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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Queen Victoria, by Lytton Strachey
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Queen Victoria
+
+Author: Lytton Strachey
+
+Release Date: August 21, 2011 [EBook #37153]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK QUEEN VICTORIA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Al Haines
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Frontispiece: QUEEN VICTORIA, PRINCE ALBERT AND THE ROYAL FAMILY.
+_From the Picture by F. Winterhalter_.]
+
+
+
+
+
+QUEEN VICTORIA
+
+
+BY
+
+LYTTON STRACHEY
+
+
+
+
+LONDON
+
+CHATTO & WINDUS
+
+1921
+
+
+
+
+TO
+
+VIRGINIA WOOLF
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER
+TOC
+    I. ANTECEDENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   1
+   II. CHILDHOOD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  18
+  III. LORD MELBOURNE  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  51
+   IV. MARRIAGE  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  97
+    V. LORD PALMERSTON . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
+   VI. LAST YEARS OF THE PRINCE CONSORT  . . . . . . 185
+  VII. WIDOWHOOD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
+ VIII. MR. GLADSTONE AND LORD BEACONSFIELD . . . . . 240
+   IX. OLD AGE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269
+    X. THE END . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307
+  ZZZ     BIBLIOGRAPHY  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311
+ETOC
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+QUEEN VICTORIA, PRINCE ALBERT AND THE ROYAL FAMILY.
+  From the picture of F. Winterhalter, at Buckingham
+  Palace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _Frontispiece_
+
+PRINCESS VICTORIA IN 1836.
+  From a print after the picture by F. Winterhalter
+
+LORD MELBOURNE.
+  From the portrait by Sir Edwin Landseer, R.A., in
+  possession of the Earl of Rosebery
+
+QUEEN VICTORIA IN 1838.
+  From the portrait by E. Corbould
+
+PRINCE ALBERT IN 1840.
+  From the portrait by John Partridge, at Buckingham Palace
+
+QUEEN VICTORIA AND THE PRINCE CONSORT IN 1860
+
+QUEEN VICTORIA IN 1863
+
+QUEEN VICTORIA IN 1876.
+  From the portrait by Von Angeli, in possession of
+  Coningsby Disraeli, Esq.  Presented by Her Majesty to
+  the Earl of Beaconsfield
+
+QUEEN VICTORIA IN 1897
+
+
+
+_For facilities afforded in regard to the reproduction of certain of
+the above, thanks are due to Mr. John Murray_.
+
+
+
+
+_Authority for every important statement of fact in the following pages
+will be found in the footnotes.  The full titles of the works to which
+reference is made are given in the Bibliography at the end of the
+volume_.
+
+_The author is indebted to the Trustees of the British Museum for their
+permission to make use of certain unpublished passages in the
+manuscript of the Greville Memoirs_.
+
+
+
+
+{1}
+
+QUEEN VICTORIA
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+ANTECEDENTS
+
+I
+
+On November 6, 1817, died the Princess Charlotte, only child of the
+Prince Regent, and heir to the crown of England.  Her short life had
+hardly been a happy one.  By nature impulsive, capricious, and
+vehement, she had always longed for liberty; and she had never
+possessed it.  She had been brought up among violent family quarrels,
+had been early separated from her disreputable and eccentric mother,
+and handed over to the care of her disreputable and selfish father.
+When she was seventeen, he decided to marry her off to the Prince of
+Orange; she, at first, acquiesced; but, suddenly falling in love with
+Prince Augustus of Prussia, she determined to break off the engagement.
+This was not her first love affair, for she had previously carried on a
+clandestine correspondence with a Captain Hess.  Prince Augustus was
+already married, morganatically, but she did not know it, and he did
+not tell her.  While she was spinning out the negotiations with the
+Prince of Orange, the allied sovereigns--it was June, 1814--arrived in
+London to celebrate their victory.  Among them, in the suite of the {2}
+Emperor of Russia, was the young and handsome Prince Leopold of
+Saxe-Coburg.  He made several attempts to attract the notice of the
+Princess, but she, with her heart elsewhere, paid very little
+attention.  Next month the Prince Regent, discovering that his daughter
+was having secret meetings with Prince Augustus, suddenly appeared upon
+the scene and, after dismissing her household, sentenced her to a
+strict seclusion in Windsor Park.  'God Almighty grant me patience!'
+she exclaimed, falling on her knees in an agony of agitation: then she
+jumped up, ran down the backstairs and out into the street, hailed a
+passing cab, and drove to her mother's house in Bayswater.  She was
+discovered, pursued, and at length, yielding to the persuasions of her
+uncles, the Dukes of York and Sussex, of Brougham, and of the Bishop of
+Salisbury, she returned to Carlton House at two o'clock in the morning.
+She was immured at Windsor, but no more was heard of the Prince of
+Orange.  Prince Augustus, too, disappeared.  The way was at last open
+to Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg.[1]
+
+This Prince was clever enough to get round the Regent, to impress the
+Ministers, and to make friends with another of the Princess's uncles,
+the Duke of Kent.  Through the Duke he was able to communicate
+privately with the Princess, who now declared that he was necessary to
+her happiness.  When, after Waterloo, he was in Paris, the Duke's
+aide-de-camp carried letters backwards and forwards across the Channel.
+In January 1816 he was invited to England, and in May the marriage took
+place.[2]
+
+{3}
+
+The character of Prince Leopold contrasted strangely with that of his
+wife.  The younger son of a German princeling, he was at this time
+twenty-six years of age; he had served with distinction in the war
+against Napoleon; he had shown considerable diplomatic skill at the
+Congress of Vienna;[3] and he was now to try his hand at the task of
+taming a tumultuous Princess.  Cold and formal in manner, collected in
+speech, careful in action, he soon dominated the wild, impetuous,
+generous creature by his side.  There was much in her, he found, of
+which he could not approve.  She quizzed, she stamped, she roared with
+laughter; she had very little of that self-command which is especially
+required of princes; her manners were abominable.  Of the latter he was
+a good judge, having moved, as he himself explained to his niece many
+years later, in the best society of Europe, being in fact 'what is
+called in French _de la fleur des pois_.'  There was continual
+friction, but every scene ended in the same way.  Standing before him
+like a rebellious boy in petticoats, her body pushed forward, her hands
+behind her back, with flaming cheeks and sparkling eyes, she would
+declare at last that she was ready to do whatever he wanted.  'If you
+wish it, I will do it,' she would say.  'I want nothing for myself,' he
+invariably answered; 'when I press something on you, it is from a
+conviction that it is for your interest and for your good.'[4]
+
+Among the members of the household at Claremont, near Esher, where the
+royal pair were established, was a young German physician, Christian
+Friedrich Stockmar.  He was the son of a minor magistrate in {4}
+Coburg, and, after taking part as a medical officer in the war, he had
+settled down as a doctor in his native town.  Here he had met Prince
+Leopold, who had been struck by his ability, and, on his marriage,
+brought him to England as his personal physician.  A curious fate
+awaited this young man; many were the gifts which the future held in
+store for him--many and various--influence, power, mystery,
+unhappiness, a broken heart.  At Claremont his position was a very
+humble one; but the Princess took a fancy to him, called him 'Stocky,'
+and romped with him along the corridors.  Dyspeptic by constitution,
+melancholic by temperament, he could yet be lively on occasion, and was
+known as a wit in Coburg.  He was virtuous, too, and observed the royal
+_m�nage_ with approbation.  'My master,' he wrote in his diary, 'is the
+best of all husbands in all the five quarters of the globe; and his
+wife bears him an amount of love, the greatness of which can only be
+compared with the English national debt.'  Before long he gave proof of
+another quality--a quality which was to colour the whole of his
+life--cautious sagacity.  When, in the spring of 1817, it was known
+that the Princess was expecting a child, the post of one of her
+physicians-in-ordinary was offered to him, and he had the good sense to
+refuse it.  He perceived that his colleagues would be jealous of him,
+that his advice would probably not be taken, but that, if anything were
+to go wrong, it would be certainly the foreign doctor who would be
+blamed.  Very soon, indeed, he came to the opinion that the low diet
+and constant bleedings, to which the unfortunate Princess was
+subjected, were an error; he drew the Prince aside, and begged him to
+communicate this opinion to the English doctors; but it was useless.
+The {5} fashionable lowering treatment was continued for months.  On
+November 5, at nine o'clock in the evening, after a labour of over
+fifty hours, the Princess was delivered of a dead boy.  At midnight her
+exhausted strength gave way.  Then, at last, Stockmar consented to see
+her; he went in, and found her obviously dying, while the doctors were
+plying her with wine.  She seized his hand and pressed it.  'They have
+made me tipsy,' she said.  After a little he left her, and was already
+in the next room when he heard her call out in her loud voice 'Stocky!
+Stocky!'  As he ran back the death-rattle was in her throat.  She
+tossed herself violently from side to side; then suddenly drew up her
+legs, and it was over.
+
+The Prince, after hours of watching, had left the room for a few
+moments' rest; and Stockmar had now to tell him that his wife was dead.
+At first he could not be made to realise what had happened.  On their
+way to her room he sank down on a chair while Stockmar knelt beside
+him: it was all a dream; it was impossible.  At last, by the bed, he,
+too, knelt down and kissed the cold hands.  Then rising and exclaiming,
+'Now I am quite desolate.  Promise me never to leave me,' he threw
+himself into Stockmar's arms.[5]
+
+
+II
+
+The tragedy at Claremont was of a most upsetting kind.  The royal
+kaleidoscope had suddenly shifted, and nobody could tell how the new
+pattern would arrange itself.  The succession to the throne, which had
+seemed so satisfactorily settled, now became a matter of urgent doubt.
+
+{6}
+
+George III was still living, an aged lunatic, at Windsor, completely
+impervious to the impressions of the outer world.  Of his seven sons,
+the youngest was of more than middle age, and none had legitimate
+offspring.  The outlook, therefore, was ambiguous.  It seemed highly
+improbable that the Prince Regent, who had lately been obliged to
+abandon his stays, and presented a preposterous figure of debauched
+obesity,[6] could ever again, even on the supposition that he divorced
+his wife and re-married, become the father of a family.  Besides the
+Duke of Kent, who must be noticed separately, the other brothers, in
+order of seniority, were the Dukes of York, Clarence, Cumberland,
+Sussex, and Cambridge; their situations and prospects require a brief
+description.  The Duke of York, whose escapades in times past with Mrs.
+Clarke and the army had brought him into trouble, now divided his life
+between London and a large, extravagantly ordered and extremely
+uncomfortable country house where he occupied himself with racing,
+whist, and improper stories.  He was remarkable among the princes for
+one reason: he was the only one of them--so we are informed by a highly
+competent observer--who had the feelings of a gentleman.  He had been
+long married to the Princess Royal of Prussia, a lady who rarely went
+to bed and was perpetually surrounded by vast numbers of dogs, parrots,
+and monkeys.[7]  They had no children.  The Duke of Clarence had lived
+for many years in complete obscurity with Mrs. Jordan, the actress, in
+Bushey Park.  By her he had had a large family of sons and daughters,
+and had {7} appeared, in effect, to be married to her, when he suddenly
+separated from her and offered to marry Miss Wykeham, a crazy woman of
+large fortune, who, however, would have nothing to say to him.  Shortly
+afterwards Mrs. Jordan died in distressed circumstances in Paris.[8]
+The Duke of Cumberland was probably the most unpopular man in England.
+Hideously ugly, with a distorted eye, he was bad-tempered and
+vindictive in private, a violent reactionary in politics, and was
+subsequently suspected of murdering his valet and of having carried on
+an amorous intrigue of an extremely scandalous kind.[9]  He had lately
+married a German Princess, but there were as yet no children by the
+marriage.  The Duke of Sussex had mildly literary tastes and collected
+books.[10]  He had married Lady Augusta Murray, by whom he had two
+children, but the marriage, under the Royal Marriages Act, was declared
+void.  On Lady Augusta's death, he married Lady Cecilia Buggin; she
+changed her name to Underwood; but this marriage also was void.  Of the
+Duke of Cambridge, the youngest of the brothers, not very much was
+known.  He lived in Hanover, wore a blonde wig, chattered and fidgeted
+a great deal, and was unmarried.[11]
+
+Besides his seven sons, George III had five surviving daughters.  Of
+these, two--the Queen of W�rtemberg and the Duchess of Gloucester--were
+married and childless.  The three unmarried princesses--Augusta,
+Elizabeth, and Sophia--were all over forty.
+
+
+{8}
+
+III
+
+The fourth son of George III was Edward, Duke of Kent.  He was now
+fifty years of age--a tall, stout, vigorous man, highly-coloured, with
+bushy eyebrows, a bald top to his head, and what hair he had carefully
+dyed a glossy black.  His dress was extremely neat, and in his whole
+appearance there was a rigidity which did not belie his character.  He
+had spent his early life in the army--at Gibraltar, in Canada, in the
+West Indies--and, under the influence of military training, had become
+at first a disciplinarian and at last a martinet.  In 1802, having been
+sent to Gibraltar to restore order in a mutinous garrison, he was
+recalled for undue severity, and his active career had come to an end.
+Since then he had spent his life regulating his domestic arrangements
+with great exactitude, busying himself with the affairs of his numerous
+dependents, designing clocks, and struggling to restore order to his
+finances, for, in spite of his being, as someone said who knew him
+well, '_r�gl� comme du papier � musique_,' and in spite of an income of
+�24,000 a year, he was hopelessly in debt.  He had quarrelled with most
+of his brothers, particularly with the Prince Regent, and it was only
+natural that he should have joined the political Opposition and become
+a pillar of the Whigs.
+
+What his political opinions may actually have been is open to doubt; it
+has often been asserted that he was a Liberal, or even a Radical; and,
+if we are to believe Robert Owen, he was a necessitarian Socialist.
+His relations with Owen--the shrewd, gullible, high-minded,
+wrong-headed, illustrious and preposterous father of Socialism and
+Co-operation--were curious {9} and characteristic.  He talked of
+visiting the Mills at New Lanark; he did, in fact, preside at one of
+Owen's public meetings; he corresponded with him on confidential terms,
+and he even (so Owen assures us) returned, after his death, from 'the
+sphere of spirits' to give encouragement to the Owenites on earth.  'In
+an especial manner,' says Owen, 'I have to name the very anxious
+feelings of the spirit of his Royal Highness the late Duke of Kent (who
+early informed me there were no titles in the spiritual spheres into
+which he had entered), to benefit, not a class, a sect, a party, or any
+particular country, but the whole of the human race through futurity.'
+'His whole spirit-proceeding with me has been most beautiful,' Owen
+adds, 'making his own appointments; and never in one instance has this
+spirit not been punctual to the minute he had named.'  But Owen was of
+a sanguine temperament.  He also numbered among his proselytes
+President Jefferson, Prince Metternich, and Napoleon; so that some
+uncertainty must still linger over the Duke of Kent's views.  But there
+is no uncertainty about another circumstance: his Royal Highness
+borrowed from Robert Owen, on various occasions, various sums of money
+which were never repaid and amounted in all to several hundred
+pounds.[12]
+
+After the death of the Princess Charlotte it was clearly important, for
+more than one reason, that the Duke of Kent should marry.  From the
+point of view of the nation, the lack of heirs in the reigning family
+seemed to make the step almost obligatory; it was also likely to be
+highly expedient from the point of view of the Duke.  To marry as a
+public duty, for the {10} sake of the royal succession, would surely
+deserve some recognition from a grateful country.  When the Duke of
+York had married he had received a settlement of �25,000 a year.  Why
+should not the Duke of Kent look forward to an equal sum?  But the
+situation was not quite simple.  There was the Duke of Clarence to be
+considered; he was the elder brother, and, if he married, would clearly
+have the prior claim.  On the other hand, if the Duke of Kent married,
+it was important to remember that he would be making a serious
+sacrifice: a lady was involved.
+
+The Duke, reflecting upon all these matters with careful attention,
+happened, about a month after his niece's death, to visit Brussels, and
+learnt that Mr. Creevey was staying in the town.  Mr. Creevey was a
+close friend of the leading Whigs and an inveterate gossip; and it
+occurred to the Duke that there could be no better channel through
+which to communicate his views upon the situation to political circles
+at home.  Apparently it did not occur to him that Mr. Creevey was
+malicious and might keep a diary.  He therefore sent for him on some
+trivial pretext, and a remarkable conversation ensued.
+
+After referring to the death of the Princess, to the improbability of
+the Regent's seeking a divorce, to the childlessness of the Duke of
+York, and to the possibility of the Duke of Clarence marrying, the Duke
+adverted to his own position.  'Should the Duke of Clarence not marry,'
+he said, 'the next prince in succession is myself, and although I trust
+I shall be at all times ready to obey any call my country may make upon
+me, God only knows the sacrifice it will be to make, whenever I shall
+think it my duty to become a married man.  It is now seven-and-twenty
+years that Madame St. Laurent {11} and I have lived together: we are of
+the same age, and have been in all climates, and in all difficulties
+together, and you may well imagine, Mr. Creevey, the pang it will
+occasion me to part with her.  I put it to your own feelings--in the
+event of any separation between you and Mrs. Creevey....  As for Madame
+St. Laurent herself, I protest I don't know what is to become of her if
+a marriage is to be forced upon me; her feelings are already so
+agitated upon the subject.'  The Duke went on to describe how, one
+morning, a day or two after the Princess Charlotte's death, a paragraph
+had appeared in the _Morning Chronicle_, alluding to the possibility of
+his marriage.  He had received the newspaper at breakfast together with
+his letters, and 'I did as is my constant practice, I threw the
+newspaper across the table to Madame St. Laurent, and began to open and
+read my letters.  I had not done so but a very short time, when my
+attention was called to an extraordinary noise and a strong convulsive
+movement in Madame St. Laurent's throat.  For a short time I
+entertained serious apprehensions for her safety; and when, upon her
+recovery, I enquired into the occasion of this attack, she pointed to
+the article in the _Morning Chronicle_.'
+
+The Duke then returned to the subject of the Duke of Clarence.  'My
+brother the Duke of Clarence is the elder brother, and has certainly
+the right to marry if he chooses, and I would not interfere with him on
+any account.  If he wishes to be king--to be married and have children,
+poor man--God help him! let him do so.  For myself--I am a man of no
+ambition, and wish only to remain as I am....  Easter, you know, falls
+very early this year--the 22nd of March.  If the Duke of Clarence does
+not take any step before that {12} time, I must find some pretext to
+reconcile Madame St. Laurent to my going to England for a short time.
+When once there, it will be easy for me to consult with my friends as
+to the proper steps to be taken.  Should the Duke of Clarence do
+nothing before that time as to marrying it will become my duty, no
+doubt, to take some measures upon the subject myself.'  Two names, the
+Duke said, had been mentioned in this connection--those of the Princess
+of Baden and the Princess of Saxe-Coburg.  The latter, he thought,
+would perhaps be the better of the two, from the circumstance of Prince
+Leopold being so popular with the nation; but before any other steps
+were taken, he hoped and expected to see justice done to Madame St.
+Laurent.  'She is,' he explained, 'of very good family, and has never
+been an actress, and I am the first and only person who ever lived with
+her.  Her disinterestedness, too, has been equal to her fidelity.  When
+she first came to me it was upon �100 a year.  That sum was afterwards
+raised to �400, and finally to �1000; but when my debts made it
+necessary for me to sacrifice a great part of my income, Madame St.
+Laurent insisted upon again returning to her income of �400 a year.  If
+Madame St. Laurent is to return to live amongst her friends, it must be
+in such a state of independence as to command their respect.  I shall
+not require very much, but a certain number of servants and a carriage
+are essentials.'  As to his own settlement, the Duke observed that he
+would expect the Duke of York's marriage to be considered the
+precedent.  'That,' he said, 'was a marriage for the succession, and
+�25,000 for income was settled, in addition to all his other income,
+purely on that account.  I shall be contented with the same
+arrangement, without making any demands grounded {13} on the difference
+of the value of money in 1792 and at present.  As for the payment of my
+debts,' the Duke concluded, 'I don't call them great.  The nation, on
+the contrary, is greatly my debtor.'  Here a clock struck, and seemed
+to remind the Duke that he had an appointment; he rose, and Mr. Creevey
+left him.
+
+Who could keep such a communication secret?  Certainly not Mr. Creevey.
+He hurried off to tell the Duke of Wellington, who was very much
+amused, and he wrote a long account of it to Lord Sefton, who received
+the letter 'very apropos,' while a surgeon was sounding his bladder to
+ascertain whether he had a stone.  'I never saw a fellow more
+astonished than he was,' wrote Lord Sefton in his reply, 'at seeing me
+laugh as soon as the operation was over.  Nothing could be more
+first-rate than the royal Edward's ingenuousness.  One does not know
+which to admire most--the delicacy of his attachment to Madame St.
+Laurent, the refinement of his sentiments towards the Duke of Clarence,
+or his own perfect disinterestedness in pecuniary matters.'[13]
+
+As it turned out, both the brothers decided to marry.  The Duke of
+Kent, selecting the Princess of Saxe-Coburg in preference to the
+Princess of Baden, was united to her on May 29, 1818.  On June 11, the
+Duke of Clarence followed suit with a daughter of the Duke of
+Saxe-Meiningen.  But they were disappointed in their financial
+expectations; for though the Government brought forward proposals to
+increase their allowances, together with that of the Duke of
+Cumberland, the motions were defeated in the House of Commons.  At this
+the Duke of Wellington was not surprised.  'By God!' he said, 'there is
+a great deal to be said about that.  They are the damnedest {14}
+millstones about the necks of any Government that can be imagined.
+They have insulted--personally insulted--two-thirds of the gentlemen of
+England, and how can it be wondered at that they take their revenge
+upon them in the House of Commons?  It is their only opportunity, and I
+think, by God! they are quite right to use it.'[14]  Eventually,
+however, Parliament increased the Duke of Kent's annuity by �6000.
+
+The subsequent history of Madame St. Laurent has not transpired.
+
+
+IV
+
+The new Duchess of Kent, Victoria Mary Louisa, was a daughter of
+Francis, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, and a sister of Prince Leopold.
+The family was an ancient one, being a branch of the great House of
+Wettin, which since the eleventh century had ruled over the March of
+Meissen on the Elbe.  In the fifteenth century the whole possessions of
+the House had been divided between the Albertine and Ernestine
+branches: from the former descended the electors and kings of Saxony;
+the latter, ruling over Thuringia, became further subdivided into five
+branches, of which the duchy of Saxe-Coburg was one.  This principality
+was very small, containing about 60,000 inhabitants, but it enjoyed
+independent and sovereign rights.  During the disturbed years which
+followed the French Revolution, its affairs became terribly involved.
+The Duke was extravagant, and kept open house for the swarms of
+refugees, who fled eastward over Germany as the French power advanced.
+Among these was the {15} prince of Leiningen, an elderly beau, whose
+domains on the Moselle had been seized by the French, but who was
+granted in compensation the territory of Amorbach in Lower Franconia.
+In 1803 he married the Princess Victoria, at that time seventeen years
+of age.  Three years later Duke Francis died a ruined man.  The
+Napoleonic harrow passed over Saxe-Coburg.  The duchy was seized by the
+French, and the ducal family were reduced to beggary, almost to
+starvation.  At the same time the little principality of Amorbach was
+devastated by the French, Russian, and Austrian armies, marching and
+counter-marching across it.  For years there was hardly a cow in the
+country, nor enough grass to feed a flock of geese.  Such was the
+desperate plight of the family which, a generation later, was to have
+gained a foothold in half the reigning Houses of Europe.  The
+Napoleonic harrow had indeed done its work; the seed was planted; and
+the crop would have surprised Napoleon.  Prince Leopold, thrown upon
+his own resources at fifteen, made a career for himself and married the
+heiress of England.  The Princess of Leiningen, struggling at Amorbach
+with poverty, military requisitions, and a futile husband, developed an
+independence of character and a tenacity of purpose which were to prove
+useful in very different circumstances.  In 1814, her husband died,
+leaving her with two children and the regency of the principality.
+After her brother's marriage with the Princess Charlotte, it was
+proposed that she should marry the Duke of Kent; but she declined, on
+the ground that the guardianship of her children and the management of
+her domains made other ties undesirable.  The Princess Charlotte's
+death, however, altered the case; and when the Duke of Kent renewed his
+offer, she {16} accepted it.  She was thirty-two years old--short,
+stout, with brown eyes and hair, and rosy cheeks, cheerful and voluble,
+and gorgeously attired in rustling silks and bright velvets.[15]
+
+She was certainly fortunate in her contented disposition; for she was
+fated, all through her life, to have much to put up with.  Her second
+marriage, with its dubious prospects, seemed at first to be chiefly a
+source of difficulties and discomforts.  The Duke, declaring that he
+was still too poor to live in England, moved about with uneasy
+precision through Belgium and Germany, attending parades and inspecting
+barracks in a neat military cap, while the English notabilities looked
+askance, and the Duke of Wellington dubbed him the Corporal.  'God
+damme!' he exclaimed to Mr. Creevey, 'd'ye know what his sisters call
+him?  By God! they call him Joseph Surface!'  At Valenciennes, where
+there was a review and a great dinner, the Duchess arrived with an old
+and ugly lady-in-waiting, and the Duke of Wellington found himself in a
+difficulty.  'Who the devil is to take out the maid of honour?' he kept
+asking; but at last he thought of a solution.  'Damme, Freemantle, find
+out the mayor and let him do it.'  So the Mayor of Valenciennes was
+brought up for the purpose, and--so we learn from Mr. Creevey--'a
+capital figure he was.'  A few days later, at Brussels, Mr. Creevey
+himself had an unfortunate experience.  A military school was to be
+inspected--before breakfast.  The company assembled; everything was
+highly satisfactory; but the Duke of Kent continued for so long
+examining every detail and asking meticulous question after meticulous
+question, that Mr. Creevey at last could bear it no longer, and {17}
+whispered to his neighbour that he was damned hungry.  The Duke of
+Wellington heard him, and was delighted.  'I recommend you,' he said,
+'whenever you start with the royal family in a morning, and
+particularly with _the Corporal_, always to breakfast first.'  He and
+his staff, it turned out, had taken that precaution, and the great man
+amused himself, while the stream of royal inquiries poured on, by
+pointing at Mr. Creevey from time to time with the remark, 'Voil� le
+monsieur qui n'a pas d�jeun�!'[16]
+
+Settled down at last at Amorbach, the time hung heavily on the Duke's
+hands.  The establishment was small, the country was impoverished; even
+clock-making grew tedious at last.  He brooded--for in spite of his
+piety the Duke was not without a vein of superstition--over the
+prophecy of a gipsy at Gibraltar who had told him that he was to have
+many losses and crosses, that he was to die in happiness, and that his
+only child was to be a great queen.  Before long it became clear that a
+child was to be expected: the Duke decided that it should be born in
+England.  Funds were lacking for the journey, but his determination was
+not to be set aside.  Come what might, he declared, his child must be
+English-born.  A carriage was hired, and the Duke himself mounted the
+box.  Inside were the Duchess, her daughter Feodora, a girl of
+fourteen, with maids, nurses, lap-dogs, and canaries.  Off they
+drove--through Germany, through France: bad roads, cheap inns, were
+nothing to the rigorous Duke and the equable, abundant Duchess.  The
+Channel was crossed, London was reached in safety.  The authorities
+provided a set of rooms in Kensington Palace; and there, on May 24,
+1819, a female infant was born.[17]
+
+
+
+[1] Greville, II, 326-8; Stockmar, chap. i, 86; Knight, I, chaps.
+xv-xviii and Appendix, and II, chap. i.
+
+[2] Grey, 384, 386-8; _Letters_, II, 40,
+
+[3] Grey, 375-86.
+
+[4] _Letters_, I, 216, 222-3; II, 39-40; Stockmar, 87-90.
+
+[5] Stockmar, _Biograpische Skizze_, and cap. iii.
+
+[6] Creevey, I, 264, 272: 'Prinny has let loose his belly, which now
+reaches his knees; otherwise he is said to be well,' 279.
+
+[7] Greville, I, 5-7.
+
+[8] Greville, IV, 2.
+
+[9] Stockmar, 95; Creevey, I, 148; Greville, I, 228; Lieven, 183-4.
+
+[10] Crawford, 24.
+
+[11] _Ibid._, 80, 113.
+
+[12] Stockmar, 112-3; _Letters_, I, 8; Crawford, 27-30; Owen, 193-4,
+197-8, 199, 229.
+
+[13] Creevey, I, 267-71.
+
+[14] Creevey, I, 276-7.
+
+[15] _Letters_, I, 1-3: Grey, 373-81, 389; Crawford, 30-4; Stockmar,
+113.
+
+[16] Creevey, I, 282-4.
+
+[17] Crawford, 25, 37-8.
+
+
+
+
+{18}
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+CHILDHOOD
+
+I
+
+The child who, in these not very impressive circumstances, appeared in
+the world, received but scant attention.  There was small reason to
+foresee her destiny.  The Duchess of Clarence, two months before, had
+given birth to a daughter; this infant, indeed, had died almost
+immediately; but it seemed highly probable that the Duchess would again
+become a mother; and so it actually fell out.  More than this, the
+Duchess of Kent was young, and the Duke was strong; there was every
+likelihood that before long a brother would follow, to snatch her faint
+chance of the succession from the little princess.
+
+Nevertheless, the Duke had other views: there were prophecies....  At
+any rate, he would christen the child Elizabeth, a name of happy
+augury.  In this, however, he reckoned without the Regent, who, seeing
+a chance of annoying his brother, suddenly announced that he himself
+would be present at the baptism, and signified at the same time that
+one of the godfathers was to be the Emperor Alexander of Russia.  And
+so when the ceremony took place, and the Archbishop of Canterbury asked
+by what name he was to baptise the child, the Regent replied
+'Alexandrina.'  At this the Duke ventured to suggest that another name
+might be {19} added.  'Certainly,' said the Regent; 'Georgina?' 'Or
+Elizabeth?' said the Duke.  There was a pause, during which the
+Archbishop, with the baby in his lawn sleeves, looked with some
+uneasiness from one Prince to the other.  'Very well, then,' said the
+Regent at last, 'call her after her mother.  But Alexandrina must come
+first.'  Thus, to the disgust of her father, the child was christened
+Alexandrina Victoria.[1]
+
+[Illustration: PRINCESS VICTORIA IN 1836.  _From the Portrait by F.
+Winterhalter._]
+
+The Duke had other subjects of disgust.  The meagre grant of the
+Commons had by no means put an end to his financial distresses.  It was
+to be feared that his services were not appreciated by the nation.  His
+debts continued to grow.  For many years he had lived upon �7000 a
+year; but now his expenses were exactly doubled; he could make no
+further reductions; as it was, there was not a single servant in his
+establishment who was idle for a moment from morning to night.  He
+poured out his griefs in a long letter to Robert Owen, whose sympathy
+had the great merit of being practical.  'I now candidly state,' he
+wrote, 'that, after viewing the subject in every possible way, I am
+satisfied that, to continue to live in England, even in the quiet way
+in which we are going on, _without splendour, and without show, nothing
+short of doubling the seven thousand pounds will do_, REDUCTION BEING
+IMPOSSIBLE.'  It was clear that he would be obliged to sell his house
+for �51,300: if that failed, he would go and live on the Continent.
+'If my services are useful to my country, it surely becomes _those who
+have the power_ to support me in substantiating those just claims I
+have for the very extensive losses and privations I have experienced,
+during the very long period of my professional servitude in the
+Colonies; and if this is not {20} attainable, _it is a clear proof to
+me that they are not appreciated_; and under that impression I shall
+not scruple, in due time, to resume my retirement abroad, when the
+Duchess and myself shall have fulfilled our duties in establishing the
+_English_ birth of my child, and giving it maternal nutriment on the
+soil of Old England; and which we shall certainly repeat, if Providence
+destines to give us any further increase of family.'[2]
+
+In the meantime, he decided to spend the winter at Sidmouth, 'in
+order,' he told Owen, 'that the Duchess may have the benefit of tepid
+sea bathing, and our infant that of sea air, on the fine coast of
+Devonshire, during the months of the year that are so odious in
+London.'[3]  In December the move was made.  With the new year, the
+Duke remembered another prophecy.  In 1820, a fortune-teller had told
+him, two members of the Royal Family would die.  Who would they be?  He
+speculated on the various possibilities: the King, it was plain, could
+not live much longer; and the Duchess of York had been attacked by a
+mortal disease.  Probably it would be the King and the Duchess of York;
+or perhaps the King and the Duke of York; or the King and the Regent.
+He himself was one of the healthiest men in England.[4]  'My brothers,'
+he declared, 'are not so strong as I am; I have lived a regular life.
+I shall outlive them all.  The crown will come to me and my
+children.'[5]  He went out for a walk, and got his feet wet.  On coming
+home, he neglected to change his stockings.  He caught cold,
+inflammation of the lungs set in, and on January 22 he was a dying man.
+By a curious chance, young Dr. Stockmar was staying in the house at the
+time; two {21} years before, he had stood by the death-bed of the
+Princess Charlotte; and now he was watching the Duke of Kent in his
+agony.  On Stockmar's advice, a will was hastily prepared.  The Duke's
+earthly possessions were of a negative character; but it was important
+that the guardianship of the unwitting child, whose fortunes were now
+so strangely changing, should be assured to the Duchess.  The Duke was
+just able to understand the document, and to append his signature.
+Having inquired whether his writing was perfectly clear, he became
+unconscious, and breathed his last on the following morning.[6]  Six
+days later came the fulfilment of the second half of the gipsy's
+prophecy.  The long, unhappy, and inglorious life of George the Third
+of England was ended.
+
+
+II
+
+Such was the confusion of affairs at Sidmouth, that the Duchess found
+herself without the means of returning to London.  Prince Leopold
+hurried down, and himself conducted his sister and her family, by slow
+and bitter stages, to Kensington.  The widowed lady, in her voluminous
+blacks, needed all her equanimity to support her.  Her prospects were
+more dubious than ever.  She had �6000 a year of her own; but her
+husband's debts loomed before her like a mountain.  Soon she learnt
+that the Duchess of Clarence was once more expecting a child.  What had
+she to look forward to in England?  Why should she remain in a foreign
+country, among strangers, whose language she could not speak, whose
+customs she could not understand?  Surely it would be best to {22}
+return to Amorbach, and there, among her own people, bring up her
+daughters in economical obscurity.  But she was an inveterate optimist;
+she had spent her life in struggles, and would not be daunted now.  And
+besides, she adored her baby.  'C'est mon bonheur, mes d�lices, mon
+existence,' she declared; the darling should be brought up as an
+English princess, whatever lot awaited her.  Prince Leopold came
+forward nobly with an offer of an additional �3000 a year; and the
+Duchess remained at Kensington.[7]
+
+The child herself was extremely fat, and bore a remarkable resemblance
+to her grandfather.  'C'est l'image du feu Roi!' exclaimed the Duchess.
+'C'est le Roi Georges en jupons,' echoed the surrounding ladies, as the
+little creature waddled with difficulty from one to the other.[8]
+
+Before long, the world began to be slightly interested in the nursery
+at Kensington.  When, early in 1821, the Duchess of Clarence's second
+child, the Princess Elizabeth, died within three months of its birth,
+the interest increased.  Great forces and fierce anatgonisms seemed to
+be moving, obscurely, about the royal cradle.  It was a time of faction
+and anger, of violent repression and profound discontent.  A powerful
+movement, which had for long been checked by adverse circumstances, was
+now spreading throughout the country.  New passions, new desires, were
+abroad; or rather, old passions and old desires, reincarnated with a
+new potency: love of freedom, hatred of injustice, hope for the future
+of man.  The mighty still sat proudly in their seats, dispensing their
+ancient tyranny; but a storm was gathering out of the darkness, and
+already there was {23} lightning in the sky.  But the vastest forces
+must needs operate through frail human instruments; and it seemed for
+many years as if the great cause of English liberalism hung upon the
+life of the little girl at Kensington.  She alone stood between the
+country and her terrible uncle, the Duke of Cumberland, the hideous
+embodiment of reaction.  Inevitably, the Duchess of Kent threw in her
+lot with her husband's party; Whig leaders, Radical agitators, rallied
+round her; she was intimate with the bold Lord Durham, she was on
+friendly terms with the redoubtable O'Connell himself.  She received
+Wilberforce--though, to be sure, she did not ask him to sit down.[9]
+She declared in public that she put her faith in 'the liberties of the
+People.'[10]  It was certain that the young Princess would be brought
+up in the way that she should go; yet there, close behind the throne,
+waiting, sinister, was the Duke of Cumberland.  Brougham, looking
+forward into the future in his scurrilous fashion, hinted at dreadful
+possibilities.  'I never prayed so heartily for a Prince before,' he
+wrote, on hearing that George IV had been attacked by illness.  'If he
+had gone, all the troubles of these villains [the Tory Ministers] went
+with him, and they had Fred. I [the Duke of York] their own man for his
+life....  He (Fred. I) won't live long either; that Prince of
+Blackguards, "Brother William," is as bad a life, so we come in the
+course of nature to be _assassinated_ by King Ernest I or Regent Ernest
+[the Duke of Cumberland].'[11]  Such thoughts were not peculiar to
+Brougham; in the seething state of public feeling, they constantly
+leapt to the surface; and, even so late as the year previous to her
+accession, the Radical newspapers were full of {24} suggestions that
+the Princess Victoria was in danger from the machinations of her wicked
+uncle.[12]
+
+But no echo of these conflicts and forebodings reached the little
+Drina--for so she was called in the family circle--as she played with
+her dolls, or scampered down the passages, or rode on the donkey her
+uncle York had given her[13] along the avenues of Kensington Gardens.
+The fair-haired, blue-eyed child was idolised by her nurses, and her
+mother's ladies, and her sister Feodora; and for a few years there was
+a danger, in spite of her mother's strictness, of her being spoilt.
+From time to time, she would fly into a violent passion, stamp her
+little foot, and set everyone at defiance; whatever they might say, she
+would not learn her letters--no, she _would not_; afterwards, she was
+very sorry, and burst into tears; but her letters remained unlearnt.
+When she was five years old, however, a change came, with the
+appearance of Fr�ulein Lehzen.  This lady, who was the daughter of a
+Hanoverian clergyman and had previously been the Princess Feodora's
+governess, soon succeeded in instilling a new spirit into her charge.
+At first, indeed, she was appalled by the little Princess's outbursts
+of temper; never in her life, she declared, had she seen such a
+passionate and naughty child.  Then she observed something else; the
+child was extraordinarily truthful; whatever punishment might follow,
+she never told a lie.[14]  Firm, very firm, the new governess yet had
+the sense to see that all the firmness in the world would be useless,
+unless she could win her way into little Drina's heart.  She did so,
+and there were no more difficulties.  Drina learnt her letters like an
+angel; and she learnt other things as well.  The {25} Baroness de Sp�th
+taught her how to make little cardboard boxes and decorate them with
+tinsel and painted flowers;[15] her mother taught her religion.
+Sitting in the pew every Sunday morning, the child of six was seen
+listening in rapt attention to the clergyman's endless sermon, for she
+was to be examined upon it in the afternoon.[16]  The Duchess was
+determined that her daughter, from the earliest possible moment, should
+be prepared for her high station in a way that would commend itself to
+the most respectable; her good, plain, thrifty German mind recoiled
+with horror and amazement from the shameless junketings at Carlton
+House; Drina should never be allowed to forget for a moment the virtues
+of simplicity, regularity, propriety, and devotion.  The little girl,
+however, was really in small need of such lessons, for she was
+naturally simple and orderly, she was pious without difficulty, and her
+sense of propriety was keen.  She understood very well the niceties of
+her own position.  When, a child of six, Lady Jane Ellice was taken by
+her grandmother to Kensington Palace, she was put to play with the
+Princess Victoria, who was the same age as herself.  The young visitor,
+ignorant of etiquette, began to make free with the toys on the floor,
+in a way which was a little too familiar; but 'You must not touch
+those,' she was quickly told, 'they are mine; and I may call you Jane,
+but you must not call me Victoria.'[17]  The Princess's most constant
+playmate was Victoire, the daughter of Sir John Conroy, the Duchess's
+major-domo.  The two girls were very fond of one another; they would
+walk hand in hand together in Kensington Gardens.  But little Drina was
+perfectly aware for which of them {26} it was that they were followed,
+at a respectful distance, by a gigantic scarlet flunkey.[18]
+
+Warm-hearted, responsive, she loved her dear Lehzen, and she loved her
+dear Feodora, and her dear Victoire, and her dear Madame de Sp�th.  And
+her dear Mamma ... of course, she loved her too; it was her duty; and
+yet--she could not tell why it was--she was always happier when she was
+staying with her Uncle Leopold at Claremont.  There old Mrs. Louis,
+who, years ago, had waited on her cousin Charlotte, petted her to her
+heart's content; and her uncle himself was wonderfully kind to her,
+talking to her seriously and gently, almost as if she were a grown-up
+person.  She and Feodora invariably wept when the too short visit was
+over, and they were obliged to return to the dutiful monotony and the
+affectionate supervision of Kensington.  But sometimes when her mother
+had to stay at home, she was allowed to go out driving all alone with
+her dear Feodora and her dear Lehzen, and she could talk and look as
+she liked, and it was very delightful.[19]
+
+The visits to Claremont were frequent enough; but one day, on a special
+occasion, she paid one of a rarer and more exciting kind.  When she was
+seven years old, she and her mother and sister were asked by the King
+to go down to Windsor.  George IV, who had transferred his fraternal
+ill-temper to his sister-in-law and her family, had at last grown tired
+of sulking, and decided to be agreeable.  The old rip, bewigged and
+gouty, ornate and enormous, with his jewelled mistress by his side and
+his flaunting court about him, received the tiny creature who was one
+day to hold in those same halls a very different state.  'Give me your
+little {27} paw,' he said; and two ages touched.  Next morning, driving
+in his phaeton with the Duchess of Gloucester, he met the Duchess of
+Kent and her child in the Park.  'Pop her in,' were his orders, which,
+to the terror of the mother and the delight of the daughter, were
+immediately obeyed.  Off they dashed to Virginia Water, where there was
+a great barge, full of lords and ladies fishing, and another barge with
+a band; and the King ogled Feodora, and praised her manners, and then
+turned to his own small niece.  'What is your favourite tune?  The band
+shall play it.'  'God save the King, sir,' was the instant answer.  The
+Princess's reply has been praised as an early example of a tact which
+was afterwards famous.  But she was a very truthful child, and perhaps
+it was her genuine opinion.[20]
+
+
+III
+
+In 1827 the Duke of York, who had found some consolation for the loss
+of his wife in the sympathy of the Duchess of Rutland, died, leaving
+behind him the unfinished immensity of Stafford House and �200,000
+worth of debts.  Three years later George IV also disappeared, and the
+Duke of Clarence reigned in his stead.  The new Queen, it was now
+clear, would in all probability never again be a mother; the Princess
+Victoria, therefore, was recognised by Parliament as heir-presumptive;
+and the Duchess of Kent, whose annuity had been doubled five years
+previously, was now given an additional �10,000 for the maintenance of
+the Princess, and was appointed regent, in case of the death of the
+King before the majority of her daughter.  At the same time a great
+convulsion took {28} place in the constitution of the State.  The power
+of the Tories, who had dominated England for more than forty years,
+suddenly began to crumble.  In the tremendous struggle that followed,
+it seemed for a moment as if the tradition of generations might be
+snapped, as if the blind tenacity of the reactionaries and the
+determined fury of their enemies could have no other issue than
+revolution.  But the forces of compromise triumphed: the Reform Bill
+was passed.  The centre of gravity in the constitution was shifted
+towards the middle classes; the Whigs came into power; and the
+complexion of the Government assumed a Liberal tinge.  One of the
+results of this new state of affairs was a change in the position of
+the Duchess of Kent and her daughter.  From being the _prot�g�es_ of an
+opposition clique, they became assets of the official majority of the
+nation.  The Princess Victoria was henceforward the living symbol of
+the victory of the middle classes.
+
+The Duke of Cumberland, on the other hand, suffered a corresponding
+eclipse: his claws had been pared by the Reform Act.  He grew
+insignificant and almost harmless, though his ugliness remained; he was
+the wicked uncle still--but only of a story.
+
+The Duchess's own liberalism was not very profound.  She followed
+naturally in the footsteps of her husband, repeating with conviction
+the catchwords of her husband's clever friends and the generalisations
+of her clever brother Leopold.  She herself had no pretensions to
+cleverness; she did not understand very much about the Poor Law and the
+Slave Trade and Political Economy; but she hoped that she did her duty;
+and she hoped--she ardently hoped--that the same might be said of
+Victoria.  Her educational conceptions were {29} those of Dr. Arnold,
+whose views were just then beginning to permeate society.  Dr. Arnold's
+object was, first and foremost, to make his pupils 'in the highest and
+truest sense of the words, Christian gentlemen'; intellectual
+refinements might follow.  The Duchess felt convinced that it was her
+supreme duty in life to make quite sure that her daughter should grow
+up into a Christian queen.  To this task she bent all her energies;
+and, as the child developed, she flattered herself that her efforts
+were not unsuccessful.  When the Princess was eleven, she desired the
+Bishops of London and Lincoln to submit her daughter to an examination,
+and report upon the progress that had been made.  'I feel the time to
+be now come,' the Duchess explained, in a letter obviously drawn up by
+her own hand, 'that what has been done should be put to some test, that
+if anything has been done in error of judgment it may be corrected, and
+that the plan for the future should be open to consideration and
+revision....  I attend almost always myself every lesson, or a part;
+and as the lady about the Princess is a competent person, she assists
+Her in preparing Her lessons, for the various masters, as I resolved to
+act in that manner so as to be Her governess myself....  When she was
+at a proper age she commenced attending Divine Service regularly with
+me, and I have every feeling that she has religion at Her heart, that
+she is morally impressed with it to that degree, that she is less
+liable to error by its application to her feelings as a Child capable
+of reflection.'  'The general bent of Her character,' added the
+Duchess, 'is strength of intellect, capable of receiving with ease,
+information, and with a peculiar readiness in coming to a very just and
+benignant decision on any point Her opinion is asked on.  Her adherence
+to {30} truth is of so marked a character that I feel no apprehension
+of that Bulwark being broken down by any circumstances.'  The Bishops
+attended at the Palace, and the result of their examination was all
+that could be wished.  'In answering a great variety of questions
+proposed to her,' they reported, 'the Princess displayed an accurate
+knowledge of the most important features of Scripture History, and of
+the leading truths and precepts of the Christian Religion as taught by
+the Church of England, as well as an acquaintance with the Chronology
+and principal facts of English History remarkable in so young a person.
+To questions in Geography, the use of the Globes, Arithmetic, and Latin
+Grammar, the answers which the Princess returned were equally
+satisfactory.'  They did not believe that the Duchess's plan of
+education was susceptible of any improvement; and the Archbishop of
+Canterbury, who was also consulted, came to the same gratifying
+conclusion.[21]
+
+One important step, however, remained to be taken.  So far, as the
+Duchess explained to the Bishops, the Princess had been kept in
+ignorance of the station that she was likely to fill.  'She is aware of
+its duties, and that a Sovereign should live for others; so that when
+Her innocent mind receives the impression of Her future fate, she
+receives it with a mind formed to be sensible of what is to be expected
+from Her, and it is to be hoped, she will be too well grounded in Her
+principles to be dazzled with the station she is to look to.'[22]  In
+the following year it was decided that she should be enlightened on
+this point.  The well-known scene followed: the history lesson, the
+genealogical table of the Kings of England slipped beforehand by the
+{31} governess into the book, the Princess's surprise, her inquiries,
+her final realisation of the facts.  When the child at last understood,
+she was silent for a moment, and then she spoke: 'I will be good,' she
+said.  The words were something more than a conventional protestation,
+something more than the expression of a superimposed desire; they were,
+in their limitation and their intensity, their egotism and their
+humility, an instinctive summary of the dominating qualities of a life.
+'I cried much on learning it,' her Majesty noted long afterwards.  No
+doubt, while the others were present, even her dear Lehzen, the little
+girl kept up her self-command; and then crept away somewhere to ease
+her heart of an inward, unfamiliar agitation, with a handkerchief, out
+of her mother's sight.[23]
+
+But her mother's sight was by no means an easy thing to escape.
+Morning and evening, day and night, there was no relaxation of the
+maternal vigilance.  The child grew into the girl, the girl into the
+young woman; but still she slept in her mother's bedroom; still she had
+no place allowed her where she might sit or work by herself.[24]  An
+extraordinary watchfulness surrounded her every step: up to the day of
+her accession, she never went downstairs without someone beside her
+holding her hand.[25]  Plainness and regularity ruled the household.
+The hours, the days, the years passed slowly and methodically by.  The
+dolls--the innumerable dolls, each one so neatly dressed, each one with
+its name so punctiliously entered in the catalogue--were laid aside,
+and a little music and a little dancing took their place.  Taglioni
+came, to give grace and dignity to the figure,[26] and Lablache, to
+train the piping treble upon his own {32} rich bass.  The Dean of
+Chester, the official preceptor, continued his endless instruction in
+Scripture history, while the Duchess of Northumberland, the official
+governess, presided over every lesson with becoming solemnity.  Without
+doubt, the Princess's main achievement during her schooldays was
+linguistic.  German was naturally the first language with which she was
+familiar; but English and French quickly followed; and she became
+virtually trilingual, though her mastery of English grammar remained
+incomplete.  At the same time, she acquired a working knowledge of
+Italian and some smattering of Latin.  Nevertheless, she did not read
+very much.  It was not an occupation that she cared for; partly,
+perhaps, because the books that were given her were all either sermons,
+which were very dull, or poetry, which was incomprehensible.  Novels
+were strictly forbidden.  Lord Durham persuaded her mother to get her
+some of Miss Martineau's tales, illustrating the truths of Political
+Economy, and they delighted her; but it is to be feared that it was the
+unaccustomed pleasure of the story that filled her mind, and that she
+never really mastered the theory of exchanges or the nature of rent.[27]
+
+It was her misfortune that the mental atmosphere which surrounded her
+during these years of adolescence was almost entirely feminine.  No
+father, no brother, was there to break in upon the gentle monotony of
+the daily round with impetuosity, with rudeness, with careless laughter
+and wafts of freedom from the outside world.  The Princess was never
+called by a voice that was loud and growling; never felt, as a matter
+of course, a hard rough cheek on her own soft one; never climbed a wall
+with a boy.  The visits to Claremont--delicious {33} little escapes
+into male society--came to an end when she was eleven years old and
+Prince Leopold left England to be King of the Belgians.  She loved him
+still; he was still 'il mio secondo padre--or, rather, _solo_ padre,
+for he is indeed like my real father, as I have none'; but his
+fatherliness now came to her dimly and indirectly, through the cold
+channel of correspondence.  Henceforward female duty, female elegance,
+female enthusiasm, hemmed her completely in; and her spirit, amid the
+enclosing folds, was hardly reached by those two great influences,
+without which no growing life can truly prosper--humour and
+imagination.  The Baroness Lehzen--for she had been raised to that rank
+in the Hanoverian nobility by George IV before he died--was the real
+centre of the Princess's world.  When Feodora married, when uncle
+Leopold went to Belgium, the Baroness was left without a competitor.
+The Princess gave her mother her dutiful regards; but Lehzen had her
+heart.  The voluble, shrewd daughter of the pastor in Hanover,
+lavishing her devotion on her royal charge, had reaped her reward in an
+unbounded confidence and a passionate adoration.  The girl would have
+gone through fire for her '_precious_ Lehzen,' the 'best and truest
+friend,' she declared, that she had had since her birth.  Her journal,
+begun when she was thirteen, where she registered day by day the small
+succession of her doings and her sentiments, bears on every page of it
+the traces of the Baroness and her circumambient influence.  The young
+creature that one sees there, self-depicted in ingenuous clarity, with
+her sincerity, her simplicity, her quick affections and pious
+resolutions, might almost have been the daughter of a German pastor
+herself.  Her enjoyments, her admirations, her _engouements_ were of
+the kind that {34} clothed themselves naturally in underlinings and
+exclamation marks.  'It was a _delightful_ ride.  We cantered a good
+deal.  SWEET LITTLE ROSY went BEAUTIFULLY!!  We came home at a � past
+1....  At 20 minutes to 7 we went out to the Opera....  Rubini came on
+and sang a song out of "Anna Boulena" _quite beautifully_.  We came
+home at � past 11.'[28]  In her comments on her readings, the mind of
+the Baroness is clearly revealed.  One day, by some mistake, she was
+allowed to take up a volume of memoirs by Fanny Kemble.  'It is
+certainly very pertly and oddly written.  One would imagine by the
+style that the authoress must be very pert, and not well bred; for
+there are so many vulgar expressions in it.  It is a great pity that a
+person endowed with so much talent, as Mrs. Butler really is, should
+turn it to so little account and publish a book which is so full of
+trash and nonsense which can only do her harm.  I stayed up till 20
+minutes past 9.'  Madame de S�vign�'s letters, which the Baroness read
+aloud, met with more approval.  'How truly elegant and natural her
+style is!  It is so full of _na�vet�_, cleverness, and grace.'  But her
+highest admiration was reserved for the Bishop of Chester's 'Exposition
+of the Gospel of St. Matthew.'  'It is a very fine book indeed.  Just
+the sort of one I like; which is just plain and comprehensible and full
+of truth and good feeling.  It is not one of those learned books in
+which you have to cavil at almost every paragraph.  Lehzen gave it me
+on the Sunday that I took the Sacrament.'[29]  A few weeks previously
+she had been confirmed, and she described the event as follows: 'I felt
+that my confirmation was one of the most solemn and important events
+and acts in my life; and that I trusted that it might have a {35}
+salutary effect on my mind.  I felt deeply repentant for all what I had
+done which was wrong and trusted in God Almighty to strengthen my heart
+and mind; and to forsake all that is bad and follow all that is
+virtuous and right.  I went with the firm determination to become a
+true Christian, to try and comfort my dear Mamma in all her griefs,
+trials, and anxieties, and to become a dutiful and affectionate
+daughter to her.  Also to be obedient to _dear_ Lehzen, who has done so
+much for me.  I was dressed in a white lace dress, with a white crape
+bonnet with a wreath of white roses round it.  I went in the chariot
+with my dear Mamma and the others followed in another carriage.'[30]
+One seems to hold in one's hand a small smooth crystal pebble, without
+a flaw and without a scintillation, and so transparent that one can see
+through it at a glance.
+
+Yet perhaps, after all, to the discerning eye, the purity would not be
+absolute.  The careful searcher might detect, in the virgin soil, the
+first faint traces of an unexpected vein.  In that conventual existence
+visits were exciting events; and, as the Duchess had many relatives,
+they were not infrequent; aunts and uncles would often appear from
+Germany, and cousins too.  When the Princess was fourteen she was
+delighted by the arrival of a couple of boys from W�rtemberg, the
+Princes Alexander and Ernst, sons of her mother's sister and the
+reigning duke.  'They are both _extremely tall_,' she noted; 'Alexander
+is _very handsome_, and Ernst has a _very kind expression_.  They are
+both EXTREMELY _amiable_.'  And their departure filled her with
+corresponding regrets.  'We saw them get into the barge, and watched
+them sailing away for some time on the beach.  They were so amiable and
+so pleasant to have {36} in the house; they were always _satisfied,
+always good-humoured_; Alexander took such care of me in getting out of
+the boat, and rode next to me; so did Ernst.'[31]  Two years later, two
+other cousins arrived, the Princes Ferdinand and Augustus.  'Dear
+Ferdinand,' the Princess wrote, 'has elicited universal admiration from
+all parties....  He is so very unaffected, and has such a very
+distinguished appearance and carriage.  They are both very dear and
+charming young men.  Augustus is very amiable too, and, when known,
+shows much good sense.'  On another occasion, 'Dear Ferdinand came and
+sat near me and talked so dearly and sensibly.  I do _so_ love him.
+Dear Augustus sat near me and talked with me, and he is also a dear
+good young man, and is very handsome.'  She could not quite decide
+which was the handsomer of the two.  On the whole, she concluded, 'I
+think Ferdinand handsomer than Augustus, his eyes are so beautiful, and
+he has such a lively clever expression; _both_ have such a sweet
+expression; Ferdinand has something _quite beautiful_ in his expression
+when he speaks and smiles, and he is _so_ good.'  However, it was
+perhaps best to say that they were 'both very handsome and _very
+dear_.'[32]  But shortly afterwards two more cousins arrived, who threw
+all the rest into the shade.  These were the Princes Ernest and Albert,
+sons of her mother's eldest brother, the Duke of Saxe-Coburg.  This
+time the Princess was more particular in her observations.  'Ernest,'
+she remarked, 'is as tall as Ferdinand and Augustus; he has dark hair,
+and fine dark eyes and eyebrows, but the nose and mouth are not good;
+he has a most kind, honest and intelligent expression in his
+countenance, and has a very good figure.  Albert, who is just as tall
+{37} as Ernest but stouter, is extremely handsome; his hair is about
+the same colour as mine; his eyes are large and blue, and he has a
+beautiful nose and a very sweet mouth with fine teeth; but the charm of
+his countenance is his expression, which is most delightful; _cest � la
+fois_ full of goodness and sweetness, and very clever and intelligent.'
+'Both my cousins,' she added, 'are so kind and good; they are much more
+_form�s_ and men of the world than Augustus; they speak English very
+well, and I speak it with them.  Ernest will be 18 years old on the
+21st of June, and Albert 17 on the 26th of August.  Dear Uncle Ernest
+made me the present of a most delightful _Lory_, which is so tame that
+it remains on your hand and you may put your finger into its beak, or
+do anything with it, without its ever attempting to bite.  It is larger
+than Mamma's grey parrot.'  A little later, 'I sat between my dear
+cousins on the sofa and we looked at drawings.  They both draw very
+well, particularly Albert, and are both exceedingly fond of music; they
+play very nicely on the piano.  The more I see them the more I am
+delighted with them, and the more I love them....  It is delightful to
+be with them; they are so fond of being occupied too; they are quite an
+example for any young person.'  When, after a stay of three weeks, the
+time came for the young men and their father to return to Germany, the
+moment of parting was a melancholy one.  'It was our last HAPPY HAPPY
+breakfast, with this dear Uncle and those _dearest_ beloved cousins,
+whom I _do_ love so VERY VERY dearly; _much more dearly_ than any other
+cousins in the _world_.  Dearly as I love Ferdinand, and also good
+Augustus, I love Ernest and Albert more than them, oh yes, MUCH
+_more_....  They have both learnt a good deal, and are very clever,
+naturally clever, {38} particularly Albert, who is the most reflecting
+of the two, and they like very much talking about serious and
+instructive things and yet are so _very very_ merry and gay and happy,
+like young people ought to be; Albert always used to have some fun and
+some clever witty answer at breakfast and everywhere; he used to play
+and fondle Dash so funnily too....  Dearest Albert was playing on the
+piano when I came down.  At 11 dear Uncle, my _dearest beloved_
+cousins, and Charles, left us, accompanied by Count Kolowrat.  I
+embraced both my dearest cousins most warmly, as also my dear Uncle.  I
+cried bitterly, very bitterly.'[33]  The Princes shared her ecstasies
+and her italics between them; but it is clear enough where her secret
+preference lay.  'Particularly Albert'!  She was just seventeen; and
+deep was the impression left upon that budding organism by the young
+man's charm and goodness and accomplishments, and his large blue eyes
+and beautiful nose, and his sweet mouth and fine teeth.
+
+
+IV
+
+King William could not away with his sister-in-law, and the Duchess
+fully returned his antipathy.  Without considerable tact and
+considerable forbearance their relative positions were well calculated
+to cause ill-feeling; and there was very little tact in the composition
+of the Duchess, and no forbearance at all in that of his Majesty.  A
+bursting, bubbling old gentleman, with quarter-deck gestures, round
+rolling eyes, and a head like a pineapple, his sudden elevation to the
+throne after fifty-six years of utter insignificance had almost sent
+him crazy.  His natural {39} exuberance completely got the better of
+him; he rushed about doing preposterous things in an extraordinary
+manner, spreading amusement and terror in every direction, and talking
+all the time.  His tongue was decidedly Hanoverian, with its
+repetitions, its catchwords--'That's quite another thing!  That's quite
+another thing!'--its rattling indomitability, its loud indiscreetness.
+His speeches, made repeatedly at the most inopportune junctures, and
+filled pell-mell with all the fancies and furies that happened at the
+moment to be whisking about in his head, were the consternation of
+Ministers.  He was one part blackguard, people said, and three parts
+buffoon; but those who knew him better could not help liking him--he
+meant well; and he was really good-humoured and kind-hearted, if you
+took him the right way.  If you took him the wrong way, however, you
+must look out for squalls, as the Duchess of Kent discovered.
+
+She had no notion of how to deal with him--could not understand him in
+the least.  Occupied with her own position, her own responsibilities,
+her duty, and her daughter, she had no attention to spare for the
+peppery susceptibilities of a foolish, disreputable old man.  She was
+the mother of the heiress of England; and it was for him to recognise
+the fact--to put her at once upon a proper footing--to give her the
+precedence of a dowager Princess of Wales, with a large annuity from
+the privy purse.[34]  It did not occur to her that such pretensions
+might be galling to a king who had no legitimate child of his own, and
+who yet had not altogether abandoned the hope of having one.  She
+pressed on, with bulky vigour, along the course she had laid out.  Sir
+John Conroy, an Irishman with no {40} judgment and a great deal of
+self-importance, was her intimate counsellor, and egged her on.  It was
+advisable that Victoria should become acquainted with the various
+districts of England, and through several summers a succession of
+tours--in the West, in the Midlands, in Wales--were arranged for her.
+The intention of the plan was excellent, but its execution was
+unfortunate.  The journeys, advertised in the Press, attracting
+enthusiastic crowds, and involving official receptions, took on the air
+of royal progresses.  Addresses were presented by loyal citizens; the
+delighted Duchess, swelling in sweeping feathers and almost
+obliterating the diminutive Princess, read aloud, in her German accent,
+gracious replies prepared beforehand by Sir John, who, bustling and
+ridiculous, seemed to be mingling the r�les of major-domo and Prime
+Minister.  Naturally the King fumed over his newspaper at Windsor.
+'That woman is a nuisance!  That woman is a nuisance!' he exclaimed.
+Poor Queen Adelaide, amiable though disappointed, did her best to
+smooth things down, changed the subject, and wrote affectionate letters
+to Victoria; but it was useless.  News arrived that the Duchess of
+Kent, sailing in the Solent, had insisted that whenever her yacht
+appeared it should be received by royal salutes from all the men-of-war
+and all the forts.  The King declared that these continual poppings
+must cease; the Premier and the First Lord of the Admiralty were
+consulted; and they wrote privately to the Duchess, begging her to
+waive her rights.  But she would not hear of it; Sir John Conroy was
+adamant.  'As her Royal Highness's _confidential adviser_,' he said, 'I
+cannot recommend her to give way on this point.'  Eventually the King,
+in a great state of excitement, issued a special Order in {41} Council,
+prohibiting the firing of royal salutes to any ships except those which
+carried the reigning sovereign or his consort on board.[35]
+
+When King William quarrelled with his Whig Ministers the situation grew
+still more embittered, for now the Duchess, in addition to her other
+shortcomings, was the political partisan of his enemies.  In 1836 he
+made an attempt to prepare the ground for a match between the Princess
+Victoria and one of the sons of the Prince of Orange, and at the same
+time did his best to prevent the visit of the young Coburg princes to
+Kensington.  He failed in both these objects; and the only result of
+his efforts was to raise the anger of the King of the Belgians, who,
+forgetting for a moment his royal reserve, addressed an indignant
+letter on the subject to his niece.  'I am really _astonished_,' he
+wrote, 'at the conduct of your old Uncle the King; this invitation of
+the Prince of Orange and his sons, this forcing him on others, is very
+extraordinary....  Not later than yesterday I got a half-official
+communication from England, insinuating that it would be _highly_
+desirable that the visit of your relatives _should not take place this
+year_--qu'en dites-vous?  The relations of the Queen and the King,
+therefore, to the God-knows-what degree, are to come in shoals and rule
+the land, when _your relations_ are to be _forbidden_ the country, and
+that when, as you know, the whole of your relations have ever been very
+dutiful and kind to the King.  Really and truly I never heard or saw
+anything like it, and I hope it will a little _rouse your spirit_; now
+that slavery is even abolished in the British Colonies, I do not
+comprehend _why your lot alone should be to be kept a white little
+slavey in England_, for the pleasure of the {42} Court, who never
+bought you, as I am not aware of their ever having gone to any expense
+on that head, or the King's ever having _spent a sixpence for your
+existence_.... Oh, consistency and political or _other honesty_, where
+must one look for you!'[36]
+
+Shortly afterwards King Leopold came to England himself, and his
+reception was as cold at Windsor as it was warm at Kensington.  'To
+hear dear Uncle speak on any subject,' the Princess wrote in her diary,
+'is like reading a highly instructive book; his conversation is so
+enlightened, so clear.  He is universally admitted to be one of the
+first politicians now extant.  He speaks so mildly, yet firmly and
+impartially, about politics.  Uncle tells me that Belgium is quite a
+pattern for its organisation, its industry, and prosperity; the
+finances are in the greatest perfection.  Uncle is so beloved and
+revered by his Belgian subjects, that it must be a great compensation
+for all his extreme trouble.'[37]  But her other uncle by no means
+shared her sentiments.  He could not, he said, put up with a
+water-drinker; and King Leopold would touch no wine.  'What's that
+you're drinking, sir?' he asked him one day at dinner.  'Water, sir.'
+'God damn it, sir!' was the rejoinder.  'Why don't you drink wine?  I
+never allow anybody to drink water at my table.'[38]
+
+It was clear that before very long there would be a great explosion;
+and in the hot days of August it came.  The Duchess and the Princess
+had gone down to stay at Windsor for the King's birthday party, and the
+King himself, who was in London for the day to prorogue Parliament,
+paid a visit at Kensington Palace in their absence.  There he found
+that the Duchess {43} had just appropriated, against his express
+orders, a suite of seventeen apartments for her own use.  He was
+extremely angry, and, when he returned to Windsor, after greeting the
+Princess with affection, he publicly rebuked the Duchess for what she
+had done.  But this was little to what followed.  On the next day was
+the birthday banquet; there were a hundred guests; the Duchess of Kent
+sat on the King's right hand, and the Princess Victoria opposite.  At
+the end of the dinner, in reply to the toast of the King's health, he
+rose, and, in a long, loud, passionate speech, poured out the vials of
+his wrath upon the Duchess.  She had, he declared, insulted
+him--grossly and continually; she had kept the Princess away from him
+in the most improper manner; she was surrounded by evil advisers, and
+was incompetent to act with propriety in the high station which she
+filled; but he would bear it no longer; he would have her to know he
+was King; he was determined that his authority should be respected;
+henceforward the Princess should attend at every Court function with
+the utmost regularity; and he hoped to God that his life might be
+spared for six months longer, so that the calamity of a regency might
+be avoided, and the functions of the Crown pass directly to the
+heiress-presumptive instead of into the hands of the 'person now near
+him,' upon whose conduct and capacity no reliance whatever could be
+placed.  The flood of vituperation rushed on for what seemed an
+interminable period, while the Queen blushed scarlet, the Princess
+burst into tears, and the hundred guests sat aghast.  The Duchess said
+not a word until the tirade was over and the company had retired; then
+in a tornado of rage and mortification, she called for her carriage and
+announced her immediate return to {44} Kensington.  It was only with
+the utmost difficulty that some show of a reconciliation was patched
+up, and the outraged lady was prevailed upon to put off her departure
+till the morrow.[39]
+
+Her troubles, however, were not over when she had shaken the dust of
+Windsor from her feet.  In her own household she was pursued by
+bitterness and vexation of spirit.  The apartments at Kensington were
+seething with subdued disaffection, with jealousies and animosities
+virulently intensified by long years of propinquity and spite.
+
+There was a deadly feud between Sir John Conroy and Baroness Lehzen.
+But that was not all.  The Duchess had grown too fond of her
+major-domo.  There were familiarities, and one day the Princess
+Victoria discovered the fact.  She confided what she had seen to the
+Baroness, and to the Baroness's beloved ally, Madame de Sp�th.
+Unfortunately, Madame de Sp�th could not hold her tongue, and was
+actually foolish enough to reprove the Duchess; whereupon she was
+instantly dismissed.  It was not so easy to get rid of the Baroness.
+That lady, prudent and reserved, maintained an irreproachable
+demeanour.  Her position was strongly entrenched; she had managed to
+secure the support of the King; and Sir John found that he could do
+nothing against her.  But henceforward the household was divided into
+two camps.[40] The Duchess {45} supported Sir John with all the
+amplitude of her authority; but the Baroness, too, had an adherent who
+could not be neglected.  The Princess Victoria said nothing, but she
+had been much attached to Madame de Sp�th, and she adored her Lehzen.
+The Duchess knew only too well that in this horrid embroilment her
+daughter was against her.  Chagrin, annoyance, moral reprobation,
+tossed her to and fro.  She did her best to console herself with Sir
+John's affectionate loquacity, or with the sharp remarks of Lady Flora
+Hastings, one of her maids of honour, who had no love for the Baroness.
+The subject lent itself to satire; for the pastor's daughter, with all
+her airs of stiff superiority, had habits which betrayed her origin.
+Her passion for caraway seeds, for instance, was uncontrollable.
+Little bags of them came over to her from Hanover, and she sprinkled
+them on her bread and butter, her cabbage, and even her roast beef.
+Lady Flora could not resist a caustic observation; it was repeated to
+the Baroness, who pursed her lips in fury; and so the mischief grew.[41]
+
+
+V
+
+The King had prayed that he might live till his niece was of age; and a
+few days before her eighteenth birthday--the date of her legal
+majority--a sudden attack of illness very nearly carried him off.  He
+recovered, however, and the Princess was able to go through her
+birthday festivities--a state ball and a drawing-room--with unperturbed
+enjoyment.  'Count {46} Zichy,' she noted in her diary, 'is very
+good-looking in uniform, but not in plain clothes.  Count Waldstein
+looks remarkably well in his pretty Hungarian uniform.'[42]  With the
+latter young gentleman she wished to dance, but there was an
+insurmountable difficulty.  'He could not dance quadrilles, and, as in
+my station I unfortunately cannot valse and galop, I could not dance
+with him.'[43]  Her birthday present from the King was of a pleasing
+nature, but it led to a painful domestic scene.  In spite of the anger
+of her Belgian uncle, she had remained upon good terms with her English
+one.  He had always been very kind to her, and the fact that he had
+quarrelled with her mother did not appear to be a reason for disliking
+him.  He was, she said, 'odd, very odd and singular,' but 'his
+intentions were often ill interpreted.'[44]  He now wrote her a letter,
+offering her an allowance of �10,000 a year, which he proposed should
+be at her own disposal, and independent of her mother.  Lord Conyngham,
+the Lord Chamberlain, was instructed to deliver the letter into the
+Princess's own hands.  When he arrived at Kensington, he was ushered
+into the presence of the Duchess and the Princess, and, when he
+produced the letter, the Duchess put out her hand to take it.  Lord
+Conyngham begged her Royal Highness's pardon, and repeated the King's
+commands.  Thereupon the Duchess drew back, and the Princess took the
+letter.  She immediately wrote to her uncle, accepting his kind
+proposal.  The Duchess was much displeased; �4000 a year, she said,
+would be quite enough for Victoria; as for the remaining �6000, it
+would be only proper that she should have that herself.[45]
+
+{47}
+
+King William had thrown off his illness, and returned to his normal
+life.  Once more the royal circle at Windsor--their Majesties, the
+elder Princesses, and some unfortunate Ambassadress or Minister's
+wife--might be seen ranged for hours round a mahogany table, while the
+Queen netted a purse, and the King slept, occasionally waking from his
+slumbers to observe 'Exactly so, ma'am, exactly so!'[46]  But this
+recovery was of short duration.  The old man suddenly collapsed; with
+no specific symptoms besides an extreme weakness, he yet showed no
+power of rallying; and it was clear to everyone that his death was now
+close at hand.
+
+All eyes, all thoughts, turned towards the Princess Victoria; but she
+still remained, shut away in the seclusion of Kensington, a small,
+unknown figure, lost in the large shadow of her mother's domination.
+The preceding year had in fact been an important one in her
+development.  The soft tendrils of her mind had for the first time
+begun to stretch out towards unchildish things.  In this King Leopold
+encouraged her.  After his return to Brussels, he had resumed his
+correspondence in a more serious strain; he discussed the details of
+foreign politics; he laid down the duties of kingship; he pointed out
+the iniquitous foolishness of the newspaper press.  On the latter
+subject, indeed, he wrote with some asperity.  'If all the editors,' he
+said, 'of the papers in the countries where the liberty of the press
+exists were to be assembled, we should have a _crew_ to which you would
+_not_ confide a dog that you would value, still less your honour and
+reputation.'[47]  On the functions of a monarch, his views were
+unexceptionable.  'The business of the highest in a State,' he wrote,
+'is {48} certainly, in my opinion, to act with great impartiality and a
+spirit of justice for the good of all.'[48]  At the same time the
+Princess's tastes were opening out.  Though she was still passionately
+devoted to riding and dancing, she now began to have a genuine love of
+music as well, and to drink in the roulades and arias of the Italian
+opera with high enthusiasm.  She even enjoyed reading poetry--at any
+rate, the poetry of Sir Walter Scott.[49]
+
+When King Leopold learnt that King William's death was approaching, he
+wrote several long letters of excellent advice to his niece.  'In every
+letter I shall write to you,' he said, 'I mean to repeat to you, as a
+_fundamental rule, to be courageous, firm, and honest, as you have been
+till now_.'  For the rest, in the crisis that was approaching, she was
+not to be alarmed, but to trust in her 'good natural sense and the
+truth' of her character; she was to do nothing in a hurry; to hurt no
+one's _amour-propre_, and to continue her confidence in the Whig
+administration.[50]  Not content with letters, however, King Leopold
+determined that the Princess should not lack personal guidance, and
+sent over to her aid the trusted friend whom, twenty years before, he
+had taken to his heart by the death-bed at Claremont.  Thus, once
+again, as if in accordance with some preordained destiny, the figure of
+Stockmar is discernible--inevitably present at a momentous hour.
+
+On June 18, the King was visibly sinking.  The Archbishop of Canterbury
+was by his side, with all the comforts of the church.  Nor did the holy
+words fall upon a rebellious spirit; for many years his Majesty had
+been a devout believer.  'When I was a young man,' he once explained at
+a public banquet, 'as well {49} as I can remember, I believed in
+nothing but pleasure and folly--nothing at all.  But when I went to
+sea, got into a gale, and saw the wonders of the mighty deep, then I
+believed; and I have been a sincere Christian ever since.'[51]  It was
+the anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo, and the dying man remembered
+it.  He should be glad to live, he said, over that day; he would never
+see another sunset.  'I hope your Majesty may live to see many,' said
+Dr. Chambers.  'Oh! that's quite another thing, that's quite another
+thing,' was the answer.[52]  One other sunset he did live to see; and
+he died in the early hours of the following morning.  It was June 20,
+1837.
+
+When all was over, the Archbishop and the Lord Chamberlain ordered a
+carriage, and drove post-haste from Windsor to Kensington.  They
+arrived at the Palace at five o'clock, and it was only with
+considerable difficulty that they gained admittance.[53]  At six the
+Duchess woke up her daughter, and told her that the Archbishop of
+Canterbury and Lord Conyngham were there, and wished to see her.  She
+got out of bed, put on her dressing-gown, and went, alone, into the
+room where the messengers were standing.  Lord Conyngham fell on his
+knees, and officially announced the death of the King; the Archbishop
+added some personal details.  Looking at the bending, murmuring
+dignitaries before her, she knew that she was Queen of England.  'Since
+it has pleased Providence,' she wrote that day in her journal, 'to
+place me in this station, I shall do my utmost to fulfil my duty
+towards my country; I am very young, and perhaps in many, though not in
+all things, inexperienced, but I am sure, that very few have more real
+good will and more real desire to do what is fit and {50} right than I
+have.'[54]  But there was scant time for resolutions and reflections.
+At once, affairs were thick upon her.  Stockmar came to breakfast, and
+gave some good advice.  She wrote a letter to her uncle Leopold, and a
+hurried note to her sister Feodora.  A letter came from the Prime
+Minister, Lord Melbourne, announcing his approaching arrival.  He came
+at nine, in full court dress, and kissed her hand.  She saw him alone,
+and repeated to him the lesson which, no doubt, the faithful Stockmar
+had taught her at breakfast, 'It has long been my intention to retain
+your Lordship and the rest of the present Ministry at the head of
+affairs'; whereupon Lord Melbourne again kissed her hand and shortly
+after left her.  She then wrote a letter of condolence to Queen
+Adelaide.  At eleven, Lord Melbourne came again; and at half past
+eleven she went downstairs into the red saloon to hold her first
+Council.[55]  The great assembly of lords and notables, bishops,
+generals, and Ministers of State, saw the doors thrown open and a very
+short, very slim girl in deep plain mourning come into the room alone
+and move forward to her seat with extraordinary dignity and grace; they
+saw a countenance, not beautiful, but prepossessing--fair hair, blue
+prominent eyes, a small curved nose, an open mouth revealing the upper
+teeth, a tiny chin, a clear complexion, and, over all, the strangely
+mingled signs of innocence, of gravity, of youth, and of composure;
+they heard a high unwavering voice reading aloud with perfect clarity;
+and then, the ceremony over, they saw the small figure rise and, with
+the same consummate grace, the same amazing dignity, pass out from
+among them, as she had come in, alone.[56]
+
+
+
+[1] Murray, 62-3; Lee, 11-12.
+
+[2] Owen, Journal, No. 1, February, 1853, 28-9.
+
+[3] _Ibid._, 31.
+
+[4] Croker, I, 155.
+
+[5] Stockmar, 113.
+
+[6] Stockmar, 114-5.
+
+[7] _Letters_, I, 15, 257-8; Grey, App. A.
+
+[8] Granville, I, 168-9.
+
+[9] _Wilberforce, William_, V, 71-2.
+
+[10] _Letters_, I, 17.
+
+[11] Creevey, I, 297-8.
+
+[12] Jerrold, _Early Court_, 15-17.
+
+[13] _Letters_, I, 10.
+
+[14] _Ibid._, I, 14; _Girlhood_, I, 280.
+
+[15] Crawford, 6.
+
+[16] Smith, 21-2.
+
+[17] _Cornhill Magazine_, LXXV, 730.
+
+[18] Hunt, II, 257-8.
+
+[19] _Letters_, I, 10, 18.
+
+[20] _Letters_, I, 11-12; Lee, 26.
+
+[21] _Letters_, I, 14-17.
+
+[22] _Ibid._, I, 16.
+
+[23] Martin, I, 13.
+
+[24] _Letters_, I, 11.
+
+[25] _Girlhood_, I, 42.
+
+[26] Crawford, 87.
+
+[27] Martineau, II, 118-9.
+
+[28] _Girlhood_, I, 66-7.
+
+[29] _Ibid._, I, 129.
+
+[30] _Girlhood_, I, 124-5.
+
+[31] _Girlhood_, I, 78, 82.
+
+[32] _Ibid._, I, 150-3.
+
+[33] _Girlhood_, I, 157-61.
+
+[34] Greville, II, 195-6
+
+[35] Greville, III, 321, 324.
+
+[36] _Letters_, I, 47-8.
+
+[37] _Girlhood_, I, 168.
+
+[38] Greville, III, 377.
+
+[39] Greville, III, 374-6.
+
+[40] _Ibid._, IV, 21; and August 15, 1839 (unpublished).  'The cause of
+the Queen's alienation from the Duchess and hatred of Conroy, the Duke
+[of Wellington] said, was unquestionably owing to her having witnessed
+some familiarities between them.  What she had seen she repeated to
+Baroness Spaeth, and Spaeth not only did not hold her tongue, but (he
+thinks) remonstrated with the Duchess herself on the subject.  The
+consequence was that they got rid of Spaeth, and they would have got
+rid of Lehzen, too, if they had been able, but Lehzen, who knew very
+well what was going on, was prudent enough not to commit herself, and
+she was, besides, powerfully protected by George IV and William IV, so
+that they did not dare to attempt to expel her.'
+
+[41] Greville, IV, 21; Crawford, 128-9.
+
+[42] _Girlhood_, I, 192-3.
+
+[43] _Ibid._, I, 191.
+
+[44] _Ibid._, I, 194.
+
+[45] Greville, III, 407-8.
+
+[46] Creevey, II, 262.
+
+[47] _Letters_, I, 53.
+
+[48] _Letters_, I, 61.
+
+[49] _Girlhood_, I, 175.
+
+[50] _Letters_, I, 70-1.
+
+[51] Torrens, 419.
+
+[52] Huish, 686.
+
+[53] Wynn, 281.
+
+[54] _Girlhood_, I, 195-6.
+
+[55] _Ibid._, I, 196-7.
+
+[56] Greville, III, 414-6.
+
+
+[Illustration: LORD MELBOURNE.  _From the Portrait by Sir Edwin
+Landseer, R.A._]
+
+
+
+
+{51}
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+LORD MELBOURNE
+
+I
+
+The new queen was almost entirely unknown to her subjects.  In her
+public appearances her mother had invariably dominated the scene.  Her
+private life had been that of a novice in a convent: hardly a human
+being from the outside world had ever spoken to her; and no human being
+at all, except her mother and the Baroness Lehzen, had ever been alone
+with her in a room.  Thus it was not only the public at large that was
+in ignorance of everything concerning her; the inner circles of
+statesmen and officials and high-born ladies were equally in the
+dark.[1]  When she suddenly emerged from this deep obscurity, the
+impression that she created was immediate and profound.  Her bearing at
+her first Council filled the whole gathering with astonishment and
+admiration; the Duke of Wellington, Sir Robert Peel, even the savage
+Croker, even the cold and caustic Greville--all were completely carried
+away.  Everything that was reported of her subsequent proceedings
+seemed to be of no less happy augury.  Her perceptions were quick, her
+decisions were sensible, her language was discreet; she performed her
+royal duties with extraordinary facility.[2]  Among the outside public
+there was a great wave of enthusiasm.  {52} Sentiment and romance were
+coming into fashion; and the spectacle of the little girl-queen,
+innocent, modest, with fair hair and pink cheeks, driving through her
+capital, filled the hearts of the beholders with raptures of
+affectionate loyalty.  What, above all, struck everybody with
+overwhelming force was the contrast between Queen Victoria and her
+uncles.  The nasty old men, debauched and selfish, pig-headed and
+ridiculous, with their perpetual burden of debts, confusions, and
+disreputabilities--they had vanished like the snows of winter, and here
+at last, crowned and radiant, was the spring.  Lord John Russell, in an
+elaborate oration, gave voice to the general sentiment.  He hoped that
+Victoria might prove an Elizabeth without her tyranny, an Anne without
+her weakness.  He asked England to pray that the illustrious Princess
+who had just ascended the throne with the purest intentions and the
+justest desires might see slavery abolished, crime diminished, and
+education improved.  He trusted that her people would henceforward
+derive their strength, their conduct, and their loyalty from
+enlightened religious and moral principles, and that, so fortified, the
+reign of Victoria might prove celebrated to posterity and to all the
+nations of the earth.[3]
+
+Very soon, however, there were signs that the future might turn out to
+be not quite so simple and roseate as a delighted public dreamed.  The
+'illustrious Princess' might perhaps, after all, have something within
+her which squared ill with the easy vision of a well-conducted heroine
+in an edifying story-book.  The purest intentions and the justest
+desires?  No doubt; but was that all?  To those who watched closely,
+for instance, there might be something ominous in the {53} curious
+contour of that little mouth.  When, after her first Council, she
+crossed the ante-room and found her mother waiting for her, she said,
+'And now, Mamma, am I really and truly Queen?'  'You see, my dear, that
+it is so.'  'Then, dear Mamma, I hope you will grant me the first
+request I make to you, as Queen.  Let me be by myself for an hour.'[4]
+For an hour she remained in solitude.  Then she reappeared, and gave a
+significant order: her bed was to be moved out of her mother's room.
+It was the doom of the Duchess of Kent.  The long years of waiting were
+over at last; the moment of a lifetime had come; her daughter was Queen
+of England; and that very moment brought her own annihilation.  She
+found herself, absolutely and irretrievably, shut off from every
+vestige of influence, of confidence, of power.  She was surrounded,
+indeed, by all the outward signs of respect and consideration; but that
+made the inward truth of her position only the more intolerable.
+Through the mingled formalities of Court etiquette and filial duty, she
+could never penetrate to Victoria.  She was unable to conceal her
+disappointment and her rage.  'Il n'y a plus d'avenir pour moi,' she
+exclaimed to Madame de Lieven; 'je ne suis plus rien.'  For eighteen
+years, she said, this child had been the sole object of her existence,
+of her thoughts, her hopes, and now--no! she would not be comforted,
+she had lost everything, she was to the last degree unhappy.[5]
+Sailing, so gallantly and so pertinaciously, through the buffeting
+storms of life, the stately vessel, with sails still swelling and
+pennons flying, had put into harbour at last; to find there nothing--a
+land of bleak desolation.
+
+Within a month of the accession, the realities of {54} the new
+situation assumed a visible shape.  The whole royal household moved
+from Kensington to Buckingham Palace, and, in the new abode, the
+Duchess of Kent was given a suite of apartments entirely separate from
+the Queen's.  By Victoria herself the change was welcomed, though, at
+the moment of departure, she could afford to be sentimental.  'Though I
+rejoice to go into B.P. for many reasons,' she wrote in her diary, 'it
+is not without feelings of regret that I shall bid adieu _for ever_ to
+this my birthplace, where I have been born and bred, and to which I am
+really attached!'  Her memory lingered for a moment over visions of the
+past: her sister's wedding, pleasant balls and _delicious_ concerts ...
+and there were other recollections.  'I have gone through painful and
+disagreeable scenes here, 'tis true,' she concluded, 'but still I am
+fond of the poor old palace.'[6]
+
+At the same time she took another decided step.  She had determined
+that she would see no more of Sir John Conroy.  She rewarded his past
+services with liberality: he was given a baronetcy and a pension of
+�3000 a year; he remained a member of the Duchess's household, but his
+personal intercourse with the Queen came to an abrupt conclusion.[7]
+
+
+II
+
+It was clear that these interior changes--whatever else they might
+betoken--marked the triumph of one person--the Baroness Lehzen.  The
+pastor's daughter observed the ruin of her enemies.  Discreet and
+victorious, she remained in possession of the field.  More closely than
+ever did she cleave to the side of her {55} mistress, her pupil, and
+her friend; and in the recesses of the palace her mysterious figure was
+at once invisible and omnipresent.  When the Queen's Ministers came in
+at one door, the Baroness went out by another; when they retired, she
+immediately returned.[8]  Nobody knew--nobody ever will know--the
+precise extent and the precise nature of her influence.  She herself
+declared that she never discussed public affairs with the Queen, that
+she was concerned with private matters only--with private letters and
+the details of private life.[9]  Certainly her hand is everywhere
+discernible in Victoria's early correspondence.  The Journal is written
+in the style of a child; the Letters are not so simple; they are the
+work of a child, rearranged--with the minimum of alteration, no doubt,
+and yet perceptibly--by a governess.  And the governess was no fool:
+narrow, jealous, provincial, she might be; but she was an acute and
+vigorous woman, who had gained, by a peculiar insight, a peculiar
+ascendancy.  That ascendancy she meant to keep.  No doubt it was true
+that technically she took no part in public business; but the
+distinction between what is public and what is private is always a
+subtle one; and in the case of a reigning sovereign--as the next few
+years were to show--it is often imaginary.  Considering all things--the
+characters of the persons, and the character of the times--it was
+something more than a mere matter of private interest that the bedroom
+of Baroness Lehzen at Buckingham Palace should have been next door to
+the bedroom of the Queen.
+
+But the influence wielded by the Baroness, supreme as it seemed within
+its own sphere, was not unlimited; {56} there were other forces at
+work.  For one thing, the faithful Stockmar had taken up his residence
+in the palace.  During the twenty years which had elapsed since the
+death of the Princess Charlotte, his experiences had been varied and
+remarkable.  The unknown counsellor of a disappointed princeling had
+gradually risen to a position of European importance.  His devotion to
+his master had been not only whole-hearted but cautious and wise.  It
+was Stockmar's advice that had kept Prince Leopold in England during
+the critical years which followed his wife's death, and had thus
+secured to him the essential requisite of a _point d'appui_ in the
+country of his adoption.[10]  It was Stockmar's discretion which had
+smoothed over the embarrassments surrounding the Prince's acceptance
+and rejection of the Greek crown.  It was Stockmar who had induced the
+Prince to become the constitutional Sovereign of Belgium.[11]  Above
+all, it was Stockmar's tact, honesty, and diplomatic skill which,
+through a long series of arduous and complicated negotiations, had led
+to the guarantee of Belgian neutrality by the Great Powers.[12]  His
+labours had been rewarded by a German barony and by the complete
+confidence of King Leopold.  Nor was it only in Brussels that he was
+treated with respect and listened to with attention.  The statesmen who
+governed England--Lord Grey, Sir Robert Peel, Lord Palmerston, Lord
+Melbourne--had learnt to put a high value upon his probity and his
+intelligence.  'He is one of the cleverest fellows I ever saw,' said
+Lord Melbourne--'the most discreet man, the most well-judging, and most
+cool man.'[13]  And Lord Palmerston cited Baron Stockmar as the only
+absolutely disinterested {57} man he had come across in life.[14]  At
+last he was able to retire to Coburg, and to enjoy for a few years the
+society of the wife and children whom his labours in the service of his
+master had hitherto only allowed him to visit at long intervals for a
+month or two at a time.  But in 1836 he had been again entrusted with
+an important negotiation, which he had brought to a successful
+conclusion in the marriage of Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg, a nephew
+of King Leopold's, with Queen Maria II of Portugal.[15]  The House of
+Coburg was beginning to spread over Europe; and the establishment of
+the Baron at Buckingham Palace in 1837 was to be the prelude of another
+and a more momentous advance.[16]
+
+King Leopold and his counsellor provide in their careers an example of
+the curious diversity of human ambitions.  The desires of man are
+wonderfully various; but no less various are the means by which those
+desires may reach satisfaction: and so the work of the world gets done.
+The correct mind of Leopold craved for the whole apparatus of royalty.
+Mere power would have held no attractions for him; he must be an actual
+king--the crowned head of a people.  It was not enough to do; it was
+essential also to be recognised; anything else would not be fitting.
+The greatness that he dreamt of was surrounded by every appropriate
+circumstance.  To be a Majesty, to be a cousin of Sovereigns, to marry
+a Bourbon for diplomatic ends, to correspond with the Queen of England,
+to be very stiff and very punctual, to found a dynasty, to bore
+ambassadresses into fits, to live, on the highest pinnacle, an
+exemplary life devoted to the public service--such {58} were his
+objects, and such, in fact, were his achievements.  The 'Marquis
+Peu-�-peu,' as George IV called him,[17] had what he wanted.  But this
+would never have been the case if it had not happened that the ambition
+of Stockmar took a form exactly complementary to his own.  The
+sovereignty that the Baron sought for was by no means obvious.  The
+satisfaction of his essential being lay in obscurity, in
+invisibility--in passing, unobserved, through a hidden entrance, into
+the very central chamber of power, and in sitting there, quietly,
+pulling the subtle strings that set the wheels of the whole world in
+motion.  A very few people, in very high places, and exceptionally
+well-informed, knew that Baron Stockmar was a most important person:
+that was enough.  The fortunes of the master and the servant,
+intimately interacting, rose together.  The Baron's secret skill had
+given Leopold his unexceptionable kingdom; and Leopold, in his turn, as
+time went on, was able to furnish the Baron with more and more keys to
+more and more back doors.
+
+Stockmar took up his abode in the Palace partly as the emissary of King
+Leopold, but more particularly as the friend and adviser of a queen who
+was almost a child, and who, no doubt, would be much in need of advice
+and friendship.  For it would be a mistake to suppose that either of
+these two men was actuated by a vulgar selfishness.  The King, indeed,
+was very well aware on which side his bread was buttered; during an
+adventurous and chequered life he had acquired a shrewd knowledge of
+the world's workings; and he was ready enough to use that knowledge to
+strengthen his position and to spread his influence.  But then, the
+firmer his position and the wider his influence, the {59} better for
+Europe; of that he was quite certain.  And besides, he was a
+constitutional monarch; and it would be highly indecorous in a
+constitutional monarch to have any aims that were low or personal.  As
+for Stockmar, the disinterestedness which Palmerston had noted was
+undoubtedly a basic element in his character.  The ordinary schemer is
+always an optimist; and Stockmar, racked by dyspepsia and haunted by
+gloomy forebodings, was a constitutionally melancholy man.  A schemer,
+no doubt, he was; but he schemed distrustfully, splenetically, to do
+good.  To do good!  What nobler end could a man scheme for?  Yet it is
+perilous to scheme at all.
