Chapter VI (1)

1847-52

On January 1, 1847, Lady John wrote in her diary that the year was beginning most prosperously for her and those dearest to her. "Within my own home all is peace and happiness." About a month later she became dangerously ill in London.

LONDON, _February_ 21, 1847

I have been very ill since I last wrote.... I felt that life was
still dear to me for the sake of those I love and of those who
depend on me.... I saw the look of agony of my dearest husband; I
thought of my heart's treasure--my darling boy; I thought of my
other beloved children; I thought of those still earlier loved--my
dear, dear Papa and Mama, brothers and sisters. But I was calm and
ready to go, if such should be God's will.... Dr. Rigby has been
not only the most skilful doctor, but the kindest friend.

In the spring of this year, 1847, the Queen offered Pembroke Lodge to the Prime Minister. He accepted with thankfulness, and throughout life both he and Lady John felt deep gratitude to the Queen for their beautiful home.

Pembroke Lodge is a long, low, irregular white house on the edge of the high ground which forms the western limit of Richmond Park. Added to and altered many times, it has no unity of plan, but it has kept a character of its own, an air of cheerful seclusion and homely eighteenth-century dignity. On the eastern side it is screened from the road by shrubs and trees; on the other side, standing as it does upon the top of the steep, wooded ridge above the Thames Valley, its windows overlook a thousand fields, through which the placid river winds, now flowing between flat open banks, now past groups of trees, or by gardens where here and there the corner of an old brick house shows among cedars. The grounds are long rather than wide, and comprise the slope towards the valley and the stretch along the summit of the ridge, where beech, oak, and chestnut shade with their green and solemn presences a garden of shorn turf and border flowers. Walking beneath them, you see between their stems part of some slow-sailing cloud or glimpses of the distant plain; as you descend, the gardens, village, and river near below. There is a peculiar charm in these steep woods, where the tops of some trees are level with the eye, while the branches of others are overhead. As the paths go down the slope they lose their garden-like trimness among bracken and brambles. An oak fence separates the grounds of Pembroke Lodge from the surrounding park.

It was indeed a perfect home for a statesman. When wearied or troubled with political cares and anxieties, the fresh breezes, the natural beauties, and the peace of Pembroke Lodge often helped to bring calm and repose to his mind. What better prospect can his windows command than the valley of the Thames from Richmond Hill, the view Argyll showed Jeanie Deans, which drew from her the admission "it was braw rich feeding for the cows," though she herself would as soon have been looking at "the craigs of Arthur's Seat and the sea coming ayont them, as at a' that muckle trees." Certainly no home was ever more appreciated and loved than Pembroke Lodge, both by Lord and Lady John Russell and their children. Long afterwards Lady John wrote:

In March, 1847, the Queen offered him Pembroke Lodge for life, a
deed for which we have been yearly and daily more grateful. He and
I were convinced that it added years to his life, and the happiness
it has given us all cannot be measured. I think it was a year or
two before the Queen offered us Pembroke Lodge that we came down
for a few days for a change of air for some of the children to the
Star and Garter. John and I, in one of our strolls in the park, sat
under a big oak-tree while the children played round us. We were at
that time often in perplexity about a country home for the summer
and autumn, to which we could send them before we ourselves could
leave London.... From our bench under the oak we looked into the
grounds of Pembroke Lodge, and we said to one another that would be
the place for us. When it became ours indeed we often thought of
this, and the oak has ever since been called the "Wishing Tree."
[31] ... From the time that Pembroke Lodge became ours we used only
to keep the children in town from the meeting of Parliament till
Easter, and settle the younger ones at Pembroke Lodge, and we
ourselves slept there Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays with as
much regularity as other engagements allowed. This obliged us to
give up most dinner engagements in London, and we regretted the
consequent loss of society. At the same time he always felt the
need of those evenings and mornings of rest and change and country
air (besides those welcome and blessed Sundays) after Parliamentary
and official toil, rather than of heated and crowded rooms and late
hours; and he had the happy power of throwing off public cares and
giving his whole heart to the enjoyment of his strolls in the
garden, walks and rides in the park, and the little interests of
the children. [32]

[31] When Pembroke Lodge was offered to them they remembered--with surprise and delight at its fulfilment--the wish of that day, known to themselves alone.

[32] Appendix at end of chapter.

The short Whitsuntide holiday was spent in settling in at Pembroke Lodge.

_Lady John Russell to Lady Mary Abercromby_

PEMBROKE LODGE, _October_ 29, 1847

... You would not wonder so much at his [Lord John's] silence
lately, if you knew what nobody but English Ministers' wives
_can_ know or conceive, how incessantly either his mind or
body or both have been at work on financial affairs.

He has gone to town every morning early, Sunday included; worked
hard the whole day in Downing Street, writing long letters and
seeing one man and one deputation after another, on these most
difficult and most harassing subjects--only returning here for tea,
and with no time for any other correspondence but that between tea
and bed, when a little rest and amusement is almost necessary for
him--then waking in the night to think of bullion and Exchequer
Bills till time to get up. Now this great anxiety is partly over;
for when once he has taken a resolution, after all the reflection
and consideration he can give to a subject, he feels that he has
done his best, and awaits its success or failure with comparative
ease of mind.

