Читать книгу The Life and Times of Queen Victoria (Vol. 1-4) - Robert Thomas Wilson - Страница 11

Table of Contents

Growing Unpopularity of the Melbourne Administration—The Stockdale Case—Approaching Fall of the Government—Financial Embarrassments—Lord John Russell’s Proposal with Respect to the Corn Laws—Defeat of the Ministry—General Election, and Conservative Majority—Views of Prince Albert—Settlement of the “Bedchamber” Question—Wise Counsel of the Prince and Baron Stockmar—Visits of the Queen to Places of Interest—Troublesome Loyalty—Launch of the Trafalgar—The Melbourne Government and Free Trade—Speech from the Throne on the Meeting of the New Parliament—Vote of Want of Confidence in the Government—Resignation of Ministers—Final Years of Lord Melbourne—Formation and Chief Objects of Sir Robert Peel’s Administration—The High Church Movement in England—Disruption of the Church of Scotland—Lord Melbourne’s Opinion of Prince Albert—Sir Robert Peel and the Prince—Public Appearances of the Latter in Connection with Social and Artistic Questions—Birth and Christening of the Prince of Wales—Meeting of Parliament for the Session of 1842—Splendid Festivities at Court—Attempts of Francis and Bean to Shoot her Majesty.

As the year 1841 advanced, the Melbourne Ministry, which had never occupied a strong position since the General Election of 1837, grew weaker and weaker. In many respects, the Government was a good one. It carried through some excellent reforms, and was for the most part animated by a liberal and benevolent spirit. Yet its administrative powers were faulty; it was repeatedly falling into awkward blunders; it was afflicted with continual deficits; it was unpopular, and it contrived to draw the Queen herself into the orbit of its own disfavour. Education was advanced, though in a very hesitating and tentative fashion; colonisation was promoted; some of the most elementary rights of married women were recognised by statute; the poor climbing-boys, as we have seen, were protected from the cruelty of being compelled to ascend chimneys; the Postal system was reformed; many other things were at least attempted. But people could not forget the mistakes and shortcomings of the Ministry, nor regard with enthusiasm a body of statesmen who often moved with reluctance, and sometimes moved not at all; who had a certain facility in offending others, and yet depended for their official existence on the precarious support of their opponents. As if to make matters worse, they got into a controversy with the law-courts, in consequence of an action brought by a publisher named Stockdale against the Messrs. Hansard, printers to the House of Commons, for issuing, in 1836, certain Reports on Prisons, one of which contained serious reflections on the plaintiff. The Court of Queen’s Bench gave judgment in favour of Stockdale; the Government and the House of Commons championed the printers; a good deal of unseemly action and counteraction took place; and at length, in the spring of 1840, the matter was settled by a Bill affording summary protection to all persons employed in the publication of Parliamentary papers. In their main contention, Ministers were probably right; but they conducted the dispute in a rather undignified manner, and the feeling of the public generally was very much against them.

The successes of the British fleet in the East, during the autumn of 1840, did little to restore the credit of the Melbourne Administration. In 1841, everything prefigured an approaching change; yet the Government clung to office with the utmost tenacity. Parliament was opened by the Queen in person on the 26th of January; and in a little while the Budget of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Baring, disclosed a deficit of nearly two millions. It was thought to fill the gap by alterations in the timber and sugar duties (from which Mr. Baring hoped to obtain an increase of £1,300,000), and by whatever might accrue from Lord John Russell’s contemplated modification of the Corn Laws. The House of Commons, however, rejected the proposals of the Finance Minister by a majority of 36 in a House of 598 members. Most people thought that after this the Government must needs resign. But, Lord John Russell having already given notice of his intention to move for a committee of the whole House, to consider the state of legislation with regard to the trade in corn, it was determined to try this last chance. The plan was to propose a fixed duty of eight shillings a quarter on wheat, and at the same time to diminish the rates on rye, barley, and oats. But the patience of the Opposition was now worn out. On the 24th of May, Sir Robert Peel gave notice of a motion to the effect that the Government had lost the confidence of the House of Commons, and that their continuance in office under such circumstances was at variance with the spirit of the Constitution. This was brought forward on the 27th of the same month; and the debates, after lasting several nights, came to a conclusion on the 4th of June, when 312 voted in favour of the motion, and 311 against. Government was thus left in a minority of one, and Lord John Russell promised to state, at the next meeting of Parliament, what course her Majesty’s Ministers were prepared to adopt. In the meanwhile, he intimated the withdrawal of his motion on the subject of the Corn Laws. On the 7th of June, he announced the intention of the Ministry to advise the dissolution of Parliament. The General Election took place during the summer, and the Conservatives obtained a large majority.