+
+With Lehzen to supervise every detail of her conduct, with Stockmar in
+the next room, so full of wisdom and experience of affairs, with her
+Uncle Leopold's letters, too, pouring out so constantly their stream of
+encouragements, general reflections, and highly valuable tips,
+Victoria, even had she been without other guidance, would have stood in
+no lack of private counsellors.  But other guidance she had; for all
+these influences paled before a new star, of the first magnitude,
+which, rising suddenly upon her horizon, immediately dominated her life.
+
+
+III
+
+William Lamb, Viscount Melbourne, was fifty-eight years of age, and had
+been for the last three years Prime Minister of England.  In every
+outward respect he was one of the most fortunate of mankind.  He had
+been born into the midst of riches, brilliance, and power.  His mother,
+fascinating and intelligent, had been a great Whig hostess, and he had
+been bred up as a {60} member of that radiant society which, during the
+last quarter of the eighteenth century, concentrated within itself the
+ultimate perfections of a hundred years of triumphant aristocracy.
+Nature had given him beauty and brains; the unexpected death of an
+elder brother brought him wealth, a peerage, and the possibility of
+high advancement.  Within that charmed circle, whatever one's personal
+disabilities, it was difficult to fail; and to him, with all his
+advantages, success was well-nigh unavoidable.  With little effort, he
+attained political eminence.  On the triumph of the Whigs he became one
+of the leading members of the Government; and when Lord Grey retired
+from the premiership he quietly stepped into the vacant place.  Nor was
+it only in the visible signs of fortune that Fate had been kind to him.
+Bound to succeed, and to succeed easily, he was gifted with so fine a
+nature that his success became him.  His mind, at once supple and
+copious, his temperament, at once calm and sensitive, enabled him not
+merely to work but to live with perfect facility and with the grace of
+strength.  In society he was a notable talker, a captivating companion,
+a charming man.  If one looked deeper, one saw at once that he was not
+ordinary, that the piquancies of his conversation and his manner--his
+free-and-easy vaguenesses, his abrupt questions, his lollings and
+loungings, his innumerable oaths--were something more than an amusing
+ornament, were the outward manifestation of an individuality peculiar
+to the core.
+
+The precise nature of this individuality was very difficult to gauge:
+it was dubious, complex, perhaps self-contradictory.  Certainly there
+was an ironical discordance between the inner history of the man and
+his apparent fortunes.  He owed all he had to his birth, {61} and his
+birth was shameful; it was known well enough that his mother had
+passionately loved Lord Egremont, and that Lord Melbourne was not his
+father.[18]  His marriage, which had seemed to be the crown of his
+youthful ardours, was a long, miserable, desperate failure: the
+incredible Lady Caroline,
+
+      ... 'with pleasures too refined to please,
+  With too much spirit to be e'er at ease,
+  With too much quickness to be ever taught,
+  With too much thinking to have common thought,'
+
+was very nearly the destruction of his life.  When at last he emerged
+from the anguish and confusion of her folly, her extravagance, her
+rage, her despair, and her devotion, he was left alone with endless
+memories of intermingled farce and tragedy, and an only son who was an
+imbecile.  But there was something else that he owed to Lady Caroline.
+While she whirled with Byron in a hectic frenzy of love and fashion, he
+had stayed at home in an indulgence bordering on cynicism, and occupied
+his solitude with reading.  It was thus that he had acquired those
+habits of study, that love of learning, and that wide and accurate
+knowledge of ancient and modern literature, which formed so unexpected
+a part of his mental equipment.  His passion for reading never deserted
+him; even when he was Prime Minister he found time to master every new
+important book.[19]  With an incongruousness that was characteristic,
+his favourite study was theology.  An accomplished classical scholar,
+he was deeply read in the Fathers of the Church; heavy volumes of
+commentary and exegesis he examined with scrupulous diligence; and at
+any odd moment he might be found turning over {62} the pages of the
+Bible.[20]  To the ladies whom he most liked he would lend some learned
+work on the Revelation, crammed with marginal notes in his own hand, or
+Dr. Lardner's 'Observations upon the Jewish Errors with respect to the
+Conversion of Mary Magdalene.'  The more pious among them had high
+hopes that these studies would lead him into the right way; but of this
+there were no symptoms in his after-dinner conversation.[21]  The
+paradox of his political career was no less curious.  By temperament an
+aristocrat, by conviction a conservative, he came to power as the
+leader of the popular party, the party of change.  He had profoundly
+disliked the Reform Bill, which he had only accepted at last as a
+necessary evil; and the Reform Bill lay at the root of the very
+existence, of the very meaning, of his government.  He was far too
+sceptical to believe in progress of any kind.  Things were best as they
+were--or rather, they were least bad.  'You'd better try to do no
+good,' was one of his dictums, 'and then you'll get into no scrapes.'
+Education at best was futile; education of the poor was positively
+dangerous.  The factory children?  'Oh, if you'd only have the goodness
+to leave them alone!'  Free Trade was a delusion; the ballot was
+nonsense; and there was no such thing as a democracy.  Nevertheless, he
+was not a reactionary; he was simply an opportunist.  The whole duty of
+government, he said, was 'to prevent crime and to preserve contracts.'
+All one could really hope to do was to carry on.  He himself carried on
+in a remarkable manner--with perpetual compromises, with fluctuations
+and {63} contradictions, with every kind of weakness, and yet with
+shrewdness, with gentleness, even with conscientiousness, and a light
+and airy mastery of men and of events.  He conducted the transactions
+of business with extraordinary nonchalance.  Important persons, ushered
+up for some grave interview, found him in a towselled bed, littered
+with books and papers, or vaguely shaving in a dressing-room; but, when
+they went downstairs again, they would realise that somehow or other
+they had been pumped.  When he had to receive a deputation, he could
+hardly ever do so with becoming gravity.  The worthy delegates of the
+tallow-chandlers, or the Society for the Abolition of Capital
+Punishment, were distressed and mortified when, in the midst of their
+speeches, the Prime Minister became absorbed in blowing a feather, or
+suddenly cracked an unseemly joke.  How could they have guessed that he
+had spent the night before diligently getting up the details of their
+case?  He hated patronage and the making of appointments--a feeling
+rare in Ministers.  'As for the Bishops,' he burst out, 'I positively
+believe they die to vex me.'  But when at last the appointment was
+made, it was made with keen discrimination.  His colleagues observed
+another symptom--was it of his irresponsibility or his wisdom?  He went
+to sleep in the Cabinet.[22]
+
+Probably, if he had been born a little earlier, he would have been a
+simpler and a happier man.  As it was, he was a child of the eighteenth
+century whose lot was cast in a new, difficult, unsympathetic age.  He
+was an autumn rose.  With all his gracious amenity, his humour, his
+happy-go-lucky ways, a deep disquietude possessed him.  A sentimental
+cynic, a sceptical believer, {64} he was restless and melancholy at
+heart.  Above all, he could never harden himself; those sensitive
+petals shivered in every wind.  Whatever else he might be, one thing
+was certain: Lord Melbourne was always human, supremely human--too
+human, perhaps.[23]
+
+And now, with old age upon him, his life took a sudden, new,
+extraordinary turn.  He became, in the twinkling of an eye, the
+intimate adviser and the daily companion of a young girl who had
+stepped all at once from a nursery to a throne.  His relations with
+women had been, like everything else about him, ambiguous.  Nobody had
+ever been able quite to gauge the shifting, emotional complexities of
+his married life; Lady Caroline vanished; but his peculiar
+susceptibilities remained.  Female society of some kind or other was
+necessary to him, and he did not stint himself; a great part of every
+day was invariably spent in it.  The feminine element in him made it
+easy, made it natural and inevitable for him to be the friend of a
+great many women; but the masculine element in him was strong as well.
+In such circumstances it is also easy, it is even natural, perhaps it
+is even inevitable, to be something more than a friend.  There were
+rumours and combustions.  Lord Melbourne was twice a co-respondent in a
+divorce action; but on each occasion he won his suit.  The lovely Lady
+Brandon, the unhappy and brilliant Mrs. Norton ... the law exonerated
+them both.  Beyond that hung an impenetrable veil.  But at any rate it
+was clear that, with such a record, the Prime Minister's position in
+Buckingham Palace must be a highly delicate one.  However, he was used
+to delicacies, and he met the situation with consummate success.  His
+behaviour was from the first moment {65} impeccable.  His manner
+towards the young Queen mingled, with perfect facility, the
+watchfulness and the respect of a statesman and a courtier with the
+tender solicitude of a parent.  He was at once reverential and
+affectionate, at once the servant and the guide.  At the same time the
+habits of his life underwent a surprising change.  His comfortable,
+unpunctual days became subject to the unaltering routine of a palace;
+no longer did he sprawl on sofas; not a single 'damn' escaped his lips.
+The man of the world who had been the friend of Byron and the Regent,
+the talker whose paradoxes had held Holland House enthralled, the cynic
+whose ribaldries had enlivened so many deep potations, the lover whose
+soft words had captivated such beauty and such passion and such wit,
+might now be seen, evening after evening, talking with infinite
+politeness to a schoolgirl, bolt upright, amid the silence and the
+rigidity of Court etiquette.[24]
+
+
+IV
+
+On her side, Victoria was instantaneously fascinated by Lord Melbourne.
+The good report of Stockmar had no doubt prepared the way; Lehzen was
+wisely propitiated; and the first highly favourable impression was
+never afterwards belied.  She found him perfect; and perfect in her
+sight he remained.  Her absolute and unconcealed adoration was very
+natural; what innocent young creature could have resisted, in any
+circumstances, the charm and the devotion of such a man?  But, in her
+situation, there was a special influence which gave a peculiar glow to
+all she felt.  After years of emptiness and dullness and suppression,
+she had come suddenly, in {66} the heyday of youth, into freedom and
+power.  She was mistress of herself, of great domains and palaces; she
+was Queen of England.  Responsibilities and difficulties she might
+have, no doubt, and in heavy measure; but one feeling dominated and
+absorbed all others--the feeling of joy.  Everything pleased her.  She
+was in high spirits from morning till night.  Mr. Creevey, grown old
+now, and very near his end, catching a glimpse of her at Brighton, was
+much amused, in his sharp fashion, by the ingenuous gaiety of 'little
+Vic.'--'A more homely little being you never beheld, _when she is at
+her ease_, and she is evidently dying to be always more so.  She laughs
+in real earnest, opening her mouth as wide as it can go, showing not
+very pretty gums....  She eats quite as heartily as she laughs, I think
+I may say she gobbles....  She blushes and laughs every instant in so
+natural a way as to disarm anybody.'[25]  But it was not merely when
+she was laughing or gobbling that she enjoyed herself; the performance
+of her official duties gave her intense satisfaction.  'I really have
+immensely to do,' she wrote in her journal a few days after her
+accession; 'I receive so many communications from my Ministers, but I
+like it very much.'[26]  And again, a week later, 'I repeat what I said
+before that I have so many communications from the Ministers, and from
+me to them, and I get so many papers to sign every day, that I have
+always a _very great deal_ to do.  I _delight_ in this work.'[27]
+Through the girl's immaturity the vigorous predestined tastes of the
+woman were pushing themselves into existence with eager velocity, with
+delicious force.
+
+One detail of her happy situation deserves particular mention.  Apart
+from the splendour of her {67} social position and the momentousness of
+her political one, she was a person of great wealth.  As soon as
+Parliament met, an annuity of �385,000 was settled upon her.  When the
+expenses of her household had been discharged, she was left with
+�68,000 a year of her own.  She enjoyed besides the revenues of the
+Duchy of Lancaster, which amounted annually to over �27,000.  The first
+use to which she put her money was characteristic: she paid off her
+father's debts.  In money matters, no less than in other matters, she
+was determined to be correct.  She had the instincts of a man of
+business; and she never could have borne to be in a position that was
+financially unsound.[28]
+
+With youth and happiness gilding every hour, the days passed merrily
+enough.  And each day hinged upon Lord Melbourne.  Her diary shows us,
+with undiminished clarity, the life of the young sovereign during the
+early months of her reign--a life satisfactorily regular, full of
+delightful business, a life of simple pleasures, mostly
+physical--riding, eating, dancing--a quick, easy, highly
+unsophisticated life, sufficient unto itself.  The light of the morning
+is upon it; and, in the rosy radiance, the figure of 'Lord M.' emerges,
+glorified and supreme.  If she is the heroine of the story, he is the
+hero; but indeed they are more than hero and heroine, for there are no
+other characters at all.  Lehzen, the Baron, Uncle Leopold, are
+unsubstantial shadows--the incidental supers of the piece.  Her
+paradise was peopled by two persons, and surely that was enough.  One
+sees them together still, a curious couple, strangely united in those
+artless pages, under the magical illumination of that dawn of eighty
+years ago: the polished high fine gentleman with the whitening {68}
+hair and whiskers and the thick dark eyebrows and the mobile lips and
+the big expressive eyes; and beside him the tiny Queen--fair, slim,
+elegant, active, in her plain girl's dress and little tippet, looking
+up at him earnestly, adoringly, with eyes blue and projecting, and
+half-open mouth.  So they appear upon every page of the Journal; upon
+every page Lord M. is present, Lord M. is speaking, Lord M. is being
+amusing, instructive, delightful, and affectionate at once, while
+Victoria drinks in the honeyed words, laughs till she shows her gums,
+tries hard to remember, and runs off, as soon as she is left alone, to
+put it all down.  Their long conversations touched upon a multitude of
+topics.  Lord M. would criticise books, throw out a remark or two on
+the British Constitution, make some passing reflections on human life,
+and tell story after story of the great people of the eighteenth
+century.  Then there would be business--a despatch perhaps from Lord
+Durham in Canada, which Lord M. would read.  But first he must explain
+a little.  'He said that I must know that Canada originally belonged to
+the French, and was only ceded to the English in 1760, when it was
+taken in an expedition under Wolfe; "a very daring enterprise," he
+said.  Canada was then entirely French, and the British only came
+afterwards....  Lord M. explained this very clearly (and much better
+than I have done) and said a good deal more about it.  He then read me
+Durham's despatch, which is a very long one and took him more than � an
+hour to read.  Lord M. read it beautifully with that fine soft voice of
+his, and with so much expression, so that it is needless to say I was
+much interested by it.'[29]  And then the talk would take a more
+personal turn.  Lord {69} M. would describe his boyhood, and she would
+learn that 'he wore his hair long, as all boys then did, till he was
+17; (_how_ handsome he must have looked!).'[30]  Or she would find out
+about his queer tastes and habits--how he never carried a watch, which
+seemed quite extraordinary.  '"I always ask the servant what o'clock it
+is, and then he tells me what he likes," said Lord M.'[31]  Or, as the
+rooks wheeled about round the trees, 'in a manner which indicated
+rain,' he would say that he could sit looking at them for an hour, and
+'was quite surprised at my disliking them....  Lord M. said, "The rooks
+are my delight."'[32]
+
+[Illustration: QUEEN VICTORIA IN 1838.  _From the painting by E.
+Corbould_.]
+
+The day's routine, whether in London or at Windsor, was almost
+invariable.  The morning was devoted to business and Lord M.  In the
+afternoon the whole Court went out riding.  The Queen, in her velvet
+riding-habit and a top-hat with a veil draped about the brim, headed
+the cavalcade; and Lord M. rode beside her.  The lively troupe went
+fast and far, to the extreme exhilaration of Her Majesty.  Back in the
+Palace again, there was still time for a little more fun before
+dinner--a game of battledore and shuttlecock perhaps, or a romp along
+the galleries with some children.[33]  Dinner came, and the ceremonial
+decidedly tightened.  The gentleman of highest rank sat on the right
+hand of the Queen; on her left--it soon became an established rule--sat
+Lord Melbourne.  After the ladies had left the dining-room, the
+gentlemen were not permitted to remain behind for very long; indeed,
+the short time allowed them for their wine-drinking formed the
+subject--so it was rumoured--of one of the very few disputes between
+the Queen and her Prime {70} Minister[34]; but her determination
+carried the day, and from that moment after-dinner drunkenness began to
+go out of fashion.  When the company was reassembled in the
+drawing-room the etiquette was stiff.  For a few minutes the Queen
+spoke in turn to each one of her guests; and during these short uneasy
+colloquies the aridity of royalty was apt to become painfully evident.
+One night Mr. Greville, the Clerk of the Privy Council, was present;
+his turn soon came; the middle-aged, hard-faced _viveur_ was addressed
+by his young hostess.  'Have you been riding to-day, Mr. Greville?'
+asked the Queen.  'No, Madam, I have not,' replied Mr. Greville.  'It
+was a fine day,' continued the Queen.  'Yes, Madam, a very fine day,'
+said Mr. Greville.  'It was rather cold, though,' said the Queen.  'It
+was rather cold, Madam,' said Mr. Greville.  'Your sister, Lady Frances
+Egerton, rides, I think, doesn't she?' said the Queen.  'She does ride
+sometimes, Madam,' said Mr. Greville.  There was a pause, after which
+Mr. Greville ventured to take the lead, though he did not venture to
+change the subject.  'Has your Majesty been riding to-day?' asked Mr.
+Greville.  'Oh yes, a very long ride,' answered the Queen with
+animation.  'Has your Majesty got a nice horse?' said Mr. Greville.
+'Oh, a very nice horse,' said the Queen.  It was over.  Her Majesty
+gave a smile and an inclination of the head, Mr. Greville a profound
+bow, and the next conversation began with the next gentleman.[35]  When
+all the guests {71} had been disposed of, the Duchess of Kent sat down
+to her whist, while everybody else was ranged about the round table.
+Lord Melbourne sat beside the Queen, and talked pertinaciously--very
+often _� propos_ to the contents of one of the large albums of
+engravings with which the round table was covered--until it was
+half-past eleven and time to go to bed.[36]
+
+Occasionally, there were little diversions: the evening might be spent
+at the opera or at the play.  Next morning the royal critic was careful
+to note down her impressions.  'It was Shakespeare's tragedy of
+_Hamlet_, and we came in at the beginning of it.  Mr. Charles Kean (son
+of old Kean) acted the part of Hamlet, and I must say beautifully.  His
+conception of this very difficult, and I may almost say
+incomprehensible, character is admirable; his delivery of all the fine
+long speeches quite beautiful; he is excessively graceful and all his
+actions and attitudes are good, though not at all good-looking in
+face....  I came away just as _Hamlet_ was over.'[37]  Later on, she
+went to see Macready in _King Lear_.  The story was new to her; she
+knew nothing about it, and at first she took very little interest in
+what was passing on the stage; she preferred to chatter and laugh with
+the Lord Chamberlain.  But, as the play went on, her mood changed; her
+attention was fixed, and then she laughed no more.  Yet she was
+puzzled; it seemed a strange, a horrible business.  What did Lord M.
+think?  Lord M. thought it was a very fine play, but to be sure, 'a
+rough, coarse play, written for those times, with exaggerated
+characters.' 'I'm glad you've seen it,' he added.[38]  But,
+undoubtedly, the evenings which she enjoyed most were those on {72}
+which there was dancing.  She was always ready enough to seize any
+excuse--the arrival of cousins--a birthday--a gathering of young
+people--to give the command for that.  Then, when the band played, and
+the figures of the dancers swayed to the music, and she felt her own
+figure swaying too, with youthful spirits so close on every side--then
+her happiness reached its height, her eyes sparkled, she must go on and
+on into the small hours of the morning.  For a moment Lord M. himself
+was forgotten.
+
+
+V
+
+The months flew past.  The summer was over: 'the pleasantest summer I
+EVER passed in _my life_, and I shall never forget this first summer of
+my reign.'[39]  With surprising rapidity, another summer was upon her.
+The coronation came and went--a curious dream.  The antique, intricate,
+endless ceremonial worked itself out as best it could, like some
+machine of gigantic complexity which was a little out of order.  The
+small central figure went through her gyrations.  She sat; she walked;
+she prayed; she carried about an orb that was almost too heavy to hold;
+the Archbishop of Canterbury came and crushed a ring upon the wrong
+finger, so that she was ready to cry out with the pain; old Lord Rolle
+tripped up in his mantle and fell down the steps as he was doing
+homage; she was taken into a side chapel, where the altar was covered
+with a tablecloth, sandwiches, and bottles of wine; she perceived
+Lehzen in an upper box and exchanged a smile with her as she sat, robed
+and crowned, on the Confessor's throne.  'I shall ever remember this
+day as the _proudest_ {73} of my life,' she noted.  But the pride was
+soon merged once more in youth and simplicity.  When she returned to
+Buckingham Palace at last she was not tired; she ran up to her private
+rooms, doffed her splendours, and gave her dog Dash its evening
+bath.[40]
+
+Life flowed on again with its accustomed smoothness--though, of course,
+the smoothness was occasionally disturbed.  For one thing, there was
+the distressing behaviour of Uncle Leopold.  The King of the Belgians
+had not been able to resist attempting to make use of his family
+position to further his diplomatic ends.  But, indeed, why should there
+be any question of resisting?  Was not such a course of conduct, far
+from being a temptation, simply _selon les r�gles_?  What were royal
+marriages for, if they did not enable sovereigns, in spite of the
+hindrances of constitutions, to control foreign politics?  For the
+highest purposes, of course; that was understood.  The Queen of England
+was his niece--more than that--almost his daughter; his confidential
+agent was living, in a position of intimate favour, at her court.
+Surely, in such circumstances, it would be preposterous, it would be
+positively incorrect, to lose the opportunity of bending to his wishes
+by means of personal influence, behind the backs of the English
+Ministers, the foreign policy of England.
+
+He set about the task with becoming precautions.  He continued in his
+letters his admirable advice.  Within a few days of her accession, he
+recommended the young Queen to lay emphasis, on every possible
+occasion, upon her English birth; to praise the English nation; 'the
+Established Church I also recommend strongly; you cannot, without
+_pledging_ yourself to anything _particular, say too much on the
+subject_.'  And then 'before you {74} decide on anything important I
+should be glad if you would consult me; this would also have the
+advantage of giving you time'; nothing was more injurious than to be
+hurried into wrong decisions unawares.  His niece replied at once with
+all the accustomed warmth of her affection; but she wrote
+hurriedly--and, perhaps, a trifle vaguely too.  '_Your_ advice is
+always of the _greatest importance_ to me,' she said.[41]
+
+Had he, possibly, gone too far?  He could not be certain; perhaps
+Victoria _had_ been hurried.  In any case, he would be careful; he
+would draw back--_pour mieux sauter_, he added to himself with a smile.
+In his next letters he made no reference to his suggestion of
+consultations with himself; he merely pointed out the wisdom, in
+general, of refusing to decide upon important questions off-hand.  So
+far, his advice was taken; and it was noticed that the Queen, when
+applications were made to her, rarely gave an immediate answer.  Even
+with Lord Melbourne, it was the same; when he asked for her opinion
+upon any subject, she would reply that she would think it over, and
+tell him her conclusions next day.[42]
+
+King Leopold's counsels continued.  The Princess de Lieven, he said,
+was a dangerous woman; there was reason to think that she would make
+attempts to pry into what did not concern her; let Victoria beware.  'A
+rule which I cannot sufficiently recommend is _never to permit_ people
+to speak on subjects concerning yourself or your affairs, without you
+having yourself desired them to do so.'  Should such a thing occur,
+'change the conversation, and make the individual feel that he has made
+a mistake.'  This piece of advice was also taken; for it fell out as
+the King had predicted.  Madame de {75} Lieven sought an audience, and
+appeared to be verging towards confidential topics; whereupon the
+Queen, becoming slightly embarrassed, talked of nothing but
+commonplaces.  The individual felt that she had made a mistake.[43]
+
+The King's next warning was remarkable.  Letters, he pointed out, are
+almost invariably read in the post.  This was inconvenient, no doubt;
+but the fact, once properly grasped, was not without its advantages.
+'I will give you an example: we are still plagued by Prussia concerning
+those fortresses; now to tell the Prussian Government many things,
+which we _should not like_ to tell them officially, the Minister is
+going to write a despatch to our man at Berlin, sending it _by post_;
+the Prussians _are sure_ to read it, and to learn in this way what we
+wish them to hear.'  Analogous circumstances might very probably occur
+in England.  'I tell you the _trick_,' wrote His Majesty, 'that you
+should be able to guard against it.'  Such were the subtleties of
+constitutional sovereignty.[44]
+
+It seemed that the time had come for another step.  The King's next
+letter was full of foreign politics--the situation in Spain and
+Portugal, the character of Louis-Philippe; and he received a favourable
+answer.  Victoria, it is true, began by saying that she had shown the
+_political part_ of his letter to Lord Melbourne; but she proceeded to
+a discussion of foreign affairs.  It appeared that she was not
+unwilling to exchange observations on such matters with her uncle.[45]
+So far, so good.  But King Leopold was still cautious; though a crisis
+was impending in his diplomacy, he still hung back; at last, however,
+he could keep silence no longer.  It {76} was of the utmost importance
+to him that, in his manoeuvrings with France and Holland, he should
+have, or at any rate appear to have, English support.  But the English
+Government appeared to adopt a neutral attitude; it was too bad; not to
+be for him was to be against him--could they not see that?  Yet,
+perhaps, they were only wavering, and a little pressure upon them from
+Victoria might still save all.  He determined to put the case before
+her, delicately yet forcibly--just as he saw it himself.  'All I want
+from your kind Majesty,' he wrote, 'is, that you will _occasionally_
+express to your Ministers, and particularly to good Lord Melbourne,
+that, as far as it is _compatible_ with the interests _of your own_
+dominions, you do _not_ wish that your Government should take the lead
+in such measures as might in a short time bring on the _destruction_ of
+this country, as well as that of your uncle and his family.'[46]  The
+result of this appeal was unexpected: there was dead silence for more
+than a week.  When Victoria at last wrote, she was prodigal of her
+affection--'it would, indeed, my dearest Uncle, be _very wrong_ of you,
+if you thought my feelings of warm and devoted attachment to you, and
+of great affection for you, could be changed--_nothing_ can ever change
+them'--but her references to foreign politics, though they were lengthy
+and elaborate, were non-committal in the extreme; they were almost cast
+in an official and diplomatic form.  Her Ministers, she said, entirely
+shared her views upon the subject; she understood and sympathised with
+the difficulties of her beloved uncle's position; and he might rest
+assured 'that both Lord Melbourne and Lord Palmerston are most anxious
+at all times for the prosperity and welfare of Belgium.'  That was all.
+The King in his reply {77} declared himself delighted, and re-echoed
+the affectionate protestations of his niece.  'My dearest and most
+beloved Victoria,' he said, 'you have written me a _very dear_ and long
+letter, which has given me _great pleasure and satisfaction_.'  He
+would not admit that he had had a rebuff.[47]
+
+A few months later the crisis came.  King Leopold determined to make a
+bold push, and to carry Victoria with him, this time, by a display of
+royal vigour and avuncular authority.  In an abrupt, an almost
+peremptory letter, he laid his case, once more, before his niece.  'You
+know from experience,' he wrote, 'that I _never ask anything of
+you_....  But, as I said before, if we are not careful we may see
+serious consequences which may affect more or less everybody, and
+_this_ ought to be the object of our most anxious attention.  I remain,
+my dear Victoria, your affectionate uncle, Leopold R.'[48]  The Queen
+immediately despatched this letter to Lord Melbourne, who replied with
+a carefully thought-out form of words, signifying nothing whatever,
+which, he suggested, she should send to her uncle.  She did so, copying
+out the elaborate formula, with a liberal scattering of 'dear Uncles'
+interspersed; and she concluded her letter with a message of
+'affectionate love to Aunt Louise and the children.'  Then at last King
+Leopold was obliged to recognise the facts.  His next letter contained
+no reference at all to politics.  'I am glad,' he wrote, 'to find that
+you like Brighton better than last year.  I think Brighton very
+agreeable at this time of the year, till the east winds set in.  The
+pavilion, besides, is comfortable; that cannot be denied.  Before my
+marriage, it was there that I met the Regent.  Charlotte afterwards
+came with old Queen Charlotte.  {78} How distant all this already, but
+still how present to one's memory.'  Like poor Madame de Lieven, his
+Majesty felt that he had made a mistake.[49]
+
+Nevertheless, he could not quite give up all hope.  Another opportunity
+offered, and he made another effort--but there was not very much
+conviction in it, and it was immediately crushed.  'My dear Uncle,' the
+Queen wrote, 'I have to thank you for your last letter, which I
+received on Sunday.  Though you seem not to dislike my political
+sparks, I think it is better not to increase them, as they might
+finally take fire, particularly as I see with regret that upon this one
+subject we cannot agree.  I shall, therefore, limit myself to my
+expressions of very sincere wishes for the welfare and prosperity of
+Belgium.'[50]  After that, it was clear that there was no more to be
+said.  Henceforward there is audible in the King's letters a curiously
+elegiac note.  'My dearest Victoria, your _delightful_ little letter
+has just arrived and went like _an arrow to my heart_.  Yes, my beloved
+Victoria!  I do love you tenderly ... I love you _for yourself_, and I
+love in you the dear child whose welfare I tenderly watched.'  He had
+gone through much; yet, if life had its disappointments, it had its
+satisfactions too.  'I have all the honours that can be given, and I
+am, politically speaking, very solidly established.'  But there were
+other things besides politics; there were romantic yearnings in his
+heart.  'The only longing I still have is for the Orient, where I
+perhaps shall once end my life, rising in the west and setting in the
+east.'  As for his devotion to his niece, that could never end.  'I
+never press my services on you, nor my councils, though I may say with
+some truth that from the extraordinary fate which the higher powers
+{79} had ordained for me, my experience, both political and of private
+life, is great.  I am _always ready_ to be useful to you _when and
+where_ it may be, and I repeat it, _all I want in return is some little
+sincere affection from you_.'[51]
+
+
+VI
+
+The correspondence with King Leopold was significant of much that still
+lay partly hidden in the character of Victoria.  Her attitude towards
+her uncle had never wavered for a moment.  To all his advances she had
+presented an absolutely unyielding front.  The foreign policy of
+England was not his province; it was hers and her Ministers'; his
+insinuations, his entreaties, his struggles--all were quite useless;
+and he must understand that this was so.  The rigidity of her position
+was the more striking owing to the respectfulness and the affection
+with which it was accompanied.  From start to finish the unmoved Queen
+remained the devoted niece.  Leopold himself must have envied such
+perfect correctitude; but what may be admirable in an elderly statesman
+is alarming in a maiden of nineteen.  And privileged observers were not
+without their fears.  The strange mixture of ingenuous
+light-heartedness and fixed determination, of frankness and reticence,
+of childishness and pride, seemed to augur a future perplexed and full
+of dangers.  As time passed the less pleasant qualities in this curious
+composition revealed themselves more often and more seriously.  There
+were signs of an imperious, a peremptory temper, an egotism that was
+strong and hard.  It was noticed that the palace etiquette, far from
+relaxing, grew ever more and more inflexible.  By some, this was
+attributed to {80} Lehzen's influence; but, if that was so, Lehzen had
+a willing pupil; for the slightest infringements of the freezing rules
+of regularity and deference were invariably and immediately visited by
+the sharp and haughty glances of the Queen.[52]  Yet Her Majesty's
+eyes, crushing as they could be, were less crushing than her mouth.
+The self-will depicted in those small projecting teeth and that small
+receding chin was of a more dismaying kind than that which a powerful
+jaw betokens; it was a self-will imperturbable, impenetrable,
+unreasoning; a self-will dangerously akin to obstinacy.  And the
+obstinacy of monarchs is not as that of other men.
+
+Within two years of her accession, the storm-clouds which, from the
+first, had been dimly visible on the horizon, gathered and burst.
+Victoria's relations with her mother had not improved.  The Duchess of
+Kent, still surrounded by all the galling appearances of filial
+consideration, remained in Buckingham Palace a discarded figure,
+powerless and inconsolable.  Sir John Conroy, banished from the
+presence of the Queen, still presided over the Duchess's household, and
+the hostilities of Kensington continued unabated in the new
+surroundings.  Lady Flora Hastings still cracked her malicious jokes;
+the animosity of the Baroness was still unappeased.  One day, Lady
+Flora found the joke was turned against her.  Early in 1839, travelling
+in the suite of the Duchess, she had returned from Scotland in the same
+carriage with Sir John.  A change in her figure became the subject of
+an unseemly jest; tongues wagged; and the jest grew serious.  It was
+whispered that Lady Flora was with child.[53]  The state of her {81}
+health seemed to confirm the suspicion; she consulted Sir James Clark,
+the royal physician, and, after the consultation, Sir James let his
+tongue wag, too.  On this, the scandal flared up sky-high.  Everyone
+was talking; the Baroness was not surprised; the Duchess rallied
+tumultuously to the support of her lady; the Queen was informed.  At
+last, the extraordinary expedient of a medical examination was resorted
+to, during which Sir James, according to Lady Flora, behaved with
+brutal rudeness, while a second doctor was extremely polite.  Finally,
+both physicians signed a certificate entirely exculpating the lady.
+But this was by no means the end of the business.  The Hastings family,
+socially a very powerful one, threw itself into the fray with all the
+fury of outraged pride and injured innocence; Lord Hastings insisted
+upon an audience of the Queen, wrote to the papers, and demanded the
+dismissal of Sir James Clark.  The Queen expressed her regret to Lady
+Flora, but Sir James Clark was not dismissed.  The tide of opinion
+turned violently against the Queen and her advisers; high society was
+disgusted by all this washing of dirty linen in Buckingham Palace; the
+public at large was indignant at the ill-treatment of Lady Flora.  By
+the end of March, the popularity, so radiant and so abundant, with
+which the young Sovereign had begun her reign, had entirely
+disappeared.[54]
+
+There can be no doubt that a great lack of discretion had been shown by
+the Court.  Ill-natured tittle-tattle, which should have been instantly
+nipped in the bud, had been allowed to assume disgraceful proportions;
+and the Throne itself had become involved in the personal {82}
+malignities of the palace.  A particularly awkward question had been
+raised by the position of Sir James Clark.  The Duke of Wellington,
+upon whom it was customary to fall back, in cases of great difficulty
+in high places, had been consulted upon this question, and he had given
+it as his opinion that, as it would be impossible to remove Sir James
+without a public enquiry, Sir James must certainly stay where he
+was.[55]  Probably the Duke was right; but the fact that the peccant
+doctor continued in the Queen's service made the Hastings family
+irreconcilable and produced an unpleasant impression of unrepentant
+error upon the public mind.  As for Victoria, she was very young and
+quite inexperienced; and she can hardly be blamed for having failed to
+control an extremely difficult situation.  That was clearly Lord
+Melbourne's task; he was a man of the world, and, with vigilance and
+circumspection, he might have quietly put out the ugly flames while
+they were still smouldering.  He did not do so; he was lazy and
+easy-going; the Baroness was persistent, and he let things slide.  But
+doubtless his position was not an easy one; passions ran high in the
+palace; and Victoria was not only very young, she was very headstrong,
+too.  Did he possess the magic bridle which would curb that fiery
+steed?  He could not be certain.  And then, suddenly, another violent
+crisis revealed more unmistakably than ever the nature of the mind with
+which he had to deal.
+
+
+VII
+
+The Queen had for long been haunted by a terror that the day might come
+when she would be obliged {83} to part with her Minister.  Ever since
+the passage of the Reform Bill, the power of the Whig Government had
+steadily declined.  The General Election of 1837 had left them with a
+very small majority in the House of Commons; since then, they had been
+in constant difficulties--abroad, at home, in Ireland; the Radical
+group had grown hostile; it became highly doubtful how much longer they
+could survive.  The Queen watched the development of events in great
+anxiety.  She was a Whig by birth, by upbringing, by every association,
+public and private; and, even if those ties had never existed, the mere
+fact that Lord M. was the head of the Whigs would have amply sufficed
+to determine her politics.  The fall of the Whigs would mean a sad
+upset for Lord M.  But it would have a still more terrible consequence:
+Lord M. would have to leave her; and the daily, the hourly, presence of
+Lord M. had become an integral part of her life.  Six months after her
+accession she had noted in her diary 'I shall be very sorry to lose him
+_even_ for _one_ night';[56] and this feeling of personal dependence on
+her Minister steadily increased.  In these circumstances it was natural
+that she should have become a Whig partisan.  Of the wider significance
+of political questions she knew nothing; all she saw was that her
+friends were in office and about her, and that it would be dreadful if
+they ceased to be so.  'I cannot say,' she wrote when a critical
+division was impending, '(though I feel _confident of our success_) HOW
+_low_, HOW _sad_ I feel, when I think of the POSSIBILITY of this
+excellent and truly kind man not _remaining_ my Minister!  Yet I trust
+fervently that _He_ who has so wonderfully protected me through such
+manifold difficulties will not _now_ desert me!  I should {84} have
+liked to have expressed to Lord M. my anxiety, but the tears were
+nearer than words throughout the time I saw him, and I felt I should
+have choked, had I attempted to say anything.'[57]  Lord Melbourne
+realised clearly enough how undesirable was such a state of mind in a
+constitutional sovereign who might be called upon at any moment to
+receive as her Ministers the leaders of the opposite party; he did what
+he could to cool her ardour; but in vain.
+
+With considerable lack of foresight, too, he had himself helped to
+bring about this unfortunate condition of affairs.  From the moment of
+her accession, he had surrounded the Queen with ladies of his own
+party: the Mistress of the Robes and all the Ladies of the Bedchamber
+were Whigs.  In the ordinary course, the Queen never saw a Tory;
+eventually she took pains never to see one in any circumstances.  She
+disliked the whole tribe, and she did not conceal the fact.  She
+particularly disliked Sir Robert Peel, who would almost certainly be
+the next Prime Minister.  His manners were detestable, and he wanted to
+turn out Lord M.  His supporters, without exception, were equally bad;
+and as for Sir James Graham, she could not bear the sight of him; he
+was exactly like Sir John Conroy.[58]
+
+The affair of Lady Flora intensified these party rumours still further.
+The Hastings were Tories, and Lord Melbourne and the Court were
+attacked by the Tory press in unmeasured language.  The Queen's
+sectarian zeal proportionately increased.  But the dreaded hour was now
+fast approaching.  Early in May the Ministers were visibly tottering;
+on a vital point of policy they could only secure a majority of five in
+{85} the House of Commons; they determined to resign.  When Victoria
+heard the news she burst into tears.  Was it possible, then, that all
+was over?  Was she indeed about to see Lord M. for the last time?  Lord
+M. came; and it is a curious fact that, even in this crowning moment of
+misery and agitation, the precise girl noted, to the minute, the exact
+time of the arrival and the departure of her beloved Minister.  The
+conversation was touching and prolonged; but it could only end in one
+way--the Queen must send for the Duke of Wellington.  When, next
+morning, the Duke came, he advised her Majesty to send for Sir Robert
+Peel.  She was in 'a state of dreadful grief,' but she swallowed down
+her tears, and braced herself, with royal resolution, for the odious,
+odious interview.
+
+Peel was by nature reserved, proud, and shy.  His manners were not
+perfect, and he knew it; he was easily embarrassed, and, at such
+moments, he grew even more stiff and formal than before, while his feet
+mechanically performed upon the carpet a dancing-master's measure.
+Anxious as he now was to win the Queen's good graces, his very anxiety
+to do so made the attainment of his object the more difficult.  He
+entirely failed to make any headway whatever with the haughty hostile
+girl before him.  She coldly noted that he appeared to be unhappy and
+'put out,' and, while he stood in painful fixity, with an occasional
+uneasy pointing of the toe, her heart sank within her at the sight of
+that manner, 'oh! how different, how dreadfully different, to the
+frank, open, natural, and most kind warm manner of Lord Melbourne.'
+Nevertheless, the audience passed without disaster.  Only at one point
+had there been some slight hint of a disagreement.  Peel had decided
+that a change would be necessary in {86} the composition of the royal
+Household: the Queen must no longer be entirely surrounded by the wives
+and sisters of his opponents; some, at any rate, of the Ladies of the
+Bedchamber should be friendly to his Government.  When this matter was
+touched upon, the Queen had intimated that she wished her Household to
+remain unchanged; to which Sir Robert had replied that the question
+could be settled later, and shortly afterwards withdrew to arrange the
+details of his Cabinet.  While he was present, Victoria had remained,
+as she herself said, 'very much collected, civil and high, and betrayed
+no agitation'; but as soon as she was alone she completely broke down.
+Then she pulled herself together to write to Lord Melbourne an account
+of all that had happened, and of her own wretchedness.  'She feels,'
+she said, 'Lord Melbourne will understand it, amongst enemies to those
+she most relied on and most esteemed; but what is worst of all is the
+being deprived of seeing Lord Melbourne as she used to do.'
+
+Lord Melbourne replied with a very wise letter.  He attempted to calm
+the Queen and to induce her to accept the new position gracefully; and
+he had nothing but good words for the Tory leaders.  As for the
+question of the Ladies of the Household, the Queen, he said, should
+strongly urge what she desired, as it was a matter which concerned her
+personally; 'but,' he added, 'if Sir Robert is unable to concede it, it
+will not do to refuse and to put off the negotiation upon it.'
+
+On this point there can be little doubt that Lord Melbourne was right.
+The question was a complicated and subtle one, and it had never arisen
+before; but subsequent constitutional practice has determined that a
+Queen Regnant must accede to the wishes of her Prime Minister as to the
+_personnel_ of the female part of her {87} Household.  Lord Melbourne's
+wisdom, however, was wasted.  The Queen would not be soothed, and still
+less would she take advice.  It was outrageous of the Tories to want to
+deprive her of her Ladies, and that night she made up her mind that,
+whatever Sir Robert might say, she would refuse to consent to the
+removal of a single one of them.  Accordingly, when, next morning, Peel
+appeared again, she was ready for action.  He began by detailing the
+Cabinet appointments, and then he added 'Now, Ma'am, about the
+Ladies'--when the Queen sharply interrupted him.  'I cannot give up
+_any_ of my Ladies,' she said.  'What, Ma'am!' said Sir Robert, 'does
+your Majesty mean to retain them _all_?'  '_All_,' said the Queen.  Sir
+Robert's face worked strangely; he could not conceal his agitation.
+'The Mistress of the Robes and the Ladies of the Bedchamber?' he
+brought out at last.  '_All_', replied once more Her Majesty.  It was
+in vain that Peel pleaded and argued; in vain that he spoke, growing
+every moment more pompous and uneasy, of the constitution, and Queens
+Regnant, and the public interest; in vain that he danced his pathetic
+minuet.  She was adamant; but he, too, through all his embarrassment,
+showed no sign of yielding; and when at last he left her nothing had
+been decided--the whole formation of the Government was hanging in the
+wind.  A frenzy of excitement now seized upon Victoria.  Sir Robert,
+she believed in her fury, had tried to outwit her, to take her friends
+from her, to impose his will upon her own; but that was not all: she
+had suddenly perceived, while the poor man was moving so uneasily
+before her, the one thing that she was desperately longing for--a
+loophole of escape.  She seized a pen and dashed off a note to Lord
+Melbourne.
+
+{88}
+
+'Sir Robert has behaved very ill,' she wrote; 'he insisted on my giving
+up my Ladies, to which I replied that I _never_ would consent, and I
+never saw a man so frightened....  I was calm but very decided, and I
+think you would have been pleased to see my composure and great
+firmness; the Queen of England will not submit to such trickery.  Keep
+yourself in readiness, for you may soon be wanted.'  Hardly had she
+finished when the Duke of Wellington was announced.  'Well, Ma'am,' he
+said as he entered, 'I am very sorry to find there is a difficulty.'
+'Oh!' she instantly replied, '_he_ began it, not me.'  She felt that
+only one thing now was needed: she must be firm.  And firm she was.
+The venerable conqueror of Napoleon was outfaced by the relentless
+equanimity of a girl in her teens.  He could not move the Queen one
+inch.  At last, she even ventured to rally him.  'Is Sir Robert so
+weak,' she asked, 'that even the Ladies must be of his opinion?'  On
+which the Duke made a brief and humble expostulation, bowed low; and
+departed.
+
+Had she won?  Time would show; and in the meantime she scribbled down
+another letter.  'Lord Melbourne must not think the Queen rash in her
+conduct....  The Queen felt this was an attempt to see whether she
+could be led and managed like a child.'  The Tories were not only
+wicked but ridiculous.  Peel, having, as she understood, expressed a
+wish to remove only those members of the Household who were in
+Parliament, now objected to her Ladies.  'I should like to know,' she
+exclaimed in triumphant scorn, 'if they mean to give the _Ladies_ seats
+in Parliament?'
+
+The end of the crisis was now fast approaching.  Sir Robert returned,
+and told her that if she insisted upon retaining all her Ladies he
+could not form a {89} Government.  She replied that she would send him
+her final decision in writing.  Next morning the late Whig Cabinet met.
+Lord Melbourne read to them the Queen's letters, and the group of
+elderly politicians were overcome by an extraordinary wave of
+enthusiasm.  They knew very well that, to say the least, it was highly
+doubtful whether the Queen had acted in strict accordance with the
+constitution; that in doing what she had done she had brushed aside
+Lord Melbourne's advice; that, in reality, there was no public reason
+whatever why they should go back upon their decision to resign.  But
+such considerations vanished before the passionate urgency of Victoria.
+The intensity of her determination swept them headlong down the stream
+of her desire.  They unanimously felt that 'it was impossible to
+abandon such a Queen and such a woman.'  Forgetting that they were no
+longer her Majesty's Ministers, they took the unprecedented course of
+advising the Queen by letter to put an end to her negotiation with Sir
+Robert Peel.  She did so; all was over; she had triumphed.  That
+evening there was a ball at the Palace.  Everyone was present.  'Peel
+and the Duke of Wellington came by looking very much put out.'  She was
+perfectly happy; Lord M. was Prime Minister once more, and he was by
+her side.[59]
+
+
+{90}
+
+VIII
+
+Happiness had returned with Lord M., but it was happiness in the midst
+of agitation.  The domestic imbroglio continued unabated, until at last
+the Duke, rejected as a Minister, was called in once again in his old
+capacity as moral physician to the family.  Something was accomplished
+when, at last, he induced Sir John Conroy to resign his place about the
+Duchess of Kent and leave the Palace for ever; something more when he
+persuaded the Queen to write an affectionate letter to her mother.  The
+way seemed open for a reconciliation, but the Duchess was stormy still.
+She didn't believe that Victoria had written that letter; it was not in
+her handwriting; and she sent for the Duke to tell him so.  The Duke,
+assuring her that the letter was genuine, begged her to forget the
+past.  But that was not so easy.  'What am I to do if Lord Melbourne
+comes up to me?'  'Do, ma'am?  Why, receive him with civility.'  Well,
+she would make an effort....  'But what am I to do if Victoria asks me
+to shake hands with Lehzen?'  'Do, ma'am?  Why, take her in your arms
+and kiss her.'  'What!'  The Duchess bristled in every feather, and
+then she burst into a hearty laugh.  'No, ma'am, no,' said the Duke,
+laughing too.  'I don't mean you are to take _Lehzen_ in your arms and
+kiss _her_, but the Queen.'[60]
+
+The Duke might perhaps have succeeded, had not all attempts at
+conciliation been rendered hopeless by a tragical event.  Lady Flora,
+it was discovered, had been suffering from a terrible internal malady,
+which now grew rapidly worse.  There could be little doubt {91} that
+she was dying.  The Queen's unpopularity reached an extraordinary
+height.  More than once she was publicly insulted.  'Mrs. Melbourne,'
+was shouted at her when she appeared at her balcony; and, at Ascot, she
+was hissed by the Duchess of Montrose and Lady Sarah Ingestre as she
+passed.  Lady Flora died.  The whole scandal burst out again with
+redoubled vehemence; while, in the Palace, the two parties were
+henceforth divided by an impassable, a Stygian, gulf.[61]
+
+Nevertheless, Lord M. was back, and every trouble faded under the
+enchantment of his presence and his conversation.  He, on his side, had
+gone through much; and his distresses were intensified by a
+consciousness of his own shortcomings.  He realised clearly enough
+that, if he had intervened at the right moment, the Hastings scandal
+might have been averted; and, in the bedchamber crisis, he knew that he
+had allowed his judgment to be overruled and his conduct to be swayed
+by private feelings and the impetuosity of Victoria.[62]  But he was
+not one to suffer too acutely from the pangs of conscience.  In spite
+of the dullness and the formality of the Court, his relationship with
+the Queen had come to be the dominating interest in his life; to have
+been deprived of it would have been heart-rending; that dread
+eventuality had been--somehow--avoided; he was installed once more, in
+a kind of triumph; let him enjoy the fleeting hours to the full!  And
+so, cherished by the favour of a sovereign and warmed by the adoration
+of a girl, the autumn rose, in those autumn months of 1839, came to a
+wondrous blooming.  The petals expanded, beautifully, for the last
+time.  For the last time in this unlooked-for, this {92} incongruous,
+this almost incredible intercourse, the old epicure tasted the
+exquisiteness of romance.  To watch, to teach, to restrain, to
+encourage the royal young creature beside him--that was much; to feel
+with such a constant intimacy the impact of her quick affection, her
+radiant vitality--that was more; most of all, perhaps, was it good to
+linger vaguely in humorous contemplation, in idle apostrophe, to talk
+disconnectedly, to make a little joke about an apple or a furbelow, to
+dream.  The springs of his sensibility, hidden deep within him, were
+overflowing.  Often, as he bent over her hand and kissed it, he found
+himself in tears.[63]
+
+Upon Victoria, with all her impermeability, it was inevitable that such
+a companionship should have produced, eventually, an effect.  She was
+no longer the simple schoolgirl of two years since.  The change was
+visible even in her public demeanour.  Her expression, once 'ingenuous
+and serene,' now appeared to a shrewd observer to be 'bold and
+discontented.'[64]  She had learnt something of the pleasures of power
+and the pains of it; but that was not all.  Lord Melbourne with his
+gentle instruction had sought to lead her into the paths of wisdom and
+moderation, but the whole unconscious movement of his character had
+swayed her in a very different direction.  The hard clear pebble,
+subjected for so long and so constantly to that encircling and
+insidious fluidity, had suffered a curious corrosion; it seemed to be
+actually growing a little soft and a little clouded.  Humanity and
+fallibility are infectious things; was it possible that Lehzen's prim
+pupil had caught them?  That she was beginning to listen to siren
+voices?  That the secret impulses of self-expression, of {93}
+self-indulgence even, were mastering her life?  For a moment the child
+of a new age looked back, and wavered towards the eighteenth century.
+It was the most critical moment of her career.  Had those influences
+lasted, the development of her character, the history of her life,
+would have been completely changed.
+
+And why should they not last?  She, for one, was very anxious that they
+should.  Let them last for ever!  She was surrounded by Whigs, she was
+free to do whatever she wanted, she had Lord M.; she could not believe
+that she could ever be happier.  Any change would be for the worse; and
+the worst change of all ... no, she would not hear of it; it would be
+quite intolerable, it would upset everything, if she were to marry.
+And yet everyone seemed to want her to--the general public, the
+Ministers, her Saxe-Coburg relations--it was always the same story.  Of
+course, she knew very well that there were excellent reasons for it.
+For one thing, if she remained childless, and were to die, her uncle
+Cumberland, who was now the King of Hanover, would succeed to the
+Throne of England.  That, no doubt, would be a most unpleasant event;
+and she entirely sympathised with everybody who wished to avoid it.
+But there was no hurry; naturally, she would marry in the end--but not
+just yet--not for three or four years.  What was tiresome was that her
+uncle Leopold had apparently determined, not only that she ought to
+marry, but that her cousin Albert ought to be her husband.  That was
+very like her uncle Leopold, who wanted to have a finger in every pie;
+and it was true that long ago, in far-off days, before her accession
+even, she had written to him in a way which might well have encouraged
+him in such a notion.  She had told him then that Albert possessed {94}
+'every quality that could be desired to render her perfectly happy,'
+and had begged her 'dearest uncle to take care of the health of one,
+now _so dear_ to me, and to take him under _your special_ protection,'
+adding, 'I hope and trust all will go on prosperously and well on this
+subject of so much importance to me.'[65]  But that had been years ago,
+when she was a mere child; perhaps, indeed, to judge from the language,
+the letter had been dictated by Lehzen; at any rate, her feelings., and
+all the circumstances, had now entirely changed.  Albert hardly
+interested her at all.
+
+In later life the Queen declared that she had never for a moment dreamt
+of marrying anyone but her cousin;[66] her letters and diaries tell a
+very different story.  On August 26, 1837, she wrote in her journal:
+'To-day is my _dearest_ cousin Albert's 18th birthday, and I pray
+Heaven to pour its choicest blessings on his beloved head!'  In the
+subsequent years, however, the date passes unnoticed.  It had been
+arranged that Stockmar should accompany the Prince to Italy, and the
+faithful Baron left her side for that purpose.  He wrote to her more
+than once with sympathetic descriptions of his young companion; but her
+mind was by this time made up.  She liked and admired Albert very much,
+but she did not want to marry him.  'At present,' she told Lord
+Melbourne in April 1839, '_my_ feeling is quite against ever
+marrying.'[67]  When her cousin's Italian tour came to an end, she
+began to grow nervous; she knew that, according to a long-standing
+engagement, his next journey would be to England.  He would probably
+arrive in the autumn, and by July her uneasiness was intense.  She
+determined to write to her uncle, in order to make her position clear.
+It must be understood, she {95} said, that 'there is _no engagement_
+between us.'  If she should like Albert, she could 'make _no final
+promise this year_, for, at the _very earliest_, any such event could
+not take place till _two or three years hence_.'  She had, she said, 'a
+_great_ repugnance' to change her present position; and, if she should
+not like him, she was '_very_ anxious that it should be understood that
+she would _not_ be guilty of any breach of promise, for she never gave
+any.'[68]  To Lord Melbourne she was more explicit.  She told him that
+she 'had no great wish to see Albert, as the whole subject was an
+odious one'; she hated to have to decide about it; and she repeated
+once again that seeing Albert would be 'a disagreeable thing.'[69]  But
+there was no escaping the horrid business; the visit must be made, and
+she must see him.  The summer slipped by and was over; it was the
+autumn already; on the evening of October 10 Albert, accompanied by his
+brother Ernest, arrived at Windsor.
+
+Albert arrived; and the whole structure of her existence crumbled into
+nothingness like a house of cards.  He was beautiful--she gasped--she
+knew no more.  Then, in a flash, a thousand mysteries were revealed to
+her; the past, the present, rushed upon her with a new significance;
+the delusions of years were abolished, and an extraordinary, an
+irresistible certitude leapt into being in the light of those blue
+eyes, the smile of that lovely mouth.  The succeeding hours passed in a
+rapture.  She was able to observe a few more details--the 'exquisite
+nose,' the 'delicate moustachios and slight but very slight whiskers,'
+the 'beautiful figure, broad in the shoulders and a fine waist.' She
+rode with him, danced with him, talked with him, and it was all
+perfection.  She had no shadow of a doubt.  He had {96} come on a
+Thursday evening, and on the following Sunday morning she told Lord
+Melbourne that she had 'a good deal changed her opinion as to
+marrying.'  Next morning, she told him that she had made up her mind to
+marry Albert.  The morning after that, she sent for her cousin.  She
+received him alone, and 'after a few minutes I said to him that I
+thought he must be aware _why_ I wished them to come here--and that it
+would make me _too happy_ if he would consent to what I wished (to
+marry me).'  Then 'we embraced each other, and he was _so_ kind, _so_
+affectionate.'  She said that she was quite unworthy of him, while he
+murmured that he would be very happy 'Das Leben mit dir zu zubringen.'
+They parted, and she felt 'the happiest of human beings,' when Lord M.
+came in.  At first she beat about the bush, and talked of the weather,
+and indifferent subjects.  Somehow or other she felt a little nervous
+with her old friend.  At last, summoning up her courage, she said, 'I
+have got well through this with Albert.'  'Oh! you have,' said Lord
+M.[70]
+
+
+
+[1] Greville, III, 411.
+
+[2] _Ibid._, IV, 7, 9, 14-15.
+
+[3] Walpole, I, 284.
+
+[4] Crawford, 156-7.
+
+[5] Greville, IV, 16.
+
+[6] _Girlhood_, I, 210-1.
+
+[7] Greville, IV, 15.
+
+[8] Greville, IV, 21-2.
+
+[9] Stockmar, 322-3; Maxwell, 159-60.
+
+[10] Stockmar, 109-10.
+
+[11] _Ibid._, 165-6.
+
+[12] _Ibid._, chaps. viii, ix, x, and xi.
+
+[13] _Girlhood_, II, 303.
+
+[14] Stockmar, 324.
+
+[15] _Ibid._, chap. xv, pt. 2.
+
+[16] _Ibid._, chap. xvii.
+
+[17] Stein, VI, 932.
+
+[18] Greville, VI, 247; Torrens, 14; Hayward, I, 336.
+
+[19] Greville, VI, 248.
+
+[20] Greville, III, 331; VI, 254; Haydon, III, 12: 'March 1, 1835.
+Called on Lord Melbourne, and found him reading the Acts, with a quarto
+Greek Testament that belonged to Samuel Johnson.'
+
+[21] Greville, III, 142; Torrens, 545.
+
+[22] _Girlhood_, II, 148; Torrens, 278, 431, 517; Greville, IV, 331;
+VIII, 162.
+
+[23] Greville, VI, 253-4; Torrens, 354.
+
+[24] Greville, IV, 135, 154; _Girlhood_, I, 249.
+
+[25] Creevey, II, 326.
+
+[26] _Girlhood_, I, 203.
+
+[27] _Ibid._, I, 206.
+
+[28] Lee, 79-81.
+
+[29] _Girlhood_, II, 3.
+
+[30] _Girlhood_, II, 29.
+
+[31] _Ibid._, II, 100.
+
+[32] _Ibid._, II, 57, 256.
+
+[33] Lee, 71.
+
+[34] The Duke of Bedford told Greville he was 'sure there was a battle
+between her and Melbourne....  He is sure there was one about the men's
+sitting after dinner, for he heard her say to him rather angrily, "it
+is a horrid custom"--but when the ladies left the room (he dined there)
+directions were given that the men should remain _five minutes_
+longer.'  Greville, Feb. 26, 1840 (unpublished).
+
+[35] Greville, March 11, 1838 (unpublished).
+
+[36] Greville, IV, 152-3.
+
+[37] _Girlhood_, I, 265-6.
+
+[38] Martineau, II, 119-20; _Girlhood_, II, 121-2.
+
+[39] _Girlhood_, I, 229
+
+[40] _Girlhood_, I, 356-64; Leslie, II, 239.
+
+[41] _Letters_, I, 79.
+
+[42] _Ibid._, I, 80; Greville, IV, 22.
+
+[43] _Letters_, I, 85-6; Greville, IV, 16.
+
+[44] _Ibid._, I, 93.
+
+[45] _Ibid._, I, 93-5.
+
+[46] _Letters_, I, 116.
+
+[47] _Letters_, I, 117-20.
+
+[48] _Ibid._, I, 134.
+
+[49] _Letters_, I, 134-6, 140.
+
+[50] _Ibid._, I, 154.
+
+[51] _Letters_, I, 185.
+
+[52] Greville, IV, 16-17; Crawford, 163-4.
+
+[53] Greville, IV, 178, and August 15, 1839 (unpublished).
+
+[54] 'Nobody cares for the Queen, her popularity has sunk to zero, and
+loyalty is a dead letter.'  Greville, March 25, 1839; _Morning Post_,
+Sept. 14, 1839.
+
+[55] Greville, August 15, 1839 (unpublished).
+
+[56] _Girlhood_, I, 254.
+
+[57] _Girlhood_, I, 324.
+
+[58] Greville, August 4, 1841 (unpublished); _Girlhood_, II, 154, 162.
+
+[59] _Letters_, I, 154-72; _Girlhood_, II, 163-75; Greville, IV,
+206-217, and unpublished passages; Broughton, V, 195; Clarendon, I,
+165.  The exclamation 'They wished to treat me like a girl, but I will
+show them that I am Queen of England!' often quoted as the Queen's, is
+apocryphal.  It is merely part of Greville's summary of the two letters
+to Melbourne, printed in _Letters_, 162 and 163.  It may be noted that
+the phrase 'the Queen of England will not submit to such trickery' is
+omitted in _Girlhood_, 169; and in general there are numerous verbal
+discrepancies between the versions of the journal and the letters in
+the two books.
+
+[60] Greville, June 7, June 10, June 15, August 15, 1839 (unpublished).
+
+[61] Greville, June 24 and July 7, 1839 (unpublished); Crawford, 222.
+
+[62] Greville, VI, 251-2.
+
+[63] Greville, VI, 251; _Girlhood_, I, 236, 238; II, 267.
+
+[64] Martineau, II, 120.
+
+[65] _Letters_, I, 49.
+
+[66] Grey, 2-19.
+
+[67] _Girlhood_, II, 153.
+
+[68] _Letters_, I, 177-8.
+
+[69] _Girlhood_, II, 215-6.
+
+[70] _Girlhood_, II, 262-9.  Greville's statement (Nov. 27, 1839) that
+'the Queen settled everything about her marriage herself, and without
+consulting Melbourne at all on the subject, not even communicating to
+him her intention,' has no foundation in fact.  The Queen's journal
+proves that she consulted Melbourne at every point.
+
+
+[Illustration: PRINCE ALBERT IN 1840.  _From the Portrait by John
+Partridge._]
+
+
+
+
+{97}
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+MARRIAGE
+
+I
+
+It was decidedly a family match.  Prince Francis Charles Augustus
+Albert Emmanuel of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha--for such was his full title--had
+been born just three months after his cousin Victoria, and the same
+midwife had assisted at the two births.  The children's grandmother,
+the Dowager Duchess of Coburg, had from the first looked forward to
+their marriage; as they grew up, the Duke, the Duchess of Kent, and
+King Leopold came equally to desire it.  The Prince, ever since the
+time when, as a child of three, his nurse had told him that some day
+'the little English May flower' would be his wife, had never thought of
+marrying anyone else.  When eventually Baron Stockmar himself signified
+his assent, the affair seemed as good as settled.[1]
+
+The Duke had one other child--Prince Ernest, Albert's senior by one
+year, and heir to the principality.  The Duchess was a sprightly and
+beautiful woman, with fair hair and blue eyes; Albert was very like her
+and was her declared favourite.  But in his fifth year he was parted
+from her for ever.  The ducal court was not noted for the strictness of
+its morals; the Duke was a man of gallantry, and it was rumoured that
+the Duchess followed her husband's example.  There were {98} scandals:
+one of the Court Chamberlains, a charming and cultivated man of Jewish
+extraction, was talked of; at last there was a separation, followed by
+a divorce.  The Duchess retired to Paris, and died unhappily in 1831.
+Her memory was always very dear to Albert.[2]
+
+He grew up a pretty, clever, and high-spirited boy.  Usually
+well-behaved, he was, however, sometimes violent.  He had a will of his
+own, and asserted it; his elder brother was less passionate, less
+purposeful, and, in their wrangles, it was Albert who came out top.
+The two boys, living for the most part in one or other of the Duke's
+country houses, among pretty hills and woods and streams, had been at a
+very early age--Albert was less than four--separated from their nurses
+and put under a tutor, in whose charge they remained until they went to
+the University.  They were brought up in a simple and unostentatious
+manner, for the Duke was poor and the duchy very small and very
+insignificant.  Before long it became evident that Albert was a model
+lad.  Intelligent and painstaking, he had been touched by the moral
+earnestness of his generation; at the age of eleven he surprised his
+father by telling him that he hoped to make himself 'a good and useful
+man.'  And yet he was not over-serious; though, perhaps, he had little
+humour, he was full of fun--of practical jokes and mimicry.  He was no
+milksop; he rode, and shot, and fenced; above all did he delight in
+being out of doors, and never was he happier than in his long rambles
+with his brother through the wild country round his beloved
+Rosenau--stalking the deer, admiring the scenery, and returning laden
+with specimens for his natural history collection.  He was, besides,
+passionately fond of music.  In one particular it was observed {99}
+that he did not take after his father: owing either to his peculiar
+upbringing or to a more fundamental idiosyncrasy he had a marked
+distaste for the opposite sex.  At the age of five, at a children's
+dance, he screamed with disgust and anger when a little girl was led up
+to him for a partner; and though, later on, he grew more successful in
+disguising such feelings, the feelings remained.[3]
+
+The brothers were very popular in Coburg, and, when the time came for
+them to be confirmed, the preliminary examination, which, according to
+ancient custom, was held in public in the 'Giants' Hall' of the Castle,
+was attended by an enthusiastic crowd of functionaries, clergy,
+delegates from the villages of the duchy, and miscellaneous onlookers.
+There were also present, besides the Duke and the Dowager Duchess,
+their Serene Highnesses the Princes Alexander and Ernest of W�rtemberg,
+Prince Leiningen, Princess Hohenlohe-Langenburg, and Princess
+Hohenlohe-Schillingsf�rst.  Dr. Jacobi, the Court chaplain, presided at
+an altar, simply but appropriately decorated, which had been placed at
+the end of the hall; and the proceedings began by the choir singing the
+first verse of the hymn, 'Come, Holy Ghost.'  After some introductory
+remarks, Dr. Jacobi began the examination.  'The dignified and decorous
+bearing of the Princes,' we are told in a contemporary account, 'their
+strict attention to the questions, the frankness, decision, and
+correctness of their answers, produced a deep impression on the
+numerous assembly.  Nothing was more striking in their answers than the
+evidence they gave of deep feeling and of inward strength of
+conviction.  The questions put by the examiner were not such as to be
+{100} met by a simple "yes" or "no."  They were carefully considered in
+order to give the audience a clear insight into the views and feelings
+of the young princes.  One of the most touching moments was when the
+examiner asked the hereditary prince whether he intended steadfastly to
+hold to the Evangelical Church, and the Prince answered not only "Yes!"
+but added in a clear and decided tone: "I and my brother are firmly
+resolved ever to remain faithful to the acknowledged truth."  The
+examination having lasted an hour, Dr. Jacobi made some concluding
+observations, followed by a short prayer; the second and third verses
+of the opening hymn were sung; and the ceremony was over.  The Princes,
+stepping down from the altar, were embraced by the Duke and the Dowager
+Duchess; after which the loyal inhabitants of Coburg dispersed, well
+satisfied with their entertainment.[4]
+
+Albert's mental development now proceeded apace.  In his seventeenth
+year he began a careful study of German literature and German
+philosophy.  He set about, he told his tutor, 'to follow the thoughts
+of the great Klopstock into their depths--though in this, for the most
+part,' he modestly added, 'I do not succeed.'  He wrote an essay on the
+'Mode of Thought of the Germans, and a Sketch of the History of German
+Civilisation,' 'making use,' he said, 'in its general outlines, of the
+divisions which the treatment of the subject itself demands,' and
+concluding with 'a retrospect of the shortcomings of our time, with an
+appeal to every one to correct those shortcomings in his own case, and
+thus set a good example to others.'[5]  Placed for some months under
+the care of King Leopold at Brussels, he came under the influence of
+Adolphe Quetelet, a mathematical {101} professor, who was particularly
+interested in the application of the laws of probability to political
+and moral phenomena; this line of inquiry attracted the Prince, and the
+friendship thus begun continued till the end of his life.[6]  From
+Brussels he went to the University of Bonn, where he was speedily
+distinguished both by his intellectual and his social activities; his
+energies were absorbed in metaphysics, law, political economy, music,
+fencing, and amateur theatricals.  Thirty years later his
+fellow-students recalled with delight the fits of laughter into which
+they had been sent by Prince Albert's mimicry.  The _verve_ with which
+his Serene Highness reproduced the tones and gestures of one of the
+professors who used to point to a picture of a row of houses in Venice
+with the remark, 'That is the Ponte Realte,' and of another who fell
+down in a race and was obliged to look for his spectacles, was
+especially appreciated.[7]
+
+After a year at Bonn, the time had come for a foreign tour, and Baron
+Stockmar arrived from England to accompany the Prince on an expedition
+to Italy.  The Baron had been already, two years previously, consulted
+by King Leopold as to his views upon the proposed marriage of Albert
+and Victoria.  His reply had been remarkable.  With a characteristic
+foresight, a characteristic absence of optimism, a characteristic sense
+of the moral elements in the situation, Stockmar had pointed out what
+were, in his opinion, the conditions essential to make the marriage a
+success.  Albert, he wrote, was a fine young fellow, well grown for his
+age, with agreeable and valuable qualities; and it was probable that in
+a few years he would turn out a strong, handsome man, of a kindly,
+simple, yet dignified demeanour.  {102} 'Thus, externally, he possesses
+all that pleases the sex, and at all times and in all countries must
+please.'  Supposing, therefore, that Victoria herself was in favour of
+the marriage, the further question arose as to whether Albert's mental
+qualities were such as to fit him for the position of husband of the
+Queen of England.  On this point, continued the Baron, one heard much
+to his credit; the Prince was said to be discreet and intelligent; but
+all such judgments were necessarily partial, and the Baron preferred to
+reserve his opinion until he could come to a trustworthy conclusion
+from personal observation.  And then he added: 'But all this is not
+enough.  The young man ought to have not merely great ability, but a
+_right_ ambition, and great force of will as well.  To pursue for a
+lifetime a political career so arduous demands more than energy and
+inclination--it demands also that earnest frame of mind which is ready
+of its own accord to sacrifice mere pleasure to real usefulness.  If he
+is not satisfied hereafter with the consciousness of having achieved
+one of the most influential positions in Europe, how often will he feel
+tempted to repent his adventure!  If he does not from the very outset
+accept it as a vocation of grave responsibility, on the efficient
+performance of which his honour and happiness depend, there is small
+likelihood of his succeeding.'[8]
+
+Such were the views of Stockmar on the qualifications necessary for the
+due fulfilment of that destiny which Albert's family had marked out for
+him; and he hoped, during the tour in Italy, to come to some conclusion
+as to how far the Prince possessed them.  Albert on his side was much
+impressed by the Baron, whom he had previously seen but rarely; he also
+became acquainted, for the first time in his life, with a young {103}
+Englishman, Lieut. Francis Seymour, who had been engaged to accompany
+him, whom he found _sehr liebensw�rdig_, and with whom he struck up a
+warm friendship.  He delighted in the galleries and scenery of
+Florence, though with Rome he was less impressed.  'But for some
+beautiful palaces,' he said, 'it might just as well be any town in
+Germany.'  In an interview with Pope Gregory XVI, he took the
+opportunity of displaying his erudition.  When the Pope observed that
+the Greeks had taken their art from the Etruscans, Albert replied that,
+on the contrary, in his opinion, they had borrowed from the Egyptians:
+his Holiness politely acquiesced.  Wherever he went he was eager to
+increase his knowledge, and, at a ball in Florence, he was observed
+paying no attention whatever to the ladies, and deep in conversation
+with the learned Signor Capponi.  'Voil� un prince dont nous pouvons
+�tre fiers,' said the Grand Duke of Tuscany, who was standing by: 'la
+belle danseuse l'attend, le savant l'occupe.'[9]
+
+On his return to Germany, Stockmar's observations, imparted to King
+Leopold, were still critical.  Albert, he said, was intelligent, kind,
+and amiable; he was full of the best intentions and the noblest
+resolutions, and his judgment was in many things beyond his years.  But
+great exertion was repugnant to him; he seemed to be too willing to
+spare himself, and his good resolutions too often came to nothing.  It
+was particularly unfortunate that he took not the slightest interest in
+politics, and never read a newspaper.  In his manners, too, there was
+still room for improvement.  'He will always,' said the Baron, 'have
+more success with men than with women, in whose society he shows too
+little {104} _empressement_, and is too indifferent and retiring.'  One
+other feature of the case was noted by the keen eye of the old
+physician: the Prince's constitution was not a strong one.[10]  Yet, on
+the whole, he was favourable to the projected marriage.  But by now the
+chief obstacle seemed to lie in another quarter.  Victoria was
+apparently determined to commit herself to nothing.  And so it happened
+that when Albert went to England he had made up his mind to withdraw
+entirely from the affair.  Nothing would induce him, he confessed to a
+friend, to be kept vaguely waiting; he would break it all off at once.
+His reception at Windsor threw an entirely new light upon the
+situation.  The wheel of fortune turned with a sudden rapidity; and he
+found, in the arms of Victoria, the irrevocable assurance of his
+overwhelming fate.[11]
+
+
+II
+
+He was not in love with her.  Affection, gratitude, the natural
+reactions to the unqualified devotion of a lively young cousin who was
+also a queen--such feelings possessed him, but the ardours of
+reciprocal passion were not his.  Though he found that he liked
+Victoria very much, what immediately interested him in his curious
+position was less her than himself.  Dazzled and delighted, riding,
+dancing, singing, laughing, amid the splendours of Windsor, he was
+aware of a new sensation--the stirrings of ambition in his breast.  His
+place would indeed be a high, an enviable one!  And then, on the
+instant, came another thought.  The teaching of religion, the
+admonitions of Stockmar, his {105} own inmost convictions, all spoke
+with the same utterance.  He would not be there to please himself, but
+for a very different purpose--to do good.  He must be 'noble, manly,
+and princely in all things,' he would have 'to live and to sacrifice
+himself for the benefit of his new country,' to 'use his powers and
+endeavours for a great object--that of promoting the welfare of
+multitudes of his fellow-men.'  One serious thought led on to another.
+The wealth and the bustle of the English Court might be delightful for
+the moment, but, after all, it was Coburg that had his heart.  'While I
+shall be untiring,' he wrote to his grandmother, 'in my efforts and
+labours for the country to which I shall in future belong, and where I
+am called to so high a position, I shall never cease _ein treuer
+Deutscher, Coburger, Gothaner zu sein_.'  And now he must part from
+Coburg for ever!  Sobered and sad, he sought relief in his brother
+Ernest's company; the two young men would shut themselves up together,
+and, sitting down at the pianoforte, would escape from the present and
+the future in the sweet familiar gaiety of a Haydn duet.[12]
+
+They returned to Germany; and while Albert, for a few farewell months,
+enjoyed, for the last time, the happiness of home, Victoria, for the
+last time, resumed her old life in London and Windsor.  She
+corresponded daily with her future husband in a mingled flow of German
+and English; but the accustomed routine reasserted itself; the business
+and the pleasures of the day would brook no interruption; Lord M. was
+once more constantly beside her; and the Tories were as intolerable as
+ever.  Indeed, they were more so.  For {106} now, in these final
+moments, the old feud burst out with redoubled fury.[13]  The impetuous
+sovereign found, to her chagrin, that there might be disadvantages in
+being the declared enemy of one of the great parties in the State.  On
+two occasions, the Tories directly thwarted her in a matter on which
+she had set her heart.  She wished her husband's rank to be fixed by
+statute, and their opposition prevented it.  She wished her husband to
+receive a settlement from the nation of �50,000 a year; and, again
+owing to the Tories, he was allowed only �30,000.  It was too bad.
+When the question was discussed in Parliament, it had been pointed out
+that the bulk of the population was suffering from great poverty, and
+that �30,000 was the whole revenue of Coburg; but her uncle Leopold had
+been given �50,000, and it would be monstrous to give Albert less.  Sir
+Robert Peel--it might have been expected--had had the effrontery to
+speak and vote for the smaller sum.  She was very angry, and determined
+to revenge herself by omitting to invite a single Tory to her wedding.
+She would make an exception in favour of old Lord Liverpool, but even
+the Duke of Wellington she refused to ask.  When it was represented to
+her that it would amount to a national scandal if the Duke were absent
+from her wedding, she was angrier than ever.  'What!  That old rebel!
+I won't have him,' she was reported to have said.  Eventually she was
+induced to send him an invitation; but she made no attempt to conceal
+the {107} bitterness of her feelings, and the Duke himself was only too
+well aware of all that had passed.[14]
+
+Nor was it only against the Tories that her irritation rose.  As the
+time for her wedding approached, her temper grew steadily sharper and
+more arbitrary.  Queen Adelaide annoyed her.  King Leopold, too, was
+'ungracious' in his correspondence; 'Dear Uncle,' she told Albert, 'is
+given to believe that he must rule the roast everywhere.  However,' she
+added with asperity, 'that is not a necessity.'[15]  Even Albert
+himself was not impeccable.  Engulfed in Coburgs, he failed to
+appreciate the complexity of English affairs.  There were difficulties
+about his household.  He had a notion that he ought not to be
+surrounded by violent Whigs; very likely, but he would not understand
+that the only alternatives to violent Whigs were violent Tories; and it
+would be preposterous if his Lords and Gentlemen were to be found
+voting against the Queen's.  He wanted to appoint his own Private
+Secretary.  But how could he choose the right person?  Lord M. was
+obviously best qualified to make the appointment; and Lord M. had
+decided that the Prince should take over his own Private
+Secretary--George Anson, a staunch Whig.  Albert protested, but it was
+useless; Victoria simply announced that Anson was appointed, and
+instructed Lehzen to send the Prince an explanation of the details of
+the case.  Then, again, he had written anxiously upon the necessity of
+maintaining unspotted the moral purity of the Court.  Lord M.'s pupil
+considered that dear Albert was strait-laced, and, in a brisk
+Anglo-German missive, set forth her own views.  'I like Lady A. very
+much,' she told him, 'only she is {108} a little _strict and
+particular_, and too severe towards others, which is not right; for I
+think one ought always to be indulgent towards other people, as I
+always think, if we had not been well taken care of, we might also have
+gone astray.  That is always my feeling.  Yet it is always right to
+show that one does not like to see what is obviously wrong; but it is
+very dangerous to be too severe, and I am certain that as a rule such
+people always greatly regret that in their youth they have not been so
+careful as they ought to have been.  I have explained this so badly and
+written it so badly, that I fear you will hardly be able to make it
+out.'[16]
+
+On one other matter she was insistent.  Since the affair of Lady Flora
+Hastings, a sad fate had overtaken Sir James Clark.  His flourishing
+practice had quite collapsed; nobody would go to him any more.  But the
+Queen remained faithful.  She would show the world how little she cared
+for its disapproval, and she desired Albert to make 'poor Clark' his
+physician in ordinary.  He did as he was told; but, as it turned out,
+the appointment was not a happy one.[17]
+
+The wedding-day was fixed, and it was time for Albert to tear himself
+away from his family and the scenes of his childhood.  With an aching
+heart, he had revisited his beloved haunts--the woods and the valleys
+where he had spent so many happy hours shooting rabbits and collecting
+botanical specimens; in deep depression, he had sat through the
+farewell banquets in the Palace and listened to the _Freisch�tz_
+performed by the State band.  It was time to go.  The streets were
+packed as he drove through them; for a short space his {109} eyes were
+gladdened by a sea of friendly German faces, and his ears by a
+gathering volume of good guttural sounds.  He stopped to bid a last
+adieu to his grandmother.  It was a heart-rending moment.  'Albert!
+Albert!' she shrieked, and fell fainting into the arms of her
+attendants as his carriage drove away.  He was whirled rapidly to his
+destiny.  At Calais a steamboat awaited him, and, together with his
+father and his brother, he stepped, dejected, on board.  A little
+later, he was more dejected still.  The crossing was a very rough one;
+the Duke went hurriedly below; while the two Princes, we are told, lay
+on either side of the cabin staircase 'in an almost helpless state.'
+At Dover a large crowd was collected on the pier, and 'it was by no
+common effort that Prince Albert, who had continued to suffer up to the
+last moment, got up to bow to the people.'  His sense of duty
+triumphed.  It was a curious omen: his whole life in England was
+foreshadowed as he landed on English ground.[18]
+
+Meanwhile Victoria, in growing agitation, was a prey to temper and to
+nerves.  She grew feverish, and at last Sir James Clark pronounced that
+she was going to have the measles.  But, once again, Sir James's
+diagnosis was incorrect.  It was not the measles that was attacking
+her, but a very different malady; she was suddenly prostrated by alarm,
+regret, and doubt.  For two years she had been her own mistress--the
+two happiest years, by far, of her life.  And now it was all to end!
+She was to come under an alien domination--she would have to promise
+that she would honour and obey ... someone, who might, after all,
+thwart her, oppose her--and how dreadful that would be!  Why had she
+embarked on this hazardous experiment?  Why {110} had she not been
+contented with Lord M.?  No doubt, she loved Albert; but she loved
+power too.  At any rate, one thing was certain: she might be Albert's
+wife, but she would always be Queen of England.[19]  He reappeared, in
+an exquisite uniform, and her hesitations melted in his presence like
+mist before the sun.  On February 10, 1840, the marriage took place.
+The wedded pair drove down to Windsor; but they were not, of course,
+entirely alone.  They were accompanied by their suites, and, in
+particular, by two persons--the Baron Stockmar and the Baroness Lehzen.
+
+
+III
+
+Albert had foreseen that his married life would not be all plain
+sailing; but he had by no means realised the gravity and the
+complication of the difficulties which he would have to face.
+Politically, he was a cipher.  Lord Melbourne was not only Prime
+Minister, he was in effect the Private Secretary of the Queen, and thus
+controlled the whole of the political existence of the sovereign.  A
+queen's husband was an entity unknown to the British Constitution.  In
+State affairs there seemed to be no place for him; nor was Victoria
+herself at all unwilling that this should be so.  'The English,' she
+had told the Prince when, during their engagement, a proposal had been
+made to give him a peerage, 'are very jealous of any foreigner
+interfering in the government of this country, and have already in some
+of the papers expressed a hope that you would not interfere.  Now,
+though I know you never would, still, if you were a Peer, they would
+all say, the Prince meant to play a political part.'[20]  'I know you
+never would!'  In {111} reality, she was not quite so certain; but she
+wished Albert to understand her views.  He would, she hoped, make a
+perfect husband; but, as for governing the country, he would see that
+she and Lord M. between them could manage that very well, without his
+help.
+
+But it was not only in politics that the Prince discovered that the
+part cut out for him was a negligible one.  Even as a husband, he
+found, his functions were to be of an extremely limited kind.  Over the
+whole of Victoria's private life the Baroness reigned supreme; and she
+had not the slightest intention of allowing that supremacy to be
+diminished by one iota.  Since the accession, her power had greatly
+increased.  Besides the undefined and enormous influence which she
+exercised through her management of the Queen's private correspondence,
+she was now the superintendent of the royal establishment and
+controlled the important office of Privy Purse.[21]  Albert very soon
+perceived that he was not master in his own house.[22]  Every detail of
+his own and his wife's existence was supervised by a third person:
+nothing could be done until the consent of Lehzen had first been
+obtained.  And Victoria, who adored Lehzen with unabated intensity, saw
+nothing in all this that was wrong.
+
+Nor was the Prince happier in his social surroundings.  A shy young
+foreigner, awkward in ladies' company, unexpansive and
+self-opinionated, it was improbable that, in any circumstances, he
+would have been a society success.  His appearance, too, was against
+him.  Though in the eyes of Victoria he was the mirror of manly beauty,
+her subjects, whose eyes were of a less Teutonic cast, did not agree
+with her.  To them--and particularly to the high-born ladies and {112}
+gentlemen who naturally saw him most--what was immediately and
+distressingly striking in Albert's face and figure and whole demeanour
+was his un-English look.  His features were regular, no doubt, but
+there was something smooth and smug about them; he was tall, but he was
+clumsily put together, and he walked with a slight slouch.  Really,
+they thought, this youth was more like some kind of foreign tenor than
+anything else.  These were serious disadvantages; but the line of
+conduct which the Prince adopted from the first moment of his arrival
+was far from calculated to dispel them.  Owing partly to a natural
+awkwardness, partly to a fear of undue familiarity, and partly to a
+desire to be absolutely correct, his manners were infused with an
+extraordinary stiffness and formality.  Whenever he appeared in
+company, he seemed to be surrounded by a thick hedge of prickly
+etiquette.  He never went out into ordinary society; he never walked in
+the streets of London; he was invariably accompanied by an equerry when
+he rode or drove.  He wanted to be irreproachable and, if that involved
+friendlessness, it could not be helped.  Besides, he had no very high
+opinion of the English.  So far as he could see, they cared for nothing
+but fox-hunting and Sunday observances; they oscillated between an
+undue frivolity and an undue gloom; if you spoke to them of friendly
+joyousness they stared; and they did not understand either the Laws of
+Thought or the wit of a German University.  Since it was clear that
+with such people he could have very little in common, there was no
+reason whatever for relaxing in their favour the rules of etiquette.
+In strict privacy, he could be natural and charming; Seymour and Anson
+were devoted to him, and he returned their affection; but they were
+subordinates--the {113} receivers of his confidences and the agents of
+his will.  From the support and the solace of true companionship he was
+utterly cut off.[23]
+
+A friend, indeed, he had--or rather, a mentor.  The Baron, established
+once more in the royal residence, was determined to work with as
+whole-hearted a detachment for the Prince's benefit as, more than
+twenty years before, he had worked for his uncle's.  The situations
+then and now, similar in many respects, were yet full of differences.
+Perhaps in either case the difficulties to be encountered were equally
+great; but the present problem was the more complex and the more
+interesting.  The young doctor, unknown and insignificant, whose only
+assets were his own wits and the friendship of an unimportant Prince,
+had been replaced by the accomplished confidant of kings and ministers,
+ripe in years, in reputation, and in the wisdom of a vast experience.
+It was possible for him to treat Albert with something of the
+affectionate authority of a father; but, on the other hand, Albert was
+no Leopold.  As the Baron was very well aware, he had none of his
+uncle's rigidity of ambition, none of his overweening impulse to be
+personally great.  He was virtuous and well-intentioned; he was clever
+and well-informed; but he took no interest in politics, and there were
+no signs that he possessed any commanding force of character.  Left to
+himself, he would almost certainly have subsided into a high-minded
+nonentity, an aimless dilettante busy over culture, a palace appendage
+without influence or power.  But he was not left to himself: Stockmar
+saw to that.  For ever at his pupil's elbow, the hidden Baron pushed
+him forward, with tireless pressure, {114} along the path which had
+been trod by Leopold so many years ago.  But, this time, the goal at
+the end of it was something more than the mediocre royalty that Leopold
+had reached.  The prize which Stockmar, with all the energy of
+disinterested devotion, had determined should be Albert's was a
+tremendous prize indeed.
+
+The beginning of the undertaking proved to be the most arduous part of
+it.  Albert was easily dispirited: what was the use of struggling to
+perform in a r�le which bored him and which, it was quite clear, nobody
+but the dear good Baron had any desire that he should take up?  It was
+simpler, and it saved a great deal of trouble, to let things slide.
+But Stockmar would not have it.[24]  Incessantly, he harped upon two
+strings--Albert's sense of duty and his personal pride.  Had the Prince
+forgotten the noble aims to which his life was to be devoted?  And was
+he going to allow himself, his wife, his family, his whole existence,
+to be governed by Baroness Lehzen?  The latter consideration was a
+potent one.  Albert had never been accustomed to giving way; and now,
+more than ever before, it would be humiliating to do so.  Not only was
+he constantly exasperated by the position of the Baroness in the royal
+household; there was another and a still more serious cause of
+complaint.  He was, he knew very well, his wife's intellectual
+superior, and yet he found, to his intense annoyance, that there were
+parts of her mind over which he exercised no influence.  When, urged on
+by the Baron, he attempted to discuss politics with Victoria, she
+eluded the subject, drifted into generalities, and then began to talk
+of something else.  She was treating him as she had once treated their
+uncle Leopold.  {115} When at last he protested, she replied that her
+conduct was merely the result of indolence; that when she was with
+_him_ she could not bear to bother her head with anything so dull as
+politics.  The excuse was worse than the fault: was he the wife and she
+the husband?  It almost seemed so.  But the Baron declared that the
+root of the mischief was Lehzen: that it was she who encouraged the
+Queen to have secrets; who did worse--undermined the natural
+ingenuousness of Victoria, and induced her to give, unconsciously no
+doubt, false reasons to explain away her conduct.[25]
+
+Minor disagreements made matters worse.  The royal couple differed in
+their tastes.  Albert, brought up in a r�gime of Spartan simplicity and
+early hours, found the great Court functions intolerably wearisome, and
+was invariably observed to be nodding on the sofa at half-past ten;
+while the Queen's favourite form of enjoyment was to dance through the
+night, and then, going out into the portico of the Palace, watch the
+sun rise behind St. Paul's and the towers of Westminster.[26]  She
+loved London and he detested it.  It was only in Windsor that he felt
+he could really breathe; but Windsor too had its terrors: though during
+the day there he could paint and walk and play on the piano, after
+dinner black tedium descended like a pall.  He would have liked to
+summon distinguished scientific and literary men to his presence, and
+after ascertaining their views upon various points of art and learning,
+to set forth his own; but unfortunately Victoria 'had no fancy to
+encourage such people'; knowing that she was unequal to taking a part
+in their conversation, she insisted that the evening routine should
+remain unaltered; the regulation interchange of platitudes with {116}
+official persons was followed as usual by the round table and the books
+of engravings, while the Prince, with three of his attendants, played
+game after game of double chess.[27]
+
+It was only natural that in so peculiar a situation, in which the
+elements of power, passion, and pride were so strangely apportioned,
+there should have been occasionally something more than mere
+irritation--a struggle of angry wills.  Victoria, no more than Albert,
+was in the habit of playing second fiddle.  Her arbitrary temper
+flashed out.  Her vitality, her obstinacy, her overweening sense of her
+own position, might well have beaten down before them his superiorities
+and his rights.  But she fought at a disadvantage; she was, in very
+truth, no longer her own mistress; a profound preoccupation dominated
+her, seizing upon her inmost purposes for its own extraordinary ends.
+She was madly in love.  The details of those curious battles are
+unknown to us; but Prince Ernest, who remained in England with his
+brother for some months, noted them with a friendly and startled
+eye.[28]  One story, indeed, survives, ill-authenticated and perhaps
+mythical, yet summing up, as such stories often do, the central facts
+of the case.  When, in wrath, the Prince one day had locked himself
+into his room, Victoria, no less furious, knocked on the door to be
+admitted.  'Who is there?' he asked.  'The Queen of England,' was the
+answer.  He did not move, and again there was a hail of knocks.  The
+question and the answer were repeated many times; but at last there was
+a pause, and then a gentler knocking.  'Who is there?' came once more
+the relentless question.  But this time the reply was different.  'Your
+wife, Albert.'  And the door was immediately opened.[29]
+
+{117}
+
+Very gradually the Prince's position changed.  He began to find the
+study of politics less uninteresting than he had supposed; he read
+Blackstone, and took lessons in English Law; he was occasionally
+present when the Queen interviewed her Ministers; and at Lord
+Melbourne's suggestion he was shown all the despatches relating to
+Foreign Affairs.  Sometimes he would commit his views to paper, and
+read them aloud to the Prime Minister, who, infinitely kind and
+courteous, listened with attention, but seldom made any reply.[30]  An
+important step was taken when, before the birth of the Princess Royal,
+the Prince, without any opposition in Parliament, was appointed Regent
+in case of the death of the Queen.[31]  Stockmar, owing to whose
+intervention with the Tories this happy result had been brought about,
+now felt himself at liberty to take a holiday with his family in
+Coburg; but his solicitude, poured out in innumerable letters, still
+watched over his pupil from afar.  'Dear Prince,' he wrote, 'I am
+satisfied with the news you have sent me.  Mistakes, misunderstandings,
+obstructions, which come in vexatious opposition to one's views, are
+always to be taken for just what they are--namely, natural phenomena of
+life, which represent one of its sides, and that the shady one.  In
+overcoming them with dignity, your mind has to exercise, to train, to
+enlighten itself; and your character to gain force, endurance, and the
+necessary hardness.'  The Prince had done well so far; but he must
+continue in the right path; above all, he was 'never to relax.'--'Never
+to relax in putting your magnanimity to the proof; never to relax in
+logical separation of what is great and essential from what is trivial
+and of no moment; never to relax in keeping {118} yourself up to a high
+standard--in the determination, daily renewed, to be consistent,
+patient, courageous.'  It was a hard programme, perhaps, for a young
+man of twenty-one; and yet there was something in it which touched the
+very depths of Albert's soul.  He sighed, but he listened--listened as
+to the voice of a spiritual director inspired with divine truth.  'The
+stars which are needful to you now,' the voice continued, 'and perhaps
+for some time to come, are _Love, Honesty, Truth_.  All those whose
+minds are warped, or who are destitute of true feeling, will _be apt to
+mistake you_, and to persuade themselves and the world that you are not
+the man you are--or, at least, may become....  Do you, therefore, be on
+the alert betimes, with your eyes open in every direction....  I wish
+for my Prince a great, noble, warm, and true heart, such as shall serve
+as the richest and surest basis for the noblest views of human nature,
+and the firmest resolve to give them development.'[32]
+
+Before long, the decisive moment came.  There was a General Election,
+and it became certain that the Tories, at last, must come into power.
