PEACE AND PARLIAMENT.
Opening of Parliament--A Cold Speech from the Throne--Moderation of
Militant Toryism--Mr. Disraeli’s Cynical Strategy--The Betrayal of
Kars--The Life Peerage Controversy--Baron Parke’s Nickname--More
Attacks on Prince Albert--Court Favouritism among Men of
Science--The Congress of Paris--How France Betrayed
England--Walewski’s Intrigues with Orloff--Mr. Greville’s Pictures
of French Official Life--Snubbing Bonapartist Statesmen--Peace
Proclaimed--Popular Rejoicings--A Memento of the Congress--The
Terms of Peace--The Tripartite Treaty--The Queen’s Opinion of the
Settlement--Parliamentary Criticism on the Treaty of
Paris--Stagnation of Public Life in England--The Queen’s “Happy
Family” Dinner Party--A little “Tiff” with America--The Restoration
of H.M.S. _Resolute_--The Budget--Palmerston’s Tortuous Italian
Policy--The Failure of his Domestic Policy--The Confirmation of the
Princess Royal--Robbery of the Royal Nursery Plate--Prince Alfred’s
Tutor--Reviews of Crimean Troops--Debates on the Purchase
System--Lord Hardinge’s Tragic Death--The Duke of Cambridge as
Commander-in-Chief--Miss Nightingale’s Visit to
Balmoral--Coronation of the Czar--Russian Chicanery at Paris--A Bad
Map and a False Frontier--Quarrel between Prussia and
Switzerland--Quarrel between England and the Sicilies--Death of the
Queen’s Half-Brother--Settlement of the Dispute with Russia--“The
Dodge that Saved us.”
Parliament was opened by the Queen in person on the 31st of January,
1856, vast crowds flocking to Westminster for the purpose of testifying
their interest in the negotiations for peace. The Royal speech was a
brief and business-like summary of the events that had led up to these
negotiations, and it announced measures for assimilating the mercantile
law of England and Scotland, simplifying the law of partnership, and
reforming the system of levying dues on merchant shipping. Complaint was
made that the references to the achievements of the army were cold and
unsympathetic, as if the speech were that, not of a Sovereign, but of a
Minister, and Lord Derby was perhaps right in saying that had her
Majesty been left to the promptings of her heart, her Address would not
have been open to this objection. Those who had observed the warm
womanly sympathy she had shown to the wounded soldiers, or who had
witnessed her agitation when she decorated the maimed Crimean heroes,
knew well that had she been free to speak as she felt, she would have
uttered eloquent words of thanks and praise to cheer the troops still
keeping watch and ward in the Crimea.
The general feeling expressed in both Houses of Parliament was that, if
we had determined to prosecute the war till Russia sued for peace, we
should certainly have obtained more honourable terms than those which
had been now accepted by us. But Mr. Disraeli wisely curbed the
bellicose spirit of his party, and declared that to continue the war
merely for the sake of adding lustre to our arms, would bring us no
honour. From being vindicators of public law we should in that case sink
to the level of “the gladiators of history.” Policy as well as prudence
forced moderation on militant Toryism. Mr. Disraeli in a letter to Lord
Malmesbury, written on the 30th of November, 1855, says,
[Illustration: VIEW IN THE CRIMEA: JALTA.]
“it seems to me that a Party that has shrunk from the responsibility of
conducting a war, would never be able to carry on an Opposition against
a Minister for having concluded an unsatisfactory peace, however bad the
terms.”[266] Lord Derby’s determination to refuse office when Lord
Aberdeen fell from power, therefore doomed the Opposition to meek
inactivity. “We are off the rail of politics,” said Mr. Disraeli in the
letter just quoted, “and must continue so as long as the war lasts.”
Hence one can have no difficulty in agreeing with Sir Theodore Martin
when he asserts, that “it was only to be expected of a statesman like
Mr. Disraeli, that he should refrain from embarrassing by a word the
Ministers on whom devolved the difficult duty of protecting the national
interests and honour, in negotiating terms of peace.”[267] There was no
division on the Address. But Lord Derby attacked the Government for the
abandonment of Kars, in deference, he insinuated, to the wishes
[Illustration: MISS NIGHTINGALE.]
of the French Emperor, who feared that the war in Asia Minor would
dangerously enhance British prestige in that region. On the 28th of
April Mr. Whiteside also raised a debate on the subject in the House of
Commons, but the Tory party was so unwilling to follow its leaders, that
Lord Derby regretted the matter had ever been stirred. The discussion
merely established the facts that Lord Stratford had cruelly neglected
to press General Williams’ appeals for reinforcements on the Porte, that
the Government had culpably neglected to give Williams the money
(£100,000) which would have provisioned Kars. But as the fortress was to
be restored to the Turks, and as General Williams was to be consoled
with a baronetcy, the House of Commons thought the matter had better
drop, and Mr. Whiteside’s motion was lost by a majority of 303 to 176.
