Chapter IV: The Death of the Prince Consort (1)

England in 1861--The Jumble of Parties--Secret Alliance Between
Palmerston and the Tories--Opening of Parliament--The Prince
Consort and the “Two Old Italian Masters”--Lady William Russell’s
_Salon_--The Proposed Sale of Venice--The Fall of Gaeta--Prussia
and Italy--Death of Cavour--A _casus belli_ Against
France--Napoleon in the East--Denmark and the Duchies--The Queen’s
Private Sorrows--Last Illness and Death of the Duchess of
Kent--Renewed Attacks in the Press on Prince Albert--Palmerston
Accused of Tampering with Despatches--Anecdote of Lord Derby and
Lord Granville--The Budget--Repeal of the Paper Duty--Palmerston’s
“Grudge” Against Prince Albert--The Marriage of the Princess Alice
announced--The Queen and Her Social Duties--Two Drawing-Rooms and
Two Investitures--A Season of Mourning--Death of Lord Herbert of
Lea--Lord John Russell’s Peerage--Reform and the Working
Classes--Ministerial Changes--The Queen’s Tour in Ireland--The
Queen and German Unity--Coronation of the King of Prussia--Death of
the King of Portugal--Fatigue of the Prince Consort--Signs of His
Last Illness--The Queen at Her Husband’s Sick Bed--A Mournful
Vigil--The Prince Consort’s Last Words--Scene at the Death-Bed--The
Sorrow of the Country--The Queen’s Despair--Her Removal from
Windsor--Prince Albert’s Character and Career--His Funeral--The
Scene at the Grave--The Queen and the Princess Alice.

From her own tranquil island the Queen, at the beginning of 1861, looked abroad upon a world that was strangely disturbed. It was a world in which men cried peace when there was no peace. In Europe, French agents were intriguing with the revolutionary parties in Poland, Hungary, and the Danubian Principalities. Italian conspirators were busy as usual in Venetia. The misgovernment of Turkey was again goading her Christian subjects to despair, and rousing the wrath of Panslavic fanaticism in Russia. Across the Atlantic the New Year brought with it the severance of South Carolina from the United States, and the pulse of the British aristocracy and their social parasites rose high as their golden youth congratulated each other on the “bursting of the bubble Republic.”[89] It is true that the harvest had been bad, and that the winter had been the coldest that had been experienced for half a century. But Free Trade made food cheap and wages high, so that there was no popular discontent to trouble the Government. The prospect of a cotton famine in Lancashire, as the result of a civil war in America, was not thought to be within the range of practical contingencies. As for political parties, they were, as Mr. Ashley says, “in a singular jumble at the period which we have now reached.”[90] The Tories were alarmed by Mr. Gladstone’s Budgets. These were supposed to be dangerously democratic, not only because his attack on the Paper Duty seemed designed to strengthen the power and position of a cheap press, but because in his financial speeches he seemed to justify the repeal of taxes solely by his desire to benefit the poor, and his imposition of new burdens by his desire to punish the rich for being wealthy. Absurd as this suspicion was, it is necessary to take it seriously, because it had much to do with creating the unexpected dictatorship of Lord Palmerston.

It was well known that Palmerston’s hostility to reform had well-nigh driven the Radicals into factious opposition. They had no more to expect from him, and at any moment they were ready to act against him. They even offered to combine with the Tories, turn out the Government, and keep Lord Derby and Mr. Disraeli in power for two years, during which period they thought the Reform problem would ripen for solution. This offer was not accepted. In fact, through Lord Malmesbury and Lady Palmerston, a secret alliance was organised, in terms of which the Tories agreed to maintain Lord Palmerston in office “if only he would resist ‘Democratic’ Budgets, and keep his hands from any violent action against Austria.”[91] This compact was ratified by the people, who, despite the triumph of the Anglo-French alliance in China, were growing every day more distrustful of Napoleon’s warlike preparations, which it was part of Palmerston’s policy to counteract. Mr. Ashley asserts that Lord Palmerston was “too loyal to enter into any such secret understanding.” As a matter of fact, the alliance was, on behalf of Lord Derby and Mr. Disraeli, first tendered by Lord Malmesbury at Lady Palmerston’s party, on the 12th of May, 1860, when, says Lord Malmesbury, “Lady Palmerston expressed herself as being very grateful for the offer.”[92] Count Vitzthum, however, puts the matter beyond doubt. Writing in 1861, he says:--“The secret agreement between the Conservatives and Palmerston, which had checked the barren Party contest of the previous year, was renewed before the Session began, and even received the secret sanction of the Court. After Lord Palmerston, in January, had submitted to the Queen and Prince Albert his programme for the current year, and had promised in particular his vigorous prosecution of the works for national defence, Disraeli was invited to Windsor. The Prince, to his no small satisfaction, received the assurance from the leader of the Opposition that the Tories, though three hundred strong, had no thoughts of undertaking the Government, so long as Palmerston continued to safeguard the Conservative interests of the State. Disraeli added that it rested only with the present Prime Minister to exercise a power such as none of his predecessors had wielded since Pitt.”[93] Finally, conclusive proof of the existence of the alliance is given by the highest living authority on such a matter--namely, Sir Theodore Martin--who discloses details of the whole transaction. Sixty members of the House of Commons had apparently pledged themselves to follow Mr. Cobden’s policy of “democratic finance,” which was to lessen expenditure by reducing armaments. Palmerston’s Government was therefore doomed unless an alliance could be struck up with the Tories. According to the Prince Consort, Mr. Disraeli said that “the Conservative party was ready not only to give general support to a steady and patriotic policy, but even to help the Minister out of scrapes if he got into any.” But, in return, they must, to use Sir Theodore Martin’s words, “state explicitly the principles of their policy, and not enter into a line of what he (Mr. Disraeli) termed democratic finance.”[94] When Mr. Ashley stated that Lord Palmerston was “too loyal to enter into any such secret understanding,” he must have neglected to read the letter dated 24th of January, 1861, which the Prince Consort sent to Lord Palmerston, embodying the terms of the understanding in question. It is also possible that he did not anticipate the publication of Lord Malmesbury’s diary, in which, under date the 14th of March, 1861, there is the following entry:--“The House of Commons threw out Mr. Locke-King’s Bill for reducing the county franchise to £10, by a majority of 28. We had agreed with the Government that, if they helped us to throw out this Bill, we would help them to pass Lord Palmerston’s Resolution, reversing their former vote on the payment of the Navy.”[95]