+The Queen disliked them as much as ever; but, with a large majority in
+the House of Commons, they would now be in a position to insist upon
+their wishes being attended to.  Lord Melbourne himself was the first
+to realise the importance of carrying out the inevitable transition
+with as little friction as possible; and with his consent, the Prince,
+following up the _rapprochement_ which had begun over the Regency Act,
+opened, through Anson, a negotiation with Sir Robert Peel.  In a series
+of secret interviews, a complete understanding was reached upon the
+difficult and complex question of the Bedchamber.  It was agreed that
+the constitutional point {119} should not be raised, but that, on the
+formation of the Tory Government, the principal Whig ladies should
+retire, and their places be filled by others appointed by Sir
+Robert.[33]  Thus, in effect, though not in form, the Crown abandoned
+the claims of 1839, and they have never been subsequently put forward.
+The transaction was a turning-point in the Prince's career.  He had
+conducted an important negotiation with skill and tact; he had been
+brought into close and friendly relations with the new Prime Minister;
+it was obvious that a great political future lay before him.  Victoria
+was much impressed and deeply grateful.  'My dearest Angel,' she told
+King Leopold, 'is indeed a great comfort to me.  He takes the greatest
+interest in what goes on, feeling with and for me, and yet abstaining
+as he ought from biassing me either way, though we talk much on the
+subject, and his judgment is, as you say, good and mild.'[34]  She was
+in need of all the comfort and assistance he could give her.  Lord M.
+was going; and she could hardly bring herself to speak to Peel.  Yes;
+she would discuss everything with Albert now!
+
+Stockmar, who had returned to England, watched the departure of Lord
+Melbourne with satisfaction.  If all went well, the Prince should now
+wield a supreme political influence over Victoria.  But would all go
+well?  An unexpected development put the Baron into a serious fright.
+When the dreadful moment finally came, and the Queen, in anguish, bade
+adieu to her beloved Minister, it was settled between them that, though
+it would be inadvisable to meet very often, they could continue to
+correspond.  Never were the inconsistencies of Lord Melbourne's
+character shown more clearly than in what followed.  So long as he was
+{120} in office, his attitude towards Peel had been irreproachable; he
+had done all he could to facilitate the change of government; he had
+even, through more than one channel, transmitted privately to his
+successful rival advice as to the best means of winning the Queen's
+good graces.[35]  Yet, no sooner was he in opposition than his heart
+failed him.  He could not bear the thought of surrendering altogether
+the privilege and the pleasure of giving counsel to Victoria--of being
+cut off completely from the power and the intimacy which had been his
+for so long and in such abundant measure.  Though he had declared that
+he would be perfectly discreet in his letters, he could not resist
+taking advantage of the opening they afforded.  He discussed in detail
+various public questions, and, in particular, gave the Queen a great
+deal of advice in the matter of appointments.  This advice was
+followed.  Lord Melbourne recommended that Lord Heytesbury, who, he
+said, was an able man, should be made Ambassador at Vienna; and a week
+later the Queen wrote to the Foreign Secretary urging that Lord
+Heytesbury, whom she believed to be a very able man, should be employed
+'on some important mission.'  Stockmar was very much alarmed.  He wrote
+a memorandum, pointing out the unconstitutional nature of Lord
+Melbourne's proceedings and the unpleasant position in which the Queen
+might find herself if they were discovered by Peel; and he instructed
+Anson to take this memorandum to the ex-Minister.  Lord Melbourne,
+lounging on a sofa, read it through with compressed lips.  'This is
+quite an apple-pie opinion,' he said.  When Anson ventured to
+expostulate further, suggesting that it was unseemly in the leader of
+the Opposition to maintain an intimate {121} relationship with the
+Sovereign, the old man lost his temper.  'God eternally damn it!' he
+exclaimed, leaping up from his sofa, and dashing about the room.
+'Flesh and blood cannot stand this!'  He continued to write to the
+Queen, as before; and two more violent bombardments from the Baron were
+needed before he was brought to reason.  Then, gradually, his letters
+grew less and less frequent, with fewer and fewer references to public
+concerns; at last, they were entirely innocuous.  The Baron smiled;
+Lord M. had accepted the inevitable.[36]
+
+The Whig ministry resigned in September, 1841; but more than a year was
+to elapse before another and an equally momentous change was
+effected--the removal of Lehzen.  For, in the end, the mysterious
+governess was conquered.  The steps are unknown by which Victoria was
+at last led to accept her withdrawal with composure--perhaps with
+relief; but it is clear that Albert's domestic position must have been
+greatly strengthened by the appearance of children.  The birth of the
+Princess Royal had been followed in November 1841 by that of the Prince
+of Wales; and before very long another baby was expected.  The
+Baroness, with all her affection, could have but a remote share in such
+family delights.  She lost ground perceptibly.  It was noticed as a
+phenomenon that, once or twice, when the Court travelled, she was left
+behind at Windsor.[37]  The Prince was very cautious; at the change of
+Ministry, Lord Melbourne had advised him to choose that moment for
+decisive action; but he judged it wiser to wait.[38]  Time and the
+pressure of inevitable circumstances were for him; every day his {122}
+predominance grew more assured--and every night.  At length he
+perceived that he need hesitate no longer--that every wish, every
+velleity of his had only to be expressed to be at once Victoria's.  He
+spoke, and Lehzen vanished for ever.  No more would she reign in that
+royal heart and those royal halls.  No more, watching from a window at
+Windsor, would she follow her pupil and her sovereign, walking on the
+terrace among the obsequious multitude, with the eye of triumphant
+love.[39]  Returning to her native Hanover she established herself at
+B�ckeburg in a small but comfortable house, the walls of which were
+entirely covered by portraits of Her Majesty.[40]  The Baron, in spite
+of his dyspepsia, smiled again: Albert was supreme.
+
+
+IV
+
+The early discords had passed away completely--resolved into the
+absolute harmony of married life.  Victoria, overcome by a new, an
+unimagined revelation, had surrendered her whole soul to her husband.
+The beauty and the charm which so suddenly had made her his at first
+were, she now saw, no more than the outward manifestation of the true
+Albert.  There was an inward beauty, an inward glory which, blind that
+she was, she had then but dimly apprehended, but of which now she was
+aware in every fibre of her being--he was good--he was great!  How
+could she ever have dreamt of setting up her will against his wisdom,
+her ignorance against his knowledge, her fancies against his perfect
+taste?  Had she really once loved London and late hours and
+dissipation?  She who now was {123} only happy in the country, she who
+jumped out of bed every morning--oh, so early!--with Albert, to take a
+walk, before breakfast, with Albert alone!  How wonderful it was to be
+taught by him!  To be told by him which trees were which; and to learn
+all about the bees!  And then to sit doing cross-stitch while he read
+aloud to her Hallam's Constitutional History of England!  Or to listen
+to him playing on his new organ ('The organ is the first of
+instruments,' he said); or to sing to him a song by Mendelssohn, with a
+great deal of care over the time and the breathing, and only a very
+occasional false note!  And, after dinner, too--oh, how good of him!
+He had given up his double chess!  And so there could be round games at
+the round table, or everyone could spend the evening in the most
+amusing way imaginable--spinning counters and rings.[41]  When the
+babies came it was still more wonderful.  Pussy was such a clever
+little girl ('I am not Pussy!  I am the Princess Royal!' she had
+angrily exclaimed on one occasion); and Bertie--well, she could only
+pray _most_ fervently that the little Prince of Wales would grow up to
+'resemble his angelic dearest Father in _every, every_ respect, both in
+body and mind.'[42]  Her dear Mamma, too, had been drawn once more into
+the family circle, for Albert had brought about a reconciliation, and
+the departure of Lehzen had helped to obliterate the past.[43]  In
+Victoria's eyes, life had become an idyll, and, if the essential
+elements of an idyll are happiness, love and simplicity, an idyll it
+was; though, indeed, it was of a kind that might have disconcerted
+Theocritus.  'Albert brought in {124} dearest little Pussy,' wrote Her
+Majesty in her journal, 'in such a smart white merino dress trimmed
+with blue, which Mamma had given her, and a pretty cap, and placed her
+on my bed, seating himself next to her, and she was very dear and good.
+And as my precious, invaluable Albert sat there, and our little Love
+between us, I felt quite moved with happiness and gratitude to God.'[44]
+
+The past--the past of only three years since--when she looked back upon
+it, seemed a thing so remote and alien that she could explain it to
+herself in no other way than as some kind of delusion--an unfortunate
+mistake.  Turning over an old volume of her diary, she came upon this
+sentence--'As for "the confidence of the Crown," God knows!  No
+_Minister, no friend_ EVER possessed it so entirely as this truly
+excellent Lord Melbourne possesses mine!'  A pang shot through her--she
+seized a pen, and wrote upon the margin--'Reading this again, I cannot
+forbear remarking what an artificial sort of happiness _mine_ was
+_then_, and what a blessing it is I have now in my beloved Husband
+_real_ and solid happiness, which no Politics, no worldly reverses
+_can_ change; it could not have lasted long as it was then, for after
+all, kind and excellent as Lord M. is, and kind as he was to me, it was
+but in Society that I had amusement, and I was only living on that
+superficial resource, which I _then fancied_ was happiness!  Thank God!
+for me and others, this is changed, and I _know what_ REAL _happiness_
+is--V.R.'[45]  How did she know?  What is the distinction between
+happiness that is real and happiness that is felt?  So a
+philosopher--Lord M. himself perhaps--might have inquired.  But she was
+no philosopher, and Lord M. was a phantom, and Albert was beside her,
+and that was enough.
+
+{125}
+
+Happy, certainly, she was; and she wanted everyone to know it.  Her
+letters to King Leopold are sprinkled thick with raptures.  'Oh! my
+dearest uncle, I am sure if you knew _how_ happy, how blessed I feel,
+and how _proud_ I feel in possessing _such_ a perfect being as my
+husband...' such ecstasies seemed to gush from her pen unceasingly and
+almost of their own accord.[46]  When, one day, without thinking, Lady
+Lyttelton described someone to her as being 'as happy as a queen,' and
+then grew a little confused, 'Don't correct yourself, Lady Lyttelton,'
+said Her Majesty.  'A queen _is_ a very happy woman.'[47]
+
+But this new happiness was no lotus dream.  On the contrary, it was
+bracing, rather than relaxing.  Never before had she felt so acutely
+the necessity for doing her duty.  She worked more methodically than
+ever at the business of State; she watched over her children with
+untiring vigilance.  She carried on a large correspondence; she was
+occupied with her farm--her dairy--a whole multitude of household
+avocations--from morning till night.  Her active, eager little body
+hurrying with quick steps after the long strides of Albert down the
+corridors and avenues of Windsor,[48] seemed the very expression of her
+spirit.  Amid all the softness, the deliciousness of unmixed joy, all
+the liquescence, the overflowings of inexhaustible sentiment, her
+native rigidity remained.  'A vein of iron,' said Lady Lyttelton, who,
+as royal governess, had good means of observation, 'runs through her
+most extraordinary character.'[49]
+
+Sometimes the delightful routine of domestic existence had to be
+interrupted.  It was necessary to {126} exchange Windsor for Buckingham
+Palace, to open Parliament, or to interview official personages, or,
+occasionally, to entertain foreign visitors at the Castle.  Then the
+quiet Court put on a sudden magnificence, and sovereigns from over the
+seas--Louis Philippe, or the King of Prussia, or the King of
+Saxony--found at Windsor an entertainment that was indeed a royal one.
+Few spectacles in Europe, it was agreed, produced an effect so imposing
+as the great Waterloo banqueting hall, crowded with guests in sparkling
+diamonds and blazing uniforms, the long walls hung with the stately
+portraits of heroes, and the tables loaded with the gorgeous gold plate
+of the Kings of England.[50]  But, in that wealth of splendour, the
+most imposing spectacle of all was the Queen.  The little _Hausfrau_,
+who had spent the day before walking out with her children, inspecting
+her livestock, practising shakes at the piano, and filling up her
+journal with adoring descriptions of her husband, suddenly shone forth,
+without art, without effort, by a spontaneous and natural transition,
+the very culmination of Majesty.  The Tsar of Russia himself was deeply
+impressed.  Victoria on her side viewed with secret awe the tremendous
+Nicholas.  'A great event and a great compliment _his_ visit certainly
+is,' she told her uncle, 'and the people _here_ are extremely flattered
+at it.  He is certainly a _very striking_ man; still very handsome.
+His profile is _beautiful_, and his manners _most_ dignified and
+graceful; extremely civil--quite alarmingly so, as he is so full of
+attentions and _politeness_.  But the expression of the _eyes_ is
+_formidable_, and unlike anything I ever saw before.'[51]  She and
+Albert and 'the good King of Saxony,' who happened {127} to be there at
+the same time, and whom, she said, 'we like much--he is _so_
+unassuming'--drew together like tame villatic fowl in the presence of
+that awful eagle.  When he was gone, they compared notes about his
+face, his unhappiness, and his despotic power over millions.  Well!
+She for her part could not help pitying him, and she thanked God she
+was Queen of England.[52]
+
+When the time came for returning some of these visits, the royal pair
+set forth in their yacht, much to Victoria's satisfaction.  'I do love
+a ship!' she exclaimed, ran up and down ladders with the greatest
+agility, and cracked jokes with the sailors.[53]  The Prince was more
+aloof.  They visited Louis Philippe at the Ch�teau d'Eu; they visited
+King Leopold in Brussels.  It happened that a still more remarkable
+Englishwoman was in the Belgian capital, but she was not remarked; and
+Queen Victoria passed unknowing before the steady gaze of one of the
+mistresses in M. H�ger's _pensionnat_.  'A little, stout, vivacious
+lady, very plainly dressed--not much dignity or pretension about her,'
+was Charlotte Bront�'s comment as the royal carriage and six flashed by
+her, making her wait on the pavement for a moment, and interrupting the
+train of her reflections.[54]  Victoria was in high spirits, and even
+succeeded in instilling a little cheerfulness into her uncle's sombre
+Court.  King Leopold, indeed, was perfectly contented.  His dearest
+hopes had been fulfilled; all his ambitions were satisfied; and for the
+rest of his life he had only to enjoy, in undisturbed decorum, his
+throne, his respectability, the table of precedence, and the punctual
+discharge of his irksome duties.  But unfortunately the felicity of
+those who {128} surrounded him was less complete.  His Court, it was
+murmured, was as gloomy as a conventicle, and the most dismal of all
+the sufferers was his wife.  'Pas de plaisanteries, madame!' he had
+exclaimed to the unfortunate successor of the Princess Charlotte, when,
+in the early days of their marriage, she had attempted a feeble joke.
+Did she not understand that the consort of a constitutional sovereign
+must not be frivolous?  She understood, at last, only too well; and
+when the startled walls of the state apartments re-echoed to the
+chattering and the laughter of Victoria, the poor lady found that she
+had almost forgotten how to smile.
+
+Another year, Germany was visited, and Albert displayed the beauties of
+his home.  When Victoria crossed the frontier, she was much
+excited--and she was astonished as well.  'To hear the people speak
+German,' she noted in her diary, 'and to see the German soldiers, etc.,
+seemed to me so singular.'  Having recovered from this slight shock,
+she found the country charming.  She was f�ted everywhere, crowds of
+the surrounding royalties swooped down to welcome her, and the
+prettiest groups of peasant children, dressed in their best clothes,
+presented her with bunches of flowers.  The principality of Coburg,
+with its romantic scenery and its well-behaved inhabitants,
+particularly delighted her; and when she woke up one morning to find
+herself in 'dear Rosenau, my Albert's birthplace,' it was 'like a
+beautiful dream.'  On her return home, she expatiated, in a letter to
+King Leopold, upon the pleasures of the trip, dwelling especially upon
+the intensity of her affection for Albert's native land.  'I have a
+feeling,' she said, 'for our dear little Germany, which I cannot
+describe.  I felt it at Rosenau so much.  It is a something which
+touches me, and which goes {129} to my heart, and makes me inclined to
+cry.  I never felt at any other place that sort of pensive pleasure and
+peace which I felt there.  I fear I almost like it too much.'[55]
+
+
+V
+
+The husband was not so happy as the wife.  In spite of the great
+improvement in his situation, in spite of a growing family and the
+adoration of Victoria, Albert was still a stranger in a strange land,
+and the serenity of spiritual satisfaction was denied him.  It was
+something, no doubt, to have dominated his immediate environment; but
+it was not enough; and, besides, in the very completeness of his
+success, there was a bitterness.  Victoria idolised him; but it was
+understanding that he craved for, not idolatry; and how much did
+Victoria, filled to the brim though she was with him, understand him?
+How much does the bucket understand the well?  He was lonely.  He went
+to his organ and improvised with learned modulations until the sounds,
+swelling and subsiding through elaborate cadences, brought some solace
+to his heart.  Then, with the elasticity of youth, he hurried off to
+play with the babies, or to design a new pigsty, or to read aloud the
+'Church History of Scotland' to Victoria, or to pirouette before her on
+one toe, like a ballet-dancer, with a fixed smile, to show her how she
+ought to behave when she appeared in public places.[56]  Thus did he
+amuse himself; but there was one distraction in which he did not
+indulge.  He never flirted--no, not with the prettiest ladies of the
+Court.  When, during their engagement, the Queen had remarked with
+pride to {130} Lord Melbourne that the Prince paid no attention to any
+other woman, the cynic had answered 'No, that sort of thing is apt to
+come later'; upon which she had scolded him severely, and then hurried
+off to Stockmar to repeat what Lord M. had said.  But the Baron had
+reassured her; though in other cases, he had replied, that might
+happen, he did not think it would in Albert's.  And the Baron was
+right.  Throughout their married life no rival female charms ever gave
+cause to Victoria for one moment's pang of jealousy.[57]
+
+What more and more absorbed him--bringing with it a curious comfort of
+its own--was his work.  With the advent of Peel, he began to intervene
+actively in the affairs of the State.  In more ways than one--in the
+cast of their intelligence, in their moral earnestness, even in the
+uneasy formalism of their manners--the two men resembled each other;
+there was a sympathy between them; and thus Peel was ready enough to
+listen to the advice of Stockmar, and to urge the Prince forward into
+public life.  A royal commission was about to be formed to enquire
+whether advantage might not be taken of the rebuilding of the Houses of
+Parliament to encourage the Fine Arts in the United Kingdom; and Peel,
+with great perspicacity, asked the Prince to preside over it.  The work
+was of a kind which precisely suited Albert: his love of art, his love
+of method, his love of coming into contact--close yet dignified--with
+distinguished men--it satisfied them all; and he threw himself into it
+_con amore_.  Some of the members of the commission were somewhat
+alarmed when, in his opening speech, he pointed out the necessity of
+dividing the subjects to be considered into {131} 'categories'--the
+word, they thought, smacked dangerously of German metaphysics; but
+their confidence returned when they observed His Royal Highness's
+extraordinary technical acquaintance with the processes of
+fresco-painting.  When the question arose as to whether the decorations
+upon the walls of the new buildings should, or should not, have a moral
+purpose, the Prince spoke strongly for the affirmative.  Although many,
+he observed, would give but a passing glance to the works, the painter
+was not therefore to forget that others might view them with more
+thoughtful eyes.  This argument convinced the commission, and it was
+decided that the subjects to be depicted should be of an improving
+nature.  The frescoes were carried out in accordance with the
+commission's instructions, but unfortunately before very long they had
+become, even to the most thoughtful eyes, totally invisible.  It seems
+that His Royal Highness's technical acquaintance with the processes of
+fresco-painting was incomplete.[58]
+
+The next task upon which the Prince embarked was a more arduous one: he
+determined to reform the organisation of the royal household.  This
+reform had been long overdue.  For years past the confusion,
+discomfort, and extravagance in the royal residences, and in Buckingham
+Palace particularly, had been scandalous; no reform had been
+practicable under the rule of the Baroness; but her functions had now
+devolved upon the Prince, and in 1844 he boldly attacked the problem.
+Three years earlier, Stockmar, after careful enquiry, had revealed in
+an elaborate memorandum an extraordinary state of affairs.  The control
+of the household, it appeared, was divided in the strangest manner
+between a number of authorities, {132} each independent of the other,
+each possessed of vague and fluctuating powers, without responsibility
+and without co-ordination.  Of these authorities, the most prominent
+were the Lord Steward and the Lord Chamberlain--noblemen of high rank
+and political importance, who changed office with every administration,
+who did not reside with the Court, and had no effective representatives
+attached to it.  The distribution of their respective functions was
+uncertain and peculiar.  In Buckingham Palace, it was believed that the
+Lord Chamberlain had charge of the whole of the rooms, with the
+exception of the kitchen, sculleries, and pantries, which were claimed
+by the Lord Steward.  At the same time, the outside of the Palace was
+under the control of neither of these functionaries--but of the Office
+of Woods and Forests; and thus, while the insides of the windows were
+cleaned by the department of the Lord Chamberlain--or possibly, in
+certain cases, of the Lord Steward--the Office of Woods and Forests
+cleaned their outsides.  Of the servants, the housekeepers, the pages,
+and the housemaids were under the authority of the Lord Chamberlain;
+the clerk of the kitchen, the cooks, and the porters were under that of
+the Lord Steward; but the footmen, the livery-porters, and the
+under-butlers took their orders from yet another official--the Master
+of the Horse.  Naturally, in these circumstances the service was
+extremely defective and the lack of discipline among the servants
+disgraceful.  They absented themselves for as long as they pleased and
+whenever the fancy took them; 'and if,' as the Baron put it, 'smoking,
+drinking, and other irregularities occur in the dormitories, where
+footmen, etc., sleep ten and twelve in each room, no one can help it.'
+As for Her Majesty's {133} guests, there was nobody to show them to
+their rooms, and they were often left, having utterly lost their way in
+the complicated passages, to wander helpless by the hour.  The strange
+divisions of authority extended not only to persons but to things.  The
+Queen observed that there was never a fire in the dining-room.  She
+enquired why.  The answer was, 'The Lord Steward lays the fire, and the
+Lord Chamberlain lights it'; the underlings of those two great noblemen
+having failed to come to an accommodation, there was no help for
+it--the Queen must eat in the cold.[59]
+
+A surprising incident opened everyone's eyes to the confusion and
+negligence that reigned in the Palace.  A fortnight after the birth of
+the Princess Royal the nurse heard a suspicious noise in the room next
+to the Queen's bedroom.  She called to one of the pages, who, looking
+under a large sofa, perceived there a crouching figure 'with a most
+repulsive appearance.'  It was 'the boy Jones.'  This enigmatical
+personage, whose escapades dominated the newspapers for several ensuing
+months, and whose motives and character remained to the end ambiguous,
+was an undersized lad of seventeen, the son of a tailor, who had
+apparently gained admittance to the Palace by climbing over the garden
+wall and walking in through an open window.  Two years before he had
+paid a similar visit in the guise of a chimney-sweep.  He now declared
+that he had spent three days in the Palace, hiding under various beds,
+that he had 'helped himself to soup and other eatables,' and that he
+had 'sat upon the throne, seen the Queen, and heard the Princess Royal
+squall.'  Every detail of the strange affair was eagerly canvassed.
+_The Times_ reported that the boy {134} Jones had 'from his infancy
+been fond of reading,' but that 'his countenance is exceedingly
+sullen.'  It added: 'The sofa under which the boy Jones was discovered,
+we understand, is one of the most costly and magnificent material and
+workmanship, and ordered expressly for the accommodation of the royal
+and illustrious visitors who call to pay their respects to Her
+Majesty.'  The culprit was sent for three months to the 'House of
+Correction.'  When he emerged, he immediately returned to Buckingham
+Palace.  He was discovered, and sent back to the 'House of Correction'
+for another three months, after which he was offered �4 a week by a
+music hall to appear upon the stage.  He refused this offer, and
+shortly afterwards was found by the police loitering round Buckingham
+Palace.  The authorities acted vigorously, and, without any trial or
+process of law, shipped the boy Jones off to sea.  A year later his
+ship put into Portsmouth to refit, and he at once disembarked and
+walked to London.  He was re-arrested before he reached the Palace, and
+sent back to his ship, the _Warspite_.  On this occasion it was noticed
+that he had 'much improved in personal appearance and grown quite
+corpulent'; and so the boy Jones passed out of history, though we catch
+one last glimpse of him in 1844 falling overboard in the night between
+Tunis and Algiers.  He was fished up again; but it was conjectured--as
+one of the _Warspite's_ officers explained in a letter to _The
+Times_--that his fall had not been accidental, but that he had
+deliberately jumped into the Mediterranean in order to 'see the
+life-buoy light burning.'  Of a boy with such a record, what else could
+be supposed?[60]
+
+{135}
+
+But discomfort and alarm were not the only results of the mismanagement
+of the household; the waste, extravagance, and peculation that also
+flowed from it were immeasurable.  There were preposterous perquisites
+and malpractices of every kind.  It was, for instance, an ancient and
+immutable rule that a candle that had once been lighted should never be
+lighted again; what happened to the old candles nobody knew.  Again,
+the Prince, examining the accounts, was puzzled by a weekly expenditure
+of thirty-five shillings on 'Red Room Wine.'  He enquired into the
+matter, and after great difficulty discovered that in the time of
+George III a room in Windsor Castle with red hangings had once been
+used as a guard-room, and that five shillings a day had been allowed to
+provide wine for the officers.  The guard had long since been moved
+elsewhere, but the payment for wine in the Red Room continued, the
+money being received by a half-pay officer who held the sinecure
+position of under-butler.[61]
+
+After much laborious investigation, and a stiff struggle with the
+multitude of vested interests which had been brought into being by long
+years of neglect, the Prince succeeded in effecting a complete reform.
+The various conflicting authorities were induced to resign their powers
+into the hands of a single official, the Master of the Household, who
+became responsible for the entire management of the royal palaces.
+Great economies were made, and the whole crowd of venerable abuses was
+swept away.  Among others, the unlucky half-pay officer of the Red Room
+was, much to his surprise, given the choice of relinquishing his weekly
+emolument or of performing the duties of an under-butler.  Even the
+irregularities among the footmen, {136} etc., were greatly diminished.
+There were outcries and complaints; the Prince was accused of meddling,
+of injustice, and of saving candle-ends; but he held on his course, and
+before long the admirable administration of the royal household was
+recognised as a convincing proof of his perseverance and capacity.[62]
+
+At the same time his activity was increasing enormously in a more
+important sphere.  He had become the Queen's Private Secretary, her
+confidential adviser, her second self.  He was now always present at
+her interviews with Ministers.[63]  He took, like the Queen, a special
+interest in foreign policy; but there was no public question in which
+his influence was not felt.  A double process was at work; while
+Victoria fell more and more absolutely under his intellectual
+predominance, he, simultaneously, grew more and more completely
+absorbed by the machinery of high politics--the incessant and
+multifarious business of a great State.  Nobody any more could call him
+a dilettante; he was a worker, a public personage, a man of affairs.
+Stockmar noted the change with exultation.  'The Prince,' he wrote,
+'has improved very much lately.  He has evidently a head for politics.
+He has become, too, far more independent.  His mental activity is
+constantly on the increase, and he gives the greater part of his time
+to business, without complaining.'  'The relations between husband and
+wife,' added the Baron, 'are all one could desire.'[64]
+
+Long before Peel's ministry came to an end, there had been a complete
+change in Victoria's attitude towards him.  His appreciation of the
+Prince had softened her heart; the sincerity and warmth of his {137}
+nature, which, in private intercourse with those whom he wished to
+please, had the power of gradually dissipating the awkwardness of his
+manners, did the rest.[65]  She came in time to regard him with intense
+feelings of respect and attachment.  She spoke of 'our worthy Peel,'
+for whom, she said, she had 'an _extreme_ admiration' and who had shown
+himself 'a man of unbounded _loyalty, courage_, patriotism, and
+_high-mindedness_, and his conduct towards me has been _chivalrous_
+almost, I might say.'[66]  She dreaded his removal from office almost
+as frantically as she had once dreaded that of Lord M.  It would be,
+she declared, a _great calamity_.  Six years before, what would she
+have said, if a prophet had told her that the day would come when she
+would be horrified by the triumph of the Whigs?  Yet there was no
+escaping it; she had to face the return of her old friends.  In the
+ministerial crises of 1845 and 1846, the Prince played a dominating
+part.  Everybody recognised that he was the real centre of the
+negotiations--the actual controller of the forces and the functions of
+the Crown.  The process by which this result was reached had been so
+gradual as to be almost imperceptible; but it may be said with
+certainty that, by the close of Peel's administration, Albert had
+become, in effect, the King of England.[67]
+
+
+VI
+
+With the final emergence of the Prince came the final extinction of
+Lord Melbourne.  A year after his loss of office, he had been struck
+down by a paralytic seizure; he had apparently recovered, but his old
+{138} elasticity had gone for ever.  Moody, restless, and unhappy, he
+wandered like a ghost about the town, bursting into soliloquies in
+public places, or asking odd questions, suddenly, _� propos de bottes_,
+'I'll be hanged if I'll do it for you, my Lord,' he was heard to say in
+the hall at Brooks's, standing by himself, and addressing the air after
+much thought.  'Don't you consider,' he abruptly asked a fellow-guest
+at Lady Holland's, leaning across the dinner-table in a pause of the
+conversation, 'that it was a most damnable act of Henri Quatre to
+change his religion with a view to securing the Crown?'  He sat at
+home, brooding for hours in miserable solitude.  He turned over his
+books--his classics and his Testaments--but they brought him no comfort
+at all.  He longed for the return of the past, for the impossible, for
+he knew not what, for the devilries of Caro, for the happy platitudes
+of Windsor.  His friends had left him, and no wonder, he said in
+bitterness--the fire was out.  He secretly hoped for a return to power,
+scanning the newspapers with solicitude, and occasionally making a
+speech in the House of Lords.  His correspondence with the Queen
+continued, and he appeared from time to time at Court; but he was a
+mere simulacrum of his former self; 'the dream,' wrote Victoria, 'is
+_past_.'  As for his political views, they could no longer be
+tolerated.  The Prince was an ardent Free Trader, and so, of course,
+was the Queen; and when, dining at Windsor at the time of the repeal of
+the Corn Laws, Lord Melbourne suddenly exclaimed, 'Ma'am, it's a damned
+dishonest act!' everyone was extremely embarrassed.  Her Majesty
+laughed and tried to change the conversation, but without avail; Lord
+Melbourne returned to the charge again and again with--'I say, Ma'am,
+it's damned dishonest!'--until {139} the Queen said 'Lord Melbourne, I
+must beg you not to say anything more on this subject now'; and then he
+held his tongue.  She was kind to him, writing him long letters, and
+always remembering his birthday; but it was kindness at a distance, and
+he knew it.  He had become 'poor Lord Melbourne.'  A profound
+disquietude devoured him.  He tried to fix his mind on the condition of
+agriculture and the Oxford Movement.  He wrote long memoranda in
+utterly undecipherable handwriting.  He was convinced that he had lost
+all his money, and could not possibly afford to be a Knight of the
+Garter.  He had run through everything, and yet--if Peel went out, he
+might be sent for--why not?  He was never sent for.  The Whigs ignored
+him in their consultations, and the leadership of the party passed to
+Lord John Russell.  When Lord John became Prime Minister, there was
+much politeness, but Lord Melbourne was not asked to join the Cabinet.
+He bore the blow with perfect amenity; but he understood, at last, that
+that was the end.[68]
+
+For two years more he lingered, sinking slowly into unconsciousness and
+imbecility.  Sometimes, propped up in his chair, he would be heard to
+murmur, with unexpected appositeness, the words of Samson:--
+
+  'So much I feel my general spirit droop,
+  My hopes all flat, nature within me seems
+  In all her functions weary of herself,
+  My race of glory run, and race of shame,
+  And I shall shortly be with them that rest.'[69]
+
+A few days before his death, Victoria, learning that there was no hope
+of his recovery, turned her mind for {140} a little towards that which
+had once been Lord M.  'You will grieve to hear,' she told King
+Leopold, 'that our good, dear, old friend Melbourne is dying....  One
+cannot forget how good and kind and amiable he was, and it brings back
+so many recollections to my mind, though, God knows!  I never wish that
+time back again.'[70]
+
+She was in little danger.  The tide of circumstance was flowing now
+with irresistible fullness towards a very different consummation.  The
+seriousness of Albert, the claims of her children, her own inmost
+inclinations, and the movement of the whole surrounding world, combined
+to urge her forward along the narrow way of public and domestic duty.
+Her family steadily increased.  Within eighteen months of the birth of
+the Prince of Wales the Princess Alice appeared, and a year later the
+Prince Alfred, and then the Princess Helena, and, two years afterwards,
+the Princess Louise; and still there were signs that the pretty row of
+royal infants was not complete.  The parents, more and more involved in
+family cares and family happiness, found the pomp of Windsor galling,
+and longed for some more intimate and remote retreat.  On the advice of
+Peel they purchased the estate of Osborne, in the Isle of Wight.  Their
+skill and economy in financial matters had enabled them to lay aside a
+substantial sum of money; and they could afford, out of their savings,
+not merely to buy the property but to build a new house for themselves
+and to furnish it at a cost of �200,000.[71]  At Osborne, by the
+sea-shore, and among the woods, which Albert, with memories of Rosenau
+in his mind, had so carefully planted, the royal family spent every
+{141} hour that could be snatched from Windsor and London--delightful
+hours of deep retirement and peaceful work.[72]  The public looked on
+with approval.  A few aristocrats might sniff or titter; but with the
+nation at large the Queen was now once more extremely popular.  The
+middle-classes, in particular, were pleased.  They liked a love-match;
+they liked a household which combined the advantages of royalty and
+virtue, and in which they seemed to see, reflected as in some
+resplendent looking-glass, the ideal image of the very lives they led
+themselves.  Their own existences, less exalted, but oh! so soothingly
+similar, acquired an added excellence, an added succulence, from the
+early hours, the regularity, the plain tuckers, the round games, the
+roast beef and Yorkshire pudding of Osborne.  It was indeed a model
+Court.  Not only were its central personages the patterns of propriety,
+but no breath of scandal, no shadow of indecorum, might approach its
+utmost boundaries.[73]  For Victoria, with all the zeal of a convert,
+upheld now the standard of moral purity with an inflexibility
+surpassing, if that were possible, Albert's own.  She blushed to think
+how she had once believed--how she had once actually told _him_--that
+one might be too strict and particular in such matters, and that one
+ought to be indulgent towards other people's dreadful sins.  But she
+was no longer Lord M.'s pupil: she was Albert's wife.  She was
+more--the embodiment, the living apex of a new era in the generations
+of mankind.  The last vestige of the eighteenth century had
+disappeared; cynicism and subtlety were shrivelled into powder; and
+duty, industry, morality, and domesticity triumphed over {142} them.
+Even the very chairs and tables had assumed, with a singular
+responsiveness, the forms of prim solidity.  The Victorian Age was in
+full swing.
+
+
+VII
+
+Only one thing more was needed: material expression must be given to
+the new ideals and the new forces, so that they might stand revealed in
+visible glory before the eyes of an astonished world.  It was for
+Albert to supply this want.  He mused, and was inspired: the Great
+Exhibition came into his head.
+
+Without consulting anyone, he thought out the details of his conception
+with the minutest care.  There had been exhibitions before in the
+world, but this should surpass them all.  It should contain specimens
+of what every country could produce in raw materials, in machinery and
+mechanical inventions, in manufactures, and in the applied and plastic
+arts.  It should not be merely useful and ornamental; it should teach a
+high moral lesson.  It should be an international monument to those
+supreme blessings of civilisation--peace, progress, and prosperity.
+For some time past the Prince had been devoting much of his attention
+to the problems of commerce and industry.  He had a taste for machinery
+of every kind, and his sharp eye had more than once detected, with the
+precision of an expert, a missing cog-wheel in some vast and
+complicated engine.[74]  A visit to Liverpool, where he opened the
+Albert Dock, impressed upon his mind the immensity of modern industrial
+forces, though in a letter to Victoria describing his experiences, he
+was careful to retain his customary lightness of touch.  'As {143} I
+write,' he playfully remarked, 'you will be making your evening
+toilette, and not be ready in time for dinner.  I must set about the
+same task, and not, let me hope, with the same result....  The loyalty
+and enthusiasm of the inhabitants are great; but the heat is greater
+still.  I am satisfied that if the population of Liverpool had been
+weighed this morning, and were to be weighed again now, they would be
+found many degrees lighter.  The docks are wonderful, and the mass of
+shipping incredible.'[75]  In art and science he had been deeply
+interested since boyhood; his reform of the household had put his
+talent for organisation beyond a doubt; and thus from every point of
+view the Prince was well qualified for his task.  Having matured his
+plans, he summoned a small committee and laid an outline of his scheme
+before it.  The committee approved, and the great undertaking was set
+on foot without delay.[76]
+
+Two years, however, passed before it was completed.  For two years the
+Prince laboured with extraordinary and incessant energy.  At first all
+went smoothly.  The leading manufacturers warmly took up the idea; the
+colonies and the East India Company were sympathetic; the great foreign
+nations were eager to send in their contributions; the powerful support
+of Sir Robert Peel was obtained, and the use of a site in Hyde Park,
+selected by the Prince, was sanctioned by the Government.  Out of 234
+plans for the Exhibition building, the Prince chose that of Joseph
+Paxton, famous as a designer of gigantic conservatories; and the work
+was on the point of being put in hand when a series of unexpected
+difficulties arose.  Opposition to the whole scheme, which had long
+been smouldering {144} in various quarters, suddenly burst forth.
+There was an outcry, headed by _The Times_, against the use of the Park
+for the Exhibition; for a moment it seemed as if the building would be
+relegated to a suburb; but, after a fierce debate in the House, the
+supporters of the site in the Park won the day.  Then it appeared that
+the project lacked a sufficient financial backing; but this obstacle,
+too, was surmounted, and eventually �200,000 was subscribed as a
+guarantee fund.  The enormous glass edifice rose higher and higher,
+covering acres and enclosing towering elm trees beneath its roof: and
+then the fury of its enemies reached a climax.  The fashionable, the
+cautious, the Protectionists, the pious, all joined in the hue and cry.
+It was pointed out that the Exhibition would serve as a rallying point
+for all the ruffians in England, for all the malcontents in Europe; and
+that on the day of its opening there would certainly be a riot and
+probably a revolution.  It was asserted that the glass roof was porous,
+and that the droppings of fifty million sparrows would utterly destroy
+every object beneath it.  Agitated Nonconformists declared that the
+Exhibition was an arrogant and wicked enterprise which would infallibly
+bring down God's punishment upon the nation.  Colonel Sibthorpe, in the
+debate on the Address, prayed that hail and lightning might descend
+from heaven on the accursed thing.  The Prince, with unyielding
+perseverance and infinite patience, pressed on to his goal.  His health
+was seriously affected; he suffered from constant sleeplessness; his
+strength was almost worn out.  But he remembered the injunctions of
+Stockmar and never relaxed.  The volume of his labours grew more
+prodigious every day; he toiled at committees, presided over public
+meetings, made speeches, and carried on {145} communications with every
+corner of the civilised world--and his efforts were rewarded.  On May
+1, 1851, the Great Exhibition was opened by the Queen before an
+enormous concourse of persons, amid scenes of dazzling brilliancy and
+triumphant enthusiasm.[77]
+
+Victoria herself was in a state of excitement which bordered on
+delirium.  She performed her duties in a trance of joy, gratitude, and
+amazement, and, when it was all over, her feelings poured themselves
+out into her journal in a torrential flood.  The day had been nothing
+but an endless succession of glories--or rather, one vast glory--one
+vast radiation of Albert.  Everything she had seen, everything she had
+felt or heard, had been so beautiful, so wonderful, that even the royal
+underlinings broke down under the burden of emphasis, while her
+remembering pen rushed on, regardless, from splendour to splendour--the
+huge crowds, so well-behaved and loyal--flags of all the nations
+floating--the inside of the building, so immense, with myriads of
+people and the sun shining through the roof--a little side-room, where
+we left our shawls--palm-trees and machinery--dear Albert--the place so
+big that we could hardly hear the organ--thankfulness to God--a curious
+assemblage of political and distinguished men--the March from
+'Athalie'--God bless my dearest Albert, God bless my dearest
+country!--a glass fountain--the Duke and Lord Anglesey walking arm in
+arm--a beautiful Amazon, in bronze, by Kiss--Mr. Paxton, who might be
+justly proud, and rose from being a common gardener's boy--Sir George
+Grey in tears, and everybody astonished and delighted.[78]
+
+{146}
+
+A striking incident occurred when, after a short prayer by the
+Archbishop of Canterbury, the choir of 600 voices burst into the
+'Hallelujah Chorus.'  At that moment a Chinaman, dressed in full
+national costume, stepped out into the middle of the central nave, and,
+advancing slowly towards the royal group, did obeisance to Her Majesty.
+The Queen, much impressed, had no doubt that he was an eminent
+mandarin; and, when the final procession was formed, orders were given
+that, as no representative of the Celestial Empire was present, he
+should be included in the diplomatic cort�ge.  He accordingly, with the
+utmost gravity, followed immediately behind the Ambassadors.  He
+subsequently disappeared, and it was rumoured, among ill-natured
+people, that, far from being a mandarin, the fellow was a mere
+impostor.  But nobody ever really discovered the nature of the comments
+that had been lurking behind the matchless impassivity of that yellow
+face.[79]
+
+A few days later Victoria poured out her heart to her uncle.  The first
+of May, she said, was 'the _greatest_ day in our history, the most
+_beautiful_ and _imposing_ and _touching_ spectacle ever seen, and the
+triumph of my beloved Albert....  It was the _happiest, proudest_ day
+in my life, and I can think of nothing else.  Albert's dearest name is
+immortalised with this _great_ conception, _his_ own, and my _own_ dear
+country _showed_ she was _worthy_ of it.  The triumph is _immense_.'[80]
+
+It was.  The enthusiasm was universal; even the bitterest scoffers were
+converted, and joined in the {147} chorus of praise.[81]
+Congratulations from public bodies poured in; the City of Paris gave a
+great _f�te_ to the Exhibition committee; and the Queen and the Prince
+made a triumphal progress through the North of England.  The financial
+results were equally remarkable.  The total profit made by the
+Exhibition amounted to a sum of �165,000, which was employed in the
+purchase of land for the erection of a permanent National Museum in
+South Kensington.  During the six months of its existence in Hyde Park
+over six million persons visited it, and not a single accident
+occurred.  But there is an end to all things; and the time had come for
+the Crystal Palace to be removed to the salubrious seclusion of
+Sydenham.  Victoria, sad but resigned, paid her final visit.  'It
+looked so beautiful,' she said, 'I could not believe it was the last
+time I was to see it.  An organ, accompanied by a fine and powerful
+wind instrument called the sommerophone, was being played, and it
+nearly upset me.  The canvas is very dirty, the red curtains are faded
+and many things are very much soiled, still the effect is fresh and new
+as ever and most beautiful.  The glass fountain was already removed ...
+and the sappers and miners were rolling about the little boxes just as
+they did at the beginning.  It made us all very melancholy.'  But more
+cheerful thoughts followed.  When all was over, she expressed her
+boundless satisfaction in a dithyrambic letter to the Prime Minister.
+Her beloved husband's name, she said, was for ever immortalised, and
+that this was universally recognised by the country was a source to her
+of immense happiness and gratitude.  'She feels grateful to
+Providence,' her Majesty concluded, 'to have permitted her to be united
+to so great, so noble, {148} so excellent a Prince, and this year will
+ever remain the proudest and happiest of her life.  The day of the
+closing of the Exhibition (which the Queen regretted much she could not
+witness), was the twelfth anniversary of her betrothal to the Prince,
+which is a curious coincidence.'[82]
+
+
+
+[1] Martin, I, 1-2; Grey, 213-4.
+
+[2] Grey, 7-9; Crawford, 245-6; Panam, 256-7.
+
+[3] Grey, chaps. i to vi; Ernest, I, 18-23.
+
+[4] Grey, App. B.
+
+[5] _Ibid._, 124-7.
+
+[6] Gossart; Ernest, I, 72-3
+
+[7] Grey, 169-73,
+
+[8] Stockmar, 310.
+
+[9] Grey, 133, 415, 416, 419.
+
+[10] Stockmar, 331-2.
+
+[11] Grey, 425.
+
+[12] Grey, 421-5; _Letters_, I, 188.
+
+[13] 'I had much talk with Lady Cowper about the Court.  She lamented
+the obstinate character of the Queen, from which she thought that
+hereafter great evils might be apprehended.  She said that her
+prejudices and antipathies were deep and strong, and her disposition
+very inflexible.  Her hatred of Peel and her resentment against the
+Duke for having sided with him rather than with her in the old quarrel
+are unabated.'  Greville, Nov. 13, 1839 (unpublished).
+
+[14] Greville, Jan.  29, Feb. 15, 1840 (unpublished).
+
+[15] _Letters_, I, 201.
+
+[16] _Letters_, I, 200-8; _Girlhood_, II, 287.
+
+[17] _Dictionary of National Biography_, Art. Sir James Clark;
+_Letters_, I. 202.
+
+[18] Grey, 292-303.
+
+[19] Greville, Feb. 15, 1840 (unpublished).
+
+[20] _Letters_, I, 199.
+
+[21] Martin, I, 71, 153.
+
+[22] Grey, 319-20.
+
+[23] Greville, April 3, 1840 (unpublished); Grey, 353-4; Ernest, I,
+93-4.
+
+[24] Stockmar, 351.
+
+[25] _Letters_, I, 224.
+
+[26] Blomfield, I, 19.
+
+[27] Grey, 340; _Letters_, I, 256.
+
+[28] Ernest, I, 93.
+
+[29] Jerrold, _Married Life_, 56.
+
+[30] Grey, 320-1, 361-2.
+
+[31] Stockmar, 352-7.
+
+[32] Martin, I, 90-2.
+
+[33] _Letters_, I, 271-4, 284-6.
+
+[34] _Letters_, I, 280.
+
+[35] _Letters_, I, 305; Greville, V, 39-40.
+
+[36] _Letters_, I, 325-6, 329, 330-1, 339-42, 352-4, 360-3, 368.
+
+[37] _Ibid._, I, 291, 295.
+
+[38] _Ibid._, I, 303.
+
+[39] Lyttelton, 282-3.
+
+[40] Bloomfield, I, 215.
+
+[41] Grey, 338-9; Bloomfield, I, 28, 123; Lyttelton, 300, 303, 305-6,
+312, 334-5; Martin, I, 488; _Letters_, I, 369.
+
+[42] _Letters_, I, 366.
+
+[43] _Ibid._, III, 439.
+
+[44] Martin, I, 125.
+
+[45] _Girlhood_, II, 135.
+
+[46] _Letters_, I, 366, 464-5, 475, etc.
+
+[47] Lyttelton, 306.
+
+[48] Crawford, 243
+
+[49] Lyttelton, 348.
+
+[50] _Letters_, II, 13; Bunsen, II, 6; Bloomfield, I, 53-4.
+
+[51] _Letters_, II, 12-16.
+
+[52] Martin, I, 224.
+
+[53] Lyttelton, 292; Bloomfield, I, 76-7.
+
+[54] Gaskell, I, 313.
+
+[55] Martin, I, 275, 306.
+
+[56] Lyttelton, 303, 354, 402.
+
+[57] Clarendon, I, 181-2; _Girlhood_, II, 299, 306.
+
+[58] Martin, I, 119-25, 167; Stockmar, 660.
+
+[59] Stockmar, 404-10; Martin, I, 156-60.
+
+[60] _The Times_, Dec., 1840: March, July, Dec., 1841; Feb., Oct.,
+1842; July, 1844.
+
+[61] _The Times_ 'Life,' 45.
+
+[62] Stockmar, 409-10; Martin, I, 161.
+
+[63] Greville, VII, 132.
+
+[64] Stockmar, 466-7.
+
+[65] Disraeli, 311; Greville, VI, 367-8.
+
+[66] _Letters_, II, 64.
+
+[67] Greville, V, 329-30.
+
+[68] Torrens, 502, chap. xxxiii; _Letters_, I, 451; II, 140; Greville,
+V, 359; VI, 125.
+
+[69] Greville, VI, 255.
+
+[70] _Letters_, II, 203.
+
+[71] Greville, VI, 68-9.
+
+[72] Martin, I, 247-9; Grey, 113.
+
+[73] Stockmar, 363; Martin, I, 316.
+
+[74] Martin, II, 87.
+
+[75] Martin, I, 334.
+
+[76] _Ibid._, II, 224-5.
+
+[77] Martin, II, 225, 243-51, 289, 297-9, 358-9; _Dictionary of
+National Biography_, Art. 'Joseph Paxton'; Bloomfield, II, 3-4.
+
+[78] Martin, II, 364-8.
+
+[79] Martin, II, 367 and note.
+
+[80] _Letters_, II, 317-8.
+
+[81] Greville, VI, 413.
+
+[82] Martin, II, 369-72, 386-92, 403-5.
+
+
+
+
+{149}
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+LORD PALMERSTON
+
+I
+
+In 1851 the Prince's fortunes reached their highwater mark.  The
+success of the Great Exhibition enormously increased his reputation and
+seemed to assure him henceforward a leading place in the national life.
+But before the year was out another triumph, in a very different sphere
+of action, was also his.  This triumph, big with fateful consequences,
+was itself the outcome of a series of complicated circumstances which
+had been gathering to a climax for many years.
+
+The unpopularity of Albert in high society had not diminished with
+time.  Aristocratic persons continued to regard him with disfavour; and
+he on his side withdrew further and further into a contemptuous
+reserve.  For a moment, indeed, it appeared as if the dislike of the
+upper classes was about to be suddenly converted into cordiality; for
+they learnt with amazement that the Prince, during a country visit, had
+ridden to hounds and acquitted himself remarkably well.  They had
+always taken it for granted that his horsemanship was of some
+second-rate foreign quality, and here he was jumping five-barred gates
+and tearing after the fox as if he had been born and bred in
+Leicestershire.  They could hardly believe it; was it possible that
+they had made a mistake, and that Albert was a {150} good fellow after
+all?  Had he wished to be thought so he would certainly have seized
+this opportunity, purchased several hunters, and used them constantly.
+But he had no such desire; hunting bored him, and made Victoria
+nervous.  He continued, as before, to ride, as he himself put it, for
+exercise or convenience, not for amusement; and it was agreed that
+though the Prince, no doubt, could keep in his saddle well enough, he
+was no sportsman.[1]
+
+This was a serious matter.  It was not merely that Albert was laughed
+at by fine ladies and sneered at by fine gentlemen; it was not merely
+that Victoria, who before her marriage had cut some figure in society,
+had, under her husband's influence, almost completely given it up.
+Since Charles the Second the sovereigns of England had, with a single
+exception, always been unfashionable; and the fact that the exception
+was George the Fourth seemed to give an added significance to the rule.
+What was grave was not the lack of fashion, but the lack of other and
+more important qualities.  The hostility of the upper classes was
+symptomatic of an antagonism more profound than one of manners or even
+of tastes.  The Prince, in a word, was un-English.  What that word
+precisely meant it was difficult to say; but the fact was patent to
+every eye.  Lord Palmerston, also, was not fashionable; the great Whig
+aristocrats looked askance at him, and tolerated him only as an
+unpleasant necessity thrust upon them by fate.  But Lord Palmerston was
+English through and through; there was something in him that expressed,
+with extraordinary vigour, the fundamental qualities of the English
+race.  And he was the very antithesis of the Prince.  By a curious
+chance it so happened that this typical {151} Englishman was brought
+into closer contact than any other of his countrymen with the alien
+from over the sea.  It thus fell out that differences which, in more
+fortunate circumstances, might have been smoothed away and obliterated,
+became accentuated to the highest pitch.  All the mysterious forces in
+Albert's soul leapt out to do battle with his adversary, and, in the
+long and violent conflict that followed, it almost seemed as if he was
+struggling with England herself.
+
+Palmerston's whole life had been spent in the government of the
+country.  At twenty-two he had been a Minister; at twenty-five he had
+been offered the Chancellorship of the Exchequer, which, with that
+prudence which formed so unexpected a part of his character, he had
+declined to accept.  His first spell of office had lasted
+uninterruptedly for twenty-one years.  When Lord Grey came into power
+he received the Foreign Secretaryship, a post which he continued to
+occupy, with two intervals, for another twenty-one years.  Throughout
+this period his reputation with the public had steadily grown, and
+when, in 1846, he became Foreign Secretary for the third time, his
+position in the country was almost, if not quite, on an equality with
+that of the Prime Minister, Lord John Russell.  He was a tall, big man
+of sixty-two, with a jaunty air, a large face, dyed whiskers, and a
+long, sardonic upper lip.  His private life was far from respectable,
+but he had greatly strengthened his position in society by marrying,
+late in life, Lady Cowper, the sister of Lord Melbourne, and one of the
+most influential of the Whig hostesses.  Powerful, experienced, and
+supremely self-confident, he naturally paid very little attention to
+Albert.  Why should he?  The Prince was interested in foreign affairs?
+Very well, then; let the Prince {152} pay attention to _him_--to him,
+who had been a Cabinet Minister when Albert was in the cradle, who was
+the chosen leader of a great nation, and who had never failed in
+anything he had undertaken in the whole course of his life.  Not that
+he wanted the Prince's attention--far from it: so far as he could see,
+Albert was merely a young foreigner, who suffered from having no vices,
+and whose only claim to distinction was that he had happened to marry
+the Queen of England.  This estimate, as he found out to his cost, was
+a mistaken one.  Albert was by no means insignificant, and, behind
+Albert, there was another figure by no means insignificant
+either--there was Stockmar.
+
+But Palmerston, busy with his plans, his ambitions, and the management
+of a great department, brushed all such considerations on one side; it
+was his favourite method of action.  He lived by instinct--by a quick
+eye and a strong hand, a dexterous management of every crisis as it
+arose, a half-unconscious sense of the vital elements in a situation.
+He was very bold; and nothing gave him more exhilaration than to steer
+the ship of state in a high wind, on a rough sea, with every stitch of
+canvas on her that she could carry.  But there is a point beyond which
+boldness becomes rashness--a point perceptible only to intuition and
+not to reason; and beyond that point Palmerston never went.  When he
+saw that the case demanded it, he could go slow--very slow indeed; in
+fact, his whole career, so full of vigorous adventure, was nevertheless
+a masterly example of the proverb, 'Tout vient � point � qui sait
+attendre.'  But when he decided to go quick, nobody went quicker.  One
+day, returning from Osborne, he found that he had missed the train to
+London; he ordered a special, but the station-master told him that to
+put a special {153} train upon the line at that time of day would be
+dangerous, and he could not allow it.  Palmerston insisted, declaring
+that he had important business in London, which could not wait.  The
+station-master, supported by all the officials, continued to demur; the
+company, he said, could not possibly take the responsibility.  'On my
+responsibility, then!' said Palmerston, in his off-hand, peremptory
+way; whereupon the stationmaster ordered up the train, and the Foreign
+Secretary reached London in time for his work, without an accident.[2]
+The story is typical of the happy valiance with which he conducted both
+his own affairs and those of the nation.  'England,' he used to say,
+'is strong enough to brave consequences.'[3]  Apparently, under
+Palmerston's guidance, she was.  While the officials protested and
+shook in their shoes, he would wave them away with his airy '_My_
+responsibility!' and carry the country swiftly along the line of his
+choice, to a triumphant destination,--without an accident.  His immense
+popularity was the result partly of his diplomatic successes, partly of
+his extraordinary personal affability, but chiefly of the genuine
+intensity with which he responded to the feelings and supported the
+interests of his countrymen.  The public knew that it had in Lord
+Palmerston not only a high-mettled master, but also a devoted
+servant--that he was, in every sense of the word, a public man.  When
+he was Prime Minister, he noticed that iron hurdles had been put up on
+the grass in the Green Park; he immediately wrote to the Minister
+responsible, ordering, in the severest language, their instant removal,
+declaring that they were 'an intolerable nuisance,' and that the
+purpose of the grass was 'to be walked upon freely and without
+restraint by the people, {154} old and young, for whose enjoyment the
+parks are maintained.'[4]  It was in this spirit that, as Foreign
+Secretary, he watched over the interests of Englishmen abroad.  Nothing
+could be more agreeable for Englishmen; but foreign governments were
+less pleased.  They found Lord Palmerston interfering, exasperating,
+and alarming.  In Paris they spoke with bated breath of 'ce terrible
+milord Palmerston'; and in Germany they made a little song about him--
+
+  'Hat der Teufel einen Sohn,
+  So ist er sicher Palmerston.'[5]
+
+But their complaints, their threats, and their agitations were all in
+vain.  Palmerston, with his upper lip sardonically curving, braved
+consequences, and held on his course.
+
+The first diplomatic crisis which arose after his return to office,
+though the Prince and the Queen were closely concerned with it, passed
+off without serious disagreement between the Court and the Minister.
+For some years past a curious problem had been perplexing the
+chanceries of Europe.  Spain, ever since the time of Napoleon a prey to
+civil convulsions, had settled down for a short interval to a state of
+comparative quiet under the rule of Christina, the Queen Mother, and
+her daughter Isabella, the young Queen.  In 1846, the question of
+Isabella's marriage, which had for long been the subject of diplomatic
+speculations, suddenly became acute.  Various candidates for her hand
+were proposed--among others, two cousins of her own, another Spanish
+prince, and Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, a first cousin of Victoria's
+and Albert's; for different reasons, however, none of these young men
+{155} seemed altogether satisfactory.  Isabella was not yet sixteen;
+and it might have been supposed that her marriage could be put off for
+a few years more; but this was considered to be out of the question.
+'Vous ne savez pas,' said a high authority, 'ce que c'est que ces
+princesses espagnoles; elles ont le diable au corps, et on a toujours
+dit que si nous ne nous h�tions pas, l'h�ritier viendrait avant le
+mari.'[6]  It might also have been supposed that the young Queen's
+marriage was a matter to be settled by herself, her mother, and the
+Spanish Government; but this again was far from being the case.  It had
+become, by one of those periodical reversions to the ways of the
+eighteenth century, which, it is rumoured, are still not unknown in
+diplomacy, a question of dominating importance in the foreign policies
+both of France and England.  For several years, Louis Philippe and his
+Prime Minister Guizot had been privately maturing a very subtle plan.
+It was the object of the French King to repeat the glorious _coup_ of
+Louis XIV, and to abolish the Pyrenees by placing one of his grandsons
+on the throne of Spain.  In order to bring this about, he did not
+venture to suggest that his younger son, the Duc de Montpensier, should
+marry Isabella; that would have been too obvious a move, which would
+have raised immediate and insurmountable opposition.  He therefore
+proposed that Isabella should marry her cousin, the Duke of Cadiz,
+while Montpensier married Isabella's younger sister, the Infanta
+Fernanda; and pray, what possible objection could there be to that?
+The wily old King whispered into the chaste ears of Guizot the key to
+the secret; he had good reason to believe that the Duke of Cadiz was
+incapable of having children, and therefore the offspring {156} of
+Fernanda would inherit the Spanish crown.  Guizot rubbed his hands, and
+began at once to set the necessary springs in motion; but, of course,
+the whole scheme was very soon divulged and understood.  The English
+Government took an extremely serious view of the matter; the balance of
+power was clearly at stake, and the French intrigue must be frustrated
+at all hazards.  A diplomatic struggle of great intensity followed; and
+it occasionally appeared that a second War of the Spanish Succession
+was about to break out.  This was avoided, but the consequences of this
+strange imbroglio were far-reaching and completely different from what
+any of the parties concerned could have guessed.
+
+In the course of the long and intricate negotiations there was one
+point upon which Louis Philippe laid a special stress--the candidature
+of Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg.  The prospect of a marriage between a
+Coburg Prince and the Queen of Spain was, he declared, at least as
+threatening to the balance of power in Europe as that of a marriage
+between the Duc de Montpensier and the Infanta; and, indeed, there was
+much to be said for this contention.  The ruin which had fallen upon
+the House of Coburg during the Napoleonic wars had apparently served
+only to multiply its vitality, for that princely family had by now
+extended itself over Europe in an extraordinary manner.  King Leopold
+was firmly fixed in Belgium; his niece was Queen of England; one of his
+nephews was the husband of the Queen of England, and another the
+husband of the Queen of Portugal; yet another was Duke of W�rtemberg.
+Where was this to end?  There seemed to be a Coburg Trust ready to send
+out one of its members at any moment to fill up any vacant place among
+the ruling families of Europe.  And even beyond Europe there {157} were
+signs of this infection spreading.  An American who had arrived in
+Brussels had assured King Leopold that there was a strong feeling in
+the United States in favour of monarchy instead of the misrule of mobs,
+and had suggested, to the delight of His Majesty, that some branch of
+the Coburg family might be available for the position.[7]  That danger
+might, perhaps, be remote; but the Spanish danger was close at hand;
+and if Prince Leopold were to marry Queen Isabella the position of
+France would be one of humiliation, if not of positive danger.  Such
+were the asseverations of Louis Philippe.  The English Government had
+no wish to support Prince Leopold, and, though Albert and Victoria had
+had some hankerings for the match, the wisdom of Stockmar had induced
+them to give up all thoughts of it.  The way thus seemed open for a
+settlement: England would be reasonable about Leopold, if France would
+be reasonable about Montpensier.  At the Ch�teau d'Eu, the agreement
+was made, in a series of conversations between the King and Guizot on
+the one side, and the Queen, the Prince, and Lord Aberdeen on the
+other.  Aberdeen, as Foreign Minister, declared that England would
+neither recognise nor support Prince Leopold as a candidate for the
+hand of the Queen of Spain; while Louis Philippe solemnly promised,
+both to Aberdeen and to Victoria, that the Duc de Montpensier should
+not marry the Infanta Fernanda until after the Queen was married and
+had issue.  All went well, and the crisis seemed to be over, when the
+whole question was suddenly reopened by Palmerston, who had succeeded
+Aberdeen at the Foreign Office.  In a despatch to the English Minister
+at Madrid, he mentioned, in a list of possible candidates {158} for
+Queen Isabella's hand, Prince Leopold of Coburg; and at the same time
+he took occasion to denounce in violent language the tyranny and
+incompetence of the Spanish Government.  This despatch, indiscreet in
+any case, was rendered infinitely more so by being communicated to
+Guizot.  Louis Philippe saw his opportunity and pounced on it.  Though
+there was nothing in Palmerston's language to show that he either
+recognised or supported Prince Leopold, the King at once assumed that
+the English had broken their engagement, and that he was therefore free
+to do likewise.  He then sent the despatch to the Queen Mother,
+declared that the English were intriguing for the Coburg marriage, bade
+her mark the animosity of Palmerston against the Spanish Government,
+and urged her to escape from her difficulties and ensure the friendship
+of France by marrying Isabella to the Duke of Cadiz and Fernanda to
+Montpensier.  The Queen Mother, alarmed and furious, was easily
+convinced.  There was only one difficulty: Isabella loathed the very
+sight of her cousin.  But this was soon surmounted; there was a wild
+supper-party at the Palace, and in the course of it the young girl was
+induced to consent to anything that was asked of her.  Shortly after,
+and on the same day, both the marriages took place.
+
+The news burst like a bomb on the English Government, who saw with rage
+and mortification that they had been completely outmanoeuvred by the
+crafty King.  Victoria, in particular, was outraged.  Not only had she
+been the personal recipient of Louis Philippe's pledge, but he had won
+his way to her heart by presenting the Prince of Wales with a box of
+soldiers and sending the Princess Royal a beautiful Parisian doll with
+eyes that opened and shut.  And now insult was {159} added to injury.
+The Queen of the French wrote her a formal letter, calmly announcing,
+as a family event in which she was sure Victoria would be interested,
+the marriage of her son, Montpensier--'qui ajoutera � notre bonheur
+int�rieur, le seul vrai dans ce monde, et que vous, madame, savez si
+bien appr�cier.'[8]  But the English Queen had not long to wait for her
+revenge.  Within eighteen months the monarchy of Louis Philippe,
+discredited, unpopular, and fatally weakened by the withdrawal of
+English support, was swept into limbo, while he and his family threw
+themselves as suppliant fugitives at the feet of Victoria.[9]
+
+
+II
+
+In this affair both the Queen and the Prince had been too much occupied
+with the delinquencies of Louis Philippe to have any wrath to spare for
+those of Palmerston; and, indeed, on the main issue, Palmerston's
+attitude and their own had been in complete agreement.  But in this the
+case was unique.  In every other foreign complication--and they were
+many and serious--during the ensuing years, the differences between the
+royal couple and the Foreign Secretary were constant and profound.
+There was a sharp quarrel over Portugal, where violently hostile
+parties were flying at each other's throats.  The royal sympathy was
+naturally enlisted on behalf of the Queen and her Coburg husband, while
+Palmerston gave his support to the progressive elements in the country.
+It was not until 1848, however, that the strain became really serious.
+In that year of revolutions, when, in all directions and with alarming
+{160} frequency, crowns kept rolling off royal heads, Albert and
+Victoria were appalled to find that the policy of England was
+persistently directed--in Germany, in Switzerland, in Austria, in
+Italy, in Sicily--so as to favour the insurgent forces.  The situation,
+indeed, was just such an one as the soul of Palmerston loved.  There
+was danger and excitement, the necessity of decision, the opportunity
+for action, on every hand.  A disciple of Canning, with an English
+gentleman's contempt and dislike of foreign potentates deep in his
+heart, the spectacle of the popular uprisings, and of the oppressors
+bundled ignominiously out of the palaces they had disgraced, gave him
+unbounded pleasure, and he was determined that there should be no doubt
+whatever, all over the Continent, on which side in the great struggle
+England stood.  It was not that he had the slightest tincture in him of
+philosophical radicalism; he had no philosophical tinctures of any
+kind; he was quite content to be inconsistent--to be a Conservative at
+home and a Liberal abroad.  There were very good reasons for keeping
+the Irish in their places; but what had that to do with it?  The point
+was this--when any decent man read an account of the political prisons
+in Naples his gorge rose.  He did not want war; but he saw that without
+war a skilful and determined use of England's power might do much to
+further the cause of the Liberals in Europe.  It was a difficult and a
+hazardous game to play, but he set about playing it with delighted
+alacrity.  And then, to his intense annoyance, just as he needed all
+his nerve and all possible freedom of action, he found himself being
+hampered and distracted at every turn by ... those people at Osborne.
+He saw what it was; the opposition was systematic and informed, and the
+Queen alone would {161} have been incapable of it; the Prince was at
+the bottom of the whole thing.  It was exceedingly vexatious; but
+Palmerston was in a hurry, and could not wait; the Prince, if he would
+insist upon interfering, must be brushed on one side.
+
+Albert was very angry.  He highly disapproved both of Palmerston's
+policy and of his methods of action.  He was opposed to absolutism; but
+in his opinion Palmerston's proceedings were simply calculated to
+substitute for absolutism, all over Europe, something no better and
+very possibly worse--the anarchy of faction and mob violence.  The
+dangers of this revolutionary ferment were grave; even in England
+Chartism was rampant--a sinister movement, which might at any moment
+upset the Constitution and abolish the Monarchy.  Surely, with such
+dangers at home, this was a very bad time to choose for encouraging
+lawlessness abroad.  He naturally took a particular interest in
+Germany.  His instincts, his affections, his prepossessions, were
+ineradicably German; Stockmar was deeply involved in German politics;
+and he had a multitude of relatives among the ruling German families,
+who, from the midst of the hurly-burly of revolution, wrote him long
+and agitated letters once a week.  Having considered the question of
+Germany's future from every point of view, he came to the conclusion,
+under Stockmar's guidance, that the great aim for every lover of
+Germany should be her unification under the sovereignty of Prussia.
+The intricacy of the situation was extreme, and the possibilities of
+good or evil which every hour might bring forth were incalculable; yet
+he saw with horror that Palmerston neither understood nor cared to
+understand the niceties of this momentous problem, but rushed on
+blindly, dealing blows to right {162} and left, quite--so far as he
+could see--without system, and even without motive--except, indeed, a
+totally unreasonable distrust of the Prussian State.
+
+But his disagreement with the details of Palmerston's policy was in
+reality merely a symptom of the fundamental differences between the
+characters of the two men.  In Albert's eyes Palmerston was a coarse,
+reckless egotist, whose combined arrogance and ignorance must
+inevitably have their issue in folly and disaster.  Nothing could be
+more antipathetic to him than a mind so strangely lacking in patience,
+in reflection, in principle, and in the habits of ratiocination.  For
+to him it was intolerable to think in a hurry, to jump to slapdash
+decisions, to act on instincts that could not be explained.  Everything
+must be done in due order, with careful premeditation; the premises of
+the position must first be firmly established; and he must reach the
+correct conclusion by a regular series of rational steps.  In
+complicated questions--and what questions, rightly looked at, were not
+complicated?--to commit one's thoughts to paper was the wisest course,
+and it was the course which Albert, laborious though it might be,
+invariably adopted.  It was as well, too, to draw up a reasoned
+statement after an event, as well as before it; and accordingly,
+whatever happened, it was always found that the Prince had made a
+memorandum.  On one occasion he reduced to six pages of foolscap the
+substance of a confidential conversation with Sir Robert Peel, and,
+having read them aloud to him, asked him to append his signature; Sir
+Robert, who never liked to commit himself, became extremely uneasy;
+upon which the Prince, understanding that it was necessary to humour
+the singular susceptibilities of Englishmen, with great tact dropped
+that particular memorandum {163} into the fire.  But as for Palmerston,
+he never even gave one so much as a chance to read him a memorandum; he
+positively seemed to dislike discussion; and, before one knew where one
+was, without any warning whatever, he would plunge into some
+hare-brained, violent project, which, as likely as not, would logically
+involve a European war.  Closely connected, too, with this cautious,
+painstaking reasonableness of Albert's, was his desire to examine
+questions thoroughly from every point of view, to go down to the roots
+of things, and to act in strict accordance with some well-defined
+principle.  Under Stockmar's tutelage he was constantly engaged in
+enlarging his outlook and in endeavouring to envisage vital problems
+both theoretically and practically--both with precision and with depth.
+To one whose mind was thus habitually occupied, the empirical
+activities of Palmerston, who had no notion what a principle meant,
+resembled the incoherent vagaries of a tiresome child.  What did
+Palmerston know of economics, of science, of history?  What did he care
+for morality and education?  How much consideration had he devoted in
+the whole course of his life to the improvement of the condition of the
+working-classes and to the general amelioration of the human race?  The
+answers to such questions were all too obvious; and yet it is easy to
+imagine, also, what might have been Palmerston's jaunty comment.  'Ah!
+your Royal Highness is busy with fine schemes and beneficent
+calculations--exactly!  Well, as for me, I must say I'm quite satisfied
+with my morning's work--I've had the iron hurdles taken out of the
+Green Park.'
+
+The exasperating man, however, preferred to make no comment, and to
+proceed in smiling silence on his inexcusable way.  The process of
+'brushing on one {164} side' very soon came into operation.  Important
+Foreign Office despatches were either submitted to the Queen so late
+that there was no time to correct them, or they were not submitted to
+her at all; or, having been submitted, and some passage in them being
+objected to and an alteration suggested, they were after all sent off
+in their original form.  The Queen complained; the Prince complained;
+both complained together.  It was quite useless.  Palmerston was most
+apologetic--could not understand how it had occurred--must give the
+clerks a wigging--certainly Her Majesty's wishes should be attended to,
+and such a thing should never happen again.  But, of course, it very
+soon happened again, and the royal remonstrances redoubled.  Victoria,
+her partisan passions thoroughly aroused, imported into her protests a
+personal vehemence which those of Albert lacked.  Did Lord Palmerston
+forget that she was Queen of England?  How could she tolerate a state
+of affairs in which despatches written in her name were sent abroad
+without her approval or even her knowledge?  What could be more
+derogatory to her position than to be obliged to receive indignant
+letters from the crowned heads to whom those despatches were
+addressed--letters which she did not know how to answer, since she so
+thoroughly agreed with them?  She addressed herself to the Prime
+Minister.  'No remonstrance has any effect with Lord Palmerston,' she
+said.[10]  'Lord Palmerston,' she told him on another occasion, 'has as
+usual pretended not to have had time to submit the draft to the Queen
+before he had sent it off.'[11]  She summoned Lord John to her
+presence, poured out her indignation, and afterwards, on the advice of
+Albert, noted down what had passed in a memorandum: 'I said that I
+{165} thought that Lord Palmerston often endangered the honour of
+England by taking a very prejudiced and one-sided view of a question;
+that his writings were always as bitter as gall and did great harm,
+which Lord John entirely assented to, and that I often felt quite ill
+from anxiety.'[12]  Then she turned to her uncle.  'The state of
+Germany,' she wrote in a comprehensive and despairing review of the
+European situation, 'is dreadful, and one does feel quite ashamed about
+that once really so peaceful and happy country.  That there are still
+good people there I am sure, but they allow themselves to be worked
+upon in a frightful and shameful way.  In France a crisis seems at
+hand.  _What_ a very bad figure we cut in this mediation!  Really it is
+quite immoral, with Ireland quivering in our grasp and ready to throw
+off her allegiance at any moment, for us to force Austria to give up
+her lawful possessions.[13]  What shall we say if Canada, Malta, etc.,
+begin to trouble us?  It hurts me terribly.'[14]  But what did Lord
+Palmerston care?
+
+Lord John's position grew more and more irksome.  He did not approve of
+his colleague's treatment of the Queen.  When he begged him to be more
+careful, he was met with the reply that 28,000 despatches passed
+through the Foreign Office in a single year, that, if every one of
+these were to be subjected to the royal criticism, the delay would be
+most serious, that, as it was, the waste of time and the worry involved
+in submitting drafts to the meticulous examination of Prince Albert was
+almost too much for an overworked Minister, and that, as a matter of
+fact, the postponement of important decisions owing to this cause had
+already {166} produced very unpleasant diplomatic consequences.[15]
+These excuses would have impressed Lord John more favourably if he had
+not himself had to suffer from a similar neglect.  As often as not
+Palmerston failed to communicate even to him the most important
+despatches.  The Foreign Secretary was becoming an almost independent
+power, acting on his own initiative, and swaying the policy of England
+on his own responsibility.  On one occasion, in 1847, he had actually
+been upon the point of threatening to break off diplomatic relations
+with France without consulting either the Cabinet or the Prime
+Minister.[16]  And such incidents were constantly recurring.  When this
+became known to the Prince, he saw that his opportunity had come.  If
+he could only drive in to the utmost the wedge between the two
+statesmen, if he could only secure the alliance of Lord John, then the
+suppression or the removal of Lord Palmerston would be almost certain
+to follow.  He set about the business with all the pertinacity of his
+nature.  Both he and the Queen put every kind of pressure upon the
+Prime Minister.  They wrote, they harangued, they relapsed into awful
+silence.  It occurred to them that Lord Clarendon, an important member
+of the Cabinet, would be a useful channel for their griefs.  They
+commanded him to dine at the Palace, and, directly the meal was over,
+'the Queen,' as he described it afterwards, 'exploded, and went with
+the utmost vehemence and bitterness into the whole of Palmerston's
+conduct, all the effects produced all over the world, and all her own
+feelings and sentiments about it.'  When she had finished, the Prince
+took up the tale, with less excitement, but with equal force.  Lord
+Clarendon found himself {167} in an awkward situation; he disliked
+Palmerston's policy, but he was his colleague, and he disapproved of
+the attitude of his royal hosts.  In his opinion, they were 'wrong in
+wishing that courtiers rather than Ministers should conduct the affairs
+of the country,' and he thought that they 'laboured under the curious
+mistake that the Foreign Office was their peculiar department, and that
+they had the right to control, if not to direct, the foreign policy of
+England.'  He, therefore, with extreme politeness, gave it to be
+understood that he would not commit himself in any way.[17]  But Lord
+John, in reality, needed no pressure.  Attacked by his Sovereign,
+ignored by his Foreign Secretary, he led a miserable life.[18]  With
+the advent of the dreadful Schleswig-Holstein question--the most
+complex in the whole diplomatic history of Europe--his position,
+crushed between the upper and the nether millstones, grew positively
+unbearable.  He became anxious above all things to get Palmerston out
+of the Foreign Office.  But then--supposing Palmerston refused to go?
+
+In a memorandum made by the Prince, at about this time, of an interview
+between himself, the Queen, and the Prime Minister, we catch a curious
+glimpse of the states of mind of those three high personages--the
+anxiety and irritation of Lord John, the vehement acrimony of Victoria,
+and the reasonable animosity of Albert--drawn together, as it were,
+under the shadow of an unseen Presence, the cause of that celestial
+anger--the gay, portentous Palmerston.  At one point in the
+conversation Lord John observed that he believed the Foreign Secretary
+would consent to a change of offices; {168} Lord Palmerston, he said,
+realised that he had lost the Queen's confidence--though only on
+public, and not on personal, grounds.  But on that, the Prince noted,
+'the Queen interrupted Lord John by remarking that she distrusted him
+on _personal_ grounds also, but I remarked that Lord Palmerston had so
+far at least seen rightly; that he had become disagreeable to the
+Queen, not on account of his person, but of his political doings--to
+which the Queen assented.'  Then the Prince suggested that there was a
+danger of the Cabinet breaking up, and of Lord Palmerston returning to
+office as Prime Minister.  But on that point Lord John was reassuring:
+he 'thought Lord Palmerston too old to do much in the future (having
+passed his sixty-fifth year).'  Eventually it was decided that nothing
+could be done for the present, but that the _utmost secrecy_ must be
+observed; and so the conclave ended.[19]
+
+At last, in 1850, deliverance seemed to be at hand.  There were signs
+that the public were growing weary of the alarums and excursions of
+Palmerston's diplomacy; and when his support of Don Pacifico, a British
+subject, in a quarrel with the Greek Government, seemed to be upon the
+point of involving the country in a war not only with Greece but also
+with France, and possibly with Russia into the bargain, a heavy cloud
+of distrust and displeasure appeared to be gathering and about to burst
+over his head.  A motion directed against him in the House of Lords was
+passed by a substantial majority.  The question was next to be
+discussed in the House of Commons, where another adverse vote was not
+improbable, and would seal the doom of the Minister.  Palmerston
+received the attack with complete nonchalance, and then, at the last
+possible moment, he struck.  {169} In a speech of over four hours, in
+which exposition, invective, argument, declamation, plain talk and
+resounding eloquence were mingled together with consummate art and
+extraordinary felicity, he annihilated his enemies.  The hostile motion
+was defeated, and Palmerston was once more the hero of the hour.
+Simultaneously, Atropos herself conspired to favour him.  Sir Robert
+Peel was thrown from his horse and killed.  By this tragic chance,
+Palmerston saw the one rival great enough to cope with him removed from
+his path.  He judged--and judged rightly--that he was the most popular
+man in England; and when Lord John revived the project of his
+exchanging the Foreign Office for some other position in the Cabinet,
+he absolutely refused to stir.[20]
+
+Great was the disappointment of Albert; great was the indignation of
+Victoria.  'The House of Commons,' she wrote, 'is becoming very
+unmanageable and troublesome.'[21]  The Prince, perceiving that
+Palmerston was more firmly fixed in the saddle than ever, decided that
+something drastic must be done.  Five months before, the prescient
+Baron had drawn up, in case of emergency, a memorandum, which had been
+carefully docketed, and placed in a pigeon-hole ready to hand.  The
+emergency had now arisen, and the memorandum must be used.  The Queen
+copied out the words of Stockmar, and sent them to the Prime Minister,
+requesting him to show her letter to Palmerston.  'She thinks it
+right,' she wrote, 'in order _to prevent any mistake for the future_,
+shortly to explain _what it is she expects from her Foreign Secretary_.
+She requires: (1) That he will distinctly state what he proposes in a
+given case, in order that the Queen may know as distinctly to _what_
+she has given her Royal sanction; (2) Having _once given_ her sanction
+{170} to a measure, that it be not arbitrarily altered or modified by
+the Minister; such an act she must consider as failing in sincerity
+towards the Crown, and justly to be visited by the exercise of her
+Constitutional right of dismissing that Minister.'[22]  Lord John
+Russell did as he was bid, and forwarded the Queen's letter to Lord
+Palmerston.  This transaction, which was of grave constitutional
+significance, was entirely unknown to the outside world.
+
+If Palmerston had been a sensitive man, he would probably have resigned
+on the receipt of the Queen's missive.  But he was far from sensitive;
+he loved power, and his power was greater than ever; an unerring
+instinct told him that this was not the time to go.  Nevertheless, he
+was seriously perturbed.  He understood at last that he was struggling
+with a formidable adversary, whose skill and strength, unless they were
+mollified, might do irreparable injury to his career.  He therefore
+wrote to Lord John, briefly acquiescing in the Queen's requirements--'I
+have taken a copy of this memorandum of the Queen and will not fail to
+attend to the directions which it contains'--and at the same time, he
+asked for an interview with the Prince.  Albert at once summoned him to
+the Palace, and was astonished to observe, as he noted in a memorandum,
+that when Palmerston entered the room 'he was very much agitated,
+shook, and had tears in his eyes, so as quite to move me, who never
+under any circumstances had known him otherwise than with a bland smile
+on his face.'  The old statesman was profuse in protestations and
+excuses; the young one was coldly polite.  At last, after a long and
+inconclusive conversation, the Prince, drawing himself up, said that,
+in order to give Lord {171} Palmerston 'an example of what the Queen
+wanted,' he would 'ask him a question point-blank.'  Lord Palmerston
+waited in respectful silence, while the Prince proceeded as
+follows:--'You are aware that the Queen has objected to the Protocol
+about Schleswig, and of the grounds on which she has done so.  Her
+opinion has been overruled, the Protocol stating the desire of the
+Great Powers to see the integrity of the Danish monarchy preserved has
+been signed, and upon this the King of Denmark has invaded Schleswig,
+where the war is raging.  If Holstein is attacked also, which is
+likely, the Germans will not be restrained from flying to her
+assistance, and Russia has menaced to interfere with arms, if the
+Schleswigers are successful.  What will you do, if this emergency
+arises (provoking most likely an European war), and which will arise
+very probably when we shall be at Balmoral and Lord John in another
+part of Scotland?  The Queen expects from your foresight that you have
+contemplated this possibility, and requires a categorical answer as to
+what you would do in the event supposed.'  Strangely enough, to this
+point-blank question, the Foreign Secretary appeared to be unable to
+reply.  The whole matter, he said, was extremely complicated, and the
+contingencies mentioned by His Royal Highness were very unlikely to
+arise.  The Prince persisted; but it was useless; for a full hour he
+struggled to extract a categorical answer, until at length Palmerston
+bowed himself out of the room.  Albert threw up his hands in shocked
+amazement: what could one do with such a man?[23]
+
+What indeed?  For, in spite of all his apologies and all his promises,
+within a few weeks the incorrigible reprobate was at his tricks again.
+The Austrian {172} General Haynau, notorious as a rigorous suppressor
+of rebellion in Hungary and Italy, and in particular as a flogger of
+women, came to England and took it into his head to pay a visit to
+Messrs. Barclay and Perkins's brewery.  The features of 'General
+Hy�na,' as he was everywhere called--his grim thin face, his enormous
+pepper-and-salt moustaches--had gained a horrid celebrity; and it so
+happened that among the clerks at the brewery there was a refugee from
+Vienna, who had given his fellow-workers a first-hand account of the
+General's characteristics.  The Austrian Ambassador, scenting danger,
+begged his friend not to appear in public, or, if he must do so, to cut
+off his moustaches first.  But the General would take no advice.  He
+went to the brewery, was immediately recognised, surrounded by a crowd
+of angry draymen, pushed about, shouted at, punched in the ribs, and
+pulled by the moustaches until, bolting down an alley with the mob at
+his heels brandishing brooms and roaring 'Hyaena!' he managed to take
+refuge in a public-house, whence he was removed under the protection of
+several policemen.  The Austrian Government was angry and demanded
+explanations.  Palmerston, who, of course, was privately delighted by
+the incident, replied regretting what had occurred, but adding that in
+his opinion the General had 'evinced a want of propriety in coming to
+England at the present moment'; and he delivered his note to the
+Ambassador without having previously submitted it to the Queen or to
+the Prime Minister.  Naturally, when this was discovered, there was a
+serious storm.  The Prince was especially indignant; the conduct of the
+draymen he regarded, with disgust and alarm, as 'a slight foretaste of
+what an unregulated mass of illiterate people is capable'; and
+Palmerston {173} was requested by Lord John to withdraw his note, and
+to substitute for it another from which all censure of the General had
+been omitted.  On this the Foreign Secretary threatened resignation,
+but the Prime Minister was firm.  For a moment the royal hopes rose
+high, only to be dashed to the ground again by the cruel compliance of
+the enemy.  Palmerston, suddenly lamb-like, agreed to everything; the
+note was withdrawn and altered, and peace was patched up once more.[24]
+
+It lasted for a year, and then, in October 1851, the arrival of Kossuth
+in England brought on another crisis.  Palmerston's desire to receive
+the Hungarian patriot at his house in London was vetoed by Lord John;
+once more there was a sharp struggle; once more Palmerston, after
+threatening resignation, yielded.  But still the insubordinate man
+could not keep quiet.  A few weeks later a deputation of Radicals from
+Finsbury and Islington waited on him at the Foreign Office and
+presented him with an address, in which the Emperors of Austria and
+Russia were stigmatised as 'odious and detestable assassins' and
+'merciless tyrants and despots.'  The Foreign Secretary in his reply,
+while mildly deprecating these expressions, allowed his real sentiments
+to appear with a most undiplomatic _insouciance_.  There was an
+immediate scandal, and the Court flowed over with rage and
+vituperation.  'I think,' said the Baron, 'the man has been for some
+time insane.'  Victoria, in an agitated letter, urged Lord John to
+assert his authority.  But Lord John perceived that on this matter the
+Foreign Secretary had the support of public opinion, and he judged it
+wiser to bide his time.[25]
+
+{174}
+
+He had not long to wait.  The culmination of the long series of
+conflicts, threats, and exacerbations came before the year was out.  On
+December 2, Louis Napoleon's _coup d'�tat_ took place in Paris; and on
+the following day Palmerston, without consulting anybody, expressed in
+a conversation with the French Ambassador his approval of Napoleon's
+act.  Two days later, he was instructed by the Prime Minister, in
+accordance with a letter from the Queen, that it was the policy of the
+English Government to maintain an attitude of strict neutrality towards
+the affairs of France.  Nevertheless, in an official despatch to the
+British Ambassador in Paris, he repeated the approval of the _coup
+d'�tat_ which he had already given verbally to the French Ambassador in
+London.  This despatch was submitted neither to the Queen nor to the
+Prime Minister.  Lord John's patience, as he himself said, 'was drained
+to the last drop.'  He dismissed Lord Palmerston.[26]
+
+Victoria was in ecstasies; and Albert knew that the triumph was his
+even more than Lord John's.  It was his wish that Lord Granville, a
+young man whom he believed to be pliant to his influence, should be
+Palmerston's successor; and Lord Granville was appointed.
+Henceforward, it seemed that the Prince would have his way in foreign
+affairs.  After years of struggle and mortification, success greeted
+him on every hand.  In his family, he was an adored master; in the
+country, the Great Exhibition had brought him respect and glory; and
+now in the secret seats of power he had gained a new supremacy.  He had
+wrestled with the terrible Lord Palmerston, the embodiment of {175} all
+that was most hostile to him in the spirit of England, and his
+redoubtable opponent had been overthrown.[27]  Was England herself at
+his feet?  It might be so; and yet ... it is said that the sons of
+England have a certain tiresome quality: they never know when they are
+beaten.  It was odd, but Palmerston was positively still jaunty.  Was
+it possible?  Could he believe, in his blind arrogance, that even his
+ignominious dismissal from office was something that could be brushed
+aside?
+
+
+III
+
+The Prince's triumph was short-lived.  A few weeks later, owing to
+Palmerston's influence, the Government was defeated in the House, and
+Lord John resigned.  Then, after a short interval, a coalition between
+the Whigs and the followers of Peel came into power, under the
+premiership of Lord Aberdeen.  Once more, Palmerston was in the
+Cabinet.  It was true that he did not return to the Foreign Office;
+that was something to the good; in the Home Department it might be
+hoped that his activities would be less dangerous and disagreeable.
+But the Foreign Secretary was no longer the complacent Granville; and
+in Lord Clarendon the Prince knew that he had a Minister to deal with,
+who, discreet and courteous as he was, had a mind of his own.
+
+These changes, however, were merely the preliminaries of a far more
+serious development.  Events, on every side, were moving towards a
+catastrophe.  Suddenly the nation found itself under the awful shadow
+of imminent war.  For several months, amid the {176} shifting mysteries
+of diplomacy and the perplexed agitations of politics, the issue grew
+more doubtful and more dark, while the national temper was strained to
+the breaking-point.  At the very crisis of the long and ominous
+negotiations, it was announced that Lord Palmerston had resigned.  Then
+the pent-up fury of the people burst forth.  They had felt that in the
+terrible complexity of events they were being guided by weak and
+embarrassed counsels; but they had been reassured by the knowledge that
+at the centre of power there was one man with strength, with courage,
+with determination, in whom they could put their trust.  They now
+learnt that that man was no longer among their leaders.  Why?  In their
+rage, anxiety, and nervous exhaustion, they looked round desperately
+for some hidden and horrible explanation of what had occurred.  They
+suspected plots, they smelt treachery in the air.  It was easy to guess
+the object upon which their frenzy would vent itself.  Was there not a
+foreigner in the highest of high places, a foreigner whose hostility to
+their own adored champion was unrelenting and unconcealed?  The moment
+that Palmerston's resignation was known, there was a universal outcry;
+and an extraordinary tempest of anger and hatred burst, with
+unparalleled violence, upon the head of the Prince.
+
+It was everywhere asserted and believed that the Queen's husband was a
+traitor to the country, that he was a tool of the Russian Court, that
+in obedience to Russian influences he had forced Palmerston out of the
+Government, and that he was directing the foreign policy of England in
+the interests of England's enemies.  For many weeks these accusations
+filled the whole of the {177} press; repeated at public meetings,
+elaborated in private talk, they flew over the country, growing every
+moment more extreme and more improbable.  While respectable newspapers
+thundered out their grave invectives, halfpenny broadsides, hawked
+through the streets of London, re-echoed in doggerel vulgarity the same
+sentiments and the same suspicions.[28]  At last the wildest rumours
+began to spread.
+
+In January 1854, it was whispered that the Prince had been seized, that
+he had been found guilty of high treason, that he was to be committed
+to the Tower.  The Queen herself, some declared, had been arrested,
+{178} and large crowds actually collected round the Tower to watch the
+incarceration of the royal miscreants.[29]
+
+These fantastic hallucinations were the result of the fevered
+atmosphere of approaching war.  The cause of Palmerston's resignation,
+indeed, remains wrapped in obscurity, and it is possible that it was
+brought about by the continued hostility of the Court.[30]  But the
+supposition that Albert's influence had been used to favour the
+interests of Russia was devoid of any basis in actual fact.  As often
+happens in such cases, the Government had been swinging backwards and
+forwards between two incompatible policies--that of non-interference
+and that of threats supported by force--either of which, if
+consistently followed, might well have had a successful and peaceful
+issue, but which, mingled together, could only lead to war.  Albert,
+with characteristic scrupulosity, attempted to thread his way through
+the complicated labyrinth of European diplomacy, and eventually was
+lost in the maze.  But so was the whole of the Cabinet; and, when war
+came, his anti-Russian feelings were quite as vehement as those of the
+most bellicose of Englishmen.
+
+Nevertheless, though the gravest of the charges levelled against the
+Prince were certainly without foundation, there were underlying
+elements in the situation {179} which explained, if they did not
+justify, the popular state of mind.  It was true that the Queen's
+husband was a foreigner, who had been brought up in a foreign Court,
+was impregnated with foreign ideas, and was closely related to a
+multitude of foreign princes.  Clearly this, though perhaps an
+unavoidable, was an undesirable, state of affairs; nor were the
+objections to it merely theoretical; it had in fact produced unpleasant
+consequences of a serious kind.  The Prince's German proclivities were
+perpetually lamented by English Ministers; Lord Palmerston, Lord
+Clarendon, Lord Aberdeen,[31] all told the same tale; and it was
+constantly necessary, in grave questions of national policy, to combat
+the prepossessions of a Court in which German views and German
+sentiments held a disproportionate place.  As for Palmerston, his
+language on this topic was apt to be unbridled.  At the height of his
+annoyance over his resignation, he roundly declared that he had been
+made a victim to foreign intrigue.[32]  He afterwards toned down this
+accusation; but the mere fact that such a suggestion from such a
+quarter was possible at all showed to what unfortunate consequences
+Albert's foreign birth and foreign upbringing might lead.
