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Table of Contents

The Transfer of Ministerial Offices—The Whigs Patronise Mr. Cobden—A Radical in the New Cabinet—The Peelites Refuse to Take Office—Lord Campbell as Chancellor of the Duchy—Anecdote of his Installation—Lord John Russell’s Deportment to the Queen—His Modest Programme—The Abolition of the Sugar Duties—Bishop Wilberforce and Slave-grown Sugar—Outrages in Ireland—The Whigs become Coercionists—Their Arms Act—Mutiny among Ministerialists—The Bill Dropped—The Alternative Policy—Relief Works for Ireland—A Military Scandal—Indignation in the Country—Abuse of Corporal Punishment in the Army—“The Cat” in the House of Commons—The Queen’s Views on Military Punishment—The Queen and a Deserter’s Death-warrant—Captain Layard’s Motion—The Duke of Wellington’s Interference—Restrictions on the use of the Lash—England and the Colonies—Canada and Free Trade—Nova Scotia and the Potato Famine—The Halifax, Quebec, and Montreal Railway—The New Zealand War—The Caffre War—The Expedition to Borneo—End of the Anglo-Chinese Difficulty—The “Spanish Marriages” and the Treaty of Utrecht—Louis Philippe’s Intrigues with the Queen Dowager Christina—Secret History of the Conspiracy—M. Guizot’s Pretext—How the English Minister at Madrid was Deceived—Lord Palmerston’s Indiscreet Despatch—The Queen’s Cutting Letter to the Queen Marie Amélie—Metternich’s Caustic Epigram—The Prince Consort’s Resentment against the King of the French—End of the Anglo-French Alliance—Fall of the Republic of Cracow.

Lord John Russell had no serious difficulty on this occasion in forming a Ministry. The transfer of Ministerial offices was effected at Buckingham Palace on the 6th of July, 1846. Some recognition was due to the Anti-Corn-Law League for the aid it had given the Whigs in their contest for supremacy with the Party which had allied itself with the Protectionists. An office of Cabinet rank would have been offered to Mr. Cobden, but he was desirous of obtaining some respite from the severe strain of political life. His private affairs had suffered from his devotion to the public service, and, as his biographer admits, it would have been difficult to appoint to a high office in the State a politician whose friends were at the time collecting a public subscription on his behalf. Mr. Villiers was offered a place, but refused it. Lord John Russell finally induced Mr. Milner Gibson to represent the Free Trade Party in the Government, as Vice-President of the Board of Trade—a post devoid of high dignity and strong influence. Three of Sir Robert Peel’s colleagues—Mr. Sidney Herbert, Lord Dalhousie, and Lord Lincoln—were invited to join the Government as a concession to the feeling of those who demanded a coalition. The invitation was declined. It was, in truth, one that could not have been honourably accepted, and, therefore, it should never have been made. There was no reason to suppose that these statesmen were ready to remodel their views on Coercion, as suddenly as they had recast their opinions about Corn.

Leaving Mr. Milner Gibson out of account, we may say that the new Ministry was of the conventional Whig type, the only notable addition to it being Lord Grey, who by this time had overcome his objections to serve in the same Cabinet with Lord Palmerston as Foreign Secretary.52 Lord Lansdowne, as Lord Privy Seal, led the Party in the House of Lords; Sir George Grey went to the Home Office, a perilous post in times of popular distress and discontent; Mr. C. Wood—afterwards Lord Halifax—became

LORD MACAULAY.