On the 4th of February the Queen came to town for the opening of Parliament, which took place on the 5th. The Royal Speech, says Count Vitzthum, “ratified the private agreement (between Palmerston and the Tories) by making no mention of reform. The skirmishes that took place during the

Session had therefore no practical importance, and only served to conceal from the public and the parties themselves the understanding already effected between the leaders.”[96] Very few points for debate were raised by the Queen’s Speech. Peace in Europe, it was suggested, could be preserved by the moderation of the Powers. Syria would soon be pacified, and thankfulness was expressed at the success of British arms in China. A sympathetic allusion to the Civil War in America, was prettily pointed by a reference to the kindly welcome which the Prince of Wales had received in the United States, and the loyalty of the Canadians was frankly recognised. Crime, bankruptcy, land transfer, and rating were the subjects suggested for legislation. The debate on the Address in both Houses was insincere. Lord Derby made fun of the Government for coquetting with revolution in Italy, and he ridiculed Lord John Russell’s inconsistent despatches to Sir James Hudson. “Mr. Disraeli,” writes Count Vitzthum, “handled the same theme in an academic fashion in the House of Commons,” but nobody dreamt of seriously assaulting the Ministerial position. “In Italy strange things are taking place. It is still the idol of the two ‘old Italian masters,’” wrote the Prince Consort to Stockmar on the eve of the opening of Parliament.[97] And yet, when Ministers heard that Cavour had allowed arms to be shipped from the arsenal at Genoa for the conspirators who were organising an insurrection in Turkey, they became a little uneasy. No harm, however, came of this, because the Turkish authorities at Constantinople being forewarned, seized the arms when they arrived. But the problem of problems was, what did Napoleon mean to do in Italy? He had opened the French Chambers with a speech which, describing the annexation of Savoy as an act done in maintenance of the natural rights of France, created a panic among the Palmerstonians and their Tory allies. If Savoy--why not Belgium? was the question which this doctrine of natural rights suggested to men’s minds. And yet at this time Napoleon’s power was vastly exaggerated. The priests, who had not forgiven him for enriching Italy at the expense of the Pope, condemned his policy from their pulpits. The vulgar luxury and swindling speculations in which the Imperial _entourage_ indulged, disgusted the educated classes. It was at this time that those who had hailed the Emperor as the “saviour of Society” began to call him “Badinguet”--after the bricklayer whose disguise he had borrowed when escaping from Ham. At one time Palmerston and Russell imagined they had discovered the solution of the most pressing of the Italian problems. They thought--or rather the Emperor of the French persuaded them to think--that Austria might sell Venetia to Sardinia, and whilst retaining half the purchase price to relieve her strained finances, with the other half buy Bosnia and the Herzegovina from the Sultan, who was also in lack of money. The Queen thwarted this cunning scheme, when Lord John Russell broached it in the end of December, by pointing out that to suggest the sale of Venetia to Sardinia, was to record an official opinion that Venetia ought to be in some way freed from Austrian rule. In the event of Austria refusing to sell the province this would be used as a justification for wresting Venetia from her, or for compelling England to press her to give it up. Palmerston himself came round to this view, and so the Venetian question was for a time eliminated. But in Italy it soon became clear that France meant to give Victor Emmanuel freedom to act. Gaeta surrendered in February when the French fleet was withdrawn--the King and Queen of Naples being conveyed to Rome. They sought refuge there under the protection of French bayonets, in the cheerless shelter of the empty Farnese Palace. Five days after the fall of Gaeta Victor Emmanuel summoned the first Italian Parliament to Turin, where it met in a large wooden hall improvised for the occasion. In his speech from the throne he regretted the recall of the French Minister, but did not pretend to be downcast by the platonic rebuke of France. As to the protest of Prussia against his policy, Victor Emmanuel said an ambassador had been sent to King William “in token of respect for him personally, and of sympathy with the noble German nation,” which he hoped would become convinced that Italian unity could not prejudice the rights of other states. The meaning of this reference in the speech was pointed out by De la Marmora. He cynically told the Prussian Government at Berlin, that Italy consoled herself with the thought that she had set an example which Prussia, in spite of her protests, would find useful “in conquering the hegemony of Germany.” On the 17th of March the Turin Parliament proclaimed Victor Emmanuel King of Italy, and two days afterwards England recognised his position. France delayed her recognition till June, Napoleon’s chief difficulty being the disposal of Rome. Opportunity, said Italian statesmen, will open the way to Venice; and as for Rome, though it must be the capital of free Italy, we only desire to go there, not at the head of a revolutionary army, but hand in hand with France. Personally, Napoleon would have wished to evacuate Rome. Its occupation was a heavy burden on his finances--which had become seriously embarrassed. To uphold the temporal power of the Pope, which he had disavowed, against the will of the Italian people, which in other quarters he had enforced by the sword, put him in a false position. On the other hand, the priests in France had to be conciliated, and there was a strong party among Frenchmen who thought that France should be compensated, by the occupation of Rome, for the rise of a new naval Power in the Mediterranean.[98] Early in the summer Cavour, who like Themistocles lived to convert a small state into a great one, died--his policy being cherished as a sacred legacy by his successor, Riccasoli. Cavour, however, lived long enough to see the failure of an intrigue to procure the evacuation of Rome by the cession of Sardinia to France. Mr. Kinglake in July tried to convince the House of Commons that this cession was practically agreed on, and he pointed out that Nelson had declared Malta would be useless to England whenever the Bay of Cagliari passed into the hands of a great naval power. But Lord John Russell--in the last speech he ever made in the Lower House--assured the country that he could find no evidence pointing to the existence of such a scheme. At the same time he made it plain, though he did not say so in as many words, that England would regard the cession of Sardinia to France as a _casus belli_.[99]

