Читать книгу The Life and Times of Queen Victoria (Vol. 1-4) - Robert Thomas Wilson - Страница 22

Table of Contents

Lord George Bentinck’s Imprudence—French Intrigues in Portugal—England and the Junta—A Vulgar Suspicion—The Duke of Wellington and National Defences—The Duke’s Threatened Resignation—The Queen Soothes Him—Famine in the Queen’s Kitchen—Royal Hospitalities—The Queen’s Country Dance—A German Impostor—Discovery of Chloroform—The Royal Visit to Cambridge—Prince Albert’s Installation as Chancellor of the University—Awkward Dons—Anecdotes of the Queen at Cambridge—Royalty and Heraldry—The Visit to Scotland—Highland Loyalty—A Desolate Retreat—Politics and Sport at Ardverikie—A New Departure in Foreign Policy—Lord Minto’s Mission—The Queen’s Views—Prince Albert’s Caution to Lord John Russell—The Queen’s Amusements at Ardverikie—A Regretful Adieu—Home Again

During 1847-48, Foreign Affairs chiefly occupied the attention of the Queen and Prince Albert. The annexation of Cracow, long meditated by Metternich, was rendered easy to Austria by the coolness which had sprung up between England and France. It was felt that French and English protests, though presented, must be unavailing, because every one knew neither Power would go to war for the sake of Poland. Mr. Hume brought the incident under the notice of the House of Commons, his proposal being to stop the payments to Russia by Great Britain on account of the Russo-Dutch Loan—in other words, to fine Russia for sanctioning Austria’s evil-doing. It was the subject of a debate which would have been tame but for Lord George Bentinck’s imprudent eulogium on the three despotic Powers—which vastly displeased his Party, and as Lord Palmerston, in a letter to Lord Normanby, said, extinguished him as a candidate for office.79 Hume’s motion was not pressed to a division.

French influence had been at work in Portugal to estrange the Queen from her English alliance. The dynastic connection between the Houses of Coburg and Braganza rendered Portuguese affairs intensely interesting to Queen Victoria at this time. The King Consort of Portugal—Prince Ferdinand, son of the younger brother of the reigning Duke of Coburg—had, it was rumoured, quarrelled with the Queen, who was tempted to carry out in her dominions the arbitrary policy of the Bourbons. The people rebelled; and in view of a possible Franco-Spanish intervention, England, not uninfluenced by the views of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, stepped in between the Portuguese Sovereign and her people. English intervention was at the outset purely diplomatic. It was limited to the arrangement of a compromise between the contending parties. Ultimately our diplomacy was successful; but the proposals of the English Envoy were finally rejected by the Portuguese Junta, and a Protocol was drawn up with Portugal, Spain, and France, for the purpose of bringing the Junta to submission. The General Election was now impending in England, and it was feared that on a motion in the House of Commons, censuring the Government for interfering to coerce the Junta, a combination of Protectionists and Radicals with Lord Palmerston’s enemies would defeat the Government. Sir Robert Peel held some anxious conferences with Prince Albert on the subject; and the Queen was afraid lest a vulgar suspicion might get abroad that the policy of her Government had been dominated, not by British but by Coburg interests. Luckily, no serious coercion was needed, and the Junta finally submitted on the 30th of June.

It was on the 11th of June that Mr. Joseph Hume brought forward his motion attacking the Portuguese policy of the Government. The debate was fierce and bitter. Peel, who spoke eloquently on the side of the Ministry, privately warned Prince Albert that Mr. Hume might carry his motion. Lord John Russell wrote to the Queen, saying she must be prepared to receive his resignation by the end of the week; and in the House of Lords also the attack was led by Lord Stanley, with characteristic impetuosity. Naturally, then, everybody was amazed when, after three days’ furious wrangling, the debate ended in a count-out in the House of Commons, and the defeat of Lord Stanley in the House of Lords by a majority of twenty. This ridiculous result was due to some misunderstanding between Mr. Hume and Lord George Bentinck, who permitted the “count-out,” and it led to endless recriminations. On the 5th of July, Mr. Bernal Osborne brought Portuguese affairs before Parliament once more; and then Lord Palmerston, who had not spoken in the three days’ debate, explained his policy. His object, he said, was neither to serve the Portuguese Crown nor oppress the Portuguese nation. He found Portugal a prey to wasting anarchy. But as it was most important that Portugal should be a strong ally of England in maintaining the balance of power, he had felt justified in interfering between the Queen and her people, in order to gain for the latter the constitutional securities which by the advice of bad Councillors her Majesty had suspended. In bringing the war to a peaceful termination, in transferring the struggle from the field of battle to the arena of Parliamentary debate, the Government seems to have fairly earned, if it did not freely receive, the thanks both of England and Portugal.

