CHAPTER IV.

THE DEATH OF THE PRINCE CONSORT.

England in 1861--The Jumble of Parties--Secret Alliance Between

Palmerston and the Tories--Opening of Parliament--The Prince

Consort and the “Two Old Italian Masters”--Lady William Russell’s

_Salon_--The Proposed Sale of Venice--The Fall of Gaeta--Prussia

and Italy--Death of Cavour--A _casus belli_ Against

France--Napoleon in the East--Denmark and the Duchies--The Queen’s

Private Sorrows--Last Illness and Death of the Duchess of

Kent--Renewed Attacks in the Press on Prince Albert--Palmerston

Accused of Tampering with Despatches--Anecdote of Lord Derby and

Lord Granville--The Budget--Repeal of the Paper Duty--Palmerston’s

“Grudge” Against Prince Albert--The Marriage of the Princess Alice

announced--The Queen and Her Social Duties--Two Drawing-Rooms and

Two Investitures--A Season of Mourning--Death of Lord Herbert of

Lea--Lord John Russell’s Peerage--Reform and the Working

Classes--Ministerial Changes--The Queen’s Tour in Ireland--The

Queen and German Unity--Coronation of the King of Prussia--Death of

the King of Portugal--Fatigue of the Prince Consort--Signs of His

Last Illness--The Queen at Her Husband’s Sick Bed--A Mournful

Vigil--The Prince Consort’s Last Words--Scene at the Death-Bed--The

Sorrow of the Country--The Queen’s Despair--Her Removal from

Windsor--Prince Albert’s Character and Career--His Funeral--The

Scene at the Grave--The Queen and the Princess Alice.

From her own tranquil island the Queen, at the beginning of 1861, looked

abroad upon a world that was strangely disturbed. It was a world in

which men cried peace when there was no peace. In Europe, French agents

were intriguing with the revolutionary parties in Poland, Hungary, and

the Danubian Principalities. Italian conspirators were busy as usual in

Venetia. The misgovernment of Turkey was again goading her Christian

subjects to despair, and rousing the wrath of Panslavic fanaticism in

Russia. Across the Atlantic the New Year brought with it the severance

of South Carolina from the United States, and the pulse of the British

aristocracy and their social parasites rose high as their golden youth

congratulated each other on the “bursting of the bubble Republic.”[89]

It is true that the harvest had been bad, and that the winter had been

the coldest that had been experienced for half a century. But Free Trade

made food cheap and wages high, so that there was no popular discontent

to trouble the Government. The prospect of a cotton famine in

Lancashire, as the result of a civil war in America, was not thought to

be within the range of practical contingencies. As for political

parties, they were, as Mr. Ashley says, “in a singular jumble at the

period which we have now reached.”[90] The Tories were alarmed by Mr.

Gladstone’s Budgets. These were supposed to be dangerously democratic,

not only because his attack on the Paper Duty seemed designed to

strengthen the power and position of a cheap press, but because in his

financial speeches he seemed to justify the repeal of taxes solely by

his desire to benefit the poor, and his imposition of new burdens by his

desire to punish the rich for being wealthy. Absurd as this suspicion

was, it is necessary to take it seriously, because it had much to do

with creating the unexpected dictatorship of Lord Palmerston.

It was well known that Palmerston’s hostility to reform had well-nigh

driven the Radicals into factious opposition. They had no more to expect

from him, and at any moment they were ready to act against him. They

even offered to combine with the Tories, turn out the Government, and

keep Lord Derby and Mr. Disraeli in power for two years, during which

period they thought the Reform problem would ripen for solution. This

offer was not accepted. In fact, through Lord Malmesbury and Lady

Palmerston, a secret alliance was organised, in terms of which the

Tories agreed to maintain Lord Palmerston in office “if only he would

resist ‘Democratic’ Budgets, and keep his hands from any violent action

against Austria.”[91] This compact was ratified by the people, who,

despite the triumph of the Anglo-French alliance in China, were growing

every day more distrustful of Napoleon’s warlike preparations, which it

was part of Palmerston’s policy to counteract. Mr. Ashley asserts that

Lord Palmerston was “too loyal to enter into any such secret

understanding.” As a matter of fact, the alliance was, on behalf of Lord

Derby and Mr. Disraeli, first tendered by Lord Malmesbury at Lady

Palmerston’s party, on the 12th of May, 1860, when, says Lord

Malmesbury, “Lady Palmerston expressed herself as being very grateful

for the offer.”[92] Count Vitzthum, however, puts the matter beyond

doubt. Writing in 1861, he says:--“The secret agreement between the

Conservatives and Palmerston, which had checked the barren Party contest

of the previous year, was renewed before the Session began, and even

received the secret sanction of the Court. After Lord Palmerston, in

January, had submitted to the Queen and Prince Albert his programme for

the current year, and had promised in particular his vigorous

prosecution of the works for national defence, Disraeli was invited to

Windsor. The Prince, to his no small satisfaction, received the

assurance from the leader of the Opposition that the Tories, though

three hundred strong, had no thoughts of undertaking the Government, so

long as Palmerston continued to safeguard the Conservative interests of

the State. Disraeli added that it rested only with the present Prime

Minister to exercise a power such as none of his predecessors had

wielded since Pitt.”[93] Finally, conclusive proof of the existence of

the alliance is given by the highest living authority on such a

matter--namely, Sir Theodore Martin--who discloses details of the whole

transaction. Sixty members of the House of Commons had apparently

pledged themselves to follow Mr. Cobden’s policy of “democratic

finance,” which was to lessen expenditure by reducing armaments.

Palmerston’s Government was therefore doomed unless an alliance could be

struck up with the Tories. According to the Prince Consort, Mr. Disraeli

said that “the Conservative party was ready not only to give general

support to a steady and patriotic policy, but even to help the Minister

out of scrapes if he got into any.” But, in return, they must, to use

Sir Theodore Martin’s words, “state explicitly the principles of their

policy, and not enter into a line of what he (Mr. Disraeli) termed

democratic finance.”[94] When Mr. Ashley stated that Lord Palmerston was

“too loyal to enter into any such secret understanding,” he must have

neglected to read the letter dated 24th of January, 1861, which the

Prince Consort sent to Lord Palmerston, embodying the terms of the

understanding in question. It is also possible that he did not

anticipate the publication of Lord Malmesbury’s diary, in which, under

date the 14th of March, 1861, there is the following entry:--“The House

of Commons threw out Mr. Locke-King’s Bill for reducing the county

franchise to £10, by a majority of 28. We had agreed with the Government

that, if they helped us to throw out this Bill, we would help them to

pass Lord Palmerston’s Resolution, reversing their former vote on the

payment of the Navy.”[95]

On the 4th of February the Queen came to town for the opening of

Parliament, which took place on the 5th. The Royal Speech, says Count

Vitzthum, “ratified the private agreement (between Palmerston and the

Tories) by making no mention of reform. The skirmishes that took place

during the

[Illustration: ST. GEORGE’S CHAPEL, WINDSOR, FROM THE RIVER.]

Session had therefore no practical importance, and only served to

conceal from the public and the parties themselves the understanding

already effected between the leaders.”[96] Very few points for debate

were raised by the Queen’s Speech. Peace in Europe, it was suggested,

could be preserved by the moderation of the Powers. Syria would soon be

pacified, and thankfulness was expressed at the success of British arms

in China. A sympathetic allusion to the Civil War in America, was

prettily pointed by a reference to the kindly welcome which the Prince

of Wales had received in the United States, and the loyalty of the

Canadians was frankly recognised. Crime, bankruptcy, land transfer, and

rating were the subjects suggested for legislation. The debate on the

Address in both Houses was insincere. Lord Derby made fun of the

Government for coquetting with revolution in Italy, and he ridiculed

Lord John Russell’s inconsistent despatches to Sir James Hudson. “Mr.

Disraeli,” writes Count Vitzthum, “handled the same theme in an academic

fashion in the House of Commons,” but nobody dreamt of seriously

assaulting the Ministerial position. “In Italy strange things are taking

place. It is still the idol of the two ‘old Italian masters,’” wrote the

Prince Consort to Stockmar on the eve of the opening of Parliament.[97]

And yet, when Ministers heard that Cavour had allowed arms to be shipped

from the arsenal at Genoa for the conspirators who were organising an

insurrection in Turkey, they became a little uneasy. No harm, however,

came of this, because the Turkish authorities at Constantinople being

forewarned, seized the arms when they arrived. But the problem of

problems was, what did Napoleon mean to do in Italy? He had opened the

French Chambers with a speech which, describing the annexation of Savoy

as an act done in maintenance of the natural rights of France, created a

panic among the Palmerstonians and their Tory allies. If Savoy--why not

Belgium? was the question which this doctrine of natural rights

suggested to men’s minds. And yet at this time Napoleon’s power was

vastly exaggerated. The priests, who had not forgiven him for enriching

Italy at the expense of the Pope, condemned his policy from their

pulpits. The vulgar luxury and swindling speculations in which the

Imperial _entourage_ indulged, disgusted the educated classes. It was at

this time that those who had hailed the Emperor as the “saviour of

Society” began to call him “Badinguet”--after the bricklayer whose

disguise he had borrowed when escaping from Ham. At one time Palmerston

and Russell imagined they had discovered the solution of the most

pressing of the Italian problems. They thought--or rather the Emperor of

the French persuaded them to think--that Austria might sell Venetia to

Sardinia, and whilst retaining half the purchase price to relieve her

strained finances, with the other half buy Bosnia and the Herzegovina

from the Sultan, who was also in lack of money. The Queen thwarted this

cunning scheme, when Lord John Russell broached it in the end of

December, by pointing out that to suggest the sale of Venetia to

Sardinia, was to record an official opinion that Venetia ought to be in

some way freed from Austrian rule. In the event of Austria refusing to

sell the province this would be used as a justification for wresting

Venetia from her, or for compelling England to press her to give it up.