Lord Melbourne had long foreseen the ruin of the Ministry, and probably he secretly rejoiced at his approaching release from a task which had manifestly become hopeless. Before Baron Stockmar again left England, in the early part of 1841, the Premier told that distinguished German that his Cabinet was exposed to all sorts of dangers, and that he saw no guarantee for its stability. He conversed much with Prince Albert, and was most anxious that the Queen should communicate to his Royal Highness everything connected with public affairs. Writing to his father, in April, 1841, the Prince observes:—“I study the politics of the day with great industry. I speak quite openly with the Ministers on all subjects, so as to gain information, and I endeavour quietly to be of as much use to Victoria in her position as I can.” He saw that Sir Robert Peel would soon be again called upon to form a Ministry; he knew that an unpleasant incident had occurred on a similar occasion in 1839; and he felt that the recurrence of any such catastrophe should by all means be avoided. There must be no second collision between the sovereign and a leading statesman on a matter so unimportant from one point of view, yet so important from another, as the position of a few Bedchamber women. Prince Albert therefore brought the subject under the notice of Lord Melbourne, and remarked that he was naturally in a state of some uneasiness at the probable course of events; that his sole anxiety was that the Queen should act constitutionally, and with more general applause than on the previous occasion; that it was his duty, and Lord Melbourne’s also, to prepare her Majesty for possible eventualities; and that an agreement ought to be arrived at, as to what she should do under the circumstances.12 The Prime Minister assented to these views, and it was settled that, should there be a change of Ministry, the Queen would arrange that those of her ladies should retire of their own accord whose removal might be requested by the in-coming Cabinet, on account of their relationship to leaders of the Whig party. It was the view of Prince Albert, and also of Lord Melbourne, that Sir Robert Peel should be previously consulted. Negotiations were accordingly opened with that statesman, through the medium of the Prince’s secretary, Mr. Anson; and when Sir Robert accepted office soon afterwards, the Duchesses of Bedford and Sutherland, and Lady Normanby, relinquished their posts.13

The time was one of great trial for the Queen; but she had now always at her side an adviser of much discrimination, of excellent sense, and of the highest honour. “Albert,” wrote her Majesty, about this period, to her uncle, the King of the Belgians, “is indeed a great comfort to me. He takes the greatest, possible interest in what goes on, feeling with me and for me, and yet abstaining

HATFIELD HOUSE.

as he ought, from biassing me either way, though we talk much on the subject, and his judgment is, as you say, good and calm.” The Prince, in his turn, had an invaluable guide in Baron Stockmar, who frequently corresponded with him. In a letter written from Coburg on the 18th of May, 1841, the Baron says:—“If things come to a change of Ministry, then the great axiom, irrefragably one and the same for all Ministries, is this, namely, the Crown supports frankly, honourably, and with all its might, the Ministry of the time, whatever it be, so long as it commands a majority, and governs with integrity for the welfare and advancement of the country. A king who, as a Constitutional king, either cannot or will not carry this maxim into practice, deliberately descends from the lofty pedestal on which the Constitution has placed him to the lower one of a mere party chief. Be you, therefore, the Constitutional genius of the Queen. Do not content yourself with merely whispering this maxim in her ear when circumstances serve, but strive also to carry it out into practice, at the right time, and by the worthiest means.”

THE QUEEN AT THE LAUNCH OF THE “TRAFALGAR.”

While awaiting the political crisis which every one saw could not be long in coming, the Queen and Prince Albert made several interesting excursions to various places in the country, such as Nuneham, Oxford, Woburn Abbey, Panshanger, Brocket Hall (the seat of Lord Melbourne), and Hatfield. On these occasions, the Royal party were very well received by the country people, though the Queen, in her “Journal,” rather complains of the crowding and pressing, and of the dust raised by the mounted farmers who, in their well-meant but somewhat inconvenient loyalty, furnished supplementary escorts. Englishmen, of course, are not to expect the privileges of a more favoured race, and southern roads are naturally more dusty than northern moorlands. But her Majesty was not much offended, and speaks of the people as “good” and “loyal,” though, it would seem, a little troublesome. Among the places visited was the seat of the Duke of Devonshire at Chiswick; and on the 21st of June the Queen and Prince Albert went to see the Trafalgar launched at Woolwich. At the request of her Majesty, the vessel was named by Lady Bridport, a niece of Lord Nelson, and the wine used was a portion of that taken from the great Admiral’s flag-ship, Victory, after the battle of Trafalgar. Out of the five hundred people on board at the time of the launch, no fewer than one hundred had taken part in the ever-memorable action, and the scene altogether was of the most impressive kind. In a letter to his father, written on the following day, Prince Albert said that this was the most imposing sight he could remember. There were about five hundred thousand people present, the Thames being covered for miles with ships, steamers, barges, and boats.