Chancellor of the Exchequer; Mr.—afterwards Lord—Macaulay, Postmaster-General; Lord Bessborough, Lord Lieutenant, and Mr. Labouchere, Chief Secretary for Ireland. John, Lord Campbell, joined the Ministry as Chancellor of the Duchy. He says:—“I ought to have been satisfied, for I received two seals—one for the Duchy of Lancaster, and one for the County Palatine of Lancaster. My ignorance of the double honour which awaited me caused an awkward accident; for when the Queen put two velvet bags into my hand, I grasped one only, and the other, with its heavy weight, fell down on the floor, and might have bruised the Royal toes; but Prince Albert good-naturedly picked it up and restored it to me.”53 The programme of the Government was modest and practical, and independent men were gratified to find that social questions, such as the housing of the poor, and popular education, figured in it prominently. But it rested on no very solid basis, for it was supported by the Peelites against the Protectionists, and by the Protectionists against the Peelites. As for its own immediate followers, they shared the opinion of Mr. Bickham Escott, who, when Lord John Russell explained his position to the House, warned the Government significantly that previous Whig Ministries had failed for two reasons: they startled the people by proclaiming novel principles, and then disgusted the country by insisting on applying them prematurely. It has been said that the Ministry was not in favour at Court, and that Lord John Russell had reason to regret that he was not a persona grata with her Majesty. Such statements are quite unfounded, for the Queen supported her new Ministers as loyally as her old ones. Writing on the relations between her Majesty and her Prime Minister at this time, Lord Campbell says:—“He (Lord John Russell) has always risen with the occasion, and now very worthily fills the office of Prime Minister. His deportment to the Queen is most respectful, but he always remembers that as she can do no wrong he is responsible for all measures of her Government. He is enough at Court to show that he enjoys the Constitutional confidence of the Sovereign without being domiciled there as a favourite.”

The first question that demanded attention was that of the Sugar Duties. Lord John Russell, on the 20th of July, proposed a plan, the essence of which was a gradual reduction of the differential duties on foreign sugar, till they reached a vanishing point in 1851, when all kinds of sugar, whether of British or foreign growth, would be taxed equally. The Protectionists opposed this project on plain Protectionist principles. But the Peelites, though generally of opinion that the free-grown sugar deserved to be protected a little longer against slave-grown sugar, supported the Government, mainly because they thought a change of Ministry and a general election would be injurious to the country, whilst parties were in a confused state of transition. The second reading of the Bill was therefore carried in the House of Commons by a majority of 130; though in the House of Lords the measure was saved only by a majority of 18. In the Upper House the Government suffered considerably from the opposition of Dr. Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford, whose brilliant speech, coming as it did from a strong Free Trader, turned many votes. His views, which were shared not only by a large body of impartial and philanthropic Liberals, but were even supposed to find favour at Court, where he exercised at that time great influence over Prince Albert, are worth reproducing. Writing to Miss Noel before the debate, he said:—“I am at present convinced (1) that no extension of Free Trade could be more beneficial to our poor producers and poor consumers at home than that to the Brazils; (2) that the probable effect of the same measure would ultimately benefit our Indian Colonies; (3) that the refusal of the measure will lead either to a dissolution of Parliament or a resignation of the Ministry, both very injurious at this moment—that I therefore earnestly desire to support the motion. But that I am at present convinced that the opening of this trade would lead at once and certainly to a great extension of the Brazilian and Cuban slave trade, and that no demonstrated advantages to be gained or losses to be incurred can for a single instant make me hesitate as to giving the most emphatic negative possible to such a proposal.” The fallacy here is obvious. It sprang from the assumption that a nation is bound to apply its own standard of morality to the commercial institutions and customs of foreign countries, and restrict its foreign trade to those cases where foreigners accept that standard. The universal application of such a principle would soon annihilate commerce as a civilising agency in the world. The United States might refuse to trade with England, because she permitted landlords to evict Irish peasants from rack-rented farms. We might have been called on to buy no tallow or hides from Russia, because they were produced by serfs. To be consistent, the Bishop of Oxford should have demanded cessation of traffic, not only with slave States but with all free States that traded with them. It was curiously illogical to argue that by fettering trade we could free the slave.

