Queen Victoria

QUEEN VICTORIA

CHAPTER I. ANTECEDENTS

I

On November 6, 1817, died the Princess Charlotte, only child of the

Prince Regent, and heir to the crown of England. Her short life had

hardly been a happy one. By nature impulsive, capricious, and vehement,

she had always longed for liberty; and she had never possessed it.

She had been brought up among violent family quarrels, had been early

separated from her disreputable and eccentric mother, and handed over to

the care of her disreputable and selfish father. When she was seventeen,

he decided to marry her off to the Prince of Orange; she, at first,

acquiesced; but, suddenly falling in love with Prince Augustus of

Prussia, she determined to break off the engagement. This was not her

first love affair, for she had previously carried on a clandestine

correspondence with a Captain Hess. Prince Augustus was already married,

morganatically, but she did not know it, and he did not tell her. While

she was spinning out the negotiations with the Prince of Orange, the

allied sovereign--it was June, 1814--arrived in London to celebrate

their victory. Among them, in the suite of the Emperor of Russia, was

the young and handsome Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg. He made several

attempts to attract the notice of the Princess, but she, with her heart

elsewhere, paid very little attention. Next month the Prince Regent,

discovering that his daughter was having secret meetings with Prince

Augustus, suddenly appeared upon the scene and, after dismissing her

household, sentenced her to a strict seclusion in Windsor Park. "God

Almighty grant me patience!" she exclaimed, falling on her knees in an

agony of agitation: then she jumped up, ran down the backstairs and out

into the street, hailed a passing cab, and drove to her mother's house

in Bayswater. She was discovered, pursued, and at length, yielding

to the persuasions of her uncles, the Dukes of York and Sussex, of

Brougham, and of the Bishop of Salisbury, she returned to Carlton House

at two o'clock in the morning. She was immured at Windsor, but no more

was heard of the Prince of Orange. Prince Augustus, too, disappeared.

The way was at last open to Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg.

This Prince was clever enough to get round the Regent, to impress the

Ministers, and to make friends with another of the Princess's uncles,

the Duke of Kent. Through the Duke he was able to communicate privately

with the Princess, who now declared that he was necessary to

her happiness. When, after Waterloo, he was in Paris, the Duke's

aide-de-camp carried letters backwards and forwards across the Channel.

In January 1816 he was invited to England, and in May the marriage took

place.

The character of Prince Leopold contrasted strangely with that of

his wife. The younger son of a German princeling, he was at this time

twenty-six years of age; he had served with distinction in the war

against Napoleon; he had shown considerable diplomatic skill at the

Congress of Vienna; and he was now to try his hand at the task of taming

a tumultuous Princess. Cold and formal in manner, collected in speech,

careful in action, he soon dominated the wild, impetuous, generous

creature by his side. There was much in her, he found, of which he could

not approve. She quizzed, she stamped, she roared with laughter; she

had very little of that self-command which is especially required of

princes; her manners were abominable. Of the latter he was a good judge,

having moved, as he himself explained to his niece many years later, in

the best society of Europe, being in fact "what is called in French de

la fleur des pois." There was continual friction, but every scene

ended in the same way. Standing before him like a rebellious boy in

petticoats, her body pushed forward, her hands behind her back, with

flaming cheeks and sparkling eyes, she would declare at last that she

was ready to do whatever he wanted. "If you wish it, I will do it," she

would say. "I want nothing for myself," he invariably answered; "When

I press something on you, it is from a conviction that it is for your

interest and for your good."

Among the members of the household at Claremont, near Esher, where the

royal pair were established, was a young German physician, Christian

Friedrich Stockmar. He was the son of a minor magistrate in Coburg, and,

after taking part as a medical officer in the war, he had settled down

as a doctor in his native town. Here he had met Prince Leopold, who had

been struck by his ability, and, on his marriage, brought him to England

as his personal physician. A curious fate awaited this young man;

many were the gifts which the future held in store for him--many and

various--influence, power, mystery, unhappiness, a broken heart. At

Claremont his position was a very humble one; but the Princess took

a fancy to him, called him "Stocky," and romped with him along the

corridors. Dyspeptic by constitution, melancholic by temperament, he

could yet be lively on occasion, and was known as a wit in Coburg. He

was virtuous, too, and served the royal menage with approbation. "My

master," he wrote in his diary, "is the best of all husbands in all the

five quarters of the globe; and his wife bears him an amount of love,

the greatness of which can only be compared with the English national

debt." Before long he gave proof of another quality--a quality which was

to colour the whole of his life-cautious sagacity. When, in the spring

of 1817, it was known that the Princess was expecting a child, the post

of one of her physicians-in-ordinary was offered to him, and he had

the good sense to refuse it. He perceived that his colleagues would be

jealous of him, that his advice would probably not be taken, but that,

if anything were to go wrong, it would be certainly the foreign doctor

who would be blamed. Very soon, indeed, he came to the opinion that the

low diet and constant bleedings, to which the unfortunate Princess was

subjected, were an error; he drew the Prince aside, and begged him to

communicate this opinion to the English doctors; but it was useless. The

fashionable lowering treatment was continued for months. On November 5,

at nine o'clock in the evening, after a labour of over fifty hours, the

Princess was delivered of a dead boy. At midnight her exhausted strength

gave way. When, at last, Stockmar consented to see her; he went in, and

found her obviously dying, while the doctors were plying her with wine.

She seized his hand and pressed it. "They have made me tipsy," she said.

After a little he left her, and was already in the next room when he

heard her call out in her loud voice: "Stocky! Stocky!" As he ran back

the death-rattle was in her throat. She tossed herself violently from

side to side; then suddenly drew up her legs, and it was over.

The Prince, after hours of watching, had left the room for a few

moments' rest; and Stockmar had now to tell him that his wife was dead.

At first he could not be made to realise what had happened. On their way

to her room he sank down on a chair while Stockmar knelt beside him: it

was all a dream; it was impossible. At last, by the bed, he, too, knelt

down and kissed the cold hands. Then rising and exclaiming, "Now I am

quite desolate. Promise me never to leave me," he threw himself into

Stockmar's arms.

II

The tragedy at Claremont was of a most upsetting kind. The royal

kaleidoscope had suddenly shifted, and nobody could tell how the new

pattern would arrange itself. The succession to the throne, which had

seemed so satisfactorily settled, now became a matter of urgent doubt.

George III was still living, an aged lunatic, at Windsor, completely

impervious to the impressions of the outer world. Of his seven sons, the

youngest was of more than middle age, and none had legitimate offspring.

The outlook, therefore, was ambiguous. It seemed highly improbable that

the Prince Regent, who had lately been obliged to abandon his stays, and

presented a preposterous figure of debauched obesity, could ever again,

even on the supposition that he divorced his wife and re-married, become

the father of a family. Besides the Duke of Kent, who must be noticed

separately, the other brothers, in order of seniority, were the Dukes of

York, Clarence, Cumberland, Sussex, and Cambridge; their situations and

prospects require a brief description. The Duke of York, whose escapades

in times past with Mrs. Clarke and the army had brought him into

trouble, now divided his life between London and a large, extravagantly

ordered and extremely uncomfortable country house where he occupied

himself with racing, whist, and improper stories. He was remarkable

among the princes for one reason: he was the only one of them--so we

are informed by a highly competent observer--who had the feelings of a

gentleman. He had been long married to the Princess Royal of Prussia,

a lady who rarely went to bed and was perpetually surrounded by vast

numbers of dogs, parrots, and monkeys. They had no children. The Duke

of Clarence had lived for many years in complete obscurity with Mrs.

Jordan, the actress, in Bushey Park. By her he had had a large family

of sons and daughters, and had appeared, in effect to be married to her,

when he suddenly separated from her and offered to marry Miss Wykeham, a

crazy woman of large fortune, who, however, would have nothing to say to

him. Shortly afterwards Mrs. Jordan died in distressed circumstances

in Paris. The Duke of Cumberland was probably the most unpopular man in

England. Hideously ugly, with a distorted eye, he was bad-tempered

and vindictive in private, a violent reactionary in politics, and was

subsequently suspected of murdering his valet and of having carried

on an amorous intrigue of an extremely scandalous kind. He had lately

married a German Princess, but there were as yet no children by the

marriage. The Duke of Sussex had mildly literary tastes and collected

books. He had married Lady Augusta Murray, by whom he had two children,

but the marriage, under the Royal Marriages Act, was declared void. On

Lady Augusta's death, he married Lady Cecilia Buggin; she changed her

name to Underwood, but this marriage also was void. Of the Duke of

Cambridge, the youngest of the brothers, not very much was known. He

lived in Hanover, wore a blonde wig, chattered and fidgeted a great

deal, and was unmarried.

Besides his seven sons, George III had five surviving daughters. Of

these, two--the Queen of Wurtemberg and the Duchess of Gloucester--were

married and childless. The three unmarried princesses--Augusta,

Elizabeth, and Sophia--were all over forty.

III

The fourth son of George III was Edward, Duke of Kent. He was now fifty

years of age--a tall, stout, vigorous man, highly-coloured, with bushy

eyebrows, a bald top to his head, and what hair he had carefully dyed a

glossy black. His dress was extremely neat, and in his whole appearance

there was a rigidity which did not belie his character. He had spent

his early life in the army--at Gibraltar, in Canada, in the West

Indies--and, under the influence of military training, had become at

first a disciplinarian and at last a martinet. In 1802, having been sent

to Gibraltar to restore order in a mutinous garrison, he was recalled

for undue severity, and his active career had come to an end. Since then

he had spent his life regulating his domestic arrangements with great

exactitude, busying himself with the affairs of his numerous dependents,

designing clocks, and struggling to restore order to his finances, for,

in spite of his being, as someone said who knew him well "regle comme du

papier a musique," and in spite of an income of L24,000 a year, he

was hopelessly in debt. He had quarrelled with most of his brothers,

particularly with the Prince Regent, and it was only natural that he

should have joined the political Opposition and become a pillar of the

Whigs.

What his political opinions may actually have been is open to doubt; it

has often been asserted that he was a Liberal, or even a Radical; and,

if we are to believe Robert Owen, he was a necessitarian Socialist. His

relations with Owen--the shrewd, gullible, high-minded, wrong-headed,

illustrious and preposterous father of Socialism and Co-operation--were

curious and characteristic. He talked of visiting the Mills at New

Lanark, he did, in fact, preside at one of Owen's public meetings;

he corresponded with him on confidential terms, and he even (so Owen

assures us) returned, after his death, from "the sphere of spirits" to

give encouragement to the Owenites on earth. "In an especial manner,"

says Owen, "I have to name the very anxious feelings of the spirit of

his Royal Highness the Late Duke of Kent (who early informed me

that there were no titles in the spititual spheres into which he had

entered), to benefit, not a class, a sect, a party, or any particular

country, but the whole of the human race, through futurity." "His whole

spirit-proceeding with me has been most beautiful," Owen adds, "making

his own appointments; and never in one instance has this spirit not

been punctual to the minute he had named." But Owen was of a sanguine

temperament. He also numbered among his proselytes President Jefferson,

Prince Metternich, and Napoleon; so that some uncertainty must still

linger over the Duke of Kent's views. But there is no uncertainty about

another circumstance: his Royal Highness borrowed from Robert Owen, on

various occasions, various sums of money which were never repaid and

amounted in all to several hundred pounds.

After the death of the Princess Charlotte it was clearly important, for

more than one reason, that the Duke of Kent should marry. From the point

of view of the nation, the lack of heirs in the reigning family seemed

to make the step almost obligatory; it was also likely to be highly

expedient from the point of view of the Duke. To marry as a public

duty, for the sake of the royal succession, would surely deserve some

recognition from a grateful country. When the Duke of York had married

he had received a settlement of L25,000 a year. Why should not the Duke

of Kent look forward to an equal sum? But the situation was not quite

simple. There was the Duke of Clarence to be considered; he was the

elder brother, and, if HE married, would clearly have the prior claim.

On the other hand, if the Duke of Kent married, it was important

to remember that he would be making a serious sacrifice: a lady was

involved.

The Duke, reflecting upon all these matters with careful attention,

happened, about a month after his niece's death, to visit Brussels, and

learnt that Mr. Creevey was staying in the town. Mr. Creevey was a close

friend of the leading Whigs and an inveterate gossip; and it occurred

to the Duke that there could be no better channel through which to

communicate his views upon the situation to political circles at home.

Apparently it did not occur to him that Mr. Creevey was malicious and

might keep a diary. He therefore sent for him on some trivial pretext,

and a remarkable conversation ensued.

After referring to the death of the Princess, to the improbability of

the Regent's seeking a divorce, to the childlessness of the Duke of

York, and to the possibility of the Duke of Clarence marrying, the Duke

adverted to his own position. "Should the Duke of Clarence not marry,"

he said, "the next prince in succession is myself, and although I trust

I shall be at all times ready to obey any call my country may make upon

me, God only knows the sacrifice it will be to make, whenever I shall

think it my duty to become a married man. It is now seven and twenty

years that Madame St. Laurent and I have lived together: we are of

the same age, and have been in all climates, and in all difficulties

together, and you may well imagine, Mr. Creevey, the pang it will

occasion me to part with her. I put it to your own feelings--in the

event of any separation between you and Mrs. Creevey... As for Madame

St. Laurent herself, I protest I don't know what is to become of her if

a marriage is to be forced upon me; her feelings are already so agitated

upon the subject." The Duke went on to describe how, one morning, a day

or two after the Princess Charlotte's death, a paragraph had appeared in

the Morning Chronicle, alluding to the possibility of his marriage. He

had received the newspaper at breakfast together with his letters, and

"I did as is my constant practice, I threw the newspaper across the

table to Madame St. Laurent, and began to open and read my letters. I

had not done so but a very short time, when my attention was called to

an extraordinary noise and a strong convulsive movement in Madame St.

Laurent's throat. For a short time I entertained serious apprehensions

for her safety; and when, upon her recovery, I enquired into the

occasion of this attack, she pointed to the article in the Morning

Chronicle."

The Duke then returned to the subject of the Duke of Clarence. "My

brother the Duke of Clarence is the elder brother, and has certainly the

right to marry if he chooses, and I would not interfere with him on any

account. If he wishes to be king--to be married and have children, poor

man--God help him! Let him do so. For myself--I am a man of no ambition,

and wish only to remain as I am... Easter, you know, falls very early

this year--the 22nd of March. If the Duke of Clarence does not take any

step before that time, I must find some pretext to reconcile Madame St.

Laurent to my going to England for a short time. When once there, it

will be easy for me to consult with my friends as to the proper steps to

be taken. Should the Duke of Clarence do nothing before that time as to

marrying it will become my duty, no doubt, to take some measures upon

the subject myself." Two names, the Duke said, had been mentioned in

this connection--those of the Princess of Baden and the Princess of

Saxe-Coburg. The latter, he thought, would perhaps be the better of the

two, from the circumstance of Prince Leopold being so popular with the

nation; but before any other steps were taken, he hoped and expected to

see justice done to Madame St. Laurent. "She is," he explained, "of very

good family, and has never been an actress, and I am the first and only

person who ever lived with her. Her disinterestedness, too, has been

equal to her fidelity. When she first came to me it was upon L100 a

year. That sum was afterwards raised to L400 and finally to L1000; but

when my debts made it necessary for me to sacrifice a great part of my

income, Madame St. Laurent insisted upon again returning to her income

of L400 a year. If Madame St. Laurent is to return to live amongst her

friends, it must be in such a state of independence as to command their

respect. I shall not require very much, but a certain number of servants

and a carriage are essentials." As to his own settlement, the Duke

observed that he would expect the Duke of York's marriage to be

considered the precedent. "That," he said, "was a marriage for the

succession, and L25,000 for income was settled, in addition to all his

other income, purely on that account. I shall be contented with the same

arrangement, without making any demands grounded on the difference of

the value of money in 1792 and at present. As for the payment of my

debts," the Duke concluded, "I don't call them great. The nation, on

the contrary, is greatly my debtor." Here a clock struck, and seemed

to remind the Duke that he had an appointment; he rose, and Mr. Creevey

left him.

Who could keep such a communication secret? Certainly not Mr. Creevey.

He hurried off to tell the Duke of Wellington, who was very much amused,

and he wrote a long account of it to Lord Sefton, who received the

letter "very apropos," while a surgeon was sounding his bladder to

ascertain whether he had a stone. "I never saw a fellow more astonished

than he was," wrote Lord Sefton in his reply, "at seeing me laugh as

soon as the operation was over. Nothing could be more first-rate than

the royal Edward's ingenuousness. One does not know which to admire

most--the delicacy of his attachment to Madame St. Laurent, the

refinement of his sentiments towards the Duke of Clarence, or his own

perfect disinterestedness in pecuniary matters."

As it turned out, both the brothers decided to marry. The Duke of Kent,

selecting the Princess of Saxe-Coburg in preference to the Princess

of Baden, was united to her on May 29, 1818. On June 11, the Duke of

Clarence followed suit with a daughter of the Duke of Saxe-Meiningen.

But they were disappointed in their financial expectations; for though

the Government brought forward proposals to increase their allowances,

together with that of the Duke of Cumberland, the motions were defeated

in the House of Commons. At this the Duke of Wellington was not

surprised. "By God!" he said, "there is a great deal to be said

about that. They are the damnedest millstones about the necks of

any Government that can be imagined. They have insulted--PERSONALLY

insulted--two-thirds of the gentlemen of England, and how can it be

wondered at that they take their revenge upon them in the House of

Commons? It is their only opportunity, and I think, by God! they are

quite right to use it." Eventually, however, Parliament increased the

Duke of Kent's annuity by L6000. The subsequent history of Madame St.

Laurent has not transpired.

IV

The new Duchess of Kent, Victoria Mary Louisa, was a daughter of

Francis, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, and a sister of Prince Leopold.

The family was an ancient one, being a branch of the great House of

Wettin, which since the eleventh century had ruled over the March of

Meissen on the Elbe. In the fifteenth century the whole possessions of

the House had been divided between the Albertine and Ernestine branches:

from the former descended the electors and kings of Saxony; the latter,

ruling over Thuringia, became further subdivided into five branches,

of which the duchy of Saxe-Coburg was one. This principality was very

small, containing about 60,000 inhabitants, but it enjoyed independent

and sovereign rights. During the disturbed years which followed the

French Revolution, its affairs became terribly involved. The Duke was

extravagant, and kept open house for the swarms of refugees, who fled

eastward over Germany as the French power advanced. Among these was the

Prince of Leiningen, an elderly beau, whose domains on the Moselle

had been seized by the French, but who was granted in compensation

the territory of Amorbach in Lower Franconia. In 1803 he married the

Princess Victoria, at that time seventeen years of age. Three years

later Duke Francis died a ruined man. The Napoleonic harrow passed over

Saxe-Coburg. The duchy was seized by the French, and the ducal family

were reduced to beggary, almost to starvation. At the same time the

little principality of Amorbach was devastated by the French, Russian,

and Austrian armies, marching and counter-marching across it. For years

there was hardly a cow in the country, nor enough grass to feed a

flock of geese. Such was the desperate plight of the family which, a

generation later, was to have gained a foothold in half the reigning

Houses of Europe. The Napoleonic harrow had indeed done its work, the

seed was planted; and the crop would have surprised Napoleon. Prince

Leopold, thrown upon his own resources at fifteen, made a career for

himself and married the heiress of England. The Princess of Leiningen,

struggling at Amorbach with poverty, military requisitions, and a

futile husband, developed an independence of character and a tenacity of

purpose which were to prove useful in very different circumstances. In

1814, her husband died, leaving her with two children and the regency

of the principality. After her brother's marriage with the Princess

Charlotte, it was proposed that she should marry the Duke of Kent; but

she declined, on the ground that the guardianship of her children and

the management of her domains made other ties undesirable. The Princess

Charlotte's death, however, altered the case; and when the Duke of Kent

renewed his offer, she accepted it. She was thirty-two years old--short,

stout, with brown eyes and hair, and rosy cheeks, cheerful and voluble,

and gorgeously attired in rustling silks and bright velvets.

She was certainly fortunate in her contented disposition; for she was

fated, all through her life, to have much to put up with. Her second

marriage, with its dubious prospects, seemed at first to be chiefly a

source of difficulties and discomforts. The Duke, declaring that he was

still too poor to live in England, moved about with uneasy precision

through Belgium and Germany, attending parades and inspecting barracks

in a neat military cap, while the English notabilities looked askance,

and the Duke of Wellington dubbed him the Corporal. "God damme!" he

exclaimed to Mr. Creevey, "d'ye know what his sisters call him? By God!

they call him Joseph Surface!" At Valenciennes, where there was a

review and a great dinner, the Duchess arrived with an old and

ugly lady-in-waiting, and the Duke of Wellington found himself in a

difficulty. "Who the devil is to take out the maid of honour?" he kept

asking; but at last he thought of a solution. "Damme, Freemantle, find

out the mayor and let him do it." So the Mayor of Valenciennes was

brought up for the purpose, and--so we learn from Mr. Creevey--"a

capital figure he was." A few days later, at Brussels, Mr. Creevey

himself had an unfortunate experience. A military school was to be

inspected--before breakfast. The company assembled; everything was

highly satisfactory; but the Duke of Kent continued for so long

examining every detail and asking meticulous question after meticulous

question, that Mr. Creevey at last could bear it no longer, and

whispered to his neighbour that he was damned hungry. The Duke of

Wellington heard him, and was delighted. "I recommend you," he said,

"whenever you start with the royal family in a morning, and particularly

with THE CORPORAL, always to breakfast first." He and his staff, it

turned out, had taken that precaution, and the great man amused himself,

while the stream of royal inquiries poured on, by pointing at Mr.

Creevey from time to time with the remark, "Voila le monsieur qui n'a

pas dejeune!"

Settled down at last at Amorbach, the time hung heavily on the Duke's

hands. The establishment was small, the country was impoverished; even

clock-making grew tedious at last. He brooded--for in spite of his piety

the Duke was not without a vein of superstition--over the prophecy of

a gipsy at Gibraltar who told him that he was to have many losses and

crosses, that he was to die in happiness, and that his only child was

to be a great queen. Before long it became clear that a child was to be

expected: the Duke decided that it should be born in England. Funds were

lacking for the journey, but his determination was not to be set aside.

Come what might, he declared, his child must be English-born. A carriage

was hired, and the Duke himself mounted the box. Inside were the

Duchess, her daughter Feodora, a girl of fourteen, with maids, nurses,

lap-dogs, and canaries. Off they drove--through Germany, through

France: bad roads, cheap inns, were nothing to the rigorous Duke and the

equable, abundant Duchess. The Channel was crossed, London was reached

in safety. The authorities provided a set of rooms in Kensington Palace;

and there, on May 24, 1819, a female infant was born.

CHAPTER II. CHILDHOOD

I

The child who, in these not very impressive circumstances, appeared

in the world, received but scant attention. There was small reason to

foresee her destiny. The Duchess of Clarence, two months before,

had given birth to a daughter, this infant, indeed, had died almost

immediately; but it seemed highly probable that the Duchess would

again become a mother; and so it actually fell out. More than this,

the Duchess of Kent was young, and the Duke was strong; there was every

likelihood that before long a brother would follow, to snatch her faint

chance of the succession from the little princess.

Nevertheless, the Duke had other views: there were prophecies... At any

rate, he would christen the child Elizabeth, a name of happy augury. In

this, however, he reckoned without the Regent, who, seeing a chance

of annoying his brother, suddenly announced that he himself would be

present at the baptism, and signified at the same time that one of the

godfathers was to be the Emperor Alexander of Russia. And so when the

ceremony took place, and the Archbishop of Canterbury asked by what name

he was to baptise the child, the Regent replied "Alexandria." At

this the Duke ventured to suggest that another name might be added.

"Certainly," said the Regent; "Georgina?" "Or Elizabeth?" said the Duke.

There was a pause, during which the Archbishop, with the baby in his

lawn sleeves, looked with some uneasiness from one Prince to the other.

"Very well, then," said the Regent at last, "call her after her mother.

But Alexandrina must come first." Thus, to the disgust of her father,

the child was christened Alexandrina Victoria.

The Duke had other subjects of disgust. The meagre grant of the Commons

had by no means put an end to his financial distresses. It was to be

feared that his services were not appreciated by the nation. His debts

continued to grow. For many years he had lived upon L7000 a year;

but now his expenses were exactly doubled; he could make no further

reductions; as it was, there was not a single servant in his meagre

grant establishment who was idle for a moment from morning to night. He

poured out his griefs in a long letter to Robert Owen, whose sympathy

had the great merit of being practical. "I now candidly state," he

wrote, "that, after viewing the subject in every possible way, I am

satisfied that, to continue to live in England, even in the quiet way

in which we are going on, WITHOUT SPLENDOUR, and WITHOUT SHOW, NOTHING

SHORT OF DOUBLING THE SEVEN THOUSAND POUNDS WILL DO, REDUCTION BEING

IMPOSSIBLE." It was clear that he would be obliged to sell his house for

L51,300, if that failed, he would go and live on the Continent. "If my

services are useful to my country, it surely becomes THOSE WHO HAVE THE

POWER to support me in substantiating those just claims I have for the

very extensive losses and privations I have experienced, during the very

long period of my professional servitude in the Colonies; and if this

is not attainable, IT IS A CLEAR PROOF TO ME THAT THEY ARE THEY ARE NOT

APPRECIATED; and under that impression I shall not scruple, in DUE time,

to resume my retirement abroad, when the Duchess and myself shall have

fulfilled our duties in establishing the ENGLISH birth of my child, and

giving it material nutriment on the soil of Old England; and which we

shall certainly repeat, if Providence destines, to give us any further

increase of family."

In the meantime, he decided to spend the winter at Sidmouth, "in order,"

he told Owen, "that the Duchess may have the benefit of tepid

sea bathing, and our infant that of sea air, on the fine coast of

Devonshire, during the months of the year that are so odious in London."

In December the move was made. With the new year, the Duke remembered

another prophecy. In 1820, a fortune-teller had told him, two members

of the Royal Family would die. Who would they be? He speculated on

the various possibilities: The King, it was plain, could not live much

longer; and the Duchess of York had been attacked by a mortal disease.

Probably it would be the King and the Duchess of York; or perhaps the

King and the Duke of York; or the King and the Regent. He himself was

one of the healthiest men in England. "My brothers," he declared, "are

not so strong as I am; I have lived a regular life. I shall outlive them

all. The crown will come to me and my children." He went out for a

walk, and got his feet wet. On coming home, he neglected to change his

stockings. He caught cold, inflammation of the lungs set in, and on

January 22 he was a dying man. By a curious chance, young Dr. Stockmar

was staying in the house at the time; two years before, he had stood

by the death-bed of the Princess Charlotte; and now he was watching

the Duke of Kent in his agony. On Stockmar's advice, a will was hastily

prepared. The Duke's earthly possessions were of a negative character;

but it was important that the guardianship of the unwitting child,

whose fortunes were now so strangely changing, should be assured to

the Duchess. The Duke was just able to understand the document, and to

append his signature. Having inquired whether his writing was perfectly

clear, he became unconscious, and breathed his last on the following

morning! Six days later came the fulfilment of the second half of the

gipsy's prophecy. The long, unhappy, and inglorious life of George the

Third of England was ended.

II

Such was the confusion of affairs at Sidmouth, that the Duchess found

herself without the means of returning to London. Prince Leopold hurried

down, and himself conducted his sister and her family, by slow and

bitter stages, to Kensington. The widowed lady, in her voluminous

blacks, needed all her equanimity to support her. Her prospects were

more dubious than ever. She had L6000 a year of her own; but her

husband's debts loomed before her like a mountain. Soon she learnt that

the Duchess of Clarence was once more expecting a child. What had she to

look forward to in England? Why should she remain in a foreign country,

among strangers, whose language she could not speak, whose customs she

could not understand? Surely it would be best to return to Amorbach,

and there, among her own people, bring up her daughters in economical

obscurity. But she was an inveterate optimist; she had spent her life

in struggles, and would not be daunted now; and besides, she adored her

baby. "C'est mon bonheur, mes delices, mon existence," she declared;

the darling should be brought up as an English princess, whatever lot

awaited her. Prince Leopold came forward nobly with an offer of an

additional L3000 a year; and the Duchess remained at Kensington.

The child herself was extremely fat, and bore a remarkable resemblance

to her grandfather. "C'est l'image du feu Roi!" exclaimed the Duchess.

"C'est le Roi Georges en jupons," echoed the surrounding ladies, as the

little creature waddled with difficulty from one to the other.

Before long, the world began to be slightly interested in the nursery at

Kensington. When, early in 1821, the Duchess of Clarence's second child,

the Princess Elizabeth, died within three months of its birth, the

interest increased. Great forces and fierce antagonisms seemed to be

moving, obscurely, about the royal cradle. It was a time of faction

and anger, of violent repression and profound discontent. A powerful

movement, which had for long been checked by adverse circumstances, was

now spreading throughout the country. New passions, new desires, were

abroad; or rather old passions and old desires, reincarnated with a new

potency: love of freedom, hatred of injustice, hope for the future

of man. The mighty still sat proudly in their seats, dispensing their

ancient tyranny; but a storm was gathering out of the darkness, and

already there was lightning in the sky. But the vastest forces must

needs operate through frail human instruments; and it seemed for many

years as if the great cause of English liberalism hung upon the life of

the little girl at Kensington. She alone stood between the country and

her terrible uncle, the Duke of Cumberland, the hideous embodiment of

reaction. Inevitably, the Duchess of Kent threw in her lot with her

husband's party; Whig leaders, Radical agitators, rallied round her; she

was intimate with the bold Lord Durham, she was on friendly terms with

the redoubtable O'Connell himself. She received Wilberforce-though, to

be sure, she did not ask him to sit down. She declared in public that

she put her faith in "the liberties of the People." It was certain that

the young Princess would be brought up in the way that she should go;

yet there, close behind the throne, waiting, sinister, was the Duke of

Cumberland. Brougham, looking forward into the future in his scurrilous

fashion, hinted at dreadful possibilities. "I never prayed so heartily

for a Prince before," he wrote, on hearing that George IV had been

attacked by illness. "If he had gone, all the troubles of these villains

(the Tory Ministers) went with him, and they had Fred. I (the Duke of

York) their own man for his life. He (Fred. I) won't live long either;

that Prince of Blackguards, 'Brother William,' is as bad a life, so

we come in the course of nature to be ASSASSINATED by King Ernest I or

Regent Ernest (the Duke of Cumberland)." Such thoughts were not peculiar

to Brougham; in the seething state of public feeling, they constantly

leapt to the surface; and, even so late as the year previous to her

accession, the Radical newspapers were full of suggestions that the

Princess Victoria was in danger from the machinations of her wicked

uncle.

But no echo of these conflicts and forebodings reached the little

Drina--for so she was called in the family circle--as she played with

her dolls, or scampered down the passages, or rode on the donkey her

uncle York had given her along the avenues of Kensington Gardens

The fair-haired, blue-eyed child was idolised by her nurses, and her

mother's ladies, and her sister Feodora; and for a few years there was

danger, in spite of her mother's strictness, of her being spoilt. From

time to time, she would fly into a violent passion, stamp her little

foot, and set everyone at defiance; whatever they might say, she would

not learn her letters--no, she WOULD NOT; afterwards, she was very

sorry, and burst into tears; but her letters remained unlearnt. When

she was five years old, however, a change came, with the appearance

of Fraulein Lehzen. This lady, who was the daughter of a Hanoverian

clergyman, and had previously been the Princess Feodora's governess,

soon succeeded in instilling a new spirit into her charge. At first,

indeed, she was appalled by the little Princess's outbursts of temper;

never in her life, she declared, had she seen such a passionate

and naughty child. Then she observed something else; the child was

extraordinarily truthful; whatever punishment might follow, she never

told a lie. Firm, very firm, the new governess yet had the sense to see

that all the firmness in the world would be useless, unless she could

win her way into little Drina's heart. She did so, and there were no

more difficulties. Drina learnt her letters like an angel; and she

learnt other things as well. The Baroness de Spath taught her how

to make little board boxes and decorate them with tinsel and painted

flowers; her mother taught her religion. Sitting in the pew every Sunday

morning, the child of six was seen listening in rapt attention to the

clergyman's endless sermon, for she was to be examined upon it in

the afternoon. The Duchess was determined that her daughter, from the

earliest possible moment, should be prepared for her high station in a

way that would commend itself to the most respectable; her good,

plain, thrifty German mind recoiled with horror and amazement from the

shameless junketings at Carlton House; Drina should never be allowed to

forget for a moment the virtues of simplicity, regularity, propriety,

and devotion. The little girl, however, was really in small need of such

lessons, for she was naturally simple and orderly, she was pious without

difficulty, and her sense of propriety was keen. She understood very

well the niceties of her own position. When, a child of six, Lady Jane

Ellice was taken by her grandmother to Kensington Palace, she was put

to play with the Princess Victoria, who was the same age as herself. The

young visitor, ignorant of etiquette, began to make free with the toys

on the floor, in a way which was a little too familiar; but "You must

not touch those," she was quickly told, "they are mine; and I may

call you Jane, but you must not call me Victoria." The Princess's most

constant playmate was Victoire, the daughter of Sir John Conroy, the

Duchess's major-domo. The two girls were very fond of one another; they

would walk hand in hand together in Kensington Gardens. But little Drina

was perfectly aware for which of them it was that they were followed, at

a respectful distance, by a gigantic scarlet flunkey.

Warm-hearted, responsive, she loved her dear Lehzen, and she loved her

dear Feodora, and her dear Victoire, and her dear Madame de Spath.

And her dear Mamma, of course, she loved her too; it was her duty; and

yet--she could not tell why it was--she was always happier when she was

staying with her Uncle Leopold at Claremont. There old Mrs. Louis, who,

years ago, had waited on her Cousin Charlotte, petted her to her heart's

content; and her uncle himself was wonderfully kind to her, talking to

her seriously and gently, almost as if she were a grown-up person. She

and Feodora invariably wept when the too-short visit was over, and they

were obliged to return to the dutiful monotony, and the affectionate

supervision of Kensington. But sometimes when her mother had to stay at

home, she was allowed to go out driving all alone with her dear Feodora

and her dear Lehzen, and she could talk and look as she liked, and it

was very delightful.

The visits to Claremont were frequent enough; but one day, on a special

occasion, she paid one of a rarer and more exciting kind. When she was

seven years old, she and her mother and sister were asked by the King

to go down to Windsor. George IV, who had transferred his fraternal

ill-temper to his sister-in-law and her family, had at last grown tired

of sulking, and decided to be agreeable. The old rip, bewigged and

gouty, ornate and enormous, with his jewelled mistress by his side and

his flaunting court about him, received the tiny creature who was one

day to hold in those same halls a very different state. "Give me your

little paw," he said; and two ages touched. Next morning, driving in his

phaeton with the Duchess of Gloucester, he met the Duchess of Kent and

her child in the Park. "Pop her in," were his orders, which, to the

terror of the mother and the delight of the daughter, were immediately

obeyed. Off they dashed to Virginia Water, where there was a great

barge, full of lords and ladies fishing, and another barge with a band;

and the King ogled Feodora, and praised her manners, and then turned to

his own small niece. "What is your favourite tune? The band shall play

it." "God save the King, sir," was the instant answer. The Princess's

reply has been praised as an early example of a tact which was

afterwards famous. But she was a very truthful child, and perhaps it was

her genuine opinion.

III

In 1827 the Duke of York, who had found some consolation for the loss of

his wife in the sympathy of the Duchess of Rutland, died, leaving behind

him the unfinished immensity of Stafford House and L200,000 worth of

debts. Three years later George IV also disappeared, and the Duke of

Clarence reigned in his stead. The new Queen, it was now clear, would

in all probability never again be a mother; the Princess Victoria,

therefore, was recognised by Parliament as heir-presumptive; and the

Duchess of Kent, whose annuity had been doubled five years previously,

was now given an additional L10,000 for the maintenance of the Princess,

and was appointed regent, in case of the death of the King before the

majority of her daughter. At the same time a great convulsion took

place in the constitution of the State. The power of the Tories, who had

dominated England for more than forty years, suddenly began to crumble.

In the tremendous struggle that followed, it seemed for a moment as if

the tradition of generations might be snapped, as if the blind tenacity

of the reactionaries and the determined fury of their enemies could have

no other issue than revolution. But the forces of compromise triumphed:

the Reform Bill was passed. The centre of gravity in the constitution

was shifted towards the middle classes; the Whigs came into power; and

the complexion of the Government assumed a Liberal tinge. One of the

results of this new state of affairs was a change in the position of

the Duchess of Kent and her daughter. From being the protegees of an

opposition clique, they became assets of the official majority of the

nation. The Princess Victoria was henceforward the living symbol of the

victory of the middle classes.

The Duke of Cumberland, on the other hand, suffered a corresponding

eclipse: his claws had been pared by the Reform Act. He grew

insignificant and almost harmless, though his ugliness remained; he was

the wicked uncle still--but only of a story.

The Duchess's own liberalism was not very profound. She followed

naturally in the footsteps of her husband, repeating with conviction the

catchwords of her husband's clever friends and the generalisations

of her clever brother Leopold. She herself had no pretensions to

cleverness; she did not understand very much about the Poor Law and the

Slave Trade and Political Economy; but she hoped that she did her

duty; and she hoped--she ardently hoped--that the same might be said of

Victoria. Her educational conceptions were those of Dr. Arnold, whose

views were just then beginning to permeate society. Dr. Arnold's object

was, first and foremost, to make his pupils "in the highest and truest

sense of the words, Christian gentlemen," intellectual refinements might

follow. The Duchess felt convinced that it was her supreme duty in life

to make quite sure that her daughter should grow up into a Christian

queen. To this task she bent all her energies; and, as the child

developed, she flattered herself that her efforts were not unsuccessful.

When the Princess was eleven, she desired the Bishops of London and

Lincoln to submit her daughter to an examination, and report upon the

progress that had been made. "I feel the time to be now come," the

Duchess explained, in a letter obviously drawn up by her own hand, "that

what has been done should be put to some test, that if anything has been

done in error of judgment it may be corrected, and that the plan for the

future should be open to consideration and revision... I attend almost

always myself every lesson, or a part; and as the lady about the

Princess is a competent person, she assists Her in preparing Her

lessons, for the various masters, as I resolved to act in that manner

so as to be Her Governess myself. When she was at a proper age she

commenced attending Divine Service regularly with me, and I have

every feeling that she has religion at Her heart, that she is morally

impressed with it to that degree, that she is less liable to error by

its application to her feelings as a Child capable of reflection."

"The general bent of Her character," added the Duchess, "is strength

of intellect, capable of receiving with ease, information, and with a

peculiar readiness in coming to a very just and benignant decision

on any point Her opinion is asked on. Her adherence to truth is of so

marked a character that I feel no apprehension of that Bulwark being

broken down by any circumstances." The Bishops attended at the Palace,

and the result of their examination was all that could be wished. "In

answering a great variety of questions proposed to her," they reported,

"the Princess displayed an accurate knowledge of the most important

features of Scripture History, and of the leading truths and precepts of

the Christian Religion as taught by the Church of England, as well as an

acquaintance with the Chronology and principal facts of English History

remarkable in so young a person. To questions in Geography, the use

of the Globes, Arithmetic, and Latin Grammar, the answers which the

Princess returned were equally satisfactory." They did not believe that

the Duchess's plan of education was susceptible of any improvement; and

the Archbishop of Canterbury, who was also consulted, came to the same

gratifying conclusion.

One important step, however, remained to be taken. So far, as the

Duchess explained to the Bishops, the Princess had been kept in

ignorance of the station that she was likely to fill. "She is aware of

its duties, and that a Sovereign should live for others; so that when

Her innocent mind receives the impression of Her future fate, she

receives it with a mind formed to be sensible of what is to be expected

from Her, and it is to be hoped, she will be too well grounded in Her

principles to be dazzled with the station she is to look to." In the

following year it was decided that she should be enlightened on

this point. The well--known scene followed: the history lesson, the

genealogical table of the Kings of England slipped beforehand by the

governess into the book, the Princess's surprise, her inquiries, her

final realisation of the facts. When the child at last understood, she

was silent for a moment, and then she spoke: "I will be good," she

said. The words were something more than a conventional protestation,

something more than the expression of a superimposed desire; they

were, in their limitation and their intensity, their egotism and their

humility, an instinctive summary of the dominating qualities of a life.

"I cried much on learning it," her Majesty noted long afterwards. No

doubt, while the others were present, even her dear Lehzen, the little

girl kept up her self-command; and then crept away somewhere to ease her

heart of an inward, unfamiliar agitation, with a handkerchief, out of

her mother's sight.

But her mother's sight was by no means an easy thing to escape. Morning

and evening, day and night, there was no relaxation of the maternal

vigilance. The child grew into the girl, the girl into the young woman;

but still she slept in her mother's bedroom; still she had no place

allowed her where she might sit or work by herself. An extraordinary

watchfulness surrounded her every step: up to the day of her accession,

she never went downstairs without someone beside her holding her hand.

Plainness and regularity ruled the household. The hours, the days, the

years passed slowly and methodically by. The dolls--the innumerable

dolls, each one so neatly dressed, each one with its name so

punctiliously entered in the catalogue--were laid aside, and a little

music and a little dancing took their place. Taglioni came, to give

grace and dignity to the figure, and Lablache, to train the piping

treble upon his own rich bass. The Dean of Chester, the official

preceptor, continued his endless instruction in Scripture history, while

the Duchess of Northumberland, the official governess, presided over

every lesson with becoming solemnity. Without doubt, the Princess's main

achievement during her school-days was linguistic. German was naturally

the first language with which she was familiar; but English and French

quickly followed; and she became virtually trilingual, though her

mastery of English grammar remained incomplete. At the same time, she

acquired a working knowledge of Italian and some smattering of Latin.

Nevertheless, she did not read very much. It was not an occupation that

she cared for; partly, perhaps, because the books that were given her

were all either sermons, which were very dull, or poetry, which was

incomprehensible. Novels were strictly forbidden. Lord Durham persuaded

her mother to get her some of Miss Martineau's tales, illustrating the

truths of Political Economy, and they delighted her; but it is to be

feared that it was the unaccustomed pleasure of the story that filled

her mind, and that she never really mastered the theory of exchanges or

the nature of rent.

It was her misfortune that the mental atmosphere which surrounded her

during these years of adolescence was almost entirely feminine. No

father, no brother, was there to break in upon the gentle monotony of

the daily round with impetuosity, with rudeness, with careless laughter

and wafts of freedom from the outside world. The Princess was never

called by a voice that was loud and growling; never felt, as a matter

of course, a hard rough cheek on her own soft one; never climbed a wall

with a boy. The visits to Claremont--delicious little escapes into male

society--came to an end when she was eleven years old and Prince Leopold

left England to be King of the Belgians. She loved him still; he was

still "il mio secondo padre or, rather, solo padre, for he is indeed

like my real father, as I have none;" but his fatherliness now came to

her dimly and indirectly, through the cold channel of correspondence.

Henceforward female duty, female elegance, female enthusiasm, hemmed

her completely in; and her spirit, amid the enclosing folds, was hardly

reached by those two great influences, without which no growing life can

truly prosper--humour and imagination. The Baroness Lehzen--for she had

been raised to that rank in the Hanoverian nobility by George IV before

he died--was the real centre of the Princess's world. When Feodora

married, when Uncle Leopold went to Belgium, the Baroness was left

without a competitor. The Princess gave her mother her dutiful regards;

but Lehzen had her heart. The voluble, shrewd daughter of the pastor

in Hanover, lavishing her devotion on her royal charge, had reaped her

reward in an unbounded confidence and a passionate adoration. The girl

would have gone through fire for her "PRECIOUS Lehzen," the "best and

truest friend," she declared, that she had had since her birth. Her

journal, begun when she was thirteen, where she registered day by day

the small succession of her doings and her sentiments, bears on every

page of it the traces of the Baroness and her circumambient influence.

The young creature that one sees there, self-depicted in ingenuous

clarity, with her sincerity, her simplicity, her quick affections and

pious resolutions, might almost have been the daughter of a German

pastor herself. Her enjoyments, her admirations, her engouements were

of the kind that clothed themselves naturally in underlinings and

exclamation marks. "It was a DELIGHTFUL ride. We cantered a good deal.

SWEET LITTLE ROSY WENT BEAUTIFULLY!! We came home at a 1/4 past 1... At

20 minutes to 7 we went out to the Opera... Rubini came on and sang a

song out of 'Anna Boulena' QUITE BEAUTIFULLY. We came home at 1/2

past 11." In her comments on her readings, the mind of the Baroness is

clearly revealed. One day, by some mistake, she was allowed to take up

a volume of memoirs by Fanny Kemble. "It is certainly very pertly and

oddly written. One would imagine by the style that the authoress must be

very pert, and not well bred; for there are so many vulgar expressions

in it. It is a great pity that a person endowed with so much talent, as

Mrs. Butler really is, should turn it to so little account and publish a

book which is so full of trash and nonsense which can only do her harm.

I stayed up till 20 minutes past 9." Madame de Sevigne's letters, which

the Baroness read aloud, met with more approval. "How truly elegant and

natural her style is! It is so full of naivete, cleverness, and grace."

But her highest admiration was reserved for the Bishop of Chester's

'Exposition of the Gospel of St. Matthew.' "It is a very fine

book indeed. Just the sort of one I like; which is just plain and

comprehensible and full of truth and good feeling. It is not one

of those learned books in which you have to cavil at almost every

paragraph. Lehzen gave it me on the Sunday that I took the Sacrament." A

few weeks previously she had been confirmed, and she described the event

as follows: "I felt that my confirmation was one of the most solemn and

important events and acts in my life; and that I trusted that it might

have a salutary effect on my mind. I felt deeply repentant for all what

I had done which was wrong and trusted in God Almighty to strengthen my

heart and mind; and to forsake all that is bad and follow all that is

virtuous and right. I went with the firm determination to become a true

Christian, to try and comfort my dear Mamma in all her griefs, trials,

and anxieties, and to become a dutiful and affectionate daughter to her.

Also to be obedient to DEAR Lehzen, who has done so much for me. I was

dressed in a white lace dress, with a white crepe bonnet with a wreath

of white roses round it. I went in the chariot with my dear Mamma and

the others followed in another carriage." One seems to hold in one's

hand a small smooth crystal pebble, without a flaw and without a

scintillation, and so transparent that one can see through it at a

glance.

Yet perhaps, after all, to the discerning eye, the purity would not be

absolute. The careful searcher might detect, in the virgin soil, the

first faint traces of an unexpected vein. In that conventual existence

visits were exciting events; and, as the Duchess had many relatives,

they were not infrequent; aunts and uncles would often appear from

Germany, and cousins too. When the Princess was fourteen she was

delighted by the arrival of a couple of boys from Wurtemberg, the

Princes Alexander and Ernst, sons of her mother's sister and the

reigning duke. "They are both EXTREMELY TALL," she noted, "Alexander

is VERY HANDSOME, and Ernst has a VERY KIND EXPRESSION. They are both

extremely AMIABLE." And their departure filled her with corresponding

regrets. "We saw them get into the barge, and watched them sailing away

for some time on the beach. They were so amiable and so pleasant to

have in the house; they were ALWAYS SATISFIED, ALWAYS GOOD-HUMOURED;

Alexander took such care of me in getting out of the boat, and rode next

to me; so did Ernst." Two years later, two other cousins arrived, the

Princes Ferdinand and Augustus. "Dear Ferdinand," the Princess wrote,

"has elicited universal admiration from all parties... He is so very

unaffected, and has such a very distinguished appearance and carriage.

They are both very dear and charming young men. Augustus is very

amiable, too, and, when known, shows much good sense." On another

occasion, "Dear Ferdinand came and sat near me and talked so dearly and

sensibly. I do SO love him. Dear Augustus sat near me and talked with

me, and he is also a dear good young man, and is very handsome." She

could not quite decide which was the handsomer of the two. "On the

whole," she concluded, "I think Ferdinand handsomer than Augustus, his

eyes are so beautiful, and he has such a lively clever expression; BOTH

have such a sweet expression; Ferdinand has something QUITE BEAUTIFUL in

his expression when he speaks and smiles, and he is SO good." However,

it was perhaps best to say that they were "both very handsome and VERY

DEAR." But shortly afterwards two more cousins arrived, who threw all

the rest into the shade. These were the Princes Ernest and Albert, sons

of her mother's eldest brother, the Duke of Saxe-Coburg. This time

the Princess was more particular in her observations. "Ernest," she

remarked, "is as tall as Ferdinand and Augustus; he has dark hair, and

fine dark eyes and eyebrows, but the nose and mouth are not good; he has

a most kind, honest, and intelligent expression in his countenance,

and has a very good figure. Albert, who is just as tall as Ernest but

stouter, is extremely handsome; his hair is about the same colour as

mine; his eyes are large and blue, and he has a beautiful nose and a

very sweet mouth with fine teeth; but the charm of his countenance

is his expression, which is most delightful; c'est a la fois full of

goodness and sweetness, and very clever and intelligent." "Both my

cousins," she added, "are so kind and good; they are much more formes

and men of the world than Augustus; they speak English very well, and I

speak it with them. Ernest will be 18 years old on the 21st of June, and

Albert 17 on the 26th of August. Dear Uncle Ernest made me the present

of a most delightful Lory, which is so tame that it remains on your

hand and you may put your finger into its beak, or do anything with

it, without its ever attempting to bite. It is larger than Mamma's grey

parrot." A little later, "I sat between my dear cousins on the sofa and

we looked at drawings. They both draw very well, particularly Albert,

and are both exceedingly fond of music; they play very nicely on the

piano. The more I see them the more I am delighted with them, and the

more I love them... It is delightful to be with them; they are so fond

of being occupied too; they are quite an example for any young person."

When, after a stay of three weeks, the time came for the young men

and their father to return to Germany, the moment of parting was a

melancholy one. "It was our last HAPPY HAPPY breakfast, with this dear

Uncle and those DEAREST beloved cousins, whom I DO love so VERY VERY

dearly; MUCH MORE DEARLY than any other cousins in the WORLD. Dearly as

I love Ferdinand, and also good Augustus, I love Ernest and Albert MORE

than them, oh yes, MUCH MORE... They have both learnt a good deal, and

are very clever, naturally clever, particularly Albert, who is the most

reflecting of the two, and they like very much talking about serious

and instructive things and yet are so VERY VERY merry and gay and happy,

like young people ought to be; Albert always used to have some fun and

some clever witty answer at breakfast and everywhere; he used to play

and fondle Dash so funnily too... Dearest Albert was playing on the

piano when I came down. At 11 dear Uncle, my DEAREST BELOVED cousins,

and Charles, left us, accompanied by Count Kolowrat. I embraced both my

dearest cousins most warmly, as also my dear Uncle. I cried bitterly,

very bitterly." The Princes shared her ecstasies and her italics

between them; but it is clear enough where her secret preference

lay. "Particularly Albert!" She was just seventeen; and deep was the

impression left upon that budding organism by the young man's charm

and goodness and accomplishments, and his large blue eyes and beautiful

nose, and his sweet mouth and fine teeth.

IV

King William could not away with his sister-in-law, and the Duchess

fully returned his antipathy. Without considerable tact and considerable

forbearance their relative positions were well calculated to cause

ill-feeling; and there was very little tact in the composition of the

Duchess, and no forbearance at all in that of his Majesty. A bursting,

bubbling old gentleman, with quarterdeck gestures, round rolling eyes,

and a head like a pineapple, his sudden elevation to the throne after

fifty-six years of utter insignificance had almost sent him crazy. His

natural exuberance completely got the best of him; he rushed about doing

preposterous things in an extraordinary manner, spreading amusement

and terror in every direction, and talking all the time. His tongue

was decidedly Hanoverian, with its repetitions, its catchwords--"That's

quite another thing! That's quite another thing!"--its rattling

indomitability, its loud indiscreetness. His speeches, made repeatedly

at the most inopportune junctures, and filled pell-mell with all the

fancies and furies that happened at the moment to be whisking about

in his head, were the consternation of Ministers. He was one part

blackguard, people said, and three parts buffoon; but those who knew

him better could not help liking him--he meant well; and he was really

good-humoured and kind-hearted, if you took him the right way. If you

took him the wrong way, however, you must look out for squalls, as the

Duchess of Kent discovered.