The Melbourne Ministry, while struggling for existence to the very last, had contrived to offend both parties in the State by its half-heartedness. The lowering of the duties on cereals was to some extent a concession to the Free Trade party; but it did not go far enough to satisfy them, while at the same time it alarmed the agricultural interest. On the whole, it appeared as if the Government were gradually abandoning the Protective system, although, no farther back than 1839, Lord Melbourne had declared in the House of Lords that “the repeal of the Corn Laws would be the most insane proposition that ever entered the human head.” Even Lord John Russell, who was much more a reformer than his chief, had very recently spoken of Free Trade in anything but respectful terms. Indeed, the Ministerial Whigs generally were disinclined to adopt the opinions of Mr. Villiers and Mr. Cobden; yet, in the early summer of 1841, they showed a remarkable tendency to advance in that direction. In the debate on the Sugar Duties, Lord Palmerston, referring to what were now considered the necessary measures for relieving British trade from the encumbrances which had hampered it, observed, in a spirit of political prophecy:—“I will venture to predict that, although our opponents may resist those measures to-night, for the sake of obtaining a majority in the division, yet, if they should come into office, those are the measures which a just regard for the finances and commerce of the country will compel them to propose.” All this was a movement in the right direction; yet people would not believe in its sincerity. They said it was only a trick to obtain votes, and to stave off a little while longer the inevitable downfall. Probably they were right. At any rate, their views prevailed at the General Election.

On the 15th of July, about the close of the Elections, Lord Melbourne reported to the Queen that the Conservatives would have a majority of seventy. In point of fact, it amounted to seventy-six, and even Lord John Russell preserved his seat for the City of London by so bare a success that, of the four members, he obtained the smallest number of votes, and narrowly escaped defeat. On the meeting of the new Parliament, which was on the 24th of August, the Royal Speech (read by Commission) contained the following significant passage:—“Her Majesty is desirous that you should consider the laws which regulate the trade in corn. It will be for you to determine whether these laws do not aggravate the natural fluctuation of supply; whether they do not embarrass trade, derange the currency, and, by their operation, diminish the comfort and increase the privation of the great body of the community.” Amendments to the Address, however, were carried in both Houses by large majorities. These amendments pointed to the continued excess of expenditure over income, and declared that nothing could be done while the Government did not possess the confidence of the House or of the country. The adoption of the amendments could, of course, produce only one result. Everybody knew that the fate of the Melbourne Administration would be sealed as soon as Parliament met, and, now that an adverse vote had been carried, nothing remained but to resign. In her reply to the Address, the Queen expressed satisfaction at the spirit in which Parliament proposed to deliberate on the matters she had recommended to them, and said in conclusion:—“Ever anxious to listen to the advice of my Parliament, I will take immediate measures for the formation of a new Administration.” On the night of the day when this message was sent to Parliament, the resignation of Ministers was announced to both Houses. Three days later—namely, on the 2nd of September—the Queen spent her last evening with the ladies of the Household who, by a political necessity, were now forced to retire. The dinner was a sad and silent one, and it is reported that tears were shed. Her Majesty had contracted a sincere friendship for these ladies; through all the years of her reign she had leant for support on the Ministers to whom they were related; and it was natural, even commendable, that deep regret should be both felt and shown. On the other hand, it was impossible for Sir Robert Peel to carry on his Government with such an adverse influence at head-quarters; and personal considerations were forced to give way before others of greater importance.

After his resignation of office in the late summer of 1841, Lord Melbourne disappears almost entirely from the history and politics of England. He had always been a somewhat indolent man, or at any rate a man with no devouring passion for work, no insatiable ambition of towering above his fellow-men. Moreover, he was now getting elderly, and there had been much in the last few years to make him weary of political distinction. Having ceased to be a Minister of the Crown, he turned his position as a member of the House of Lords to but little account. Casting the load of politics from his shoulders, for which, in

SIR ROBERT PEEL.

spite of his long official experience, he seems never to have had any warm regard, he passed the remainder of his days as a sort of recluse, fond of literature, and disposed to fleet away the time in studies which were elegant rather than profound. He had long been a widower; his only child, a son, had some years before died unmarried at the early age of twenty-nine; and the broken statesman had now few companions of a very intimate character. Whether his latter years were as lonely as some have represented, may be doubtful; but it is too likely that they were not cheered by the highest or the best kind of social intercourse. He died on the 24th of November, 1848, a little under seventy years of age; and the title soon afterwards became extinct. Whatever his faults, it is generally acknowledged that Lord Melbourne had many amiable qualities. But his position in the history of England, though in some respects interesting, can never be regarded as illustrious.