Another project was on foot which gave the Queen great uneasiness. Napoleon--whose brain, said Lord Palmerston once, was as full of schemes as a warren was full of rabbits--was said to be in favour of creating a new Eastern State or kingdom, with Constantinople as its capital, and King Leopold, the Queen’s uncle, as its Sovereign. In that case France would naturally take Belgium by way of compensation; but the idea, if ever seriously entertained, was soon consigned to the limbo of vanished Imperial dreams. The condition of Austria was now rather serious. All her proposals for reforming the political system of Hungary, relegated that ancient kingdom to the position of an Austrian province. The Hungarian people, however, refused to accept this position, and demanded the restoration of their rights as an independent State under the Sovereign of Austria, reigning over them as crowned King of Hungary. Their demand might at any moment take the form of a revolutionary movement, which would probably re-open the Eastern question, and involve England in war. Luckily this calamity was averted by the preoccupation of Napoleon and Victor Emmanuel, who alone had either the power or the will to raise a revolution in Hungary.

But affairs in the North were much more disquieting. Early in March the dispute between Denmark and the Duchies of Sleswig-Holstein, which the Queen and her husband had watched with jealous eyes from its origin, became acute. The Danish Government was willing to submit the budget for the Duchies to their local legislatures, on condition that it was not altered. The German Diet or Bund declared that this was equivalent to an assertion that territory which was really subject to the authority of the Bund, was under the exclusive Sovereign authority of Denmark. The three non-German Great Powers declared that Denmark ought to yield to the Duchies their constitutional rights, and laid it down that if this were not done, the German Bund might justly force concessions from Denmark, by Federal execution in Sleswig-Holstein. Denmark ignored the award and threats of the Powers, and Prussia took up the cause of the Sleswigers. In England the Prussian Government was sneered at for menacing Denmark because she denied the Duchies the right to control their Budgets, whilst it raised money for its own military purposes without the consent of its own subjects.