Hardly had Lord John Russell’s Government settled down in office when they were alarmed by the disturbed state of Ireland, where evictions and famine were goading the peasantry on to agrarian outrages. The Whigs were embarrassed by their opposition to Sir Robert Peel’s Coercion Bill, because they had justified their tactics by belittling the disorder and lawlessness which that measure was designed to repress. Many of their own supporters accordingly complained bitterly when Ministers, on the 7th of August, invited the House to prolong the expiring Irish Arms Act till May, 1847. Lord John Russell’s only excuse was, that there was a distinction to be drawn between the proposal of new coercive legislation, and a request to prolong an existing law, without which it was impossible to curb the mania for buying arms and ammunition which was seizing the Irish peasantry. The spirit and tone of the Opposition speeches during the debate on Peel’s coercive measure conveyed, and were meant to convey, to the people of England and Ireland the impression that the Whigs were opposed, not merely to a Coercion Bill, but to a coercive policy, and the distinction between proposing new and prolonging old but expiring repressive legislation was generally felt to be a distinction without a difference. Lord Seymour forced Lord John Russell to withdraw the clauses in the Arms Act relating to domiciliary visits and the branding of arms; but, though this enabled the Government to carry the second reading of the measure on the 10th of August, it was ultimately abandoned on the 17th. On that day the Government fell back on an alternative policy. They introduced a remedial scheme for the purpose of empowering local authorities (baronial sessions) to employ the destitute Irish people on relief works started by State advances, to be repaid in ten years at 3½ per cent. To meet the case of poor districts where repayment was impossible, an appropriation of £50,000—a ridiculously small sum—was set aside for grants in aid. Parliament, in sheer weariness, sanctioned this project, although it was warned that the scheme would divert public money from the improvement of the land to the construction of useless roads and bridges, and tempt the peasantry to neglect husbandry for well-paid labour on superfluous public works. As Mr. Disraeli subsequently said, its effect was to set a population as great as that of Holland to break stones on the roads, and, he might have added, on good roads, that were too often broken up that they might be unnecessarily remetalled.

Towards the end of the Session the House of Commons plunged into a somewhat exciting controversy over the abuse of corporal punishment in the army. This arose out of the revolting disclosures which were made at an inquest which Mr. Wakley, M.P., Coroner for Middlesex, insisted on holding on the body of a soldier named Whyte, who, on the 15th of July, had died from the effects of 150 lashes which had been administered to him by order of a court-martial. A storm of passionate wrath swept through the land when the truth, in spite of vain efforts at concealment on the part of the military authorities, was revealed. The Duke of Wellington, when he heard of the affair, exclaimed to Mr. Fox Maule, Secretary of State for War, “This shall not occur again. Though I believe that corporal punishment cannot be dispensed with, yet I will not sanction that degree of it which shall lead to loss of life and limb.” In fact, his Grace had reason to fear that the Queen’s indignation would be roused by this scandalous occurrence, for he knew only too well that she held very pronounced views, not altogether in accord with his own, on the subject of military punishment. On one occasion, for instance, when the Duke brought her a soldier’s death-warrant to sign, she asked him, with tears in her eyes, if there was nothing to be said on behalf of the man. The Duke explained that he was an incorrigible deserter, but, after being pressed by her Majesty, admitted that the culprit’s comrades spoke well of him in other respects. Her Majesty replied, eagerly, “Oh, your Grace, I am so glad to hear that,” and, with trembling hand, rapidly scribbled the word “Pardoned” across the fatal scroll, and signed her name with a sigh of relief and a smile of satisfaction. Captain Layard therefore felt sure of his ground when, on the 3rd of August, he rose in the House of Commons to move an Address to the Crown complaining of the use of the lash in the army. His motion was withdrawn, but Dr. Bowring immediately gave notice

PARDONED: THE QUEEN AND THE DESERTER’S DEATH-WARRANT. (See p. 248.)

of another motion for the abolition of corporal punishment in the Service. It never came on for discussion, because the Duke of Wellington interposed, and appeased public feeling, by issuing an order restricting the powers of courts-martial, and prohibiting them from inflicting more than fifty lashes even in the worst cases.