+
+But this was not all.  A constitutional question of the most profound
+importance was raised by the position of the Prince in England.  His
+presence gave a new prominence to an old problem--the precise
+definition of the functions and the powers of the Crown.  Those
+functions and powers had become, in effect, his; and {180} what sort of
+use was he making of them?  His views as to the place of the Crown in
+the Constitution are easily ascertainable; for they were Stockmar's;
+and it happens that we possess a detailed account of Stockmar's
+opinions upon the subject in a long letter addressed by him to the
+Prince at the time of this very crisis, just before the outbreak of the
+Crimean War.  Constitutional Monarchy, according to the Baron, had
+suffered an eclipse since the passing of the Reform Bill.  It was now
+'constantly in danger of becoming a pure Ministerial Government.'  The
+old race of Tories, who 'had a direct interest in upholding the
+prerogatives of the Crown,' had died out; and the Whigs were 'nothing
+but partly conscious, partly unconscious Republicans, who stand in the
+same relation to the Throne as the wolf does to the lamb.'  There was a
+rule that it was unconstitutional to introduce 'the name and person of
+the irresponsible Sovereign' into parliamentary debates on
+constitutional matters; this was 'a constitutional fiction, which,
+although undoubtedly of old standing, was fraught with danger'; and the
+Baron warned the Prince that 'if the English Crown permit a Whig
+Ministry to follow this rule in practice, without exception, you must
+not wonder if in a little time you find the majority of the people
+impressed with the belief that the King, in the view of the law, is
+nothing but a mandarin figure, which has to nod its head in assent, or
+shake it in denial, as his Minister pleases.'  To prevent this from
+happening, it was of extreme importance, said the Baron, 'that no
+opportunity should be let slip of vindicating the legitimate position
+of the Crown.'  'And this is not hard to do,' he added, 'and can never
+embarrass a Minister where such straightforward loyal personages as the
+Queen and {181} the Prince are concerned.'  In his opinion, the very
+lowest claim of the Royal Prerogative should include 'a right on the
+part of the King to be the permanent President of his Ministerial
+Council.'  The Sovereign ought to be 'in the position of a permanent
+Premier, who takes rank above the temporary head of the Cabinet, and in
+matters of discipline exercises supreme authority.'  The Sovereign 'may
+even take a part in the initiation and the maturing of the Government
+measures; for it would be unreasonable to expect that a King, himself
+as able, as accomplished, and as patriotic as the best of his
+Ministers, should be prevented from making use of these qualities at
+the deliberations of his Council.'  'The judicious exercise of this
+right,' concluded the Baron, 'which certainly requires a master mind,
+would not only be the best guarantee for Constitutional Monarchy, but
+would raise it to a height of power, stability, and symmetry, which has
+never been attained.'[33]
+
+Now it may be that this reading of the Constitution is a possible one,
+though indeed it is hard to see how it can be made compatible with the
+fundamental doctrine of ministerial responsibility.  William III
+presided over his Council, and he was a constitutional monarch; and it
+seems that Stockmar had in his mind a conception of the Crown which
+would have given it a place in the Constitution analogous to that which
+it filled at the time of William III.  But it is clear that such a
+theory, which would invest the Crown with more power than it possessed
+even under George III, runs counter to the whole development of English
+public life since the Revolution; and the fact that it was held by
+Stockmar, and instilled by him into Albert, was of very serious {182}
+importance.  For there was good reason to believe not only that these
+doctrines were held by Albert in theory, but that he was making a
+deliberate and sustained attempt to give them practical validity.  The
+history of the struggle between the Crown and Palmerston provided
+startling evidence that this was the case.  That struggle reached its
+culmination when, in Stockmar's memorandum of 1850, the Queen asserted
+her 'constitutional right' to dismiss the Foreign Secretary if he
+altered a despatch which had received her sanction.  The memorandum
+was, in fact, a plain declaration that the Crown intended to act
+independently of the Prime Minister.  Lord John Russell, anxious at all
+costs to strengthen himself against Palmerston, accepted the
+memorandum, and thereby implicitly allowed the claim of the Crown.
+More than that; after the dismissal of Palmerston, among the grounds on
+which Lord John justified that dismissal in the House of Commons he
+gave a prominent place to the memorandum of 1850.  It became apparent
+that the displeasure of the Sovereign might be a reason for the removal
+of a powerful and popular Minister.  It seemed indeed as if, under the
+guidance of Stockmar and Albert, the 'Constitutional Monarchy' might in
+very truth be rising 'to a height of power, stability, and symmetry,
+which had never been attained.'
+
+But this new development in the position of the Crown, grave as it was
+in itself, was rendered peculiarly disquieting by the unusual
+circumstances which surrounded it.  For the functions of the Crown were
+now, in effect, being exercised by a person unknown to the
+Constitution, who wielded over the Sovereign an undefined and unbounded
+influence.  The fact that this person was the Sovereign's husband,
+while it {183} explained his influence and even made it inevitable, by
+no means diminished its strange and momentous import.  An ambiguous,
+prepotent figure had come to disturb the ancient, subtle, and jealously
+guarded balance of the English Constitution.  Such had been the
+unexpected outcome of the tentative and faint-hearted opening of
+Albert's political life.  He himself made no attempt to minimise either
+the multiplicity or the significance of the functions he performed.  He
+considered that it was his duty, he told the Duke of Wellington in
+1850, to 'sink his _own individual_ existence in that of his wife ...
+--assume no separate responsibility before the public, but make his
+position entirely a part of hers--fill up every gap which, as a woman,
+she would naturally leave in the exercise of her regal
+functions--continually and anxiously watch every part of the public
+business, in order to be able to advise and assist her at any moment in
+any of the multifarious and difficult questions or duties brought
+before her, sometimes international, sometimes political, or social, or
+personal.  As the natural head of her family, superintendent of her
+household, manager of her private affairs, sole _confidential_ adviser
+in politics, and only assistant in her communications with the officers
+of the Government, he is, besides, the husband of the Queen, the tutor
+of the royal children, the private secretary of the Sovereign, and her
+permanent minister.'[34]  Stockmar's pupil had assuredly gone far and
+learnt well.  Stockmar's pupil!--precisely; the public, painfully aware
+of Albert's predominance, had grown, too, uneasily conscious that
+Victoria's master had a master of his own.  Deep in the darkness the
+Baron loomed.  Another foreigner!  Decidedly, there were elements {184}
+in the situation which went far to justify the popular alarm.  A
+foreign Baron controlled a foreign Prince, and the foreign Prince
+controlled the Crown of England.  And the Crown itself was creeping
+forward ominously; and when, from under its shadow, the Baron and the
+Prince had frowned, a great Minister, beloved of the people, had
+fallen.  Where was all this to end?
+
+Within a few weeks Palmerston withdrew his resignation, and the public
+frenzy subsided as quickly as it had arisen.  When Parliament met, the
+leaders of both the parties in both the Houses made speeches in favour
+of the Prince, asserting his unimpeachable loyalty to the country and
+vindicating his right to advise the Sovereign in all matters of State.
+Victoria was delighted.  'The position of my beloved lord and master,'
+she told the Baron, 'has been defined for once and all and his merits
+have been acknowledged on all sides most duly.  There was an immense
+concourse of people assembled when we went to the House of Lords, and
+the people were very friendly.'[35]  Immediately afterwards, the
+country finally plunged into the Crimean War.  In the struggle that
+followed, Albert's patriotism was put beyond a doubt, and the
+animosities of the past were forgotten.  But the war had another
+consequence, less gratifying to the royal couple: it crowned the
+ambition of Lord Palmerston.  In 1855, the man who five years before
+had been pronounced by Lord John Russell to be 'too old to do much in
+the future,' became Prime Minister of England, and, with one short
+interval, remained in that position for ten years.
+
+
+
+[1] Martin, I, 194-6; _Letters_, I, 510-11.
+
+[2] Bunsen, II, 152.
+
+[3] Dalling, I, 346.
+
+[4] Dalling, III, 413-5.
+
+[5] Ashley, II, 213.
+
+[6] Greville, VI, 33.
+
+[7] _Letters_, I, 511.
+
+[8] _Letters_, II, 100-1.
+
+[9] Dalling, III, chaps. vii and viii; Stockmar, cap. xxi.
+
+[10] _Letters_, II, 181.
+
+[11] _Ibid._, II, 194.
+
+[12] _Letters_, II, 195.
+
+[13] Venice and Lombardy.
+
+[14] _Letters_, II, 199.
+
+[15] _Letters_, II, 221; Ashley, II, 195-6.
+
+[16] Greville, VI, 63-4.
+
+[17] Greville, VI, 324-6; Clarendon, I, 341.
+
+[18] Clarendon, I, 337, 342.
+
+[19] _Letters_, II, 235-7.
+
+[20] _Letters_, II, 261-4.
+
+[21] _Ibid._, II, 253.
+
+[22] _Letters_, II, 238 and 264.
+
+[23] Martin, II, 307-10.
+
+[24] _Letters_, II, 267-70; Martin, II, 324-7; Ashley, II, 169-70.
+
+[25] _Letters_, II, 324-31; Martin, II, 406-11; Spencer Walpole, II,
+133-7; Stockmar, 642; Greville, VI, 421-4.
+
+[26] _Letters_, II, 334-43; Martin, II, 411-18; Ashley, II, 200-12;
+Walpole, II, 138-42; Clarendon, I, 338.
+
+[27] Ernest, III, 14.
+
+[28] 'The Turkish war both far and near
+      Has played the very deuce then,
+    And little Al, the royal pal,
+      They say has turned a Russian;
+    Old Aberdeen, as may be seen,
+      Looks woeful pale and yellow,
+    And Old John Bull had his belly full
+      Of dirty Russian tallow.
+
+    _Chorus_.
+
+        'We'll send him home and make him groan,
+          Oh, Al! you've played the deuce then;
+        The German lad has acted sad
+          And turned tail with the Russians.
+
+          *      *      *      *
+
+    'Last Monday night, all in a fright,
+      Al out of bed did tumble.
+    The German lad was raving mad,
+      How he did groan and grumble!
+    He cried to Vic, "I've cut my stick:
+      To St. Petersburg go right slap."
+    When Vic, 'tis said, jumped out of bed,
+      And wopped him with her night-cap.'
+
+From _Lovely Albert!_ a broadside preserved at the British Museum;
+Martin, II, 539-41; Greville, VII, 127-9.
+
+[29] Martin, II, 540, 562.
+
+    'You jolly Turks, now go to work,
+      And show the Bear your power.
+    It is rumoured over Britain's isle
+      That A---- is in the Tower;
+    The Postmen some suspicion had,
+      And opened the two letters,
+    'Twas a pity sad the German lad
+      Should not have known much better.'
+                      _Lovely Albert!_
+
+[30] Kinglake, II, 27-32.
+
+[31] 'Aberdeen spoke much of the Queen and Prince, of course with great
+praise.  He said the Prince's views were generally sound and wise, with
+one exception, which was his violent and incorrigible German unionism.
+He goes all lengths with Prussia.'--Greville, VI, 305.
+
+[32] Ashley, II, 218.
+
+[33] Martin, II, 545-57.
+
+[34] Martin, II, 259-60.
+
+[35] Martin, II, 563-4.
+
+
+
+[Illustration: QUEEN VICTORIA AND THE PRINCE CONSORT IN 1860.]
+
+
+
+
+{185}
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+LAST YEARS OF THE PRINCE CONSORT
+
+I
+
+The weak-willed youth who took no interest in politics and never read a
+newspaper had grown into a man of unbending determination whose
+tireless energies were incessantly concentrated upon the laborious
+business of government and the highest questions of State.  He was busy
+now from morning till night.  In the winter, before the dawn, he was to
+be seen, seated at his writing-table, working by the light of the green
+reading-lamp which he had brought over with him from Germany, and the
+construction of which he had much improved by an ingenious device.
+Victoria was early too, but she was not so early as Albert; and when,
+in the chill darkness, she took her seat at her own writing-table,
+placed side by side with his, she invariably found upon it a neat pile
+of papers arranged for her inspection and her signature.[1]  The day,
+thus begun, continued in unremitting industry.  At breakfast, the
+newspapers--the once hated newspapers--made their appearance, and the
+Prince, absorbed in their perusal, would answer no questions, or, if an
+article struck him, would read it aloud.  After that there were
+ministers and secretaries to interview; there was a vast correspondence
+to be carried on; there were numerous {186} memoranda to be made.
+Victoria, treasuring every word, preserving every letter, was all
+breathless attention and eager obedience.  Sometimes Albert would
+actually ask her advice.  He consulted her about his English: 'Lese
+recht aufmerksam, und sage wenn irgend ein Fehler ist,'[2] he would
+say; or, as he handed her a draft for her signature, he would observe
+'Ich hab' Dir hier ein Draft gemacht, lese es mal!  Ich d�chte es w�re
+recht so.'[3]  Thus the diligent, scrupulous, absorbing hours passed
+by.  Fewer and fewer grew the moments of recreation and of exercise.
+The demands of society were narrowed down to the smallest limits, and
+even then but grudgingly attended to.  It was no longer a mere
+pleasure, it was a positive necessity, to go to bed as early as
+possible in order to be up and at work on the morrow betimes.[4]
+
+The important and exacting business of government, which became at last
+the dominating preoccupation in Albert's mind, still left unimpaired
+his old tastes and interests; he remained devoted to art, to science,
+to philosophy; and a multitude of subsidiary activities showed how his
+energies increased as the demands upon them grew.  For whenever duty
+called, the Prince was all alertness.  With indefatigable perseverance
+he opened museums, laid the foundation-stones of hospitals, made
+speeches to the Royal Agricultural Society, and attended meetings of
+the British Association.[5]  The National Gallery particularly
+interested him: he drew up careful regulations for the arrangement of
+the pictures according to schools; and he attempted--though {187} in
+vain--to have the whole collection transported to South Kensington.[6]
+Feodora, now the Princess Hohenlohe, after a visit to England,
+expressed in a letter to Victoria her admiration of Albert both as a
+private and a public character.  Nor did she rely only on her own
+opinion.  'I must just copy out,' she said, 'what Mr. Klumpp wrote to
+me some little time ago, and which is quite true.--"Prince Albert is
+one of the few Royal personages who can sacrifice to any principle (as
+soon as it has become evident to them to be good and noble) all those
+notions (or sentiments) to which others, owing to their
+narrow-mindedness, or to the prejudices of their rank, are so
+thoroughly inclined strongly to cling."--There is something so truly
+religious in this,' the Princess added, 'as well as humane and just,
+most soothing to my feelings which are so often hurt and disturbed by
+what I hear and see.'[7]
+
+Victoria, from the depth of her heart, subscribed to all the eulogies
+of Feodora and Mr. Klumpp.  She only found that they were insufficient.
+As she watched her beloved Albert, after toiling with state documents
+and public functions, devoting every spare moment of his time to
+domestic duties, to artistic appreciation, and to intellectual
+improvements; as she listened to him cracking his jokes at the
+luncheon-table, or playing Mendelssohn on the organ, or pointing out
+the merits of Sir Edwin Landseer's pictures; as she followed him round
+while he gave instructions about the breeding of cattle, or decided
+that the Gainsboroughs must be hung higher up so that the Winterhalters
+might be properly seen--she felt perfectly certain that no other wife
+had ever had such a husband.  His mind was apparently capable of
+everything, and she was hardly {188} surprised to learn that he had
+made an important discovery for the conversion of sewage into
+agricultural manure.  Filtration from below upwards, he explained,
+through some appropriate medium, which retained the solids and set free
+the fluid sewage for irrigation, was the principle of the scheme.  'All
+previous plans,' he said, 'would have cost millions; mine costs next to
+nothing.'  Unfortunately, owing to a slight miscalculation, the
+invention proved to be impracticable; but Albert's intelligence was
+unrebuffed, and he passed on, to plunge with all his accustomed ardour
+into a prolonged study of the rudiments of lithography.[8]
+
+But naturally it was upon his children that his private interests and
+those of Victoria were concentrated most vigorously.  The royal
+nurseries showed no sign of emptying.  The birth of the Prince Arthur
+in 1850 was followed, three years later, by that of the Prince Leopold;
+and in 1857 the Princess Beatrice was born.  A family of nine must be,
+in any circumstances, a grave responsibility; and the Prince realised
+to the full how much the high destinies of his offspring intensified
+the need of parental care.  It was inevitable that he should believe
+profoundly in the importance of education; he himself had been the
+product of education; Stockmar had made him what he was; it was for
+him, in his turn, to be a Stockmar--to be even more than a Stockmar--to
+the young creatures he had brought into the world.  Victoria would
+assist him; a Stockmar, no doubt, she could hardly be; but she could be
+perpetually vigilant, she could mingle strictness with her affection,
+and she could always set a good example.  These considerations, of
+course, applied pre-eminently to the education of the Prince of Wales.
+How tremendous was the significance {189} of every particle of
+influence which went to the making of the future King of England!
+Albert set to work with a will.  But, watching with Victoria the
+minutest details of the physical, intellectual, and moral training of
+his children, he soon perceived, to his distress, that there was
+something unsatisfactory in the development of his eldest son.  The
+Princess Royal was an extremely intelligent child; but Bertie, though
+he was good-humoured and gentle, seemed to display a deep-seated
+repugnance to every form of mental exertion.  This was most
+regrettable, but the remedy was obvious: the parental efforts must be
+redoubled; instruction must be multiplied; not for a single instant
+must the educational pressure be allowed to relax.  Accordingly, more
+tutors were selected, the curriculum was revised, the time-table of
+studies was rearranged, elaborate memoranda dealing with every possible
+contingency were drawn up.  It was above all essential that there
+should be no slackness: 'work,' said the Prince, 'must be work.'  And
+work indeed it was.  The boy grew up amid a ceaseless round of
+paradigms, syntactical exercises, dates, genealogical tables, and lists
+of capes.  Constant notes flew backwards and forwards between the
+Prince, the Queen, and the tutors, with inquiries, with reports of
+progress, with detailed recommendations; and these notes were all
+carefully preserved for future reference.  It was, besides, vital that
+the heir to the throne should be protected from the slightest
+possibility of contamination from the outside world.  The Prince of
+Wales was not as other boys; he might, occasionally, be allowed to
+invite some sons of the nobility, boys of good character, to play with
+him in the garden of Buckingham Palace; but his father presided, with
+alarming precision, over their sports.  In short, every {190} possible
+precaution was taken, every conceivable effort was made.  Yet, strange
+to say, the object of all this vigilance and solicitude continued to be
+unsatisfactory--appeared, in fact, to be positively growing worse.  It
+was certainly very odd: the more lessons that Bertie had to do, the
+less he did them; and the more carefully he was guarded against
+excitements and frivolities, the more desirous of mere amusement he
+seemed to become.  Albert was deeply grieved and Victoria was sometimes
+very angry; but grief and anger produced no more effect than
+supervision and time-tables.  The Prince of Wales, in spite of
+everything, grew up into manhood without the faintest sign of
+'adherence to and perseverance in the plan both of studies and
+life'--as one of the Royal memoranda put it--which had been laid down
+with such extraordinary forethought by his father.[9]
+
+
+II
+
+Against the insidious worries of politics, the boredom of society
+functions, and the pompous publicity of state ceremonies, Osborne had
+afforded a welcome refuge; but it soon appeared that even Osborne was
+too little removed from the world.  After all, the Solent was a feeble
+barrier.  Oh, for some distant, some almost inaccessible sanctuary,
+where, in true domestic privacy, one could make happy holiday, just as
+if--or at least very, very, nearly--one were anybody else!  Victoria,
+ever since, together with Albert, she had visited Scotland in the early
+years of her marriage, had felt that her heart was in the Highlands.
+She had {191} returned to them a few years later, and her passion had
+grown.  How romantic they were!  And how Albert enjoyed them too!  His
+spirits rose quite wonderfully as soon as he found himself among the
+hills and the conifers.  'It is a happiness to see him,' she wrote.
+'Oh!  What can equal the beauties of nature!' she exclaimed in her
+journal, during one of these visits.  'What enjoyment there is in them!
+Albert enjoys it so much; he is in ecstasies here.'  'Albert said,' she
+noted next day, 'that the chief beauty of mountain scenery consists in
+its frequent changes.  We came home at six o'clock.'  Then she went on
+a longer expedition--up to the very top of a high hill.  'It was quite
+romantic.  Here we were with only this Highlander behind us holding the
+ponies (for we got off twice and walked about) .... We came home at
+half past eleven,--the most delightful, most romantic ride and walk I
+ever had.  I had never been up such a mountain, and then the day was so
+fine.  The Highlanders, too, were such astonishing people.  They 'never
+make difficulties,' she noted, 'but are cheerful, and happy, and merry,
+and ready to walk, and run, and do anything.'  As for Albert he 'highly
+appreciated the good-breeding, simplicity, and intelligence, which make
+it so pleasant and even instructive to talk to them.'  'We were always
+in the habit,' wrote Her Majesty, 'of conversing with the
+Highlanders--with whom one comes so much in contact in the Highlands.'
+She loved everything about them--their customs, their dress, their
+dances, even their musical instruments.  'There were nine pipers at the
+castle,' she wrote, after staying with Lord Breadalbane; 'sometimes one
+and sometimes three played.  They always played about breakfast-time,
+again during the {192} morning, at luncheon, and also whenever we went
+in and out; again before dinner, and during most of dinner-time.  We
+both have become quite fond of the bag-pipes.'[10]
+
+It was quite impossible not to wish to return to such pleasures again
+and again; and in 1848 the Queen took a lease of Balmoral House, a
+small residence near Braemar in the wilds of Aberdeenshire.  Four years
+later she bought the place outright.  Now she could be really happy
+every summer; now she could be simple and at her ease; now she could be
+romantic every evening, and dote upon Albert, without a single
+distraction, all day long.  The diminutive scale of the house was in
+itself a charm.  Nothing was more amusing than to find oneself living
+in two or three little sitting-rooms, with the children crammed away
+upstairs, and the Minister in attendance with only a tiny bedroom to do
+all his work in.  And then to be able to run in and out of doors as one
+liked, and to sketch, and to walk, and to watch the red deer coming so
+surprisingly close, and to pay visits to the cottagers!  And
+occasionally one could be more adventurous still--one could go and stay
+for a night or two at the Bothie at Alt-na-giuthasach--a mere couple of
+huts with 'a wooden addition'--and only eleven people in the whole
+party!  And there were mountains to be climbed and cairns to be built
+in solemn pomp.  'At last, when the cairn, which is, I think, seven or
+eight feet high, was nearly completed, Albert climbed up to the top of
+it, and placed the last stone; after which three cheers were given.  It
+was a gay, pretty, and touching sight; and I felt almost inclined to
+cry.  The view was so beautiful over the dear hills; the day so fine;
+the {193} whole so _gem�thlich_.'[11]  And in the evening there were
+sword-dances and reels.
+
+But Albert had determined to pull down the little old house, and to
+build in its place a Castle of his own designing.  With great ceremony,
+in accordance with a memorandum drawn up by the Prince for the
+occasion, the foundation-stone of the new edifice was laid,[12] and by
+1855 it was habitable.  Spacious, built of granite in the Scotch
+baronial style, with a tower 100 feet high, and minor turrets and
+castellated gables, the Castle was skilfully arranged to command the
+finest views of the surrounding mountains and of the neighbouring river
+Dee.  Upon the interior decorations Albert and Victoria lavished all
+their care.  The walls and the floors were of pitch-pine, and covered
+with specially manufactured tartans.  The Balmoral tartan, in red and
+grey, designed by the Prince, and the Victoria tartan, with a white
+stripe, designed by the Queen, were to be seen in every room: there
+were tartan curtains, and tartan chair-covers, and even tartan
+linoleums.  Occasionally the Royal Stuart tartan appeared, for Her
+Majesty always maintained that she was an ardent Jacobite.
+Water-colour sketches by Victoria hung upon the walls, together with
+innumerable stags' antlers, and the head of a boar, which had been shot
+by Albert in Germany.  In an alcove in the hall stood a life-sized
+statue of Albert in Highland dress.[13]
+
+Victoria declared that it was perfection.  'Every year,' she wrote, 'my
+heart becomes more fixed in this dear paradise, and so much more so
+now, that _all_ has become my dear Albert's _own_ creation, own work,
+own {194} building, own laying-out; ... and his great taste, and the
+impress of his dear hand, have been stamped everywhere.'[14]
+
+And here, in very truth, her happiest days were passed.  In after
+years, when she looked back upon them, a kind of glory, a radiance as
+of an unearthly holiness, seemed to glow about these golden hours.
+Each hallowed moment stood out clear, beautiful, eternally significant.
+For, at the time, every experience there, sentimental, or grave, or
+trivial, had come upon her with a peculiar vividness, like a flashing
+of marvellous lights.  Albert's stalkings--an evening walk when she
+lost her way--Vicky sitting down on a wasps' nest--a torchlight
+dance--with what intensity such things, and ten thousand like them,
+impressed themselves upon her eager consciousness!  And how she flew to
+her journal to note them down!  The news of the Duke's death!  What a
+moment!--when, as she sat sketching after a picnic by a loch in the
+lonely hills, Lord Derby's letter had been brought to her, and she had
+learnt that '_England's_, or rather _Britain's_ pride, her glory, her
+hero, the greatest man she had ever produced, was no more!'  For such
+were her reflections upon the 'old rebel' of former days.  But that
+past had been utterly obliterated--no faintest memory of it remained.
+For years she had looked up to the Duke as a figure almost superhuman.
+Had he not been a supporter of good Sir Robert?  Had he not asked
+Albert to succeed him as Commander-in-Chief?  And what a proud moment
+it had been when he stood as sponsor to her son Arthur, who was born on
+his eighty-first birthday!  So now she filled a whole page of her diary
+with panegyrical regrets.  'His position was the highest a subject ever
+{195} had--above party,--looked up to by all,--revered by the whole
+nation,--the friend of the Sovereign ... The Crown never
+possessed,--and I fear never _will_--so _devoted_, loyal, and faithful
+a subject, so staunch a supporter!  To us his loss is _irreparable_ ...
+To Albert he showed the greatest kindness and the utmost confidence ...
+Not an eye will be dry in the whole country.'[15]  These were serious
+thoughts; but they were soon succeeded by others hardly less moving--by
+events as impossible to forget--by Mr. MacLeod's sermon on
+Nicodemus,--by the gift of a red flannel petticoat to Mrs. P.
+Farquharson, and another to old Kitty Kear.[16]
+
+But, without doubt, most memorable, most delightful of all were the
+expeditions--the rare, exciting expeditions up distant mountains,
+across broad rivers, through strange country, and lasting several days.
+With only two gillies--Grant and Brown--for servants, and with assumed
+names ... it was more like something in a story than real life.  'We
+had decided to call ourselves _Lord and Lady Churchill and party_--Lady
+Churchill passing as _Miss Spencer_ and General Grey as _Dr. Grey_!
+Brown once forgot this and called me "Your Majesty" as I was getting
+into the carriage, and Grant on the box once called Albert "Your Royal
+Highness," which set us off laughing, but no one observed it.'  Strong,
+vigorous, enthusiastic, bringing, so it seemed, good fortune with
+her--the Highlanders declared she had 'a lucky foot'--she relished
+everything--the scrambles and the views and the contretemps and the
+rough inns with their coarse fare and Brown and Grant waiting at table.
+She could have gone on for ever and ever, absolutely happy with Albert
+beside her and Brown at {196} her pony's head.  But the time came for
+turning homewards; alas! the time came for going back to England.  She
+could hardly bear it; she sat disconsolate in her room and watched the
+snow falling.  The last day!  Oh!  If only she could be snowed up![17]
+
+
+III
+
+The Crimean War brought new experiences, and most of them were pleasant
+ones.  It was pleasant to be patriotic and pugnacious, to look out
+appropriate prayers to be read in the churches, to have news of
+glorious victories, and to know oneself, more proudly than ever, the
+representative of England.  With that spontaneity of feeling which was
+so peculiarly her own, Victoria poured out her emotion, her admiration,
+her pity, her love, upon her 'dear soldiers.'  When she gave them their
+medals her exultation knew no bounds.  'Noble fellows!' she wrote to
+the King of the Belgians.  'I own I feel as if these were _my own
+children_; my heart beats for _them_ as for my _nearest and dearest_.
+They were so touched, so pleased; many, I hear, cried--and they won't
+hear of giving up their medals to have their names engraved upon them
+for fear they should _not_ receive the _identical one_ put into _their
+hands by me_, which is quite touching.  Several came by in a sadly
+mutilated state.'[18]  She and they were at one.  They felt that she
+had done them a splendid honour, and she, with perfect genuineness,
+shared their feeling.  Albert's attitude towards such things was
+different; there was an austerity in him which quite prohibited the
+expansions of emotion.  When General Williams returned {197} from the
+heroic defence of Kars and was presented at Court, the quick, stiff,
+distant bow with which the Prince received him struck like ice upon the
+beholders.[19]  He was a stranger still.
+
+But he had other things to occupy him, more important, surely, than the
+personal impressions of military officers and people who went to Court.
+He was at work--ceaselessly at work--on the tremendous task of carrying
+through the war to a successful conclusion.  State papers, despatches,
+memoranda, poured from him in an overwhelming stream.  Between 1853 and
+1857 fifty folio volumes were filled with the comments of his pen upon
+the Eastern question.[20]  Nothing would induce him to stop.  Weary
+ministers staggered under the load of his advice; but his advice
+continued, piling itself up over their writing-tables, and flowing out
+upon them from red box after red box.  Nor was it advice to be ignored.
+The talent for administration which had reorganised the royal palaces
+and planned the Great Exhibition asserted itself no less in the
+confused complexities of war.  Again and again the Prince's
+suggestions, rejected or unheeded at first, were adopted under the
+stress of circumstances and found to be full of value.  The enrolment
+of a foreign legion, the establishment of a dep�t for troops at Malta,
+the institution of periodical reports and tabulated returns as to the
+condition of the army at Sebastopol--such were the contrivances and the
+achievements of his indefatigable brain.  He went further: in a lengthy
+minute he laid down the lines for a radical reform in the entire
+administration of the army.  This was premature, but his proposal that
+'a camp of evolution' should be created, in which troops should {198}
+be concentrated and drilled, proved to be the germ of Aldershot.[21]
+
+Meanwhile Victoria had made a new friend: she had suddenly been
+captivated by Napoleon III.  Her dislike of him had been strong at
+first.  She considered that he was a disreputable adventurer who had
+usurped the throne of poor old Louis Philippe; and besides he was
+hand-in-glove with Lord Palmerston.  For a long time, although he was
+her ally, she was unwilling to meet him; but at last a visit of the
+Emperor and Empress to England was arranged.  Directly he appeared at
+Windsor her heart began to soften.  She found that she was charmed by
+his quiet manners, his low, soft voice, and by the soothing simplicity
+of his conversation.  The good-will of England was essential to the
+Emperor's position in Europe, and he had determined to fascinate the
+Queen.  He succeeded.  There was something deep within her which
+responded immediately and vehemently to natures that offered a romantic
+contrast with her own.  Her adoration of Lord Melbourne was intimately
+interwoven with her half-unconscious appreciation of the exciting
+unlikeness between herself and that sophisticated, subtle,
+aristocratical old man.  Very different was the quality of her
+unlikeness to Napoleon; but its quantity was at least as great.  From
+behind the vast solidity of her respectability, her conventionality,
+her established happiness, she peered out with a strange delicious
+pleasure at that unfamiliar, darkly-glittering foreign object, moving
+so meteorically before her, an ambiguous creature of wilfulness and
+Destiny.  And, to her surprise, where she had dreaded antagonisms, she
+discovered only sympathies.  He was, she said, 'so quiet, so simple,
+_na�f_ even, so pleased to be informed {199} about things he does not
+know, so gentle, so full of tact, dignity, and modesty, so full of kind
+attention towards us, never saying a word, or doing a thing, which
+could put me out ... There is something fascinating, melancholy, and
+engaging, which draws you to him, in spite of any _pr�vention_ you may
+have against him, and certainly without the assistance of any outward
+appearance, though I like his face.'  She observed that he rode
+'extremely well, and looks well on horseback, as he sits high.'  And he
+danced 'with great dignity and spirit.'  Above all, he listened to
+Albert; listened with the most respectful attention; showed, in fact,
+how pleased he was 'to be informed about things he did not know'; and
+afterwards was heard to declare that he had never met the Prince's
+equal.  On one occasion, indeed--but only on one--he had seemed to grow
+slightly restive.  In a diplomatic conversation, 'I expatiated a little
+on the Holstein question,' wrote the Prince in a memorandum, 'which
+appeared to bore the Emperor as "tr�s-compliqu�e"'[22]
+
+Victoria, too, became much attached to the Empress, whose looks and
+graces she admired without a touch of jealousy.  Eug�nie, indeed, in
+the plenitude of her beauty, exquisitely dressed in wonderful Parisian
+crinolines which set off to perfection her tall and willowy figure,
+might well have caused some heartburning in the breast of her hostess,
+who, very short, rather stout, quite plain, in garish middle-class
+garments, could hardly be expected to feel at her best in such company.
+But Victoria had no misgivings.  To her it mattered nothing that her
+face turned red in the heat and that her purple pork-pie hat was of
+last year's fashion, while Eug�nie, cool and modish, floated in an
+infinitude of {200} flounces by her side.  She was Queen of England,
+and was not that enough?  It certainly seemed to be; true majesty was
+hers, and she knew it.  More than once, when the two were together in
+public, it was the woman to whom, as it seemed, nature and art had
+given so little, who, by the sheer force of an inherent grandeur,
+completely threw her adorned and beautiful companion into the shade.[23]
+
+There were tears when the moment came for parting, and Victoria felt
+'quite wehm�thig,' as her guests went away from Windsor.  But before
+long she and Albert paid a return visit to France, where everything was
+very delightful, and she drove incognito through the streets of Paris
+in 'a common bonnet,' and saw a play in the theatre at St. Cloud, and,
+one evening, at a great party given by the Emperor in her honour at the
+Ch�teau of Versailles, talked a little to a distinguished-looking
+Prussian gentleman, whose name was Bismarck.  Her rooms were furnished
+so much to her taste that she declared they gave her quite a home
+feeling--that, if her little dog were there, she should really imagine
+herself at home.  Nothing was said, but three days later her little dog
+barked a welcome to her as she entered the apartments.  The Emperor
+himself, sparing neither trouble nor expense, had personally arranged
+the charming surprise.[24]  Such were his attentions.  She returned to
+England more enchanted than ever.  'Strange indeed,' she exclaimed,
+'are the dispensations and ways of Providence!'[25]
+
+The alliance prospered, and the war drew towards a conclusion.  Both
+the Queen and the Prince, it is true, were most anxious that there
+should not be a premature {201} peace.  When Lord Aberdeen wished to
+open negotiations Albert attacked him in a '_geharnischten_' letter,
+while Victoria rode about on horseback reviewing the troops.  At last,
+however, Sebastopol was captured.  The news reached Balmoral late at
+night, and 'in a few minutes Albert and all the gentlemen in every
+species of attire sallied forth, followed by all the servants, and
+gradually by all the population of the village--keepers, gillies,
+workmen--up to the top of the cairn.'  A bonfire was lighted, the pipes
+were played, and guns were shot off.  'About three-quarters of an hour
+after Albert came down and said the scene had been wild and exciting
+beyond everything.  The people had been drinking healths in whisky and
+were in great ecstasy.'[26]  The 'great ecstasy,' perhaps, would be
+replaced by other feelings next morning; but at any rate the war was
+over--though, to be sure, its end seemed as difficult to account for as
+its beginning.  The dispensations and ways of Providence continued to
+be strange.
+
+
+IV
+
+An unexpected consequence of the war was a complete change in the
+relations between the royal pair and Palmerston.  The Prince and the
+Minister drew together over their hostility to Russia, and thus it came
+about that when Victoria found it necessary to summon her old enemy to
+form an administration she did so without reluctance.  The premiership,
+too, had a sobering effect upon Palmerston; he grew less impatient and
+dictatorial; considered with attention the suggestions of the Crown,
+and was, besides, {202} genuinely impressed by the Prince's ability and
+knowledge.[27]  Friction, no doubt, there still occasionally was, for,
+while the Queen and the Prince devoted themselves to foreign politics
+as much as ever, their views, when the war was over, became once more
+antagonistic to those of the Prime Minister.  This was especially the
+case with regard to Italy.  Albert, theoretically the friend of
+constitutional government, distrusted Cavour, was horrified by
+Garibaldi, and dreaded the danger of England being drawn into war with
+Austria.  Palmerston, on the other hand, was eager for Italian
+independence; but he was no longer at the Foreign Office, and the brunt
+of the royal displeasure had now to be borne by Lord John Russell.  In
+a few years the situation had curiously altered.  It was Lord John who
+now filled the subordinate and the ungrateful r�le; but the Foreign
+Secretary, in his struggle with the Crown, was supported, instead of
+opposed, by the Prime Minister.  Nevertheless the struggle was fierce,
+and the policy, by which the vigorous sympathy of England became one of
+the decisive factors in the final achievement of Italian unity, was
+only carried through in face of the violent opposition of the Court.[28]
+
+Towards the other European storm-centre, also, the Prince's attitude
+continued to be very different from that of Palmerston.  Albert's great
+wish was for a united Germany under the leadership of a constitutional
+and virtuous Prussia; Palmerston did not think that there was much to
+be said for the scheme, but he took no particular interest in German
+politics, and was ready {203} enough to agree to a proposal which was
+warmly supported by both the Prince and the Queen--that the royal
+Houses of England and Prussia should be united by the marriage of the
+Princess Royal with the Prussian Crown Prince.  Accordingly, when the
+Princess was not yet fifteen, the Prince, a young man of twenty-four,
+came over on a visit to Balmoral, and the betrothal took place.[29]
+Two years later, in 1857, the marriage was celebrated.  At the last
+moment, however, it seemed that there might be a hitch.  It was pointed
+out in Prussia that it was customary for Princes of the blood-royal to
+be married in Berlin, and it was suggested that there was no reason why
+the present case should be treated as an exception.  When this reached
+the ears of Victoria, she was speechless with indignation.  In a note,
+emphatic even for Her Majesty, she instructed the Foreign Secretary to
+tell the Prussian Ambassador 'not to _entertain_ the _possibility_ of
+such a question....  The Queen _never_ could consent to it, both for
+public and for private reasons, and the assumption of its being _too
+much_ for a Prince Royal of Prussia to come over to marry _the Princess
+Royal of Great Britain_ in England is too _absurd_ to say the least....
+Whatever may be the usual practice of Prussian princes, it is not
+_every_ day that one marries the eldest daughter of the Queen of
+England.  The question must therefore be considered as settled and
+closed.'[30]  It was, and the wedding took place in St. James's Chapel.
+There were great festivities--illuminations, state concerts, immense
+crowds, and general rejoicings.  At Windsor a magnificent banquet was
+given to the bride and bridegroom in the Waterloo room, at which,
+Victoria noted in her diary, 'everybody was most friendly and kind
+{204} about Vicky and full of the universal enthusiasm, of which the
+Duke of Buccleuch gave us most pleasing instances, he having been in
+the very thick of the crowd and among the lowest of the low.'  Her
+feelings during several days had been growing more and more emotional,
+and when the time came for the young couple to depart she very nearly
+broke down--but not quite.  'Poor dear child!' she wrote afterwards.
+'I clasped her in my arms and blessed her, and knew not what to say.  I
+kissed good Fritz and pressed his hand again and again.  He was unable
+to speak and the tears were in his eyes.  I embraced them both again at
+the carriage door, and Albert got into the carriage, an open one, with
+them and Bertie....  The band struck up.  I wished good-bye to the good
+Perponchers.  General Schreckenstein was much affected.  I pressed his
+hand, and the good Dean's, and then went quickly upstairs.'[31]
+
+Albert, as well as General Schreckenstein, was much affected.  He was
+losing his favourite child, whose opening intelligence had already
+begun to display a marked resemblance to his own--an adoring pupil,
+who, in a few years, might have become an almost adequate companion.
+An ironic fate had determined that the daughter who was taken from him
+should be sympathetic, clever, interested in the arts and sciences, and
+endowed with a strong taste for memoranda, while not a single one of
+these qualities could be discovered in the son who remained.  For
+certainly the Prince of Wales did not take after his father.
+Victoria's prayer had been unanswered, and with each succeeding year it
+became more obvious that Bertie was a true scion of the House of
+Brunswick.  But these evidences of {205} innate characteristics served
+only to redouble the efforts of his parents; it still might not be too
+late to incline the young branch, by ceaseless pressure and careful
+fastenings, to grow in the proper direction.  Everything was tried.
+The boy was sent on a continental tour with a picked body of tutors,
+but the results were unsatisfactory.  At his father's request he kept a
+diary which, on his return, was inspected by the Prince.  It was found
+to be distressingly meagre: what a multitude of highly interesting
+reflections might have been arranged under the heading: 'The First
+Prince of Wales visiting the Pope!'  But there was not a single one.
+'Le jeune prince plaisait � tout le monde,' old Metternich reported to
+Guizot, 'mais avait l'air embarrass� et tr�s triste.'  On his
+seventeenth birthday a memorandum was drawn up over the names of the
+Queen and the Prince informing their eldest son that he was now
+entering upon the period of manhood, and directing him henceforward to
+perform the duties of a Christian gentleman.  'Life is composed of
+duties,' said the memorandum, 'and in the due, punctual and cheerful
+performance of them the true Christian, true soldier, and true
+gentleman is recognised....  A new sphere of life will open for you in
+which you will have to be taught what to do and what not to do, a
+subject requiring study more important than any in which you have
+hitherto been engaged.'  On receipt of the memorandum Bertie burst into
+tears.  At the same time another memorandum was drawn up, headed
+'Confidential: for the guidance of the gentlemen appointed to attend on
+the Prince of Wales.'  This long and elaborate document laid down
+'certain principles' by which the 'conduct and demeanour' of the
+gentlemen were to be regulated 'and which it {206} is thought may
+conduce to the benefit of the Prince of Wales.'  'The qualities which
+distinguish a gentleman in society,' continued this remarkable paper,
+'are:--
+
+(1) His appearance, his deportment and dress.
+
+(2) The character of his relations with, and treatment of, others.
+
+(3) His desire and power to acquit himself creditably in conversation
+or whatever is the occupation of the society with which he mixes.'
+
+A minute and detailed analysis of these sub-headings followed, filling
+several pages, and the memorandum ended with a final exhortation to the
+gentlemen: 'If they will duly appreciate the responsibility of their
+position, and taking the points above laid down as the outline, will
+exercise their own good sense in acting _upon all occasions_ upon these
+principles, thinking no point of detail too minute to be important, but
+maintaining one steady consistent line of conduct, they may render
+essential service to the young Prince and justify the flattering
+selection made by the royal parents.'  A year later the young Prince
+was sent to Oxford, where the greatest care was taken that he should
+not mix with the undergraduates.  Yes, everything had been
+tried--everything ... with one single exception.  The experiment had
+never been made of letting Bertie enjoy himself.  But why should it
+have been?  'Life is composed of duties.'  What possible place could
+there be for enjoyment in the existence of a Prince of Wales?[32]
+
+The same year which deprived Albert of the Princess Royal brought him
+another and a still more serious loss.  The Baron had paid his last
+visit to England.  For twenty years, as he himself said in a letter to
+the {207} King of the Belgians, he had performed 'the laborious and
+exhausting office of a paternal friend and trusted adviser' to the
+Prince and the Queen.  He was seventy; he was tired, physically and
+mentally; it was time to go.  He returned to his home in Coburg,
+exchanging, once for all, the momentous secrecies of European
+statecraft for the tittle-tattle of a provincial capital and the gossip
+of family life.  In his stiff chair by the fire he nodded now over old
+stories--not of emperors and generals, but of neighbours and relatives
+and the domestic adventures of long ago--the burning of his father's
+library--and the goat that ran upstairs to his sister's room and ran
+twice round the table and then ran down again.  Dyspepsia and
+depression still attacked him; but, looking back over his life, he was
+not dissatisfied.  His conscience was clear.  'I have worked as long as
+I had strength to work,' he said, 'and for a purpose no one can impugn.
+The consciousness of this is my reward--the only one which I desired to
+earn.'[33]
+
+Apparently, indeed, his 'purpose' had been accomplished.  By his
+wisdom, his patience, and his example he had brought about, in the
+fullness of time, the miraculous metamorphosis of which he had dreamed.
+The Prince was his creation.  An indefatigable toiler, presiding, for
+the highest ends, over a great nation--that was his achievement; and he
+looked upon his work and it was good.  But had the Baron no misgivings?
+Did he never wonder whether, perhaps, he might have accomplished not
+too little but too much?  How subtle and how dangerous are the snares
+which fate lays for the wariest of men!  Albert, certainly, seemed to
+be everything that Stockmar could have {208} wished--virtuous,
+industrious, persevering, intelligent.  And yet--why was it?--all was
+not well with him.  He was sick at heart.
+
+For in spite of everything he had never reached to happiness.  His
+work, for which at last he came to crave with an almost morbid
+appetite, was a solace and not a cure; the dragon of his
+dissatisfaction devoured with dark relish that ever-growing tribute of
+laborious days and nights; but it was hungry still.  The causes of his
+melancholy were hidden, mysterious, unanalysable perhaps--too deeply
+rooted in the innermost recesses of his temperament for the eye of
+reason to apprehend.  There were contradictions in his nature, which,
+to some of those who knew him best, made him seem an inexplicable
+enigma: he was severe and gentle; he was modest and scornful; he longed
+for affection and he was cold.[34]  He was lonely, not merely with the
+loneliness of exile but with the loneliness of conscious and
+unrecognised superiority.  He had the pride, at once resigned and
+overweening, of a doctrinaire.  And yet to say that he was simply a
+doctrinaire would be a false description; for the pure doctrinaire
+rejoices always in an internal contentment, and Albert was very far
+from doing that.  There was something that he wanted and that he could
+never get.  What was it?  Some absolute, some ineffable sympathy?  Some
+extraordinary, some sublime success?  Possibly, it was a mixture of
+both.  To dominate and to be understood!  To conquer, by the same
+triumphant influence, the submission and the appreciation of men--that
+would be worth while indeed!  But, to such imaginations, he saw too
+clearly how faint were the responses of his actual environment.  Who
+was there who appreciated {209} him, really and truly?  Who _could_
+appreciate him in England?  And, if the gentle virtue of an inward
+excellence availed so little, could he expect more from the hard ways
+of skill and force?  The terrible land of his exile loomed before him a
+frigid, an impregnable mass.  Doubtless he had made some slight
+impression: it was true that he had gained the respect of his fellow
+workers, that his probity, his industry, his exactitude, had been
+recognised, that he was a highly influential, an extremely important
+man.  But how far, how very far, was all this from the goal of his
+ambitions!  How feeble and futile his efforts seemed against the
+enormous coagulation of dullness, of folly, of slackness, of ignorance,
+of confusion that confronted him!  He might have the strength or the
+ingenuity to make some small change for the better here or there--to
+rearrange some detail, to abolish some anomaly, to insist upon some
+obvious reform; but the heart of the appalling organism remained
+untouched.  England lumbered on, impervious and self-satisfied, in her
+old intolerable course.  He threw himself across the path of the
+monster with rigid purpose and set teeth, but he was brushed aside.
+Yes! even Palmerston was still unconquered--was still there to afflict
+him with his jauntiness, his muddle-headedness, his utter lack of
+principle.  It was too much.  Neither nature nor the Baron had given
+him a sanguine spirit; the seeds of pessimism, once lodged within him,
+flourished in a propitious soil.  He
+
+        'questioned things, and did not find
+  One that would answer to his mind;
+  And all the world appeared unkind.'
+
+He believed that he was a failure and he began to despair.
+
+{210}
+
+Yet Stockmar had told him that he must 'never relax,' and he never
+would.  He would go on, working to the utmost and striving for the
+highest, to the bitter end.  His industry grew almost maniacal.
+Earlier and earlier was the green lamp lighted; more vast grew the
+correspondence; more searching the examination of the newspapers; the
+interminable memoranda more punctilious, analytical, and precise.  His
+very recreations became duties.  He enjoyed himself by time-table, went
+deer-stalking with meticulous gusto, and made puns at lunch--it was the
+right thing to do.  The mechanism worked with astonishing efficiency,
+but it never rested and it was never oiled.  In dry exactitude the
+innumerable cog-wheels perpetually revolved.  No, whatever happened,
+the Prince would not relax; he had absorbed the doctrines of Stockmar
+too thoroughly.  He knew what was right, and, at all costs, he would
+pursue it.  That was certain.  But alas! in this our life what are the
+certainties?  'In nothing be over-zealous!' says an old Greek.  'The
+due measure in all the works of man is best.  For often one who
+zealously pushes towards some excellence, though he be pursuing a gain,
+is really being led utterly astray by the will of some Power, which
+makes those things that are evil seem to him good, and those things
+seem to him evil that are for his advantage.'[35]  Surely, both the
+Prince and the Baron might have learnt something from the frigid wisdom
+of Theognis.
+
+Victoria noticed that her husband sometimes seemed to be depressed and
+overworked.  She tried to cheer him up.  Realising uneasily that he was
+still regarded as a foreigner, she hoped that by conferring upon him
+the title of Prince Consort (1857) she would improve his {211} position
+in the country.  'The Queen has a right to claim that her husband
+should be an Englishman,' she wrote.[36]  But unfortunately, in spite
+of the Royal Letters Patent, Albert remained as foreign as before; and
+as the years passed his dejection deepened.  She worked with him, she
+watched over him, she walked with him through the woods at Osborne,
+while he whistled to the nightingales, as he had whistled once at
+Rosenau so long ago.[37]  When his birthday came round, she took the
+greatest pains to choose him presents that he would really like.  In
+1858, when he was thirty-nine, she gave him 'a picture of Beatrice,
+life-size, in oil, by Horsley, a complete collection of photographic
+views of Gotha and the country round, which I had taken by Bedford, and
+a paper-weight of Balmoral granite and deers' teeth, designed by
+Vicky.'[38]  Albert was of course delighted, and his merriment at the
+family gathering was more pronounced than ever: and yet ... what was
+there that was wrong?
+
+No doubt it was his health.  He was wearing himself out in the service
+of the country; and certainly his constitution, as Stockmar had
+perceived from the first, was ill-adapted to meet a serious strain.  He
+was easily upset; he constantly suffered from minor ailments.  His
+appearance in itself was enough to indicate the infirmity of his
+physical powers.  The handsome youth of twenty years since with the
+flashing eyes and the soft complexion had grown into a sallow,
+tired-looking man, whose body, in its stoop and its loose fleshiness,
+betrayed the sedentary labourer, and whose head was quite bald on the
+top.  Unkind critics, who had once compared Albert to an operatic
+tenor, might {212} have remarked that there was something of the butler
+about him now.  Beside Victoria, he presented a painful contrast.  She,
+too, was stout, but it was with the plumpness of a vigorous matron; and
+an eager vitality was everywhere visible--in her energetic bearing, her
+protruding, enquiring glances, her small, fat, capable, and commanding
+hands.  If only, by some sympathetic magic, she could have conveyed
+into that portly, flabby figure, that desiccated and discouraged brain,
+a measure of the stamina and the self-assurance which were so
+pre-eminently hers!
+
+But suddenly she was reminded that there were other perils besides
+those of ill-health.  During a visit to Coburg in 1860, the Prince was
+very nearly killed in a carriage accident.  He escaped with a few cuts
+and bruises; but Victoria's alarm was extreme, though she concealed it.
+'It is when the Queen feels most deeply,' she wrote afterwards, 'that
+she always appears calmest, and she could not and dared not allow
+herself to speak of what might have been, or even to admit to herself
+(and she cannot and dare not now) the entire danger, for her head would
+turn!'  Her agitation, in fact, was only surpassed by her thankfulness
+to God.  She felt, she said, that she could not rest 'without doing
+something to mark permanently her feelings,' and she decided that she
+would endow a charity in Coburg.  '�1,000, or even �2,000, given either
+at once, or in instalments yearly, would not, in the Queen's opinion,
+be too much.'  Eventually, the smaller sum having been fixed upon, it
+was invested in a trust, called the 'Victoria-Stift,' in the names of
+the Burgomaster and chief clergyman of Coburg, who were directed to
+distribute the interest yearly among a certain number {213} of young
+men and women of exemplary character belonging to the humbler ranks of
+life.[39]
+
+Shortly afterwards the Queen underwent, for the first time in her life,
+the actual experience of close personal loss.  Early in 1861 the
+Duchess of Kent was taken seriously ill, and in March she died.  The
+event overwhelmed Victoria.  With a morbid intensity, she filled her
+diary for pages with minute descriptions of her mother's last hours,
+her dissolution, and her corpse, interspersed with vehement
+apostrophes, and the agitated outpourings of emotional reflection.  In
+the grief of the present the disagreements of the past were totally
+forgotten.  It was the horror and the mystery of Death--Death present
+and actual--that seized upon the imagination of the Queen.  Her whole
+being, so instinct with vitality, recoiled in agony from the grim
+spectacle of the triumph of that awful power.  Her own mother, with
+whom she had lived so closely and so long that she had become a part
+almost of her existence, had fallen into nothingness before her very
+eyes!  She tried to forget it, but she could not.  Her lamentations
+continued with a strange abundance, a strange persistency.  It was
+almost as if, by some mysterious and unconscious precognition, she
+realised that for her, in an especial manner, that grisly Majesty had a
+dreadful dart in store.
+
+For indeed, before the year was out, a far more terrible blow was to
+fall upon her.  Albert, who had for long been suffering from
+sleeplessness, went, on a cold and drenching day towards the end of
+November, to inspect the buildings for the new Military Academy at
+Sandhurst.  On his return, it was clear that the {214} fatigue and
+exposure to which he had been subjected had seriously affected his
+health.  He was attacked by rheumatism, his sleeplessness continued,
+and he complained that he felt thoroughly unwell.  Three days later a
+painful duty obliged him to visit Cambridge.  The Prince of Wales, who
+had been placed at that University in the previous year, was behaving
+in such a manner that a parental visit and a parental admonition had
+become necessary.  The disappointed father, suffering in mind and body,
+carried through his task; but, on his return journey to Windsor, he
+caught a fatal chill.[40]  During the next week he gradually grew
+weaker and more miserable.  Yet, depressed and enfeebled as he was, he
+continued to work.  It so happened that at that very moment a grave
+diplomatic crisis had arisen.  Civil war had broken out in America, and
+it seemed as if England, owing to a violent quarrel with the Northern
+States, was upon the point of being drawn into the conflict.  A severe
+despatch by Lord John Russell was submitted to the Queen; and the
+Prince perceived that, if it were sent off unaltered, war would be the
+almost inevitable consequence.  At seven o'clock on the morning of
+December 1, he rose from his bed, and with a quavering hand wrote a
+series of suggestions for the alteration of the draft, by which its
+language might be softened, and a way left open for a peaceful solution
+of the question.  These changes were accepted by the Government, and
+war was averted.  It was the Prince's last memorandum.[41]
+
+He had always declared that he viewed the prospect of death with
+equanimity.  'I do not cling to life,' he had once said to Victoria.
+'You do; but I set no {215} store by it.'  And then he had added: 'I am
+sure, if I had a severe illness, I should give up at once, I should not
+struggle for life.  I have no tenacity of life.'[42]  He had judged
+correctly.  Before he had been ill many days, he told a friend that he
+was convinced he would not recover.[43]  He sank and sank.
+Nevertheless, if his case had been properly understood and skilfully
+treated from the first, he might conceivably have been saved; but the
+doctors failed to diagnose his symptoms; and it is noteworthy that his
+principal physician was Sir James Clark.  When it was suggested that
+other advice should be taken, Sir James pooh-poohed the idea: 'there
+was no cause for alarm,' he said.  But the strange illness grew worse.
+At last, after a letter of fierce remonstrance from Palmerston, Dr.
+Watson was sent for; and Dr. Watson saw at once that he had come too
+late.  The Prince was in the grip of typhoid fever.  'I think that
+everything so far is satisfactory,' said Sir James Clark.[44]
+
+The restlessness and the acute suffering of the earlier days gave place
+to a settled torpor and an ever-deepening gloom.  Once the failing
+patient asked for music--'a fine chorale at a distance'; and a piano
+having been placed in the adjoining room, Princess Alice played on it
+some of Luther's hymns, after which the Prince repeated 'The Rock of
+Ages.'  Sometimes his mind wandered; sometimes the distant past came
+rushing upon him; he heard the birds in the early {216} morning, and
+was at Rosenau again, a boy.  Or Victoria would come and read to him
+'Peveril of the Peak,' and he showed that he could follow the story,
+and then she would bend over him, and he would murmur 'liebes Frauchen'
+and 'gutes Weibchen,' stroking her cheek.  Her distress and her
+agitation were great, but she was not seriously frightened.  Buoyed up
+by her own abundant energies, she would not believe that Albert's might
+prove unequal to the strain.  She refused to face such a hideous
+possibility.  She declined to see Dr. Watson.  Why should she?  Had not
+Sir James Clark assured her that all would be well?  Only two days
+before the end, which was seen now to be almost inevitable by everyone
+about her, she wrote, full of apparent confidence, to the King of the
+Belgians: 'I do not sit up with him at night,' she said, 'as I could be
+of no use; and there is nothing to cause alarm.'[45]  The Princess
+Alice tried to tell her the truth, but her hopefulness would not be
+daunted.  On the morning of December 14, Albert, just as she had
+expected, seemed to be better; perhaps the crisis was over.  But in the
+course of the day there was a serious relapse.  Then at last she
+allowed herself to see that she was standing on the edge of an
+appalling gulf.  The whole family was summoned, and, one after another,
+the children took a silent farewell of their father.  'It was a
+terrible moment,' Victoria wrote in her diary, 'but, thank God! I was
+able to command myself, and to be perfectly calm, and remained sitting
+by his side.'  He murmured something, but she could not hear what it
+was; she thought he was speaking in French.  Then all at once he began
+to arrange his hair, 'just as he used to do when well and he was {217}
+dressing.'  'Es ist kleines Frauchen,' she whispered to him; and he
+seemed to understand.  For a moment, towards the evening, she went into
+another room, but was immediately called back: she saw at a glance that
+a ghastly change had taken place.  As she knelt by the bed, he breathed
+deeply, breathed gently, breathed at last no more.  His features became
+perfectly rigid.  She shrieked--one long wild shriek that rang through
+the terror-stricken Castle--and understood that she had lost him for
+ever.[46]
+
+
+
+[1] Martin, II, 161.
+
+[2] 'Read this carefully, and tell me if there are any mistakes in it.'
+
+[3] 'Here is a draft I have made for you.  Read it.  I should think
+this would do.'
+
+[4] Martin, V, 273-5.
+
+[5] _Ibid._, II, 379.
+
+[6] Martin, IV, 14-15, 60.
+
+[7] _Ibid._, II, 479.
+
+[8] Martin, II, 251-2; Bloomfield, II, 110.
+
+[9] _D.N.B._, Second Supplement, Art. 'Edward VII'; _Quarterly Review_,
+CCXIII, 4-7, 16.
+
+[10] _Leaves_, 18, 33, 34, 36, 127-8, 132_n_.
+
+[11] _Leaves_, 73-4, 95-6; Greville, VI, 303-4.
+
+[12] _Leaves_, 99-100.
+
+[13] _Private Life_, 209-11; _Quarterly Review_, CXCIII, 335.
+
+[14] _Leaves_, 103, 111.
+
+[15] _Leaves_, 92-4.
+
+[16] _Ibid._, 102, 113-4.
+
+[17] _Leaves_, 72, 117, 137.
+
+[18] _Letters_, III, 127.
+
+[19] Private information.
+
+[20] Martin, III, v.
+
+[21] Martin, III, 146-7, 168-9, 177-9,
+
+[22] Martin, III, 242, 245, 351; IV, 111.
+
+[23] _Quarterly Review_, CXCIII, 313-4; _Spinster Lady_, 7.
+
+[24] Crawford, 311-2.
+
+[25] Martin, III, 350.
+
+[26] _Leaves_, 105-6.
+
+[27] Martin, II, 429.
+
+[28] _Letters_, III, especially July-December 1859; Martin, IV, 488-91;
+V, 189.
+
+[29] _Leaves_, 107.
+
+[30] _Letters_, III, 253.
+
+[31] Martin, IV, 160-9.
+
+[32] _D.N.B._, Second Supplement, 551; _Quarterly Review_, CCXIII,
+9-20, 24; Greville, VIII, 217.
+
+[33] Stockmar, 4, 44.
+
+[34] Ernest, I, 140-1.
+
+[35] Theognis, 401 ff.
+
+[36] _Letters_, III, 194.
+
+[37] Grey, 195_n_.
+
+[38] Martin, IV, 298.
+
+[39] Martin, V, 202-4, 217-9.
+
+[40] _D.N.B._, Second Supplement, 557.
+
+[41] Martin, V, 416-27.
+
+[42] Martin, V, 415.
+
+[43] Bloomfield, II, 155.
+
+[44] Martin, V, 427-35; Clarendon, II, 253-4: 'One cannot speak with
+certainty; but it is horrible to think that such a life _may_ have been
+sacrificed to Sir J. Clark's selfish jealousy of every member of his
+profession.'--The Earl of Clarendon to the Duchess of Manchester, Dec.
+17, 1861.
+
+[45] _Letters_, III, 472-3.
+
+[46] Martin, V, 435-42; Hare, II, 286-8; _Spinster Lady_, 176-7.
+
+
+
+
+{218}
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+WIDOWHOOD
+
+I
+
+The death of the Prince Consort was the central turning-point in the
+history of Queen Victoria.  She herself felt that her true life had
+ceased with her husband's, and that the remainder of her days upon
+earth was of a twilight nature--an epilogue to a drama that was done.
+Nor is it possible that her biographer should escape a similar
+impression.  For him, too, there is a darkness over the latter half of
+that long career.  The first forty-two years of the Queen's life are
+illuminated by a great and varied quantity of authentic information.
+With Albert's death a veil descends.  Only occasionally, at fitful and
+disconnected intervals, does it lift for a moment or two; a few main
+outlines, a few remarkable details may be discerned; the rest is all
+conjecture and ambiguity.  Thus, though the Queen survived her great
+bereavement for almost as many years as she had lived before it, the
+chronicle of those years can bear no proportion to the tale of her
+earlier life.  We must be content in our ignorance with a brief and
+summary relation.
+
+[Illustration: QUEEN VICTORIA IN 1863.]
+
+The sudden removal of the Prince was not merely a matter of
+overwhelming personal concern to Victoria; it was an event of national,
+of European importance.  He was only forty-two, and in the ordinary
+course of {219} nature he might have been expected to live at least
+thirty years longer.  Had he done so it can hardly be doubted that the
+whole development of the English polity would have been changed.
+Already at the time of his death he filled a unique place in English
+public life; already among the inner circle of politicians he was
+accepted as a necessary and useful part of the mechanism of the State.
+Lord Clarendon, for instance, spoke of his death as 'a national
+calamity of far greater importance than the public dream of,' and
+lamented the loss of his 'sagacity and foresight,' which, he declared,
+would have been 'more than ever valuable' in the event of an American
+war.[1]  And, as time went on, the Prince's influence must have
+enormously increased.  For, in addition to his intellectual and moral
+qualities, he enjoyed, by virtue of his position, one supreme advantage
+which every other holder of high office in the country was without: he
+was permanent.  Politicians came and went, but the Prince was
+perpetually installed at the centre of affairs.  Who can doubt that,
+towards the end of the century, such a man, grown grey in the service
+of the nation, virtuous, intelligent, and with the unexampled
+experience of a whole lifetime of government, would have acquired an
+extraordinary prestige?  If, in his youth, he had been able to pit the
+Crown against the mighty Palmerston and to come off with equal honours
+from the contest, of what might he not have been capable in his old
+age?  What Minister, however able, however popular, could have
+withstood the wisdom, the irreproachability, the vast prescriptive
+authority, of the venerable Prince?  It is easy to imagine how, under
+such a ruler, an attempt might have been made to convert England into a
+State as exactly {220} organised, as elaborately trained, as
+efficiently equipped, and as autocratically controlled, as Prussia
+herself.  Then perhaps, eventually, under some powerful leader--a
+Gladstone or a Bright--the democratic forces in the country might have
+rallied together, and a struggle might have followed in which the
+Monarchy would have been shaken to its foundations.  Or, on the other
+hand, Disraeli's hypothetical prophecy might have come true.  'With
+Prince Albert,' he said, 'we have buried our sovereign.  This German
+Prince has governed England for twenty-one years with a wisdom and
+energy such as none of our kings have ever shown....  If he had
+outlived some of our "old stagers" he would have given us the blessings
+of absolute government."[2]
+
+The English Constitution--that indescribable entity--is a living thing,
+growing with the growth of men, and assuming ever-varying forms in
+accordance with the subtle and complex laws of human character.  It is
+the child of wisdom and chance.  The wise men of 1688 moulded it into
+the shape we know; but the chance that George I could not speak English
+gave it one of its essential peculiarities--the system of a Cabinet
+independent of the Crown and subordinate to the Prime Minister.  The
+wisdom of Lord Grey saved it from petrifaction and destruction, and set
+it upon the path of Democracy.  Then chance intervened once more; a
+female sovereign happened to marry an able and pertinacious man; and it
+seemed likely that an element which had been quiescent within it for
+years--the element of irresponsible administrative power--was about to
+become its predominant characteristic and to change completely the
+direction of its growth.  But what chance gave, chance took away.  The
+Consort perished {221} in his prime; and the English Constitution,
+dropping the dead limb with hardly a tremor, continued its mysterious
+life as if he had never been.
+
+One human being, and one alone, felt the full force of what had
+happened.  The Baron, by his fireside at Coburg, suddenly saw the
+tremendous fabric of his creation crash down into sheer and
+irremediable ruin.  Albert was gone, and he had lived in vain.  Even
+his blackest hypochondria had never envisioned quite so miserable a
+catastrophe.  Victoria wrote to him, visited him, tried to console him
+by declaring with passionate conviction that she would carry on her
+husband's work.  He smiled a sad smile and looked into the fire.  Then
+he murmured that he was going where Albert was--that he would not be
+long.[3]  He shrank into himself.  His children clustered round him and
+did their best to comfort him, but it was useless: the Baron's heart
+was broken.  He lingered for eighteen months, and then, with his pupil,
+explored the shadow and the dust.
+
+
+II
+
+With appalling suddenness Victoria had exchanged the serene radiance of
+happiness for the utter darkness of woe.  In the first dreadful moments
+those about her had feared that she might lose her reason, but the iron
+strain within her held firm, and in the intervals between the intense
+paroxysms of grief it was observed that the Queen was calm.  She
+remembered, too, that Albert had always disapproved of exaggerated
+manifestations of feeling, and her one remaining desire was to do
+nothing but what he would have wished.  Yet there were moments when her
+royal anguish would {222} brook no restraints.  One day she sent for
+the Duchess of Sutherland, and, leading her to the Prince's room, fell
+prostrate before his clothes in a flood of weeping, while she adjured
+the Duchess to tell her whether the beauty of Albert's character had
+ever been surpassed.[4]  At other times a feeling akin to indignation
+swept over her.  'The poor fatherless baby of eight months,' she wrote
+to the King of the Belgians, 'is now the utterly heart-broken and
+crushed widow of forty-two!  My _life_ as a _happy_ one is _ended_!
+The world is gone for _me_!  ... Oh! to be cut off in the prime of
+life--to see our pure, happy, quiet, domestic life, which _alone_
+enabled me to bear my _much_ disliked position, CUT OFF at
+forty-two--when I _had_ hoped with such instinctive certainty that God
+never _would_ part us, and would let us grow old together (though _he_
+always talked of the shortness of life)--is _too awful_, too cruel!'[5]
+The tone of outraged Majesty seems to be discernible.  Did she wonder
+in her heart of hearts how the Deity could have dared?
+
+But all other emotions gave way before her overmastering determination
+to continue, absolutely unchanged, and for the rest of her life on
+earth, her reverence, her obedience, her idolatry.  'I am anxious to
+repeat one thing,' she told her uncle, 'and _that one_ is _my firm_
+resolve, my _irrevocable decision_, viz. that _his_ wishes--_his_
+plans--about everything, _his_ views about _every_ thing are to be _my
+law_!  And _no human power_ will make me swerve from _what he_ decided
+and wished.'  She grew fierce, she grew furious, at the thought of any
+possible intrusion between her and her desire.  Her uncle was coming to
+visit her, and it flashed upon her that _he_ might try to interfere
+with her and seek to 'rule the roost' as of old.  She would give him a
+hint.  'I {223} am _also determined_,' she wrote, 'that _no one_
+person--may he be ever so good, ever so devoted among my servants--is
+to lead or guide or dictate _to me_.  I know _how he_ would disapprove
+it ... Though miserably weak and utterly shattered, my spirit rises
+when I think any wish or plan of his is to be touched or changed, or I
+am to be _made to do_ anything.'  She ended her letter in grief and
+affection.  She was, she said, his 'ever wretched but devoted child,
+Victoria R.'  And then she looked at the date: it was the 24th of
+December.  An agonising pang assailed her, and she dashed down a
+postscript--'What a Xmas!  I won't think of it.'[6]
+
+At first, in the tumult of her distresses, she declared that she could
+not see her Ministers, and the Princess Alice, assisted by Sir Charles
+Phipps, the keeper of the Privy Purse, performed, to the best of her
+ability, the functions of an intermediary.  After a few weeks, however,
+the Cabinet, through Lord John Russell, ventured to warn the Queen that
+this could not continue.[7]  She realised that they were right: Albert
+would have agreed with them; and so she sent for the Prime Minister.
+But when Lord Palmerston arrived at Osborne, in the pink of health,
+brisk, with his whiskers freshly dyed, and dressed in a brown overcoat,
+light grey trousers, green gloves, and blue studs, he did not create a
+very good impression.[8]
+
+Nevertheless, she had grown attached to her old enemy, and the thought
+of a political change filled her with agitated apprehensions.  The
+Government, she knew, might fall at any moment; she felt she could not
+face such an eventuality; and therefore, six months after the death of
+the Prince, she took the unprecedented {224} step of sending a private
+message to Lord Derby, the leader of the Opposition, to tell him that
+she was not in a fit state of mind or body to undergo the anxiety of a
+change of Government, and that if he turned the present Ministers out
+of office it would be at the risk of sacrificing her life--or her
+reason.  When this message reached Lord Derby he was considerably
+surprised.  'Dear me!' was his cynical comment.  'I didn't think she
+was so fond of them as _that_.'[9]
+
+Though the violence of her perturbations gradually subsided, her
+cheerfulness did not return.  For months, for years, she continued in
+settled gloom.  Her life became one of almost complete seclusion.
+Arrayed in thickest _cr�pe_, she passed dolefully from Windsor to
+Osborne, from Osborne to Balmoral.  Rarely visiting the capital,
+refusing to take any part in the ceremonies of state, shutting herself
+off from the slightest intercourse with society, she became almost as
+unknown to her subjects as some potentate of the East.  They might
+murmur, but they did not understand.  What had she to do with empty
+shows and vain enjoyments?  No!  She was absorbed by very different
+preoccupations.  She was the devoted guardian of a sacred trust.  Her
+place was in the inmost shrine of the house of mourning--where she
+alone had the right to enter, where she could feel the effluence of a
+mysterious presence, and interpret, however faintly and feebly, the
+promptings of a still living soul.  That, and that only, was her
+glorious, her terrible duty.  For terrible indeed it was.  As the years
+passed her depression seemed to deepen and her loneliness to grow more
+intense.  'I am on a dreary sad pinnacle of solitary grandeur,' she
+said.[10]  Again and again she felt that she {225} could bear her
+situation no longer--that she would sink under the strain.  And then,
+instantly, that Voice spoke: and she braced herself once more to
+perform, with minute conscientiousness, her grim and holy task.
+
+Above all else, what she had to do was to make her own the
+master-impulse of Albert's life--she must work, as he had worked, in
+the service of the country.  That vast burden of toil which he had
+taken upon his shoulders it was now for her to bear.  She assumed the
+gigantic load; and naturally she staggered under it.  While he had
+lived, she had worked, indeed, with regularity and application; but it
+was work made easy, made delicious, by his care, his forethought, his
+advice, and his infallibility.  The mere sound of his voice, asking her
+to sign a paper, had thrilled her; in such a presence she could have
+laboured gladly for ever.  But now there was a hideous change.  Now
+there were no neat piles and docketings under the green lamp; now there
+were no simple explanations of difficult matters; now there was nobody
+to tell her what was right and what was wrong.  She had her
+secretaries, no doubt: there were Sir Charles Phipps, and General Grey,
+and Sir Thomas Biddulph; and they did their best.  But they were mere
+subordinates: the whole weight of initiative and responsibility rested
+upon her alone.  For so it had to be.  'I am _determined_'--had she not
+declared it?--'that no one person is to lead or guide or dictate _to
+me_'; anything else would be a betrayal of her trust.  She would follow
+the Prince in all things.  He had refused to delegate authority; he had
+examined into every detail with his own eyes; he had made it a rule
+never to sign a paper without having first, not merely read it, but
+made notes on it too.  She {226} would do the same.  She sat from
+morning till night surrounded by huge heaps of despatch-boxes, reading
+and writing at her desk--at her desk, alas! which stood alone now in
+the room.[11]
+
+Within two years of Albert's death a violent disturbance in foreign
+politics put Victoria's faithfulness to a crucial test.  The fearful
+Schleswig-Holstein dispute, which had been smouldering for more than a
+decade, showed signs of bursting out into conflagration.  The
+complexity of the questions at issue was indescribable.  'Only three
+people,' said Palmerston, 'have ever really understood the
+Schleswig-Holstein business--the Prince Consort, who is dead--a German
+professor, who has gone mad--and I, who have forgotten all about
+it.'[12]  But, though the Prince might be dead, had he not left a
+vicegerent behind him?  Victoria threw herself into the seething
+embroilment with the vigour of inspiration.  She devoted hours daily to
+the study of the affair in all its windings; but she had a clue through
+the labyrinth: whenever the question had been discussed, Albert, she
+recollected it perfectly, had always taken the side of Prussia.  Her
+course was clear.  She became an ardent champion of the Prussian point
+of view.  It was a legacy from the Prince, she said.[13]  She did not
+realise that the Prussia of the Prince's days was dead, and that a new
+Prussia, the Prussia of Bismarck, was born.  Perhaps Palmerston, with
+his queer prescience, instinctively apprehended the new danger; at any
+rate, he and Lord John were agreed upon the necessity of {227}
+supporting Denmark against Prussia's claims.  But opinion was sharply
+divided, not only in the country but in the Cabinet.  For eighteen
+months the controversy raged; while the Queen, with persistent
+vehemence, opposed the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary.  When
+at last the final crisis arose--when it seemed possible that England
+would join forces with Denmark in a war against Prussia--Victoria's
+agitation grew febrile in its intensity.  Towards her German relatives
+she preserved a discreet appearance of impartiality; but she poured out
+upon her Ministers a flood of appeals, protests, and expostulations.
+She invoked the sacred cause of Peace.  'The only chance of preserving
+peace for Europe,' she wrote, 'is by not assisting Denmark, who has
+brought this entirely upon herself....  The Queen suffers much, and her
+nerves are more and more totally shattered....  But though all this
+anxiety is wearing her out, it will not shake her firm purpose of
+resisting any attempt to involve this country in a mad and useless
+combat.'  She was, she declared, 'prepared to make a stand,' even if
+the resignation of the Foreign Secretary should follow.[14]  'The
+Queen,' she told Lord Granville, 'is completely exhausted by the
+anxiety and suspense, and misses her beloved husband's help, advice,
+support, and love in an overwhelming manner.'  She was so worn out by
+her efforts for peace that she could 'hardly hold up her head or hold
+her pen.'[15]  England did not go to war, and Denmark was left to her
+fate; but how far the attitude of the Queen contributed to this result
+it is impossible, with our present knowledge, to say.  On the whole,
+however, it seems probable that the determining factor in the situation
+was the {228} powerful peace party in the Cabinet rather than the
+imperious and pathetic pressure of Victoria.
+
+It is, at any rate, certain that the Queen's enthusiasm for the sacred
+cause of peace was short-lived.  Within a few months her mind had
+completely altered.  Her eyes were opened to the true nature of
+Prussia, whose designs upon Austria were about to culminate in the
+Seven Weeks' War.  Veering precipitately from one extreme to the other,
+she now urged her Ministers to interfere by force of arms in support of
+Austria.  But she urged in vain.[16]
+
+Her political activity, no more than her social seclusion, was approved
+by the public.  As the years passed, and the royal mourning remained as
+unrelieved as ever, the animadversions grew more general and more
+severe.  It was observed that the Queen's protracted privacy not only
+cast a gloom over high society, not only deprived the populace of its
+pageantry, but also exercised a highly deleterious effect upon the
+dress-making, millinery, and hosiery trades.  This latter consideration
+carried great weight.  At last, early in 1864, the rumour spread that
+Her Majesty was about to go out of mourning, and there was much
+rejoicing in the newspapers; but unfortunately it turned out that the
+rumour was quite without foundation.  Victoria, with her own hand,
+wrote a letter to _The Times_ to say so.  'This idea,' she declared,
+'cannot be too explicitly contradicted.'  'The Queen,' the letter
+continued, 'heartily appreciates the desire of her subjects to see her,
+and whatever she _can_ do to gratify them in this loyal and
+affectionate wish, she _will_ do....  But there are other and higher
+duties than those of mere representation which are now thrown upon the
+Queen, alone {229} and unassisted--duties which she cannot neglect
+without injury to the public service, which weigh unceasingly upon her,
+overwhelming her with work and anxiety.'[17]  The justification might
+have been considered more cogent had it not been known that those
+'other and higher duties' emphasised by the Queen consisted for the
+most part of an attempt to counteract the foreign policy of Lord
+Palmerston and Lord John Russell.  A large section--perhaps a
+majority--of the nation were violent partisans of Denmark in the
+Schleswig-Holstein quarrel; and Victoria's support of Prussia was
+widely denounced.  A wave of unpopularity, which reminded old observers
+of the period preceding the Queen's marriage more than twenty-five
+years before, was beginning to rise.  The press was rude; Lord
+Ellenborough attacked the Queen in the House of Lords; there were
+curious whispers in high quarters that she had had thoughts of
+abdicating--whispers followed by regrets that she had not done so.[18]
+Victoria, outraged and injured, felt that she was misunderstood.  She
+was profoundly unhappy.  After Lord Ellenborough's speech, General Grey
+declared that he 'had never seen the Queen so completely upset.'  'Oh,
+how fearful it is,' she herself wrote to Lord Granville, 'to be
+suspected--uncheered--unguided and unadvised--and how alone the poor
+Queen feels!'[19]  Nevertheless, suffer as she might, she was as
+resolute as ever; she would not move by a hair's-breadth from the
+course that a supreme obligation marked out for her; she would be
+faithful to the end.
+
+And so, when Schleswig-Holstein was forgotten, {230} and even the image
+of the Prince had begun to grow dim in the fickle memories of men, the
+solitary watcher remained immutably concentrated at her peculiar task.
+The world's hostility, steadily increasing, was confronted and outfaced
+by the impenetrable weeds of Victoria.  Would the world never
+understand?  It was not mere sorrow that kept her so strangely
+sequestered; it was devotion, it was self-immolation; it was the
+laborious legacy of love.  Unceasingly the pen moved over the
+black-edged paper.  The flesh might be weak, but that vast burden must
+be borne.  And fortunately, if the world would not understand, there
+were faithful friends who did.  There was Lord Granville, and there was
+kind Mr. Theodore Martin.  Perhaps Mr. Martin, who was so clever, would
+find means to make people realise the facts.  She would send him a
+letter, pointing out her arduous labours and the difficulties under
+which she struggled, and then he might write an article for one of the
+magazines.  It is not, she told him in 1863, 'the Queen's _sorrow_ that
+keeps her secluded....  It is her _overwhelming work_ and her health,
+which is greatly shaken by her sorrow, and the totally overwhelming
+amount of work and responsibility--work which she feels really wears
+her out.  Alice Helps was wonder-struck at the Queen's room; and if
+Mrs. Martin will look at it, she can tell Mr. Martin what surrounds
+her.  From the hour she gets out of bed till she gets into it again
+there is work, work, work,--letter-boxes, questions, &c., which are
+dreadfully exhausting--and if she had not comparative rest and quiet in
+the evening she would most likely not be _alive_.  Her brain is
+constantly overtaxed.'[20]  It was too true.
+
+
+{231}
+
+III
+
+To carry on Albert's work--that was her first duty; but there was
+another, second only to that, and yet nearer, if possible, to her
+heart--to impress the true nature of his genius and character upon the
+minds of her subjects.  She realised that during his life he had not
+been properly appreciated; the full extent of his powers, the supreme
+quality of his goodness, had been necessarily concealed; but death had
+removed the need of barriers, and now her husband, in his magnificent
+entirety, should stand revealed to all.  She set to work methodically.
+She directed Sir Arthur Helps to bring out a collection of the Prince's
+speeches and addresses, and the weighty tome appeared in 1862.  Then
+she commanded General Grey to write an account of the Prince's early
+years--from his birth to his marriage; she herself laid down the design
+of the book, contributed a number of confidential documents, and added
+numerous notes; General Grey obeyed, and the work was completed in
+1866.  But the principal part of the story was still untold, and Mr.
+Martin was forthwith instructed to write a complete biography of the
+Prince Consort.  Mr. Martin laboured for fourteen years.  The mass of
+material with which he had to deal was almost incredible, but he was
+extremely industrious, and he enjoyed throughout the gracious
+assistance of Her Majesty.  The first bulky volume was published in
+1874; four others slowly followed; so that it was not until 1880 that
+the monumental work was finished.[21]
+
+Mr. Martin was rewarded by a knighthood; and {232} yet it was sadly
+evident that neither Sir Theodore nor his predecessors had achieved the
+purpose which the Queen had in view.  Perhaps she was unfortunate in
+her coadjutors, but, in reality, the responsibility for the failure
+must lie with Victoria herself.  Sir Theodore and the others faithfully
+carried out the task which she had set them--faithfully put before the
+public the very image of Albert that filled her own mind.  The fatal
+drawback was that the public did not find that image attractive.
+Victoria's emotional nature, far more remarkable for vigour than for
+subtlety, rejecting utterly the qualifications which perspicacity, or
+humour, might suggest, could be satisfied with nothing but the absolute
+and the categorical.  When she disliked she did so with an unequivocal
+emphasis which swept the object of her repugnance at once and finally
+outside the pale of consideration; and her feelings of affection were
+equally unmitigated.  In the case of Albert her passion for
+superlatives reached its height.  To have conceived of him as anything
+short of perfect--perfect in virtue, in wisdom, in beauty, in all the
+glories and graces of man--would have been an unthinkable blasphemy:
+perfect he was, and perfect he must be shown to have been.  And so Sir
+Arthur, Sir Theodore, and the General painted him.  In the
+circumstances, and under such supervision, to have done anything else
+would have required talents considerably more distinguished than any
+that those gentlemen possessed.  But that was not all.  By a curious
+mischance Victoria was also able to press into her service another
+writer, the distinction of whose talents was this time beyond a doubt.
+The Poet Laureate, adopting, either from complaisance or conviction,
+the tone of his sovereign, joined in the chorus, and endowed the royal
+formula {233} with the magical resonance of verse.  This settled the
+matter.  Henceforward it was impossible to forget that Albert had worn
+the white flower of a blameless life.
+
+The result was doubly unfortunate.  Victoria, disappointed and
+chagrined, bore a grudge against her people for their refusal, in spite
+of all her efforts, to rate her husband at his true worth.  She did not
+understand that the picture of an embodied perfection is distasteful to
+the majority of mankind.  The cause of this is not so much an envy of
+the perfect being as a suspicion that he must be inhuman; and thus it
+happened that the public, when it saw displayed for its admiration a
+figure resembling the sugary hero of a moral story-book rather than a
+fellow man of flesh and blood, turned away with a shrug, a smile, and a
+flippant ejaculation.  But in this the public was the loser as well as
+Victoria.  For in truth Albert was a far more interesting personage
+than the public dreamed.  By a curious irony an impeccable waxwork had
+been fixed by the Queen's love in the popular imagination, while the
+creature whom it represented--the real creature, so full of energy and
+stress and torment, so mysterious and so unhappy, and so fallible, and
+so very human--had altogether disappeared.
+
+
+IV
+
+Words and books may be ambiguous memorials; but who can misinterpret
+the visible solidity of bronze and stone?  At Frogmore, near Windsor,
+where her mother was buried, Victoria constructed, at the cost of
+�200,000, a vast and elaborate mausoleum for herself and her
+husband.[22]  But that was a private and domestic {234} monument, and
+the Queen desired that wherever her subjects might be gathered together
+they should be reminded of the Prince.  Her desire was gratified; all
+over the country--at Aberdeen, at Perth, and at Wolverhampton--statues
+of the Prince were erected; and the Queen, making an exception to her
+rule of retirement, unveiled them herself.  Nor did the capital lag
+behind.  A month after the Prince's death a meeting was called together
+at the Mansion House to discuss schemes for honouring his memory.
+Opinions, however, were divided upon the subject.  Was a statue or an
+institution to be preferred?  Meanwhile a subscription was opened; an
+influential committee was appointed, and the Queen was consulted as to
+her wishes in the matter.  Her Majesty replied that she would prefer a
+granite obelisk, with sculptures at the base, to an institution.  But
+the committee hesitated: an obelisk, to be worthy of the name, must
+clearly be a monolith; and where was the quarry in England capable of
+furnishing a granite block of the required size?  It was true that
+there was granite in Russian Finland; but the committee were advised
+that it was not adapted to resist exposure to the open air.  On the
+whole, therefore, they suggested that a Memorial Hall should be
+erected, together with a statue of the Prince.  Her Majesty assented;
+but then another difficulty arose.  It was found that not more than
+�60,000 had been subscribed--a sum insufficient to defray the double
+expense.  The Hall, therefore, was abandoned; a statue alone was to be
+erected; and certain eminent architects were asked to prepare designs.
+Eventually the committee had at their disposal a total sum of �120,000,
+since the public subscribed another �10,000, while �50,000 was voted by
+Parliament.  Some years later a joint-stock company {235} was formed
+and built, as a private speculation, the Albert Hall.[23]
+
+The architect whose design was selected, both by the committee and by
+the Queen, was Mr. Gilbert Scott, whose industry, conscientiousness,
+and genuine piety had brought him to the head of his profession.  His
+lifelong zeal for the Gothic style having given him a special
+prominence, his handiwork was strikingly visible, not only in a
+multitude of original buildings, but in most of the cathedrals of
+England.  Protests, indeed, were occasionally raised against his
+renovations; but Mr. Scott replied with such vigour and unction in
+articles and pamphlets that not a Dean was unconvinced, and he was
+permitted to continue his labours without interruption.  On one
+occasion, however, his devotion to Gothic had placed him in an
+unpleasant situation.  The Government offices in Whitehall were to be
+rebuilt; Mr. Scott competed, and his designs were successful.
+Naturally, they were in the Gothic style, combining 'a certain
+squareness and horizontality of outline' with pillar-mullions, gables,
+high-pitched roofs, and dormers; and the drawings, as Mr. Scott himself
+observed, 'were, perhaps, the best ever sent in to a competition, or
+nearly so.'  After the usual difficulties and delays the work was at
+last to be put in hand, when there was a change of Government and Lord
+Palmerston became Prime Minister.  Lord Palmerston at once sent for Mr.
+Scott.  'Well, Mr. Scott,' he said, in his jaunty way, 'I can't have
+anything to do with this Gothic style.  I must insist on your making a
+design in the Italian manner, which I am sure you can do very
+cleverly.'  Mr. Scott was appalled; the style of the Italian
+renaissance was not {236} only unsightly, it was positively immoral,
+and he sternly refused to have anything to do with it.  Thereupon Lord
+Palmerston assumed a fatherly tone.  'Quite true; a Gothic architect
+can't be expected to put up a Classical building; I must find someone
+else.'  This was intolerable, and Mr. Scott, on his return home,
+addressed to the Prime Minister a strongly-worded letter, in which he
+dwelt upon his position as an architect, upon his having won two
+European competitions, his being an A.R.A., a gold medallist of the
+Institute, and a lecturer on architecture at the Royal Academy; but it
+was useless--Lord Palmerston did not even reply.  It then occurred to
+Mr. Scott that, by a judicious mixture, he might, while preserving the
+essential character of the Gothic, produce a design which would give a
+superficial impression of the Classical style.  He did so, but no
+effect was produced upon Lord Palmerston.  The new design, he said, was
+'neither one thing nor t'other--a regular mongrel affair--and he would
+have nothing to do with it either.'  After that Mr. Scott found it
+necessary to recruit for two months at Scarborough, 'with a course of
+quinine.'  He recovered his tone at last, but only at the cost of his
+convictions.  For the sake of his family he felt that it was his
+unfortunate duty to obey the Prime Minister; and, shuddering with
+horror, he constructed the Government offices in a strictly Renaissance
+style.
+
+Shortly afterwards Mr. Scott found some consolation in building the St.
+Pancras Hotel in a style of his own.[24]
+
+And now another and yet more satisfactory task was his.  'My idea in
+designing the Memorial,' he wrote, 'was to erect a kind of ciborium to
+protect a statue of {237} the Prince; and its special characteristic
+was that the ciborium was designed in some degree on the principles of
+the ancient shrines.  These shrines were models of imaginary buildings,
+such as had never in reality been erected; and my idea was to realise
+one of these imaginary structures with its precious materials, its
+inlaying, its enamels, &c. &c.'[25]  His idea was particularly
+appropriate since it chanced that a similar conception, though in the
+reverse order of magnitude, had occurred to the Prince himself, who had
+designed and executed several silver cruet-stands upon the same model.
+At the Queen's request a site was chosen in Kensington Gardens as near
+as possible to that of the Great Exhibition; and in May 1864 the first
+sod was turned.  The work was long, complicated, and difficult; a great
+number of workmen were employed, besides several subsidiary sculptors
+and metal-workers under Mr. Scott's direction, while at every stage
+sketches and models were submitted to her Majesty, who criticised all
+the details with minute care, and constantly suggested improvements.
+The frieze, which encircled the base of the monument, was in itself a
+very serious piece of work.  'This,' said Mr. Scott, 'taken as a whole,
+is perhaps one of the most laborious works of sculpture ever
+undertaken, consisting, as it does, of a continuous range of
+figure-sculpture of the most elaborate description, in the highest
+_alto-relievo_ of life-size, of more than 200 feet in length,
+containing about 170 figures, and executed in the hardest marble which
+could be procured.'  After three years of toil the memorial was still
+far from completion, and Mr. Scott thought it advisable to give a
+dinner to the workmen, 'as a substantial recognition of his
+appreciation of their {238} skill and energy.'  'Two long tables,' we
+are told, 'constructed of scaffold planks, were arranged in the
+workshops, and covered with newspapers, for want of table-cloths.
+Upwards of eighty men sat down.  Beef and mutton, plum-pudding and
+cheese, were supplied in abundance, and each man who desired it had
+three pints of beer, gingerbeer and lemonade being provided for the
+teetotalers, who formed a very considerable proportion....  Several
+toasts were given and many of the workmen spoke, almost all of them
+commencing by "Thanking God that they enjoyed good health"; some
+alluded to the temperance that prevailed amongst them, others observed
+how little swearing was ever heard, whilst all said how pleased and
+proud they were to be engaged on so great a work.'
+
+Gradually the edifice approached completion.  The one hundred and
+seventieth life-size figure in the frieze was chiselled, the granite
+pillars arose, the mosaics were inserted in the allegorical pediments,
+the four colossal statues representing the greater Christian virtues,
+the four other colossal statues representing the greater moral virtues,
+were hoisted into their positions, the eight bronzes representing the
+greater sciences--Astronomy, Chemistry, Geology, Geometry, Rhetoric,
+Medicine, Philosophy, and Physiology--were fixed on their glittering
+pinnacles, high in air.  The statue of Physiology was particularly
+admired.  'On her left arm,' the official description informs us, 'she
+bears a new-born infant, as a representation of the development of the
+highest and most perfect of physiological forms; her hand points
+towards a microscope, the instrument which lends its assistance for the
+investigation of the minuter forms of animal and vegetable organisms.'
+At last the gilded cross crowned the {239} dwindling galaxies of
+superimposed angels, the four continents in white marble stood at the
+four corners of the base, and, seven years after its inception, in July
+1872, the monument was thrown open to the public.
+
+But four more years were to elapse before the central figure was ready
+to be placed under its starry canopy.  It was designed by Mr. Foley,
+though in one particular the sculptor's freedom was restricted by Mr.