She had no notion of how to deal with him--could not understand him in

the least. Occupied with her own position, her own responsibilities, her

duty, and her daughter, she had no attention to spare for the peppery

susceptibilities of a foolish, disreputable old man. She was the mother

of the heiress of England; and it was for him to recognise the fact--to

put her at once upon a proper footing--to give her the precedence of a

dowager Princess of Wales, with a large annuity from the privy purse.

It did not occur to her that such pretensions might be galling to a king

who had no legitimate child of his own, and who yet had not altogether

abandoned the hope of having one. She pressed on, with bulky vigour,

along the course she had laid out. Sir John Conroy, an Irishman with

no judgment and a great deal of self-importance, was her intimate

counsellor, and egged her on. It was advisable that Victoria should

become acquainted with the various districts of England, and through

several summers a succession of tours--in the West, in the Midlands, in

Wales--were arranged for her. The intention of the plan was excellent,

but its execution was unfortunate. The journeys, advertised in

the Press, attracting enthusiastic crowds, and involving official

receptions, took on the air of royal progresses. Addresses were

presented by loyal citizens, the delighted Duchess, swelling in sweeping

feathers and almost obliterating the diminutive Princess, read aloud,

in her German accent, gracious replies prepared beforehand by Sir

John, who, bustling and ridiculous, seemed to be mingling the roles

of major-domo and Prime Minister. Naturally the King fumed over his

newspaper at Windsor. "That woman is a nuisance!" he exclaimed. Poor

Queen Adelaide, amiable though disappointed, did her best to smooth

things down, changed the subject, and wrote affectionate letters to

Victoria; but it was useless. News arrived that the Duchess of Kent,

sailing in the Solent, had insisted that whenever her yacht appeared it

should be received by royal salutes from all the men-of-war and all the

forts. The King declared that these continual poppings must cease; the

Premier and the First Lord of the Admiralty were consulted; and they

wrote privately to the Duchess, begging her to waive her rights. But

she would not hear of it; Sir John Conroy was adamant. "As her Royal

Highness's CONFIDENTIAL ADVISER," he said, "I cannot recommend her

to give way on this point." Eventually the King, in a great state of

excitement, issued a special Order in Council, prohibiting the firing

of royal salutes to any ships except those which carried the reigning

sovereign or his consort on board.

When King William quarrelled with his Whig Ministers the situation grew

still more embittered, for now the Duchess, in addition to her other

shortcomings, was the political partisan of his enemies. In 1836 he

made an attempt to prepare the ground for a match between the Princess

Victoria and one of the sons of the Prince of Orange, and at the same

time did his best to prevent the visit of the young Coburg princes to

Kensington. He failed in both these objects; and the only result of

his efforts was to raise the anger of the King of the Belgians, who,

forgetting for a moment his royal reserve, addressed an indignant letter

on the subject to his niece. "I am really ASTONISHED," he wrote, "at

the conduct of your old Uncle the King; this invitation of the Prince

of Orange and his sons, this forcing him on others, is very

extraordinary... Not later than yesterday I got a half-official

communication from England, insinuating that it would be HIGHLY

desirable that the visit of YOUR relatives SHOULD NOT TAKE PLACE

THIS YEAR--qu'en dites-vous? The relations of the Queen and the King,

therefore, to the God-knows-what degree, are to come in shoals and rule

the land, when YOUR RELATIONS are to be FORBIDDEN the country, and

that when, as you know, the whole of your relations have ever been very

dutiful and kind to the King. Really and truly I never heard or saw

anything like it, and I hope it will a LITTLE ROUSE YOUR SPIRIT;

now that slavery is even abolished in the British Colonies, I do not

comprehend WHY YOUR LOT ALONE SHOULD BE TO BE KEPT A WHITE LITTLE SLAVEY

IN ENGLAND, for the pleasure of the Court, who never bought you, as I am

not aware of their ever having gone to any expense on that head, or

the King's ever having SPENT A SIXPENCE FOR YOUR EXISTENCE... Oh,

consistency and political or OTHER HONESTY, where must one look for

you!"

Shortly afterwards King Leopold came to England himself, and his

reception was as cold at Windsor as it was warm at Kensington. "To hear

dear Uncle speak on any subject," the Princess wrote in her diary,

"is like reading a highly instructive book; his conversation is so

enlightened, so clear. He is universally admitted to be one of the first

politicians now extant. He speaks so mildly, yet firmly and impartially,

about politics. Uncle tells me that Belgium is quite a pattern for its

organisation, its industry, and prosperity; the finances are in the

greatest perfection. Uncle is so beloved and revered by his Belgian

subjects, that it must be a great compensation for all his extreme

trouble." But her other uncle by no means shared her sentiments. He

could not, he said, put up with a water-drinker; and King Leopold would

touch no wine. "What's that you're drinking, sir?" he asked him one day

at dinner. "Water, sir." "God damn it, sir!" was the rejoinder. "Why

don't you drink wine? I never allow anybody to drink water at my table."

It was clear that before very long there would be a great explosion; and

in the hot days of August it came. The Duchess and the Princess had

gone down to stay at Windsor for the King's birthday party, and the King

himself, who was in London for the day to prorogue Parliament, paid a

visit at Kensington Palace in their absence. There he found that the

Duchess had just appropriated, against his express orders, a suite of

seventeen apartments for her own use. He was extremely angry, and, when

he returned to Windsor, after greeting the Princess with affection, he

publicly rebuked the Duchess for what she had done. But this was little

to what followed. On the next day was the birthday banquet; there were

a hundred guests; the Duchess of Kent sat on the King's right hand, and

the Princess Victoria opposite. At the end of the dinner, in reply

to the toast of the King's health, he rose, and, in a long, loud,

passionate speech, poured out the vials of his wrath upon the Duchess.

She had, he declared, insulted him--grossly and continually; she had

kept the Princess away from him in the most improper manner; she was

surrounded by evil advisers, and was incompetent to act with propriety

in the high station which she filled; but he would bear it no longer; he

would have her to know he was King; he was determined that his authority

should be respected; henceforward the Princess should attend at every

Court function with the utmost regularity; and he hoped to God that his

life might be spared for six months longer, so that the calamity of a

regency might be avoided, and the functions of the Crown pass directly

to the heiress-presumptive instead of into the hands of the "person now

near him," upon whose conduct and capacity no reliance whatever could

be placed. The flood of vituperation rushed on for what seemed an

interminable period, while the Queen blushed scarlet, the Princess burst

into tears, and the hundred guests sat aghast. The Duchess said not a

word until the tirade was over and the company had retired; then in

a tornado of rage and mortification, she called for her carriage and

announced her immediate return to Kensington. It was only with the

utmost difficulty that some show of a reconciliation was patched up, and

the outraged lady was prevailed upon to put off her departure till the

morrow.

Her troubles, however, were not over when she had shaken the dust

of Windsor from her feet. In her own household she was pursued by

bitterness and vexation of spirit. The apartments at Kensington were

seething with subdued disaffection, with jealousies and animosities

virulently intensified by long years of propinquity and spite.

There was a deadly feud between Sir John Conroy and Baroness Lehzen.

But that was not all. The Duchess had grown too fond of her Major-Domo.

There were familiarities, and one day the Princess Victoria discovered

the fact. She confided what she had seen to the Baroness, and to the

Baroness's beloved ally, Madame de Spath. Unfortunately, Madame de Spath

could not hold her tongue, and was actually foolish enough to reprove

the Duchess; whereupon she was instantly dismissed. It was not so easy

to get rid of the Baroness. That lady, prudent and reserved, maintained

an irreproachable demeanour. Her position was strongly entrenched; she

had managed to secure the support of the King; and Sir John found that

he could do nothing against her. But henceforward the household was

divided into two camps.(*) The Duchess supported Sir John with all the

abundance of her authority; but the Baroness, too, had an adherent who

could not be neglected. The Princess Victoria said nothing, but she had

been much attached to Madame de Spath, and she adored her Lehzen. The

Duchess knew only too well that in this horrid embroilment her daughter

was against her. Chagrin, annoyance, moral reprobation, tossed her

to and fro. She did her best to console herself with Sir John's

affectionate loquacity, or with the sharp remarks of Lady Flora

Hastings, one of her maids of honour, who had no love for the Baroness.

The subject lent itself to satire; for the pastor's daughter, with all

her airs of stiff superiority, had habits which betrayed her origin. Her

passion for caraway seeds, for instance, was uncontrollable. Little bags

of them came over to her from Hanover, and she sprinkled them on her

bread and butter, her cabbage, and even her roast beef. Lady Flora could

not resist a caustic observation; it was repeated to the Baroness, who

pursed her lips in fury, and so the mischief grew.

(*) Greville, IV, 21; and August 15, 1839 (unpublished).

"The cause of the Queen's alienation from the Duchess and

hatred of Conroy, the Duke (of Wellington) said, was

unquestionably owing to her having witnessed some

familiarities between them. What she had seen she repeated

to Baroness Spaeth, and Spaeth not only did not hold her

tongue, but (he thinks) remonstrated with the Duchess

herself on the subject. The consequence was that they got

rid of Spaeth, and they would have got rid of Lehzen, too,

if they had been able, but Lehzen, who knew very well what

was going on, was prudent enough not to commit herself, and

who was, besides, powerfully protected by George IV and

William IV, so that they did not dare to attempt to expel

her."

V

The King had prayed that he might live till his niece was of age; and

a few days before her eighteenth birthday--the date of her legal

majority--a sudden attack of illness very nearly carried him off. He

recovered, however, and the Princess was able to go through her

birthday festivities--a state ball and a drawing-room--with unperturbed

enjoyment. "Count Zichy," she noted in her diary, "is very good-looking

in uniform, but not in plain clothes. Count Waldstein looks remarkably

well in his pretty Hungarian uniform." With the latter young gentleman

she wished to dance, but there was an insurmountable difficulty. "He

could not dance quadrilles, and, as in my station I unfortunately cannot

valse and gallop, I could not dance with him." Her birthday present

from the King was of a pleasing nature, but it led to a painful domestic

scene. In spite of the anger of her Belgian uncle, she had remained upon

good terms with her English one. He had always been very kind to her,

and the fact that he had quarrelled with her mother did not appear to

be a reason for disliking him. He was, she said, "odd, very odd and

singular," but "his intentions were often ill interpreted." He now wrote

her a letter, offering her an allowance of L10,000 a year, which he

proposed should be at her own disposal, and independent of her mother.

Lord Conyngham, the Lord Chamberlain, was instructed to deliver the

letter into the Princess's own hands. When he arrived at Kensington, he

was ushered into the presence of the Duchess and the Princess, and, when

he produced the letter, the Duchess put out her hand to take it. Lord

Conyngham begged her Royal Highness's pardon, and repeated the King's

commands. Thereupon the Duchess drew back, and the Princess took the

letter. She immediately wrote to her uncle, accepting his kind proposal.

The Duchess was much displeased; L4000 a year, she said, would be quite

enough for Victoria; as for the remaining L6000, it would be only proper

that she should have that herself.

King William had thrown off his illness, and returned to his normal

life. Once more the royal circle at Windsor--their Majesties, the elder

Princesses, and some unfortunate Ambassadress or Minister's wife--might

be seen ranged for hours round a mahogany table, while the Queen netted

a purse, and the King slept, occasionally waking from his slumbers to

observe "Exactly so, ma'am, exactly so!" But this recovery was of short

duration. The old man suddenly collapsed; with no specific symptoms

besides an extreme weakness, he yet showed no power of rallying; and it

was clear to everyone that his death was now close at hand.

All eyes, all thoughts, turned towards the Princess Victoria; but she

still remained, shut away in the seclusion of Kensington, a small,

unknown figure, lost in the large shadow of her mother's domination. The

preceding year had in fact been an important one in her development. The

soft tendrils of her mind had for the first time begun to stretch out

towards unchildish things. In this King Leopold encouraged her. After

his return to Brussels, he had resumed his correspondance in a more

serious strain; he discussed the details of foreign politics; he laid

down the duties of kingship; he pointed out the iniquitous foolishness

of the newspaper press. On the latter subject, indeed, he wrote with

some asperity. "If all the editors," he said, "of the papers in the

countries where the liberty of the press exists were to be assembled, we

should have a crew to which you would NOT confide a dog that you would

value, still less your honour and reputation." On the functions of a

monarch, his views were unexceptionable. "The business of the highest

in a State," he wrote, "is certainly, in my opinion, to act with great

impartiality and a spirit of justice for the good of all." At the

same time the Princess's tastes were opening out. Though she was still

passionately devoted to riding and dancing, she now began to have a

genuine love of music as well, and to drink in the roulades and arias

of the Italian opera with high enthusiasm. She even enjoyed reading

poetry--at any rate, the poetry of Sir Walter Scott.

When King Leopold learnt that King William's death was approaching, he

wrote several long letters of excellent advice to his niece. "In every

letter I shall write to you," he said, "I mean to repeat to you, as a

FUNDAMENTAL RULE, TO BE FIRM, AND COURAGEOUS, AND HONEST, AS YOU HAVE

BEEN TILL NOW." For the rest, in the crisis that was approaching, she

was not to be alarmed, but to trust in her "good natural sense and the

TRUTH" of her character; she was to do nothing in a hurry; to hurt

no one's amour-propre, and to continue her confidence in the Whig

administration! Not content with letters, however, King Leopold

determined that the Princess should not lack personal guidance, and sent

over to her aid the trusted friend whom, twenty years before, he had

taken to his heart by the death-bed at Claremont. Thus, once again, as

if in accordance with some preordained destiny, the figure of Stockmar

is discernible--inevitably present at a momentous hour.

On June 18, the King was visibly sinking. The Archbishop of Canterbury

was by his side, with all the comforts of the church. Nor did the holy

words fall upon a rebellious spirit; for many years his Majesty had

been a devout believer. "When I was a young man," he once explained at

a public banquet, "as well as I can remember, I believed in nothing but

pleasure and folly--nothing at all. But when I went to sea, got into

a gale, and saw the wonders of the mighty deep, then I believed; and I

have been a sincere Christian ever since." It was the anniversary of the

Battle of Waterloo, and the dying man remembered it. He should be glad

to live, he said, over that day; he would never see another sunset. "I

hope your Majesty may live to see many," said Dr. Chambers. "Oh! that's

quite another thing, that's quite another thing," was the answer. One

other sunset he did live to see; and he died in the early hours of the

following morning. It was on June 20, 1837.

When all was over, the Archbishop and the Lord Chamberlain ordered a

carriage, and drove post-haste from Windsor to Kensington. They arrived

at the Palace at five o'clock, and it was only with considerable

difficulty that they gained admittance. At six the Duchess woke up

her daughter, and told her that the Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord

Conyngham were there, and wished to see her. She got out of bed, put on

her dressing-gown, and went, alone, into the room where the messengers

were standing. Lord Conyngham fell on his knees, and officially

announced the death of the King; the Archbishop added some personal

details. Looking at the bending, murmuring dignitaries before her, she

knew that she was Queen of England. "Since it has pleased Providence,"

she wrote that day in her journal, "to place me in this station, I shall

do my utmost to fulfil my duty towards my country; I am very young, and

perhaps in many, though not in all things, inexperienced, but I am sure,

that very few have more real good will and more real desire to do what

is fit and right than I have." But there was scant time for resolutions

and reflections. At once, affairs were thick upon her. Stockmar came to

breakfast, and gave some good advice. She wrote a letter to her uncle

Leopold, and a hurried note to her sister Feodora. A letter came from

the Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne, announcing his approaching arrival.

He came at nine, in full court dress, and kissed her hand. She saw him

alone, and repeated to him the lesson which, no doubt, the faithful

Stockmar had taught her at breakfast. "It has long been my intention to

retain your Lordship and the rest of the present Ministry at the head

of affairs;" whereupon Lord Melbourne again kissed her hand and shortly

after left her. She then wrote a letter of condolence to Queen Adelaide.

At eleven, Lord Melbourne came again; and at half-past eleven she went

downstairs into the red saloon to hold her first Council. The great

assembly of lords and notables, bishops, generals, and Ministers of

State, saw the doors thrown open and a very short, very slim girl in

deep plain mourning come into the room alone and move forward to her

seat with extraordinary dignity and grace; they saw a countenance, not

beautiful, but prepossessing--fair hair, blue prominent eyes, a small

curved nose, an open mouth revealing the upper teeth, a tiny chin,

a clear complexion, and, over all, the strangely mingled signs of

innocence, of gravity, of youth, and of composure; they heard a high

unwavering voice reading aloud with perfect clarity; and then, the

ceremony was over, they saw the small figure rise and, with the same

consummate grace, the same amazing dignity, pass out from among them, as

she had come in, alone.

CHAPTER III. LORD MELBOURNE

I

The new queen was almost entirely unknown to her subjects. In her public

appearances her mother had invariably dominated the scene. Her private

life had been that of a novice in a convent: hardly a human being from

the outside world had ever spoken to her; and no human being at all,

except her mother and the Baroness Lehzen, had ever been alone with

her in a room. Thus it was not only the public at large that was in

ignorance of everything concerning her; the inner circles of statesmen

and officials and high-born ladies were equally in the dark. When she

suddenly emerged from this deep obscurity, the impression that she

created was immediate and profound. Her bearing at her first Council

filled the whole gathering with astonishment and admiration; the Duke of

Wellington, Sir Robert Peel, even the savage Croker, even the cold and

caustic Greville--all were completely carried away. Everything that was

reported of her subsequent proceedings seemed to be of no less happy

augury. Her perceptions were quick, her decisions were sensible, her

language was discreet; she performed her royal duties with extraordinary

facility. Among the outside public there was a great wave of enthusiasm.

Sentiment and romance were coming into fashion; and the spectacle of

the little girl-queen, innocent, modest, with fair hair and pink cheeks,

driving through her capital, filled the hearts of the beholders with

raptures of affectionate loyalty. What, above all, struck everybody

with overwhelming force was the contrast between Queen Victoria and

her uncles. The nasty old men, debauched and selfish, pig-headed and

ridiculous, with their perpetual burden of debts, confusions, and

disreputabilities--they had vanished like the snows of winter, and here

at last, crowned and radiant, was the spring. Lord John Russell, in an

elaborate oration, gave voice to the general sentiment. He hoped that

Victoria might prove an Elizabeth without her tyranny, an Anne without

her weakness. He asked England to pray that the illustrious Princess who

had just ascended the throne with the purest intentions and the justest

desires might see slavery abolished, crime diminished, and education

improved. He trusted that her people would henceforward derive their

strength, their conduct, and their loyalty from enlightened religious

and moral principles, and that, so fortified, the reign of Victoria

might prove celebrated to posterity and to all the nations of the earth.

Very soon, however, there were signs that the future might turn out to

be not quite so simple and roseate as a delighted public dreamed. The

"illustrious Princess" might perhaps, after all, have something within

her which squared ill with the easy vision of a well-conducted heroine

in an edifying story-book. The purest intentions and the justest

desires? No doubt; but was that all? To those who watched closely, for

instance, there might be something ominous in the curious contour

of that little mouth. When, after her first Council, she crossed the

ante-room and found her mother waiting for her, she said, "And now,

Mamma, am I really and truly Queen?" "You see, my dear, that it is so."

"Then, dear Mamma, I hope you will grant me the first request I make

to you, as Queen. Let me be by myself for an hour." For an hour she

remained in solitude. Then she reappeared, and gave a significant order:

her bed was to be moved out of her mother's room. It was the doom of the

Duchess of Kent. The long years of waiting were over at last; the moment

of a lifetime had come; her daughter was Queen of England; and that very

moment brought her own annihilation. She found herself, absolutely and

irretrievably, shut off from every vestige of influence, of confidence,

of power. She was surrounded, indeed, by all the outward signs of

respect and consideration; but that only made the inward truth of her

position the more intolerable. Through the mingled formalities of Court

etiquette and filial duty, she could never penetrate to Victoria. She

was unable to conceal her disappointment and her rage. "Il n'y a plus

d'avenir pour moi," she exclaimed to Madame de Lieven; "je ne suis plus

rien." For eighteen years, she said, this child had been the sole object

of her existence, of her thoughts, her hopes, and now--no! she would

not be comforted, she had lost everything, she was to the last degree

unhappy. Sailing, so gallantly and so pertinaciously, through the

buffeting storms of life, the stately vessel, with sails still swelling

and pennons flying, had put into harbour at last; to find there

nothing--a land of bleak desolation.

Within a month of the accession, the realities of the new situation

assumed a visible shape. The whole royal household moved from Kensington

to Buckingham Palace, and, in the new abode, the Duchess of Kent was

given a suite of apartments entirely separate from the Queen's. By

Victoria herself the change was welcomed, though, at the moment of

departure, she could afford to be sentimental. "Though I rejoice to go

into B. P. for many reasons," she wrote in her diary, "it is not

without feelings of regret that I shall bid adieu for ever to this my

birthplace, where I have been born and bred, and to which I am really

attached!" Her memory lingered for a moment over visions of the past:

her sister's wedding, pleasant balls and delicious concerts and there

were other recollections. "I have gone through painful and disagreeable

scenes here, 'tis true," she concluded, "but still I am fond of the poor

old palace."

At the same time she took another decided step. She had determined that

she would see no more of Sir John Conroy. She rewarded his past services

with liberality: he was given a baronetcy and a pension of L3000 a

year; he remained a member of the Duchess's household, but his personal

intercourse with the Queen came to an abrupt conclusion.

II

It was clear that these interior changes--whatever else they might

betoken--marked the triumph of one person--the Baroness Lehzen. The

pastor's daughter observed the ruin of her enemies. Discreet and

victorious, she remained in possession of the field. More closely than

ever did she cleave to the side of her mistress, her pupil, and her

friend; and in the recesses of the palace her mysterious figure was at

once invisible and omnipresent. When the Queen's Ministers came in

at one door, the Baroness went out by another; when they retired, she

immediately returned. Nobody knew--nobody ever will know--the precise

extent and the precise nature of her influence. She herself declared

that she never discussed public affairs with the Queen, that she was

concerned with private matters only--with private letters and the

details of private life. Certainly her hand is everywhere discernible in

Victoria's early correspondence. The Journal is written in the style of

a child; the Letters are not so simple; they are the work of a

child, rearranged--with the minimum of alteration, no doubt, and yet

perceptibly--by a governess. And the governess was no fool: narrow,

jealous, provincial, she might be; but she was an acute and vigorous

woman, who had gained by a peculiar insight, a peculiar ascendancy. That

ascendancy she meant to keep. No doubt it was true that technically she

took no part in public business; but the distinction between what is

public and what is private is always a subtle one; and in the case of

a reigning sovereign--as the next few years were to show--it is often

imaginary. Considering all things--the characters of the persons, and

the character of the times--it was something more than a mere matter

of private interest that the bedroom of Baroness Lehzen at Buckingham

Palace should have been next door to the bedroom of the Queen.

But the influence wielded by the Baroness, supreme as it seemed within

its own sphere, was not unlimited; there were other forces at work.

For one thing, the faithful Stockmar had taken up his residence in the

palace. During the twenty years which had elapsed since the death of the

Princess Charlotte, his experiences had been varied and remarkable. The

unknown counsellor of a disappointed princeling had gradually risen to a

position of European importance. His devotion to his master had been not

only whole--hearted but cautious and wise. It was Stockmar's advice

that had kept Prince Leopold in England during the critical years which

followed his wife's death, and had thus secured to him the essential

requisite of a point d'appui in the country of his adoption. It was

Stockmar's discretion which had smoothed over the embarrassments

surrounding the Prince's acceptance and rejection of the Greek crown.

It was Stockmar who had induced the Prince to become the constitutional

Sovereign of Belgium. Above all, it was Stockmar's tact, honesty, and

diplomatic skill which, through a long series of arduous and complicated

negotiations, had led to the guarantee of Belgian neutrality by the

Great Powers. His labours had been rewarded by a German barony and by

the complete confidence of King Leopold. Nor was it only in Brussels

that he was treated with respect and listened to with attention.

The statesmen who governed England--Lord Grey, Sir Robert Peel, Lord

Palmerston, Lord Melbourne--had learnt to put a high value upon his

probity and his intelligence. "He is one of the cleverest fellows I

ever saw," said Lord Melbourne, "the most discreet man, the most

well-judging, and most cool man." And Lord Palmerston cited Baron

Stockmar as the only absolutely disinterested man he had come across in

life, At last he was able to retire to Coburg, and to enjoy for a few

years the society of the wife and children whom his labours in the

service of his master had hitherto only allowed him to visit at long

intervals for a month or two at a time. But in 1836 he had been again

entrusted with an important negotiation, which he had brought to

a successful conclusion in the marriage of Prince Ferdinand of

Saxe-Coburg, a nephew of King Leopold's, with Queen Maria II of

Portugal. The House of Coburg was beginning to spread over Europe; and

the establishment of the Baron at Buckingham Palace in 1837 was to be

the prelude of another and a more momentous advance.

King Leopold and his counsellor provide in their careers an example

of the curious diversity of human ambitions. The desires of man are

wonderfully various; but no less various are the means by which those

desires may reach satisfaction: and so the work of the world gets done.

The correct mind of Leopold craved for the whole apparatus of royalty.

Mere power would have held no attractions for him; he must be an actual

king--the crowned head of a people. It was not enough to do; it was

essential also to be recognised; anything else would not be fitting.

The greatness that he dreamt of was surrounded by every appropriate

circumstance. To be a Majesty, to be a cousin of Sovereigns, to marry a

Bourbon for diplomatic ends, to correspond with the Queen of England,

to be very stiff and very punctual, to found a dynasty, to bore

ambassadresses into fits, to live, on the highest pinnacle, an exemplary

life devoted to the public service--such were his objects, and such,

in fact, were his achievements. The "Marquis Peu-a-peu," as George IV

called him, had what he wanted. But this would never have been the case

if it had not happened that the ambition of Stockmar took a form exactly

complementary to his own. The sovereignty that the Baron sought for

was by no means obvious. The satisfaction of his essential being lay

in obscurity, in invisibility--in passing, unobserved, through a hidden

entrance, into the very central chamber of power, and in sitting there,

quietly, pulling the subtle strings that set the wheels of the

whole world in motion. A very few people, in very high places, and

exceptionally well-informed, knew that Baron Stockmar was a most

important person: that was enough. The fortunes of the master and the

servant, intimately interacting, rose together. The Baron's secret skill

had given Leopold his unexceptionable kingdom; and Leopold, in his turn,

as time went on, was able to furnish the Baron with more and more keys

to more and more back doors.

Stockmar took up his abode in the Palace partly as the emissary of King

Leopold, but more particularly as the friend and adviser of a queen who

was almost a child, and who, no doubt, would be much in need of advice

and friendship. For it would be a mistake to suppose that either of

these two men was actuated by a vulgar selfishness. The King, indeed,

was very well aware on which side his bread was buttered; during an

adventurous and chequered life he had acquired a shrewd knowledge of

the world's workings; and he was ready enough to use that knowledge

to strengthen his position and to spread his influence. But then, the

firmer his position and the wider his influence, the better for Europe;

of that he was quite certain. And besides, he was a constitutional

monarch; and it would be highly indecorous in a constitutional monarch

to have any aims that were low or personal.

As for Stockmar, the disinterestedness which Palmerston had noted was

undoubtedly a basic element in his character. The ordinary schemer is

always an optimist; and Stockmar, racked by dyspepsia and haunted by

gloomy forebodings, was a constitutionally melancholy man. A schemer, no

doubt, he was; but he schemed distrustfully, splenetically, to do good.

To do good! What nobler end could a man scheme for? Yet it is perilous

to scheme at all.

With Lehzen to supervise every detail of her conduct, with Stockmar in

the next room, so full of wisdom and experience of affairs, with her

Uncle Leopold's letters, too, pouring out so constantly their stream of

encouragements, general reflections, and highly valuable tips, Victoria,

even had she been without other guidance, would have stood in no lack of

private counsellor. But other guidance she had; for all these influences

paled before a new star, of the first magnitude, which, rising suddenly

upon her horizon, immediately dominated her life.

III

William Lamb, Viscount Melbourne, was fifty-eight years of age, and

had been for the last three years Prime Minister of England. In every

outward respect he was one of the most fortunate of mankind. He had

been born into the midst of riches, brilliance, and power. His mother,

fascinating and intelligent, had been a great Whig hostess, and he had

been bred up as a member of that radiant society which, during the

last quarter of the eighteenth century, concentrated within itself

the ultimate perfections of a hundred years of triumphant aristocracy.

Nature had given him beauty and brains; the unexpected death of an

elder brother brought him wealth, a peerage, and the possibility of

high advancement. Within that charmed circle, whatever one's personal

disabilities, it was difficult to fail; and to him, with all his

advantages, success was well-nigh unavoidable. With little effort, he

attained political eminence. On the triumph of the Whigs he became one

of the leading members of the Government; and when Lord Grey retired

from the premiership he quietly stepped into the vacant place. Nor was

it only in the visible signs of fortune that Fate had been kind to him.

Bound to succeed, and to succeed easily, he was gifted with so fine

a nature that his success became him. His mind, at once supple and

copious, his temperament, at once calm and sensitive, enabled him not

merely to work, but to live with perfect facility and with the grace of

strength. In society he was a notable talker, a captivating companion,

a charming man. If one looked deeper, one saw at once that he was not

ordinary, that the piquancies of his conversation and his manner--his

free-and-easy vaguenesses, his abrupt questions, his lollings and

loungings, his innumerable oaths--were something more than an amusing

ornament, were the outward manifestation of an individuality that was

fundamental.

The precise nature of this individuality was very difficult to gauge: it

was dubious, complex, perhaps self--contradictory. Certainly there was

an ironical discordance between the inner history of the man and his

apparent fortunes. He owed all he had to his birth, and his birth was

shameful; it was known well enough that his mother had passionately

loved Lord Egremont, and that Lord Melbourne was not his father. His

marriage, which had seemed to be the crown of his youthful ardours,

was a long, miserable, desperate failure: the incredible Lady Caroline,

"With pleasures too refined to please, With too much spirit to be

e'er at ease, With too much quickness to be ever taught, With too much

thinking to have common thought," was very nearly the destruction of

his life. When at last he emerged from the anguish and confusion of her

folly, her extravagance, her rage, her despair, and her devotion, he was

left alone with endless memories of intermingled farce and tragedy, and

an only son, who was an imbecile. But there was something else that he

owed to Lady Caroline. While she whirled with Byron in a hectic frenzy

of love and fashion, he had stayed at home in an indulgence bordering

on cynicism, and occupied his solitude with reading. It was thus that he

had acquired those habits of study, that love of learning, and that wide

and accurate knowledge of ancient and modern literature, which formed so

unexpected a part of his mental equipment. His passion for reading never

deserted him; even when he was Prime Minister he found time to

master every new important book. With an incongruousness that was

characteristic, his favourite study was theology. An accomplished

classical scholar, he was deeply read in the Fathers of the Church;

heavy volumes of commentary and exegesis he examined with scrupulous

diligence; and at any odd moment he might be found turning over the

pages of the Bible. To the ladies whom he most liked, he would lend some

learned work on the Revelation, crammed with marginal notes in his own

hand, or Dr. Lardner's "Observations upon the Jewish Errors with respect

to the Conversion of Mary Magdalene." The more pious among them had high

hopes that these studies would lead him into the right way; but of this

there were no symptoms in his after-dinner conversations.

The paradox of his political career was no less curious. By temperament

an aristocrat, by conviction a conservative, he came to power as the

leader of the popular party, the party of change. He had profoundly

disliked the Reform Bill, which he had only accepted at last as

a necessary evil; and the Reform Bill lay at the root of the very

existence, of the very meaning, of his government. He was far too

sceptical to believe in progress of any kind. Things were best as they

were or rather, they were least bad. "You'd better try to do no good,"

was one of his dictums, "and then you'll get into no scrapes." Education

at best was futile; education of the poor was positively dangerous. The

factory children? "Oh, if you'd only have the goodness to leave them

alone!" Free Trade was a delusion; the ballot was nonsense; and there

was no such thing as a democracy.

Nevertheless, he was not a reactionary; he was simply an opportunist.

The whole duty of government, he said, was "to prevent crime and to

preserve contracts." All one could really hope to do was to carry on. He

himself carried on in a remarkable manner--with perpetual compromises,

with fluctuations and contradictions, with every kind of weakness, and

yet with shrewdness, with gentleness, even with conscientiousness, and

a light and airy mastery of men and of events. He conducted the

transactions of business with extraordinary nonchalance. Important

persons, ushered up for some grave interview, found him in a

towselled bed, littered with books and papers, or vaguely shaving in a

dressing-room; but, when they went downstairs again, they would realise

that somehow or other they had been pumped. When he had to receive a

deputation, he could hardly ever do so with becoming gravity. The worthy

delegates of the tallow-chandlers, or the Society for the Abolition of

Capital Punishment, were distressed and mortified when, in the midst of

their speeches, the Prime Minister became absorbed in blowing a feather,

or suddenly cracked an unseemly joke. How could they have guessed that

he had spent the night before diligently getting up the details of their

case? He hated patronage and the making of appointments--a feeling rare

in Ministers. "As for the Bishops," he burst out, "I positively believe

they die to vex me." But when at last the appointment was made, it

was made with keen discrimination. His colleagues observed another

symptom--was it of his irresponsibility or his wisdom? He went to sleep

in the Cabinet.

Probably, if he had been born a little earlier, he would have been a

simpler and a happier man. As it was, he was a child of the eighteenth

century whose lot was cast in a new, difficult, unsympathetic age.

He was an autumn rose. With all his gracious amenity, his humour, his

happy-go-lucky ways, a deep disquietude possessed him. A sentimental

cynic, a sceptical believer, he was restless and melancholy at heart.

Above all, he could never harden himself; those sensitive petals

shivered in every wind. Whatever else he might be, one thing was

certain: Lord Melbourne was always human, supremely human--too human,

perhaps.

And now, with old age upon him, his life took a sudden, new,

extraordinary turn. He became, in the twinkling of an eye, the intimate

adviser and the daily companion of a young girl who had stepped all at

once from a nursery to a throne. His relations with women had been, like

everything else about him, ambiguous. Nobody had ever been able quite

to gauge the shifting, emotional complexities of his married life; Lady

Caroline vanished; but his peculiar susceptibilities remained. Female

society of some kind or other was necessary to him, and he did not

stint himself; a great part of every day was invariably spent in it. The

feminine element in him made it easy, made it natural and inevitable for

him to be the friend of a great many women; but the masculine element

in him was strong as well. In such circumstances it is also easy, it is

even natural, perhaps it is even inevitable, to be something more than

a friend. There were rumours and combustions. Lord Melbourne was twice a

co-respondent in a divorce action; but on each occasion he won his suit.

The lovely Lady Brandon, the unhappy and brilliant Mrs. Norton... the

law exonerated them both. Beyond that hung an impenetrable veil. But

at any rate it was clear that, with such a record, the Prime Minister's

position in Buckingham Palace must be a highly delicate one. However,

he was used to delicacies, and he met the situation with consummate

success. His behaviour was from the first moment impeccable. His manner

towards the young Queen mingled, with perfect facility, the watchfulness

and the respect of a statesman and a courtier with the tender solicitude

of a parent. He was at once reverential and affectionate, at once the

servant and the guide. At the same time the habits of his life underwent

a surprising change. His comfortable, unpunctual days became subject to

the unaltering routine of a palace; no longer did he sprawl on sofas;

not a single "damn" escaped his lips. The man of the world who had been

the friend of Byron and the regent, the talker whose paradoxes had held

Holland House enthralled, the cynic whose ribaldries had enlivened so

many deep potations, the lover whose soft words had captivated such

beauty and such passion and such wit, might now be seen, evening after

evening, talking with infinite politeness to a schoolgirl, bolt upright,

amid the silence and the rigidity of Court etiquette.

IV

On her side, Victoria was instantaneously fascinated by Lord Melbourne.

The good report of Stockmar had no doubt prepared the way; Lehzen was

wisely propitiated; and the first highly favourable impression was never

afterwards belied. She found him perfect; and perfect in her sight he

remained. Her absolute and unconcealed adoration was very natural; what

innocent young creature could have resisted, in any circumstances, the

charm and the devotion of such a man? But, in her situation, there was

a special influence which gave a peculiar glow to all she felt. After

years of emptiness and dullness and suppression, she had come suddenly,

in the heyday of youth, into freedom and power. She was mistress

of herself, of great domains and palaces; she was Queen of England.

Responsibilities and difficulties she might have, no doubt, and in heavy

measure; but one feeling dominated and absorbed all others--the feeling

of joy. Everything pleased her. She was in high spirits from morning

till night. Mr. Creevey, grown old now, and very near his end, catching

a glimpse of her at Brighton, was much amused, in his sharp fashion, by

the ingenuous gaiety of "little Vic." "A more homely little being you

never beheld, when she is at her ease, and she is evidently dying to be

always more so. She laughs in real earnest, opening her mouth as wide as

it can go, showing not very pretty gums... She eats quite as heartily

as she laughs, I think I may say she gobbles... She blushes and laughs

every instant in so natural a way as to disarm anybody." But it was not

merely when she was laughing or gobbling that she enjoyed herself; the

performance of her official duties gave her intense satisfaction. "I

really have immensely to do," she wrote in her Journal a few days after

her accession; "I receive so many communications from my Ministers, but

I like it very much." And again, a week later, "I repeat what I said

before that I have so many communications from the Ministers, and from

me to them, and I get so many papers to sign every day, that I have

always a very great deal to do. I delight in this work." Through the

girl's immaturity the vigorous predestined tastes of the woman were

pushing themselves into existence with eager velocity, with delicious

force.

One detail of her happy situation deserves particular mention. Apart

from the splendour of her social position and the momentousness of her

political one, she was a person of great wealth. As soon as Parliament

met, an annuity of L385,000 was settled upon her. When the expenses of

her household had been discharged, she was left with L68,000 a year of

her own. She enjoyed besides the revenues of the Duchy of Lancaster,

which amounted annually to over L27,000. The first use to which she put

her money was characteristic: she paid off her father's debts. In

money matters, no less than in other matters, she was determined to be

correct. She had the instincts of a man of business; and she never could

have borne to be in a position that was financially unsound.

With youth and happiness gilding every hour, the days passed merrily

enough. And each day hinged upon Lord Melbourne. Her diary shows us,

with undiminished clarity, the life of the young sovereign during

the early months of her reign--a life satisfactorily regular, full

of delightful business, a life of simple pleasures, mostly

physical--riding, eating, dancing--a quick, easy, highly unsophisticated

life, sufficient unto itself. The light of the morning is upon it; and,

in the rosy radiance, the figure of "Lord M." emerges, glorified and

supreme. If she is the heroine of the story, he is the hero; but indeed

they are more than hero and heroine, for there are no other characters

at all. Lehzen, the Baron, Uncle Leopold, are unsubstantial shadows--the

incidental supers of the piece. Her paradise was peopled by two persons,

and surely that was enough. One sees them together still, a curious

couple, strangely united in those artless pages, under the magical

illumination of that dawn of eighty years ago: the polished high fine

gentleman with the whitening hair and whiskers and the thick dark

eyebrows and the mobile lips and the big expressive eyes; and beside him

the tiny Queen--fair, slim, elegant, active, in her plain girl's dress

and little tippet, looking up at him earnestly, adoringly, with eyes

blue and projecting, and half-open mouth. So they appear upon every page

of the Journal; upon every page Lord M. is present, Lord M. is speaking,

Lord M. is being amusing, instructive, delightful, and affectionate at

once, while Victoria drinks in the honied words, laughs till she shows

her gums, tries hard to remember, and runs off, as soon as she is left

alone, to put it all down. Their long conversations touched upon a

multitude of topics. Lord M. would criticise books, throw out a remark

or two on the British Constitution, make some passing reflections

on human life, and tell story after story of the great people of the

eighteenth century. Then there would be business a despatch perhaps

from Lord Durham in Canada, which Lord M. would read. But first he

must explain a little. "He said that I must know that Canada originally

belonged to the French, and was only ceded to the English in 1760, when

it was taken in an expedition under Wolfe: 'a very daring enterprise,'

he said. Canada was then entirely French, and the British only came

afterwards... Lord M. explained this very clearly (and much better

than I have done) and said a good deal more about it. He then read me

Durham's despatch, which is a very long one and took him more than 1/2

an hour to read. Lord M. read it beautifully with that fine soft voice

of his, and with so much expression, so that it is needless to say I

was much interested by it." And then the talk would take a more personal

turn. Lord M. would describe his boyhood, and she would learn that "he

wore his hair long, as all boys then did, till he was 17; (how handsome

he must have looked!)." Or she would find out about his queer tastes and

habits--how he never carried a watch, which seemed quite extraordinary.

"'I always ask the servant what o'clock it is, and then he tells me what

he likes,' said Lord M." Or, as the rooks wheeled about round the trees,

"in a manner which indicated rain," he would say that he could sit

looking at them for an hour, and "was quite surprised at my disliking

them. M. said, 'The rooks are my delight.'"

The day's routine, whether in London or at Windsor, was almost

invariable. The morning was devoted to business and Lord M. In the

afternoon the whole Court went out riding. The Queen, in her velvet

riding--habit and a top-hat with a veil draped about the brim, headed

the cavalcade; and Lord M. rode beside her. The lively troupe went fast

and far, to the extreme exhilaration of Her Majesty. Back in the Palace

again, there was still time for a little more fun before dinner--a game

of battledore and shuttlecock perhaps, or a romp along the galleries

with some children. Dinner came, and the ceremonial decidedly tightened.

The gentleman of highest rank sat on the right hand of the Queen; on her

left--it soon became an established rule--sat Lord Melbourne. After the

ladies had left the dining-room, the gentlemen were not permitted to

remain behind for very long; indeed, the short time allowed them for

their wine-drinking formed the subject--so it was rumoured--of one of

the very few disputes between the Queen and her Prime Minister;(*) but

her determination carried the day, and from that moment after-dinner

drunkenness began to go out of fashion. When the company was reassembled

in the drawing-room the etiquette was stiff. For a few moments the Queen

spoke in turn to each one of her guests; and during these short uneasy

colloquies the aridity of royalty was apt to become painfully evident.

One night Mr. Greville, the Clerk of the Privy Council, was present; his

turn soon came; the middle-aged, hard-faced viveur was addressed by his

young hostess. "Have you been riding to-day, Mr. Greville?" asked the

Queen. "No, Madam, I have not," replied Mr. Greville. "It was a fine

day," continued the Queen. "Yes, Madam, a very fine day," said Mr.

Greville. "It was rather cold, though," said the Queen. "It was rather

cold, Madam," said Mr. Greville. "Your sister, Lady Frances Egerton,

rides, I think, doesn't she?" said the Queen. "She does ride sometimes,

Madam," said Mr. Greville. There was a pause, after which Mr. Greville

ventured to take the lead, though he did not venture to change the

subject. "Has your Majesty been riding today?" asked Mr. Greville. "Oh

yes, a very long ride," answered the Queen with animation. "Has your

Majesty got a nice horse?" said Mr. Greville. "Oh, a very nice horse,"

said the Queen. It was over. Her Majesty gave a smile and an inclination

of the head, Mr. Greville a profound bow, and the next conversation

began with the next gentleman. When all the guests had been disposed

of, the Duchess of Kent sat down to her whist, while everybody else was

ranged about the round table. Lord Melbourne sat beside the Queen, and

talked pertinaciously--very often a propos to the contents of one of the

large albums of engravings with which the round table was covered--until

it was half-past eleven and time to go to bed.

(*) The Duke of Bedford told Greville he was "sure there was

a battle between her and Melbourne... He is sure there was

one about the men's sitting after dinner, for he heard her

say to him rather angrily, 'it is a horrid custom-' but when

the ladies left the room (he dined there) directions were

given that the men should remain five minutes longer."

Greville Memoirs, February 26, 1840 (unpublished).

Occasionally, there were little diversions: the evening might be spent

at the opera or at the play. Next morning the royal critic was careful

to note down her impressions. "It was Shakespeare's tragedy of Hamlet,

and we came in at the beginning of it. Mr. Charles Kean (son of

old Kean) acted the part of Hamlet, and I must say beautifully.

His conception of this very difficult, and I may almost say

incomprehensible, character is admirable; his delivery of all the fine

long speeches quite beautiful; he is excessively graceful and all

his actions and attitudes are good, though not at all good-looking in

face... I came away just as Hamlet was over." Later on, she went to see

Macready in King Lear. The story was new to her; she knew nothing about

it, and at first she took very little interest in what was passing on

the stage; she preferred to chatter and laugh with the Lord Chamberlain.

But, as the play went on, her mood changed; her attention was fixed, and

then she laughed no more. Yet she was puzzled; it seemed a strange, a

horrible business. What did Lord M. think? Lord M. thought it was a

very fine play, but to be sure, "a rough, coarse play, written for

those times, with exaggerated characters." "I'm glad you've seen it," he

added. But, undoubtedly, the evenings which she enjoyed most were those

on which there was dancing. She was always ready enough to seize

any excuse--the arrival of cousins--a birthday--a gathering of young

people--to give the command for that. Then, when the band played, and

the figures of the dancers swayed to the music, and she felt her own

figure swaying too, with youthful spirits so close on every side--then

her happiness reached its height, her eyes sparkled, she must go on and

on into the small hours of the morning. For a moment Lord M. himself was

forgotten.

V

The months flew past. The summer was over: "the pleasantest summer I

EVER passed in MY LIFE, and I shall never forget this first summer of

my reign." With surprising rapidity, another summer was upon her. The

coronation came and went--a curious dream. The antique, intricate,

endless ceremonial worked itself out as best it could, like some machine

of gigantic complexity which was a little out of order. The small

central figure went through her gyrations. She sat; she walked; she

prayed; she carried about an orb that was almost too heavy to hold; the

Archbishop of Canterbury came and crushed a ring upon the wrong finger,

so that she was ready to cry out with the pain; old Lord Rolle tripped

up in his mantle and fell down the steps as he was doing homage; she

was taken into a side chapel, where the altar was covered with a

table-cloth, sandwiches, and bottles of wine; she perceived Lehzen in an

upper box and exchanged a smile with her as she sat, robed and crowned,

on the Confessor's throne. "I shall ever remember this day as the

PROUDEST of my life," she noted. But the pride was soon merged once more

in youth and simplicity. When she returned to Buckingham Palace at

last she was not tired; she ran up to her private rooms, doffed her

splendours, and gave her dog Dash its evening bath.

Life flowed on again with its accustomed smoothness--though, of course,

the smoothness was occasionally disturbed. For one thing, there was the

distressing behaviour of Uncle Leopold. The King of the Belgians had

not been able to resist attempting to make use of his family position

to further his diplomatic ends. But, indeed, why should there be any

question of resisting? Was not such a course of conduct, far from being

a temptation, simply "selon les regles?" What were royal marriages

for, if they did not enable sovereigns, in spite of the hindrances of

constitutions, to control foreign politics? For the highest purposes,

of course; that was understood. The Queen of England was his niece--more

than that--almost his daughter; his confidential agent was living, in

a position of intimate favour, at her court. Surely, in such

circumstances, it would be preposterous, it would be positively

incorrect, to lose the opportunity of bending to his wishes by means

of personal influence, behind the backs of the English Ministers, the

foreign policy of England.

He set about the task with becoming precautions. He continued in his

letters his admirable advice. Within a few days of her accession, he

recommended the young Queen to lay emphasis, on every possible occasion,

upon her English birth; to praise the English nation; "the Established

Church I also recommend strongly; you cannot, without PLEDGING yourself

to anything PARTICULAR, SAY TOO MUCH ON THE SUBJECT." And then "before

you decide on anything important I should be glad if you would consult

me; this would also have the advantage of giving you time;" nothing was

more injurious than to be hurried into wrong decisions unawares. His

niece replied at once with all the accustomed warmth of her affection;

but she wrote hurriedly--and, perhaps, a trifle vaguely too. "YOUR

advice is always of the GREATEST IMPORTANCE to me," she said.

Had he, possibly, gone too far? He could not be certain; perhaps

Victoria HAD been hurried. In any case, he would be careful; he would

draw back--"pour mieux sauter" he added to himself with a smile. In his

next letters he made no reference to his suggestion of consultations

with himself; he merely pointed out the wisdom, in general, of refusing

to decide upon important questions off-hand. So far, his advice was

taken; and it was noticed that the Queen, when applications were made to

her, rarely gave an immediate answer. Even with Lord Melbourne, it was

the same; when he asked for her opinion upon any subject, she would

reply that she would think it over, and tell him her conclusions next

day.

King Leopold's counsels continued. The Princess de Lieven, he said,

was a dangerous woman; there was reason to think that she would make

attempts to pry into what did not concern her, let Victoria beware. "A

rule which I cannot sufficiently recommend is NEVER TO PERMIT people

to speak on subjects concerning yourself or your affairs, without you

having yourself desired them to do so." Should such a thing occur,

"change the conversation, and make the individual feel that he has made

a mistake." This piece of advice was also taken; for it fell out as the

King had predicted. Madame de Lieven sought an audience, and appeared

to be verging towards confidential topics; whereupon the Queen, becoming

slightly embarrassed, talked of nothing but commonplaces. The individual

felt that she had made a mistake.

The King's next warning was remarkable. Letters, he pointed out, are

almost invariably read in the post. This was inconvenient, no doubt; but

the fact, once properly grasped, was not without its advantages. "I will

give you an example: we are still plagued by Prussia concerning those

fortresses; now to tell the Prussian Government many things, which we

SHOULD NOT LIKE to tell them officially, the Minister is going to write

a despatch to our man at Berlin, sending it BY POST; the Prussians ARE

SURE to read it, and to learn in this way what we wish them to hear.

Analogous circumstances might very probably occur in England. I tell you

the TRICK," wrote His Majesty, "that you should be able to guard against

it." Such were the subtleties of constitutional sovereignty.

It seemed that the time had come for another step. The King's next

letter was full of foreign politics--the situation in Spain and

Portugal, the character of Louis Philippe; and he received a favourable

answer. Victoria, it is true, began by saying that she had shown the

POLITICAL PART of his letter to Lord Melbourne; but she proceeded to a

discussion of foreign affairs. It appeared that she was not unwilling

to exchange observations on such matters with her uncle. So far so good.

But King Leopold was still cautious; though a crisis was impending

in his diplomacy, he still hung back; at last, however, he could keep

silence no longer. It was of the utmost importance to him that, in his

manoeuvrings with France and Holland, he should have, or at any rate

appear to have, English support. But the English Government appeared to

adopt a neutral attitude; it was too bad; not to be for him was to

be against him, could they not see that? Yet, perhaps, they were only

wavering, and a little pressure upon them from Victoria might still

save all. He determined to put the case before her, delicately yet

forcibly--just as he saw it himself. "All I want from your kind

Majesty," he wrote, "is, that you will OCCASIONALLY express to your

Ministers, and particularly to good Lord Melbourne, that, as far as it

is COMPATIBLE with the interests of your own dominions, you do NOT wish

that your Government should take the lead in such measures as might in a

short time bring on the DESTRUCTION of this country, as well as that of

your uncle and his family." The result of this appeal was unexpected;

there was dead silence for more than a week. When Victoria at last

wrote, she was prodigal of her affection. "It would, indeed, my dearest

Uncle, be VERY WRONG of you, if you thought my feelings of warm and

devoted attachment to you, and of great affection for you, could be

changed--nothing can ever change them"--but her references to foreign

politics, though they were lengthy and elaborate, were non-committal in

the extreme; they were almost cast in an official and diplomatic form.

Her Ministers, she said, entirely shared her views upon the subject; she

understood and sympathised with the difficulties of her beloved uncle's

position; and he might rest assured "that both Lord Melbourne and Lord

Palmerston are most anxious at all times for the prosperity and welfare

of Belgium." That was all. The King in his reply declared himself

delighted, and re-echoed the affectionate protestations of his niece.

