Chapter XVIII: Government Under Difficulties

A Lull Before the Storm--Dissent in the Dumps--Disastrous
Bye-Elections--The Queen’s Speech--The Irish University
Bill--Defeat of the Government--Resignation of the Ministry--Mr.
Disraeli’s Failure to Form a Cabinet--The Queen and the
Crisis--Lord Derby as a Possible Premier--Mr. Gladstone Returns to
Office--Power Passes to the House of Lords--Grave Administration
Scandals--The Zanzibar Mail Contract--Misappropriation of the Post
Office Savings Banks’ Balances--Mr. Gladstone Reconstructs his
Ministry--The Financial Achievements of his Administration--The
Queen and the Prince of Wales--Debts of the Heir Apparent--The
Queen’s Scheme for Meeting the Prince’s Expenditure on her
Behalf--The Queen and Foreign Decorations--Death of Napoleon
III.--The Queen at the East End--The Blue-Coat Boys at Buckingham
Palace--The Coming of the Shah--Astounding Rumours of his Progress
through Europe--The Queen’s Reception of the Persian Monarch--How
the Shah was Entertained--His Departure from England--Marriage of
the Duke of Edinburgh--Public Entry of the Duchess into London.

When the Session of 1873 opened, it is a curious fact that in London the universal complaint was that politics had become depressingly dull. But the lull really presaged a storm, in which the Government was wrecked. It was known that Mr. Gladstone intended to make the question of Irish University education the chief business of the Session, and it was admitted that next to this question the one of most consequence to the Government was that which was raised by the Dissenters, who demanded the extension of School Boards, and the establishment of compulsory education all over England, together with the repeal of the 25th clause of Mr. Forster’s Education Act. The bye-elections, which had been disastrous to the Ministry, showed that the Dissenters were in revolt, and that they “sulked in their tents,” instead of supporting Ministerial candidates. The Irish University Bill could not possibly be carried without Nonconformist support, and that could obviously not be hoped for if anything like “concurrent endowment” for the Roman Catholics defaced it. On the other hand, if the revenues of Trinity College were shared with Catholic scholars, Liberals like Mr. Fawcett and Mr. Vernon Harcourt would support Mr. Disraeli in opposing the measure. The Cabinet resolved to neutralise the expected secession of the small Fawcett-Harcourt group, by rendering their Bill acceptable to their powerful Nonconformist contingent, and Liberal tacticians were full of joyful anticipations when it leaked out that this plan was contemplated. As will be seen, one important contingency was never taken into consideration--the possible desertion of Mr. Gladstone’s Roman Catholic followers; and yet it was their desertion which wrecked the Bill and destroyed the Government.

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

The Queen’s speech was read to Parliament by Commission on the 6th of February, and it promised an Irish Education Bill, a Judicature Bill, a Land Transfer Bill, an Education Amendment Act, a Local Taxation Bill, and a Railway Regulation Bill. In the debate on the Address the Opposition leaders dwelt mainly on foreign questions, pressing the Government to say whether they were prepared to recommend the rules under which the _Alabama_ case had been decided to the European Powers; and if so, whether they would recommend them as interpreted by the legal advisers of the Crown, or as interpreted by the majority of the arbitrators. Mr. Gladstone first said that the rules had been recommended for adoption by the Powers, but without any special construction being put on them. Then he had to correct himself before the debate closed, by explaining that he had made a mistake, for the rules had not yet been brought under the notice of Foreign Governments. This confession naturally forced the public to conclude that the Tories could not be far wrong when they declared that foreign affairs were neglected because Lord Granville was indolent and Mr. Gladstone neither knew nor cared anything about them.

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

On the 13th of February Mr. Gladstone introduced the Irish University Education Bill. It affiliated several other educational institutions besides Trinity College to the University of Dublin. Two of the Queen’s Colleges, established by Sir Robert Peel, were to be associated with the University, and the Queen’s University itself was to be abolished. Queen’s College at Galway was to be suppressed, because it had failed to attract students to its classrooms. The so-called Catholic University and several other Roman Catholic seminaries were also, in the same manner, to be attached to the Dublin University. The new University was to have an income of £50,000 a year, a fourth of which was taken from Trinity College, a fourth from the endowment for Queen’s University, three-eighths from the Irish Church surplus, whilst fees, it was expected, would make up the balance. It was to have professors for teaching in Dublin all academical subjects excepting history and mental philosophy, which were tabooed as too controversial for Ireland. Bursaries, Scholarships, and Fellowships were liberally endowed. Tests were to be abolished, the Theological Faculty of Trinity College was to be transferred--with an endowment--to the Disestablished Church, and the prohibited subjects, History and Philosophy, were not to be compulsory in examinations for degrees. The constituency of the University was to consist of all graduates of the affiliated colleges. The governing council of twenty-five was to be nominated in the Bill, after which, vacancies were to be filled up alternately by co-optation and Crown nomination. After ten years, however, equal numbers of the council were to be chosen, by the Crown, by co-optation, by the professors, and by the graduates. The Bill, according to the Bishop of Peterborough--by far the ablest Protestant ecclesiastic Ireland has produced in the Victorian period--“was as good as could be under the circumstances,” and “ought to have pleased all parties.”[49] Unfortunately it pleased nobody, and its weak point was obvious. It attempted to provide for separate denominational education in the affiliated colleges, and for mixed secular education in Trinity College and the University of Dublin, to which they were affiliated--the one system being as incompatible with the other as an acid with an alkali. As Mr. Gathorne-Hardy said, the exclusion of History and Philosophy rendered the new University a monster _cui lumen ademptum_. The proposal to make the Irish Viceroy its Chancellor recalled, he declared, the lines of Milton,

“Its shape,
If shape it can be called, which shape had none
Distinguishable in feature, joint, or limb--”

all the more that

“What seemed its head,
The likeness of a kingly crown had on.”