Other than political anxieties made the spring of 1861 dismal to the Queen. On the 12th of March she had visited her mother, the Duchess of Kent, at Frogmore, and found her suffering great pain from the effects of a surgical operation which had been performed to relieve an abscess in her arm. On the 15th Her Majesty and her husband were inspecting the Horticultural Society’s gardens at South Kensington, when they were summoned by Sir James Clark to the bedside of the Duchess of Kent, who began to develop feverish symptoms. When they arrived they found her dying. “I knelt before her,” writes the Queen, “kissed her dear hand and placed it next my cheek; but though she opened her eyes, she did not, I think, know me.... I went out to sob,” adds Her Majesty, stricken to the heart at finding, for the first time in her life, her mother had not received her with a loving smile of recognition. All through the night the Queen watched by the bedside of the dying Princess, weeping as she thought of her childhood and its sacred memories, and of the dreadful blank her mother’s death must make in her life. At eight in the morning of the next day (the 16th) Prince Albert persuaded the Queen to leave her mother’s room for a little, and rest. But she could not rest. She insisted on returning to the sick-room, and when she went back she saw that her mother was passing away. The heart-beats grew fainter; the eyes slowly closed, and as the clock struck half-past nine, Prince Albert took the Queen out of the room, and she knew all was over. For forty-one years she had not been parted from her mother save for a few brief weeks at a time. Now they were parted for ever on this side of the grave. “I seemed,” she writes, “to have lived through a life, to have become old.” The death of the Duchess of Kent plunged the Royal household in grief. She died leaving not one dry eye behind her among those who had known and served and loved her. The Princess Frederick William of Prussia hurried to her mother’s side, arriving at Windsor on the 18th; and then from every quarter, letters and messages of condolence came pouring in. Addresses of sympathy were carried in both Houses of Parliament, and every effort was made by Ministers to lighten the anxieties of the Queen at a time when sorrow lay heavily on her heart. The funeral took place on the 25th, in St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, where the body was laid till a mausoleum at Frogmore could be built. “I and my girls,” wrote the Queen to King Leopold on that day, “prayed at home together, and dwelt on her happiness and peace.” On the 2nd of April the Princess Frederick William returned to Berlin, and the Queen and her husband retired to Osborne. The Easter recess had produced a lull in politics, and it might have been expected that the Queen would have been permitted to mourn her bereavement in peace. It was not so. On the 12th of April she was deeply pained to find the _Times_ renewing its old attacks on Prince Albert, and again accusing him of thwarting Lord Palmerston’s Italian policy in the interests of his German relatives. For this cruel imputation there was no warrant, save the fact that Austria persisted in holding Venetia, which had been guaranteed to her by the pact of Villafranca, in spite of Lord Palmerston’s recommendation that she should cede the province to Italy.

(_From a Photograph by the London Stereoscopic Company._)]

On the 15th of April the Prince Consort, writing to Stockmar, says, “Home politics have gone asleep.” Before the recess the position of the Ministry had been easily maintained, simply because Mr. Disraeli was of opinion that premature Tory attacks on it might heal the schism between Palmerston and the Radicals. But the weakness of the Cabinet in the House of Commons was illustrated in March, when Palmerston had--as we have seen--to help the Tories to throw out Mr. Locke-King’s Bill for reducing the county franchise to £10, in return for their support of his resolution reversing an adverse vote on the payment of the Navy. It was also illustrated by Mr. Dunlop’s motion for an inquiry into the mutilation of the Afghan Blue Book in 1839. Lord Palmerston (who had been Foreign Secretary) was accused of having created the disastrous Afghan War, simply because he would not believe the reports of his own agents in Afghanistan. To excuse the disasters of the campaign he had hacked and garbled the despatches in the most unscrupulous manner, so as to make it appear that these agents reported the very opposite of what they actually told him. Mr. Dunlop had unearthed evidence to prove this charge, and he proved it up to the hilt. Palmerston’s only defence was that the mutilations complained of were quite regular, and were made in the public interest. “The Commons,” writes Count Vitzthum, “were extremely indignant, and nothing but Disraeli’s intervention saved the Ministry. Lord Derby,” Count Vitzthum goes on to say, “is on the most friendly footing with his political opponent, Lord Granville. The latter added to a business letter a postscript, with the question, ‘When will you turn us out?’ The Tory chief answered, ‘I am thinking day and night how I can manage to keep you in, but it will be devilish difficult.”[100] Mr. Disraeli had set his face against taking office till he had a trustworthy majority in the House of Commons that would enable him to carry out a foreign policy even in the teeth of Lord Palmerston’s opposition. The aim of the Opposition was, therefore, to keep Palmerston in power till this majority was obtained. It was feared, however, that the Government might fall on their Budget, and its production was awaited with intense interest on the 15th of April, when Mr. Gladstone made his financial statement. Dismal predictions of a large deficit had been promulgated. On the contrary, though the revenue had fallen off considerably, there had been an equivalent saving in expenditure, and on the year’s work the deficit was only £855,000 when the accounts were balanced. Mr. Gladstone’s estimates for the current year, however, after providing for this deficit, showed a surplus on the basis of existing taxation of about £2,000,000; so he was able to take a penny off the income-tax, and at last to repeal the Paper Duty, without incurring the reproach of rashly sacrificing revenue. But to do this he had to leave the duties on tea and sugar unaltered. To prevent the Peers from rejecting the repeal of the Paper Duty, he tacked his scheme on to the Bill containing all his financial proposals. The House of Lords shrank from rejecting the whole Budget: they passed it grudgingly, after a feeble and futile threat of opposition from the Duke of Rutland. In the Commons a majority of 15 in a House of 577 members carried the Budget of 1861, which is memorable as the one that abolished what was popularly called “the taxes on knowledge.” The financial debates in the House did not end till Mr. Gladstone had shown pretty clearly that he thought too much money was being spent on the Army and Navy. On the other hand, Lord John Russell took occasion, in a debate on Italian affairs, to declare that the state of Europe rendered this expenditure necessary. The assumption here was that events abroad might falsify Mr. Gladstone’s estimates, which showed a surplus. In that case, as the Paper Duty could not be re-imposed, any deficit must be met by an increased income-tax, and it was this fear that rendered the Whigs and the Tories alike anxious to retain the Paper Duty. But the Cabinet was too weak to dispense with Mr. Gladstone’s services. As the price of his allegiance to Palmerston was the repeal of the Paper Duty, and the consequent humiliation of the House of Lords, who had threatened to oppose its abolition, Palmerston had to submit to the Paper Duty being repealed. Still, the Premier was not without his consolations. The dispute with the Prussian Government over Captain Macdonald’s grievances had not terminated, and on the 26th of April Lord Palmerston seized the opportunity it afforded him of making a coarse and undignified attack on Prussia because her laws, which in Macdonald’s case he admitted had not been overstepped, were “harsh, unjust, arbitrary, and violent.” This provoked recriminations in the Berlin Chamber, where Baron Schleinitz foolishly mixed up Captain Macdonald’s arrest with high policy. To these recriminations the _Times_ delivered an insulting reply, and, greatly to the annoyance of the grief-stricken Queen, a rancorous quarrel was thus developed about a trivial affair between the two Governments, which, said the Prince Consort, made the “outlook most melancholy.” Mr. Disraeli told Count Vitzthum that Palmerston’s outburst against Prussia was delivered in order to annoy the Prince Consort rather than the Berlin Cabinet, and if that were the fact it must be allowed that his malignity was eminently successful. It was, in truth, so ill-concealed at this time that Mr. Disraeli himself said he was puzzled to account for the Prime Minister’s “grudge” against Prince Albert.[101]