"My dearest and most beloved Victoria," he said, "you have written me

a VERY DEAR and long letter, which has given me GREAT PLEASURE AND

SATISFACTION." He would not admit that he had had a rebuff.

A few months later the crisis came. King Leopold determined to make a

bold push, and to carry Victoria with him, this time, by a display of

royal vigour and avuncular authority. In an abrupt, an almost peremptory

letter, he laid his case, once more, before his niece. "You know from

experience," he wrote, "that I NEVER ASK ANYTHING OF YOU... But, as I

said before, if we are not careful we may see serious consequences which

may affect more or less everybody, and THIS ought to be the object

of our most anxious attention. I remain, my dear Victoria, your

affectionate uncle, Leopold R." The Queen immediately despatched this

letter to Lord Melbourne, who replied with a carefully thought-out form

of words, signifying nothing whatever, which, he suggested, she should

send to her uncle. She did so, copying out the elaborate formula, with a

liberal scattering of "dear Uncles" interspersed; and she concluded

her letter with a message of "affectionate love to Aunt Louise and the

children." Then at last King Leopold was obliged to recognise the facts.

His next letter contained no reference at all to politics. "I am glad,"

he wrote, "to find that you like Brighton better than last year. I think

Brighton very agreeable at this time of the year, till the east winds

set in. The pavilion, besides, is comfortable; that cannot be denied.

Before my marriage, it was there that I met the Regent. Charlotte

afterwards came with old Queen Charlotte. How distant all this already,

but still how present to one's memory." Like poor Madame de Lieven, His

Majesty felt that he had made a mistake.

Nevertheless, he could not quite give up all hope. Another opportunity

offered, and he made another effort--but there was not very much

conviction in it, and it was immediately crushed. "My dear Uncle," the

Queen wrote, "I have to thank you for your last letter which I received

on Sunday. Though you seem not to dislike my political sparks, I think

it is better not to increase them, as they might finally take fire,

particularly as I see with regret that upon this one subject we cannot

agree. I shall, therefore, limit myself to my expressions of very

sincere wishes for the welfare and prosperity of Belgium." After that,

it was clear that there was no more to be said. Henceforward there is

audible in the King's letters a curiously elegiac note. "My dearest

Victoria, your DELIGHTFUL little letter has just arrived and went

like AN ARROW TO MY HEART. Yes, my beloved Victoria! I DO LOVE YOU

TENDERLY... I love you FOR YOURSELF, and I love in you the dear child

whose welfare I tenderly watched." He had gone through much; yet, if

life had its disappointments, it had its satisfactions too. "I have

all the honours that can be given, and I am, politically speaking, very

solidly established." But there were other things besides politics,

there were romantic yearnings in his heart. "The only longing I still

have is for the Orient, where I perhaps shall once end my life, rising

in the west and setting in the east." As for his devotion to his

niece, that could never end. "I never press my services on you, nor my

councils, though I may say with some truth that from the extraordinary

fate which the higher powers had ordained for me, my experience, both

political and of private life, is great. I am ALWAYS READY to be useful

to you when and where and it may be, and I repeat it, ALL I WANT IN

RETURN IS SOME LITTLE SINCERE AFFECTION FROM YOU."

VI

The correspondence with King Leopold was significant of much that still

lay partly hidden in the character of Victoria. Her attitude towards

her uncle had never wavered for a moment. To all his advances she had

presented an absolutely unyielding front. The foreign policy of England

was not his province; it was hers and her Ministers'; his insinuations,

his entreaties, his struggles--all were quite useless; and he must

understand that this was so. The rigidity of her position was the more

striking owing to the respectfulness and the affection with which it was

accompanied. From start to finish the unmoved Queen remained the devoted

niece. Leopold himself must have envied such perfect correctitude; but

what may be admirable in an elderly statesman is alarming in a maiden

of nineteen. And privileged observers were not without their fears. The

strange mixture of ingenuous light-heartedness and fixed determination,

of frankness and reticence, of childishness and pride, seemed to augur

a future that was perplexed and full of dangers. As time passed the less

pleasant qualities in this curious composition revealed themselves more

often and more seriously. There were signs of an imperious, a peremptory

temper, an egotism that was strong and hard. It was noticed that the

palace etiquette, far from relaxing, grew ever more and more inflexible.

By some, this was attributed to Lehzen's influence; but, if that was

so, Lehzen had a willing pupil; for the slightest infringements of

the freezing rules of regularity and deference were invariably and

immediately visited by the sharp and haughty glances of the Queen. Yet

Her Majesty's eyes, crushing as they could be, were less crushing than

her mouth. The self-will depicted in those small projecting teeth and

that small receding chin was of a more dismaying kind than that which a

powerful jaw betokens; it was a self--will imperturbable, impenetrable,

unintelligent; a self-will dangerously akin to obstinacy. And the

obstinacy of monarchs is not as that of other men.

Within two years of her accession, the storm-clouds which, from the

first, had been dimly visible on the horizon, gathered and burst.

Victoria's relations with her mother had not improved. The Duchess

of Kent, still surrounded by all the galling appearances of filial

consideration, remained in Buckingham Palace a discarded figure,

powerless and inconsolable. Sir John Conroy, banished from the presence

of the Queen, still presided over the Duchess's household, and the

hostilities of Kensington continued unabated in the new surroundings.

Lady Flora Hastings still cracked her malicious jokes; the animosity of

the Baroness was still unappeased. One day, Lady Flora found the joke

was turned against her. Early in 1839, travelling in the suite of the

Duchess, she had returned from Scotland in the same carriage with Sir

John. A change in her figure became the subject of an unseemly jest;

tongues wagged; and the jest grew serious. It was whispered that Lady

Flora was with child. The state of her health seemed to confirm the

suspicion; she consulted Sir James Clark, the royal physician, and,

after the consultation, Sir James let his tongue wag, too. On this, the

scandal flared up sky-high. Everyone was talking; the Baroness was not

surprised; the Duchess rallied tumultuously to the support of her lady;

the Queen was informed. At last the extraordinary expedient of a medical

examination was resorted to, during which Sir James, according to Lady

Flora, behaved with brutal rudeness, while a second doctor was

extremely polite. Finally, both physicians signed a certificate entirely

exculpating the lady. But this was by no means the end of the business.

The Hastings family, socially a very powerful one, threw itself into

the fray with all the fury of outraged pride and injured innocence; Lord

Hastings insisted upon an audience of the Queen, wrote to the papers,

and demanded the dismissal of Sir James Clark. The Queen expressed her

regret to Lady Flora, but Sir James Clark was not dismissed. The tide

of opinion turned violently against the Queen and her advisers; high

society was disgusted by all this washing of dirty linen in Buckingham

Palace; the public at large was indignant at the ill-treatment of Lady

Flora. By the end of March, the popularity, so radiant and so abundant,

with which the young Sovereign had begun her reign, had entirely

disappeared.

There can be no doubt that a great lack of discretion had been shown by

the Court. Ill-natured tittle-tattle, which should have been instantly

nipped in the bud, had been allowed to assume disgraceful proportions;

and the Throne itself had become involved in the personal malignities

of the palace. A particularly awkward question had been raised by the

position of Sir James Clark. The Duke of Wellington, upon whom it was

customary to fall back, in cases of great difficulty in high places, had

been consulted upon this question, and he had given it as his opinion

that, as it would be impossible to remove Sir James without a public

enquiry, Sir James must certainly stay where he was. Probably the Duke

was right; but the fact that the peccant doctor continued in the

Queen's service made the Hastings family irreconcilable and produced an

unpleasant impression of unrepentant error upon the public mind. As for

Victoria, she was very young and quite inexperienced; and she can hardly

be blamed for having failed to control an extremely difficult situation.

That was clearly Lord Melbourne's task; he was a man of the world, and,

with vigilance and circumspection, he might have quietly put out the

ugly flames while they were still smouldering. He did not do so; he

was lazy and easy-going; the Baroness was persistent, and he let things

slide. But doubtless his position was not an easy one; passions ran

high in the palace; and Victoria was not only very young, she was very

headstrong, too. Did he possess the magic bridle which would curb

that fiery steed? He could not be certain. And then, suddenly, another

violent crisis revealed more unmistakably than ever the nature of the

mind with which he had to deal.

VII

The Queen had for long been haunted by a terror that the day might come

when she would be obliged to part with her Minister. Ever since the

passage of the Reform Bill, the power of the Whig Government had

steadily declined. The General Election of 1837 had left them with a

very small majority in the House of Commons; since then, they had been

in constant difflculties--abroad, at home, in Ireland; the Radical group

had grown hostile; it became highly doubtful how much longer they could

survive. The Queen watched the development of events in great anxiety.

She was a Whig by birth, by upbringing, by every association, public and

private; and, even if those ties had never existed, the mere fact that

Lord M. was the head of the Whigs would have amply sufficed to determine

her politics. The fall of the Whigs would mean a sad upset for Lord M.

But it would have a still more terrible consequence: Lord M. would have

to leave her; and the daily, the hourly, presence of Lord M. had become

an integral part of her life. Six months after her accession she had

noted in her diary "I shall be very sorry to lose him even for one

night;" and this feeling of personal dependence on her Minister steadily

increased. In these circumstances it was natural that she should have

become a Whig partisan. Of the wider significance of political questions

she knew nothing; all she saw was that her friends were in office and

about her, and that it would be dreadful if they ceased to be so. "I

cannot say," she wrote when a critical division was impending, "(though

I feel confident of our success) how low, how sad I feel, when I think

of the possibility of this excellent and truly kind man not remaining my

Minister! Yet I trust fervently that He who has so wonderfully protected

me through such manifold difficulties will not now desert me! I should

have liked to have expressed to Lord M. my anxiety, but the tears were

nearer than words throughout the time I saw him, and I felt I should

have choked, had I attempted to say anything." Lord Melbourne

realised clearly enough how undesirable was such a state of mind in

a constitutional sovereign who might be called upon at any moment to

receive as her Ministers the leaders of the opposite party; he did what

he could to cool her ardour; but in vain.

With considerable lack of foresight, too, he had himself helped to bring

about this unfortunate condition of affairs. From the moment of her

accession, he had surrounded the Queen with ladies of his own party; the

Mistress of the Robes and all the Ladies of the Bedchamber were Whigs.

In the ordinary course, the Queen never saw a Tory: eventually she took

pains never to see one in any circumstances. She disliked the whole

tribe; and she did not conceal the fact. She particularly disliked Sir

Robert Peel, who would almost certainly be the next Prime Minister.

His manners were detestable, and he wanted to turn out Lord M. His

supporters, without exception, were equally bad; and as for Sir James

Graham, she could not bear the sight of him; he was exactly like Sir

John Conroy.

The affair of Lady Flora intensified these party rumours still further.

The Hastings were Tories, and Lord Melbourne and the Court were attacked

by the Tory press in unmeasured language. The Queen's sectarian

zeal proportionately increased. But the dreaded hour was now fast

approaching. Early in May the Ministers were visibly tottering; on a

vital point of policy they could only secure a majority of five in the

House of Commons; they determined to resign. When Victoria heard the

news she burst into tears. Was it possible, then, that all was over? Was

she, indeed, about to see Lord M. for the last time? Lord M. came; and

it is a curious fact that, even in this crowning moment of misery and

agitation, the precise girl noted, to the minute, the exact time of the

arrival and the departure of her beloved Minister. The conversation was

touching and prolonged; but it could only end in one way--the Queen must

send for the Duke of Wellington. When, next morning, the Duke came, he

advised her Majesty to send for Sir Robert Peel. She was in "a state of

dreadful grief," but she swallowed down her tears, and braced herself,

with royal resolution, for the odious, odious interview.

Peel was by nature reserved, proud, and shy. His manners were not

perfect, and he knew it; he was easily embarrassed, and, at such

moments, he grew even more stiff and formal than before, while his

feet mechanically performed upon the carpet a dancing-master's measure.

Anxious as he now was to win the Queen's good graces, his very anxiety

to do so made the attainment of his object the more difficult. He

entirely failed to make any headway whatever with the haughty hostile

girl before him. She coldly noted that he appeared to be unhappy and

"put out," and, while he stood in painful fixity, with an occasional

uneasy pointing of the toe, her heart sank within her at the sight of

that manner, "Oh! how different, how dreadfully different, to the

frank, open, natural, and most kind warm manner of Lord Melbourne."

Nevertheless, the audience passed without disaster. Only at one point

had there been some slight hint of a disagreement. Peel had decided that

a change would be necessary in the composition of the royal Household:

the Queen must no longer be entirely surrounded by the wives and sisters

of his opponents; some, at any rate, of the Ladies of the Bedchamber

should be friendly to his Government. When this matter was touched

upon, the Queen had intimated that she wished her Household to remain

unchanged; to which Sir Robert had replied that the question could be

settled later, and shortly afterwards withdrew to arrange the details of

his Cabinet. While he was present, Victoria had remained, as she herself

said, "very much collected, civil and high, and betrayed no agitation;"

but as soon as she was alone she completely broke down. Then she pulled

herself together to write to Lord Melbourne an account of all that had

happened, and of her own wretchedness. "She feels," she said, "Lord

Melbourne will understand it, amongst enemies to those she most relied

on and most esteemed; but what is worst of all is the being deprived of

seeing Lord Melbourne as she used to do."

Lord Melbourne replied with a very wise letter. He attempted to calm the

Queen and to induce her to accept the new position gracefully; and he

had nothing but good words for the Tory leaders. As for the question of

the Ladies of the Household, the Queen, he said, should strongly urge

what she desired, as it was a matter which concerned her personally,

"but," he added, "if Sir Robert is unable to concede it, it will not do

to refuse and to put off the negotiation upon it." On this point there

can be little doubt that Lord Melbourne was right. The question was

a complicated and subtle one, and it had never arisen before; but

subsequent constitutional practice has determined that a Queen Regnant

must accede to the wishes of her Prime Minister as to the personnel of

the female part of her Household. Lord Melbourne's wisdom, however, was

wasted. The Queen would not be soothed, and still less would she take

advice. It was outrageous of the Tories to want to deprive her of her

Ladies, and that night she made up her mind that, whatever Sir Robert

might say, she would refuse to consent to the removal of a single one

of them. Accordingly, when, next morning, Peel appeared again, she was

ready for action. He began by detailing the Cabinet appointments, and

then he added "Now, ma'am, about the Ladies-" when the Queen sharply

interrupted him. "I cannot give up any of my Ladies," she said. "What,

ma'am!" said Sir Robert, "does your Majesty mean to retain them all?"

"All," said the Queen. Sir Robert's face worked strangely; he could not

conceal his agitation. "The Mistress of the Robes and the Ladies of

the Bedchamber?" he brought out at last. "All," replied once more her

Majesty. It was in vain that Peel pleaded and argued; in vain that

he spoke, growing every moment more pompous and uneasy, of the

constitution, and Queens Regnant, and the public interest; in vain that

he danced his pathetic minuet. She was adamant; but he, too, through all

his embarrassment, showed no sign of yielding; and when at last he left

her nothing had been decided--the whole formation of the Government was

hanging in the wind. A frenzy of excitement now seized upon Victoria.

Sir Robert, she believed in her fury, had tried to outwit her, to take

her friends from her, to impose his will upon her own; but that was

not all: she had suddenly perceived, while the poor man was moving so

uneasily before her, the one thing that she was desperately longing

for--a loop-hole of escape. She seized a pen and dashed off a note to

Lord Melbourne.

"Sir Robert has behaved very ill," she wrote, "he insisted on my giving

up my Ladies, to which I replied that I never would consent, and I never

saw a man so frightened... I was calm but very decided, and I think

you would have been pleased to see my composure and great firmness;

the Queen of England will not submit to such trickery. Keep yourself in

readiness, for you may soon be wanted." Hardly had she finished when the

Duke of Wellington was announced. "Well, Ma'am," he said as he entered,

"I am very sorry to find there is a difficulty." "Oh!" she instantly

replied, "he began it, not me." She felt that only one thing now was

needed: she must be firm. And firm she was. The venerable conqueror

of Napoleon was outfaced by the relentless equanimity of a girl in her

teens. He could not move the Queen one inch. At last, she even ventured

to rally him. "Is Sir Robert so weak," she asked, "that even the Ladies

must be of his opinion?" On which the Duke made a brief and humble

expostulation, bowed low, and departed.

Had she won? Time would show; and in the meantime she scribbled down

another letter. "Lord Melbourne must not think the Queen rash in her

conduct... The Queen felt this was an attempt to see whether she could

be led and managed like a child."(*) The Tories were not only wicked but

ridiculous. Peel, having, as she understood, expressed a wish to remove

only those members of the Household who were in Parliament, now objected

to her Ladies. "I should like to know," she exclaimed in triumphant

scorn, "if they mean to give the Ladies seats in Parliament?"

(*) The exclamation "They wished to treat me like a girl,

but I will show them that I am Queen of England!" often

quoted as the Queen's, is apocryphal. It is merely part of

Greville's summary of the two letters to Melbourne. It may

be noted that the phrase "the Queen of England will not

submit to such trickery" is omitted in "Girlhood," and in

general there are numerous verbal discrepancies between the

versions of the journal and the letters in the two books.

The end of the crisis was now fast approaching. Sir Robert returned, and

told her that if she insisted upon retaining all her Ladies he could

not form a Government. She replied that she would send him her final

decision in writing. Next morning the late Whig Cabinet met. Lord

Melbourne read to them the Queen's letters, and the group of elderly

politicians were overcome by an extraordinary wave of enthusiasm. They

knew very well that, to say the least, it was highly doubtful whether

the Queen had acted in strict accordance with the constitution; that in

doing what she had done she had brushed aside Lord Melbourne's advice;

that, in reality, there was no public reason whatever why they should

go back upon their decision to resign. But such considerations vanished

before the passionate urgency of Victoria. The intensity of her

determination swept them headlong down the stream of her desire. They

unanimously felt that "it was impossible to abandon such a Queen

and such a woman." Forgetting that they were no longer her Majesty's

Ministers, they took the unprecedented course of advising the Queen by

letter to put an end to her negotiation with Sir Robert Peel. She did

so; all was over; she had triumphed. That evening there was a ball at

the Palace. Everyone was present. "Peel and the Duke of Wellington came

by looking very much put out." She was perfectly happy; Lord M. was

Prime Minister once more, and he was by her side.

VIII

Happiness had returned with Lord M., but it was happiness in the midst

of agitation. The domestic imbroglio continued unabated, until at last

the Duke, rejected as a Minister, was called in once again in his old

capacity as moral physician to the family. Something was accomplished

when, at last, he induced Sir John Conroy to resign his place about the

Duchess of Kent and leave the Palace for ever; something more when he

persuaded the Queen to write an affectionate letter to her mother. The

way seemed open for a reconciliation, but the Duchess was stormy still.

She didn't believe that Victoria had written that letter; it was not

in her handwriting; and she sent for the Duke to tell him so. The Duke,

assuring her that the letter was genuine, begged her to forget the past.

But that was not so easy. "What am I to do if Lord Melbourne comes up to

me?" "Do, ma'am? Why, receive him with civility." Well, she would make

an effort... "But what am I to do if Victoria asks me to shake hands

with Lehzen?" "Do, ma'am? Why, take her in your arms and kiss her."

"What!" The Duchess bristled in every feather, and then she burst into

a hearty laugh. "No, ma'am, no," said the Duke, laughing too. "I don't

mean you are to take Lehzen in your arms and kiss her, but the

Queen." The Duke might perhaps have succeeded, had not all attempts at

conciliation been rendered hopeless by a tragical event. Lady Flora,

it was discovered, had been suffering from a terrible internal malady,

which now grew rapidly worse. There could be little doubt that she was

dying. The Queen's unpopularity reached an extraordinary height. More

than once she was publicly insulted. "Mrs. Melbourne," was shouted at

her when she appeared at her balcony; and, at Ascot, she was hissed

by the Duchess of Montrose and Lady Sarah Ingestre as she passed. Lady

Flora died. The whole scandal burst out again with redoubled vehemence;

while, in the Palace, the two parties were henceforth divided by an

impassable, a Stygian, gulf.

Nevertheless, Lord M. was back, and every trouble faded under the

enchantment of his presence and his conversation. He, on his side,

had gone through much; and his distresses were intensified by a

consciousness of his own shortcomings. He realised clearly enough that,

if he had intervened at the right moment, the Hastings scandal might

have been averted; and, in the bedchamber crisis, he knew that he had

allowed his judgment to be overruled and his conduct to be swayed by

private feelings and the impetuosity of Victoria. But he was not one

to suffer too acutely from the pangs of conscience. In spite of the

dullness and the formality of the Court, his relationship with the

Queen had come to be the dominating interest in his life; to have been

deprived of it would have been heartrending; that dread eventuality

had been--somehow--avoided; he was installed once more, in a kind of

triumph; let him enjoy the fleeting hours to the full! And so, cherished

by the favour of a sovereign and warmed by the adoration of a girl,

the autumn rose, in those autumn months of 1839, came to a wondrous

blooming. The petals expanded, beautifully, for the last time. For

the last time in this unlooked--for, this incongruous, this almost

incredible intercourse, the old epicure tasted the exquisiteness of

romance. To watch, to teach, to restrain, to encourage the royal

young creature beside him--that was much; to feel with such a constant

intimacy the impact of her quick affection, her radiant vitality--that

was more; most of all, perhaps, was it good to linger vaguely in

humorous contemplation, in idle apostrophe, to talk disconnectedly, to

make a little joke about an apple or a furbelow, to dream. The springs

of his sensibility, hidden deep within him, were overflowing. Often, as

he bent over her hand and kissed it, he found himself in tears.

Upon Victoria, with all her impermeability, it was inevitable that such

a companionship should have produced, eventually, an effect. She was no

longer the simple schoolgirl of two years since. The change was visible

even in her public demeanour. Her expression, once "ingenuous

and serene," now appeared to a shrewd observer to be "bold and

discontented." She had learnt something of the pleasures of power and

the pains of it; but that was not all. Lord Melbourne with his gentle

instruction had sought to lead her into the paths of wisdom and

moderation, but the whole unconscious movement of his character had

swayed her in a very different direction. The hard clear pebble,

subjected for so long and so constantly to that encircling and insidious

fluidity, had suffered a curious corrosion; it seemed to be actually

growing a little soft and a little clouded. Humanity and fallibility are

infectious things; was it possible that Lehzen's prim pupil had caught

them? That she was beginning to listen to siren voices? That the secret

impulses of self-expression, of self-indulgence even, were mastering

her life? For a moment the child of a new age looked back, and wavered

towards the eighteenth century. It was the most critical moment of her

career. Had those influences lasted, the development of her character,

the history of her life, would have been completely changed.

And why should they not last? She, for one, was very anxious that they

should. Let them last for ever! She was surrounded by Whigs, she was

free to do whatever she wanted, she had Lord M.; she could not believe

that she could ever be happier. Any change would be for the worse; and

the worst change of all... no, she would not hear of it; it would be

quite intolerable, it would upset everything, if she were to marry. And

yet everyone seemed to want her to--the general public, the Ministers,

her Saxe-Coburg relations--it was always the same story. Of course, she

knew very well that there were excellent reasons for it. For one thing,

if she remained childless, and were to die, her uncle Cumberland, who

was now the King of Hanover, would succeed to the Throne of England.

That, no doubt, would be a most unpleasant event; and she entirely

sympathised with everybody who wished to avoid it. But there was no

hurry; naturally, she would marry in the end--but not just yet--not for

three or four years. What was tiresome was that her uncle Leopold had

apparently determined, not only that she ought to marry, but that her

cousin Albert ought to be her husband. That was very like her uncle

Leopold, who wanted to have a finger in every pie; and it was true that

long ago, in far-off days, before her accession even, she had written to

him in a way which might well have encouraged him in such a notion. She

had told him then that Albert possessed "every quality that could be

desired to render her perfectly happy," and had begged her "dearest

uncle to take care of the health of one, now so dear to me, and to take

him under your special protection," adding, "I hope and trust all will

go on prosperously and well on this subject of so much importance to

me." But that had been years ago, when she was a mere child; perhaps,

indeed, to judge from the language, the letter had been dictated by

Lehzen; at any rate, her feelings, and all the circumstances, had now

entirely changed. Albert hardly interested her at all.

In later life the Queen declared that she had never for a moment dreamt

of marrying anyone but her cousin; her letters and diaries tell a very

different story. On August 26, 1837, she wrote in her journal: "To-day

is my dearest cousin Albert's 18th birthday, and I pray Heaven to pour

its choicest blessings on his beloved head!" In the subsequent years,

however, the date passes unnoticed. It had been arranged that Stockmar

should accompany the Prince to Italy, and the faithful Baron left her

side for that purpose. He wrote to her more than once with sympathetic

descriptions of his young companion; but her mind was by this time made

up. She liked and admired Albert very much, but she did not want to

marry him. "At present," she told Lord Melbourne in April, 1839, "my

feeling is quite against ever marrying." When her cousin's Italian tour

came to an end, she began to grow nervous; she knew that, according to a

long-standing engagement, his next journey would be to England. He would

probably arrive in the autumn, and by July her uneasiness was intense.

She determined to write to her uncle, in order to make her position

clear. It must be understood she said, that "there is no no engagement

between us." If she should like Albert, she could "make no final promise

this year, for, at the very earliest, any such event could not take

place till two or three years hence." She had, she said, "a great

repugnance" to change her present position; and, if she should not like

him, she was "very anxious that it should be understood that she would

not be guilty of any breach of promise, for she never gave any." To Lord

Melbourne she was more explicit. She told him that she "had no great

wish to see Albert, as the whole subject was an odious one;" she hated

to have to decide about it; and she repeated once again that seeing

Albert would be "a disagreeable thing." But there was no escaping the

horrid business; the visit must be made, and she must see him. The

summer slipped by and was over; it was the autumn already; on the

evening of October 10 Albert, accompanied by his brother Ernest, arrived

at Windsor.

Albert arrived; and the whole structure of her existence crumbled into

nothingness like a house of cards. He was beautiful--she gasped--she

knew no more. Then, in a flash, a thousand mysteries were revealed to

her; the past, the present, rushed upon her with a new significance; the

delusions of years were abolished, and an extraordinary, an irresistible

certitude leapt into being in the light of those blue eyes, the smile

of that lovely mouth. The succeeding hours passed in a rapture. She was

able to observe a few more details--the "exquisite nose," the "delicate

moustachios and slight but very slight whiskers," the "beautiful figure,

broad in the shoulders and a fine waist." She rode with him, danced with

him, talked with him, and it was all perfection. She had no shadow of

a doubt. He had come on a Thursday evening, and on the following Sunday

morning she told Lord Melbourne that she had "a good deal changed her

opinion as to marrying." Next morning, she told him that she had made

up her mind to marry Albert. The morning after that, she sent for her

cousin. She received him alone, and "after a few minutes I said to him

that I thought he must be aware why I wished them to come here--and

that it would make me too happy if he would consent to what I wished

(to marry me.)" Then "we embraced each other, and he was so kind, so

affectionate." She said that she was quite unworthy of him, while he

murmured that he would be very happy "Das Leben mit dir zu zubringen."

They parted, and she felt "the happiest of human beings," when Lord M.

came in. At first she beat about the bush, and talked of the weather,

and indifferent subjects. Somehow or other she felt a little nervous

with her old friend. At last, summoning up her courage, she said, "I

have got well through this with Albert." "Oh! you have," said Lord M.

CHAPTER IV. MARRIAGE

I

It was decidedly a family match. Prince Francis Charles Augustus Albert

Emmanuel of Saxe-Coburg--Gotha--for such was his full title--had been

born just three months after his cousin Victoria, and the same midwife

had assisted at the two births. The children's grandmother, the Dowager

Duchess of Coburg, had from the first looked forward to their marriage,

as they grew up, the Duke, the Duchess of Kent, and King Leopold came

equally to desire it. The Prince, ever since the time when, as a child

of three, his nurse had told him that some day "the little English May

flower" would be his wife, had never thought of marrying anyone else.

When eventually Baron Stockmar himself signified his assent, the affair

seemed as good as settled.

The Duke had one other child--Prince Ernest, Albert's senior by one

year, and heir to the principality. The Duchess was a sprightly and

beautiful woman, with fair hair and blue eyes; Albert was very like her

and was her declared favourite. But in his fifth year he was parted from

her for ever. The ducal court was not noted for the strictness of its

morals; the Duke was a man of gallantry, and it was rumoured that the

Duchess followed her husband's example. There were scandals: one of the

Court Chamberlains, a charming and cultivated man of Jewish extraction,

was talked of; at last there was a separation, followed by a divorce.

The Duchess retired to Paris, and died unhappily in 1831. Her memory was

always very dear to Albert.

He grew up a pretty, clever, and high-spirited boy. Usually

well-behaved, he was, however, sometimes violent. He had a will of

his own, and asserted it; his elder brother was less passionate, less

purposeful, and, in their wrangles, it was Albert who came out top. The

two boys, living for the most part in one or other of the Duke's country

houses, among pretty hills and woods and streams, had been at a very

early age--Albert was less than four--separated from their nurses and

put under a tutor, in whose charge they remained until they went to the

University. They were brought up in a simple and unostentatious manner,

for the Duke was poor and the duchy very small and very insignificant.

Before long it became evident that Albert was a model lad. Intelligent

and painstaking, he had been touched by the moral earnestness of his

generation; at the age of eleven he surprised his father by telling him

that he hoped to make himself "a good and useful man." And yet he was

not over-serious; though, perhaps, he had little humour, he was full

of fun--of practical jokes and mimicry. He was no milksop; he rode, and

shot, and fenced; above all did he delight in being out of doors, and

never was he happier than in his long rambles with his brother through

the wild country round his beloved Rosenau--stalking the deer, admiring

the scenery, and returning laden with specimens for his natural

history collection. He was, besides, passionately fond of music. In one

particular it was observed that he did not take after his father: owing

either to his peculiar upbringing or to a more fundamental idiosyncrasy

he had a marked distaste for the opposite sex. At the age of five, at a

children's dance, he screamed with disgust and anger when a little girl

was led up to him for a partner; and though, later on, he grew more

successful in disguising such feelings, the feelings remained.

The brothers were very popular in Coburg, and, when the time came for

them to be confirmed, the preliminary examination which, according to

ancient custom, was held in public in the "Giants' Hall" of the

Castle, was attended by an enthusiastic crowd of functionaries, clergy,

delegates from the villages of the duchy, and miscellaneous onlookers.

There were also present, besides the Duke and the Dowager Duchess, their

Serene Highnesses the Princes Alexander and Ernest of Wurtemberg,

Prince Leiningen, Princess Hohenlohe-Langenburg, and Princess

Hohenlohe-Schillingsfurst. Dr. Jacobi, the Court chaplain, presided at

an altar, simply but appropriately decorated, which had been placed at

the end of the hall; and the proceedings began by the choir singing the

first verse of the hymn, "Come, Holy Ghost." After some introductory

remarks, Dr. Jacobi began the examination. "The dignified and decorous

bearing of the Princes," we are told in a contemporary account,

"their strict attention to the questions, the frankness, decision, and

correctness of their answers, produced a deep impression on the numerous

assembly. Nothing was more striking in their answers than the evidence

they gave of deep feeling and of inward strength of conviction. The

questions put by the examiner were not such as to be met by a simple

'yes' or 'no.' They were carefully considered in order to give the

audience a clear insight into the views and feelings of,the young

princes. One of the most touching moments was when the examiner asked

the hereditary prince whether he intended steadfastly to hold to the

Evangelical Church, and the Prince answered not only 'Yes!' but added in

a clear and decided tone: 'I and my brother are firmly resolved ever

to remain faithful to the acknowledged truth.' The examination having

lasted an hour, Dr. Jacobi made some concluding observations, followed

by a short prayer; the second and third verses of the opening hymn were

sung; and the ceremony was over. The Princes, stepping down from the

altar, were embraced by the Duke and the Dowager Duchess; after which

the loyal inhabitants of Coburg dispersed, well satisfied with their

entertainment."

Albert's mental development now proceeded apace. In his seventeenth year

he began a careful study of German literature and German philosophy.

He set about, he told his tutor, "to follow the thoughts of the great

Klopstock into their depths--though in this, for the most part," he

modestly added, "I do not succeed." He wrote an essay on the "Mode

of Thought of the Germans, and a Sketch of the History of German

Civilisation," "making use," he said, "in its general outlines, of

the divisions which the treatment of the subject itself demands," and

concluding with "a retrospect of the shortcomings of our time, with an

appeal to every one to correct those shortcomings in his own case, and

thus set a good example to others." Placed for some months under the

care of King Leopold at Brussels, he came under the influence of Adolphe

Quetelet, a mathematical professor, who was particularly interested

in the application of the laws of probability to political and moral

phenomena; this line of inquiry attracted the Prince, and the friendship

thus begun continued till the end of his life. From Brussels he went to

the University of Bonn, where he was speedily distinguished both by his

intellectual and his social activities; his energies were absorbed

in metaphysics, law, political economy, music, fencing, and amateur

theatricals. Thirty years later his fellow--students recalled with

delight the fits of laughter into which they had been sent by Prince

Albert's mimicry. The verve with which his Serene Highness reproduced

the tones and gestures of one of the professors who used to point to

a picture of a row of houses in Venice with the remark, "That is the

Ponte-Realte," and of another who fell down in a race and was obliged to

look for his spectacles, was especially appreciated.

After a year at Bonn, the time had come for a foreign tour, and Baron

Stockmar arrived from England to accompany the Prince on an expedition

to Italy. The Baron had been already, two years previously, consulted

by King Leopold as to his views upon the proposed marriage of Albert

and Victoria. His reply had been remarkable. With a characteristic

foresight, a characteristic absence of optimism, a characteristic sense

of the moral elements in the situation, Stockmar had pointed out what

were, in his opinion, the conditions essential to make the marriage a

success. Albert, he wrote, "was a fine young fellow, well grown for his

age, with agreeable and valuable qualities; and it was probable that

in a few years he would turn out a strong handsome man, of a kindly,

simple, yet dignified demeanour. Thus, externally, he possesses

all that pleases the sex, and at all times and in all countries must

please." Supposing, therefore, that Victoria herself was in favour of

the marriage, the further question arose as to whether Albert's mental

qualities were such as to fit him for the position of husband of the

Queen of England. On this point, continued the Baron, one heard much to

his credit; the Prince was said to be discreet and intelligent; but

all such judgments were necessarily partial, and the Baron preferred to

reserve his opinion until he could come to a trustworthy conclusion from

personal observation. And then he added: "But all this is not enough.

The young man ought to have not merely great ability, but a right

ambition, and great force of will as well. To pursue for a lifetime a

political career so arduous demands more than energy and inclination--it

demands also that earnest frame of mind which is ready of its own accord

to sacrifice mere pleasure to real usefulness. If he is not satisfied

hereafter with the consciousness of having achieved one of the most

influential positions in Europe, how often will he feel tempted to

repent his adventure! If he does not from the very outset accept it as a

vocation of grave responsibility, on the efficient performance of

which his honour and happiness depend, there is small likelihood of his

succeeding."

Such were the views of Stockmar on the qualifications necessary for the

due fulfilment of that destiny which Albert's family had marked out for

him; and he hoped, during the tour in Italy, to come to some conclusion

as to how far the prince possessed them. Albert on his side was much

impressed by the Baron, whom he had previously seen but rarely; he

also became acquainted, for the first time in his life, with a young

Englishman, Lieutenant Francis Seymour, who had been engaged to

accompany him, whom he found sehr liebens-wurdig, and with whom he

struck up a warm friendship. He delighted in the galleries and scenery

of Florence, though with Rome he was less impressed. "But for some

beautiful palaces," he said, "it might just as well be any town in

Germany." In an interview with Pope Gregory XVI, he took the opportunity

of displaying his erudition. When the Pope observed that the Greeks

had taken their art from the Etruscans, Albert replied that, on the

contrary, in his opinion, they had borrowed from the Egyptians: his

Holiness politely acquiesced. Wherever he went he was eager to increase

his knowledge, and, at a ball in Florence, he was observed paying no

attention whatever to the ladies, and deep in conversation with the

learned Signor Capponi. "Voila un prince dont nous pouvons etre fiers,"

said the Grand Duke of Tuscany, who was standing by: "la belle danseuse

l'attend, le savant l'occupe."

On his return to Germany, Stockmar's observations, imparted to King

Leopold, were still critical. Albert, he said, was intelligent,

kind, and amiable; he was full of the best intentions and the noblest

resolutions, and his judgment was in many things beyond his years. But

great exertion was repugnant to him; he seemed to be too willing to

spare himself, and his good resolutions too often came to nothing. It

was particularly unfortunate that he took not the slightest interest

in politics, and never read a newspaper. In his manners, too, there was

still room for improvement. "He will always," said the Baron, "have more

success with men than with women, in whose society he shows too little

empressement, and is too indifferent and retiring." One other feature

of the case was noted by the keen eye of the old physician: the Prince's

constitution was not a strong one. Yet, on the whole, he was favourable

to the projected marriage. But by now the chief obstacle seemed to lie

in another quarter, Victoria was apparently determined to commit herself

to nothing. And so it happened that when Albert went to England he had

made up his mind to withdraw entirely from the affair. Nothing would

induce him, he confessed to a friend, to be kept vaguely waiting;

he would break it all off at once. His reception at Windsor threw an

entirely new light upon the situation. The wheel of fortune turned

with a sudden rapidity; and he found, in the arms of Victoria, the

irrevocable assurance of his overwhelming fate.

II

He was not in love with her. Affection, gratitude, the natural reactions

to the unqualified devotion of a lively young cousin who was also

a queen--such feelings possessed him, but the ardours of reciprocal

passion were not his. Though he found that he liked Victoria very much,

what immediately interested him in his curious position was less her

than himself. Dazzled and delighted, riding, dancing, singing, laughing,

amid the splendours of Windsor, he was aware of a new sensation--the

stirrings of ambition in his breast. His place would indeed be a high,

an enviable one! And then, on the instant, came another thought. The

teaching of religion, the admonitions of Stockmar, his own inmost

convictions, all spoke with the same utterance. He would not be there to

please himself, but for a very different purpose--to do good. He must be

"noble, manly, and princely in all things," he would have "to live and

to sacrifice himself for the benefit of his new country;" to "use his

powers and endeavours for a great object--that of promoting the welfare

of multitudes of his fellowmen." One serious thought led on to another.

The wealth and the bustle of the English Court might be delightful for

the moment, but, after all, it was Coburg that had his heart. "While

I shall be untiring," he wrote to his grandmother, "in my efforts and

labours for the country to which I shall in future belong, and where

I am called to so high a position, I shall never cease ein treuer

Deutscher, Coburger, Gothaner zu sein." And now he must part from Coburg

for ever! Sobered and sad, he sought relief in his brother Ernest's

company; the two young men would shut themselves up together, and,

sitting down at the pianoforte, would escape from the present and the

future in the sweet familiar gaiety of a Haydn duet.

They returned to Germany; and while Albert, for a few farewell months,

enjoyed, for the last time, the happiness of home, Victoria, for the

last time, resumed her old life in London and Windsor. She corresponded

daily with her future husband in a mingled flow of German and English;

but the accustomed routine reasserted itself; the business and the

pleasures of the day would brook no interruption; Lord M. was once

more constantly beside her; and the Tories were as intolerable as ever.

Indeed, they were more so. For now, in these final moments, the old feud

burst out with redoubled fury. The impetuous sovereign found, to her

chagrin, that there might be disadvantages in being the declared enemy

of one of the great parties in the State. On two occasions, the Tories

directly thwarted her in a matter on which she had set her heart. She

wished her husband's rank to be axed by statute, and their opposition

prevented it. She wished her husband to receive a settlement from the

nation of L50,000 a year; and, again owing to the Tories, he was only

allowed L30,000. It was too bad. When the question was discussed in

Parliament, it had been pointed out that the bulk of the population was

suffering from great poverty, and that L30,000 was the whole revenue of

Coburg; but her uncle Leopold had been given L50,000, and it would

be monstrous to give Albert less. Sir Robert Peel--it might have been

expected--had had the effrontery to speak and vote for the smaller sum.

She was very angry; and determined to revenge herself by omitting to

invite a single Tory to her wedding. She would make an exception in

favour of old Lord Liverpool, but even the Duke of Wellington she

refused to ask. When it was represented to her that it would amount to

a national scandal if the Duke were absent from her wedding, she was

angrier than ever. "What! That old rebel! I won't have him:" she

was reported to have said. Eventually she was induced to send him an

invitation; but she made no attempt to conceal the bitterness of her

feelings, and the Duke himself was only too well aware of all that had

passed.

Nor was it only against the Tories that her irritation rose. As the time

for her wedding approached, her temper grew steadily sharper and

more arbitrary. Queen Adelaide annoyed her. King Leopold, too, was

"ungracious" in his correspondence; "Dear Uncle," she told Albert, "is

given to believe that he must rule the roost everywhere. However," she

added with asperity, "that is not a necessity." Even Albert himself

was not impeccable. Engulfed in Coburgs, he failed to appreciate

the complexity of English affairs. There were difficulties about his

household. He had a notion that he ought not to be surrounded by

violent Whigs; very likely, but he would not understand that the only

alternatives to violent Whigs were violent Tories; and it would be

preposterous if his Lords and Gentlemen were to be found voting against

the Queen's. He wanted to appoint his own Private Secretary. But how

could he choose the right person? Lord M. was obviously best qualified

to make the appointment; and Lord M. had decided that the Prince should

take over his own Private Secretary--George Anson, a staunch Whig.

Albert protested, but it was useless; Victoria simply announced that

Anson was appointed, and instructed Lehzen to send the Prince an

explanation of the details of the case.

Then, again, he had written anxiously upon the necessity of maintaining

unspotted the moral purity of the Court. Lord M's pupil considered that

dear Albert was strait-laced, and, in a brisk Anglo-German missive, set

forth her own views. "I like Lady A. very much," she told him, "only she

is a little strict awl particular, and too severe towards others, which

is not right; for I think one ought always to be indulgent towards other

people, as I always think, if we had not been well taken care of, we

might also have gone astray. That is always my feeling. Yet it is always

right to show that one does not like to see what is obviously wrong; but

it is very dangerous to be too severe, and I am certain that as a rule

such people always greatly regret that in their youth they have not been

so careful as they ought to have been. I have explained this so badly

and written it so badly, that I fear you will hardly be able to make it

out."

On one other matter she was insistent. Since the affair of Lady Flora

Hastings, a sad fate had overtaken Sir James Clark. His flourishing

practice had quite collapsed; nobody would go to him any more. But the

Queen remained faithful. She would show the world how little she cared

for their disapproval, and she desired Albert to make "poor Clark" his

physician in ordinary. He did as he was told; but, as it turned out, the

appointment was not a happy one.

The wedding-day was fixed, and it was time for Albert to tear himself

away from his family and the scenes of his childhood. With an aching

heart, he had revisited his beloved haunts--the woods and the valleys

where he had spent so many happy hours shooting rabbits and collecting

botanical specimens; in deep depression, he had sat through the farewell

banquets in the Palace and listened to the Freischutz performed by

the State band. It was time to go. The streets were packed as he drove

through them; for a short space his eyes were gladdened by a sea of

friendly German faces, and his ears by a gathering volume of good

guttural sounds. He stopped to bid a last adieu to his grandmother.

It was a heartrending moment. "Albert! Albert!" she shrieked, and fell

fainting into the arms of her attendants as his carriage drove away. He

was whirled rapidly to his destiny. At Calais a steamboat awaited him,

and, together with his father and his brother, he stepped, dejected, on

board. A little later, he was more dejected still. The crossing was a

very rough one; the Duke went hurriedly below; while the two Princes,

we are told, lay on either side of the cabin staircase "in an almost

helpless state." At Dover a large crowd was collected on the pier, and

"it was by no common effort that Prince Albert, who had continued to

suffer up to the last moment, got up to bow to the people." His sense

of duty triumphed. It was a curious omen: his whole life in England was

foreshadowed as he landed on English ground.

Meanwhile Victoria, in growing agitation, was a prey to temper and to

nerves. She grew feverish, and at last Sir James Clark pronounced

that she was going to have the measles. But, once again, Sir James's

diagnosis was incorrect. It was not the measles that were attacking

her, but a very different malady; she was suddenly prostrated by alarm,

regret, and doubt. For two years she had been her own mistress--the two

happiest years, by far, of her life. And now it was all to end! She was

to come under an alien domination--she would have to promise that she

would honour and obey... someone, who might, after all, thwart her,

oppose her--and how dreadful that would be! Why had she embarked on this

hazardous experiment? Why had she not been contented with Lord M.? No

doubt, she loved Albert; but she loved power too. At any rate, one thing

was certain: she might be Albert's wife, but she would always be Queen

of England. He reappeared, in an exquisite uniform, and her hesitations

melted in his presence like mist before the sun. On February 10, 1840,

the marriage took place. The wedded pair drove down to Windsor; but

they were not, of course, entirely alone. They were accompanied by their

suites, and, in particular, by two persons--the Baron Stockmar and the

Baroness Lehzen.

III

Albert had foreseen that his married life would not be all plain

sailing; but he had by no means realised the gravity and the

complication of the difficulties which he would have to face.

Politically, he was a cipher. Lord Melbourne was not only Prime

Minister, he was in effect the Private Secretary of the Queen, and thus

controlled the whole of the political existence of the sovereign. A

queen's husband was an entity unknown to the British Constitution. In

State affairs there seemed to be no place for him; nor was Victoria

herself at all unwilling that this should be so. "The English," she had

told the Prince when, during their engagement, a proposal had been made

to give him a peerage, "are very jealous of any foreigner interfering in

the government of this country, and have already in some of the papers

expressed a hope that you would not interfere. Now, though I know you

never would, still, if you were a Peer, they would all say, the Prince

meant to play a political part. I know you never would!" In reality, she

was not quite so certain; but she wished Albert to understand her views.

He would, she hoped, make a perfect husband; but, as for governing the

country, he would see that she and Lord M. between them could manage

that very well, without his help.

But it was not only in politics that the Prince discovered that the part

cut out for him was a negligible one. Even as a husband, he found, his

functions were to be of an extremely limited kind. Over the whole of

Victoria's private life the Baroness reigned supreme; and she had not

the slightest intention of allowing that supremacy to be diminished by

one iota. Since the accession, her power had greatly increased. Besides

the undefined and enormous influence which she exercised through her

management of the Queen's private correspondence, she was now the

superintendent of the royal establishment and controlled the important

office of Privy Purse. Albert very soon perceived that he was not master

in his own house. Every detail of his own and his wife's existence was

supervised by a third person: nothing could be done until the consent

of Lehzen had first been obtained. And Victoria, who adored Lehzen with

unabated intensity, saw nothing in all this that was wrong.

Nor was the Prince happier in his social surroundings. A shy young

foreigner, awkward in ladies' company, unexpansive and self-opinionated,

it was improbable that, in any circumstances, he would have been a

society success. His appearance, too, was against him. Though in the

eyes of Victoria he was the mirror of manly beauty, her subjects, whose

eyes were of a less Teutonic cast, did not agree with her. To them--and

particularly to the high-born ladies and gentlemen who naturally saw him

most--what was immediately and distressingly striking in Albert's face

and figure and whole demeanour was his un-English look. His features

were regular, no doubt, but there was something smooth and smug about

them; he was tall, but he was clumsily put together, and he walked with

a slight slouch. Really, they thought, this youth was more like

some kind of foreign tenor than anything else. These were serious

disadvantages; but the line of conduct which the Prince adopted from

the first moment of his arrival was far from calculated to dispel

them. Owing partly to a natural awkwardness, partly to a fear of undue

familiarity, and partly to a desire to be absolutely correct, his

manners were infused with an extraordinary stiffness and formality.

Whenever he appeared in company, he seemed to be surrounded by a thick

hedge of prickly etiquette. He never went out into ordinary society; he

never walked in the streets of London; he was invariably accompanied by

an equerry when he rode or drove. He wanted to be irreproachable and, if

that involved friendlessness, it could not be helped. Besides, he had no

very high opinion of the English. So far as he could see, they cared for

nothing but fox-hunting and Sunday observances; they oscillated between

an undue frivolity and an undue gloom; if you spoke to them of friendly

joyousness they stared; and they did not understand either the Laws of

Thought or the wit of a German University. Since it was clear that with

such people he could have very little in common, there was no reason

whatever for relaxing in their favour the rules of etiquette. In strict

privacy, he could be natural and charming; Seymour and Anson were

devoted to him, and he returned their affection; but they were

subordinates--the receivers of his confidences and the agents of his

will. From the support and the solace of true companionship he was

utterly cut off.

A friend, indeed, he had--or rather, a mentor. The Baron, established

once more in the royal residence, was determined to work with as

wholehearted a detachment for the Prince's benefit as, more than twenty

years before, he had worked for his uncle's. The situations then and

now, similar in many respects, were yet full of differences. Perhaps in

either case the difficulties to be encountered were equally great; but

the present problem was the more complex and the more interesting. The

young doctor who, unknown and insignificant, had nothing at the back of

him but his own wits and the friendship of an unimportant Prince, had

been replaced by the accomplished confidant of kings and ministers, ripe

in years, in reputation, and in the wisdom of a vast experience. It

was possible for him to treat Albert with something of the affectionate

authority of a father; but, on the other hand, Albert was no Leopold.

As the Baron was very well aware, he had none of his uncle's rigidity of

ambition, none of his overweening impulse to be personally great. He was

virtuous and well-intentioned; he was clever and well-informed; but he

took no interest in politics, and there were no signs that he possessed

any commanding force of character. Left to himself, he would almost

certainly have subsided into a high-minded nonentity, an aimless

dilettante busy over culture, a palace appendage without influence or

power. But he was not left to himself: Stockmar saw to that. For ever

at his pupil's elbow, the hidden Baron pushed him forward, with tireless

pressure, along the path which had been trod by Leopold so many years

ago. But, this time, the goal at the end of it was something more than

the mediocre royalty that Leopold had reached. The prize which Stockmar,

with all the energy of disinterested devotion, had determined should be

Albert's was a tremendous prize indeed.

The beginning of the undertaking proved to be the most arduous part

of it. Albert was easily dispirited: what was the use of struggling to

perform in a role which bored him and which, it was quite clear, nobody

but the dear good Baron had any desire that he should take up? It was

simpler, and it saved a great deal of trouble, to let things slide.

But Stockmar would not have it. Incessantly, he harped upon two

strings--Albert's sense of duty and his personal pride. Had the Prince

forgotten the noble aims to which his life was to be devoted? And was he

going to allow himself, his wife, his family, his whole existence, to be

governed by Baroness Lehzen? The latter consideration was a potent one.

Albert had never been accustomed to giving way; and now, more than ever

before, it would be humiliating to do so. Not only was he constantly

exasperated by the position of the Baroness in the royal household;

there was another and a still more serious cause of complaint. He was,

he knew very well, his wife's intellectual superior, and yet he found,

to his intense annoyance, that there were parts of her mind over which

he exercised no influence. When, urged on by the Baron, he attempted

to discuss politics with Victoria, she eluded the subject, drifted into

generalities, and then began to talk of something else. She was treating

him as she had once treated their uncle Leopold. When at last he

protested, she replied that her conduct was merely the result of

indolence; that when she was with him she could not bear to bother her

head with anything so dull as politics. The excuse was worse than the

fault: was he the wife and she the husband? It almost seemed so. But the

Baron declared that the root of the mischief was Lehzen: that it was she

who encouraged the Queen to have secrets; who did worse--undermined

the natural ingenuousness of Victoria, and induced her to give,

unconsciously no doubt, false reasons to explain away her conduct.

