Her present Majesty, Alexandrina Victoria, was born May 24th, 1819, and
ascended the throne June 20th, 1837, as representing her father, the
Duke of Kent, fourth son of George HI. On February 10th, 1840, it being
the general etiquette for the Brunswick family to intermarry amongst
themselves, she was married to her cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe Coburg,
who received an allowance from the nation of L30,000, to compensate
him for becoming the husband of his wife. The Queen, more sensible than
others of the arduous position of a Prince Consort, wished her loyal
husband to have L100,000 a year. The Government reduced this to L50,000;
Joseph Hume and the Radicals reduced it still further to L30,000. For
this annual payment the Prince undertook to submit to naturalization,
to be the first subject in England, to reside rent free in the Royal
Palaces repaired at the cost of the nation. He also, on his own account,
and for his own profit, attended to various building speculations at the
West End of London, and died very rich. He is known as Prince Albert the
Good. His goodness is marked--not by parks given to the people, as in
the case of Sir Francis Crossley; not by improved dwellings for the
people, as in the case of George Peabody; not by a large and
costly market place, freely given, as in the case of Miss Burdett
Coutts--Peeress without her patent of Baroness;--but by statues erected
in his honor in many cities and boroughs by a loyal people. As an
employer of labor, the Prince's reputation for generosity is marked
solely by these statues. As a Prince, he felt in his lifetime how much
and how truly he was loved by his people; and at a dinner given to the
Guards, Prince Albert, in a speech probably not revised beforehand, told
the household troops how he relied on them to protect the throne against
any assaults. The memory of the Prince is dear to the people; he has
left us nine children to keep out of the taxpayers' pockets, his own
large private accumulations of wealth being inapplicable to their
maintenance.
When her Majesty ascended the throne, poor rates averaged 5s. 4Ld. per
head per annum; to-day they exceed 7s. During the last fifteen years
alone there has been an increase of more than 250,000 paupers in England
and Wales, and one person out of every twenty-two is in receipt of
workhouse relief. Everybody, however, agrees that the country is
prosperous and happy. In Scotland there has been an increase of 9,048
paupers in the last ten years. Two out of every fifty-three Scotchmen
are at this moment paupers. In Ireland in the last ten years the
out-door paupers have increased 19,504. As, however, we have, during the
reign of her present most gracious Majesty, driven away the bulk of the
Irish population, there are considerably fewer paupers in Ireland than
there are in Scotland. The average Imperial taxation during the first
ten years of her Majesty's reign was under L50,000,000 a year. The
average taxation at the present day is over L72,000,000 a year.
Pauperism and local and Imperial taxation are all on the increase, and,
despite agricultural laborers' outcries and workmen's strikes, it is
agreed that her Majesty's reign has brought us many blessings.
On March 20th, 1842, the Earl of Munster, eldest son of William IV., and
who had been made Constable of Windsor Castle by her Majesty, committed
suicide. Although the eldest son of the late King, his position as a
natural child excluded him from heaven, according to the Bible, and from
all right to the Throne, according to our law.
Her Majesty's eldest daughter, the Princess Royal, Victoria Adelaide
Mary Louisa, is married to the Prince Imperial, Frederick William, of
Germany, and, as it would have been manifestly unreasonable to expect
either the Queen or the Prince Consort, out of their large private
fortunes, to provide a dowry for their daughter, the English nation pays
L8,000 a year to the Princess.
Her Majesty's eldest son, Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, Duke of
Saxony, Cornwall, and Rothesay, and Earl of Dublin, has earned already
so wide a fame that notice here is almost needless. As a writer, his
letters--a few of which have been published by the kind permission
of Sir Charles Mordaunt--illustrate the grasp of mind peculiar to the
family, and mark in strong relief the nobility of character of the
Royal author. As a military chieftain, the Autumn Manoeuvres of 1871
demonstrated the tact and speed he could display in a strategic movement
of masterly retreat. As an investigator of social problems, he has
surpassed the Lords Townshend and Shaftesbury, and at Mabille and in
London has, by experience, entitled himself to speak with authority.
As a pigeon-shooter, he can only be judged by comparison with the
respectable ex-bushranger now claiming the Tichborne estates. Here,
it is true, the latter is a man of more weight. The Prince of Wales
receives L40,000 a year, and we give his wife L10,000 a year as a slight
acknowledgment for the position she has to occupy as Princess of Wales.
With the history of the wives of the two last Princes of Wales to guide
them, it is almost wonderful that the advisers of the Princess did not
insist on a much higher premium against the risks of the position. When
his Royal Highness came of age, he found accumulations of the Duchy of
Cornwall approaching a million sterling, which, invested in Consols,
would bring him in at least a further L40,000 per annum. His Royal
Highness also has the income of the Duchy of Cornwall, amounting net
to about L75,000 a year. In addition to this, the Prince of Wales is
entitled to military salary as Colonel of the Rifle Brigade and 10th
Hussars. Last year--conscious that it is unfair to expect a Prince
to live upon L153,000 a year--L7,600 were voted by Parliament for the
repair of the house in which he sometimes resides when in London.
A few years ago his Royal Highness was in Paris, and certain scurrilous
foreign prints pretended that on the Boulevard des Italiens, in the face
of France, he had forgotten that one day he would seek to be King of
England. It is written, "_In vino Veritas_." and if the proverb
hold, the Prince is more than half his time a man remarkable for his
truthfulness. Some time later, the _Royal Leamington Chronicle_,
which, in his mercy, the Prince of Wales never prosecuted, coupled
his reputation with infamy. Later, his Royal Highness was ill, and the
nation wept. Then came recovery and Thanksgiving at St. Paul's.