At first the Bill was very well received, and there was a general disposition to admit that, in view of the limiting conditions of the problem, it was impossible to find a solution less offensive to the Protestants, and more generous to the Catholics of Ireland. But in a few days it became apparent that the measure was doomed. Ministers had been led to believe by their colleague, Mr. Monsell, who was the spokesman of the Catholic clergy, that the compromise would be accepted by them. But the Catholic Bishops met in secret, and decided to oppose the Bill.[50] As the Catholics opposed it for giving them too little, the Protestants opposed it because it gave the Catholics too much. The apostles of culture opposed it because it cut History and Philosophy out of the University curriculum, and in doing so they furnished all discontented Liberals with a good non-political excuse for voting against the Government. The Bill was defeated on the 12th of March by a vote of 287 to 284, the votes of 36 Catholic Members and 9 Liberals[51] having turned the scale. To the very last moment the issue was uncertain, because it was known that if Mr. Gladstone had offered to abandon the teaching clauses of the Bill, he would have won over a sufficient number of Catholic votes to carry it.[52]

Mr. Gladstone’s defeat was followed by the resignation of his Ministry, and the crisis was a most embarrassing one for the Queen. Mr. Disraeli, when sent for by the Sovereign, attempted to form a Cabinet, but did not succeed, mainly because Mr. Gathorne-Hardy objected to the party holding office on sufferance. When Mr. Disraeli reported his failure to the Queen, she again consulted Mr. Gladstone, who, however, suggested that some other Conservative leader--obviously hinting at Lord Derby--might succeed where Mr. Disraeli had failed. But Lord Derby was at Nice when the crisis became acute; and though the Tory Party felt that he was in a special sense their natural leader at such a juncture,[53] they knew that it was decidedly inconvenient for the Prime Minister to be a member of the Upper House, and that he would refuse to enter into anything like rivalry with Mr. Disraeli. Yet a restful Ministry, competent in administration, under a cool-headed, sensible Conservative aristocrat, was what the majority of the people, alarmed by harassed “vested interests,” desired at the time. Be that as it may, Mr. Disraeli, when appealed to a second time by the Queen, refused to assist her out of the difficulty, and Mr. Gladstone was again summoned to the rescue. He returned to power with his Cabinet unchanged and disavowed any intention to dissolve Parliament. Mr. Disraeli’s refusal to take office had given the Queen infinite anxiety, and his defence of his conduct was lame and halting. He was, he said, in a minority; he had not a policy, and could not get one ready till he had been for some time in office, so that he might see what was to be done. He did not desire to experience the humiliation of governing the country under a _régime_ of hostile resolutions. The Queen and the country were alike conscious of the flimsiness of these excuses. Mr. Disraeli never met the question--which, to the Queen, seemed unanswerable--Why did he paralyse the existing Administration, if he was not prepared to put another in its place?

Mr. Disraeli in refusing to govern England himself whilst he prevented Mr. Gladstone from governing it, was pursuing a policy which was as unconstitutional as it was unpatriotic. When he said he could not take office because he must dissolve in May in any case, and that he could not dissolve because he had not a policy to go to the country with, and when he explained that till he had time to study the archives of the Foreign Office he could not tell what ought to be done with questions such as the Russian advance on Khiva, and the Three Rules of the Washington Treaty, men smiled cynically. They asked each other if Lord Palmerston in 1869 was afraid to take the place of the Tory Government because he wanted time to form an opinion on Lord Malmesbury’s policy towards the Italian war of Liberation. Yet Mr. Disraeli gave a truthful account of his motives. He had no policy. Hence when he dissolved Parliament, as he was bound to do after winding up the business of the Session, he must have gone to the country on a purely personal issue between himself and Mr. Gladstone. Doubtless at a time when the nation was getting wearied of restless statesmen, a contest of the sort would have been disastrous to Mr. Gladstone, but not when raised by Mr. Disraeli, who was notoriously even flightier than his antagonist. To have won a General Election on such an issue the Tories must have fought under Lord Derby’s banner. Mr. Disraeli, however, had no intention of giving way to Lord Derby, and his followers did not dare to put him aside, more especially as he had in view a clever scheme of strategy. His idea was to force Mr. Gladstone to dissolve on a positive programme, and then to defeat him by a running fire of destructive criticism. These tactics might bring the Tories back to office under his own leadership, absolutely uncommitted to any definite policy whatever.