Palmerston himself came round to this view, and so the Venetian question

was for a time eliminated. But in Italy it soon became clear that France

meant to give Victor Emmanuel freedom to act. Gaeta surrendered in

February when the French fleet was withdrawn--the King and Queen of

Naples being conveyed to Rome. They sought refuge there under the

protection of French bayonets, in the cheerless shelter of the empty

Farnese Palace. Five days after the fall of Gaeta Victor Emmanuel

summoned the first Italian Parliament to Turin, where it met in a large

wooden hall improvised for the occasion. In his speech from the throne

he regretted the recall of the French Minister, but did not pretend to

be downcast by the platonic rebuke of France. As to the protest of

Prussia against his policy, Victor Emmanuel said an ambassador had been

sent to King William “in token of respect for him personally, and of

sympathy with the noble German nation,” which he hoped would become

convinced that Italian unity could not prejudice the rights of other

states. The meaning of this reference in the speech was pointed out by

De la Marmora. He cynically told the Prussian Government at Berlin, that

Italy consoled herself with the thought that she had set an example

which Prussia, in spite of her protests, would find useful “in

conquering the hegemony of Germany.” On the 17th of March the Turin

Parliament proclaimed Victor Emmanuel King of Italy, and two days

afterwards England recognised his position. France delayed her

recognition till June, Napoleon’s chief difficulty being the disposal of

Rome. Opportunity, said Italian statesmen, will open the way to Venice;

and as for Rome, though it must be the capital of free Italy, we only

desire to go there, not at the head of a revolutionary army, but hand in

hand with France. Personally, Napoleon would have wished to evacuate

Rome. Its occupation was a heavy burden on his finances--which had

become seriously embarrassed. To uphold the temporal power of the Pope,

which he had disavowed, against the will of the Italian people, which in

other quarters he had enforced by the sword, put him in a false

position. On the other hand, the priests in France had to be

conciliated, and there was a strong party among Frenchmen who thought

that France should be compensated, by the occupation of Rome, for the

rise of a new naval Power in the Mediterranean.[98] Early in the summer

Cavour, who like Themistocles lived to convert a small state into a

great one, died--his policy being cherished as a sacred legacy by his

successor, Riccasoli. Cavour, however, lived long enough to see the

failure of an intrigue to procure the evacuation of Rome by the cession

of Sardinia to France. Mr. Kinglake in July tried to convince the House

of Commons that this cession was practically agreed on, and he pointed

out that Nelson had declared Malta would be useless to England whenever

the Bay of Cagliari passed into the hands of a great naval power. But

Lord John Russell--in the last speech he ever made in the Lower

House--assured the country that he could find no evidence pointing to

the existence of such a scheme. At the same time he made it plain,

though he did not say so in as many words, that England would regard the

cession of Sardinia to France as a _casus belli_.[99]

Another project was on foot which gave the Queen great uneasiness.

Napoleon--whose brain, said Lord Palmerston once, was as full of schemes

as a warren was full of rabbits--was said to be in favour of creating a

new Eastern State or kingdom, with Constantinople as its capital, and

King Leopold, the Queen’s uncle, as its Sovereign. In that case France

would naturally take Belgium by way of compensation; but the idea, if

ever seriously entertained, was soon consigned to the limbo of vanished

Imperial dreams. The condition of Austria was now rather serious. All

her proposals for reforming the political system of Hungary, relegated

that ancient kingdom to the position of an Austrian province. The

Hungarian people, however, refused to accept this position, and demanded

the restoration of their rights as an independent State under the

Sovereign of Austria, reigning over them as crowned King of Hungary.

Their demand might at any moment take the form of a revolutionary

movement, which would probably re-open the Eastern question, and involve

England in war. Luckily this calamity was averted by the preoccupation

of Napoleon and Victor Emmanuel, who alone had either the power or the

will to raise a revolution in Hungary.

But affairs in the North were much more disquieting. Early in March the

dispute between Denmark and the Duchies of Sleswig-Holstein, which the

Queen and her husband had watched with jealous eyes from its origin,

became acute. The Danish Government was willing to submit the budget for

the Duchies to their local legislatures, on condition that it was not

altered. The German Diet or Bund declared that this was equivalent to an

assertion that territory which was really subject to the authority of

the Bund, was under the exclusive Sovereign authority of Denmark. The

three non-German Great Powers declared that Denmark ought to yield to

the Duchies their constitutional rights, and laid it down that if this

were not done, the German Bund might justly force concessions from

Denmark, by Federal execution in Sleswig-Holstein. Denmark ignored the

award and threats of the Powers, and Prussia took up the cause of the

Sleswigers. In England the Prussian Government was sneered at for

menacing Denmark because she denied the Duchies the right to control

their Budgets, whilst it raised money for its own military purposes

without the consent of its own subjects.

Other than political anxieties made the spring of 1861 dismal to the

Queen. On the 12th of March she had visited her mother, the Duchess of

Kent, at Frogmore, and found her suffering great pain from the effects

of a surgical operation which had been performed to relieve an abscess

in her arm. On the 15th Her Majesty and her husband were inspecting the

Horticultural Society’s gardens at South Kensington, when they were

summoned by Sir James Clark to the bedside of the Duchess of Kent, who

began to develop feverish symptoms. When they arrived they found her

dying. “I knelt before her,” writes the Queen, “kissed her dear hand and

placed it next my cheek; but though she opened her eyes, she did not, I

think, know me.... I went out to sob,” adds Her Majesty, stricken to the

heart at finding, for the first time in her life, her mother had not

received her with a loving smile of recognition. All through the night

the Queen watched by the bedside of the dying Princess, weeping as she

thought of her childhood and its sacred memories, and of the dreadful

blank her mother’s death must make in her life. At eight in the morning

of the next day (the 16th) Prince Albert persuaded the Queen to leave

her mother’s room for a little, and rest. But she could not rest. She

insisted on returning to the sick-room, and when she went back she saw

that her mother was passing away. The heart-beats grew fainter; the eyes

slowly closed, and as the clock struck half-past nine, Prince Albert

took the Queen out of the room, and she knew all was over. For forty-one

years she had not been parted from her mother save for a few brief weeks

at a time. Now they were parted for ever on this side of the grave. “I

seemed,” she writes, “to have lived through a life, to have become old.”

The death of the Duchess of Kent plunged the Royal household in grief.

She died leaving not one dry eye behind her among those who had known

and served and loved her. The Princess Frederick William of Prussia

hurried to her mother’s side, arriving at Windsor on the 18th; and then

from every quarter, letters and messages of condolence came pouring in.

Addresses of sympathy were carried in both Houses of Parliament, and

every effort was made by Ministers to lighten the anxieties of the Queen

at a time when sorrow lay heavily on her heart. The funeral took place

on the 25th, in St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, where the body was laid

till a mausoleum at Frogmore could be built. “I and my girls,” wrote the

Queen to King Leopold on that day, “prayed at home together, and dwelt

on her happiness and peace.” On the 2nd of April the Princess Frederick

William returned to Berlin, and the Queen and her husband retired to

Osborne. The Easter recess had produced a lull in politics, and it might

have been expected that the Queen would have been permitted to mourn her

bereavement in peace. It was not so. On the 12th of April she was deeply

pained to find the _Times_ renewing its old attacks on Prince Albert,

and again accusing him of thwarting Lord Palmerston’s Italian policy in

the interests of his German relatives. For this cruel imputation there

was no warrant, save the fact that Austria persisted in holding Venetia,

which had been guaranteed to her by the pact of Villafranca, in spite of

Lord Palmerston’s recommendation that she should cede the province to

Italy.

[Illustration: MR. (AFTERWARDS VISCOUNT) CARDWELL.