Parliament was prorogued on the 28th of August, the Lord Chancellor reading the Queen’s Speech. Her Majesty congratulated both Houses on the passing of the Corn Law Bill, on the settlement of the Oregon dispute, on the victories in India, and, oddly enough, on “a considerable diminution of crime and outrage in Ireland”—a significant commentary on the abortive attempt of Lord John Russell to prolong the existing Irish Arms Act.

During 1846 the relations between England and her Colonies were, save in one instance, undisturbed, though in Canada some traces of the bitter feeling engendered by the rebellion were still discernible. The Governor, Lord Metcalfe, had incurred considerable unpopularity, because he had not consulted the Ministry as to filling certain offices, which he maintained were Crown appointments. The old disputes, too, which arose out of attempts to charge compensation to rebels on the fund set aside for compensating loyalists for losses suffered during the rebellion, had left rankling memories behind them. Lord Metcalfe, on his death, was succeeded by Lord Cathcart, who opened the Second Session of the Second Canadian Parliament on the 20th of March. His Excellency’s speech hardly pleased his audience. He referred, naturally, with great good feeling, to the death of his predecessor, Lord Metcalfe. But this only incited the minority to bring forward an amendment, which, while expressing regret at Lord Metcalfe’s death, omitted all reference whatever to the manner in which he had discharged his duties. Though the Colony had no reason, said the representatives of this party, to love military governors, yet they had no objection to congratulate Lord Cathcart on his own appointment. Objectionable, however, as his military education might be to them, it could not, they declared, render him as objectionable as Lord Metcalfe, whose political training and experience were purely Oriental. The one topic of high Imperial importance dealt with by Lord Cathcart was his reference to the adoption of Free Trade by the mother country. The Canadians, it may be said, viewed the new commercial policy of Sir Robert Peel with the utmost alarm. The doctrine of buying in the cheapest market and selling in the dearest had no charms for them, for they were afraid that if the duties were taken off which gave colonial a preference over foreign grain, Canada would be ruined by American competition. On the 12th of May the Canadian Legislative Assembly accordingly adopted an Address, which gave forcible expression to the dismal prediction that Free Trade with England must impoverish Canada, and thus depress one of the best markets then open to English commerce. Mutterings of secession even ran through the Address: it warned the Crown that, when the Canadians found they could not successfully compete with the United States in the only market open to them, they would naturally begin to doubt whether it was “a paramount advantage” to remain subjects of the British Empire. Undoubtedly the Free Trade policy of Peel, whatever good it may have done, had one baneful effect. It alienated the Canadian Colonists from the mother country.

In Nova Scotia the Governor, Lord Falkland, when he met the Legislative Assembly on the 10th of January, had, like the Queen at home, to lament the prevalence of distress due to the failure of the potato crop. But otherwise the Colonists had a good harvest, not only from the land, but from the sea. It was to this Parliament that the Government suggested the construction of a railway from Halifax to Quebec and Montreal—the first development of the policy which, by linking the different provinces of British America by bands of iron roads, rendered confederation possible.