Minor disagreements made matters worse. The royal couple differed in

their tastes. Albert, brought up in a regime of Spartan simplicity and

early hours, found the great Court functions intolerably wearisome,

and was invariably observed to be nodding on the sofa at half-past ten;

while the Queen's favourite form of enjoyment was to dance through the

night, and then, going out into the portico of the Palace, watch the sun

rise behind St. Paul's and the towers of Westminster. She loved London

and he detested it. It was only in Windsor that he felt he could really

breathe; but Windsor too had its terrors: though during the day there

he could paint and walk and play on the piano, after dinner black tedium

descended like a pall. He would have liked to summon distinguished

scientific and literary men to his presence, and after ascertaining

their views upon various points of art and learning, to set forth his

own; but unfortunately Victoria "had no fancy to encourage such people;"

knowing that she was unequal to taking a part in their conversation,

she insisted that the evening routine should remain unaltered; the

regulation interchange of platitudes with official persons was followed

as usual by the round table and the books of engravings, while the

Prince, with one of his attendants, played game after game of double

chess.

It was only natural that in so peculiar a situation, in which the

elements of power, passion, and pride were so strangely apportioned,

there should have been occasionally something more than mere

irritation--a struggle of angry wills. Victoria, no more than Albert,

was in the habit of playing second fiddle. Her arbitrary temper flashed

out. Her vitality, her obstinacy, her overweening sense of her own

position, might well have beaten down before them his superiorities and

his rights. But she fought at a disadvantage; she was, in very truth, no

longer her own mistress; a profound preoccupation dominated her, seizing

upon her inmost purposes for its own extraordinary ends. She was madly

in love. The details of those curious battles are unknown to us; but

Prince Ernest, who remained in England with his brother for some

months, noted them with a friendly and startled eye. One story, indeed,

survives, ill-authenticated and perhaps mythical, yet summing up, as

such stories often do, the central facts of the case. When, in wrath,

the Prince one day had locked himself into his room, Victoria, no less

furious, knocked on the door to be admitted. "Who is there?" he asked.

"The Queen of England" was the answer. He did not move, and again there

was a hail of knocks. The question and the answer were repeated many

times; but at last there was a pause, and then a gentler knocking. "Who

is there?" came once more the relentless question. But this time the

reply was different. "Your wife, Albert." And the door was immediately

opened.

Very gradually the Prince's position changed. He began to find the study

of politics less uninteresting than he had supposed; he read Blackstone,

and took lessons in English Law; he was occasionally present when the

Queen interviewed her Ministers; and at Lord Melbourne's suggestion he

was shown all the despatches relating to Foreign Affairs. Sometimes

he would commit his views to paper, and read them aloud to the Prime

Minister, who, infinitely kind and courteous, listened with attention,

but seldom made any reply. An important step was taken when, before

the birth of the Princess Royal, the Prince, without any opposition

in Parliament, was appointed Regent in case of the death of the Queen.

Stockmar, owing to whose intervention with the Tories this happy result

had been brought about, now felt himself at liberty to take a holiday

with his family in Coburg; but his solicitude, poured out in innumerable

letters, still watched over his pupil from afar. "Dear Prince," he

wrote, "I am satisfied with the news you have sent me. Mistakes,

misunderstandings, obstructions, which come in vexatious opposition

to one's views, are always to be taken for just what they are--namely,

natural phenomena of life, which represent one of its sides, and

that the shady one. In overcoming them with dignity, your mind has to

exercise, to train, to enlighten itself; and your character to gain

force, endurance, and the necessary hardness." The Prince had done well

so far; but he must continue in the right path; above all, he was "never

to relax." "Never to relax in putting your magnanimity to the proof;

never to relax in logical separation of what is great and essential from

what is trivial and of no moment; never to relax in keeping yourself

up to a high standard--in the determination, daily renewed, to be

consistent, patient, courageous." It was a hard programme perhaps, for a

young man of twenty-one; and yet there was something in it which touched

the very depths of Albert's soul. He sighed, but he listened--listened

as to the voice of a spiritual director inspired with divine truth. "The

stars which are needful to you now," the voice continued, "and perhaps

for some time to come, are Love, Honesty, Truth. All those whose minds

are warped, or who are destitute of true feeling, will BE APT TO MISTAKE

YOU, and to persuade themselves and the world that you are not the man

you are--or, at least, may become... Do you, therefore, be on the alert

be times, with your eyes open in every direction... I wish for my Prince

a great, noble, warm, and true heart, such as shall serve as the richest

and surest basis for the noblest views of human nature, and the firmest

resolve to give them development."

Before long, the decisive moment came. There was a General Election, and

it became certain that the Tories, at last, must come into power. The

Queen disliked them as much as ever; but, with a large majority in the

House of Commons, they would now be in a position to insist upon their

wishes being attended to. Lord Melbourne himself was the first to

realise the importance of carrying out the inevitable transition with as

little friction as possible; and with his consent, the Prince, following

up the rapprochement which had begun over the Regency Act, opened,

through Anson, a negotiation with Sir Robert Peel. In a series of secret

interviews, a complete understanding was reached upon the difficult

and complex question of the Bedchamber. It was agreed that the

constitutional point should not be raised, but that on the formation of

the Tory Government, the principal Whig ladies should retire, and their

places be filled by others appointed by Sir Robert. Thus, in effect,

though not in form, the Crown abandoned the claims of 1839, and they

have never been subsequently put forward. The transaction was a turning

point in the Prince's career. He had conducted an important negotiation

with skill and tact; he had been brought into close and friendly

relations with the new Prime Minister; it was obvious that a great

political future lay before him. Victoria was much impressed and deeply

grateful. "My dearest Angel," she told King Leopold, "is indeed a great

comfort to me. He takes the greatest interest in what goes on, feeling

with and for me, and yet abstaining as he ought from biasing me either

way, though we talk much on the subject, and his judgment is, as you

say, good and mild." She was in need of all the comfort and assistance

he could give her. Lord M. was going, and she could hardly bring herself

to speak to Peel. Yes; she would discuss everything with Albert now!

Stockmar, who had returned to England, watched the departure of Lord

Melbourne with satisfaction. If all went well, the Prince should now

wield a supreme political influence over Victoria. But would all go

well?? An unexpected development put the Baron into a serious fright.

When the dreadful moment finally came, and the Queen, in anguish, bade

adieu to her beloved Minister, it was settled between them that, though

it would be inadvisable to meet very often, they could continue to

correspond. Never were the inconsistencies of Lord Melbourne's character

shown more clearly than in what followed. So long as he was in office,

his attitude towards Peel had been irreproachable; he had done all he

could to facilitate the change of government, he had even, through more

than one channel, transmitted privately to his successful rival advice

as to the best means of winning the Queen's good graces. Yet, no sooner

was he in opposition than his heart failed him. He could not bear the

thought of surrendering altogether the privilege and the pleasure of

giving counsel to Victoria--of being cut off completely from the power

and the intimacy which had been his for so long and in such abundant

measure. Though he had declared that he would be perfectly discreet in

his letters, he could not resist taking advantage of the opening they

afforded. He discussed in detail various public questions, and, in

particular, gave the Queen a great deal of advice in the matter of

appointments. This advice was followed. Lord Melbourne recommended

that Lord Heytesbury, who, he said, was an able man, should be made

Ambassador at Vienna; and a week later the Queen wrote to the Foreign

Secretary urging that Lord Heytesbury, whom she believed to be a very

able man, should be employed "on some important mission." Stockmar

was very much alarmed. He wrote a memorandum, pointing out the

unconstitutional nature of Lord Melbourne's proceedings and the

unpleasant position in which the Queen might find herself if they were

discovered by Peel; and he instructed Anson to take this memorandum to

the ex-Minister. Lord Melbourne, lounging on a sofa, read it through

with compressed lips. "This is quite an apple-pie opinion," he said.

When Anson ventured to expostulate further, suggesting that it was

unseemly in the leader of the Opposition to maintain an intimate

relationship with the Sovereign, the old man lost his temper. "God

eternally damn it!" he exclaimed, leaping up from his sofa, and dashing

about the room. "Flesh and blood cannot stand this!" He continued to

write to the Queen, as before; and two more violent bombardments from

the Baron were needed before he was brought to reason. Then, gradually,

his letters grew less and less frequent, with fewer and fewer references

to public concerns; at last, they were entirely innocuous. The Baron

smiled; Lord M. had accepted the inevitable.

The Whig Ministry resigned in September, 1841; but more than a year

was to elapse before another and an equally momentous change was

effected--the removal of Lehzen. For, in the end, the mysterious

governess was conquered. The steps are unknown by which Victoria was at

last led to accept her withdrawal with composure--perhaps with relief;

but it is clear that Albert's domestic position must have been greatly

strengthened by the appearance of children. The birth of the Princess

Royal had been followed in November, 1841, by that of the Prince of

Wales; and before very long another baby was expected. The Baroness,

with all her affection, could have but a remote share in such family

delights. She lost ground perceptibly. It was noticed as a phenomenon

that, once or twice, when the Court travelled, she was left behind at

Windsor. The Prince was very cautious; at the change of Ministry, Lord

Melbourne had advised him to choose that moment for decisive action;

but he judged it wiser to wait. Time and the pressure of inevitable

circumstances were for him; every day his predominance grew more

assured--and every night. At length he perceived that he need hesitate

no longer--that every wish, every velleity of his had only to be

expressed to be at once Victoria's. He spoke, and Lehzen vanished for

ever. No more would she reign in that royal heart and those royal halls.

No more, watching from a window at Windsor, would she follow her pupil

and her sovereign walking on the terrace among the obsequious multitude,

with the eye of triumphant love. Returning to her native Hanover she

established herself at Buckeburg in a small but comfortable house, the

walls of which were entirely covered by portraits of Her Majesty. The

Baron, in spite of his dyspepsia, smiled again: Albert was supreme.

IV

The early discords had passed away completely--resolved into the

absolute harmony of married life. Victoria, overcome by a new, an

unimagined revelation, had surrendered her whole soul to her husband.

The beauty and the charm which so suddenly had made her his at first

were, she now saw, no more than but the outward manifestation of the

true Albert. There was an inward beauty, an inward glory which, blind

that she was, she had then but dimly apprehended, but of which now she

was aware in every fibre of her being--he was good--he was great! How

could she ever have dreamt of setting up her will against his wisdom,

her ignorance against his knowledge, her fancies against his perfect

taste? Had she really once loved London and late hours and dissipation?

She who now was only happy in the country, she who jumped out of bed

every morning--oh, so early!--with Albert, to take a walk, before

breakfast, with Albert alone! How wonderful it was to be taught by him!

To be told by him which trees were which; and to learn all about the

bees! And then to sit doing cross-stitch while he read aloud to her

Hallam's Constitutional History of England! Or to listen to him playing

on his new organ 'The organ is the first of instruments,' he said; or

to sing to him a song by Mendelssohn, with a great deal of care over

the time and the breathing, and only a very occasional false note! And,

after dinner, to--oh, how good of him! He had given up his double chess!

And so there could be round games at the round table, or everyone could

spend the evening in the most amusing way imaginable--spinning counters

and rings.' When the babies came it was still more wonderful. Pussy was

such a clever little girl ("I am not Pussy! I am the Princess Royal!"

she had angrily exclaimed on one occasion); and Bertie--well, she could

only pray MOST fervently that the little Prince of Wales would grow up

to "resemble his angelic dearest Father in EVERY, EVERY respect, both in

body and mind." Her dear Mamma, too, had been drawn once more into the

family circle, for Albert had brought about a reconciliation, and the

departure of Lehzen had helped to obliterate the past. In Victoria's

eyes, life had become an idyll, and, if the essential elements of an

idyll are happiness, love and simplicity, an idyll it was; though,

indeed, it was of a kind that might have disconcerted Theocritus.

"Albert brought in dearest little Pussy," wrote Her Majesty in her

journal, "in such a smart white merino dress trimmed with blue, which

Mamma had given her, and a pretty cap, and placed her on my bed,

seating himself next to her, and she was very dear and good. And, as my

precious, invaluable Albert sat there, and our little Love between us, I

felt quite moved with happiness and gratitude to God."

The past--the past of only three years since--when she looked back upon

it, seemed a thing so remote and alien that she could explain it to

herself in no other way than as some kind of delusion--an unfortunate

mistake. Turning over an old volume of her diary, she came upon this

sentence--"As for 'the confidence of the Crown,' God knows! No MINISTER,

NO FRIEND, EVER possessed it so entirely as this truly excellent Lord

Melbourne possesses mine!" A pang shot through her--she seized a

pen, and wrote upon the margin--"Reading this again, I cannot forbear

remarking what an artificial sort of happiness MINE was THEN, and what

a blessing it is I have now in my beloved Husband REAL and solid

happiness, which no Politics, no worldly reverses CAN change; it could

not have lasted long as it was then, for after all, kind and excellent

as Lord M. is, and kind as he was to me, it was but in Society that I

had amusement, and I was only living on that superficial resource, which

I THEN FANCIED was happiness! Thank God! for ME and others, this is

changed, and I KNOW WHAT REAL HAPPINESS IS--V. R." How did she know?

What is the distinction between happiness that is real and happiness

that is felt? So a philosopher--Lord M. himself perhaps--might have

inquired. But she was no philosopher, and Lord M. was a phantom, and

Albert was beside her, and that was enough.

Happy, certainly, she was; and she wanted everyone to know it. Her

letters to King Leopold are sprinkled thick with raptures. "Oh! my

dearest uncle, I am sure if you knew HOW happy, how blessed I feel, and

how PROUD I feel in possessing SUCH a perfect being as my husband..."

such ecstasies seemed to gush from her pen unceasingly and almost

of their own accord. When, one day, without thinking, Lady Lyttelton

described someone to her as being "as happy as a queen," and then grew

a little confused, "Don't correct yourself, Lady Lyttelton," said Her

Majesty. "A queen IS a very happy woman."

But this new happiness was no lotus dream. On the contrary, it was

bracing, rather than relaxing. Never before had she felt so acutely the

necessity for doing her duty. She worked more methodically than ever

at the business of State; she watched over her children with untiring

vigilance. She carried on a large correspondence; she was occupied with

her farm--her dairy--a whole multitude of household avocations--from

morning till night. Her active, eager little body hurrying with quick

steps after the long strides of Albert down the corridors and avenues

of Windsor, seemed the very expression of her spirit. Amid all the

softness, the deliciousness of unmixed joy, all the liquescence, the

overflowings of inexhaustible sentiment, her native rigidity remained.

"A vein of iron," said Lady Lyttelton, who, as royal governess, had good

means of observation, "runs through her most extraordinary character."

Sometimes the delightful routine of domestic existence had to be

interrupted. It was necessary to exchange Windsor for Buckingham

Palace, to open Parliament, or to interview official personages, or,

occasionally, to entertain foreign visitors at the Castle. Then the

quiet Court put on a sudden magnificence, and sovereigns from over

the seas--Louis Philippe, or the King of Prussia, or the King of

Saxony--found at Windsor an entertainment that was indeed a royal one.

Few spectacles in Europe, it was agreed, produced an effect so imposing

as the great Waterloo banqueting hall, crowded with guests in sparkling

diamonds and blazing uniforms, the long walls hung with the stately

portraits of heroes, and the tables loaded with the gorgeous gold plate

of the kings of England. But, in that wealth of splendour, the most

imposing spectacle of all was the Queen. The little hausfrau, who had

spent the day before walking out with her children, inspecting her

livestock, practicing shakes at the piano, and filling up her journal

with adoring descriptions of her husband, suddenly shone forth, without

art, without effort, by a spontaneous and natural transition, the very

culmination of Majesty. The Tsar of Russia himself was deeply impressed.

Victoria on her side viewed with secret awe the tremendous Nicholas. "A

great event and a great compliment HIS visit certainly is," she told

her uncle, "and the people HERE are extremely flattered at it. He is

certainly a VERY STRIKING man; still very handsome. His profile is

BEAUTIFUL and his manners MOST dignified and graceful; extremely

civil--quite alarmingly so, as he is so full of attentions and

POLITENESS. But the expression of the EYES is FORMIDABLE and unlike

anything I ever saw before." She and Albert and "the good King of

Saxony," who happened to be there at the same time, and whom, she said,

"we like much--he is so unassuming-" drew together like tame villatic

fowl in the presence of that awful eagle. When he was gone, they

compared notes about his face, his unhappiness, and his despotic power

over millions. Well! She for her part could not help pitying him, and

she thanked God she was Queen of England.

When the time came for returning some of these visits, the royal pair

set forth in their yacht, much to Victoria's satisfaction. "I do love a

ship!" she exclaimed, ran up and down ladders with the greatest agility,

and cracked jokes with the sailors. The Prince was more aloof. They

visited Louis Philippe at the Chateau d'Eu; they visited King Leopold in

Brussels. It happened that a still more remarkable Englishwoman was in

the Belgian capital, but she was not remarked; and Queen Victoria passed

unknowing before the steady gaze of one of the mistresses in M. Heger's

pensionnat. "A little stout, vivacious lady, very plainly dressed--not

much dignity or pretension about her," was Charlotte Bronte's comment

as the royal carriage and six flashed by her, making her wait on the

pavement for a moment, and interrupting the train of her reflections.

Victoria was in high spirits, and even succeeded in instilling a little

cheerfulness into her uncle's sombre Court. King Leopold, indeed, was

perfectly contented. His dearest hopes had been fulfilled; all his

ambitions were satisfied; and for the rest of his life he had only to

enjoy, in undisturbed decorum, his throne, his respectability, the table

of precedence, and the punctual discharge of his irksome duties.

But unfortunately the felicity of those who surrounded him was less

complete. His Court, it was murmured, was as gloomy as a conventicle,

and the most dismal of all the sufferers was his wife. "Pas de

plaisanteries, madame!" he had exclaimed to the unfortunate successor of

the Princess Charlotte, when, in the early days of their marriage, she

had attempted a feeble joke. Did she not understand that the consort

of a constitutional sovereign must not be frivolous? She understood, at

last, only too well; and when the startled walls of the state apartments

re-echoed to the chattering and the laughter of Victoria, the poor lady

found that she had almost forgotten how to smile.

Another year, Germany was visited, and Albert displayed the beauties of

his home. When Victoria crossed the frontier, she was much excited--and

she was astonished as well. "To hear the people speak German," she noted

in her diary, "and to see the German soldiers, etc., seemed to me

so singular." Having recovered from this slight shock, she found the

country charming. She was feted everywhere, crowds of the surrounding

royalties swooped down to welcome her, and the prettiest groups of

peasant children, dressed in their best clothes, presented her with

bunches of flowers. The principality of Coburg, with its romantic

scenery and its well-behaved inhabitants, particularly delighted her;

and when she woke up one morning to find herself in "dear Rosenau, my

Albert's birthplace," it was "like a beautiful dream." On her return

home, she expatiated, in a letter to King Leopold, upon the pleasures

of the trip, dwelling especially upon the intensity of her affection for

Albert's native land. "I have a feeling," she said, "for our dear little

Germany, which I cannot describe. I felt it at Rosenau so much. It is

a something which touches me, and which goes to my heart, and makes me

inclined to cry. I never felt at any other place that sort of pensive

pleasure and peace which I felt there. I fear I almost like it too

much."

V

The husband was not so happy as the wife. In spite of the great

improvement in his situation, in spite of a growing family and the

adoration of Victoria, Albert was still a stranger in a strange land,

and the serenity of spiritual satisfaction was denied him. It was

something, no doubt, to have dominated his immediate environment; but it

was not enough; and, besides, in the very completeness of his success,

there was a bitterness. Victoria idolised him; but it was understanding

that he craved for, not idolatry; and how much did Victoria, filled

to the brim though she was with him, understand him? How much does the

bucket understand the well? He was lonely. He went to his organ and

improvised with learned modulations until the sounds, swelling and

subsiding through elaborate cadences, brought some solace to his heart.

Then, with the elasticity of youth, he hurried off to play with the

babies, or to design a new pigsty, or to read aloud the "Church History

of Scotland" to Victoria, or to pirouette before her on one toe, like a

ballet-dancer, with a fixed smile, to show her how she ought to behave

when she appeared in public places. Thus did he amuse himself; but there

was one distraction in which he did not indulge. He never flirted--no,

not with the prettiest ladies of the Court. When, during their

engagement, the Queen had remarked with pride to Lord Melbourne that

the Prince paid no attention to any other woman, the cynic had answered,

"No, that sort of thing is apt to come later;" upon which she had

scolded him severely, and then hurried off to Stockmar to repeat what

Lord M. had said. But the Baron had reassured her; though in other

cases, he had replied, that might happen, he did not think it would

in Albert's. And the Baron was right. Throughout their married life no

rival female charms ever had cause to give Victoria one moment's pang of

jealousy.

What more and more absorbed him--bringing with it a curious comfort of

its own--was his work. With the advent of Peel, he began to intervene

actively in the affairs of the State. In more ways than one--in the cast

of their intelligence, in their moral earnestness, even in the uneasy

formalism of their manners--the two men resembled each other; there was

a sympathy between them; and thus Peel was ready enough to listen to the

advice of Stockmar, and to urge the Prince forward into public life.

A royal commission was about to be formed to enquire whether advantage

might not be taken of the rebuilding of the Houses of Parliament to

encourage the Fine Arts in the United Kingdom; and Peel, with great

perspicacity, asked the Prince to preside over it. The work was of a

kind which precisely suited Albert: his love of art, his love of method,

his love of coming into contact--close yet dignified--with distinguished

men--it satisfied them all; and he threw himself into it con amore.

Some of the members of the commission were somewhat alarmed when, in his

opening speech, he pointed out the necessity of dividing the subjects

to be considered into "categories-" the word, they thought, smacked

dangerously of German metaphysics; but their confidence returned when

they observed His Royal Highness's extraordinary technical acquaintance

with the processes of fresco painting. When the question arose as to

whether the decorations upon the walls of the new buildings should,

or should not, have a moral purpose, the Prince spoke strongly for the

affirmative. Although many, he observed, would give but a passing glance

to the works, the painter was not therefore to forget that others

might view them with more thoughtful eyes. This argument convinced the

commission, and it was decided that the subjects to be depicted should

be of an improving nature. The frescoes were carried out in accordance

with the commission's instructions, but unfortunately before very long

they had become, even to the most thoughtful eyes, totally invisible.

It seems that His Royal Highness's technical acquaintance with the

processes of fresco painting was incomplete!

The next task upon which the Prince embarked was a more arduous one:

he determined to reform the organisation of the royal household. This

reform had been long overdue. For years past the confusion, discomfort,

and extravagance in the royal residences, and in Buckingham Palace

particularly, had been scandalous; no reform had been practicable under

the rule of the Baroness; but her functions had now devolved upon

the Prince, and in 1844, he boldly attacked the problem. Three years

earlier, Stockmar, after careful enquiry, had revealed in an elaborate

memorandum an extraordinary state of affairs. The control of the

household, it appeared, was divided in the strangest manner between a

number of authorities, each independent of the other, each possessed

of vague and fluctuating powers, without responsibility, and without

co-ordination. Of these authorities, the most prominent were the Lord

Steward and the Lord Chamberlain--noblemen of high rank and political

importance, who changed office with every administration, who did not

reside with the Court, and had no effective representatives attached

to it. The distribution of their respective functions was uncertain

and peculiar. In Buckingham Palace, it was believed that the Lord

Chamberlain had charge of the whole of the rooms, with the exception of

the kitchen, sculleries, and pantries, which were claimed by the Lord

Steward. At the same time, the outside of the Palace was under the

control of neither of these functionaries--but of the Office of Woods

and Forests; and thus, while the insides of the windows were cleaned by

the Department of the Lord Chamberlain--or possibly, in certain cases,

of the Lord Steward--the Office of Woods and Forests cleaned their

outsides. Of the servants, the housekeepers, the pages, and the

housemaids were under the authority of the Lord Chamberlain; the clerk

of the kitchen, the cooks, and the porters were under that of the Lord

Steward; but the footmen, the livery-porters, and the under-butlers

took their orders from yet another official--the Master of the Horse.

Naturally, in these circumstances the service was extremely defective

and the lack of discipline among the servants disgraceful. They absented

themselves for as long as they pleased and whenever the fancy took

them; "and if," as the Baron put it, "smoking, drinking, and other

irregularities occur in the dormitories, where footmen, etc., sleep

ten and twelve in each room, no one can help it." As for Her Majesty's

guests, there was nobody to show them to their rooms, and they were

often left, having utterly lost their way in the complicated passages,

to wander helpless by the hour. The strange divisions of authority

extended not only to persons but to things. The Queen observed that

there was never a fire in the dining-room. She enquired why. The answer

was "the Lord Steward lays the fire, and the Lord Chamberlain lights

it;" the underlings of those two great noblemen having failed to come

to an accommodation, there was no help for it--the Queen must eat in the

cold.

A surprising incident opened everyone's eyes to the confusion and

negligence that reigned in the Palace. A fortnight after the birth of

the Princess Royal the nurse heard a suspicious noise in the room next

to the Queen's bedroom. She called to one of the pages, who, looking

under a large sofa, perceived there a crouching figure "with a most

repulsive appearance." It was "the boy Jones." This enigmatical

personage, whose escapades dominated the newspapers for several ensuing

months, and whose motives and character remained to the end ambiguous,

was an undersized lad of 17, the son of a tailor, who had apparently

gained admittance to the Palace by climbing over the garden wall and

walking in through an open window. Two years before he had paid a

similar visit in the guise of a chimney-sweep. He now declared that he

had spent three days in the Palace, hiding under various beds, that he

had "helped himself to soup and other eatables," and that he had "sat

upon the throne, seen the Queen, and heard the Princess Royal squall."

Every detail of the strange affair was eagerly canvassed. The Times

reported that the boy Jones had "from his infancy been fond of reading,"

but that "his countenance is exceedingly sullen." It added: "The sofa

under which the boy Jones was discovered, we understand, is one of

the most costly and magnificent material and workmanship, and ordered

expressly for the accommodation of the royal and illustrious visitors

who call to pay their respects to Her Majesty." The culprit was sent

for three months to the "House of Correction." When he emerged, he

immediately returned to Buckingham Palace. He was discovered, and sent

back to the "House of Correction" for another three months, after which

he was offered L4 a week by a music hall to appear upon the stage.

He refused this offer, and shortly afterwards was found by the police

loitering round Buckingham Palace. The authorities acted vigorously,

and, without any trial or process of law, shipped the boy Jones off to

sea. A year later his ship put into Portsmouth to refit, and he at once

disembarked and walked to London. He was re-arrested before he reached

the Palace, and sent back to his ship, the Warspite. On this occasion it

was noticed that he had "much improved in personal appearance and grown

quite corpulent;" and so the boy Jones passed out of history, though

we catch one last glimpse of him in 1844 falling overboard in the

night between Tunis and Algiers. He was fished up again; but it was

conjectured--as one of the Warspite's officers explained in a letter

to The Times--that his fall had not been accidental, but that he

had deliberately jumped into the Mediterranean in order to "see the

life-buoy light burning." Of a boy with such a record, what else could

be supposed?

But discomfort and alarm were not the only results of the mismanagement

of the household; the waste, extravagance, and peculation that also

flowed from it were immeasurable. There were preposterous perquisites

and malpractices of every kind. It was, for instance, an ancient and

immutable rule that a candle that had once been lighted should never be

lighted again; what happened to the old candles, nobody knew. Again, the

Prince, examining the accounts, was puzzled by a weekly expenditure of

thirty-five shillings on "Red Room Wine." He enquired into the matter,

and after great difficulty discovered that in the time of George III

a room in Windsor Castle with red hangings had once been used as a

guard-room, and that five shillings a day had been allowed to provide

wine for the officers. The guard had long since been moved elsewhere,

but the payment for wine in the Red Room continued, the money being

received by a half-pay officer who held the sinecure position of

under-butler.

After much laborious investigation, and a stiff struggle with the

multitude of vested interests which had been brought into being by long

years of neglect, the Prince succeeded in effecting a complete reform.

The various conflicting authorities were induced to resign their powers

into the hands of a single official, the Master of the Household, who

became responsible for the entire management of the royal palaces. Great

economies were made, and the whole crowd of venerable abuses was swept

away. Among others, the unlucky half-pay officer of the Red Room was,

much to his surprise, given the choice of relinquishing his weekly

emolument or of performing the duties of an under-butler. Even the

irregularities among the footmen, etc., were greatly diminished. There

were outcries and complaints; the Prince was accused of meddling, of

injustice, and of saving candle-ends; but he held on his course, and

before long the admirable administration of the royal household was

recognised as a convincing proof of his perseverance and capacity.

At the same time his activity was increasing enormously in a more

important sphere. He had become the Queen's Private Secretary, her

confidential adviser, her second self. He was now always present at her

interviews with Ministers. He took, like the Queen, a special interest

in foreign policy; but there was no public question in which his

influence was not felt. A double process was at work; while Victoria

fell more and more absolutely under his intellectual predominance, he,

simultaneously, grew more and more completely absorbed by the machinery

of high politics--the incessant and multifarious business of a great

State. Nobody any more could call him a dilettante; he was a worker,

a public personage, a man of affairs. Stockmar noted the change with

exultation. "The Prince," he wrote, "has improved very much lately.

He has evidently a head for politics. He has become, too, far more

independent. His mental activity is constantly on the increase, and he

gives the greater part of his time to business, without complaining."

"The relations between husband and wife," added the Baron, "are all one

could desire."

Long before Peel's ministry came to an end, there had been a complete

change in Victoria's attitude towards him. His appreciation of the

Prince had softened her heart; the sincerity and warmth of his nature,

which, in private intercourse with those whom he wished to please, had

the power of gradually dissipating the awkwardness of his manners,

did the rest. She came in time to regard him with intense feelings of

respect and attachment. She spoke of "our worthy Peel," for whom, she

said, she had "an EXTREME admiration" and who had shown himself "a man

of unbounded LOYALTY, COURAGE patriotism, and HIGH-MINDEDNESS, and his

conduct towards me has been CHIVALROUS almost, I might say." She dreaded

his removal from office almost as frantically as she had once dreaded

that of Lord M. It would be, she declared, a GREAT CALAMITY. Six years

before, what would she have said, if a prophet had told her that the day

would come when she would be horrified by the triumph of the Whigs? Yet

there was no escaping it; she had to face the return of her old

friends. In the ministerial crises of 1845 and 1846, the Prince played a

dominating part. Everybody recognised that he was the real centre of the

negotiations--the actual controller of the forces and the functions

of the Crown. The process by which this result was reached had been so

gradual as to be almost imperceptible; but it may be said with certainty

that, by the close of Peel's administration, Albert had become, in

effect, the King of England.

VI

With the final emergence of the Prince came the final extinction of Lord

Melbourne. A year after his loss of office, he had been struck down by

a paralytic seizure; he had apparently recovered, but his old elasticity

had gone for ever. Moody, restless, and unhappy, he wandered like a

ghost about the town, bursting into soliloquies in public places, or

asking odd questions, suddenly, a propos de bottes. "I'll be hanged if

I do it for you, my Lord," he was heard to say in the hall at Brooks's,

standing by himself, and addressing the air after much thought. "Don't

you consider," he abruptly asked a fellow-guest at Lady Holland's,

leaning across the dinner-table in a pause of the conversation, "that

it was a most damnable act of Henri Quatre to change his religion with

a view to securing the Crown?" He sat at home, brooding for hours in

miserable solitude. He turned over his books--his classics and his

Testaments--but they brought him no comfort at all. He longed for the

return of the past, for the impossible, for he knew not what, for the

devilries of Caro, for the happy platitudes of Windsor. His friends had

left him, and no wonder, he said in bitterness--the fire was out. He

secretly hoped for a return to power, scanning the newspapers with

solicitude, and occasionally making a speech in the House of Lords. His

correspondence with the Queen continued, and he appeared from time to

time at Court; but he was a mere simulacrum of his former self; "the

dream," wrote Victoria, "is past." As for his political views, they

could no longer be tolerated. The Prince was an ardent Free Trader, and

so, of course, was the Queen; and when, dining at Windsor at the time of

the repeal of the Corn Laws, Lord Melbourne suddenly exclaimed, "Ma'am,

it's a damned dishonest act!" everyone was extremely embarrassed. Her

Majesty laughed and tried to change the conversation, but without avail;

Lord Melbourne returned to the charge again and again with--"I say,

Ma'am, it's damned dishonest!"--until the Queen said "Lord Melbourne, I

must beg you not to say anything more on this subject now;" and then

he held his tongue. She was kind to him, writing him long letters, and

always remembering his birthday; but it was kindness at a distance, and

he knew it. He had become "poor Lord Melbourne." A profound disquietude

devoured him. He tried to fix his mind on the condition of Agriculture

and the Oxford Movement. He wrote long memoranda in utterly

undecipherable handwriting. He was convinced that he had lost all his

money, and could not possibly afford to be a Knight of the Garter. He

had run through everything, and yet--if Peel went out, he might be sent

for--why not? He was never sent for. The Whigs ignored him in their

consultations, and the leadership of the party passed to Lord

John Russell. When Lord John became Prime Minister, there was much

politeness, but Lord Melbourne was not asked to join the Cabinet. He

bore the blow with perfect amenity; but he understood, at last, that

that was the end.

For two years more he lingered, sinking slowly into unconsciousness and

imbecility. Sometimes, propped up in his chair, he would be heard to

murmur, with unexpected appositeness, the words of Samson:--

"So much I feel my general spirit droop,

My hopes all flat, nature within me seems,

In all her functions weary of herself,

My race of glory run, and race of shame,

And I shall shortly be with them that rest."

A few days before his death, Victoria, learning that there was no hope

of his recovery, turned her mind for a little towards that which had

once been Lord M. "You will grieve to hear," she told King Leopold,

"that our good, dear, old friend Melbourne is dying... One cannot

forget how good and kind and amiable he was, and it brings back so many

recollections to my mind, though, God knows! I never wish that time back

again."

She was in little danger. The tide of circumstance was flowing now

with irresistible fullness towards a very different consummation.

The seriousness of Albert, the claims of her children, her own inmost

inclinations, and the movement of the whole surrounding world, combined

to urge her forward along the narrow way of public and domestic duty.

Her family steadily increased. Within eighteen months of the birth of

the Prince of Wales the Princess Alice appeared, and a year later the

Prince Alfred, and then the Princess Helena, and, two years afterwards,

the Princess Louise; and still there were signs that the pretty row of

royal infants was not complete. The parents, more and more involved in

family cares and family happiness, found the pomp of Windsor galling,

and longed for some more intimate and remote retreat. On the advice of

Peel they purchased the estate of Osborne, in the Isle of Wight. Their

skill and economy in financial matters had enabled them to lay aside a

substantial sum of money; and they could afford, out of their savings,

not merely to buy the property but to build a new house for themselves

and to furnish it at a cost of L200,000. At Osborne, by the sea-shore,

and among the woods, which Albert, with memories of Rosenau in his mind,

had so carefully planted, the royal family spent every hour that could

be snatched from Windsor and London--delightful hours of deep retirement

and peaceful work. The public looked on with approval. A few aristocrats

might sniff or titter; but with the nation at large the Queen was now

once more extremely popular. The middle-classes, in particular, were

pleased. They liked a love-match; they liked a household which combined

the advantages of royalty and virtue, and in which they seemed to see,

reflected as in some resplendent looking-glass, the ideal image of the

very lives they led themselves. Their own existences, less exalted,

but oh! so soothingly similar, acquired an added excellence, an added

succulence, from the early hours, the regularity, the plain tuckers, the

round games, the roast beef and Yorkshire pudding oft Osborne. It was

indeed a model Court. Not only were its central personages the patterns

of propriety, but no breath of scandal, no shadow of indecorum, might

approach its utmost boundaries. For Victoria, with all the zeal of a

convert, upheld now the standard of moral purity with an inflexibility

surpassing, if that were possible, Albert's own. She blushed to think

how she had once believed--how she had once actually told HIM--that one

might be too strict and particular in such matters, and that one ought

to be indulgent towards other people's dreadful sins. But she was

no longer Lord M's pupil: she was Albert's wife. She was more--the

embodiment, the living apex of a new era in the generations of mankind.

The last vestige of the eighteenth century had disappeared; cynicism and

subtlety were shrivelled into powder; and duty, industry, morality, and

domesticity triumphed over them. Even the very chairs and tables had

assumed, with a singular responsiveness, the forms of prim solidity. The

Victorian Age was in full swing.

VII

Only one thing more was needed: material expression must be given to

the new ideals and the new forces so that they might stand revealed, in

visible glory, before the eyes of an astonished world. It was for Albert

to supply this want. He mused, and was inspired: the Great Exhibition

came into his head.

Without consulting anyone, he thought out the details of his conception

with the minutest care. There had been exhibitions before in the world,

but this should surpass them all. It should contain specimens of

what every country could produce in raw materials, in machinery and

mechanical inventions, in manufactures, and in the applied and plastic

arts. It should not be merely useful and ornamental; it should teach

a high moral lesson. It should be an international monument to those

supreme blessings of civilisation--peace, progress, and prosperity. For

some time past the Prince had been devoting much of his attention to the

problems of commerce and industry. He had a taste for machinery of every

kind, and his sharp eye had more than once detected, with the precision

of an expert, a missing cog-wheel in some vast and complicated engine. A

visit to Liverpool, where he opened the Albert Dock, impressed upon his

mind the immensity of modern industrial forces, though in a letter

to Victoria describing his experiences, he was careful to retain his

customary lightness of touch. "As I write," he playfully remarked,

"you will be making your evening toilette, and not be ready in time for

dinner. I must set about the same task, and not, let me hope, with the

same result... The loyalty and enthusiasm of the inhabitants are great;

but the heat is greater still. I am satisfied that if the population of

Liverpool had been weighed this morning, and were to be weighed again

now, they would be found many degrees lighter. The docks are wonderful,

and the mass of shipping incredible." In art and science he had been

deeply interested since boyhood; his reform of the household had put

his talent for organisation beyond a doubt; and thus from every point

of view the Prince was well qualified for his task. Having matured his

plans, he summoned a small committee and laid an outline of his scheme

before it. The committee approved, and the great undertaking was set on

foot without delay.

Two years, however, passed before it was completed. For two years the

Prince laboured with extraordinary and incessant energy. At first all

went smoothly. The leading manufacturers warmly took up the idea; the

colonies and the East India Company were sympathetic; the great foreign

nations were eager to send in their contributions; the powerful support

of Sir Robert Peel was obtained, and the use of a site in Hyde Park,

selected by the Prince, was sanctioned by the Government. Out of 234

plans for the exhibition building, the Prince chose that of Joseph

Paxton, famous as a designer of gigantic conservatories; and the work

was on the point of being put in hand when a series of unexpected

difficulties arose. Opposition to the whole scheme, which had long been

smouldering in various quarters, suddenly burst forth. There was

an outcry, headed by The Times, against the use of the park for the

exhibition; for a moment it seemed as if the building would be relegated

to a suburb; but, after a fierce debate in the House, the supporters

of the site in the Park won the day. Then it appeared that the project

lacked a sufficient financial backing; but this obstacle, too, was

surmounted, and eventually L200,000 was subscribed as a guarantee fund.

The enormous glass edifice rose higher and higher, covering acres and

enclosing towering elm trees beneath its roof: and then the fury of

its enemies reached a climax. The fashionable, the cautious, the

Protectionists, the pious, all joined in the hue and cry. It was pointed

out that the Exhibition would serve as a rallying point for all the

ruffians in England, for all the malcontents in Europe; and that on

the day of its opening there would certainly be a riot and probably a

revolution. It was asserted that the glass roof was porous, and that the

droppings of fifty million sparrows would utterly destroy every object

beneath it. Agitated nonconformists declared that the Exhibition was an

arrogant and wicked enterprise which would infallibly bring down God's

punishment upon the nation. Colonel Sibthorpe, in the debate on the

Address, prayed that hail and lightning might descend from heaven on the

accursed thing. The Prince, with unyielding perseverance and infinite

patience, pressed on to his goal. His health was seriously affected; he

suffered from constant sleeplessness; his strength was almost worn out.

But he remembered the injunctions of Stockmar and never relaxed. The

volume of his labours grew more prodigious every day; he toiled at

committees, presided over public meetings, made speeches, and carried on

communications with every corner of the civilised world--and his efforts

were rewarded. On May 1, 1851, the Great Exhibition was opened by the

Queen before an enormous concourse of persons, amid scenes of dazzling

brilliancy and triumphant enthusiasm.

Victoria herself was in a state of excitement which bordered on

delirium. She performed her duties in a trance of joy, gratitude, and

amazement, and, when it was all over, her feelings poured themselves out

into her journal in a torrential flood. The day had been nothing but

an endless succession of glories--or rather one vast glory--one vast

radiation of Albert. Everything she had seen, everything she had felt

or heard, had been so beautiful, so wonderful that even the royal

underlinings broke down under the burden of emphasis, while her

remembering pen rushed on, regardless, from splendour to splendour--the

huge crowds, so well--behaved and loyal-flags of all the nations

floating--the inside of the building, so immense, with myriads of people

and the sun shining through the roof--a little side room, where we left

our shawls--palm-trees and machinery--dear Albert--the place so big

that we could hardly hear the organ--thankfulness to God--a curious

assemblage of political and distinguished men--the March from

Athalie--God bless my dearest Albert, God bless my dearest country!--a

glass fountain--the Duke and Lord Anglesey walking arm in arm--a

beautiful Amazon, in bronze, by Kiss--Mr. Paxton, who might be justly

proud, and rose from being a common gardener's boy--Sir George Grey in

tears, and everybody astonished and delighted.

A striking incident occurred when, after a short prayer by the

Archbishop of Canterbury, the choir of 600 voices burst into the

"Hallelujah Chorus." At that moment a Chinaman, dressed in full national

costume, stepped out into the middle of the central nave, and, advancing

slowly towards the royal group, did obeisance to Her Majesty. The Queen,

much impressed, had no doubt that he was an eminent mandarin; and,

when the final procession was formed, orders were given that, as

no representative of the Celestial Empire was present, he should be

included in the diplomatic cortege. He accordingly, with the utmost

gravity, followed immediately behind the Ambassadors. He subsequently

disappeared, and it was rumoured, among ill-natured people, that, far

from being a mandarin, the fellow was a mere impostor. But nobody ever

really discovered the nature of the comments that had been lurking

behind the matchless impassivity of that yellow face.

A few days later Victoria poured out her heart to her uncle. The

first of May, she said, was "the GREATEST day in our history, the most

BEAUTIFUL and IMPOSING and TOUCHING spectacle ever seen, and the triumph

of my beloved Albert... It was the HAPPIEST, PROUDEST day in my life,

and I can think of nothing else. Albert's dearest name is immortalised

with this GREAT conception, HIS own, and my OWN dear country SHOWED she

was WORTHY of it. The triumph is IMMENSE."

It was. The enthusiasm was universal; even the bitterest scoffers were

converted, and joined in the chorus of praise. Congratulations from

public bodies poured in; the City of Paris gave a great fete to the

Exhibition committee; and the Queen and the Prince made a triumphal

progress through the North of England. The financial results were

equally remarkable. The total profit made by the Exhibition amounted to

a sum of L165,000, which was employed in the purchase of land for the

erection of a permanent National Museum in South Kensington. During

the six months of its existence in Hyde Park over six million persons

visited it, and not a single accident occurred. But there is an end to

all things; and the time had come for the Crystal Palace to be removed

to the salubrious seclusion of Sydenham. Victoria, sad but resigned,

paid her final visit. "It looked so beautiful," she said. "I could not

believe it was the last time I was to see it. An organ, accompanied by

a fine and powerful wind instrument called the sommerophone, was being

played, and it nearly upset me. The canvas is very dirty, the red

curtains are faded and many things are very much soiled, still the

effect is fresh and new as ever and most beautiful. The glass fountain

was already removed... and the sappers and miners were rolling about

the little boxes just as they did at the beginning. It made us all very

melancholy." But more cheerful thoughts followed. When all was over,

she expressed her boundless satisfaction in a dithyrambic letter to

the Prime Minister. Her beloved husband's name, she said, was for ever

immortalised, and that this was universally recognised by the country

was a source to her of immense happiness and gratitude. "She feels

grateful to Providence," Her Majesty concluded, "to have permitted her

to be united to so great, so noble, so excellent a Prince, and this year

will ever remain the proudest and happiest of her life. The day of the

closing of the Exhibition (which the Queen regretted much she could not

witness), was the twelfth anniversary of her betrothal to the Prince,

which is a curious coincidence."

CHAPTER V. LORD PALMERSTON

I

In 1851 the Prince's fortunes reached their high-water mark. The success

of the Great Exhibition enormously increased his reputation and seemed

to assure him henceforward a leading place in the national life. But

before the year was out another triumph, in a very different sphere of

action, was also his. This triumph, big with fateful consequences, was

itself the outcome of a series of complicated circumstances which had

been gathering to a climax for many years.

The unpopularity of Albert in high society had not diminished with time.

Aristocratic persons continued to regard him with disfavour; and he on

his side, withdrew further and further into a contemptuous reserve. For

a moment, indeed, it appeared as if the dislike of the upper classes

was about to be suddenly converted into cordiality; for they learnt with

amazement that the Prince, during a country visit, had ridden to hounds

and acquitted himself remarkably well. They had always taken it for

granted that his horsemanship was of some second-rate foreign quality,

and here he was jumping five-barred gates and tearing after the fox

as if he had been born and bred in Leicestershire. They could hardly

believe it; was it possible that they had made a mistake, and that

Albert was a good fellow after all? Had he wished to be thought so he

would certainly have seized this opportunity, purchased several hunters,

and used them constantly. But he had no such desire; hunting bored

him, and made Victoria nervous. He continued, as before, to ride, as he

himself put it, for exercise or convenience, not for amusement; and it

was agreed that though the Prince, no doubt, could keep in his saddle

well enough, he was no sportsman.

This was a serious matter. It was not merely that Albert was laughed at

by fine ladies and sneered at by fine gentlemen; it was not merely that

Victoria, who before her marriage had cut some figure in society, had,

under her husband's influence, almost completely given it up. Since

Charles the Second the sovereigns of England had, with a single

exception, always been unfashionable; and the fact that the exception

was George the Fourth seemed to give an added significance to the rule.

What was grave was not the lack of fashion, but the lack of other

and more important qualities. The hostility of the upper classes was

symptomatic of an antagonism more profound than one of manners or

even of tastes. The Prince, in a word, was un-English. What that word

precisely meant it was difficult to say; but the fact was patent to

every eye. Lord Palmerston, also, was not fashionable; the great

Whig aristocrats looked askance at him, and only tolerated him as an

unpleasant necessity thrust upon them by fate. But Lord Palmerston was

English through and through, there was something in him that expressed,

with extraordinary vigour, the fundamental qualities of the English

race. And he was the very antithesis of the Prince. By a curious chance

it so happened that this typical Englishman was brought into closer

contact than any other of his countrymen with the alien from over

the sea. It thus fell out that differences which, in more fortunate

circumstances, might have been smoothed away and obliterated, became

accentuated to the highest pitch. All the mysterious forces in Albert's

soul leapt out to do battle with his adversary, and, in the long and

violent conflict that followed, it almost seemed as if he was struggling

with England herself.

Palmerston's whole life had been spent in the government of the country.

At twenty-two he had been a Minister; at twenty-five he had been offered

the Chancellorship of the Exchequer, which, with that prudence which

formed so unexpected a part of his character, he had declined to accept.

His first spell of office had lasted uninterruptedly for twenty-one

years. When Lord Grey came into power he received the Foreign

Secretaryship, a post which he continued to occupy, with two intervals,

for another twenty-one years. Throughout this period his reputation

with the public had steadily grown, and when, in 1846, he became Foreign

Secretary for the third time, his position in the country was almost,

if not quite, on an equality with that of the Prime Minister, Lord John

Russell. He was a tall, big man of sixty-two, with a jaunty air, a large

face, dyed whiskers, and a long sardonic upper lip. His private life was

far from respectable, but he had greatly strengthened his position

in society by marrying, late in life, Lady Cowper, the sister of Lord

Melbourne, and one of the most influential of the Whig hostesses.

Powerful, experienced, and supremely self-confident, he naturally

paid very little attention to Albert. Why should he? The Prince was

interested in foreign affairs? Very well, then; let the Prince pay

attention to him--to him, who had been a Cabinet Minister when Albert

was in the cradle, who was the chosen leader of a great nation, and who

had never failed in anything he had undertaken in the whole course of

his life. Not that he wanted the Prince's attention--far from it: so far

as he could see, Albert was merely a young foreigner, who suffered from

having no vices, and whose only claim to distinction was that he had

happened to marry the Queen of England. This estimate, as he found out

to his cost, was a mistaken one. Albert was by no means insignificant,

and, behind Albert, there was another figure by no means insignificant

either--there was Stockmar.

But Palmerston, busy with his plans, his ambitions, and the management

of a great department, brushed all such considerations on one side; it

was his favourite method of action. He lived by instinct--by a quick eye

and a strong hand, a dexterous management of every crisis as it arose, a

half-unconscious sense of the vital elements in a situation. He was very

bold; and nothing gave him more exhilaration than to steer the ship of

state in a high wind, on a rough sea, with every stitch of canvas on her

that she could carry. But there is a point beyond which boldness becomes

rashness--a point perceptible only to intuition and not to reason;

and beyond that point Palmerston never went. When he saw that the cast

demanded it, he could go slow--very slow indeed in fact, his whole

career, so full of vigorous adventure, was nevertheless a masterly

example of the proverb, "tout vient a point a qui sait attendre." But

when he decided to go quick, nobody went quicker. One day, returning

from Osborne, he found that he had missed the train to London; he

ordered a special, but the station master told him that to put a special

train upon the line at that time of day would be dangerous and he

could not allow it. Palmerston insisted declaring that he had important

business in London, which could not wait. The station-master supported

by all the officials, continued to demur the company, he said, could

not possibly take the responsibility. "On MY responsibility, then!" said

Palmerston, in his off-hand, peremptory way whereupon the station-master

ordered up the train and the Foreign Secretary reached London in time

for his work, without an accident. The story, is typical of the happy

valiance with which he conducted both his own affairs and those of

the nation. "England," he used to say, "is strong enough to brave

consequences." Apparently, under Palmerston's guidance, she was. While

the officials protested and shook in their shoes, he would wave them

away with his airy "MY responsibility!" and carry the country swiftly

along the line of his choice, to a triumphant destination--without an

accident. His immense popularity was the result partly of his diplomatic

successes, partly of his extraordinary personal affability, but chiefly

of the genuine intensity with which he responded to the feelings and

supported the interests of his countrymen. The public knew that it had

in Lord Palmerston not only a high-mettled master, but also a devoted

servant--that he was, in every sense of the word, a public man. When he

was Prime Minister, he noticed that iron hurdles had been put up on

the grass in the Green Park; he immediately wrote to the Minister

responsible, ordering, in the severest language, their instant removal,

declaring that they were "an intolerable nuisance," and that the purpose

of the grass was "to be walked upon freely and without restraint by the

people, old and young, for whose enjoyment the parks are maintained."

It was in this spirit that, as Foreign Secretary, he watched over the

interests of Englishmen abroad. Nothing could be more agreeable for

Englishmen; but foreign governments were less pleased. They found Lord

Palmerston interfering, exasperating, and alarming. In Paris they spoke

with bated breath of "ce terrible milord Palmerston;" and in Germany

they made a little song about him--

"Hat der Teufel einen Sohn,

So ist er sicher Palmerston."

But their complaints, their threats, and their agitations were all

in vain. Palmerston, with his upper lip sardonically curving, braved

consequences, and held on his course.

The first diplomatic crisis which arose after his return to office,

though the Prince and the Queen were closely concerned with it, passed

off without serious disagreement between the Court and the Minister. For

some years past a curious problem had been perplexing the chanceries

of Europe. Spain, ever since the time of Napoleon a prey to civil

convulsions, had settled down for a short interval to a state of

comparative quiet under the rule of Christina, the Queen Mother, and her

daughter Isabella, the young Queen. In 1846, the question of

Isabella's marriage, which had for long been the subject of diplomatic

speculations, suddenly became acute. Various candidates for her hand

were proposed--among others, two cousins of her own, another Spanish

prince, and Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, a first cousin of Victoria's

and Albert's; for different reasons, however, none of these young men

seemed altogether satisfactory. Isabella was not yet sixteen; and it

might have been supposed that her marriage could be put off for a few

years more; but this was considered to be out of the question. "Vous

ne savez pas," said a high authority, "ce que c'est que ces princesses

espagnoles; elles ont le diable au corps, et on a toujours dit que si

nous ne nous hations pas, l'heritier viendrait avant le mari." It might

also have been supposed that the young Queen's marriage was a matter to

be settled by herself, her mother, and the Spanish Government; but

this again was far from being the case. It had become, by one of those

periodical reversions to the ways of the eighteenth century, which,

it is rumoured, are still not unknown in diplomacy, a question of

dominating importance in the foreign policies both of France and

England. For several years, Louis Philippe and his Prime Minister Guizot

had been privately maturing a very subtle plan. It was the object of the

French King to repeat the glorious coup of Louis XIV, and to abolish

the Pyrenees by placing one of his grandsons on the throne of Spain.

