon.”[59] The
great aim of the Opposition, without distinction of faction, was to
force the Government to say, frankly and fairly, whether they did or did
not accept Free Trade in its entirety. But in the meantime an event
occurred which for the moment stilled the clamour of contending
parties, and united the whole nation in one great wail of mourning.
That event was the death of the Duke of Wellington at Walmer Castle on
the 14th of September. This mournful calamity had been long expected.
But when it happened the people seemed incapable of realising it. “It
was,” said Prince Albert in a letter to Colonel Phipps, “as if in a
tissue a particular thread which was worked into every pattern was
suddenly withdrawn.” Moreover, it broke the last link that bound the
nineteenth to the eighteenth century. “He was,” wrote the Queen to King
Leopold, “the pride and good genius, as it were, of this country; the
most loyal and devoted subject, and the staunchest supporter the Crown
ever had. He was to us a true friend and most valuable adviser.... We
shall soon stand sadly alone. Aberdeen is almost the only personal
friend of the kind left to us--Melbourne, Peel, Liverpool, now the
Duke--all gone.”[60]
[Illustration: WALMER CASTLE.]
The Queen would at once, and of her own motion, have ordered a public
funeral, with the highest honours of State, for the remains of the
illustrious dead, following the precedent set in the case of Nelson.
She, however,
[Illustration: THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON.
(_After the Portrait by Count D’Orsay._)]
deemed that a solemn vote of Parliament would confer additional
distinction on the ceremony. It was thus determined that the body of the
Duke should lie in the custody of a Guard of Honour until both Houses of
Parliament could meet in November and pass a resolution in favour of
burying, in St. Paul’s Cathedral, the Victor of Waterloo by the side of
the Victor of the Nile. The pages of _Hansard_ are full of the glowing
tributes to the memory of the great Duke, paid by the foremost orators
of the Senate. Of these, one of the most brilliant came from Mr.
Disraeli, and it subsequently gave rise to a good deal of scandal. A
morning paper published a translation--said to come from the pen of the
late Mr. Abraham Hayward, Q.C.--of the eulogium passed by M. Thiers in
the French Chamber on the Emperor Napoleon I. This certainly bore such a
suspiciously close resemblance to Mr. Disraeli’s oration, that the
English orator was accused of plagiarism. But the highest tribute of
homage to the Duke of Wellington came from the English people, to whom
the Duke seemed to embody all the manly virtues of their race. To this
fact Mr. Cobden himself bears striking, though grudging, testimony in a
letter to his friend Mr. Thomasson, of Bolton, condemning the militant
policy which led to an ever-increasing war expenditure. “Let as ask
ourselves candidly,” he writes, “whether the country at large is in
favour of any other policy than that which has been pursued by the
aristocracy, Whig and Tory, for a century and a half? The man who
impersonated that policy more than any other was the Duke of Wellington,
and I had the daily opportunity of witnessing, at the Great Exhibition
last year, that all other objects of interest sank to insignificance,
even in that collection of a world’s wonders, when he made his entry
into the Crystal Palace. The frenzy of admiration and enthusiasm which
took possession of a hundred thousand people of all classes at the very
announcement of his name, was one of the most impressive lessons I ever
had of the real tendencies of the English character.”[61]
On the announcement of the Duke’s death every town in England displayed
the customary emblems of mourning. When, on the 10th of November, the
arrangements for the public funeral were well advanced, the corpse was
removed, under military escort, from Walmer Castle to the great hall in
Chelsea Hospital, where it was received by the Lord Chamberlain, and
laid in state on a bier prepared for the purpose. On the 11th, the
Queen, Prince Albert, and their family privately visited the Hospital,
and paid their last respects to their dead friend. After they left, the
Chelsea Pensioners, the Life Guards and Grenadiers, and the children of
the Duke of York’s Schools were admitted. On the 12th, the nobility and
gentry who held tickets of admission from the Lord Chamberlain came, and
then there ensued a scene of deplorable confusion. Eighteen thousand
persons passed before the bier between nine o’clock in the morning and
five in the afternoon, and many thousands more, after waiting wearily
outside in rain and gusty weather, turned away hopelessly when darkness
set in.
