A STOP-GAP ADMINISTRATION.
End of the Era of Compromise--Dawn of the new Epoch of
Reform--Opening of Parliament by the Queen--The Queen’s Nervous
Prostration at Osborne--Introduction of the Reform Bill--Hostility
of the House of Commons--Dissentient Liberals in “the Cave of
Adullam”--Defeat of the Reform Bill--Resignation of the
Ministry--Lord Derby forms a Cabinet--His attempted Coalition with
the Whig Dukes--Domestic Policy during the Session--The House of
Commons and the Rinderpest--Another Prosperity Budget--Large
Remissions of Taxation--Coercing Ireland--The White Terror in
Jamaica--Marriage of the Princess Helena--The Financial
Embarrassment of the Princess Louis of Hesse--The Queen Intercedes
with Prussia on behalf of Hesse-Darmstadt--The Queen’s Gift to Mr.
Peabody--The Queen’s Visit to Aldershot--The Foundation of the
Albert Medal--Marriage of the Princess Mary of Cambridge--The
Queen’s first Telegram to the President of the United States--The
Queen’s Visit to Aberdeen and Wolverhampton.
The year 1866 will be memorable as the beginning of the new epoch of
strife, controversy, and political activity which followed the death of
Palmerston. The spell of compromise by which he had paralysed the life
of England was broken, and Mr. Gladstone’s appointment as leader of the
House of Commons filled the working classes with the brightest hopes. It
was known that he was in favour of such an extension of the franchise as
would partially redress
[Illustration: MR. JOHN STUART MILL.]
the wrong done by the Reform Bill of 1832, which deprived Labour of the
political power it enjoyed under the unreformed Parliamentary system. As
one of their representative men has said, “those ameliorations of the
laws for which they [the working classes] had looked in vain during so
many years of Whig rule, when electoral reform was said to be deferred
in favour of legal reforms that were only talked about, had to be
preceded by the enfranchisement of the class whose welfare required
them; and Mr. Gladstone, on his part, was conscious that he could not
carry the important measures which he contemplated without first
strengthening his hands by a considerable extension of the franchise and
redistribution of seats.”[240] Moreover, the civil and military triumph
of the United States, marked by moderation in the hour of victory, and
invincible valour in the press of battle, gave an irresistible impulse
to Democracy in England. But the Party of Reform were well aware that a
fierce struggle lay before them. In 1831-32 the House of Lords was the
enemy that had to be faced. In 1866 the House of Commons was quite as
hostile as the House of Lords, to changes that might affect the power,
privileges, and ease of the comfortable classes. Would the Government
bring in a feeble Reform Bill which could be accepted by the Commons? In
that case the country might look forward to another decade of
stagnation. Would the measure be large and comprehensive? In that case
the opposition of the Commons could be met only by a dissolution. But
supposing, as was not unlikely, that under a £10 franchise a
freshly-elected House proved as hostile to Reform as the old one, what
was to be done? Its opposition could not, like that of the Crown, be
overcome by a refusal of supplies, or like that of the Peers, by the
creation of new members. For such a state of affairs the only possible
remedy might be--Revolution. Such were the speculations and the
forebodings with which thoughtful men greeted the New Year of 1866.
Parliament met on the 1st of February, and Mr. Denison was elected
Speaker. It was known that Lord Russell was anxious to strengthen his
Ministry by giving Mr. Bright a seat in the Cabinet, but his colleagues
objected to this step, and the omen was not auspicious for the Party of
Reform. Writing on the 6th of February in his Diary, Lord Malmesbury
says, “the Queen opened Parliament to-day. She came in a State coach
with her eight cream-coloured horses, but entered by the Peers’
entrance. She was well received, but did not wear her robes, which were
placed on the Throne, and did not read the Speech, which was read by the
Lord Chancellor.”[241] It was the first State ceremony at which the
Queen had assisted since the death of her husband, and the scene in the
Upper House was unusually brilliant. The bright dresses of the
Peeresses, the mass of gorgeous colour on the floor of the House, where
the Peers wore their robes, the flashing lights from glittering orders
and uniforms worn by the splendid company of foreign diplomatists,
afforded a spectacle that gladdened the artistic eye. It was marred only
by the wild and disorderly scramble of the members of the House of
Commons for places. They trooped into the Royal presence like a band of
disorderly roughs let loose from Donnybrook Fair. The Speaker was
hustled aside and jammed against the edge of the Bar as he vainly
attempted to make his obeisance to the Queen. The leading members of the
Government vanished in the struggle, though Sir Charles Wood was
ultimately discovered in an attitude of agony almost impaled on the
sharp carving of an oaken lion rampant. As for the sword of the
Sergeant-at-Arms, it got entangled with everybody’s legs, including his
own.