In the new Administration, Sir Robert Peel was First Lord of the Treasury, Lord Lyndhurst Lord High Chancellor, Sir James Graham Home Secretary, Mr. Goulburn Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Earl of Aberdeen Foreign Secretary, Lord Stanley Secretary for the Colonies, Sir Henry Hardinge Secretary

MAGDALEN COLLEGE, OXFORD, FROM THE CHERWELL.

at War, Lord Ellenborough President of the Board of Control, and the Duke of Wellington leader of the House of Lords, without office. These were the principal appointments, and they constituted a Government of considerable ability. The chief strength of the new Cabinet, however, lay in Sir Robert Peel himself. During his former short-lived Government, in 1834-5, he had combined the functions of First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer. It was hoped that this arrangement would now be repeated; but the inferior office, as we have seen, was conferred on Mr. Goulburn. Still, it was well known that Peel would be the directing financial genius of the Administration. His abilities as a financier were generally admitted, and have probably never been surpassed. If the country was to be dragged out of the abyss of its ever-increasing embarrassments, Peel was the man most likely to perform the feat. But the deficit was alarming, and, shortly after the reassembling of Parliament, the Chancellor of the Exchequer said he must ask for a vote of £2,500,000, adding that he would in time state how he proposed to meet the existing deficiency. In the meanwhile, the distress of the working classes was becoming every day more intense, and in the manufacturing districts great dissatisfaction was expressed that Sir Robert Peel not only refused to adopt Free Trade in its integrity, but even repudiated Lord John Russell’s project for a small fixed duty upon corn. Peel favoured what was known in those days as the Sliding Scale, by which foreign wheat was allowed to be imported at a variable duty,—greater when the price of home-grown wheat was low, and lower when the price was high. The truth is that neither the Whigs nor the Tories had made up their minds to accept the principles of Free Trade, while both sought to postpone the threatened day by contrivances more or less objectionable, and more or less futile. But the General Election had returned to Parliament a man who in the course of a few years was to carry the Free Trade banner triumphantly on to the Treasury benches themselves. Richard Cobden now sat for the first time in Parliament, and his “unadorned eloquence,” as Peel afterwards called it, was soon to produce an immense effect upon the minds of those who heard him.

Among the many sources of agitation existing at that time, none was more remarkable, or in some respects more important, than the High Church movement, which had originated several years before, but which in 1841 was beginning to assume grave proportions. This turmoil of the religious mind had first shown itself in the University of Oxford towards the latter end of the reign of George IV. A number of enthusiastic young students—men of great mental power, and of unquestionable sincerity—began to be dissatisfied with the position, doctrine, and ceremonial of the Church for which they were being prepared, or which they had already entered. They considered that that Church had abnegated some of its most valuable functions; that it was lax in its ideas, somnolent in its teaching, forgetful of tradition, slovenly in its ritual, and indifferent to its authoritative powers. There had in truth been a good deal of dull and formal worldly-mindedness amongst the clergy for the last hundred years; but it must not be forgotten that this period of repose had had inestimable advantages in the softening of dogma, the development of toleration, and the growth of independent thought. To the Oxford ecclesiologists, however, these very circumstances were amongst the heaviest indictments which they brought against the Church as it was then constituted. They had grand visions of Apostolical succession, and certainly suggested, if they did not precisely state, that no one would be entitled to differ from the Church, if the Church were only reformed according to their ideas. Curious inquirers trace back the beginning of this movement to the lectures of Bishop Lloyd on the Prayer Book and the Council of Trent, which were delivered when he was Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford, about 1823. But, whatever impulse he may have given to subsequent speculations, Dr. Lloyd does not appear among the leaders of the great movement which afterwards shook the religious world of England to its centre. Those leaders were the Rev. John Keble, author of “The Christian Year,” and Fellow of Oriel; the Rev. J. H. Newman (now Cardinal Newman); the Rev. Richard Hurrell Froude (who, with Newman, was also a Fellow of Oriel); the Rev. E. B. Pusey, Regius Professor of Hebrew, and Canon of Christchurch; and the Rev. Isaac Williams, Fellow of Trinity, and author of “The Cathedral, and Other Poems.” Cambridge contributed the services of the Rev. Hugh Rose; but, on the whole, the sister University was little affected by the new ideas.

The founders of the modern High Church were not long in using the press as the most effectual method of propagating their opinions. They issued a series of papers called “Tracts for the Times,” of which ninety numbers were published between the years 1833 and 1841; and articles to the same effect were also published in the British Critic. These manifestoes produced an extraordinary effect on a large portion of the clergy, and a certain number of the laity; but at the same time they aroused the bitterest opposition amongst numerous classes of churchmen and churchgoers. It was alleged that some of the most distinctive doctrines of the Romish Church were ostentatiously paraded by the reformers as irrefragable and indispensable doctrines of the English Church; though, in some instances at least, these doctrines might be fairly inferred from the Articles and the Prayer Book. What perhaps gave more offence than anything else was the scorn and hatred with which the Tractarians, as they were soon called, repudiated the word “Protestant,” as if it necessarily involved the most detestable of heresies. They called themselves “Anglicans,” and would admit no other description. The most bigoted of Romish divines could hardly have regarded Luther with greater dislike than was manifested by the more extreme members of the school. The days of the Reformation were stigmatised by High Church enthusiasts as days of degradation and wickedness, and every form of Dissent was an invention of the devil. All these vagaries induced many persons, who argued rather through the medium of their alarm and anger than by means of their reason, to believe that the Tractarians were consciously and designedly preparing the way for a return to Roman Catholicism. With some, indeed—notably with Mr. J. H. Newman—this was the actual result of their speculations. But, as a body, the High Churchmen had no such intention. They had not the slightest wish to subject their Church to the orders of an Italian priest holding his court at Rome. What they really desired was to subject the whole of England—the State as well as the individual—to their conceptions of ecclesiastical predominance.