Much more serious was the defeat inflicted on the Government on another
subject which deeply interested the Queen--that of Baron Parke’s life
peerage.
Writing on the 9th of January, 1856, in his Diary, Lord Campbell says,
“Bethell, the Solicitor-General, has made Baron Parke a peer. The
judicial business of the House of Lords could not go on another session
as it did last. Pemberton Leigh was first offered a peerage, and I wish
much that he had accepted it, but he positively refused to be
_pitchforked_. I don’t know that anything less exceptional could be done
than applying next to Baron Surrebutter.”[268] At the Lord Chancellor’s
levee on the first day of Hilary Term, Lord Campbell asked him if there
was any truth in the story that Parke’s peerage was to be for life. On
hearing that it was, Lord Campbell replied, “Then sorry am I to say that
I must make a row about it.” At first he thought that the grant of a
life peerage was not illegal--for Coke asserted its legality--but merely
unconstitutional. When, however, Lord Campbell studied the precedents,
he became convinced that “no life peerage had been granted to any man
for more than 400 years, and that there was no authenticated instance of
a peer ever having sat and voted in the House of Lords having in him a
life peerage only--the life peerages relied upon being superinduced on
pre-existing peerages, _e.g._, De Vere, Earl of Oxford (a title which
had been in his family since the Conquest), was created by Richard II.
Marquis of Dublin for life.” Lord Campbell goes on to say, “My eyes were
opened. The power of the Crown to give a right to vote in the House must
depend on the exercise of the power; and no one _had_ voted in right of
a peerage for life more than _of a peerage granted during the pleasure
of the King_--for the granting of which there was at least one
precedent.”[269]
When Sir Theodore Martin says that “the right of the Crown to create a
life peerage with a right to sit in Parliament” was “scarcely disputed
in the discussions which arose,” his anxiety to exaggerate the Queen’s
prerogative has led him into a grave error. As Lord Campbell says, “It
was not necessary to resort to the doctrine of desuetude,” for “the
non-exercise of a prerogative, ever since the Constitution was settled,
afforded a strong inference that it had never lawfully existed.” The
fact is that the arguments in favour of recognising the right of the
Crown to create a peer for life, with the right of voting in the House
of Lords, would have been equally good for creating a peer with a
similar right, during the Sovereign’s pleasure. A peer who could at any
moment be deprived of his rank and senatorial privileges would, of
course, either be a creature of the Court or the minion of the Minister.
Lord Lyndhurst, therefore, had little difficulty in carrying a motion
referring Baron Parke’s Letters Patent to a Committee of Privileges,
which reported against the right asserted by the Crown. The Government
yielded, and Sir James Parke was finally created an hereditary peer in
the ordinary way, under the title of Lord Wensleydale.
The rebuff was annoying to the Queen; all the more that it led to a
fresh series of attacks on Prince Albert. He was accused of having
attempted to extend the Queen’s prerogative with the ulterior object of
packing the House of Lords with certain scientific men who were supposed
to be Court favourites.[270] In his “Memoirs,” according to Mr.
Greville, General Grey “told his brother, the Earl, that his Royal
Highness knew nothing of the matter till after it had been settled.” The
truth is that nobody was cognisant of the affair except the Lord
Chancellor, Lord Granville, and Lord Palmerston. Mr. Greville says,
“George Lewis told me that the life peerage had never been brought
before the Cabinet, and he knew nothing of it till he saw it in the
_Gazette_,”[271] which illustrates the thoughtless manner in which Lord
Palmerston allowed himself to be committed to a step, that roused public
jealousy against the Crown and the Court. Lord Malmesbury also states,
that when Lord Derby was dining one day with the Queen, she told him
that if she had had any idea that the question would have created such a
disturbance, she would never have dreamt of granting Parke his life
peerage.[272]
Fortunately the negotiations for peace were now proceeding apace at
Paris. The Queen had written a letter to the French Emperor, which Lord
Clarendon had delivered to him, earnestly insisting on the necessity of
unity of action between France and England at the Congress of the
Powers. The Emperor told Lord Clarendon it was “a charming letter;” but
in spite of his flattering account of it, the influence of France from
first to last was turned against England in the discussions between the
plenipotentiaries. Possibly this was due to the constitutional indolence
and weakness of the Emperor, who permitted Walewski to manage matters
his own way, and as for Walewski, he betrayed Lord Clarendon at every
opportunity. Napoleon III. was really in the hands of his _entourage_,
and they were to a great extent in the hands of Russia.[273] Lord
Cowley, indeed, informed Mr. Greville that Walewski privately made known
to Orloff, the Russian plenipotentiary, not only the points he must
yield, but those as to which he might safely defy Lord Clarendon with
the open or secret support of France.