New Zealand was the only Colony which gave her Majesty and her Ministers much serious concern during 1846. It was a dependency which was originally meant to be colonised as an experimental test of Mr. Wakefield’s theories.54 A Company was formed for this purpose, and its administrators were to use the proceeds of land sales, to import labour in fair proportion to the land appropriated. They were also to see that settlers did not, by dispersal, degenerate into squatters. The first ruler of the settlement, Governor Hobson and his officials annoyed the Company in the most provoking manner. They selected the land for emigrants foolishly, and they neglected to appropriate £40,000 from land sales to the immigration service. His successor, Captain Fitzroy, found the Colony with a debt of £68,000, an expenditure of £20,000 a year, and a population of 15,000. He issued £15,000 worth of paper money, which he made a legal tender; upset the terms on which settlers had bought native lands; refused on various pretexts to let emigrants, who had paid the Company cash for their lands in England, settle on them when they came out; encouraged native turbulence by ill-timed displays of sympathy; and suppressed a local Volunteer Force, offering the Colony, as a substitute, fifty soldiers, to protect a region 200 miles long, and inhabited by 10,000 persons. In fact, instead of governing the Colony, the Governor had virtually made war on the Colonists, whose hostility to him was pronounced and unconcealed. Perhaps they were a little unjust to him, for the circumstances in which he was placed were full of difficulty. He had to confront a large disaffected aboriginal population. He had only a handful of troops to support him, and there were no places of refuge or defence for the Colonists to fly to. Auckland and Wellington would thus, he thought, have been destroyed by the overpowering forces which the natives were ready to launch against the British settlers, forces which nothing could restrain, save moral influence wielded by a conciliatory Government. However, the feeling against Captain Fitzroy in the Colony was so strong that he was recalled, and Captain Grey was sent out in his stead. His arrival was hailed with delight, for it was supposed to inaugurate a new era in New Zealand.

Governor Grey, soon after he entered on his duties, began to coerce the turbulent chiefs, whom Captain Fitzroy had attempted to subdue by diplomacy.

VIEW IN NEW ZEALAND: NEW PLYMOUTH AND MOUNT EGMONT.

and on the 10th of January Captain Despard attacked the fortified Pah or camp of the rebel chief Kawiti, with a force of 1,100 men, aided by a large number of native allies. The combat lasted for two days, for the rebels fought with extraordinary tenacity, but ultimately they had to yield. Our losses were twelve men killed and thirty wounded. The natives conducted their operations in a manner that recalled Fenimore Cooper’s descriptions of Indian fighting; and their chiefs and priests harangued them every night in the ancient Homeric fashion. The reckless daring displayed by our men was the subject of many anecdotes. One of the sailors belonging to H.M.S. Castor, for example, climbed up to the top of the stockade during the battle, and from that coign of vantage kept up a damaging fire on the enemy. Colonel Wynard, who was marching past, shouted out to the man to come down at once. Instead of doing that, he coolly hailed the Colonel sailor-fashion, saying, “Oh! no, your honour. This is the best place to see ’em. You jest come up and ’ave a look, sir.” When the day was won the man came down without a scratch. It

VIEW IN CANTON: THE BRITISH CONSULATE.

was then discovered, however, that his cap had been shot off, that his coat had four bullet holes in it, and that the palisade on which he had perched was riddled with bullets. The success of our arms was followed by the immediate submission of the rebel chiefs. This was notified in a proclamation issued by Governor Grey on the 23rd of January, in which he granted a free pardon “to all concerned in the late rebellion, who may now return in peace and safety to their houses, where, so long as they conduct themselves properly, they shall remain unmolested in their persons and properties.”

In South Africa a Caffre war or rising broke out in April, 1846, the natives attacking Graham’s Town with remarkable audacity. A sharp struggle for the possession of the frontier of the Cape Colony raged for some time, but the Caffres were finally beaten in an engagement at Fish River, and, though they continued to be troublesome, they were throughout the year successfully held in check by Colonial levies.

Early in the year the Sultan of Borneo, acting under bad advice, caused an attack to be made on his uncles, Muda Hassim and Bimdureen, who were the leaders of what might be called the Anglophile or British party in the State. They were murdered along with their families and dependents. The Sultan immediately began to prepare to defend his territory against any English troops that might come to avenge the death of our allies. Sir Thomas Cochrane accordingly determined to proceed to Brunai, the capital of Borneo, to demand reparation from the Sultan. Accompanied by Mr. James Brooke (Rajah of Sarawak), H.M.SS. Spiteful and Phlegethon, with Mr. Brooke’s schooner Royalist, Sir T. Cochrane, after a somewhat severe engagement, forced his way past the forts that guarded the river leading to Brunai. He then landed a party of marines, who took possession of the town. The Sultan and most of the inhabitants fled into the interior. An expedition sent to capture him failed, but, before leaving for China, Sir T. Cochrane issued a proclamation to the people warning them that the Sultan was at the mercy of the British, and declaring it to be our intention to return “and act with the extreme of vigour should he ever again evince hostility to Great Britain.” Sir Thomas Cochrane next sailed for China, where the turbulent Cantonese were annoying the European community at Hong Kong. The disturbances in Canton, news of which reached England in September, were, however, easily quelled. About the same time her Majesty’s Government was informed that all questions as to the completion of the Treaty by which the Chinese war had been settled had been peacefully adjusted. The right of entry to Canton, which that Treaty had guaranteed to us, had been withheld by the Chinese, who now formally conceded it peacefully. On our side preparations were at once made to give up Chusan, which we retained in pawn so long as the Government at Pekin denied our right to enter Canton.