The dispute between France and England over the Spanish marriages, the personal quarrel between Lord Normanby, the English Ambassador at Paris, and M. Guizot, and the deep distrust of Lord Palmerston, which poisoned the mind of Louis Philippe, bore bad fruits. Lord Normanby allied himself more closely than ever with M. Thiers and the leaders of the Opposition in the French Chambers, who harried the Government with their attacks. M. Guizot began to lean for support on the Northern Powers, and he cultivated the fatal friendship of Metternich. His policy was thus one under which revolution naturally ripened. The unsatisfactory state of our foreign relations rendered the Duke of Wellington most anxious about the defence of the country; in fact, he was, says Charles Greville, “haunted” by it night and day. Lord Clarendon and Lord Palmerston80 were with the Duke. The Chancellor of the Exchequer was against him; as for Lord John Russell, he was neutral.

In January, 1848, the Duke of Wellington, however, startled the country by a letter which he had addressed to General Sir John Burgoyne early in 1847 on the unfortified state of England. At that moment, he averred, the fleet was the only defence the nation possessed. He doubted if 5,000 men of all arms could be sent into the field, unless we left those on duty, including the Royal Guards, without any reliefs whatever. He pleaded for the organisation of a militia force at least 150,000 strong, and for strengthening the defences of the South Coast from the North Foreland to Portsmouth. This letter was a private one. Lady Burgoyne and her daughters, however, had distributed copies of it among their friends, and one Pigou, “a meddling zealot,” says Mr. Greville, “who does nothing but read Blue Books and write letters to the Times,” got hold of a copy and printed it in the newspapers, much to the annoyance of the Duke and Lord John Russell. The Duke of Wellington all through the latter half of the year had indeed given the Ministry and the Queen some uneasiness, and this might have had serious consequences, but for the fine tact and delicate social diplomacy of her Majesty. Enfeebled by age and anxious as to the defences of the country, which the Government persisted in neglecting, the “Great Captain” querulously threatened to resign—a step which the Queen dreaded because she considered that it would greatly reduce public confidence in the Government. A statue in the worst possible taste had been put up on the archway opposite Apsley House—the first equestrian statue, indeed, ever erected in England to a subject. It was put there only provisionally, but the Duke held that to take it down would be an insult to him, and this further strengthened his resolution to retire. The Queen, however, was “excessively kind to him,” and her winning courtesies soothed the irritated veteran. “On Monday,” says Mr. Greville, writing on the 19th of June, “his granddaughter was christened at the Palace, and the Queen dined with him in the evening. She had written him a very pretty letter, expressing her wish to be godmother to the child, saying that she wished her to be called Victoria, which name was so peculiarly appropriate to a granddaughter of his.” After that the country was no longer disturbed by rumours of the Duke’s impending resignation.

Of Court life outside the sphere of politics, in this year of distress, we gain some interesting glimpses in the Memoirs and Diaries of the period. In February wheat was selling at 102 shillings a quarter, and in May the Queen herself says she had been obliged to limit the allowance of bread to every one in the Palace to one pound a day, “and only secondary flour to be used in the Royal kitchen.” Still a generous but not ostentatious hospitality was dispensed by her Majesty all through this dismal season. The Baroness Bunsen says, in her Diary, on the 1st of March, 1847:—“We dined at Buckingham Palace

PRINCE METTERNICH.

on Monday, where there was a ball in the evening—that is, a small dancing party, only Lady Rosebery and the Ladies Primrose coming in the evening, in addition to those at dinner. The Queen danced with her usual spirit and activity, and that obliged other people to do their best, and thus the ball was a pretty sight, inspirited by excellent music.”

Another description of a Royal dinner-party at this time is given by Lord Campbell, in his Autobiography.81 Writing to his brother, Sir George

KING’S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE FROM THE “BACKS.”

Campbell, on the 22nd of March, 1847, he gives us a bright glimpse of Palace life. “You will see,” he says, “by the Court Circular that Mary and Loo and I dined at the Palace on Saturday. The invitation only came on Friday, and we were engaged to dine with Sir John Hobhouse. There is not much to tell to gratify your curiosity. On our arrival a little before eight, we were shown into the picture gallery, where the company assembled. Burnes, who acted as Master of the Ceremonies, arranged what gentleman should take what lady. He said, ‘Dinner is ordered to be on the table at ten minutes past eight, but I bet you the Queen will not be here till twenty to twenty-five minutes after. She always thinks she can dress in ten minutes, but she takes about double the time.’ True enough, it was nearly twenty-five minutes after eight before she appeared. She shook hands with the ladies, bowed to the gentlemen, and proceeded to the salle à manger. I had to take in Lady Emily de Burgh, and was third on her Majesty’s right—Prince Edward of Saxe-Weimar and my partner being between us. The greatest delicacy we had was some very nice oatcake. There was a Highland piper standing behind her Majesty’s chair, but he did not play as at ‘State dinners.’ We had likewise some Edinburgh ale. The Queen and the ladies withdrawing, Prince Albert came over to her side of the table, and we remained behind about a quarter of an hour; but we rose within the hour from the time of our sitting down. A snuff-box was twice carried round and offered to all the gentlemen; Prince Albert, to my surprise, took a pinch. On returning to the gallery we had tea and coffee. The Queen then came up and talked to me.... She does the honours of her palace with infinite sweetness and grace—and considering what she is, both in public and domestic life, I do not think she is sufficiently loved and respected. Prince Albert took me to task for my impatience to get into the new House of Lords, but I think I pacified him complimenting his taste. A dance followed. The Queen chiefly delighted in a romping sort of country dance called the Tempête. She withdrew a little before twelve, and we went off to Lady Palmerston’s.”