“The signing of the Treaty of Peace with Russia,” writes Lord
Malmesbury
[Illustration: THE EMPEROR OF AUSTRIA.]
on the 30th of March, “was announced by the firing of cannon from the
Tower and Horse Guards. Numbers collected in the streets, but no
enthusiasm was shown.”[274] In fact, when the terms became known there
was much popular disappointment, and the _Sun_ newspaper actually
appeared in deep mourning over our national humiliation. On the next
morning a great crowd assembled in front of the Mansion House. At ten
o’clock the Lord Mayor, attended by the Sheriffs, the Sword-bearer,
Mace-bearer, and City Marshal, advanced to the stone balcony, and amidst
loud cheers read a despatch from the Home Secretary informing him that
the Treaty was signed. At noon the Lord Mayor proceeded in state to the
Royal Exchange, where a great number of ladies had mingled with the
crowd, and read the despatch again.
[Illustration: THE CONFERENCE OF PARIS, 1856.]
And what were the terms of peace? The Powers admitted Turkey to
participate in all the advantages of the public law of Europe, and they
agreed that in any future dispute with the Porte, the matter must be
submitted to arbitration before force was used by either side. The
Sultan was bound by the Treaty to communicate to the Powers a firman
improving the condition of his Christian subjects, but this instrument,
it was stipulated, gave the Powers no collective or individual right to
interfere between Turkey and her Christian subjects. The Black Sea was
neutralised--_i.e._, all ships of war were excluded from it, and the
establishment of arsenals on its coasts was prohibited. But the Euxine
was declared free to the trading vessels of all nations, and the Powers
were at liberty to keep a few armed ships of light draught for police
duty on the neutralised sea. The navigation of the Danube was declared
free. Russia ceded Bessarabia to Turkey. The privileges and immunities
of Wallachia, Moldavia, and Servia were guaranteed, but the Sultan was
permitted to garrison the latter province. Russia and Turkey were bound
to restore to each other the conquests they had respectively made in
Asia. On the invitation of France the Congress was asked to consider the
position of Greece, the Roman States, and the two Sicilies. It was also
asked to condemn the licence of the Belgian Press, and to formulate new
rules for maritime warfare. These discussions came to naught, but it was
agreed by the “Declarations of Paris” that privateering should be
abolished; that, with the exception of contraband, an enemy’s goods must
be free from capture under a neutral flag, a neutral’s goods being also
respected under an enemy’s flag; and that “paper blockades” should not
be recognised, _i.e._, a blockade to be effective must in future be
maintained by a force strong enough to cut off access to the coasts of
an enemy.[275] It will be observed that there was nothing in this
instrument to provide means for punishing Russia if she broke it. Hence,
on the 15th of April, France, Austria, and England signed what was
called the Tripartite Treaty, binding each other jointly or severally to
go to war against any Power that violated the Treaty of Paris. This
compact was treated like a dead letter when Russia attacked Turkey in
1877. “The peace,” said Prince Albert in a letter to Stockmar, “is not
such as we could have wished, still infinitely to be preferred to the
prosecution of the war, with the present complication of general
policy.” That was in truth the verdict of the country. Comparing the
terms with those which we might have obtained at Vienna in 1855, it was
a humiliating settlement for England, in no way justifying the
continuance of the war after the battle of Inkermann. Comparing them
with the terms which the Czar might have obtained before the invasion of
the Crimea, the settlement was humiliating to Russia.