The difficulties of this Ministry have been briefly stated at the close of the last chapter; working with a precarious majority, they had to cope with starvation and revolt in Ireland, Chartism in England, and disturbances abroad.

In December, 1847, they passed their Irish Coercion Bill. [33] The passing of this Bill was one of the few occasions on which Lady John could not convince herself that her husband's policy was the wisest one.

[33] "The state of Ireland was chaotic, and Lord Clarendon (Lord Lieutenant) was demanding a stringent measure of coercion. He did not get it.... The two Bills [Sir Robert Peel's in 1846 and the Bill of 1847] were so entirely different that to call them by a common name, though perhaps inevitable, is also inevitably misleading" ("History of Modern England," Herbert Paul, vol. i, chap. iv. See also Walpole's "Life of Lord John Russell," vol. i, chap, xvii.)

Subsequently, during the enforcement of the Act, the bitterness of the attacks upon her husband, who, she knew, wished Ireland well, and the sight of his anxiety, made her for a time less sympathetic with the Irish; but she did not, and could not, approve of the Government's action at the time. Among Irishmen, a Government which had first opposed a Tory Coercion Bill, and when in power proposed one themselves, might well excite indignation. Ireland was already in a state so miserable that the horrors of a civil war with a bare chance of better things beyond must have seemed well worth risking to her people, now the party which had hitherto befriended them had adopted the policy of their oppressors.

On February 26, 1848, the news that Louis Philippe had been deposed reached the House of Commons. "This is what would have happened here," said Sir Robert Peel, "if these gentlemen [pointing to the Protectionists] had had their way." The astonishment was great, and the fear increased that the Chartist movement and Irish troubles would lead to revolution at home.

The immediate cause of the revolution in France had been Louis Philippe's opposition to electoral reform; only one Frenchman in about a hundred and fifty possessed a vote under his reign. "Royalty having been packed off in a hackney coach," the mildest of Parisian mobs contented itself with smashing the King's bust, breaking furniture, and firing at the clock of the Tuileries that it might register permanently upon its face the propitious moment of his departure. He had embarked the next day for England, shaven and in green spectacles, and landed upon our shores under the modest pseudonym of "William Smith." England did not welcome him. His Spanish marriage intrigues had naturally not made him a favourite, and his enemy, Palmerston, was at the Foreign Office. Two days afterwards Louis Napoleon Bonaparte left England to pay his respects to the Provisional Government. "I hasten," he wrote in memorable words, "I hasten from exile to place myself under the flag of the Republic just proclaimed. Without other ambition than that of being useful to my country, I announce my arrival to the members of the Provisional Government, and assure them of my devotion to the cause which they represent." He was, however, courteously requested to withdraw from France, since the law banishing the Napoleon family had not yet been repealed, a circumstance which enabled him to return to England in time to enrol himself in the cause of law and order as a special constable at the Chartist meeting.

LONDON, _February_ 26, 1848

We and everybody much taken up with the startling and in some
respects terrible events in France. The regency of the Duchess of
Orleans rejected by the Chambers, or rather by the Côté Gauche, and
a republic proclaimed. Sad loss of life in Paris--the King and
Queen fled to Eu--Guizot, it is said, to Brussels. We dined at the
Palace, and found the Queen and Prince, the Duchess of Kent, Duke
and Duchess of Saxe Coburg, thinking of course of little else--and
almost equally _of course_, full of nothing but indignation
against the French nation and Guizot, nothing but pity for the King
and Queen and royal family, and nothing but fears for the rest of
Europe from the infection of such an example. I sat next the Duke
of Coburg, who more particularly took this _class_ view with
very little reasoning and a great deal of declamation. Said he
should not care if Guizot lost his head, and much in the same
spirit. The Queen spoke with much good sense and good feeling, if
not with perfect impartiality.

_Lady John Russell to Lady Mary Abercromby_

LONDON, _March_ 3, 1848

How anxious you must be as to the effect which the extraordinary
events in France will have upon Italy. They have been so rapid and
unexpected that all power of reasoning upon them has been lost in
wonder. Some pity must inevitably be felt for any man "fallen from
his high estate"; but if, as I trust, the report of Louis
Philippe's safety and arrival in England is true, his share of it
will be as small as ever fell to the lot of a King in misfortune;
for the opinion that he has deserved it is general. It is seldom
that history gives so distinct a lesson of retribution. You know
what London is in a ferment of exciting events, and can therefore
pretty well imagine the constant succession of reports, true and
false, from hour to hour, the unceasing cries of the newsmen with
2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th editions of all the newspapers, the running
about of friends to one another's houses, the continual crossing of
notes in the streets, each asking the same questions, the hopes and
fears and the conjectures one hears and utters during the course of
the day, and the state of blank, weary stupidity to which one is
reduced by the end of it. What _I_ mind most in it all is the
immense additional anxiety and responsibility it brings upon my
poor husband, who feels it even more than he would have done any
other year from being still, I grieve to say, less strong and well
owing to his influenza still hanging about him.