Again, writing on the eventful day when the Royal Household had been put on short rations, the Baroness Bunsen, in a letter to her mother, says:—“Last night we were asked to the Queen Dowager’s, who had invited a small party, at which the Queen was present and the Duchess of Gloucester. The object was to give a German named Löwe, who had come with prodigious recommendations from Coburg, opportunity of showing his musical talent, and it turned out that he had none to show”82—not by any means the first imported adventurer who has tried to take advantage of the Queen’s good nature, and her sympathy for Art.

The great scientific event of the year was a discovery in which the Queen not only took a deep personal interest, but the application of which she subsequently used her influence to popularise. It was the substitution of the use of chloroform for ether as an anæsthetic agent in operative surgery. Chloroform was first introduced into Great Britain by Dr. James Young Simpson, Professor of Midwifery in the University of Edinburgh, and he claimed for it several advantages over ether. A smaller quantity produced unconsciousness. It acted more rapidly, and was less evanescent than ether. It was alleged to be safer, though this is still a matter of doubt. The old masters of surgery used to consider a surgical operation the opprobrium of their art. By rendering all operations painless, Simpson did not remove this opprobrium, though he reduced it to a minimum.

Two great events in the domestic life of the Court in 1847 were the visit to Cambridge and the visit to Scotland, which took place after Parliament was dissolved. Baron Stockmar was not the only quiet observer who had noticed that Prince Albert had “made great strides lately.” Learned men in England had come to recognise in the thoughtful and scholarly young Prince a choice and kindred spirit. On the 12th of February, 1847, his Royal Highness was deeply gratified to receive from Dr. Whewell, the Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, a letter asking permission to nominate him for the vacant Chancellorship of the University. Acting quite independently of Dr. Whewell, Lord Lansdowne sent a similar request, and Mr. Anson, Prince Albert’s secretary, received a communication from the Bishop of London (Blomfield), assuring him that a great many of the leading members of the University were deeply interested in the election of his Royal Highness, and would consider his acceptance of office alike honourable and advantageous to Cambridge. The Queen was touched with these expressions of kindly feeling, for if there had ever been a shadow over her happiness, it had been due to a lurking suspicion that her husband was not fairly appreciated by the people, among whom for her sake he had elected to work out a career of self-effacement. Here, at last, it seemed to her Majesty, there was an indication that her husband’s high qualities were meeting with their just reward. The offer of the Chancellorship of Cambridge she regarded as an honour conferred on the Prince for his own sake rather than for hers—as the first mark of distinction won by him in England, outside the sphere and range of her influence.

This feeling was strengthened when, on the 18th of February, there arrived at Buckingham Palace an address, signed by all the most distinguished resident members of the University, urging the Prince to accept nomination. But in Cambridge, as elsewhere, little local jealousies often rob great movements of some of their grace and sweetness. St. John’s, ever envious of Trinity, thought the University should have a Chancellor of its choosing, and had accordingly put Lord Powis in nomination. The Prince, not quite estimating these petty academic rivalries at their true value, shrank from the competition, and ordered his name to be withdrawn. Dr. Whewell and his supporters, however, disregarded this request, and insisted on going to the poll against the Prince’s wishes, which put them at a signal disadvantage. The contest was keen—perhaps one might even say a trifle acrimonious—but it ended in the triumph of the Prince, whose supporters defeated Lord Powis by a vote of 953 to 837. Nineteen out of thirty-seven wranglers, and sixteen out of twenty-four professors, voted for the Prince. The resident vote was three to one in his favour, so that, as is usual in

ST. JOHN’S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.

University elections, the strength of the “Marplots” lay in the rural electorate. Still, the Prince had scruples about accepting the office. His candidature had been carried on against his express desire, and he harped on the idea that victory, without some approach to unanimity, could only give rise to discord in the University. His friends, however, urged him to take office, and they had a powerful ally in the Queen. As Sir R. Peel said at the time, “to decline the office would give a triumph to the partisans of Lord Powis—who would feel no gratitude for the concession—and would cause deep mortification and disappointment to all those who voted for the Prince, and of whom the greater number cannot be held responsible for the nomination of the Prince against his declared wishes.” The smallness of the majority was, of course,

THE PRINCE-CHANCELLOR OF CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESENTING AN ADDRESS TO THE QUEEN. (See p. 311.)