The reaction which followed the excitement of the ceremony had caused
much nervous depression, and the Queen was accordingly recommended to
seek repose at Osborne. “I am happy to think,” writes the Princess Louis
of Hesse to her mother, in a letter referring to the event, “that you
are quiet at Osborne after all you had gone through. The emotion and all
other feelings recalled by such an event must have been very powerful
and have tried you much. It was noble of you, my darling mama, and the
great effort will bring compensation. Think of the pride and pleasure it
would have given darling papa--the brave example to others not to shrink
from their duty; and it has shown that you felt the intense sympathy
which the English people evinced and still evince in your misfortune.”
It was soon apparent that the question of Reform would exhaust the
energies of the Legislature, and on the 12th of March Mr. Gladstone
introduced what came to be known as the Russell-Gladstone Reform Bill.
It proposed to reduce the County Franchise from £50 rental to £14, and
the Borough Franchise from £10 to £7. It also gave votes to lodgers and
£50 depositors in savings banks. The rate-paying clauses of the Reform
Act were abolished. The Bill, it was estimated, would admit to the
franchise 172,000 new voters in counties, 204,000 in towns, and 24,000
under the Lodger and Savings Banks qualifications, i.e., 400,000 in all.
Of these, one-half belonged to the working classes properly so-called.
The House of Commons was not in a pleasant humour for dealing with
Reform. The timid classes were alarmed by a speech which Mr. Gladstone
delivered during Easter at Liverpool, in which he declared that “the
Government had crossed the Rubicon, broken the bridge, and burned their
boats behind them.” This, it was vowed, meant that he for one was
prepared to roll the Constitution down the inclined plane of Democracy.
The country gentlemen were angry, because they thought the Government
had compensated them shabbily for the losses they suffered from the
Cattle Plague. The plutocracy were in low spirits, because in spring a
great financial collapse had smitten the City. Some country banks had
failed. The greater part of the stock of the London, Chatham, and Dover
Railway was offered in the market for “a mere song.” On the 10th of May
the bank of Messrs. Overend and Gurney stopped payment, with liabilities
amounting to £19,000,000. On the 11th the City was in a frenzy of
despair, and Government had to authorise the Bank of England to issue
notes beyond the legal limit. Other financial institutions perished, and
the blight of bankruptcy fell on the land. English credit on the
Continent was so low that the Foreign Office issued a circular
explaining to foreigners the distinction drawn in England between
insolvency and lack of money. Employers of labour, again, were irritated
against the working classes now claiming the franchise, for Trades
Unions were growing more aggressive and turbulent every day. The Fenian
disturbances in Ireland also gave rise to much uneasiness. The uncertain
condition of the Continent led people to urge that, instead of wasting
time in debating Reform, Parliament ought to make the defensive system
of the Empire effective. Above and beyond all things, it was felt that a
Reform Bill involved a dissolution, and to Members of the House of
Commons who had just spent large sums of money in getting elected, this
was a sufficient temptation to oppose Reform. If we consider the natural
effect of all these different motives and feelings on a House of Commons
elected to support Lord Palmerston’s colourless domestic policy, we can
easily understand why the Russell-Gladstone Bill fared badly. It was
opposed by the Tories and by nominal Liberals like Lord Elcho, Mr. Lowe,
Lord Grosvenor, Mr. Horsman, and Mr. Bouverie. It was finally defeated
in Committee by Lord Dunkellin, who carried a motion substituting a
rating for a rental qualification, the effect of which would have been
to limit the franchise to £9 instead of £7 householders in towns, and to
£16 instead of £14 householders in counties. The Radicals, however, did
not regard the defeat of the measure with much grief, though they had
loyally supported Mr. Gladstone. Their hearts were in truth set on
obtaining a much lower qualification than the Bill offered. Independent
critics again, who had no sympathy with the savage diatribes against the
working classes which the Tories and the Liberal seceders poured forth
day after day, also considered that the Bill had one serious defect. It
did not put the franchise on a basis solid enough to be permanent. To
fix it at £7 to-day was only to start an agitation to-morrow to reduce
it to £3, or to nothing at all. Far better, it was argued, return to the
old Radical programme of Household Suffrage, which, at all events,
possessed the elements of finality. In fact, early in June Ministers saw
that the Bill was doomed, and an intrigue was set on foot between the
Cabinet and the “Adullamites”[242] for the purpose of withdrawing the
Bill, on condition that the Liberal seceders would steadily support the
Ministers on all other questions. After their defeat on the 18th of
June, the Cabinet resigned, and although the Queen was somewhat opposed
to this step, she waived her objections to it.