_Lady John Russell to Lady Minto_

PEMBROKE LODGE, _March_ 29, 1848

John returned to dinner, but some hours later than I expected him,
which in times like these, when each hour may bring an account of a
_new_ revolution _somewhere_, or worst of all, of a
rebellion in Ireland, is a trial to a Minister's wife. However, the
reason was simply that Prince Albert had detained him talking. ...
Of course we talked a great deal with our visitors of France,
Italy, Germany, and Ireland; but happily, engrossing as these
topics are, the bright sun and blue sky and shining river and
opening leaves and birds and squirrels _would_ have their
share of attention, and give some rest to our minds.

_Lady John Russell to Lady Mary Abercromby_

PEMBROKE LODGE, _March_ 31, 1848

The preparations for rebellion in Ireland are most alarming, and
John's usually calm and _hopeful_ spirit more nearly fails him
on that subject than any other. The speeches and writings of the
Young Ireland leaders are so _extravagantly_ seditious, and so
grossly false as to the behaviour of England generally, and the
present Ministry in particular to Ireland, that I cannot but hope
they may defeat their own objects.... Poor people, the more deeply
one feels for the starving and destitute millions among them and
admires their patience and resignation, and the more bitterly one
resents the misgovernment under which the whole nation suffered for
hundreds of years, the fruits of which we are now reaping, the less
one can excuse those reckless ones who are now misleading them, who
must and _do_ know that the present Ministers have not looked
on with indifference and let famine and fever rage at will; that
the subject of Ireland is _not_ one to which the Houses of
Parliament never give a day's or an hour's thought, but that on the
contrary, _her_ interests and happiness are daily and nightly
the object of more intense anxiety and earnest endeavours on the
part of her rulers than any portion of the Empire. We have had a
week of such real spring with all its enjoyments, and to-day is so
much finer and milder than ever, that the notion of streets and
smoke and noise is odious. However, we have enough to go for,
private and public. May God prosper the good cause of peace and
freedom all over Europe.

The European revolutionary movement of 1848 did not prove serious in England. What actually took place was a mild mass meeting on Kennington Common, well kept within the bounds of decorum by an army of citizen police. In Ireland, a rough-and-tumble fight between Smith O'Brien's followers and the police was all that came of the dreaded rebellion. But before these events took place the future looked ominous, especially to those responsible for what might happen.

_Lady John Russell to Lady Mary Abercromby_

_April_ 8, 1848

John had a late night in the House, and made two speeches on the
unpleasant subjects of the Chartist meeting next Monday and Sir
George Grey's "Security of the Crown" Bill; both of which ought to
do good, from their mild and _whiggish_ tone, in spite of the
sadly _un_-whiggish nature of the topics; the very, last to
which one would wish a Whig Government to have to turn its
attention. All minds are full of next Monday, and at this moment we
have not a manservant in the house, as they are summoned to a
meeting to learn their duties as special constables for that day. I
find it difficult to be in the least frightened, and I trust I am
right. The only thing I dread is being long without knowing what
John is about, and as he would be equally unwilling to know nothing
about me, in case of any march upon this house or any other
disagreeable demonstration against the Prime Minister, we have
arranged that I am to go to Downing Street with him in the morning
and remain all day there, as that is the place he will most easily
come to from the House of Commons. My spirits have been much
lowered about the whole thing this morning, as Mr. Trevelyan has
been here and persuaded John that it would be madness for me either
to remain in this house or go to Downing Street, both of which
would be _marks_ in case of a fight.

Mr. Trevelyan is very seriously alarmed, and talks of the effect
the sound of the _cannon_ might have upon me, and has
persuaded Lady Mary Wood to go to his house on Clapham Common. I do
not yet know what the other Ministers' wives are going to do, but I
_do_ know that I think Milton quite right in saying:

"The wife, where danger or dishonour lurks,
Safest and seemliest by her husband bides."

However, I must do as I am bid, or at least I must do what makes
_him_ easiest.

LONDON, _April_ 9, 1848

Hardly knew how much I had been thinking of to-morrow till I had to
read aloud the prayers for Queen, country, and Parliament.

_Lady John Russell to Lady Mary Abercromby_

DOWNING STREET, _Monday_, 3 _o'clock_

Well, here we are after all, Lady Grey, Lady Mary Wood, and I, with
much easier minds than we have had for many days.

Everything has ended quietly; the meeting has dispersed at the
persuasion of its leaders, who took fright. Fergus O'Connor
especially has shown himself the most abject blusterer, and came
pale and haggard and almost crying to speak to Sir George Grey--and
told him how anxious he was that all should come to a peaceable
end.

It seems too good to be true, after the various alarming reports
and conjectures. Of course there will still be _some_ anxiety
until the night is well over, and till we see whether the Chartist
spirit rises again after this failure. To begin at the beginning, I
ought to tell you that hearing a great clattering at six this
morning I got up, and looked out, and saw immense numbers of
Lancers ride from the West into Belgrave Square, which they left to
go to their destination somewhere about Portland Place, after
performing many pretty manoeuvres which I did not understand. Many
foot soldiers passed by. I admired the sight, but silently prayed
that their services might not be required. We packed the brougham
full of mattresses and blankets, as it seemed likely that we should
have to sleep here. Now we have little doubt of getting home.

_Lady John Russell to Lady Mary Abercromby_

LONDON, _April_ 12, 1848

Yesterday was chiefly spent in receiving visits and congratulations
without end, and very welcome they were. John and I had also a good
long walk to freshen him up for a hard day in the House of
Commons....