largely due to the fact that the Trinity party had pressed the Prince’s candidature after he had publicly withdrawn. They were, in fact, asking electors to vote for a candidate whose acceptance of office if elected was doubtful. On the other hand, the Prince could not force his partisans to stop proceedings, except by publicly declaring that in no circumstances would he accept, even if chosen, the Chancellorship of the University, which would have been justly construed into an insult to Cambridge. Ultimately the Prince agreed to take office, and on the 25th of March the ceremony of inauguration took place at Buckingham Palace, where the Vice-Chancellor, Dr. Philpott, at the head of an imposing academic deputation, presented the Prince with the Letters Patent of his office. The venerable Laureate, Wordsworth, himself a Cambridge man, kindly responded to a suggestion that he should write the Installation Ode, and, as he observed in a letter to Colonel Phipps, “retouch a harp, which I will not say with Tasso, oppressed by misfortunes and years, has been hung up upon a cypress, but which has, however, been for some time laid aside.” That he excluded the Ode from his collected works indicates that he felt the ancient founts of inspiration had almost run dry, and yet there are many passages of stately beauty in the poem. It begins by referring to the rescue of Europe from the grasp of Napoleon, and to the wail of sorrow that resounded through England when the Princess Charlotte died:—

“Flower and bud together fall—

A nation’s hopes lie crushed in Claremont’s desolate hall.”

Then a noble strophe announces the birth of the Princess Victoria, and celebrates her happy destiny:—

Love, the treasure worth possessing

More than all the world beside;

This shall be her dearest blessing,

Oft to Royal heads denied.”

But the strength and resonance of the Ode chiefly lie in the passages addressed to the Prince in relation to his duties:—

“Albert, in thy race we cherish

A nation’s strength that will not perish

While England’s sceptred line

True to the King of Kings is found;

Like that wise ancestor of thine

Who threw the Saxon shield o’er Luther’s life,

When first above the yells of bigot strife

The trumpet of the Living Word

Assumed a voice of deep portentous sound,

From, gladdened Elbe to startled Tiber heard.”

Brilliant sunshine gilded those joyful July days when the Queen and her husband set out with a gay and gladsome party for the ceremony of Installation. “The great Railway King, Mr. Hudson himself,” writes the Queen in her Diary, took charge of their train. But perhaps the freshest and brightest account of the journey, and of the proceedings all through, is that of the Baroness Bunsen, a gifted lady who accompanied the Royal party, and who was an eye-witness of what occurred. In a letter to her mother, under date the 8th of July, 1847, she says:—“On Monday morning we were at the station before nine, just before Prince Waldemar, the Duke of Saxe-Weimar, and Prince of Oldenburg arrived, for whom the Queen had added a special train, and one of those carriages called Royal, like a long omnibus, just holding the Princes, their gentlemen aides-de-camp, Bishop Stanley, and Sir George Grey, Prince Löwenstein, and ourselves. The station was a curious spectacle, as usual—all ranks and materials of human society hurrying and jostling or standing together. Our little Aaron Elphick, advanced from a college at Hurstmonceux to be knife-cleaner at Oak Hill, from thence brought to London last year, grown and dressed into a sort of embryo footman, and lent to Prince Löwenstein for the journey to Cambridge, stood guarding the Prince’s portmanteau, whilst close by, talking across Aaron, stood three Princes and a Bishop. As we shot along, every station and bridge and resting-place and spot of shade was peopled with eager faces watching for the Queen, and decorated with flowers; but the largest and the brightest, and the gayest and most excited assemblage, was at the Cambridge Station itself, and from thence along the streets to Trinity College the degree of ornament and crowd and excitement was always increasing. I think I never saw so many children before in one morning, and I felt so much moved at the spectacle of such a mass of life collected together and animated by one feeling, and that a joyous one, that I was at a loss to conceive ‘how any woman’s sides can bear the beating of so strong a throb’ as must attend the consciousness of being the object of all that excitement and the centre of attraction for all those eyes; but the Queen has Royal strength of nerve. We met the well-fed magistrates and yeomanry going to await the Queen, as they desired to fetch her from the station, and walk in procession before her into the town. We saw her entrance into Trinity College as we stood at the window of the Lodge, and the academic crowd, in picturesque dresses, were as loud and rejoicing as any mob could have been. Soon after I went with Mrs. Whewell, Lady Hardwicke, and Lady Monteagle, to take our places in the yet vacant Great Hall of Trinity, where the Queen came to receive the Chancellor’s address, and a few minutes after she had placed herself on the Throne (i.e., arm-chair under a canopy at the raised extremity of the Hall). Prince Albert, as Chancellor, entered from the opposite end, in a beautiful dress of black and gold, with a long train held up, made a graceful bow, and read an address, to which she read an answer with a peculiar emphasis, uttering approbation of the choice of a Chancellor made by Cambridge! Both kept their countenances admirably, and she only smiled upon the Prince at the close, when all was over, and she had let all the heads of houses kiss her hand, which they did with exquisite variety of awkwardness, all but one or two. Afterwards, the Queen dined with the Vice-Chancellor in the hall of a small college, where but comparatively few could be admitted. My husband was among the invited, but not myself, and I was very glad to dine with Mrs. Whewell, Lady Monteagle, and three of their suite—Colonel Phipps, Mr. Anson, and Meyer. Later in the evening I enjoyed a walk in the beautiful garden belonging to the Lodge, where flowers, planted and cared for