(_From a Photograph by the London Stereoscopic Company._)]

On the 15th of April the Prince Consort, writing to Stockmar, says,

“Home politics have gone asleep.” Before the recess the position of the

Ministry had been easily maintained, simply because Mr. Disraeli was of

opinion that premature Tory attacks on it might heal the schism between

Palmerston and the Radicals. But the weakness of the Cabinet in the

House of Commons was illustrated in March, when Palmerston had--as we

have seen--to help the Tories to throw out Mr. Locke-King’s Bill for

reducing the county franchise to £10, in return for their support of his

resolution reversing an adverse vote on the payment of the Navy. It was

also illustrated by Mr. Dunlop’s motion for an inquiry into the

mutilation of the Afghan Blue Book in 1839. Lord Palmerston (who had

been Foreign Secretary) was accused of having created the disastrous

Afghan War, simply because he would not believe the reports of his own

agents in Afghanistan. To excuse the disasters of the campaign he had

hacked and garbled the despatches in the most unscrupulous manner, so as

to make it appear that these agents reported the very opposite of what

they actually told him. Mr. Dunlop had unearthed evidence to prove this

charge, and he proved it up to the hilt. Palmerston’s only defence was

that the mutilations complained of were quite regular, and were made in

the public interest. “The Commons,” writes Count Vitzthum, “were

extremely indignant, and nothing but Disraeli’s intervention saved the

Ministry. Lord Derby,” Count Vitzthum goes on to say, “is on the most

friendly footing with his political opponent, Lord Granville. The latter

added to a business letter a postscript, with the question, ‘When will

you turn us out?’ The Tory chief answered, ‘I am thinking day and night

how I can manage to keep you in, but it will be devilish

difficult.”[100] Mr. Disraeli had set his face against taking office

till he had a trustworthy majority in the House of Commons that would

enable him to carry out a foreign policy even in the teeth of Lord

Palmerston’s opposition. The aim of the Opposition was, therefore, to

keep Palmerston in power till this majority was obtained. It was feared,

however, that the Government might fall on their Budget, and its

production was awaited with intense interest on the 15th of April, when

Mr. Gladstone made his financial statement. Dismal predictions of a

large deficit had been promulgated. On the contrary, though the revenue

had fallen off considerably, there had been an equivalent saving in

expenditure, and on the year’s work the deficit was only £855,000 when

the accounts were balanced. Mr. Gladstone’s estimates for the current

year, however, after providing for this deficit, showed a surplus on the

basis of existing taxation of about £2,000,000; so he was able to take a

penny off the income-tax, and at last to repeal the Paper Duty, without

incurring the reproach of rashly sacrificing revenue. But to do this he

had to leave the duties on tea and sugar unaltered. To prevent the Peers

from rejecting the repeal of the Paper Duty, he tacked his scheme on to

the Bill containing all his financial proposals. The House of Lords

shrank from rejecting the whole Budget: they passed it grudgingly, after

a feeble and futile threat of opposition from the Duke of Rutland. In

the Commons a majority of 15 in a House of 577 members carried the

Budget of 1861, which is memorable as the one that abolished what was

popularly called “the taxes on knowledge.” The financial debates in the

House did not end till Mr. Gladstone had shown pretty clearly that he

thought too much money was being spent on the Army and Navy. On the

other hand, Lord John Russell took occasion, in a debate on Italian

affairs, to declare that the state of Europe rendered this expenditure

necessary. The assumption here was that events abroad might falsify Mr.

Gladstone’s estimates, which showed a surplus. In that case, as the

Paper Duty could not be re-imposed, any deficit must be met by an

increased income-tax, and it was this fear that rendered the Whigs and

the Tories alike anxious to retain the Paper Duty. But the Cabinet was

too weak to dispense with Mr. Gladstone’s services. As the price of his

allegiance to Palmerston was the repeal of the Paper Duty, and the

consequent humiliation of the House of Lords, who had threatened to

oppose its abolition, Palmerston had to submit to the Paper Duty being

repealed. Still, the Premier was not without his consolations. The

dispute with the Prussian Government over Captain Macdonald’s grievances

had not terminated, and on the 26th of April Lord Palmerston seized the

opportunity it afforded him of making a coarse and undignified attack on

Prussia because her laws, which in Macdonald’s case he admitted had not

been overstepped, were “harsh, unjust, arbitrary, and violent.” This

provoked recriminations in the Berlin Chamber, where Baron Schleinitz

foolishly mixed up Captain Macdonald’s arrest with high policy. To these

recriminations the _Times_ delivered an insulting reply, and, greatly to

the annoyance of the grief-stricken Queen, a rancorous quarrel was thus

developed about a trivial affair between the two Governments, which,

said the Prince Consort, made the “outlook most melancholy.” Mr.

Disraeli told Count Vitzthum that Palmerston’s outburst against Prussia

was delivered in order to annoy the Prince Consort rather than the

Berlin Cabinet, and if that were the fact it must be allowed that his

malignity was eminently successful. It was, in truth, so ill-concealed

at this time that Mr. Disraeli himself said he was puzzled to account

for the Prime Minister’s “grudge” against Prince Albert.[101]

On the 27th of April the Queen announced the approaching marriage of the

Princess Alice and Prince Louis of Hesse-Darmstadt, which was approved

by Parliament on the 4th of May. On the 6th the Princess was voted a

dowry of £30,000 and an annuity of £6,000 a year. During Whitsuntide the

Queen’s birthday was celebrated at Osborne quietly and without the usual

festivities, her holiday being marred not only by the nervous

prostration which affected her after her mother’s death, but by the

illness of Prince Leopold, who was smitten by a severe attack of

measles which he caught from Prince Louis of Hesse.

The death of Cavour on the 6th of June was followed by the recognition

of the kingdom of Italy by France on the 25th in response to an appeal

from Riccasoli. He knew that till this recognition was given, it would

be difficult for the Italian Government to raise the loans necessary to

construct those railways and other public works which were urgently

needed to develope the resources of the new kingdom. This recognition,

however, implied that for a time the Italian question must be shelved.

It was therefore with great satisfaction that England now saw the

triumph of her policy, though this satisfaction was allayed somewhat by

the rumour that Sardinia was to be ceded to France. Sir J. Hudson told

Baron Riccasoli that such a cession would be taken by England as a

_casus belli_, a warning which elicited from him a fervent denial that

Victor Emmanuel would ever sanction such a transaction.

[Illustration: BALMORAL CASTLE, FROM THE SOUTH-WEST.

(_From a Photograph by G. W. Wilson and Co., Aberdeen._)]

Meanwhile the Queen, still sad at heart and depressed in spirits,

struggled bravely to perform her social duties. She held two

Drawing-rooms and two Investitures before June was over. Visitors, too,

came to comfort her in her sorrow. The King of the Belgians and his son,

and the Crown Prince and Princess of Prussia and their children arrived

in midsummer. They were followed in rapid succession by others,

including some members of the Orleans family, the Archduke Maximilian,

and the Archduchess Charlotte, the Princess

[Illustration: THE ROYAL TOUR IN IRELAND: THE VISIT TO ROSS CASTLE,

KILLARNEY.]

Charles of Hesse, and the King of Sweden, who arrived in August. But it

was a year fruitful in sorrow for the Queen and her family. Mr. Sidney

Herbert had early in the year accepted a peerage, and retired to the

Upper House as Lord Herbert of Lea. In July he fell ill, and to the

great grief of the Queen, who regarded him as the future Prime Minister,

died in August. In him the Peelites lost the Bayard of their party. On

the 25th of July a great gap was made in the ranks of the Ministry in

the Lower House by the elevation of Lord John Russell to the peerage as

Earl Russell of Kingston Russell.[102] “The comments of the newspapers,”

wrote Count Vitzthum, “on Lord John Russell’s acceptance of a peerage

read like funeral sermons,” and his farewell speech to the House of

Commons, broadly hinting that England would make the cession of the

island of Sardinia to France a _casus belli_, rang like a thunderclap

through Europe. It was more effective than his farewell address to his

constituents. In this document, when reviewing the exploits of his

career, Lord Russell modestly compared himself to the Emperor Charles

V., who, having been engaged in all the great affairs of his age, and

desiring to see how the world would get on after his death, had the dark

pageant of his funeral prepared, and officiated as his own chief mourner

at the ceremony. One of the last events of the Session was a spirited

debate on the 26th of June on the demand of the Government for £200,000

for new ironclads. Palmerston, by dwelling on the growth of the French

navy, frightened Parliament into granting the money, and the Manchester

Radicals were fain to hold their peace. Mr. Disraeli, however, rather

leant to the Peace Party in this debate. He suggested that diplomacy

might effect a friendly understanding with France which would fix the

relative proportions between the two navies, but his followers, who were

bellicose, listened to him with amazement and anger. It did not occur to

them that he was already speculating on the prospect of being in office

next year, and was preparing the way for a friendly reception at the

Tuileries.