In order to bring this about, he did not venture to suggest that his

younger son, the Duc de Montpensier, should marry Isabella; that would

have been too obvious a move, which would have raised immediate and

insurmountable opposition. He therefore proposed that Isabella

should marry her cousin, the Duke of Cadiz, while Montpensier married

Isabella's younger sister, the Infanta Fernanda; and pray, what possible

objection could there be to that? The wily old King whispered into

the chaste ears of Guizot the key to the secret; he had good reason to

believe that the Duke of Cadiz was incapable of having children, and

therefore the offspring of Fernanda would inherit the Spanish crown.

Guizot rubbed his hands, and began at once to set the necessary springs

in motion; but, of course, the whole scheme was very soon divulged and

understood. The English Government took an extremely serious view of

the matter; the balance of power was clearly at stake, and the French

intrigue must be frustrated at all hazards. A diplomatic struggle of

great intensity followed; and it occasionally appeared that a second War

of the Spanish Succession was about to break out. This was avoided,

but the consequences of this strange imbroglio were far-reaching and

completely different from what any of the parties concerned could have

guessed.

In the course of the long and intricate negotiations there was one point

upon which Louis Philippe laid a special stress--the candidature of

Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg. The prospect of a marriage between a

Coburg Prince and the Queen of Spain was, he declared, at least as

threatening to the balance of power in Europe as that of a marriage

between the Duc de Montpensier and the Infanta; and, indeed, there was

much to be said for this contention. The ruin which had fallen upon the

House of Coburg during the Napoleonic wars had apparently only served

to multiply its vitality, for that princely family had by now extended

itself over Europe in an extraordinary manner. King Leopold was firmly

fixed in Belgium; his niece was Queen of England; one of his nephews

was the husband of the Queen of England, and another the husband of the

Queen of Portugal; yet another was Duke of Wurtemberg. Where was this

to end? There seemed to be a Coburg Trust ready to send out one of

its members at any moment to fill up any vacant place among the ruling

families of Europe. And even beyond Europe there were signs of this

infection spreading. An American who had arrived in Brussels had assured

King Leopold that there was a strong feeling in the United States in

favour of monarchy instead of the misrule of mobs, and had suggested, to

the delight of His Majesty, that some branch of the Coburg family might

be available for the position. That danger might, perhaps, be remote;

but the Spanish danger was close at hand; and if Prince Leopold were to

marry Queen Isabella the position of France would be one of humiliation,

if not of positive danger. Such were the asseverations of Louis

Philippe. The English Government had no wish to support Prince Leopold,

and though Albert and Victoria had some hankerings for the match, the

wisdom of Stockmar had induced them to give up all thoughts of it. The

way thus seemed open for a settlement: England would be reasonable about

Leopold, if France would be reasonable about Montpensier. At the Chateau

d'Eu, the agreement was made, in a series of conversations between the

King and Guizot on the one side, and the Queen, the Prince, and Lord

Aberdeen on the other. Aberdeen, as Foreign Minister, declared that

England would neither recognise nor support Prince Leopold as a

candidate for the hand of the Queen of Spain; while Louis Philippe

solemnly promised, both to Aberdeen and to Victoria, that the Duc de

Montpensier should not marry the Infanta Fernanda until after the Queen

was married and had issue. All went well, and the crisis seemed to be

over, when the whole question was suddenly re-opened by Palmerston,

who had succeeded Aberdeen at the Foreign Office. In a despatch to

the English Minister at Madrid, he mentioned, in a list of possible

candidates for Queen Isabella's hand, Prince Leopold of Coburg; and

at the same time he took occasion to denounce in violent language the

tyranny and incompetence of the Spanish Government. This despatch,

indiscreet in any case, was rendered infinitely more so by being

communicated to Guizot. Louis Philippe saw his opportunity and pounced

on it. Though there was nothing in Palmerston's language to show that he

either recognised or supported Prince Leopold, the King at once assumed

that the English had broken their engagement, and that he was therefore

free to do likewise. He then sent the despatch to the Queen Mother,

declared that the English were intriguing for the Coburg marriage, bade

her mark the animosity of Palmerston against the Spanish Government, and

urged her to escape from her difficulties and ensure the friendship

of France by marrying Isabella to the Duke of Cadiz and Fernanda

to Montpensier. The Queen Mother, alarmed and furious, was easily

convinced. There was only one difficulty: Isabella loathed the very

sight of her cousin. But this was soon surmounted; there was a wild

supper-party at the Palace, and in the course of it the young girl was

induced to consent to anything that was asked of her. Shortly after, and

on the same day, both the marriages took place.

The news burst like a bomb on the English Government, who saw with rage

and mortification that they had been completely outmanoeuvred by the

crafty King. Victoria, in particular, was outraged. Not only had she

been the personal recipient of Louis Philippe's pledge, but he had won

his way to her heart by presenting the Prince of Wales with a box of

soldiers and sending the Princess Royal a beautiful Parisian doll with

eyes that opened and shut. And now insult was added to injury. The Queen

of the French wrote her a formal letter, calmly announcing, as a family

event in which she was sure Victoria would be interested, the marriage

of her son, Montpensier--"qui ajoutera a notre bonheur interieur, le

seul vrai dans ce monde, et que vous, madame, savez si bien apprecier."

But the English Queen had not long to wait for her revenge. Within

eighteen months the monarchy of Louis Philippe, discredited, unpopular,

and fatally weakened by the withdrawal of English support, was swept

into limbo, while he and his family threw themselves as suppliant

fugitives at the feet of Victoria.

II

In this affair both the Queen and the Prince had been too much occupied

with the delinquencies of Louis Philippe to have any wrath to spare

for those of Palmerston; and, indeed, on the main issue, Palmerston's

attitude and their own had been in complete agreement. But in this the

case was unique. In every other foreign complication--and they were many

and serious--during the ensuing years, the differences between the royal

couple and the Foreign Secretary were constant and profound. There was a

sharp quarrel over Portugal, where violently hostile parties were flying

at each other's throats. The royal sympathy was naturally enlisted on

behalf of the Queen and her Coburg husband, while Palmerston gave his

support to the progressive elements in the country. It was not until

1848, however, that the strain became really serious. In that year of

revolutions, when, in all directions and with alarming frequency, crowns

kept rolling off royal heads, Albert and Victoria were appalled to find

that the policy of England was persistently directed--in Germany,

in Switzerland, in Austria, in Italy, in Sicily--so as to favour the

insurgent forces. The situation, indeed, was just such a one as the soul

of Palmerston loved. There was danger and excitement, the necessity

of decision, the opportunity for action, on every hand. A disciple of

Canning, with an English gentleman's contempt and dislike of foreign

potentates deep in his heart, the spectacle of the popular uprisings,

and of the oppressors bundled ignominiously out of the palaces they had

disgraced, gave him unbounded pleasure, and he was determined that there

should be no doubt whatever, all over the Continent, on which side in

the great struggle England stood. It was not that he had the slightest

tincture in him of philosophical radicalism; he had no philosophical

tinctures of any kind; he was quite content to be inconsistent--to be a

Conservative at home and a Liberal abroad. There were very good reasons

for keeping the Irish in their places; but what had that to do with it?

The point was this--when any decent man read an account of the political

prisons in Naples his gorge rose. He did not want war; but he saw that

without war a skilful and determined use of England's power might do

much to further the cause of the Liberals in Europe. It was a difficult

and a hazardous game to play, but he set about playing it with delighted

alacrity. And then, to his intense annoyance, just as he needed all

his nerve and all possible freedom of action, he found himself being

hampered and distracted at every turn by... those people at Osborne.

He saw what it was; the opposition was systematic and informed, and

the Queen alone would have been incapable of it; the Prince was at the

bottom of the whole thing. It was exceedingly vexatious; but Palmerston

was in a hurry, and could not wait; the Prince, if he would insist upon

interfering, must be brushed on one side.

Albert was very angry. He highly disapproved both of Palmerston's policy

and of his methods of action. He was opposed to absolutism; but in his

opinion Palmerston's proceedings were simply calculated to substitute

for absolutism, all over Europe, something no better and very possibly

worse--the anarchy of faction and mob violence. The dangers of

this revolutionary ferment were grave; even in England Chartism was

rampant--a sinister movement, which might at any moment upset the

Constitution and abolish the Monarchy. Surely, with such dangers at

home, this was a very bad time to choose for encouraging lawlessness

abroad. He naturally took a particular interest in Germany. His

instincts, his affections, his prepossessions, were ineradicably German;

Stockmar was deeply involved in German politics; and he had a multitude

of relatives among the ruling German families, who, from the midst of

the hurly-burly of revolution, wrote him long and agitated letters once

a week. Having considered the question of Germany's future from every

point of view, he came to the conclusion, under Stockmar's guidance,

that the great aim for every lover of Germany should be her unification

under the sovereignty of Prussia. The intricacy of the situation was

extreme, and the possibilities of good or evil which every hour might

bring forth were incalculable; yet he saw with horror that Palmerston

neither understood nor cared to understand the niceties of this

momentous problem, but rushed on blindly, dealing blows to right and

left, quite--so far as he could see--without system, and even without

motive--except, indeed, a totally unreasonable distrust of the Prussian

State.

But his disagreement with the details of Palmerston's policy was in

reality merely a symptom of the fundamental differences between the

characters of the two men. In Albert's eyes Palmerston was a coarse,

reckless egotist, whose combined arrogance and ignorance must

inevitably have their issue in folly and disaster. Nothing could be more

antipathetic to him than a mind so strangely lacking in patience, in

reflection, in principle, and in the habits of ratiocination. For to him

it was intolerable to think in a hurry, to jump to slapdash decisions,

to act on instincts that could not be explained. Everything must be done

in due order, with careful premeditation; the premises of the position

must first be firmly established; and he must reach the correct

conclusion by a regular series of rational steps. In complicated

questions--and what questions, rightly looked at, were not

complicated?--to commit one's thoughts to paper was the wisest course,

and it was the course which Albert, laborious though it might be,

invariably adopted. It was as well, too, to draw up a reasoned statement

after an event, as well as before it; and accordingly, whatever

happened, it was always found that the Prince had made a memorandum.

On one occasion he reduced to six pages of foolscap the substance of a

confidential conversation with Sir Robert Peel, and, having read them

aloud to him, asked him to append his signature; Sir Robert, who never

liked to commit himself, became extremely uneasy; upon which the

Prince, understanding that it was necessary to humour the singular

susceptibilities of Englishmen, with great tact dropped that particular

memorandum into the fire. But as for Palmerston, he never even gave one

so much as a chance to read him a memorandum, he positively seemed to

dislike discussion; and, before one knew where one was, without any

warning whatever, he would plunge into some hare-brained, violent

project, which, as likely as not, would logically involve a European

war. Closely connected, too, with this cautious, painstaking

reasonableness of Albert's, was his desire to examine questions

thoroughly from every point of view, to go down to the roots of things,

and to act in strict accordance with some well-defined principle. Under

Stockmar's tutelage he was constantly engaged in enlarging his outlook

and in endeavouring to envisage vital problems both theoretically and

practically--both with precision and with depth. To one whose mind was

thus habitually occupied, the empirical activities of Palmerston, who

had no notion what a principle meant, resembled the incoherent vagaries

of a tiresome child. What did Palmerston know of economics, of science,

of history? What did he care for morality and education? How much

consideration had he devoted in the whole course of his life to the

improvement of the condition of the working-classes and to the general

amelioration of the human race? The answers to such questions were all

too obvious; and yet it is easy to imagine, also, what might have been

Palmerston's jaunty comment. "Ah! your Royal Highness is busy with fine

schemes and beneficent calculations exactly! Well, as for me, I must say

I'm quite satisfied with my morning's work--I've had the iron hurdles

taken out of the Green Park."

The exasperating man, however, preferred to make no comment, and to

proceed in smiling silence on his inexcusable way. The process of

"brushing on one side" very soon came into operation. Important Foreign

Office despatches were either submitted to the Queen so late that there

was no time to correct them, or they were not submitted to her at all;

or, having been submitted, and some passage in them being objected

to and an alteration suggested, they were after all sent off in their

original form. The Queen complained, the Prince complained: both

complained together. It was quite useless. Palmerston was most

apologetic--could not understand how it had occurred--must give the

clerks a wigging--certainly Her Majesty's wishes should be attended to,

and such a thing should never happen again. But, of course, it very soon

happened again, and the royal remonstrances redoubled. Victoria, her

partisan passions thoroughly aroused, imported into her protests a

personal vehemence which those of Albert lacked. Did Lord Palmerston

forget that she was Queen of England? How could she tolerate a state of

affairs in which despatches written in her name were sent abroad without

her approval or even her knowledge? What could be more derogatory to

her position than to be obliged to receive indignant letters from the

crowned heads to whom those despatches were addressed--letters which she

did not know how to answer, since she so thoroughly agreed with them?

She addressed herself to the Prime Minister. "No remonstrance has any

effect with Lord Palmerston," she said. "Lord Palmerston," she told him

on another occasion, "has as usual pretended not to have had time to

submit the draft to the Queen before he had sent it off." She summoned

Lord John to her presence, poured out her indignation, and afterwards,

on the advice of Albert, noted down what had passed in a memorandum: "I

said that I thought that Lord Palmerston often endangered the honour of

England by taking a very prejudiced and one-sided view of a question;

that his writings were always as bitter as gall and did great harm,

which Lord John entirely assented to, and that I often felt quite ill

from anxiety." Then she turned to her uncle. "The state of Germany,"

she wrote in a comprehensive and despairing review of the European

situation, "is dreadful, and one does feel quite ashamed about that once

really so peaceful and happy country. That there are still good people

there I am sure, but they allow themselves to be worked upon in a

frightful and shameful way. In France a crisis seems at hand. WHAT a

very bad figure we cut in this mediation! Really it is quite immoral,

with Ireland quivering in our grasp and ready to throw off her

allegiance at any moment, for us to force Austria to give up her lawful

possessions. What shall we say if Canada, Malta, etc., begin to trouble

us? It hurts me terribly." But what did Lord Palmerston care?

Lord John's position grew more and more irksome. He did not approve of

his colleague's treatment of the Queen. When he begged him to be more

careful, he was met with the reply that 28,000 despatches passed through

the Foreign Office in a single year, that, if every one of these were

to be subjected to the royal criticism, the delay would be most serious,

that, as it was, the waste of time and the worry involved in submitting

drafts to the meticulous examination of Prince Albert was almost too

much for an overworked Minister, and that, as a matter of fact, the

postponement of important decisions owing to this cause had already

produced very unpleasant diplomatic consequences. These excuses would

have impressed Lord John more favourably if he had not himself had to

suffer from a similar neglect. As often as not Palmerston failed to

communicate even to him the most important despatches. The Foreign

Secretary was becoming an almost independent power, acting on his own

initiative, and swaying the policy of England on his own responsibility.

On one occasion, in 1847, he had actually been upon the point of

threatening to break off diplomatic relations with France without

consulting either the Cabinet or the Prime Minister. And such incidents

were constantly recurring. When this became known to the Prince, he saw

that his opportunity had come. If he could only drive in to the utmost

the wedge between the two statesmen, if he could only secure the

alliance of Lord John, then the suppression or the removal of Lord

Palmerston would be almost certain to follow. He set about the business

with all the pertinacity of his nature. Both he and the Queen put every

kind of pressure upon the Prime Minister. They wrote, they harangued,

they relapsed into awful silence. It occurred to them that Lord

Clarendon, an important member of the Cabinet, would be a useful

channel for their griefs. They commanded him to dine at the Palace, and,

directly the meal was over, "the Queen," as he described it afterwards,

"exploded, and went with the utmost vehemence and bitterness into the

whole of Palmerston's conduct, all the effects produced all over the

world, and all her own feelings and sentiments about it." When she had

finished, the Prince took up the tale, with less excitement, but with

equal force. Lord Clarendon found himself in an awkward situation;

he disliked Palmerston's policy, but he was his colleague, and he

disapproved of the attitude of his royal hosts. In his opinion, they

were "wrong in wishing that courtiers rather than Ministers should

conduct the affairs of the country," and he thought that they "laboured

under the curious mistake that the Foreign Office was their peculiar

department, and that they had the right to control, if not to direct,

the foreign policy of England." He, therefore, with extreme politeness,

gave it to be understood that he would not commit himself in any

way. But Lord John, in reality, needed no pressure. Attacked by his

Sovereign, ignored by his Foreign Secretary, he led a miserable life.

With the advent of the dreadful Schleswig-Holstein question--the most

complex in the whole diplomatic history of Europe--his position,

crushed between the upper and the nether mill-stones, grew positively

unbearable. He became anxious above all things to get Palmerston out of

the Foreign Office. But then--supposing Palmerston refused to go?

In a memorandum made by the Prince, at about this time, of an interview

between himself, the Queen, and the Prime Minister, we catch a curious

glimpse of the states of mind of those three high personages--the

anxiety and irritation of Lord John, the vehement acrimony of Victoria,

and the reasonable animosity of Albert--drawn together, as it were,

under the shadow of an unseen Presence, the cause of that celestial

anger--the gay, portentous Palmerston. At one point in the conversation

Lord John observed that he believed the Foreign Secretary would consent

to a change of offices; Lord Palmerston, he said, realised that he had

lost the Queen's confidence--though only on public, and not on personal,

grounds. But on that, the Prince noted, "the Queen interrupted Lord John

by remarking that she distrusted him on PERSONAL grounds also, but I

remarked that Lord Palmerston had so far at least seen rightly; that he

had become disagreeable to the Queen, not on account of his person, but

of his political doings--to which the Queen assented." Then the Prince

suggested that there was a danger of the Cabinet breaking up, and of

Lord Palmerston returning to office as Prime Minister. But on that point

Lord John was reassuring: he "thought Lord Palmerston too old to do much

in the future (having passed his sixty-fifth year)." Eventually it was

decided that nothing could be done for the present, but that the UTMOST

SECRECY must be observed; and so the conclave ended.

At last, in 1850, deliverance seemed to be at hand. There were signs

that the public were growing weary of the alarums and excursions of

Palmerston's diplomacy; and when his support of Don Pacifico, a British

subject, in a quarrel with the Greek Government, seemed to be upon the

point of involving the country in a war not only with Greece but also

with France, and possibly with Russia into the bargain, a heavy cloud

of distrust and displeasure appeared to be gathering and about to burst

over his head. A motion directed against him in the House of Lords was

passed by a substantial majority. The question was next to be discussed

in the House of Commons, where another adverse vote was not improbable,

and would seal the doom of the Minister. Palmerston received the attack

with complete nonchalance, and then, at the last possible moment, he

struck. In a speech of over four hours, in which exposition, invective,

argument, declamation, plain talk and resounding eloquence were mingled

together with consummate art and extraordinary felicity, he annihilated

his enemies. The hostile motion was defeated, and Palmerston was once

more the hero of the hour. Simultaneously, Atropos herself conspired

to favour him. Sir Robert Peel was thrown from his horse and killed. By

this tragic chance, Palmerston saw the one rival great enough to cope

with him removed from his path. He judged--and judged rightly--that

he was the most popular man in England; and when Lord John revived the

project of his exchanging the Foreign Office for some other position in

the Cabinet, he absolutely refused to stir.

Great was the disappointment of Albert; great was the indignation

of Victoria. "The House of Commons," she wrote, "is becoming very

unmanageable and troublesome." The Prince, perceiving that Palmerston

was more firmly fixed in the saddle than ever, decided that something

drastic must be done. Five months before, the prescient Baron had

drawn up, in case of emergency, a memorandum, which had been carefully

docketed, and placed in a pigeon-hole ready to hand. The emergency had

now arisen, and the memorandum must be used. The Queen copied out the

words of Stockmar, and sent them to the Prime Minister, requesting him

to show her letter to Palmerston. "She thinks it right," she wrote, "in

order TO PREVENT ANY MISTAKE for the FUTURE, shortly to explain WHAT

IT IS SHE EXPECTS FROM HER FOREIGN SECRETARY. She requires: (1) That he

will distinctly state what he proposes in a given case, in order

that the Queen may know as distinctly to WHAT she has given her Royal

sanction; (2) Having ONCE GIVEN her sanction to a measure, that it be

not arbitrarily altered or modified by the Minister; such an act she

must consider as failing in sincerity towards the Crown, and justly to

be visited by the exercise of her Constitutional right of dismissing

that Minister." Lord John Russell did as he was bid, and forwarded the

Queen's letter to Lord Palmerston. This transaction, which was of grave

constitutional significance, was entirely unknown to the outside world.

If Palmerston had been a sensitive man, he would probably have resigned

on the receipt of the Queen's missive. But he was far from sensitive; he

loved power, and his power was greater than ever; an unerring instinct

told him that this was not the time to go. Nevertheless, he was

seriously perturbed. He understood at last that he was struggling with

a formidable adversary, whose skill and strength, unless they were

mollified, might do irreparable injury to his career. He therefore wrote

to Lord John, briefly acquiescing in the Queen's requirements--"I have

taken a copy of this memorandum of the Queen and will not fail to attend

to the directions which it contains"--and at the same time, he asked for

an interview with the Prince. Albert at once summoned him to the Palace,

and was astonished to observe, as he noted in a memorandum, that when

Palmerston entered the room "he was very much agitated, shook, and

had tears in his eyes, so as quite to move me, who never under any

circumstances had known him otherwise than with a bland smile on his

face." The old statesman was profuse in protestations and excuses; the

young one was coldly polite. At last, after a long and inconclusive

conversation, the Prince, drawing himself up, said that, in order to

give Lord Palmerston "an example of what the Queen wanted," he would

"ask him a question point-blank." Lord Palmerston waited in respectful

silence, while the Prince proceeded as follows: "You are aware that the

Queen has objected to the Protocol about Schleswig, and of the grounds

on which she has done so. Her opinion has been overruled, the Protocol

stating the desire of the Great Powers to see the integrity of the

Danish monarchy preserved has been signed, and upon this the King of

Denmark has invaded Schleswig, where the war is raging. If Holstein is

attacked also, which is likely, the Germans will not be restrained from

flying to her assistance; Russia has menaced to interfere with arms,

if the Schleswigers are successful. What will you do, if this emergency

arises (provoking most likely an European war), and which will arise

very probably when we shall be at Balmoral and Lord John in another

part of Scotland? The Queen expects from your foresight that you have

contemplated this possibility, and requires a categorical answer as

to what you would do in the event supposed." Strangely enough, to this

pointblank question, the Foreign Secretary appeared to be unable to

reply. The whole matter, he said, was extremely complicated, and the

contingencies mentioned by His Royal Highness were very unlikely to

arise. The Prince persisted; but it was useless; for a full hour he

struggled to extract a categorical answer, until at length Palmerston

bowed himself out of the room. Albert threw up his hands in shocked

amazement: what could one do with such a man?

What indeed? For, in spite of all his apologies and all his promises,

within a few weeks the incorrigible reprobate was at his tricks again.

The Austrian General Haynau, notorious as a rigorous suppressor of

rebellion in Hungary and Italy, and in particular as a flogger of women,

came to England and took it into his head to pay a visit to Messrs.

Barclay and Perkins's brewery. The features of "General Hyena," as he

was everywhere called--his grim thin face, his enormous pepper-and-salt

moustaches--had gained a horrid celebrity; and it so happened that among

the clerks at the brewery there was a refugee from Vienna, who had

given his fellow-workers a first-hand account of the General's

characteristics. The Austrian Ambassador, scenting danger, begged his

friend not to appear in public, or, if he must do so, to cut off his

moustaches first. But the General would take no advice. He went to the

brewery, was immediately recognised, surrounded by a crowd of angry

draymen, pushed about, shouted at, punched in the ribs, and pulled by

the moustaches until, bolting down an alley with the mob at his heels

brandishing brooms and roaring "Hyena!" he managed to take refuge in

a public house, whence he was removed under the protection of several

policemen. The Austrian Government was angry and demanded explanations.

Palmerston, who, of course, was privately delighted by the incident,

replied regretting what had occurred, but adding that in his opinion

the General had "evinced a want of propriety in coming to England at

the present moment;" and he delivered his note to the Ambassador without

having previously submitted it to the Queen or to the Prime Minister.

Naturally, when this was discovered, there was a serious storm. The

Prince was especially indignant; the conduct of the draymen he regarded,

with disgust and alarm, as "a slight foretaste of what an unregulated

mass of illiterate people is capable;" and Palmerston was requested by

Lord John to withdraw his note, and to substitute for it another from

which all censure of the General had been omitted. On this the Foreign

Secretary threatened resignation, but the Prime Minister was firm. For a

moment the royal hopes rose high, only to be dashed to the ground again

by the cruel compliance of the enemy. Palmerston, suddenly lamblike,

agreed to everything; the note was withdrawn and altered, and peace was

patched up once more.

It lasted for a year, and then, in October, 1851, the arrival of Kossuth

in England brought on another crisis. Palmerston's desire to receive the

Hungarian patriot at his house in London was vetoed by Lord John; once

more there was a sharp struggle; once more Palmerston, after threatening

resignation, yielded. But still the insubordinate man could not keep

quiet. A few weeks later a deputation of Radicals from Finsbury and

Islington waited on him at the Foreign Office and presented him with an

address, in which the Emperors of Austria and Russia were stigmatised as

"odious and detestable assassins" and "merciless tyrants and despots."

The Foreign Secretary in his reply, while mildly deprecating these

expressions, allowed his real sentiments to appear with a most

undiplomatic insouciance There was an immediate scandal, and the Court

flowed over with rage and vituperation. "I think," said the Baron, "the

man has been for some time insane." Victoria, in an agitated letter,

urged Lord John to assert his authority. But Lord John perceived that on

this matter the Foreign Secretary had the support of public opinion, and

he judged it wiser to bide his time.

He had not long to wait. The culmination of the long series of

conflicts, threats, and exacerbations came before the year was out. On

December 2, Louis Napoleon's coup d'etat took place in Paris; and on

the following day Palmerston, without consulting anybody, expressed in a

conversation with the French Ambassador his approval of Napoleon's act.

Two days later, he was instructed by the Prime Minister, in accordance

with a letter from the Queen, that it was the policy of the English

Government to maintain an attitude of strict neutrality towards the

affairs of France. Nevertheless, in an official despatch to the British

Ambassador in Paris, he repeated the approval of the coup d'etat which

he had already given verbally to the French Ambassador in London. This

despatch was submitted neither to the Queen nor to the Prime Minister.

Lord John's patience, as he himself said, "was drained to the last

drop." He dismissed Lord Palmerston.

Victoria was in ecstasies; and Albert knew that the triumph was his even

more than Lord John's. It was his wish that Lord Granville, a young man

whom he believed to be pliant to his influence, should be Palmerston's

successor; and Lord Granville was appointed. Henceforward, it seemed

that the Prince would have his way in foreign affairs. After years of

struggle and mortification, success greeted him on every hand. In his

family, he was an adored master; in the country, the Great Exhibition

had brought him respect and glory; and now in the secret seats of power

he had gained a new supremacy. He had wrestled with the terrible Lord

Palmerston, the embodiment of all that was most hostile to him in the

spirit of England, and his redoubtable opponent had been overthrown. Was

England herself at his feet? It might be so; and yet... it is said that

the sons of England have a certain tiresome quality: they never know

when they are beaten. It was odd, but Palmerston was positively still

jaunty. Was it possible? Could he believe, in his blind arrogance,

that even his ignominious dismissal from office was something that could

be brushed aside?

III

The Prince's triumph was short-lived. A few weeks later, owing to

Palmerston's influence, the Government was defeated in the House, and

Lord John resigned. Then, after a short interval, a coalition between

the Whigs and the followers of Peel came into power, under the

premiership of Lord Aberdeen. Once more, Palmerston was in the Cabinet.

It was true that he did not return to the Foreign Office; that was

something to the good; in the Home Department it might be hoped that

his activities would be less dangerous and disagreeable. But the Foreign

Secretary was no longer the complacent Granville; and in Lord Clarendon

the Prince knew that he had a Minister to deal with, who, discreet and

courteous as he was, had a mind of his own. These changes, however, were

merely the preliminaries of a far more serious development.

Events, on every side, were moving towards a catastrophe. Suddenly the

nation found itself under the awful shadow of imminent war. For several

months, amid the shifting mysteries of diplomacy and the perplexed

agitations of politics, the issue grew more doubtful and more dark,

while the national temper was strained to the breaking-point. At the

very crisis of the long and ominous negotiations, it was announced that

Lord Palmerston had resigned. Then the pent-up fury of the people burst

forth. They had felt that in the terrible complexity of events they

were being guided by weak and embarrassed counsels; but they had been

reassured by the knowledge that at the centre of power there was one man

with strength, with courage, with determination, in whom they could put

their trust. They now learnt that that man was no longer among their

leaders. Why? In their rage, anxiety, and nervous exhaustion, they

looked round desperately for some hidden and horrible explanation of

what had occurred. They suspected plots, they smelt treachery in the

air. It was easy to guess the object upon which their frenzy would

vent itself. Was there not a foreigner in the highest of high places, a

foreigner whose hostility to their own adored champion was unrelenting

and unconcealed? The moment that Palmerston's resignation was known,

there was a universal outcry and an extraordinary tempest of anger and

hatred burst, with unparalleled violence, upon the head of the Prince.

It was everywhere asserted and believed that the Queen's husband was a

traitor to the country, that he was a tool of the Russian Court, that

in obedience to Russian influences he had forced Palmerston out of the

Government, and that he was directing the foreign policy of England in

the interests of England's enemies. For many weeks these accusations

filled the whole of the press; repeated at public meetings, elaborated

in private talk, they flew over the country, growing every moment more

extreme and more improbable. While respectable newspapers thundered out

their grave invectives, halfpenny broadsides, hawked through the streets

of London, re-echoed in doggerel vulgarity the same sentiments and the

same suspicions(*). At last the wildest rumours began to spread.

(*)"The Turkish war both far and near

Has played the very deuce then,

And little Al, the royal pal,

They say has turned a Russian;

Old Aberdeen, as may be seen,

Looks woeful pale and yellow,

And Old John Bull had his belly full

Of dirty Russian tallow."

Chorus:

"We'll send him home and make him groan,

Oh, Al! you've played the deuce then;

The German lad has acted sad

And turned tail with the Russians."

* * * * *

"Last Monday night, all in a fright,

Al out of bed did tumble.

The German lad was raving mad,

How he did groan and grumble!

He cried to Vic, 'I've cut my stick:

To St. Petersburg go right slap.'

When Vic, 'tis said, jumped out of bed,

And wopped him with her night-cap."

From Lovely Albert! a broadside preserved at the British Museum.

In January, 1854, it was whispered that the Prince had been seized, that

he had been found guilty of high treason, that he was to be committed

to the Tower. The Queen herself, some declared, had been arrested,

and large crowds actually collected round the Tower to watch the

incarceration of the royal miscreants.(*)

(*)"You Jolly Turks, now go to work,

And show the Bear your power.

It is rumoured over Britain's isle

That A------ is in the Tower;

The postmen some suspicion had,

And opened the two letters,

'Twas a pity sad the German lad

Should not have known much better!"

Lovely Albert!

These fantastic hallucinations, the result of the fevered atmosphere of

approaching war, were devoid of any basis in actual fact. Palmerston's

resignation had been in all probability totally disconnected with

foreign policy; it had certainly been entirely spontaneous, and had

surprised the Court as much as the nation. Nor had Albert's influence

been used in any way to favour the interests of Russia. As often happens

in such cases, the Government had been swinging backwards and forwards

between two incompatible policies--that of non-interference and that of

threats supported by force--either of which, if consistently followed,

might well have had a successful and peaceful issue, but which,

mingled together, could only lead to war. Albert, with characteristic

scrupulosity, attempted to thread his way through the complicated

labyrinth of European diplomacy, and eventually was lost in the

maze. But so was the whole of the Cabinet; and, when war came, his

anti-Russian feelings were quite as vehement as those of the most

bellicose of Englishmen.

Nevertheless, though the specific charges levelled against the Prince

were without foundation, there were underlying elements in the situation

which explained, if they did not justify, the popular state of mind. It

was true that the Queen's husband was a foreigner, who had been brought

up in a foreign Court, was impregnated with foreign ideas, and was

closely related to a multitude of foreign princes. Clearly this, though

perhaps an unavoidable, was an undesirable, state of affairs; nor

were the objections to it merely theoretical; it had in fact produced

unpleasant consequences of a serious kind. The Prince's German

proclivities were perpetually lamented by English Ministers; Lord

Palmerston, Lord Clarendon, Lord Aberdeen, all told the same tale; and

it was constantly necessary, in grave questions of national policy, to

combat the prepossessions of a Court in which German views and German

sentiments held a disproportionate place. As for Palmerston, his

language on this topic was apt to be unbridled. At the height of his

annoyance over his resignation, he roundly declared that he had been

made a victim to foreign intrigue. He afterwards toned down this

accusation; but the mere fact that such a suggestion from such a quarter

was possible at all showed to what unfortunate consequences Albert's

foreign birth and foreign upbringing might lead.

But this was not all. A constitutional question of the most profound

importance was raised by the position of the Prince in England. His

presence gave a new prominence to an old problem--the precise definition

of the functions and the powers of the Crown. Those functions and powers

had become, in effect, his; and what sort of use was he making of them?

His views as to the place of the Crown in the Constitution are easily

ascertainable; for they were Stockmar's; and it happens that we possess

a detailed account of Stockmar's opinions upon the subject in a long

letter addressed by him to the Prince at the time of this very crisis,

just before the outbreak of the Crimean War. Constitutional Monarchy,

according to the Baron, had suffered an eclipse since the passing of

the Reform Bill. It was now "constantly in danger of becoming a pure

Ministerial Government." The old race of Tories, who "had a direct

interest in upholding the prerogatives of the Crown," had died out;

and the Whigs were "nothing but partly conscious, partly unconscious

Republicans, who stand in the same relation to the Throne as the wolf

does to the lamb." There was a rule that it was unconstitutional to

introduce "the name and person of the irresponsible Sovereign"

into parliamentary debates on constitutional matters; this was "a

constitutional fiction, which, although undoubtedly of old standing,

was fraught with danger"; and the Baron warned the Prince that "if the

English Crown permit a Whig Ministry to follow this rule in practice,

without exception, you must not wonder if in a little time you find the

majority of the people impressed with the belief that the King, in the

view of the law, is nothing but a mandarin figure, which has to nod

its head in assent, or shake it in denial, as his Minister pleases."

To prevent this from happening, it was of extreme importance, said

the Baron, "that no opportunity should be let slip of vindicating the

legitimate position of the Crown." "And this is not hard to do," he

added, "and can never embarrass a Minister where such straightforward

loyal personages as the Queen and the Prince are concerned." In his

opinion, the very lowest claim of the Royal Prerogative should include

"a right on the part of the King to be the permanent President of his

Ministerial Council." The Sovereign ought to be "in the position of

a permanent Premier, who takes rank above the temporary head of the

Cabinet, and in matters of discipline exercises supreme authority." The

Sovereign "may even take a part in the initiation and the maturing of

the Government measures; for it would be unreasonable to expect that a

king, himself as able, as accomplished, and as patriotic as the best of

his Ministers, should be prevented from making use of these qualities

at the deliberations of his Council." "The judicious exercise of this

right," concluded the Baron, "which certainly requires a master mind,

would not only be the best guarantee for Constitutional Monarchy, but

would raise it to a height of power, stability, and symmetry, which has

never been attained."

Now it may be that this reading of the Constitution is a possible one,

though indeed it is hard to see how it can be made compatible with the

fundamental doctrine of ministerial responsibility. William III presided

over his Council, and he was a constitutional monarch; and it seems

that Stockmar had in his mind a conception of the Crown which would have

given it a place in the Constitution analogous to that which it filled

at the time of William III. But it is clear that such a theory, which

would invest the Crown with more power than it possessed even under

George III, runs counter to the whole development of English public life

since the Revolution; and the fact that it was held by Stockmar, and

instilled by him into Albert, was of very serious importance. For there

was good reason to believe not only that these doctrines were held by

Albert in theory, but that he was making a deliberate and sustained

attempt to give them practical validity. The history of the struggle

between the Crown and Palmerston provided startling evidence that this

was the case. That struggle reached its culmination when, in Stockmar's

memorandum of 1850, the Queen asserted her "constitutional right"

to dismiss the Foreign Secretary if he altered a despatch which had

received her sanction. The memorandum was, in fact, a plain declaration

that the Crown intended to act independently of the Prime Minister.

Lord John Russell, anxious at all costs to strengthen himself against

Palmerston, accepted the memorandum, and thereby implicitly allowed the

claim of the Crown. More than that; after the dismissal of Palmerston,

among the grounds on which Lord John justified that dismissal in the

House of Commons he gave a prominent place to the memorandum of 1850. It

became apparent that the displeasure of the Sovereign might be a reason

for the removal of a powerful and popular Minister. It seemed indeed

as if, under the guidance of Stockmar and Albert, the "Constitutional

Monarchy" might in very truth be rising "to a height of power,

stability, and symmetry, which had never been attained."

But this new development in the position of the Crown, grave as it

was in itself, was rendered peculiarly disquieting by the unusual

circumstances which surrounded it. For the functions of the Crown were

now, in effect, being exercised by a person unknown to the Constitution,

who wielded over the Sovereign an undefined and unbounded influence. The

fact that this person was the Sovereign's husband, while it explained

his influence and even made it inevitable, by no means diminished its

strange and momentous import. An ambiguous, prepotent figure had come

to disturb the ancient, subtle, and jealously guarded balance of the

English Constitution. Such had been the unexpected outcome of the

tentative and fainthearted opening of Albert's political life. He

himself made no attempt to minimise either the multiplicity or the

significance of the functions he performed. He considered that it was

his duty, he told the Duke of Wellington in 1850, to "sink his

OWN INDIVIDUAL existence in that of his wife--assume no separate

responsibility before the public, but make his position entirely a part

of hers--fill up every gap which, as a woman, she would naturally leave

in the exercise of her regal functions--continually and anxiously watch

every part of the public business, in order to be able to advise and

assist her at any moment in any of the multifarious and difficult

questions or duties brought before her, sometimes international,

sometimes political, or social, or personal. As the natural head of her

family, superintendent of her household, manager of her private affairs,

sole CONFIDENTIAL adviser in politics, and only assistant in her

communications with the officers of the Government, he is, besides,

the husband of the Queen, the tutor of the royal children, the private

secretary of the Sovereign, and her permanent minister."

Stockmar's pupil had assuredly gone far and learnt well. Stockmar's

pupil!--precisely; the public, painfully aware of Albert's predominance,

had grown, too, uneasily conscious that Victoria's master had a master

of his own. Deep in the darkness the Baron loomed. Another foreigner!

Decidedly, there were elements in the situation which went far to

justify the popular alarm. A foreign Baron controlled a foreign Prince,

and the foreign Prince controlled the Crown of England. And the Crown

itself was creeping forward ominously; and when, from under its shadow,

the Baron and the Prince had frowned, a great Minister, beloved of the

people, had fallen. Where was all this to end?

Within a few weeks Palmerston withdrew his resignation, and the public

frenzy subsided as quickly as it had arisen. When Parliament met, the

leaders of both the parties in both the Houses made speeches in favour

of the Prince, asserting his unimpeachable loyalty to the country and

vindicating his right to advise the Sovereign in all matters of State.

Victoria was delighted. "The position of my beloved lord and master,"

she told the Baron, "has been defined for once amid all and his merits

have been acknowledged on all sides most duly. There was an immense

concourse of people assembled when we went to the House of Lords, and

the people were very friendly." Immediately afterwards, the country

finally plunged into the Crimean War. In the struggle that followed,

Albert's patriotism was put beyond a doubt, and the animosities of

the past were forgotten. But the war had another consequence, less

gratifying to the royal couple: it crowned the ambition of Lord

Palmerston. In 1855, the man who five years before had been pronounced

by Lord John Russell to be "too old to do much in the future," became

Prime Minister of England, and, with one short interval, remained in

that position for ten years.

CHAPTER VI. LAST YEARS OF PRINCE CONSORT

I

The weak-willed youth who took no interest in polities and never read a

newspaper had grown into a man of unbending determination whose tireless

energies were incessantly concentrated upon the laborious business of

government and the highest questions of State. He was busy now from

morning till night. In the winter, before the dawn, he was to be

seen, seated at his writing-table, working by the light of the green

reading--lamp which he had brought over with him from Germany, and

the construction of which he had much improved by an ingenious device.

Victoria was early too, but she was not so early as Albert; and when, in

the chill darkness, she took her seat at her own writing-table, placed

side by side with his, she invariably found upon it a neat pile of

papers arranged for her inspection and her signature. The day,

thus begun, continued in unremitting industry. At breakfast, the

newspapers--the once hated newspapers--made their appearance, and the

Prince, absorbed in their perusal, would answer no questions, or, if

an article struck him, would read it aloud. After, that there were

ministers and secretaries to interview; there was a vast correspondence

to be carried on; there were numerous memoranda to be made. Victoria,

treasuring every word, preserving every letter, was all breathless

attention and eager obedience. Sometimes Albert would actually ask her

advice. He consulted her about his English: "Lese recht aufmerksam, und

sage wenn irgend ein Fehler ist,"(*) he would say; or, as he handed

her a draft for her signature, he would observe, "Ich hab' Dir hier ein

Draft gemacht, lese es mal! Ich dachte es ware recht so."(**) Thus the

diligent, scrupulous, absorbing hours passed by. Fewer and fewer grew

the moments of recreation and of exercise. The demands of society were

narrowed down to the smallest limits, and even then but grudgingly

attended to. It was no longer a mere pleasure, it was a positive

necessity, to go to bed as early as possible in order to be up and at

work on the morrow betimes.

(*) "Read this carefully, and tell me if there are any

mistakes in it."

(**) "Here is a draft I have made for you. Read it. I should

think this would do."

The important and exacting business of government, which became at last

the dominating preoccupation in Albert's mind, still left unimpaired

his old tastes and interests; he remained devoted to art, to science,

to philosophy, and a multitude of subsidiary activities showed how his

energies increased as the demands upon them grew. For whenever duty

called, the Prince was all alertness. With indefatigable perseverance he

opened museums, laid the foundation stones of hospitals, made speeches

to the Royal Agricultural Society, and attended meetings of the British

Association. The National Gallery particularly interested him: he drew

up careful regulations for the arrangement of the pictures according to

schools; and he attempted--though in vain--to have the whole collection

transported to South Kensington. Feodora, now the Princess Hohenlohe,

after a visit to England, expressed in a letter to Victoria her

admiration of Albert both as a private and a public character. Nor did

she rely only on her own opinion. "I must just copy out," she said,

"what Mr. Klumpp wrote to me some little time ago, and which is

quite true--'Prince Albert is one of the few Royal personages who can

sacrifice to any principle (as soon as it has become evident to them to

be good and noble) all those notions (or sentiments) to which others,

owing to their narrow-mindedness, or to the prejudices of their rank,

are so thoroughly inclined strongly to cling.' There is something so

truly religious in this," the Princess added, "as well as humane and

just, most soothing to my feelings which are so often hurt and disturbed

by what I hear and see."

Victoria, from the depth of her heart, subscribed to all the eulogies of

Feodora and Mr. Klumpp. She only found that they were insufficient. As

she watched her beloved Albert, after toiling with state documents and

public functions, devoting every spare moment of his time to domestic

duties, to artistic appreciation, and to intellectual improvements; as

she listened to him cracking his jokes at the luncheon table, or playing

Mendelssohn on the organ, or pointing out the merits of Sir Edwin

Landseer's pictures; as she followed him round while he gave

instructions about the breeding of cattle, or decided that the

Gainsboroughs must be hung higher up so that the Winterhalters might be

properly seen--she felt perfectly certain that no other wife had ever

had such a husband. His mind was apparently capable of everything,

and she was hardly surprised to learn that he had made an important

discovery for the conversion of sewage into agricultural manure.

Filtration from below upwards, he explained, through some appropriate

medium, which retained the solids and set free the fluid sewage for

irrigation, was the principle of the scheme. "All previous plans,"

he said, "would have cost millions; mine costs next to nothing."

Unfortunately, owing to a slight miscalculation, the invention proved

to be impracticable; but Albert's intelligence was unrebuffed, and he

passed on, to plunge with all his accustomed ardour into a prolonged

study of the rudiments of lithography.

But naturally it was upon his children that his private interests and

those of Victoria were concentrated most vigorously. The royal nurseries

showed no sign of emptying. The birth of the Prince Arthur in 1850 was

followed, three years later, by that of the Prince Leopold; and in

1857 the Princess Beatrice was born. A family of nine must be, in any

circumstances, a grave responsibility; and the Prince realised to the

full how much the high destinies of his offspring intensified the need

of parental care. It was inevitable that he should believe profoundly

in the importance of education; he himself had been the product of

education; Stockmar had made him what he was; it was for him, in his

turn, to be a Stockmar--to be even more than a Stockmar--to the young

creatures he had brought into the world. Victoria would assist him; a

Stockmar, no doubt, she could hardly be; but she could be perpetually

vigilant, she could mingle strictness with her affection, and she could

always set a good example. These considerations, of course, applied

pre-eminently to the education of the Prince of Wales. How tremendous

was the significance of every particle of influence which went to the

making of the future King of England! Albert set to work with a will.

But, watching with Victoria the minutest details of the physical,

intellectual, and moral training of his children, he soon perceived, to

his distress, that there was something unsatisfactory in the development

of his eldest son. The Princess Royal was an extremely intelligent

child; but Bertie, though he was good-humoured and gentle, seemed to

display a deep-seated repugnance to every form of mental exertion. This

was most regrettable, but the remedy was obvious: the parental efforts

must be redoubled; instruction must be multiplied; not for a single

instant must the educational pressure be allowed to relax. Accordingly,

more tutors were selected, the curriculum was revised, the time-table of

studies was rearranged, elaborate memoranda dealing with every possible

contingency were drawn up. It was above all essential that there should

be no slackness: "Work," said the Prince, "must be work." And work

indeed it was. The boy grew up amid a ceaseless round of paradigms,

syntactical exercises, dates, genealogical tables, and lists of capes.

Constant notes flew backwards and forwards between the Prince, the

Queen, and the tutors, with inquiries, with reports of progress, with

detailed recommendations; and these notes were all carefully preserved

for future reference. It was, besides, vital that the heir to the throne

should be protected from the slightest possibility of contamination from

the outside world. The Prince of Wales was not as other boys; he might,

occasionally, be allowed to invite some sons of the nobility, boys of

good character, to play with him in the garden of Buckingham Palace;

but his father presided, with alarming precision, over their sports. In

short, every possible precaution was taken, every conceivable effort

was made. Yet, strange to say, the object of all this vigilance and

solicitude continued to be unsatisfactory--appeared, in fact, to be

positively growing worse. It was certainly very odd: the more lessons

that Bertie had to do, the less he did them; and the more carefully he

was guarded against excitements and frivolities, the more desirous

of mere amusement he seemed to become. Albert was deeply grieved and

Victoria was sometimes very angry; but grief and anger produced no more

effect than supervision and time-tables. The Prince of Wales, in

spite of everything, grew up into manhood without the faintest sign of

"adherence to and perseverance in the plan both of studies and life--"

as one of the Royal memoranda put it--which had been laid down with such

extraordinary forethought by his father.

II

Against the insidious worries of politics, the boredom of society

functions, and the pompous publicity of state ceremonies, Osborne had

afforded a welcome refuge; but it soon appeared that even Osborne was

too little removed from the world. After all, the Solent was a feeble

barrier. Oh, for some distant, some almost inaccessible sanctuary,

where, in true domestic privacy, one could make happy holiday, just as

if--or at least very, very, nearly--one were anybody else! Victoria,

ever since, together with Albert, she had visited Scotland in the early

years of her marriage, had felt that her heart was in the Highlands. She

had returned to them a few years later, and her passion had grown. How

romantic they were! And how Albert enjoyed them too! His spirits rose

quite wonderfully as soon as he found himself among the hills and the

conifers. "It is a happiness to see him," she wrote. "Oh! What can equal

the beauties of nature!" she exclaimed in her journal, during one of

these visits. "What enjoyment there is in them! Albert enjoys it so

much; he is in ecstasies here." "Albert said," she noted next day, "that

the chief beauty of mountain scenery consists in its frequent changes.

We came home at six o'clock." Then she went on a longer expedition--up

to the very top of a high hill. "It was quite romantic. Here we were

with only this Highlander behind us holding the ponies (for we got off

twice and walked about). . . . We came home at half-past eleven,--the

most delightful, most romantic ride and walk I ever had. I had never

been up such a mountain, and then the day was so fine." The Highlanders,

too, were such astonishing people. They "never make difficulties," she

noted, "but are cheerful, and happy, and merry, and ready to walk,

and run, and do anything." As for Albert he "highly appreciated the

good-breeding, simplicity, and intelligence, which make it so pleasant

and even instructive to talk to them." "We were always in the habit,"

wrote Her Majesty, "of conversing with the Highlanders--with whom one

comes so much in contact in the Highlands." She loved everything about

them--their customs, their dress, their dances, even their musical

instruments. "There were nine pipers at the castle," she wrote after

staying with Lord Breadalbane; "sometimes one and sometimes three

played. They always played about breakfast-time, again during the

morning, at luncheon, and also whenever we went in and out; again before

dinner, and during most of dinner-time. We both have become quite fond

of the bag-pipes."

It was quite impossible not to wish to return to such pleasures again

and again; and in 1848 the Queen took a lease of Balmoral House, a small

residence near Braemar in the wilds of Aberdeenshire. Four years later

she bought the place outright. Now she could be really happy every

summer; now she could be simple and at her ease; now she could

be romantic every evening, and dote upon Albert, without a single

distraction, all day long. The diminutive scale of the house was in

itself a charm. Nothing was more amusing than to find oneself living

in two or three little sitting--rooms, with the children crammed away

upstairs, and the minister in attendance with only a tiny bedroom to do

all his work in. And then to be able to run in and out of doors as one

liked, and to sketch, and to walk, and to watch the red deer coming so

surprisingly close, and to pay visits to the cottagers! And occasionally

one could be more adventurous still--one could go and stay for a night

or two at the Bothie at Alt-na-giuthasach--a mere couple of huts with "a

wooden addition"--and only eleven people in the whole party! And there

were mountains to be climbed and cairns to be built in solemn pomp. "At

last, when the cairn, which is, I think, seven or eight feet high, was

nearly completed, Albert climbed up to the top of it, and placed the

last stone; after which three cheers were given. It was a gay, pretty,

and touching sight; and I felt almost inclined to cry. The view was

so beautiful over the dear hills; the day so fine; the whole so

gemuthlich." And in the evening there were sword-dances and reels.

But Albert had determined to pull down the little old house, and to

build in its place a castle of his own designing. With great ceremony,

in accordance with a memorandum drawn up by the Prince for the occasion,

the foundation-stone of the new edifice was laid, and by 1855 it was

habitable. Spacious, built of granite in the Scotch baronial style, with

a tower 100 feet high, and minor turrets and castellated gables,

the castle was skilfully arranged to command the finest views of the

surrounding mountains and of the neighbouring river Dee. Upon the

interior decorations Albert and Victoria lavished all their care. The

wall and the floors were of pitch-pine, and covered with specially

manufactured tartars. The Balmoral tartan, in red and grey, designed by

the Prince, and the Victoria tartan, with a white stripe, designed by

the Queen, were to be seen in every room: there were tartan curtains,

and tartan chair-covers, and even tartan linoleums. Occasionally the

Royal Stuart tartan appeared, for Her Majesty always maintained that she

was an ardent Jacobite. Water-colour sketches by Victoria hung upon the

walls, together with innumerable stags' antlers, and the head of a boar,

which had been shot by Albert in Germany. In an alcove in the hall,

stood a life-sized statue of Albert in Highland dress.