_April_ 13, 1848

Again many notes and visits of congratulation and mutual rejoicing
yesterday. God grant that this triumph of the good cause may have
some effect on unhappy, misguided Ireland; there is the weight that
almost crushes John, who opens Lord Clarendon's daily letters with
an uneasiness not to be told.

_Queen Victoria to Lord John Russell_

OSBORNE, _April_ 14, 1848

The Queen has received Lord John Russell's letter of yesterday
evening. She approves that a form of prayer for the present time of
tumult and trouble be ordered. She concludes it is for _peace_
and _quiet_ GENERALLY, which indeed we _may well_ pray
for. A thanksgiving for the failure of any attempts like the
proposed one last Monday, the Queen would not have thought
judicious, as being painful and unlike thanksgiving for
preservation from _foreign war_.

Our accounts from Germany yesterday, from different quarters, were
very distressing and alarming. So much fear of a _total_
subversion of _all_ existing things. But we must not lose
courage or hope.

In the midst of these troubles and forebodings, on the day that the Queen wrote the above letter to Lord John, their second son, George William Gilbert, was born.

Lady John was touched by the following letter from Dr. James Simpson (the eminent physician, later Sir James Simpson), under whose medical care she had been in Edinburgh some years before.

EDINBURGH, _March_, 1848

I heard from two or three different sources that your Ladyship was
to be blessed by an addition to your family....

I _once_ made a pledge, that I would gladly leave all to watch
and guard over your safety if you desired me. I have not forgotten
the pledge, and am ready to redeem it--but not for fee or
recompense, only for the love and pleasure of being near you at a
time I could possibly show my gratitude by watching over your
valued health and life.... With almost all my medical brethren here
I use chloroform in all cases. None of us, I believe, could now
feel justified in _not_ relieving pain, when God has bestowed
upon us the means of relieving it.

_May_ 16, 1848

With a thankful heart I begin my diary again. Another child has
been added to our blessings--another dear little boy. John was with
me. Oh! his happiness when all was safely over. This child has done
much already to restore his health and strength. Summer weather and
the success of all his political measures for the last anxious
months have also done much.

But the Irish troubles were by no means over; on July 21st Lord John introduced a Bill for the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act in Ireland. His case rested on Lord Clarendon's evidence that a rebellion was on the point of breaking out, and circumstances seem to have justified this precautionary measure. The Bill was passed without opposition and with the support of all the prominent men in Parliament.

_July_ 21, 1848

Irish news much the same. A Cabinet at which it was determined to
propose suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act. John accordingly gave
notice of it in the House. I had hoped that a Whig Ministry would
never be driven to such measures. I had hoped that Ireland would
remember my husband's rule for ever with gratitude.

_Lady John Russell to Lady Mary Abercromby_

LONDON, _July_ 28, 1848

I have another letter to thank you for. You really must not
describe the beauties of that place to me any more. It must so
perfectly satisfy the longing for what, after some years of such a
life as ours, seems the height of happiness--repose. I struggle
hard against this longing, but I doubt whether I should do so
successfully without that blessed Pembroke Lodge, from which I
always return newly armed for the turmoil. After all, I am much
more afraid of my husband being overpowered by this longing than
myself. He can so much seldomer indulge in it. He is so much older,
and it is so much more difficult for him to portion out his
employments with any regularity, which is his best preservative
against _fuss_. Yesterday was a most trying day for him, and
the more so as he had looked forward to it as one of rest and
enjoyment. It was Baby's christening-day, and we meant to remain at
Pembroke Lodge after the ceremony to luncheon; but just as we were
going to church came a letter from Sir George Grey with news of the
whole South of Ireland being in rebellion, with horrible additions
of bloodshed, defection of the troops, etc. As it has, thank God,
turned out to be a hoax, a most wicked hoax, of some stockjobbing
or traitorous wretch at Liverpool, I shall not waste your time and
sympathies by telling you of the anxious hours we spent till seven
in the evening, when the truth was made out.

And now let us trust that real rebellion may not be in store. It is
dreadful to think of bloodshed, of loss of life, of the desolation
of one's country and of the many, many imaginable and unimaginable
miseries of civil war; but one thing I feel would be more dreadful
still, weak and womanly as I may be in so feeling--to see one's
husband unable to prevent the miseries, perhaps accusing himself of
them, and sinking, as I know mine _would_, by degrees under
his efforts and his regrets. Let us trust and pray, then, that we
are not doomed to see the reality of so gloomy a picture. It is
always difficult to me to look forward to great political failures
and national misfortunes, perhaps because I have never known any;
but the alarm of yesterday has made them seem more possible.

_Lady John Russell to Lady Mary Abercromby_

LONDON, _August_ 3, 1848

... I do not care for my country or my husband's success a bit more
than is good for me, and I often wonder at and almost blame myself
for not being more disturbed about them.