It was a tranquil Session, during which hardly one party division was

challenged in the Lower House. Though Lord John (now Earl) Russell had

virtually abandoned his Reform Bill, the artisans in some of the large

towns still kept alive the agitation for Parliamentary Reform. The

country, however, seemed apathetic on the subject. How to give the best

of the working men votes without at the same time enfranchising those

who were unworthy, seemed to most people an insoluble problem. The

American Civil War and the triumph of the Protectionists in Australia

also rendered Englishmen somewhat sceptical as to the beneficial results

of a democratic franchise. A Bankruptcy Bill was carried. It was not a

party measure, and it was the only Ministerial Bill bearing on domestic

affairs the passing of which in 1861 calls for record. When Parliament

was prorogued on the 6th of August, the only shadow on the horizon of

the future discernible by the Queen was the prospect of a cotton famine

in Lancashire. Her Majesty’s anxiety on this subject was also apparently

shared by Lord Palmerston. Writing to Mr. Milner Gibson about the matter

in June, Lord Palmerston wistfully asked if the Board of Trade or any

other department had any means of helping the country to make good the

deficiency in the cotton supply which the Civil War in America was sure

to cause. “As to our manufacturers,” he writes, “they will do nothing

unless directed and pushed on. They are some of the most helpless and

shortsighted of men. They are like the people who held out their dishes

and prayed that it might rain plum-puddings. They think it is enough to

open their mill-gates, and that cotton will come of its own accord. They

say they have for years been looking to India as a source of supply; but

their looks seem to have had only the effect of the eyes of the

rattlesnake, namely, to paralyse the object looked at, and as yet it has

shown no signs of falling into their jaws.”[103]

On the 16th of August the Crown Prince and Princess of Prussia and their

children left Osborne for Germany. Next day her Majesty, the Prince

Consort, and the Princess Alice visited the grave of the Duchess of Kent

at Frogmore, celebrating there in sorrow a birthday anniversary which

had hitherto brought joy every year to the Royal circle. They placed

wreaths on the tomb, and felt, writes the Queen to King Leopold, “that

it was only the earthly robe of her we loved so much that was there--the

pure, tender, loving spirit is above, and free from all suffering and

woe.... The first birthday in another world, must have been a far

brighter one than any birthday in the poor world below.”[104]

The time had now come when the Queen had to make preparations for a

visit to Ireland which she had planned. On the 21st of August her

Majesty, the Prince Consort, Prince Alfred--fresh from his West Indian

cruise--and the Princesses Alice and Helena, started for Holyhead, which

they reached at seven o’clock in the evening. They arrived at Kingstown

at midnight, and next morning (22nd August), accompanied by Lord

Carlisle, the Lord-Lieutenant, his Chief Secretary, Sir Robert Peel, and

Sir George Brown, Commander of the Forces in Ireland, they proceeded to

Dublin. Despite the wet and stormy weather, the populace gave their

Royal visitors a cordial reception. Next morning (23rd August) the

Prince Consort visited the Curragh Camp to see for himself how the

Prince of Wales was progressing with his military studies there, and the

Queen received a loyal address from the Lord Mayor and Corporation of

Dublin. In the afternoon the Royal party drove through the city, where

crowds cheered them loudly wherever they went, and in the evening they

met at dinner the Duke of Leinster, the Marquis and Marchioness of

Headfort, the Marquis and Marchioness of Kildare, and Lady Charlemont.

On Saturday, the 24th, the Queen herself visited the Curragh Camp, and

reviewed the troops there. As they passed the cavalry one of the bands

began to play an air which had been a favourite with the Duchess of

Kent, and repeated it on marching past. “This,” wrote the Queen in her

Diary, “entirely upset me, and the tears would have flowed freely had I

not checked them by a violent effort. But I felt sad the whole day till

I came to Bertie (the Prince of Wales), who looked so well.”[105] Then

came some field manœuvres, and a visit to “Bertie’s hut,” where the

whole party, with Sir George Brown, General Ridley, Colonels Wetherell,

Browning, and Percy--the latter of whom had the Prince of Wales under

his care--partook of a comfortable luncheon. The Queen thanked Colonel

Percy very warmly “for treating Bertie as he did like any other officer,

for,” she says in her Diary, “I know he keeps him up to his work in a

way, as General Bruce told me, no one else has done; and yet Bertie

likes him very much.” On Sunday afternoon the Queen visited the

Kilmainham Hospital, and on Monday (August 26th) celebrated her

husband’s birthday. “Alas!” she writes to King Leopold, “there is so

much so different this year--nothing festive, and we on a journey, and

separated from many of our children, and my spirits bad.”

[Illustration: THE EAGLE’S NEST, KILLARNEY.

(_After a Photograph by W. Lawrence, Dublin._)]

In the afternoon the Queen and her family left the Viceregal Lodge for

Killarney, and, recording her impressions on the road, her Majesty

dwells on the sparseness of the population, and the scarcity of villages

and towns. At Thurles she notes how the crowd shrieked rather than

cheered, how “wild and dark-looking” the people were, and how handsome

the girls seemed, despite their dishevelled hair. At Killarney the Queen

was received by Lord Castlerosse, Mr. Herbert of Muckross Abbey, the

General commanding the district, and the Mayor, who presented a loyal

address. Guarded by a strong escort of troops, her Majesty drove amidst

cheering crowds to Lord Castlerosse’s house, which was so charmingly

picturesque that she sketched it on her arrival. At dinner in the

evening she met the Roman Catholic Bishop, Dr. Moriarty--whom she

describes as “a tall, stout, and very intelligent, clever man.”--the

Knight of Kerry, and a brother of O’Connell’s, whose views her

[Illustration: KING WILLIAM OF PRUSSIA (AFTERWARDS EMPEROR OF GERMANY).]

Majesty found more to her liking than those of the Liberator. On the

27th the Queen spent most of her time on the lakes in this lovely and

romantic spot--the close, warm, humid atmosphere being the only drawback

to her delightful tour. In the evening Muckross was visited, and next

day (28th August), after driving round Muckross Lake, the Queen went on

that splendid sheet of water, and admired especially the excellent

rowing of the boatmen. Very reluctantly did the Queen bid farewell to

her kind hosts on the 29th of August, when she hastened back to her

yacht at Kingstown. At nine next morning she reached Holyhead, where she

rested, while the Prince Consort and her suite made an excursion to

Carnarvon. Leaving Holyhead in the evening, and travelling all night,

the Royal party reached Balmoral on the 30th of August.

The affairs of Germany had now drifted into such a critical condition

that the Prince Consort felt bound to explain to the King of Prussia the

views of the English Court on this subject. All over the Fatherland the

people, stirred by the success of the movement in Italy for unity, were

forming political clubs, and Prussia, to whom they looked for

leadership, was disappointing them by refusing to reform her internal

administration. Prince Albert, writing to the King of Prussia, took the

popular German view--pointing out how Austria had ever worked for the

purpose of weakening the Fatherland, and how she had once more given to

France, after her victories in Italy, a strong position on the Rhine.

“Is it an evil trait of the spirit of the people,” asks the Prince, “if

they yearn for general unity and active co-operation in what is to

decide their destiny? Do not allow yourself to be annoyed or misled if

here and there the people are guilty of stupid extravagances. They and

you are Germany’s only stay, and the power by which alone the enemy can

be held at bay. It is not a Cavour that Germany needs, but a Stein.” It

has been said that the Queen and her husband were not consistent in

their policy, because, while they showed little sympathy for the

national movement in Italy, they always encouraged the same movement in

Germany. To them it must be remembered that the former movement was an

anti-German one. They believed that if Austria lost Venetia, Galicia,

Hungary, and Poland, Germany would be crushed--because they assumed that

these nations, like the new kingdom of Italy, would be under the hostile

influence of France. The mistake which they made in the case of Italy

lay in supposing that political gratitude is stronger than the love of

national independence.

During this autumn the Prince of Wales visited Germany, ostensibly to be

present at the military manœuvres in the Rhine Provinces, but really to

make the acquaintance of the Princess Alexandra of Denmark at Speyer and

Heidelberg, where she happened to be staying, and where, according to

the Prince Consort, “the young people seem to have taken a warm liking

for each other when they first met.[106] The visit of the King of

Prussia to Compiègne somewhat disturbed the mind of the country, for it

set afloat rumours of an alliance with France, one result of which might

perhaps be a scheme for the unification of Germany, with Belgium and the

Rhine Provinces playing the part which was allotted to Nice and Savoy in

the scheme for unifying Italy. The Queen and her husband, however, knew

that the visit was purely one of ceremonial courtesy, and that no

attempt had been made to inveigle Prussia into any such conspiracy. This

information was communicated to the Cabinet, and soon all disquieting

rumours ceased.

On the 18th of October the King of Prussia was crowned at Königsberg,

and Lord Clarendon, who was present as representing the Queen,

congratulated her Majesty on the charming manner in which the Crown

Princess did homage to her father-in-law. King William I. was desirous

of conferring the Order of the Black Eagle on Lord Clarendon, but the

Queen begged him not to offer it, because it was against the traditions

of the English Foreign Office to permit a subject to accept such a

distinction.[107] Lord Clarendon mixed very freely in society at Berlin,

and was able to report to the Queen that the attacks of the _Times_ on

everything Prussian would have damaged the position of the Crown

Princess, had it not been safeguarded and secured by her own high

personal qualities. These attacks broke out afresh over the King’s

seeming assertion of the principle of Divine Right in his Address to the

Chambers, and Clarendon begged the Queen to remonstrate with Lord

Palmerston, who was supposed to influence the _Times_. Though Lord

Palmerston, in one of his letters, penned a high-spirited reply to a

Royal communication on the subject, it is a curious coincidence that the

attacks of which her Majesty complained suddenly ceased from this

moment.

On leaving Balmoral the Court proceeded to Holyrood, and on the 23rd of

October the Prince Consort laid the foundation stones of the new Post

Office and the Industrial Museum in Edinburgh. The Queen and her family

reached Windsor on the same evening, where her Majesty’s grief broke out

afresh, as it was the first time she had lived at the Castle without

finding her mother at Frogmore. As Sovereign of the Most Exalted Order

of the Star of India, the Queen held her first investiture of Knights at

Windsor Castle on the 1st of November. The difficulty which perplexed

the Indian Government in establishing this Order had been to find for it

a suitable name and an appropriate device. The suggestions of the Prince

Consort had a few months before been in the main adopted, and many

fantastic ideas had been extinguished by the cold _douche_ of his common

sense. It had been settled that the Order was to consist of the Indian

Viceroy as Grand Master, and twenty-five Knights, together with such

extraordinary Knights as the Queen might appoint. The badge was to be an

oval onyx cameo suspended from an Imperial crown in the centre of the

collar, and on the stone Her Majesty’s head was cut in high relief, the

motto being “Heaven’s Light Our Guide.” The jewel was surmounted by a

star, and set in diamonds. The ceremony of investiture was held in high

state. The Queen having previously conferred the Order on the Prince

Consort and the Prince of Wales, entered the Throne Room wearing the

sumptuous Mantle of the Order. After the usual formalities, she invested

with the Insignia, of the Order, Lord Harris, Lord Gough, Lord Clyde,

His Highness the Maharajah Duleep Singh, Sir John Lawrence, and Sir

George Pollock.

