Chapter III: The Prince of Wales

We in this country have grown accustomed to the existence of the Prince of Wales, and his personality, real and fabulous, is not unfamiliar on the other side of the Atlantic. But if we come to think of it, it is a very strange phenomenon. The only way to realise its immensity is to conceive its creation today, supposing that heretofore through the history of England there had been no such institution. A child is born in accidental circumstances and with chance connections that might just as reasonably have fallen to the lot of some other entity. He grows from childhood through youth into manhood, and all the stages, with increasing devotion and deference, he is made the object of reverential solicitude. All his wants are provided for, even anticipated. He is the first person to be considered wherever he goes. Men who have won renown in Parliament, in the camp, in literature, doff their hats at his coming, and high-born ladies curtsey.

It is all very strange; but so is the rising of the sun and the sequence of the moon. We grow accustomed to everything and take the Prince of Wales like the solar system as a matter of course.

Reflection on the singularity of his position leads to sincere admiration of the manner in which the Prince fills it. Take it for all in all, there is no post in English public life so difficult to fill, not only without reproach, but with success. Day and night the Prince lives under the bull's-eye light of the lantern of a prying public. He is more talked about, written about, and pulled about than any Englishman, except, perhaps, Mr. Gladstone. But Mr. Gladstone stands on level ground with his countrymen. If he is attacked or misrepresented, he can hit back again. The position of the Prince of Wales imposes upon him the impassivity of the target used in ordinary rifle practice. Whatever is said or written about him, he can make no reply, and the happy result which in the main follows upon this necessary attitude suggests that it might with advantage be more widely adopted.

Probably in the dead, unhappy night when the rain was on the roof and the Tranby Croft scandal was on everybody's tongue, the Prince of Wales had some bad quarters of an hour. But whatever he felt or suffered, he made no sign. To see him sitting in the chair on the bench in court whilst that famous trial was proceeding, no one, not having prior knowledge of the fact, would have guessed that he had the slightest personal interest in the affair. There was danger of his even over-doing the attitude of indifference. But he escaped it, and was exactly as smiling, debonair and courtly as if he were in his box at the theatre watching the development of some quite other dramatic performance. He has all the courage of his race, and his long training has steeled his nerves.

It would be so easy for the Prince of Wales to make mistakes that would alienate from him the affection which is now his in unstinted measure. There are plenty of precedents, and a fatal fulness of exemplars. Take, for example, his relations with political life. It would not be possible for him now, as a Prince of Wales did at the beginning of the century, to form a Parliamentary party, and control votes in the House of Commons by cabals hatched at Marlborough House. But he might, if he were so disposed, in less occult ways meddle in politics. As a matter of fact, noteworthy and of highest honour to the Prince, the outside public have not the slightest idea to which side of politics his mind is biassed. They know all about his private life, what he eats, and how much; how he dresses, whom he talks to, what he does from the comparatively early hour at which he rises to the decidedly late one at which he goes to bed. But in all the gossip daily poured forth about him there is never a hint as to whether he prefers the politics of Tory or Liberal, the company of Lord Salisbury or Mr. Gladstone.

In a country where every man in whatever station of life is a keen politician, this is a great thing to say for one in the position of the Prince of Wales.

This absolute impartiality of attitude does not arise from indifference to politics or to the current of political warfare. The Prince is a Peer of Parliament, sits as Duke of Cornwall, and under that name figures in the division lists on the rare occasions when he votes. When any important debate is taking place in the House, he is sure to be found in his corner seat on the front Cross Bench, an attentive listener. Nor does he confine his attention to proceedings in the House of Lords. In the Commons there is no more familiar figure than his seated in the Peers' Gallery over the clock, with folded hands irreproachably gloved, resting on the rail before him as he leans forward and watches with keen interest the sometimes tumultuous scene.

Thus he sat one afternoon in the spring of the session of 1875. He had come down to hear a speech with which his friend, Mr. Chaplin, was known to be primed. The House was crowded in every part, a number of Peers forming the Prince's suite in the gallery, while the lofty figure of Count Munster, German Ambassador, towered at his right hand, divided by the partition between the Peers' Gallery and that set apart for distinguished strangers. It was a great occasion for Mr. Chaplin, who sat below the gangway visibly pluming himself and almost audibly purring in anticipation of coming triumph. But a few days earlier the eminent orator had the misfortune to incur the resentment of Mr. Joseph Gillis Biggar. All unknown to him, Joseph Gillis was now lying in wait, and just as the Speaker was about to call on the orator of the evening, the Member for Cavan rose and observed,--

"Mr. Speaker, Sir, I believe there are strangers in the house."

The House of Commons, tied and bound by its own archaic regulations, had no appeal against the whim of the indomitable Joey B. He had spied strangers in due form, and out they must go. So they filed forth, the Prince of Wales at the head of them, the proud English Peers following, and by another exit the Envoy of the most potent sovereign of the Continent, representative of a nation still flushed with the overthrow of France--all publicly and peremptorily expelled at the raising of the finger of an uneducated, obscure Irishman, who, when not concerned with the affairs of the Imperial Parliament, was curing bacon at Belfast and selling it at enhanced prices to the Saxon in the Liverpool market.

The Prince of Wales bore this unparalleled indignity with the good humour which is one of his richest endowments. He possesses in rare degree the faculty of being amused and interested. The British workman, who insists on his day's labour being limited by eight hours, would go into armed revolt if he were called upon to toil through so long a day as the Prince habitually faces. Some of its engagements are terribly boring, but the Prince smiles his way through what would kill an ordinary man. His manner is charmingly unaffected, and through all the varying duties and circumstances of the day he manages to say and do the right thing. It is not a heroic life, but it is in its way a useful one, and must be exceedingly hard to live.

Watching the Prince of Wales moving through an assemblage, whether it be as he enters a public meeting or as he strolls about the greensward at Marlborough House on the occasion of a garden party, the observer may get some faint idea of the strain ever upon him. You can see his eyes glancing rapidly along the line of the crowd in search of some one whom he can make happy for the day by a smile or a nod of recognition. If there were one there who might expect the honour, and who was passed over, the Prince knows full well how sore would be the heart-burning.

There is nothing prettier at the garden party than to see him walking through the crowd of brave men and fair women with the Queen on his arm. Her Majesty used in days gone by to be habile enough at the performance of this imperative duty laid upon Royalty of singling out persons for recognition. Now, when he is in her company, the Prince of Wales does it for her. Escorting her, bare-headed, through the throng; he glances swiftly to right or left, and when he sees some one whom he thinks the Queen should smile upon he whispers the name. The Queen thereupon does her share in contributing to the sum of human happiness.

It is, as I began by saying, all very strange if we look calmly at it. But, in the present order of things, it has to be done. It is the Prince of Wales's daily work, and it is impossible to conceive it accomplished with fuller appearance of real pleasure on the part of the active agent.