I know that he does his best, and that is all I care very deeply or
very permanently about; though there may now and then be a more
than commonly anxious day. If I thought him stupid, or mean, or
ignorant, or thoughtless, or indifferent in his trade, I should not
be satisfied with his doing his best even; but as I luckily think
him the contrary of all these things, I am both satisfied and calm,
and his own calm mind helps me to be so. Sometimes I think I care
much more about politics at a distance than when I am mixed up in
them. The fact is that I care very much for the questions
themselves, but grow wearied to death of all the details and
personalities belonging to them, and consequently of the
conversation of lady politicians, made up as it is of these details
and personalities. And the more interested I am in the thing
itself, the more angry I am with the nonsense they talk about it,
and had rather listen to the most humdrum domestic twaddle. Mind, I
mean the regular hardened lady politicians who talk of nothing
else, of whom I could name several, but will not.

PEMBROKE LODGE, _November_ 24, 1848

We have just had a visit from Louis Philippe. He spoke much of
France--said that his wishes were with Louis Bonaparte rather than
with Cavaignac for the presidency.

John expressed some fear of war if Louis Bonaparte should be
elected; the King said he need have none, that France had neither
means nor inclination for war. His account of the dismissal of
Guizot's Ministry was that he said to Guizot "What's to be
done?"--that Guizot gave him three answers: "Je ne peux pas donner
la Réforme. Je ne peux pas laisser dissoudre la garde nationale. Je
ne peux pas laisser tirer les troupes sur la garde nationale." Upon
this he had said to Guizot that he must change his Ministry: "Cela
l'a peut-être un peu blessé--ma foi, je n'en sais rien. Il a dit
que non, que j'étais le maitre."

When he heard that the National Guard said, if the troops fired on
the mob, _they_ would fire on the troops, he knew that "la
chose était finie," and when he went out himself among the National
Guard, to see what the effect of his presence would be, La
Moricière called out to him, "Sire, si vous allez parmi ces gens-là
je ne réponds pas de votre vie. Ils vont tirer sur vous." He
answered whatever might come of it he would "parler à ces braves
gens"; but they surrounded him, grinning and calling out "La
Réforme, nous voulons la Réforme," pointing their bayonets at him
and even over his horse's neck.

_Lady John Russell to Lady Mary Abercromby_

WOBURN ABBEY, _December_ 10, 1848

The great question of the French Presidency is decided, whether for
good or for evil to other countries none can foresee, but certainly
to the disgrace of their own. For here is a man, known only by a
foolish attempt to disturb France, to whom no party gives credit
for either great or good qualities, raised to the highest dignity
in the new Republic, one of the advantages of which was to be that
men should rise by their own merits alone. The common language of
Frenchmen, or at least of French Royalists on the subject, is that
they consider his election as a step to the restoration of
Monarchy--but it is a shabby way of making the step, or it may
prove a false one. You know we have had Louis Philippe and his
family as near neighbours at the Star and Garter for some weeks,
and we have seen him several times, to thank us for our inquiries
after the poor Queen and Princes while they were so ill. Only think
how strange to see this great King, this busy plotter for the glory
of his own family and the degradation of England, taking refuge in
that very England, and sitting in the house of one of those very
Ministers whom he had been so proud of outwitting, giving the
history of "ma chute." This he did with great bitterness;
representing the whole French nation as a mass of place-hunters,
without patriotism and without gratitude, and with no tenderness to
Guizot. There is nothing noble and touching in his manner or
conversation, or I am sure he would have inspired me with more pity
in his fallen state, in spite of many faults as a King. [34]

[34] In later years Lord and Lady John had much friendly intercourse with the Due d'Aumale, son of Louis Philippe, and with the Comte de Paris and the Due de Chartres (grandsons of the King), who were neighbours and welcome visitors at Pembroke Lodge.

During the earlier part of 1849, Lord John suffered from the effects of overwork, and like most tired statesmen he began to think of taking a peerage. On July 11th their third son, Francis Albert Rollo Russell, was born at Pembroke Lodge. The parliamentary recess was an easier period than they had known since taking office, and they had time to attend to other projects, although the difficulties with Palmerston at the Foreign Office were meanwhile coming to a climax.

In August Lord and Lady John founded a school at Petersham, over which she watched with unflagging interest till her death. They were amused by the remark of an old gentleman in the neighbourhood, who said that to have a school at Petersham "would ruin the aristocratic character of the village"--education and aristocracy being evidently, in his eyes, opposing forces.

The classes were held at first in a room in the village; the present building was not erected till 1852.

On August 32nd Lady John wrote in her diary:

Our little school, which had long been planned, was opened in a
room in the village the day before Baby's birthday, July 10th, and
goes on well. We celebrated John's birthday last Saturday by giving
the school-children a tea under the cedar, and a dance on the lawn
afterwards, and very merry they were.

In August and September the Prime Minister spent some weeks at Balmoral, and wrote as follows on his last day there:

_Lord John Russell to Lady John Russell_

BALMORAL, _September_ 6, 1849

I leave this place to-morrow.... No hostess could be more charming
or more easy than the Queen has been--or more kind and agreeable
than the Prince, and I shall leave this place with increased
attachment to them.

The Queen had been to Ireland in August, and Lord Dufferin wrote an interesting account of her visit in a letter to Lady John.