Victoria declared that it was perfection. "Every year," she wrote, "my

heart becomes more fixed in this dear paradise, and so much more so

now, that ALL has become my dear Albert's own creation, own work, own

building, own lay-out... and his great taste, and the impress of his

dear hand, have been stamped everywhere."

And here, in very truth, her happiest days were passed. In after years,

when she looked back upon them, a kind of glory, a radiance as of

an unearthly holiness, seemed to glow about these golden hours. Each

hallowed moment stood out clear, beautiful, eternally significant. For,

at the time, every experience there, sentimental, or grave, or trivial,

had come upon her with a peculiar vividness, like a flashing of

marvellous lights. Albert's stalkings--an evening walk when she lost her

way--Vicky sitting down on a wasps' nest--a torchlight dance--with what

intensity such things, and ten thousand like them, impressed themselves

upon her eager consciousness! And how she flew to her journal to note

them down! The news of the Duke's death! What a moment--when, as she

sat sketching after a picnic by a loch in the lonely hills, Lord Derby's

letter had been brought to her, and she had learnt that "ENGLAND'S, or

rather BRITAIN'S pride, her glory, her hero, the greatest man she had

ever produced, was no more!" For such were here reflections upon

the "old rebel" of former days. But that past had been utterly

obliterated--no faintest memory of it remained. For years she had

looked up to the Duke as a figure almost superhuman. Had he not been a

supporter of good Sir Robert? Had he not asked Albert to succeed him as

commander-in-chief? And what a proud moment it had been when he stood as

sponsor to her son Arthur, who was born on his eighty-first birthday! So

now she filled a whole page of her diary with panegyrical regrets. "His

position was the highest a subject ever had--above party--looked up to

by all--revered by the whole nation--the friend of the Sovereign... The

Crown never possessed--and I fear never WILL--so DEVOTED, loyal,

and faithful a subject, so staunch a supporter! To US his loss is

IRREPARABLE... To Albert he showed the greatest kindness and the utmost

confidence... Not an eye will be dry in the whole country." These were

serious thoughts; but they were soon succeeded by others hardly less

moving--by events as impossible to forget--by Mr. MacLeod's sermon

on Nicodemus--by the gift of a red flannel petticoat to Mrs. P.

Farquharson, and another to old Kitty Kear.

But, without doubt, most memorable, most delightful of all were the

expeditions--the rare, exciting expeditions up distant mountains, across

broad rivers, through strange country, and lasting several days. With

only two gillies--Grant and Brown--for servants, and with assumed names.

It was more like something in a story than real life. "We had decided

to call ourselves LORD AND LADY CHURCHILL AND AND PARTY--Lady Churchill

passing as MISS SPENCER and General Grey as DR. GREY! Brown once forgot

this and called me 'Your Majesty' as I was getting into the carriage,

and Grant on the box once called Albert 'Your Royal Highness,' which

set us off laughing, but no one observed it." Strong, vigorous,

enthusiastic, bringing, so it seemed, good fortune with her--the

Highlanders declared she had "a lucky foot"--she relished

everything--the scrambles and the views and the contretemps and the

rough inns with their coarse fare and Brown and Grant waiting at table.

She could have gone on for ever and ever, absolutely happy with Albert

beside her and Brown at her pony's head. But the time came for turning

homewards, alas! the time came for going back to England. She could

hardly bear it; she sat disconsolate in her room and watched the snow

falling. The last day! Oh! If only she could be snowed up!

III

The Crimean War brought new experiences, and most of them were pleasant

ones. It was pleasant to be patriotic and pugnacious, to look out

appropriate prayers to be read in the churches, to have news of

glorious victories, and to know oneself, more proudly than ever, the

representative of England. With that spontaneity of feeling which was so

peculiarly her own, Victoria poured out her emotion, her admiration,

her pity, her love, upon her "dear soldiers." When she gave them their

medals her exultation knew no bounds. "Noble fellows!" she wrote to the

King of the Belgians, "I own I feel as if these were MY OWN CHILDREN;

my heart beats for THEM as for my NEAREST and DEAREST. They were so

touched, so pleased; many, I hear, cried--and they won't hear of giving

up their medals to have their names engraved upon them for fear they

should not receive the IDENTICAL ONE put into THEIR HANDS BY ME, which

is quite touching. Several came by in a sadly mutilated state." She and

they were at one. They felt that she had done them a splendid honour,

and she, with perfect genuineness, shared their feeling. Albert's

attitude towards such things was different; there was an austerity

in him which quite prohibited the expansions of emotion. When General

Williams returned from the heroic defence of Kars and was presented at

Court, the quick, stiff, distant bow with which the Prince received him

struck like ice upon the beholders. He was a stranger still.

But he had other things to occupy him, more important, surely, than the

personal impressions of military officers and people who went to Court.

He was at work--ceaselessly at work--on the tremendous task of carrying

through the war to a successful conclusion. State papers, despatches,

memoranda, poured from him in an overwhelming stream. Between 1853 and

1857 fifty folio volumes were filled with the comments of his pen upon

the Eastern question. Nothing would induce him to stop. Weary ministers

staggered under the load of his advice; but his advice continued, piling

itself up over their writing-tables, and flowing out upon them from

red box after red box. Nor was it advice to be ignored. The talent for

administration which had reorganised the royal palaces and planned the

Great Exhibition asserted itself no less in the confused complexities of

war. Again and again the Prince's suggestions, rejected or unheeded at

first, were adopted under the stress of circumstances and found to be

full of value. The enrolment of a foreign legion, the establishment of

a depot for troops at Malta, the institution of periodical reports and

tabulated returns as to the condition of the army at Sebastopol--such

were the contrivances and the achievements of his indefatigable brain.

He went further: in a lengthy minute he laid down the lines for a

radical reform in the entire administration of the army. This was

premature, but his proposal that "a camp of evolution" should be

created, in which troops should be concentrated and drilled, proved to

be the germ of Aldershot.

Meanwhile Victoria had made a new friend: she had suddenly been

captivated by Napoleon III. Her dislike of him had been strong at first.

She considered that he was a disreputable adventurer who had usurped the

throne of poor old Louis Philippe; and besides he was hand-in-glove

with Lord Palmerston. For a long time, although he was her ally, she was

unwilling to meet him; but at last a visit of the Emperor and Empress to

England was arranged. Directly he appeared at Windsor her heart began

to soften. She found that she was charmed by his quiet manners, his

low, soft voice, and by the soothing simplicity of his conversation. The

good-will of England was essential to the Emperor's position in Europe,

and he had determined to fascinate the Queen. He succeeded. There was

something deep within her which responded immediately and vehemently to

natures that offered a romantic contrast with her own. Her adoration

of Lord Melbourne was intimately interwoven with her half-unconscious

appreciation of the exciting unlikeness between herself and that

sophisticated, subtle, aristocratical old man. Very different was the

quality of her unlikeness to Napoleon; but its quantity was at least

as great. From behind the vast solidity of her respectability, her

conventionality, her established happiness, she peered out with a

strange delicious pleasure at that unfamiliar, darkly-glittering foreign

object, moving so meteorically before her, an ambiguous creature of

wilfulness and Destiny. And, to her surprise, where she had dreaded

antagonisms, she discovered only sympathies. He was, she said, "so

quiet, so simple, naif even, so pleased to be informed about things he

does not know, so gentle, so full of tact, dignity, and modesty, so full

of kind attention towards us, never saying a word, or doing a thing,

which could put me out... There is something fascinating, melancholy,

and engaging which draws you to him, in spite of any prevention you may

have against him, and certainly without the assistance of any outward

appearance, though I like his face." She observed that he rode

"extremely well, and looks well on horseback, as he sits high." And

he danced "with great dignity and spirit." Above all, he listened to

Albert; listened with the most respectful attention; showed, in fact,

how pleased he was "to be informed about things he did not know;" and

afterwards was heard to declare that he had never met the Prince's

equal. On one occasion, indeed--but only on one--he had seemed to grow

slightly restive. In a diplomatic conversation, "I expatiated a little

on the Holstein question," wrote the Prince in a memorandum, "which

appeared to bore the Emperor as 'tres compliquee.'"

Victoria, too, became much attached to the Empress, whose looks and

graces she admired without a touch of jealousy. Eugenie, indeed, in

the plenitude of her beauty, exquisitely dressed in wonderful Parisian

crinolines which set off to perfection her tall and willowy figure,

might well have caused some heart-burning in the breast of her hostess,

who, very short, rather stout, quite plain, in garish middle-class

garments, could hardly be expected to feel at her best in such company.

But Victoria had no misgivings. To her it mattered nothing that her

face turned red in the heat and that her purple pork-pie hat was of last

year's fashion, while Eugenie, cool and modish, floated in an infinitude

of flounces by her side. She was Queen of England, and was not that

enough? It certainly seemed to be; true majesty was hers, and she knew

it. More than once, when the two were together in public, it was the

woman to whom, as it seemed, nature and art had given so little, who,

by the sheer force of an inherent grandeur, completely threw her adorned

and beautiful companion into the shade.

There were tears when the moment came for parting, and Victoria felt

"quite wehmuthig," as her guests went away from Windsor. But before long

she and Albert paid a return visit to France, where everything was very

delightful, and she drove incognito through the streets of Paris in a

"common bonnet," and saw a play in the theatre at St. Cloud, and, one

evening, at a great party given by the Emperor in her honour at the

Chateau of Versailles, talked a little to a distinguished-looking

Prussian gentleman, whose name was Bismarck. Her rooms were furnished

so much to her taste that she declared they gave her quite a home

feeling--that, if her little dog were there, she should really imagine

herself at home. Nothing was said, but three days later her little

dog barked a welcome to her as she entered the apartments. The Emperor

himself, sparing neither trouble nor expense, had personally arranged

the charming surprise. Such were his attentions. She returned to England

more enchanted than ever. "Strange indeed," she exclaimed, "are the

dispensations and ways of Providence!"

The alliance prospered, and the war drew towards a conclusion. Both the

Queen and the Prince, it is true, were most anxious that there should

not be a premature peace. When Lord Aberdeen wished to open negotiations

Albert attacked him in a "geharnischten" letter, while Victoria rode

about on horseback reviewing the troops. At last, however, Sebastopol

was captured. The news reached Balmoral late at night, and in a few

minutes Albert and all the gentlemen in every species of attire sallied

forth, followed by all the servants, and gradually by all the population

of the village-keepers, gillies, workmen--"up to the top of the cairn."

A bonfire was lighted, the pipes were played, and guns were shot off.

"About three-quarters of an hour after Albert came down and said the

scene had been wild and exciting beyond everything. The people had

been drinking healths in whisky and were in great ecstasy." The "great

ecstasy," perhaps, would be replaced by other feelings next morning;

but at any rate the war was over--though, to be sure, its end seemed as

difficult to account for as its beginning. The dispensations and ways of

Providence continued to be strange.

IV

An unexpected consequence of the war was a complete change in the

relations between the royal pair and Palmerston. The Prince and the

Minister drew together over their hostility to Russia, and thus it came

about that when Victoria found it necessary to summon her old enemy to

form an administration she did so without reluctance. The premiership,

too, had a sobering effect upon Palmerston; he grew less impatient and

dictatorial; considered with attention the suggestions of the Crown, and

was, besides, genuinely impressed by the Prince's ability and knowledge.

Friction, no doubt, there still occasionally was, for, while the Queen

and the Prince devoted themselves to foreign politics as much as ever,

their views, when the war was over, became once more antagonistic to

those of the Prime Minister. This was especially the case with regard

to Italy. Albert, theoretically the friend of constitutional government,

distrusted Cavour, was horrified by Garibaldi, and dreaded the danger

of England being drawn into war with Austria. Palmerston, on the other

hand, was eager for Italian independence; but he was no longer at the

Foreign Office, and the brunt of the royal displeasure had now to be

borne by Lord John Russell. In a few years the situation had curiously

altered. It was Lord John who now filled the subordinate and the

ungrateful role; but the Foreign Secretary, in his struggle with

the Crown, was supported, instead of opposed, by the Prime Minister.

Nevertheless the struggle was fierce, and the policy, by which the

vigorous sympathy of England became one of the decisive factors in the

final achievement of Italian unity, was only carried through in face of

the violent opposition of the Court.

Towards the other European storm-centre, also, the Prince's attitude

continued to be very different to that of Palmerston. Albert's great

wish was for a united Germany under the leadership of a constitutional

and virtuous Prussia; Palmerston did not think that there was much to

be said for the scheme, but he took no particular interest in German

politics, and was ready enough to agree to a proposal which was warmly

supported by both the Prince and the Queen--that the royal Houses of

England and Prussia should be united by the marriage of the Princess

Royal with the Prussian Crown Prince. Accordingly, when the Princess was

not yet fifteen, the Prince, a young man of twenty-four, came over on

a visit to Balmoral, and the betrothal took place. Two years later,

in 1857, the marriage was celebrated. At the last moment, however, it

seemed that there might be a hitch. It was pointed out in Prussia that

it was customary for Princes of the blood royal to be married in Berlin,

and it was suggested that there was no reason why the present case

should be treated as an exception. When this reached the ears of

Victoria, she was speechless with indignation. In a note, emphatic

even for Her Majesty, she instructed the Foreign Secretary to tell

the Prussian Ambassador "not to ENTERTAIN the POSSIBILITY of such a

question... The Queen NEVER could consent to it, both for public and for

private reasons, and the assumption of its being TOO MUCH for a Prince

Royal of Prussia to come over to marry the Princess Royal of Great

Britain in England is too ABSURD to say the least. . . Whatever may be

the usual practice of Prussian princes, it is not EVERY day that one

marries the eldest daughter of the Queen of England. The question must

therefore be considered as settled and closed." It was, and the

wedding took place in St. James's Chapel. There were great

festivities--illuminations, state concerts, immense crowds, and general

rejoicings. At Windsor a magnificent banquet was given to the bride and

bridegroom in the Waterloo room, at which, Victoria noted in her diary,

"everybody was most friendly and kind about Vicky and full of the

universal enthusiasm, of which the Duke of Buccleuch gave us most

pleasing instances, he having been in the very thick of the crowd and

among the lowest of the low." Her feelings during several days had been

growing more and more emotional, and when the time came for the young

couple to depart she very nearly broke down--but not quite. "Poor dear

child!" she wrote afterwards. "I clasped her in my arms and blessed her,

and knew not what to say. I kissed good Fritz and pressed his hand again

and again. He was unable to speak and the tears were in his eyes. I

embraced them both again at the carriage door, and Albert got into the

carriage, an open one, with them and Bertie... The band struck up. I

wished good-bye to the good Perponchers. General Schreckenstein was much

affected. I pressed his hand, and the good Dean's, and then went quickly

upstairs."

Albert, as well as General Schreckenstein, was much affected. He was

losing his favourite child, whose opening intelligence had already begun

to display a marked resemblance to his own--an adoring pupil, who, in

a few years, might have become an almost adequate companion. An ironic

fate had determined that the daughter who was taken from him should be

sympathetic, clever, interested in the arts and sciences, and endowed

with a strong taste for memoranda, while not a single one of these

qualities could be discovered in the son who remained. For certainly

the Prince of Wales did not take after his father. Victoria's prayer had

been unanswered, and with each succeeding year it became more obvious

that Bertie was a true scion of the House of Brunswick. But these

evidences of innate characteristics only served to redouble the efforts

of his parents; it still might not be too late to incline the young

branch, by ceaseless pressure and careful fastenings, to grow in

the proper direction. Everything was tried. The boy was sent on a

continental tour with a picked body of tutors, but the results were

unsatisfactory. At his father's request he kept a diary which, on his

return, was inspected by the Prince. It was found to be distressingly

meagre: what a multitude of highly interesting reflections might have

been arranged under the heading: "The First Prince of Wales visiting the

Pope!" But there was not a single one. "Le jeune prince plaisit a

tout le monde," old Metternich reported to Guizot, "mais avait l'air

embarrasse et tres triste." On his seventeenth birthday a memorandum

was drawn up over the names of the Queen and the Prince informing their

eldest son that he was now entering upon the period of manhood,

and directing him henceforward to perform the duties of a Christian

gentleman. "Life is composed of duties," said the memorandum, "and in

the due, punctual and cheerful performance of them the true Christian,

true soldier, and true gentleman is recognised... A new sphere of life

will open for you in which you will have to be taught what to do and

what not to do, a subject requiring study more important than any in

which you have hitherto been engaged." On receipt of the memorandum

Bertie burst into tears. At the same time another memorandum was drawn

up, headed "confidential: for the guidance of the gentlemen appointed

to attend on the Prince of Wales." This long and elaborate document laid

down "certain principles" by which the "conduct and demeanour" of the

gentlemen were to be regulated "and which it is thought may conduce to

the benefit of the Prince of Wales." "The qualities which distinguish a

gentleman in society," continued this remarkable paper, "are:--

(1) His appearance, his deportment and dress.

(2) The character of his relations with, and treatment of, others.

(3) His desire and power to acquit himself creditably in conversation or

whatever is the occupation of the society with which he mixes."

A minute and detailed analysis of these subheadings followed, filling

several pages, and the memorandum ended with a final exhortation to the

gentlemen: "If they will duly appreciate the responsibility of their

position, and taking the points above laid down as the outline, will

exercise their own good sense in acting UPON ALL OCCASIONS all

upon these principles, thinking no point of detail too minute to be

important, but maintaining one steady consistent line of conduct

they may render essential service to the young Prince and justify the

flattering selection made by the royal parents." A year later the young

Prince was sent to Oxford, where the greatest care was taken that

he should not mix with the undergraduates. Yes, everything had been

tried--everything... with one single exception. The experiment had never

been made of letting Bertie enjoy himself. But why should it have been?

"Life is composed of duties." What possible place could there be for

enjoyment in the existence of a Prince of Wales?

The same year which deprived Albert of the Princess Royal brought him

another and a still more serious loss. The Baron had paid his last visit

to England. For twenty years, as he himself said in a letter to the King

of the Belgians, he had performed "the laborious and exhausting office

of a paternal friend and trusted adviser" to the Prince and the Queen.

He was seventy; he was tired, physically and mentally; it was time to

go. He returned to his home in Coburg, exchanging, once for all, the

momentous secrecies of European statecraft for the little-tattle of a

provincial capital and the gossip of family life. In his stiff chair

by the fire he nodded now over old stories--not of emperors and

generals--but of neighbours and relatives and the domestic adventures

of long ago--the burning of his father's library--and the goat that ran

upstairs to his sister's room and ran twice round the table and then ran

down again. Dyspepsia and depression still attacked him; but, looking

back over his life, he was not dissatisfied. His conscience was clear.

"I have worked as long as I had strength to work," he said, "and for a

purpose no one can impugn. The consciousness of this is my reward--the

only one which I desired to earn."

Apparently, indeed, his "purpose" had been accomplished. By his wisdom,

his patience, and his example he had brought about, in the fullness of

time, the miraculous metamorphosis of which he had dreamed. The Prince

was his creation. An indefatigable toiler, presiding, for the highest

ends, over a great nation--that was his achievement; and he looked upon

his work and it was good. But had the Baron no misgivings? Did he never

wonder whether, perhaps, he might have accomplished not too little but

too much? How subtle and how dangerous are the snares which fate lays

for the wariest of men! Albert, certainly, seemed to be everything

that Stockmar could have wished--virtuous, industrious, persevering,

intelligent. And yet--why was it--all was not well with him? He was sick

at heart.

For in spite of everything he had never reached to happiness. His work,

for which at last he came to crave with an almost morbid appetite, was

a solace and not a cure; the dragon of his dissatisfaction devoured with

dark relish that ever-growing tribute of laborious days and nights;

but it was hungry still. The causes of his melancholy were hidden,

mysterious, unanalysable perhaps--too deeply rooted in the innermost

recesses of his temperament for the eye of reason to apprehend. There

were contradictions in his nature, which, to some of those who knew him

best, made him seem an inexplicable enigma: he was severe and gentle; he

was modest and scornful; he longed for affection and he was cold. He was

lonely, not merely with the loneliness of exile but with the loneliness

of conscious and unrecognised superiority. He had the pride, at once

resigned and overweening, of a doctrinaire. And yet to say that he

was simply a doctrinaire would be a false description; for the pure

doctrinaire rejoices always in an internal contentment, and Albert was

very far from doing that. There was something that he wanted and that

he could never get. What was it? Some absolute, some ineffable sympathy?

Some extraordinary, some sublime success? Possibly, it was a mixture

of both. To dominate and to be understood! To conquer, by the same

triumphant influence, the submission and the appreciation of men--that

would be worth while indeed! But, to such imaginations, he saw too

clearly how faint were the responses of his actual environment. Who was

there who appreciated him, really and truly? Who COULD appreciate him

in England? And, if the gentle virtue of an inward excellence availed so

little, could he expect more from the hard ways of skill and force? The

terrible land of his exile loomed before him a frigid, an impregnable

mass. Doubtless he had made some slight impression: it was true that

he had gained the respect of his fellow workers, that his probity, his

industry, his exactitude, had been recognised, that he was a highly

influential, an extremely important man. But how far, how very far,

was all this from the goal of his ambitions! How feeble and futile his

efforts seemed against the enormous coagulation of dullness, of folly,

of slackness, of ignorance, of confusion that confronted him! He might

have the strength or the ingenuity to make some small change for the

better here or there--to rearrange some detail, to abolish some anomaly,

to insist upon some obvious reform; but the heart of the appalling

organism remained untouched. England lumbered on, impervious and

self-satisfied, in her old intolerable course. He threw himself across

the path of the monster with rigid purpose and set teeth, but he was

brushed aside. Yes! even Palmerston was still unconquered--was still

there to afflict him with his jauntiness, his muddle-headedness, his

utter lack of principle. It was too much. Neither nature nor the Baron

had given him a sanguine spirit; the seeds of pessimism, once lodged

within him, flourished in a propitious soil. He

"questioned things, and did not find

One that would answer to his mind;

And all the world appeared unkind."

He believed that he was a failure and he began to despair.

Yet Stockmar had told him that he must "never relax," and he never

would. He would go on, working to the utmost and striving for the

highest, to the bitter end. His industry grew almost maniacal.

Earlier and earlier was the green lamp lighted; more vast grew the

correspondence; more searching the examination of the newspapers; the

interminable memoranda more punctilious, analytical, and precise. His

very recreations became duties. He enjoyed himself by time-table, went

deer-stalking with meticulous gusto, and made puns at lunch--it was the

right thing to do. The mechanism worked with astonishing efficiency,

but it never rested and it was never oiled. In dry exactitude the

innumerable cog-wheels perpetually revolved. No, whatever happened, the

Prince would not relax; he had absorbed the doctrines of Stockmar too

thoroughly. He knew what was right, and, at all costs, he would

pursue it. That was certain. But alas! in this our life what are the

certainties? "In nothing be over-zealous!" says an old Greek. "The due

measure in all the works of man is best. For often one who zealously

pushes towards some excellence, though he be pursuing a gain, is really

being led utterly astray by the will of some Power, which makes those

things that are evil seem to him good, and those things seem to him evil

that are for his advantage." Surely, both the Prince and the Baron might

have learnt something from the frigid wisdom of Theognis.

Victoria noticed that her husband sometimes seemed to be depressed and

overworked. She tried to cheer him up. Realising uneasily that he was

still regarded as a foreigner, she hoped that by conferring upon him

the title of Prince Consort (1857) she would improve his position in the

country. "The Queen has a right to claim that her husband should be an

Englishman," she wrote. But unfortunately, in spite of the Royal Letters

Patent, Albert remained as foreign as before; and as the years passed

his dejection deepened. She worked with him, she watched over him, she

walked with him through the woods at Osborne, while he whistled to the

nightingales, as he had whistled once at Rosenau so long ago. When his

birthday came round, she took the greatest pains to choose him presents

that he would really like. In 1858, when he was thirty-nine, she gave

him "a picture of Beatrice, life-size, in oil, by Horsley, a complete

collection of photographic views of Gotha and the country round, which I

had taken by Bedford, and a paper-weight of Balmoral granite and deers'

teeth, designed by Vicky." Albert was of course delighted, and his

merriment at the family gathering was more pronounced than ever: and

yet... what was there that was wrong?

No doubt it was his health. He was wearing himself out in the service of

the country; and certainly his constitution, as Stockmar had perceived

from the first, was ill-adapted to meet a serious strain. He was easily

upset; he constantly suffered from minor ailments. His appearance in

itself was enough to indicate the infirmity of his physical powers. The

handsome youth of twenty years since with the flashing eyes and the soft

complexion had grown into a sallow, tired-looking man, whose body, in

its stoop and its loose fleshiness, betrayed the sedentary labourer,

and whose head was quite bald on the top. Unkind critics, who had once

compared Albert to an operatic tenor, might have remarked that there was

something of the butler about him now. Beside Victoria, he presented a

painful contrast. She, too, was stout, but it was with the plumpness of

a vigorous matron; and an eager vitality was everywhere visible--in her

energetic bearing, her protruding, enquiring glances, her small, fat,

capable, and commanding hands. If only, by some sympathetic magic, she

could have conveyed into that portly, flabby figure, that desiccated and

discouraged brain, a measure of the stamina and the self-assurance which

were so pre-eminently hers!

But suddenly she was reminded that there were other perils besides those

of ill-health. During a visit to Coburg in 1860, the Prince was very

nearly killed in a carriage accident. He escaped with a few cuts and

bruises; but Victoria's alarm was extreme, though she concealed it. "It

is when the Queen feels most deeply," she wrote afterwards, "that she

always appears calmest, and she could not and dared not allow herself

to speak of what might have been, or even to admit to herself (and she

cannot and dare not now) the entire danger, for her head would turn!"

Her agitation, in fact, was only surpassed by her thankfulness to God.

She felt, she said, that she could not rest "without doing something to

mark permanently her feelings," and she decided that she would endow a

charity in Coburg. "L1,000, or even L2,000, given either at once, or

in instalments yearly, would not, in the Queen's opinion, be too much."

Eventually, the smaller sum having been fixed upon, it was invested in

a trust, called the "Victoria-Stift," in the name of the Burgomaster and

chief clergyman of Coburg, who were directed to distribute the interest

yearly among a certain number of young men and women of exemplary

character belonging to the humbler ranks of life.

Shortly afterwards the Queen underwent, for the first time in her life,

the actual experience of close personal loss. Early in 1861 the Duchess

of Kent was taken seriously ill, and in March she died. The event

overwhelmed Victoria. With a morbid intensity, she filled her diary

for pages with minute descriptions of her mother's last hours, her

dissolution, and her corpse, interspersed with vehement apostrophes, and

the agitated outpourings of emotional reflection. In the grief of the

present the disagreements of the past were totally forgotten. It was the

horror and the mystery of Death--Death, present and actual--that seized

upon the imagination of the Queen. Her whole being, so instinct with

vitality, recoiled in agony from the grim spectacle of the triumph of

that awful power. Her own mother, with whom she had lived so closely and

so long that she had become a part almost of her existence, had fallen

into nothingness before her very eyes! She tried to forget, but she

could not. Her lamentations continued with a strange abundance, a

strange persistency. It was almost as if, by some mysterious and

unconscious precognition, she realised that for her, in an especial

manner, that grisly Majesty had a dreadful dart in store.

For indeed, before the year was out, a far more terrible blow was

to fall upon her. Albert, who had for long been suffering from

sleeplessness, went, on a cold and drenching day towards the end of

November, to inspect the buildings for the new Military Academy at

Sandhurst. On his return, it was clear that the fatigue and exposure to

which he had been subjected had seriously affected his health. He was

attacked by rheumatism, his sleeplessness continued, and he complained

that he felt thoroughly unwell. Three days later a painful duty obliged

him to visit Cambridge. The Prince of Wales, who had been placed at that

University in the previous year, was behaving in such a manner that

a parental visit and a parental admonition had become necessary. The

disappointed father, suffering in mind and body, carried through his

task; but, on his return journey to Windsor, he caught a fatal chill.

During the next week he gradually grew weaker and more miserable. Yet,

depressed and enfeebled as he was, he continued to work. It so happened

that at that very moment a grave diplomatic crisis had arisen. Civil

war had broken out in America, and it seemed as if England, owing to a

violent quarrel with the Northern States, was upon the point of being

drawn into the conflict. A severe despatch by Lord John Russell was

submitted to the Queen; and the Prince perceived that, if it was sent

off unaltered, war would be the almost inevitable consequence. At seven

o'clock on the morning of December 1, he rose from his bed, and with a

quavering hand wrote a series of suggestions for the alteration of the

draft, by which its language might be softened, and a way left open for

a peaceful solution of the question. These changes were accepted by the

Government, and war was averted. It was the Prince's last memorandum.

He had always declared that he viewed the prospect of death with

equanimity. "I do not cling to life," he had once said to Victoria. "You

do; but I set no store by it." And then he had added: "I am sure, if I

had a severe illness, I should give up at once, I should not struggle

for life. I have no tenacity of life." He had judged correctly. Before

he had been ill many days, he told a friend that he was convinced he

would not recover. He sank and sank. Nevertheless, if his case had

been properly understood and skilfully treated from the first, he might

conceivably have been saved; but the doctors failed to diagnose his

symptoms; and it is noteworthy that his principal physician was Sir

James Clark. When it was suggested that other advice should be taken,

Sir James pooh-poohed the idea: "there was no cause for alarm," he said.

But the strange illness grew worse. At last, after a letter of fierce

remonstrance from Palmerston, Dr. Watson was sent for; and Dr. Watson

saw at once that he had come too late The Prince was in the grip of

typhoid fever. "I think that everything so far is satisfactory," said

Sir James Clark.(*)

(*) Clarendon, II, 253-4: "One cannot speak with certainty;

but it is horrible to think that such a life MAY have been

sacrificed to Sir J. Clark's selfish jealousy of every

member of his profession." The Earl of Clarendon to the

Duchess of Manchester, December 17, 1861.

The restlessness and the acute suffering of the earlier days gave place

to a settled torpor and an ever--deepening gloom. Once the failing

patient asked for music--"a fine chorale at a distance;" and a piano

having been placed in the adjoining room, Princess Alice played on it

some of Luther's hymns, after which the Prince repeated "The Rock of

Ages." Sometimes his mind wandered; sometimes the distant past came

rushing upon him; he heard the birds in the early morning, and was at

Rosenau again, a boy. Or Victoria would come and read to him "Peveril

of the Peak," and he showed that he could follow the story, and then she

would bend over him, and he would murmur "liebes Frauchen" and "gutes

Weibchen," stroking her cheek. Her distress and her agitation were

great, but she was not seriously frightened. Buoyed up by her own

abundant energies, she would not believe that Albert's might prove

unequal to the strain. She refused to face such a hideous possibility.

She declined to see Dr. Watson. Why should she? Had not Sir James Clark

assured her that all would be well? Only two days before the end, which

was seen now to be almost inevitable by everyone about her, she wrote,

full of apparent confidence, to the King of the Belgians: "I do not sit

up with him at night," she said, "as I could be of no use; and there is

nothing to cause alarm." The Princess Alice tried to tell her the truth,

but her hopefulness would not be daunted. On the morning of December

14, Albert, just as she had expected, seemed to be better; perhaps

the crisis was over. But in the course of the day there was a serious

relapse. Then at last she allowed herself to see that she was standing

on the edge of an appalling gulf. The whole family was summoned, and,

one after another, the children took a silent farewell of their father.

"It was a terrible moment," Victoria wrote in her diary, "but, thank

God! I was able to command myself, and to be perfectly calm, and

remained sitting by his side." He murmured something, but she could not

hear what it was; she thought he was speaking in French. Then all at

once he began to arrange his hair, "just as he used to do when well and

he was dressing." "Es kleines Frauchen," she whispered to him; and he

seemed to understand. For a moment, towards the evening, she went into

another room, but was immediately called back; she saw at a glance that

a ghastly change had taken place. As she knelt by the bed, he breathed

deeply, breathed gently, breathed at last no more. His features became

perfectly rigid; she shrieked one long wild shriek that rang through the

terror-stricken castle and understood that she had lost him for ever.

CHAPTER VII. WIDOWHOOD

I

The death of the Prince Consort was the central turning-point in the

history of Queen Victoria. She herself felt that her true life had

ceased with her husband's, and that the remainder of her days upon earth

was of a twilight nature--an epilogue to a drama that was done. Nor is

it possible that her biographer should escape a similar impression. For

him, too, there is a darkness over the latter half of that long career.

The first forty--two years of the Queen's life are illuminated by a

great and varied quantity of authentic information. With Albert's

death a veil descends. Only occasionally, at fitful and disconnected

intervals, does it lift for a moment or two; a few main outlines, a

few remarkable details may be discerned; the rest is all conjecture and

ambiguity. Thus, though the Queen survived her great bereavement for

almost as many years as she had lived before it, the chronicle of those

years can bear no proportion to the tale of her earlier life. We must be

content in our ignorance with a brief and summary relation.

The sudden removal of the Prince was not merely a matter of overwhelming

personal concern to Victoria; it was an event of national, of European

importance. He was only forty-two, and in the ordinary course of nature

he might have been expected to live at least thirty years longer. Had

he done so it can hardly be doubted that the whole development of the

English polity would have been changed. Already at the time of his death

he filled a unique place in English public life; already among the inner

circle of politicians he was accepted as a necessary and useful part of

the mechanism of the State. Lord Clarendon, for instance, spoke of his

death as "a national calamity of far greater importance than the public

dream of," and lamented the loss of his "sagacity and foresight," which,

he declared, would have been "more than ever valuable" in the event of

an American war. And, as time went on, the Prince's influence must have

enormously increased. For, in addition to his intellectual and moral

qualities, he enjoyed, by virtue of his position, one supreme advantage

which every other holder of high office in the country was without: he

was permanent. Politicians came and went, but the Prince was perpetually

installed at the centre of affairs. Who can doubt that, towards the end

of the century, such a man, grown grey in the service of the nation,

virtuous, intelligent, and with the unexampled experience of a whole

life-time of government, would have acquired an extraordinary prestige?

If, in his youth, he had been able to pit the Crown against the mighty

Palmerston and to come off with equal honours from the contest, of what

might he not have been capable in his old age? What Minister,

however able, however popular, could have withstood the wisdom, the

irreproachability, the vast prescriptive authority, of the venerable

Prince? It is easy to imagine how, under such a ruler, an attempt might

have been made to convert England into a State as exactly organised,

as elaborately trained, as efficiently equipped, and as autocratically

controlled, as Prussia herself. Then perhaps, eventually, under some

powerful leader--a Gladstone or a Bright--the democratic forces in the

country might have rallied together, and a struggle might have followed

in which the Monarchy would have been shaken to its foundations. Or, on

the other hand, Disraeli's hypothetical prophecy might have come true.

"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. If he had outlived

some of our 'old stagers' he would have given us the blessings of

absolute government."

The English Constitution--that indescribable entity--is a living thing,

growing with the growth of men, and assuming ever-varying forms in

accordance with the subtle and complex laws of human character. It is

the child of wisdom and chance. The wise men of 1688 moulded it into the

shape we know, but the chance that George I could not speak English

gave it one of its essential peculiarities--the system of a Cabinet

independent of the Crown and subordinate to the Prime Minister. The

wisdom of Lord Grey saved it from petrifaction and destruction, and

set it upon the path of Democracy. Then chance intervened once more; a

female sovereign happened to marry an able and pertinacious man; and

it seemed likely that an element which had been quiescent within it for

years--the element of irresponsible administrative power--was about

to become its predominant characteristic and to change completely the

direction of its growth. But what chance gave chance took away. The

Consort perished in his prime; and the English Constitution, dropping

the dead limb with hardly a tremor, continued its mysterious life as if

he had never been.

One human being, and one alone, felt the full force of what had

happened. The Baron, by his fireside at Coburg, suddenly saw the

tremendous fabric of his creation crash down into sheer and irremediable

ruin. Albert was gone, and he had lived in vain. Even his blackest

hypochondria had never envisioned quite so miserable a catastrophe.

Victoria wrote to him, visited him, tried to console him by declaring

with passionate conviction that she would carry on her husband's work.

He smiled a sad smile and looked into the fire. Then he murmured that

he was going where Albert was--that he would not be long. He shrank into

himself. His children clustered round him and did their best to comfort

him, but it was useless: the Baron's heart was broken. He lingered for

eighteen months, and then, with his pupil, explored the shadow and the

dust.

II

With appalling suddenness Victoria had exchanged the serene radiance of

happiness for the utter darkness of woe. In the first dreadful moments

those about her had feared that she might lose her reason, but the iron

strain within her held firm, and in the intervals between the intense

paroxysms of grief it was observed that the Queen was calm. She

remembered, too, that Albert had always disapproved of exaggerated

manifestations of feeling, and her one remaining desire was to do

nothing but what he would have wished. Yet there were moments when

her royal anguish would brook no restraints. One day she sent for the

Duchess of Sutherland, and, leading her to the Prince's room, fell

prostrate before his clothes in a flood of weeping, while she adjured

the Duchess to tell her whether the beauty of Albert's character had

ever been surpassed. At other times a feeling akin to indignation swept

over her. "The poor fatherless baby of eight months," she wrote to the

King of the Belgians, "is now the utterly heartbroken and crushed widow

of forty-two! My LIFE as a HAPPY one is ENDED! The world is gone for

ME!... Oh! to be cut off in the prime of life--to see our pure, happy,

quiet, domestic life, which ALONE enabled me to bear my MUCH disliked

position, CUT OFF at forty-two--when I HAD hoped with such instinctive

certainty that God never WOULD part us, and would let us grow old

together (though HE always talked of the shortness of life)--is TOO

AWFUL, too cruel!" The tone of outraged Majesty seems to be discernible.

Did she wonder in her heart of hearts how the Deity could have dared?

But all other emotions gave way before her overmastering determination

to continue, absolutely unchanged, and for the rest of her life on

earth, her reverence, her obedience, her idolatry. "I am anxious to

repeat ONE thing," she told her uncle, "and THAT ONE is my firm resolve,

my IRREVOCABLE DECISION, viz., that HIS wishes--HIS plans--about

everything, HIS views about EVERY thing are to be MY LAW! And NO HUMAN

POWER will make me swerve from WHAT HE decided and wished." She grew

fierce, she grew furious, at the thought of any possible intrusion

between her and her desire. Her uncle was coming to visit her, and it

flashed upon her that HE might try to interfere with her and seek

to "rule the roost" as of old. She would give him a hint. "I am ALSO

DETERMINED," she wrote, "that NO ONE person--may HE be ever so good,

ever so devoted among my servants--is to lead or guide or dictate TO ME.

I know HOW he would disapprove it... Though miserably weak and utterly

shattered, my spirit rises when I think ANY wish or plan of his is to

be touched or changed, or I am to be MADE TO DO anything." She ended her

letter in grief and affection. She was, she said, his "ever wretched but

devoted child, Victoria R." And then she looked at the date: it was the

24th of December. An agonising pang assailed her, and she dashed down a

postcript--"What a Xmas! I won't think of it."

At first, in the tumult of her distresses, she declared that she could

not see her Ministers, and the Princess Alice, assisted by Sir Charles

Phipps, the keeper of the Privy Purse, performed, to the best of her

ability, the functions of an intermediary. After a few weeks, however,

the Cabinet, through Lord John Russell, ventured to warn the Queen that

this could not continue. She realised that they were right: Albert would

have agreed with them; and so she sent for the Prime Minister. But when

Lord Palmerston arrived at Osborne, in the pink of health, brisk, with

his whiskers freshly dyed, and dressed in a brown overcoat, light grey

trousers, green gloves, and blue studs, he did not create a very good

impression.

Nevertheless, she had grown attached to her old enemy, and the thought

of a political change filled her with agitated apprehensions. The

Government, she knew, might fall at any moment; she felt she could not

face such an eventuality; and therefore, six months after the death of

the Prince, she took the unprecedented step of sending a private message

to Lord Derby, the leader of the Opposition, to tell him that she was

not in a fit state of mind or body to undergo the anxiety of a change of

Government, and that if he turned the present Ministers out of office it

would be at the risk of sacrificing her life--or her reason. When this

message reached Lord Derby he was considerably surprised. "Dear me!" was

his cynical comment. "I didn't think she was so fond of them as THAT."

Though the violence of her perturbations gradually subsided, her

cheerfulness did not return. For months, for years, she continued in

settled gloom. Her life became one of almost complete seclusion. Arrayed

in thickest crepe, she passed dolefully from Windsor to Osborne, from

Osborne to Balmoral. Rarely visiting the capital, refusing to take any

part in the ceremonies of state, shutting herself off from the slightest

intercourse with society, she became almost as unknown to her subjects

as some potentate of the East. They might murmur, but they did not

understand. What had she to do with empty shows and vain enjoyments? No!

She was absorbed by very different preoccupations. She was the devoted

guardian of a sacred trust. Her place was in the inmost shrine of the

house of mourning--where she alone had the right to enter, where she

could feel the effluence of a mysterious presence, and interpret,

however faintly and feebly, the promptings of a still living soul. That,

and that only was her glorious, her terrible duty. For terrible indeed

it was. As the years passed her depression seemed to deepen and her

loneliness to grow more intense. "I am on a dreary sad pinnacle of

solitary grandeur," she said. Again and again she felt that she could

bear her situation no longer--that she would sink under the strain. And

then, instantly, that Voice spoke: and she braced herself once more to

perform, with minute conscientiousness, her grim and holy task.

Above all else, what she had to do was to make her own the

master-impulse of Albert's life--she must work, as he had worked, in the

service of the country. That vast burden of toil which he had taken upon

his shoulders it was now for her to bear. She assumed the gigantic

load; and naturally she staggered under it. While he had lived, she had

worked, indeed, with regularity and conscientiousness; but it was work

made easy, made delicious, by his care, his forethought, his advice,

and his infallibility. The mere sound of his voice, asking her to sign

a paper, had thrilled her; in such a presence she could have laboured

gladly for ever. But now there was a hideous change. Now there were no

neat piles and docketings under the green lamp; now there were no simple

explanations of difficult matters; now there was nobody to tell her what

was right and what was wrong. She had her secretaries, no doubt: there

were Sir Charles Phipps, and General Grey, and Sir Thomas Biddulph; and

they did their best. But they were mere subordinates: the whole weight

of initiative and responsibility rested upon her alone. For so it had to

be. "I am DETERMINED"--had she not declared it?--"that NO ONE person is

to lead or guide or dictate to ME;" anything else would be a betrayal of

her trust. She would follow the Prince in all things. He had refused to

delegate authority; he had examined into every detail with his own eyes;

he had made it a rule never to sign a paper without having first, not

merely read it, but made notes on it too. She would do the same. She

sat from morning till night surrounded by huge heaps of despatch--boxes,

reading and writing at her desk--at her desk, alas! which stood alone

now in the room.

Within two years of Albert's death a violent disturbance in foreign

politics put Victoria's faithfulness to a crucial test. The fearful

Schleswig-Holstein dispute, which had been smouldering for more than a

decade, showed signs of bursting out into conflagration. The complexity

of the questions at issue was indescribable. "Only three people,"

said Palmerston, "have ever really understood the Schleswig-Holstein

business--the Prince Consort, who is dead--a German professor, who

has gone mad--and I, who have forgotten all about it." But, though the

Prince might be dead, had he not left a vicegerent behind him?

Victoria threw herself into the seething embroilment with the vigour of

inspiration. She devoted hours daily to the study of the affair in all

its windings; but she had a clue through the labyrinth: whenever the

question had been discussed, Albert, she recollected it perfectly, had

always taken the side of Prussia. Her course was clear. She became an

ardent champion of the Prussian point of view. It was a legacy from the

Prince, she said. She did not realise that the Prussia of the Prince's

day was dead, and that a new Prussia, the Prussia of Bismarck, was born.

Perhaps Palmerston, with his queer prescience, instinctively apprehended

the new danger; at any rate, he and Lord John were agreed upon the

necessity of supporting Denmark against Prussia's claims. But opinion

was sharply divided, not only in the country but in the Cabinet. For

eighteen months the controversy raged; while the Queen, with persistent

vehemence, opposed the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary. When at

last the final crisis arose--when it seemed possible that England would

join forces with Denmark in a war against Prussia--Victoria's agitation

grew febrile in its intensity. Towards her German relatives she

preserved a discreet appearance of impartiality; but she poured out

upon her Ministers a flood of appeals, protests, and expostulations. She

invoked the sacred cause of Peace. "The only chance of preserving peace

for Europe," she wrote, "is by not assisting Denmark, who has brought

this entirely upon herself. The Queen suffers much, and her nerves

are more and more totally shattered... But though all this anxiety is

wearing her out, it will not shake her firm purpose of resisting any

attempt to involve this country in a mad and useless combat." She was,

she declared, "prepared to make a stand," even if the resignation of the

Foreign Secretary should follow. "The Queen," she told Lord Granville,

"is completely exhausted by the anxiety and suspense, and misses her

beloved husband's help, advice, support, and love in an overwhelming

manner." She was so worn out by her efforts for peace that she could

"hardly hold up her head or hold her pen." England did not go to war,

and Denmark was left to her fate; but how far the attitude of the Queen

contributed to this result it is impossible, with our present knowledge,

to say. On the whole, however, it seems probable that the determining

factor in the situation was the powerful peace party in the Cabinet

rather than the imperious and pathetic pressure of Victoria.

It is, at any rate, certain that the Queen's enthusiasm for the sacred

cause of peace was short-lived. Within a few months her mind had

completely altered. Her eyes were opened to the true nature of Prussia,

whose designs upon Austria were about to culminate in the Seven Weeks'

War. Veering precipitately from one extreme to the other, she now urged

her Ministers to interfere by force of arms in support of Austria. But

she urged in vain.

Her political activity, no more than her social seclusion, was approved

by the public. As the years passed, and the royal mourning remained

as unrelieved as ever, the animadversions grew more general and more

severe. It was observed that the Queen's protracted privacy not only

cast a gloom over high society, not only deprived the populace of its

pageantry, but also exercised a highly deleterious effect upon the

dressmaking, millinery, and hosiery trades. This latter consideration

carried great weight. At last, early in 1864, the rumour spread that Her

Majesty was about to go out of mourning, and there was much rejoicing

in the newspapers; but unfortunately it turned out that the rumour was

quite without foundation. Victoria, with her own hand, wrote a letter

to The Times to say so. "This idea," she declared, "cannot be too

explicitly contradicted. The Queen," the letter continued, "heartily

appreciates the desire of her subjects to see her, and whatever she CAN

do to gratify them in this loyal and affectionate wish, she WILL do...

But there are other and higher duties than those of mere representation

which are now thrown upon the Queen, alone and unassisted--duties which

she cannot neglect without injury to the public service, which weigh

unceasingly upon her, overwhelming her with work and anxiety." The

justification might have been considered more cogent had it not been

known that those "other and higher duties" emphasised by the Queen

consisted for the most part of an attempt to counteract the

foreign policy of Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell. A large

section--perhaps a majority--of the nation were violent partisans of

Denmark in the Schleswig-Holstein quarrel; and Victoria's support of

Prussia was widely denounced. A wave of unpopularity, which reminded

old observers of the period preceding the Queen's marriage more than

twenty-five years before, was beginning to rise. The press was rude;

Lord Ellenborough attacked the Queen in the House of Lords; there

were curious whispers in high quarters that she had had thoughts of

abdicating--whispers followed by regrets that she had not done so.

Victoria, outraged and injured, felt that she was misunderstood. She

was profoundly unhappy. After Lord Ellenborough's speech, General Grey

declared that he "had never seen the Queen so completely upset."

"Oh, how fearful it is," she herself wrote to Lord Granville, "to be

suspected--uncheered--unguided and unadvised--and how alone the poor

Queen feels!" Nevertheless, suffer as she might, she was as resolute

as ever; she would not move by a hair's breadth from the course that a

supreme obligation marked out for her; she would be faithful to the end.

And so, when Schleswig-Holstein was forgotten, and even the image of the

Prince had begun to grow dim in the fickle memories of men, the solitary

watcher remained immutably concentrated at her peculiar task. The

world's hostility, steadily increasing, was confronted and outfaced by

the impenetrable weeds of Victoria. Would the world never understand?

It was not mere sorrow that kept her so strangely sequestered; it was

devotion, it was self-immolation; it was the laborious legacy of love.

Unceasingly the pen moved over the black-edged paper. The flesh might be

weak, but that vast burden must be borne. And fortunately, if the world

would not understand, there were faithful friends who did. There was

Lord Granville, and there was kind Mr. Theodore Martin. Perhaps Mr.

Martin, who was so clever, would find means to make people realise the

facts. She would send him a letter, pointing out her arduous labours and

the difficulties under which she struggled, and then he might write an

article for one of the magazines. "It is not," she told him in 1863,

"the Queen's SORROW that keeps her secluded. It is her OVERWHELMING WORK

and her health, which is greatly shaken by her sorrow, and the totally

overwhelming amount of work and responsibility--work which she feels

really wears her out. Alice Helps was wonderfully struck at the Queen's

room; and if Mrs. Martin will look at it, she can tell Mr. Martin what

surrounds her. From the hour she gets out of bed till she gets into it

again there is work, work, work,--letter-boxes, questions, etc., which

are dreadfully exhausting--and if she had not comparative rest and

quiet in the evening she would most likely not be ALIVE. Her brain is

constantly overtaxed." It was too true.

III

To carry on Albert's work--that was her first duty; but there was

another, second only to that, and yet nearer, if possible, to her

heart--to impress the true nature of his genius and character upon the

minds of her subjects. She realised that during his life he had not been

properly appreciated; the full extent of his powers, the supreme quality

of his goodness, had been necessarily concealed; but death had removed

the need of barriers, and now her husband, in his magnificent entirety,

should stand revealed to all. She set to work methodically. She directed

Sir Arthur Helps to bring out a collection of the Prince's speeches and

addresses, and the weighty tome appeared in 1862. Then she commanded

General Grey to write an account of the Prince's early years--from his

birth to his marriage; she herself laid down the design of the book,

contributed a number of confidential documents, and added numerous

notes; General Grey obeyed, and the work was completed in 1866. But

the principal part of the story was still untold, and Mr. Martin

was forthwith instructed to write a complete biography of the Prince

Consort. Mr. Martin laboured for fourteen years. The mass of material

with which he had to deal was almost incredible, but he was extremely

industrious, and he enjoyed throughout the gracious assistance of Her

Majesty. The first bulky volume was published in 1874; four others

slowly followed; so that it was not until 1880 that the monumental work

was finished.

Mr. Martin was rewarded by a knighthood; and yet it was sadly evident

that neither Sir Theodore nor his predecessors had achieved the

purpose which the Queen had in view. Perhaps she was unfortunate in her

coadjutors, but, in reality, the responsibility for the failure must lie

with Victoria herself. Sir Theodore and the others faithfully carried

out the task which she had set them--faithfully put before the public

the very image of Albert that filled her own mind. The fatal drawback

was that the public did not find that image attractive. Victoria's

emotional nature, far more remarkable for vigour than for subtlety,

rejecting utterly the qualifications which perspicuity, or humour,

might suggest, could be satisfied with nothing but the absolute and the

categorical. When she disliked she did so with an unequivocal emphasis

which swept the object of her repugnance at once and finally outside

the pale of consideration; and her feelings of affection were equally

unmitigated. In the case of Albert her passion for superlatives

reached its height. To have conceived of him as anything short of

perfect--perfect in virtue, in wisdom, in beauty, in all the glories and

graces of man--would have been an unthinkable blasphemy: perfect he

was, and perfect he must be shown to have been. And so, Sir Arthur, Sir

Theodore, and the General painted him. In the circumstances, and under

such supervision, to have done anything else would have required talents

considerably more distinguished than any that those gentlemen possessed.