When Mr. Gladstone resumed office it was soon seen that he had not only wrecked his party, but compromised the _prestige_ of the House of Commons. His was admittedly a weakened and discredited Ministry. It had been one of Mr. Disraeli’s favourite theories that whenever a feeble Ministry attempted to govern England, power passed from Parliament to the Crown. At one time, no doubt, the theory seemed plausible enough, but the Session of 1873 completely upset it. No sooner had Mr. Gladstone returned to office than power passed from the Crown and the House of Commons to the House of Lords. The will of the Peers was supreme over all. They said or did what they pleased, and quashed Bill after Bill without the least regard to the sentiments of the Queen, the desire of the Commons, or the interests of the country. The Peers rejected the Bill improving Church organisation contemptuously, though it had passed the Commons without a division. By asserting obsolete privileges of appellate jurisdiction over Scotland and Ireland, they disfigured the Judicature Bill, which consolidated the law courts and constituted a high court of appeal. They destroyed Mr. Stansfeld’s useful Rating Bill almost without debate. They opened a way for the reintroduction of purchase in the army, rejected the Landlord and Tenant Bill without even seeing it, and quashed a Bill, promoted by Mr. Vernon Harcourt and supported by the Government, to protect working men against being imprisoned under the law of conspiracy for non-statutable offences committed in the course of a strike. And the curious thing was that from the day Mr. Gladstone returned to office to lead a moribund Ministry and a disorganised House of Commons, the people submitted without a murmur to the resolute and decisive despotism of the Peers. Thus it came to pass that when the Session ended the Ministry seemed to have sunk into a dismal swamp of humiliation--a humiliation which was intensified by administrative scandals and internal feuds. It was shown that Mr. Lowe, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, prepared plans of his own for public works, without consulting the Public Works Office. Mr. Ayrton, as head of that Department, in his place in the House of Commons, repudiated all responsibility for the votes of money for his department which were altered without his knowledge and consent by Mr. Lowe. There was a painful “scene” in the House of Commons at the end of July when these disclosures were made, and when Mr. Ward Hunt formally asked the Government if its Chancellor of the Exchequer and Chief Commissioner of Works were on speaking terms. Mr. Baxter created another scandal by suddenly resigning office as Financial Secretary to the Treasury, because Mr. Lowe had ignored him in the matter of the Zanzibar mail contract. Mr. Lowe was proved to have given the contract for carrying letters from the Cape to Zanzibar to the Union Steam Company for £26,000, whereas the British India Steam Company had offered to do the work for £16,000. Mr. Lowe declared he had never heard of the offer; yet Lord Kimberley, the Secretary for the Colonies, knew of it, and the tender was transmitted by the Indian Postmaster-General to Mr. Monsell, the British Postmaster-General, who passed it on to the Treasury. At the Treasury Mr. Lowe concealed the papers relating to the contract from Mr. Baxter, avowedly because he was known to be hostile to it. A Committee of the House investigated the scandal, and disallowed the contract. This affair was also accompanied by the final revelation of the truth as to what was known as the telegraph scandal.

In spring the working classes were profoundly disturbed by a rumour that the Government had seized the Savings Banks balances, and were building great extensions of telegraph lines with the money without consulting Parliament on the subject. The foundation for the story was a discovery made by the Auditor-General of Public Accounts. He reported that the Telegraph Department of the Post Office had for some time evaded the control of the House of Commons over its expenditure. Instead of submitting to the House estimates for proposed works, and asking for a vote on account, Mr. Scudamore, the Chief of the Department, a brilliant but too zealous official, took whatever money he wanted from the Post Office receipts, and spent it as he pleased on works of extension and improvement. He submitted no estimates in detail, but always asked the House of Commons for a sum for new works, which enabled him to replace the Post Office receipts which he had used. A large portion of the money thus spent was taken from the Savings Banks balances which everybody understood were always paid in for safety to the Commissioners of National Debt, who invested them in Consols. Though no money was missing, it shook public confidence in the Government to find its administrative power so feeble that it could not prevent its own servants from tampering with the Savings Banks Deposits, and further investigation aggravated the scandal. It was shown that Lord Hartington when Postmaster-General had, like Mr. Monsell, allowed Mr. Scudamore to manage the Telegraph Department without any supervision, and that the Treasury had so far condoned this gross and culpable negligence that when it did business with Mr. Scudamore it communicated with him directly, and not through either Lord Hartington or Mr. Monsell, who had meekly submitted to be treated as official “dummies.” It was shown that the Treasury knew of Mr. Scudamore’s irregularities in 1871, and condoned them; that in 1872 it knew of them again, and acted so feebly that even Mr. Lowe admitted he regretted his lack of firmness. It was utterly impossible to defend the conduct of Mr. Lowe, Lord Hartington, Mr. Monsell, and the Chief Commissioner of National Debt, for countenancing these grave irregularities, and the scandal was simply disastrous to the administrative _prestige_ of the Ministry.

The Queen was alarmed at the dismal prospect of ruling England by means of a Cabinet so hopelessly discredited, and Mr. Gladstone was equally conscious of the gravity of the situation. Whenever Parliament was prorogued he tried to parry attacks on the administrative incapacity of his Cabinet by reconstructing it. To the great relief of the Queen, he himself took the Chancellorship of the Exchequer into his own hands, so that the public might have a guarantee that the era of chaos at the Treasury was closed.[54] Mr. Bruce was elevated to the Peerage as Lord Aberdare, and became President of the Council, Lord Ripon having retired for private reasons. Mr. Childers (also for private reasons) vacated the Chancellorship of the Duchy of Lancaster, and Mr. Bright took his place and re-entered the Cabinet. Mr. Lowe was removed to the Home Office, and ere the year closed Mr. Adam became Chief Commissioner of Works, Mr. Ayrton taking the office of Judge-Advocate-General. Mr. Monsell also retired from the Postmaster-Generalship, and was succeeded by Dr. Lyon Playfair. The death of Sir William Bovill, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, in November, elevated Sir J. D. Coleridge to the Bench. Mr. Henry James accordingly became Attorney-General, and, to the amazement of the Bar, he was succeeded as Solicitor-General by Mr. Vernon Harcourt, whose attacks on the Ministry had thus met with their reward.