According to Lord Malmesbury, the Government first of all thought of
dissolving Parliament, but abandoned this idea, fearing they would lose
by it. Lord Malmesbury also says that “the Queen being on a visit to
Osborne for ten days, refused to shorten her stay, and the country
remained for a month with the Government in abeyance. At last her
Majesty returned, and appointed Lord Derby Prime Minister. He tried to
form a coalition with some Whig Dukes, and invited Lord Clarendon and
the Duke of Somerset to join him. They refused. He then did the same by
the Adullamites, most of whom also declined. Young Lord Lansdowne, who
at their head had promised to support him, died suddenly, and this
accident increased his
[Illustration: PRINCE CHRISTIAN.
(_From a Photograph by W. and D. Downey._)]
difficulties. Encouraged by a meeting of twenty-three leading
Conservatives, held at his house, Lord Derby formed the following
Cabinet:--Lord Chancellor, Lord Chelmsford; President of the Council,
Duke of Buckingham; Privy Seal, Lord Malmesbury; Secretary for Home
Affairs, Mr. Walpole; Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Lord Stanley;[243]
Secretary for War, General Peel; Secretary for Colonies, Lord Carnarvon;
Secretary for India, Lord Cranborne; Poor Law Board, Mr. Hardy; Board of
Trade, Sir S. Northcote; Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Disraeli;
Secretary for Ireland, Lord Naas; Board of Works, Lord John Manners;
Admiralty, Sir John Pakington.”[244] Lord Derby himself personally
objected to take office because he could not feel confident of
commanding a majority. Some of his friends, like the Marquis of Bath,
were indeed angry that he had consented to serve again as Premier
without definite pledges of support from the Whigs, whose hostility to
Reform had shattered the last Cabinet.
Up to the time when the change of Ministry took place very little
business had been done. A Bill dealing with the cattle plague had been
introduced by the Home Secretary. It empowered local authorities to kill
infected herds and stop all movement of cattle and all fairs in infected
areas. For cattle thus sacrificed the owners were to receive from local
authorities compensation to the extent of two-thirds of the value, but
in no case was this to exceed £20 a head. The money was to be raised,
one-third by a rate on the counties, one-third by a rate on the towns,
and one-third by the cattle trade itself. The Radical Party admitted the
principle of compensation. But Mr. J. S. Mill contended that if the
infected animal was shown not to be worth two-thirds of what it would
fetch in the market if healthy, the compensation given by the Government
was excessive. The Bill, he also complained, compensated the landed
interest for a loss some share of which the rest of the community, who
were not indemnified, bore in the form of enhanced prices. Then, as the
rate was to be purely local, those who suffered least would pay least,
whereas the burden of recompense would fall heaviest on districts which
suffered most. There could be no doubt that his proposal for a general
rate on the land instead of a local rate was just. Mr. Gladstone,
impressed by these arguments, agreed to limit the compensation to
one-half instead of two-thirds of the value of the slaughtered animals,
and the compromise was grudgingly accepted.
Mr. Gladstone introduced his Budget on the 3rd of May. The income, he
said, had been £67,812,000 and the expenditure £66,474,000, leaving a
surplus of £1,338,000. His estimated loss from remission of taxes had
been very slightly below the actual loss, except in the case of Income
Tax, for the wealth of the nation was now accumulating so rapidly, that
a penny Income Tax, instead of producing £1,000,000, as had always been
the calculation, produced £1,400,000. For the coming year Mr. Gladstone
estimated, on the existing basis of taxation, a revenue of £67,575,000.