But that was not all. By a curious mischance Victoria was also able to

press into her service another writer, the distinction of whose talents

was this time beyond a doubt. The Poet Laureate, adopting, either from

complaisance or conviction, the tone of his sovereign, joined in the

chorus, and endowed the royal formula with the magical resonance of

verse. This settled the matter. Henceforward it was impossible to forget

that Albert had worn the white flower of a blameless life.

The result was doubly unfortunate. Victoria, disappointed and chagrined,

bore a grudge against her people for their refusal, in spite of all her

efforts, to rate her husband at his true worth. She did not understand

that the picture of an embodied perfection is distasteful to the

majority of mankind. The cause of this is not so much an envy of the

perfect being as a suspicion that he must be inhuman; and thus it

happened that the public, when it saw displayed for its admiration a

figure resembling the sugary hero of a moral story-book rather than a

fellow man of flesh and blood, turned away with a shrug, a smile, and

a flippant ejaculation. But in this the public was the loser as well as

Victoria. For in truth Albert was a far more interesting personage than

the public dreamed. By a curious irony an impeccable waxwork had been

fixed by the Queen's love in the popular imagination, while the creature

whom it represented--the real creature, so full of energy and stress

and torment, so mysterious and so unhappy, and so fallible and so very

human--had altogether disappeared.

IV

Words and books may be ambiguous memorials; but who can misinterpret the

visible solidity of bronze and stone? At Frogmore, near Windsor, where

her mother was buried, Victoria constructed, at the cost of L200,000, a

vast and elaborate mausoleum for herself and her husband. But that was

a private and domestic monument, and the Queen desired that wherever

her subjects might be gathered together they should be reminded of the

Prince. Her desire was gratified; all over the country--at Aberdeen, at

Perth, and at Wolverhampton--statues of the Prince were erected; and

the Queen, making an exception to her rule of retirement, unveiled them

herself. Nor did the capital lag behind. A month after the Prince's

death a meeting was called together at the Mansion House to discuss

schemes for honouring his memory. Opinions, however, were divided upon

the subject. Was a statue or an institution to be preferred? Meanwhile a

subscription was opened; an influential committee was appointed, and the

Queen was consulted as to her wishes in the matter. Her Majesty replied

that she would prefer a granite obelisk, with sculptures at the base, to

an institution. But the committee hesitated: an obelisk, to be worthy

of the name, must clearly be a monolith; and where was the quarry in

England capable of furnishing a granite block of the required size? It

was true that there was granite in Russian Finland; but the committee

were advised that it was not adapted to resist exposure to the open air.

On the whole, therefore, they suggested that a Memorial Hall should be

erected, together with a statue of the Prince. Her Majesty assented; but

then another difficulty arose. It was found that not more than L60,000

had been subscribed--a sum insufficient to defray the double expense.

The Hall, therefore, was abandoned; a statue alone was to be erected;

and certain eminent architects were asked to prepare designs. Eventually

the committee had at their disposal a total sum of L120,000, since

the public subscribed another L10,000, while L50,000 was voted by

Parliament. Some years later a joint stock company was formed and built,

as a private speculation, the Albert Hall.

The architect whose design was selected, both by the committee and by

the Queen, was Mr. Gilbert Scott, whose industry, conscientiousness,

and genuine piety had brought him to the head of his profession.

His lifelong zeal for the Gothic style having given him a special

prominence, his handiwork was strikingly visible, not only in a

multitude of original buildings, but in most of the cathedrals of

England. Protests, indeed, were occasionally raised against his

renovations; but Mr. Scott replied with such vigour and unction in

articles and pamphlets that not a Dean was unconvinced, and he was

permitted to continue his labours without interruption. On one occasion,

however, his devotion to Gothic had placed him in an unpleasant

situation. The Government offices in Whitehall were to be rebuilt; Mr.

Scott competed, and his designs were successful. Naturally, they were in

the Gothic style, combining "a certain squareness and horizontality of

outline" with pillar-mullions, gables, high-pitched roofs, and dormers;

and the drawings, as Mr. Scott himself observed, "were, perhaps, the

best ever sent in to a competition, or nearly so." After the usual

difficulties and delays the work was at last to be put in hand, when

there was a change of Government and Lord Palmerston became Prime

Minister. Lord Palmerston at once sent for Mr. Scott. "Well, Mr. Scott,"

he said, in his jaunty way, "I can't have anything to do with this

Gothic style. I must insist on your making a design in the Italian

manner, which I am sure you can do very cleverly." Mr. Scott was

appalled; the style of the Italian renaissance was not only unsightly,

it was positively immoral, and he sternly refused to have anything to do

with it. Thereupon Lord Palmerston assumed a fatherly tone. "Quite true;

a Gothic architect can't be expected to put up a Classical building;

I must find someone else." This was intolerable, and Mr. Scott, on his

return home, addressed to the Prime Minister a strongly-worded letter,

in which he dwelt upon his position as an architect, upon his having won

two European competitions, his being an A.R.A., a gold medallist of the

Institute, and a lecturer on architecture at the Royal Academy; but it

was useless--Lord Palmerston did not even reply. It then occurred to

Mr. Scott that, by a judicious mixture, he might, while preserving the

essential character of the Gothic, produce a design which would give a

superficial impression of the Classical style. He did so, but no effect

was produced upon Lord Palmerston. The new design, he said, was "neither

one thing nor 'tother--a regular mongrel affair--and he would have

nothing to do with it either." After that Mr. Scott found it necessary

to recruit for two months at Scarborough, "with a course of quinine." He

recovered his tone at last, but only at the cost of his convictions. For

the sake of his family he felt that it was his unfortunate duty to obey

the Prime Minister; and, shuddering with horror, he constructed the

Government offices in a strictly Renaissance style.

Shortly afterwards Mr. Scott found some consolation in building the St.

Pancras Hotel in a style of his own.

And now another and yet more satisfactory task was his. "My idea in

designing the Memorial," he wrote, "was to erect a kind of ciborium to

protect a statue of the Prince; and its special characteristic was

that the ciborium was designed in some degree on the principles of the

ancient shrines. These shrines were models of imaginary buildings, such

as had never in reality been erected; and my idea was to realise one of

these imaginary structures with its precious materials, its inlaying,

its enamels, etc. etc." His idea was particularly appropriate since

it chanced that a similar conception, though in the reverse order of

magnitude, had occurred to the Prince himself, who had designed and

executed several silver cruet-stands upon the same model. At the Queen's

request a site was chosen in Kensington Gardens as near as possible

to that of the Great Exhibition; and in May, 1864, the first sod was

turned. The work was long, complicated, and difficult; a great number

of workmen were employed, besides several subsidiary sculptors and

metal--workers under Mr. Scott's direction, while at every stage

sketches and models were submitted to Her Majesty, who criticised all

the details with minute care, and constantly suggested improvements. The

frieze, which encircled the base of the monument, was in itself a very

serious piece of work. "This," said Mr. Scott, "taken as a whole, is

perhaps one of the most laborious works of sculpture ever undertaken,

consisting, as it does, of a continuous range of figure-sculpture of the

most elaborate description, in the highest alto-relievo of life-size, of

more than 200 feet in length, containing about 170 figures, and executed

in the hardest marble which could be procured." After three years of

toil the memorial was still far from completion, and Mr. Scott thought

it advisable to give a dinner to the workmen, "as a substantial

recognition of his appreciation of their skill and energy." "Two long

tables," we are told, "constructed of scaffold planks, were arranged in

the workshops, and covered with newspapers, for want of table-cloths.

Upwards of eighty men sat down. Beef and mutton, plum pudding and cheese

were supplied in abundance, and each man who desired it had three pints

of beer, gingerbeer and lemonade being provided for the teetotalers, who

formed a very considerable proportion... Several toasts were given and

many of the workmen spoke, almost all of them commencing by 'Thanking

God that they enjoyed good health;' some alluded to the temperance that

prevailed amongst them, others observed how little swearing was ever

heard, whilst all said how pleased and proud they were to be engaged on

so great a work."

Gradually the edifice approached completion. The one hundred and

seventieth life-size figure in the frieze was chiselled, the granite

pillars arose, the mosaics were inserted in the allegorical pediments,

the four colossal statues representing the greater Christian virtues,

the four other colossal statues representing the greater moral virtues,

were hoisted into their positions, the eight bronzes representing the

greater sciences--Astronomy, Chemistry, Geology, Geometry, Rhetoric,

Medicine, Philosophy, and Physiology--were fixed on their glittering

pinnacles, high in air. The statue of Physiology was particularly

admired. "On her left arm," the official description informs us, "she

bears a new-born infant, as a representation of the development of the

highest and most perfect of physiological forms; her hand points

towards a microscope, the instrument which lends its assistance for the

investigation of the minuter forms of animal and vegetable organisms."

At last the gilded cross crowned the dwindling galaxies of superimposed

angels, the four continents in white marble stood at the four corners

of the base, and, seven years after its inception, in July, 1872, the

monument was thrown open to the public.

But four more years were to elapse before the central figure was ready

to be placed under its starry canopy. It was designed by Mr. Foley,

though in one particular the sculptor's freedom was restricted by Mr.

Scott. "I have chosen the sitting posture," Mr. Scott said, "as best

conveying the idea of dignity befitting a royal personage." Mr. Foley

ably carried out the conception of his principal. "In the attitude

and expression," he said, "the aim has been, with the individuality of

portraiture, to embody rank, character, and enlightenment, and to convey

a sense of that responsive intelligence indicating an active, rather

than a passive, interest in those pursuits of civilisation illustrated

in the surrounding figures, groups, and relievos... To identify the

figure with one of the most memorable undertakings of the public life

of the Prince--the International Exhibition of 1851--a catalogue of the

works collected in that first gathering of the industry of all nations,

is placed in the right hand." The statue was of bronze gilt and weighed

nearly ten tons. It was rightly supposed that the simple word "Albert,"

cast on the base, would be a sufficient means of identification.

CHAPTER VIII. GLADSTONE AND LORD BEACONSFIELD

I

Lord Palmerston's laugh--a queer metallic "Ha! ha! ha!" with

reverberations in it from the days of Pitt and the Congress of

Vienna--was heard no more in Piccadilly; Lord John Russell dwindled into

senility; Lord Derby tottered from the stage. A new scene opened; and

new protagonists--Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Disraeli--struggled together

in the limelight. Victoria, from her post of vantage, watched these

developments with that passionate and personal interest which she

invariably imported into politics. Her prepossessions were of an

unexpected kind. Mr. Gladstone had been the disciple of her revered

Peel, and had won the approval of Albert; Mr. Disraeli had hounded Sir

Robert to his fall with hideous virulence, and the Prince had pronounced

that he "had not one single element of a gentleman in his composition."

Yet she regarded Mr. Gladstone with a distrust and dislike which

steadily deepened, while upon his rival she lavished an abundance of

confidence, esteem, and affection such as Lord Melbourne himself had

hardly known.

Her attitude towards the Tory Minister had suddenly changed when

she found that he alone among public men had divined her feelings at

Albert's death. Of the others she might have said "they pity me and not

my grief;" but Mr. Disraeli had understood; and all his condolences

had taken the form of reverential eulogies of the departed. The Queen

declared that he was "the only person who appreciated the Prince."

She began to show him special favour; gave him and his wife two of the

coveted seats in St. George's Chapel at the Prince of Wales's wedding,

and invited him to stay a night at Windsor. When the grant for the

Albert Memorial came before the House of Commons, Disraeli, as leader of

the Opposition, eloquently supported the project. He was rewarded by

a copy of the Prince's speeches, bound in white morocco, with an

inscription in the royal hand. In his letter of thanks he "ventured

to touch upon a sacred theme," and, in a strain which re-echoed with

masterly fidelity the sentiments of his correspondent, dwelt at length

upon the absolute perfection of Albert. "The Prince," he said, "is the

only person whom Mr. Disraeli has ever known who realised the Ideal.

None with whom he is acquainted have ever approached it. There was in

him a union of the manly grace and sublime simplicity, of chivalry with

the intellectual splendour of the Attic Academe. The only character in

English history that would, in some respects, draw near to him is Sir

Philip Sidney: the same high tone, the same universal accomplishments,

the same blended tenderness and vigour, the same rare combination of

romantic energy and classic repose." As for his own acquaintance

with the Prince, it had been, he said, "one of the most satisfactory

incidents of his life: full of refined and beautiful memories, and

exercising, as he hopes, over his remaining existence, a soothing

and exalting influence." Victoria was much affected by "the depth and

delicacy of these touches," and henceforward Disraeli's place in her

affections was assured. When, in 1866, the Conservatives came into

office, Disraeli's position as Chancellor of the Exchequer and leader

of the House necessarily brought him into a closer relation with the

Sovereign. Two years later Lord Derby resigned, and Victoria, with

intense delight and peculiar graciousness, welcomed Disraeli as her

First Minister.

But only for nine agitated months did he remain in power. The Ministry,

in a minority in the Commons, was swept out of existence by a general

election. Yet by the end of that short period the ties which bound

together the Queen and her Premier had grown far stronger than ever

before; the relationship between them was now no longer merely that

between a grateful mistress and a devoted servant: they were friends.

His official letters, in which the personal element had always been

perceptible, developed into racy records of political news and social

gossip, written, as Lord Clarendon said, "in his best novel style."

Victoria was delighted; she had never, she declared, had such letters

in her life, and had never before known EVERYTHING. In return, she sent

him, when the spring came, several bunches of flowers, picked by her own

hands. He despatched to her a set of his novels, for which, she said,

she was "most grateful, and which she values much." She herself had

lately published her "Leaves from the Journal of our Life in the

Highlands," and it was observed that the Prime Minister, in conversing

with Her Majesty at this period, constantly used the words "we authors,

ma'am." Upon political questions, she was his staunch supporter. "Really

there never was such conduct as that of the Opposition," she wrote. And

when the Government was defeated in the House she was "really shocked at

the way in which the House of Commons go on; they really bring discredit

on Constitutional Government." She dreaded the prospect of a change;

she feared that if the Liberals insisted upon disestablishing the Irish

Church, her Coronation Oath might stand in the way. But a change there

had to be, and Victoria vainly tried to console herself for the loss of

her favourite Minister by bestowing a peerage upon Mrs. Disraeli.

Mr. Gladstone was in his shirt-sleeves at Hawarden, cutting down a

tree, when the royal message was brought to him. "Very significant,"

he remarked, when he had read the letter, and went on cutting down his

tree. His secret thoughts on the occasion were more explicit, and were

committed to his diary. "The Almighty," he wrote, "seems to sustain and

spare me for some purpose of His own, deeply unworthy as I know myself

to be. Glory be to His name."

The Queen, however, did not share her new Minister's view of the

Almighty's intentions. She could not believe that there was any divine

purpose to be detected in the programme of sweeping changes which

Mr. Gladstone was determined to carry out. But what could she do? Mr.

Gladstone, with his daemonic energy and his powerful majority in

the House of Commons, was irresistible; and for five years (1869-74)

Victoria found herself condemned to live in an agitating atmosphere

of interminable reform--reform in the Irish Church and the Irish land

system, reform in education, reform in parliamentary elections,

reform in the organisation of the Army and the Navy, reform in the

administration of justice. She disapproved, she struggled, she grew very

angry; she felt that if Albert had been living things would never have

happened so; but her protests and her complaints were alike unavailing.

The mere effort of grappling with the mass of documents which poured

in upon her in an ever-growing flood was terribly exhausting. When the

draft of the lengthy and intricate Irish Church Bill came before her,

accompanied by an explanatory letter from Mr. Gladstone covering a dozen

closely-written quarto pages, she almost despaired. She turned from

the Bill to the explanation, and from the explanation back again to the

Bill, and she could not decide which was the most confusing. But she had

to do her duty: she had not only to read, but to make notes. At last

she handed the whole heap of papers to Mr. Martin, who happened to be

staying at Osborne, and requested him to make a precis of them. When

he had done so, her disapproval of the measure became more marked than

ever; but, such was the strength of the Government, she actually found

herself obliged to urge moderation upon the Opposition, lest worse

should ensue.

In the midst of this crisis, when the future of the Irish Church was

hanging in the balance, Victoria's attention was drawn to another

proposed reform. It was suggested that the sailors in the Navy should

henceforward be allowed to wear beards. "Has Mr. Childers ascertained

anything on the subject of the beards?" the Queen wrote anxiously to the

First Lord of the Admiralty. On the whole, Her Majesty was in favour

of the change. "Her own personal feeling," she wrote, "would be for the

beards without the moustaches, as the latter have rather a soldierlike

appearance; but then the object in view would not be obtained, viz.

to prevent the necessity of shaving. Therefore it had better be as

proposed, the entire beard, only it should be kept short and very

clean." After thinking over the question for another week, the Queen

wrote a final letter. She wished, she said, "to make one additional

observation respecting the beards, viz. that on no account should

moustaches be allowed without beards. That must be clearly understood."

Changes in the Navy might be tolerated; to lay hands upon the Army was a

more serious matter. From time immemorial there had been a particularly

close connection between the Army and the Crown; and Albert had devoted

even more time and attention to the details of military business than

to the processes of fresco-painting or the planning of sanitary cottages

for the deserving poor. But now there was to be a great alteration: Mr.

Gladstone's fiat had gone forth, and the Commander-in-Chief was to

be removed from his direct dependence upon the Sovereign, and made

subordinate to Parliament and the Secretary of State for War. Of all the

liberal reforms this was the one which aroused the bitterest resentment

in Victoria. She considered that the change was an attack upon her

personal position--almost an attack upon the personal position of

Albert. But she was helpless, and the Prime Minister had his way.

When she heard that the dreadful man had yet another reform in

contemplation--that he was about to abolish the purchase of military

commissions--she could only feel that it was just what might have been

expected. For a moment she hoped that the House of Lords would come to

the rescue; the Peers opposed the change with unexpected vigour; but Mr.

Gladstone, more conscious than ever of the support of the Almighty, was

ready with an ingenious device. The purchase of commissions had been

originally allowed by Royal Warrant; it should now be disallowed by the

same agency. Victoria was faced by a curious dilemma: she abominated the

abolition of purchase; but she was asked to abolish it by an exercise of

sovereign power which was very much to her taste. She did not hesitate

for long; and when the Cabinet, in a formal minute, advised her to sign

the Warrant, she did so with a good grace.

Unacceptable as Mr. Gladstone's policy was, there was something else

about him which was even more displeasing to Victoria. She disliked his

personal demeanour towards herself. It was not that Mr. Gladstone,

in his intercourse with her, was in any degree lacking in courtesy or

respect. On the contrary, an extraordinary reverence impregnated

his manner, both in his conversation and his correspondence with the

Sovereign. Indeed, with that deep and passionate conservatism which, to

the very end of his incredible career, gave such an unexpected colouring

to his inexplicable character, Mr. Gladstone viewed Victoria through a

haze of awe which was almost religious--as a sacrosanct embodiment of

venerable traditions--a vital element in the British Constitution--a

Queen by Act of Parliament. But unfortunately the lady did not

appreciate the compliment. The well-known complaint--"He speaks to me

as if I were a public meeting-" whether authentic or no--and the turn

of the sentence is surely a little too epigrammatic to be genuinely

Victorian--undoubtedly expresses the essential element of her antipathy.

She had no objection to being considered as an institution; she was one,

and she knew it. But she was a woman too, and to be considered ONLY as

an institution--that was unbearable. And thus all Mr. Gladstone's zeal

and devotion, his ceremonious phrases, his low bows, his punctilious

correctitudes, were utterly wasted; and when, in the excess of his

loyalty, he went further, and imputed to the object of his veneration,

with obsequious blindness, the subtlety of intellect, the wide reading,

the grave enthusiasm, which he himself possessed, the misunderstanding

became complete. The discordance between the actual Victoria and this

strange Divinity made in Mr. Gladstone's image produced disastrous

results. Her discomfort and dislike turned at last into positive

animosity, and, though her manners continued to be perfect, she

never for a moment unbent; while he on his side was overcome with

disappointment, perplexity, and mortification.

Yet his fidelity remained unshaken. When the Cabinet met, the Prime

Minister, filled with his beatific vision, would open the proceedings by

reading aloud the letters which he had received from the Queen upon the

questions of the hour. The assembly sat in absolute silence while,

one after another, the royal missives, with their emphases, their

ejaculations, and their grammatical peculiarities, boomed forth in all

the deep solemnity of Mr. Gladstone's utterance. Not a single comment,

of any kind, was ever hazarded; and, after a fitting pause, the Cabinet

proceeded with the business of the day.

II

Little as Victoria appreciated her Prime Minister's attitude towards

her, she found that it had its uses. The popular discontent at her

uninterrupted seclusion had been gathering force for many years, and

now burst out in a new and alarming shape. Republicanism was in the air.

Radical opinion in England, stimulated by the fall of Napoleon III and

the establishment of a republican government in France, suddenly grew

more extreme than it ever had been since 1848. It also became for the

first time almost respectable. Chartism had been entirely an affair of

the lower classes; but now Members of Parliament, learned professors,

and ladies of title openly avowed the most subversive views. The

monarchy was attacked both in theory and in practice. And it was

attacked at a vital point: it was declared to be too expensive. What

benefits, it was asked, did the nation reap to counterbalance the

enormous sums which were expended upon the Sovereign? Victoria's

retirement gave an unpleasant handle to the argument. It was pointed out

that the ceremonial functions of the Crown had virtually lapsed; and the

awkward question remained whether any of the other functions which it

did continue to perform were really worth L385,000 per annum. The royal

balance-sheet was curiously examined. An anonymous pamphlet entitled

"What does she do with it?" appeared, setting forth the financial

position with malicious clarity. The Queen, it stated, was granted by

the Civil List L60,000 a year for her private use; but the rest of her

vast annuity was given, as the Act declared, to enable her "to defray

the expenses of her royal household and to support the honour and

dignity of the Crown." Now it was obvious that, since the death of the

Prince, the expenditure for both these purposes must have been very

considerably diminished, and it was difficult to resist the conclusion

that a large sum of money was diverted annually from the uses for which

it had been designed by Parliament, to swell the private fortune of

Victoria. The precise amount of that private fortune it was impossible

to discover; but there was reason to suppose that it was gigantic;

perhaps it reached a total of five million pounds. The pamphlet

protested against such a state of affairs, and its protests were

repeated vigorously in newspapers and at public meetings. Though it is

certain that the estimate of Victoria's riches was much exaggerated,

it is equally certain that she was an exceedingly wealthy woman. She

probably saved L20,000 a year from the Civil List, the revenues of

the Duchy of Lancaster were steadily increasing, she had inherited a

considerable property from the Prince Consort, and she had been left, in

1852, an estate of half a million by Mr. John Neild, an eccentric

miser. In these circumstances it was not surprising that when, in 1871,

Parliament was asked to vote a dowry of L30,000 to the Princess Louise

on her marriage with the eldest son of the Duke of Argyle, together with

an annuity of L6,000, there should have been a serious outcry(*).

(*) In 1889 it was officially stated that the Queen's total

savings from the Civil List amounted to L824,025, but that

out of this sum much had been spent on special

entertainments to foreign visitors. Taking into

consideration the proceeds from the Duchy of Lancaster,

which were more than L60,000 a year, the savings of the

Prince Consort, and Mr. Neild's legacy, it seems probable

that, at the time of her death, Victoria's private fortune

approached two million pounds.

In order to conciliate public opinion, the Queen opened Parliament in

person, and the vote was passed almost unanimously. But a few months

later another demand was made: the Prince Arthur had come of age, and

the nation was asked to grant him an annuity of L15,000. The outcry was

redoubled. The newspapers were filled with angry articles; Bradlaugh

thundered against "princely paupers" to one of the largest crowds that

had ever been seen in Trafalgar Square; and Sir Charles Dilke expounded

the case for a republic in a speech to his constituents at Newcastle.

The Prince's annuity was ultimately sanctioned in the House of Commons

by a large majority; but a minority of fifty members voted in favour of

reducing the sum to L10,000.

Towards every aspect of this distasteful question, Mr. Gladstone

presented an iron front. He absolutely discountenanced the extreme

section of his followers. He declared that the whole of the Queen's

income was justly at her personal disposal, argued that to complain

of royal savings was merely to encourage royal extravagance, and

successfully convoyed through Parliament the unpopular annuities, which,

he pointed out, were strictly in accordance with precedent. When, in

1872, Sir Charles Dilke once more returned to the charge in the House

of Commons, introducing a motion for a full enquiry into the Queen's

expenditure with a view to a root and branch reform of the Civil

List, the Prime Minister brought all the resources of his powerful

and ingenious eloquence to the support of the Crown. He was completely

successful; and amid a scene of great disorder the motion was

ignominiously dismissed. Victoria was relieved; but she grew no fonder

of Mr. Gladstone.

It was perhaps the most miserable moment of her life. The Ministers,

the press, the public, all conspired to vex her, to blame her, to

misinterpret her actions, to be unsympathetic and disrespectful in

every way. She was "a cruelly misunderstood woman," she told Mr. Martin,

complaining to him bitterly of the unjust attacks which were made upon

her, and declaring that "the great worry and anxiety and hard work for

ten years, alone, unaided, with increasing age and never very strong

health" were breaking her down, and "almost drove her to despair." The

situation was indeed deplorable. It seemed as if her whole existence

had gone awry; as if an irremediable antagonism had grown up between the

Queen and the nation. If Victoria had died in the early seventies, there

can be little doubt that the voice of the world would have pronounced

her a failure.

III

But she was reserved for a very different fate. The outburst of

republicanism had been in fact the last flicker of an expiring cause.

The liberal tide, which had been flowing steadily ever since the Reform

Bill, reached its height with Mr. Gladstone's first administration; and

towards the end of that administration the inevitable ebb began. The

reaction, when it came, was sudden and complete. The General Election of

1874 changed the whole face of politics. Mr. Gladstone and the Liberals

were routed; and the Tory party, for the first time for over forty

years, attained an unquestioned supremacy in England. It was obvious

that their surprising triumph was pre-eminently due to the skill

and vigour of Disraeli. He returned to office, no longer the dubious

commander of an insufficient host, but with drums beating and flags

flying, a conquering hero. And as a conquering hero Victoria welcomed

her new Prime Minister.

Then there followed six years of excitement, of enchantment, of

felicity, of glory, of romance. The amazing being, who now at last, at

the age of seventy, after a lifetime of extraordinary struggles, had

turned into reality the absurdest of his boyhood's dreams, knew well

enough how to make his own, with absolute completeness, the heart of the

Sovereign Lady whose servant, and whose master, he had so miraculously

become. In women's hearts he had always read as in an open book. His

whole career had turned upon those curious entities; and the more

curious they were, the more intimately at home with them he seemed

to be. But Lady Beaconsfield, with her cracked idolatry, and Mrs.

Brydges-Williams, with her clogs, her corpulence, and her legacy,

were gone: an even more remarkable phenomenon stood in their place. He

surveyed what was before him with the eye of a past-master; and he was

not for a moment at a loss. He realised everything--the interacting

complexities of circumstance and character, the pride of place mingled

so inextricably with personal arrogance, the superabundant emotionalism,

the ingenuousness of outlook, the solid, the laborious respectability,

shot through so incongruously by temperamental cravings for the

coloured and the strange, the singular intellectual limitations, and the

mysteriously essential female elements impregnating every particle of

the whole. A smile hovered over his impassive features, and he

dubbed Victoria "the Faery." The name delighted him, for, with that

epigrammatic ambiguity so dear to his heart, it precisely expressed

his vision of the Queen. The Spenserian allusion was very pleasant--the

elegant evocations of Gloriana; but there was more in it than that:

there was the suggestion of a diminutive creature, endowed with

magical--and mythical--properties, and a portentousness almost

ridiculously out of keeping with the rest of her make-up. The Faery, he

determined, should henceforward wave her wand for him alone. Detachment

is always a rare quality, and rarest of all, perhaps, among politicians;

but that veteran egotist possessed it in a supreme degree. Not only did

he know what he had to do, not only did he do it; he was in the audience

as well as on the stage; and he took in with the rich relish of a

connoisseur every feature of the entertaining situation, every phase of

the delicate drama, and every detail of his own consummate performance.

The smile hovered and vanished, and, bowing low with Oriental gravity

and Oriental submissiveness, he set himself to his task. He had

understood from the first that in dealing with the Faery the appropriate

method of approach was the very antithesis of the Gladstonian; and such

a method was naturally his. It was not his habit to harangue and exhort

and expatiate in official conscientiousness; he liked to scatter flowers

along the path of business, to compress a weighty argument into a happy

phrase, to insinuate what was in his mind with an air of friendship

and confidential courtesy. He was nothing if not personal; and he had

perceived that personality was the key that opened the Faery's heart.

Accordingly, he never for a moment allowed his intercourse with her to

lose the personal tone; he invested all the transactions of State with

the charms of familiar conversation; she was always the royal lady, the

adored and revered mistress, he the devoted and respectful friend. When

once the personal relation was firmly established, every difficulty

disappeared. But to maintain that relation uninterruptedly in a smooth

and even course a particular care was necessary: the bearings had to be

most assiduously oiled. Nor was Disraeli in any doubt as to the nature

of the lubricant. "You have heard me called a flatterer," he said to

Matthew Arnold, "and it is true. Everyone likes flattery, and when you

come to royalty you should lay it on with a trowel." He practiced what

he preached. His adulation was incessant, and he applied it in the very

thickest slabs. "There is no honor and no reward," he declared, "that

with him can ever equal the possession of your Majesty's kind thoughts.

All his own thoughts and feelings and duties and affections are now

concentrated in your Majesty, and he desires nothing more for his

remaining years than to serve your Majesty, or, if that service

ceases, to live still on its memory as a period of his existence most

interesting and fascinating." "In life," he told her, "one must have for

one's thoughts a sacred depository, and Lord Beaconsfield ever presumes

to seek that in his Sovereign Mistress." She was not only his own

solitary support; she was the one prop of the State. "If your Majesty

is ill," he wrote during a grave political crisis, "he is sure he will

himself break down. All, really, depends upon your Majesty." "He lives

only for Her," he asseverated, "and works only for Her, and without Her

all is lost." When her birthday came he produced an elaborate confection

of hyperbolic compliment. "To-day Lord Beaconsfield ought fitly,

perhaps, to congratulate a powerful Sovereign on her imperial sway, the

vastness of her Empire, and the success and strength of her fleets and

armies. But he cannot, his mind is in another mood. He can only think of

the strangeness of his destiny that it has come to pass that he should

be the servant of one so great, and whose infinite kindness, the

brightness of whose intelligence and the firmness of whose will, have

enabled him to undertake labours to which he otherwise would be quite

unequal, and supported him in all things by a condescending sympathy,

which in the hour of difficulty alike charms and inspires. Upon the

Sovereign of many lands and many hearts may an omnipotent Providence

shed every blessing that the wise can desire and the virtuous deserve!"

In those expert hands the trowel seemed to assume the qualities of

some lofty masonic symbol--to be the ornate and glittering vehicle of

verities unrealised by the profane.

Such tributes were delightful, but they remained in the nebulous region

of words, and Disraeli had determined to give his blandishments a more

significant solidity. He deliberately encouraged those high views of

her own position which had always been native to Victoria's mind and

had been reinforced by the principles of Albert and the doctrines of

Stockmar. He professed to a belief in a theory of the Constitution which

gave the Sovereign a leading place in the councils of government;

but his pronouncements upon the subject were indistinct; and when he

emphatically declared that there ought to be "a real Throne," it was

probably with the mental addition that that throne would be a very

unreal one indeed whose occupant was unamenable to his cajoleries.

But the vagueness of his language was in itself an added stimulant to

Victoria. Skilfully confusing the woman and the Queen, he threw, with a

grandiose gesture, the government of England at her feet, as if in doing

so he were performing an act of personal homage. In his first audience

after returning to power, he assured her that "whatever she wished

should be done." When the intricate Public Worship Regulation Bill was

being discussed by the Cabinet, he told the Faery that his "only object"

was "to further your Majesty's wishes in this matter." When he brought

off his great coup over the Suez Canal, he used expressions which

implied that the only gainer by the transaction was Victoria. "It is

just settled," he wrote in triumph; "you have it, Madam... Four millions

sterling! and almost immediately. There was only one firm that could

do it--Rothschilds. They behaved admirably; advanced the money at a low

rate, and the entire interest of the Khedive is now yours, Madam." Nor

did he limit himself to highly-spiced insinuations. Writing with all

the authority of his office, he advised the Queen that she had the

constitutional right to dismiss a Ministry which was supported by a

large majority in the House of Commons, he even urged her to do so, if,

in her opinion, "your Majesty's Government have from wilfulness, or even

from weakness, deceived your Majesty." To the horror of Mr. Gladstone,

he not only kept the Queen informed as to the general course of business

in the Cabinet, but revealed to her the part taken in its discussions by

individual members of it. Lord Derby, the son of the late Prime Minister

and Disraeli's Foreign Secretary, viewed these developments with grave

mistrust. "Is there not," he ventured to write to his Chief, "just a

risk of encouraging her in too large ideas of her personal power, and

too great indifference to what the public expects? I only ask; it is for

you to judge."

As for Victoria, she accepted everything--compliments, flatteries,

Elizabethan prerogatives--without a single qualm. After the long gloom

of her bereavement, after the chill of the Gladstonian discipline, she

expanded to the rays of Disraeli's devotion like a flower in the sun.

The change in her situation was indeed miraculous. No longer was she

obliged to puzzle for hours over the complicated details of business,

for now she had only to ask Mr. Disraeli for an explanation, and he

would give it her in the most concise, in the most amusing, way. No

longer was she worried by alarming novelties; no longer was she put out

at finding herself treated, by a reverential gentleman in high collars,

as if she were some embodied precedent, with a recondite knowledge of

Greek. And her deliverer was surely the most fascinating of men. The

strain of charlatanism, which had unconsciously captivated her in

Napoleon III, exercised the same enchanting effect in the case of

Disraeli. Like a dram-drinker, whose ordinary life is passed in dull

sobriety, her unsophisticated intelligence gulped down his rococo

allurements with peculiar zest. She became intoxicated, entranced.

Believing all that he told her of herself, she completely regained the

self-confidence which had been slipping away from her throughout

the dark period that followed Albert's death. She swelled with a new

elation, while he, conjuring up before her wonderful Oriental visions,

dazzled her eyes with an imperial grandeur of which she had only dimly

dreamed. Under the compelling influence, her very demeanour altered.

Her short, stout figure, with its folds of black velvet, its muslin

streamers, its heavy pearls at the heavy neck, assumed an almost

menacing air. In her countenance, from which the charm of youth had long

since vanished, and which had not yet been softened by age, the traces

of grief, of disappointment, and of displeasure were still visible, but

they were overlaid by looks of arrogance and sharp lines of peremptory

hauteur. Only, when Mr. Disraeli appeared, the expression changed in an

instant, and the forbidding visage became charged with smiles. For him

she would do anything. Yielding to his encouragements, she began to

emerge from her seclusion; she appeared in London in semi-state, at

hospitals and concerts; she opened Parliament; she reviewed troops and

distributed medals at Aldershot. But such public signs of favour were

trivial in comparison with her private attentions. During his flours of

audience, she could hardly restrain her excitement and delight. "I can

only describe my reception," he wrote to a friend on one occasion, "by

telling you that I really thought she was going to embrace me. She was

wreathed with smiles, and, as she tattled, glided about the room like

a bird." In his absence, she talked of him perpetually, and there was

a note of unusual vehemence in her solicitude for his health. "John

Manners," Disraeli told Lady Bradford, "who has just come from Osborne,

says that the Faery only talked of one subject, and that was her Primo.

According to him, it was her gracious opinion that the Government should

make my health a Cabinet question. Dear John seemed quite surprised at

what she said; but you are used to these ebullitions." She often sent

him presents; an illustrated album arrived for him regularly from

Windsor on Christmas Day. But her most valued gifts were the bunches of

spring flowers which, gathered by herself and her ladies in the woods at

Osborne, marked in an especial manner the warmth and tenderness of her

sentiments. Among these it was, he declared, the primroses that he loved

the best. They were, he said, "the ambassadors of Spring, the gems and

jewels of Nature." He liked them, he assured her, "so much better for

their being wild; they seem an offering from the Fauns and Dryads of

Osborne." "They show," he told her, "that your Majesty's sceptre has

touched the enchanted Isle." He sat at dinner with heaped-up bowls of

them on every side, and told his guests that "they were all sent to me

this morning by the Queen from Osborne, as she knows it is my favorite

flower."

As time went on, and as it became clearer and clearer that the

Faery's thraldom was complete, his protestations grew steadily more

highly--coloured and more unabashed. At last he ventured to import

into his blandishments a strain of adoration that was almost avowedly

romantic. In phrases of baroque convolution, he conveyed the message

of his heart. "The pressure of business," he wrote, had "so absorbed and

exhausted him, that towards the hour of post he has not had clearness

of mind, and vigour of pen, adequate to convey his thoughts and facts to

the most loved and illustrious being, who deigns to consider them." She

sent him some primroses, and he replied that he could "truly say they

are 'more precious than rubies,' coming, as they do, and at such a

moment, from a Sovereign whom he adores." She sent him snowdrops, and

his sentiment overflowed into poetry. "Yesterday eve," he wrote, "there

appeared, in Whitehall Gardens, a delicate-looking case, with a royal

superscription, which, when he opened, he thought, at first, that your

Majesty had graciously bestowed upon him the stars of your Majesty's

principal orders." And, indeed, he was so impressed with this graceful

illusion, that, having a banquet, where there were many stars and

ribbons, he could not resist the temptation, by placing some snowdrops

on his heart, of showing that, he, too, was decorated by a gracious

Sovereign.

Then, in the middle of the night, it occurred to him, that it might all

be an enchantment, and that, perhaps, it was a Faery gift and came from

another monarch: Queen Titania, gathering flowers, with her Court, in

a soft and sea-girt isle, and sending magic blossoms, which, they say,

turn the heads of those who receive them.

A Faery gift! Did he smile as he wrote the words? Perhaps; and yet

it would be rash to conclude that his perfervid declarations were

altogether without sincerity. Actor and spectator both, the two

characters were so intimately blended together in that odd composition

that they formed an inseparable unity, and it was impossible to say that

one of them was less genuine than the other. With one element, he

could coldly appraise the Faery's intellectual capacity, note with some

surprise that she could be on occasion "most interesting and amusing,"

and then continue his use of the trowel with an ironical solemnity;

while, with the other, he could be overwhelmed by the immemorial panoply

of royalty, and, thrilling with the sense of his own strange elevation,

dream himself into a gorgeous phantasy of crowns and powers and

chivalric love. When he told Victoria that "during a somewhat romantic

and imaginative life, nothing has ever occurred to him so interesting as

this confidential correspondence with one so exalted and so inspiring,"

was he not in earnest after all? When he wrote to a lady about the

Court, "I love the Queen--perhaps the only person in this world left to

me that I do love," was he not creating for himself an enchanted palace

out of the Arabian Nights, full of melancholy and spangles, in which

he actually believed? Victoria's state of mind was far more simple;

untroubled by imaginative yearnings, she never lost herself in that

nebulous region of the spirit where feeling and fancy grow confused. Her

emotions, with all their intensity and all their exaggeration, retained

the plain prosaic texture of everyday life. And it was fitting that her

expression of them should be equally commonplace. She was, she told her

Prime Minister, at the end of an official letter, "yours aff'ly V. R.

and I." In such a phrase the deep reality of her feeling is instantly

manifest. The Faery's feet were on the solid earth; it was the ruse

cynic who was in the air.

He had taught her, however, a lesson, which she had learnt with alarming

rapidity. A second Gloriana, did he call her? Very well, then, she would

show that she deserved the compliment. Disquieting symptoms followed

fast. In May, 1874, the Tsar, whose daughter had just been married to

Victoria's second son, the Duke of Edinburgh, was in London, and, by an

unfortunate error, it had been arranged that his departure should not

take place until two days after the date on which his royal hostess had

previously decided to go to Balmoral. Her Majesty refused to modify

her plans. It was pointed out to her that the Tsar would certainly be

offended, that the most serious consequences might follow; Lord Derby

protested; Lord Salisbury, the Secretary of State for India, was much

perturbed. But the Faery was unconcerned; she had settled to go to

Balmoral on the 18th, and on the 18th she would go. At last Disraeli,

exercising all his influence, induced her to agree to stay in London

for two days more. "My head is still on my shoulders," he told Lady

Bradford. "The great lady has absolutely postponed her departure!

Everybody had failed, even the Prince of Wales... and I have no doubt I

am not in favour. I can't help it. Salisbury says I have saved an Afghan

War, and Derby compliments me on my unrivalled triumph." But before very

long, on another issue, the triumph was the Faery's. Disraeli, who had

suddenly veered towards a new Imperialism, had thrown out the suggestion

that the Queen of England ought to become the Empress of India. Victoria

seized upon the idea with avidity, and, in season and out of season,

pressed upon her Prime Minister the desirability of putting his proposal

into practice. He demurred; but she was not to be baulked; and in 1876,

in spite of his own unwillingness and that of his entire Cabinet, he

found himself obliged to add to the troubles of a stormy session

by introducing a bill for the alteration of the Royal Title. His

compliance, however, finally conquered the Faery's heart. The measure

was angrily attacked in both Houses, and Victoria was deeply touched by

the untiring energy with which Disraeli defended it. She was, she said,

much grieved by "the worry and annoyance" to which he was subjected; she

feared she was the cause of it; and she would never forget what she owed

to "her kind, good, and considerate friend." At the same time, her wrath

fell on the Opposition. Their conduct, she declared, was "extraordinary,

incomprehensible, and mistaken," and, in an emphatic sentence which

seemed to contradict both itself and all her former proceedings, she

protested that she "would be glad if it were more generally known that

it was HER wish, as people WILL have it, that it has been FORCED UPON

HER!" When the affair was successfully over, the imperial triumph was

celebrated in a suitable manner. On the day of the Delhi Proclamation,

the new Earl of Beaconsfield went to Windsor to dine with the new

Empress of India. That night the Faery, usually so homely in her attire,

appeared in a glittering panoply of enormous uncut jewels, which had

been presented to her by the reigning Princes of her Raj. At the end of

the meal the Prime Minister, breaking through the rules of

etiquette, arose, and in a flowery oration proposed the health of

the Queen-Empress. His audacity was well received, and his speech was

rewarded by a smiling curtsey.

These were significant episodes; but a still more serious manifestation

of Victoria's temper occurred in the following year, during the crowning

crisis of Beaconsfield's life. His growing imperialism, his desire

to magnify the power and prestige of England, his insistence upon a

"spirited foreign policy," had brought him into collision with Russia;

the terrible Eastern Question loomed up; and when war broke out between

Russia and Turkey, the gravity of the situation became extreme.

The Prime Minister's policy was fraught with difficulty and danger.

Realising perfectly the appalling implications of an Anglo-Russian war,

he was yet prepared to face even that eventuality if he could obtain

his ends by no other method; but he believed that Russia in reality was

still less desirous of a rupture, and that, if he played his game with

sufficient boldness and adroitness, she would yield, when it came to the

point, all that he required without a blow. It was clear that the

course he had marked out for himself was full of hazard, and demanded

an extraordinary nerve; a single false step, and either himself, or

England, might be plunged in disaster. But nerve he had never lacked;

he began his diplomatic egg-dance with high assurance; and then he

discovered that, besides the Russian Government, besides the Liberals

and Mr. Gladstone, there were two additional sources of perilous

embarrassment with which he would have to reckon. In the first place

there was a strong party in the Cabinet, headed by Lord Derby, the

Foreign Secretary, which was unwilling to take the risk of war; but his

culminating anxiety was the Faery.

From the first, her attitude was uncompromising. The old hatred of

Russia, which had been engendered by the Crimean War, surged up again

within her; she remembered Albert's prolonged animosity; she felt the

prickings of her own greatness; and she flung herself into the turmoil

with passionate heat. Her indignation with the Opposition--with anyone

who ventured to sympathise with the Russians in their quarrel with the

Turks--was unbounded. When anti-Turkish meetings were held in London,

presided over by the Duke of Westminster and Lord Shaftesbury, and

attended by Mr. Gladstone and other prominent Radicals, she considered

that "the Attorney-General ought to be set at these men;" "it can't,"

she exclaimed, "be constitutional." Never in her life, not even in the

crisis over the Ladies of the Bedchamber, did she show herself a more

furious partisan. But her displeasure was not reserved for the Radicals;

the backsliding Conservatives equally felt its force. She was even

discontented with Lord Beaconsfield himself. Failing entirely to

appreciate the delicate complexity of his policy, she constantly

assailed him with demands for vigorous action, interpreted each finesse

as a sign of weakness, and was ready at every juncture to let slip the

dogs of war. As the situation developed, her anxiety grew feverish. "The

Queen," she wrote, "is feeling terribly anxious lest delay should cause

us to be too late and lose our prestige for ever! It worries her night

and day." "The Faery," Beaconsfield told Lady Bradford, "writes every

day and telegraphs every hour; this is almost literally the case." She

raged loudly against the Russians. "And the language," she cried,

"the insulting language--used by the Russians against us! It makes the

Queen's blood boil!" "Oh," she wrote a little later, "if the Queen were

a man, she would like to go and give those Russians, whose word one

cannot believe, such a beating! We shall never be friends again till we

have it out. This the Queen feels sure of."

The unfortunate Prime Minister, urged on to violence by Victoria on

one side, had to deal, on the other, with a Foreign Secretary who was

fundamentally opposed to any policy of active interference at all.

Between the Queen and Lord Derby he held a harassed course. He gained,

indeed, some slight satisfaction in playing on the one against the

other--in stimulating Lord Derby with the Queen's missives, and in

appeasing the Queen by repudiating Lord Derby's opinions; on one

occasion he actually went so far as to compose, at Victoria's request,

a letter bitterly attacking his colleague, which Her Majesty forthwith

signed, and sent, without alteration, to the Foreign Secretary. But such

devices only gave a temporary relief; and it soon became evident that

Victoria's martial ardour was not to be sidetracked by hostilities

against Lord Derby; hostilities against Russia were what she wanted,

what she would, what she must, have. For now, casting aside the last

relics of moderation, she began to attack her friend with a series of

extraordinary threats. Not once, not twice, but many times she held over

his head the formidable menace of her imminent abdication. "If England,"

she wrote to Beaconsfield, "is to kiss Russia's feet, she will not be a

party to the humiliation of England and would lay down her crown," and

she added that the Prime Minister might, if he thought fit, repeat her

words to the Cabinet. "This delay," she ejaculated, "this uncertainty by

which, abroad, we are losing our prestige and our position, while Russia

is advancing and will be before Constantinople in no time! Then the

Government will be fearfully blamed and the Queen so humiliated that

she thinks she would abdicate at once. Be bold!" "She feels," she

reiterated, "she cannot, as she before said, remain the Sovereign of

a country that is letting itself down to kiss the feet of the great

barbarians, the retarders of all liberty and civilisation that exists."

When the Russians advanced to the outskirts of Constantinople she fired

off three letters in a day demanding war; and when she learnt that the

Cabinet had only decided to send the Fleet to Gallipoli she declared

that "her first impulse" was "to lay down the thorny crown, which she

feels little satisfaction in retaining if the position of this country

is to remain as it is now." It is easy to imagine the agitating effect

of such a correspondence upon Beaconsfield. This was no longer the

Faery; it was a genie whom he had rashly called out of her bottle, and

who was now intent upon showing her supernal power. More than once,

perplexed, dispirited, shattered by illness, he had thoughts of

withdrawing altogether from the game. One thing alone, he told Lady

Bradford, with a wry smile, prevented him. "If I could only," he wrote,

"face the scene which would occur at headquarters if I resigned, I would

do so at once."

He held on, however, to emerge victorious at last. The Queen was

pacified; Lord Derby was replaced by Lord Salisbury; and at the Congress

of Berlin der alte Jude carried all before him. He returned to England

in triumph, and assured the delighted Victoria that she would very soon

be, if she was not already, the "Dictatress of Europe."

But soon there was an unexpected reverse. At the General Election

of 1880 the country, mistrustful of the forward policy of the

Conservatives, and carried away by Mr. Gladstone's oratory, returned the

Liberals to power. Victoria was horrified, but within a year she was to

be yet more nearly hit. The grand romance had come to its conclusion.

Lord Beaconsfield, worn out with age and maladies, but moving still, an

assiduous mummy, from dinner-party to dinner-party, suddenly moved no

longer. When she knew that the end was inevitable, she seemed, by a

pathetic instinct, to divest herself of her royalty, and to shrink, with

hushed gentleness, beside him, a woman and nothing more. "I send some

Osborne primroses," she wrote to him with touching simplicity, "and I

meant to pay you a little visit this week, but I thought it better you

should be quite quiet and not speak. And I beg you will be very good and

obey the doctors." She would see him, she said, "when we, come back from

Osborne, which won't be long." "Everyone is so distressed at your not

being well," she added; and she was, "Ever yours very aff'ly V.R.I."

When the royal letter was given him, the strange old comedian, stretched

on his bed of death, poised it in his hand, appeared to consider deeply,

and then whispered to those about him, "This ought to be read to me by a

Privy Councillor."

CHAPTER IX. OLD AGE

I

Meanwhile in Victoria's private life many changes and developments had

taken place. With the marriages of her elder children her family

circle widened; grandchildren appeared; and a multitude of new domestic

interests sprang up. The death of King Leopold in 1865 had removed the

predominant figure of the older generation, and the functions he had

performed as the centre and adviser of a large group of relatives in

Germany and in England devolved upon Victoria. These functions

she discharged with unremitting industry, carrying on an enormous

correspondence, and following with absorbed interest every detail in the

lives of the ever-ramifying cousinhood. And she tasted to the full

both the joys and the pains of family affection. She took a particular

delight in her grandchildren, to whom she showed an indulgence which

their parents had not always enjoyed, though, even to her grandchildren,

she could be, when the occasion demanded it, severe. The eldest of them,

the little Prince Wilhelm of Prussia, was a remarkably headstrong child;

he dared to be impertinent even to his grandmother; and once, when she

told him to bow to a visitor at Osborne, he disobeyed her outright.

This would not do: the order was sternly repeated, and the naughty boy,

noticing that his grandmama had suddenly turned into a most terrifying

lady, submitted his will to hers, and bowed very low indeed.

It would have been well if all the Queen's domestic troubles could

have been got over as easily. Among her more serious distresses was the

conduct of the Prince of Wales. The young man was now independent and

married; he had shaken the parental yoke from his shoulders; he was

positively beginning to do as he liked. Victoria was much perturbed,

and her worst fears seemed to be justified when in 1870 he appeared as

a witness in a society divorce case. It was clear that the heir to the

throne had been mixing with people of whom she did not at all approve.

What was to be done? She saw that it was not only her son that was to

blame--that it was the whole system of society; and so she despatched

a letter to Mr. Delane, the editor of The Times, asking him if he would

"frequently WRITE articles pointing out the IMMENSE danger and evil of

the wretched frivolity and levity of the views and lives of the Higher

Classes." And five years later Mr. Delane did write an article upon that

very subject. Yet it seemed to have very little effect.

Ah! if only the Higher Classes would learn to live as she lived in the

domestic sobriety of her sanctuary at Balmoral! For more and more

did she find solace and refreshment in her Highland domain; and twice

yearly, in the spring and in the autumn, with a sigh of relief, she set

her face northwards, in spite of the humble protests of Ministers, who

murmured vainly in the royal ears that to transact the affairs of State

over an interval of six hundred miles added considerably to the cares

of government. Her ladies, too, felt occasionally a slight reluctance to

set out, for, especially in the early days, the long pilgrimage was not

without its drawbacks. For many years the Queen's conservatism forbade

the continuation of the railway up Deeside, so that the last stages

of the journey had to be accomplished in carriages. But, after all,

carriages had their good points; they were easy, for instance, to get

in and out of, which was an important consideration, for the royal train

remained for long immune from modern conveniences, and when it drew up,

on some border moorland, far from any platform, the highbred dames were

obliged to descend to earth by the perilous foot-board, the only pair

of folding steps being reserved for Her Majesty's saloon. In the days of

crinolines such moments were sometimes awkward; and it was occasionally

necessary to summon Mr. Johnstone, the short and sturdy Manager of the

Caledonian Railway, who, more than once, in a high gale and drenching

rain with great difficulty "pushed up"--as he himself described it--some

unlucky Lady Blanche or Lady Agatha into her compartment. But Victoria

cared for none of these things. She was only intent upon regaining, with

the utmost swiftness, her enchanted Castle, where every spot was charged

with memories, where every memory was sacred, and where life was passed

in an incessant and delightful round of absolutely trivial events.