+Scott.  'I have chosen the sitting posture,' Mr. Scott said, 'as best
+conveying the idea of dignity befitting a royal personage.'  Mr. Foley
+ably carried out the conception of his principal.  'In the attitude and
+expression,' he said, 'the aim has been, with the individuality of
+portraiture, to embody rank, character, and enlightenment, and to
+convey a sense of that responsive intelligence indicating an active,
+rather than a passive, interest in those pursuits of civilisation
+illustrated in the surrounding figures, groups, and relievos....  To
+identify the figure with one of the most memorable undertakings of the
+public life of the Prince--the International Exhibition of 1851--a
+catalogue of the works collected in that first gathering of the
+industry of all nations, is placed in the right hand.'  The statue was
+of bronze gilt and weighed nearly ten tons.  It was rightly supposed
+that the simple word 'Albert,' cast on the base, would be a sufficient
+means of identification.[26]
+
+
+
+[1] Clarendon, II, 251.
+
+[2] Vitzthum, II, 161.
+
+[3] Stockmar, 49; Ernest, IV-71
+
+[4] Clarendon, II, 251, 253.
+
+[5] _Letters_, III, 474-5.
+
+[6] _Letters_, III, 476.
+
+[7] Lee, 322-3; Crawford, 368.
+
+[8] Clarendon, II, 257.
+
+[9] Clarendon, II, 261-2.
+
+[10] Martin, _Queen Victoria_, 155.
+
+[11] Clarendon, II, 261; Lee, 327; Martin, _Queen Victoria_, 30.
+
+[12] Robertson, 156.
+
+[13] Morley, II, 102; Ernest, IV, 133: 'I know that our dear angel
+Albert always regarded a strong Prussia as a necessity, for which,
+therefore, it is a sacred duty for me to work.'--Queen Victoria to the
+Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, August 29, 1863.
+
+[14] Fitzmaurice, I, 459, 460.
+
+[15] _Ibid._, I, 472-3.
+
+[16] Clarendon, II, 310-1.
+
+[17] _The Times_, April 6, 1864; Clarendon, II, 290.
+
+[18] Clarendon, II, 292-3.
+
+[19] Fitzmaurice, I, 466, 469.
+
+[20] Martin, _Queen Victoria_, 28-9.
+
+[21] Martin, _Queen Victoria_, 97-106.
+
+[22] Lee, 390
+
+[23] _National Memorial_.
+
+[24] Scott, 177-201, 271.
+
+[25] Scott, 225.
+
+[26] _National Memorial_; Dafforne, 43-4.
+
+
+
+
+{240}
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+MR. GLADSTONE AND LORD BEACONSFIELD
+
+I
+
+Lord Palmerston's laugh--a queer metallic 'Ha! ha! ha!' with
+reverberations in it from the days of Pitt and the Congress of
+Vienna--was heard no more in Piccadilly;[1] Lord John Russell dwindled
+into senility; Lord Derby tottered from the stage.  A new scene opened;
+and new protagonists--Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Disraeli--struggled
+together in the limelight.  Victoria, from her post of vantage, watched
+these developments with that passionate and personal interest which she
+invariably imported into politics.  Her prepossessions were of an
+unexpected kind.  Mr. Gladstone had been the disciple of her revered
+Peel, and had won the approval of Albert; Mr. Disraeli had hounded Sir
+Robert to his fall with hideous virulence, and the Prince had
+pronounced that he 'had not one single element of a gentleman in his
+composition.'[2]  Yet she regarded Mr. Gladstone with a distrust and
+dislike which steadily deepened, while upon his rival she lavished an
+abundance of confidence, esteem, and affection such as Lord Melbourne
+himself had hardly known.
+
+[Illustration: QUEEN VICTORIA IN 1876.  _From the Portrait by Von
+Angeli_.]
+
+Her attitude towards the Tory Minister had suddenly {241} changed when
+she found that he alone among public men had divined her feelings at
+Albert's death.  Of the others she might have said 'they pity me and
+not my grief'; but Mr. Disraeli had understood; and all his condolences
+had taken the form of reverential eulogies of the departed.  The Queen
+declared that he was 'the only person who appreciated the Prince.'[3]
+She began to show him special favour; gave him and his wife two of the
+coveted seats in St. George's Chapel at the Prince of Wales's wedding,
+and invited him to stay a night at Windsor.  When the grant for the
+Albert Memorial came before the House of Commons, Disraeli, as leader
+of the Opposition, eloquently supported the project.  He was rewarded
+by a copy of the Prince's speeches, bound in white morocco, with an
+inscription in the royal hand.  In his letter of thanks he 'ventured to
+touch upon a sacred theme,' and, in a strain which re-echoed with
+masterly fidelity the sentiments of his correspondent, dwelt at length
+upon the absolute perfection of Albert.  'The Prince,' he said, 'is the
+only person whom Mr. Disraeli has ever known who realised the Ideal.
+None with whom he is acquainted have ever approached it.  There was in
+him an union of the manly grace and sublime simplicity, of chivalry
+with the intellectual splendour of the Attic Academe.  The only
+character in English history that would, in some respects, draw near to
+him is Sir Philip Sidney: the same high tone, the same universal
+accomplishment, the same blended tenderness and vigour, the same rare
+combination of romantic energy and classic repose.'  As for his own
+acquaintance with the Prince, it had been, he said, 'one of the most
+satisfactory incidents of his life: full of refined and beautiful {242}
+memories, and exercising, as he hopes, over his remaining existence, a
+soothing and exalting influence.'  Victoria was much affected by 'the
+depth and delicacy of these touches,' and henceforward Disraeli's place
+in her affections was assured.[4]  When, in 1866, the Conservatives
+came into office, Disraeli's position as Chancellor of the Exchequer
+and leader of the House necessarily brought him into a closer relation
+with the Sovereign.  Two years later Lord Derby resigned, and Victoria,
+with intense delight and peculiar graciousness, welcomed Disraeli as
+her First Minister.[5]
+
+But only for nine agitated months did he remain in power.  The
+Ministry, in a minority in the Commons, was swept out of existence by a
+general election.  Yet by the end of that short period the ties which
+bound together the Queen and her Premier had grown far stronger than
+ever before; the relationship between them was now no longer merely
+that between a grateful mistress and a devoted servant: they were
+friends.  His official letters, in which the personal element had
+always been perceptible, developed into racy records of political news
+and social gossip, written, as Lord Clarendon said, 'in his best novel
+style,' Victoria was delighted; she had never, she declared, had such
+letters in her life, and had never before known _everything_.[6]  In
+return, she sent him, when the spring came, several bunches of flowers,
+picked by her own hands.  He despatched to her a set of his novels, for
+which, she said, she was 'most grateful, and which she values much.'
+She herself had lately published her 'Leaves from the Journal of our
+Life in the Highlands,' and it was observed that the Prime Minister, in
+conversing {243} with Her Majesty at this period, constantly used the
+words 'we authors, ma'am.'[7]  Upon political questions, she was his
+staunch supporter.  'Really there never was such conduct as that of the
+Opposition,' she wrote.  And when the Government was defeated in the
+House she was 'really shocked at the way in which the House of Commons
+go on; they really bring discredit on Constitutional Government.'[8]
+She dreaded the prospect of a change; she feared that if the Liberals
+insisted upon disestablishing the Irish Church, her Coronation Oath
+might stand in the way.[9]  But a change there had to be, and Victoria
+vainly tried to console herself for the loss of her favourite Minister
+by bestowing a peerage upon Mrs. Disraeli.
+
+Mr. Gladstone was in his shirt-sleeves at Hawarden, cutting down a
+tree, when the royal message was brought to him.  'Very significant,'
+he remarked, when he had read the letter, and went on cutting down his
+tree.  His secret thoughts on the occasion were more explicit, and were
+committed to his diary.  'The Almighty,' he wrote, 'seems to sustain
+and spare me for some purpose of His own, deeply unworthy as I know
+myself to be.  Glory be to His name.'[10]
+
+The Queen, however, did not share her new Minister's view of the
+Almighty's intentions.  She could not believe that there was any divine
+purpose to be detected in the programme of sweeping changes which Mr.
+Gladstone was determined to carry out.  But what could she do?  Mr.
+Gladstone, with his daemonic energy and his powerful majority in the
+House of Commons, was irresistible; and for five years (1869-74)
+Victoria found herself condemned {244} to live in an agitating
+atmosphere of interminable reform--reform in the Irish Church and the
+Irish land system, reform in education, reform in parliamentary
+elections, reform in the organisation of the Army and the Navy, reform
+in the administration of justice.  She disapproved, she struggled, she
+grew very angry; she felt that if Albert had been living things would
+never have happened so; but her protests and her complaints were alike
+unavailing.  The mere effort of grappling with the mass of documents
+which poured in upon her in an ever-growing flood was terribly
+exhausting.  When the draft of the lengthy and intricate Irish Church
+Bill came before her, accompanied by an explanatory letter from Mr.
+Gladstone covering a dozen closely-written quarto pages, she almost
+despaired.  She turned from the Bill to the explanation, and from the
+explanation back again to the Bill, and she could not decide which was
+the most confusing.  But she had to do her duty: she had not only to
+read, but to make notes.  At last she handed the whole heap of papers
+to Mr. Martin, who happened to be staying at Osborne, and requested him
+to make a pr�cis of them.[11]  When he had done so, her disapproval of
+the measure became more marked than ever; but, such was the strength of
+the Government, she actually found herself obliged to urge moderation
+upon the Opposition, lest worse should ensue.[12]
+
+In the midst of this crisis, when the future of the Irish Church was
+hanging in the balance, Victoria's attention was drawn to another
+proposed reform.  It was suggested that the sailors in the Navy should
+henceforward be allowed to wear beards.  'Has Mr. Childers ascertained
+anything on the subject of the beards?' the Queen wrote anxiously to
+the First Lord {245} of the Admiralty.  On the whole, Her Majesty was
+in favour of the change.  'Her own personal feeling,' she wrote, 'would
+be for the beards without the moustaches, as the latter have rather a
+soldierlike appearance; but then the object in view would not be
+obtained, viz. to prevent the necessity of shaving.  Therefore it had
+better be as proposed, the entire beard, only it should be kept short
+and very clean.'  After thinking over the question for another week,
+the Queen wrote a final letter.  She wished, she said, 'to make one
+additional observation respecting the beards, viz. that on no account
+should moustaches be allowed without beards.  That must be clearly
+understood.'[13]
+
+Changes in the Navy might be tolerated; to lay hands upon the Army was
+a more serious matter.  From time immemorial there had been a
+particularly close connection between the Army and the Crown; and
+Albert had devoted even more time and attention to the details of
+military business than to the processes of fresco-painting or the
+planning of sanitary cottages for the deserving poor.  But now there
+was to be a great alteration: Mr. Gladstone's fiat had gone forth, and
+the Commander-in-Chief was to be removed from his direct dependence
+upon the Sovereign, and made subordinate to Parliament and the
+Secretary of State for War.  Of all the liberal reforms this was the
+one which aroused the bitterest resentment in Victoria.  She considered
+that the change was an attack upon her personal position--almost an
+attack upon the personal position of Albert.  But she was helpless, and
+the Prime Minister had his way.  When she heard that the dreadful man
+had yet another reform in contemplation--that he was about to abolish
+the purchase of military {246} commissions--she could only feel that it
+was just what might have been expected.  For a moment she hoped that
+the House of Lords would come to the rescue; the Peers opposed the
+change with unexpected vigour; but Mr. Gladstone, more conscious than
+ever of the support of the Almighty, was ready with an ingenious
+device.  The purchase of commissions had been originally allowed by
+Royal Warrant; it should now be disallowed by the same agency.
+Victoria was faced by a curious dilemma: she abominated the abolition
+of purchase; but she was asked to abolish it by an exercise of
+sovereign power which was very much to her taste.  She did not hesitate
+for long; and when the Cabinet, in a formal minute, advised her to sign
+the Warrant, she did so with a good grace.[14]
+
+Unacceptable as Mr. Gladstone's policy was, there was something else
+about him which was even more displeasing to Victoria.  She disliked
+his personal demeanour towards herself.  It was not that Mr. Gladstone,
+in his intercourse with her, was in any degree lacking in courtesy or
+respect.  On the contrary, an extraordinary reverence permeated his
+manner, both in his conversation and his correspondence with the
+Sovereign.  Indeed, with that deep and passionate conservatism which,
+to the very end of his incredible career, gave such an unexpected
+colouring to his inexplicable character, Mr. Gladstone viewed Victoria
+through a haze of awe which was almost religious--as a sacrosanct
+embodiment of venerable traditions--a vital element in the British
+Constitution--a Queen by Act of Parliament.  But unfortunately the lady
+did not appreciate the compliment.  The well-known complaint--'He
+speaks to me as if I were a public meeting'--whether authentic or
+no--and the turn of the sentence {247} is surely a little too
+epigrammatic to be genuinely Victorian--undoubtedly expresses the
+essential element of her antipathy.  She had no objection to being
+considered as an institution; she was one, and she knew it.  But she
+was a woman too, and to be considered only as an institution--that was
+unbearable.  And thus all Mr. Gladstone's zeal and devotion, his
+ceremonious phrases, his low bows, his punctilious correctitudes, were
+utterly wasted; and when, in the excess of his loyalty, he went
+further, and imputed to the object of his veneration, with obsequious
+blindness, the subtlety of intellect, the wide reading, the grave
+enthusiasm, which he himself possessed, the misunderstanding became
+complete.  The discordance between the actual Victoria and this strange
+Divinity made in Mr. Gladstone's image produced disastrous results.
+Her discomfort and dislike turned at last into positive animosity, and,
+though her manners continued to be perfect, she never for a moment
+unbent; while he on his side was overcome with disappointment,
+perplexity, and mortification.[15]
+
+Yet his fidelity remained unshaken.  When the Cabinet met, the Prime
+Minister, filled with his beatific vision, would open the proceedings
+by reading aloud the letters which he had received from the Queen upon
+the questions of the hour.  The assembly sat in absolute silence while,
+one after another, the royal missives, with their emphases, their
+ejaculations, and their grammatical peculiarities, boomed forth in all
+the deep solemnity of Mr. Gladstone's utterance.  Not a single comment,
+of any kind, was ever hazarded; and, after a fitting pause, the Cabinet
+proceeded with the business of the day.[16]
+
+
+{248}
+
+II
+
+Little as Victoria appreciated her Prime Minister's attitude towards
+her, she found that it had its uses.  The popular discontent at her
+uninterrupted seclusion had been gathering force for many years, and
+now burst out in a new and alarming shape.  Republicanism was in the
+air.  Radical opinion in England, stimulated by the fall of Napoleon
+III and the establishment of a republican government in France,
+suddenly grew more extreme than it had ever been since 1848.  It also
+became for the first time almost respectable.  Chartism had been
+entirely an affair of the lower classes; but now Members of Parliament,
+learned professors, and ladies of title openly avowed the most
+subversive views.  The monarchy was attacked both in theory and in
+practice.  And it was attacked at a vital point: it was declared to be
+too expensive.  What benefits, it was asked, did the nation reap to
+counterbalance the enormous sums which were expended upon the
+Sovereign?  Victoria's retirement gave an unpleasant handle to the
+argument.  It was pointed out that the ceremonial functions of the
+Crown had virtually lapsed; and the awkward question remained whether
+any of the other functions which it did continue to perform were really
+worth �385,000 per annum.  The royal balance-sheet was curiously
+examined.  An anonymous pamphlet entitled 'What does she do with it?'
+appeared, setting forth the financial position with malicious clarity.
+The Queen, it stated, was granted by the Civil List �60,000 a year for
+her private use; but the rest of her vast annuity was given, as the Act
+declared, to enable her 'to defray the expenses of her royal household
+and to support the honour and dignity of the Crown.'  Now it was
+obvious that, since {249} the death of the Prince, the expenditure for
+both these purposes must have been very considerably diminished, and it
+was difficult to resist the conclusion that a large sum of money was
+diverted annually from the uses for which it had been designed by
+Parliament, to swell the private fortune of Victoria.  The precise
+amount of that private fortune it was impossible to discover; but there
+was reason to suppose that it was gigantic; perhaps it reached a total
+of five million pounds.  The pamphlet protested against such a state of
+affairs, and its protests were repeated vigorously in newspapers and at
+public meetings.  Though it is certain that the estimate of Victoria's
+riches was much exaggerated, it is equally certain that she was an
+exceedingly wealthy woman.  She probably saved �20,000 a year from the
+Civil List, the revenues of the Duchy of Lancaster were steadily
+increasing, she had inherited a considerable property from the Prince
+Consort, and she had been left, in 1852, an estate of half a million by
+Mr. John Neild, an eccentric miser.  In these circumstances it was not
+surprising that when, in 1871, Parliament was asked to vote a dowry of
+�30,000 to the Princess Louise on her marriage with the eldest son of
+the Duke of Argyll, together with an annuity of �6,000, there should
+have been a serious outcry.[17]
+
+In order to conciliate public opinion, the Queen opened Parliament in
+person, and the vote was passed {250} almost unanimously.  But a few
+months later another demand was made: the Prince Arthur had come of
+age, and the nation was asked to grant him an annuity of �15,000.  The
+outcry was redoubled.  The newspapers were filled with angry articles;
+Bradlaugh thundered against 'princely paupers' to one of the largest
+crowds that had ever been seen in Trafalgar Square; and Sir Charles
+Dilke expounded the case for a republic in a speech to his constituents
+at Newcastle.  The Prince's annuity was ultimately sanctioned in the
+House of Commons by a large majority; but a minority of fifty members
+voted in favour of reducing the sum to �10,000.
+
+Towards every aspect of this distasteful question, Mr. Gladstone
+presented an iron front.  He absolutely discountenanced the extreme
+section of his followers.  He declared that the whole of the Queen's
+income was justly at her personal disposal, argued that to complain of
+royal savings was merely to encourage royal extravagance, and
+successfully convoyed through Parliament the unpopular annuities,
+which, he pointed out, were strictly in accordance with precedent.
+When, in 1872, Sir Charles Dilke once more returned to the charge in
+the House of Commons, introducing a motion for a full enquiry into the
+Queen's expenditure with a view to a root-and-branch reform of the
+Civil List, the Prime Minister brought all the resources of his
+powerful and ingenious eloquence to the support of the Crown.  He was
+completely successful; and amid a scene of great disorder the motion
+was ignominiously dismissed.  Victoria was relieved; but she grew no
+fonder of Mr. Gladstone.[18]
+
+{251}
+
+It was perhaps the most miserable moment of her life.  The Ministers,
+the press, the public, all conspired to vex her, to blame her, to
+misinterpret her actions, to be unsympathetic and disrespectful in
+every way.  She was 'a cruelly misunderstood woman,' she told Mr.
+Martin, complaining to him bitterly of the unjust attacks which were
+made upon her, and declaring that 'the great worry and anxiety and hard
+work for ten years, alone, unaided, with increasing age and never very
+strong health,' were breaking her down, and 'almost drove her to
+despair.'[19]  The situation was indeed deplorable.  It seemed as if
+her whole existence had gone awry; as if an irremediable antagonism had
+grown up between the Queen and the nation.  If Victoria had died in the
+early seventies, there can be little doubt that the voice of the world
+would have pronounced her a failure.
+
+
+III
+
+But she was reserved for a very different fate.  The outburst of
+republicanism had been in fact the last flicker of an expiring cause.
+The liberal tide, which had been flowing steadily ever since the Reform
+Bill, reached its height with Mr. Gladstone's first administration; and
+towards the end of that administration the inevitable ebb began.  The
+reaction, when it came, was sudden and complete.  The General Election
+of 1874 changed the whole face of politics.  Mr. Gladstone and the
+Liberals were routed; and the Tory party, for the first time for over
+forty years, attained an unquestioned supremacy in England.  It was
+obvious that their surprising triumph was pre-eminently {252} due to
+the skill and vigour of Disraeli.  He returned to office no longer the
+dubious commander of an insufficient host, but with drums beating and
+flags flying, a conquering hero.  And as a conquering hero Victoria
+welcomed her new Prime Minister.
+
+Then there followed six years of excitement, of enchantment, of
+felicity, of glory, of romance.  The amazing being, who now at last, at
+the age of seventy, after a lifetime of extraordinary struggles, had
+turned into reality the absurdest of his boyhood's dreams, knew well
+enough how to make his own, with absolute completeness, the heart of
+the Sovereign Lady whose servant, and whose master, he had so
+miraculously become.  In women's hearts he had always read as in an
+open book.  His whole career had turned upon those curious entities;
+and the more curious they were, the more intimately at home with them
+he seemed to be.  But Lady Beaconsfield, with her cracked idolatry, and
+Mrs. Brydges-Williams, with her clogs, her corpulence, and her legacy,
+were gone: an even more remarkable phenomenon stood in their place.  He
+surveyed what was before him with the eye of a past-master; and he was
+not for a moment at a loss.  He realised everything--the interacting
+complexities of circumstance and character, the pride of place mingled
+so inextricably with personal arrogance, the superabundant
+emotionalism, the ingenuousness of outlook, the solid, the laborious
+respectability, shot through so incongruously by temperamental cravings
+for the coloured and the strange, the singular intellectual
+limitations, and the mysteriously essential female element impregnating
+every particle of the whole.  A smile hovered over his impassive
+features, and he dubbed Victoria 'the Faery.'  The name delighted him,
+for, with that epigrammatic {253} ambiguity so dear to his heart, it
+precisely expressed his vision of the Queen.  The Spenserian allusion
+was very pleasant--the elegant evocation of Gloriana; but there was
+more in it than that: there was the suggestion of a diminutive
+creature, endowed with magical--and mythical--properties, and a
+portentousness almost ridiculously out of keeping with the rest of her
+make-up.  The Faery, he determined, should henceforward wave her wand
+for him alone.  Detachment is always a rare quality, and rarest of all,
+perhaps, among politicians; but that veteran egotist possessed it in a
+supreme degree.  Not only did he know what he had to do, not only did
+he do it; he was in the audience as well as on the stage; and he took
+in with the rich relish of a connoisseur every feature of the
+entertaining situation, every phase of the delicate drama, and every
+detail of his own consummate performance.
+
+The smile hovered and vanished, and, bowing low with Oriental gravity
+and Oriental submissiveness, he set himself to his task.  He had
+understood from the first that in dealing with the Faery the
+appropriate method of approach was the very antithesis of the
+Gladstonian; and such a method was naturally his.  It was not his habit
+to harangue and exhort and expatiate in official conscientiousness; he
+liked to scatter flowers along the path of business, to compress a
+weighty argument into a happy phrase, to insinuate what was in his mind
+with an air of friendship and confidential courtesy.  He was nothing if
+not personal; and he had perceived that personality was the key that
+opened the Faery's heart.  Accordingly, he never for a moment allowed
+his intercourse with her to lose the personal tone; he invested all the
+transactions of State with the charms of familiar conversation; she was
+always the royal lady, {254} the adored and revered mistress, he the
+devoted and respectful friend.  When once the personal relation was
+firmly established, every difficulty disappeared.  But to maintain that
+relation uninterruptedly in a smooth and even course, a particular care
+was necessary: the bearings had to be most assiduously oiled.  Nor was
+Disraeli in any doubt as to the nature of the lubricant.  'You have
+heard me called a flatterer,' he said to Matthew Arnold, 'and it is
+true.  Everyone likes flattery; and when you come to royalty you should
+lay it on with a trowel.'[20]  He practised what he preached.  His
+adulation was incessant, and he applied it in the very thickest slabs.
+'There is no honor and no reward,' he declared, 'that with him can ever
+equal the possession of your Majesty's kind thoughts.  All his own
+thoughts and feelings and duties and affections are now concentrated in
+your Majesty, and he desires nothing more for his remaining years than
+to serve your Majesty, or, if that service ceases, to live still on its
+memory as a period of his existence most interesting and
+fascinating.'[21]  'In life,' he told her, 'one must have for one's
+thoughts a sacred depository, and Lord Beaconsfield ever presumes to
+seek that in his Sovereign Mistress.'[22]  She was not only his own
+solitary support; she was the one prop of the State.  'If your Majesty
+is ill,' he wrote during a grave political crisis, 'he is sure he will
+himself break down.  All, really, depends upon your Majesty.'  'He
+lives only for Her,' he asseverated, and works only for Her, and
+without Her all is lost.'[23]  When her birthday came he produced an
+elaborate confection of hyperbolic compliment.  'To-day Lord
+Beaconsfield ought fitly, perhaps, to congratulate a powerful Sovereign
+on her {255} imperial sway, the vastness of her Empire, and the success
+and strength of her fleets and armies.  But he cannot, his mind is in
+another mood.  He can only think of the strangeness of his destiny that
+it has come to pass that he should be the servant of one so great, and
+whose infinite kindness, the brightness of whose intelligence and the
+firmness of whose will, have enabled him to undertake labours to which
+he otherwise would be quite unequal, and supported him in all things by
+a condescending sympathy, which in the hour of difficulty alike charms
+and inspires.  Upon the Sovereign of many lands and many hearts may an
+omnipotent Providence shed every blessing that the wise can desire and
+the virtuous deserve!'[24]  In those expert hands the trowel seemed to
+assume the qualities of some lofty masonic symbol--to be the ornate and
+glittering vehicle of verities unrealised by the profane.
+
+Such tributes were delightful, but they remained in the nebulous region
+of words, and Disraeli had determined to give his blandishments a more
+significant solidity.  He deliberately encouraged those high views of
+her own position which had always been native to Victoria's mind and
+had been reinforced by the principles of Albert and the doctrines of
+Stockmar.  He professed to a belief in a theory of the Constitution
+which gave the Sovereign a leading place in the councils of government;
+but his pronouncements upon the subject were indistinct; and when he
+emphatically declared that there ought to be 'a real Throne,' it was
+probably with the mental addition that that throne would be a very
+unreal one indeed whose occupant was unamenable to his cajoleries.  But
+the vagueness of his language was in itself an added stimulant to
+Victoria.  Skilfully confusing the woman {256} and the Queen, he threw,
+with a grandiose gesture, the government of England at her feet, as if
+in doing so he were performing an act of personal homage.  In his first
+audience after returning to power, he assured her that 'whatever she
+wished should be done.'[25]  When the intricate Public Worship
+Regulation Bill was being discussed by the Cabinet, he told the Faery
+that his 'only object' was 'to further your Majesty's wishes in this
+matter.'[26]  When he brought off his great _coup_ over the Suez Canal,
+he used expressions which implied that the only gainer by the
+transaction was Victoria.  'It is just settled,' he wrote in triumph;
+'you have it, Madam ... Four millions sterling! and almost immediately.
+There was only one firm that could do it--Rothschilds.  They behaved
+admirably; advanced the money at a low rate, and the entire interest of
+the Khedive is now yours, Madam.'[27]  Nor did he limit himself to
+highly-spiced insinuations.  Writing with all the authority of his
+office, he advised the Queen that she had the constitutional right to
+dismiss a Ministry which was supported by a large majority in the House
+of Commons; he even urged her to do so, if, in her opinion, 'your
+Majesty's Government have from wilfulness, or even from weakness,
+deceived your Majesty.'[28]  To the horror of Mr. Gladstone, he not
+only kept the Queen informed as to the general course of business in
+the Cabinet, but revealed to her the part taken in its discussions by
+individual members of it.[29]  Lord Derby, the son of the late Prime
+Minister and Disraeli's Foreign Secretary, viewed these developments
+with grave mistrust.  'Is there not,' he ventured to write to his
+Chief, 'just a risk of encouraging her in too large ideas of her
+personal power, and too great {257} indifference to what the public
+expects?  I only ask; it is for you to judge.'[30]
+
+As for Victoria, she accepted everything--compliments, flatteries,
+Elizabethan prerogatives--without a single qualm.  After the long gloom
+of her bereavement, after the chill of the Gladstonian discipline, she
+expanded to the rays of Disraeli's devotion like a flower in the sun.
+The change in her situation was indeed miraculous.  No longer was she
+obliged to puzzle for hours over the complicated details of business,
+for now she had only to ask Mr. Disraeli for an explanation, and he
+would give it her in the most concise, in the most amusing, way.  No
+longer was she worried by alarming novelties; no longer was she put out
+at finding herself treated, by a reverential gentleman in high collars,
+as if she were some embodied precedent, with a recondite knowledge of
+Greek.  And her deliverer was surely the most fascinating of men.  The
+strain of charlatanism, which had unconsciously captivated her in
+Napoleon III, exercised the same enchanting effect in the case of
+Disraeli.  Like a dram-drinker, whose ordinary life is passed in dull
+sobriety, her unsophisticated intelligence gulped down his rococo
+allurements with peculiar zest.  She became intoxicated, entranced.
+Believing all that he told her of herself, she completely regained the
+self-confidence which had been slipping away from her throughout the
+dark period that followed Albert's death.  She swelled with a new
+elation, while he, conjuring up before her wonderful Oriental visions,
+dazzled her eyes with an imperial grandeur of which she had only dimly
+dreamed.  Under the compelling influence, her very demeanour altered.
+Her short, stout figure, with its folds of black velvet, its muslin
+streamers, its heavy pearls at the heavy neck, {258} assumed an almost
+menacing air.  In her countenance, from which the charm of youth had
+long since vanished, and which had not yet been softened by age, the
+traces of grief, of disappointment, and of displeasure were still
+visible, but they were overlaid by looks of arrogance and sharp lines
+of peremptory hauteur.  Only, when Mr. Disraeli appeared, the
+expression changed in an instant, and the forbidding visage became
+charged with smiles.[31]  For him she would do anything.  Yielding to
+his encouragements, she began to emerge from her seclusion; she
+appeared in London in semi-state, at hospitals and concerts; she opened
+Parliament; she reviewed troops and distributed medals at
+Aldershot.[32]  But such public signs of favour were trivial in
+comparison with her private attentions.  During his hours of audience,
+she could hardly restrain her excitement and delight.  'I can only
+describe my reception,' he wrote to a friend on one occasion, 'by
+telling you that I really thought she was going to embrace me.  She was
+wreathed with smiles, and, as she tattled, glided about the room like a
+bird.'[33]  In his absence, she talked of him perpetually, and there
+was a note of unusual vehemence in her solicitude for his health.
+'John Manners,' Disraeli told Lady Bradford, 'who has just come from
+Osborne, says that the Faery only talked of one subject, and that was
+her Primo.  According to him, it was her gracious opinion that the
+Government should make my health a Cabinet question.  Dear John seemed
+quite surprised at what she said; but you are more used to these
+ebullitions.'[34]  She often sent him presents; an illustrated album
+arrived for him regularly from Windsor on Christmas Day.[35]  But her
+most valued gifts were {259} the bunches of spring flowers which,
+gathered by herself and her ladies in the woods at Osborne, marked in
+an especial manner the warmth and tenderness of her sentiments.  Among
+these it was, he declared, the primroses that he loved the best.  They
+were, he said, 'the ambassadors of Spring,' 'the gems and jewels of
+Nature.'  He liked them, he assured her, 'so much better for their
+being wild; they seem an offering from the Fauns and Dryads of
+Osborne.'  'They show,' he told her, 'that your Majesty's sceptre has
+touched the enchanted Isle.'  He sat at dinner with heaped-up bowls of
+them on every side, and told his guests that 'they were all sent to me
+this morning by the Queen from Osborne, as she knows it is my favourite
+flower.'[36]  As time went on, and as it became clearer and clearer
+that the Faery's thraldom was complete, his protestations grew steadily
+more highly coloured and more unabashed.  At last he ventured to import
+into his blandishments a strain of adoration that was almost avowedly
+romantic.  In phrases of baroque convolution, he delivered the message
+of his heart.  The pressure of business, he wrote, had 'so absorbed and
+exhausted him, that towards the hour of post he has not had clearness
+of mind, and vigour of pen, adequate to convey his thoughts and facts
+to the most loved and illustrious being, who deigns to consider
+them.'[37]  She sent him some primroses, and he replied that he could
+'truly say they are "more precious than rubies," coming, as they do,
+and at such a moment, from a Sovereign whom he adores.'[38]  She sent
+him snowdrops, and his sentiment overflowed into poetry.  'Yesterday
+eve,' he wrote, 'there appeared, in Whitehall Gardens, a
+delicate-looking case, with a royal superscription, which, when {260}
+he opened, he thought, at first, that your Majesty had graciously
+bestowed upon him the stars of your Majesty's principal orders.  And,
+indeed, he was so impressed with this graceful illusion, that, having a
+banquet, where there were many stars and ribbons, he could not resist
+the temptation, by placing some snowdrops on his heart, of showing that
+he, too, was decorated by a gracious Sovereign.
+
+'Then, in the middle of the night, it occurred to him, that it might
+all be an enchantment, and that, perhaps, it was a Faery gift and came
+from another monarch: Queen Titania, gathering flowers, with her Court,
+in a soft and sea-girt isle, and sending magic blossoms, which, they
+say, turn the heads of those who receive them.'[39]
+
+A Faery gift!  Did he smile as he wrote the words?  Perhaps; and yet it
+would be rash to conclude that his perfervid declarations were
+altogether without sincerity.  Actor and spectator both, the two
+characters were so intimately blended together in that odd composition
+that they formed an inseparable unity, and it was impossible to say
+that one of them was less genuine than the other.  With one element, he
+could coldly appraise the Faery's intellectual capacity, note with some
+surprise that she could be on occasion 'most interesting and amusing,'
+and then continue his use of the trowel with an ironical solemnity;
+while, with the other, he could be overwhelmed by the immemorial
+panoply of royalty, and, thrilling with the sense of his own strange
+elevation, dream himself into a gorgeous phantasy of crowns and powers
+and chivalric love.  When he told Victoria that 'during a somewhat
+romantic and imaginative life, nothing has ever occurred to him so
+interesting as this confidential correspondence with one so exalted and
+so {261} inspiring,'[40] was he not in earnest after all?  When he
+wrote to a lady about the Court, 'I love the Queen--perhaps the only
+person in this world left to me that I do love,'[41] was he not
+creating for himself an enchanted palace out of the Arabian Nights,
+full of melancholy and spangles, in which he actually believed?
+Victoria's state of mind was far more simple; untroubled by imaginative
+yearnings, she never lost herself in that nebulous region of the spirit
+where feeling and fancy grow confused.  Her emotions, with all their
+intensity and all their exaggeration, retained the plain prosaic
+texture of everyday life.  And it was fitting that her expression of
+them should be equally commonplace.  She was, she told her Prime
+Minister, at the end of an official letter, 'yours aff'ly V.R. and I.'
+In such a phrase the deep reality of her feeling is instantly manifest.
+The Faery's feet were on the solid earth; it was the _rus�_ cynic who
+was in the air.
+
+He had taught her, however, a lesson, which she had learnt with
+alarming rapidity.  A second Gloriana, did he call her?  Very well,
+then, she would show that she deserved the compliment.  Disquieting
+symptoms followed fast.  In May 1874, the Tsar, whose daughter had just
+been married to Victoria's second son, the Duke of Edinburgh, was in
+London, and, by an unfortunate error, it had been arranged that his
+departure should not take place until two days after the date on which
+his royal hostess had previously decided to go to Balmoral.  Her
+Majesty refused to modify her plans.  It was pointed out to her that
+the Tsar would certainly be offended, that the most serious
+consequences might follow; Lord Derby protested; Lord Salisbury, the
+Secretary of State for India, was much perturbed.  But {262} the Faery
+was unconcerned; she had settled to go to Balmoral on the 18th, and on
+the 18th she would go.  At last Disraeli, exercising all his influence,
+induced her to agree to stay in London for two days more.  'My head is
+still on my shoulders,' he told Lady Bradford.  'The great lady has
+absolutely postponed her departure!  Everybody had failed, even the
+Prince of Wales; ... and I have no doubt I am not in favour.  I can't
+help it.  Salisbury says I have saved an Afghan War, and Derby
+compliments me on my unrivalled triumph.'[42]  But before very long, on
+another issue, the triumph was the Faery's.  Disraeli, who had suddenly
+veered towards a new Imperialism, had thrown out the suggestion that
+the Queen of England ought to become the Empress of India.  Victoria
+seized upon the idea with avidity, and, in season and out of season,
+pressed upon her Prime Minister the desirability of putting his
+proposal into practice.  He demurred; but she was not to be baulked;
+and in 1876, in spite of his own unwillingness and that of his entire
+Cabinet, he found himself obliged to add to the troubles of a stormy
+session by introducing a bill for the alteration of the Royal
+Title.[43]  His compliance, however, finally conquered the Faery's
+heart.  The measure was angrily attacked in both Houses, and Victoria
+was deeply touched by the untiring energy with which Disraeli defended
+it.  She was, she said, much grieved by 'the worry and annoyance' to
+which he was subjected; she feared she was the cause of it; and she
+would never forget what she owed to 'her kind, good, and considerate
+friend.'  At the same time, her wrath fell on the Opposition.  Their
+conduct, she declared, was 'extraordinary, incomprehensible, and
+mistaken,' and, in an emphatic sentence which seemed to contradict
+{263} both itself and all her former proceedings, she protested that
+she 'would be glad if it were more generally known that it was _her_
+wish, as people _will_ have it, that it has been _forced upon
+her!_'[44]  When the affair was successfully over, the imperial triumph
+was celebrated in a suitable manner.  On the day of the Delhi
+Proclamation, the new Earl of Beaconsfield went to Windsor to dine with
+the new Empress of India.  That night the Faery, usually so homely in
+her attire, appeared in a glittering panoply of enormous uncut jewels,
+which had been presented to her by the reigning Princes of her Raj.  At
+the end of the meal the Prime Minister, breaking through the rules of
+etiquette, arose, and in a flowery oration proposed the health of the
+Queen-Empress.  His audacity was well received, and his speech was
+rewarded by a smiling curtsey.[45]
+
+These were significant episodes; but a still more serious manifestation
+of Victoria's temper occurred in the following year, during the
+crowning crisis of Beaconsfield's life.  His growing imperialism, his
+desire to magnify the power and prestige of England, his insistence
+upon a 'spirited foreign policy,' had brought him into collision with
+Russia; the terrible Eastern Question loomed up; and, when war broke
+out between Russia and Turkey, the gravity of the situation became
+extreme.  The Prime Minister's policy was fraught with difficulty and
+danger.  Realising perfectly the appalling implications of an
+Anglo-Russian war, he was yet prepared to face even that eventuality if
+he could obtain his ends by no other method; but he believed that
+Russia in reality was still less desirous of a rupture, and that, if he
+played his game with sufficient boldness and {264} adroitness, she
+would yield, when it came to the point, all that he required without a
+blow.  It was clear that the course he had marked out for himself was
+full of hazard, and demanded an extraordinary nerve; a single false
+step, and either himself, or England, might be plunged in disaster.
+But nerve he had never lacked; he began his diplomatic egg-dance with
+high assurance; and then he discovered that, besides the Russian
+Government, besides the Liberals and Mr. Gladstone, there were two
+additional sources of perilous embarrassment with which he would have
+to reckon.  In the first place there was a strong party in the Cabinet,
+headed by Lord Derby, the Foreign Secretary, which was unwilling to
+take the risk of war; but his culminating anxiety was the Faery.
+
+From the first, her attitude was uncompromising.  The old hatred of
+Russia, which had been engendered by the Crimean War, surged up again
+within her; she remembered Albert's prolonged animosity; she felt the
+prickings of her own greatness; and she flung herself into the turmoil
+with passionate heat.  Her indignation with the Opposition--with anyone
+who ventured to sympathise with the Russians in their quarrel with the
+Turks--was unbounded.  When anti-Turkish meetings were held in London,
+presided over by the Duke of Westminster and Lord Shaftesbury, and
+attended by Mr. Gladstone and other prominent Radicals, she considered
+that 'the Attorney-General ought to be set at these men'; 'it can't,'
+she exclaimed, 'be constitutional.'[46]  Never in her life, not even in
+the crisis over the Ladies of the Bedchamber, did she show herself a
+more furious partisan.  But her displeasure was not reserved for the
+Radicals; the {265} backsliding Conservatives equally felt its force.
+She was even discontented with Lord Beaconsfield himself.  Failing
+entirely to appreciate the delicate complexity of his policy, she
+constantly assailed him with demands for vigorous action, interpreted
+each finesse as a sign of weakness, and was ready at every juncture to
+let slip the dogs of war.  As the situation developed, her anxiety grew
+feverish.  'The Queen,' she wrote, 'is feeling terribly anxious lest
+delay should cause us to be too late and lose our prestige for ever!
+It worries her night and day.'[47]  'The Faery,' Beaconsfield told Lady
+Bradford, 'writes every day and telegraphs every hour; this is almost
+literally the case.'[48]  She raged loudly against the Russians.  'And
+the language,' she cried, 'the insulting language--used by the Russians
+against us!  It makes the Queen's blood boil!'[49]  'Oh,' she wrote a
+little later, 'if the Queen were a man, she would like to go and give
+those Russians, whose word one cannot believe, such a beating!  We
+shall never be friends again till we have it out.  This the Queen feels
+sure of.'[50]
+
+The unfortunate Prime Minister, urged on to violence by Victoria on one
+side, had to deal, on the other, with a Foreign Secretary who was
+fundamentally opposed to any policy of active interference at all.
+Between the Queen and Lord Derby he held a harassed course.  He gained,
+indeed, some slight satisfaction in playing off the one against the
+other--in stimulating Lord Derby with the Queen's missives, and in
+appeasing the Queen by repudiating Lord Derby's opinions; on one
+occasion he actually went so far as to compose, at Victoria's request,
+a letter bitterly attacking his colleague, {266} which her Majesty
+forthwith signed, and sent, without alteration, to the Foreign
+Secretary.[51]  But such devices gave only a temporary relief; and it
+soon became evident that Victoria's martial ardour was not to be
+side-tracked by hostilities against Lord Derby; hostilities against
+Russia were what she wanted, what she would, what she must, have.  For
+now, casting aside the last relics of moderation, she began to attack
+her friend with a series of extraordinary threats.  Not once, not
+twice, but many times she held over his head the formidable menace of
+her imminent abdication.  'If England,' she wrote to Beaconsfield, 'is
+to kiss Russia's feet, she will not be a party to the humiliation of
+England and would lay down her crown,' and she added that the Prime
+Minister might, if he thought fit, repeat her words to the Cabinet.[52]
+'This delay,' she ejaculated, 'this uncertainty by which, abroad, we
+are losing our prestige and our position, while Russia is advancing and
+will be before Constantinople in no time!  Then the Government will be
+fearfully blamed and the Queen so humiliated that she thinks she would
+abdicate at once.  Be bold!'[53]  'She feels,' she reiterated, 'she
+cannot, as she before said, remain the Sovereign of a country that is
+letting itself down to kiss the feet of the great barbarians, the
+retarders of all liberty and civilisation that exists.'[54]  When the
+Russians advanced to the outskirts of Constantinople she fired off
+three letters in a day demanding war; and when she learnt that the
+Cabinet had only decided to send the Fleet to Gallipoli she declared
+that 'her first impulse' was 'to lay down the thorny crown, which she
+feels little satisfaction in retaining if the position of this country
+is {267} to remain as it is now.'[55]  It is easy to imagine the
+agitating effect of such a correspondence upon Beaconsfield.  This was
+no longer the Faery; it was a genie whom he had rashly called out of
+her bottle, and who was now intent upon showing her supernal power.
+More than once, perplexed, dispirited, shattered by illness, he had
+thoughts of withdrawing altogether from the game.  One thing alone, he
+told Lady Bradford, with a wry smile, prevented him.  'If I could
+only,' he wrote, 'face the scene which would occur at headquarters if I
+resigned, I would do so at once.'[56]
+
+He held on, however, to emerge victorious at last.  The Queen was
+pacified; Lord Derby was replaced by Lord Salisbury; and at the
+Congress of Berlin _der alte Jude_ carried all before him.  He returned
+to England in triumph, and assured the delighted Victoria that she
+would very soon be, if she was not already, the 'Dictatress of
+Europe.'[57]
+
+But soon there was an unexpected reverse.  At the General Election of
+1880 the country, mistrustful of the forward policy of the
+Conservatives, and carried away by Mr. Gladstone's oratory, returned
+the Liberals to power.  Victoria was horrified, but within a year she
+was to be yet more nearly hit.  The grand romance had come to its
+conclusion.  Lord Beaconsfield, worn out with age and maladies, but
+moving still, an assiduous mummy, from dinner-party to dinner-party,
+suddenly moved no longer.  When she knew that the end was inevitable,
+she seemed, by a pathetic instinct, to divest herself of her royalty,
+and to shrink, with hushed gentleness, beside him, a woman and nothing
+more.  'I send some Osborne primroses,' she wrote to him with touching
+simplicity, 'and I meant to pay you a little {268} visit this week but
+I thought it better you should be quite quiet and not speak.  And I beg
+you will be very good and obey the doctors.'  She would see him, she
+said, 'when we come back from Osborne, which won't be long.'  'Everyone
+is so distressed at your not being well,' she added; and she was, 'Ever
+yours very aff'ly, V.R.I.'  When the royal letter was given him, the
+strange old comedian, stretched on his bed of death, poised it in his
+hand, appeared to consider deeply, and then whispered to those about
+him: 'This ought to be read to me by a Privy Councillor.'[58]
+
+
+
+[1] Adams, 135.
+
+[2] Clarendon, II, 342.
+
+[3] Buckle, IV, 385.
+
+[4] Buckle, IV, 382-95.
+
+[5] _Ibid._, IV, 592.
+
+[6] Clarendon, II, 346.
+
+[7] Buckle, V, 49.
+
+[8] _Ibid._, V, 48.
+
+[9] _Ibid._, V, 28.
+
+[10] Morley, II, 252, 256.
+
+[11] Martin, _Queen Victoria_, 50-1.
+
+[12] Tait, II, chap. i.
+
+[13] Childers, I, 175-7.
+
+[14] Morley, II, 360-5.
+
+[15] Morley, II, 423-8; Crawford, 356, 370-1.
+
+[16] Private information.
+
+[17] In 1889 it was officially stated that the Queen's total savings
+from the Civil List amounted to �824,025, but that out of this sum much
+had been spent on special entertainments to foreign visitors (Lee,
+499).  Taking into consideration the proceeds from the Duchy of
+Lancaster, which were more than �60,000 a year (Lee, 79), the savings
+of the Prince Consort, and Mr. Neild's legacy, it seems probable that,
+at the time of her death, Victoria's private fortune approached two
+million pounds.
+
+[18] Morley, II, 425-6; Lee, 410-2, 415-8; Jerrold, _Widowhood_, 153-7,
+162-3, 169-71.
+
+[19] Martin, _Queen Victoria_, 41-2.
+
+[20] Buckle, VI, 463.
+
+[21] _Ibid._, VI, 226.
+
+[22] _Ibid._, VI, 445,7.
+
+[23] _Ibid._, VI, 254-5.
+
+[24] Buckle, VI, 430.
+
+[25] Buckle, V, 286.
+
+[26] _Ibid._, V, 321.
+
+[27] _Ibid._, V, 448-9.
+
+[28] _Ibid._, II, 246.
+
+[29] Morley, II, 574-5.
+
+[30] Buckle, V, 414.
+
+[31] _Quarterly Review_, CXCIII, 334.
+
+[32] Lee, 434-5.
+
+[33] Buckle, V, 339.
+
+[34] _Ibid_., V, 384.
+
+[35] _Ibid._, VI, 468.
+
+[36] Buckle, VI, 629.
+
+[37] _Ibid._, VI, 248.
+
+[38] _Ibid._, VI, 246-7.
+
+[39] Buckle, VI, 464-7.
+
+[40] Buckle, VI, 238.
+
+[41] _Ibid._, VI, 462.
+
+[42] Buckle, V, 414-5.
+
+[43] _Ibid._, V, 456-8; VI, 457-8.
+
+[44] Buckle, V, 468-9, 473.
+
+[45] Hamilton, 120; _Quarterly Review_, CXXXIX, 334.
+
+[46] Buckle, VI, 106-7.
+
+[47] Buckle, VI, 144.
+
+[48] _Ibid._, VI, 150.
+
+[49] _Ibid._, VI, 154.
+
+[50] _Ibid._, VI, 217.
+
+[51] Buckle, VI, 157-9.
+
+[52] _Ibid._, VI, 132.
+
+[53] _Ibid._, VI, 148.
+
+[54] _Ibid._, VI, 217.
+
+[55] Buckle, VI, 243-5.
+
+[56] _Ibid._. VI, 190.
+
+[57] Lee, 445-6.
+
+[58] Buckle, VI, 613-4.
+
+
+
+
+{269}
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+OLD AGE
+
+I
+
+Meanwhile in Victoria's private life many changes and developments had
+taken place.  With the marriages of her elder children her family
+circle widened; grandchildren appeared; and a multitude of new domestic
+interests sprang up.  The death of King Leopold in 1865 had removed the
+predominant figure of the older generation, and the functions he had
+performed as the centre and adviser of a large group of relatives in
+Germany and in England devolved upon Victoria.  These functions she
+discharged with unremitting industry, carrying on an enormous
+correspondence, and following with absorbed interest every detail in
+the lives of the ever-ramifying cousinhood.  And she tasted to the full
+both the joys and the pains of family affection.  She took a particular
+delight in her grandchildren, to whom she showed an indulgence which
+their parents had not always enjoyed, though, even to her
+grandchildren, she could be, when the occasion demanded it, severe.
+The eldest of them, the little Prince Wilhelm of Prussia, was a
+remarkably headstrong child; he dared to be impertinent even to his
+grandmother; and once, when she told him to bow to a visitor at
+Osborne, he disobeyed her outright.  This would not do: the order was
+sternly repeated, and the naughty boy, noticing {270} that his kind
+grandmama had suddenly turned into a most terrifying lady, submitted
+his will to hers, and bowed very low indeed.[1]
+
+[Illustration: QUEEN VICTORIA IN 1897.]
+
+It would have been well if all the Queen's domestic troubles could have
+been got over as easily.  Among her more serious distresses was the
+conduct of the Prince of Wales.  The young man was now independent and
+married; he had shaken the parental yoke from his shoulders; he was
+positively beginning to do as he liked.  Victoria was much perturbed,
+and her worst fears seemed to be justified when in 1870 he appeared as
+a witness in a society divorce case.  It was clear that the heir to the
+throne had been mixing with people of whom she did not at all approve.
+What was to be done?  She saw that it was not only her son that was to
+blame--that it was the whole system of society; and so she despatched a
+letter to Mr. Delane, the editor of _The Times_, asking him if he would
+'frequently _write_ articles pointing out the _immense_ danger and evil
+of the wretched frivolity and levity of the views and lives of the
+Higher Classes.'  And five years later Mr. Delane did write an article
+upon that very subject.[2]  Yet it seemed to have very little effect.
+
+Ah! if only the Higher Classes would learn to live as she lived in the
+domestic sobriety of her sanctuary at Balmoral!  For more and more did
+she find solace and refreshment in her Highland domain; and twice
+yearly, in the spring and in the autumn, with a sigh of relief, she set
+her face northwards, in spite of the humble protests of Ministers, who
+murmured vainly in the royal ears that to transact the affairs of State
+over an interval of six hundred miles added considerably to the cares
+of government.  Her ladies, too, {271} felt occasionally a slight
+reluctance to set out, for, especially in the early days, the long
+pilgrimage was not without its drawbacks.  For many years the Queen's
+conservatism forbade the continuation of the railway up Deeside, so
+that the last stages of the journey had to be accomplished in
+carriages.  But, after all, carriages had their good points; they were
+easy, for instance, to get in and out of, which was an important
+consideration, for the royal train remained for long immune from modern
+conveniences, and when it drew up, on some border moorland, far from
+any platform, the high-bred dames were obliged to descend to earth by
+the perilous foot-board, the only pair of folding steps being reserved
+for her Majesty's saloon.  In the days of crinolines such moments were
+sometimes awkward; and it was occasionally necessary to summon Mr.
+Johnstone, the short and sturdy Manager of the Caledonian Railway, who,
+more than once, in a high gale and drenching rain with great difficulty
+'pushed up'--as he himself described it--some unlucky Lady Blanche or
+Lady Agatha into her compartment.[3]  But Victoria cared for none of
+these things.  She was only intent upon regaining, with the utmost
+swiftness, her enchanted Castle, where every spot was charged with
+memories, where every memory was sacred, and where life was passed in
+an incessant and delightful round of absolutely trivial events.
+
+And it was not only the place that she loved; she was equally attached
+to 'the simple mountaineers,' from whom, she said, 'she learnt many a
+lesson of resignation and faith.'[4]  Smith and Grant and Ross and
+Thompson--she was devoted to them all; but, beyond the rest, she was
+devoted to John Brown.  The {272} Prince's gillie had now become the
+Queen's personal attendant--a body servant from whom she was never
+parted, who accompanied her on her drives, waited on her during the
+day, and slept in a neighbouring chamber at night.  She liked his
+strength, his solidity, the sense he gave her of physical security; she
+even liked his rugged manners and his rough unaccommodating speech.
+She allowed him to take liberties with her which would have been
+unthinkable from anybody else.  To bully the Queen, to order her about,
+to reprimand her--who could dream of venturing upon such audacities?
+And yet, when she received such treatment from John Brown, she
+positively seemed to enjoy it.  The eccentricity appeared to be
+extraordinary; but, after all, it is no uncommon thing for an
+autocratic dowager to allow some trusted indispensable servant to adopt
+towards her an attitude of authority which is jealously forbidden to
+relatives or friends: the power of a dependant still remains, by a
+psychological sleight-of-hand, one's own power, even when it is
+exercised over oneself.  When Victoria meekly obeyed the abrupt
+commands of her henchman to get off her pony or put on her shawl, was
+she not displaying, and in the highest degree, the force of her
+volition?  People might wonder; she could not help that; this was the
+manner in which it pleased her to act, and there was an end of it.  To
+have submitted her judgment to a son or a Minister might have seemed
+wiser or more natural; but if she had done so, she instinctively felt,
+she would indeed have lost her independence.  And yet upon somebody she
+longed to depend.  Her days were heavy with the long process of
+domination.  As she drove in silence over the moors she leaned back in
+the carriage, oppressed and weary; but what a relief!--John Brown was
+behind {273} on the rumble, and his strong arm would be there for her
+to lean upon when she got out.
+
+He had, too, in her mind, a special connection with Albert.  In their
+expeditions the Prince had always trusted him more than anyone; the
+gruff, kind, hairy Scotsman was, she felt, in some mysterious way, a
+legacy from the dead.  She came to believe at last--or so it
+appeared--that the spirit of Albert was nearer when Brown was near.
+Often, when seeking inspiration over some complicated question of
+political or domestic import, she would gaze with deep concentration at
+her late husband's bust.  But it was also noticed that sometimes in
+such moments of doubt and hesitation Her Majesty's looks would fix
+themselves upon John Brown.
+
+Eventually, the 'simple mountaineer' became almost a state personage.
+The influence which he wielded was not to be overlooked.  Lord
+Beaconsfield was careful, from time to time, to send courteous messages
+to 'Mr. Brown' in his letters to the Queen, and the French Government
+took particular pains to provide for his comfort during the visits of
+the English Sovereign to France.  It was only natural that among the
+elder members of the royal family he should not have been popular, and
+that his failings--for failings he had, though Victoria would never
+notice his too acute appreciation of Scotch whisky--should have been
+the subject of acrimonious comment at Court.  But he served his
+mistress faithfully, and to ignore him would be a sign of disrespect in
+her biographer.  For the Queen, far from making a secret of her
+affectionate friendship, took care to publish it to the world.  By her
+orders two gold medals were struck in his honour; on his death, in
+1883, a long and eulogistic obituary notice {274} of him appeared in
+the _Court Circular_; and a Brown memorial brooch--of gold, with the
+late gillie's head on one side and the royal monogram on the other--was
+designed by her Majesty for presentation to her Highland servants and
+cottagers, to be worn by them on the anniversary of his death, with a
+mourning scarf and pins.  In the second series of extracts from the
+Queen's Highland Journal, published in 1884, her 'devoted personal
+attendant and faithful friend' appears upon almost every page, and is
+in effect the hero of the book.  With an absence of reticence
+remarkable in royal persons, Victoria seemed to demand, in this private
+and delicate matter, the sympathy of the whole nation; and yet--such is
+the world!--there were those who actually treated the relations between
+their Sovereign and her servant as a theme for ribald jests.[5]
+
+
+II
+
+The busy years hastened away; the traces of Time's unimaginable touch
+grew manifest; and old age, approaching, laid a gentle hold upon
+Victoria.  The grey hair whitened; the mature features mellowed; the
+short firm figure amplified and moved more slowly, supported by a
+stick.  And, simultaneously, in the whole tenour of the Queen's
+existence an extraordinary transformation came to pass.  The nation's
+attitude towards her, critical and even hostile as it had been for so
+many years, altogether changed; while there was a corresponding
+alteration in the temper of Victoria's own mind.
+
+Many causes led to this result.  Among them were the repeated strokes
+of personal misfortune which befell {275} the Queen during a cruelly
+short space of years.  In 1878 the Princess Alice, who had married in
+1862 the Prince Louis of Hesse-Darmstadt, died in tragic circumstances.
+In the following year the Prince Imperial, the only son of the Empress
+Eug�nie, to whom Victoria, since the catastrophe of 1870, had become
+devotedly attached, was killed in the Zulu War.  Two years later, in
+1881, the Queen lost Lord Beaconsfield, and, in 1883, John Brown.  In
+1884 the Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany, who had been an invalid from
+birth, died prematurely, shortly after his marriage.  Victoria's cup of
+sorrows was indeed overflowing: and the public, as it watched the
+widowed mother weeping for her children and her friends, displayed a
+constantly increasing sympathy.
+
+An event which occurred in 1882 revealed and accentuated the feelings
+of the nation.  As the Queen, at Windsor, was walking from the train to
+her carriage, a youth named Roderick Maclean fired a pistol at her from
+a distance of a few yards.  An Eton boy struck up Maclean's arm with an
+umbrella before the pistol went off; no damage was done, and the
+culprit was at once arrested.  This was the last of a series of seven
+attempts upon the Queen--attempts which, taking place at sporadic
+intervals over a period of forty years, resembled one another in a
+curious manner.  All, with a single exception, were perpetrated by
+adolescents, whose motives were apparently not murderous, since, save
+in the case of Maclean, none of their pistols was loaded.  These
+unhappy youths, who, after buying their cheap weapons, stuffed them
+with gunpowder and paper, and then went off, with the certainty of
+immediate detection, to click them in the face of royalty, present a
+strange problem to the psychologist.  But, though {276} in each case
+their actions and their purposes seemed to be so similar, their fates
+were remarkably varied.  The first of them, Edward Oxford, who fired at
+Victoria within a few months of her marriage, was tried for high
+treason, declared to be insane, and sent to an asylum for life.  It
+appears, however, that this sentence did not commend itself to Albert,
+for when, two years later, John Francis committed the same offence, and
+was tried upon the same charge, the Prince pronounced that there was no
+insanity in the matter.  'The wretched creature,' he told his father,
+was 'not out of his mind, but a thorough scamp.'  'I hope,' he added,
+'his trial will be conducted with the greatest strictness.'  Apparently
+it was; at any rate, the jury shared the view of the Prince, the plea
+of insanity was set aside, and Francis was found guilty of high treason
+and condemned to death; but, as there was no proof of an intent to kill
+or even to wound, this sentence, after a lengthened deliberation
+between the Home Secretary and the Judges, was commuted for one of
+transportation for life.  As the law stood, these assaults, futile as
+they were, could be treated only as high treason; the discrepancy
+between the actual deed and the tremendous penalties involved was
+obviously grotesque; and it was, besides, clear that a jury, knowing
+that a verdict of guilty implied a sentence of death, would tend to the
+alternative course, and find the prisoner not guilty but insane--a
+conclusion which, on the face of it, would have appeared to be the more
+reasonable.  In 1842, therefore, an Act was passed making any attempt
+to hurt the Queen a misdemeanour, punishable by transportation for
+seven years, or imprisonment, with or without hard labour, for a term
+not exceeding three years--the misdemeanant, at the discretion of the
+Court, {277} 'to be publicly or privately whipped, as often, and in
+such manner and form, as the Court shall direct, not exceeding
+thrice.'[6]  The four subsequent attempts were all dealt with under
+this new law; William Bean, in 1842, was sentenced to eighteen months'
+imprisonment; William Hamilton, in 1849, was transported for seven
+years; and, in 1850, the same sentence was passed upon Lieutenant
+Robert Pate, who struck the Queen on the head with his cane in
+Piccadilly.  Pate, alone among these delinquents, was of mature years;
+he had held a commission in the Army, dressed himself as a dandy, and
+was, the Prince declared, 'manifestly deranged.'[7]  In 1872 Arthur
+O'Connor, a youth of seventeen, fired an unloaded pistol at the Queen
+outside Buckingham Palace; he was immediately seized by John Brown, and
+sentenced to one year's imprisonment and twenty strokes of the birch
+rod.  It was for his bravery upon this occasion that Brown was
+presented with one of his gold medals.  In all these cases the jury had
+refused to allow the plea of insanity; but Roderick Maclean's attempt
+in 1882 had a different issue.  On this occasion the pistol was found
+to have been loaded, and the public indignation, emphasised as it was
+by Victoria's growing popularity, was particularly great.  Either for
+this or for some other reason the procedure of the last forty years was
+abandoned, and Maclean was tried for high treason.  The result was what
+might have been expected: the jury brought in a verdict of 'not guilty,
+but insane'; and the prisoner was sent to an asylum during Her
+Majesty's pleasure.[8]  Their verdict, however, produced a remarkable
+consequence.  Victoria, who doubtless carried in her mind {278} some
+memory of Albert's disapproval of a similar verdict in the case of
+Oxford, was very much annoyed.  What did the jury mean, she asked, by
+saying that Maclean was not guilty?  It was perfectly clear that he was
+guilty--she had seen him fire off the pistol herself.  It was in vain
+that Her Majesty's constitutional advisers reminded her of the
+principle of English law which lays down that no man can be found
+guilty of a crime unless he be proved to have had a criminal intention.
+Victoria was quite unconvinced.  'If that is the law,' she said, 'the
+law must be altered': and altered it was.  In 1883 an Act was passed
+changing the form of the verdict in cases of insanity, and the
+confusing anomaly remains upon the Statute Book to this day.[9]
+
+But it was not only through the feelings--commiserating or
+indignant--of personal sympathy that the Queen and her people were
+being drawn more nearly together; they were beginning, at last, to come
+to a close and permanent agreement upon the conduct of public affairs.
+Mr. Gladstone's second administration (1880-85) was a succession of
+failures, ending in disaster and disgrace; liberalism fell into
+discredit with the country, and Victoria perceived with joy that her
+distrust of her Ministers was shared by an ever-increasing number of
+her subjects.  During the crisis in the Sudan, the popular temper was
+her own.  She had been among the first to urge the necessity of an
+expedition to Khartoum, and, when the news came of the catastrophic
+death of General Gordon, her voice led the chorus of denunciation which
+raved against the Government.  In her rage, she despatched a
+fulminating telegram to Mr. Gladstone, not in the usual cypher, but
+open;[10] and {279} her letter of condolence to Miss Gordon, in which
+she attacked her Ministers for breach of faith, was widely published.
+It was rumoured that she had sent for Lord Hartington, the Secretary of
+State for War, and vehemently upbraided him.  'She rated me,' he was
+reported to have told a friend, 'as if I'd been a footman.'  'Why
+didn't she send for the butler?' asked his friend.  'Oh,' was the
+reply, 'the butler generally manages to keep out of the way on such
+occasions.'[11]
+
+But the day came when it was impossible to keep out of the way any
+longer.  Mr. Gladstone was defeated, and resigned.  Victoria, at a
+final interview, received him with her usual amenity, but, besides the
+formalities demanded by the occasion, the only remark which she made to
+him of a personal nature was to the effect that she supposed Mr.
+Gladstone would now require some rest.  He remembered with regret how,
+at a similar audience in 1874, she had expressed her trust in him as a
+supporter of the throne; but he noted the change without surprise.
+'Her mind and opinions,' he wrote in his diary afterwards, 'have since
+that day been seriously warped.'[12]
+
+Such was Mr. Gladstone's view; but the majority of the nation by no
+means agreed with him; and, in the General Election of 1886, they
+showed decisively that Victoria's politics were identical with theirs
+by casting forth the contrivers of Home Rule--that abomination of
+desolation--into outer darkness, and placing Lord Salisbury in power.
+Victoria's satisfaction was profound.  A flood of new unwonted
+hopefulness swept over her, stimulating her vital spirits with a
+surprising force.  Her habit of life was suddenly altered; abandoning
+the long seclusion which Disraeli's persuasions {280} had only
+momentarily interrupted, she threw herself vigorously into a multitude
+of public activities.  She appeared at drawing-rooms, at concerts, at
+reviews; she laid foundation-stones; she went to Liverpool to open an
+international exhibition, driving through the streets in her open
+carriage in heavy rain amid vast applauding crowds.  Delighted by the
+welcome which met her everywhere, she warmed to her work.  She visited
+Edinburgh, where the ovation of Liverpool was repeated and surpassed.
+In London, she opened in high state the Colonial and Indian Exhibition
+at South Kensington.  On this occasion the ceremonial was particularly
+magnificent; a blare of trumpets announced the approach of Her Majesty;
+the 'National Anthem' followed; and the Queen, seated on a gorgeous
+throne of hammered gold, replied with her own lips to the address that
+was presented to her.  Then she rose, and, advancing upon the platform
+with regal port, acknowledged the acclamations of the great assembly by
+a succession of curtseys, of elaborate and commanding grace.[13]
+
+Next year was the fiftieth of her reign, and in June the splendid
+anniversary was celebrated in solemn pomp.  Victoria, surrounded by the
+highest dignitaries of her realm, escorted by a glittering galaxy of
+kings and princes, drove through the crowded enthusiasm of the capital
+to render thanks to God in Westminster Abbey.  In that triumphant hour
+the last remaining traces of past antipathies and past disagreements
+were altogether swept away.  The Queen was hailed at once as the mother
+of her people and as the embodied symbol of their imperial greatness;
+and she responded to the double sentiment with all the ardour of her
+spirit.  {281} England and the people of England, she knew it, she felt
+it, were, in some wonderful and yet quite simple manner, _hers_.
+Exultation, affection, gratitude, a profound sense of obligation, an
+unbounded pride--such were her emotions; and, colouring and
+intensifying the rest, there was something else.  At last, after so
+long, happiness--fragmentary, perhaps, and charged with gravity, but
+true and unmistakable none the less--had returned to her.  The
+unaccustomed feeling filled and warmed her consciousness.  When, at
+Buckingham Palace again, the long ceremony over, she was asked how she
+was, 'I am very tired, but very happy,' she said.[14]
+
+
+III
+
+And so, after the toils and tempests of the day, a long evening
+followed--mild, serene, and lighted with a golden glory.  For an
+unexampled atmosphere of success and adoration invested the last period
+of Victoria's life.  Her triumph was the summary, the crown, of a
+greater triumph--the culminating prosperity of a nation.  The solid
+splendour of the decade between Victoria's two jubilees can hardly be
+paralleled in the annals of England.  The sage counsels of Lord
+Salisbury seemed to bring with them not only wealth and power, but
+security; and the country settled down, with calm assurance, to the
+enjoyment of an established grandeur.  And--it was only
+natural--Victoria settled down too.  For she was a part of the
+establishment--an essential part as it seemed--a fixture--a
+magnificent, immovable sideboard in the huge saloon of state.  Without
+her the heaped-up banquet of 1890 would have lost its distinctive
+quality--the comfortable order of the {282} substantial unambiguous
+dishes, with their background of weighty glamour, half out of sight.
+
+Her own existence came to harmonise more and more with what was around
+her.  Gradually, imperceptibly, Albert receded.  It was not that he was
+forgotten--that would have been impossible--but that the void created
+by his absence grew less agonising, and even, at last, less obvious.
+Eventually Victoria found it possible to regret the bad weather without
+immediately reflecting that her 'dear Albert always said we could not
+alter it, but must leave it as it was'; she could even enjoy a good
+breakfast without considering how 'dear Albert' would have liked the
+buttered eggs.[15]  And, as that figure slowly faded, its place was
+taken, inevitably, by Victoria's own.  Her being, revolving for so many
+years round an external object, now changed its motion and found its
+centre in itself.  It had to be so: her domestic position, the pressure
+of her public work, her indomitable sense of duty, made anything else
+impossible.  Her egotism proclaimed its rights.  Her age increased
+still further the surrounding deference; and her force of character,
+emerging at length in all its plenitude, imposed itself absolutely upon
+its environment by the conscious effort of an imperious will.
+
+Little by little it was noticed that the outward vestiges of Albert's
+posthumous domination grew less complete.  At Court the stringency of
+mourning was relaxed.  As the Queen drove through the Park in her open
+carriage with her Highlanders behind her, nursery-maids canvassed
+eagerly the growing patch of violet velvet in the bonnet with its jet
+appurtenances on the small bowing head.
+
+{283}
+
+It was in her family that Victoria's ascendancy reached its highest
+point.  All her offspring were married; the number of her descendants
+rapidly increased; there were many marriages in the third generation;
+and no fewer than thirty-seven of her great-grandchildren were living
+at the time of her death.  A picture of the period displays the royal
+family collected together in one of the great rooms at Windsor--a
+crowded company of more than fifty persons, with the imperial matriarch
+in their midst.  Over them all she ruled with a most potent sway.  The
+small concerns of the youngest aroused her passionate interest; and the
+oldest she treated as if they were children still.  The Prince of
+Wales, in particular, stood in tremendous awe of his mother.  She had
+steadily refused to allow him the slightest participation in the
+business of government; and he had occupied himself in other ways.  Nor
+could it be denied that he enjoyed himself--out of her sight; but, in
+that redoubtable presence, his abounding manhood suffered a miserable
+eclipse.  Once, at Osborne, when, owing to no fault of his, he was too
+late for a dinner party, he was observed standing behind a pillar and,
+wiping the sweat from his forehead, trying to nerve himself to go up to
+the Queen.  When at last he did so, she gave him a stiff nod, whereupon
+he vanished immediately behind another pillar, and remained there until
+the party broke up.  At the time of this incident the Prince of Wales
+was over fifty years of age.[16]
+
+It was inevitable that the Queen's domestic activities should
+occasionally trench upon the domain of high diplomacy; and this was
+especially the case when the interests of her eldest daughter, the
+Crown Princess of Prussia, were at stake.  The Crown Prince held {284}
+liberal opinions; he was much influenced by his wife; and both were
+detested by Bismarck, who declared with scurrilous emphasis that the
+Englishwoman and her mother were a menace to the Prussian State.  The
+feud was still further intensified when, on the death of the old
+Emperor (1888), the Crown Prince succeeded to the throne.  A family
+entanglement brought on a violent crisis.  One of the daughters of the
+new Empress had become betrothed to Prince Alexander of Battenberg, who
+had lately been ejected from the throne of Bulgaria owing to the
+hostility of the Tsar.  Victoria, as well as the Empress, highly
+approved of the match.  Of the two brothers of Prince Alexander, the
+elder had married another of her grand-daughters, and the younger was
+the husband of her daughter, the Princess Beatrice; she was devoted to
+the handsome young men; and she was delighted by the prospect of the
+third brother--on the whole the handsomest, she thought, of the
+three--also becoming a member of her family.  Unfortunately, however,
+Bismarck was opposed to the scheme.  He perceived that the marriage
+would endanger the friendship between Germany and Russia, which was
+vital to his foreign policy, and he announced that it must not take
+place.  A fierce struggle between the Empress and the Chancellor
+followed.  Victoria, whose hatred of her daughter's enemy was
+unbounded, came over to Charlottenburg to join in the fray.  Bismarck,
+over his pipe and his lager, snorted out his alarm.  The Queen of
+England's object, he said, was clearly political--she wished to
+estrange Germany and Russia--and very likely she would have her way.
+'In family matters,' he added, 'she is not used to contradiction'; she
+would 'bring the parson with her in her travelling-bag and the
+bridegroom in her trunk, and the marriage would {285} come off on the
+spot.'  But the man of blood and iron was not to be thwarted so easily,
+and he asked for a private interview with the Queen.  The details of
+their conversation are unknown; but it is certain that in the course of
+it Victoria was forced to realise the meaning of resistance to that
+formidable personage, and that she promised to use all her influence to
+prevent the marriage.  The engagement was broken off; and in the
+following year Prince Alexander of Battenberg united himself to
+Fr�ulein Loisinger, an actress at the court theatre of Darmstadt.[17]
+
+But such painful incidents were rare.  Victoria was growing very old;
+with no Albert to guide her, with no Beaconsfield to enflame her, she
+was willing enough to abandon the dangerous questions of diplomacy to
+the wisdom of Lord Salisbury, and to concentrate her energies upon
+objects which touched her more nearly and over which she could exercise
+an undisputed control.  Her home--her court--the monuments at
+Balmoral--the livestock at Windsor--the organisation of her
+engagements--the supervision of the multitudinous details of her daily
+routine--such matters played now an even greater part in her existence
+than before.  Her life passed in an extraordinary exactitude.  Every
+moment of her day was mapped out beforehand; the succession of her
+engagements was immutably fixed; the dates of her journeys--to Osborne,
+to Balmoral, to the South of France, to Windsor, to London--were hardly
+altered from year to year.  She demanded from those who surrounded her
+a rigid precision in details, and she was preternaturally quick in
+detecting the slightest deviation from the rules which she had laid
+down.  Such was the irresistible potency of her {286} personality, that
+anything but the most implicit obedience to her wishes was felt to be
+impossible; but sometimes somebody was unpunctual; and unpunctuality
+was one of the most heinous of sins.  Then her displeasure--her
+dreadful displeasure--became all too visible.  At such moments there
+seemed nothing surprising in her having been the daughter of a
+martinet.[18]
+
+But these storms, unnerving as they were while they lasted, were
+quickly over, and they grew more and more exceptional.  With the return
+of happiness a gentle benignity flowed from the aged Queen.  Her smile,
+once so rare a visitant to those saddened features, flitted over them
+with an easy alacrity; the blue eyes beamed; the whole face, starting
+suddenly from its pendulous expressionlessness, brightened and softened
+and cast over those who watched it an unforgettable charm.  For in her
+last years there was a fascination in Victoria's amiability which had
+been lacking even from the vivid impulse of her youth.  Over all who
+approached her--or very nearly all--she threw a peculiar spell.  Her
+grandchildren adored her; her ladies waited upon her with a reverential
+love.  The honour of serving her obliterated a thousand
+inconveniences--the monotony of a court existence, the fatigue of
+standing, the necessity for a superhuman attentiveness to the minutiae
+of time and space.  As one did one's wonderful duty one could forget
+that one's legs were aching from the infinitude of the passages at
+Windsor, or that one's bare arms were turning blue in the Balmoral cold.
+
+What, above all, seemed to make such service delightful was the
+detailed interest which the Queen took in the circumstances of those
+around her.  Her absorbing passion for the comfortable commonplaces,
+{287} the small crises, the recurrent sentimentalities, of domestic
+life constantly demanded wider fields for its activity; the sphere of
+her own family, vast as it was, was not enough; she became the eager
+confidante of the household affairs of her ladies; her sympathies
+reached out to the palace domestics; even the housemaids and
+scullions--so it appeared--were the objects of her searching inquiries,
+and of her heartfelt solicitude when their lovers were ordered to a
+foreign station, or their aunts suffered from an attack of rheumatism
+which was more than usually acute.[19]
+
+Nevertheless the due distinctions of rank were immaculately preserved.
+The Queen's mere presence was enough to ensure that; but, in addition,
+the dominion of court etiquette was paramount.  For that elaborate
+code, which had kept Lord Melbourne stiff upon the sofa and ranged the
+other guests in silence about the round table according to the order of
+precedence, was as punctiliously enforced as ever.  Every evening after
+dinner, the hearth-rug, sacred to royalty, loomed before the profane in
+inaccessible glory, or, on one or two terrific occasions, actually
+lured them magnetically forward to the very edge of the abyss.  The
+Queen, at the fitting moment, moved towards her guests; one after the
+other they were led up to her; and, while duologue followed duologue in
+constraint and embarrassment, the rest of the assembly stood still,
+without a word.[20]  Only in one particular was the severity of the
+etiquette allowed to lapse.  Throughout the greater part of the reign
+the rule that ministers must stand {288} during their audiences with
+the Queen had been absolute.  When Lord Derby, the Prime Minister, had
+an audience of Her Majesty after a serious illness, he mentioned it
+afterwards, as a proof of the royal favour, that the Queen had remarked
+'How sorry she was she could not ask him to be seated.'  Subsequently,
+Disraeli, after an attack of gout and in a moment of extreme expansion
+on the part of Victoria, had been offered a chair; but he had thought
+it wise humbly to decline the privilege.  In her later years, however,
+the Queen invariably asked Mr. Gladstone and Lord Salisbury to sit
+down.[21]
+
+Sometimes the solemnity of the evening was diversified by a concert, an
+opera, or even a play.  One of the most marked indications of
+Victoria's enfranchisement from the thraldom of widowhood had been her
+resumption--after an interval of thirty years--of the custom of
+commanding dramatic companies from London to perform before the Court
+at Windsor.  On such occasions her spirits rose high.  She loved
+acting; she loved a good plot; above all, she loved a farce.  Engrossed
+by everything that passed upon the stage, she would follow, with
+childlike innocence, the unwinding of the story; or she would assume an
+air of knowing superiority and exclaim in triumph, 'There!  You didn't
+expect _that_, did you?' when the _d�nouement_ came.  Her sense of
+humour was of a vigorous though primitive kind.  She had been one of
+the very few persons who had always been able to appreciate the Prince
+Consort's jokes; and, when those were cracked no more, she could still
+roar with laughter, in the privacy of her household, over some small
+piece of fun--some oddity of an ambassador, or some ignorant {289}
+Minister's _faux pas_.  When the jest grew subtle she was less pleased;
+but, if it approached the confines of the indecorous, the danger was
+serious.  To take a liberty called down at once Her Majesty's most
+crushing disapprobation; and to say something improper was to take the
+greatest liberty of all.  Then the royal lips sank down at the corners,
+the royal eyes stared in astonished protrusion, and in fact the royal
+countenance became inauspicious in the highest degree, The transgressor
+shuddered into silence, while the awful 'We are not amused' annihilated
+the dinner table.  Afterwards, in her private entourage, the Queen
+would observe that the person in question was, she very much feared,
+'not discreet'; it was a verdict from which there was no appeal.[22]
+
+In general, her �sthetic tastes had remained unchanged since the days
+of Mendelssohn, Landseer, and Lablache.  She still delighted in the
+roulades of Italian opera; she still demanded a high standard in the
+execution of a pianoforte duet.  Her views on painting were decided;
+Sir Edwin, she declared, was perfect; she was much impressed by Lord
+Leighton's manners; and she profoundly distrusted Mr. Watts.  From time
+to time she ordered engraved portraits to be taken of members of the
+royal family; on these occasions she would have the first proofs
+submitted to her, and, having inspected them with minute particularity,
+she would point out their mistakes to the artists, indicating at the
+same time how they might be corrected.  The artists invariably
+discovered that Her Majesty's suggestions were of the highest value.
+In literature her interests were more restricted.  She was devoted to
+Lord {290} Tennyson; and, as the Prince Consort had admired George
+Eliot, she perused 'Middlemarch': she was disappointed.  There is
+reason to believe, however, that the romances of another female writer,
+whose popularity among the humbler classes of Her Majesty's subjects
+was at one time enormous, secured, no less, the approval of Her
+Majesty.  Otherwise she did not read very much.[23]
+
+Once, however, the Queen's attention was drawn to a publication which
+it was impossible for her to ignore.  'The Greville Memoirs,' filled
+with a mass of historical information of extraordinary importance, but
+filled also with descriptions, which were by no means flattering, of
+George IV, William IV, and other royal persons, was brought out by Mr.
+Reeve.  Victoria read the book, and was appalled.  It was, she
+declared, a 'dreadful and really scandalous book,' and she could not
+say 'how _horrified_ and _indignant_' she was at Greville's
+'indiscretion, indelicacy, ingratitude towards friends, betrayal of
+confidence and shameful disloyalty towards his Sovereign.'  She wrote
+to Disraeli to tell him that in her opinion it was '_very important_
+that the book should be severely censured and discredited.'  'The tone
+in which he speaks of royalty,' she added, 'is unlike anything one sees
+in history even, and is most reprehensible.'  Her anger was directed
+with almost equal vehemence against Mr. Reeve for his having published
+'such an abominable book,' and she charged Sir Arthur Helps to convey
+to him her deep displeasure.  Mr. Reeve, however, was impenitent.  When
+Sir Arthur told him that, in the Queen's opinion, 'the book degraded
+royalty,' he replied: 'Not at all; it elevates it by the contrast it
+offers {291} between the present and the defunct state of affairs.' But
+this adroit defence failed to make any impression upon Victoria; and
+Mr. Reeve, when he retired from the public service, did not receive the
+knighthood which custom entitled him to expect.[24]  Perhaps if the
+Queen had known how many caustic comments upon herself Mr. Reeve had
+quietly suppressed in the published Memoirs, she would have been almost
+grateful to him; but, in that case, what would she have said of
+Greville?  Imagination boggles at the thought.  As for more modern
+essays upon the same topic, Her Majesty, it is to be feared, would have
+characterised them as 'not discreet.'
+
+But as a rule the leisure hours of that active life were occupied with
+recreations of a less intangible quality than the study of literature
+or the appreciation of art.  Victoria was a woman not only of vast
+property but of innumerable possessions.  She had inherited an immense
+quantity of furniture, of ornaments, of china, of plate, of valuable
+objects of every kind; her purchases, throughout a long life, made a
+formidable addition to these stores; and there flowed in upon her,
+besides, from every quarter of the globe, a constant stream of gifts.
+Over this enormous mass she exercised an unceasing and minute
+supervision, and the arrangement and the contemplation of it, in all
+its details, filled her with an intimate satisfaction.  The collecting
+instinct has its roots in the very depths of human nature; and, in the
+case of Victoria, it seemed to owe its force to two of her dominating
+impulses--the intense sense, which had always been hers, of her own
+personality, and the craving which, growing with the years, had become
+in her old age almost an obsession, for fixity, for solidity, for {292}
+the setting up of palpable barriers against the outrages of change and
+time.  When she considered the multitudinous objects which belonged to
+her, or, better still, when, choosing out some section of them as the
+fancy took her, she actually savoured the vivid richness of their
+individual qualities, she saw herself deliciously reflected from a
+million facets, felt herself magnified miraculously over a boundless
+area, and was well pleased.  That was just as it should be; but then
+came the dismaying thought--everything slips away, crumbles, vanishes;
+S�vres dinner-services get broken; even golden basins go unaccountably
+astray; even one's self, with all the recollections and experiences
+that make up one's being, fluctuates, perishes, dissolves ... But no!
+It could not, should not be so!  There should be no changes and no
+losses!  Nothing should ever move--neither the past nor the
+present--and she herself least of all!  And so the tenacious woman,
+hoarding her valuables, decreed their immortality with all the
+resolution of her soul.  She would not lose one memory or one pin.
+
+She gave orders that nothing should be thrown away--and nothing was.
+There, in drawer after drawer, in wardrobe after wardrobe, reposed the
+dresses of seventy years.  But not only the dresses--the furs and the
+mantles and subsidiary frills and the muffs and the parasols and the
+bonnets--all were ranged in chronological order, dated and complete.  A
+great cupboard was devoted to the dolls; in the china-room at Windsor a
+special table held the mugs of her childhood, and her children's mugs
+as well.  Mementoes of the past surrounded her in serried
+accumulations.  In every room the tables were powdered thick with the
+photographs of relatives; their portraits, revealing {293} them at all
+ages, covered the walls; their figures, in solid marble, rose up from
+pedestals, or gleamed from brackets in the form of gold and silver
+statuettes.  The dead, in every shape--in miniatures, in porcelain, in
+enormous life-size oil-paintings--were perpetually about her.  John
+Brown stood upon her writing-table in solid gold.  Her favourite horses
+and dogs, endowed with a new durability, crowded round her footsteps.
+Sharp, in silver-gilt, dominated the dinner-table; Boy and Boz lay
+together among unfading flowers, in bronze.  And it was not enough that
+each particle of the past should be given the stability of metal or of
+marble: the whole collection, in its arrangement, no less than its
+entity, should be immutably fixed.  There might be additions, but there
+might never be alterations.  No chintz might change, no carpet, no
+curtain, be replaced by another; or, if long use at last made it
+necessary, the stuffs and the patterns must be so identically
+reproduced that the keenest eye might not detect the difference.  No
+new picture could be hung upon the walls at Windsor, for those already
+there had been put in their places by Albert, whose decisions were
+eternal.  So, indeed, were Victoria's.  To ensure that they should be
+the aid of the camera was called in.  Every single article in the
+Queen's possession was photographed from several points of view.  These
+photographs were submitted to Her Majesty, and when, after careful
+inspection, she had approved of them, they were placed in a series of
+albums, richly bound.  Then, opposite each photograph, an entry was
+made, indicating the number of the article, the number of the room in
+which it was kept, its exact position in the room and all its principal
+characteristics.  The fate of every object which had undergone this
+process was henceforth {294} irrevocably sealed.  The whole multitude,
+once and for all, took up its steadfast station.  And Victoria, with a
+gigantic volume or two of the endless catalogue always beside her, to
+look through, to ponder upon, to expatiate over, could feel, with a
+double contentment, that the transitoriness of this world had been
+arrested by the amplitude of her might.[25]
+
+Thus the collection, ever multiplying, ever encroaching upon new fields
+of consciousness, ever rooting itself more firmly in the depths of
+instinct, became one of the dominating influences of that strange
+existence.  It was a collection not merely of things and of thoughts,
+but of states of mind and ways of living as well.  The celebration of
+anniversaries grew to be an important branch of it--of birthdays and
+marriage days and death days, each of which demanded its appropriate
+feeling, which, in its turn, must be itself expressed in an appropriate
+outward form.  And the form, of course--the ceremony of rejoicing or
+lamentation--was stereotyped with the rest: it was part of the
+collection.  On a certain day, for instance, flowers must be strewn on
+John Brown's monument at Balmoral; and the date of the yearly departure
+for Scotland was fixed by that fact.  Inevitably it was around the
+central circumstance of death--death, the final witness to human
+mutability--that these commemorative cravings clustered most thickly.
+Might not even death itself be humbled, if one could recall enough?--if
+one asserted, with a sufficiently passionate and reiterated emphasis,
+the eternity of love?  Accordingly, every bed in which Victoria slept
+had attached to it, at the back, on the right-hand side, above the
+pillow, a photograph of the head and shoulders of Albert {295} as he
+lay dead, surmounted by a wreath of immortelles.[26]  At Balmoral,
+where memories came crowding so closely, the solid signs of memory
+appeared in surprising profusion.  Obelisks, pyramids, tombs, statues,
+cairns, and seats of inscribed granite, proclaimed Victoria's
+dedication to the dead.  There, twice a year, on the days that followed
+her arrival, a solemn pilgrimage of inspection and meditation was
+performed.  There, on August 26--Albert's birthday--at the foot of the
+bronze statue of him in Highland dress, the Queen, her family, her
+Court, her servants, and her tenantry, met together and in silence
+drank to the memory of the dead.  In England the tokens of remembrance
+pullulated hardly less.  Not a day passed without some addition to the
+multifold assemblage--a gold statuette of Ross, the piper--a life-sized
+marble group of Victoria and Albert, in medieval costume, inscribed
+upon the base with the words: 'Allured to brighter worlds and led the
+way'--a granite slab in the shrubbery at Osborne, informing the visitor
+of 'Waldmann: the very favourite little dachshund of Queen Victoria;
+who brought him from Baden, April 1872; died, July 11, 1881.'[27]
+
+At Frogmore, the great mausoleum, perpetually enriched, was visited
+almost daily by the Queen when the Court was at Windsor.[28]  But there
+was another, a more secret and a hardly less holy shrine.  The suite of
+rooms which Albert had occupied in the Castle was kept for ever shut
+away from the eyes of any save the most privileged.  Within those
+precincts everything remained as it had been at the Prince's death; but
+the mysterious preoccupation of Victoria had commanded that her
+husband's clothing should be laid afresh, each {296} evening, upon the
+bed, and that, each evening, the water should be set ready in the
+basin, as if he were still alive; and this incredible rite was
+performed with scrupulous regularity for nearly forty years.[29]
+
+Such was the inner worship; and still the flesh obeyed the spirit;
+still the daily hours of labour proclaimed Victoria's consecration to
+duty and to the ideal of the dead.  Yet, with the years, the sense of
+self-sacrifice had faded; the natural energies of that ardent being
+discharged themselves with satisfaction into the channel of public
+work; the love of business which, from her girlhood, had been strong
+within her, reasserted itself in all its vigour, and, in her old age,
+to have been cut off from her papers and her boxes would have been, not
+a relief, but an agony to Victoria.  Thus, though toiling Ministers
+might sigh and suffer, the whole process of government continued, till
+the very end, to pass before her.  Nor was that all; ancient precedent
+had made the validity of an enormous number of official transactions
+dependent upon the application of the royal sign-manual; and a great
+proportion of the Queen's working hours was spent in this mechanical
+task.  Nor did she show any desire to diminish it.  On the contrary,
+she voluntarily resumed the duty of signing commissions in the Army,
+from which she had been set free by Act of Parliament, and from which,
+during the years of middle life, she had abstained.  In no case would
+she countenance the proposal that she should use a stamp.  But, at
+last, when the increasing pressure of business made the delays of the
+antiquated system intolerable, she consented that, for certain classes
+of documents, her oral sanction should be sufficient.  Each paper was
+read aloud to her, and she said at the end 'Approved.' {297} Often, for
+hours at a time, she would sit, with Albert's bust in front of her,
+while the word 'Approved' issued at intervals from her lips.  The word
+came forth with a majestic sonority; for her voice now--how changed
+from the silvery treble of her girlhood!--was a contralto, full and
+strong.[30]
+
+
+IV
+
+The final years were years of apotheosis.  In the dazzled imagination
+of her subjects Victoria soared aloft towards the regions of divinity
+through a nimbus of purest glory.  Criticism fell dumb; deficiencies
+which, twenty years earlier, would have been universally admitted, were
+now as universally ignored.  That the nation's idol was a very
+incomplete representative of the nation was a circumstance that was
+hardly noticed, and yet it was conspicuously true.  For the vast
+changes which, out of the England of 1837, had produced the England of
+1897, seemed scarcely to have touched the Queen.  The immense
+industrial development of the period, the significance of which had
+been so thoroughly understood by Albert, meant little indeed to
+Victoria.  The amazing scientific movement, which Albert had
+appreciated no less, left Victoria perfectly cold.  Her conception of
+the universe, and of man's place in it, and of the stupendous problems
+of nature and philosophy remained, throughout her life, entirely
+unchanged.  Her religion was the religion which she had learnt from the
+Baroness Lehzen and the Duchess of Kent.  Here, too, it might be
+supposed that Albert's views would have influenced her.  For Albert, in
+matters of religion, {298} was advanced.  Disbelieving altogether in
+evil spirits, he had had his doubts about the miracle of the Gadarene
+Swine.[31]  Stockmar, even, had thrown out, in a remarkable memorandum
+on the education of the Prince of Wales, the suggestion that while the
+child 'must unquestionably be brought up in the creed of the Church of
+England,' it might nevertheless be in accordance with the spirit of the
+times to exclude from his religious training the inculcation of a
+belief in 'the supernatural doctrines of Christianity.'[32]  This,
+however, would have been going too far; and all the royal children were
+brought up in complete orthodoxy.  Anything else would have grieved
+Victoria, though her own conceptions of the orthodox were not very
+precise.  But her nature, in which imagination and subtlety held so
+small a place, made her instinctively recoil from the intricate
+ecstasies of High Anglicanism; and she seemed to feel most at home in
+the simple faith of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland.[33]  This was
+what might have been expected; for Lehzen was the daughter of a
+Lutheran pastor, and the Lutherans and the Presbyterians have much in
+common.  For many years Dr. Norman Macleod, an innocent Scotch
+minister, was her principal spiritual adviser; and, when he was taken
+from her, she drew much comfort from quiet chats about life and death
+with the cottagers at Balmoral.[34]  Her piety, absolutely genuine,
+found what it wanted in the sober exhortations of old John Grant and
+the devout saws of Mrs. P. Farquharson.  They possessed the qualities,
+which, as a child of fourteen, she had so sincerely admired in the
+Bishop of Chester's 'Exposition of the Gospel of St. Matthew'; they
+were 'just plain and comprehensible {299} and full of truth and good
+feeling.'  The Queen, who gave her name to the Age of Mill and of
+Darwin, never got any further than that.
+
+From the social movements of her time Victoria was equally remote.