Mr. Gladstone’s hope was to reinvigorate the Government with a little new blood, and rehabilitate it by means of his influence and reputation as a financial administrator and Mr. Bright’s personal popularity among the Nonconformists. Yet the financial work of the Government alone, when administrative

blunders were detached from it, and relegated to their true place in political perspective, ought to have won for them the gratitude of the nation. Mr. Vernon Harcourt, who perpetually harassed the Ministry because of its growing expenditure--like many financial critics with an imperfect knowledge of book-keeping--failed to see that the apparent growth was not real because much of it was a mere matter of accounting.[55]

During their five years of power the Government had remitted £9,000,000 of taxation. They had reduced a chaotic Naval Administration to something resembling order, and not far removed from efficiency; and yet at the Admiralty there had been a saving of £1,500,000 on the Estimates of their predecessors. They had taken the Army out of pawn to its officers by abolishing Purchase, and had laid the basis for a compact military organisation; yet they had saved £2,300,000 a year at the War Office. The Army and Navy, though by no means efficient, were much more efficient than they had been when Mr. Gladstone’s Ministry came to power; and yet they were costing the country £4,000,000 less a year.[56] In spite of the great increase in Civil Service expenditure--much of which, like the Education Vote, being morally rather than financially reproductive, showed no “results” in figures on the credit side of the public ledger--there had been since 1857 a decrease in the drain on the taxes of about £1,500,000.[57] Mr. Lowe’s last Budget in 1873 did not discredit the Ministry. In spite of his reductions of taxation in the previous year, he had obtained £2,000,000 more than his estimated income. For the coming year (1873-4) he estimated a surplus of £4,746,000; but he could promise no great remission of taxation, for he had to pay the damages (£3,000,000) which had been awarded at Geneva to the United States Government. Still, he halved the sugar duties and took another penny off the Income Tax. With all his faults, he was accordingly entitled to claim credit for reducing the Income Tax to the lowest point it had ever touched (threepence in the £) since it had been imposed by Peel in 1842. And yet Mr. Lowe could not, even with such a Budget, refrain from expressing his thankfulness in an acrid gibe against the populace. Referring to the marvellous increase in the receipts from Customs and Excise, he said he had been able to produce a good Budget because the nation had drunk itself out of debt.

Apart from the political strife and Ministerial embarrassments which so severely taxed the nerves of the Queen, life at Court was not very eventful. Indeed, it centred chiefly round the Prince and Princess of Wales, who were discharging vicariously and with great popular acceptance most of the social duties of the Crown. This fact was recognised by the Queen herself in a curious indirect kind of way. The Prince of Wales, though very far from being a spendthrift, has never shrunk from incurring expenditure which, in his judgment, was necessary to maintain the dignity and _prestige_ of the Crown in a manner worthy of the great nation whose Sovereignty is his heritage. But he has always refrained from appealing to Parliament for subsidies and subventions, either for himself or his family, other than those to which he is equitably and legally entitled by his official position in the State. This was all the more creditable to him, for two reasons. He was surrounded by companions, some of whom did not scruple to take advantage of his generosity. A considerable section of the public during the controversy that raged over the Princess Louise’s dowry had expressed a strong opinion in favour of limiting future Royal grants to an additional allowance to the Heir Apparent, for the purpose of meeting the unanticipated expenditure which he had incurred by taking the Queen’s place as the head of English Society. Sandringham, moreover, had not turned out a remunerative property, and the Prince was therefore under strong temptations to give a favouring ear to unwise counsels on this delicate subject. These, however, he put aside with manly common sense, and his affairs were arranged on a business-like basis, which would have met with the approval of his father, who was always of opinion that matters of the sort were best managed inside the family circle. The only public indication that was given of arrangements which must necessarily be spoken of with great reserve was afforded by Mr. Gladstone when, on the 21st of July, he introduced a Bill enabling the Queen to bequeath real property to the Prince of Wales, so that he could alienate it at will. The obvious advantage of such a measure was that it imparted a fresh elasticity to the financial resources of the Heir Apparent. For he had discovered a fact hitherto unrevealed in the history of his dynasty in England, namely, that though the Sovereign could bequeath to the Heir Apparent alienable personality, such as hard cash, land or real property so bequeathed, became, when vested in his person on ascending the Throne, the property of the State, and therefore inalienable. In fact, supposing the Queen had left Balmoral, an estate which she and her husband bought out of their private purse, to her eldest son, then, though it had been her own private property, it must become public property whenever the Prince of Wales became King. The state of the law on the subject was inequitable and inconvenient. For if the Queen wished to aid her eldest son in meeting expenses which he was every day incurring on her behalf, she had either to sell her private estates, endeared to her by a thousand tender family associations, or appeal to Parliament for a grant, a course which was as objectionable to her as to the Prince. On the other hand, if these private estates, when inherited by the Prince at her death, could be treated as private property, the Heir Apparent could easily obtain any additional subsidies he might need, by mortgaging his expectations. And yet the generous intentions of the Queen, and the honest purposes of the Prince which formed the motives for the Bill, were snappishly and churlishly misrepresented by several Radicals, and by at least one aristocratic Whig. Mr. George Anderson opposed the Bill because Sovereigns kept their wills secret. Sir Charles Dilke objected to it because he said it allowed the indefinite accumulation of private property in the hands of the Sovereign. His argument, in fact, came to this, that profligacy in the Monarch should be encouraged by the posthumous confiscation of his private estates. As for Mr. Bouverie, he asked what business the Sovereign had to possess large private means? The Bill, however, passed, and an incident which at one time threatened to be unpleasant for the Queen and her children was discreetly closed.