DR. WHEWELL.

in the best manner, combine with fine trees and picturesque architecture. The Queen went to a concert, contrived as an extra opportunity of showing her to the public. On Tuesday morning all were up early to breakfast at nine (but I had crept into the garden and admired the abundance of roses long before that), to be ready before ten at the distribution of prizes and performance of the Installation Ode in the Senate House. The English prize poem, by a Mr. Day, on Sir Thomas More, had really merit besides the merit of the subject. The Installation Ode I thought quite affecting, because the selection of striking points is founded on fact, and all exaggeration and humbug were avoided.... Then the Queen dined in the Great Hall of Trinity, and splendid did the Great Hall look—330 people at various tables.... In the afternoon we had all been at luncheon at Downing College, and enjoyed dancing in a refreshing shade, and the spectacle of cheerful crowds in brilliant sunshine. The Queen came thither and walked round to see the Horticultural Show, and to show herself and the Chancellor.

THE QUEEN IN THE WOODWARDIAN MUSEUM. (See p. 315.)

After this was the real dinner, the Queen and her immediate suite at a table across the raised end of the Hall, all the rest at tables lengthways. At the Queen’s table the names were put on places, and anxious was the moment before one could find one’s place. I was directed by Lord Spencer to take one between him and the Duke of Buccleuch, and found myself in very agreeable neighbourhood.

“Yesterday morning I went with the Duchess of Sutherland and Lady Desart through the Library, King’s Chapel, Clare Hall, and the beautiful avenue and gardens—with combinations of trees, architecture, green turf, flowers, and water—which, under such a sun and sky as we had, could nowhere be finer. The Duchess was conducted by Dr. Whewell, Lady Desart by Lord Abercorn, and my honoured self by Dr. Meyer in uniform (as all had been attending the Chancellor’s levee in the morning), and we passed among the admiring crowd who followed us at a respectful distance, for the hero, Sir Harry Smith, as Lord Fortescue said, was taken for the Duke of Wellington. Till twelve we walked, and at one the Queen set out, through the Cloisters, and Hall and Library of Trinity College, to pass through the gardens and avenues, which had been connected for the occasion, by a temporary bridge over the river, with those of St. John’s, and we followed her, thus having the best opportunity of seeing everything, and in particular the joyous crowd that grouped among the noble trees. Then the Queen sat down to luncheon in a tent, and we were placed at her table. The only other piece of diplomacy was Van de Weyer; but Madame Van de W. did not come, being unable to undertake the fatigue. The Queen returned by Trinity Lodge, and left for good at three, and as soon as we could afterwards we drove away with Prince Waldemar. I could still tell much of Cambridge, of the charms of its trim gardens, and of how well the Queen looked, and how pleased, and how well she was dressed, and how perfect in grace and movements.”

Another little vignette of the stately academic pageant, in which the Queen shone as a sweet and charming figure, is rapidly sketched by another eye-witness. Bishop Wilberforce, writing to Miss Noel, July 5th, 1847,83 says:—

“The Cambridge scene was very interesting. There was such a burst of loyalty, and it so told on the Queen and the Prince. C. would not there have thought that he looked cold. It was quite clear that they both felt it was something new; that he had earned, and not she given, a true English honour; and so he looked so pleased and she so triumphant. There were also some pretty interludes—when he presented the address and she beamed upon him, and once half smiled, and then covered the smile with a gentle dignity, and then she said, in her clear, musical voice, ‘The choice which the University has made of its Chancellor has my most entire approbation.’”

The Royal lady’s voice may have been clear and distinct, but, as a matter of fact, she was thrilled with nervous excitement, quite unusual to her, and evidently due to the fulness of her heart in sharing her husband’s first great personal triumph over English prejudices. “I cannot say,” the Queen records in her Diary, “how it agitated and embarrassed me to receive this address, and hear it read by my beloved Albert, who walked in at the head of the University, and who looked dear and beautiful in his robes, which were carried by Colonel Phipps and Colonel Seymour. Albert went through it all admirably—almost absurd, however, as it was for us.” And the same thought shines through the last entry which the Queen makes with reference to the event. “We had spent,” she writes in her Diary, “a truly pleasant and most interesting time. To see my Albert honoured and esteemed, as he deserves, gives me the deepest satisfaction.... We reached Buckingham Palace at half-past four, and found the children all well. I felt tired and étourdie. We walked a little in the garden, then dined alone, and spent a dear, peaceful, happy evening.”