[Illustration: INDUSTRIAL MUSEUM, EDINBURGH.]

At Windsor the Prince Consort now began to make arrangements for the

approaching marriage of the Princess Alice, and the journey of Prince

Leopold, then in delicate health, to Cannes. He busied himself also with

the preparation of Marlborough House as a residence for the Prince of

Wales. On the 4th of November he inspected the works at Wellington

College. A brilliant company of guests, including the Grand Duke and

Duchess Constantine, the Duke of Cambridge, Lord Granville, Earl and

Countess Russell, Lord Sydney, and the Baron and Baroness Brunnow, were

at the Castle when the birthday of the Prince of Wales was celebrated on

the 9th. The death of Prince Ferdinand of Portugal, from typhoid fever,

together with sad memories of the late Duchess of Kent, had somewhat

darkened this family festival, and in a few days her Majesty and the

Prince Consort were still further shocked to hear that the King of

Portugal had also fallen a victim to the disease which had cut short his

brother’s life. The attachment which existed between the Prince Consort

and the Portuguese branch of the House of Coburg was close and tender,

and it is certain that the sudden death of King Pedro and his brother

weighed heavily on his heart. The Crown Princess of Prussia was

suffering from illness, brought on by the fatigues and excitement of the

coronation ceremony, and, as the last letter the Prince Consort ever

wrote to Stockmar indicates, this also preyed on his mind. To these

troubles were added certain private vexations, hinted at, but not

specified by Sir Theodore Martin. The Prince began to look ill, and his

irritability amazed his household, every member of which loved him for

his serene temper, his imperturbable good humour, and his invincible

patience. On the 12th of November the Queen

[Illustration: THE QUEEN HOLDING THE FIRST INVESTITURE OF THE ORDER OF

THE STAR OF INDIA.]

began to notice that her husband’s repeated journeys to London were

making him “low and sad.” His sleeplessness returned, and her Majesty

pressed Sir C. Phipps to lighten as much as possible the strain on his

energies. On the 22nd of November he inspected the buildings of

Sandhurst Military College amidst a downpour of rain, and it was at

first thought he here caught the illness which sent him to his grave. On

the 23rd, though complaining of _malaise_, he went out shooting with

Prince Ernest of Leiningen. On the 24th he complained of rheumatic

pains, but walked with the Queen and her family to Frogmore. Next day

(Monday) he went to Cambridge to see the Prince of Wales, who found him

“greatly out of sorts,” and when he came back to Windsor he was so ill

that he could not walk out with the Queen in the afternoon. On the 26th

he was worse; on the 28th he was still worse, and greatly grieved at the

seizure by the Americans of the Confederate Commissioners, who were

passengers in the English mail steamer _Trent_. During the next two days

the Prince still complained of illness, and when, on the 1st of

December, he drafted a memorandum--the last he ever wrote--for the Queen

on the Trent affair, he could scarcely hold his pen. Yet he had

struggled against his malady, and during the two previous days had

appeared among his guests--including the Duc de Nemours, Lord Carlisle,

and Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone--as best he could. But he ate nothing, and

when he went to bed he complained of shivering with cold. On the 2nd of

December Sir James Clark and Dr. Jenner pronounced him to be suffering

from low fever. Curiously enough, when Lord Methuen called on him to

report on the death of the King of Portugal he said he was glad his

disease was not typhoid fever, because he knew he could not survive an

attack. Lord Palmerston was a guest at the Castle on the 2nd, and when

he found that the Prince was still unable to take food or leave his room

he suggested that another physician should be called in. The Queen could

not bring herself to believe that her husband was seriously ill, and on

the 3rd her opinion was confirmed by that of Sir James Clark, for the

Prince slept better that night and so Palmerston’s suggestion was

overruled. Next day even Sir James Clark admitted there was no

improvement, and that the symptoms were discouraging. On the 4th of

December the Queen says she found the Prince “very woebegone and

wretched.” He had not slept, and his appetite had gone. He seemed to

care for nothing save that his daughter, the Princess Alice, should sit

by him and read to him. His irritability extended even to the selection

of books, and it was not till the Princess began to read Scott’s

“Talisman” to him that he was satisfied. Sir James Clark still consoled

the Queen with smooth prognostications; but Dr. Jenner told her that the

Prince must eat because he was simply starving to death. On the 5th he

began to marvel what kind of illness it could be that clung to him so

persistently, and how long it would last. Clark, however, reported that

he was somewhat better, and the Queen was again deceived by delusive

signs of improvement. He still begged the Princess Alice to read to him,

and nothing else seemed to soothe his irritability. On the 6th he rose

early and talked to the Queen about his illness. She told him it sprang

from overwork, to which he replied: “It is too much. You must speak to

the Ministers.”[108] His mind, he remarked, had begun to brood over

Rosenau and the scenes of his childhood, and when he said that the Queen

felt as if her heart were breaking. For by this time the physicians

could not conceal from themselves the gravity of the case. The Prince

was obviously suffering from typhoid fever, and Dr. Jenner broke the

news to her Majesty as softly and kindly as he could. Still, they told

her the symptoms were not bad, and she tried to think of those who had

been smitten with typhoid fever and had survived. On the 7th the Queen

worked hard--harder than ever she had worked in her life; for her

husband’s pen was no longer at her service. She herself has said that

“the tears fell fast” as she sat by his bedside watching him and

thinking of the shipwreck of their plans, “and of the painful loss this

long illness would be, publicly as well as privately.”

On the 8th the Prince felt so well that he begged to be moved into a

larger room, and as he lay in the sunshine he asked the Princess Alice

to play for him some of his favourite German chorales. Tears came to his

eyes as her fingers wandered over the keys. Suddenly he cried out, “_Das

reicht hin_”--“that is enough”--and then the music was mute. Charles

Kingsley preached that Sunday in the Chapel, but the Queen, who attended

service, says in her Diary, “I heard nothing.” In the afternoon she sat

by her husband and read “Peveril of the Peak,” he holding her hand, and

occasionally murmuring words of love and tenderness. Lord Palmerston,

himself disabled with gout, could no longer conceal his anxiety. He and

his colleagues again pressed the Queen to call in some other physician,

and Sir James Clark and Dr. Jenner accordingly sent for Sir H. Holland

and Dr. (afterwards Sir Thomas) Watson. The Prince, after seeing the

latter, spoke hopefully, and told the Queen that he was “quite the right

man”--but still they noticed as a distressing sign that his mind had an

increasing tendency to wander. On the 10th Lord Palmerston again urged

that further medical advice should be obtained, and by this time the

public were becoming alarmed at the condition of the patient. Still, ere

the evening wore away even Dr. Watson admitted that the Prince had

improved. But on the 11th the Queen, on visiting him in the morning to

give him some beef-tea, noticed how his face, “more beautiful than ever,

had grown so thin.” As she assisted him to his sofa, he stopped to look

at a picture on china of the Madonna, saying, “It helps me through half

the day.” The doctors, it seems, felt uneasy towards the evening, when

they discovered that the Prince had begun to breathe with more

difficulty. The Queen read to him during the greater part of the day,

and he manifested great reluctance to let her leave him, even when her

duty called her away for a few minutes. On the 12th the bad symptoms

increased, and Palmerston wrote three letters, in quick succession, to

Sir C. Phipps, each more distracted than the other. On the 13th Dr.

Jenner had to warn the Queen that congestion of the lungs might set in,

and she herself saw that her husband had become much weaker. But all

through the night comforting reports were brought to her, and next

morning, the 14th, Mr. Brown, the Royal apothecary, told her that Prince

Albert was over the crisis. She went straight to his bedside. “I went

in,” she writes, “and never can I forget how beautiful my darling

looked, lying there with his face lit up by the rising sun, his eyes

unusually bright, gazing as it were at unseen objects, and not taking

notice of me.”[109] Hour after hour, as she watched by the sick bed, the

Queen saw that her husband was slowly sinking. Still, in the afternoon

he knew her--for as he laid his weary head on her shoulder, he kissed

her and muttered, “_Gutes frauchen_.” Then his mind would wander, and

then he would doze in brief and troubled snatches of sleep. He took his

children by the hand when they came and kissed him, but it is doubtful

if he now knew them. Late in the afternoon he asked for Sir Charles

Phipps, who came and kissed his hand, whereupon he again closed his

eyes. So he lingered on, the Queen keeping her mournful watch with

breaking heart. At a late hour they changed his bed, and on the Queen

pointing to a favourable sign, Dr. Jenner told her that the Prince’s

breathing rendered all favourable signs of no avail. At last she went to

her room, but returned when she heard the breathing grow worse. The

Prince was partially conscious, for when she kissed him and whispered,

“_Es ist kleines Frauchen_”--“’Tis your own little wife”--he kissed her

also. But he seemed desirous of being left quite undisturbed, and so she

retired to her room to weep. The end was coming fast. Clark soon saw

that a serious change for the worse was setting in, and the Princess

Alice went to summon the Queen. When she came she found the Prince still

breathing, and she knelt at the bedside, taking his cold hand in hers.