In March, the Queen’s refusal to permit the persons who represented England at the French Exhibition of 1867 to accept decorations, was made the subject of debate by Lord Houghton in the House of Lords. Her Majesty’s prejudice against introducing Foreign Orders and titles into England had often given offence to naturalised stockjobbers and pushing _parvenus_. She never even took kindly to the use of the title of “Baron” by the Rothschilds, though she tolerated it for reasons of an entirely exceptional nature. But if the Orders were admitted the titles must soon follow, and society might be inundated some day with Russian “Counts,” who, as the French say, had “a career behind them,” or with Austrian “Barons,” who had bought their honours out of the profits of financial gambling. The English Court, for this reason, has such strong opinions on the point that even English nobles, inheriting foreign titles, conceal them so successfully that few people ever suspect that the Duke of Wellington is a Portuguese prince, the head of the House of Hamilton a French duke, or Lord Denbigh a Prince of an uncrowned branch of the Imperial House of Hapsburg. It need not be said that Lord Houghton’s complaints were generally admitted to be frivolous, and that the Queen’s feeling that she must be the sole fountain of honour in England, was shared by the nation. If the services which an individual has rendered abroad have benefited England or mankind, or if it is possible to form a correct estimate of their value in England, the Queen held she must either reward them herself, or retain the right to permit the individual to receive a foreign decoration for them. There never has been any practical difficulty in dealing with such cases, and no self-respecting person has ever felt aggrieved because he was debarred from accepting Foreign Orders.[58]

On the 4th of January the Queen was grieved to hear of the death of the ex-Emperor of the French, at Chislehurst. Her tender sympathy was freely bestowed on the ex-Empress, who was prostrated by her misfortunes and her sorrow. Five years before, the death of this strange man, whose Imperial life seemed ever shadowed by the great crime of the _coup d’état_, would have convulsed Europe. Now the world seemed quite indifferent to it, and when politicians spoke of it, all they said was that by disorganising the Imperialist party in France, it lessened the labours of M. Thiers in founding the Third Republic. The English people, whom Napoleon III. had kept in feverish dread for two decades, and whose support and friendship he had rewarded with the perfidy of the Benedetti Treaty, did not pretend to mourn over his grave. They spoke of his character, which was a moral paradox, and his career, which was a political crime, without prejudice or ill-feeling. But as they thought of the horrors of the Crimean War, the wasted millions which Palmerston spent in fortifying the South Coast, and the final act of treachery which the German Government had revealed in July, 1870, there were some who considered that the Queen might have been less demonstrative in her manifestations of sorrow. But Her Majesty has never been free from the defects of her qualities. Quick to resent betrayal, her anger passes away as swiftly, when the betrayer broken by an avenging Destiny, and prostrate amid the wreck of his fortunes and his reputation, appeals to her sympathies. When Louis Philippe stood before her as a hunted fugitive, the Queen forgot the Spanish marriages. When Charles Louis Bonaparte fled for refuge to Chislehurst, she was too generous to remember his scheme for stealing Belgium.

When spring came round, “the great joyless city,” as Mr. Walter Besant calls the East End of London, was gladdened by the Queen, for on the 2nd of April her Majesty went there to visit Victoria Park. She was accompanied by the Princess Beatrice, and drove from Buckingham Palace to the park in an open carriage. Her route was along Pall Mall, Regent Street, Portland Place, Marylebone Road, and Euston Road to King’s Cross, up Pentonville Hill to the “Angel” at Islington, beyond which point along Upper Street, Essex Road, Ball’s Pond Road, through Dalston and Hackney, surging crowds of people lined both sides of the entire way. Streamers of gaudy bunting floated overhead from house to house across Islington Green. The Dalston and Hackney stations of the North London Railway, the Town Hall, and shops of Hackney were conspicuously decorated, and it was noticed that the Queen went among the poor of the East End without any military escort, a feat that few European Sovereigns would have dared to emulate. At the Town Hall she halted and received a bouquet, while the people sang the National Anthem. At the temporary entrance to Victoria Park a triple arch, of triumph had been erected, deep enough to resemble a long _marquee_ in three compartments, open at both ends. It was handsomely fitted up in scarlet and gold, and here was stationed a guard of honour of the Fusiliers, while an escort of Life Guards was in waiting to conduct her Majesty round the park. Even the slums in this dismal quarter exhibited meagre decorations, eloquent alike of loyalty and indigence. A poor shoemaker, having nothing better to show, hung out his leather apron, on which the Queen saw with a thrill of interest that he had chalked up in flaming red letters, “Welcome as flowers in May. The Queen, God bless her.” The enthusiasm of the populace on this occasion was due to a curious idea that prevailed all over the East End. This visit, they said, was no ordinary one, because the Queen had come of her own free will to see the East End--a very different thing from the East End going westwards to see her. Hence a hurricane of cheers greeted the Queen wherever she went, and was more gladsome to her ears than the ornate language of the loyal addresses which she received. Her Majesty returned by Cambridge Heath Road, and when she came to Shoreditch the way was rendered almost impassable by an eager crowd. From Bishopsgate Street to the Bank she was hailed with passionate loyalty, which seemed to lose all restraint when on passing the Mansion House she rose in her carriage and smilingly bowed to the Lord Mayor, who stood in his State robes under the portico and saluted her. She then drove along the Embankment to the Palace, having charmed the sadder quarters of London with a visit which the people took to mean that they were not forgotten or ignored by their Queen.

On the 3rd of April, at three o’clock in the afternoon, the Duke of Cambridge, as President of Christ’s Hospital--the famous Blue-coat School--visited the Queen at Buckingham Palace to present the boys of the Mathematical School, who had come to exhibit their drawings and charts to her Majesty. A number of gentlemen connected with the Hospital had the honour of being presented by the Duke to the Queen when she entered the Drawing-room. Her Majesty then inspected, apparently with great interest, the maps and charts which were held before her by each boy separately.