In Parliament the debates on the Treaty were on the whole favourable to
the Government. Complaint was, however, made that no effective steps had
been taken to protect Turkey from Russian aggression in Asia Minor; that
the Circassians had been abandoned; that Lord Clarendon in the Congress
had not protested with enough warmth against the attacks made on the
Belgian Press; that no definite provision had been made to prevent
Russia from building war-ships at Nicolaieff; that the government of
the Principalities had been left an open question; and that by the
Declarations rights of search at sea, which were extremely useful to a
naval power during war, were surrendered. It is true that, by agreeing
to abolish privateering, England sacrificed what may be called her right
of fighting with naval volunteers; and it seems as if the American
doctrine--namely, that to the merchant whose ships are plundered, it
matters little whether the mischief is done by a man-of-war or a
privateer--is sensible. On the other hand, it was obvious that England
could not carry on a naval war for a year on the principle that free
ships did not make free goods, without coming into collision with every
neutral State in the world. But to all objections there was, of course,
one answer. No better terms could be got unless England was prepared to
carry on the war alone. Yet, as a matter of fact, Russia had suffered so
severely during the winter, that it is probable she might have been more
complaisant at Paris, had Lord Clarendon been firmer, and had Napoleon
III. not perfidiously played into her hands.
The solitary result of the Crimean War, says Mr. Spencer Walpole, was to
“set back the clock for some fourteen years.”[276] Still he seems to
think that it “was perhaps worth some sacrifice, to prove that England
was still ready to strike a blow for a weak neighbour whom she believed
to be oppressed.” This would have been a gain had it added to English
prestige. But the war really diminished that prestige. M. De
Tocqueville, after returning from a Continental tour, said to the late
Mr. Senior, “I heard universal and unqualified praise of the heroic
courage of your soldiers, but at the same time I found spread abroad the
persuasion that the importance of England had been overrated as a
military power properly so called--a power which consists in
administering as much as in fighting, and, above all, that it was
impossible (and this had never before been believed) for her to raise
large armies, even under the most pressing circumstances. I never heard
anything like it since my childhood. You are supposed to be entirely
dependent on us.... A year ago we probably overrated your military
power. I believe that now we most mischievously underrate it. A year ago
nothing alarmed us more than a whisper of the chance of a war with
England. We talk of one now with great composure. We believe that it
would not be difficult to throw 100,000 men upon your shores, and we
believe that half that number would walk over England or Ireland.”[277]
After peace had been proclaimed, public life in England stagnated for a
time, and party rancour temporarily disappeared. Ministers and
Ex-Ministers met in society on the friendliest terms, and Lord
Malmesbury describes a dinner party which the Queen gave on the 7th of
May in honour of Baron Brunnow, at which the leaders of both factions
were present--“the happy family I call them,” says the Queen in a letter
to King Leopold. “Lord John Russell was there,” says Lord Malmesbury,
“and very civil to me, as when I arrived he crossed the room to come to
speak to me--a thing he never did before. He began by saying ‘You gave
it them well last night,’[278] and seemed quite delighted at the
Government being bullied.... I had to take Lady Clarendon to dinner. She
was at first very cross, but I ended by laughing her out of her bad
humour.”[279] A slight ripple on the calm waters was due to the
suspension of diplomatic relations with the United States. In raising
recruits under the Foreign Enlistment Act, it seems some overzealous
British agents had given the American Government not unreasonable cause
to complain that we were violating their law during the war. The dispute
became acute, when the British Minister to the United States was
requested to leave Washington--but the quarrel was not a serious one.
“The Americans,” Prince Albert informs Stockmar on the 16th June, “have
sent away our Minister, but accompanied the act with such assurances of
friendship and affection, and of their perfect readiness to adjust all
points of difference in conformity with our wishes, that it will be
difficult to give theirs his _congé_ in return.” As a matter of fact the
British Government apologised, and on the 16th of March, 1857, Lord
Napier was received at Washington as Mr. Crampton’s successor. In truth
there was no real ill-feeling at all between the two nations--and of
this a curious proof was given at the end of the year. H.M.S. _Resolute_
which had been attached to the last Arctic expedition had been abandoned
in the ice. Some American explorers found her adrift and took her to the
United States. There she was re-fitted at the expense of the Government,
and sent back to England as a present to the Queen. When _Resolute_ made
her appearance at Cowes, the Queen insisted on going in person, on the
16th of December, to receive the gift. Her courteous reception of the
American officers touched them deeply, and Lord Clarendon informed her
Majesty that Mr. Dallas, the American Minister, told him, his countrymen
were quite overwhelmed with the kindness which they had everywhere
received.