+Towards the smallest no less than towards the greatest changes she
+remained inflexible.  During her youth and middle-age smoking had been
+forbidden in polite society, and so long as she lived she would not
+withdraw her anathema against it.  Kings might protest; bishops and
+ambassadors, invited to Windsor, might be reduced, in the privacy of
+their bedrooms, to lie full-length upon the floor and smoke up the
+chimney--the interdict continued.[35]  It might have been supposed that
+a female sovereign would have lent her countenance to one of the most
+vital of all the reforms to which her epoch gave birth--the
+emancipation of women--but, on the contrary, the mere mention of such a
+proposal sent the blood rushing to her head.  In 1870, her eye having
+fallen upon the report of a meeting in favour of Women's Suffrage, she
+wrote to Mr. Martin in royal rage--'The Queen is most anxious to enlist
+everyone who can speak or write to join in checking this mad, wicked
+folly of "Woman's Rights," with all its attendant horrors, on which her
+poor feeble sex is bent, forgetting every sense of womanly feeling and
+propriety.  Lady ---- ought to get a _good whipping_.  It is a subject
+which makes the Queen so furious that she cannot contain herself.  God
+created men and women different--then let them remain each in their own
+position.  Tennyson has some beautiful lines on the difference of men
+and women in "The Princess."  Woman would become the most hateful,
+heartless, and disgusting of human beings were she allowed to {300}
+unsex herself; and where would be the protection which man was intended
+to give the weaker sex?  The Queen is sure that Mrs. Martin agrees with
+her.'[36]  The argument was irrefutable; Mrs. Martin agreed; and yet
+the canker spread.
+
+In another direction Victoria's comprehension of the spirit of her age
+has been constantly asserted.  It was for long the custom for courtly
+historians and polite politicians to compliment the Queen upon the
+correctness of her attitude towards the Constitution.  But such praises
+seem hardly to be justified by the facts.  In her later years Victoria
+more than once alluded with regret to her conduct during the Bedchamber
+crisis, and let it be understood that she had grown wiser since.[37]
+Yet in truth it is difficult to trace any fundamental change either in
+her theory or her practice in constitutional matters throughout her
+life.  The same despotic and personal spirit which led her to break off
+the negotiations with Peel is equally visible in her animosity towards
+Palmerston, in her threats of abdication to Disraeli, and in her desire
+to prosecute the Duke of Westminster for attending a meeting upon
+Bulgarian atrocities.  The complex and delicate principles of the
+Constitution cannot be said to have come within the compass of her
+mental faculties; and in the actual developments which it underwent
+during her reign she played a passive part.  From 1840 to 1861 the
+power of the Crown steadily increased in England; from 1861 to 1901 it
+steadily declined.  The first process was due to the influence of the
+Prince Consort, the second to that of a series of great Ministers.
+During the first Victoria was in effect a mere accessory; during the
+second the threads of power, which Albert had so laboriously collected,
+inevitably fell {301} from her hands into the vigorous grasp of Mr.
+Gladstone, Lord Beaconsfield, and Lord Salisbury.  Perhaps, absorbed as
+she was in routine, and difficult as she found it to distinguish at all
+clearly between the trivial and the essential, she was only dimly aware
+of what was happening.  Yet, at the end of her reign, the Crown was
+weaker than at any other time in English history.  Paradoxically
+enough, Victoria received the highest eulogiums for assenting to a
+political evolution which, had she completely realised its import,
+would have filled her with supreme displeasure.
+
+Nevertheless it must not be supposed that she was a second George III.
+Her desire to impose her will, vehement as it was, and unlimited by any
+principle, was yet checked by a certain shrewdness.  She might oppose
+her Ministers with extraordinary violence; she might remain utterly
+impervious to arguments and supplications; the pertinacity of her
+resolution might seem to be unconquerable; but, at the very last moment
+of all, her obstinacy would give way.  Her innate respect and capacity
+for business, and perhaps, too, the memory of Albert's scrupulous
+avoidance of extreme courses, prevented her from ever entering an
+_impasse_.  By instinct she understood when the facts were too much for
+her, and to them she invariably yielded.  After all, what else could
+she do?
+
+But if, in all these ways, the Queen and her epoch were profoundly
+separated, the points of contact between them also were not few.
+Victoria understood very well the meaning and the attractions of power
+and property, and in such learning the English nation, too, had grown
+to be more and more proficient.  During the last fifteen years of the
+reign--for the short Liberal Administration of 1892 was a mere {302}
+interlude--imperialism was the dominant creed of the country.  It was
+Victoria's as well.  In this direction, if in no other, she had allowed
+her mind to develop.  Under Disraeli's tutelage the British Dominions
+over the seas had come to mean much more to her than ever before, and,
+in particular, she had grown enamoured of the East.  The thought of
+India fascinated her; she set to, and learnt a little Hindustani; she
+engaged some Indian servants, who became her inseparable attendants,
+and one of whom, Munshi Abdul Karim, eventually almost succeeded to the
+position which had once been John Brown's.[38]  At the same time, the
+imperialist temper of the nation invested her office with a new
+significance exactly harmonising with her own inmost proclivities.  The
+English polity was in the main a common-sense structure; but there was
+always a corner in it where common-sense could not enter--where,
+somehow or other, the ordinary measurements were not applicable and the
+ordinary rules did not apply.  So our ancestors had laid it down,
+giving scope, in their wisdom, to that mystical element which, as it
+seems, can never quite be eradicated from the affairs of men.
+Naturally it was in the Crown that the mysticism of the English polity
+was concentrated--the Crown, with its venerable antiquity, its sacred
+associations, its imposing spectacular array.  But, for nearly two
+centuries, common-sense had been predominant in the great building, and
+the little, unexplored, inexplicable corner had attracted small
+attention.  Then, with the rise of imperialism, there was a change.
+For imperialism is a faith as well as a business; as it grew, the
+mysticism in English public life grew with it; and simultaneously a new
+importance began to attach to the Crown.  The {303} need for a
+symbol--a symbol of England's might, of England's worth, of England's
+extraordinary and mysterious destiny--became felt more urgently than
+ever before.  The Crown was that symbol: and the Crown rested upon the
+head of Victoria.  Thus it happened that while by the end of the reign
+the power of the sovereign had appreciably diminished, the prestige of
+the sovereign had enormously grown.
+
+Yet this prestige was not merely the outcome of public changes; it was
+an intensely personal matter, too.  Victoria was the Queen of England,
+the Empress of India, the quintessential pivot round which the whole
+magnificent machine was revolving--but how much more besides!  For one
+thing, she was of a great age--an almost indispensable qualification
+for popularity in England.  She had given proof of one of the most
+admired characteristics of the race--persistent vitality.  She had
+reigned for sixty years, and she was not out.  And then, she was a
+character.  The outlines of her nature were firmly drawn, and, even
+through the mists which envelop royalty, clearly visible.  In the
+popular imagination her familiar figure filled, with satisfying ease, a
+distinct and memorable place.  It was, besides, the kind of figure
+which naturally called forth the admiring sympathy of the great
+majority of the nation.  Goodness they prized above every other human
+quality; and Victoria, who, at the age of twelve, had said that she
+would be good, had kept her word.  Duty, conscience, morality--yes! in
+the light of those high beacons the Queen had always lived.  She had
+passed her days in work and not in pleasure--in public responsibilities
+and family cares.  The standard of solid virtue which had been set up
+so long ago amid the domestic happiness of Osborne had never been
+lowered for an instant.  For {304} more than half a century no divorced
+lady had approached the precincts of the Court.  Victoria, indeed, in
+her enthusiasm for wifely fidelity, had laid down a still stricter
+ordinance: she frowned severely upon any widow who married again.[39]
+Considering that she herself was the offspring of a widow's second
+marriage, this prohibition might be regarded as an eccentricity; but,
+no doubt, it was an eccentricity on the right side.  The middle
+classes, firm in the triple brass of their respectability, rejoiced
+with a special joy over the most respectable of Queens.  They almost
+claimed her, indeed, as one of themselves; but this would have been an
+exaggeration.  For, though many of her characteristics were most often
+found among the middle classes, in other respects--in her manners, for
+instance--Victoria was decidedly aristocratic.  And, in one important
+particular, she was neither aristocratic nor middle-class: her attitude
+toward herself was simply regal.
+
+Such qualities were obvious and important; but, in the impact of a
+personality, it is something deeper, something fundamental and common
+to all its qualities, that really tells.  In Victoria, it is easy to
+discern the nature of this underlying element: it was a peculiar
+sincerity.  Her truthfulness, her single-mindedness, the vividness of
+her emotions and her unrestrained expression of them, were the varied
+forms which this central characteristic assumed.  It was her sincerity
+which gave her at once her impressiveness, her charm, and her
+absurdity.  She moved through life with the imposing certitude of one
+to whom concealment was impossible--either towards her surroundings or
+towards herself.  There she was, all of her--the Queen of England,
+complete and obvious; the world might take her or {305} leave her; she
+had nothing more to show, or to explain, or to modify; and, with her
+peerless carriage, she swept along her path.  And not only was
+concealment out of the question; reticence, reserve, even dignity
+itself, as it sometimes seemed, might be very well dispensed with.  As
+Lady Lyttelton said: 'There is a transparency in her truth that is very
+striking--not a shade of exaggeration in describing feelings or facts;
+like very few other people I ever knew.  Many may be as true, but I
+think it goes often along with some reserve.  She talks all out; just
+as it is, no more and no less.'[40]  She talked all out; and she wrote
+all out, too.  Her letters, in the surprising jet of their expression,
+remind one of a turned-on tap.  What is within pours forth in an
+immediate, spontaneous rush.  Her utterly unliterary style has at least
+the merit of being a vehicle exactly suited to her thoughts and
+feelings; and even the platitude of her phraseology carries with it a
+curiously personal flavour.  Undoubtedly it was through her writings
+that she touched the heart of the public.  Not only in her 'Highland
+Journals,' where the mild chronicle of her private proceedings was laid
+bare without a trace either of affectation or of embarrassment, but
+also in those remarkable messages to the nation which, from time to
+time, she published in the newspapers, her people found her very close
+to them indeed.  They felt instinctively Victoria's irresistible
+sincerity, and they responded.  And in truth it was an endearing trait.
+
+The personality and the position, too--the wonderful combination of
+them--that, perhaps, was what was finally fascinating in the case.  The
+little old lady, with her white hair and her plain mourning clothes, in
+her wheeled chair or her donkey-carriage--one saw her so; {306} and
+then--close behind--with their immediate suggestion of singularity, of
+mystery, and of power--the Indian servants.  That was the familiar
+vision, and it was admirable; but, at chosen moments, it was right that
+the widow of Windsor should step forth apparent Queen.  The last and
+the most glorious of such occasions was the Jubilee of 1897.  Then, as
+the splendid procession passed along, escorting Victoria through the
+thronged re-echoing streets of London on her progress of thanksgiving
+to St. Paul's Cathedral, the greatness of her realm and the adoration
+of her subjects blazed out together.  The tears welled to her eyes,
+and, while the multitude roared round her, 'How kind they are to me!
+How kind they are!' she repeated over and over again.[41]  That night
+her message flew over the Empire: 'From my heart I thank my beloved
+people.  May God bless them!'  The long journey was nearly done.  But
+the traveller, who had come so far, and through such strange
+experiences, moved on with the old unfaltering step.  The girl, the
+wife, the aged woman, were the same: vitality, conscientiousness,
+pride, and simplicity were hers to the latest hour.
+
+
+
+[1] Hall�, 296.
+
+[2] _Notes and Queries_, May 20, 1920.
+
+[3] Neele, 476-8, 487.
+
+[4] _More Leaves_, _v_.
+
+[5] _More Leaves_, passim; Crawford, 326-31; private information.
+
+[6] Martin, I, 88, 137-43.
+
+[7] _Ibid._, II, 285.
+
+[8] _The Times_, April 20, 1882.
+
+[9] Letter from Sir Herbert Stephen to _The Times_, December 15,1920.
+
+[10] Morley, III, 167.
+
+[11] Private information.
+
+[12] Morley, III, 347-8.
+
+[13] Jerrold, _Widowhood_, 344; private information.
+
+[14] Lee, 487.
+
+[15] _More Leaves_, 23, 29.
+
+[16] Eckardstein, I, 184-7.
+
+[17] Grant Robertson, 458-9; Busch, III, 174-188; Lee, 490-2.
+
+[18] _Quarterly Review_, CXCIII, 305-6, 308-10.
+
+[19] _Quarterly Review_, CXCIII, 315-6; Miss Ethel Smyth, _London
+Mercury_, Nov. 1920; private information.
+
+[20] _Ibid._, CXCIII, 325; Miss Ethel Smyth, _London Mercury_, Nov.
+1920.
+
+[21] Buckle, V, 339; Morley, III, 347, 514.
+
+[22] Quarterly Review, CXCIII, 315, 316-7, 324-5, 326; _Spinster Lady_,
+268-9; Lee, 504-5.
+
+[23] _Quarterly Review_, CXCIII, 322-4; Martin, _Queen Victoria_, 46-9;
+private information.
+
+[24] Buckle, V, 349-51; Laughton, II, 226.
+
+[25] _Private Life_, 13, 66, 69, 70-1, 151, 182.
+
+[26] _Private Life_, 19.
+
+[27] _Ibid._, 212, 207.
+
+[28] _Ibid._, 233.
+
+[29] Private information.
+
+[30] Lee, 514-15; Crawford, 362-3.
+
+[31] Wilberforce, Samuel, II, 275.
+
+[32] Martin, II, 185-7.
+
+[33] _Quarterly Review_, CXCIII, 319-20.
+
+[34] Crawford, 349.
+
+[35] Eckardstein, I, 177.
+
+[36] Martin, Queen Victoria, 69-70.
+
+[37] _Girlhood_, II, 142.
+
+[38] Lee, 485; private information.
+
+[39] Lee, 555.
+
+[40] Lyttelton, 331
+
+[41] _Quarterly Review_, CXCIII, 310.
+
+
+
+
+{307}
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE END
+
+The evening had been golden; but, after all, the day was to close in
+cloud and tempest.  Imperial needs, imperial ambitions, involved the
+country in the South African War.  There were checks, reverses, bloody
+disasters; for a moment the nation was shaken, and the public
+distresses were felt with intimate solicitude by the Queen.  But her
+spirit was high, and neither her courage nor her confidence wavered for
+a moment.  Throwing herself heart and soul into the struggle, she
+laboured with redoubled vigour, interested herself in every detail of
+the hostilities, and sought by every means in her power to render
+service to the national cause.  In April 1900, when she was in her
+eighty-first year, she made the extraordinary decision to abandon her
+annual visit to the South of France, and to go instead to Ireland,
+which had provided a particularly large number of recruits to the
+armies in the field.  She stayed for three weeks in Dublin, driving
+through the streets, in spite of the warnings of her advisers, without
+an armed escort; and the visit was a complete success.  But, in the
+course of it, she began, for the first time, to show signs of the
+fatigue of age.[1]
+
+For the long strain and the unceasing anxiety, brought by the war, made
+themselves felt at last.  {308} Endowed by nature with a robust
+constitution, Victoria, though in periods of depression she had
+sometimes supposed herself an invalid, had in reality throughout her
+life enjoyed remarkably good health.  In her old age, she had suffered
+from a rheumatic stiffness of the joints, which had necessitated the
+use of a stick, and, eventually, a wheeled chair; but no other ailments
+attacked her, until, in 1898, her eyesight began to be affected by
+incipient cataract.  After that, she found reading more and more
+difficult, though she could still sign her name, and even, with some
+difficulty, write letters.  In the summer of 1900, however, more
+serious symptoms appeared.  Her memory, in whose strength and precision
+she had so long prided herself, now sometimes deserted her; there was a
+tendency towards aphasia; and, while no specific disease declared
+itself, by the autumn there were unmistakable signs of a general
+physical decay.  Yet, even in these last months, the vein of iron held
+firm.  The daily work continued; nay, it actually increased; for the
+Queen, with an astonishing pertinacity, insisted upon communicating
+personally with an ever-growing multitude of men and women who had
+suffered through the war.[2]
+
+By the end of the year the last remains of her ebbing strength had
+almost deserted her; and through the early days of the opening century
+it was clear that her dwindling forces were kept together only by an
+effort of will.  On January 11, she had at Osborne an hour's interview
+with Lord Roberts, who had returned victorious from South Africa a few
+days before.  She inquired with acute anxiety into all the details of
+the war; she appeared to sustain the exertion successfully; but, when
+the audience was over, there was a collapse.  On the {309} following
+day her medical attendants recognised that her state was hopeless; and
+yet, for two days more, the indomitable spirit fought on; for two days
+more she discharged the duties of a Queen of England.  But after that
+there was an end of working; and then, and not till then, did the last
+optimism of those about her break down.  The brain was failing, and
+life was gently slipping away.  Her family gathered round her; for a
+little more she lingered, speechless and apparently insensible; and, on
+January 22, 1901, she died.[3]
+
+When, two days previously, the news of the approaching end had been
+made public, astonished grief had swept over the country.  It appeared
+as if some monstrous reversal of the course of nature was about to take
+place.  The vast majority of her subjects had never known a time when
+Queen Victoria had not been reigning over them.  She had become an
+indissoluble part of their whole scheme of things, and that they were
+about to lose her appeared a scarcely possible thought.  She herself,
+as she lay blind and silent, seemed to those who watched her to be
+divested of all thinking--to have glided already, unawares, into
+oblivion.  Yet, perhaps, in the secret chambers of consciousness, she
+had her thoughts, too.  Perhaps her fading mind called up once more the
+shadows of the past to float before it, and retraced, for the last
+time, the vanished visions of that long history--passing back and back,
+through the cloud of years, to older and ever older memories--to the
+spring woods at Osborne, so full of primroses for Lord Beaconsfield--to
+Lord Palmerston's queer clothes and high demeanour, and Albert's face
+under the green lamp, and Albert's first stag at Balmoral, and Albert
+in his blue and silver uniform, and the Baron coming in through {310} a
+doorway, and Lord M. dreaming at Windsor with the rooks cawing in the
+elm-trees, and the Archbishop of Canterbury on his knees in the dawn,
+and the old King's turkey-cock ejaculations, and Uncle Leopold's soft
+voice at Claremont, and Lehzen with the globes, and her mother's
+feathers sweeping down towards her, and a great old repeater-watch of
+her father's in its tortoise-shell case, and a yellow rug, and some
+friendly flounces of sprigged muslin, and the trees and the grass at
+Kensington.
+
+
+
+[1] _Quarterly Review_, CXCIII, 318, 336-7.
+
+[2] Lee, 536-7; private information.
+
+[3] Lee, 537-9; _Quarterly Review_, CXCIII, 309.
+
+
+
+
+{311}
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY
+
+AND
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+
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+
+Colchester, London & Eton, England
+
+
+
+
+_SOME OPINIONS ON 'EMINENT VICTORIANS'_
+
+_NOW IN ITS NINTH EDITION_
+
+
+'Mr. Lytton Strachey's "Eminent Victorians" has had, I suppose, the
+most instant success that any book of account has won in this
+generation.  Some of Mr. Strachey's incidental portraits are of
+astonishing brilliancy--notably that of Mr. Gladstone, and the book is
+sure of long life.  This it will owe to its felicity of style and its
+finish and delicacy of moulding, no less than to its cynical wit and
+its perfectly serious and critical intention.'--_The Nation_.
+
+'A brilliant and extraordinarily witty book.  Mr. Strachey's method of
+presenting his characters is both masterly and subtle.  His purpose is
+to penetrate into the most hidden depths of his sitters' characters.
+There is something almost uncanny in the author's detachment.'--_The
+Times_.
+
+'An unusually interesting volume in a department of literature which,
+in England, has fallen to a grievously low level.'--_Manchester
+Guardian_.
+
+'Four short biographies which are certainly equal to anything of the
+kind which has been produced for a hundred years.  He elucidates with
+consummate dexterity--the book is a masterpiece of its kind.'--Mr. J.
+C. Squire, in _Land and Water_.
+
+'A brilliant book has recently appeared which illustrates in very
+vigorous and striking fashion the interval which seems to divide the
+twentieth century from the nineteenth.  Mr. Lytton Strachey's book has
+attained a celebrity quite remarkable for literary work produced in
+times of war.  There is no doubt as to its literary merits.'--Leading
+Article in _The Daily Telegraph_.
+
+'This book is brilliant and witty and iconoclastic enough, but it has
+also something in it which gives it greatness.  Regarded as an example
+of the manner in which biography can be written, it is almost
+unparalleled in English; and many readers will be rejoiced if Mr.
+Strachey can be induced to become a Plutarch of the modern
+world.'--_Westminster Gazette_.
+
+'It is impossible here even to outline the precise, vivid, and witty
+essays which Mr. Strachey has devoted to his four characters.  But he
+has certainly done something to redeem English biography from the
+reproach under which it suffers when compared with the art as practised
+in France; and he comes close to the standard which he sets himself
+when he speaks of the "Fontenelles and Condorcets."'--_New Statesman_.
+
+'Mr. Strachey's subtle and suggestive art.'--_Mr. Asquith's Romanes
+Lecture at Oxford_.
+
+
+
+
+LONDON: CHATTO & WINDUS
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Queen Victoria, by Lytton Strachey
+
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+The Project Gutenberg E-text of Queen Victoria, by Lytton Strachey
+</TITLE>
+
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+IMG.imgcenter { margin-left: auto;
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+
+.pagenum { position: absolute;
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Queen Victoria, by Lytton Strachey
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Queen Victoria
+
+Author: Lytton Strachey
+
+Release Date: August 21, 2011 [EBook #37153]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK QUEEN VICTORIA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Al Haines
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="img-front"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-front.jpg" ALT="QUEEN VICTORIA, PRINCE ALBERT AND THE ROYAL FAMILY. From the Picture by F. Winterhalter." BORDER="2">
+<H4 CLASS="h4center">
+QUEEN VICTORIA, PRINCE ALBERT AND THE ROYAL FAMILY. <BR>
+<I>From the Picture by F. Winterhalter</I>.
+</H4>
+</CENTER>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<P CLASS="t1">
+QUEEN VICTORIA
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="t3">
+BY
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="t2">
+LYTTON STRACHEY
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<P CLASS="t3">
+LONDON
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="t2">
+CHATTO &amp; WINDUS
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="t4">
+1921
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<P CLASS="t4">
+TO
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="t3">
+VIRGINIA WOOLF
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<P CLASS="t2">
+CONTENTS
+</P>
+
+<TABLE ALIGN="center" WIDTH="80%">
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="10%">CHAPTER</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="80%">&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="10%">&nbsp;</TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">I.&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap01">ANTECEDENTS</A>
+</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">
+  1</TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">II.&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap02">CHILDHOOD</A>
+</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">
+ 18</TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">III.&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap03">LORD MELBOURNE</A>
+</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">
+51</TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">IV.&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap04">MARRIAGE</A>
+</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">
+  97</TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">V.&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap05">LORD PALMERSTON</A>
+</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">
+ 149</TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VI.&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap06">LAST YEARS OF THE PRINCE CONSORT</A>
+</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">
+ 185</TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap07">WIDOWHOOD</A>
+</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">
+ 218</TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VIII.&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap08">MR. GLADSTONE AND LORD BEACONSFIELD</A>
+</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">
+ 240</TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">IX.&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap09">OLD AGE</A>
+</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">
+ 269</TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">X.&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap10">THE END</A>
+</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">
+ 307</TD>
+</TR>
+
+<TR>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">&nbsp;&nbsp;</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top">
+<A HREF="#chap11">BIBLIOGRAPHY</A>
+</TD>
+<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">
+ 311</TD>
+</TR>
+
+</TABLE>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<P CLASS="t2">
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+<A HREF="#img-front">
+QUEEN VICTORIA, PRINCE ALBERT AND THE ROYAL FAMILY.</A><BR>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;From the picture of F. Winterhalter, at Buckingham Palace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . <I>Frontispiece</I><BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+<A HREF="#img-018">
+PRINCESS VICTORIA IN 1836.</A><BR>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;From a print after the picture by F. Winterhalter<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+<A HREF="#img-051">
+LORD MELBOURNE.</A><BR>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;From the portrait by Sir Edwin Landseer, R.A., in<BR>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;possession of the Earl of Rosebery<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+<A HREF="#img-069">
+QUEEN VICTORIA IN 1838.</A><BR>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;From the portrait by E. Corbould<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+<A HREF="#img-096">
+PRINCE ALBERT IN 1840.</A><BR>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;From the portrait by John Partridge, at Buckingham Palace<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+<A HREF="#img-185">
+QUEEN VICTORIA AND THE PRINCE CONSORT IN 1860</A><BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+<A HREF="#img-218">
+QUEEN VICTORIA IN 1863</A>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+<A HREF="#img-240">
+QUEEN VICTORIA IN 1876.</A><BR>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;From the portrait by Von Angeli, in possession of<BR>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Coningsby Disraeli, Esq.  Presented by Her Majesty to<BR>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;the Earl of Beaconsfield<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+<A HREF="#img-269">
+QUEEN VICTORIA IN 1897</A>
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent" STYLE="margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%">
+<I>For facilities afforded in regard to the reproduction of certain of
+the above, thanks are due to Mr. John Murray</I>.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<P>
+<I>Authority for every important statement of fact in the following pages
+will be found in the footnotes.  The full titles of the works to which
+reference is made are given in the Bibliography at the end of the
+volume</I>.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+<I>The author is indebted to the Trustees of the British Museum for their
+permission to make use of certain unpublished passages in the
+manuscript of the Greville Memoirs</I>.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap01"></A>
+
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P1"></A>1}</SPAN>
+
+<H2 ALIGN="center">
+QUEEN VICTORIA
+</H2>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER I
+</H3>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+ANTECEDENTS
+</H4>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+I
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+On November 6, 1817, died the Princess Charlotte, only child of the
+Prince Regent, and heir to the crown of England.  Her short life had
+hardly been a happy one.  By nature impulsive, capricious, and
+vehement, she had always longed for liberty; and she had never
+possessed it.  She had been brought up among violent family quarrels,
+had been early separated from her disreputable and eccentric mother,
+and handed over to the care of her disreputable and selfish father.
+When she was seventeen, he decided to marry her off to the Prince of
+Orange; she, at first, acquiesced; but, suddenly falling in love with
+Prince Augustus of Prussia, she determined to break off the engagement.
+This was not her first love affair, for she had previously carried on a
+clandestine correspondence with a Captain Hess.  Prince Augustus was
+already married, morganatically, but she did not know it, and he did
+not tell her.  While she was spinning out the negotiations with the
+Prince of Orange, the allied sovereigns&mdash;it was June, 1814&mdash;arrived in
+London to celebrate their victory.  Among them, in the suite of the
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P2"></A>2}</SPAN>
+Emperor of Russia, was the young and handsome Prince Leopold of
+Saxe-Coburg.  He made several attempts to attract the notice of the
+Princess, but she, with her heart elsewhere, paid very little
+attention.  Next month the Prince Regent, discovering that his daughter
+was having secret meetings with Prince Augustus, suddenly appeared upon
+the scene and, after dismissing her household, sentenced her to a
+strict seclusion in Windsor Park.  'God Almighty grant me patience!'
+she exclaimed, falling on her knees in an agony of agitation: then she
+jumped up, ran down the backstairs and out into the street, hailed a
+passing cab, and drove to her mother's house in Bayswater.  She was
+discovered, pursued, and at length, yielding to the persuasions of her
+uncles, the Dukes of York and Sussex, of Brougham, and of the Bishop of
+Salisbury, she returned to Carlton House at two o'clock in the morning.
+She was immured at Windsor, but no more was heard of the Prince of
+Orange.  Prince Augustus, too, disappeared.  The way was at last open
+to Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg.[<A NAME="chap01fn1text"></A><A HREF="#chap01fn1">1</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This Prince was clever enough to get round the Regent, to impress the
+Ministers, and to make friends with another of the Princess's uncles,
+the Duke of Kent.  Through the Duke he was able to communicate
+privately with the Princess, who now declared that he was necessary to
+her happiness.  When, after Waterloo, he was in Paris, the Duke's
+aide-de-camp carried letters backwards and forwards across the Channel.
+In January 1816 he was invited to England, and in May the marriage took
+place.[<A NAME="chap01fn2text"></A><A HREF="#chap01fn2">2</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P3"></A>3}</SPAN>
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The character of Prince Leopold contrasted strangely with that of his
+wife.  The younger son of a German princeling, he was at this time
+twenty-six years of age; he had served with distinction in the war
+against Napoleon; he had shown considerable diplomatic skill at the
+Congress of Vienna;[<A NAME="chap01fn3text"></A><A HREF="#chap01fn3">3</A>] and he was now to try his hand at the task of
+taming a tumultuous Princess.  Cold and formal in manner, collected in
+speech, careful in action, he soon dominated the wild, impetuous,
+generous creature by his side.  There was much in her, he found, of
+which he could not approve.  She quizzed, she stamped, she roared with
+laughter; she had very little of that self-command which is especially
+required of princes; her manners were abominable.  Of the latter he was
+a good judge, having moved, as he himself explained to his niece many
+years later, in the best society of Europe, being in fact 'what is
+called in French <I>de la fleur des pois</I>.'  There was continual
+friction, but every scene ended in the same way.  Standing before him
+like a rebellious boy in petticoats, her body pushed forward, her hands
+behind her back, with flaming cheeks and sparkling eyes, she would
+declare at last that she was ready to do whatever he wanted.  'If you
+wish it, I will do it,' she would say.  'I want nothing for myself,' he
+invariably answered; 'when I press something on you, it is from a
+conviction that it is for your interest and for your good.'[<A NAME="chap01fn4text"></A><A HREF="#chap01fn4">4</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Among the members of the household at Claremont, near Esher, where the
+royal pair were established, was a young German physician, Christian
+Friedrich Stockmar.  He was the son of a minor magistrate in
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P4"></A>4}</SPAN>
+Coburg, and, after taking part as a medical officer in the war, he had
+settled down as a doctor in his native town.  Here he had met Prince
+Leopold, who had been struck by his ability, and, on his marriage,
+brought him to England as his personal physician.  A curious fate
+awaited this young man; many were the gifts which the future held in
+store for him&mdash;many and various&mdash;influence, power, mystery,
+unhappiness, a broken heart.  At Claremont his position was a very
+humble one; but the Princess took a fancy to him, called him 'Stocky,'
+and romped with him along the corridors.  Dyspeptic by constitution,
+melancholic by temperament, he could yet be lively on occasion, and was
+known as a wit in Coburg.  He was virtuous, too, and observed the royal
+<I>m�nage</I> with approbation.  'My master,' he wrote in his diary, 'is the
+best of all husbands in all the five quarters of the globe; and his
+wife bears him an amount of love, the greatness of which can only be
+compared with the English national debt.'  Before long he gave proof of
+another quality&mdash;a quality which was to colour the whole of his
+life&mdash;cautious sagacity.  When, in the spring of 1817, it was known
+that the Princess was expecting a child, the post of one of her
+physicians-in-ordinary was offered to him, and he had the good sense to
+refuse it.  He perceived that his colleagues would be jealous of him,
+that his advice would probably not be taken, but that, if anything were
+to go wrong, it would be certainly the foreign doctor who would be
+blamed.  Very soon, indeed, he came to the opinion that the low diet
+and constant bleedings, to which the unfortunate Princess was
+subjected, were an error; he drew the Prince aside, and begged him to
+communicate this opinion to the English doctors; but it was useless.
+The
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P5"></A>5}</SPAN>
+fashionable lowering treatment was continued for months.  On
+November 5, at nine o'clock in the evening, after a labour of over
+fifty hours, the Princess was delivered of a dead boy.  At midnight her
+exhausted strength gave way.  Then, at last, Stockmar consented to see
+her; he went in, and found her obviously dying, while the doctors were
+plying her with wine.  She seized his hand and pressed it.  'They have
+made me tipsy,' she said.  After a little he left her, and was already
+in the next room when he heard her call out in her loud voice 'Stocky!
+Stocky!'  As he ran back the death-rattle was in her throat.  She
+tossed herself violently from side to side; then suddenly drew up her
+legs, and it was over.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Prince, after hours of watching, had left the room for a few
+moments' rest; and Stockmar had now to tell him that his wife was dead.
+At first he could not be made to realise what had happened.  On their
+way to her room he sank down on a chair while Stockmar knelt beside
+him: it was all a dream; it was impossible.  At last, by the bed, he,
+too, knelt down and kissed the cold hands.  Then rising and exclaiming,
+'Now I am quite desolate.  Promise me never to leave me,' he threw
+himself into Stockmar's arms.[<A NAME="chap01fn5text"></A><A HREF="#chap01fn5">5</A>]
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+II
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+The tragedy at Claremont was of a most upsetting kind.  The royal
+kaleidoscope had suddenly shifted, and nobody could tell how the new
+pattern would arrange itself.  The succession to the throne, which had
+seemed so satisfactorily settled, now became a matter of urgent doubt.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P6"></A>6}</SPAN>
+</P>
+
+<P>
+George III was still living, an aged lunatic, at Windsor, completely
+impervious to the impressions of the outer world.  Of his seven sons,
+the youngest was of more than middle age, and none had legitimate
+offspring.  The outlook, therefore, was ambiguous.  It seemed highly
+improbable that the Prince Regent, who had lately been obliged to
+abandon his stays, and presented a preposterous figure of debauched
+obesity,[<A NAME="chap01fn6text"></A><A HREF="#chap01fn6">6</A>] could ever again, even on the supposition that he divorced
+his wife and re-married, become the father of a family.  Besides the
+Duke of Kent, who must be noticed separately, the other brothers, in
+order of seniority, were the Dukes of York, Clarence, Cumberland,
+Sussex, and Cambridge; their situations and prospects require a brief
+description.  The Duke of York, whose escapades in times past with Mrs.
+Clarke and the army had brought him into trouble, now divided his life
+between London and a large, extravagantly ordered and extremely
+uncomfortable country house where he occupied himself with racing,
+whist, and improper stories.  He was remarkable among the princes for
+one reason: he was the only one of them&mdash;so we are informed by a highly
+competent observer&mdash;who had the feelings of a gentleman.  He had been
+long married to the Princess Royal of Prussia, a lady who rarely went
+to bed and was perpetually surrounded by vast numbers of dogs, parrots,
+and monkeys.[<A NAME="chap01fn7text"></A><A HREF="#chap01fn7">7</A>]  They had no children.  The Duke of Clarence had lived
+for many years in complete obscurity with Mrs. Jordan, the actress, in
+Bushey Park.  By her he had had a large family of sons and daughters,
+and had
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P7"></A>7}</SPAN>
+appeared, in effect, to be married to her, when he suddenly
+separated from her and offered to marry Miss Wykeham, a crazy woman of
+large fortune, who, however, would have nothing to say to him.  Shortly
+afterwards Mrs. Jordan died in distressed circumstances in Paris.[<A NAME="chap01fn8text"></A><A HREF="#chap01fn8">8</A>]
+The Duke of Cumberland was probably the most unpopular man in England.
+Hideously ugly, with a distorted eye, he was bad-tempered and
+vindictive in private, a violent reactionary in politics, and was
+subsequently suspected of murdering his valet and of having carried on
+an amorous intrigue of an extremely scandalous kind.[<A NAME="chap01fn9text"></A><A HREF="#chap01fn9">9</A>]  He had lately
+married a German Princess, but there were as yet no children by the
+marriage.  The Duke of Sussex had mildly literary tastes and collected
+books.[<A NAME="chap01fn10text"></A><A HREF="#chap01fn10">10</A>]  He had married Lady Augusta Murray, by whom he had two
+children, but the marriage, under the Royal Marriages Act, was declared
+void.  On Lady Augusta's death, he married Lady Cecilia Buggin; she
+changed her name to Underwood; but this marriage also was void.  Of the
+Duke of Cambridge, the youngest of the brothers, not very much was
+known.  He lived in Hanover, wore a blonde wig, chattered and fidgeted
+a great deal, and was unmarried.[<A NAME="chap01fn11text"></A><A HREF="#chap01fn11">11</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Besides his seven sons, George III had five surviving daughters.  Of
+these, two&mdash;the Queen of W�rtemberg and the Duchess of Gloucester&mdash;were
+married and childless.  The three unmarried princesses&mdash;Augusta,
+Elizabeth, and Sophia&mdash;were all over forty.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P8"></A>8}</SPAN>
+</P>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+III
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+The fourth son of George III was Edward, Duke of Kent.  He was now
+fifty years of age&mdash;a tall, stout, vigorous man, highly-coloured, with
+bushy eyebrows, a bald top to his head, and what hair he had carefully
+dyed a glossy black.  His dress was extremely neat, and in his whole
+appearance there was a rigidity which did not belie his character.  He
+had spent his early life in the army&mdash;at Gibraltar, in Canada, in the
+West Indies&mdash;and, under the influence of military training, had become
+at first a disciplinarian and at last a martinet.  In 1802, having been
+sent to Gibraltar to restore order in a mutinous garrison, he was
+recalled for undue severity, and his active career had come to an end.
+Since then he had spent his life regulating his domestic arrangements
+with great exactitude, busying himself with the affairs of his numerous
+dependents, designing clocks, and struggling to restore order to his
+finances, for, in spite of his being, as someone said who knew him
+well, '<I>r�gl� comme du papier � musique</I>,' and in spite of an income of
+�24,000 a year, he was hopelessly in debt.  He had quarrelled with most
+of his brothers, particularly with the Prince Regent, and it was only
+natural that he should have joined the political Opposition and become
+a pillar of the Whigs.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+What his political opinions may actually have been is open to doubt; it
+has often been asserted that he was a Liberal, or even a Radical; and,
+if we are to believe Robert Owen, he was a necessitarian Socialist.
+His relations with Owen&mdash;the shrewd, gullible, high-minded,
+wrong-headed, illustrious and preposterous father of Socialism and
+Co-operation&mdash;were curious
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P9"></A>9}</SPAN>
+and characteristic.  He talked of
+visiting the Mills at New Lanark; he did, in fact, preside at one of
+Owen's public meetings; he corresponded with him on confidential terms,
+and he even (so Owen assures us) returned, after his death, from 'the
+sphere of spirits' to give encouragement to the Owenites on earth.  'In
+an especial manner,' says Owen, 'I have to name the very anxious
+feelings of the spirit of his Royal Highness the late Duke of Kent (who
+early informed me there were no titles in the spiritual spheres into
+which he had entered), to benefit, not a class, a sect, a party, or any
+particular country, but the whole of the human race through futurity.'
+'His whole spirit-proceeding with me has been most beautiful,' Owen
+adds, 'making his own appointments; and never in one instance has this
+spirit not been punctual to the minute he had named.'  But Owen was of
+a sanguine temperament.  He also numbered among his proselytes
+President Jefferson, Prince Metternich, and Napoleon; so that some
+uncertainty must still linger over the Duke of Kent's views.  But there
+is no uncertainty about another circumstance: his Royal Highness
+borrowed from Robert Owen, on various occasions, various sums of money
+which were never repaid and amounted in all to several hundred
+pounds.[<A NAME="chap01fn12text"></A><A HREF="#chap01fn12">12</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+After the death of the Princess Charlotte it was clearly important, for
+more than one reason, that the Duke of Kent should marry.  From the
+point of view of the nation, the lack of heirs in the reigning family
+seemed to make the step almost obligatory; it was also likely to be
+highly expedient from the point of view of the Duke.  To marry as a
+public duty, for the
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P10"></A>10}</SPAN>
+sake of the royal succession, would surely
+deserve some recognition from a grateful country.  When the Duke of
+York had married he had received a settlement of �25,000 a year.  Why
+should not the Duke of Kent look forward to an equal sum?  But the
+situation was not quite simple.  There was the Duke of Clarence to be
+considered; he was the elder brother, and, if he married, would clearly
+have the prior claim.  On the other hand, if the Duke of Kent married,
+it was important to remember that he would be making a serious
+sacrifice: a lady was involved.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Duke, reflecting upon all these matters with careful attention,
+happened, about a month after his niece's death, to visit Brussels, and
+learnt that Mr. Creevey was staying in the town.  Mr. Creevey was a
+close friend of the leading Whigs and an inveterate gossip; and it
+occurred to the Duke that there could be no better channel through
+which to communicate his views upon the situation to political circles
+at home.  Apparently it did not occur to him that Mr. Creevey was
+malicious and might keep a diary.  He therefore sent for him on some
+trivial pretext, and a remarkable conversation ensued.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+After referring to the death of the Princess, to the improbability of
+the Regent's seeking a divorce, to the childlessness of the Duke of
+York, and to the possibility of the Duke of Clarence marrying, the Duke
+adverted to his own position.  'Should the Duke of Clarence not marry,'
+he said, 'the next prince in succession is myself, and although I trust
+I shall be at all times ready to obey any call my country may make upon
+me, God only knows the sacrifice it will be to make, whenever I shall
+think it my duty to become a married man.  It is now seven-and-twenty
+years that Madame St. Laurent
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P11"></A>11}</SPAN>
+and I have lived together: we are of
+the same age, and have been in all climates, and in all difficulties
+together, and you may well imagine, Mr. Creevey, the pang it will
+occasion me to part with her.  I put it to your own feelings&mdash;in the
+event of any separation between you and Mrs. Creevey....  As for Madame
+St. Laurent herself, I protest I don't know what is to become of her if
+a marriage is to be forced upon me; her feelings are already so
+agitated upon the subject.'  The Duke went on to describe how, one
+morning, a day or two after the Princess Charlotte's death, a paragraph
+had appeared in the <I>Morning Chronicle</I>, alluding to the possibility of
+his marriage.  He had received the newspaper at breakfast together with
+his letters, and 'I did as is my constant practice, I threw the
+newspaper across the table to Madame St. Laurent, and began to open and
+read my letters.  I had not done so but a very short time, when my
+attention was called to an extraordinary noise and a strong convulsive
+movement in Madame St. Laurent's throat.  For a short time I
+entertained serious apprehensions for her safety; and when, upon her
+recovery, I enquired into the occasion of this attack, she pointed to
+the article in the <I>Morning Chronicle</I>.'
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Duke then returned to the subject of the Duke of Clarence.  'My
+brother the Duke of Clarence is the elder brother, and has certainly
+the right to marry if he chooses, and I would not interfere with him on
+any account.  If he wishes to be king&mdash;to be married and have children,
+poor man&mdash;God help him! let him do so.  For myself&mdash;I am a man of no
+ambition, and wish only to remain as I am....  Easter, you know, falls
+very early this year&mdash;the 22nd of March.  If the Duke of Clarence does
+not take any step before that
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P12"></A>12}</SPAN>
+time, I must find some pretext to
+reconcile Madame St. Laurent to my going to England for a short time.
+When once there, it will be easy for me to consult with my friends as
+to the proper steps to be taken.  Should the Duke of Clarence do
+nothing before that time as to marrying it will become my duty, no
+doubt, to take some measures upon the subject myself.'  Two names, the
+Duke said, had been mentioned in this connection&mdash;those of the Princess
+of Baden and the Princess of Saxe-Coburg.  The latter, he thought,
+would perhaps be the better of the two, from the circumstance of Prince
+Leopold being so popular with the nation; but before any other steps
+were taken, he hoped and expected to see justice done to Madame St.
+Laurent.  'She is,' he explained, 'of very good family, and has never
+been an actress, and I am the first and only person who ever lived with
+her.  Her disinterestedness, too, has been equal to her fidelity.  When
+she first came to me it was upon �100 a year.  That sum was afterwards
+raised to �400, and finally to �1000; but when my debts made it
+necessary for me to sacrifice a great part of my income, Madame St.
+Laurent insisted upon again returning to her income of �400 a year.  If
+Madame St. Laurent is to return to live amongst her friends, it must be
+in such a state of independence as to command their respect.  I shall
+not require very much, but a certain number of servants and a carriage
+are essentials.'  As to his own settlement, the Duke observed that he
+would expect the Duke of York's marriage to be considered the
+precedent.  'That,' he said, 'was a marriage for the succession, and
+�25,000 for income was settled, in addition to all his other income,
+purely on that account.  I shall be contented with the same
+arrangement, without making any demands grounded
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P13"></A>13}</SPAN>
+on the difference
+of the value of money in 1792 and at present.  As for the payment of my
+debts,' the Duke concluded, 'I don't call them great.  The nation, on
+the contrary, is greatly my debtor.'  Here a clock struck, and seemed
+to remind the Duke that he had an appointment; he rose, and Mr. Creevey
+left him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Who could keep such a communication secret?  Certainly not Mr. Creevey.
+He hurried off to tell the Duke of Wellington, who was very much
+amused, and he wrote a long account of it to Lord Sefton, who received
+the letter 'very apropos,' while a surgeon was sounding his bladder to
+ascertain whether he had a stone.  'I never saw a fellow more
+astonished than he was,' wrote Lord Sefton in his reply, 'at seeing me
+laugh as soon as the operation was over.  Nothing could be more
+first-rate than the royal Edward's ingenuousness.  One does not know
+which to admire most&mdash;the delicacy of his attachment to Madame St.
+Laurent, the refinement of his sentiments towards the Duke of Clarence,
+or his own perfect disinterestedness in pecuniary matters.'[<A NAME="chap01fn13text"></A><A HREF="#chap01fn13">13</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As it turned out, both the brothers decided to marry.  The Duke of
+Kent, selecting the Princess of Saxe-Coburg in preference to the
+Princess of Baden, was united to her on May 29, 1818.  On June 11, the
+Duke of Clarence followed suit with a daughter of the Duke of
+Saxe-Meiningen.  But they were disappointed in their financial
+expectations; for though the Government brought forward proposals to
+increase their allowances, together with that of the Duke of
+Cumberland, the motions were defeated in the House of Commons.  At this
+the Duke of Wellington was not surprised.  'By God!' he said, 'there is
+a great deal to be said about that.  They are the damnedest
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P14"></A>14}</SPAN>
+millstones about the necks of any Government that can be imagined.
+They have insulted&mdash;personally insulted&mdash;two-thirds of the gentlemen of
+England, and how can it be wondered at that they take their revenge
+upon them in the House of Commons?  It is their only opportunity, and I
+think, by God! they are quite right to use it.'[<A NAME="chap01fn14text"></A><A HREF="#chap01fn14">14</A>]  Eventually,
+however, Parliament increased the Duke of Kent's annuity by �6000.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The subsequent history of Madame St. Laurent has not transpired.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+IV
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+The new Duchess of Kent, Victoria Mary Louisa, was a daughter of
+Francis, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, and a sister of Prince Leopold.
+The family was an ancient one, being a branch of the great House of
+Wettin, which since the eleventh century had ruled over the March of
+Meissen on the Elbe.  In the fifteenth century the whole possessions of
+the House had been divided between the Albertine and Ernestine
+branches: from the former descended the electors and kings of Saxony;
+the latter, ruling over Thuringia, became further subdivided into five
+branches, of which the duchy of Saxe-Coburg was one.  This principality
+was very small, containing about 60,000 inhabitants, but it enjoyed
+independent and sovereign rights.  During the disturbed years which
+followed the French Revolution, its affairs became terribly involved.
+The Duke was extravagant, and kept open house for the swarms of
+refugees, who fled eastward over Germany as the French power advanced.
+Among these was the
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P15"></A>15}</SPAN>
+prince of Leiningen, an elderly beau, whose
+domains on the Moselle had been seized by the French, but who was
+granted in compensation the territory of Amorbach in Lower Franconia.
+In 1803 he married the Princess Victoria, at that time seventeen years
+of age.  Three years later Duke Francis died a ruined man.  The
+Napoleonic harrow passed over Saxe-Coburg.  The duchy was seized by the
+French, and the ducal family were reduced to beggary, almost to
+starvation.  At the same time the little principality of Amorbach was
+devastated by the French, Russian, and Austrian armies, marching and
+counter-marching across it.  For years there was hardly a cow in the
+country, nor enough grass to feed a flock of geese.  Such was the
+desperate plight of the family which, a generation later, was to have
+gained a foothold in half the reigning Houses of Europe.  The
+Napoleonic harrow had indeed done its work; the seed was planted; and
+the crop would have surprised Napoleon.  Prince Leopold, thrown upon
+his own resources at fifteen, made a career for himself and married the
+heiress of England.  The Princess of Leiningen, struggling at Amorbach
+with poverty, military requisitions, and a futile husband, developed an
+independence of character and a tenacity of purpose which were to prove
+useful in very different circumstances.  In 1814, her husband died,
+leaving her with two children and the regency of the principality.
+After her brother's marriage with the Princess Charlotte, it was
+proposed that she should marry the Duke of Kent; but she declined, on
+the ground that the guardianship of her children and the management of
+her domains made other ties undesirable.  The Princess Charlotte's
+death, however, altered the case; and when the Duke of Kent renewed his
+offer, she
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P16"></A>16}</SPAN>
+accepted it.  She was thirty-two years old&mdash;short,
+stout, with brown eyes and hair, and rosy cheeks, cheerful and voluble,
+and gorgeously attired in rustling silks and bright velvets.[<A NAME="chap01fn15text"></A><A HREF="#chap01fn15">15</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She was certainly fortunate in her contented disposition; for she was
+fated, all through her life, to have much to put up with.  Her second
+marriage, with its dubious prospects, seemed at first to be chiefly a
+source of difficulties and discomforts.  The Duke, declaring that he
+was still too poor to live in England, moved about with uneasy
+precision through Belgium and Germany, attending parades and inspecting
+barracks in a neat military cap, while the English notabilities looked
+askance, and the Duke of Wellington dubbed him the Corporal.  'God
+damme!' he exclaimed to Mr. Creevey, 'd'ye know what his sisters call
+him?  By God! they call him Joseph Surface!'  At Valenciennes, where
+there was a review and a great dinner, the Duchess arrived with an old
+and ugly lady-in-waiting, and the Duke of Wellington found himself in a
+difficulty.  'Who the devil is to take out the maid of honour?' he kept
+asking; but at last he thought of a solution.  'Damme, Freemantle, find
+out the mayor and let him do it.'  So the Mayor of Valenciennes was
+brought up for the purpose, and&mdash;so we learn from Mr. Creevey&mdash;'a
+capital figure he was.'  A few days later, at Brussels, Mr. Creevey
+himself had an unfortunate experience.  A military school was to be
+inspected&mdash;before breakfast.  The company assembled; everything was
+highly satisfactory; but the Duke of Kent continued for so long
+examining every detail and asking meticulous question after meticulous
+question, that Mr. Creevey at last could bear it no longer, and
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P17"></A>17}</SPAN>
+whispered to his neighbour that he was damned hungry.  The Duke of
+Wellington heard him, and was delighted.  'I recommend you,' he said,
+'whenever you start with the royal family in a morning, and
+particularly with <I>the Corporal</I>, always to breakfast first.'  He and
+his staff, it turned out, had taken that precaution, and the great man
+amused himself, while the stream of royal inquiries poured on, by
+pointing at Mr. Creevey from time to time with the remark, 'Voil� le
+monsieur qui n'a pas d�jeun�!'[<A NAME="chap01fn16text"></A><A HREF="#chap01fn16">16</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Settled down at last at Amorbach, the time hung heavily on the Duke's
+hands.  The establishment was small, the country was impoverished; even
+clock-making grew tedious at last.  He brooded&mdash;for in spite of his
+piety the Duke was not without a vein of superstition&mdash;over the
+prophecy of a gipsy at Gibraltar who had told him that he was to have
+many losses and crosses, that he was to die in happiness, and that his
+only child was to be a great queen.  Before long it became clear that a
+child was to be expected: the Duke decided that it should be born in
+England.  Funds were lacking for the journey, but his determination was
+not to be set aside.  Come what might, he declared, his child must be
+English-born.  A carriage was hired, and the Duke himself mounted the
+box.  Inside were the Duchess, her daughter Feodora, a girl of
+fourteen, with maids, nurses, lap-dogs, and canaries.  Off they
+drove&mdash;through Germany, through France: bad roads, cheap inns, were
+nothing to the rigorous Duke and the equable, abundant Duchess.  The
+Channel was crossed, London was reached in safety.  The authorities
+provided a set of rooms in Kensington Palace; and there, on May 24,
+1819, a female infant was born.[<A NAME="chap01fn17text"></A><A HREF="#chap01fn17">17</A>]
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap01fn1"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap01fn1text">1</A>] Greville, II, 326-8; Stockmar, chap. i, 86; Knight, I, chaps.
+xv-xviii and Appendix, and II, chap. i.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap01fn2"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap01fn2text">2</A>] Grey, 384, 386-8; <I>Letters</I>, II, 40,
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap01fn3"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap01fn3text">3</A>] Grey, 375-86.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap01fn4"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap01fn4text">4</A>] <I>Letters</I>, I, 216, 222-3; II, 39-40; Stockmar, 87-90.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap01fn5"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap01fn5text">5</A>] Stockmar, <I>Biograpische Skizze</I>, and cap. iii.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap01fn6"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap01fn6text">6</A>] Creevey, I, 264, 272: 'Prinny has let loose his belly, which now
+reaches his knees; otherwise he is said to be well,' 279.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap01fn7"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap01fn7text">7</A>] Greville, I, 5-7.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap01fn8"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap01fn8text">8</A>] Greville, IV, 2.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap01fn9"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap01fn9text">9</A>] Stockmar, 95; Creevey, I, 148; Greville, I, 228; Lieven, 183-4.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap01fn10"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap01fn10text">10</A>] Crawford, 24.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap01fn11"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap01fn11text">11</A>] <I>Ibid.</I>, 80, 113.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap01fn12"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap01fn12text">12</A>] Stockmar, 112-3; <I>Letters</I>, I, 8; Crawford, 27-30; Owen, 193-4,
+197-8, 199, 229.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap01fn13"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap01fn13text">13</A>] Creevey, I, 267-71.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap01fn14"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap01fn14text">14</A>] Creevey, I, 276-7.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap01fn15"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap01fn15text">15</A>] <I>Letters</I>, I, 1-3: Grey, 373-81, 389; Crawford, 30-4; Stockmar,
+113.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap01fn16"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap01fn16text">16</A>] Creevey, I, 282-4.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap01fn17"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap01fn17text">17</A>] Crawford, 25, 37-8.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap02"></A>
+
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P18"></A>18}</SPAN>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER II
+</H3>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+CHILDHOOD
+</H4>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+I
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+The child who, in these not very impressive circumstances, appeared in
+the world, received but scant attention.  There was small reason to
+foresee her destiny.  The Duchess of Clarence, two months before, had
+given birth to a daughter; this infant, indeed, had died almost
+immediately; but it seemed highly probable that the Duchess would again
+become a mother; and so it actually fell out.  More than this, the
+Duchess of Kent was young, and the Duke was strong; there was every
+likelihood that before long a brother would follow, to snatch her faint
+chance of the succession from the little princess.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Nevertheless, the Duke had other views: there were prophecies....  At
+any rate, he would christen the child Elizabeth, a name of happy
+augury.  In this, however, he reckoned without the Regent, who, seeing
+a chance of annoying his brother, suddenly announced that he himself
+would be present at the baptism, and signified at the same time that
+one of the godfathers was to be the Emperor Alexander of Russia.  And
+so when the ceremony took place, and the Archbishop of Canterbury asked
+by what name he was to baptise the child, the Regent replied
+'Alexandrina.'  At this the Duke ventured to suggest that another name
+might be
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P19"></A>19}</SPAN>
+added.  'Certainly,' said the Regent; 'Georgina?' 'Or
+Elizabeth?' said the Duke.  There was a pause, during which the
+Archbishop, with the baby in his lawn sleeves, looked with some
+uneasiness from one Prince to the other.  'Very well, then,' said the
+Regent at last, 'call her after her mother.  But Alexandrina must come
+first.'  Thus, to the disgust of her father, the child was christened
+Alexandrina Victoria.[<A NAME="chap02fn1text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn1">1</A>]
+</P>
+
+<A NAME="img-018"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-018.jpg" ALT="PRINCESS VICTORIA IN 1836.  From the Portrait by F. Winterhalter." BORDER="2">
+<H4 CLASS="h4center">
+PRINCESS VICTORIA IN 1836.  <BR>
+<I>From the Portrait by F. Winterhalter.</I>
+</H4>
+</CENTER>
+
+<P>
+The Duke had other subjects of disgust.  The meagre grant of the
+Commons had by no means put an end to his financial distresses.  It was
+to be feared that his services were not appreciated by the nation.  His
+debts continued to grow.  For many years he had lived upon �7000 a
+year; but now his expenses were exactly doubled; he could make no
+further reductions; as it was, there was not a single servant in his
+establishment who was idle for a moment from morning to night.  He
+poured out his griefs in a long letter to Robert Owen, whose sympathy
+had the great merit of being practical.  'I now candidly state,' he
+wrote, 'that, after viewing the subject in every possible way, I am
+satisfied that, to continue to live in England, even in the quiet way
+in which we are going on, <I>without splendour, and without show, nothing
+short of doubling the seven thousand pounds will do</I>, REDUCTION BEING
+IMPOSSIBLE.'  It was clear that he would be obliged to sell his house
+for �51,300: if that failed, he would go and live on the Continent.
+'If my services are useful to my country, it surely becomes <I>those who
+have the power</I> to support me in substantiating those just claims I
+have for the very extensive losses and privations I have experienced,
+during the very long period of my professional servitude in the
+Colonies; and if this is not
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P20"></A>20}</SPAN>
+attainable, <I>it is a clear proof to
+me that they are not appreciated</I>; and under that impression I shall
+not scruple, in due time, to resume my retirement abroad, when the
+Duchess and myself shall have fulfilled our duties in establishing the
+<I>English</I> birth of my child, and giving it maternal nutriment on the
+soil of Old England; and which we shall certainly repeat, if Providence
+destines to give us any further increase of family.'[<A NAME="chap02fn2text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn2">2</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In the meantime, he decided to spend the winter at Sidmouth, 'in
+order,' he told Owen, 'that the Duchess may have the benefit of tepid
+sea bathing, and our infant that of sea air, on the fine coast of
+Devonshire, during the months of the year that are so odious in
+London.'[<A NAME="chap02fn3text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn3">3</A>]  In December the move was made.  With the new year, the
+Duke remembered another prophecy.  In 1820, a fortune-teller had told
+him, two members of the Royal Family would die.  Who would they be?  He
+speculated on the various possibilities: the King, it was plain, could
+not live much longer; and the Duchess of York had been attacked by a
+mortal disease.  Probably it would be the King and the Duchess of York;
+or perhaps the King and the Duke of York; or the King and the Regent.
+He himself was one of the healthiest men in England.[<A NAME="chap02fn4text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn4">4</A>]  'My brothers,'
+he declared, 'are not so strong as I am; I have lived a regular life.
+I shall outlive them all.  The crown will come to me and my
+children.'[<A NAME="chap02fn5text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn5">5</A>]  He went out for a walk, and got his feet wet.  On coming
+home, he neglected to change his stockings.  He caught cold,
+inflammation of the lungs set in, and on January 22 he was a dying man.
+By a curious chance, young Dr. Stockmar was staying in the house at the
+time; two
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P21"></A>21}</SPAN>
+years before, he had stood by the death-bed of the
+Princess Charlotte; and now he was watching the Duke of Kent in his
+agony.  On Stockmar's advice, a will was hastily prepared.  The Duke's
+earthly possessions were of a negative character; but it was important
+that the guardianship of the unwitting child, whose fortunes were now
+so strangely changing, should be assured to the Duchess.  The Duke was
+just able to understand the document, and to append his signature.
+Having inquired whether his writing was perfectly clear, he became
+unconscious, and breathed his last on the following morning.[<A NAME="chap02fn6text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn6">6</A>]  Six
+days later came the fulfilment of the second half of the gipsy's
+prophecy.  The long, unhappy, and inglorious life of George the Third
+of England was ended.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+II
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Such was the confusion of affairs at Sidmouth, that the Duchess found
+herself without the means of returning to London.  Prince Leopold
+hurried down, and himself conducted his sister and her family, by slow
+and bitter stages, to Kensington.  The widowed lady, in her voluminous
+blacks, needed all her equanimity to support her.  Her prospects were
+more dubious than ever.  She had �6000 a year of her own; but her
+husband's debts loomed before her like a mountain.  Soon she learnt
+that the Duchess of Clarence was once more expecting a child.  What had
+she to look forward to in England?  Why should she remain in a foreign
+country, among strangers, whose language she could not speak, whose
+customs she could not understand?  Surely it would be best to
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P22"></A>22}</SPAN>
+return to Amorbach, and there, among her own people, bring up her
+daughters in economical obscurity.  But she was an inveterate optimist;
+she had spent her life in struggles, and would not be daunted now.  And
+besides, she adored her baby.  'C'est mon bonheur, mes d�lices, mon
+existence,' she declared; the darling should be brought up as an
+English princess, whatever lot awaited her.  Prince Leopold came
+forward nobly with an offer of an additional �3000 a year; and the
+Duchess remained at Kensington.[<A NAME="chap02fn7text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn7">7</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The child herself was extremely fat, and bore a remarkable resemblance
+to her grandfather.  'C'est l'image du feu Roi!' exclaimed the Duchess.
+'C'est le Roi Georges en jupons,' echoed the surrounding ladies, as the
+little creature waddled with difficulty from one to the other.[<A NAME="chap02fn8text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn8">8</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Before long, the world began to be slightly interested in the nursery
+at Kensington.  When, early in 1821, the Duchess of Clarence's second
+child, the Princess Elizabeth, died within three months of its birth,
+the interest increased.  Great forces and fierce anatgonisms seemed to
+be moving, obscurely, about the royal cradle.  It was a time of faction
+and anger, of violent repression and profound discontent.  A powerful
+movement, which had for long been checked by adverse circumstances, was
+now spreading throughout the country.  New passions, new desires, were
+abroad; or rather, old passions and old desires, reincarnated with a
+new potency: love of freedom, hatred of injustice, hope for the future
+of man.  The mighty still sat proudly in their seats, dispensing their
+ancient tyranny; but a storm was gathering out of the darkness, and
+already there was
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P23"></A>23}</SPAN>
+lightning in the sky.  But the vastest forces
+must needs operate through frail human instruments; and it seemed for
+many years as if the great cause of English liberalism hung upon the
+life of the little girl at Kensington.  She alone stood between the
+country and her terrible uncle, the Duke of Cumberland, the hideous
+embodiment of reaction.  Inevitably, the Duchess of Kent threw in her
+lot with her husband's party; Whig leaders, Radical agitators, rallied
+round her; she was intimate with the bold Lord Durham, she was on
+friendly terms with the redoubtable O'Connell himself.  She received
+Wilberforce&mdash;though, to be sure, she did not ask him to sit down.[<A NAME="chap02fn9text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn9">9</A>]
+She declared in public that she put her faith in 'the liberties of the
+People.'[<A NAME="chap02fn10text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn10">10</A>]  It was certain that the young Princess would be brought
+up in the way that she should go; yet there, close behind the throne,
+waiting, sinister, was the Duke of Cumberland.  Brougham, looking
+forward into the future in his scurrilous fashion, hinted at dreadful
+possibilities.  'I never prayed so heartily for a Prince before,' he
+wrote, on hearing that George IV had been attacked by illness.  'If he
+had gone, all the troubles of these villains [the Tory Ministers] went
+with him, and they had Fred. I [the Duke of York] their own man for his
+life....  He (Fred. I) won't live long either; that Prince of
+Blackguards, "Brother William," is as bad a life, so we come in the
+course of nature to be <I>assassinated</I> by King Ernest I or Regent Ernest
+[the Duke of Cumberland].'[<A NAME="chap02fn11text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn11">11</A>]  Such thoughts were not peculiar to
+Brougham; in the seething state of public feeling, they constantly
+leapt to the surface; and, even so late as the year previous to her
+accession, the Radical newspapers were full of
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P24"></A>24}</SPAN>
+suggestions that
+the Princess Victoria was in danger from the machinations of her wicked
+uncle.[<A NAME="chap02fn12text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn12">12</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But no echo of these conflicts and forebodings reached the little
+Drina&mdash;for so she was called in the family circle&mdash;as she played with
+her dolls, or scampered down the passages, or rode on the donkey her
+uncle York had given her[<A NAME="chap02fn13text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn13">13</A>] along the avenues of Kensington Gardens.
+The fair-haired, blue-eyed child was idolised by her nurses, and her
+mother's ladies, and her sister Feodora; and for a few years there was
+a danger, in spite of her mother's strictness, of her being spoilt.
+From time to time, she would fly into a violent passion, stamp her
+little foot, and set everyone at defiance; whatever they might say, she
+would not learn her letters&mdash;no, she <I>would not</I>; afterwards, she was
+very sorry, and burst into tears; but her letters remained unlearnt.
+When she was five years old, however, a change came, with the
+appearance of Fr�ulein Lehzen.  This lady, who was the daughter of a
+Hanoverian clergyman and had previously been the Princess Feodora's
+governess, soon succeeded in instilling a new spirit into her charge.
+At first, indeed, she was appalled by the little Princess's outbursts
+of temper; never in her life, she declared, had she seen such a
+passionate and naughty child.  Then she observed something else; the
+child was extraordinarily truthful; whatever punishment might follow,
+she never told a lie.[<A NAME="chap02fn14text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn14">14</A>]  Firm, very firm, the new governess yet had
+the sense to see that all the firmness in the world would be useless,
+unless she could win her way into little Drina's heart.  She did so,
+and there were no more difficulties.  Drina learnt her letters like an
+angel; and she learnt other things as well.  The
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P25"></A>25}</SPAN>
+Baroness de Sp�th
+taught her how to make little cardboard boxes and decorate them with
+tinsel and painted flowers;[<A NAME="chap02fn15text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn15">15</A>] her mother taught her religion.
+Sitting in the pew every Sunday morning, the child of six was seen
+listening in rapt attention to the clergyman's endless sermon, for she
+was to be examined upon it in the afternoon.[<A NAME="chap02fn16text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn16">16</A>]  The Duchess was
+determined that her daughter, from the earliest possible moment, should
+be prepared for her high station in a way that would commend itself to
+the most respectable; her good, plain, thrifty German mind recoiled
+with horror and amazement from the shameless junketings at Carlton
+House; Drina should never be allowed to forget for a moment the virtues
+of simplicity, regularity, propriety, and devotion.  The little girl,
+however, was really in small need of such lessons, for she was
+naturally simple and orderly, she was pious without difficulty, and her
+sense of propriety was keen.  She understood very well the niceties of
+her own position.  When, a child of six, Lady Jane Ellice was taken by
+her grandmother to Kensington Palace, she was put to play with the
+Princess Victoria, who was the same age as herself.  The young visitor,
+ignorant of etiquette, began to make free with the toys on the floor,
+in a way which was a little too familiar; but 'You must not touch
+those,' she was quickly told, 'they are mine; and I may call you Jane,
+but you must not call me Victoria.'[<A NAME="chap02fn17text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn17">17</A>]  The Princess's most constant
+playmate was Victoire, the daughter of Sir John Conroy, the Duchess's
+major-domo.  The two girls were very fond of one another; they would
+walk hand in hand together in Kensington Gardens.  But little Drina was
+perfectly aware for which of them
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P26"></A>26}</SPAN>
+it was that they were followed,
+at a respectful distance, by a gigantic scarlet flunkey.[<A NAME="chap02fn18text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn18">18</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Warm-hearted, responsive, she loved her dear Lehzen, and she loved her
+dear Feodora, and her dear Victoire, and her dear Madame de Sp�th.  And
+her dear Mamma ... of course, she loved her too; it was her duty; and
+yet&mdash;she could not tell why it was&mdash;she was always happier when she was
+staying with her Uncle Leopold at Claremont.  There old Mrs. Louis,
+who, years ago, had waited on her cousin Charlotte, petted her to her
+heart's content; and her uncle himself was wonderfully kind to her,
+talking to her seriously and gently, almost as if she were a grown-up
+person.  She and Feodora invariably wept when the too short visit was
+over, and they were obliged to return to the dutiful monotony and the
+affectionate supervision of Kensington.  But sometimes when her mother
+had to stay at home, she was allowed to go out driving all alone with
+her dear Feodora and her dear Lehzen, and she could talk and look as
+she liked, and it was very delightful.[<A NAME="chap02fn19text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn19">19</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The visits to Claremont were frequent enough; but one day, on a special
+occasion, she paid one of a rarer and more exciting kind.  When she was
+seven years old, she and her mother and sister were asked by the King
+to go down to Windsor.  George IV, who had transferred his fraternal
+ill-temper to his sister-in-law and her family, had at last grown tired
+of sulking, and decided to be agreeable.  The old rip, bewigged and
+gouty, ornate and enormous, with his jewelled mistress by his side and
+his flaunting court about him, received the tiny creature who was one
+day to hold in those same halls a very different state.  'Give me your
+little
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P27"></A>27}</SPAN>
+paw,' he said; and two ages touched.  Next morning, driving
+in his phaeton with the Duchess of Gloucester, he met the Duchess of
+Kent and her child in the Park.  'Pop her in,' were his orders, which,
+to the terror of the mother and the delight of the daughter, were
+immediately obeyed.  Off they dashed to Virginia Water, where there was
+a great barge, full of lords and ladies fishing, and another barge with
+a band; and the King ogled Feodora, and praised her manners, and then
+turned to his own small niece.  'What is your favourite tune?  The band
+shall play it.'  'God save the King, sir,' was the instant answer.  The
+Princess's reply has been praised as an early example of a tact which
+was afterwards famous.  But she was a very truthful child, and perhaps
+it was her genuine opinion.[<A NAME="chap02fn20text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn20">20</A>]
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+III
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+In 1827 the Duke of York, who had found some consolation for the loss
+of his wife in the sympathy of the Duchess of Rutland, died, leaving
+behind him the unfinished immensity of Stafford House and �200,000
+worth of debts.  Three years later George IV also disappeared, and the
+Duke of Clarence reigned in his stead.  The new Queen, it was now
+clear, would in all probability never again be a mother; the Princess
+Victoria, therefore, was recognised by Parliament as heir-presumptive;
+and the Duchess of Kent, whose annuity had been doubled five years
+previously, was now given an additional �10,000 for the maintenance of
+the Princess, and was appointed regent, in case of the death of the
+King before the majority of her daughter.  At the same time a great
+convulsion took
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P28"></A>28}</SPAN>
+place in the constitution of the State.  The power
+of the Tories, who had dominated England for more than forty years,
+suddenly began to crumble.  In the tremendous struggle that followed,
+it seemed for a moment as if the tradition of generations might be
+snapped, as if the blind tenacity of the reactionaries and the
+determined fury of their enemies could have no other issue than
+revolution.  But the forces of compromise triumphed: the Reform Bill
+was passed.  The centre of gravity in the constitution was shifted
+towards the middle classes; the Whigs came into power; and the
+complexion of the Government assumed a Liberal tinge.  One of the
+results of this new state of affairs was a change in the position of
+the Duchess of Kent and her daughter.  From being the <I>prot�g�es</I> of an
+opposition clique, they became assets of the official majority of the
+nation.  The Princess Victoria was henceforward the living symbol of
+the victory of the middle classes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Duke of Cumberland, on the other hand, suffered a corresponding
+eclipse: his claws had been pared by the Reform Act.  He grew
+insignificant and almost harmless, though his ugliness remained; he was
+the wicked uncle still&mdash;but only of a story.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Duchess's own liberalism was not very profound.  She followed
+naturally in the footsteps of her husband, repeating with conviction
+the catchwords of her husband's clever friends and the generalisations
+of her clever brother Leopold.  She herself had no pretensions to
+cleverness; she did not understand very much about the Poor Law and the
+Slave Trade and Political Economy; but she hoped that she did her duty;
+and she hoped&mdash;she ardently hoped&mdash;that the same might be said of
+Victoria.  Her educational conceptions were
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P29"></A>29}</SPAN>
+those of Dr. Arnold,
+whose views were just then beginning to permeate society.  Dr. Arnold's
+object was, first and foremost, to make his pupils 'in the highest and
+truest sense of the words, Christian gentlemen'; intellectual
+refinements might follow.  The Duchess felt convinced that it was her
+supreme duty in life to make quite sure that her daughter should grow
+up into a Christian queen.  To this task she bent all her energies;
+and, as the child developed, she flattered herself that her efforts
+were not unsuccessful.  When the Princess was eleven, she desired the
+Bishops of London and Lincoln to submit her daughter to an examination,
+and report upon the progress that had been made.  'I feel the time to
+be now come,' the Duchess explained, in a letter obviously drawn up by
+her own hand, 'that what has been done should be put to some test, that
+if anything has been done in error of judgment it may be corrected, and
+that the plan for the future should be open to consideration and
+revision....  I attend almost always myself every lesson, or a part;
+and as the lady about the Princess is a competent person, she assists
+Her in preparing Her lessons, for the various masters, as I resolved to
+act in that manner so as to be Her governess myself....  When she was
+at a proper age she commenced attending Divine Service regularly with
+me, and I have every feeling that she has religion at Her heart, that
+she is morally impressed with it to that degree, that she is less
+liable to error by its application to her feelings as a Child capable
+of reflection.'  'The general bent of Her character,' added the
+Duchess, 'is strength of intellect, capable of receiving with ease,
+information, and with a peculiar readiness in coming to a very just and
+benignant decision on any point Her opinion is asked on.  Her adherence
+to
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P30"></A>30}</SPAN>
+truth is of so marked a character that I feel no apprehension
+of that Bulwark being broken down by any circumstances.'  The Bishops
+attended at the Palace, and the result of their examination was all
+that could be wished.  'In answering a great variety of questions
+proposed to her,' they reported, 'the Princess displayed an accurate
+knowledge of the most important features of Scripture History, and of
+the leading truths and precepts of the Christian Religion as taught by
+the Church of England, as well as an acquaintance with the Chronology
+and principal facts of English History remarkable in so young a person.
+To questions in Geography, the use of the Globes, Arithmetic, and Latin
+Grammar, the answers which the Princess returned were equally
+satisfactory.'  They did not believe that the Duchess's plan of
+education was susceptible of any improvement; and the Archbishop of
+Canterbury, who was also consulted, came to the same gratifying
+conclusion.[<A NAME="chap02fn21text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn21">21</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+One important step, however, remained to be taken.  So far, as the
+Duchess explained to the Bishops, the Princess had been kept in
+ignorance of the station that she was likely to fill.  'She is aware of
+its duties, and that a Sovereign should live for others; so that when
+Her innocent mind receives the impression of Her future fate, she
+receives it with a mind formed to be sensible of what is to be expected
+from Her, and it is to be hoped, she will be too well grounded in Her
+principles to be dazzled with the station she is to look to.'[<A NAME="chap02fn22text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn22">22</A>]  In
+the following year it was decided that she should be enlightened on
+this point.  The well-known scene followed: the history lesson, the
+genealogical table of the Kings of England slipped beforehand by the
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P31"></A>31}</SPAN>
+governess into the book, the Princess's surprise, her inquiries,
+her final realisation of the facts.  When the child at last understood,
+she was silent for a moment, and then she spoke: 'I will be good,' she
+said.  The words were something more than a conventional protestation,
+something more than the expression of a superimposed desire; they were,
+in their limitation and their intensity, their egotism and their
+humility, an instinctive summary of the dominating qualities of a life.
+'I cried much on learning it,' her Majesty noted long afterwards.  No
+doubt, while the others were present, even her dear Lehzen, the little
+girl kept up her self-command; and then crept away somewhere to ease
+her heart of an inward, unfamiliar agitation, with a handkerchief, out
+of her mother's sight.[<A NAME="chap02fn23text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn23">23</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But her mother's sight was by no means an easy thing to escape.
+Morning and evening, day and night, there was no relaxation of the
+maternal vigilance.  The child grew into the girl, the girl into the
+young woman; but still she slept in her mother's bedroom; still she had
+no place allowed her where she might sit or work by herself.[<A NAME="chap02fn24text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn24">24</A>]  An
+extraordinary watchfulness surrounded her every step: up to the day of
+her accession, she never went downstairs without someone beside her
+holding her hand.[<A NAME="chap02fn25text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn25">25</A>]  Plainness and regularity ruled the household.
+The hours, the days, the years passed slowly and methodically by.  The
+dolls&mdash;the innumerable dolls, each one so neatly dressed, each one with
+its name so punctiliously entered in the catalogue&mdash;were laid aside,
+and a little music and a little dancing took their place.  Taglioni
+came, to give grace and dignity to the figure,[<A NAME="chap02fn26text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn26">26</A>] and Lablache, to
+train the piping treble upon his own
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P32"></A>32}</SPAN>
+rich bass.  The Dean of
+Chester, the official preceptor, continued his endless instruction in
+Scripture history, while the Duchess of Northumberland, the official
+governess, presided over every lesson with becoming solemnity.  Without
+doubt, the Princess's main achievement during her schooldays was
+linguistic.  German was naturally the first language with which she was
+familiar; but English and French quickly followed; and she became
+virtually trilingual, though her mastery of English grammar remained
+incomplete.  At the same time, she acquired a working knowledge of
+Italian and some smattering of Latin.  Nevertheless, she did not read
+very much.  It was not an occupation that she cared for; partly,
+perhaps, because the books that were given her were all either sermons,
+which were very dull, or poetry, which was incomprehensible.  Novels
+were strictly forbidden.  Lord Durham persuaded her mother to get her
+some of Miss Martineau's tales, illustrating the truths of Political
+Economy, and they delighted her; but it is to be feared that it was the
+unaccustomed pleasure of the story that filled her mind, and that she
+never really mastered the theory of exchanges or the nature of rent.[<A NAME="chap02fn27text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn27">27</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was her misfortune that the mental atmosphere which surrounded her
+during these years of adolescence was almost entirely feminine.  No
+father, no brother, was there to break in upon the gentle monotony of
+the daily round with impetuosity, with rudeness, with careless laughter
+and wafts of freedom from the outside world.  The Princess was never
+called by a voice that was loud and growling; never felt, as a matter
+of course, a hard rough cheek on her own soft one; never climbed a wall
+with a boy.  The visits to Claremont&mdash;delicious
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P33"></A>33}</SPAN>
+little escapes
+into male society&mdash;came to an end when she was eleven years old and
+Prince Leopold left England to be King of the Belgians.  She loved him
+still; he was still 'il mio secondo padre&mdash;or, rather, <I>solo</I> padre,
+for he is indeed like my real father, as I have none'; but his
+fatherliness now came to her dimly and indirectly, through the cold
+channel of correspondence.  Henceforward female duty, female elegance,
+female enthusiasm, hemmed her completely in; and her spirit, amid the
+enclosing folds, was hardly reached by those two great influences,
+without which no growing life can truly prosper&mdash;humour and
+imagination.  The Baroness Lehzen&mdash;for she had been raised to that rank
+in the Hanoverian nobility by George IV before he died&mdash;was the real
+centre of the Princess's world.  When Feodora married, when uncle
+Leopold went to Belgium, the Baroness was left without a competitor.
+The Princess gave her mother her dutiful regards; but Lehzen had her
+heart.  The voluble, shrewd daughter of the pastor in Hanover,
+lavishing her devotion on her royal charge, had reaped her reward in an
+unbounded confidence and a passionate adoration.  The girl would have
+gone through fire for her '<I>precious</I> Lehzen,' the 'best and truest
+friend,' she declared, that she had had since her birth.  Her journal,
+begun when she was thirteen, where she registered day by day the small
+succession of her doings and her sentiments, bears on every page of it
+the traces of the Baroness and her circumambient influence.  The young
+creature that one sees there, self-depicted in ingenuous clarity, with
+her sincerity, her simplicity, her quick affections and pious
+resolutions, might almost have been the daughter of a German pastor
+herself.  Her enjoyments, her admirations, her <I>engouements</I> were of
+the kind that
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P34"></A>34}</SPAN>
+clothed themselves naturally in underlinings and
+exclamation marks.  'It was a <I>delightful</I> ride.  We cantered a good
+deal.  SWEET LITTLE ROSY went BEAUTIFULLY!!  We came home at a � past
+1....  At 20 minutes to 7 we went out to the Opera....  Rubini came on
+and sang a song out of "Anna Boulena" <I>quite beautifully</I>.  We came
+home at � past 11.'[<A NAME="chap02fn28text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn28">28</A>]  In her comments on her readings, the mind of
+the Baroness is clearly revealed.  One day, by some mistake, she was
+allowed to take up a volume of memoirs by Fanny Kemble.  'It is
+certainly very pertly and oddly written.  One would imagine by the
+style that the authoress must be very pert, and not well bred; for
+there are so many vulgar expressions in it.  It is a great pity that a
+person endowed with so much talent, as Mrs. Butler really is, should
+turn it to so little account and publish a book which is so full of
+trash and nonsense which can only do her harm.  I stayed up till 20
+minutes past 9.'  Madame de S�vign�'s letters, which the Baroness read
+aloud, met with more approval.  'How truly elegant and natural her
+style is!  It is so full of <I>na�vet�</I>, cleverness, and grace.'  But her
+highest admiration was reserved for the Bishop of Chester's 'Exposition
+of the Gospel of St. Matthew.'  'It is a very fine book indeed.  Just
+the sort of one I like; which is just plain and comprehensible and full
+of truth and good feeling.  It is not one of those learned books in
+which you have to cavil at almost every paragraph.  Lehzen gave it me
+on the Sunday that I took the Sacrament.'[<A NAME="chap02fn29text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn29">29</A>]  A few weeks previously
+she had been confirmed, and she described the event as follows: 'I felt
+that my confirmation was one of the most solemn and important events
+and acts in my life; and that I trusted that it might have a
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P35"></A>35}</SPAN>
+salutary effect on my mind.  I felt deeply repentant for all what I had
+done which was wrong and trusted in God Almighty to strengthen my heart
+and mind; and to forsake all that is bad and follow all that is
+virtuous and right.  I went with the firm determination to become a
+true Christian, to try and comfort my dear Mamma in all her griefs,
+trials, and anxieties, and to become a dutiful and affectionate
+daughter to her.  Also to be obedient to <I>dear</I> Lehzen, who has done so
+much for me.  I was dressed in a white lace dress, with a white crape
+bonnet with a wreath of white roses round it.  I went in the chariot
+with my dear Mamma and the others followed in another carriage.'[<A NAME="chap02fn30text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn30">30</A>]
+One seems to hold in one's hand a small smooth crystal pebble, without
+a flaw and without a scintillation, and so transparent that one can see
+through it at a glance.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Yet perhaps, after all, to the discerning eye, the purity would not be
+absolute.  The careful searcher might detect, in the virgin soil, the
+first faint traces of an unexpected vein.  In that conventual existence
+visits were exciting events; and, as the Duchess had many relatives,
+they were not infrequent; aunts and uncles would often appear from
+Germany, and cousins too.  When the Princess was fourteen she was
+delighted by the arrival of a couple of boys from W�rtemberg, the
+Princes Alexander and Ernst, sons of her mother's sister and the
+reigning duke.  'They are both <I>extremely tall</I>,' she noted; 'Alexander
+is <I>very handsome</I>, and Ernst has a <I>very kind expression</I>.  They are
+both EXTREMELY <I>amiable</I>.'  And their departure filled her with
+corresponding regrets.  'We saw them get into the barge, and watched
+them sailing away for some time on the beach.  They were so amiable and
+so pleasant to have
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P36"></A>36}</SPAN>
+in the house; they were always <I>satisfied,
+always good-humoured</I>; Alexander took such care of me in getting out of
+the boat, and rode next to me; so did Ernst.'[<A NAME="chap02fn31text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn31">31</A>]  Two years later, two
+other cousins arrived, the Princes Ferdinand and Augustus.  'Dear
+Ferdinand,' the Princess wrote, 'has elicited universal admiration from
+all parties....  He is so very unaffected, and has such a very
+distinguished appearance and carriage.  They are both very dear and
+charming young men.  Augustus is very amiable too, and, when known,
+shows much good sense.'  On another occasion, 'Dear Ferdinand came and
+sat near me and talked so dearly and sensibly.  I do <I>so</I> love him.
+Dear Augustus sat near me and talked with me, and he is also a dear
+good young man, and is very handsome.'  She could not quite decide
+which was the handsomer of the two.  On the whole, she concluded, 'I
+think Ferdinand handsomer than Augustus, his eyes are so beautiful, and
+he has such a lively clever expression; <I>both</I> have such a sweet
+expression; Ferdinand has something <I>quite beautiful</I> in his expression
+when he speaks and smiles, and he is <I>so</I> good.'  However, it was
+perhaps best to say that they were 'both very handsome and <I>very
+dear</I>.'[<A NAME="chap02fn32text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn32">32</A>]  But shortly afterwards two more cousins arrived, who threw
+all the rest into the shade.  These were the Princes Ernest and Albert,
+sons of her mother's eldest brother, the Duke of Saxe-Coburg.  This
+time the Princess was more particular in her observations.  'Ernest,'
+she remarked, 'is as tall as Ferdinand and Augustus; he has dark hair,
+and fine dark eyes and eyebrows, but the nose and mouth are not good;
+he has a most kind, honest and intelligent expression in his
+countenance, and has a very good figure.  Albert, who is just as tall
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P37"></A>37}</SPAN>
+as Ernest but stouter, is extremely handsome; his hair is about
+the same colour as mine; his eyes are large and blue, and he has a
+beautiful nose and a very sweet mouth with fine teeth; but the charm of
+his countenance is his expression, which is most delightful; <I>cest � la
+fois</I> full of goodness and sweetness, and very clever and intelligent.'
+'Both my cousins,' she added, 'are so kind and good; they are much more
+<I>form�s</I> and men of the world than Augustus; they speak English very
+well, and I speak it with them.  Ernest will be 18 years old on the
+21st of June, and Albert 17 on the 26th of August.  Dear Uncle Ernest
+made me the present of a most delightful <I>Lory</I>, which is so tame that
+it remains on your hand and you may put your finger into its beak, or
+do anything with it, without its ever attempting to bite.  It is larger
+than Mamma's grey parrot.'  A little later, 'I sat between my dear
+cousins on the sofa and we looked at drawings.  They both draw very
+well, particularly Albert, and are both exceedingly fond of music; they
+play very nicely on the piano.  The more I see them the more I am
+delighted with them, and the more I love them....  It is delightful to
+be with them; they are so fond of being occupied too; they are quite an
+example for any young person.'  When, after a stay of three weeks, the
+time came for the young men and their father to return to Germany, the
+moment of parting was a melancholy one.  'It was our last HAPPY HAPPY
+breakfast, with this dear Uncle and those <I>dearest</I> beloved cousins,
+whom I <I>do</I> love so VERY VERY dearly; <I>much more dearly</I> than any other
+cousins in the <I>world</I>.  Dearly as I love Ferdinand, and also good
+Augustus, I love Ernest and Albert more than them, oh yes, MUCH
+<I>more</I>....  They have both learnt a good deal, and are very clever,
+naturally clever,
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P38"></A>38}</SPAN>
+particularly Albert, who is the most reflecting
+of the two, and they like very much talking about serious and
+instructive things and yet are so <I>very very</I> merry and gay and happy,
+like young people ought to be; Albert always used to have some fun and
+some clever witty answer at breakfast and everywhere; he used to play
+and fondle Dash so funnily too....  Dearest Albert was playing on the
+piano when I came down.  At 11 dear Uncle, my <I>dearest beloved</I>
+cousins, and Charles, left us, accompanied by Count Kolowrat.  I
+embraced both my dearest cousins most warmly, as also my dear Uncle.  I
+cried bitterly, very bitterly.'[<A NAME="chap02fn33text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn33">33</A>]  The Princes shared her ecstasies
+and her italics between them; but it is clear enough where her secret
+preference lay.  'Particularly Albert'!  She was just seventeen; and
+deep was the impression left upon that budding organism by the young
+man's charm and goodness and accomplishments, and his large blue eyes
+and beautiful nose, and his sweet mouth and fine teeth.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+IV
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+King William could not away with his sister-in-law, and the Duchess
+fully returned his antipathy.  Without considerable tact and
+considerable forbearance their relative positions were well calculated
+to cause ill-feeling; and there was very little tact in the composition
+of the Duchess, and no forbearance at all in that of his Majesty.  A
+bursting, bubbling old gentleman, with quarter-deck gestures, round
+rolling eyes, and a head like a pineapple, his sudden elevation to the
+throne after fifty-six years of utter insignificance had almost sent
+him crazy.  His natural
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P39"></A>39}</SPAN>
+exuberance completely got the better of
+him; he rushed about doing preposterous things in an extraordinary
+manner, spreading amusement and terror in every direction, and talking
+all the time.  His tongue was decidedly Hanoverian, with its
+repetitions, its catchwords&mdash;'That's quite another thing!  That's quite
+another thing!'&mdash;its rattling indomitability, its loud indiscreetness.
+His speeches, made repeatedly at the most inopportune junctures, and
+filled pell-mell with all the fancies and furies that happened at the
+moment to be whisking about in his head, were the consternation of
+Ministers.  He was one part blackguard, people said, and three parts
+buffoon; but those who knew him better could not help liking him&mdash;he
+meant well; and he was really good-humoured and kind-hearted, if you
+took him the right way.  If you took him the wrong way, however, you
+must look out for squalls, as the Duchess of Kent discovered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She had no notion of how to deal with him&mdash;could not understand him in
+the least.  Occupied with her own position, her own responsibilities,
+her duty, and her daughter, she had no attention to spare for the
+peppery susceptibilities of a foolish, disreputable old man.  She was
+the mother of the heiress of England; and it was for him to recognise
+the fact&mdash;to put her at once upon a proper footing&mdash;to give her the
+precedence of a dowager Princess of Wales, with a large annuity from
+the privy purse.[<A NAME="chap02fn34text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn34">34</A>]  It did not occur to her that such pretensions
+might be galling to a king who had no legitimate child of his own, and
+who yet had not altogether abandoned the hope of having one.  She
+pressed on, with bulky vigour, along the course she had laid out.  Sir
+John Conroy, an Irishman with no
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P40"></A>40}</SPAN>
+judgment and a great deal of
+self-importance, was her intimate counsellor, and egged her on.  It was
+advisable that Victoria should become acquainted with the various
+districts of England, and through several summers a succession of
+tours&mdash;in the West, in the Midlands, in Wales&mdash;were arranged for her.
+The intention of the plan was excellent, but its execution was
+unfortunate.  The journeys, advertised in the Press, attracting
+enthusiastic crowds, and involving official receptions, took on the air
+of royal progresses.  Addresses were presented by loyal citizens; the
+delighted Duchess, swelling in sweeping feathers and almost
+obliterating the diminutive Princess, read aloud, in her German accent,
+gracious replies prepared beforehand by Sir John, who, bustling and
+ridiculous, seemed to be mingling the r�les of major-domo and Prime
+Minister.  Naturally the King fumed over his newspaper at Windsor.
+'That woman is a nuisance!  That woman is a nuisance!' he exclaimed.
+Poor Queen Adelaide, amiable though disappointed, did her best to
+smooth things down, changed the subject, and wrote affectionate letters
+to Victoria; but it was useless.  News arrived that the Duchess of
+Kent, sailing in the Solent, had insisted that whenever her yacht
+appeared it should be received by royal salutes from all the men-of-war
+and all the forts.  The King declared that these continual poppings
+must cease; the Premier and the First Lord of the Admiralty were
+consulted; and they wrote privately to the Duchess, begging her to
+waive her rights.  But she would not hear of it; Sir John Conroy was
+adamant.  'As her Royal Highness's <I>confidential adviser</I>,' he said, 'I
+cannot recommend her to give way on this point.'  Eventually the King,
+in a great state of excitement, issued a special Order in
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P41"></A>41}</SPAN>
+Council,
+prohibiting the firing of royal salutes to any ships except those which
+carried the reigning sovereign or his consort on board.[<A NAME="chap02fn35text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn35">35</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When King William quarrelled with his Whig Ministers the situation grew
+still more embittered, for now the Duchess, in addition to her other
+shortcomings, was the political partisan of his enemies.  In 1836 he
+made an attempt to prepare the ground for a match between the Princess
+Victoria and one of the sons of the Prince of Orange, and at the same
+time did his best to prevent the visit of the young Coburg princes to
+Kensington.  He failed in both these objects; and the only result of
+his efforts was to raise the anger of the King of the Belgians, who,
+forgetting for a moment his royal reserve, addressed an indignant
+letter on the subject to his niece.  'I am really <I>astonished</I>,' he
+wrote, 'at the conduct of your old Uncle the King; this invitation of
+the Prince of Orange and his sons, this forcing him on others, is very
+extraordinary....  Not later than yesterday I got a half-official
+communication from England, insinuating that it would be <I>highly</I>
+desirable that the visit of your relatives <I>should not take place this
+year</I>&mdash;qu'en dites-vous?  The relations of the Queen and the King,
+therefore, to the God-knows-what degree, are to come in shoals and rule
+the land, when <I>your relations</I> are to be <I>forbidden</I> the country, and
+that when, as you know, the whole of your relations have ever been very
+dutiful and kind to the King.  Really and truly I never heard or saw
+anything like it, and I hope it will a little <I>rouse your spirit</I>; now
+that slavery is even abolished in the British Colonies, I do not
+comprehend <I>why your lot alone should be to be kept a white little
+slavey in England</I>, for the pleasure of the
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P42"></A>42}</SPAN>
+Court, who never
+bought you, as I am not aware of their ever having gone to any expense
+on that head, or the King's ever having <I>spent a sixpence for your
+existence</I>.... Oh, consistency and political or <I>other honesty</I>, where
+must one look for you!'[<A NAME="chap02fn36text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn36">36</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Shortly afterwards King Leopold came to England himself, and his
+reception was as cold at Windsor as it was warm at Kensington.  'To
+hear dear Uncle speak on any subject,' the Princess wrote in her diary,
+'is like reading a highly instructive book; his conversation is so
+enlightened, so clear.  He is universally admitted to be one of the
+first politicians now extant.  He speaks so mildly, yet firmly and
+impartially, about politics.  Uncle tells me that Belgium is quite a
+pattern for its organisation, its industry, and prosperity; the
+finances are in the greatest perfection.  Uncle is so beloved and
+revered by his Belgian subjects, that it must be a great compensation
+for all his extreme trouble.'[<A NAME="chap02fn37text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn37">37</A>]  But her other uncle by no means
+shared her sentiments.  He could not, he said, put up with a
+water-drinker; and King Leopold would touch no wine.  'What's that
+you're drinking, sir?' he asked him one day at dinner.  'Water, sir.'