In 1846 the foreign policy of Great Britain brought much anxiety to the Queen. It was the irony of fate that her Government was drifting into unfriendliness with France, though the Queen personally entertained sentiments of warm friendship and admiration for King Louis Philippe and his sons and daughters. But in Switzerland and South America the policy of England and France was antagonistic. In Portugal a French faction was striving to undermine British influence, and in Spain the question of the marriage of Queen Isabella produced a serious estrangement between the two nations.

Among those who aspired to the hand of the Spanish Queen was the Count of Trapani, youngest brother of the King of Naples and the Queen Dowager Christina, and therefore uncle of Queen Isabella. The Queen Dowager opposed his pretensions; the young Queen herself, like the great mass of her people, was also averse from an alliance with him. Another suitor had therefore to be found. England objected to a French prince being chosen, her traditional policy being hostile to whatever might bring France and Spain under one crown. France was willing to respect this objection, provided no prince but a prince of the House of Bourbon was selected as the Queen’s consort. Here came the difficulty. Of those princes his Highness of Lucca was ineligible, because he was married already; the Count of Trapani was ineligible, because the Queen and her subjects disliked him; the sons of the Don Francisco de Paula, her Majesty’s uncle—the Duke of Cadiz and the Duke of Seville—were ineligible because they were both disagreeable to the Queen, and, according to M. Guizot, compromised by their intimacy with the Radicals;55 and Count Montemolin, the son of Don Carlos, was ineligible, first, because everybody detested him, and, secondly, because he was formally excluded from the succession by the Spanish Constitution. How, then, was the French demand that the Queen of Spain should marry one of the descendants of Philip V. to be satisfied? M. Guizot admitted, in a despatch to M. de St. Aulaire, that these difficulties were incontestable; but he added that the Court of Lisbon was the centre of an intrigue to promote a marriage between the Queen and Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, whose connection with the Royal Family of England rendered him objectionable to France. If this project were further developed, M. Guizot cunningly argued, France would be freed from the pledge she had given to England, and might then demand the hand of the Queen of Spain or her sister the Infanta, for a French prince of the House of Bourbon; in other words, for the Duc de Montpensier. It was on the perfectly gratuitous and absolutely erroneous assumption that England was promoting the candidature of the Prince Leopold, that M. Guizot made ready to play the diplomatic trick which ultimately destroyed the cordial feeling between England and France. Louis Philippe had given his Royal word to Queen Victoria at Eu in September, 1845, that in no case should the Duc de Montpensier marry the Infanta till the Queen of Spain was herself married, and had children who might assure the direct succession to her throne. But suddenly, in the autumn of 1846, it was announced that the Queen of Spain was about to marry her cousin, the Duke of Cadiz, and that her sister, the Infanta, was at the same time to marry the Duc de Montpensier. Technically, it does not appear that England had a right to complain of this double marriage as a breach of the Treaty of Utrecht. It was, no doubt, meant to evade and defeat the provisions of that instrument; but the Treaty itself had never been construed, as Lord Palmerston seemed to imagine, as a positive prohibition of all intermarriages between the Royal Families of France and Spain. For example, in 1721 King Louis I. of Spain married Louisa Elizabeth of Orleans, Mademoiselle de Montpensier and fourth daughter of the Regent of France. In 1739 Don Philip, Duke of Parma, a son of Philip V., married Louisa Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Louis XV. of France. In 1745 the Dauphin of France, as all the world knows, married Maria Theresa Antonia, Infanta of Spain, and a daughter of Philip V. In truth, it must be conceded that the Treaty of Utrecht simply stipulated that the crowns of France and Spain should not rest on the head of the same sovereign. Even if the Queen’s marriage were without issue, and a child or descendant of her sister and the Duc de Montpensier had fallen heir to the French and Spanish crowns—a somewhat problematical event—the Treaty of Utrecht would have obviously operated as a bar against his claim. It would have compelled him to elect which country he should rule over. The intrigue that ended in this double marriage was regarded by England—nay, by Europe—as a piece of diplomatic knavery, and both Louis Philippe and M. Guizot suffered in character and in prestige accordingly.