When the public appeared next day (Saturday) claiming admission, the
crowd before the Hospital gates in the morning simply overwhelmed the
police. As it grew and gathered, the press became unbearable, and a
surging mass of spectators fought and struggled with each other for
their lives. Yells of agony rent the air; men and women were knocked
down, or fell fainting for want of breath. Screaming children were held
aloft in the air to escape suffocation by mothers, who themselves
disappeared every minute in the struggle. A great cloud of steam exhaled
from the heaving multitude, and far and near the approaches were
impassable. After some time the police, reinforced by soldiery, gained
control over the crowd, and some 50,000 persons then passed through the
hall. On Monday better arrangements prevailed, and 50,000 persons
passed the body with the greatest ease. On Tuesday 60,000, and on
Wednesday 65,000 persons were admitted. On Saturday three persons, and
on Tuesday two, perished in the crush.
On Wednesday a squadron of cavalry conveyed the corpse to the Horse
Guards.
As it became clear that the day of the funeral (the 18th of November)
would be kept as one of almost religious solemnity, and that no business
would be done in London, the Bills of Exchange and Notes (Metropolis)
Bill was passed quickly through Parliament. It enacted that bills
falling due on the 18th of November should become payable and be
presented on the 17th, but that, if paid before 2 p.m. on the 19th, they
should not be subject to charges for notarial protest.
On the morning of the 18th of November the great funeral pageant, which
Charles Dickens irreverently termed “a masquerade dipped in ink,” passed
to St. Paul’s, through streets draped in black. Heavy rain and biting
wind did not prevent spectators from perching themselves all through the
preceding night on every spot where a glimpse of the procession could be
obtained. Windows, roofs of houses, porticoes, balconies, every “coign
of vantage” were covered with mourners. A million and a half of
spectators gazed at the procession, and few ever forgot the strange and
sudden silence into which the multitude was everywhere hushed, when the
head of the column appeared, led by the dark, frowning masses of the
Rifle Brigade, marching to the beat of muffled drum and the wail of the
“Dead March” in _Saul_. Solemnly,
“Sad and slow,
As fits an universal woe,”
one of the most wondrous of military pageants filed past to the strains
of mournful martial music. When the car with the remains of the Duke
appeared, a thrill of sorrowful emotion surged through the crowd at each
point of the route, as they saw “warriors carry the warrior’s pall.”
Strange unutterable thoughts were aroused at the sight of the narrow and
curiously emblazoned tenement which contained all that Time and Death
had left of him who had overcome the master of modern Europe, but who,
in turn, had himself fallen before a Conqueror unconquerable by the
mightiest. To this exaltation of feeling succeeded an outburst of homely
grief when the Duke’s favourite charger, led by his venerable groom,
appeared following his master’s coffin. When the procession came to
Temple Bar it was received by the Lord Mayor and Corporation, and at ten
minutes to twelve it reached St. Paul’s.
The appearance of the cathedral will never be forgotten. Tiers of seats
covered with black cloth rose on every side of the nave. The sombre
draperies of the interior threw up the florid architecture of the great
Protestant temple in relief of dazzling whiteness, and rows of gas jets
round the cornices shed a soft, warm radiance on the scene. The service
was choral. The Dean read the lesson, and when the “Nunc dimittis” was
chanted, a dirge accompanied by trumpets followed, at the end of which
the body was slowly lowered into the vault, the while the organ and wind
instruments pealed forth the sad strains of the “Dead March.” As the
coffin slowly vanished from view a wave of intensely sorrowful emotion
passed over the vast assembly of mourners. Prince Albert visibly shook
with grief. The veteran Marquis of Anglesey lost control of his
feelings. Tears suddenly coursed down his furrowed cheeks, and, stepping
forward, he placed his trembling hand on the vanishing coffin, as if to
bid a last farewell to his old chief and companion in arms. The rest of
the service proceeded in the usual manner, the conclusion of the ritual
being Handel’s anthem--“His body is buried in peace.” Thereupon Garter
King at Arms stepped forward and proclaimed the style and titles of the
illustrious dead, and the Comptroller of the Household of the Duke
advanced, broke his staff of office, and handed the pieces to Garter
King at Arms, who laid them in the grave. The Bishop of London
pronounced the benediction, and all was over.
The Queen and Prince Albert were of opinion that no _éloge_ on the great
Duke was in better taste than Lord John Russell’s; but, perhaps, the one
that will best stand the test of time was that of Alfred Tennyson:--
“Where shall we lay the man whom we deplore?