Lord Palmerston’s unwearied attention to business, and his popularity
after peace had been proclaimed, almost silenced criticism on his
domestic policy. It had been supposed that the Budget would tempt the
Opposition to attack him, because the Chancellor of the Exchequer had a
dismal story to tell when the House of Commons met after Whitsuntide.
The expenditure for the past year had come to £88,428,355, or
£22,723,854 in excess of the revenue. In fact, during the three years
ending with 1856 the war had cost England
[Illustration: VISIT OF THE QUEEN AND PRINCE ALBERT TO THE “RESOLUTE.”]
£77,588,000. After making the most cautious estimates, Sir George
Cornewall Lewis said that for the coming year, on the basis of existing
taxation, his expected revenue would fall short of his anticipated
expenditure by £7,000,000. As no new taxes were to be levied, he was
compelled to find the money by borrowing, and, of course, no remission
of taxation could in such circumstances be looked for. The House
sanctioned the scheme of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but he was
warned that in future reduced estimates would be demanded.
More than one attempt was made by Mr. Disraeli to assail the Italian
policy of Lord Palmerston. That policy was somewhat tortuous, for whilst
the English Foreign Office was perpetually encouraging Sardinia to
protest against the Austrian occupation of North Italy, England had,
with Austria and France, become a party to the Tripartite Treaty
guaranteeing the execution of the Treaty of Paris. Mr. Disraeli argued
that it was inconsistent to stir up Sardinia and the discontented
populations of Italy against Austria, at a time when we had by the
Tripartite Treaty virtually bound ourselves in a close alliance with the
Austrian Empire. The tyrannical Government of Sicily also elicited
remonstrances from England, against which Russia protested, on the
ground that we had no right to interfere between King “Bomba” and his
subjects. But no enthusiasm was roused on these subjects--in fact, the
country did not desire a change of Government at the time, and every
effort to weaken the Ministry was therefore futile. Yet the home policy
of the Ministry was a signal failure. They succeeded in assimilating the
mercantile law of England and Scotland; but their first Bill to amend
the law of partnership was abandoned in March. A second one was
introduced, and abandoned in July. A Bill for the amendment of the Poor
Law met the same fate. The Bill to regulate lunatic asylums in Ireland,
and a Bill to relieve merchant vessels of tolls and dues were also
abandoned. Ministers were equally unfortunate with their Divorce Bill,
and with their Bills to establish jurisdiction over wills, and to check
the criminal appropriation of trust property. Their Church Discipline
Bill was rejected by the Lords. The Bills to reconstruct the Irish Court
of Chancery and the Insolvency Court were dropped.[280] The Jury Bill,
Juvenile Offenders Bill, and Dublin Police Bill were also given up. The
Civil Servants’ Superannuation Bill, the London Municipal Reform Bill,
the Bill for the local management of the metropolis, a burial Bill, a
vaccination Bill, a Bill dealing with the Queen’s College in Ireland,
and a Scotch education Bill were all abandoned. A Bill enabling two
Bishops to retire on handsome terms was passed, though the arrangement
was denounced as simoniacal, and the County Police Bill also became law.
But the legislative failures of the Government showed that it had no
firm hold over the House of Commons, and that its position was safe,
merely because the nation was not in a mood for change so soon after
its energies had been exhausted in a costly and inglorious war.
Moreover, Parties were still disorganised. Lord John Russell’s isolation
and the position of the Peelites being disturbing factors in the
situation. Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Disraeli, however, began to draw nearer
and nearer to each other, Lord Stanley being regarded as the connecting
link between them, and some of the Whigs, a little alarmed at the
prospect of a hostile coalition, began to hint that Palmerston would be
wise to attract the Peelites back to his standard. The fact is, the war
left the country profoundly disgusted with Party government. Sir James
Graham told Mr. Greville that hitherto the party system had been
efficient for government, because patronage had been “the great
instrument for keeping parties together.” Peel, however, broke up the
old party system in 1846, and now, said Sir James Graham, “between the
Press, the public opinion which the Press had made, and the views of
certain people in Parliament, of whom Gladstone is the most eminent and
strenuous, patronage was either destroyed or going rapidly to
destruction.”[281] To some extent the Queen shared these views, but in
the event of any mishap leading to Palmerston’s resignation, the idea of
the Court was to organise a coalition under Clarendon. Parliament was
prorogued on the 29th of July.