His probable expenditure, from an increase of £78,000 in Estimates, he
set down at £66,225,000, so that he had an estimated surplus of
£1,350,000 to dispose of. He therefore repealed the timber duties,
equalised the duties on wines in bottle and in wood, abolished the duty
on pepper, and made a considerable reduction in the tax on carriages. He
calculated that there would be a loss of £502,000 on the conversion of
debt, so that he would, with these changes in taxation, be left with a
surplus of £286,000. The financial debates simply ratified Mr.
Gladstone’s schemes; but they were rendered memorable by Mr. J. S.
Mill’s celebrated speech urging on the House the necessity of reducing
the National Debt as a matter of duty to posterity. One of his chief
arguments was based on the thesis of Mr. Stanley Jevons that succeeding
generations must, at the existing rate of consumption, face a failure in
the coal supply of the country owing to the exhaustion of its
mines.[245]
Early in the year the Government obtained the consent of Parliament to
suspend the Habeas Corpus Act in Ireland, in order to enable the
Executive to deal with the Fenian conspiracy. Mr. Mill, however, though
he supported the Ministry, very pertinently observed that, after it got
fresh powers, it must not go asleep, as it had done for eighteen years,
over Irish grievances. The Bill was passed on the 17th of February. The
next step was to obtain the Queen’s assent immediately. As her Majesty
was at Osborne, this took time, and the Irish Executive could not brook
delay. As soon as the House of Lords had read the Bill a third time, a
telegram was sent to Earl Granville, who was at Osborne, announcing the
result, upon the receipt of which the Queen instantly signed the
document authorising the Commissioners to give her assent to the
measure. In order to allow time for bringing her authorisation to
London, the sitting of the House of Lords was suspended until 11 o’clock
p.m., when it was calculated that the special train with the Queen’s
messenger would arrive in London. Time, however, rolled on, but no
messenger appeared. The hour of midnight struck. Then the clock chimed
the half-hour after twelve, when there entered a clerk bearing a
despatch-box, which the Chancellor nervously opened and from which he
took out the long-expected document. The House of Commons having been
summoned, and about fifty members answering the call, at twenty minutes
to one o’clock on the Sunday morning the Queen’s sanction was
proclaimed, and the Bill became law. Probably no statute was ever passed
with so much celerity as this Irish Coercion Bill--the first Act of the
new Parliament. The powers of the Act had indeed been put into operation
in anticipation of its passing, and on the 16th of February a large
number of arrests were made in Dublin and its vicinity. The mischief
done by the alarms of this period was, however, irretrievable, but, with
the cessation of active movements on the part of the Fenians, a feeling
of contempt for the conspiracy took the place of panic. For a few
months, therefore, the country appeared to subside into its usual
tranquillity.
On the 21st of March the Commissioners who had been investigating the
negro outbreak in Jamaica finished their inquiry. The feeling in London
was as violently in favour of repressive measures against the negroes,
as it had been in favour of the Southerners during the American Civil
War, and against the German Powers during the war in Sleswig-Holstein.
It was therefore with some chagrin that the Party of Panic discovered
that the Commissioners extenuated the action of the negroes. There had
been a planned resistance to the Queen’s authority in Jamaica; but the
chief cause was
[Illustration: MARRIAGE OF THE PRINCESS HELENA. (_See p. 262._)]
not merely the desire for free land, but the want of confidence of the
black population in the tribunals before which cases affecting their
interests were tried. It was shown that, if the insurgents had been
temporarily successful, the suppression of the rebellion would have been
attended with greater loss of life and property than had been recorded.
Hence praise was awarded to Governor Eyre for the vigour and promptitude
with which he put down the rising. But, on the other hand, the
Commissioners strongly condemned the Authorities for continuing martial
law longer than was desirable, for inflicting excessive punishments, for
awarding the death penalty far oftener than was necessary, for
sentencing people to be flogged with reckless barbarity, and for burning
1,000 houses in a wanton and cruel manner. This Report, on the whole,
justified the first suspicions of calm-minded men at home. The Governor
had very skilfully put down the rising before it grew from a riot to a
revolution. Then, carried away by “the White Terror” which Lord Canning
had so coolly withstood at Calcutta during the Indian Mutiny, he had let
the colonial authorities violate the common law, and revel in judicial
murders and other hideous barbarities which are inevitable, though
regrettable, incidents in the suppression of all servile revolts.