Most of the younger clergymen fell in with the Tractarian movement, as young men are generally disposed to fall in with anything new. A spirit of revivalism spread over the land. The writings of the Fathers, the ancient liturgies of the early Christian Church, the history and traditions of the Church in all ages, the lives of saints, the mediæval books of devotion and morals—all

JOHN KEBLE.

these were diligently disinterred from dusty shelves where they had long slumbered, and studied in the belief that they would shed a new and divine light on modern troubles and perplexities. Gothic architecture and art, of a purer type than had been known for nearly five hundred years, were cultivated as a means of influencing the public mind in favour of the strictest ecclesiasticism. Symbolical forms were interpreted in a deeply mystical sense, and gradually the conceptions of the reformers began to find their way, not merely into the churches, but into general literature, especially into poetry of a tender and emotional order. Then arose the battle of surplices, intonings, candles, and altars, which at first shocked, and afterwards exasperated, the average Englishman. It must be admitted, however, that the arguments of the Tractarians had sometimes an apparent cogency, which produced a great effect on such as were already half-disposed to be convinced. They urged with no little plausibility that the subjection of Church doctrine to the decision of a Lord Chancellor who might be a free-thinker, or a man of questionable life, was an absurdity and a scandal. But this was simply an argument against the existence of a State Church, and in that sense it was not put forth. If the Church is united with the State, it must be either as master or servant. To adopt the homely phrase of Dogberry, “An

JOHN HENRY NEWMAN.

two men ride of a horse, one must ride behind;” and it is in the highest degree improbable that Englishmen will ever again consent to “ride behind” any ecclesiastical corporation in the world. Still, we may grant this truth without denying the earnestness, devotion, and moral purity of the Tractarians—qualities which have borne good fruit, and which will be remembered to their credit when Time has obliterated their follies.

ST. MARY’S, FROM THE HIGH STREET, OXFORD.

In the early part of 1841, Mr. Newman published the celebrated “Tract No. 90,” the object of which was to show that subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles need not deter a man from holding various doctrines which are commonly regarded as Romish. This was going a little too far for the patience of the authorities, and, on the 15th of March, the Vice-Chancellor and heads of houses at Oxford censured the offending Tract, in a resolution which set forth—“That modes of interpretation such as are suggested in the said Tract, evading rather than explaining the sense of the Thirty-nine Articles, and reconciling subscription to them with the adoption of errors which they were designed to counteract, defeat the object, and are inconsistent with the due observance, of the statutes of the University.” Next day, Mr. Newman addressed a letter to the Vice-Chancellor, acknowledging himself as the author of the Tract. Some time after, he resigned the Vicarage of St. Mary’s, Oxford, and in 1845 he seceded to the Church of Rome. There cannot be a doubt that in his earlier years he had no intention of quitting the Church of England. Throughout the whole of his career, he has been thoroughly honest, conscientious, and self-devoted; but he has a mind of the acutest logical perceptions, and ultimately, though with great distress to himself, he came to the conclusion that the legitimate development of his opinions conducted him to Rome, and nowhere else. This conclusion being reached, he was not the man to tamper with his innermost convictions. His retirement from the Tractarian field concentrated additional power in the hands of the Rev. Mr. Pusey, who had long been the chief leader of the movement. Indeed, the very word “Puseyism” attests the depth and breadth of his influence.