Here, perhaps, it may be permissible to say that Cambridge has ever been endeared to her Majesty by reason of many pleasant associations of her early married life which gather round it. As has been stated in a previous Chapter, it was at Cambridge in October, 1843, that Prince Albert first gained any insight into the English University system, during a visit which he and the Queen paid, quite informally, to Dr. Whewell, the Master of Trinity.84 They had a brilliant reception on that occasion, some two thousand horsemen accompanying them with shouts of welcome. The Royal pair had Whewell for a host and a cicerone, and Prince Albert, in a letter to Baron Stockmar, gives a glowing account of the enthusiasm with which he was received. Many good stories were told of the visit in the University after they left. Professor Sedgwick, the geologist, held some interesting conversation with the Prince in the Woodwardian Museum, and was quite surprised to find that he was a geologist of sound culture, who took much pleasure in teaching the Queen all he knew about the monsters of the Old World, whose history seemed greatly to interest her. The Professor was, however, nonplussed when her Majesty asked him where the head of his pet Ichthyosaurus, which he was unpacking, came from, and was fain to cover his ignorance for the moment by saying, much to her Majesty’s amusement, that doubtless “it came as a delegate from the monsters of the lower world to greet her Majesty on her arrival at the University.”85

It was on this occasion that the Queen made the acquaintance of her rugged but kindly host—the Master of Trinity—a rough diamond who had raised himself by sheer ability from the humble position of a sizar, to be virtually the intellectual head of the University. “W. and I,” writes Mrs. Whewell to her mother,86 “received commands to dine with the Queen at eight o’clock; hasty notices were sent out to those whom she would receive in the evening. At dinner, the Queen, and, still more, the Prince, asked my husband questions about the University and College, to which he gave such full answers, and they seemed to take so much interest in hearing them, that it quite took off the disagreeable effect of a Royal categorical conversation.... Certainly the Queen and Prince seemed to like it. After dinner, in the drawing-room, the Queen asked me if these were prints which lay on the table. I had taken care to place some interesting ones there, for the chance of her looking at them. The book she took most notice of was an old book by Sir Edward Stanhope, of coats-of-arms of our founders and benefactors, which we had got out of the Muniment Room. I pointed out some of the changes—Henry VIII.’s, for instance, with the rouge dragon of Cadwallader, the last of the Britons, for a supporter; James I.’s, with the unicorn. When Prince Albert came up-stairs she pointed it out to him. He seemed a very good herald, and told me several foreign coats that had quite puzzled me, and also Lord and Lady Maybrooke, who are great heralds.” On going away the Queen gave Mrs. Whewell a pretty bracelet, “saying she wished to give it to me with her own hands.... She spoke very kindly indeed, and Prince Albert came and said that the only thing he regretted was the

FALMOUTH HARBOUR.

shortness of the visit. She proceeded to the door; the Master was on the stairs. We accompanied them, walking as much backwards as we could.” This part of the etiquette seems to have severely exercised the kindly Cambridge dons, unused as they were to Court ceremonial. Sedgwick says, for example, with reference to the Royal visit to the Woodwardian Museum, “I will only add that I went through every kind of backward movement to the admiration of all beholders, only having once trodden on the hinder part of my cassock, and never once having fallen during my retrogradations before the face of the Queen. In short, had I been a king-crab I could not have walked backwards better.” Of the Queen the brusque old Master of Trinity himself wrote:—“She was very kind in all her expressions to us; told Cordelia that everything in her apartments ‘was so nice and so comfortable,’ and at parting gave her a very pretty bracelet. The Prince was very agreeable, intelligent, and conversible, seemed much interested with all he saw, and talked a good deal about his German University, Bonn.... At dinner I was opposite the Queen, who talked easily and cheerfully. I had also a good deal of occasion to talk to her, in showing her the lions of Cambridge,

THE ROYAL VISIT TO FINGAL’S CAVE. (See p. 319.)

which she ran over very rapidly. It is no small matter to provide for the Queen’s reception, even as we did. We had about forty servants of the Queen in the house, besides a dozen men belonging to the stable department who were in the town. The Queen’s coachman is reported to have said that he had taken her Majesty to many places, but never to anywhere where she was so well received, or where the ale was so good.”

These little reminiscences of the Queen’s early life are not, when rightly regarded, altogether trivial. They give us a delightful picture of a nature doubly royal—royal not merely by birth, but by what birth can never give—the easy affability of manner, the unaffected determination to please and be pleased, the true politeness and tender graces of demeanour which spring from the natural sunshine of the heart, and before which the pedantries of etiquette seem ghastly unrealities. Nothing can illustrate her Majesty’s simple geniality of heart better than a story about her visit to Cambridge, which it may be remarked Whewell does not tell. He was no courtier, as all the world knew, and he treated the Queen in the old-fashioned hospitable manner which the middle-class gentry in England assume towards their guests. The morning after her arrival he accordingly came down bustling into the room quite unceremoniously, and, to the horror of the Lords and Ladies in waiting, ignoring all Court etiquette, he walked up quite coolly and saluted her with brusque frankness as follows:—“Good-morning, your Majesty! How d’ye do? Hope your Majesty slept well. Fine morning, isn’t it?” to which the Queen, to the astonishment of her suite, returned an equally cordial answer, wreathed in the sweetest of smiles.