[Illustration: PRINCESS CHRISTIAN.
(_From a Photograph by W. and D. Downey._)]
The approaching marriage of the Princess Helena with Prince Christian of
Sleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg, which had been announced in the Queen’s
Speech, gave occasion to messages from the Crown to the two Houses of
Parliament, asking them to make provision for the Princess, and also for
Prince Alfred on his coming of age. Mr. Gladstone, in introducing the
subject to the House of Commons, observed that with respect to the
Princess Helena, “her position was a peculiar one, as she was the eldest
unmarried Princess of the Royal Family when the most crushing calamity
that could befall humanity descended upon her Majesty, and that during
that trial all the prominent qualities of the Princess’s character, her
strength, her wisdom, and her tenderness were put to the test.” Ignoring
to some extent the devotion of the Princess Alice, Mr. Gladstone added
that the Princess Helena “was then, and had been since, the stay and
solace of her illustrious mother.” He therefore proposed to vote her an
annuity of £6,000 a year, in addition to a dowry of £30,000. To Prince
Alfred he proposed to grant an annuity of £15,000 a year. Mr. Disraeli
said that the claim now made only elicited a fresh outflow of sympathy
and affection from a devoted people, and the proposals were at once
agreed to. The marriage of the Princess was solemnised in the chapel
within Windsor Castle, on the 5th of July. A very lengthy procession
entered the church as Handel’s March from _Scipio_ was played. The Queen
wore a rich black _moiré-antique_ dress, interwoven with silver and
trimmed with black crape, and a row of diamonds round the body. A
coronet of diamonds, attached to a long white crape veil, a diamond
necklace and cross, and a brooch composed of a large sapphire set in
diamonds, the riband and star of the Order of the Garter, and the
Victoria and Albert Order completed her adornment. The bride, who wore a
rich dress of white satin, on arriving at the chapel took her place on
the left side of the altar, while the Queen was conducted to the seat
prepared for her near the bride. The Archbishop of Canterbury performed
the service, the bride being given away by the Queen. The Prince and
Princess left for Osborne after the ceremony.
The Queen appreciated the generous devotion of the House of Commons in
so willingly voting a substantial provision for the Princess Helena, all
the more that early in the year the financial embarrassments of the
Princess Louis of Hesse had caused her sore anxiety. Although the
Princess was an excellent house-manager, it was discovered that the
handsome income and dowry which had been granted to her by the House of
Commons, did not suffice for the wants of her husband’s establishment.
Her gentle, uncomplaining nature, ever mindful of the feelings of
others, had led her to conceal her difficulties from the Queen, who,
however, made the painful discovery soon after suggesting some plans for
her daughter’s benefit. These unfortunately could not be entertained.
_Pauperis est numerare pecus_, and the Princess Louis had therefore to
explain her circumstances to her mother. Writing from Darmstadt on the
18th of March she says, “Your idea of Friedrichroda for us was so good,
but, alas! now even that will be impracticable, on account of money.
Louis has had to take up money again at Coutts’s to pay for the house,
and the house is surety. We must live _so_ economically--not going
_anywhere_, or seeing many people, so as to be able to spare as much a
year as we can. England cost us a great deal, as the visit was short
last time. We have sold four carriage horses, and have only six to drive
with now, two of which the ladies constantly want for theatre, visits,
etc., so we are rather badly off in some things. But I should not bore
you with our troubles, which are easy to bear.”[246] The Queen’s nice
tact and quick sympathy were shown in not directly noting these matters.