It is no secret that neither the Queen nor Prince Albert liked the extreme views of the Tractarians, but would have preferred a broader and more liberal interpretation of Church doctrines. But the movement was of course entirely independent of Royal influences, and the time was one of awakened enthusiasm in all matters appertaining to religion. In Scotland, as in England, men’s minds were being agitated by conflicting views as to the proper character of a Church; and the dispute at the North terminated in a disruption of an important nature. A party had arisen in the Kirk of Scotland which desired, like the Tractarians in the Church of England, to emancipate the religious body from the control of the State in all matters of doctrine and discipline; but this was no easy task. An Act of Parliament had been passed in 1712, which subjected the power of the Presbytery to the control of the law-courts. Until then, the appointment of pastors had been with the Church-courts of Scotland; but now the minister was in many instances nominated by a lay patron, and the Presbytery thereupon admitted him as a matter of course, unless there was some flagrant objection which could not be evaded or overcome. The popular element in the Scottish Kirk was thus subordinated to aristocratic influence, and in time many sincere members of that body were so much disgusted as to secede from the Established Church, and form separate communions of their own. Matters had reached such a pass by 1834, when the “Evangelical,” as opposed to the “Moderate,” party had obtained the upper hand, that the General Assembly of the Kirk affirmed the right of each congregation to exercise a veto on any presentee, in accordance with a fundamental law of the Church, “that no pastor should be intruded on any congregation contrary to the will of the people.” This was the celebrated Veto Law, which soon became the subject of much controversy. The lay patrons, finding themselves deprived of what they considered their rights, resisted the ruling of the General Assembly, and appealed to the law-courts. Sometimes the decision was in favour of the one party, sometimes of the other; and at length the Strathbogie case brought the law-courts and the General Assembly into open conflict. The Presbytery of Strathbogie supported a certain minister who, in 1837, had been nominated for the parish of Marnoch. The General Assembly issued its edict that the minister was to be rejected. The majority of the local Presbytery still continuing defiant, seven of their number were, by the General Assembly, finally expelled from their places in the ministry on the 7th of May, 1841; and, from that time forward, Dr. Chalmers, who had moved their expulsion, became the great leader of the reforming party. The controversy went on with increasing bitterness; the decisions of the Court of Session, upheld by the House of Lords, completely over-ruled the decisions of the General Assembly of the Kirk; and, on the 18th of May, 1843, nearly five hundred ministers of the Church of Scotland, under the leadership of their distinguished and eloquent champion, seceded from the Establishment, and began what is called the Free Church of Scotland. These ministers had no quarrel with the older body on matters of doctrine; but they would not submit to the dictation of lay patrons, or the control of the law-courts. Such, in brief, is the history of this memorable revolt.

In the midst of so many perplexities, it was fortunate for the new Government, and also for the Queen herself, that they had an intermediary so highly qualified to fill the part as Prince Albert. In resigning the seals of office, Lord Melbourne felt that he left her Majesty in safe hands. He confessed that it was very painful to him to bid farewell to his Royal mistress. For four years, he remarked, he had seen her every day; but he added that it was now different from what it would have been in 1839. The Prince, he observed, understood everything, and had a clever, able head. Again, on the following day, when taking his final leave of her Majesty, he said:—“You will find a great support in the Prince; he is so able. You said, when you were going to be married, that he was perfection, which I thought a little exaggerated then, but really I think now that it is in some degree realised.” In commenting on these opinions in her “Journal,” the Queen writes:—“Nothing could exceed the Prince’s kindness to the Queen at this (for her) trying time of separation from her old friend;” and in a letter to King Leopold she quotes the following written opinion of Lord Melbourne on his Royal Highness:—“Lord Melbourne cannot satisfy himself without again stating to your Majesty in writing what he had the honour of saying to your Majesty respecting his Royal Highness the Prince. Lord Melbourne has formed the highest opinion of his Royal Highness’s judgment, temper, and discretion; and he cannot but feel a great consideration and security that he leaves your Majesty in a situation in which your Majesty has the inestimable advantage of such advice and assistance. Lord Melbourne feels certain that your Majesty cannot do better than have recourse to it whenever it is needed, and rely upon it with confidence.”

It was natural, and inevitable that Lord Melbourne should feel a deep regret in parting from her Majesty after so long an association. It was equally natural that Sir Robert Peel should approach the Court with something of nervous apprehension. He had opposed the Queen’s wishes with respect to the Ladies of the Bedchamber; shortly afterwards, he had been mainly instrumental in procuring the curtailment of the Prince’s income. Nevertheless, he was received by the Prince with an unaffected cordiality which immediately put him at his ease. Like Lord Melbourne, he soon formed a very high opinion of his Royal Highness’s abilities, and the new Minister was as willing as the old to keep the Prince well acquainted with the development of the national affairs. He was also desirous to take advantage of the Prince’s known proficiency in art, by placing him at the head of a Royal Commission to inquire whether the rebuilding of the Houses of Parliament did not offer a fitting occasion to promote

KING LEOPOLD.

and encourage the Fine Arts in the United Kingdom. The position was accepted by his Royal Highness; and when Sir Robert Peel announced the fact to the House of Commons, he was gratified to witness (as he afterwards reported) the cordial satisfaction with which the intimation was received in every quarter. Prince Albert had very properly made it a condition of his accepting the chairmanship of this body that in the selection of its members there should be an entire exclusion of all party distinctions. The principle was carefully observed, and the noblemen and gentlemen thus brought together were appointed with the single consideration of their fitness. This was the first of those numerous services to intellectual culture which Prince Albert rendered to his adopted country. He had now acquired an almost perfect command of English, though, when he came over to be married, in the early part of 1840, he knew but little of the language. The first of his speeches in public, however, had been delivered as early as the 1st of June, 1840, at a meeting to promote the Abolition of the Slave Trade. The speech was brief, carefully written beforehand, and committed

ST. GEORGE’S CHAPEL, WINDSOR.

to memory; but the Prince was naturally very nervous in delivering it. On the 25th of June, 1841, he laid the foundation-stone of the London Porters’ Association; so that he was now coming out into the light of publicity, to an extent from which he at first shrank, feeling himself a stranger in a strange land, and not being very confident as to the cordiality of the general sentiment. His acceptance, in October, of the Chairmanship of the Fine Arts Commission was another step forward in the direction to which he had recently been turning his thoughts. For several years, Prince Albert did admirable service in educating the English mind to a higher sense of artistic beauty; and, in the fulness of time, the suggestion of Sir Robert Peel bore more ample fruits than he himself could have anticipated.