_Lord Dufferin to Lady John Russell_

_September_ 10, 1849

As the newspaper reporters have already described all, nay more
than was to be seen on the occasion of the Queen's visit to
Ireland, I need not trouble you with any of my own experiences
during those auspicious days--suffice it to say that the people
were frantic with loyalty and enthusiasm. Indeed, I never witnessed
so touching a sight as when the Queen from her quarter-deck took
leave of the Irish people. It was a sweet, calm, silent evening,
and the sun just setting behind the Wicklow mountains bathed all
things in golden floods of light. Upon the beach were crowded in
thousands the screaming bother-headed people, full of love and
devotion for her, her children, and her house, surging to and fro
like some horrid sea and asking her to come back quick to them, and
bidding her God-speed.... It was a beautiful historical picture,
and one which one thought of for a long time after Queen and ships
and people had vanished away. I suspect that she too must have
thought of it that night as she sat upon the deck and sailed away
into the darkness--and perhaps she wondered as she looked back upon
the land, which ever has been and still is, the dwelling of so much
wrong and misery, whether it should be written in history
hereafter, that in _her_ reign, and under _her_ auspices,
Ireland first became prosperous and her people contented. Directly
after the Queen's departure, I started on a little tour round the
West coast, where I saw such sights as could be seen nowhere else.
The scenery is beautiful and wild.... But after one has been
travelling for a little while in the far West one soon loses all
thought of the scenery, or the climate, or anything else, in
astonishment at the condition of the people. I do most firmly
believe that in no other country under the sun are there to be
found men so wretched in every respect.... All along the West
coast, from North to South, there has been allowed to accumulate on
land utterly unable to support them a dense population, the only
functions of whose lives have been to produce rent and children.
Generation after generation have grown up in ignorance and misery,
while those who lived upon the product of their labours have
laughed and rioted through life as though they had not known that
from them alone could light and civilization descend upon these
poor wretches. I had often heard, as every one has, of the evils of
absenteeism, but till I came and saw its effects I had no notion
how great a crime it is.... They [the absentee landowners] thought
only of themselves and their own enjoyments, they left their people
to grow up and multiply like brute beasts, they stifled in them by
their tyranny all hope and independence and desire of advancement,
they made them cowards and liars, and have now left them to die off
from the face of the earth. Neither can any one living at a
distance have any notion of the utter absence of all public spirit
among the upper classes.... Legislation can do nothing when there
is nothing for it to act upon. Parliament to Ireland is what a
galvanic battery is to a dead body, and it is in vain to make laws
when there is no machinery to work them. A people must be worked up
to a certain point in their dispositions and understandings before
they can be affected by highly civilized legislation.... It is only
individual exertions, and the personal superintendence of wise and
good men, that can ever drill the Irish people into a legislatable
state.... One or two things, however, seem to me pretty certain--

1. That under proper management the Irish peasant can be made
anything of.

2. That, generally speaking, the present class of proprietors must
and will be swept from off the surface of the earth.

3. That in the extreme West the surface is overcrowded, but not at
all so a few miles inland.

4. That reclaiming waste lands and bogs at present is to throw
money away.

I begin to fear I have written a strange rigmarole, but still I
will send it, for though Irish matters cannot interest you as they
do me, yet still a letter is always a pleasant thing to receive,
even only that one may have the satisfaction of looking at the
Queen's head and breaking the seal.

The next entry from Lady John's Diary is dated October 9, 1849.

After tea John told me that he had informed the Cabinet of his plan
for the extension of the suffrage--to be proposed next session. All
looked grave. Sir Charles Wood and Lord Lansdowne expressed some
alarm.... To grant an increase of weight to the people of this
country when revolutions are taking place on all sides, when a
timid Ministry would rather seek to diminish that which they
already have, is to show a noble trust in them, of which I believe
they will nobly prove themselves worthy.

Lord John's determination to carry through this measure himself, rather than to leave it in the hands of others, was afterwards the cause of the first defeat of the Whig Government.

_Lady John Russell to Lady Mary Abercromby_

LONDON, _February_ 19, 1850

The weeks are galloping past so much faster even than usual that
there is no keeping pace with them.

I neither read, write, teach, learn, nor do anything--unless indeed
revising visiting books and writing invitations is to be called
something. I want to be with my Mama, to be with my husband, to be
with my children, to be with friends, and to be alone, all at the
same time. I want to read everything, and to write to everybody,
and to walk everywhere, in no time at all. And what is the result?
Why, that I lose the very _power_ not only of _doing_, but
of _thinking_, to a degree that makes me seriously uneasy and
unfits me to be a companion to anybody older or wiser than Wee-wee,
or Baby, whose capacities exactly suit mine. All this sounds as if
I led a life of bustle, which I do _not_--but it is _too
full,_ and there is an end of it. I dare say it is mistaken
vanity to suppose that if it was emptier I should do anything
worthier of record in the political, literary, or educational
line--and at all events it would be hard to find a happier or, I
trust, more thankful heart than mine, my troubles being in fact the
result of many blessings.

The next session opened with the Greek crisis, which Greville described as "the worst scrape into which Palmerston has ever got himself and his colleagues. The disgust at it here is universal with those who think at all about foreign matters: it is past all doubt that it has produced the strongest feelings of indignation against this country all over Europe, and the Ministers themselves are conscious what a disgraceful figure they cut, and are ashamed of it."