On the 27th of April the Queen announced the approaching marriage of the Princess Alice and Prince Louis of Hesse-Darmstadt, which was approved by Parliament on the 4th of May. On the 6th the Princess was voted a dowry of £30,000 and an annuity of £6,000 a year. During Whitsuntide the Queen’s birthday was celebrated at Osborne quietly and without the usual festivities, her holiday being marred not only by the nervous prostration which affected her after her mother’s death, but by the illness of Prince Leopold, who was smitten by a severe attack of measles which he caught from Prince Louis of Hesse.

The death of Cavour on the 6th of June was followed by the recognition of the kingdom of Italy by France on the 25th in response to an appeal from Riccasoli. He knew that till this recognition was given, it would be difficult for the Italian Government to raise the loans necessary to construct those railways and other public works which were urgently needed to develope the resources of the new kingdom. This recognition, however, implied that for a time the Italian question must be shelved. It was therefore with great satisfaction that England now saw the triumph of her policy, though this satisfaction was allayed somewhat by the rumour that Sardinia was to be ceded to France. Sir J. Hudson told Baron Riccasoli that such a cession would be taken by England as a _casus belli_, a warning which elicited from him a fervent denial that Victor Emmanuel would ever sanction such a transaction.

(_From a Photograph by G. W. Wilson and Co., Aberdeen._)]

Meanwhile the Queen, still sad at heart and depressed in spirits, struggled bravely to perform her social duties. She held two Drawing-rooms and two Investitures before June was over. Visitors, too, came to comfort her in her sorrow. The King of the Belgians and his son, and the Crown Prince and Princess of Prussia and their children arrived in midsummer. They were followed in rapid succession by others, including some members of the Orleans family, the Archduke Maximilian, and the Archduchess Charlotte, the Princess

Charles of Hesse, and the King of Sweden, who arrived in August. But it was a year fruitful in sorrow for the Queen and her family. Mr. Sidney Herbert had early in the year accepted a peerage, and retired to the Upper House as Lord Herbert of Lea. In July he fell ill, and to the great grief of the Queen, who regarded him as the future Prime Minister, died in August. In him the Peelites lost the Bayard of their party. On the 25th of July a great gap was made in the ranks of the Ministry in the Lower House by the elevation of Lord John Russell to the peerage as Earl Russell of Kingston Russell.[102] “The comments of the newspapers,” wrote Count Vitzthum, “on Lord John Russell’s acceptance of a peerage read like funeral sermons,” and his farewell speech to the House of Commons, broadly hinting that England would make the cession of the island of Sardinia to France a _casus belli_, rang like a thunderclap through Europe. It was more effective than his farewell address to his constituents. In this document, when reviewing the exploits of his career, Lord Russell modestly compared himself to the Emperor Charles V., who, having been engaged in all the great affairs of his age, and desiring to see how the world would get on after his death, had the dark pageant of his funeral prepared, and officiated as his own chief mourner at the ceremony. One of the last events of the Session was a spirited debate on the 26th of June on the demand of the Government for £200,000 for new ironclads. Palmerston, by dwelling on the growth of the French navy, frightened Parliament into granting the money, and the Manchester Radicals were fain to hold their peace. Mr. Disraeli, however, rather leant to the Peace Party in this debate. He suggested that diplomacy might effect a friendly understanding with France which would fix the relative proportions between the two navies, but his followers, who were bellicose, listened to him with amazement and anger. It did not occur to them that he was already speculating on the prospect of being in office next year, and was preparing the way for a friendly reception at the Tuileries.