Outside politics the life of the Queen during 1856 was not very
eventful. On the 20th of March the confirmation of the Princess Royal
brought together an interesting family gathering at the private chapel
at Windsor. Prince Albert led the princess in, and was followed by the
Queen and King Leopold of Belgium. The officers of State, and of the
household, and most of the members of the Royal Family, were present,
and the Bishop of Oxford, Lord High Almoner, read the preface, the
Archbishop of Canterbury performing the ceremony. Several guests were
present, and in describing the event to Stockmar the Prince dwells with
some pride on the fact that the Princess came through the ordeal of Dean
Wellesley’s preliminary examination a few days before with great
success.[282] The choice of the Navy as Prince Alfred’s profession had
now been made, and in April the Queen and Prince Albert, after much
anxious thought, selected a tutor for their son. He is described by the
Prince in one of his letters as “a distinguished and most amiable young
officer of Engineers ... one Lieutenant Cowell, who was Adjutant of Sir
Harry Jones at Bomarsund and before Sebastopol.... He is only
twenty-three, and has had a high scientific training. By this a great
load has been taken off my heart.”[283]
[Illustration: PORTSMOUTH.]
During the spring of the year the wounded from the Crimea had been
pouring in. In February the Queen presented Miss Florence Nightingale
with a jewel, somewhat resembling the badge of an Order of Knighthood,
for her services at Scutari. On the 16th of April her Majesty went to
Chatham with her husband to visit these victims of the war. She passed
through the wards much affected by the sight of some of the more ghastly
wounds, speaking kind and comforting words of sympathy to those who had
suffered most severely. The Camp at Aldershot was also visited on the
18th of April, and 14,000 troops were reviewed, her Majesty riding along
the line whilst the men presented arms. Next morning was a field day,
and the Queen appeared on the ground on horseback, wearing a
Field-Marshal’s uniform, with the Star of the Garter over a dark-blue
riding-habit. On the 23rd of April the splendid fleet
[Illustration: SIR DE LACY EVANS.]
at Spithead was reviewed. The spectacle was one of surpassing
magnificence, and upwards of 100,000 persons witnessed it, crowding
every spot from which a view could be obtained between Fort Monckton and
Southsea Castle. The Solent was alive with yachts and craft of all
kinds, decked with bunting, which fluttered gaily in the light breeze.
The Queen’s yacht left Portsmouth Harbour at noon, steamed down and
returned through the double line of war-ships. As the yacht rounded the
_Royal George_ and _Duke of Wellington_ they opened a Royal salute, and
their yards were suddenly manned, as if by magic, with seamen, each
trying to cheer louder than his comrade. This manœuvre was repeated in
succession by every ship in the fleet, and the effect was imposing and
impressive. A mimic attack on Southsea Castle followed, and at night
the whole fleet was suddenly and simultaneously illuminated with blue
lights from yards and portholes.
“Our army,” Prince Albert wrote, in April, “has begun to return, and it
will require redoubled exertions to keep up its organisation.” In fact,
already an active party in the Cabinet had begun to demand heavy
retrenchment on military expenditure. The Queen had long been convinced
that hurried retrenchments led to wasteful panic expenditure, and was
very much concerned when she heard what was being mooted in the
Ministry. Hence she wrote to Lord Palmerston expressing her strong
feeling that retrenchment should be moderate and gradual. “To the
miserable reductions of the last thirty years,” she says, “is entirely
owing our state of helplessness when the war began;” and surely, she
urged, Ministers were not going to forget the lesson taught by our
sufferings in the Crimea. What, however, was most seriously wanted was a
new military system which would properly utilise the money already voted
for the army, and prevent it from being jobbed into the hands of
incompetent persons with powerful family interest. Sir De Lacy Evans, on
the 4th of March, made an effort to persuade the House of Commons to
abolish the purchase system, which he described as “a stain upon the
service and a dishonour to England,” and Lord Goderich warmly advocated
the application of some effective tests of competence to candidates for
commissions. But though everybody sympathised with Evans, nobody would
help him to carry out his ideas. In the abstract, said Lord Palmerston,
purchase was bad. No one would propose such a system if we were
establishing an army for the first time. It existed only in the British
army, but, then, it did exist, and it had existed so long that it was
hard to get rid of it without injustice to individuals,[284] and great
expenditure in compensation. Yet the highest estimate made of the value
of commissions did not exceed £8,000,000--less than half the sum voted
every year by the House of Commons for the troops; and even that sum
would have had to be paid, not at once, but over a long series of years,
under any scheme, to release an army which had been pawned to its
officers. Prince Albert, in conjunction with Lord Hardinge, drew up a
plan for a new military organisation, which, however, did not touch
questions of patronage or promotion. On the 19th of May the Queen laid
the foundation stone of the great military hospital at Netley, the first
of the kind in England, and an institution which we owe entirely to her
Majesty. “Loving my dear, brave army as I do,” she writes to King
Leopold, “and having seen so many of my poor sick and wounded soldiers,
I shall watch over this work with maternal anxiety,”[285] A visit from
Prince Frederick William of Prussia brought sunshine into the Royal
household, and gladdened the heart of the Queen’s eldest daughter, who
was supremely happy at once again meeting her betrothed. It was during
this visit that the Princess met with an accident, on the 25th of June,
that might have ended fatally. She was sitting at her table in
Buckingham Palace, reading a letter, when the sleeve of her dress caught
fire from a candle. Luckily Miss Hildyard and Miss Anderson (who were in
the room at the time) promptly rolled the Princess in the hearthrug and
extinguished the flames, though her arm was severely burnt from below
the elbow to the shoulder.