+'God damn it, sir!' was the rejoinder.  'Why don't you drink wine?  I
+never allow anybody to drink water at my table.'[<A NAME="chap02fn38text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn38">38</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was clear that before very long there would be a great explosion;
+and in the hot days of August it came.  The Duchess and the Princess
+had gone down to stay at Windsor for the King's birthday party, and the
+King himself, who was in London for the day to prorogue Parliament,
+paid a visit at Kensington Palace in their absence.  There he found
+that the Duchess
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P43"></A>43}</SPAN>
+had just appropriated, against his express
+orders, a suite of seventeen apartments for her own use.  He was
+extremely angry, and, when he returned to Windsor, after greeting the
+Princess with affection, he publicly rebuked the Duchess for what she
+had done.  But this was little to what followed.  On the next day was
+the birthday banquet; there were a hundred guests; the Duchess of Kent
+sat on the King's right hand, and the Princess Victoria opposite.  At
+the end of the dinner, in reply to the toast of the King's health, he
+rose, and, in a long, loud, passionate speech, poured out the vials of
+his wrath upon the Duchess.  She had, he declared, insulted
+him&mdash;grossly and continually; she had kept the Princess away from him
+in the most improper manner; she was surrounded by evil advisers, and
+was incompetent to act with propriety in the high station which she
+filled; but he would bear it no longer; he would have her to know he
+was King; he was determined that his authority should be respected;
+henceforward the Princess should attend at every Court function with
+the utmost regularity; and he hoped to God that his life might be
+spared for six months longer, so that the calamity of a regency might
+be avoided, and the functions of the Crown pass directly to the
+heiress-presumptive instead of into the hands of the 'person now near
+him,' upon whose conduct and capacity no reliance whatever could be
+placed.  The flood of vituperation rushed on for what seemed an
+interminable period, while the Queen blushed scarlet, the Princess
+burst into tears, and the hundred guests sat aghast.  The Duchess said
+not a word until the tirade was over and the company had retired; then
+in a tornado of rage and mortification, she called for her carriage and
+announced her immediate return to
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P44"></A>44}</SPAN>
+Kensington.  It was only with
+the utmost difficulty that some show of a reconciliation was patched
+up, and the outraged lady was prevailed upon to put off her departure
+till the morrow.[<A NAME="chap02fn39text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn39">39</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Her troubles, however, were not over when she had shaken the dust of
+Windsor from her feet.  In her own household she was pursued by
+bitterness and vexation of spirit.  The apartments at Kensington were
+seething with subdued disaffection, with jealousies and animosities
+virulently intensified by long years of propinquity and spite.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was a deadly feud between Sir John Conroy and Baroness Lehzen.
+But that was not all.  The Duchess had grown too fond of her
+major-domo.  There were familiarities, and one day the Princess
+Victoria discovered the fact.  She confided what she had seen to the
+Baroness, and to the Baroness's beloved ally, Madame de Sp�th.
+Unfortunately, Madame de Sp�th could not hold her tongue, and was
+actually foolish enough to reprove the Duchess; whereupon she was
+instantly dismissed.  It was not so easy to get rid of the Baroness.
+That lady, prudent and reserved, maintained an irreproachable
+demeanour.  Her position was strongly entrenched; she had managed to
+secure the support of the King; and Sir John found that he could do
+nothing against her.  But henceforward the household was divided into
+two camps.[<A NAME="chap02fn40text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn40">40</A>] The Duchess
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P45"></A>45}</SPAN>
+supported Sir John with all the
+amplitude of her authority; but the Baroness, too, had an adherent who
+could not be neglected.  The Princess Victoria said nothing, but she
+had been much attached to Madame de Sp�th, and she adored her Lehzen.
+The Duchess knew only too well that in this horrid embroilment her
+daughter was against her.  Chagrin, annoyance, moral reprobation,
+tossed her to and fro.  She did her best to console herself with Sir
+John's affectionate loquacity, or with the sharp remarks of Lady Flora
+Hastings, one of her maids of honour, who had no love for the Baroness.
+The subject lent itself to satire; for the pastor's daughter, with all
+her airs of stiff superiority, had habits which betrayed her origin.
+Her passion for caraway seeds, for instance, was uncontrollable.
+Little bags of them came over to her from Hanover, and she sprinkled
+them on her bread and butter, her cabbage, and even her roast beef.
+Lady Flora could not resist a caustic observation; it was repeated to
+the Baroness, who pursed her lips in fury; and so the mischief grew.[<A NAME="chap02fn41text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn41">41</A>]
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+V
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+The King had prayed that he might live till his niece was of age; and a
+few days before her eighteenth birthday&mdash;the date of her legal
+majority&mdash;a sudden attack of illness very nearly carried him off.  He
+recovered, however, and the Princess was able to go through her
+birthday festivities&mdash;a state ball and a drawing-room&mdash;with unperturbed
+enjoyment.  'Count
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P46"></A>46}</SPAN>
+Zichy,' she noted in her diary, 'is very
+good-looking in uniform, but not in plain clothes.  Count Waldstein
+looks remarkably well in his pretty Hungarian uniform.'[<A NAME="chap02fn42text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn42">42</A>]  With the
+latter young gentleman she wished to dance, but there was an
+insurmountable difficulty.  'He could not dance quadrilles, and, as in
+my station I unfortunately cannot valse and galop, I could not dance
+with him.'[<A NAME="chap02fn43text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn43">43</A>]  Her birthday present from the King was of a pleasing
+nature, but it led to a painful domestic scene.  In spite of the anger
+of her Belgian uncle, she had remained upon good terms with her English
+one.  He had always been very kind to her, and the fact that he had
+quarrelled with her mother did not appear to be a reason for disliking
+him.  He was, she said, 'odd, very odd and singular,' but 'his
+intentions were often ill interpreted.'[<A NAME="chap02fn44text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn44">44</A>]  He now wrote her a letter,
+offering her an allowance of �10,000 a year, which he proposed should
+be at her own disposal, and independent of her mother.  Lord Conyngham,
+the Lord Chamberlain, was instructed to deliver the letter into the
+Princess's own hands.  When he arrived at Kensington, he was ushered
+into the presence of the Duchess and the Princess, and, when he
+produced the letter, the Duchess put out her hand to take it.  Lord
+Conyngham begged her Royal Highness's pardon, and repeated the King's
+commands.  Thereupon the Duchess drew back, and the Princess took the
+letter.  She immediately wrote to her uncle, accepting his kind
+proposal.  The Duchess was much displeased; �4000 a year, she said,
+would be quite enough for Victoria; as for the remaining �6000, it
+would be only proper that she should have that herself.[<A NAME="chap02fn45text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn45">45</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P47"></A>47}</SPAN>
+</P>
+
+<P>
+King William had thrown off his illness, and returned to his normal
+life.  Once more the royal circle at Windsor&mdash;their Majesties, the
+elder Princesses, and some unfortunate Ambassadress or Minister's
+wife&mdash;might be seen ranged for hours round a mahogany table, while the
+Queen netted a purse, and the King slept, occasionally waking from his
+slumbers to observe 'Exactly so, ma'am, exactly so!'[<A NAME="chap02fn46text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn46">46</A>]  But this
+recovery was of short duration.  The old man suddenly collapsed; with
+no specific symptoms besides an extreme weakness, he yet showed no
+power of rallying; and it was clear to everyone that his death was now
+close at hand.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+All eyes, all thoughts, turned towards the Princess Victoria; but she
+still remained, shut away in the seclusion of Kensington, a small,
+unknown figure, lost in the large shadow of her mother's domination.
+The preceding year had in fact been an important one in her
+development.  The soft tendrils of her mind had for the first time
+begun to stretch out towards unchildish things.  In this King Leopold
+encouraged her.  After his return to Brussels, he had resumed his
+correspondence in a more serious strain; he discussed the details of
+foreign politics; he laid down the duties of kingship; he pointed out
+the iniquitous foolishness of the newspaper press.  On the latter
+subject, indeed, he wrote with some asperity.  'If all the editors,' he
+said, 'of the papers in the countries where the liberty of the press
+exists were to be assembled, we should have a <I>crew</I> to which you would
+<I>not</I> confide a dog that you would value, still less your honour and
+reputation.'[<A NAME="chap02fn47text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn47">47</A>]  On the functions of a monarch, his views were
+unexceptionable.  'The business of the highest in a State,' he wrote,
+'is
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P48"></A>48}</SPAN>
+certainly, in my opinion, to act with great impartiality and a
+spirit of justice for the good of all.'[<A NAME="chap02fn48text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn48">48</A>]  At the same time the
+Princess's tastes were opening out.  Though she was still passionately
+devoted to riding and dancing, she now began to have a genuine love of
+music as well, and to drink in the roulades and arias of the Italian
+opera with high enthusiasm.  She even enjoyed reading poetry&mdash;at any
+rate, the poetry of Sir Walter Scott.[<A NAME="chap02fn49text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn49">49</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When King Leopold learnt that King William's death was approaching, he
+wrote several long letters of excellent advice to his niece.  'In every
+letter I shall write to you,' he said, 'I mean to repeat to you, as a
+<I>fundamental rule, to be courageous, firm, and honest, as you have been
+till now</I>.'  For the rest, in the crisis that was approaching, she was
+not to be alarmed, but to trust in her 'good natural sense and the
+truth' of her character; she was to do nothing in a hurry; to hurt no
+one's <I>amour-propre</I>, and to continue her confidence in the Whig
+administration.[<A NAME="chap02fn50text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn50">50</A>]  Not content with letters, however, King Leopold
+determined that the Princess should not lack personal guidance, and
+sent over to her aid the trusted friend whom, twenty years before, he
+had taken to his heart by the death-bed at Claremont.  Thus, once
+again, as if in accordance with some preordained destiny, the figure of
+Stockmar is discernible&mdash;inevitably present at a momentous hour.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+On June 18, the King was visibly sinking.  The Archbishop of Canterbury
+was by his side, with all the comforts of the church.  Nor did the holy
+words fall upon a rebellious spirit; for many years his Majesty had
+been a devout believer.  'When I was a young man,' he once explained at
+a public banquet, 'as well
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P49"></A>49}</SPAN>
+as I can remember, I believed in
+nothing but pleasure and folly&mdash;nothing at all.  But when I went to
+sea, got into a gale, and saw the wonders of the mighty deep, then I
+believed; and I have been a sincere Christian ever since.'[<A NAME="chap02fn51text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn51">51</A>]  It was
+the anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo, and the dying man remembered
+it.  He should be glad to live, he said, over that day; he would never
+see another sunset.  'I hope your Majesty may live to see many,' said
+Dr. Chambers.  'Oh! that's quite another thing, that's quite another
+thing,' was the answer.[<A NAME="chap02fn52text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn52">52</A>]  One other sunset he did live to see; and
+he died in the early hours of the following morning.  It was June 20,
+1837.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When all was over, the Archbishop and the Lord Chamberlain ordered a
+carriage, and drove post-haste from Windsor to Kensington.  They
+arrived at the Palace at five o'clock, and it was only with
+considerable difficulty that they gained admittance.[<A NAME="chap02fn53text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn53">53</A>]  At six the
+Duchess woke up her daughter, and told her that the Archbishop of
+Canterbury and Lord Conyngham were there, and wished to see her.  She
+got out of bed, put on her dressing-gown, and went, alone, into the
+room where the messengers were standing.  Lord Conyngham fell on his
+knees, and officially announced the death of the King; the Archbishop
+added some personal details.  Looking at the bending, murmuring
+dignitaries before her, she knew that she was Queen of England.  'Since
+it has pleased Providence,' she wrote that day in her journal, 'to
+place me in this station, I shall do my utmost to fulfil my duty
+towards my country; I am very young, and perhaps in many, though not in
+all things, inexperienced, but I am sure, that very few have more real
+good will and more real desire to do what is fit and
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P50"></A>50}</SPAN>
+right than I
+have.'[<A NAME="chap02fn54text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn54">54</A>]  But there was scant time for resolutions and reflections.
+At once, affairs were thick upon her.  Stockmar came to breakfast, and
+gave some good advice.  She wrote a letter to her uncle Leopold, and a
+hurried note to her sister Feodora.  A letter came from the Prime
+Minister, Lord Melbourne, announcing his approaching arrival.  He came
+at nine, in full court dress, and kissed her hand.  She saw him alone,
+and repeated to him the lesson which, no doubt, the faithful Stockmar
+had taught her at breakfast, 'It has long been my intention to retain
+your Lordship and the rest of the present Ministry at the head of
+affairs'; whereupon Lord Melbourne again kissed her hand and shortly
+after left her.  She then wrote a letter of condolence to Queen
+Adelaide.  At eleven, Lord Melbourne came again; and at half past
+eleven she went downstairs into the red saloon to hold her first
+Council.[<A NAME="chap02fn55text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn55">55</A>]  The great assembly of lords and notables, bishops,
+generals, and Ministers of State, saw the doors thrown open and a very
+short, very slim girl in deep plain mourning come into the room alone
+and move forward to her seat with extraordinary dignity and grace; they
+saw a countenance, not beautiful, but prepossessing&mdash;fair hair, blue
+prominent eyes, a small curved nose, an open mouth revealing the upper
+teeth, a tiny chin, a clear complexion, and, over all, the strangely
+mingled signs of innocence, of gravity, of youth, and of composure;
+they heard a high unwavering voice reading aloud with perfect clarity;
+and then, the ceremony over, they saw the small figure rise and, with
+the same consummate grace, the same amazing dignity, pass out from
+among them, as she had come in, alone.[<A NAME="chap02fn56text"></A><A HREF="#chap02fn56">56</A>]
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap02fn1"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn1text">1</A>] Murray, 62-3; Lee, 11-12.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap02fn2"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn2text">2</A>] Owen, Journal, No. 1, February, 1853, 28-9.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap02fn3"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn3text">3</A>] <I>Ibid.</I>, 31.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap02fn4"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn4text">4</A>] Croker, I, 155.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap02fn5"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn5text">5</A>] Stockmar, 113.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap02fn6"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn6text">6</A>] Stockmar, 114-5.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap02fn7"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn7text">7</A>] <I>Letters</I>, I, 15, 257-8; Grey, App. A.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap02fn8"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn8text">8</A>] Granville, I, 168-9.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap02fn9"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn9text">9</A>] <I>Wilberforce, William</I>, V, 71-2.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap02fn10"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn10text">10</A>] <I>Letters</I>, I, 17.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap02fn11"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn11text">11</A>] Creevey, I, 297-8.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap02fn12"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn12text">12</A>] Jerrold, <I>Early Court</I>, 15-17.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap02fn13"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn13text">13</A>] <I>Letters</I>, I, 10.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap02fn14"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn14text">14</A>] <I>Ibid.</I>, I, 14; <I>Girlhood</I>, I, 280.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap02fn15"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn15text">15</A>] Crawford, 6.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap02fn16"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn16text">16</A>] Smith, 21-2.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap02fn17"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn17text">17</A>] <I>Cornhill Magazine</I>, LXXV, 730.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap02fn18"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn18text">18</A>] Hunt, II, 257-8.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap02fn19"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn19text">19</A>] <I>Letters</I>, I, 10, 18.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap02fn20"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn20text">20</A>] <I>Letters</I>, I, 11-12; Lee, 26.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap02fn21"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn21text">21</A>] <I>Letters</I>, I, 14-17.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap02fn22"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn22text">22</A>] <I>Ibid.</I>, I, 16.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap02fn23"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn23text">23</A>] Martin, I, 13.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap02fn24"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn24text">24</A>] <I>Letters</I>, I, 11.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap02fn25"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn25text">25</A>] <I>Girlhood</I>, I, 42.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap02fn26"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn26text">26</A>] Crawford, 87.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap02fn27"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn27text">27</A>] Martineau, II, 118-9.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap02fn28"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn28text">28</A>] <I>Girlhood</I>, I, 66-7.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap02fn29"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn29text">29</A>] <I>Ibid.</I>, I, 129.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap02fn30"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn30text">30</A>] <I>Girlhood</I>, I, 124-5.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap02fn31"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn31text">31</A>] <I>Girlhood</I>, I, 78, 82.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap02fn32"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn32text">32</A>] <I>Ibid.</I>, I, 150-3.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap02fn33"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn33text">33</A>] <I>Girlhood</I>, I, 157-61.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap02fn34"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn34text">34</A>] Greville, II, 195-6
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap02fn35"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn35text">35</A>] Greville, III, 321, 324.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap02fn36"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn36text">36</A>] <I>Letters</I>, I, 47-8.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap02fn37"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn37text">37</A>] <I>Girlhood</I>, I, 168.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap02fn38"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn38text">38</A>] Greville, III, 377.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap02fn39"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn39text">39</A>] Greville, III, 374-6.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap02fn40"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn40text">40</A>] <I>Ibid.</I>, IV, 21; and August 15, 1839 (unpublished).  'The cause of
+the Queen's alienation from the Duchess and hatred of Conroy, the Duke
+[of Wellington] said, was unquestionably owing to her having witnessed
+some familiarities between them.  What she had seen she repeated to
+Baroness Spaeth, and Spaeth not only did not hold her tongue, but (he
+thinks) remonstrated with the Duchess herself on the subject.  The
+consequence was that they got rid of Spaeth, and they would have got
+rid of Lehzen, too, if they had been able, but Lehzen, who knew very
+well what was going on, was prudent enough not to commit herself, and
+she was, besides, powerfully protected by George IV and William IV, so
+that they did not dare to attempt to expel her.'
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap02fn41"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn41text">41</A>] Greville, IV, 21; Crawford, 128-9.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap02fn42"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn42text">42</A>] <I>Girlhood</I>, I, 192-3.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap02fn43"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn43text">43</A>] <I>Ibid.</I>, I, 191.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap02fn44"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn44text">44</A>] <I>Ibid.</I>, I, 194.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap02fn45"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn45text">45</A>] Greville, III, 407-8.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap02fn46"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn46text">46</A>] Creevey, II, 262.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap02fn47"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn47text">47</A>] <I>Letters</I>, I, 53.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap02fn48"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn48text">48</A>] <I>Letters</I>, I, 61.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap02fn49"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn49text">49</A>] <I>Girlhood</I>, I, 175.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap02fn50"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn50text">50</A>] <I>Letters</I>, I, 70-1.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap02fn51"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn51text">51</A>] Torrens, 419.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap02fn52"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn52text">52</A>] Huish, 686.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap02fn53"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn53text">53</A>] Wynn, 281.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap02fn54"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn54text">54</A>] <I>Girlhood</I>, I, 195-6.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap02fn55"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn55text">55</A>] <I>Ibid.</I>, I, 196-7.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap02fn56"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap02fn56text">56</A>] Greville, III, 414-6.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<A NAME="img-051"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-051.jpg" ALT="LORD MELBOURNE.  From the Portrait by Sir Edwin Landseer, R.A." BORDER="2">
+<H4 CLASS="h4center">
+LORD MELBOURNE.  <BR>
+<I>From the Portrait by Sir Edwin Landseer, R.A.</I>
+</H4>
+</CENTER>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap03"></A>
+
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P51"></A>51}</SPAN>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER III
+</H3>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+LORD MELBOURNE
+</H4>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+I
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+The new queen was almost entirely unknown to her subjects.  In her
+public appearances her mother had invariably dominated the scene.  Her
+private life had been that of a novice in a convent: hardly a human
+being from the outside world had ever spoken to her; and no human being
+at all, except her mother and the Baroness Lehzen, had ever been alone
+with her in a room.  Thus it was not only the public at large that was
+in ignorance of everything concerning her; the inner circles of
+statesmen and officials and high-born ladies were equally in the
+dark.[<A NAME="chap03fn1text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn1">1</A>]  When she suddenly emerged from this deep obscurity, the
+impression that she created was immediate and profound.  Her bearing at
+her first Council filled the whole gathering with astonishment and
+admiration; the Duke of Wellington, Sir Robert Peel, even the savage
+Croker, even the cold and caustic Greville&mdash;all were completely carried
+away.  Everything that was reported of her subsequent proceedings
+seemed to be of no less happy augury.  Her perceptions were quick, her
+decisions were sensible, her language was discreet; she performed her
+royal duties with extraordinary facility.[<A NAME="chap03fn2text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn2">2</A>]  Among the outside public
+there was a great wave of enthusiasm.
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P52"></A>52}</SPAN>
+Sentiment and romance were
+coming into fashion; and the spectacle of the little girl-queen,
+innocent, modest, with fair hair and pink cheeks, driving through her
+capital, filled the hearts of the beholders with raptures of
+affectionate loyalty.  What, above all, struck everybody with
+overwhelming force was the contrast between Queen Victoria and her
+uncles.  The nasty old men, debauched and selfish, pig-headed and
+ridiculous, with their perpetual burden of debts, confusions, and
+disreputabilities&mdash;they had vanished like the snows of winter, and here
+at last, crowned and radiant, was the spring.  Lord John Russell, in an
+elaborate oration, gave voice to the general sentiment.  He hoped that
+Victoria might prove an Elizabeth without her tyranny, an Anne without
+her weakness.  He asked England to pray that the illustrious Princess
+who had just ascended the throne with the purest intentions and the
+justest desires might see slavery abolished, crime diminished, and
+education improved.  He trusted that her people would henceforward
+derive their strength, their conduct, and their loyalty from
+enlightened religious and moral principles, and that, so fortified, the
+reign of Victoria might prove celebrated to posterity and to all the
+nations of the earth.[<A NAME="chap03fn3text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn3">3</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Very soon, however, there were signs that the future might turn out to
+be not quite so simple and roseate as a delighted public dreamed.  The
+'illustrious Princess' might perhaps, after all, have something within
+her which squared ill with the easy vision of a well-conducted heroine
+in an edifying story-book.  The purest intentions and the justest
+desires?  No doubt; but was that all?  To those who watched closely,
+for instance, there might be something ominous in the
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P53"></A>53}</SPAN>
+curious
+contour of that little mouth.  When, after her first Council, she
+crossed the ante-room and found her mother waiting for her, she said,
+'And now, Mamma, am I really and truly Queen?'  'You see, my dear, that
+it is so.'  'Then, dear Mamma, I hope you will grant me the first
+request I make to you, as Queen.  Let me be by myself for an hour.'[<A NAME="chap03fn4text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn4">4</A>]
+For an hour she remained in solitude.  Then she reappeared, and gave a
+significant order: her bed was to be moved out of her mother's room.
+It was the doom of the Duchess of Kent.  The long years of waiting were
+over at last; the moment of a lifetime had come; her daughter was Queen
+of England; and that very moment brought her own annihilation.  She
+found herself, absolutely and irretrievably, shut off from every
+vestige of influence, of confidence, of power.  She was surrounded,
+indeed, by all the outward signs of respect and consideration; but that
+made the inward truth of her position only the more intolerable.
+Through the mingled formalities of Court etiquette and filial duty, she
+could never penetrate to Victoria.  She was unable to conceal her
+disappointment and her rage.  'Il n'y a plus d'avenir pour moi,' she
+exclaimed to Madame de Lieven; 'je ne suis plus rien.'  For eighteen
+years, she said, this child had been the sole object of her existence,
+of her thoughts, her hopes, and now&mdash;no! she would not be comforted,
+she had lost everything, she was to the last degree unhappy.[<A NAME="chap03fn5text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn5">5</A>]
+Sailing, so gallantly and so pertinaciously, through the buffeting
+storms of life, the stately vessel, with sails still swelling and
+pennons flying, had put into harbour at last; to find there nothing&mdash;a
+land of bleak desolation.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Within a month of the accession, the realities of
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P54"></A>54}</SPAN>
+the new
+situation assumed a visible shape.  The whole royal household moved
+from Kensington to Buckingham Palace, and, in the new abode, the
+Duchess of Kent was given a suite of apartments entirely separate from
+the Queen's.  By Victoria herself the change was welcomed, though, at
+the moment of departure, she could afford to be sentimental.  'Though I
+rejoice to go into B.P. for many reasons,' she wrote in her diary, 'it
+is not without feelings of regret that I shall bid adieu <I>for ever</I> to
+this my birthplace, where I have been born and bred, and to which I am
+really attached!'  Her memory lingered for a moment over visions of the
+past: her sister's wedding, pleasant balls and <I>delicious</I> concerts ...
+and there were other recollections.  'I have gone through painful and
+disagreeable scenes here, 'tis true,' she concluded, 'but still I am
+fond of the poor old palace.'[<A NAME="chap03fn6text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn6">6</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At the same time she took another decided step.  She had determined
+that she would see no more of Sir John Conroy.  She rewarded his past
+services with liberality: he was given a baronetcy and a pension of
+�3000 a year; he remained a member of the Duchess's household, but his
+personal intercourse with the Queen came to an abrupt conclusion.[<A NAME="chap03fn7text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn7">7</A>]
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+II
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+It was clear that these interior changes&mdash;whatever else they might
+betoken&mdash;marked the triumph of one person&mdash;the Baroness Lehzen.  The
+pastor's daughter observed the ruin of her enemies.  Discreet and
+victorious, she remained in possession of the field.  More closely than
+ever did she cleave to the side of her
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P55"></A>55}</SPAN>
+mistress, her pupil, and
+her friend; and in the recesses of the palace her mysterious figure was
+at once invisible and omnipresent.  When the Queen's Ministers came in
+at one door, the Baroness went out by another; when they retired, she
+immediately returned.[<A NAME="chap03fn8text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn8">8</A>]  Nobody knew&mdash;nobody ever will know&mdash;the
+precise extent and the precise nature of her influence.  She herself
+declared that she never discussed public affairs with the Queen, that
+she was concerned with private matters only&mdash;with private letters and
+the details of private life.[<A NAME="chap03fn9text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn9">9</A>]  Certainly her hand is everywhere
+discernible in Victoria's early correspondence.  The Journal is written
+in the style of a child; the Letters are not so simple; they are the
+work of a child, rearranged&mdash;with the minimum of alteration, no doubt,
+and yet perceptibly&mdash;by a governess.  And the governess was no fool:
+narrow, jealous, provincial, she might be; but she was an acute and
+vigorous woman, who had gained, by a peculiar insight, a peculiar
+ascendancy.  That ascendancy she meant to keep.  No doubt it was true
+that technically she took no part in public business; but the
+distinction between what is public and what is private is always a
+subtle one; and in the case of a reigning sovereign&mdash;as the next few
+years were to show&mdash;it is often imaginary.  Considering all things&mdash;the
+characters of the persons, and the character of the times&mdash;it was
+something more than a mere matter of private interest that the bedroom
+of Baroness Lehzen at Buckingham Palace should have been next door to
+the bedroom of the Queen.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But the influence wielded by the Baroness, supreme as it seemed within
+its own sphere, was not unlimited;
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P56"></A>56}</SPAN>
+there were other forces at
+work.  For one thing, the faithful Stockmar had taken up his residence
+in the palace.  During the twenty years which had elapsed since the
+death of the Princess Charlotte, his experiences had been varied and
+remarkable.  The unknown counsellor of a disappointed princeling had
+gradually risen to a position of European importance.  His devotion to
+his master had been not only whole-hearted but cautious and wise.  It
+was Stockmar's advice that had kept Prince Leopold in England during
+the critical years which followed his wife's death, and had thus
+secured to him the essential requisite of a <I>point d'appui</I> in the
+country of his adoption.[<A NAME="chap03fn10text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn10">10</A>]  It was Stockmar's discretion which had
+smoothed over the embarrassments surrounding the Prince's acceptance
+and rejection of the Greek crown.  It was Stockmar who had induced the
+Prince to become the constitutional Sovereign of Belgium.[<A NAME="chap03fn11text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn11">11</A>]  Above
+all, it was Stockmar's tact, honesty, and diplomatic skill which,
+through a long series of arduous and complicated negotiations, had led
+to the guarantee of Belgian neutrality by the Great Powers.[<A NAME="chap03fn12text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn12">12</A>]  His
+labours had been rewarded by a German barony and by the complete
+confidence of King Leopold.  Nor was it only in Brussels that he was
+treated with respect and listened to with attention.  The statesmen who
+governed England&mdash;Lord Grey, Sir Robert Peel, Lord Palmerston, Lord
+Melbourne&mdash;had learnt to put a high value upon his probity and his
+intelligence.  'He is one of the cleverest fellows I ever saw,' said
+Lord Melbourne&mdash;'the most discreet man, the most well-judging, and most
+cool man.'[<A NAME="chap03fn13text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn13">13</A>]  And Lord Palmerston cited Baron Stockmar as the only
+absolutely disinterested
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P57"></A>57}</SPAN>
+man he had come across in life.[<A NAME="chap03fn14text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn14">14</A>]  At
+last he was able to retire to Coburg, and to enjoy for a few years the
+society of the wife and children whom his labours in the service of his
+master had hitherto only allowed him to visit at long intervals for a
+month or two at a time.  But in 1836 he had been again entrusted with
+an important negotiation, which he had brought to a successful
+conclusion in the marriage of Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg, a nephew
+of King Leopold's, with Queen Maria II of Portugal.[<A NAME="chap03fn15text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn15">15</A>]  The House of
+Coburg was beginning to spread over Europe; and the establishment of
+the Baron at Buckingham Palace in 1837 was to be the prelude of another
+and a more momentous advance.[<A NAME="chap03fn16text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn16">16</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+King Leopold and his counsellor provide in their careers an example of
+the curious diversity of human ambitions.  The desires of man are
+wonderfully various; but no less various are the means by which those
+desires may reach satisfaction: and so the work of the world gets done.
+The correct mind of Leopold craved for the whole apparatus of royalty.
+Mere power would have held no attractions for him; he must be an actual
+king&mdash;the crowned head of a people.  It was not enough to do; it was
+essential also to be recognised; anything else would not be fitting.
+The greatness that he dreamt of was surrounded by every appropriate
+circumstance.  To be a Majesty, to be a cousin of Sovereigns, to marry
+a Bourbon for diplomatic ends, to correspond with the Queen of England,
+to be very stiff and very punctual, to found a dynasty, to bore
+ambassadresses into fits, to live, on the highest pinnacle, an
+exemplary life devoted to the public service&mdash;such
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P58"></A>58}</SPAN>
+were his
+objects, and such, in fact, were his achievements.  The 'Marquis
+Peu-�-peu,' as George IV called him,[<A NAME="chap03fn17text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn17">17</A>] had what he wanted.  But this
+would never have been the case if it had not happened that the ambition
+of Stockmar took a form exactly complementary to his own.  The
+sovereignty that the Baron sought for was by no means obvious.  The
+satisfaction of his essential being lay in obscurity, in
+invisibility&mdash;in passing, unobserved, through a hidden entrance, into
+the very central chamber of power, and in sitting there, quietly,
+pulling the subtle strings that set the wheels of the whole world in
+motion.  A very few people, in very high places, and exceptionally
+well-informed, knew that Baron Stockmar was a most important person:
+that was enough.  The fortunes of the master and the servant,
+intimately interacting, rose together.  The Baron's secret skill had
+given Leopold his unexceptionable kingdom; and Leopold, in his turn, as
+time went on, was able to furnish the Baron with more and more keys to
+more and more back doors.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Stockmar took up his abode in the Palace partly as the emissary of King
+Leopold, but more particularly as the friend and adviser of a queen who
+was almost a child, and who, no doubt, would be much in need of advice
+and friendship.  For it would be a mistake to suppose that either of
+these two men was actuated by a vulgar selfishness.  The King, indeed,
+was very well aware on which side his bread was buttered; during an
+adventurous and chequered life he had acquired a shrewd knowledge of
+the world's workings; and he was ready enough to use that knowledge to
+strengthen his position and to spread his influence.  But then, the
+firmer his position and the wider his influence, the
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P59"></A>59}</SPAN>
+better for
+Europe; of that he was quite certain.  And besides, he was a
+constitutional monarch; and it would be highly indecorous in a
+constitutional monarch to have any aims that were low or personal.  As
+for Stockmar, the disinterestedness which Palmerston had noted was
+undoubtedly a basic element in his character.  The ordinary schemer is
+always an optimist; and Stockmar, racked by dyspepsia and haunted by
+gloomy forebodings, was a constitutionally melancholy man.  A schemer,
+no doubt, he was; but he schemed distrustfully, splenetically, to do
+good.  To do good!  What nobler end could a man scheme for?  Yet it is
+perilous to scheme at all.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+With Lehzen to supervise every detail of her conduct, with Stockmar in
+the next room, so full of wisdom and experience of affairs, with her
+Uncle Leopold's letters, too, pouring out so constantly their stream of
+encouragements, general reflections, and highly valuable tips,
+Victoria, even had she been without other guidance, would have stood in
+no lack of private counsellors.  But other guidance she had; for all
+these influences paled before a new star, of the first magnitude,
+which, rising suddenly upon her horizon, immediately dominated her life.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+III
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+William Lamb, Viscount Melbourne, was fifty-eight years of age, and had
+been for the last three years Prime Minister of England.  In every
+outward respect he was one of the most fortunate of mankind.  He had
+been born into the midst of riches, brilliance, and power.  His mother,
+fascinating and intelligent, had been a great Whig hostess, and he had
+been bred up as a
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P60"></A>60}</SPAN>
+member of that radiant society which, during the
+last quarter of the eighteenth century, concentrated within itself the
+ultimate perfections of a hundred years of triumphant aristocracy.
+Nature had given him beauty and brains; the unexpected death of an
+elder brother brought him wealth, a peerage, and the possibility of
+high advancement.  Within that charmed circle, whatever one's personal
+disabilities, it was difficult to fail; and to him, with all his
+advantages, success was well-nigh unavoidable.  With little effort, he
+attained political eminence.  On the triumph of the Whigs he became one
+of the leading members of the Government; and when Lord Grey retired
+from the premiership he quietly stepped into the vacant place.  Nor was
+it only in the visible signs of fortune that Fate had been kind to him.
+Bound to succeed, and to succeed easily, he was gifted with so fine a
+nature that his success became him.  His mind, at once supple and
+copious, his temperament, at once calm and sensitive, enabled him not
+merely to work but to live with perfect facility and with the grace of
+strength.  In society he was a notable talker, a captivating companion,
+a charming man.  If one looked deeper, one saw at once that he was not
+ordinary, that the piquancies of his conversation and his manner&mdash;his
+free-and-easy vaguenesses, his abrupt questions, his lollings and
+loungings, his innumerable oaths&mdash;were something more than an amusing
+ornament, were the outward manifestation of an individuality peculiar
+to the core.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The precise nature of this individuality was very difficult to gauge:
+it was dubious, complex, perhaps self-contradictory.  Certainly there
+was an ironical discordance between the inner history of the man and
+his apparent fortunes.  He owed all he had to his birth,
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P61"></A>61}</SPAN>
+and his
+birth was shameful; it was known well enough that his mother had
+passionately loved Lord Egremont, and that Lord Melbourne was not his
+father.[<A NAME="chap03fn18text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn18">18</A>]  His marriage, which had seemed to be the crown of his
+youthful ardours, was a long, miserable, desperate failure: the
+incredible Lady Caroline,
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;... 'with pleasures too refined to please,<BR>
+With too much spirit to be e'er at ease,<BR>
+With too much quickness to be ever taught,<BR>
+With too much thinking to have common thought,'<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+was very nearly the destruction of his life.  When at last he emerged
+from the anguish and confusion of her folly, her extravagance, her
+rage, her despair, and her devotion, he was left alone with endless
+memories of intermingled farce and tragedy, and an only son who was an
+imbecile.  But there was something else that he owed to Lady Caroline.
+While she whirled with Byron in a hectic frenzy of love and fashion, he
+had stayed at home in an indulgence bordering on cynicism, and occupied
+his solitude with reading.  It was thus that he had acquired those
+habits of study, that love of learning, and that wide and accurate
+knowledge of ancient and modern literature, which formed so unexpected
+a part of his mental equipment.  His passion for reading never deserted
+him; even when he was Prime Minister he found time to master every new
+important book.[<A NAME="chap03fn19text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn19">19</A>]  With an incongruousness that was characteristic,
+his favourite study was theology.  An accomplished classical scholar,
+he was deeply read in the Fathers of the Church; heavy volumes of
+commentary and exegesis he examined with scrupulous diligence; and at
+any odd moment he might be found turning over
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P62"></A>62}</SPAN>
+the pages of the
+Bible.[<A NAME="chap03fn20text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn20">20</A>]  To the ladies whom he most liked he would lend some learned
+work on the Revelation, crammed with marginal notes in his own hand, or
+Dr. Lardner's 'Observations upon the Jewish Errors with respect to the
+Conversion of Mary Magdalene.'  The more pious among them had high
+hopes that these studies would lead him into the right way; but of this
+there were no symptoms in his after-dinner conversation.[<A NAME="chap03fn21text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn21">21</A>]  The
+paradox of his political career was no less curious.  By temperament an
+aristocrat, by conviction a conservative, he came to power as the
+leader of the popular party, the party of change.  He had profoundly
+disliked the Reform Bill, which he had only accepted at last as a
+necessary evil; and the Reform Bill lay at the root of the very
+existence, of the very meaning, of his government.  He was far too
+sceptical to believe in progress of any kind.  Things were best as they
+were&mdash;or rather, they were least bad.  'You'd better try to do no
+good,' was one of his dictums, 'and then you'll get into no scrapes.'
+Education at best was futile; education of the poor was positively
+dangerous.  The factory children?  'Oh, if you'd only have the goodness
+to leave them alone!'  Free Trade was a delusion; the ballot was
+nonsense; and there was no such thing as a democracy.  Nevertheless, he
+was not a reactionary; he was simply an opportunist.  The whole duty of
+government, he said, was 'to prevent crime and to preserve contracts.'
+All one could really hope to do was to carry on.  He himself carried on
+in a remarkable manner&mdash;with perpetual compromises, with fluctuations
+and
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P63"></A>63}</SPAN>
+contradictions, with every kind of weakness, and yet with
+shrewdness, with gentleness, even with conscientiousness, and a light
+and airy mastery of men and of events.  He conducted the transactions
+of business with extraordinary nonchalance.  Important persons, ushered
+up for some grave interview, found him in a towselled bed, littered
+with books and papers, or vaguely shaving in a dressing-room; but, when
+they went downstairs again, they would realise that somehow or other
+they had been pumped.  When he had to receive a deputation, he could
+hardly ever do so with becoming gravity.  The worthy delegates of the
+tallow-chandlers, or the Society for the Abolition of Capital
+Punishment, were distressed and mortified when, in the midst of their
+speeches, the Prime Minister became absorbed in blowing a feather, or
+suddenly cracked an unseemly joke.  How could they have guessed that he
+had spent the night before diligently getting up the details of their
+case?  He hated patronage and the making of appointments&mdash;a feeling
+rare in Ministers.  'As for the Bishops,' he burst out, 'I positively
+believe they die to vex me.'  But when at last the appointment was
+made, it was made with keen discrimination.  His colleagues observed
+another symptom&mdash;was it of his irresponsibility or his wisdom?  He went
+to sleep in the Cabinet.[<A NAME="chap03fn22text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn22">22</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Probably, if he had been born a little earlier, he would have been a
+simpler and a happier man.  As it was, he was a child of the eighteenth
+century whose lot was cast in a new, difficult, unsympathetic age.  He
+was an autumn rose.  With all his gracious amenity, his humour, his
+happy-go-lucky ways, a deep disquietude possessed him.  A sentimental
+cynic, a sceptical believer,
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P64"></A>64}</SPAN>
+he was restless and melancholy at
+heart.  Above all, he could never harden himself; those sensitive
+petals shivered in every wind.  Whatever else he might be, one thing
+was certain: Lord Melbourne was always human, supremely human&mdash;too
+human, perhaps.[<A NAME="chap03fn23text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn23">23</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And now, with old age upon him, his life took a sudden, new,
+extraordinary turn.  He became, in the twinkling of an eye, the
+intimate adviser and the daily companion of a young girl who had
+stepped all at once from a nursery to a throne.  His relations with
+women had been, like everything else about him, ambiguous.  Nobody had
+ever been able quite to gauge the shifting, emotional complexities of
+his married life; Lady Caroline vanished; but his peculiar
+susceptibilities remained.  Female society of some kind or other was
+necessary to him, and he did not stint himself; a great part of every
+day was invariably spent in it.  The feminine element in him made it
+easy, made it natural and inevitable for him to be the friend of a
+great many women; but the masculine element in him was strong as well.
+In such circumstances it is also easy, it is even natural, perhaps it
+is even inevitable, to be something more than a friend.  There were
+rumours and combustions.  Lord Melbourne was twice a co-respondent in a
+divorce action; but on each occasion he won his suit.  The lovely Lady
+Brandon, the unhappy and brilliant Mrs. Norton ... the law exonerated
+them both.  Beyond that hung an impenetrable veil.  But at any rate it
+was clear that, with such a record, the Prime Minister's position in
+Buckingham Palace must be a highly delicate one.  However, he was used
+to delicacies, and he met the situation with consummate success.  His
+behaviour was from the first moment
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P65"></A>65}</SPAN>
+impeccable.  His manner
+towards the young Queen mingled, with perfect facility, the
+watchfulness and the respect of a statesman and a courtier with the
+tender solicitude of a parent.  He was at once reverential and
+affectionate, at once the servant and the guide.  At the same time the
+habits of his life underwent a surprising change.  His comfortable,
+unpunctual days became subject to the unaltering routine of a palace;
+no longer did he sprawl on sofas; not a single 'damn' escaped his lips.
+The man of the world who had been the friend of Byron and the Regent,
+the talker whose paradoxes had held Holland House enthralled, the cynic
+whose ribaldries had enlivened so many deep potations, the lover whose
+soft words had captivated such beauty and such passion and such wit,
+might now be seen, evening after evening, talking with infinite
+politeness to a schoolgirl, bolt upright, amid the silence and the
+rigidity of Court etiquette.[<A NAME="chap03fn24text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn24">24</A>]
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+IV
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+On her side, Victoria was instantaneously fascinated by Lord Melbourne.
+The good report of Stockmar had no doubt prepared the way; Lehzen was
+wisely propitiated; and the first highly favourable impression was
+never afterwards belied.  She found him perfect; and perfect in her
+sight he remained.  Her absolute and unconcealed adoration was very
+natural; what innocent young creature could have resisted, in any
+circumstances, the charm and the devotion of such a man?  But, in her
+situation, there was a special influence which gave a peculiar glow to
+all she felt.  After years of emptiness and dullness and suppression,
+she had come suddenly, in
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P66"></A>66}</SPAN>
+the heyday of youth, into freedom and
+power.  She was mistress of herself, of great domains and palaces; she
+was Queen of England.  Responsibilities and difficulties she might
+have, no doubt, and in heavy measure; but one feeling dominated and
+absorbed all others&mdash;the feeling of joy.  Everything pleased her.  She
+was in high spirits from morning till night.  Mr. Creevey, grown old
+now, and very near his end, catching a glimpse of her at Brighton, was
+much amused, in his sharp fashion, by the ingenuous gaiety of 'little
+Vic.'&mdash;'A more homely little being you never beheld, <I>when she is at
+her ease</I>, and she is evidently dying to be always more so.  She laughs
+in real earnest, opening her mouth as wide as it can go, showing not
+very pretty gums....  She eats quite as heartily as she laughs, I think
+I may say she gobbles....  She blushes and laughs every instant in so
+natural a way as to disarm anybody.'[<A NAME="chap03fn25text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn25">25</A>]  But it was not merely when
+she was laughing or gobbling that she enjoyed herself; the performance
+of her official duties gave her intense satisfaction.  'I really have
+immensely to do,' she wrote in her journal a few days after her
+accession; 'I receive so many communications from my Ministers, but I
+like it very much.'[<A NAME="chap03fn26text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn26">26</A>]  And again, a week later, 'I repeat what I said
+before that I have so many communications from the Ministers, and from
+me to them, and I get so many papers to sign every day, that I have
+always a <I>very great deal</I> to do.  I <I>delight</I> in this work.'[<A NAME="chap03fn27text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn27">27</A>]
+Through the girl's immaturity the vigorous predestined tastes of the
+woman were pushing themselves into existence with eager velocity, with
+delicious force.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+One detail of her happy situation deserves particular mention.  Apart
+from the splendour of her
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P67"></A>67}</SPAN>
+social position and the momentousness of
+her political one, she was a person of great wealth.  As soon as
+Parliament met, an annuity of �385,000 was settled upon her.  When the
+expenses of her household had been discharged, she was left with
+�68,000 a year of her own.  She enjoyed besides the revenues of the
+Duchy of Lancaster, which amounted annually to over �27,000.  The first
+use to which she put her money was characteristic: she paid off her
+father's debts.  In money matters, no less than in other matters, she
+was determined to be correct.  She had the instincts of a man of
+business; and she never could have borne to be in a position that was
+financially unsound.[<A NAME="chap03fn28text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn28">28</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+With youth and happiness gilding every hour, the days passed merrily
+enough.  And each day hinged upon Lord Melbourne.  Her diary shows us,
+with undiminished clarity, the life of the young sovereign during the
+early months of her reign&mdash;a life satisfactorily regular, full of
+delightful business, a life of simple pleasures, mostly
+physical&mdash;riding, eating, dancing&mdash;a quick, easy, highly
+unsophisticated life, sufficient unto itself.  The light of the morning
+is upon it; and, in the rosy radiance, the figure of 'Lord M.' emerges,
+glorified and supreme.  If she is the heroine of the story, he is the
+hero; but indeed they are more than hero and heroine, for there are no
+other characters at all.  Lehzen, the Baron, Uncle Leopold, are
+unsubstantial shadows&mdash;the incidental supers of the piece.  Her
+paradise was peopled by two persons, and surely that was enough.  One
+sees them together still, a curious couple, strangely united in those
+artless pages, under the magical illumination of that dawn of eighty
+years ago: the polished high fine gentleman with the whitening
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P68"></A>68}</SPAN>
+hair and whiskers and the thick dark eyebrows and the mobile lips and
+the big expressive eyes; and beside him the tiny Queen&mdash;fair, slim,
+elegant, active, in her plain girl's dress and little tippet, looking
+up at him earnestly, adoringly, with eyes blue and projecting, and
+half-open mouth.  So they appear upon every page of the Journal; upon
+every page Lord M. is present, Lord M. is speaking, Lord M. is being
+amusing, instructive, delightful, and affectionate at once, while
+Victoria drinks in the honeyed words, laughs till she shows her gums,
+tries hard to remember, and runs off, as soon as she is left alone, to
+put it all down.  Their long conversations touched upon a multitude of
+topics.  Lord M. would criticise books, throw out a remark or two on
+the British Constitution, make some passing reflections on human life,
+and tell story after story of the great people of the eighteenth
+century.  Then there would be business&mdash;a despatch perhaps from Lord
+Durham in Canada, which Lord M. would read.  But first he must explain
+a little.  'He said that I must know that Canada originally belonged to
+the French, and was only ceded to the English in 1760, when it was
+taken in an expedition under Wolfe; "a very daring enterprise," he
+said.  Canada was then entirely French, and the British only came
+afterwards....  Lord M. explained this very clearly (and much better
+than I have done) and said a good deal more about it.  He then read me
+Durham's despatch, which is a very long one and took him more than � an
+hour to read.  Lord M. read it beautifully with that fine soft voice of
+his, and with so much expression, so that it is needless to say I was
+much interested by it.'[<A NAME="chap03fn29text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn29">29</A>]  And then the talk would take a more
+personal turn.  Lord
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P69"></A>69}</SPAN>
+M. would describe his boyhood, and she would
+learn that 'he wore his hair long, as all boys then did, till he was
+17; (<I>how</I> handsome he must have looked!).'[<A NAME="chap03fn30text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn30">30</A>]  Or she would find out
+about his queer tastes and habits&mdash;how he never carried a watch, which
+seemed quite extraordinary.  '"I always ask the servant what o'clock it
+is, and then he tells me what he likes," said Lord M.'[<A NAME="chap03fn31text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn31">31</A>]  Or, as the
+rooks wheeled about round the trees, 'in a manner which indicated
+rain,' he would say that he could sit looking at them for an hour, and
+'was quite surprised at my disliking them....  Lord M. said, "The rooks
+are my delight."'[<A NAME="chap03fn32text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn32">32</A>]
+</P>
+
+<A NAME="img-069"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-069.jpg" ALT="QUEEN VICTORIA IN 1838.  From the painting by E. Corbould." BORDER="2">
+<H4 CLASS="h4center">
+QUEEN VICTORIA IN 1838.  <BR>
+<I>From the painting by E. Corbould</I>.
+</H4>
+</CENTER>
+
+<P>
+The day's routine, whether in London or at Windsor, was almost
+invariable.  The morning was devoted to business and Lord M.  In the
+afternoon the whole Court went out riding.  The Queen, in her velvet
+riding-habit and a top-hat with a veil draped about the brim, headed
+the cavalcade; and Lord M. rode beside her.  The lively troupe went
+fast and far, to the extreme exhilaration of Her Majesty.  Back in the
+Palace again, there was still time for a little more fun before
+dinner&mdash;a game of battledore and shuttlecock perhaps, or a romp along
+the galleries with some children.[<A NAME="chap03fn33text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn33">33</A>]  Dinner came, and the ceremonial
+decidedly tightened.  The gentleman of highest rank sat on the right
+hand of the Queen; on her left&mdash;it soon became an established rule&mdash;sat
+Lord Melbourne.  After the ladies had left the dining-room, the
+gentlemen were not permitted to remain behind for very long; indeed,
+the short time allowed them for their wine-drinking formed the
+subject&mdash;so it was rumoured&mdash;of one of the very few disputes between
+the Queen and her Prime
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P70"></A>70}</SPAN>
+Minister[<A NAME="chap03fn34text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn34">34</A>]; but her determination
+carried the day, and from that moment after-dinner drunkenness began to
+go out of fashion.  When the company was reassembled in the
+drawing-room the etiquette was stiff.  For a few minutes the Queen
+spoke in turn to each one of her guests; and during these short uneasy
+colloquies the aridity of royalty was apt to become painfully evident.
+One night Mr. Greville, the Clerk of the Privy Council, was present;
+his turn soon came; the middle-aged, hard-faced <I>viveur</I> was addressed
+by his young hostess.  'Have you been riding to-day, Mr. Greville?'
+asked the Queen.  'No, Madam, I have not,' replied Mr. Greville.  'It
+was a fine day,' continued the Queen.  'Yes, Madam, a very fine day,'
+said Mr. Greville.  'It was rather cold, though,' said the Queen.  'It
+was rather cold, Madam,' said Mr. Greville.  'Your sister, Lady Frances
+Egerton, rides, I think, doesn't she?' said the Queen.  'She does ride
+sometimes, Madam,' said Mr. Greville.  There was a pause, after which
+Mr. Greville ventured to take the lead, though he did not venture to
+change the subject.  'Has your Majesty been riding to-day?' asked Mr.
+Greville.  'Oh yes, a very long ride,' answered the Queen with
+animation.  'Has your Majesty got a nice horse?' said Mr. Greville.
+'Oh, a very nice horse,' said the Queen.  It was over.  Her Majesty
+gave a smile and an inclination of the head, Mr. Greville a profound
+bow, and the next conversation began with the next gentleman.[<A NAME="chap03fn35text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn35">35</A>]  When
+all the guests
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P71"></A>71}</SPAN>
+had been disposed of, the Duchess of Kent sat down
+to her whist, while everybody else was ranged about the round table.
+Lord Melbourne sat beside the Queen, and talked pertinaciously&mdash;very
+often <I>� propos</I> to the contents of one of the large albums of
+engravings with which the round table was covered&mdash;until it was
+half-past eleven and time to go to bed.[<A NAME="chap03fn36text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn36">36</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Occasionally, there were little diversions: the evening might be spent
+at the opera or at the play.  Next morning the royal critic was careful
+to note down her impressions.  'It was Shakespeare's tragedy of
+<I>Hamlet</I>, and we came in at the beginning of it.  Mr. Charles Kean (son
+of old Kean) acted the part of Hamlet, and I must say beautifully.  His
+conception of this very difficult, and I may almost say
+incomprehensible, character is admirable; his delivery of all the fine
+long speeches quite beautiful; he is excessively graceful and all his
+actions and attitudes are good, though not at all good-looking in
+face....  I came away just as <I>Hamlet</I> was over.'[<A NAME="chap03fn37text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn37">37</A>]  Later on, she
+went to see Macready in <I>King Lear</I>.  The story was new to her; she
+knew nothing about it, and at first she took very little interest in
+what was passing on the stage; she preferred to chatter and laugh with
+the Lord Chamberlain.  But, as the play went on, her mood changed; her
+attention was fixed, and then she laughed no more.  Yet she was
+puzzled; it seemed a strange, a horrible business.  What did Lord M.
+think?  Lord M. thought it was a very fine play, but to be sure, 'a
+rough, coarse play, written for those times, with exaggerated
+characters.' 'I'm glad you've seen it,' he added.[<A NAME="chap03fn38text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn38">38</A>]  But,
+undoubtedly, the evenings which she enjoyed most were those on
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P72"></A>72}</SPAN>
+which there was dancing.  She was always ready enough to seize any
+excuse&mdash;the arrival of cousins&mdash;a birthday&mdash;a gathering of young
+people&mdash;to give the command for that.  Then, when the band played, and
+the figures of the dancers swayed to the music, and she felt her own
+figure swaying too, with youthful spirits so close on every side&mdash;then
+her happiness reached its height, her eyes sparkled, she must go on and
+on into the small hours of the morning.  For a moment Lord M. himself
+was forgotten.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+V
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+The months flew past.  The summer was over: 'the pleasantest summer I
+EVER passed in <I>my life</I>, and I shall never forget this first summer of
+my reign.'[<A NAME="chap03fn39text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn39">39</A>]  With surprising rapidity, another summer was upon her.
+The coronation came and went&mdash;a curious dream.  The antique, intricate,
+endless ceremonial worked itself out as best it could, like some
+machine of gigantic complexity which was a little out of order.  The
+small central figure went through her gyrations.  She sat; she walked;
+she prayed; she carried about an orb that was almost too heavy to hold;
+the Archbishop of Canterbury came and crushed a ring upon the wrong
+finger, so that she was ready to cry out with the pain; old Lord Rolle
+tripped up in his mantle and fell down the steps as he was doing
+homage; she was taken into a side chapel, where the altar was covered
+with a tablecloth, sandwiches, and bottles of wine; she perceived
+Lehzen in an upper box and exchanged a smile with her as she sat, robed
+and crowned, on the Confessor's throne.  'I shall ever remember this
+day as the <I>proudest</I>
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P73"></A>73}</SPAN>
+of my life,' she noted.  But the pride was
+soon merged once more in youth and simplicity.  When she returned to
+Buckingham Palace at last she was not tired; she ran up to her private
+rooms, doffed her splendours, and gave her dog Dash its evening
+bath.[<A NAME="chap03fn40text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn40">40</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Life flowed on again with its accustomed smoothness&mdash;though, of course,
+the smoothness was occasionally disturbed.  For one thing, there was
+the distressing behaviour of Uncle Leopold.  The King of the Belgians
+had not been able to resist attempting to make use of his family
+position to further his diplomatic ends.  But, indeed, why should there
+be any question of resisting?  Was not such a course of conduct, far
+from being a temptation, simply <I>selon les r�gles</I>?  What were royal
+marriages for, if they did not enable sovereigns, in spite of the
+hindrances of constitutions, to control foreign politics?  For the
+highest purposes, of course; that was understood.  The Queen of England
+was his niece&mdash;more than that&mdash;almost his daughter; his confidential
+agent was living, in a position of intimate favour, at her court.
+Surely, in such circumstances, it would be preposterous, it would be
+positively incorrect, to lose the opportunity of bending to his wishes
+by means of personal influence, behind the backs of the English
+Ministers, the foreign policy of England.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He set about the task with becoming precautions.  He continued in his
+letters his admirable advice.  Within a few days of her accession, he
+recommended the young Queen to lay emphasis, on every possible
+occasion, upon her English birth; to praise the English nation; 'the
+Established Church I also recommend strongly; you cannot, without
+<I>pledging</I> yourself to anything <I>particular, say too much on the
+subject</I>.'  And then 'before you
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P74"></A>74}</SPAN>
+decide on anything important I
+should be glad if you would consult me; this would also have the
+advantage of giving you time'; nothing was more injurious than to be
+hurried into wrong decisions unawares.  His niece replied at once with
+all the accustomed warmth of her affection; but she wrote
+hurriedly&mdash;and, perhaps, a trifle vaguely too.  '<I>Your</I> advice is
+always of the <I>greatest importance</I> to me,' she said.[<A NAME="chap03fn41text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn41">41</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Had he, possibly, gone too far?  He could not be certain; perhaps
+Victoria <I>had</I> been hurried.  In any case, he would be careful; he
+would draw back&mdash;<I>pour mieux sauter</I>, he added to himself with a smile.
+In his next letters he made no reference to his suggestion of
+consultations with himself; he merely pointed out the wisdom, in
+general, of refusing to decide upon important questions off-hand.  So
+far, his advice was taken; and it was noticed that the Queen, when
+applications were made to her, rarely gave an immediate answer.  Even
+with Lord Melbourne, it was the same; when he asked for her opinion
+upon any subject, she would reply that she would think it over, and
+tell him her conclusions next day.[<A NAME="chap03fn42text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn42">42</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+King Leopold's counsels continued.  The Princess de Lieven, he said,
+was a dangerous woman; there was reason to think that she would make
+attempts to pry into what did not concern her; let Victoria beware.  'A
+rule which I cannot sufficiently recommend is <I>never to permit</I> people
+to speak on subjects concerning yourself or your affairs, without you
+having yourself desired them to do so.'  Should such a thing occur,
+'change the conversation, and make the individual feel that he has made
+a mistake.'  This piece of advice was also taken; for it fell out as
+the King had predicted.  Madame de
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P75"></A>75}</SPAN>
+Lieven sought an audience, and
+appeared to be verging towards confidential topics; whereupon the
+Queen, becoming slightly embarrassed, talked of nothing but
+commonplaces.  The individual felt that she had made a mistake.[<A NAME="chap03fn43text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn43">43</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The King's next warning was remarkable.  Letters, he pointed out, are
+almost invariably read in the post.  This was inconvenient, no doubt;
+but the fact, once properly grasped, was not without its advantages.
+'I will give you an example: we are still plagued by Prussia concerning
+those fortresses; now to tell the Prussian Government many things,
+which we <I>should not like</I> to tell them officially, the Minister is
+going to write a despatch to our man at Berlin, sending it <I>by post</I>;
+the Prussians <I>are sure</I> to read it, and to learn in this way what we
+wish them to hear.'  Analogous circumstances might very probably occur
+in England.  'I tell you the <I>trick</I>,' wrote His Majesty, 'that you
+should be able to guard against it.'  Such were the subtleties of
+constitutional sovereignty.[<A NAME="chap03fn44text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn44">44</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It seemed that the time had come for another step.  The King's next
+letter was full of foreign politics&mdash;the situation in Spain and
+Portugal, the character of Louis-Philippe; and he received a favourable
+answer.  Victoria, it is true, began by saying that she had shown the
+<I>political part</I> of his letter to Lord Melbourne; but she proceeded to
+a discussion of foreign affairs.  It appeared that she was not
+unwilling to exchange observations on such matters with her uncle.[<A NAME="chap03fn45text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn45">45</A>]
+So far, so good.  But King Leopold was still cautious; though a crisis
+was impending in his diplomacy, he still hung back; at last, however,
+he could keep silence no longer.  It
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P76"></A>76}</SPAN>
+was of the utmost importance
+to him that, in his manoeuvrings with France and Holland, he should
+have, or at any rate appear to have, English support.  But the English
+Government appeared to adopt a neutral attitude; it was too bad; not to
+be for him was to be against him&mdash;could they not see that?  Yet,
+perhaps, they were only wavering, and a little pressure upon them from
+Victoria might still save all.  He determined to put the case before
+her, delicately yet forcibly&mdash;just as he saw it himself.  'All I want
+from your kind Majesty,' he wrote, 'is, that you will <I>occasionally</I>
+express to your Ministers, and particularly to good Lord Melbourne,
+that, as far as it is <I>compatible</I> with the interests <I>of your own</I>
+dominions, you do <I>not</I> wish that your Government should take the lead
+in such measures as might in a short time bring on the <I>destruction</I> of
+this country, as well as that of your uncle and his family.'[<A NAME="chap03fn46text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn46">46</A>]  The
+result of this appeal was unexpected: there was dead silence for more
+than a week.  When Victoria at last wrote, she was prodigal of her
+affection&mdash;'it would, indeed, my dearest Uncle, be <I>very wrong</I> of you,
+if you thought my feelings of warm and devoted attachment to you, and
+of great affection for you, could be changed&mdash;<I>nothing</I> can ever change
+them'&mdash;but her references to foreign politics, though they were lengthy
+and elaborate, were non-committal in the extreme; they were almost cast
+in an official and diplomatic form.  Her Ministers, she said, entirely
+shared her views upon the subject; she understood and sympathised with
+the difficulties of her beloved uncle's position; and he might rest
+assured 'that both Lord Melbourne and Lord Palmerston are most anxious
+at all times for the prosperity and welfare of Belgium.'  That was all.
+The King in his reply
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P77"></A>77}</SPAN>
+declared himself delighted, and re-echoed
+the affectionate protestations of his niece.  'My dearest and most
+beloved Victoria,' he said, 'you have written me a <I>very dear</I> and long
+letter, which has given me <I>great pleasure and satisfaction</I>.'  He
+would not admit that he had had a rebuff.[<A NAME="chap03fn47text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn47">47</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A few months later the crisis came.  King Leopold determined to make a
+bold push, and to carry Victoria with him, this time, by a display of
+royal vigour and avuncular authority.  In an abrupt, an almost
+peremptory letter, he laid his case, once more, before his niece.  'You
+know from experience,' he wrote, 'that I <I>never ask anything of
+you</I>....  But, as I said before, if we are not careful we may see
+serious consequences which may affect more or less everybody, and
+<I>this</I> ought to be the object of our most anxious attention.  I remain,
+my dear Victoria, your affectionate uncle, Leopold R.'[<A NAME="chap03fn48text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn48">48</A>]  The Queen
+immediately despatched this letter to Lord Melbourne, who replied with
+a carefully thought-out form of words, signifying nothing whatever,
+which, he suggested, she should send to her uncle.  She did so, copying
+out the elaborate formula, with a liberal scattering of 'dear Uncles'
+interspersed; and she concluded her letter with a message of
+'affectionate love to Aunt Louise and the children.'  Then at last King
+Leopold was obliged to recognise the facts.  His next letter contained
+no reference at all to politics.  'I am glad,' he wrote, 'to find that
+you like Brighton better than last year.  I think Brighton very
+agreeable at this time of the year, till the east winds set in.  The
+pavilion, besides, is comfortable; that cannot be denied.  Before my
+marriage, it was there that I met the Regent.  Charlotte afterwards
+came with old Queen Charlotte.
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P78"></A>78}</SPAN>
+How distant all this already, but
+still how present to one's memory.'  Like poor Madame de Lieven, his
+Majesty felt that he had made a mistake.[<A NAME="chap03fn49text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn49">49</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Nevertheless, he could not quite give up all hope.  Another opportunity
+offered, and he made another effort&mdash;but there was not very much
+conviction in it, and it was immediately crushed.  'My dear Uncle,' the
+Queen wrote, 'I have to thank you for your last letter, which I
+received on Sunday.  Though you seem not to dislike my political
+sparks, I think it is better not to increase them, as they might
+finally take fire, particularly as I see with regret that upon this one
+subject we cannot agree.  I shall, therefore, limit myself to my
+expressions of very sincere wishes for the welfare and prosperity of
+Belgium.'[<A NAME="chap03fn50text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn50">50</A>]  After that, it was clear that there was no more to be
+said.  Henceforward there is audible in the King's letters a curiously
+elegiac note.  'My dearest Victoria, your <I>delightful</I> little letter
+has just arrived and went like <I>an arrow to my heart</I>.  Yes, my beloved
+Victoria!  I do love you tenderly ... I love you <I>for yourself</I>, and I
+love in you the dear child whose welfare I tenderly watched.'  He had
+gone through much; yet, if life had its disappointments, it had its
+satisfactions too.  'I have all the honours that can be given, and I
+am, politically speaking, very solidly established.'  But there were
+other things besides politics; there were romantic yearnings in his
+heart.  'The only longing I still have is for the Orient, where I
+perhaps shall once end my life, rising in the west and setting in the
+east.'  As for his devotion to his niece, that could never end.  'I
+never press my services on you, nor my councils, though I may say with
+some truth that from the extraordinary fate which the higher powers
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P79"></A>79}</SPAN>
+had ordained for me, my experience, both political and of private
+life, is great.  I am <I>always ready</I> to be useful to you <I>when and
+where</I> it may be, and I repeat it, <I>all I want in return is some little
+sincere affection from you</I>.'[<A NAME="chap03fn51text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn51">51</A>]
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+VI
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+The correspondence with King Leopold was significant of much that still
+lay partly hidden in the character of Victoria.  Her attitude towards
+her uncle had never wavered for a moment.  To all his advances she had
+presented an absolutely unyielding front.  The foreign policy of
+England was not his province; it was hers and her Ministers'; his
+insinuations, his entreaties, his struggles&mdash;all were quite useless;
+and he must understand that this was so.  The rigidity of her position
+was the more striking owing to the respectfulness and the affection
+with which it was accompanied.  From start to finish the unmoved Queen
+remained the devoted niece.  Leopold himself must have envied such
+perfect correctitude; but what may be admirable in an elderly statesman
+is alarming in a maiden of nineteen.  And privileged observers were not
+without their fears.  The strange mixture of ingenuous
+light-heartedness and fixed determination, of frankness and reticence,
+of childishness and pride, seemed to augur a future perplexed and full
+of dangers.  As time passed the less pleasant qualities in this curious
+composition revealed themselves more often and more seriously.  There
+were signs of an imperious, a peremptory temper, an egotism that was
+strong and hard.  It was noticed that the palace etiquette, far from
+relaxing, grew ever more and more inflexible.  By some, this was
+attributed to
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P80"></A>80}</SPAN>
+Lehzen's influence; but, if that was so, Lehzen had
+a willing pupil; for the slightest infringements of the freezing rules
+of regularity and deference were invariably and immediately visited by
+the sharp and haughty glances of the Queen.[<A NAME="chap03fn52text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn52">52</A>]  Yet Her Majesty's
+eyes, crushing as they could be, were less crushing than her mouth.
+The self-will depicted in those small projecting teeth and that small
+receding chin was of a more dismaying kind than that which a powerful
+jaw betokens; it was a self-will imperturbable, impenetrable,
+unreasoning; a self-will dangerously akin to obstinacy.  And the
+obstinacy of monarchs is not as that of other men.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Within two years of her accession, the storm-clouds which, from the
+first, had been dimly visible on the horizon, gathered and burst.
+Victoria's relations with her mother had not improved.  The Duchess of
+Kent, still surrounded by all the galling appearances of filial
+consideration, remained in Buckingham Palace a discarded figure,
+powerless and inconsolable.  Sir John Conroy, banished from the
+presence of the Queen, still presided over the Duchess's household, and
+the hostilities of Kensington continued unabated in the new
+surroundings.  Lady Flora Hastings still cracked her malicious jokes;
+the animosity of the Baroness was still unappeased.  One day, Lady
+Flora found the joke was turned against her.  Early in 1839, travelling
+in the suite of the Duchess, she had returned from Scotland in the same
+carriage with Sir John.  A change in her figure became the subject of
+an unseemly jest; tongues wagged; and the jest grew serious.  It was
+whispered that Lady Flora was with child.[<A NAME="chap03fn53text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn53">53</A>]  The state of her
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P81"></A>81}</SPAN>
+health seemed to confirm the suspicion; she consulted Sir James Clark,
+the royal physician, and, after the consultation, Sir James let his
+tongue wag, too.  On this, the scandal flared up sky-high.  Everyone
+was talking; the Baroness was not surprised; the Duchess rallied
+tumultuously to the support of her lady; the Queen was informed.  At
+last, the extraordinary expedient of a medical examination was resorted
+to, during which Sir James, according to Lady Flora, behaved with
+brutal rudeness, while a second doctor was extremely polite.  Finally,
+both physicians signed a certificate entirely exculpating the lady.
+But this was by no means the end of the business.  The Hastings family,
+socially a very powerful one, threw itself into the fray with all the
+fury of outraged pride and injured innocence; Lord Hastings insisted
+upon an audience of the Queen, wrote to the papers, and demanded the
+dismissal of Sir James Clark.  The Queen expressed her regret to Lady
+Flora, but Sir James Clark was not dismissed.  The tide of opinion
+turned violently against the Queen and her advisers; high society was
+disgusted by all this washing of dirty linen in Buckingham Palace; the
+public at large was indignant at the ill-treatment of Lady Flora.  By
+the end of March, the popularity, so radiant and so abundant, with
+which the young Sovereign had begun her reign, had entirely
+disappeared.[<A NAME="chap03fn54text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn54">54</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There can be no doubt that a great lack of discretion had been shown by
+the Court.  Ill-natured tittle-tattle, which should have been instantly
+nipped in the bud, had been allowed to assume disgraceful proportions;
+and the Throne itself had become involved in the personal
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P82"></A>82}</SPAN>
+malignities of the palace.  A particularly awkward question had been
+raised by the position of Sir James Clark.  The Duke of Wellington,
+upon whom it was customary to fall back, in cases of great difficulty
+in high places, had been consulted upon this question, and he had given
+it as his opinion that, as it would be impossible to remove Sir James
+without a public enquiry, Sir James must certainly stay where he
+was.[<A NAME="chap03fn55text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn55">55</A>]  Probably the Duke was right; but the fact that the peccant
+doctor continued in the Queen's service made the Hastings family
+irreconcilable and produced an unpleasant impression of unrepentant
+error upon the public mind.  As for Victoria, she was very young and
+quite inexperienced; and she can hardly be blamed for having failed to
+control an extremely difficult situation.  That was clearly Lord
+Melbourne's task; he was a man of the world, and, with vigilance and
+circumspection, he might have quietly put out the ugly flames while
+they were still smouldering.  He did not do so; he was lazy and
+easy-going; the Baroness was persistent, and he let things slide.  But
+doubtless his position was not an easy one; passions ran high in the
+palace; and Victoria was not only very young, she was very headstrong,
+too.  Did he possess the magic bridle which would curb that fiery
+steed?  He could not be certain.  And then, suddenly, another violent
+crisis revealed more unmistakably than ever the nature of the mind with
+which he had to deal.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+VII
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+The Queen had for long been haunted by a terror that the day might come
+when she would be obliged
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P83"></A>83}</SPAN>
+to part with her Minister.  Ever since
+the passage of the Reform Bill, the power of the Whig Government had
+steadily declined.  The General Election of 1837 had left them with a
+very small majority in the House of Commons; since then, they had been
+in constant difficulties&mdash;abroad, at home, in Ireland; the Radical
+group had grown hostile; it became highly doubtful how much longer they
+could survive.  The Queen watched the development of events in great
+anxiety.  She was a Whig by birth, by upbringing, by every association,
+public and private; and, even if those ties had never existed, the mere
+fact that Lord M. was the head of the Whigs would have amply sufficed
+to determine her politics.  The fall of the Whigs would mean a sad
+upset for Lord M.  But it would have a still more terrible consequence:
+Lord M. would have to leave her; and the daily, the hourly, presence of
+Lord M. had become an integral part of her life.  Six months after her
+accession she had noted in her diary 'I shall be very sorry to lose him
+<I>even</I> for <I>one</I> night';[<A NAME="chap03fn56text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn56">56</A>] and this feeling of personal dependence on
+her Minister steadily increased.  In these circumstances it was natural
+that she should have become a Whig partisan.  Of the wider significance
+of political questions she knew nothing; all she saw was that her
+friends were in office and about her, and that it would be dreadful if
+they ceased to be so.  'I cannot say,' she wrote when a critical
+division was impending, '(though I feel <I>confident of our success</I>) HOW
+<I>low</I>, HOW <I>sad</I> I feel, when I think of the POSSIBILITY of this
+excellent and truly kind man not <I>remaining</I> my Minister!  Yet I trust
+fervently that <I>He</I> who has so wonderfully protected me through such
+manifold difficulties will not <I>now</I> desert me!  I should
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P84"></A>84}</SPAN>
+have
+liked to have expressed to Lord M. my anxiety, but the tears were
+nearer than words throughout the time I saw him, and I felt I should
+have choked, had I attempted to say anything.'[<A NAME="chap03fn57text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn57">57</A>]  Lord Melbourne
+realised clearly enough how undesirable was such a state of mind in a
+constitutional sovereign who might be called upon at any moment to
+receive as her Ministers the leaders of the opposite party; he did what
+he could to cool her ardour; but in vain.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+With considerable lack of foresight, too, he had himself helped to
+bring about this unfortunate condition of affairs.  From the moment of
+her accession, he had surrounded the Queen with ladies of his own
+party: the Mistress of the Robes and all the Ladies of the Bedchamber
+were Whigs.  In the ordinary course, the Queen never saw a Tory;
+eventually she took pains never to see one in any circumstances.  She
+disliked the whole tribe, and she did not conceal the fact.  She
+particularly disliked Sir Robert Peel, who would almost certainly be
+the next Prime Minister.  His manners were detestable, and he wanted to
+turn out Lord M.  His supporters, without exception, were equally bad;
+and as for Sir James Graham, she could not bear the sight of him; he
+was exactly like Sir John Conroy.[<A NAME="chap03fn58text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn58">58</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The affair of Lady Flora intensified these party rumours still further.
+The Hastings were Tories, and Lord Melbourne and the Court were
+attacked by the Tory press in unmeasured language.  The Queen's
+sectarian zeal proportionately increased.  But the dreaded hour was now
+fast approaching.  Early in May the Ministers were visibly tottering;
+on a vital point of policy they could only secure a majority of five in
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P85"></A>85}</SPAN>
+the House of Commons; they determined to resign.  When Victoria
+heard the news she burst into tears.  Was it possible, then, that all
+was over?  Was she indeed about to see Lord M. for the last time?  Lord
+M. came; and it is a curious fact that, even in this crowning moment of
+misery and agitation, the precise girl noted, to the minute, the exact
+time of the arrival and the departure of her beloved Minister.  The
+conversation was touching and prolonged; but it could only end in one
+way&mdash;the Queen must send for the Duke of Wellington.  When, next
+morning, the Duke came, he advised her Majesty to send for Sir Robert
+Peel.  She was in 'a state of dreadful grief,' but she swallowed down
+her tears, and braced herself, with royal resolution, for the odious,
+odious interview.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Peel was by nature reserved, proud, and shy.  His manners were not
+perfect, and he knew it; he was easily embarrassed, and, at such
+moments, he grew even more stiff and formal than before, while his feet
+mechanically performed upon the carpet a dancing-master's measure.
+Anxious as he now was to win the Queen's good graces, his very anxiety
+to do so made the attainment of his object the more difficult.  He
+entirely failed to make any headway whatever with the haughty hostile
+girl before him.  She coldly noted that he appeared to be unhappy and
+'put out,' and, while he stood in painful fixity, with an occasional
+uneasy pointing of the toe, her heart sank within her at the sight of
+that manner, 'oh! how different, how dreadfully different, to the
+frank, open, natural, and most kind warm manner of Lord Melbourne.'
+Nevertheless, the audience passed without disaster.  Only at one point
+had there been some slight hint of a disagreement.  Peel had decided
+that a change would be necessary in
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P86"></A>86}</SPAN>
+the composition of the royal
+Household: the Queen must no longer be entirely surrounded by the wives
+and sisters of his opponents; some, at any rate, of the Ladies of the
+Bedchamber should be friendly to his Government.  When this matter was
+touched upon, the Queen had intimated that she wished her Household to
+remain unchanged; to which Sir Robert had replied that the question
+could be settled later, and shortly afterwards withdrew to arrange the
+details of his Cabinet.  While he was present, Victoria had remained,
+as she herself said, 'very much collected, civil and high, and betrayed
+no agitation'; but as soon as she was alone she completely broke down.
+Then she pulled herself together to write to Lord Melbourne an account
+of all that had happened, and of her own wretchedness.  'She feels,'
+she said, 'Lord Melbourne will understand it, amongst enemies to those
+she most relied on and most esteemed; but what is worst of all is the
+being deprived of seeing Lord Melbourne as she used to do.'
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Lord Melbourne replied with a very wise letter.  He attempted to calm
+the Queen and to induce her to accept the new position gracefully; and
+he had nothing but good words for the Tory leaders.  As for the
+question of the Ladies of the Household, the Queen, he said, should
+strongly urge what she desired, as it was a matter which concerned her
+personally; 'but,' he added, 'if Sir Robert is unable to concede it, it
+will not do to refuse and to put off the negotiation upon it.'
+</P>
+
+<P>
+On this point there can be little doubt that Lord Melbourne was right.
+The question was a complicated and subtle one, and it had never arisen
+before; but subsequent constitutional practice has determined that a
+Queen Regnant must accede to the wishes of her Prime Minister as to the
+<I>personnel</I> of the female part of her
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P87"></A>87}</SPAN>
+Household.  Lord Melbourne's
+wisdom, however, was wasted.  The Queen would not be soothed, and still
+less would she take advice.  It was outrageous of the Tories to want to
+deprive her of her Ladies, and that night she made up her mind that,
+whatever Sir Robert might say, she would refuse to consent to the
+removal of a single one of them.  Accordingly, when, next morning, Peel
+appeared again, she was ready for action.  He began by detailing the
+Cabinet appointments, and then he added 'Now, Ma'am, about the
+Ladies'&mdash;when the Queen sharply interrupted him.  'I cannot give up
+<I>any</I> of my Ladies,' she said.  'What, Ma'am!' said Sir Robert, 'does
+your Majesty mean to retain them <I>all</I>?'  '<I>All</I>,' said the Queen.  Sir
+Robert's face worked strangely; he could not conceal his agitation.
+'The Mistress of the Robes and the Ladies of the Bedchamber?' he
+brought out at last.  '<I>All</I>', replied once more Her Majesty.  It was
+in vain that Peel pleaded and argued; in vain that he spoke, growing
+every moment more pompous and uneasy, of the constitution, and Queens
+Regnant, and the public interest; in vain that he danced his pathetic
+minuet.  She was adamant; but he, too, through all his embarrassment,
+showed no sign of yielding; and when at last he left her nothing had
+been decided&mdash;the whole formation of the Government was hanging in the
+wind.  A frenzy of excitement now seized upon Victoria.  Sir Robert,
+she believed in her fury, had tried to outwit her, to take her friends
+from her, to impose his will upon her own; but that was not all: she
+had suddenly perceived, while the poor man was moving so uneasily
+before her, the one thing that she was desperately longing for&mdash;a
+loophole of escape.  She seized a pen and dashed off a note to Lord
+Melbourne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P88"></A>88}</SPAN>
+</P>
+
+<P>
+'Sir Robert has behaved very ill,' she wrote; 'he insisted on my giving
+up my Ladies, to which I replied that I <I>never</I> would consent, and I
+never saw a man so frightened....  I was calm but very decided, and I
+think you would have been pleased to see my composure and great
+firmness; the Queen of England will not submit to such trickery.  Keep
+yourself in readiness, for you may soon be wanted.'  Hardly had she
+finished when the Duke of Wellington was announced.  'Well, Ma'am,' he
+said as he entered, 'I am very sorry to find there is a difficulty.'
+'Oh!' she instantly replied, '<I>he</I> began it, not me.'  She felt that
+only one thing now was needed: she must be firm.  And firm she was.
+The venerable conqueror of Napoleon was outfaced by the relentless
+equanimity of a girl in her teens.  He could not move the Queen one
+inch.  At last, she even ventured to rally him.  'Is Sir Robert so
+weak,' she asked, 'that even the Ladies must be of his opinion?'  On
+which the Duke made a brief and humble expostulation, bowed low; and
+departed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Had she won?  Time would show; and in the meantime she scribbled down
+another letter.  'Lord Melbourne must not think the Queen rash in her
+conduct....  The Queen felt this was an attempt to see whether she
+could be led and managed like a child.'  The Tories were not only
+wicked but ridiculous.  Peel, having, as she understood, expressed a
+wish to remove only those members of the Household who were in
+Parliament, now objected to her Ladies.  'I should like to know,' she
+exclaimed in triumphant scorn, 'if they mean to give the <I>Ladies</I> seats
+in Parliament?'
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The end of the crisis was now fast approaching.  Sir Robert returned,
+and told her that if she insisted upon retaining all her Ladies he
+could not form a
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P89"></A>89}</SPAN>
+Government.  She replied that she would send him
+her final decision in writing.  Next morning the late Whig Cabinet met.
+Lord Melbourne read to them the Queen's letters, and the group of
+elderly politicians were overcome by an extraordinary wave of
+enthusiasm.  They knew very well that, to say the least, it was highly
+doubtful whether the Queen had acted in strict accordance with the
+constitution; that in doing what she had done she had brushed aside
+Lord Melbourne's advice; that, in reality, there was no public reason
+whatever why they should go back upon their decision to resign.  But
+such considerations vanished before the passionate urgency of Victoria.
+The intensity of her determination swept them headlong down the stream
+of her desire.  They unanimously felt that 'it was impossible to
+abandon such a Queen and such a woman.'  Forgetting that they were no
+longer her Majesty's Ministers, they took the unprecedented course of
+advising the Queen by letter to put an end to her negotiation with Sir
+Robert Peel.  She did so; all was over; she had triumphed.  That
+evening there was a ball at the Palace.  Everyone was present.  'Peel
+and the Duke of Wellington came by looking very much put out.'  She was
+perfectly happy; Lord M. was Prime Minister once more, and he was by
+her side.[<A NAME="chap03fn59text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn59">59</A>]
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P90"></A>90}</SPAN>
+</P>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+VIII
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Happiness had returned with Lord M., but it was happiness in the midst
+of agitation.  The domestic imbroglio continued unabated, until at last
+the Duke, rejected as a Minister, was called in once again in his old
+capacity as moral physician to the family.  Something was accomplished
+when, at last, he induced Sir John Conroy to resign his place about the
+Duchess of Kent and leave the Palace for ever; something more when he
+persuaded the Queen to write an affectionate letter to her mother.  The
+way seemed open for a reconciliation, but the Duchess was stormy still.
+She didn't believe that Victoria had written that letter; it was not in
+her handwriting; and she sent for the Duke to tell him so.  The Duke,
+assuring her that the letter was genuine, begged her to forget the
+past.  But that was not so easy.  'What am I to do if Lord Melbourne
+comes up to me?'  'Do, ma'am?  Why, receive him with civility.'  Well,
+she would make an effort....  'But what am I to do if Victoria asks me
+to shake hands with Lehzen?'  'Do, ma'am?  Why, take her in your arms
+and kiss her.'  'What!'  The Duchess bristled in every feather, and
+then she burst into a hearty laugh.  'No, ma'am, no,' said the Duke,
+laughing too.  'I don't mean you are to take <I>Lehzen</I> in your arms and
+kiss <I>her</I>, but the Queen.'[<A NAME="chap03fn60text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn60">60</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Duke might perhaps have succeeded, had not all attempts at
+conciliation been rendered hopeless by a tragical event.  Lady Flora,
+it was discovered, had been suffering from a terrible internal malady,
+which now grew rapidly worse.  There could be little doubt
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P91"></A>91}</SPAN>
+that
+she was dying.  The Queen's unpopularity reached an extraordinary
+height.  More than once she was publicly insulted.  'Mrs. Melbourne,'
+was shouted at her when she appeared at her balcony; and, at Ascot, she
+was hissed by the Duchess of Montrose and Lady Sarah Ingestre as she
+passed.  Lady Flora died.  The whole scandal burst out again with
+redoubled vehemence; while, in the Palace, the two parties were
+henceforth divided by an impassable, a Stygian, gulf.[<A NAME="chap03fn61text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn61">61</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Nevertheless, Lord M. was back, and every trouble faded under the
+enchantment of his presence and his conversation.  He, on his side, had
+gone through much; and his distresses were intensified by a
+consciousness of his own shortcomings.  He realised clearly enough
+that, if he had intervened at the right moment, the Hastings scandal
+might have been averted; and, in the bedchamber crisis, he knew that he
+had allowed his judgment to be overruled and his conduct to be swayed
+by private feelings and the impetuosity of Victoria.[<A NAME="chap03fn62text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn62">62</A>]  But he was
+not one to suffer too acutely from the pangs of conscience.  In spite
+of the dullness and the formality of the Court, his relationship with
+the Queen had come to be the dominating interest in his life; to have
+been deprived of it would have been heart-rending; that dread
+eventuality had been&mdash;somehow&mdash;avoided; he was installed once more, in
+a kind of triumph; let him enjoy the fleeting hours to the full!  And
+so, cherished by the favour of a sovereign and warmed by the adoration
+of a girl, the autumn rose, in those autumn months of 1839, came to a
+wondrous blooming.  The petals expanded, beautifully, for the last
+time.  For the last time in this unlooked-for, this
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P92"></A>92}</SPAN>
+incongruous,
+this almost incredible intercourse, the old epicure tasted the
+exquisiteness of romance.  To watch, to teach, to restrain, to
+encourage the royal young creature beside him&mdash;that was much; to feel
+with such a constant intimacy the impact of her quick affection, her
+radiant vitality&mdash;that was more; most of all, perhaps, was it good to
+linger vaguely in humorous contemplation, in idle apostrophe, to talk
+disconnectedly, to make a little joke about an apple or a furbelow, to
+dream.  The springs of his sensibility, hidden deep within him, were
+overflowing.  Often, as he bent over her hand and kissed it, he found
+himself in tears.[<A NAME="chap03fn63text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn63">63</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Upon Victoria, with all her impermeability, it was inevitable that such
+a companionship should have produced, eventually, an effect.  She was
+no longer the simple schoolgirl of two years since.  The change was
+visible even in her public demeanour.  Her expression, once 'ingenuous
+and serene,' now appeared to a shrewd observer to be 'bold and
+discontented.'[<A NAME="chap03fn64text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn64">64</A>]  She had learnt something of the pleasures of power
+and the pains of it; but that was not all.  Lord Melbourne with his
+gentle instruction had sought to lead her into the paths of wisdom and
+moderation, but the whole unconscious movement of his character had
+swayed her in a very different direction.  The hard clear pebble,
+subjected for so long and so constantly to that encircling and
+insidious fluidity, had suffered a curious corrosion; it seemed to be
+actually growing a little soft and a little clouded.  Humanity and
+fallibility are infectious things; was it possible that Lehzen's prim
+pupil had caught them?  That she was beginning to listen to siren
+voices?  That the secret impulses of self-expression, of
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P93"></A>93}</SPAN>
+self-indulgence even, were mastering her life?  For a moment the child
+of a new age looked back, and wavered towards the eighteenth century.
+It was the most critical moment of her career.  Had those influences
+lasted, the development of her character, the history of her life,
+would have been completely changed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And why should they not last?  She, for one, was very anxious that they
+should.  Let them last for ever!  She was surrounded by Whigs, she was
+free to do whatever she wanted, she had Lord M.; she could not believe
+that she could ever be happier.  Any change would be for the worse; and
+the worst change of all ... no, she would not hear of it; it would be
+quite intolerable, it would upset everything, if she were to marry.
+And yet everyone seemed to want her to&mdash;the general public, the
+Ministers, her Saxe-Coburg relations&mdash;it was always the same story.  Of
+course, she knew very well that there were excellent reasons for it.
+For one thing, if she remained childless, and were to die, her uncle
+Cumberland, who was now the King of Hanover, would succeed to the
+Throne of England.  That, no doubt, would be a most unpleasant event;
+and she entirely sympathised with everybody who wished to avoid it.
+But there was no hurry; naturally, she would marry in the end&mdash;but not
+just yet&mdash;not for three or four years.  What was tiresome was that her
+uncle Leopold had apparently determined, not only that she ought to
+marry, but that her cousin Albert ought to be her husband.  That was
+very like her uncle Leopold, who wanted to have a finger in every pie;
+and it was true that long ago, in far-off days, before her accession
+even, she had written to him in a way which might well have encouraged
+him in such a notion.  She had told him then that Albert possessed
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P94"></A>94}</SPAN>
+'every quality that could be desired to render her perfectly happy,'
+and had begged her 'dearest uncle to take care of the health of one,
+now <I>so dear</I> to me, and to take him under <I>your special</I> protection,'
+adding, 'I hope and trust all will go on prosperously and well on this
+subject of so much importance to me.'[<A NAME="chap03fn65text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn65">65</A>]  But that had been years ago,
+when she was a mere child; perhaps, indeed, to judge from the language,
+the letter had been dictated by Lehzen; at any rate, her feelings., and
+all the circumstances, had now entirely changed.  Albert hardly
+interested her at all.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In later life the Queen declared that she had never for a moment dreamt
+of marrying anyone but her cousin;[<A NAME="chap03fn66text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn66">66</A>] her letters and diaries tell a
+very different story.  On August 26, 1837, she wrote in her journal:
+'To-day is my <I>dearest</I> cousin Albert's 18th birthday, and I pray
+Heaven to pour its choicest blessings on his beloved head!'  In the
+subsequent years, however, the date passes unnoticed.  It had been
+arranged that Stockmar should accompany the Prince to Italy, and the
+faithful Baron left her side for that purpose.  He wrote to her more
+than once with sympathetic descriptions of his young companion; but her
+mind was by this time made up.  She liked and admired Albert very much,
+but she did not want to marry him.  'At present,' she told Lord
+Melbourne in April 1839, '<I>my</I> feeling is quite against ever
+marrying.'[<A NAME="chap03fn67text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn67">67</A>]  When her cousin's Italian tour came to an end, she
+began to grow nervous; she knew that, according to a long-standing
+engagement, his next journey would be to England.  He would probably
+arrive in the autumn, and by July her uneasiness was intense.  She
+determined to write to her uncle, in order to make her position clear.