It was a tranquil Session, during which hardly one party division was challenged in the Lower House. Though Lord John (now Earl) Russell had virtually abandoned his Reform Bill, the artisans in some of the large towns still kept alive the agitation for Parliamentary Reform. The country, however, seemed apathetic on the subject. How to give the best of the working men votes without at the same time enfranchising those who were unworthy, seemed to most people an insoluble problem. The American Civil War and the triumph of the Protectionists in Australia also rendered Englishmen somewhat sceptical as to the beneficial results of a democratic franchise. A Bankruptcy Bill was carried. It was not a party measure, and it was the only Ministerial Bill bearing on domestic affairs the passing of which in 1861 calls for record. When Parliament was prorogued on the 6th of August, the only shadow on the horizon of the future discernible by the Queen was the prospect of a cotton famine in Lancashire. Her Majesty’s anxiety on this subject was also apparently shared by Lord Palmerston. Writing to Mr. Milner Gibson about the matter in June, Lord Palmerston wistfully asked if the Board of Trade or any other department had any means of helping the country to make good the deficiency in the cotton supply which the Civil War in America was sure to cause. “As to our manufacturers,” he writes, “they will do nothing unless directed and pushed on. They are some of the most helpless and shortsighted of men. They are like the people who held out their dishes and prayed that it might rain plum-puddings. They think it is enough to open their mill-gates, and that cotton will come of its own accord. They say they have for years been looking to India as a source of supply; but their looks seem to have had only the effect of the eyes of the rattlesnake, namely, to paralyse the object looked at, and as yet it has shown no signs of falling into their jaws.”[103]

On the 16th of August the Crown Prince and Princess of Prussia and their children left Osborne for Germany. Next day her Majesty, the Prince Consort, and the Princess Alice visited the grave of the Duchess of Kent at Frogmore, celebrating there in sorrow a birthday anniversary which had hitherto brought joy every year to the Royal circle. They placed wreaths on the tomb, and felt, writes the Queen to King Leopold, “that it was only the earthly robe of her we loved so much that was there--the pure, tender, loving spirit is above, and free from all suffering and woe.... The first birthday in another world, must have been a far brighter one than any birthday in the poor world below.”[104]

The time had now come when the Queen had to make preparations for a visit to Ireland which she had planned. On the 21st of August her Majesty, the Prince Consort, Prince Alfred--fresh from his West Indian cruise--and the Princesses Alice and Helena, started for Holyhead, which they reached at seven o’clock in the evening. They arrived at Kingstown at midnight, and next morning (22nd August), accompanied by Lord Carlisle, the Lord-Lieutenant, his Chief Secretary, Sir Robert Peel, and Sir George Brown, Commander of the Forces in Ireland, they proceeded to Dublin. Despite the wet and stormy weather, the populace gave their Royal visitors a cordial reception. Next morning (23rd August) the Prince Consort visited the Curragh Camp to see for himself how the Prince of Wales was progressing with his military studies there, and the Queen received a loyal address from the Lord Mayor and Corporation of Dublin. In the afternoon the Royal party drove through the city, where crowds cheered them loudly wherever they went, and in the evening they met at dinner the Duke of Leinster, the Marquis and Marchioness of Headfort, the Marquis and Marchioness of Kildare, and Lady Charlemont. On Saturday, the 24th, the Queen herself visited the Curragh Camp, and reviewed the troops there. As they passed the cavalry one of the bands began to play an air which had been a favourite with the Duchess of Kent, and repeated it on marching past. “This,” wrote the Queen in her Diary, “entirely upset me, and the tears would have flowed freely had I not checked them by a violent effort. But I felt sad the whole day till I came to Bertie (the Prince of Wales), who looked so well.”[105] Then came some field manœuvres, and a visit to “Bertie’s hut,” where the whole party, with Sir George Brown, General Ridley, Colonels Wetherell, Browning, and Percy--the latter of whom had the Prince of Wales under his care--partook of a comfortable luncheon. The Queen thanked Colonel Percy very warmly “for treating Bertie as he did like any other officer, for,” she says in her Diary, “I know he keeps him up to his work in a way, as General Bruce told me, no one else has done; and yet Bertie likes him very much.” On Sunday afternoon the Queen visited the Kilmainham Hospital, and on Monday (August 26th) celebrated her husband’s birthday. “Alas!” she writes to King Leopold, “there is so much so different this year--nothing festive, and we on a journey, and separated from many of our children, and my spirits bad.”

(_After a Photograph by W. Lawrence, Dublin._)]

In the afternoon the Queen and her family left the Viceregal Lodge for Killarney, and, recording her impressions on the road, her Majesty dwells on the sparseness of the population, and the scarcity of villages and towns. At Thurles she notes how the crowd shrieked rather than cheered, how “wild and dark-looking” the people were, and how handsome the girls seemed, despite their dishevelled hair. At Killarney the Queen was received by Lord Castlerosse, Mr. Herbert of Muckross Abbey, the General commanding the district, and the Mayor, who presented a loyal address. Guarded by a strong escort of troops, her Majesty drove amidst cheering crowds to Lord Castlerosse’s house, which was so charmingly picturesque that she sketched it on her arrival. At dinner in the evening she met the Roman Catholic Bishop, Dr. Moriarty--whom she describes as “a tall, stout, and very intelligent, clever man.”--the Knight of Kerry, and a brother of O’Connell’s, whose views her

Majesty found more to her liking than those of the Liberator. On the 27th the Queen spent most of her time on the lakes in this lovely and romantic spot--the close, warm, humid atmosphere being the only drawback to her delightful tour. In the evening Muckross was visited, and next day (28th August), after driving round Muckross Lake, the Queen went on that splendid sheet of water, and admired especially the excellent rowing of the boatmen. Very reluctantly did the Queen bid farewell to her kind hosts on the 29th of August, when she hastened back to her yacht at Kingstown. At nine next morning she reached Holyhead, where she rested, while the Prince Consort and her suite made an excursion to Carnarvon. Leaving Holyhead in the evening, and travelling all night, the Royal party reached Balmoral on the 30th of August.