But when the Princess’s birthday came round, her Majesty did not forget
her daughter’s impecuniosity. Writing to the Queen on the 25th of April
the Princess Louis says, “A thousand thanks for your dear lines, _and
the money_, and charming bas-relief of you, which I think very good. I
thought so much of former birthdays at home in Buckingham Palace. They
were so happy.... The money will go to Louis’ man of business, towards
paying off the furniture, and is indeed very acceptable, more so under
present circumstances than anything else you could give us; and that
part of the furniture,” adds the poor Princess, with the pride of one
who seeks to reconcile herself to accept a birthday gift in the form of
a cheque, “will then all be your present.”[247] In another letter she
endeavours to reassure the Queen as to her embarrassments by speaking
brightly and cheerily of them. “I have made all the summer walking-out
dresses,” she writes--“seven in number, with paletôts for the girls--not
embroidered, but entirely made from beginning to end: likewise the new
necessary flannel shawls for the expected. I manage all the nursery
accounts, and everything myself, which gives me plenty to do, as
everything increases, and on account of the house, we must live very
economically for these next years.” The Princess, as will be seen, was
looking for an early addition to her family, and the Queen felt that her
health was imperilled by the fresh anxiety and the increasing household
drudgery which her straitened circumstances added to the burden of her
social and public duties. Her Majesty, therefore, with characteristic
generosity, herself made arrangements for her daughter’s _accouchement_,
which relieved her of some of her worry. “It is so kind of you,” writes
the Princess, gratefully, to the Queen, “to give Dr. Priestly his fee,
otherwise I would have scruples in giving so large a sum for my own
comfort.” How welcome her mother’s assistance was to the Princess may be
gathered from another passage in one of her letters to the Queen, in
which she says, “The man who built our house has nearly been made
bankrupt, and wants money from us to save him from ruin, and we can
scarcely manage it.”[248] Again the same sad subject crops up some nine
months after the birth of her daughter, which took place during the
Austro-Prussian War. The accumulated anxieties of that dreadful time had
told on the health of the Princess. The Queen had taken charge of the
little ones in the Darmstadt household, and thus freed the Princess from
much care. Hence in autumn we find her rejoicing that the slight change
to Nierstein, Gelbes Haus, has done her good, and adding, “If later,
through your [the Queen’s] kindness, a little journey should be possible
to us, it would be very beneficial to us.” But in a few days she soon
fell ill again, and on the 29th of August she writes to the Queen
saying, “Mountain air Weber wants me to have, and quite away from all
bother; but I fear that is impossible _now_, on account of Louis not
being able to leave--and, then, financially. I have some _heimweh_
[home-sickness] after dear old England, Balmoral, and all at home, I
own, though the joy of being near dear Louis again is so great. But life
is meant for work and not for pleasure, and I learn more and more to be
grateful and content with that which the Almighty sends me, and to find
the sunshine in spite of the clouds.” Nor was the Queen’s generosity
limited to her daughter. She treated the Prince Louis at this time with
great tenderness and sympathy. In one letter from the Princess to the
Queen we find her saying, “We are so pleased at your saying that you
claim Louis as _your_ son. He always considers _himself_ in particular
your child, and if anything helps to stimulate him in doing his duty
well, it is the sincere wish of being worthy to claim and deserve that
title.” And the Queen’s kindness was not confined to words. She gave him
(Prince Louis) the charger that he rode during the war, and helped him
in many ways. “That you sent Louis,” writes the Princess to her on the
16th of September, “besides the pretty souvenir, the money for something
in the house, is really so kind. Our whole dining-room we consider your
present, and it is furnished as like an English one as possible.”
Lastly, when the war ended in the triumph of Prussia, and the Princess
thought that she and her husband, to use her own phrase, would be made
“beggars,” the Queen employed her potent influence at the Court of
Berlin to procure favourable terms for Hesse-Darmstadt in the peace that
followed. But for the Queen, the Grand Duchy would have been blotted out
of the map of Germany as a sovereign State.[249] “We are so grateful,”
says the Princess in one of her letters at this anxious moment in her
husband’s life, “for your having written to good Fritz [the Crown Prince
of Prussia]. What he _can_ do I know he will.”
The eminent American merchant, Mr. Peabody, having added to his splendid
gift of the preceding year for the improvements of the dwellings of the
poor of London another munificent donation, her Majesty addressed to him
the following autograph letter:--
“Windsor Castle, March 28, 1866.
“The Queen hears that Mr. Peabody intends shortly to return to
America, and she would be sorry that he should leave England
without being assured by herself how deeply she appreciates the
noble act of more than princely munificence by which he has sought
to relieve the wants of the poorer class of her subjects residing
in London. It is an act, as the Queen believes, wholly without
parallel, and which will carry its best reward in the consciousness
of having contributed so largely to the assistance of those who can
little help themselves.