On the 9th of November, 1841, the Prince of Wales was born at Buckingham Palace. As on the occasion of her previous confinement, the Queen recovered rapidly, and was able to celebrate the first anniversary of the Princess Royal’s birth on the 21st of the same month. On the 6th of December, the Court removed to Windsor Castle. Addressing the King of the Belgians on the 14th of December, her Majesty wrote:—“We must all have trials and vexations; but if one’s home is happy, then the rest is comparatively nothing. I assure you, dear uncle, that no one feels this more than I do. I had this autumn one of the severest trials I could have in parting with my Government, and particularly from our kind and valued friend, and I feel even now this last very much; but my happiness at home, the love of my husband, his kindness, his advice, his support, and his company, make up for all, and make me forget it.” Christmas was again spent at Windsor, and the New Year was danced in after a very jovial fashion. While the dance was yet proceeding, the clock struck twelve, and at the last stroke a flourish of trumpets was blown, according to the German custom. The Queen records in her “Journal” that this peal of instruments had a very grand and solemn effect, and that it caused a sudden agitation in Prince Albert, who turned pale, while the tears started to his eyes. He was thinking of his native country and his early days.

Shortly after the birth of the young Prince—namely, on the 4th of December, 1841—the Queen created him, by Letters Patent, Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester. The Letters Patent went on to say:—“And him, our said and most dear son, the Prince of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, as has been accustomed, we do ennoble and invest with the said Principality and Earldom, by girding him with a sword, by putting a coronet on his head and a gold ring on his finger, and also by delivering a gold rod into his hand, that he may preside there, and direct and defend those parts.” By the fact of his birth as heir-apparent, the Prince inherited, without the necessity of patent or creation, the dignities and titles of Duke of Saxony, by right of his father, and, by right of his mother, those of Duke of Cornwall, Duke of Rothesay, Earl of Carrick, Baron of Renfrew, Lord of the Isles, and Great Steward of Scotland.

The christening of the Prince of Wales took place on the 25th of January, 1842, in St. George’s Chapel, Windsor. In the midst of great pomp and splendour, the ceremony was performed by the Archbishop of Canterbury with water specially brought from the river Jordan. The sponsors were the late King of Prussia (Frederick William IV.); the Duchess of Saxe-Coburg, represented by the Duchess of Kent; the Duke of Cambridge; the Duchess of Saxe-Gotha, represented by the Duchess of Cambridge; the Princess Sophia, represented by the Princess Augusta of Cambridge; and Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg. King Frederick William was chosen as being the ruler of the chief Protestant kingdom on the Continent; but the leading politicians of Germany, France, and Russia, saw in the selection a degree of political significance which was doubtless entirely absent. Some among the Prussians themselves feared that the King would take advantage of his presence in England to effect that Anglicanising of the Prussian Church which was dear to his heart. When his Majesty arrived in England, however, he proved to be nothing more than a stout, middle-aged gentleman, who could tell a good story very well, and who even consented to dance a quadrille with the Queen, though his person was little suited to such exercises, and his time of life was hardly favourable to their graceful performance. The names given to the infant Prince at his christening were Albert Edward. At the conclusion of the ceremony, a silver-embossed vessel, containing a whole hogshead of mulled claret, was brought in, and served out liberally to the company, that the health of the Prince might be drunk with due honour.

Before his departure, the King of Prussia attended the meeting of Parliament on the 3rd of February, 1842. An admirable description of this ceremony is given in a letter by the Baroness Bunsen, an English lady married to the celebrated Prussian scholar, at that time Ambassador to the Court of St. James’s. This lady speaks of the Queen as being “worthy and fit to be the converging point of so many rays of grandeur;” and she adds that “the composure with which she filled the throne, while awaiting the Commons, was a test of character—no fidget, and no apathy.... Placed in a narrow space behind her Majesty’s mace-bearers, and peeping over their shoulders, I was enabled to hide and subdue the emotion I felt, in consciousness of the mighty pages in the world’s history condensed in the words so impressively uttered in the silver tones of that feminine voice—Peace and War, the fate of millions, relations of countries, exertions of power felt to the extremities of the globe, alterations of Corn Laws, the birth of a future sovereign, mentioned in solemn thankfulness to Him in whose hands are nations and rulers!”