The foreign curiosity of the London season in 1873 was the Shah of Persia. Soon after the Queen’s visit to the East End ceased to be discussed, the coming of the Shah was the favourite topic of talk. At the end of April his departure from Teheran amidst the blessings of an overawed crowd of 80,000 subjects was chronicled. On the 12th of May he was heard of, painfully navigating the waters of the Caspian in a Russian steamer, and wonderful tales of his progress were told. He had three wives, and nobody knew how many other ladies in his train holding brevet-matrimonial rank. Was he going to bring them to England? If so, could more than one of them be received, and in that case how were the rest to be disposed of? A cloud of despondency began to settle over the subordinates in the Lord Chamberlain’s department. Would it be possible, it was asked, to persuade the Queen to invite each of the Shah’s wives separately--one to Buckingham Palace, one to Windsor, and one to Osborne? Later on it was reported that not only was the Shah bringing his harem, but his Cabinet Ministers also. Was his visit likely to be free from danger? Might not people begin to cherish strange fancies, if the Shah thus gave them ocular proof that an ancient country could get on wonderfully well without a sovereign and without a government? Gradually astounding rumours of his wealth were sent round. He had brought only half a million sterling for pocket-money, because there had just been a famine in Persia; still the sum would meet the modest wants of his exalted position. Indeed, through a telegraphic blunder, the sum was first stated as £5,000,000. He was said to be covered with jewels and precious stones, and he wore a dagger which blazed with diamonds, so that one could only view it comfortably through ground glass. In June the officials of the Court were relieved from a supreme anxiety. Ere he got half-way over Europe the Shah had sent his harem back to Persia. As he approached England he was described as looking terribly bored, and his black velvet doublet, covered with diamonds, and ornamented with emerald epaulettes, was said by one irreverent journalist to give him the appearance of “a dark shrub under the early morning dew.” To the good English people he was a mighty Asiatic potentate, representing an ancient dynasty, and the popular cry was that he must be impressed with the power of England. Had they understood that his great grandfather was a petty chief, who at a time of revolution established a dynasty, and promptly began, with the aid of his relatives, to ruin Persia, and that their visitor himself ruled over a country with the population of Ireland and twice the area of Germany, they might have made themselves less ridiculous. Mr. Gladstone was even pestered on the subject, and had to turn the matter off with a smiling suggestion that it would be well to let the Shah fix his own programme, and not put him in chains when he landed on our shores. But in Court circles it was whispered with dread that it might be well to fetter the bedizened barbarian, for he had odd notions of etiquette, and had even rudely poked the august arm of the German Empress, when he wanted to call her attention at the theatre to something on the stage. On the 18th of June, however, the long-expected guest landed at Dover from Ostend. The cannon of the Channel fleet thundered forth a salute, and the Duke of Edinburgh and Prince Arthur welcomed him as he stepped

on the pier. His Majesty arrived at Charing Cross in the evening, and London forthwith went mad about him. It talked and thought about nothing else, much to the disgust of the Tory wirepullers, who saw with sorrow the scandal of the Zanzibar mail contract absolutely wasted on a frivolous metropolis. It may be recorded that when he appeared the Shah disappointed sightseers, who were looking out for the black velvet tunic powdered with diamonds, and ornamented with epaulettes of emeralds. His Majesty, in fact, was clad in a blue military frock-coat, faced with rows of brilliants and large rubies; his belt and the scabbard of his scimitar were likewise bright with jewels, and so was his cap.

The _suite_ of apartments placed at the disposal of his Imperial Majesty in Buckingham Palace had been put in direct telegraphic communication with Teheran, and though it was expected he would be impressed by being able to talk to anybody in his capital without leaving his room, the arrangement seemed rather to bore him than otherwise. An infinite variety of entertainments was prepared for him, and the programme he had to work through seemed too extensive for human endurance during the last ten days of his visit. On the 20th of June the Queen, who was at Balmoral when he arrived, came to Windsor to receive the Persian monarch in State.

The preparations for the Shah’s public welcome were worthy of the Royal borough. As the train steamed into Windsor Station, the Princes and others in waiting to receive him welcomed him as he stepped out, arrayed in a State uniform flashing with gems. The Mayor and Recorder then read an Address, to which the Shah briefly replied, both the Address and reply being translated by Sir Henry Rawlinson. Accompanied by Prince Arthur and Prince Leopold he was driven to the Castle, where the Queen received him. The reception was held in the White Drawing Room, and the Shah conferred upon the Queen the Persian Order, and also the new Order which he had then, with a gallantry hardly to be expected of an Asiatic, just instituted for ladies. Luncheon was served in the Oak Room, after which the Queen accompanied her guest to the foot of the staircase on his leaving the Castle.

In the evening a splendid entertainment was given to his Majesty by the Lord Mayor at Guildhall, to which 3,000 persons were invited. At this banquet the Shah was placed on a daïs with the Princess of Wales, the Lord Mayor on his left hand, and the Czarevna, wife of the Czarewitch, on his right. The Shah wore a blue uniform with a belt of diamonds, and the ribbon and Star of the Garter, which had been conferred on him at Windsor in the afternoon. The scene at the ball which followed was unusually brilliant and picturesque. When the Shah had taken his seat the first quadrille was formed. He did not dance, but when the company had gone through four dances he joined the supper-party. About midnight his Majesty and the Royal Family left the scene. This magnificent entertainment was the first of many. The Shah was hurried in rapid succession to a Review of Artillery at Woolwich, and another of the Fleet at Spithead, to a State performance at the Italian Opera, to the International Exhibition, to a concert in the Royal Albert Hall, and to a Review in Windsor Park of 8,000 troops. At this Review what impressed him most were the batteries of Light Artillery, the physique and drill of the Highlanders, and the brilliant skirmishing of the Rifles. When the spectacle was over he presented his scimitar to the Duke of Cambridge. An odd sight was witnessed when the Shah visited the West India Dock and Greenwich on the 25th of June. He went in an open carriage from Buckingham Palace to the Tower Wharf, and embarked amidst a salvo of artillery. The river was filled with an extraordinary collection of ships, barges, boats, and vessels of every description. Crowds, cheering and shouting like crazy beings, swarmed on decks, rigging, wharves, roadways, and even on the roofs and crane stages of the warehouses. A striking effect was produced during this trip by the floating steam fire-engines of the Metropolitan Fire Brigade, which, closely lashed together, all at once saluted the Shah as he passed, by casting up many perpendicular jets of water to a great height in the air. On the evening of this day, by command of the Queen, a State ball was given at Buckingham Palace, at which the Persian Sovereign and the British Princes and Princesses were present. After a short visit to Liverpool, the Shah left England on the 5th of July, no abatement having taken place in the entertainments in his honour up to the last.