The Queen was naturally more highly incensed than the nation, because from her position and her vigilant study of foreign policy she knew more than her people of the secret history of the affair. The motives of the chief conspirators in the intrigue—Louis Philippe and the Queen Dowager Christina—were rather disreputable. They utterly ignored the feelings and the interests of the young Queen, and treated her as if she were a chattel to be bartered away for their own aggrandisement. Louis Philippe’s object was simply to secure for his son a consort whose dowry would still further enrich the Orleans family, the aggrandisement of his House being the dominant idea of his diplomacy. The Dowager Queen Christina had been an unjust steward of the fortune which the Queen and her sister inherited from their father, King Ferdinand VII., and for her it was therefore a vital necessity to find husbands for her daughters, who would not be too curious as to the accuracy of her accounts. It is believed that when Ferdinand VII. died he was worth £8,000,000 sterling, and though there is reason to suppose he left a will, no such instrument was ever found. After his death, however, his property was set down as being worth only 60,000,000 francs, and by law this was divided between his daughters. The Queen Dowager was said at the time to have appropriated not only the balance, but also a considerable proportion of the rents of the Patrimonio Real, which passed through her hands during her guardianship of her daughters. Her uncle, Louis Philippe, was understood to be cognisant of the Queen Dowager’s “economies,” as they were ironically termed in Spain, and he knew how her illegitimate offspring had grown rich during the minority of the young Princesses. Louis Philippe could answer for it that if his son married one of the Royal sisters, no inconvenient questions would be asked about settlements. In the Duke of Cadiz he discerned an imbecile Prince of the House of Bourbon who would be equally pliable and accommodating. Moreover, he was supposed to be physically unfitted for matrimony, so that by arranging his marriage with the young Queen, Louis Philippe presumably calculated that the union would be without issue, which would place the children by the Queen’s sister and the Duc de Montpensier in the direct succession to the throne, almost as surely as if Louis Philippe had arranged that his son should marry Queen Isabella herself.

The pledge which Louis Philippe had given to the Queen of England at Eu was an obstacle to this heartless project, but the pretext for violating it was

THE ROYAL PALACE, MADRID.