The affairs of Germany had now drifted into such a critical condition that the Prince Consort felt bound to explain to the King of Prussia the views of the English Court on this subject. All over the Fatherland the people, stirred by the success of the movement in Italy for unity, were forming political clubs, and Prussia, to whom they looked for leadership, was disappointing them by refusing to reform her internal administration. Prince Albert, writing to the King of Prussia, took the popular German view--pointing out how Austria had ever worked for the purpose of weakening the Fatherland, and how she had once more given to France, after her victories in Italy, a strong position on the Rhine. “Is it an evil trait of the spirit of the people,” asks the Prince, “if they yearn for general unity and active co-operation in what is to decide their destiny? Do not allow yourself to be annoyed or misled if here and there the people are guilty of stupid extravagances. They and you are Germany’s only stay, and the power by which alone the enemy can be held at bay. It is not a Cavour that Germany needs, but a Stein.” It has been said that the Queen and her husband were not consistent in their policy, because, while they showed little sympathy for the national movement in Italy, they always encouraged the same movement in Germany. To them it must be remembered that the former movement was an anti-German one. They believed that if Austria lost Venetia, Galicia, Hungary, and Poland, Germany would be crushed--because they assumed that these nations, like the new kingdom of Italy, would be under the hostile influence of France. The mistake which they made in the case of Italy lay in supposing that political gratitude is stronger than the love of national independence.

During this autumn the Prince of Wales visited Germany, ostensibly to be present at the military manœuvres in the Rhine Provinces, but really to make the acquaintance of the Princess Alexandra of Denmark at Speyer and Heidelberg, where she happened to be staying, and where, according to the Prince Consort, “the young people seem to have taken a warm liking for each other when they first met.[106] The visit of the King of Prussia to Compiègne somewhat disturbed the mind of the country, for it set afloat rumours of an alliance with France, one result of which might perhaps be a scheme for the unification of Germany, with Belgium and the Rhine Provinces playing the part which was allotted to Nice and Savoy in the scheme for unifying Italy. The Queen and her husband, however, knew that the visit was purely one of ceremonial courtesy, and that no attempt had been made to inveigle Prussia into any such conspiracy. This information was communicated to the Cabinet, and soon all disquieting rumours ceased.

On the 18th of October the King of Prussia was crowned at Königsberg, and Lord Clarendon, who was present as representing the Queen, congratulated her Majesty on the charming manner in which the Crown Princess did homage to her father-in-law. King William I. was desirous of conferring the Order of the Black Eagle on Lord Clarendon, but the Queen begged him not to offer it, because it was against the traditions of the English Foreign Office to permit a subject to accept such a distinction.[107] Lord Clarendon mixed very freely in society at Berlin, and was able to report to the Queen that the attacks of the _Times_ on everything Prussian would have damaged the position of the Crown Princess, had it not been safeguarded and secured by her own high personal qualities. These attacks broke out afresh over the King’s seeming assertion of the principle of Divine Right in his Address to the Chambers, and Clarendon begged the Queen to remonstrate with Lord Palmerston, who was supposed to influence the _Times_. Though Lord Palmerston, in one of his letters, penned a high-spirited reply to a Royal communication on the subject, it is a curious coincidence that the attacks of which her Majesty complained suddenly ceased from this moment.

On leaving Balmoral the Court proceeded to Holyrood, and on the 23rd of October the Prince Consort laid the foundation stones of the new Post Office and the Industrial Museum in Edinburgh. The Queen and her family reached Windsor on the same evening, where her Majesty’s grief broke out afresh, as it was the first time she had lived at the Castle without finding her mother at Frogmore. As Sovereign of the Most Exalted Order of the Star of India, the Queen held her first investiture of Knights at Windsor Castle on the 1st of November. The difficulty which perplexed the Indian Government in establishing this Order had been to find for it a suitable name and an appropriate device. The suggestions of the Prince Consort had a few months before been in the main adopted, and many fantastic ideas had been extinguished by the cold _douche_ of his common sense. It had been settled that the Order was to consist of the Indian Viceroy as Grand Master, and twenty-five Knights, together with such extraordinary Knights as the Queen might appoint. The badge was to be an oval onyx cameo suspended from an Imperial crown in the centre of the collar, and on the stone Her Majesty’s head was cut in high relief, the motto being “Heaven’s Light Our Guide.” The jewel was surmounted by a star, and set in diamonds. The ceremony of investiture was held in high state. The Queen having previously conferred the Order on the Prince Consort and the Prince of Wales, entered the Throne Room wearing the sumptuous Mantle of the Order. After the usual formalities, she invested with the Insignia, of the Order, Lord Harris, Lord Gough, Lord Clyde, His Highness the Maharajah Duleep Singh, Sir John Lawrence, and Sir George Pollock.