On the 8th of July the Queen again went to Aldershot to review a great
body of Crimean troops, the Royal party including the King of the
Belgians and Prince Oscar of Sweden. Unfortunately the weather somewhat
marred the grandeur of the spectacle, but it became fair enough ere the
day was done to admit of the regiments forming in three sides of a
square round the Queen’s carriage. Then the officers who had been under
fire, with four men from each company and troop, stepped forward, and
her Majesty, rising, addressed them a few words of welcome and thanks.
She told them to say to their comrades that she had herself watched
anxiously over their difficulties and hardships, and mourned with deep
sorrow for the brave men who had fallen in their country’s cause. When
she ceased to speak, the cry of “God save the Queen” burst forth from
every lip. The air was black with helmets, bearskins, and shakoes, which
the men tossed up with delight. Flashing sabres were waving and glancing
along the lines, and on every hillside crowds caught up the cheering
that rose from the serried and glittering ranks of the army. Unhappily
the day was saddened by a strange and melancholy occurrence. Lord
Hardinge was seized with a fit whilst talking to the Queen. “He fell
forward,” says Prince Albert, “upon the table before which he was
standing. I assisted him to the nearest sofa, where he at once resumed
what he was saying with the greatest clearness and calmness, merely
apologising that he had made such a disturbance. When he was moved to
London it was found his right side was paralysed.” Next day the Guards
and Highlanders arrived, and were received by the Queen and enthusiastic
crowds in the Park. “They marched past in fours,” writes Lord
Malmesbury, “preceded by their colonels on horseback and their bands, in
heavy marching order. Certainly they looked as if they had done work;
their uniforms were shabby, many having almost lost all colour, their
bearskins quite brown, and they themselves, poor fellows, though they
seemed happy, and were laughing as they marched along, were very thin
and worn.”[286] Lord Hardinge’s career was now closed. On the 9th of
July he resigned, and on the 24th of September he died. On the 12th of
July the Cabinet accordingly advised the Queen to appoint her cousin,
the Duke of Cambridge, Commander-in-Chief, in succession to Lord
Hardinge, and her Majesty was gratified to find that the arrangement was
one which was highly popular with the troops. Thus the intention of
Wellington was fulfilled, and the army again passed under the direct
command of a Prince of the Blood Royal.
The Prince and Princess of Prussia paid a visit to England in August,
arriving on the 10th and leaving on the 29th, by which time the Court
had retired to Osborne. On the 30th, after spending two days in
Edinburgh, the Queen and her family arrived at Balmoral. “We found the
house finished,” writes the Queen in her Diary, “as well as the offices,
and the poor old house gone!”[287] It was a stormy, tempestuous holiday,
but the Queen made the best of it. On the 21st of September Sir James
Clark introduced Miss Florence Nightingale to the Queen, who was greatly
charmed with her, and with whom her Majesty held grave consultations as
to the reforms that were needed in military hospitals. The coronation of
the Czar at Moscow, on the 7th of September, was attended by Lord
Granville as the Queen’s representative, and when his reports reached
Balmoral, Prince Albert, in a letter to Stockmar, said that they
regarded these as “an apotheosis and homage paid to the vanquished, and
which cannot fail to inspire both worshipper and worshipped with
dangerous illusions in regard to the real state of things.”