Palmerston had ordered the blockade of the Piraeus to extort compensation from the Greek Government on behalf of Mr. Finlay (afterwards the historian of Greece), whose land had been commandeered by the King of Greece for his garden, and on behalf of Don Pacifico, a Maltese Jew (and therefore a British subject), whose house had been wrecked by an Athenian mob. The Greek Government had been prepared to pay Compensation in both cases, but not the figure demanded, which turned out, indeed, on investigation, to be in gross excess of fair compensation. Palmerston's action nearly threw Europe into war; Russia protested, and France, who had offered to mediate, was aggravated by a diplomatic muddle to the verge of breaking off negotiations. A vote of censure was passed by the Opposition in the House of Lords, which had the effect of making Lord John take up the cause of Palmerston in the Commons. The question was discussed in a famous four days' debate. "It contained," says Mr. Herbert Paul, "the finest of all Lord Palmerston's speeches, the first great speech of Gladstone, the last speech of Sir Robert Peel, and the most elaborate of those forensic harangues, delivered successively at the Bar, in the Senate, and on the Bench, by the accomplished personage best known as Lord Chief Justice Cockburn." Lord John, who was always good at a fighting speech, spoke also with great force. Mr. Roebuck's motion of confidence in the Ministry was carried, but this success was largely due to the fact that a coalition between the Peelites and the Protectionists seemed impossible. Had it not been carried the Whigs would have resigned, and neither of the other two parties feeling strong enough to succeed them, they did not oppose in force the motion of confidence.

The day after Peel made his speech he was thrown from his horse on Constitution Hill, and on July 2nd he died.

_Lady John Russell to Lady Mary Abercromby_

_June_ 20, 1850

... Day of great political excitement. After dinner I took John to
the House and have utterly regretted since that I did not go up to
hear him--for he made what I am quite sure you and Ralph will agree
with me and all whom I have yet spoken to, was a most perfect
answer; and I should have dearly liked to hear the volleys of
cheering which he so well deserved. Now we shall either go out with
honour or stay in with triumph--welcome either.

_Lord Charles Russell [35] to Lady John Russell_

_July_ 13, 1850

As you were not here to hear John move the monument [of Sir Robert
Peel], I must tell you that he succeeded in the opinion of all.
Dizzy has just, in passing my chair, said, "Well, Lord John did
that to perfection. My friends were nervous, I was not; it was a
difficult subject, but one peculiarly fitted for Lord John. He did
as I was sure he would, and pleased all those who sit about me."

[35] Lord John's stepbrother.

PEMBROKE LODGE, _July_ 17, 1850

For the first time since the session began John spent a whole
weekday here, and such a fine one that we enjoyed it thoroughly.
Our roses are still in great beauty, but it is a drying blaze. In
the evening we cried over "David Copperfield" till we were ashamed.

_Lady John Russell to Lady Melgund_

MINTO, October 5, 1850

This whole morning having been spent fox-hunting, and the afternoon
doing something else, I do not exactly remember what, I am obliged
to write to you at the forbidden time (after dinner), instead of
making myself agreeable. What a quantity I have to say to you, and
what a pity to say it all by letter, or, rather, to say a very
small part of it by letter, instead of having you here, as I had
hoped and looked forward to, enjoying daily _gloomy_ talks
with you, such as we always find ourselves indulging in when we are
together.... Though I have scarcely walked a step about the place
from obedience to doctors, I have driven daily with Mama--and such
lovely drives! Oh! the place is in such beauty. I think its
greatest beauty--the trees red, yellow, green, brown, of every
shade, so that each one is seen separately, and the too great
thickness on the rocks is less perceived. This was one of the
brightest mornings, and you know what a hunt is on the rocks when
the sun shines bright, and the rocks look whiter against a blue
sky, and men and horses and hounds place themselves in the most
picturesque positions, and horns and tally-hos echo all round, and
everybody, except the fox, is in spirits. The gentlemen had no
sport, but the ladies a great deal, and I saw more foxes than I had
ever seen before....

Our time here is slipping away fearfully fast--there are so many
impossibilities to be done. I am hungry to see every brother and
sister comfortably and alone, and hungry to be out all day seeing
every old spot and old face in the place and village, and hungry to
be always with Papa and Mama, and hungry to read all the books in
the library--and none of these hungers can be satisfied. We are all
much pleased with Mr. Chichester Fortescue. He is agreeable and
gentlemanlike and good, and Lotty and Harriet got on very well with
him, which is more than I am doing with my letter, for they are
singing me out of all my little sense--"Wha's at the window" was
distracting enough, but "Saw ye the robber" ten times worse.

In September the Papal Bull dividing England into Roman Catholic sees threw the country into a state of needless excitement. The year had been a very critical one for the Church of England. The result of the Gorham case, which marked the failure of the High Church clergy to get their own way within the Church, hastened the secession to Rome of Manning, James Hope, and other well-known men. Lord John's letter to the Bishop of Durham, in which he expressed his own strong Protestant and Erastian principles, increased his popularity; but it was unfortunate in its effect. It encouraged the bigoted alarmist outcries which had been started by the Papal Bull, although his own letter differed in tone from such protests. The Ecclesiastical Titles Bill, which the Government brought forward in response to popular feeling, seems to have been one of the idlest measures that ever wasted the time of Parliament. It remained a dead-letter from the day it passed, yet at the time no Minister had a chance of leading the country who was not prepared to support it.