And it was not only the place that she loved; she was equally attached

to "the simple mountaineers," from whom, she said, "she learnt many

a lesson of resignation and faith." Smith and Grant and Ross and

Thompson--she was devoted to them all; but, beyond the rest, she was

devoted to John Brown. The Prince's gillie had now become the Queen's

personal attendant--a body servant from whom she was never parted, who

accompanied her on her drives, waited on her during the day, and

slept in a neighbouring chamber at night. She liked his strength, his

solidity, the sense he gave her of physical security; she even liked his

rugged manners and his rough unaccommodating speech. She allowed him to

take liberties with her which would have been unthinkable from anybody

else. To bully the Queen, to order her about, to reprimand her--who

could dream of venturing upon such audacities? And yet, when she

received such treatment from John Brown, she positively seemed to enjoy

it. The eccentricity appeared to be extraordinary; but, after all, it

is no uncommon thing for an autocratic dowager to allow some trusted

indispensable servant to adopt towards her an attitude of authority

which is jealously forbidden to relatives or friends: the power of a

dependent still remains, by a psychological sleight-of-hand, one's own

power, even when it is exercised over oneself. When Victoria meekly

obeyed the abrupt commands of her henchman to get off her pony or put on

her shawl, was she not displaying, and in the highest degree, the force

of her volition? People might wonder; she could not help that; this was

the manner in which it pleased her to act, and there was an end of it.

To have submitted her judgment to a son or a Minister might have seemed

wiser or more natural; but if she had done so, she instinctively felt,

she would indeed have lost her independence. And yet upon somebody

she longed to depend. Her days were heavy with the long process of

domination. As she drove in silence over the moors she leaned back in

the carriage, oppressed and weary; but what a relief--John Brown was

behind on the rumble, and his strong arm would be there for her to lean

upon when she got out.

He had, too, in her mind, a special connection with Albert. In their

expeditions the Prince had always trusted him more than anyone; the

gruff, kind, hairy Scotsman was, she felt, in some mysterious way,

a legacy from the dead. She came to believe at last--or so it

appeared--that the spirit of Albert was nearer when Brown was near.

Often, when seeking inspiration over some complicated question of

political or domestic import, she would gaze with deep concentration at

her late husband's bust. But it was also noticed that sometimes in such

moments of doubt and hesitation Her Majesty's looks would fix themselves

upon John Brown.

Eventually, the "simple mountaineer" became almost a state personage.

The influence which he wielded was not to be overlooked. Lord

Beaconsfield was careful, from time to time, to send courteous messages

to "Mr. Brown" in his letters to the Queen, and the French Government

took particular pains to provide for his comfort during the visits of

the English Sovereign to France. It was only natural that among the

elder members of the royal family he should not have been popular, and

that his failings--for failings he had, though Victoria would never

notice his too acute appreciation of Scotch whisky--should have been

the subject of acrimonious comment at Court. But he served his mistress

faithfully, and to ignore him would be a sign of disrespect to her

biographer. For the Queen, far from making a secret of her affectionate

friendship, took care to publish it to the world. By her orders two

gold medals were struck in his honour; on his death, in 1883, a long and

eulogistic obituary notice of him appeared in the Court Circular; and a

Brown memorial brooch--of gold, with the late gillie's head on one side

and the royal monogram on the other--was designed by Her Majesty for

presentation to her Highland servants and cottagers, to be worn by them

on the anniversary of his death, with a mourning scarf and pins. In the

second series of extracts from the Queen's Highland Journal, published

in 1884, her "devoted personal attendant and faithful friend" appears

upon almost every page, and is in effect the hero of the book. With an

absence of reticence remarkable in royal persons, Victoria seemed to

demand, in this private and delicate matter, the sympathy of the whole

nation; and yet--such is the world--there were those who actually

treated the relations between their Sovereign and her servant as a theme

for ribald jests.

II

The busy years hastened away; the traces of Time's unimaginable touch

grew manifest; and old age, approaching, laid a gentle hold upon

Victoria. The grey hair whitened; the mature features mellowed; the

short firm figure amplified and moved more slowly, supported by a stick.

And, simultaneously, in the whole tenour of the Queen's existence an

extraordinary transformation came to pass. The nation's attitude

towards her, critical and even hostile as it had been for so many years,

altogether changed; while there was a corresponding alteration in the

temper of--Victoria's own mind.

Many causes led to this result. Among them were the repeated strokes of

personal misfortune which befell the Queen during a cruelly short space

of years. In 1878 the Princess Alice, who had married in 1862 the Prince

Louis of Hesse-Darmstadt, died in tragic circumstances. In the following

year the Prince Imperial, the only son of the Empress Eugenie, to whom

Victoria, since the catastrophe of 1870, had become devotedly attached,

was killed in the Zulu War. Two years later, in 1881, the Queen lost

Lord Beaconsfield, and, in 1883, John Brown. In 1884 the Prince Leopold,

Duke of Albany, who had been an invalid from birth, died prematurely,

shortly after his marriage. Victoria's cup of sorrows was indeed

overflowing; and the public, as it watched the widowed mother weeping

for her children and her friends, displayed a constantly increasing

sympathy.

An event which occurred in 1882 revealed and accentuated the feelings of

the nation. As the Queen, at Windsor, was walking from the train to her

carriage, a youth named Roderick Maclean fired a pistol at her from a

distance of a few yards. An Eton boy struck up Maclean's arm with an

umbrella before the pistol went off; no damage was done, and the culprit

was at once arrested. This was the last of a series of seven attempts

upon the Queen--attempts which, taking place at sporadic intervals over

a period of forty years, resembled one another in a curious manner. All,

with a single exception, were perpetrated by adolescents, whose motives

were apparently not murderous, since, save in the case of Maclean, none

of their pistols was loaded. These unhappy youths, who, after buying

their cheap weapons, stuffed them with gunpowder and paper, and then

went off, with the certainty of immediate detection, to click them in

the face of royalty, present a strange problem to the psychologist. But,

though in each case their actions and their purposes seemed to be so

similar, their fates were remarkably varied. The first of them, Edward

Oxford, who fired at Victoria within a few months of her marriage, was

tried for high treason, declared to be insane, and sent to an asylum for

life. It appears, however, that this sentence did not commend itself to

Albert, for when, two years later, John Francis committed the same of

fence, and was tried upon the same charge, the Prince propounced that

there was no insanity in the matter. "The wretched creature," he told

his father, was "not out of his mind, but a thorough scamp." "I hope,"

he added, "his trial will be conducted with the greatest strictness."

Apparently it was; at any rate, the jury shared the view of the Prince,

the plea of insanity was, set aside, and Francis was found guilty of

high treason and condemned to death; but, as there was no proof of

an intent to kill or even to wound, this sentence, after a lengthened

deliberation between the Home Secretary and the Judges, was commuted for

one of transportation for life. As the law stood, these assaults, futile

as they were, could only be treated as high treason; the discrepancy

between the actual deed and the tremendous penalties involved was

obviously grotesque; and it was, besides, clear that a jury, knowing

that a verdict of guilty implied a sentence of death, would tend to

the alternative course, and find the prisoner not guilty but insane--a

conclusion which, on the face of it, would have appeared to be the more

reasonable. In 1842, therefore, an Act was passed making any attempt

to hurt the Queen a misdemeanor, punishable by transportation for seven

years, or imprisonment, with or without hard labour, for a term not

exceeding three years--the misdemeanant, at the discretion of the Court,

"to be publicly or privately whipped, as often, and in such manner

and form, as the Court shall direct, not exceeding thrice." The four

subsequent attempts were all dealt with under this new law; William

Bean, in 1842, was sentenced to eighteen months' imprisonment; William

Hamilton, in 1849, was transported for seven years; and, in 1850, the

same sentence was passed upon Lieutenant Robert Pate, who struck the

Queen on the head with his cane in Piccadilly. Pate, alone among these

delinquents, was of mature years; he had held a commission in the Army,

dressed himself as a dandy, and was, the Prince declared, "manifestly

deranged." In 1872 Arthur O'Connor, a youth of seventeen, fired

an unloaded pistol at the Queen outside Buckingham Palace; he

was immediately seized by John Brown, and sentenced to one year's

imprisonment and twenty strokes of the birch rod. It was for his bravery

upon this occasion that Brown was presented with one of his gold medals.

In all these cases the jury had refused to allow the plea of insanity;

but Roderick Maclean's attempt in 1882 had a different issue. On this

occasion the pistol was found to have been loaded, and the public

indignation, emphasised as it was by Victoria's growing popularity,

was particularly great. Either for this or for some other reason the

procedure of the last forty years was abandoned, and Maclean was tried

for high treason. The result was what might have been expected: the jury

brought in a verdict of "not guilty, but insane"; and the prisoner was

sent to an asylum during Her Majesty's pleasure. Their verdict, however,

produced a remarkable consequence. Victoria, who doubtless carried in

her mind some memory of Albert's disapproval of a similar verdict in

the case of Oxford, was very much annoyed. What did the jury mean, she

asked, by saying that Maclean was not guilty? It was perfectly clear

that he was guilty--she had seen him fire off the pistol herself. It was

in vain that Her Majesty's constitutional advisers reminded her of the

principle of English law which lays down that no man can be found

guilty of a crime unless he be proved to have had a criminal intention.

Victoria was quite unconvinced. "If that is the law," she said, "the law

must be altered:" and altered it was. In 1883 an Act was passed changing

the form of the verdict in cases of insanity, and the confusing anomaly

remains upon the Statute Book to this day.

But it was not only through the feelings--commiserating or indignant--of

personal sympathy that the Queen and her people were being drawn more

nearly together; they were beginning, at last, to come to a close and

permanent agreement upon the conduct of public affairs. Mr. Gladstone's

second administration (1880-85) was a succession of failures, ending in

disaster and disgrace; liberalism fell into discredit with the country,

and Victoria perceived with joy that her distrust of her Ministers was

shared by an ever-increasing number of her subjects. During the crisis

in the Sudan, the popular temper was her own. She had been among the

first to urge the necessity of an expedition to Khartoum, and, when the

news came of the catastrophic death of General Gordon, her voice led the

chorus of denunciation which raved against the Government. In her rage,

she despatched a fulminating telegram to Mr. Gladstone, not in the usual

cypher, but open; and her letter of condolence to Miss Gordon, in which

she attacked her Ministers for breach of faith, was widely published.

It was rumoured that she had sent for Lord Hartington, the Secretary

of State for War, and vehemently upbraided him. "She rated me," he was

reported to have told a friend, "as if I'd been a footman." "Why didn't

she send for the butler?" asked his friend. "Oh," was the reply, "the

butler generally manages to keep out of the way on such occasions."

But the day came when it was impossible to keep out of the way any

longer. Mr. Gladstone was defeated, and resigned. Victoria, at a

final interview, received him with her usual amenity, but, besides the

formalities demanded by the occasion, the only remark which she made

to him of a personal nature was to the effect that she supposed Mr.

Gladstone would now require some rest. He remembered with regret how,

at a similar audience in 1874, she had expressed her trust in him as a

supporter of the throne; but he noted the change without surprise. "Her

mind and opinions," he wrote in his diary afterwards, "have since that

day been seriously warped."

Such was Mr. Gladstone's view,; but the majority of the nation by no

means agreed with him; and, in the General Election of 1886, they

showed decisively that Victoria's politics were identical with theirs

by casting forth the contrivers of Home Rule--that abomination of

desolation--into outer darkness, and placing Lord Salisbury in

power. Victoria's satisfaction was profound. A flood of new unwonted

hopefulness swept over her, stimulating her vital spirits with a

surprising force. Her habit of life was suddenly altered; abandoning

the long seclusion which Disraeli's persuasions had only momentarily

interrupted, she threw herself vigorously into a multitude of public

activities. She appeared at drawing-rooms, at concerts, at reviews; she

laid foundation-stones; she went to Liverpool to open an international

exhibition, driving through the streets in her open carriage in heavy

rain amid vast applauding crowds. Delighted by the welcome which met

her everywhere, she warmed to her work. She visited Edinburgh, where the

ovation of Liverpool was repeated and surpassed. In London, she opened

in high state the Colonial and Indian Exhibition at South Kensington.

On this occasion the ceremonial was particularly magnificent; a blare

of trumpets announced the approach of Her Majesty; the "Natiohal Anthem"

followed; and the Queen, seated on a gorgeous throne of hammered gold,

replied with her own lips to the address that was presented to her. Then

she rose, and, advancing upon the platform with regal port, acknowledged

the acclamations of the great assembly by a succession of curtseys, of

elaborate and commanding grace.

Next year was the fiftieth of her reign, and in June the splendid

anniversary was celebrated in solemn pomp. Victoria, surrounded by the

highest dignitaries of her realm, escorted by a glittering galaxy of

kings and princes, drove through the crowded enthusiasm of the capital

to render thanks to God in Westminster Abbey. In that triumphant hour

the last remaining traces of past antipathies and past disagreements

were altogether swept away. The Queen was hailed at once as the mother

of her people and as the embodied symbol of their imperial greatness;

and she responded to the double sentiment with all the ardour of her

spirit. England and the people of England, she knew it, she felt it,

were, in some wonderful and yet quite simple manner, hers. Exultation,

affection, gratitude, a profound sense of obligation, an unbounded

pride--such were her emotions; and, colouring and intensifying the

rest, there was something else. At last, after so long,

happiness--fragmentary, perhaps, and charged with gravity, but true

and unmistakable none the less--had returned to her. The unaccustomed

feeling filled and warmed her consciousness. When, at Buckingham Palace

again, the long ceremony over, she was asked how she was, "I am very

tired, but very happy," she said.

III

And so, after the toils and tempests of the day, a long evening

followed--mild, serene, and lighted with a golden glory. For an

unexampled atmosphere of success and adoration invested the last period

of Victoria's life. Her triumph was the summary, the crown, of a greater

triumph--the culminating prosperity of a nation. The solid splendour of

the decade between Victoria's two jubilees can hardly be paralleled in

the annals of England. The sage counsels of Lord Salisbury seemed to

bring with them not only wealth and power, but security; and the country

settled down, with calm assurance, to the enjoyment of an established

grandeur. And--it was only natural--Victoria settled down too. For

she was a part of the establishment--an essential part as it seemed--a

fixture--a magnificent, immovable sideboard in the huge saloon of

state. Without her the heaped-up banquet of 1890 would have lost

its distinctive quality--the comfortable order of the substantial

unambiguous dishes, with their background of weighty glamour, half out

of sight.

Her own existence came to harmonise more and more with what was around

her. Gradually, imperceptibly, Albert receded. It was not that he was

forgotten--that would have been impossible--but that the void created

by his absence grew less agonising, and even, at last, less obvious.

At last Victoria found it possible to regret the bad weather without

immediately reflecting that her "dear Albert always said we could not

alter it, but must leave it as it was;" she could even enjoy a good

breakfast without considering how "dear Albert" would have liked the

buttered eggs. And, as that figure slowly faded, its place was taken,

inevitably, by Victoria's own. Her being, revolving for so many years

round an external object, now changed its motion and found its centre

in itself. It had to be so: her domestic position, the pressure of

her public work, her indomitable sense of duty, made anything else

impossible. Her egotism proclaimed its rights. Her age increased still

further the surrounding deference; and her force of character, emerging

at length in all its plenitude, imposed absolutely upon its environment

by the conscious effort of an imperious will.

Little by little it was noticed that the outward vestiges of Albert's

posthumous domination grew less complete. At Court the stringency of

mourning was relaxed. As the Queen drove through the Park in her open

carriage with her Highlanders behind her, nursery-maids canvassed

eagerly the growing patch of violet velvet in the bonnet with its jet

appurtenances on the small bowing head.

It was in her family that Victoria's ascendancy reached its highest

point. All her offspring were married; the number of her descendants

rapidly increased; there were many marriages in the third generation;

and no fewer than thirty-seven of her great-grandchildren were living at

the time of her death. A picture of the period displays the royal family

collected together in one of the great rooms at Windsor--a crowded

company of more than fifty persons, with the imperial matriarch in

their midst. Over them all she ruled with a most potent sway. The small

concerns of the youngest aroused her passionate interest; and the oldest

she treated as if they were children still. The Prince of Wales, in

particular, stood in tremendous awe of his mother. She had steadily

refused to allow him the slightest participation in the business of

government; and he had occupied himself in other ways. Nor could it

be denied that he enjoyed himself--out of her sight; but, in that

redoubtable presence, his abounding manhood suffered a miserable

eclipse. Once, at Osborne, when, owing to no fault of his, he was too

late for a dinner party, he was observed standing behind a pillar and

wiping the sweat from his forehead, trying to nerve himself to go up to

the Queen. When at last he did so, she gave him a stiff nod, whereupon

he vanished immediately behind another pillar, and remained there until

the party broke up. At the time of this incident the Prince of Wales was

over fifty years of age.

It was inevitable that the Queen's domestic activities should

occasionally trench upon the domain of high diplomacy; and this was

especially the case when the interests of her eldest daughter, the

Crown Princess of Prussia, were at stake. The Crown Prince held liberal

opinions; he was much influenced by his wife; and both were detested by

Bismarck, who declared with scurrilous emphasis that the Englishwoman

and her mother were a menace to the Prussian State. The feud was still

further intensified when, on the death of the old Emperor (1888), the

Crown Prince succeeded to the throne. A family entanglement brought on

a violent crisis. One of the daughters of the new Empress had become

betrothed to Prince Alexander of Battenberg, who had lately been

ejected from the throne of Bulgaria owing to the hostility of the Tsar.

Victoria, as well as the Empress, highly approved of the match. Of the

two brothers of Prince Alexander, the elder had married another of her

grand-daughters, and the younger was the husband of her daughter, the

Princess Beatrice; she was devoted to the handsome young man; and she

was delighted by the prospect of the third brother--on the whole the

handsomest, she thought, of the three--also becoming a member of her

family. Unfortunately, however, Bismarck was opposed to the scheme.

He perceived that the marriage would endanger the friendship between

Germany and Russia, which was vital to his foreign policy, and he

announced that it must not take place. A fierce struggle between the

Empress and the Chancellor followed. Victoria, whose hatred of her

daughter's enemy was unbounded, came over to Charlottenburg to join in

the fray. Bismarck, over his pipe and lager, snorted out his alarm. The

Queen of England's object, he said, was clearly political--she wished to

estrange Germany and Russia--and very likely she would have her way. "In

family matters," he added, "she is not used to contradiction;" she would

"bring the parson with her in her travelling bag and the bridegroom in

her trunk, and the marriage would come off on the spot." But the man

of blood and iron was not to be thwarted so easily, and he asked for a

private interview with the Queen. The details of their conversation are

unknown; but it is certain that in the course of it Victoria was forced

to realise the meaning of resistance to that formidable personage, and

that she promised to use all her influence to prevent the marriage. The

engagement was broken off; and in the following year Prince Alexander of

Battenberg united himself to Fraulein Loisinger, an actress at the court

theatre of Darmstad.

But such painful incidents were rare. Victoria was growing very old;

with no Albert to guide her, with no Beaconsfield to enflame her, she

was willing enough to abandon the dangerous questions of diplomacy

to the wisdom of Lord Salisbury, and to concentrate her energies upon

objects which touched her more nearly and over which she could

exercise an undisputed control. Her home--her court--the monuments

at Balmoral--the livestock at Windsor--the organisation of her

engagements--the supervision of the multitudinous details of her daily

routine--such matters played now an even greater part in her existence

than before. Her life passed in an extraordinary exactitude. Every

moment of her day was mapped out beforehand; the succession of her

engagements was immutably fixed; the dates of her journeys--to Osborne,

to Balmoral, to the South of France, to Windsor, to London--were hardly

altered from year to year. She demanded from those who surrounded her

a rigid precision in details, and she was preternaturally quick in

detecting the slightest deviation from the rules which she had laid

down. Such was the irresistible potency of her personality, that

anything but the most implicit obedience to her wishes was felt to be

impossible; but sometimes somebody was unpunctual; and unpunctuality

was one of the most heinous of sins. Then her displeasure--her dreadful

displeasure--became all too visible. At such moments there seemed

nothing surprising in her having been the daughter of a martinet.

But these storms, unnerving as they were while they lasted, were quickly

over, and they grew more and more exceptional. With the return of

happiness a gentle benignity flowed from the aged Queen. Her smile, once

so rare a visitant to those saddened features, flitted over them with an

easy alacrity; the blue eyes beamed; the whole face, starting suddenly

from its pendulous expressionlessness, brightened and softened and cast

over those who watched it an unforgettable charm. For in her last years

there was a fascination in Victoria's amiability which had been lacking

even from the vivid impulse of her youth. Over all who approached

her--or very nearly all--she threw a peculiar spell. Her grandchildren

adored her; her ladies waited upon her with a reverential love. The

honour of serving her obliterated a thousand inconveniences--the

monotony of a court existence, the fatigue of standing, the necessity

for a superhuman attentiveness to the minutia: of time and space. As one

did one's wonderful duty one could forget that one's legs were aching

from the infinitude of the passages at Windsor, or that one's bare arms

were turning blue in the Balmoral cold.

What, above all, seemed to make such service delightful was the detailed

interest which the Queen took in the circumstances of those around

her. Her absorbing passion for the comfortable commonplaces, the small

crises, the recurrent sentimentalities, of domestic life constantly

demanded wider fields for its activity; the sphere of her own family,

vast as it was, was not enough; she became the eager confidante of

the household affairs of her ladies; her sympathies reached out to

the palace domestics; even the housemaids and scullions--so it

appeared--were the objects of her searching inquiries, and of her

heartfelt solicitude when their lovers were ordered to a foreign

station, or their aunts suffered from an attack of rheumatism which was

more than usually acute.

Nevertheless the due distinctions of rank were immaculately preserved.

The Queen's mere presence was enough to ensure that; but, in addition,

the dominion of court etiquette was paramount. For that elaborate code,

which had kept Lord Melbourne stiff upon the sofa and ranged the other

guests in silence about the round table according to the order of

precedence, was as punctiliously enforced as ever. Every evening after

dinner, the hearth-rug, sacred to royalty, loomed before the profane in

inaccessible glory, or, on one or two terrific occasions, actually lured

them magnetically forward to the very edge of the abyss. The Queen, at

the fitting moment, moved towards her guests; one after the other they

were led up to her; and, while dialogue followed dialogue in constraint

and embarrassment, the rest of the assembly stood still, without a word.

Only in one particular was the severity of the etiquette allowed to

lapse. Throughout the greater part of the reign the rule that ministers

must stand during their audiences with the Queen had been absolute. When

Lord Derby, the Prime Minister, had an audience of Her Majesty after

a serious illness, he mentioned it afterwards, as a proof of the royal

favour, that the Queen had remarked "How sorry she was she could not ask

him to be seated." Subsequently, Disraeli, after an attack of gout

and in a moment of extreme expansion on the part of Victoria, had

been offered a chair; but he had thought it wise humbly to decline the

privilege. In her later years, however, the Queen invariably asked Mr.

Gladstone and Lord Salisbury to sit down.

Sometimes the solemnity of the evening was diversified by a concert, an

opera, or even a play. One of the most marked indications of

Victoria's enfranchisement from the thraldom of widowhood had been

her resumption--after an interval of thirty years--of the custom of

commanding dramatic companies from London to perform before the Court at

Windsor. On such occasions her spirits rose high. She loved acting; she

loved a good plot; above all, she loved a farce. Engrossed by everything

that passed upon the stage she would follow, with childlike innocence,

the unwinding of the story; or she would assume an air of knowing

superiority and exclaim in triumph, "There! You didn't expect that, did

you?" when the denouement came. Her sense of humour was of a vigorous

though primitive kind. She had been one of the very few persons who had

always been able to appreciate the Prince Consort's jokes; and, when

those were cracked no more, she could still roar with laughter, in the

privacy of her household, over some small piece of fun--some oddity of

an ambassador, or some ignorant Minister's faux pas. When the jest grew

subtle she was less pleased; but, if it approached the confines of the

indecorous, the danger was serious. To take a liberty called down at

once Her Majesty's most crushing disapprobation; and to say something

improper was to take the greatest liberty of all. Then the royal

lips sank down at the corners, the royal eyes stared in astonished

protrusion, and in fact, the royal countenance became inauspicious in

the highest degree. The transgressor shuddered into silence, while the

awful "We are not amused" annihilated the dinner table. Afterwards,

in her private entourage, the Queen would observe that the person in

question was, she very much feared, "not discreet"; it was a verdict

from which there was no appeal.

In general, her aesthetic tastes had remained unchanged since the days

of Mendelssohn, Landseer, and Lablache. She still delighted in the

roulades of Italian opera; she still demanded a high standard in the

execution of a pianoforte duet. Her views on painting were decided;

Sir Edwin, she declared, was perfect; she was much impressed by Lord

Leighton's manners; and she profoundly distrusted Mr. Watts. From time

to time she ordered engraved portraits to be taken of members of

the royal family; on these occasions she would have the first proofs

submitted to her, and, having inspected them with minute particularity,

she would point out their mistakes to the artists, indicating at the

same time how they might be corrected. The artists invariably discovered

that Her Majesty's suggestions were of the highest value. In literature

her interests were more restricted. She was devoted to Lord Tennyson;

and, as the Prince Consort had admired George Eliot, she perused

"Middlemarch:" she was disappointed. There is reason to believe,

however, that the romances of another female writer, whose popularity

among the humbler classes of Her Majesty's subjects was at one time

enormous, secured, no less, the approval of Her Majesty. Otherwise she

did not read very much.

Once, however, the Queen's attention was drawn to a publication which it

was impossible for her to ignore. "The Greville Memoirs," filled with a

mass of historical information of extraordinary importance, but filled

also with descriptions, which were by no means flattering, of George

IV, William IV, and other royal persons, was brought out by Mr. Reeve.

Victoria read the book, and was appalled. It was, she declared, a

"dreadful and really scandalous book," and she could not say "how

HORRIFIED and INDIGNANT" she was at Greville's "indiscretion,

indelicacy, ingratitude towards friends, betrayal of confidence and

shameful disloyalty towards his Sovereign." She wrote to Disraeli to

tell him that in her opinion it was "VERY IMPORTANT that the book should

be severely censured and discredited." "The tone in which he speaks of

royalty," she added, "is unlike anything one sees in history even,

and is most reprehensible." Her anger was directed with almost equal

vehemence against Mr. Reeve for his having published "such an abominable

book," and she charged Sir Arthur Helps to convey to him her deep

displeasure. Mr. Reeve, however, was impenitent. When Sir Arthur told

him that, in the Queen's opinion, "the book degraded royalty," he

replied: "Not at all; it elevates it by the contrast it offers between

the present and the defunct state of affairs." But this adroit defence

failed to make any impression upon Victoria; and Mr. Reeve, when he

retired from the public service, did not receive the knighthood which

custom entitled him to expect. Perhaps if the Queen had known how many

caustic comments upon herself Mr. Reeve had quietly suppressed in the

published Memoirs, she would have been almost grateful to him; but, in

that case, what would she have said of Greville? Imagination boggles at

the thought. As for more modern essays upon the same topic, Her Majesty,

it is to be feared, would have characterised them as "not discreet."

But as a rule the leisure hours of that active life were occupied with

recreations of a less intangible quality than the study of literature or

the appreciation of art. Victoria was a woman not only of vast property

but of innumerable possessions. She had inherited an immense quantity

of furniture, of ornaments, of china, of plate, of valuable objects of

every kind; her purchases, throughout a long life, made a formidable

addition to these stores; and there flowed in upon her, besides, from

every quarter of the globe, a constant stream of gifts. Over this

enormous mass she exercised an unceasing and minute supervision, and the

arrangement and the contemplation of it, in all its details, filled her

with an intimate satisfaction. The collecting instinct has its roots in

the very depths of human nature; and, in the case of Victoria, it seemed

to owe its force to two of her dominating impulses--the intense sense,

which had always been hers, of her own personality, and the craving

which, growing with the years, had become in her old age almost an

obsession, for fixity, for solidity, for the setting up of palpable

barriers against the outrages of change and time. When she considered

the multitudinous objects which belonged to her, or, better still, when,

choosing out some section of them as the fancy took her, she actually

savoured the vivid richness of their individual qualities, she saw

herself deliciously reflected from a million facets, felt herself

magnified miraculously over a boundless area, and was well pleased.

That was just as it should be; but then came the dismaying

thought--everything slips away, crumbles, vanishes; Sevres

dinner-services get broken; even golden basins go unaccountably astray;

even one's self, with all the recollections and experiences that make

up one's being, fluctuates, perishes, dissolves... But no! It could

not, should not be so! There should be no changes and no losses! Nothing

should ever move--neither the past nor the present--and she herself

least of all! And so the tenacious woman, hoarding her valuables,

decreed their immortality with all the resolution of her soul. She would

not lose one memory or one pin.

She gave orders that nothing should be thrown away--and nothing was.

There, in drawer after drawer, in wardrobe after wardrobe, reposed the

dresses of seventy years. But not only the dresses--the furs and the

mantles and subsidiary frills and the muffs and the parasols and the

bonnets--all were ranged in chronological order, dated and complete. A

great cupboard was devoted to the dolls; in the china room at Windsor a

special table held the mugs of her childhood, and her children's mugs as

well. Mementoes of the past surrounded her in serried accumulations.

In every room the tables were powdered thick with the photographs of

relatives; their portraits, revealing them at all ages, covered the

walls; their figures, in solid marble, rose up from pedestals, or

gleamed from brackets in the form of gold and silver statuettes. The

dead, in every shape--in miniatures, in porcelain, in enormous life-size

oil-paintings--were perpetually about her. John Brown stood upon her

writing-table in solid gold. Her favourite horses and dogs, endowed with

a new durability, crowded round her footsteps. Sharp, in silver gilt,

dominated the dinner table; Boy and Boz lay together among unfading

flowers, in bronze. And it was not enough that each particle of the

past should be given the stability of metal or of marble: the whole

collection, in its arrangement, no less than its entity, should be

immutably fixed. There might be additions, but there might never be

alterations. No chintz might change, no carpet, no curtain, be replaced

by another; or, if long use at last made it necessary, the stuffs and

the patterns must be so identically reproduced that the keenest eye

might not detect the difference. No new picture could be hung upon the

walls at Windsor, for those already there had been put in their places

by Albert, whose decisions were eternal. So, indeed, were Victoria's.

To ensure that they should be the aid of the camera was called in. Every

single article in the Queen's possession was photographed from several

points of view. These photographs were submitted to Her Majesty, and

when, after careful inspection, she had approved of them, they were

placed in a series of albums, richly bound. Then, opposite each

photograph, an entry was made, indicating the number of the article, the

number of the room in which it was kept, its exact position in the room

and all its principal characteristics. The fate of every object which

had undergone this process was henceforth irrevocably sealed. The

whole multitude, once and for all, took up its steadfast station. And

Victoria, with a gigantic volume or two of the endless catalogue always

beside her, to look through, to ponder upon, to expatiate over, could

feel, with a double contentment, that the transitoriness of this world

had been arrested by the amplitude of her might.

Thus the collection, ever multiplying, ever encroaching upon new fields

of consciousness, ever rooting itself more firmly in the depths of

instinct, became one of the dominating influences of that strange

existence. It was a collection not merely of things and of thoughts,

but of states of mind and ways of living as well. The celebration of

anniversaries grew to be an important branch of it--of birthdays and

marriage days and death days, each of which demanded its appropriate

feeling, which, in its turn, must be itself expressed in an appropriate

outward form. And the form, of course--the ceremony of rejoicing

or lamentation--was stereotyped with the rest: it was part of the

collection. On a certain day, for instance, flowers must be strewn on

John Brown's monument at Balmoral; and the date of the yearly departure

for Scotland was fixed by that fact. Inevitably it was around the

central circumstance of death--death, the final witness to human

mutability--that these commemorative cravings clustered most thickly.

Might not even death itself be humbled, if one could recall enough--if

one asserted, with a sufficiently passionate and reiterated emphasis,

the eternity of love? Accordingly, every bed in which Victoria slept had

attached to it, at the back, on the right-hand side, above the pillow,

a photograph of the head and shoulders of Albert as he lay dead,

surmounted by a wreath of immortelles. At Balmoral, where memories came

crowding so closely, the solid signs of memory appeared in surprising

profusion. Obelisks, pyramids, tombs, statues, cairns, and seats of

inscribed granite, proclaimed Victoria's dedication to the dead. There,

twice a year, on the days that followed her arrival, a solemn

pilgrimage of inspection and meditation was performed. There, on August

26--Albert's birthday--at the foot of the bronze statue of him in

Highland dress, the Queen, her family, her Court, her servants, and her

tenantry, met together and in silence drank to the memory of the dead.

In England the tokens of remembrance pullulated hardly less. Not a

day passed without some addition to the multifold assemblage--a gold

statuette of Ross, the piper--a life-sized marble group of Victoria and

Albert, in medieval costume, inscribed upon the base with the words:

"Allured to brighter worlds and led the way-" a granite slab in the

shrubbery at Osborne, informing the visitor of "Waldmann: the very

favourite little dachshund of Queen Victoria; who brought him from

Baden, April 1872; died, July 11, 1881."

At Frogmore, the great mausoleum, perpetually enriched, was visited

almost daily by the Queen when the Court was at Windsor. But there was

another, a more secret and a hardly less holy shrine. The suite of rooms

which Albert had occupied in the Castle was kept for ever shut away

from the eyes of any save the most privileged. Within those precincts

everything remained as it had been at the Prince's death; but the

mysterious preoccupation of Victoria had commanded that her husband's

clothing should be laid afresh, each evening, upon the bed, and that,

each evening, the water should be set ready in the basin, as if he were

still alive; and this incredible rite was performed with scrupulous

regularity for nearly forty years.

Such was the inner worship; and still the flesh obeyed the spirit; still

the daily hours of labour proclaimed Victoria's consecration to duty

and to the ideal of the dead. Yet, with the years, the sense of

self-sacrifice faded; the natural energies of that ardent being

discharged themselves with satisfaction into the channel of public work;

the love of business which, from her girlhood, had been strong within

her, reasserted itself in all its vigour, and, in her old age, to

have been cut off from her papers and her boxes would have been, not a

relief, but an agony to Victoria. Thus, though toiling Ministers might

sigh and suffer, the whole process of government continued, till the

very end, to pass before her. Nor was that all; ancient precedent

had made the validity of an enormous number of official transactions

dependent upon the application of the royal sign-manual; and a great

proportion of the Queen's working hours was spent in this mechanical

task. Nor did she show any desire to diminish it. On the contrary, she

voluntarily resumed the duty of signing commissions in the army, from

which she had been set free by Act of Parliament, and from which,

during the years of middle life, she had abstained. In no case would she

countenance the proposal that she should use a stamp. But, at last, when

the increasing pressure of business made the delays of the antiquated

system intolerable, she consented that, for certain classes of

documents, her oral sanction should be sufficient. Each paper was read

aloud to her, and she said at the end "Approved." Often, for hours at a

time, she would sit, with Albert's bust in front of her, while the word

"Approved" issued at intervals from her lips. The word came forth with

a majestic sonority; for her voice now--how changed from the silvery

treble of her girlhood--was a contralto, full and strong.

IV

The final years were years of apotheosis. In the dazzled imagination

of her subjects Victoria soared aloft towards the regions of divinity

through a nimbus of purest glory. Criticism fell dumb; deficiencies

which, twenty years earlier, would have been universally admitted, were

now as universally ignored. That the nation's idol was a very incomplete

representative of the nation was a circumstance that was hardly noticed,

and yet it was conspicuously true. For the vast changes which, out of

the England of 1837, had produced the England of 1897, seemed scarcely

to have touched the Queen. The immense industrial development of the

period, the significance of which had been so thoroughly understood

by Albert, meant little indeed to Victoria. The amazing scientific

movement, which Albert had appreciated no less, left Victoria perfectly

cold. Her conception of the universe, and of man's place in it, and of

the stupendous problems of nature and philosophy remained, throughout

her life, entirely unchanged. Her religion was the religion which she

had learnt from the Baroness Lehzen and the Duchess of Kent. Here, too,

it might have been supposed that Albert's views might have influenced

her. For Albert, in matters of religion, was advanced. Disbelieving

altogether in evil spirits, he had had his doubts about the miracle

of the Gaderene Swine. Stockmar, even, had thrown out, in a remarkable

memorandum on the education of the Prince of Wales, the suggestion that

while the child "must unquestionably be brought up in the creed of the

Church of England," it might nevertheless be in accordance with

the spirit of the times to exclude from his religious training the

inculcation of a belief in "the supernatural doctrines of Christianity."

This, however, would have been going too far; and all the royal children

were brought up in complete orthodoxy. Anything else would have grieved

Victoria, though her own conceptions of the orthodox were not very

precise. But her nature, in which imagination and subtlety held so small

a place, made her instinctively recoil from the intricate ecstasies

of High Anglicanism; and she seemed to feel most at home in the simple

faith of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland. This was what might have

been expected; for Lehzen was the daughter of a Lutheran pastor, and the

Lutherans and the Presbyterians have much in common. For many years Dr.

Norman Macleod, an innocent Scotch minister, was her principal spiritual

adviser; and, when he was taken from her, she drew much comfort from

quiet chats about life and death with the cottagers at Balmoral.

Her piety, absolutely genuine, found what it wanted in the sober

exhortations of old John Grant and the devout saws of Mrs. P.

Farquharson. They possessed the qualities, which, as a child of

fourteen, she had so sincerely admired in the Bishop of Chester's

"Exposition of the Gospel of St. Matthew;" they were "just plain and

comprehensible and full of truth and good feeling." The Queen, who gave

her name to the Age of Mill and of Darwin, never got any further than

that.

From the social movements of her time Victoria was equally remote.

Towards the smallest no less than towards the greatest changes she

remained inflexible. During her youth and middle age smoking had been

forbidden in polite society, and so long as she lived she would not

withdraw her anathema against it. Kings might protest; bishops and

ambassadors, invited to Windsor, might be reduced, in the privacy of

their bedrooms, to lie full-length upon the floor and smoke up the

chimney--the interdict continued! It might have been supposed that a

female sovereign would have lent her countenance to one of the most

vital of all the reforms to which her epoch gave birth--the emancipation

of women--but, on the contrary, the mere mention of such a proposal sent

the blood rushing to her head. In 1870, her eye having fallen upon the

report of a meeting in favour of Women's Suffrage, she wrote to Mr.

Martin in royal rage--"The Queen is most anxious to enlist everyone

who can speak or write to join in checking this mad, wicked folly of

'Woman's Rights,' with all its attendant horrors, on which her poor

feeble sex is bent, forgetting every sense of womanly feeling and

propriety. Lady--ought to get a GOOD WHIPPING. It is a subject which

makes the Queen so furious that she cannot contain herself. God

created men and women different--then let them remain each in their own

position. Tennyson has some beautiful lines on the difference of men and

women in 'The Princess.' Woman would become the most hateful, heartless,

and disgusting of human beings were she allowed to unsex herself; and

where would be the protection which man was intended to give the weaker

sex? The Queen is sure that Mrs. Martin agrees with her." The argument

was irrefutable; Mrs. Martin agreed; and yet the canker spread.

In another direction Victoria's comprehension of the spirit of her age

has been constantly asserted. It was for long the custom for courtly

historians and polite politicians to compliment the Queen upon the

correctness of her attitude towards the Constitution. But such praises

seem hardly to be justified by the facts. In her later years Victoria

more than once alluded with regret to her conduct during the Bedchamber

crisis, and let it be understood that she had grown wiser since. Yet

in truth it is difficult to trace any fundamental change either in her

theory or her practice in constitutional matters throughout her life.

The same despotic and personal spirit which led her to break off the

negotiations with Peel is equally visible in her animosity towards

Palmerston, in her threats of abdication to Disraeli, and in her desire

to prosecute the Duke of Westminster for attending a meeting upon

Bulgarian atrocities. The complex and delicate principles of the

Constitution cannot be said to have come within the compass of her

mental faculties; and in the actual developments which it underwent

during her reign she played a passive part. From 1840 to 1861 the

power of the Crown steadily increased in England; from 1861 to 1901 it

steadily declined. The first process was due to the influence of the

Prince Consort, the second to that of a series of great Ministers.

During the first Victoria was in effect a mere accessory; during the

second the threads of power, which Albert had so laboriously collected,

inevitably fell from her hands into the vigorous grasp of Mr. Gladstone,

Lord Beaconsfield, and Lord Salisbury. Perhaps, absorbed as she was in

routine, and difficult as she found it to distinguish at all clearly

between the trivial and the essential, she was only dimly aware of what

was happening. Yet, at the end of her reign, the Crown was weaker than

at any other time in English history. Paradoxically enough, Victoria

received the highest eulogiums for assenting to a political evolution,

which, had she completely realised its import, would have filled her

with supreme displeasure.

Nevertheless it must not be supposed that she was a second George III.

Her desire to impose her will, vehement as it was, and unlimited by any

principle, was yet checked by a certain shrewdness. She might oppose

her Ministers with extraordinary violence, she might remain utterly

impervious to arguments and supplications; the pertinacity of her

resolution might seem to be unconquerable; but, at the very last moment

of all, her obstinacy would give way. Her innate respect and capacity

for business, and perhaps, too, the memory of Albert's scrupulous

avoidance of extreme courses, prevented her from ever entering an

impasse. By instinct she understood when the facts were too much for

her, and to them she invariably yielded. After all, what else could she

do?

But if, in all these ways, the Queen and her epoch were profoundly

separated, the points of contact between them also were not few.

Victoria understood very well the meaning and the attractions of power

and property, and in such learning the English nation, too, had grown

to be more and more proficient. During the last fifteen years of the

reign--for the short Liberal Administration of 1892 was a mere interlude

imperialism was the dominant creed of the country. It was Victoria's

as well. In this direction, if in no other, she had allowed her mind to

develop. Under Disraeli's tutelage the British Dominions over the seas

had come to mean much more to her than ever before, and, in particular,

she had grown enamoured of the East. The thought of India fascinated

her; she set to, and learnt a little Hindustani; she engaged some Indian

servants, who became her inseparable attendants, and one of whom, Munshi

Abdul Karim, eventually almost succeeded to the position which had

once been John Brown's. At the same time, the imperialist temper of the

nation invested her office with a new significance exactly harmonising

with her own inmost proclivities. The English polity was in the main

a common-sense structure, but there was always a corner in it where

common-sense could not enter--where, somehow or other, the ordinary

measurements were not applicable and the ordinary rules did not apply.

So our ancestors had laid it down, giving scope, in their wisdom, to

that mystical element which, as it seems, can never quite be eradicated

from the affairs of men. Naturally it was in the Crown that the

mysticism of the English polity was concentrated--the Crown, with its

venerable antiquity, its sacred associations, its imposing spectacular

array. But, for nearly two centuries, common-sense had been predominant

in the great building, and the little, unexplored, inexplicable corner

had attracted small attention. Then, with the rise of imperialism, there

was a change. For imperialism is a faith as well as a business; as

it grew, the mysticism in English public life grew with it; and

simultaneously a new importance began to attach to the Crown. The

need for a symbol--a symbol of England's might, of England's worth,

of England's extraordinary and mysterious destiny--became felt more

urgently than ever before. The Crown was that symbol: and the Crown

rested upon the head of Victoria. Thus it happened that while by the end

of the reign the power of the sovereign had appreciably diminished, the

prestige of the sovereign had enormously grown.

Yet this prestige was not merely the outcome of public changes; it was

an intensely personal matter, too. Victoria was the Queen of England,

the Empress of India, the quintessential pivot round which the whole

magnificent machine was revolving--but how much more besides! For one

thing, she was of a great age--an almost indispensable qualification for

popularity in England. She had given proof of one of the most admired

characteristics of the race--persistent vitality. She had reigned for

sixty years, and she was not out. And then, she was a character. The

outlines of her nature were firmly drawn, and, even through the mists

which envelop royalty, clearly visible. In the popular imagination her

familiar figure filled, with satisfying ease, a distinct and memorable

place. It was, besides, the kind of figure which naturally called forth

the admiring sympathy of the great majority of the nation. Goodness they

prized above every other human quality; and Victoria, who had said

that she would be good at the age of twelve, had kept her word. Duty,

conscience, morality--yes! in the light of those high beacons the

Queen had always lived. She had passed her days in work and not in

pleasure--in public responsibilities and family cares. The standard

of solid virtue which had been set up so long ago amid the domestic

happiness of Osborne had never been lowered for an instant. For more

than half a century no divorced lady had approached the precincts of the

Court. Victoria, indeed, in her enthusiasm for wifely fidelity, had laid

down a still stricter ordinance: she frowned severely upon any widow

who married again. Considering that she herself was the offspring of

a widow's second marriage, this prohibition might be regarded as an

eccentricity; but, no doubt, it was an eccentricity on the right side.

The middle classes, firm in the triple brass of their respectability,

rejoiced with a special joy over the most respectable of Queens. They

almost claimed her, indeed, as one of themselves; but this would have

been an exaggeration. For, though many of her characteristics were most

often found among the middle classes, in other respects--in her manners,

for instance--Victoria was decidedly aristocratic. And, in one important

particular, she was neither aristocratic nor middle-class: her attitude

toward herself was simply regal.

Such qualities were obvious and important; but, in the impact of a

personality, it is something deeper, something fundamental and common to

all its qualities, that really tells. In Victoria, it is easy to discern

the nature of this underlying element: it was a peculiar sincerity. Her

truthfulness, her single-mindedness, the vividness of her emotions and

her unrestrained expression of them, were the varied forms which this

central characteristic assumed. It was her sincerity which gave her at

once her impressiveness, her charm, and her absurdity. She moved

through life with the imposing certitude of one to whom concealment was

impossible--either towards her surroundings or towards herself. There

she was, all of her--the Queen of England, complete and obvious; the

world might take her or leave her; she had nothing more to show, or to

explain, or to modify; and, with her peerless carriage, she swept along

her path. And not only was concealment out of the question; reticence,

reserve, even dignity itself, as it sometimes seemed, might be very well

dispensed with. As Lady Lyttelton said: "There is a transparency in her

truth that is very striking--not a shade of exaggeration in describing

feelings or facts; like very few other people I ever knew. Many may be

as true, but I think it goes often along with some reserve. She talks

all out; just as it is, no more and no less." She talked all out; and

she wrote all out, too. Her letters, in the surprising jet of their

expression, remind one of a turned-on tap. What is within pours forth

in an immediate, spontaneous rush. Her utterly unliterary style has at

least the merit of being a vehicle exactly suited to her thoughts and

feelings; and even the platitude of her phraseology carries with it a

curiously personal flavour. Undoubtedly it was through her writings that

she touched the heart of the public. Not only in her "Highland Journals"

where the mild chronicle of her private proceedings was laid bare

without a trace either of affectation or of embarrassment, but also in

those remarkable messages to the nation which, from time to time, she

published in the newspapers, her people found her very close to them

indeed. They felt instinctively Victoria's irresistible sincerity, and

they responded. And in truth it was an endearing trait.

The personality and the position, too--the wonderful combination of

them--that, perhaps, was what was finally fascinating in the case. The

little old lady, with her white hair and her plain mourning clothes,

in her wheeled chair or her donkey-carriage--one saw her so; and

then--close behind--with their immediate suggestion of singularity,

of mystery, and of power--the Indian servants. That was the familiar

vision, and it was admirable; but, at chosen moments, it was right that

the widow of Windsor should step forth apparent Queen. The last and the

most glorious of such occasions was the Jubilee of 1897. Then, as

the splendid procession passed along, escorting Victoria through the

thronged re-echoing streets of London on her progress of thanksgiving

to St. Paul's Cathedral, the greatness of her realm and the adoration

of her subjects blazed out together. The tears welled to her eyes, and,

while the multitude roared round her, "How kind they are to me! How kind

they are!" she repeated over and over again. That night her message flew

over the Empire: "From my heart I thank my beloved people. May God bless

them!" The long journey was nearly done. But the traveller, who had

come so far, and through such strange experiences, moved on with the

old unfaltering step. The girl, the wife, the aged woman, were the same:

vitality, conscientiousness, pride, and simplicity were hers to the

latest hour.

CHAPTER X. THE END

The evening had been golden; but, after all, the day was to close in

cloud and tempest. Imperial needs, imperial ambitions, involved the

country in the South African War. There were checks, reverses, bloody

disasters; for a moment the nation was shaken, and the public distresses

were felt with intimate solicitude by the Queen. But her spirit was

high, and neither her courage nor her confidence wavered for a moment.

Throwing her self heart and soul into the struggle, she laboured with

redoubled vigour, interested herself in every detail of the hostilities,

and sought by every means in her power to render service to the national

cause. In April 1900, when she was in her eighty-first year, she made

the extraordinary decision to abandon her annual visit to the South of

France, and to go instead to Ireland, which had provided a particularly

large number of recruits to the armies in the field. She stayed for

three weeks in Dublin, driving through the streets, in spite of the

warnings of her advisers, without an armed escort; and the visit was

a complete success. But, in the course of it, she began, for the first

time, to show signs of the fatigue of age.

For the long strain and the unceasing anxiety, brought by the war, made

themselves felt at last. Endowed by nature with a robust constitution,

Victoria, though in periods of depression she had sometimes supposed

herself an invalid, had in reality throughout her life enjoyed

remarkably good health. In her old age, she had suffered from a

rheumatic stiffness of the joints, which had necessitated the use of a

stick, and, eventually, a wheeled chair; but no other ailments attacked

her, until, in 1898, her eyesight began to be affected by incipient

cataract. After that, she found reading more and more difficult, though

she could still sign her name, and even, with some difficulty, write

letters. In the summer of 1900, however, more serious symptoms appeared.

Her memory, in whose strength and precision she had so long prided

herself, now sometimes deserted her; there was a tendency towards

aphasia; and, while no specific disease declared itself, by the autumn

there were unmistakable signs of a general physical decay. Yet, even

in these last months, the strain of iron held firm. The daily

work continued; nay, it actually increased; for the Queen, with an

astonishing pertinacity, insisted upon communicating personally with

an ever-growing multitude of men and women who had suffered through the

war.

By the end of the year the last remains of her ebbing strength had

almost deserted her; and through the early days of the opening century

it was clear that her dwindling forces were only kept together by an

effort of will. On January 14, she had at Osborne an hour's interview

with Lord Roberts, who had returned victorious from South Africa a few

days before. She inquired with acute anxiety into all the details of the

war; she appeared to sustain the exertion successfully; but, when

the audience was over, there was a collapse. On the following day her

medical attendants recognised that her state was hopeless; and yet, for

two days more, the indomitable spirit fought on; for two days more she

discharged the duties of a Queen of England. But after that there was

an end of working; and then, and not till then, did the last optimism of

those about her break down. The brain was failing, and life was gently

slipping away. Her family gathered round her; for a little more she

lingered, speechless and apparently insensible; and, on January 22,

1901, she died.

When, two days previously, the news of the approaching end had been made

public, astonished grief had swept over the country. It appeared as if

some monstrous reversal of the course of nature was about to take place.

The vast majority of her subjects had never known a time when Queen

Victoria had not been reigning over them. She had become an indissoluble

part of their whole scheme of things, and that they were about to lose

her appeared a scarcely possible thought. She herself, as she lay

blind and silent, seemed to those who watched her to be divested of all

thinking--to have glided already, unawares, into oblivion. Yet, perhaps,

in the secret chambers of consciousness, she had her thoughts, too.

Perhaps her fading mind called up once more the shadows of the past to

float before it, and retraced, for the last time, the vanished visions

of that long history--passing back and back, through the cloud of years,