ingeniously manufactured by the Queen Dowager Christina. She addressed a letter, proposing a marriage between Queen Isabella and Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, to the Duke of Saxe-Coburg, who happened to be on a visit to the Court of Lisbon. After telling Mr. Bulwer (afterwards Lord Dalling), the British Minister at Madrid, what this letter contained, and being warned by him that the English Government could not support such a proposal, Queen Christina asked him to let her letter go in his despatch bag, by his messenger. In courtesy he could not refuse this favour, and Lord Aberdeen, when he heard what had happened, laid the facts loyally and frankly before M. Guizot. M. Guizot immediately founded on the incident his monstrous pretext that there was an Anglo-Portuguese intrigue on foot to marry the Queen of Spain to a Prince nearly related to the Royal Family of England—the pretext which released Louis Philippe from the pledge given at the Château d’Eu. Still, Louis Philippe shrank from taking steps which he was aware must compromise his reputation; M. Guizot, however, knew how to overcome his last lingering scruples. To cherish an antipathy to Lord Palmerston, who had succeeded Lord Aberdeen at the Foreign Office, was a point of honour with Louis Philippe, who had not forgotten how France was checked in Syria in 1840, and Lord Palmerston, it must be admitted, indiscreetly played into M. Guizot’s hands. He wrote on the 18th of December a despatch to Mr. Bulwer, discussing the marriage of Queen Isabella, and mentioning—without, however, specially favouring—the candidature of Prince Leopold, along with that of the various Bourbon Princes. He added a series of caustic criticisms on the absolutism which tainted the Government of Spain. A copy of this despatch was given to M. Guizot. He immediately roused Louis Philippe’s suspicions and distrust by pointing to its maladroit references to Prince Leopold’s candidature. Then he sent to Queen Christina a copy of the offensive references to the absolutism of the Spanish Government. She at once saw, or pretended to see, in the document indications of an alliance between the English Government and her enemies the Progressists, which it was quite reasonable for her to neutralise, by drawing closer the ties between Spain and France.

Louis Philippe, accordingly, no longer hesitated, nor did the Queen Dowager, to arrange the marriages of Queen Isabella and her sister to the Duke of Cadiz and the Duc de Montpensier—in defiance of the pledges given at the Château d’Eu. The English Government met the announcement with a diplomatic protest. The King of the French induced Queen Marie Amélie to announce the “double event” to Queen Victoria, who in reply sent the following dignified but cutting letter:—

“Osborne, September 10th, 1846.

“Madame,—I have just received your Majesty’s letter of the 8th inst., and I hasten to thank you for it. You will perhaps remember what passed at Eu between the King and myself; you are aware of the importance which I have always attached to the maintenance of our cordial understanding, and the zeal with which I have laboured towards this end. You have no doubt been informed that we refused to arrange the marriage between the Queen of Spain and our cousin Leopold (which the two Queens had eagerly desired), solely with the object of not departing from a course which would be more agreeable to the King, although we could not regard that course as the best. You will therefore easily understand that the sudden announcement of this double marriage could not fail to cause us surprise and very keen regret.

“I crave your pardon, Madame, for speaking to you of politics at a time like this, but I am glad that I can say for myself that I have always been sincere with you.

“Begging you to present my respectful regards to the King,

“I am, Madame,

“Your Majesty’s most devoted sister and friend.”

The shrewdest comment made on this brilliant diplomatic triumph of France was Metternich’s. “Tell Guizot from me,” he said, “that one does not with impunity play little tricks with, great countries”—and Metternich was right. The loss of the English alliance ruined Louis Philippe in the eye of public opinion in Europe, and gave courage and hope to the Liberals in France, who were bent on dethroning him. Austria took advantage of the estrangement between England and France to absorb the Republic of Cracow,56 in defiance of the Treaty of Vienna, so that, much to the indignation of the French people, they saw, as the firstfruits of M. Guizot’s diplomacy, the last free banner and city in Poland vanish from the face of Europe. In England the feeling against Louis Philippe was one of mingled regret and disgust. The incident, writes Mr. Greville, “has been a great damper to the Queen’s engouement for the House of Orleans.”57 “Nothing more painful,” wrote the Queen to the Queen of the Belgians, “could possibly have befallen me than this unhappy difference, both because it has a character so personal, and because it imposes upon me the duty of opposing the marriage of a Prince for whom, as well as for all his family, I entertain so warm a friendship.”58 “Everybody,” said Lord Lansdowne writing to Lord Palmerston, “would have to turn over a new leaf with Louis Philippe.” As for Prince Albert, he felt the blow as a national insult and a personal wrong, though, according to Baron Stockmar, both he and the Queen exercised the greatest self-command in concealing their resentment.59