On the opposite side knelt the Princess Alice--at the foot of the bed

the Prince of Wales and the Princess Helena. The doctors, Generals Bruce

and Grey, Sir Charles Phipps, the Dean of Windsor, Prince Ernest of

Leiningen, and the faithful valet, Löhlein, stood around hushed and

grief-stricken, and the sobs of those to whom the Prince was dearest

alone broke the stillness of the chamber of death. The dying man’s face

grew serenely soft and reposeful, as his breathing became feebler and

feebler. At last he strove hard to take a long, deep breath. In this

effort he passed away to his last, long rest, as the great clock of the

Castle struck the third quarter after the tenth hour of the night. Those

who heard the doleful chime at the Prince’s deathbed will never forget

it.

“Yet in these ears, till hearing dies,

One set slow bell will seem to toll

The passing of the sweetest soul

That ever look’d with human eyes.”

Of the grief that broke the widowed heart of the Queen it is not

becoming to speak here. The veil of silence must be drawn over a crisis

in her life too sacred, and too tragical even for her children’s eyes.

But through England a great wave of sorrow swept over the hearts of men

when they became conscious of all that the Prince Consort’s death might

imply. Political partisans whose waywardness had harassed the Prince

during his life, were not unmoved by the touching story of his last

days. Some were even ready to drop a remorseful tear over his grave,

when they remembered how eagerly they had, for base party purposes, too

often wounded the proud but gentle heart which would now beat no more.

The voice of calumny was silenced at last. The _Times_ newspaper, which

had pursued the Prince with ungenerous criticism throughout his life,

had, to quote the Queen’s own words in a memorandum which she wrote on

this painful subject, in January, 1862, “the most beautiful articles on

him when he died.” Lord Palmerston also shared in the general grief, and

his biographer says that he felt the death of the Prince Consort most

acutely, and looked upon it as an irreparable loss. Indeed, he was

almost melodramatic in his manifestations of remorse when in presence of

a member of the Royal Family. The Duke of Cambridge,

[Illustration: THE PRINCESS ALICE READING TO HER FATHER.]

for example, considered it his duty to inform Palmerston of the sad

event, and was utterly astounded at the effect the news had on him. He

told Count Vitzthum that “the Prime Minister was so affected that he had

fainted away several times in the presence of the Duke, who expected him

to have a fit of apoplexy, and still fears that his days are numbered.”

Count Vitzthum, however, adds significantly:--“He (Palmerston) recovered

again in the afternoon so far as to be able to receive Baron Brunnow,

who perceived nothing unusual about him.”[110] Mr. Hayward has stated

that the news of the Prince Consort’s death so affected Lord Palmerston

that he had a violent attack of gout.[111] According to Mr. Ashley, the

Prime Minister was suffering from gout before it was suspected that the

Prince Consort was dangerously ill; though, no doubt, Mr. Hayward

rightly accounts for Lord Palmerston’s demonstrative emotion when he

explains that he was afraid of the effect of the Prince’s death on the

Queen. But this apprehension as to the weakness of her Majesty’s nerves

must have quickly worn away, for when he visited her at Osborne, on the

29th of January, 1862, for the first time after the Prince’s death, he

not only neglected to put on mourning, but enhanced the gaiety of his

raiment by wearing green gloves and blue studs.[112]

The English people, however, had on the whole judged the Prince Consort

generously through life, and they mourned over his death with genuine

and unaffected sincerity. Never since the death of the Princess

Charlotte was the grief of the people more widespread and more real.

Friar Francis says of Hero’s supposed death--

“That what we have we prize not to the worth

Whiles we enjoy it, but being lack’d and lost,

Why, then we rack the value.”

Some such feeling as this was universal when, amidst the gloom that

tinged the skirts of the dying year with hues of sorrow, the nation

reviewed Prince Albert’s career, so full of usefulness, of

self-restraint, of high aim, of patriotic purpose, of unselfish

devotion. Very beautiful and touching, too, were the popular expressions

of sympathy which were sent to the widowed Queen, the light of whose

life had been extinguished at one fell stroke.

Till Count Vitzthum’s “Reminiscences” appeared, little that was

authentic had been published as to the personal history of the Queen

during the first days of her widowhood. “Just as the Queen had failed,”

writes Count Vitzthum, who obtained his information from the Duke of

Cambridge, “to recognise the danger till the last moment, so also she

appears not to have realised, for the first few days after all was

over, the full extent of her loss. Her composure was almost unnatural,

and it was not till her return to Osborne that she awoke to the full

consciousness of this unexpected blow. ‘Her Majesty is unnaturally

quiet,’ was the remark of an eye-witness two days after the event.” The

Duchess of Cambridge was the first member of the Royal Family who

ventured to write to the Queen. She described the answer of the Princess

Alice as “heartrending.” Her Majesty sat all day in dumb despair,

staring vacantly round her, and it was only with the utmost difficulty

that the Royal sign manual could be obtained for the most urgent

business. The wise, strong affection and the capable energy of the

Princess Alice, however, spared her Majesty from many anxieties at the

moment when her grief was keenest. Lord Granville was the first Minister

she was able to see, and she transacted some business with him a few

days after the Prince’s death. Sir Charles Phipps, too, strove hard to

lighten the burden of sovereignty for his Royal mistress in the darkest

hours of her life; but his efforts, though well meant, gave rise to

misunderstandings. “I hear,” writes Lord Malmesbury in his Diary, on the

28th of December, “that Ministers have signed a memorial to the Queen

refusing to transact business with her through Sir C. Phipps.” From a

constitutional point of view Palmerston and his colleagues were right in

taking this course. Whether it was generous, or even wise, to annoy the

Queen at such a moment with their cruelly conscientious pedantry is not

a question that admits of much argument.[113] Her Majesty was able to

hold her first Privy Council, after the Prince’s death, on the 11th of

January, the Duke of Newcastle, Lord Granville, and Sir George Grey

being in attendance. The chief point under discussion was that of

summoning Parliament.

The Duke of Newcastle, who was a valued friend of the Prince Consort,,

had a quiet conversation with her Majesty early in January, before she

left Windsor for Osborne. “His account of the Queen,” writes Mr. Hayward

in a letter to Lady Emily Peel, “is highly favourable. He said his

private interview left him with the very highest opinion of her strength

of character.”[114] After retiring to Osborne, however, nervous

exhaustion seriously impaired her strength. Lady Ely told Lord

Malmesbury that during the first weeks at Osborne her Majesty seemed

very low and wretched. “She (Lady Ely),” writes Lord Malmesbury on the

4th of February, 1862, “gives a sad report of the poor Queen, who talks

continually about the Prince, and seems to feel comfort in doing so. She

takes great pleasure in the universal feeling of sympathy for her and

sorrow for him shown by all classes.”[115] King Leopold of Belgium came

to Osborne in the end of January, and he endeavoured by his good offices

to bring about an arrangement with Lord Palmerston for facilitating the

transaction of Ministerial business with the Queen. At that time her

health was not actually bad. But the King of the Belgians said that

though she was outwardly composed she was not equal to the strain of

dining at table, even with her half-sister, the Princess Hohenlohe, and

with Prince Louis of Hesse, who were then at Osborne. She seems to have

desired no other companionship in the first weeks of her widowhood save

that of the Princess Alice.

Count Vitzthum was in Lisbon when the tidings of the Prince Consort’s

death arrived, but he returned to London very soon afterwards. He says,

“The consternation I found prevailing among all classes of the people

surpassed my utmost expectations. Mr. Disraeli spoke to me with deep and

heartfelt sorrow of the irreparable loss that England had sustained.

‘With Prince Albert,’ he said, ‘we have buried our Sovereign. This

German Prince has governed England for twenty-one years with a wisdom

and energy such as none of our kings have ever shown. He was the

permanent Private Secretary, the permanent Prime Minister of the Queen.

If he had outlived some of the ‘old stagers,’ he would have given us,

while retaining all constitutional guarantees, the blessings of absolute

government. Of us younger men who are qualified to enter the Cabinet,

there is not one who would not willingly have bowed to his experience.