The visit to Scotland was arranged in August, after the General Election brought peace for a time into the political world. On the 11th of August the Royal party left Osborne in the Royal yacht; “our party,” says Prince Albert, “being composed of Victoria and myself, the two eldest children, with Miss Hildyard, Charles (Prince of Leiningen), the Duke and Duchess of Norfolk, Lady Jocelyn, General Wemyss, and Sir James Clark.” On the 12th they succeeded, in spite of the mist, in getting well out towards the Atlantic, but though the Prince, thanks to the advice of Admiral Sir Charles Napier, whose panacea for sea-sickness was a glass of port wine, stood the voyage well, some of the party were so sea-sick that they had to abandon the yacht at Falmouth. On the 13th they paid a hazardous visit to “the dogs of Scilly”—as one of the party observed to the Prince, “That is a very good thing over; I should think you will never care to see them again;” and on the 14th, under brighter skies and over smoother seas, they neared the Welsh coast, making land at Milford Haven, and anchoring under the shadow of its red cliffs. The Prince paid a flying visit to Pembroke Dockyard and Castle, but the Queen sat on deck sketching, as was often her favourite custom in these cruises to Scotland. On the 15th they were opposite the Isle of Anglesea, gazing with silent rapture on the hoary head of Snowdon rising from the midst of a sea of surrounding verdure. The Victoria and Albert was then sent to Holyhead, the Royal party proceeding in the Fairy through the Menai Straits, and passing the old Keep of Carnarvon, and Plas Newydd, and many other places recalling to the mind of the Queen touching reminiscences of a Welsh tour which, when Princess Victoria, she had made with her mother. On the 16th they ran into Douglas Bay and Ramsey Harbour in the Isle of Man, where, remarks Prince Albert in a letter to Stockmar, the good people “put in their paper that I led the Prince Regent (the little Prince of Wales) by the hand.” “Usually,” he adds humorously, “one has a Regent for an infant; but in Man it seems precisely the reverse.” On the 17th they were tossing in wonderment before the beetling cliffs of Ailsa Craig, their ears deafened by the screams of the sea-birds that wheeled and whirled in clouds between them and the sun; but as the creatures kept out of range, “with almost mathematical precision,” says Prince Albert mournfully, not one fell to his gun. The noble outlines of the Isle of Arran then broke on their view, and they sped on through Lamlash and Brodick Bays, past the Isle of Bute, past the Cumbraes, and up the romantic Firth of Clyde, with its great sea fiords eating their way northwards into the heart of the Highlands, to Greenock, where, embarking in the Fairy, they flew along to Dumbarton, “pursued in the literal sense by upwards of forty steamers.” The castle on the old rock here was explored, and the party then returned to Rothesay Bay, where the people were delighted to see their young Duke (the Prince of Wales). On the 18th they ran through the far-famed Kyles of Bute, on to Inverary, where an old-fashioned Highland welcome awaited them from the Duke and Duchess of Argyll, and a large family party of old friends. “Outside,” writes the Queen, “stood the Marquess of Lorne, just two years old, a dear, white, fat, fair little fellow, with reddish hair, but very delicate features, like both his mother and father; he is such a merry, independent little child. He had a black velvet dress and jacket with a sporran, scarf, and Highland bonnet.” There was luncheon in the castle, stalwart clansmen in their tartans lining the fine feudal hall with halberts in their hands.

The Royal yacht then glided down Loch Fyne, whose waters sparkled in the mellow sunshine, the Queen watching, with keen enjoyment, the long swathes of golden light that fell athwart the mighty shoulders of the mountains. Lochgilphead, the Sound of Jura, and Staffa were all reached in turn, and, the weather being fine, they ran into Fingal’s Cave in the Royal barge, with the Royal standard floating at the stern. “On me,” observes Prince Albert, “the cave produced a most romantic impression, on the ladies a very eerie and uncomfortable one.” The Queen writes:—“At three we anchored close before Staffa, and immediately got into the barge, with Charles, the children, and the rest of our people, and rowed towards the cave. As we rounded the point, the wonderful basaltic formation came into sight.... It (the cave) looked almost awful as we entered, and the barge heaved up and down on the swell of the sea.... It was the first time the British standard, with a Queen of Great Britain and her husband and children, had ever entered Fingal’s Cave.” Next day rain confined the Queen to her cabin, but in the afternoon she was able to come on deck and see Loch Linnhe, Loch Eil, and the entrance to Loch Leven. At Fort William the yacht anchored, and Prince Albert, with the Prince of Leiningen, went up the grim and gloomy Pass of Glencoe, haunted by the wraiths of the massacred Macdonalds.