The Budget made the Ministry unpopular at the beginning of the session; and in February Mr. Locke King succeeded in passing, with the help of the Radicals, a measure for the extension of the franchise, in spite of opposition from the Government. Lord John had a measure of his own of a similar nature in view, as we have seen; but, in spite of his assurance that he would introduce it during the following year, the Radicals voted against him on Mr. King's motion, and on February 20th he resigned.

The state of parties was such that no rival coalition was possible. Lord Stanley was for widening the franchise, but being a Protectionist he could not work with the Peelites; while Lord Aberdeen would not consent to the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill, and was impossible as a leader so long as the anti-Catholic hubble-bubble continued. Lord John was therefore compelled to resume office.

_Lady John Russell to Lady Mary Abercromby_

PEMBROKE LODGE, _November_ 22, 1850

I am very glad you and Ralph liked John's letter to the Bishop of
Durham. It was necessary for him to speak out, and having all his
life defended the claims of the Roman Catholics to perfect
toleration and equality of civil rights with the other subjects of
the Queen, I should hardly have expected that they would take
offence because he declares himself a Protestant and a despiser of
the superstitious imitation of Roman Catholic ceremonies by
clergymen of the Church of England. Such, however, has not been the
case: and Ireland especially, excited by her priests, has taken
fire at the whole letter, and most of all at the word "mummeries."
The wisest and most moderate of them, however, here, and in Ireland
with Archbishop Murray I hope at their head, will do what they can
to put out the flame. No amount of dislike to any creed can,
happily, for a moment shake one's conviction that complete
toleration to every creed and conviction, and complete charity to
each one of its professors, is the only right and safe rule--the
only one which can make consistency in religious matters possible
at all times and on all occasions. Otherwise it _might_ be
shaken by the new proofs of the insidious, corrupting,
anti-truthful nature and effects of the Roman Catholic belief.

They have shown themselves for ages past in the character and
conditions of the countries where it reigns, and now the Pope's
foolish Bull is the signal for double-dealing and ingratitude among
his spiritual subjects--and consequently for anger and intolerance
among Protestants--wrong, but not quite inexcusable.

_Lady John Russell to Lady Mary Abercromby_

PEMBROKE LODGE, _November_ 29, 1850

Far from wondering at your vacillations of opinion about John's
letter, both he and I felt, on the first appearance of Wiseman's
pastoral letter, that the whole scheme was so ridiculous, the
affectation of power so contemptible, the change of Vicars
Apostolic into Bishops and Archbishops, so impotent for evil to
Protestants, while it might possibly be of use to Roman Catholics,
that ridicule and contempt were the only fit arms for the occasion.
But when he came to consider the chief cause of the measure--that
is, the great and growing evil of Tractarianism--of an established
clergy becoming daily less efficient for the wants of their
parishioners, and more at variance with the laity and with the
spirit of the Church to which they outwardly belong; when the whole
Protestant country showed its anger or fear; when such a man as the
Bishop of Norwich (Hinds), a man so tolerant as to be called by the
intolerant a latitudinarian, came to him to represent the necessity
for some expression of opinion on the part of the Government, and
the immense evils that would result from the want of such an
expression; when, after a calm survey of the state of religion
throughout the country, he thought he saw that it was in his power
to prevent the ruin of the Church of England, not by assuming
popular opinions, but merely by openly avowing his own--then, and
not till then, he wrote his letter--then, and not till then, I felt
he was right to do so.

It has quieted men's fears with regard to the Pope, and directed
them towards Tractarianism. And we are told that a great many (I
think one hundred) of the clergy omitted some of their "mummeries"
on the following Sunday. That word was perhaps ill-chosen, and he
is willing to say so--but I doubt it. Suppose he had omitted it,
some other would have been laid hold of as offensive to men sincere
in their opinions, however mistaken he may think them.

The letter was a Protestant one, and could not give great
satisfaction to Roman Catholics, except such as Lord Beaumont, who
prefers the Queen to the Pope. John has all his life showed himself
a friend to civil and religious liberty, especially that of the
Roman Catholics--and would gladly never have been called upon to
say a word that they could take as an insult to their creed. But it
was a moment in which he had to choose between a temporary offence
to a part of their body and the deserved loss of the confidence of
the Protestant body, to which he heart and soul belongs. He could
scarcely declare his opinion of the Tractarians, who remain in a
Church to which they no longer belong, without indirectly giving
offence to Roman Catholics. But it is against their practices that
his strong disapprobation is declared, and of the mischief of those
practices I dare say you have no idea. I believe many of them, most
of them, to be as pious and excellent men as ever existed; but
their teaching is not likely to make others as pious and excellent
as themselves; and their remaining in the Church obliges them to a
secrecy and hesitation in their teaching that is worse than the
teaching itself, which would disappear if they became honest
Dissenters. I could write pages more upon the subject but have no
time, and I will only beg you not to confound John's letter with
the bigotry and intolerance of many speeches at many meetings. I am
keeping the collection of letters, addresses, etc., that he has
received on the subject--a curious medley, being from all ranks and
degrees of men, some really touching, some laughable.

_Lady John Russell to Lady Mary Abercromby_

LONDON, _February_ 11, 1851