At Windsor the Prince Consort now began to make arrangements for the approaching marriage of the Princess Alice, and the journey of Prince Leopold, then in delicate health, to Cannes. He busied himself also with the preparation of Marlborough House as a residence for the Prince of Wales. On the 4th of November he inspected the works at Wellington College. A brilliant company of guests, including the Grand Duke and Duchess Constantine, the Duke of Cambridge, Lord Granville, Earl and Countess Russell, Lord Sydney, and the Baron and Baroness Brunnow, were at the Castle when the birthday of the Prince of Wales was celebrated on the 9th. The death of Prince Ferdinand of Portugal, from typhoid fever, together with sad memories of the late Duchess of Kent, had somewhat darkened this family festival, and in a few days her Majesty and the Prince Consort were still further shocked to hear that the King of Portugal had also fallen a victim to the disease which had cut short his brother’s life. The attachment which existed between the Prince Consort and the Portuguese branch of the House of Coburg was close and tender, and it is certain that the sudden death of King Pedro and his brother weighed heavily on his heart. The Crown Princess of Prussia was suffering from illness, brought on by the fatigues and excitement of the coronation ceremony, and, as the last letter the Prince Consort ever wrote to Stockmar indicates, this also preyed on his mind. To these troubles were added certain private vexations, hinted at, but not specified by Sir Theodore Martin. The Prince began to look ill, and his irritability amazed his household, every member of which loved him for his serene temper, his imperturbable good humour, and his invincible patience. On the 12th of November the Queen

began to notice that her husband’s repeated journeys to London were making him “low and sad.” His sleeplessness returned, and her Majesty pressed Sir C. Phipps to lighten as much as possible the strain on his energies. On the 22nd of November he inspected the buildings of Sandhurst Military College amidst a downpour of rain, and it was at first thought he here caught the illness which sent him to his grave. On the 23rd, though complaining of _malaise_, he went out shooting with Prince Ernest of Leiningen. On the 24th he complained of rheumatic pains, but walked with the Queen and her family to Frogmore. Next day (Monday) he went to Cambridge to see the Prince of Wales, who found him “greatly out of sorts,” and when he came back to Windsor he was so ill that he could not walk out with the Queen in the afternoon. On the 26th he was worse; on the 28th he was still worse, and greatly grieved at the seizure by the Americans of the Confederate Commissioners, who were passengers in the English mail steamer _Trent_. During the next two days the Prince still complained of illness, and when, on the 1st of December, he drafted a memorandum--the last he ever wrote--for the Queen on the Trent affair, he could scarcely hold his pen. Yet he had struggled against his malady, and during the two previous days had appeared among his guests--including the Duc de Nemours, Lord Carlisle, and Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone--as best he could. But he ate nothing, and when he went to bed he complained of shivering with cold. On the 2nd of December Sir James Clark and Dr. Jenner pronounced him to be suffering from low fever. Curiously enough, when Lord Methuen called on him to report on the death of the King of Portugal he said he was glad his disease was not typhoid fever, because he knew he could not survive an attack. Lord Palmerston was a guest at the Castle on the 2nd, and when he found that the Prince was still unable to take food or leave his room he suggested that another physician should be called in. The Queen could not bring herself to believe that her husband was seriously ill, and on the 3rd her opinion was confirmed by that of Sir James Clark, for the Prince slept better that night and so Palmerston’s suggestion was overruled. Next day even Sir James Clark admitted there was no improvement, and that the symptoms were discouraging. On the 4th of December the Queen says she found the Prince “very woebegone and wretched.” He had not slept, and his appetite had gone. He seemed to care for nothing save that his daughter, the Princess Alice, should sit by him and read to him. His irritability extended even to the selection of books, and it was not till the Princess began to read Scott’s “Talisman” to him that he was satisfied. Sir James Clark still consoled the Queen with smooth prognostications; but Dr. Jenner told her that the Prince must eat because he was simply starving to death. On the 5th he began to marvel what kind of illness it could be that clung to him so persistently, and how long it would last. Clark, however, reported that he was somewhat better, and the Queen was again deceived by delusive signs of improvement. He still begged the Princess Alice to read to him, and nothing else seemed to soothe his irritability. On the 6th he rose early and talked to the Queen about his illness. She told him it sprang from overwork, to which he replied: “It is too much. You must speak to the Ministers.”[108] His mind, he remarked, had begun to brood over Rosenau and the scenes of his childhood, and when he said that the Queen felt as if her heart were breaking. For by this time the physicians could not conceal from themselves the gravity of the case. The Prince was obviously suffering from typhoid fever, and Dr. Jenner broke the news to her Majesty as softly and kindly as he could. Still, they told her the symptoms were not bad, and she tried to think of those who had been smitten with typhoid fever and had survived. On the 7th the Queen worked hard--harder than ever she had worked in her life; for her husband’s pen was no longer at her service. She herself has said that “the tears fell fast” as she sat by his bedside watching him and thinking of the shipwreck of their plans, “and of the painful loss this long illness would be, publicly as well as privately.”