We are now in the midst of a change of government. What to-morrow will

bring forth no man can tell. To-day we are sailing in the deepest gloom,

with night and darkness all around us.’” Some very curious details were

collected by Count Vitzthum relating to the Prince Consort’s illness. On

the 15th of January the Duke of Cambridge, who was then staying with his

mother at Kew, invited Count Vitzthum and Count Apponyi to dinner, and

from his conversation the former was able to glean the following

facts:--“The illness,” writes Count Vitzthum, “which snatched away the

Prince so suddenly in his forty-second year was at first nothing but a

gastric fever, as his private librarian, Mr. Ruland, had informed me by

letter on the day before I left for Lisbon. This so-called Windsor

fever, so frequently recurrent at that season in the badly-drained town,

soon, however, became typhoid. The Prince did not seem to be really ill,

though as early as the 23rd or 24th of November his mind strangely

wandered. His valet[116] felt instinctively what was necessary. ‘Living

here will kill your Royal Highness,’ he frequently repeated. ‘You must

leave Windsor and go to Germany for a time to rest and recover

strength.’ These well-meant warnings passed unheeded by the patient, who

showed the listlessness so foreign to his nature, but so characteristic

of this disease. The most serious sign was sleeplessness and a total

want of appetite. All the symptoms show that. I had the same illness

myself last year. My own experience, therefore, makes me convinced that

the sick man, from the indifference he showed for everything, especially

for the preservation of his own life, had no idea of the danger he was

in. This is the peculiarity of typhoid fever, which so completely

shatters the nervous system. It requires, after timely diagnosis,

complete rest and gentle treatment. When once the blood-poisoning has

reached a certain stage no human aid can avail.

[Illustration: CAMBRIDGE COTTAGE, KEW.]

“Above all things the Prince seems to have had no doctor attending him

who was capable of recognising the gravity of the disease in time.

Unfortunately, his physician, Dr. Bayly, had been killed in a railway

accident the year before. Sir James Clark, fifty years before a

distinguished physician of the old school, had virtually retired from

practice, and probably had but a limited knowledge of the advance made

by modern science in the treatment of typhoid diseases. As physician to

the Queen his position had been for twenty years a sinecure. Her Majesty

enjoys such excellent health that she does not know what it is to be

ill. Hence to the last moment she clung to vain hopes in regard to the

condition of her husband, which Sir James very possibly confirmed. In

consequence of the urgent representations of Ministers,[117] Dr. Watson

and Sir Henry Holland were summoned in addition to Dr. Jenner. Sir

Henry Holland is said to have been the first to have had the courage,

when it was too late, to tell the Queen the truth.

“The news of the death of King Dom Pedro, whom the Prince had loved as a

son, had deeply affected him.... As he himself confessed, he hardly

closed his eyes from the time he received the news till the fever

actually set in. The troubles with America also embittered his last

hours. He was so tired that at times he nodded off to sleep when

standing. He felt always cold, and ate scarcely anything. Already in the

autumn at Balmoral he had a presentiment of his death. So strong was

this feeling ten days before he died that he enjoined Princess Alice,

having ascertained that the Queen was not in the room, to write and tell

her sister in Berlin that their father would not recover. The next day

he asked the Princess whether she had done so, and she replied that she

had not. On the 13th, the day before his death, he got up and transacted

some business with his private secretary, Mr. Ruland. The Queen drove

out, and during the drive appeared much easier about her husband’s

condition. On her return she found him in bed, unconscious, and with the

extremities ice-cold. Now for the first time they all realised the

danger. Princess Alice, on her own responsibility, sent for the Prince

of Wales, who was then at Cambridge. Sir Charles Phipps telegraphed

during the night for the Duke of Cambridge, who left London by the first

train on the 14th, and arrived at Windsor at 8 o’clock in the morning.

The alarming symptoms had increased, and the doctors did not conceal

that the Prince had only a few hours to live. The Queen alone still

deceived herself with hopes, and telegraphed early on the 14th to

Berlin, ‘Dear Vic., Papa has had a good night’s rest, and I hope the

danger is over.’” These details are important, because they partially

explain the secret of what has been to many inexplicable--the extreme

sorrow that has clouded the Queen’s life during her long widowhood. It

has been bitter to look back on the past and see how much might have

been done that was left undone to save the life which was far dearer to

her than her own.

As to the public aspects of the Queen’s married life, Count Vitzthum was

favoured with many disclosures from the Duchess of Cambridge. “She

spoke,” writes the Count, “with tears in her eyes, of the almost

unparalleled happiness of his (the Prince Consort’s) twenty years of

married life, now brought to such a sudden end. In all that clear and

sunny sky there was only one cloud. How gladly would the Queen have

shared her crown with the husband who helped her to wear it, and was her

all in all! In vain already, in Sir Robert Peel’s time, had she

expressed her wish to bestow the title of King upon her husband. The

constitutional scruples of the deceased Tory Minister were urged still

more emphatically by Lord Palmerston when, later on, the question was

again mooted. The promotion of the Prince to the title of ‘Prince

Consort’ was the consequence of a compromise. Prince Albert was

naturalised in 1840, and obtained, in the same year, by letters patent,

precedence next to the Queen. Nevertheless, he was not a British prince,

and both at Court and the Privy Council his eldest son, on attaining his

majority, must have taken precedence of him. ‘For the Prince of Wales,’

as the Duke of Cambridge says, ‘is and remains Prince of Wales.’”

“The value which the Queen attached to her husband’s precedence is

explained by the submissive veneration she invariably showed him in

great as well as small affairs. He was complete master in his house, and

the active centre of an Empire whose power extends to every quarter of

the globe. It was a gigantic task for a young German prince to think and

act for all these millions of British subjects. All the threads were

gathered together in his hands. For twenty-one years not a single

despatch was ever sent from the Foreign Office which the Prince had not

seen, studied, and, if necessary, altered. Not a single report of any

importance from an Ambassador was allowed to be kept from him. The

Secretary of State for the Colonies, the Secretary for War, the Home

Secretary, the First Lord of the Admiralty--all handed to him every day

just as large bundles of papers as did the Foreign Office. Everything

was read, commented upon, and discussed. In addition to all this, the

Prince kept up private correspondence with foreign Sovereigns, with

British Ambassadors and Envoys, with the Governor-General of India, and

with the Governors of the various colonies. No appointment in Church and

State, in the Army or the Navy, was ever made without his approbation.

At Court not the smallest thing was done without his order. No British

Cabinet Minister has ever worked so hard during the Session of

Parliament--and that is saying a good deal--as the Prince Consort did

for twenty-one years. And the Ministers come and go; or at any rate, if

frequently and long in office, as was the case with Palmerston and

Russell, they have four or five months’ holiday every year. The Prince

had no holidays at all. He was always in harness.

“The Continental notion that Royalty in England is a sinecure was

signally refuted by the example of Prince Albert. As for the charge

sometimes alleged against him, that owing to his Liberalism he yielded

too much to the Ministers--in other words, to Parliament--it is wholly

groundless. The influence exercised on the Government by the Crown is a

power which makes itself felt, not merely in crises at home and abroad,

but continually. This influence is, however, indirect, and wears a

different garb in England to that which it assumes, for example, in

Russia and France. Prince Albert’s task was all the more difficult,

since his decision depended on unknown data, and he had to reckon with

the changing factors of a constitution the foundations of which have

been undermined for years by the rising waves of democracy. If, in spite

of all this, the Crown’s game, as Prince Metternich expressed it, has

been well played, this result is doubly creditable to the late Prince,

inasmuch as he could only direct the game--not play it himself. With

what tact and skill he did so is proved by the fact that, with the

exception of the British Ministers and a few intimate friends, no one

had any idea of the actual position of the Prince during his lifetime.

Those who knew it were pledged to keep the secret, which now for the

first time since his death has been revealed to the nation.

“As truth appears to have been the most prominent attribute of the

Prince, this necessary game of concealment must have been all the more

painful to him. The daily regard for public opinion gave rise to

misunderstandings, to overcome which required an amount of elasticity

which was bound gradually to weaken. Sparing as the deceased was of

sleep, it is difficult to understand how he found time to grapple with

the mass of business. He could never call an hour his own. The continual

receptions, notwithstanding the uniformity of an almost cloister-like

Court life, no less than the mere physical strain caused by the

continual change of residence, cut up the day into pieces and left

scarcely any time for rest and reflection. The wonder is how he found it

possible, in the midst of these occupations, to attend with labouring

conscientiousness to the cares of government; to conduct personally the

education of nine children; to prosecute his studies in all branches of

human knowledge; to astonish men with the results of these studies; and

at the same time to live, as he did, for art, himself a student, and

constant patron of music, painting, and poetry.”[118]

From these disclosures the following conclusions can now be drawn. The

Prince Consort really killed himself by overwork. The Windsor fever,

which was the proximate cause of his death, was neglected at the outset.

Even when the symptoms were recognised as serious they were

misunderstood and treated feebly by his physicians. Finally, when

competent medical advice was sought, it was sought too late.

Of the Prince Consort’s character, much that is interesting and curious

might be written. “The silent father of our kings to be” was respected

rather than appreciated during his life by the nation he served so well.

Save for the fact that he had no special aptitude for military science,

we might have traced a curious parallelism between the work he did for

England, and that which was done by William of Orange. Prince Albert’s

strength, and perhaps his weakness, really lay in his capacity for

looking at affairs from other than merely conventional British points of

view. His serene intellect had scarcely any bias traceable to prejudice

or vanity. His conclusions were always based on the application of a

finely tempered logical mind, to all the facts of a given case that

could be collected by patient and unceasing industry. A natural love of

justice and truth informed his convictions. Instinctive

[Illustration: THE PRINCESS ALICE.

(_From the Photograph by Mayall._)]

sagacity and wise tolerance characterised his judgments. The good

sense--which, according to Sainte-Beuve, gave form and substance to the

ideas of Louis XIV.--never deserted Prince Albert in any crisis of his

life. His policy was seldom at fault, because its sole aim was to

conserve national as distinguished from dynastic interests. If he erred

during the Crimean War he erred with some of the wisest men of his time.