These were the serious sides of royalty; but the young Queen, and her equally young husband, were not indifferent to the lighter graces of their position. A splendid new ball-room was added to Buckingham Palace, and a number of brilliant entertainments took place in that magnificent saloon. A bal costumé, on the 12th of May, 1842, is believed to have been the first ever given in England by a member of the House of Brunswick. On this occasion, her Majesty appeared as Queen Philippa, consort of Edward III., and Prince Albert as Edward III. himself. The Duchess of Cambridge was received in State as Anne of Brittany, accompanied by her Court; and, after dancing had been enjoyed for some hours, supper was served with surroundings of remarkable splendour. The salvers, vases, tankards, and jewelled cups, are described by writers of the period as of unusual cost and richness. A tent belonging to Tippoo Sahib was erected within the Corinthian portico adjoining the green drawing-room, and in the course of the evening this Oriental pavilion was used as a place for refreshment. Later in the season, a second ball of a similar character was given by her Majesty, in which the dresses were confined to the reigns of George II. and III. A grand banquet at Windsor Castle on the Ascot Cup day appears also to have been conspicuous for its lavish splendour. Luncheon had been previously served in Tippoo Sahib’s tent; but the dinner itself was in St. George’s Hall, the ceiling of which was emblazoned with the arms of the Knights of the Garter, from the institution of that Order down to modern times, and also with portraits of the British Kings from James I. to George IV. Immediately opposite the Queen was a pyramid of plate, crowned by the tiger’s head captured at Seringapatam, and comprising the “Iluma” of precious stones which Lord Wellesley, when Governor-General of India, presented to his sovereign. The display of gold

AMBASSADORS’ COURT, ST. JAMES’S PALACE.

plate, the brilliant light shed from numerous candelabra, the music furnished by two bands of the Guards stationed in a balcony, and the picturesque appearance of the Yeomen of the Guard, who stood on duty at the entrance, contributed to an effect which was truly regal in its pomp and grandeur. In the drawing-room, after dinner, the celebrated French actress, Madame Rachel, gave recitations from her principal performances; and the entertainment came to a close a little before midnight. In the then excited state of the public mind, some persons condemned these amusements, which they contrasted with the hunger and suffering to be found in other quarters; apparently not perceiving that the circulation of money must be an advantage to the community in general. But

COSTUME BALL IN BUCKINGHAM PALACE.

when the Queen and her ladies appeared in dresses of British manufacture, the agitation ceased, and it was admitted that trade and labour derived benefit from the outlay.

It was about the period of these gorgeous ceremonials that some other attempts were made (or apparently made) on the life of the Queen. The first of these occurred on Sunday, the 29th of May, when a young man, named John Francis, attacked the Royal party while returning from the Chapel Royal, St. James’s Palace. As they were driving along the Mall, near Stafford House, a man stepped out from the crowd, and presented a pistol at Prince Albert. The Prince heard the trigger snap, but the weapon missed fire. He turned to the Queen, and asked, “Did you hear that?” adding, “I am sure I saw some one take aim at us.” No other person, however, seems to have been aware of the attempt, and it was considered advisable that the Queen and Prince Albert should drive out again on the following day. They went towards Hampstead, and, on their return, when approaching the Palace, were again shot at. A policeman was standing close by, and Francis was immediately seized. Strange to say, the second attempt was very nearly on the same spot as that of Oxford in 1840. The culprit was the son of a machinist at Drury Lane Theatre, and had for some months been out of employment. “A little, swarthy, ill-looking rascal,” is the account which Prince Albert gives of him; but he conducted himself before the authorities with a good deal of spirit, or rather, perhaps, with a good deal of impudence. Having been found guilty of high treason, he was condemned to death; but the sentence was afterwards commuted to transportation for life.

The very day after the commutation became known—namely, July 3rd—a further attempt was made by a hunchback named Bean. As in the other cases, a morbid vanity appears to have been the feeling which prompted the act. Bean escaped at the moment, but was soon afterwards arrested, and, being tried for misdemeanour—not, like the others, for high treason—was sentenced to eighteen months’ imprisonment. The folly of charging such offenders with high treason, when it was quite certain that they would not be visited with the penalty of that offence, but with a much lighter punishment, uncertain, capricious, and variable in its nature and operation, had suggested a change of the law, and the Bill, which was in progress through Parliament at the time of Bean’s attempt, received the Royal sanction a few days later. Sir Robert Peel, while consulting with Prince Albert shortly after the attempt, was so overcome by the sudden entry of her Majesty that he burst into tears, although usually a very self-contained man. The frequent repetition of such outrages was indeed a serious matter, and after the Francis affair the Queen admitted that for some time she had had a presentiment of danger hovering over her. On the occasion of Bean’s attempt, her Majesty was not aware that anything had occurred until after her return to the Palace. Being informed of the fact, she calmly observed that she had expected a repetition of these attacks as long as the law remained unaltered by which they could be dealt with only as acts of high treason. The change in the law was doubtless advisable, since it is well known that it is not so much the severity as the certainty of punishment which deters the evilly-disposed; yet such acts will occur from time to time as long as vanity and envy remain passions of the human heart.