The Shah’s departure from London, and his embarkation for Cherbourg on board the French Government yacht _Rapide_, was the final act of these remarkable proceedings. He was accompanied to the Victoria Station by the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Arthur, the Duke of Cambridge, and Prince Christian, all in full uniform. The Shah having been made a Knight of the Garter during his visit to England, her Majesty presented him with the badge and collar set in diamonds. He in turn gave his photograph set in diamonds to the Queen and the Prince of Wales. To Earl Granville he offered his jewelled portrait, but that wily diplomatist, knowing what was meant, demurely said he could only accept the portrait if the precious stones were removed from it. London never had such a lion before or since, and the fuss made over him led many to imagine that his visit was of high political importance. It was certainly odd that the heir to the Russian throne, who must have been satiated with the Shah’s society in St. Petersburg, persisted in being seen everywhere in his train in London. Perhaps at his interview with Lord Granville he had asked for some promise of protection against Russian encroachment, and as it was impossible for Russia to conquer the Tekke Turcomans unless she could draw her supplies from the Golden Province of Khorassan, such a promise, if given and kept, would have effectually barred the march of the Cossack towards Herat. If these matters were talked of, events subsequently showed that no such promises had been made, and that Lord Granville, like his predecessors, firmly adhered to the fatal policy initiated by England in order to buy the aid of the Czar against Napoleon I.--the policy of abandoning Persia to Russian “influence.”

It was semi-officially announced in the middle of July that the Duke of Edinburgh had been betrothed (11th July) to the Grand Duchess Marie Alexandrovna, the only daughter of the Czar of Russia. The affair had been the subject of some difficult and delicate negotiations, not so much because there was some difference of religion between the bride and bridegroom, but because, being an only daughter, the parents of the Grand Duchess felt that parting with her would be a bitter heart-wrench. She was devoted to her father, as he was to her, and it was said that if he had given his crown to the English Prince he could not have testified more strongly his esteem for him than he had done by bestowing on him his daughter’s hand. “I hear,” writes the Princess Louis of Hesse from Seeheim (9th July), to the Queen, “Affie [the Duke of Edinburgh] comes on Thursday night. Poor Marie is very happy, and so quiet.... How I feel for the parents, this only daughter (a character of _Hingebung_ [perfect devotion] to those she loves)--the last child entirely at home, as the parents are so much away that the two youngest, on account of their studies, no longer travel about.”[59]

This alliance was unusually interesting, for the Duke of Edinburgh was practically within the Royal succession.[60] Nothing but an Act of Parliament barring him from the succession, such as men talked of passing against the hated Duke of Cumberland, who conspired with the loyal Orangemen of Ulster to oust the Queen from the throne, could prevent the Duke from succeeding to the Crown if the Prince of Wales and his children did not survive the Queen. There was a very general feeling that this marriage was worthy of the country. Apart from her great wealth, the only daughter of the Czar of All the Russias appeared to the average British elector to be a much more fitting mate for a Prince who stood very near the English throne, than an impecunious young lady from a minor Teutonic “dukery”--if we may venture to borrow a term which Lord Beaconsfield made classical. Thoughtful observers of public life were grateful to the Queen for establishing a precedent which enlarged the area of matrimonial selection for English Princes. Since the reign of George II. this had been so closely limited to Germany, that the Royal Family of England from generation to generation had been purely and exclusively German. There was, therefore, no popular outcry against a Parliamentary settlement for the Duke of Edinburgh. Mr. Gladstone, on the 29th

of July, carried a resolution in the House of Commons, giving the Duke of Edinburgh an annuity of £25,000 a year, and securing to the Grand Duchess Marie £6,000 a year of jointure in the event of her becoming a widow. The Minister was not met with any formidable opposition. When Mr. Holt and Mr. Newdegate began to attack the Grand Duchess’s religion, the House instantly flew into a passion and hooted them into silence. When the resolution was debated two days afterwards, Mr. Taylor, who objected to the vote on the ground that the bride was one of the richest heiresses in Europe, was literally effaced by Mr. Gladstone. Amid deafening cheers from all parts of the House, he asked Mr. Taylor if he dared to stand up before his own constituents and beg the Russian Czar to accept a poor English Prince for a son-in-law on the plea that his daughter had a large fortune? The grant was carried by a vote of 170 to 20.