If he undervalued the promise and potency of the great movement which

led to Italian independence, his mistake was excusable. It was wrapt up

in the tortuous policy of Napoleon III. and Cavour, which was hateful to

him just because it was tortuous, and, moreover, he dreaded any movement

on the Continent which, by letting loose the ungovernable ambition of

the Bonapartist dynasty and giving free play to the aggressive

instincts of France, might again convert Belgium and Germany into “the

cockpit of Europe.” Arnold has said of Sophocles, “He saw life steadily

and saw it whole.” The Prince Consort was almost alone among his

contemporaries by reason of his capacity to see organised society

steadily and to see it whole. He was an omnivorous, desultory reader,

and his education was fortunately neither academical nor technical,

neither exclusively literary nor exclusively scientific. His thirst for

knowledge was unquenchable, and it was gratified under the guidance of a

singularly correct taste. He was constantly corresponding with all sorts

of interesting people, in all ranks of life, who happened to know

anything that was worth knowing. Every business, or pursuit, or calling,

that made men useful to each other, or added comfort, grace, beauty, and

dignity to existence, had an irresistible fascination for him. A clever

critic has said of Edmund Burke what might well be said of Prince

Albert, whose mind, though less imaginative was more reflective.

“Burke’s imagination,” writes Mr. Augustine Birrell, “led him to look

out over the whole land: the legislator devising new laws; the judge

expounding and enforcing old ones; the merchant despatching his goods

and extending his credit; the banker advancing the money of his

customers upon the credit of the merchant; the frugal man slowly

accumulating the store which is to support him in old age; the ancient

institutions of Church and University, with their seemly provisions for

sound learning and pure religion; the parson in his pulpit; the poet

pondering his rhymes; the farmer eyeing his crops; the painter covering

his canvases; the player educating the feelings.”[119] Similarly, when

Prince Albert thought of England or her interests, her aims, and her

mission in the world, it was not the England of St. James’s or St.

Giles’s, of Piccadilly or the slums, or of any special class or order,

that presented itself to his mind. It was the England which the eye of

the historian will see--the England which has been built up and is

maintained by the toil, the self-sacrifice, the enterprise, the

leadership, and the genius of all who in their several stations work for

her with brain and hand. To give these workers peace and security--that

was to the Prince Consort the fundamental problem of statecraft, and the

only true touchstone of policies. His finger was always on the pulse of

the nation, and to every change in its feverish throbbing he was as

sensitive as a physician. His “catholicity of gaze” has done for his

writings and his speeches, what originality of thought and brilliancy of

style have done for those of other men. It has enabled them to stand the

test of time. If he failed to win unbounded popularity during his

lifetime, it was because, as the French say, he had the defects of his

qualities. His lot was not with the idlers of the earth, and he had

little in common either with an aristocracy of pleasure or a democracy

of noisy but futile activities. “Society,” says Dr. Martineau, “has

reason for dismay where there is an ever-widening chasm between the two

summit levels of thought and character.” The Prince Consort’s public

life seemed as if it were planned in order to bridge this chasm. As for

his private life, it is perhaps enough to say that the veneration and

love with which his family, his friends, and his servants regarded him

sufficiently attest its unblemished worth. Of the calumnies that pursued

him almost to the verge of the grave, there is little to add to what has

been already stated in preceding chapters. They never touched his honour

as a gentleman, or his conduct as the head of an illustrious family. All

the attacks which were directed against him were ostensibly directed

against his supposed interference with affairs of State--in the

interests of foreign despots. These attacks were, however, made by the

Iagos of politics, from mixed motives of malignity and self-interest. As

the late Mr. Albany Fonblanque once remarked, they came from those who

had distinguished themselves by their unfailing championship of every

form of despotism, and by their inveterate hatred of liberty “in every

province of politics, and in every part of the world.”[120] Calumny from

such quarters never needed any explanation, and the Prince met it, not

with a defence, but with disdain.

It was on the 23rd of December that the Prince Consort’s remains were

removed from Windsor Castle, and temporarily deposited in the entrance

to the Royal Vault in St. George’s Chapel, where they were to lie until

the completion and consecration of a mausoleum for their reception.

Shortly before noon the gloomy pageant began to file through the gate of

the Norman Tower. It was headed by mourning coaches, containing four of

the Prince’s old servants, followed by an array of coaches with

officials of his suite and household. One of the Queen’s carriages

preceded the hearse. In it was Lord Spencer, who, as the Prince’s Groom

of the Stole, carried his “crown.” His _bâton_, sword, and hat were

borne by Lieut.-Colonel Lord George Lennox, the Prince’s Lord of the

Bedchamber. The hearse, decorated in quiet, good taste with the Prince’s

escutcheons, was escorted by the Second Life Guards, followed by the

Queen’s carriage, the carriages of the Prince of Wales, the Duke of

Cambridge, and the Duchess of Cambridge. The line of route was kept by

the Second Life Guards and Scots Fusiliers with arms reversed. Long ere

the procession reached St. George’s Chapel, the choir was filled by

those who were invited to the ceremony, but not to join in procession,

and the Knights of the Garter were in their stalls. The Royal Family met

in the chapter-room at noon, from which, when the funeral procession was

re-formed, on the arrival of the corpse at the South Park, they were

conducted to their places by the Lord Chamberlain. As before, the

servants and dependents of the Prince headed the procession. They were

followed by servants and officers of the Royal household, in order of

rank, the _bâton_, sword, hat, and crown

[Illustration: ST. GEORGE’S CHAPEL, WINDSOR, SHOWING THE ROYAL GALLERY

AND ALTAR.]

of the Prince being carried immediately before the coffin, which was

preceded by Lord Sydney, her Majesty’s Lord Chamberlain. The

pall-bearers were Sir Charles Phipps, General Grey, General Wylde,

Colonel Francis Seymour, Lord Waterpark, Colonel Hood, Lieut.-Colonel

Dudley de Ros, and Major du Plat, who were respectively Treasurer,

Private Secretary, Groom of the Bedchamber, Lord of the Bedchamber,

Clerk Marshal, and equerries to his Royal Highness. Immediately after

the coffin came Garter King-at-Arms, followed by the Prince of Wales as

chief mourner, who was supported by Prince Arthur, the Duke of

Saxe-Coburg-and-Gotha, and attended by General Bruce, the Crown Prince

of Prussia, the Duke of Brabant, the Count de Flandres, the Duke de

Nemours, Prince Louis of Hesse, Prince Edward of Saxe-Weimar, the Count

Gleichen, and the Maharajah Dhuleep Singh. They were followed by their

suites. On arriving within the choir, the Prince’s crown, _bâton_,

sword, and hat were reverently laid on the coffin, at the head of which

stood the Prince of Wales, with Prince Arthur and the Duke of

Saxe-Coburg-and-Gotha on either side of him. The other illustrious

mourners formed a group behind them. At the foot of the coffin the Lord

Chamberlain stood, and the pall-bearers stood on each side of it. When

the first part of the

[Illustration: FUNERAL OF THE PRINCE CONSORT: PROCESSION IN THE NAVE OF

ST. GEORGE’S CHAPEL.]

service was over, the coffin was lowered into the vault. The Dean of

Windsor having concluded the ritual, Garter-King-at-Arms proclaimed the

style and titles of the Prince, and then the mourners left the chapel,

while the “Dead March” in _Saul_ was played on the organ. Lord

Palmerston’s absence was accounted for by an attack of gout, which had

been aggravated by his grief for the Prince’s death. Severe illness

confined the Duke of Cambridge to his room. The absence of Dr. Jenner,

which was remarked, was due to a melancholy cause. He was detained at

Osborne in constant attendance on the grief-stricken Queen. For during

the first agony of grief that followed the death of the Prince Consort

serious fears were entertained lest the Queen should herself fall ill

and die. “How you suffered,” wrote the Princess Alice to her mother many

long years afterwards, “was dreadful to witness. Never shall I forget

what I went through for you then; it tore my heart in pieces.”[121]

Although the Princess took on herself the management of the household,

and both verbally and by writing strove to transact her mother’s

business, it was obvious that something must be done to rouse her

Majesty from the lethargy of sorrow. King Leopold accordingly insisted

on an immediate change of surroundings, and decided that she must be

taken to Osborne. For a time the Queen resisted this decision. Even the

Princess Alice remonstrated with Sir Charles Phipps against a step which

seemed to her to be cruel. But she yielded at last to King Leopold’s

wishes, and it was indeed through her influence that the Queen was

finally induced to quit Windsor before her husband’s remains were laid

in the grave.[122] “What a blow this has been,” wrote Bishop Wilberforce

to the Hon. Arthur Gordon when describing the scene at St. George’s

Chapel; “all my old affection for him (the Prince Consort) has revived

over his tomb--and for our poor Queen.... The funeral was most deeply

affecting; you saw old dry political eyes, which seemed as if they had

long forgotten how to weep, gradually melting and running down in large

drops of sympathy. The two Princes and the brother (the Duke of

Saxe-Coburg-and-Gotha) and the son-in-law intended (Prince Louis of

Hesse) were all deeply moved.”[123]