Here in streaming London’s central roar,
Let the sound of those he wrought for,
And the feet of those he fought for,
Echo round his bones for evermore.
* * * * *
Mourn, for to us he seems the last,
Remembering all his greatness in the past,
No more in soldier fashion will he greet
With lifted hand the gazer in the street.
O friends, our chief state-oracle is mute:
Mourn for the man of long-enduring blood,
The statesman-warrior, moderate, resolute,
Whole in himself, a common good.
Mourn for the man of amplest influence,
Yet clearest of ambitious crimes,
Our greatest yet with least pretence,
Great in council and great in war,
Foremost captain of his time,
Rich in sowing common-sense,
And, as the greatest only are,
In his simplicity sublime.
O good grey head, which all men knew,
O voice from which their omens all men drew,
O iron nerve to true occasion true,
O fall’n at length that tower of strength
Which stood four-square to all the winds that blew.
Such was he whom we deplore.
The long self-sacrifice of life is o’er.
The great World-victor’s victor will be seen no more.”
[Illustration: THE WELLINGTON MONUMENT IN ST. PAUL’S CATHEDRAL,
COMPLETED IN 1878. (_By Alfred Stevens._)]
Though much has been written about the career of the Duke of Wellington,
a brief review of his character may not be amiss here. “His striking
characteristic was his judgment,” writes Mr. Spencer Walpole. “He had no
doubt in addition capacity and courage. He could not have fought
Salamanca without the one, and he would not have held Waterloo without
the other. But in capacity he was not, possibly, superior to Moore; in
courage he was not superior to Gough. He was a great general, not
because he had a great intellect, but because he made fewer mistakes
than other men.”[62] His success in war was as conspicuous as his
failure in politics, and for the simplest of reasons. He was the only
great soldier of his time who understood that to triumph in battle it
is necessary to have the most exact and minute knowledge of the
mechanism of an army, to know as thoroughly how a soldier’s knapsack
should be buckled, as how a mighty campaign should be planned. In this
consisted his superiority over Napoleon I., who concentrated his mind on
the grand scheme of a battle or a campaign, leaving to his subordinates
the task of carrying it out in detail. All Napoleon’s subordinates could
do the work of subordinates better than their Imperial master. Not one
of Wellington’s subordinates, from the Marquis of Anglesey himself down
to the humblest private, could do his individual work better than the
Duke could do it for him. It was this easy mastery in handling all the
machinery of war that enabled him to readjust his arrangements so much
more quickly than his opponents could, when any part of a
carefully-planned scheme miscarried. But just because he did not possess
the same minute and exact knowledge of the political organism, he
constantly fell into grievous errors in statesmanship. Starting with
wrong premises in politics, he perpetually blundered into erroneous
conclusions. His saving virtue as a politician was his strong common
sense. It taught him with unerring certitude when a thing _must_ be done
long before his reasoning faculty, obscured by faulty data, taught him
that it ought to be done. He never regarded himself as in any sense the
servant of the people. It was as the sworn servant of the Crown that he
always spoke and acted, and the only test he ever applied to any project
of legislation was whether it was likely to strengthen or weaken the
Monarchy. No considerations of personal consistency, conviction, or
convenience could deter him from accepting or abandoning a policy or a
principle, if it could be shown that by doing either he prevented the
authority of his Sovereign from being undermined. Duty to the Crown was
the pole-star of his life. To gain a point for the advantage of his
Sovereign he would even push aside all considerations of personal
dignity. Sir Francis Doyle tells a story about him which illustrates
most curiously this dominant trait in his character. One day, when Sir
Francis Doyle’s father was dining at Apsley House, the Duke said to him,
“After the battle of Talavera I wanted the Spanish force to make a
movement, and called upon Cuesta to take the necessary steps, but he
demurred. He said, by way of answer, ‘For the honour of the Spanish
Crown I cannot attend to the directions of the British general, unless
that British general go upon his knees and entreat me to follow his
advice.’ Now,” proceeded the Duke, “I wanted this thing done, while as
to going upon my knees I did not care a twopenny damn, so down I
plumped.”[63] This little anecdote gives one a clearer insight into the
secret of the Duke of Wellington’s public life than all the biographies
of him that have ever been written.