(_From a Photograph by W. and D. Downey._)]

The marriage itself was solemnised on the 23rd of January, 1874, at the Czar’s Winter Palace in St. Petersburg in accordance with the Greek and the Anglican rite. All that wealth and absolute power could do to invest the ceremony with Imperial pomp and splendour was done. Among those invited were members of the Holy Synod, and of the High Clergy of Russia; the members of the Council of the Empire, Senators, Ambassadors, and other members of the Corps Diplomatique, with the ladies of their families, general officers, officers of the Guard, of the Army and Navy. The great Russian ladies wore the national costume, while the nobles and gentlemen were in full uniform. The Queen of England was represented by Viscount Sydney and Lady Augusta Stanley. On their arrival at the church the Duke and Grand Duchess took their places in front of the altar, where were standing the Metropolitan of St. Petersburg and the chief priests, attired in magnificent vestments. The Czar and Czarina were on the right of the altar, the Prince of Wales and the Russian Grand Dukes standing opposite. The most interesting portions of the ceremony were the handing of the rings to the bride and bridegroom, the crowning of the Royal couple, and the procession of the newly wedded pair, with the Metropolitan and clergy, Prince Arthur, and the Grand Dukes round the analogion or lectern, the bride and bridegroom carrying lighted candles in their left hands. On the conclusion of this part of the ceremony, the bride and bridegroom proceeded to the Salle d’Alexandre, where the Anglican ceremony was performed by Dean Stanley, the bride being given away by the Emperor, while Prince Arthur officiated as his brother’s groomsman. The Duke of Edinburgh and the Grand Duchess Marie used prayer books which had been sent to them by the Queen, and the Grand Duchess carried a bouquet of myrtle from the bush at Osborne, which had been so often laid under tribute for the marriages of the Queen’s children. The wedding-day was celebrated in the principal towns of Great Britain with much popular rejoicing.

The Queen deeply regretted her inability to be present at a ceremony so interesting to her, and, in some respects, momentous for her House. Nor was she the only member of the Royal circle who entertained the same feeling. Her daughter, the Princess Louis of Hesse, writing to her from Darmstadt on the 23rd of January, 1874, says, “On our dear Affie’s [Prince Alfred’s] birthday, a few tender words. It must seem so strange to you not to be near him. My thoughts are constantly with them all, and we have only the _Times_ account, for no one writes here. They are all too busy, and, of course, all news comes to you. What has Augusta [Lady Augusta Stanley] written, and Vicky and Bertie? Any extracts or other newspaper accounts but what we see would be most welcome.... God bless and protect them, and may all turn out well.” Artless passages like these are worth quoting, if for no better reason than this, that they illustrate the strength of the sentiment of domesticity which has not only bound the Royal children to the Queen, but to each other, all through life. Even after the Queen had complied with her daughter’s request, and sent her some letters about the ceremony, the Princess recurs to the same theme, saying, “Dear Marie [the Duchess of Edinburgh] seems to make the same impression on _all_. How glad I am she is so quite what I thought and hoped. Such a wife must make Affie happy, and do him good, and be a great pleasure to yourself, which I always liked to think.” And again, a few days later, she writes to the Queen as follows:--“I have a little time before breakfast to thank you so much for the enclosures, also the Dean’s [Stanley’s] letter through Beatrice. We are most grateful for being allowed to hear these most interesting reports. It brings everything so much nearer. How pleasant it is to receive only satisfactory reports.”[61]

The Grand Duchess, when she came to her new home, brought her own weather with her. She was introduced by the Queen to London and the Londoners on the 12th of March, in the midst of a bleak and blinding snowstorm. That dense crowds of people should line the street, and stand for hours in the half-frozen slush, for an opportunity of bidding the Grand Duchess welcome to her new home, afforded an impressive testimony to the deep-seated loyalty of the capital. The Queen, the Grand Duchess, the Duke of Edinburgh, and other members of the Royal Family, left Windsor Castle at 11 o’clock in closed carriages for the railway station, under a brilliant escort of Scots Greys. The Royal train steamed to Paddington terminus, which was all ablaze with Russian and English colours. The people thronged the windows, balconies, the house-tops, and the pavements, and each side of the roadway, all along from Paddington to Buckingham Palace, and the Queen and the Royal couple showed their appreciation of the splendid reception which was given to them by braving the snowstorm in an open landau. The Queen, who was dressed in half-mourning, smilingly bowed in acknowledgment of the hearty cheering, and the Grand Duchess, who sat by her side, attired in a purple velvet mantle edged with fur, a pale blue silk dress and white bonnet, was evidently surprised at the warm greeting she received. The route was lined by the military and police. The streets were full of loyal but bedraggled decorations, and grimly festive with limp flags and illegible mottoes. Nothing could be more gracious than the smiling demeanour of the Queen and her new daughter-in-law, and nothing more pitiable than the obvious discomfort of the poor ladies-in-waiting, who sat palpably shivering in their carriages. At night the chief thoroughfares were brilliantly illuminated. “I hope,” writes the Princess Louis of Hesse to the Queen, “you were not the worse for all your exertions.... Such a warm reception must have touched Marie, and shown how the English cling to their Sovereign and her House.” Yet, after the first flush of excitement had passed away, the Russian Princess began to suffer from the common complaint of all Northern women--_nostalgia_, or home-sickness. “Marie must feel it very deeply,” writes the Princess Louis to the Queen (7th April), “for to leave so delicate and loving a mother must seem almost wrong. How strange this side of human nature always seems--leaving all you love most, know best, owe all debts of gratitude to, for the comparatively unknown! The lot of parents is indeed hard, and of such self-sacrifice.” This incident seems to have led to a curious correspondence between the Queen and her daughter, in which her Majesty apparently gave her some solemn warnings about the evil done by parents who bring up their daughters for the sole purpose of marrying them. “This,” observes the Princess Louis in her reply to her

(_From the Picture by N. Chevalier._)]

mother, “is said to be a too prominent feature in the modern English education of the higher classes.... I want to bring up the girls without _seeking_ this as the sole object for the future--to feel that they can fill up their lives so well otherwise.... A marriage for the sake of marriage is surely the greatest mistake a woman can make.... I know what an absorbing feeling that of devotion to one’s parent is. When I was at home it filled my whole soul. It does still in a great degree, and _heimweh_ [home-sickness] does not cease after so long an absence.”