“The Queen would not, however, have been satisfied without giving
Mr. Peabody some public mark of her sense of his munificence, and
she would gladly have conferred upon him either a baronetcy or the
Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath, but that she understands Mr.
Peabody to feel himself debarred from accepting such distinctions.
It only remains, therefore, for the Queen to give Mr. Peabody the
assurance of her personal feelings, which she would further wish to
mark by asking him to accept a miniature portrait of herself, which
she will desire to have painted for him, and which, when finished,
can either be sent to him to America, or given to him on the
return, which she rejoices to hear he meditates, to the country
that owes him so much.”
[Illustration: THE DUCHESS OF TECK.
(_From a Photograph by W. and D. Downey._)]
In the spring the Queen was well enough to renew her acquaintance with
Aldershot. For the first time during five years she visited the camp.
She reviewed the troops in garrison, and inspected the ranks; after
which the regiments marched past in grand divisions to the music of
their bands. When she had inspected the Infantry, the Queen drove
through the South Camp, by way of the Prince Consort’s Library, to the
Artillery and Cavalry Barracks, and then past the Memorial Church to the
Pavilion, where luncheon was served for her. Again on the 5th of April
the Queen paid a brief and hurried visit to the Camp, in order to
present a new pair of colours to the 89th Regiment. The visit was
strictly private, only a few chief officers being aware that it had been
arranged. Nearly 11,000 men were on the ground, but there were,
comparatively speaking, few spectators. In presenting the colours, the
Queen said, “I have much pleasure in renewing the colours given you many
years ago, relying confidently on the loyal devotion to my service by
which you and all my troops have ever been so distinguished.” Referring
to this event, the Princess Louis, in one of her letters to her mother,
says: “How trying the visit to Aldershot must have been, but it is so
wise and kind of you to go. I cannot think of it without tears in my
eyes. Formerly that was one of the greatest pleasures of my girlhood,
and you and darling papa looked so handsome together. I so enjoyed
following you on those occasions. Such moments I should like to call
back for an instant.”
In April the Albert Medal was founded by her Majesty. According to the
_London Gazette_, it was to be awarded, “in cases where it shall be
considered fit, to such persons as shall endanger their own lives in
saving or endeavouring to save the lives of others from shipwreck or
other perils of the sea.”
On the 12th of June the Queen attended the marriage of the Princess Mary
of Cambridge to the Duke of Teck. This illustrious lady has always been
the most popular of English Princesses--popular alike with the
aristocracy and the mob. Her marriage stirred up a good deal of
interest. It was celebrated very quietly and simply in her own parish
church at Kew, in the midst of the people among whom she had lived from
her childhood, and to whom she had endeared herself by her spirited
geniality, her good and tender heart, and her generous though somewhat
impulsive charities.
On the 27th of June the Queen sent the first message over the telegraph
cable that had been successfully laid between Ireland and the United
States. It ran as follows: “From the Queen, Osborne, to the President of
the United States, Washington.--The Queen congratulates the President on
the successful completion of an undertaking which she hopes may serve as
an additional bond of union between the United States and England.”
President Andrew Johnson replied:--“The President of the United States
acknowledges with profound gratification the receipt of her Majesty’s
despatch, and cordially reciprocates the hope that the cable that now
unites the Eastern and Western hemispheres may serve to strengthen and
perpetuate peace and amity between the Government of England and the
Republic of the United States.” The President’s reply to the Queen
occupied one hour and nine minutes in its transit from Newfoundland to
Osborne. The cable laid in 1865 had been lost, but it had been
successfully raised, and the daily journal of the operations of the
ships comprising the telegraph squadron engaged in recovering it, is a
record in which heroic perseverance, extraordinary mechanical ingenuity,
and able seamanship alike compel admiration.
On the 20th of September the Prince of Wales presided at the unveiling
of a fine marble statue of the Queen at Aberdeen. The subscriptions for
this work of art were collected just after the inauguration of the
memorial to the Prince Consort by the Queen in October, 1863. A thousand
pounds were easily obtained, a large number of the subscribers being
working men. The artist, Mr. Alexander Brodie, a local sculptor,
represented the Queen standing, bearing the sceptre in her right hand,
while with, the other she clasped the folds of a tartan plaid. The
statue stands 8 feet 6 inches in height, is cut from a block of Sicilian
marble, and is placed on a richly-polished pedestal over 10 feet high.