"So when the devil was sick,
The devil a saint would be;
When the devil got well again,
The devil a saint was he."
The Prince of Wales has since been to Paris, and, according to _La
Liberte_, has honored Mabille with his Royal presence.
Her Majesty's second son is Alfred Ernest, Duke of Edinburgh. His Royal
Highness, when serving on board the Galatea, had leave to go on shore
at Marseilles. Journeying to Paris, he overstayed his leave, refused to
return when summoned, and stayed there, so Paris journals said, till
his debts were thousands. Any other officer in the navy would have
been cashiered; his Royal Highness has since been promoted. The Duke of
Edinburgh visited our Colonies, and the nation voted about L3,500 for
presents made by the Prince. The presents the Prince received were,
of course, his own, and the vote enabled the Duke to do justice to the
generous sentiments of his family. The Colonists pretended at the time
that some of the presents were not paid for by the Duke of Edinburgh;
nay, they went so far as to allege that some of the Duke's debts had
to be discharged by the Colonist Reception Committee. Representing the
honor of England, his Royal Highness earned himself a fame and a name
by the associates he chose. In visiting India, a special sum of, we
believe, L10,000 was taken from the Indian revenues and handed to the
Duke, so that an English Prince might be liberal in his gifts to Indians
at their own cost. The Duke of Edinburgh has L25,000 a year. Five years
ago he borrowed L450 from the pay-chest of the Galatea. I have no means
of knowing whether it has since been paid back; all I can affirm is,
that the country made up the deficient sum in the pay-chest without a
word from any M. P. Had the borrower been a pay-sergeant, he would have
been sent to a District Military Prison; if a commissioned officer,
other than a Royal one, he would have been dismissed the service. The
difference between the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Edinburgh
is this: in the first case, the virtues of the Prince equal his
intelligence; in the second case, the intelligence of the Duke is more
developed than are his virtues.
In the case of Broadwood vs. the Duke of St. Albans, both the Royal
brothers were permitted to guard a pleasant incognito. The Judge who
allowed this concealment was soon afterwards created a Peer of the
Realm.
Our army and navy, without reckoning the Indian Establishment, cost more
to-day, by about L9,000,000 a year, than when her Majesty ascended
the throne. Her Majesty's cousin, George William Frederick, Duke of
Cambridge, is Commander-in-Chief of the Army, and for this service
receives L4,432 per annum. His Royal Highness also receives the sum of
L12,000 in consequence of his being a cousin of the Queen. His Royal
Highness is also Field-Marshal, and Colonel of four distinct regiments,
for which he gets more than L5,000 annually. Naturally, in the Duke
is found embodied the whole military talent of the Royal Family. His
great-uncle, the Duke of Cumberland, carved "Klosterseven" on the
Brunswick monuments. Frederick Duke of York, the uncle of the Duke of
Cambridge, recalled from the field of battle, that he might wear in
peace at home the laurels he had won abroad, added "Clarke" and "Tonyn"
as names to vie with Cressy or Waterloo. The present Duke of Cambridge
was, when Prince George, stationed in Yorkshire, in the famous "plug
plot" times, and his valiancy then threatened most lustily what he would
do against the factory "turnouts," poor starved wretches clamoring for
bread. In the army, the normal schoolmasters can tell how this brave
Brunswicker rendered education difficult, and drove out, one by one,
many of the best teachers. Soldiers who think too much, make bad
machines. It was the father of the present Duke of Cambridge who
publicly expressed his disbelief, in 1844--5, of the failure of the
potato crop in Ireland, "because he had always found the potatoes at his
own table very good!"
For many years her Majesty's most constant attendant has been a
Scotsman, John Brown. This person so seldom leaves her Majesty that it
is said that some years since the Queen insisted on his presence when
diplomatic communications were made to her Majesty; and that, when
escorting the Queen to Camden House, on a visit to the ex-Emperor
Napoleon, Mr. Brown offered her his arm from the carriage to the door.
Afterwards, when an idiotic small boy--Armed with a broken pistol,
loaded with red flannel, and without gunpowder--made a sham attack on
her Majesty, Mr. Brown courageously rushed to the Queen's aid, and has
since received a medal to mark his valor.
For many years her Majesty has taken but little part in the show
ceremonials of State. Parliament is usually opened and closed by
commission--a robe on an empty throne, and a speech read by deputy,
satisfying the Sovereign's loyal subjects. It is, however, the fact that
in real State policy her interference has been most mischievous, and
this especially where it affected her Prusso-German relatives.' In the
case of Denmark attacked by Prussia and Austria, and in the case of
the Franco-Prussian War, English Court influences have most indecently
affected our foreign relations.
Her Majesty is now enormously rich, and--as she is like her Royal
grandmother--grows richer daily. She is also generous, Parliament
annually voting her moneys to enable her to be so without touching her
own purse.
It is charged against me that I have unfairly touched private character.
In no instance have I done so, except as I have found the conduct of the
individuals attacked affecting the honor and welfare of the nation. My
sayings and writings are denounced in many of the journals, and in the
House of Lords, as seditious, and even treasonable. My answer is, that,
fortunately, Hardy, Tooke, and Thelwall heard "Not Guilty" given as the
shield against a criticism which dared to experiment on persecution. In
case of need, I rely on a like deliverance. I do not pretend hereto have
pleaded for Republicanism; I have only pleaded against the White Horse
of Hanover. I admire the German intellect, training the world to think.
I loathe these small German breast-bestarred wanderers, whose only merit
is their loving hatred of one another. In their own land they vegetate
and wither unnoticed; here we pay them highly to marry and perpetuate a
pauper prince-race. If they do nothing, they are "good." If they do ill,
loyalty gilds the vice till it looks like virtue.