The Queen was now getting alarmed as to the carrying out of the Treaty
of Peace. She saw Russia making strenuous efforts to separate France and
England. Instead of restoring Kars to the Turks, the Russians demolished
the fortifications, and prolonged their military occupation of the
country in defiance of the Treaty of Paris. They tried to filch Serpent
Island at the mouth of the Danube, under the pretext that it was inside
the new line of their frontier. They sought to push their new frontier
as far south as Lake Jalpuk, because the Powers, misled by a faulty map,
had permitted them to retain the Moldavian town of Bolgrad.[288] In each
case the Emperor of the French was inclined to support the Russian
claim. The British fleet was therefore ordered to occupy the Black Sea
till the deadlock was ended, and when Chreptovitch, the new Russian
ambassador, threatened to leave England because this step had been
taken, Lord Palmerston coolly told him “the sooner he did so the
better,” if he did not mean to give England satisfaction.[289]
The King of Prussia now began to press the Queen to interfere in a
quarrel between him and the Swiss Republic. Neuenburg or Neufchâtel, by
dynastic inheritance, had come into the possession of Frederick I. in
1707. In 1806 it was ceded to Napoleon, who gave it to Berthier, the
most diplomatic of his generals. After the Great Peace it was granted an
oligarchic constitution,
[Illustration: VIEW IN BERNE.]
and received as a Canton into the Swiss Confederation, but its vassalage
to the House of Hohenzollern was formally acknowledged. In 1848 the
Republican citizens of Neuenburg broke the bond that tied them to the
Prussian crown, and though the Protocol of London of the 24th May, 1852,
recognised the Prussian claim to the Province, the Province ignored the
Protocol of London. In the autumn of 1856 the Prussian party in
Neuenburg attacked the Republicans, but the Swiss Federal troops
ruthlessly suppressed the rising, and not only killed twelve royalists,
but had the audacity to throw a hundred others into prison, simply
because they were loyal to their feudal lord. The King of Prussia
objected to their being put on trial, and demanded their surrender, but
it was a far cry from Berlin to Berne, and the stubborn Switzers paid no
heed to his demands. Napoleon III. menaced them in vain. Austria, always
pleased to see Prussia humbled in Germany, threw obstacles in the way of
Prussian troops marching through the territory of the Confederation to
coerce Switzerland, and Napoleon did not dare to outrage French opinion
by letting them march through Alsace-Lorraine. In England, Palmerston
smiled grimly over the embarrassment of Russia’s most faithful ally. He
said to the Hanoverian Minister in London when Prussia was threatening
coercion, “the Prussians will incur much expense, and in January
Switzerland will condemn the captives and then amnesty them; _donc la
farce sera finie, et la Prusse y sera pour les frais_.”[290]
Nor was this the only anxiety at Court. King “Bomba’s” misgovernment in
southern Italy, and his brutal treatment of persons arbitrarily arrested
on suspicion of disloyalty, were provoking revolution. An outbreak in
the south must lead to a rising in the north, which in turn must involve
France and Sardinia in war with Austria. England and France, finding
their remonstrances disregarded by the Neapolitan Government, withdrew
their legations from Naples in October, and ordered the fleet to make a
demonstration in the bay. This step was sanctioned by the Queen not
without some misgiving, because to suspend diplomatic relations with a
State because its internal government is not to our liking, was to
establish a dangerous diplomatic precedent. It evoked from Russia a
cutting remonstrance, which, however, Lord Palmerston had to accept as
best he could.
On the 19th of October the Court returned to Windsor, and on the 17th of
November, Stockmar, in response to a pressing appeal to come and advise
the Queen in the midst of her growing difficulties, paid her what was
destined to be his last visit. He found her heavily stricken with grief
because of the death of her half-brother, Prince Leiningen, on the 13th.
“We three,” (the Prince, the Princess Hohenlohe, and the Queen), she
writes to King Leopold, “were very fond of each other, and never felt or
fancied that we were not real _Geschwister_ (children of the same
parents). We knew but _one_ parent--_our_ mother.”[291] The last day of
the year brought with it one consolation. The Conference in Paris had
settled our dispute with Russia, and a map was signed by the
plenipotentiaries which met the requirements of the Czar, without giving
Russia strategical advantages which she had tried to obtain.[292]