The Prince on the occasion was dressed in Highland costume, and received
hearty cheers from the crowds who greeted him. In accordance with a
unanimous resolution of the Town Council, he received the freedom of the
city. While speaking at the inauguration ceremony, he stated that the
Queen had desired him to say how much she appreciated the motive which
had led the people of Aberdeen to give this lasting evidence of their
attachment, loyalty, and sympathy.
On the 16th of October the Queen herself opened the Aberdeen New
Waterworks at Invercannie, twenty-two miles distant from the “Granite
City,” and a convenient drive of thirty miles from Balmoral. After
receiving an address, her Majesty, speaking in public in her official
capacity for the first time since the death of the Prince Consort,
said:--“I thank you for your dutiful address, and am very sensible of
the fresh mark of the loyal attachment of my neighbours the people of
Aberdeen. I have felt that, at a time when the attention of the country
has been so anxiously directed to the state of the public health, it was
right that I should make an exertion to testify my sense of the
importance of a work so well calculated as this to promote the health
and comfort of your ancient city.” The Queen then, advancing to an
ingenious piece of machinery erected at the edge of the reservoir, gave
several turns to the handle, and in an instant the water came plunging
in, pure and plentiful. The Queen then declared the Aberdeen Waterworks
open.
On the 30th of November her Majesty received an enthusiastic welcome
from her subjects in Wolverhampton, on the occasion of her inaugurating
a statue erected to the Prince Consort. The Queen was accompanied by the
Earl of Derby, Princess Helena, Prince Christian, the Princess Louise,
and the customary suite. Between two and three thousand people were
admitted into the railway station-yard and approaches. At the entrance
there had been built an arch of coal, firmly joined by mortar, with
abutments of pig-iron. Trophies of picks, spades, and other implements
of the collier’s trade were so placed as to give relief to the material
of the arch, which, though not very sightly, was very characteristic of
the local industry. Beyond this was a trophy of coal, thirty feet high,
formed of immense blocks some of them weighing nearly three tons, from
Lord Dudley’s pits. Nothing could exceed the enthusiasm and devotion
displayed by the population. Town and county assembled in the streets.
The colliers, the puddlers, and the forgemen from the iron districts,
the workers in metal, japan, _papier-maché_, and in all the staple
trades of Wolverhampton, lined the barriers, and raised a mighty shout
when the royal carriages appeared. The treacherous weather of an English
November made it, of course, indispensable that the ceremony of
unveiling the statue should be performed and witnessed under cover, and
an amphitheatre had accordingly been constructed which held two thousand
people. The Bishop of Lichfield having offered up a prayer, the Recorder
read an address to the Queen, which she accepted. Lord Derby having
handed her a sword, she next bestowed the accolade on the kneeling
Mayor, who thereupon rose up as Sir John Morris. Before leaving the
pavilion, the Queen desired the Mayor to tell her subjects in
Wolverhampton that she was greatly pleased with her reception, and with
the loyal feeling which had been manifested. A few days afterwards, at a
meeting of the Wolverhampton Council, the Mayor produced a letter which,
though marked “private,” he had obtained permission to read at that
meeting. The letter was from Sir C. Grey. It was dated Windsor Castle,
December 1, and, after stating that an official answer to the address of
the Corporation would be sent, went on to say:--“Her Majesty is anxious
that you should hear, as it were, more directly from herself how much
she was gratified by the heartiness and cordiality of the reception she
met with from every individual of the vast assemblage that yesterday
filled your streets, and how deeply--how very deeply--she was touched by
the proof which the day’s proceedings afforded of the respect and
affection entertained at Wolverhampton for the memory of her beloved
husband. I have also been requested by Princess Christian to say how
much she has been gratified by the kindness shown yesterday to herself
and Prince Christian, and that she will have much pleasure in wearing
the beautiful bracelet presented to her at the station as a remembrance
of a most interesting and gratifying day.” Sir John Morris then read
another letter he had received from Sir Thomas Biddulph, in which the
Queen desired that her condolence might be conveyed to a volunteer who
had met with an accident on the occasion of her visit, and also
expressed her Majesty’s intention to settle upon him an annuity of £20,
payable quarterly. This announcement was naturally received with great
enthusiasm by the Council.