When they returned the Queen landed from the yacht. In a drenching Scotch mist she was enthusiastically welcomed by a vast gathering of clansmen in characteristic tartans, and wearing their tribal badges, who turned out to receive her. By a rough and dreary road the Royal tourists drove through the mist to their destination—the lonely shooting-lodge of Ardverikie, by the wildly-beautiful but desolate shores of Loch Laggan. Ardverikie belonged to Lord Henry Bentinck, but at the time of the Queen’s visit it was let to Lord Abercorn: its great charm lay in its being, as the Prince said, a most “un-come-at-able” place, and here the Royal family, despite the atrocious weather, enjoyed a pleasant time of freedom and peace. Lord Grey and Lord Palmerston visited them in turn, and with both the Prince talked gravely on foreign politics—with the latter more especially, on impending troubles in Italy.

It was on the 28th of August that the Queen and Prince Albert were startled by a letter from Lord John Russell, intimating that Lord Palmerston and he were desirous of sending Lord Minto to Italy as an unofficial envoy to strengthen and encourage Pope Pius IX. in his reforming policy. This step, one may say in passing, was the one at which Mr. Disraeli jeered when he ridiculed the Whigs for sending their emissary to teach politics to the countrymen of Machiavelli. Her Majesty and her husband were of opinion that great caution would be necessary in arranging this mission, as it was illegal for the English Government to hold direct diplomatic intercourse with the Vatican; but they fully agreed that the time had come for England to adopt an independent line in foreign policy. “England’s mission,” wrote the Prince to Lord John Russell, “is to put herself at the head of the diffusion of civilisation and the attainment of liberty,” and they felt that it was no longer possible to adopt a purely passive attitude in the growing contest between Absolutism, as represented by Austria, and the forces of Liberalism which were beginning to strain the fetters in which the policy of Metternich confined them. But England, in the opinion of the Queen and her husband, was to wisely act the part of a sympathetic guide, and not push any nation beyond its own march, nor “impose on any nation what that nation does not itself produce.” But, says the Prince, boldly, “let her declare herself the protector and friend of all States engaged in progress, and let them acquire that confidence in England that she will, if necessary, defend them at her own risk.” Long and anxiously had these matters been debated between the Queen, her husband, and Lord Palmerston, who was with them. It was, however, agreed that on these lines Lord Minto’s instructions should be drawn up, and that similar instructions should be sent to all our diplomatic agents abroad for their guidance. The main idea of the new departure in foreign policy, according to the Prince, was that, whilst England should foster the cause of constitutional progress abroad, there must be no “pressing upon any State an advance which is not the result of its own impulse.” In carrying out this policy Lord Palmerston contrived to embroil England with every great Power in Europe. That, however, does not prove that the policy was bad. It merely shows that Lord Palmerston’s methods of dealing with foreign Governments were deficient alike in tact and taste—that his diplomacy, in fact, was

PRINCE ALBERT DEER-STALKING IN THE HIGHLANDS.

tainted with the taquinerie, of which M. Bastiat complained so bitterly to Mr. Cobden some years afterwards, and which ultimately rendered him as obnoxious personally to the Queen as he became to his own colleagues. About the end of September the Royal Family returned home, the Queen carrying with her, despite the bad weather, the brightest memories of lonely Ardverikie.

How complete, restful, and enjoyable the change of scene and occupation must have been for the Queen is brightly indicated by Lord Palmerston. He

HIGHLAND COTTAGES IN LOCHABER.

told Lord Campbell that her Majesty was greatly delighted with the Highlands, in spite of the bad weather, and “that she was accustomed to sally forth for a walk in the midst of a heavy rain, putting a great hood over her bonnet, and showing nothing of her features but her eyes. The Prince’s invariable return to luncheon at two o’clock, in spite of grouse-shooting and deer-stalking, is explained by his voluntary desire to please the Queen, and by the intense hunger which always assails him at this hour, when he likes, in the German fashion, to make his dinner.”87 One is not surprised, then, that in some of her Majesty’s letters to her relatives abroad, a note of regret is sounded over the exchange of this life of perfect freedom, for the ceremony, constraint, and semi-publicity which make up the daily round of life at Court.

Out of the conversations and discussions with Lord Palmerston and Prince Leiningen at Ardverikie grew projects for a policy of alliance with Germany, and foreshadowings of the great movement towards Unity which the Fatherland was, in the opinion of the Prince, bound to make under the leadership of Prussia. Nothing can be clearer than the Prince’s prevision in discussing this theme, or sounder than his arguments for an Anglo-German alliance, based on geographical and ethnical considerations. Lord Palmerston apparently agreed that England and Germany had reason to fear the same enemies, France and Russia, and that they had therefore an obvious interest in strengthening each other. But the German Zollverein, excellent as it was as a means of paving the way for German Unity, imposed prohibitory duties on English goods, and Lord Palmerston stoutly held that an English Minister would neglect his duty to his country if he did not use his influence to prevent every German State not yet in the Customs Union from joining it. To sacrifice the Zollverein was to destroy the germ of German Unity, and here the divergence between Palmerston’s views and those of the Court became patent. He was quite prepared to sacrifice the Zollverein in the cause of Free Trade. The Court was not.