+It must be understood, she
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P95"></A>95}</SPAN>
+said, that 'there is <I>no engagement</I>
+between us.'  If she should like Albert, she could 'make <I>no final
+promise this year</I>, for, at the <I>very earliest</I>, any such event could
+not take place till <I>two or three years hence</I>.'  She had, she said, 'a
+<I>great</I> repugnance' to change her present position; and, if she should
+not like him, she was '<I>very</I> anxious that it should be understood that
+she would <I>not</I> be guilty of any breach of promise, for she never gave
+any.'[<A NAME="chap03fn68text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn68">68</A>]  To Lord Melbourne she was more explicit.  She told him that
+she 'had no great wish to see Albert, as the whole subject was an
+odious one'; she hated to have to decide about it; and she repeated
+once again that seeing Albert would be 'a disagreeable thing.'[<A NAME="chap03fn69text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn69">69</A>]  But
+there was no escaping the horrid business; the visit must be made, and
+she must see him.  The summer slipped by and was over; it was the
+autumn already; on the evening of October 10 Albert, accompanied by his
+brother Ernest, arrived at Windsor.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Albert arrived; and the whole structure of her existence crumbled into
+nothingness like a house of cards.  He was beautiful&mdash;she gasped&mdash;she
+knew no more.  Then, in a flash, a thousand mysteries were revealed to
+her; the past, the present, rushed upon her with a new significance;
+the delusions of years were abolished, and an extraordinary, an
+irresistible certitude leapt into being in the light of those blue
+eyes, the smile of that lovely mouth.  The succeeding hours passed in a
+rapture.  She was able to observe a few more details&mdash;the 'exquisite
+nose,' the 'delicate moustachios and slight but very slight whiskers,'
+the 'beautiful figure, broad in the shoulders and a fine waist.' She
+rode with him, danced with him, talked with him, and it was all
+perfection.  She had no shadow of a doubt.  He had
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P96"></A>96}</SPAN>
+come on a
+Thursday evening, and on the following Sunday morning she told Lord
+Melbourne that she had 'a good deal changed her opinion as to
+marrying.'  Next morning, she told him that she had made up her mind to
+marry Albert.  The morning after that, she sent for her cousin.  She
+received him alone, and 'after a few minutes I said to him that I
+thought he must be aware <I>why</I> I wished them to come here&mdash;and that it
+would make me <I>too happy</I> if he would consent to what I wished (to
+marry me).'  Then 'we embraced each other, and he was <I>so</I> kind, <I>so</I>
+affectionate.'  She said that she was quite unworthy of him, while he
+murmured that he would be very happy 'Das Leben mit dir zu zubringen.'
+They parted, and she felt 'the happiest of human beings,' when Lord M.
+came in.  At first she beat about the bush, and talked of the weather,
+and indifferent subjects.  Somehow or other she felt a little nervous
+with her old friend.  At last, summoning up her courage, she said, 'I
+have got well through this with Albert.'  'Oh! you have,' said Lord
+M.[<A NAME="chap03fn70text"></A><A HREF="#chap03fn70">70</A>]
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap03fn1"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn1text">1</A>] Greville, III, 411.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap03fn2"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn2text">2</A>] <I>Ibid.</I>, IV, 7, 9, 14-15.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap03fn3"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn3text">3</A>] Walpole, I, 284.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap03fn4"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn4text">4</A>] Crawford, 156-7.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap03fn5"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn5text">5</A>] Greville, IV, 16.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap03fn6"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn6text">6</A>] <I>Girlhood</I>, I, 210-1.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap03fn7"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn7text">7</A>] Greville, IV, 15.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap03fn8"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn8text">8</A>] Greville, IV, 21-2.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap03fn9"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn9text">9</A>] Stockmar, 322-3; Maxwell, 159-60.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap03fn10"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn10text">10</A>] Stockmar, 109-10.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap03fn11"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn11text">11</A>] <I>Ibid.</I>, 165-6.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap03fn12"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn12text">12</A>] <I>Ibid.</I>, chaps. viii, ix, x, and xi.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap03fn13"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn13text">13</A>] <I>Girlhood</I>, II, 303.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap03fn14"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn14text">14</A>] Stockmar, 324.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap03fn15"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn15text">15</A>] <I>Ibid.</I>, chap. xv, pt. 2.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap03fn16"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn16text">16</A>] <I>Ibid.</I>, chap. xvii.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap03fn17"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn17text">17</A>] Stein, VI, 932.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap03fn18"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn18text">18</A>] Greville, VI, 247; Torrens, 14; Hayward, I, 336.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap03fn19"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn19text">19</A>] Greville, VI, 248.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap03fn20"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn20text">20</A>] Greville, III, 331; VI, 254; Haydon, III, 12: 'March 1, 1835.
+Called on Lord Melbourne, and found him reading the Acts, with a quarto
+Greek Testament that belonged to Samuel Johnson.'
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap03fn21"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn21text">21</A>] Greville, III, 142; Torrens, 545.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap03fn22"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn22text">22</A>] <I>Girlhood</I>, II, 148; Torrens, 278, 431, 517; Greville, IV, 331;
+VIII, 162.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap03fn23"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn23text">23</A>] Greville, VI, 253-4; Torrens, 354.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap03fn24"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn24text">24</A>] Greville, IV, 135, 154; <I>Girlhood</I>, I, 249.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap03fn25"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn25text">25</A>] Creevey, II, 326.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap03fn26"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn26text">26</A>] <I>Girlhood</I>, I, 203.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap03fn27"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn27text">27</A>] <I>Ibid.</I>, I, 206.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap03fn28"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn28text">28</A>] Lee, 79-81.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap03fn29"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn29text">29</A>] <I>Girlhood</I>, II, 3.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap03fn30"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn30text">30</A>] <I>Girlhood</I>, II, 29.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap03fn31"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn31text">31</A>] <I>Ibid.</I>, II, 100.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap03fn32"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn32text">32</A>] <I>Ibid.</I>, II, 57, 256.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap03fn33"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn33text">33</A>] Lee, 71.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap03fn34"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn34text">34</A>] The Duke of Bedford told Greville he was 'sure there was a battle
+between her and Melbourne....  He is sure there was one about the men's
+sitting after dinner, for he heard her say to him rather angrily, "it
+is a horrid custom"&mdash;but when the ladies left the room (he dined there)
+directions were given that the men should remain <I>five minutes</I>
+longer.'  Greville, Feb. 26, 1840 (unpublished).
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap03fn35"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn35text">35</A>] Greville, March 11, 1838 (unpublished).
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap03fn36"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn36text">36</A>] Greville, IV, 152-3.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap03fn37"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn37text">37</A>] <I>Girlhood</I>, I, 265-6.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap03fn38"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn38text">38</A>] Martineau, II, 119-20; <I>Girlhood</I>, II, 121-2.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap03fn39"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn39text">39</A>] <I>Girlhood</I>, I, 229
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap03fn40"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn40text">40</A>] <I>Girlhood</I>, I, 356-64; Leslie, II, 239.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap03fn41"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn41text">41</A>] <I>Letters</I>, I, 79.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap03fn42"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn42text">42</A>] <I>Ibid.</I>, I, 80; Greville, IV, 22.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap03fn43"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn43text">43</A>] <I>Letters</I>, I, 85-6; Greville, IV, 16.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap03fn44"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn44text">44</A>] <I>Ibid.</I>, I, 93.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap03fn45"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn45text">45</A>] <I>Ibid.</I>, I, 93-5.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap03fn46"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn46text">46</A>] <I>Letters</I>, I, 116.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap03fn47"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn47text">47</A>] <I>Letters</I>, I, 117-20.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap03fn48"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn48text">48</A>] <I>Ibid.</I>, I, 134.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap03fn49"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn49text">49</A>] <I>Letters</I>, I, 134-6, 140.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap03fn50"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn50text">50</A>] <I>Ibid.</I>, I, 154.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap03fn51"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn51text">51</A>] <I>Letters</I>, I, 185.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap03fn52"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn52text">52</A>] Greville, IV, 16-17; Crawford, 163-4.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap03fn53"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn53text">53</A>] Greville, IV, 178, and August 15, 1839 (unpublished).
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap03fn54"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn54text">54</A>] 'Nobody cares for the Queen, her popularity has sunk to zero, and
+loyalty is a dead letter.'  Greville, March 25, 1839; <I>Morning Post</I>,
+Sept. 14, 1839.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap03fn55"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn55text">55</A>] Greville, August 15, 1839 (unpublished).
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap03fn56"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn56text">56</A>] <I>Girlhood</I>, I, 254.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap03fn57"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn57text">57</A>] <I>Girlhood</I>, I, 324.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap03fn58"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn58text">58</A>] Greville, August 4, 1841 (unpublished); <I>Girlhood</I>, II, 154, 162.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap03fn59"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn59text">59</A>] <I>Letters</I>, I, 154-72; <I>Girlhood</I>, II, 163-75; Greville, IV,
+206-217, and unpublished passages; Broughton, V, 195; Clarendon, I,
+165.  The exclamation 'They wished to treat me like a girl, but I will
+show them that I am Queen of England!' often quoted as the Queen's, is
+apocryphal.  It is merely part of Greville's summary of the two letters
+to Melbourne, printed in <I>Letters</I>, 162 and 163.  It may be noted that
+the phrase 'the Queen of England will not submit to such trickery' is
+omitted in <I>Girlhood</I>, 169; and in general there are numerous verbal
+discrepancies between the versions of the journal and the letters in
+the two books.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap03fn60"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn60text">60</A>] Greville, June 7, June 10, June 15, August 15, 1839 (unpublished).
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap03fn61"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn61text">61</A>] Greville, June 24 and July 7, 1839 (unpublished); Crawford, 222.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap03fn62"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn62text">62</A>] Greville, VI, 251-2.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap03fn63"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn63text">63</A>] Greville, VI, 251; <I>Girlhood</I>, I, 236, 238; II, 267.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap03fn64"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn64text">64</A>] Martineau, II, 120.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap03fn65"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn65text">65</A>] <I>Letters</I>, I, 49.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap03fn66"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn66text">66</A>] Grey, 2-19.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap03fn67"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn67text">67</A>] <I>Girlhood</I>, II, 153.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap03fn68"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn68text">68</A>] <I>Letters</I>, I, 177-8.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap03fn69"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn69text">69</A>] <I>Girlhood</I>, II, 215-6.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap03fn70"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap03fn70text">70</A>] <I>Girlhood</I>, II, 262-9.  Greville's statement (Nov. 27, 1839) that
+'the Queen settled everything about her marriage herself, and without
+consulting Melbourne at all on the subject, not even communicating to
+him her intention,' has no foundation in fact.  The Queen's journal
+proves that she consulted Melbourne at every point.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="img-096"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-096.jpg" ALT="PRINCE ALBERT IN 1840.  From the Portrait by John Partridge." BORDER="2">
+<H4 CLASS="h4center">
+PRINCE ALBERT IN 1840.  <BR>
+<I>From the Portrait by John Partridge.</I>
+</H4>
+</CENTER>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap04"></A>
+
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P97"></A>97}</SPAN>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER IV
+</H3>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+MARRIAGE
+</H4>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+I
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+It was decidedly a family match.  Prince Francis Charles Augustus
+Albert Emmanuel of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha&mdash;for such was his full title&mdash;had
+been born just three months after his cousin Victoria, and the same
+midwife had assisted at the two births.  The children's grandmother,
+the Dowager Duchess of Coburg, had from the first looked forward to
+their marriage; as they grew up, the Duke, the Duchess of Kent, and
+King Leopold came equally to desire it.  The Prince, ever since the
+time when, as a child of three, his nurse had told him that some day
+'the little English May flower' would be his wife, had never thought of
+marrying anyone else.  When eventually Baron Stockmar himself signified
+his assent, the affair seemed as good as settled.[<A NAME="chap04fn1text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn1">1</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Duke had one other child&mdash;Prince Ernest, Albert's senior by one
+year, and heir to the principality.  The Duchess was a sprightly and
+beautiful woman, with fair hair and blue eyes; Albert was very like her
+and was her declared favourite.  But in his fifth year he was parted
+from her for ever.  The ducal court was not noted for the strictness of
+its morals; the Duke was a man of gallantry, and it was rumoured that
+the Duchess followed her husband's example.  There were
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P98"></A>98}</SPAN>
+scandals:
+one of the Court Chamberlains, a charming and cultivated man of Jewish
+extraction, was talked of; at last there was a separation, followed by
+a divorce.  The Duchess retired to Paris, and died unhappily in 1831.
+Her memory was always very dear to Albert.[<A NAME="chap04fn2text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn2">2</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He grew up a pretty, clever, and high-spirited boy.  Usually
+well-behaved, he was, however, sometimes violent.  He had a will of his
+own, and asserted it; his elder brother was less passionate, less
+purposeful, and, in their wrangles, it was Albert who came out top.
+The two boys, living for the most part in one or other of the Duke's
+country houses, among pretty hills and woods and streams, had been at a
+very early age&mdash;Albert was less than four&mdash;separated from their nurses
+and put under a tutor, in whose charge they remained until they went to
+the University.  They were brought up in a simple and unostentatious
+manner, for the Duke was poor and the duchy very small and very
+insignificant.  Before long it became evident that Albert was a model
+lad.  Intelligent and painstaking, he had been touched by the moral
+earnestness of his generation; at the age of eleven he surprised his
+father by telling him that he hoped to make himself 'a good and useful
+man.'  And yet he was not over-serious; though, perhaps, he had little
+humour, he was full of fun&mdash;of practical jokes and mimicry.  He was no
+milksop; he rode, and shot, and fenced; above all did he delight in
+being out of doors, and never was he happier than in his long rambles
+with his brother through the wild country round his beloved
+Rosenau&mdash;stalking the deer, admiring the scenery, and returning laden
+with specimens for his natural history collection.  He was, besides,
+passionately fond of music.  In one particular it was observed
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P99"></A>99}</SPAN>
+that he did not take after his father: owing either to his peculiar
+upbringing or to a more fundamental idiosyncrasy he had a marked
+distaste for the opposite sex.  At the age of five, at a children's
+dance, he screamed with disgust and anger when a little girl was led up
+to him for a partner; and though, later on, he grew more successful in
+disguising such feelings, the feelings remained.[<A NAME="chap04fn3text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn3">3</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The brothers were very popular in Coburg, and, when the time came for
+them to be confirmed, the preliminary examination, which, according to
+ancient custom, was held in public in the 'Giants' Hall' of the Castle,
+was attended by an enthusiastic crowd of functionaries, clergy,
+delegates from the villages of the duchy, and miscellaneous onlookers.
+There were also present, besides the Duke and the Dowager Duchess,
+their Serene Highnesses the Princes Alexander and Ernest of W�rtemberg,
+Prince Leiningen, Princess Hohenlohe-Langenburg, and Princess
+Hohenlohe-Schillingsf�rst.  Dr. Jacobi, the Court chaplain, presided at
+an altar, simply but appropriately decorated, which had been placed at
+the end of the hall; and the proceedings began by the choir singing the
+first verse of the hymn, 'Come, Holy Ghost.'  After some introductory
+remarks, Dr. Jacobi began the examination.  'The dignified and decorous
+bearing of the Princes,' we are told in a contemporary account, 'their
+strict attention to the questions, the frankness, decision, and
+correctness of their answers, produced a deep impression on the
+numerous assembly.  Nothing was more striking in their answers than the
+evidence they gave of deep feeling and of inward strength of
+conviction.  The questions put by the examiner were not such as to be
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P100"></A>100}</SPAN>
+met by a simple "yes" or "no."  They were carefully considered in
+order to give the audience a clear insight into the views and feelings
+of the young princes.  One of the most touching moments was when the
+examiner asked the hereditary prince whether he intended steadfastly to
+hold to the Evangelical Church, and the Prince answered not only "Yes!"
+but added in a clear and decided tone: "I and my brother are firmly
+resolved ever to remain faithful to the acknowledged truth."  The
+examination having lasted an hour, Dr. Jacobi made some concluding
+observations, followed by a short prayer; the second and third verses
+of the opening hymn were sung; and the ceremony was over.  The Princes,
+stepping down from the altar, were embraced by the Duke and the Dowager
+Duchess; after which the loyal inhabitants of Coburg dispersed, well
+satisfied with their entertainment.[<A NAME="chap04fn4text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn4">4</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Albert's mental development now proceeded apace.  In his seventeenth
+year he began a careful study of German literature and German
+philosophy.  He set about, he told his tutor, 'to follow the thoughts
+of the great Klopstock into their depths&mdash;though in this, for the most
+part,' he modestly added, 'I do not succeed.'  He wrote an essay on the
+'Mode of Thought of the Germans, and a Sketch of the History of German
+Civilisation,' 'making use,' he said, 'in its general outlines, of the
+divisions which the treatment of the subject itself demands,' and
+concluding with 'a retrospect of the shortcomings of our time, with an
+appeal to every one to correct those shortcomings in his own case, and
+thus set a good example to others.'[<A NAME="chap04fn5text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn5">5</A>]  Placed for some months under
+the care of King Leopold at Brussels, he came under the influence of
+Adolphe Quetelet, a mathematical
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P101"></A>101}</SPAN>
+professor, who was particularly
+interested in the application of the laws of probability to political
+and moral phenomena; this line of inquiry attracted the Prince, and the
+friendship thus begun continued till the end of his life.[<A NAME="chap04fn6text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn6">6</A>]  From
+Brussels he went to the University of Bonn, where he was speedily
+distinguished both by his intellectual and his social activities; his
+energies were absorbed in metaphysics, law, political economy, music,
+fencing, and amateur theatricals.  Thirty years later his
+fellow-students recalled with delight the fits of laughter into which
+they had been sent by Prince Albert's mimicry.  The <I>verve</I> with which
+his Serene Highness reproduced the tones and gestures of one of the
+professors who used to point to a picture of a row of houses in Venice
+with the remark, 'That is the Ponte Realte,' and of another who fell
+down in a race and was obliged to look for his spectacles, was
+especially appreciated.[<A NAME="chap04fn7text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn7">7</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+After a year at Bonn, the time had come for a foreign tour, and Baron
+Stockmar arrived from England to accompany the Prince on an expedition
+to Italy.  The Baron had been already, two years previously, consulted
+by King Leopold as to his views upon the proposed marriage of Albert
+and Victoria.  His reply had been remarkable.  With a characteristic
+foresight, a characteristic absence of optimism, a characteristic sense
+of the moral elements in the situation, Stockmar had pointed out what
+were, in his opinion, the conditions essential to make the marriage a
+success.  Albert, he wrote, was a fine young fellow, well grown for his
+age, with agreeable and valuable qualities; and it was probable that in
+a few years he would turn out a strong, handsome man, of a kindly,
+simple, yet dignified demeanour.
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P102"></A>102}</SPAN>
+'Thus, externally, he possesses
+all that pleases the sex, and at all times and in all countries must
+please.'  Supposing, therefore, that Victoria herself was in favour of
+the marriage, the further question arose as to whether Albert's mental
+qualities were such as to fit him for the position of husband of the
+Queen of England.  On this point, continued the Baron, one heard much
+to his credit; the Prince was said to be discreet and intelligent; but
+all such judgments were necessarily partial, and the Baron preferred to
+reserve his opinion until he could come to a trustworthy conclusion
+from personal observation.  And then he added: 'But all this is not
+enough.  The young man ought to have not merely great ability, but a
+<I>right</I> ambition, and great force of will as well.  To pursue for a
+lifetime a political career so arduous demands more than energy and
+inclination&mdash;it demands also that earnest frame of mind which is ready
+of its own accord to sacrifice mere pleasure to real usefulness.  If he
+is not satisfied hereafter with the consciousness of having achieved
+one of the most influential positions in Europe, how often will he feel
+tempted to repent his adventure!  If he does not from the very outset
+accept it as a vocation of grave responsibility, on the efficient
+performance of which his honour and happiness depend, there is small
+likelihood of his succeeding.'[<A NAME="chap04fn8text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn8">8</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Such were the views of Stockmar on the qualifications necessary for the
+due fulfilment of that destiny which Albert's family had marked out for
+him; and he hoped, during the tour in Italy, to come to some conclusion
+as to how far the Prince possessed them.  Albert on his side was much
+impressed by the Baron, whom he had previously seen but rarely; he also
+became acquainted, for the first time in his life, with a young
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P103"></A>103}</SPAN>
+Englishman, Lieut. Francis Seymour, who had been engaged to accompany
+him, whom he found <I>sehr liebensw�rdig</I>, and with whom he struck up a
+warm friendship.  He delighted in the galleries and scenery of
+Florence, though with Rome he was less impressed.  'But for some
+beautiful palaces,' he said, 'it might just as well be any town in
+Germany.'  In an interview with Pope Gregory XVI, he took the
+opportunity of displaying his erudition.  When the Pope observed that
+the Greeks had taken their art from the Etruscans, Albert replied that,
+on the contrary, in his opinion, they had borrowed from the Egyptians:
+his Holiness politely acquiesced.  Wherever he went he was eager to
+increase his knowledge, and, at a ball in Florence, he was observed
+paying no attention whatever to the ladies, and deep in conversation
+with the learned Signor Capponi.  'Voil� un prince dont nous pouvons
+�tre fiers,' said the Grand Duke of Tuscany, who was standing by: 'la
+belle danseuse l'attend, le savant l'occupe.'[<A NAME="chap04fn9text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn9">9</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+On his return to Germany, Stockmar's observations, imparted to King
+Leopold, were still critical.  Albert, he said, was intelligent, kind,
+and amiable; he was full of the best intentions and the noblest
+resolutions, and his judgment was in many things beyond his years.  But
+great exertion was repugnant to him; he seemed to be too willing to
+spare himself, and his good resolutions too often came to nothing.  It
+was particularly unfortunate that he took not the slightest interest in
+politics, and never read a newspaper.  In his manners, too, there was
+still room for improvement.  'He will always,' said the Baron, 'have
+more success with men than with women, in whose society he shows too
+little
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P104"></A>104}</SPAN>
+<I>empressement</I>, and is too indifferent and retiring.'  One
+other feature of the case was noted by the keen eye of the old
+physician: the Prince's constitution was not a strong one.[<A NAME="chap04fn10text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn10">10</A>]  Yet, on
+the whole, he was favourable to the projected marriage.  But by now the
+chief obstacle seemed to lie in another quarter.  Victoria was
+apparently determined to commit herself to nothing.  And so it happened
+that when Albert went to England he had made up his mind to withdraw
+entirely from the affair.  Nothing would induce him, he confessed to a
+friend, to be kept vaguely waiting; he would break it all off at once.
+His reception at Windsor threw an entirely new light upon the
+situation.  The wheel of fortune turned with a sudden rapidity; and he
+found, in the arms of Victoria, the irrevocable assurance of his
+overwhelming fate.[<A NAME="chap04fn11text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn11">11</A>]
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+II
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+He was not in love with her.  Affection, gratitude, the natural
+reactions to the unqualified devotion of a lively young cousin who was
+also a queen&mdash;such feelings possessed him, but the ardours of
+reciprocal passion were not his.  Though he found that he liked
+Victoria very much, what immediately interested him in his curious
+position was less her than himself.  Dazzled and delighted, riding,
+dancing, singing, laughing, amid the splendours of Windsor, he was
+aware of a new sensation&mdash;the stirrings of ambition in his breast.  His
+place would indeed be a high, an enviable one!  And then, on the
+instant, came another thought.  The teaching of religion, the
+admonitions of Stockmar, his
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P105"></A>105}</SPAN>
+own inmost convictions, all spoke
+with the same utterance.  He would not be there to please himself, but
+for a very different purpose&mdash;to do good.  He must be 'noble, manly,
+and princely in all things,' he would have 'to live and to sacrifice
+himself for the benefit of his new country,' to 'use his powers and
+endeavours for a great object&mdash;that of promoting the welfare of
+multitudes of his fellow-men.'  One serious thought led on to another.
+The wealth and the bustle of the English Court might be delightful for
+the moment, but, after all, it was Coburg that had his heart.  'While I
+shall be untiring,' he wrote to his grandmother, 'in my efforts and
+labours for the country to which I shall in future belong, and where I
+am called to so high a position, I shall never cease <I>ein treuer
+Deutscher, Coburger, Gothaner zu sein</I>.'  And now he must part from
+Coburg for ever!  Sobered and sad, he sought relief in his brother
+Ernest's company; the two young men would shut themselves up together,
+and, sitting down at the pianoforte, would escape from the present and
+the future in the sweet familiar gaiety of a Haydn duet.[<A NAME="chap04fn12text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn12">12</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They returned to Germany; and while Albert, for a few farewell months,
+enjoyed, for the last time, the happiness of home, Victoria, for the
+last time, resumed her old life in London and Windsor.  She
+corresponded daily with her future husband in a mingled flow of German
+and English; but the accustomed routine reasserted itself; the business
+and the pleasures of the day would brook no interruption; Lord M. was
+once more constantly beside her; and the Tories were as intolerable as
+ever.  Indeed, they were more so.  For
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P106"></A>106}</SPAN>
+now, in these final
+moments, the old feud burst out with redoubled fury.[<A NAME="chap04fn13text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn13">13</A>]  The impetuous
+sovereign found, to her chagrin, that there might be disadvantages in
+being the declared enemy of one of the great parties in the State.  On
+two occasions, the Tories directly thwarted her in a matter on which
+she had set her heart.  She wished her husband's rank to be fixed by
+statute, and their opposition prevented it.  She wished her husband to
+receive a settlement from the nation of �50,000 a year; and, again
+owing to the Tories, he was allowed only �30,000.  It was too bad.
+When the question was discussed in Parliament, it had been pointed out
+that the bulk of the population was suffering from great poverty, and
+that �30,000 was the whole revenue of Coburg; but her uncle Leopold had
+been given �50,000, and it would be monstrous to give Albert less.  Sir
+Robert Peel&mdash;it might have been expected&mdash;had had the effrontery to
+speak and vote for the smaller sum.  She was very angry, and determined
+to revenge herself by omitting to invite a single Tory to her wedding.
+She would make an exception in favour of old Lord Liverpool, but even
+the Duke of Wellington she refused to ask.  When it was represented to
+her that it would amount to a national scandal if the Duke were absent
+from her wedding, she was angrier than ever.  'What!  That old rebel!
+I won't have him,' she was reported to have said.  Eventually she was
+induced to send him an invitation; but she made no attempt to conceal
+the
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P107"></A>107}</SPAN>
+bitterness of her feelings, and the Duke himself was only too
+well aware of all that had passed.[<A NAME="chap04fn14text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn14">14</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Nor was it only against the Tories that her irritation rose.  As the
+time for her wedding approached, her temper grew steadily sharper and
+more arbitrary.  Queen Adelaide annoyed her.  King Leopold, too, was
+'ungracious' in his correspondence; 'Dear Uncle,' she told Albert, 'is
+given to believe that he must rule the roast everywhere.  However,' she
+added with asperity, 'that is not a necessity.'[<A NAME="chap04fn15text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn15">15</A>]  Even Albert
+himself was not impeccable.  Engulfed in Coburgs, he failed to
+appreciate the complexity of English affairs.  There were difficulties
+about his household.  He had a notion that he ought not to be
+surrounded by violent Whigs; very likely, but he would not understand
+that the only alternatives to violent Whigs were violent Tories; and it
+would be preposterous if his Lords and Gentlemen were to be found
+voting against the Queen's.  He wanted to appoint his own Private
+Secretary.  But how could he choose the right person?  Lord M. was
+obviously best qualified to make the appointment; and Lord M. had
+decided that the Prince should take over his own Private
+Secretary&mdash;George Anson, a staunch Whig.  Albert protested, but it was
+useless; Victoria simply announced that Anson was appointed, and
+instructed Lehzen to send the Prince an explanation of the details of
+the case.  Then, again, he had written anxiously upon the necessity of
+maintaining unspotted the moral purity of the Court.  Lord M.'s pupil
+considered that dear Albert was strait-laced, and, in a brisk
+Anglo-German missive, set forth her own views.  'I like Lady A. very
+much,' she told him, 'only she is
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P108"></A>108}</SPAN>
+a little <I>strict and
+particular</I>, and too severe towards others, which is not right; for I
+think one ought always to be indulgent towards other people, as I
+always think, if we had not been well taken care of, we might also have
+gone astray.  That is always my feeling.  Yet it is always right to
+show that one does not like to see what is obviously wrong; but it is
+very dangerous to be too severe, and I am certain that as a rule such
+people always greatly regret that in their youth they have not been so
+careful as they ought to have been.  I have explained this so badly and
+written it so badly, that I fear you will hardly be able to make it
+out.'[<A NAME="chap04fn16text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn16">16</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+On one other matter she was insistent.  Since the affair of Lady Flora
+Hastings, a sad fate had overtaken Sir James Clark.  His flourishing
+practice had quite collapsed; nobody would go to him any more.  But the
+Queen remained faithful.  She would show the world how little she cared
+for its disapproval, and she desired Albert to make 'poor Clark' his
+physician in ordinary.  He did as he was told; but, as it turned out,
+the appointment was not a happy one.[<A NAME="chap04fn17text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn17">17</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The wedding-day was fixed, and it was time for Albert to tear himself
+away from his family and the scenes of his childhood.  With an aching
+heart, he had revisited his beloved haunts&mdash;the woods and the valleys
+where he had spent so many happy hours shooting rabbits and collecting
+botanical specimens; in deep depression, he had sat through the
+farewell banquets in the Palace and listened to the <I>Freisch�tz</I>
+performed by the State band.  It was time to go.  The streets were
+packed as he drove through them; for a short space his
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P109"></A>109}</SPAN>
+eyes were
+gladdened by a sea of friendly German faces, and his ears by a
+gathering volume of good guttural sounds.  He stopped to bid a last
+adieu to his grandmother.  It was a heart-rending moment.  'Albert!
+Albert!' she shrieked, and fell fainting into the arms of her
+attendants as his carriage drove away.  He was whirled rapidly to his
+destiny.  At Calais a steamboat awaited him, and, together with his
+father and his brother, he stepped, dejected, on board.  A little
+later, he was more dejected still.  The crossing was a very rough one;
+the Duke went hurriedly below; while the two Princes, we are told, lay
+on either side of the cabin staircase 'in an almost helpless state.'
+At Dover a large crowd was collected on the pier, and 'it was by no
+common effort that Prince Albert, who had continued to suffer up to the
+last moment, got up to bow to the people.'  His sense of duty
+triumphed.  It was a curious omen: his whole life in England was
+foreshadowed as he landed on English ground.[<A NAME="chap04fn18text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn18">18</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Meanwhile Victoria, in growing agitation, was a prey to temper and to
+nerves.  She grew feverish, and at last Sir James Clark pronounced that
+she was going to have the measles.  But, once again, Sir James's
+diagnosis was incorrect.  It was not the measles that was attacking
+her, but a very different malady; she was suddenly prostrated by alarm,
+regret, and doubt.  For two years she had been her own mistress&mdash;the
+two happiest years, by far, of her life.  And now it was all to end!
+She was to come under an alien domination&mdash;she would have to promise
+that she would honour and obey ... someone, who might, after all,
+thwart her, oppose her&mdash;and how dreadful that would be!  Why had she
+embarked on this hazardous experiment?  Why
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P110"></A>110}</SPAN>
+had she not been
+contented with Lord M.?  No doubt, she loved Albert; but she loved
+power too.  At any rate, one thing was certain: she might be Albert's
+wife, but she would always be Queen of England.[<A NAME="chap04fn19text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn19">19</A>]  He reappeared, in
+an exquisite uniform, and her hesitations melted in his presence like
+mist before the sun.  On February 10, 1840, the marriage took place.
+The wedded pair drove down to Windsor; but they were not, of course,
+entirely alone.  They were accompanied by their suites, and, in
+particular, by two persons&mdash;the Baron Stockmar and the Baroness Lehzen.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+III
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Albert had foreseen that his married life would not be all plain
+sailing; but he had by no means realised the gravity and the
+complication of the difficulties which he would have to face.
+Politically, he was a cipher.  Lord Melbourne was not only Prime
+Minister, he was in effect the Private Secretary of the Queen, and thus
+controlled the whole of the political existence of the sovereign.  A
+queen's husband was an entity unknown to the British Constitution.  In
+State affairs there seemed to be no place for him; nor was Victoria
+herself at all unwilling that this should be so.  'The English,' she
+had told the Prince when, during their engagement, a proposal had been
+made to give him a peerage, 'are very jealous of any foreigner
+interfering in the government of this country, and have already in some
+of the papers expressed a hope that you would not interfere.  Now,
+though I know you never would, still, if you were a Peer, they would
+all say, the Prince meant to play a political part.'[<A NAME="chap04fn20text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn20">20</A>]  'I know you
+never would!'  In
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P111"></A>111}</SPAN>
+reality, she was not quite so certain; but she
+wished Albert to understand her views.  He would, she hoped, make a
+perfect husband; but, as for governing the country, he would see that
+she and Lord M. between them could manage that very well, without his
+help.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But it was not only in politics that the Prince discovered that the
+part cut out for him was a negligible one.  Even as a husband, he
+found, his functions were to be of an extremely limited kind.  Over the
+whole of Victoria's private life the Baroness reigned supreme; and she
+had not the slightest intention of allowing that supremacy to be
+diminished by one iota.  Since the accession, her power had greatly
+increased.  Besides the undefined and enormous influence which she
+exercised through her management of the Queen's private correspondence,
+she was now the superintendent of the royal establishment and
+controlled the important office of Privy Purse.[<A NAME="chap04fn21text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn21">21</A>]  Albert very soon
+perceived that he was not master in his own house.[<A NAME="chap04fn22text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn22">22</A>]  Every detail of
+his own and his wife's existence was supervised by a third person:
+nothing could be done until the consent of Lehzen had first been
+obtained.  And Victoria, who adored Lehzen with unabated intensity, saw
+nothing in all this that was wrong.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Nor was the Prince happier in his social surroundings.  A shy young
+foreigner, awkward in ladies' company, unexpansive and
+self-opinionated, it was improbable that, in any circumstances, he
+would have been a society success.  His appearance, too, was against
+him.  Though in the eyes of Victoria he was the mirror of manly beauty,
+her subjects, whose eyes were of a less Teutonic cast, did not agree
+with her.  To them&mdash;and particularly to the high-born ladies and
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P112"></A>112}</SPAN>
+gentlemen who naturally saw him most&mdash;what was immediately and
+distressingly striking in Albert's face and figure and whole demeanour
+was his un-English look.  His features were regular, no doubt, but
+there was something smooth and smug about them; he was tall, but he was
+clumsily put together, and he walked with a slight slouch.  Really,
+they thought, this youth was more like some kind of foreign tenor than
+anything else.  These were serious disadvantages; but the line of
+conduct which the Prince adopted from the first moment of his arrival
+was far from calculated to dispel them.  Owing partly to a natural
+awkwardness, partly to a fear of undue familiarity, and partly to a
+desire to be absolutely correct, his manners were infused with an
+extraordinary stiffness and formality.  Whenever he appeared in
+company, he seemed to be surrounded by a thick hedge of prickly
+etiquette.  He never went out into ordinary society; he never walked in
+the streets of London; he was invariably accompanied by an equerry when
+he rode or drove.  He wanted to be irreproachable and, if that involved
+friendlessness, it could not be helped.  Besides, he had no very high
+opinion of the English.  So far as he could see, they cared for nothing
+but fox-hunting and Sunday observances; they oscillated between an
+undue frivolity and an undue gloom; if you spoke to them of friendly
+joyousness they stared; and they did not understand either the Laws of
+Thought or the wit of a German University.  Since it was clear that
+with such people he could have very little in common, there was no
+reason whatever for relaxing in their favour the rules of etiquette.
+In strict privacy, he could be natural and charming; Seymour and Anson
+were devoted to him, and he returned their affection; but they were
+subordinates&mdash;the
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P113"></A>113}</SPAN>
+receivers of his confidences and the agents of
+his will.  From the support and the solace of true companionship he was
+utterly cut off.[<A NAME="chap04fn23text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn23">23</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A friend, indeed, he had&mdash;or rather, a mentor.  The Baron, established
+once more in the royal residence, was determined to work with as
+whole-hearted a detachment for the Prince's benefit as, more than
+twenty years before, he had worked for his uncle's.  The situations
+then and now, similar in many respects, were yet full of differences.
+Perhaps in either case the difficulties to be encountered were equally
+great; but the present problem was the more complex and the more
+interesting.  The young doctor, unknown and insignificant, whose only
+assets were his own wits and the friendship of an unimportant Prince,
+had been replaced by the accomplished confidant of kings and ministers,
+ripe in years, in reputation, and in the wisdom of a vast experience.
+It was possible for him to treat Albert with something of the
+affectionate authority of a father; but, on the other hand, Albert was
+no Leopold.  As the Baron was very well aware, he had none of his
+uncle's rigidity of ambition, none of his overweening impulse to be
+personally great.  He was virtuous and well-intentioned; he was clever
+and well-informed; but he took no interest in politics, and there were
+no signs that he possessed any commanding force of character.  Left to
+himself, he would almost certainly have subsided into a high-minded
+nonentity, an aimless dilettante busy over culture, a palace appendage
+without influence or power.  But he was not left to himself: Stockmar
+saw to that.  For ever at his pupil's elbow, the hidden Baron pushed
+him forward, with tireless pressure,
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P114"></A>114}</SPAN>
+along the path which had
+been trod by Leopold so many years ago.  But, this time, the goal at
+the end of it was something more than the mediocre royalty that Leopold
+had reached.  The prize which Stockmar, with all the energy of
+disinterested devotion, had determined should be Albert's was a
+tremendous prize indeed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The beginning of the undertaking proved to be the most arduous part of
+it.  Albert was easily dispirited: what was the use of struggling to
+perform in a r�le which bored him and which, it was quite clear, nobody
+but the dear good Baron had any desire that he should take up?  It was
+simpler, and it saved a great deal of trouble, to let things slide.
+But Stockmar would not have it.[<A NAME="chap04fn24text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn24">24</A>]  Incessantly, he harped upon two
+strings&mdash;Albert's sense of duty and his personal pride.  Had the Prince
+forgotten the noble aims to which his life was to be devoted?  And was
+he going to allow himself, his wife, his family, his whole existence,
+to be governed by Baroness Lehzen?  The latter consideration was a
+potent one.  Albert had never been accustomed to giving way; and now,
+more than ever before, it would be humiliating to do so.  Not only was
+he constantly exasperated by the position of the Baroness in the royal
+household; there was another and a still more serious cause of
+complaint.  He was, he knew very well, his wife's intellectual
+superior, and yet he found, to his intense annoyance, that there were
+parts of her mind over which he exercised no influence.  When, urged on
+by the Baron, he attempted to discuss politics with Victoria, she
+eluded the subject, drifted into generalities, and then began to talk
+of something else.  She was treating him as she had once treated their
+uncle Leopold.
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P115"></A>115}</SPAN>
+When at last he protested, she replied that her
+conduct was merely the result of indolence; that when she was with
+<I>him</I> she could not bear to bother her head with anything so dull as
+politics.  The excuse was worse than the fault: was he the wife and she
+the husband?  It almost seemed so.  But the Baron declared that the
+root of the mischief was Lehzen: that it was she who encouraged the
+Queen to have secrets; who did worse&mdash;undermined the natural
+ingenuousness of Victoria, and induced her to give, unconsciously no
+doubt, false reasons to explain away her conduct.[<A NAME="chap04fn25text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn25">25</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Minor disagreements made matters worse.  The royal couple differed in
+their tastes.  Albert, brought up in a r�gime of Spartan simplicity and
+early hours, found the great Court functions intolerably wearisome, and
+was invariably observed to be nodding on the sofa at half-past ten;
+while the Queen's favourite form of enjoyment was to dance through the
+night, and then, going out into the portico of the Palace, watch the
+sun rise behind St. Paul's and the towers of Westminster.[<A NAME="chap04fn26text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn26">26</A>]  She
+loved London and he detested it.  It was only in Windsor that he felt
+he could really breathe; but Windsor too had its terrors: though during
+the day there he could paint and walk and play on the piano, after
+dinner black tedium descended like a pall.  He would have liked to
+summon distinguished scientific and literary men to his presence, and
+after ascertaining their views upon various points of art and learning,
+to set forth his own; but unfortunately Victoria 'had no fancy to
+encourage such people'; knowing that she was unequal to taking a part
+in their conversation, she insisted that the evening routine should
+remain unaltered; the regulation interchange of platitudes with
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P116"></A>116}</SPAN>
+official persons was followed as usual by the round table and the books
+of engravings, while the Prince, with three of his attendants, played
+game after game of double chess.[<A NAME="chap04fn27text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn27">27</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was only natural that in so peculiar a situation, in which the
+elements of power, passion, and pride were so strangely apportioned,
+there should have been occasionally something more than mere
+irritation&mdash;a struggle of angry wills.  Victoria, no more than Albert,
+was in the habit of playing second fiddle.  Her arbitrary temper
+flashed out.  Her vitality, her obstinacy, her overweening sense of her
+own position, might well have beaten down before them his superiorities
+and his rights.  But she fought at a disadvantage; she was, in very
+truth, no longer her own mistress; a profound preoccupation dominated
+her, seizing upon her inmost purposes for its own extraordinary ends.
+She was madly in love.  The details of those curious battles are
+unknown to us; but Prince Ernest, who remained in England with his
+brother for some months, noted them with a friendly and startled
+eye.[<A NAME="chap04fn28text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn28">28</A>]  One story, indeed, survives, ill-authenticated and perhaps
+mythical, yet summing up, as such stories often do, the central facts
+of the case.  When, in wrath, the Prince one day had locked himself
+into his room, Victoria, no less furious, knocked on the door to be
+admitted.  'Who is there?' he asked.  'The Queen of England,' was the
+answer.  He did not move, and again there was a hail of knocks.  The
+question and the answer were repeated many times; but at last there was
+a pause, and then a gentler knocking.  'Who is there?' came once more
+the relentless question.  But this time the reply was different.  'Your
+wife, Albert.'  And the door was immediately opened.[<A NAME="chap04fn29text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn29">29</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P117"></A>117}</SPAN>
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Very gradually the Prince's position changed.  He began to find the
+study of politics less uninteresting than he had supposed; he read
+Blackstone, and took lessons in English Law; he was occasionally
+present when the Queen interviewed her Ministers; and at Lord
+Melbourne's suggestion he was shown all the despatches relating to
+Foreign Affairs.  Sometimes he would commit his views to paper, and
+read them aloud to the Prime Minister, who, infinitely kind and
+courteous, listened with attention, but seldom made any reply.[<A NAME="chap04fn30text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn30">30</A>]  An
+important step was taken when, before the birth of the Princess Royal,
+the Prince, without any opposition in Parliament, was appointed Regent
+in case of the death of the Queen.[<A NAME="chap04fn31text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn31">31</A>]  Stockmar, owing to whose
+intervention with the Tories this happy result had been brought about,
+now felt himself at liberty to take a holiday with his family in
+Coburg; but his solicitude, poured out in innumerable letters, still
+watched over his pupil from afar.  'Dear Prince,' he wrote, 'I am
+satisfied with the news you have sent me.  Mistakes, misunderstandings,
+obstructions, which come in vexatious opposition to one's views, are
+always to be taken for just what they are&mdash;namely, natural phenomena of
+life, which represent one of its sides, and that the shady one.  In
+overcoming them with dignity, your mind has to exercise, to train, to
+enlighten itself; and your character to gain force, endurance, and the
+necessary hardness.'  The Prince had done well so far; but he must
+continue in the right path; above all, he was 'never to relax.'&mdash;'Never
+to relax in putting your magnanimity to the proof; never to relax in
+logical separation of what is great and essential from what is trivial
+and of no moment; never to relax in keeping
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P118"></A>118}</SPAN>
+yourself up to a high
+standard&mdash;in the determination, daily renewed, to be consistent,
+patient, courageous.'  It was a hard programme, perhaps, for a young
+man of twenty-one; and yet there was something in it which touched the
+very depths of Albert's soul.  He sighed, but he listened&mdash;listened as
+to the voice of a spiritual director inspired with divine truth.  'The
+stars which are needful to you now,' the voice continued, 'and perhaps
+for some time to come, are <I>Love, Honesty, Truth</I>.  All those whose
+minds are warped, or who are destitute of true feeling, will <I>be apt to
+mistake you</I>, and to persuade themselves and the world that you are not
+the man you are&mdash;or, at least, may become....  Do you, therefore, be on
+the alert betimes, with your eyes open in every direction....  I wish
+for my Prince a great, noble, warm, and true heart, such as shall serve
+as the richest and surest basis for the noblest views of human nature,
+and the firmest resolve to give them development.'[<A NAME="chap04fn32text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn32">32</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Before long, the decisive moment came.  There was a General Election,
+and it became certain that the Tories, at last, must come into power.
+The Queen disliked them as much as ever; but, with a large majority in
+the House of Commons, they would now be in a position to insist upon
+their wishes being attended to.  Lord Melbourne himself was the first
+to realise the importance of carrying out the inevitable transition
+with as little friction as possible; and with his consent, the Prince,
+following up the <I>rapprochement</I> which had begun over the Regency Act,
+opened, through Anson, a negotiation with Sir Robert Peel.  In a series
+of secret interviews, a complete understanding was reached upon the
+difficult and complex question of the Bedchamber.  It was agreed that
+the constitutional point
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P119"></A>119}</SPAN>
+should not be raised, but that, on the
+formation of the Tory Government, the principal Whig ladies should
+retire, and their places be filled by others appointed by Sir
+Robert.[<A NAME="chap04fn33text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn33">33</A>]  Thus, in effect, though not in form, the Crown abandoned
+the claims of 1839, and they have never been subsequently put forward.
+The transaction was a turning-point in the Prince's career.  He had
+conducted an important negotiation with skill and tact; he had been
+brought into close and friendly relations with the new Prime Minister;
+it was obvious that a great political future lay before him.  Victoria
+was much impressed and deeply grateful.  'My dearest Angel,' she told
+King Leopold, 'is indeed a great comfort to me.  He takes the greatest
+interest in what goes on, feeling with and for me, and yet abstaining
+as he ought from biassing me either way, though we talk much on the
+subject, and his judgment is, as you say, good and mild.'[<A NAME="chap04fn34text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn34">34</A>]  She was
+in need of all the comfort and assistance he could give her.  Lord M.
+was going; and she could hardly bring herself to speak to Peel.  Yes;
+she would discuss everything with Albert now!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Stockmar, who had returned to England, watched the departure of Lord
+Melbourne with satisfaction.  If all went well, the Prince should now
+wield a supreme political influence over Victoria.  But would all go
+well?  An unexpected development put the Baron into a serious fright.
+When the dreadful moment finally came, and the Queen, in anguish, bade
+adieu to her beloved Minister, it was settled between them that, though
+it would be inadvisable to meet very often, they could continue to
+correspond.  Never were the inconsistencies of Lord Melbourne's
+character shown more clearly than in what followed.  So long as he was
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P120"></A>120}</SPAN>
+in office, his attitude towards Peel had been irreproachable; he
+had done all he could to facilitate the change of government; he had
+even, through more than one channel, transmitted privately to his
+successful rival advice as to the best means of winning the Queen's
+good graces.[<A NAME="chap04fn35text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn35">35</A>]  Yet, no sooner was he in opposition than his heart
+failed him.  He could not bear the thought of surrendering altogether
+the privilege and the pleasure of giving counsel to Victoria&mdash;of being
+cut off completely from the power and the intimacy which had been his
+for so long and in such abundant measure.  Though he had declared that
+he would be perfectly discreet in his letters, he could not resist
+taking advantage of the opening they afforded.  He discussed in detail
+various public questions, and, in particular, gave the Queen a great
+deal of advice in the matter of appointments.  This advice was
+followed.  Lord Melbourne recommended that Lord Heytesbury, who, he
+said, was an able man, should be made Ambassador at Vienna; and a week
+later the Queen wrote to the Foreign Secretary urging that Lord
+Heytesbury, whom she believed to be a very able man, should be employed
+'on some important mission.'  Stockmar was very much alarmed.  He wrote
+a memorandum, pointing out the unconstitutional nature of Lord
+Melbourne's proceedings and the unpleasant position in which the Queen
+might find herself if they were discovered by Peel; and he instructed
+Anson to take this memorandum to the ex-Minister.  Lord Melbourne,
+lounging on a sofa, read it through with compressed lips.  'This is
+quite an apple-pie opinion,' he said.  When Anson ventured to
+expostulate further, suggesting that it was unseemly in the leader of
+the Opposition to maintain an intimate
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P121"></A>121}</SPAN>
+relationship with the
+Sovereign, the old man lost his temper.  'God eternally damn it!' he
+exclaimed, leaping up from his sofa, and dashing about the room.
+'Flesh and blood cannot stand this!'  He continued to write to the
+Queen, as before; and two more violent bombardments from the Baron were
+needed before he was brought to reason.  Then, gradually, his letters
+grew less and less frequent, with fewer and fewer references to public
+concerns; at last, they were entirely innocuous.  The Baron smiled;
+Lord M. had accepted the inevitable.[<A NAME="chap04fn36text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn36">36</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Whig ministry resigned in September, 1841; but more than a year was
+to elapse before another and an equally momentous change was
+effected&mdash;the removal of Lehzen.  For, in the end, the mysterious
+governess was conquered.  The steps are unknown by which Victoria was
+at last led to accept her withdrawal with composure&mdash;perhaps with
+relief; but it is clear that Albert's domestic position must have been
+greatly strengthened by the appearance of children.  The birth of the
+Princess Royal had been followed in November 1841 by that of the Prince
+of Wales; and before very long another baby was expected.  The
+Baroness, with all her affection, could have but a remote share in such
+family delights.  She lost ground perceptibly.  It was noticed as a
+phenomenon that, once or twice, when the Court travelled, she was left
+behind at Windsor.[<A NAME="chap04fn37text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn37">37</A>]  The Prince was very cautious; at the change of
+Ministry, Lord Melbourne had advised him to choose that moment for
+decisive action; but he judged it wiser to wait.[<A NAME="chap04fn38text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn38">38</A>]  Time and the
+pressure of inevitable circumstances were for him; every day his
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P122"></A>122}</SPAN>
+predominance grew more assured&mdash;and every night.  At length he
+perceived that he need hesitate no longer&mdash;that every wish, every
+velleity of his had only to be expressed to be at once Victoria's.  He
+spoke, and Lehzen vanished for ever.  No more would she reign in that
+royal heart and those royal halls.  No more, watching from a window at
+Windsor, would she follow her pupil and her sovereign, walking on the
+terrace among the obsequious multitude, with the eye of triumphant
+love.[<A NAME="chap04fn39text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn39">39</A>]  Returning to her native Hanover she established herself at
+B�ckeburg in a small but comfortable house, the walls of which were
+entirely covered by portraits of Her Majesty.[<A NAME="chap04fn40text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn40">40</A>]  The Baron, in spite
+of his dyspepsia, smiled again: Albert was supreme.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+IV
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+The early discords had passed away completely&mdash;resolved into the
+absolute harmony of married life.  Victoria, overcome by a new, an
+unimagined revelation, had surrendered her whole soul to her husband.
+The beauty and the charm which so suddenly had made her his at first
+were, she now saw, no more than the outward manifestation of the true
+Albert.  There was an inward beauty, an inward glory which, blind that
+she was, she had then but dimly apprehended, but of which now she was
+aware in every fibre of her being&mdash;he was good&mdash;he was great!  How
+could she ever have dreamt of setting up her will against his wisdom,
+her ignorance against his knowledge, her fancies against his perfect
+taste?  Had she really once loved London and late hours and
+dissipation?  She who now was
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P123"></A>123}</SPAN>
+only happy in the country, she who
+jumped out of bed every morning&mdash;oh, so early!&mdash;with Albert, to take a
+walk, before breakfast, with Albert alone!  How wonderful it was to be
+taught by him!  To be told by him which trees were which; and to learn
+all about the bees!  And then to sit doing cross-stitch while he read
+aloud to her Hallam's Constitutional History of England!  Or to listen
+to him playing on his new organ ('The organ is the first of
+instruments,' he said); or to sing to him a song by Mendelssohn, with a
+great deal of care over the time and the breathing, and only a very
+occasional false note!  And, after dinner, too&mdash;oh, how good of him!
+He had given up his double chess!  And so there could be round games at
+the round table, or everyone could spend the evening in the most
+amusing way imaginable&mdash;spinning counters and rings.[<A NAME="chap04fn41text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn41">41</A>]  When the
+babies came it was still more wonderful.  Pussy was such a clever
+little girl ('I am not Pussy!  I am the Princess Royal!' she had
+angrily exclaimed on one occasion); and Bertie&mdash;well, she could only
+pray <I>most</I> fervently that the little Prince of Wales would grow up to
+'resemble his angelic dearest Father in <I>every, every</I> respect, both in
+body and mind.'[<A NAME="chap04fn42text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn42">42</A>]  Her dear Mamma, too, had been drawn once more into
+the family circle, for Albert had brought about a reconciliation, and
+the departure of Lehzen had helped to obliterate the past.[<A NAME="chap04fn43text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn43">43</A>]  In
+Victoria's eyes, life had become an idyll, and, if the essential
+elements of an idyll are happiness, love and simplicity, an idyll it
+was; though, indeed, it was of a kind that might have disconcerted
+Theocritus.  'Albert brought in
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P124"></A>124}</SPAN>
+dearest little Pussy,' wrote Her
+Majesty in her journal, 'in such a smart white merino dress trimmed
+with blue, which Mamma had given her, and a pretty cap, and placed her
+on my bed, seating himself next to her, and she was very dear and good.
+And as my precious, invaluable Albert sat there, and our little Love
+between us, I felt quite moved with happiness and gratitude to God.'[<A NAME="chap04fn44text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn44">44</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The past&mdash;the past of only three years since&mdash;when she looked back upon
+it, seemed a thing so remote and alien that she could explain it to
+herself in no other way than as some kind of delusion&mdash;an unfortunate
+mistake.  Turning over an old volume of her diary, she came upon this
+sentence&mdash;'As for "the confidence of the Crown," God knows!  No
+<I>Minister, no friend</I> EVER possessed it so entirely as this truly
+excellent Lord Melbourne possesses mine!'  A pang shot through her&mdash;she
+seized a pen, and wrote upon the margin&mdash;'Reading this again, I cannot
+forbear remarking what an artificial sort of happiness <I>mine</I> was
+<I>then</I>, and what a blessing it is I have now in my beloved Husband
+<I>real</I> and solid happiness, which no Politics, no worldly reverses
+<I>can</I> change; it could not have lasted long as it was then, for after
+all, kind and excellent as Lord M. is, and kind as he was to me, it was
+but in Society that I had amusement, and I was only living on that
+superficial resource, which I <I>then fancied</I> was happiness!  Thank God!
+for me and others, this is changed, and I <I>know what</I> REAL <I>happiness</I>
+is&mdash;V.R.'[<A NAME="chap04fn45text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn45">45</A>]  How did she know?  What is the distinction between
+happiness that is real and happiness that is felt?  So a
+philosopher&mdash;Lord M. himself perhaps&mdash;might have inquired.  But she was
+no philosopher, and Lord M. was a phantom, and Albert was beside her,
+and that was enough.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P125"></A>125}</SPAN>
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Happy, certainly, she was; and she wanted everyone to know it.  Her
+letters to King Leopold are sprinkled thick with raptures.  'Oh! my
+dearest uncle, I am sure if you knew <I>how</I> happy, how blessed I feel,
+and how <I>proud</I> I feel in possessing <I>such</I> a perfect being as my
+husband...' such ecstasies seemed to gush from her pen unceasingly and
+almost of their own accord.[<A NAME="chap04fn46text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn46">46</A>]  When, one day, without thinking, Lady
+Lyttelton described someone to her as being 'as happy as a queen,' and
+then grew a little confused, 'Don't correct yourself, Lady Lyttelton,'
+said Her Majesty.  'A queen <I>is</I> a very happy woman.'[<A NAME="chap04fn47text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn47">47</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But this new happiness was no lotus dream.  On the contrary, it was
+bracing, rather than relaxing.  Never before had she felt so acutely
+the necessity for doing her duty.  She worked more methodically than
+ever at the business of State; she watched over her children with
+untiring vigilance.  She carried on a large correspondence; she was
+occupied with her farm&mdash;her dairy&mdash;a whole multitude of household
+avocations&mdash;from morning till night.  Her active, eager little body
+hurrying with quick steps after the long strides of Albert down the
+corridors and avenues of Windsor,[<A NAME="chap04fn48text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn48">48</A>] seemed the very expression of her
+spirit.  Amid all the softness, the deliciousness of unmixed joy, all
+the liquescence, the overflowings of inexhaustible sentiment, her
+native rigidity remained.  'A vein of iron,' said Lady Lyttelton, who,
+as royal governess, had good means of observation, 'runs through her
+most extraordinary character.'[<A NAME="chap04fn49text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn49">49</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Sometimes the delightful routine of domestic existence had to be
+interrupted.  It was necessary to
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P126"></A>126}</SPAN>
+exchange Windsor for Buckingham
+Palace, to open Parliament, or to interview official personages, or,
+occasionally, to entertain foreign visitors at the Castle.  Then the
+quiet Court put on a sudden magnificence, and sovereigns from over the
+seas&mdash;Louis Philippe, or the King of Prussia, or the King of
+Saxony&mdash;found at Windsor an entertainment that was indeed a royal one.
+Few spectacles in Europe, it was agreed, produced an effect so imposing
+as the great Waterloo banqueting hall, crowded with guests in sparkling
+diamonds and blazing uniforms, the long walls hung with the stately
+portraits of heroes, and the tables loaded with the gorgeous gold plate
+of the Kings of England.[<A NAME="chap04fn50text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn50">50</A>]  But, in that wealth of splendour, the
+most imposing spectacle of all was the Queen.  The little <I>Hausfrau</I>,
+who had spent the day before walking out with her children, inspecting
+her livestock, practising shakes at the piano, and filling up her
+journal with adoring descriptions of her husband, suddenly shone forth,
+without art, without effort, by a spontaneous and natural transition,
+the very culmination of Majesty.  The Tsar of Russia himself was deeply
+impressed.  Victoria on her side viewed with secret awe the tremendous
+Nicholas.  'A great event and a great compliment <I>his</I> visit certainly
+is,' she told her uncle, 'and the people <I>here</I> are extremely flattered
+at it.  He is certainly a <I>very striking</I> man; still very handsome.
+His profile is <I>beautiful</I>, and his manners <I>most</I> dignified and
+graceful; extremely civil&mdash;quite alarmingly so, as he is so full of
+attentions and <I>politeness</I>.  But the expression of the <I>eyes</I> is
+<I>formidable</I>, and unlike anything I ever saw before.'[<A NAME="chap04fn51text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn51">51</A>]  She and
+Albert and 'the good King of Saxony,' who happened
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P127"></A>127}</SPAN>
+to be there at
+the same time, and whom, she said, 'we like much&mdash;he is <I>so</I>
+unassuming'&mdash;drew together like tame villatic fowl in the presence of
+that awful eagle.  When he was gone, they compared notes about his
+face, his unhappiness, and his despotic power over millions.  Well!
+She for her part could not help pitying him, and she thanked God she
+was Queen of England.[<A NAME="chap04fn52text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn52">52</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When the time came for returning some of these visits, the royal pair
+set forth in their yacht, much to Victoria's satisfaction.  'I do love
+a ship!' she exclaimed, ran up and down ladders with the greatest
+agility, and cracked jokes with the sailors.[<A NAME="chap04fn53text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn53">53</A>]  The Prince was more
+aloof.  They visited Louis Philippe at the Ch�teau d'Eu; they visited
+King Leopold in Brussels.  It happened that a still more remarkable
+Englishwoman was in the Belgian capital, but she was not remarked; and
+Queen Victoria passed unknowing before the steady gaze of one of the
+mistresses in M. H�ger's <I>pensionnat</I>.  'A little, stout, vivacious
+lady, very plainly dressed&mdash;not much dignity or pretension about her,'
+was Charlotte Bront�'s comment as the royal carriage and six flashed by
+her, making her wait on the pavement for a moment, and interrupting the
+train of her reflections.[<A NAME="chap04fn54text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn54">54</A>]  Victoria was in high spirits, and even
+succeeded in instilling a little cheerfulness into her uncle's sombre
+Court.  King Leopold, indeed, was perfectly contented.  His dearest
+hopes had been fulfilled; all his ambitions were satisfied; and for the
+rest of his life he had only to enjoy, in undisturbed decorum, his
+throne, his respectability, the table of precedence, and the punctual
+discharge of his irksome duties.  But unfortunately the felicity of
+those who
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P128"></A>128}</SPAN>
+surrounded him was less complete.  His Court, it was
+murmured, was as gloomy as a conventicle, and the most dismal of all
+the sufferers was his wife.  'Pas de plaisanteries, madame!' he had
+exclaimed to the unfortunate successor of the Princess Charlotte, when,
+in the early days of their marriage, she had attempted a feeble joke.
+Did she not understand that the consort of a constitutional sovereign
+must not be frivolous?  She understood, at last, only too well; and
+when the startled walls of the state apartments re-echoed to the
+chattering and the laughter of Victoria, the poor lady found that she
+had almost forgotten how to smile.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Another year, Germany was visited, and Albert displayed the beauties of
+his home.  When Victoria crossed the frontier, she was much
+excited&mdash;and she was astonished as well.  'To hear the people speak
+German,' she noted in her diary, 'and to see the German soldiers, etc.,
+seemed to me so singular.'  Having recovered from this slight shock,
+she found the country charming.  She was f�ted everywhere, crowds of
+the surrounding royalties swooped down to welcome her, and the
+prettiest groups of peasant children, dressed in their best clothes,
+presented her with bunches of flowers.  The principality of Coburg,
+with its romantic scenery and its well-behaved inhabitants,
+particularly delighted her; and when she woke up one morning to find
+herself in 'dear Rosenau, my Albert's birthplace,' it was 'like a
+beautiful dream.'  On her return home, she expatiated, in a letter to
+King Leopold, upon the pleasures of the trip, dwelling especially upon
+the intensity of her affection for Albert's native land.  'I have a
+feeling,' she said, 'for our dear little Germany, which I cannot
+describe.  I felt it at Rosenau so much.  It is a something which
+touches me, and which goes
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P129"></A>129}</SPAN>
+to my heart, and makes me inclined to
+cry.  I never felt at any other place that sort of pensive pleasure and
+peace which I felt there.  I fear I almost like it too much.'[<A NAME="chap04fn55text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn55">55</A>]
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+V
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+The husband was not so happy as the wife.  In spite of the great
+improvement in his situation, in spite of a growing family and the
+adoration of Victoria, Albert was still a stranger in a strange land,
+and the serenity of spiritual satisfaction was denied him.  It was
+something, no doubt, to have dominated his immediate environment; but
+it was not enough; and, besides, in the very completeness of his
+success, there was a bitterness.  Victoria idolised him; but it was
+understanding that he craved for, not idolatry; and how much did
+Victoria, filled to the brim though she was with him, understand him?
+How much does the bucket understand the well?  He was lonely.  He went
+to his organ and improvised with learned modulations until the sounds,
+swelling and subsiding through elaborate cadences, brought some solace
+to his heart.  Then, with the elasticity of youth, he hurried off to
+play with the babies, or to design a new pigsty, or to read aloud the
+'Church History of Scotland' to Victoria, or to pirouette before her on
+one toe, like a ballet-dancer, with a fixed smile, to show her how she
+ought to behave when she appeared in public places.[<A NAME="chap04fn56text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn56">56</A>]  Thus did he
+amuse himself; but there was one distraction in which he did not
+indulge.  He never flirted&mdash;no, not with the prettiest ladies of the
+Court.  When, during their engagement, the Queen had remarked with
+pride to
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P130"></A>130}</SPAN>
+Lord Melbourne that the Prince paid no attention to any
+other woman, the cynic had answered 'No, that sort of thing is apt to
+come later'; upon which she had scolded him severely, and then hurried
+off to Stockmar to repeat what Lord M. had said.  But the Baron had
+reassured her; though in other cases, he had replied, that might
+happen, he did not think it would in Albert's.  And the Baron was
+right.  Throughout their married life no rival female charms ever gave
+cause to Victoria for one moment's pang of jealousy.[<A NAME="chap04fn57text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn57">57</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+What more and more absorbed him&mdash;bringing with it a curious comfort of
+its own&mdash;was his work.  With the advent of Peel, he began to intervene
+actively in the affairs of the State.  In more ways than one&mdash;in the
+cast of their intelligence, in their moral earnestness, even in the
+uneasy formalism of their manners&mdash;the two men resembled each other;
+there was a sympathy between them; and thus Peel was ready enough to
+listen to the advice of Stockmar, and to urge the Prince forward into
+public life.  A royal commission was about to be formed to enquire
+whether advantage might not be taken of the rebuilding of the Houses of
+Parliament to encourage the Fine Arts in the United Kingdom; and Peel,
+with great perspicacity, asked the Prince to preside over it.  The work
+was of a kind which precisely suited Albert: his love of art, his love
+of method, his love of coming into contact&mdash;close yet dignified&mdash;with
+distinguished men&mdash;it satisfied them all; and he threw himself into it
+<I>con amore</I>.  Some of the members of the commission were somewhat
+alarmed when, in his opening speech, he pointed out the necessity of
+dividing the subjects to be considered into
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P131"></A>131}</SPAN>
+'categories'&mdash;the
+word, they thought, smacked dangerously of German metaphysics; but
+their confidence returned when they observed His Royal Highness's
+extraordinary technical acquaintance with the processes of
+fresco-painting.  When the question arose as to whether the decorations
+upon the walls of the new buildings should, or should not, have a moral
+purpose, the Prince spoke strongly for the affirmative.  Although many,
+he observed, would give but a passing glance to the works, the painter
+was not therefore to forget that others might view them with more
+thoughtful eyes.  This argument convinced the commission, and it was
+decided that the subjects to be depicted should be of an improving
+nature.  The frescoes were carried out in accordance with the
+commission's instructions, but unfortunately before very long they had
+become, even to the most thoughtful eyes, totally invisible.  It seems
+that His Royal Highness's technical acquaintance with the processes of
+fresco-painting was incomplete.[<A NAME="chap04fn58text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn58">58</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The next task upon which the Prince embarked was a more arduous one: he
+determined to reform the organisation of the royal household.  This
+reform had been long overdue.  For years past the confusion,
+discomfort, and extravagance in the royal residences, and in Buckingham
+Palace particularly, had been scandalous; no reform had been
+practicable under the rule of the Baroness; but her functions had now
+devolved upon the Prince, and in 1844 he boldly attacked the problem.
+Three years earlier, Stockmar, after careful enquiry, had revealed in
+an elaborate memorandum an extraordinary state of affairs.  The control
+of the household, it appeared, was divided in the strangest manner
+between a number of authorities,
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P132"></A>132}</SPAN>
+each independent of the other,
+each possessed of vague and fluctuating powers, without responsibility
+and without co-ordination.  Of these authorities, the most prominent
+were the Lord Steward and the Lord Chamberlain&mdash;noblemen of high rank
+and political importance, who changed office with every administration,
+who did not reside with the Court, and had no effective representatives
+attached to it.  The distribution of their respective functions was
+uncertain and peculiar.  In Buckingham Palace, it was believed that the
+Lord Chamberlain had charge of the whole of the rooms, with the
+exception of the kitchen, sculleries, and pantries, which were claimed
+by the Lord Steward.  At the same time, the outside of the Palace was
+under the control of neither of these functionaries&mdash;but of the Office
+of Woods and Forests; and thus, while the insides of the windows were
+cleaned by the department of the Lord Chamberlain&mdash;or possibly, in
+certain cases, of the Lord Steward&mdash;the Office of Woods and Forests
+cleaned their outsides.  Of the servants, the housekeepers, the pages,
+and the housemaids were under the authority of the Lord Chamberlain;
+the clerk of the kitchen, the cooks, and the porters were under that of
+the Lord Steward; but the footmen, the livery-porters, and the
+under-butlers took their orders from yet another official&mdash;the Master
+of the Horse.  Naturally, in these circumstances the service was
+extremely defective and the lack of discipline among the servants
+disgraceful.  They absented themselves for as long as they pleased and
+whenever the fancy took them; 'and if,' as the Baron put it, 'smoking,
+drinking, and other irregularities occur in the dormitories, where
+footmen, etc., sleep ten and twelve in each room, no one can help it.'
+As for Her Majesty's
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P133"></A>133}</SPAN>
+guests, there was nobody to show them to
+their rooms, and they were often left, having utterly lost their way in
+the complicated passages, to wander helpless by the hour.  The strange
+divisions of authority extended not only to persons but to things.  The
+Queen observed that there was never a fire in the dining-room.  She
+enquired why.  The answer was, 'The Lord Steward lays the fire, and the
+Lord Chamberlain lights it'; the underlings of those two great noblemen
+having failed to come to an accommodation, there was no help for
+it&mdash;the Queen must eat in the cold.[<A NAME="chap04fn59text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn59">59</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A surprising incident opened everyone's eyes to the confusion and
+negligence that reigned in the Palace.  A fortnight after the birth of
+the Princess Royal the nurse heard a suspicious noise in the room next
+to the Queen's bedroom.  She called to one of the pages, who, looking
+under a large sofa, perceived there a crouching figure 'with a most
+repulsive appearance.'  It was 'the boy Jones.'  This enigmatical
+personage, whose escapades dominated the newspapers for several ensuing
+months, and whose motives and character remained to the end ambiguous,
+was an undersized lad of seventeen, the son of a tailor, who had
+apparently gained admittance to the Palace by climbing over the garden
+wall and walking in through an open window.  Two years before he had
+paid a similar visit in the guise of a chimney-sweep.  He now declared
+that he had spent three days in the Palace, hiding under various beds,
+that he had 'helped himself to soup and other eatables,' and that he
+had 'sat upon the throne, seen the Queen, and heard the Princess Royal
+squall.'  Every detail of the strange affair was eagerly canvassed.
+<I>The Times</I> reported that the boy
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P134"></A>134}</SPAN>
+Jones had 'from his infancy
+been fond of reading,' but that 'his countenance is exceedingly
+sullen.'  It added: 'The sofa under which the boy Jones was discovered,
+we understand, is one of the most costly and magnificent material and
+workmanship, and ordered expressly for the accommodation of the royal
+and illustrious visitors who call to pay their respects to Her
+Majesty.'  The culprit was sent for three months to the 'House of
+Correction.'  When he emerged, he immediately returned to Buckingham
+Palace.  He was discovered, and sent back to the 'House of Correction'
+for another three months, after which he was offered �4 a week by a
+music hall to appear upon the stage.  He refused this offer, and
+shortly afterwards was found by the police loitering round Buckingham
+Palace.  The authorities acted vigorously, and, without any trial or
+process of law, shipped the boy Jones off to sea.  A year later his
+ship put into Portsmouth to refit, and he at once disembarked and
+walked to London.  He was re-arrested before he reached the Palace, and
+sent back to his ship, the <I>Warspite</I>.  On this occasion it was noticed
+that he had 'much improved in personal appearance and grown quite
+corpulent'; and so the boy Jones passed out of history, though we catch
+one last glimpse of him in 1844 falling overboard in the night between
+Tunis and Algiers.  He was fished up again; but it was conjectured&mdash;as
+one of the <I>Warspite's</I> officers explained in a letter to <I>The
+Times</I>&mdash;that his fall had not been accidental, but that he had
+deliberately jumped into the Mediterranean in order to 'see the
+life-buoy light burning.'  Of a boy with such a record, what else could
+be supposed?[<A NAME="chap04fn60text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn60">60</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P135"></A>135}</SPAN>
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But discomfort and alarm were not the only results of the mismanagement
+of the household; the waste, extravagance, and peculation that also
+flowed from it were immeasurable.  There were preposterous perquisites
+and malpractices of every kind.  It was, for instance, an ancient and
+immutable rule that a candle that had once been lighted should never be
+lighted again; what happened to the old candles nobody knew.  Again,
+the Prince, examining the accounts, was puzzled by a weekly expenditure
+of thirty-five shillings on 'Red Room Wine.'  He enquired into the
+matter, and after great difficulty discovered that in the time of
+George III a room in Windsor Castle with red hangings had once been
+used as a guard-room, and that five shillings a day had been allowed to
+provide wine for the officers.  The guard had long since been moved
+elsewhere, but the payment for wine in the Red Room continued, the
+money being received by a half-pay officer who held the sinecure
+position of under-butler.[<A NAME="chap04fn61text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn61">61</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+After much laborious investigation, and a stiff struggle with the
+multitude of vested interests which had been brought into being by long
+years of neglect, the Prince succeeded in effecting a complete reform.
+The various conflicting authorities were induced to resign their powers
+into the hands of a single official, the Master of the Household, who
+became responsible for the entire management of the royal palaces.
+Great economies were made, and the whole crowd of venerable abuses was
+swept away.  Among others, the unlucky half-pay officer of the Red Room
+was, much to his surprise, given the choice of relinquishing his weekly
+emolument or of performing the duties of an under-butler.  Even the
+irregularities among the footmen,
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P136"></A>136}</SPAN>
+etc., were greatly diminished.
+There were outcries and complaints; the Prince was accused of meddling,
+of injustice, and of saving candle-ends; but he held on his course, and
+before long the admirable administration of the royal household was
+recognised as a convincing proof of his perseverance and capacity.[<A NAME="chap04fn62text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn62">62</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At the same time his activity was increasing enormously in a more
+important sphere.  He had become the Queen's Private Secretary, her
+confidential adviser, her second self.  He was now always present at
+her interviews with Ministers.[<A NAME="chap04fn63text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn63">63</A>]  He took, like the Queen, a special
+interest in foreign policy; but there was no public question in which
+his influence was not felt.  A double process was at work; while
+Victoria fell more and more absolutely under his intellectual
+predominance, he, simultaneously, grew more and more completely
+absorbed by the machinery of high politics&mdash;the incessant and
+multifarious business of a great State.  Nobody any more could call him
+a dilettante; he was a worker, a public personage, a man of affairs.
+Stockmar noted the change with exultation.  'The Prince,' he wrote,
+'has improved very much lately.  He has evidently a head for politics.
+He has become, too, far more independent.  His mental activity is
+constantly on the increase, and he gives the greater part of his time
+to business, without complaining.'  'The relations between husband and
+wife,' added the Baron, 'are all one could desire.'[<A NAME="chap04fn64text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn64">64</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Long before Peel's ministry came to an end, there had been a complete
+change in Victoria's attitude towards him.  His appreciation of the
+Prince had softened her heart; the sincerity and warmth of his
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P137"></A>137}</SPAN>
+nature, which, in private intercourse with those whom he wished to
+please, had the power of gradually dissipating the awkwardness of his
+manners, did the rest.[<A NAME="chap04fn65text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn65">65</A>]  She came in time to regard him with intense
+feelings of respect and attachment.  She spoke of 'our worthy Peel,'
+for whom, she said, she had 'an <I>extreme</I> admiration' and who had shown
+himself 'a man of unbounded <I>loyalty, courage</I>, patriotism, and
+<I>high-mindedness</I>, and his conduct towards me has been <I>chivalrous</I>
+almost, I might say.'[<A NAME="chap04fn66text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn66">66</A>]  She dreaded his removal from office almost
+as frantically as she had once dreaded that of Lord M.  It would be,
+she declared, a <I>great calamity</I>.  Six years before, what would she
+have said, if a prophet had told her that the day would come when she
+would be horrified by the triumph of the Whigs?  Yet there was no
+escaping it; she had to face the return of her old friends.  In the
+ministerial crises of 1845 and 1846, the Prince played a dominating
+part.  Everybody recognised that he was the real centre of the
+negotiations&mdash;the actual controller of the forces and the functions of
+the Crown.  The process by which this result was reached had been so
+gradual as to be almost imperceptible; but it may be said with
+certainty that, by the close of Peel's administration, Albert had
+become, in effect, the King of England.[<A NAME="chap04fn67text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn67">67</A>]
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+VI
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+With the final emergence of the Prince came the final extinction of
+Lord Melbourne.  A year after his loss of office, he had been struck
+down by a paralytic seizure; he had apparently recovered, but his old
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P138"></A>138}</SPAN>
+elasticity had gone for ever.  Moody, restless, and unhappy, he
+wandered like a ghost about the town, bursting into soliloquies in
+public places, or asking odd questions, suddenly, <I>� propos de bottes</I>,
+'I'll be hanged if I'll do it for you, my Lord,' he was heard to say in
+the hall at Brooks's, standing by himself, and addressing the air after
+much thought.  'Don't you consider,' he abruptly asked a fellow-guest
+at Lady Holland's, leaning across the dinner-table in a pause of the
+conversation, 'that it was a most damnable act of Henri Quatre to
+change his religion with a view to securing the Crown?'  He sat at
+home, brooding for hours in miserable solitude.  He turned over his
+books&mdash;his classics and his Testaments&mdash;but they brought him no comfort
+at all.  He longed for the return of the past, for the impossible, for
+he knew not what, for the devilries of Caro, for the happy platitudes
+of Windsor.  His friends had left him, and no wonder, he said in
+bitterness&mdash;the fire was out.  He secretly hoped for a return to power,
+scanning the newspapers with solicitude, and occasionally making a
+speech in the House of Lords.  His correspondence with the Queen
+continued, and he appeared from time to time at Court; but he was a
+mere simulacrum of his former self; 'the dream,' wrote Victoria, 'is
+<I>past</I>.'  As for his political views, they could no longer be
+tolerated.  The Prince was an ardent Free Trader, and so, of course,
+was the Queen; and when, dining at Windsor at the time of the repeal of
+the Corn Laws, Lord Melbourne suddenly exclaimed, 'Ma'am, it's a damned
+dishonest act!' everyone was extremely embarrassed.  Her Majesty
+laughed and tried to change the conversation, but without avail; Lord
+Melbourne returned to the charge again and again with&mdash;'I say, Ma'am,
+it's damned dishonest!'&mdash;until
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P139"></A>139}</SPAN>
+the Queen said 'Lord Melbourne, I
+must beg you not to say anything more on this subject now'; and then he
+held his tongue.  She was kind to him, writing him long letters, and
+always remembering his birthday; but it was kindness at a distance, and
+he knew it.  He had become 'poor Lord Melbourne.'  A profound
+disquietude devoured him.  He tried to fix his mind on the condition of
+agriculture and the Oxford Movement.  He wrote long memoranda in
+utterly undecipherable handwriting.  He was convinced that he had lost
+all his money, and could not possibly afford to be a Knight of the
+Garter.  He had run through everything, and yet&mdash;if Peel went out, he
+might be sent for&mdash;why not?  He was never sent for.  The Whigs ignored
+him in their consultations, and the leadership of the party passed to
+Lord John Russell.  When Lord John became Prime Minister, there was
+much politeness, but Lord Melbourne was not asked to join the Cabinet.
+He bore the blow with perfect amenity; but he understood, at last, that
+that was the end.[<A NAME="chap04fn68text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn68">68</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For two years more he lingered, sinking slowly into unconsciousness and
+imbecility.  Sometimes, propped up in his chair, he would be heard to
+murmur, with unexpected appositeness, the words of Samson:&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+'So much I feel my general spirit droop,<BR>
+My hopes all flat, nature within me seems<BR>
+In all her functions weary of herself,<BR>
+My race of glory run, and race of shame,<BR>
+And I shall shortly be with them that rest.'[<A NAME="chap04fn69text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn69">69</A>]<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+A few days before his death, Victoria, learning that there was no hope
+of his recovery, turned her mind for
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P140"></A>140}</SPAN>
+a little towards that which
+had once been Lord M.  'You will grieve to hear,' she told King
+Leopold, 'that our good, dear, old friend Melbourne is dying....  One
+cannot forget how good and kind and amiable he was, and it brings back
+so many recollections to my mind, though, God knows!  I never wish that
+time back again.'[<A NAME="chap04fn70text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn70">70</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She was in little danger.  The tide of circumstance was flowing now
+with irresistible fullness towards a very different consummation.  The
+seriousness of Albert, the claims of her children, her own inmost
+inclinations, and the movement of the whole surrounding world, combined
+to urge her forward along the narrow way of public and domestic duty.
+Her family steadily increased.  Within eighteen months of the birth of
+the Prince of Wales the Princess Alice appeared, and a year later the
+Prince Alfred, and then the Princess Helena, and, two years afterwards,
+the Princess Louise; and still there were signs that the pretty row of
+royal infants was not complete.  The parents, more and more involved in
+family cares and family happiness, found the pomp of Windsor galling,
+and longed for some more intimate and remote retreat.  On the advice of
+Peel they purchased the estate of Osborne, in the Isle of Wight.  Their
+skill and economy in financial matters had enabled them to lay aside a
+substantial sum of money; and they could afford, out of their savings,
+not merely to buy the property but to build a new house for themselves
+and to furnish it at a cost of �200,000.[<A NAME="chap04fn71text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn71">71</A>]  At Osborne, by the
+sea-shore, and among the woods, which Albert, with memories of Rosenau
+in his mind, had so carefully planted, the royal family spent every
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P141"></A>141}</SPAN>
+hour that could be snatched from Windsor and London&mdash;delightful
+hours of deep retirement and peaceful work.[<A NAME="chap04fn72text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn72">72</A>]  The public looked on
+with approval.  A few aristocrats might sniff or titter; but with the
+nation at large the Queen was now once more extremely popular.  The
+middle-classes, in particular, were pleased.  They liked a love-match;
+they liked a household which combined the advantages of royalty and
+virtue, and in which they seemed to see, reflected as in some
+resplendent looking-glass, the ideal image of the very lives they led
+themselves.  Their own existences, less exalted, but oh! so soothingly
+similar, acquired an added excellence, an added succulence, from the
+early hours, the regularity, the plain tuckers, the round games, the
+roast beef and Yorkshire pudding of Osborne.  It was indeed a model
+Court.  Not only were its central personages the patterns of propriety,
+but no breath of scandal, no shadow of indecorum, might approach its
+utmost boundaries.[<A NAME="chap04fn73text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn73">73</A>]  For Victoria, with all the zeal of a convert,
+upheld now the standard of moral purity with an inflexibility
+surpassing, if that were possible, Albert's own.  She blushed to think
+how she had once believed&mdash;how she had once actually told <I>him</I>&mdash;that
+one might be too strict and particular in such matters, and that one
+ought to be indulgent towards other people's dreadful sins.  But she
+was no longer Lord M.'s pupil: she was Albert's wife.  She was
+more&mdash;the embodiment, the living apex of a new era in the generations
+of mankind.  The last vestige of the eighteenth century had
+disappeared; cynicism and subtlety were shrivelled into powder; and
+duty, industry, morality, and domesticity triumphed over
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P142"></A>142}</SPAN>
+them.
+Even the very chairs and tables had assumed, with a singular
+responsiveness, the forms of prim solidity.  The Victorian Age was in
+full swing.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+VII
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Only one thing more was needed: material expression must be given to
+the new ideals and the new forces, so that they might stand revealed in
+visible glory before the eyes of an astonished world.  It was for
+Albert to supply this want.  He mused, and was inspired: the Great
+Exhibition came into his head.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Without consulting anyone, he thought out the details of his conception
+with the minutest care.  There had been exhibitions before in the
+world, but this should surpass them all.  It should contain specimens
+of what every country could produce in raw materials, in machinery and
+mechanical inventions, in manufactures, and in the applied and plastic
+arts.  It should not be merely useful and ornamental; it should teach a
+high moral lesson.  It should be an international monument to those
+supreme blessings of civilisation&mdash;peace, progress, and prosperity.
+For some time past the Prince had been devoting much of his attention
+to the problems of commerce and industry.  He had a taste for machinery
+of every kind, and his sharp eye had more than once detected, with the
+precision of an expert, a missing cog-wheel in some vast and
+complicated engine.[<A NAME="chap04fn74text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn74">74</A>]  A visit to Liverpool, where he opened the
+Albert Dock, impressed upon his mind the immensity of modern industrial
+forces, though in a letter to Victoria describing his experiences, he
+was careful to retain his customary lightness of touch.  'As
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P143"></A>143}</SPAN>
+I
+write,' he playfully remarked, 'you will be making your evening
+toilette, and not be ready in time for dinner.  I must set about the
+same task, and not, let me hope, with the same result....  The loyalty
+and enthusiasm of the inhabitants are great; but the heat is greater
+still.  I am satisfied that if the population of Liverpool had been
+weighed this morning, and were to be weighed again now, they would be
+found many degrees lighter.  The docks are wonderful, and the mass of
+shipping incredible.'[<A NAME="chap04fn75text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn75">75</A>]  In art and science he had been deeply
+interested since boyhood; his reform of the household had put his
+talent for organisation beyond a doubt; and thus from every point of
+view the Prince was well qualified for his task.  Having matured his
+plans, he summoned a small committee and laid an outline of his scheme
+before it.  The committee approved, and the great undertaking was set
+on foot without delay.[<A NAME="chap04fn76text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn76">76</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Two years, however, passed before it was completed.  For two years the
+Prince laboured with extraordinary and incessant energy.  At first all
+went smoothly.  The leading manufacturers warmly took up the idea; the
+colonies and the East India Company were sympathetic; the great foreign
+nations were eager to send in their contributions; the powerful support
+of Sir Robert Peel was obtained, and the use of a site in Hyde Park,
+selected by the Prince, was sanctioned by the Government.  Out of 234
+plans for the Exhibition building, the Prince chose that of Joseph
+Paxton, famous as a designer of gigantic conservatories; and the work
+was on the point of being put in hand when a series of unexpected
+difficulties arose.  Opposition to the whole scheme, which had long
+been smouldering
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P144"></A>144}</SPAN>
+in various quarters, suddenly burst forth.
+There was an outcry, headed by <I>The Times</I>, against the use of the Park
+for the Exhibition; for a moment it seemed as if the building would be
+relegated to a suburb; but, after a fierce debate in the House, the
+supporters of the site in the Park won the day.  Then it appeared that
+the project lacked a sufficient financial backing; but this obstacle,
+too, was surmounted, and eventually �200,000 was subscribed as a
+guarantee fund.  The enormous glass edifice rose higher and higher,
+covering acres and enclosing towering elm trees beneath its roof: and
+then the fury of its enemies reached a climax.  The fashionable, the
+cautious, the Protectionists, the pious, all joined in the hue and cry.
+It was pointed out that the Exhibition would serve as a rallying point
+for all the ruffians in England, for all the malcontents in Europe; and
+that on the day of its opening there would certainly be a riot and
+probably a revolution.  It was asserted that the glass roof was porous,
+and that the droppings of fifty million sparrows would utterly destroy
+every object beneath it.  Agitated Nonconformists declared that the
+Exhibition was an arrogant and wicked enterprise which would infallibly
+bring down God's punishment upon the nation.  Colonel Sibthorpe, in the
+debate on the Address, prayed that hail and lightning might descend
+from heaven on the accursed thing.  The Prince, with unyielding
+perseverance and infinite patience, pressed on to his goal.  His health
+was seriously affected; he suffered from constant sleeplessness; his
+strength was almost worn out.  But he remembered the injunctions of
+Stockmar and never relaxed.  The volume of his labours grew more
+prodigious every day; he toiled at committees, presided over public
+meetings, made speeches, and carried on
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P145"></A>145}</SPAN>
+communications with every
+corner of the civilised world&mdash;and his efforts were rewarded.  On May
+1, 1851, the Great Exhibition was opened by the Queen before an
+enormous concourse of persons, amid scenes of dazzling brilliancy and
+triumphant enthusiasm.[<A NAME="chap04fn77text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn77">77</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Victoria herself was in a state of excitement which bordered on
+delirium.  She performed her duties in a trance of joy, gratitude, and
+amazement, and, when it was all over, her feelings poured themselves
+out into her journal in a torrential flood.  The day had been nothing
+but an endless succession of glories&mdash;or rather, one vast glory&mdash;one
+vast radiation of Albert.  Everything she had seen, everything she had
+felt or heard, had been so beautiful, so wonderful, that even the royal
+underlinings broke down under the burden of emphasis, while her
+remembering pen rushed on, regardless, from splendour to splendour&mdash;the
+huge crowds, so well-behaved and loyal&mdash;flags of all the nations
+floating&mdash;the inside of the building, so immense, with myriads of
+people and the sun shining through the roof&mdash;a little side-room, where
+we left our shawls&mdash;palm-trees and machinery&mdash;dear Albert&mdash;the place so
+big that we could hardly hear the organ&mdash;thankfulness to God&mdash;a curious
+assemblage of political and distinguished men&mdash;the March from
+'Athalie'&mdash;God bless my dearest Albert, God bless my dearest
+country!&mdash;a glass fountain&mdash;the Duke and Lord Anglesey walking arm in
+arm&mdash;a beautiful Amazon, in bronze, by Kiss&mdash;Mr. Paxton, who might be
+justly proud, and rose from being a common gardener's boy&mdash;Sir George
+Grey in tears, and everybody astonished and delighted.[<A NAME="chap04fn78text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn78">78</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P146"></A>146}</SPAN>
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A striking incident occurred when, after a short prayer by the
+Archbishop of Canterbury, the choir of 600 voices burst into the
+'Hallelujah Chorus.'  At that moment a Chinaman, dressed in full
+national costume, stepped out into the middle of the central nave, and,
+advancing slowly towards the royal group, did obeisance to Her Majesty.
+The Queen, much impressed, had no doubt that he was an eminent
+mandarin; and, when the final procession was formed, orders were given
+that, as no representative of the Celestial Empire was present, he
+should be included in the diplomatic cort�ge.  He accordingly, with the
+utmost gravity, followed immediately behind the Ambassadors.  He
+subsequently disappeared, and it was rumoured, among ill-natured
+people, that, far from being a mandarin, the fellow was a mere
+impostor.  But nobody ever really discovered the nature of the comments
+that had been lurking behind the matchless impassivity of that yellow
+face.[<A NAME="chap04fn79text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn79">79</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A few days later Victoria poured out her heart to her uncle.  The first
+of May, she said, was 'the <I>greatest</I> day in our history, the most
+<I>beautiful</I> and <I>imposing</I> and <I>touching</I> spectacle ever seen, and the
+triumph of my beloved Albert....  It was the <I>happiest, proudest</I> day
+in my life, and I can think of nothing else.  Albert's dearest name is
+immortalised with this <I>great</I> conception, <I>his</I> own, and my <I>own</I> dear
+country <I>showed</I> she was <I>worthy</I> of it.  The triumph is <I>immense</I>.'[<A NAME="chap04fn80text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn80">80</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was.  The enthusiasm was universal; even the bitterest scoffers were
+converted, and joined in the
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P147"></A>147}</SPAN>
+chorus of praise.[<A NAME="chap04fn81text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn81">81</A>]
+Congratulations from public bodies poured in; the City of Paris gave a
+great <I>f�te</I> to the Exhibition committee; and the Queen and the Prince
+made a triumphal progress through the North of England.  The financial
+results were equally remarkable.  The total profit made by the
+Exhibition amounted to a sum of �165,000, which was employed in the
+purchase of land for the erection of a permanent National Museum in
+South Kensington.  During the six months of its existence in Hyde Park
+over six million persons visited it, and not a single accident
+occurred.  But there is an end to all things; and the time had come for
+the Crystal Palace to be removed to the salubrious seclusion of
+Sydenham.  Victoria, sad but resigned, paid her final visit.  'It
+looked so beautiful,' she said, 'I could not believe it was the last
+time I was to see it.  An organ, accompanied by a fine and powerful
+wind instrument called the sommerophone, was being played, and it
+nearly upset me.  The canvas is very dirty, the red curtains are faded
+and many things are very much soiled, still the effect is fresh and new
+as ever and most beautiful.  The glass fountain was already removed ...
+and the sappers and miners were rolling about the little boxes just as
+they did at the beginning.  It made us all very melancholy.'  But more
+cheerful thoughts followed.  When all was over, she expressed her
+boundless satisfaction in a dithyrambic letter to the Prime Minister.
+Her beloved husband's name, she said, was for ever immortalised, and
+that this was universally recognised by the country was a source to her
+of immense happiness and gratitude.  'She feels grateful to
+Providence,' her Majesty concluded, 'to have permitted her to be united
+to so great, so noble,
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P148"></A>148}</SPAN>
+so excellent a Prince, and this year will
+ever remain the proudest and happiest of her life.  The day of the
+closing of the Exhibition (which the Queen regretted much she could not
+witness), was the twelfth anniversary of her betrothal to the Prince,
+which is a curious coincidence.'[<A NAME="chap04fn82text"></A><A HREF="#chap04fn82">82</A>]
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn1"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn1text">1</A>] Martin, I, 1-2; Grey, 213-4.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn2"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn2text">2</A>] Grey, 7-9; Crawford, 245-6; Panam, 256-7.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn3"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn3text">3</A>] Grey, chaps. i to vi; Ernest, I, 18-23.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn4"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn4text">4</A>] Grey, App. B.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn5"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn5text">5</A>] <I>Ibid.</I>, 124-7.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn6"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn6text">6</A>] Gossart; Ernest, I, 72-3
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn7"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn7text">7</A>] Grey, 169-73,
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn8"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn8text">8</A>] Stockmar, 310.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn9"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn9text">9</A>] Grey, 133, 415, 416, 419.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn10"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn10text">10</A>] Stockmar, 331-2.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn11"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn11text">11</A>] Grey, 425.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn12"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn12text">12</A>] Grey, 421-5; <I>Letters</I>, I, 188.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn13"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn13text">13</A>] 'I had much talk with Lady Cowper about the Court.  She lamented
+the obstinate character of the Queen, from which she thought that
+hereafter great evils might be apprehended.  She said that her
+prejudices and antipathies were deep and strong, and her disposition
+very inflexible.  Her hatred of Peel and her resentment against the
+Duke for having sided with him rather than with her in the old quarrel
+are unabated.'  Greville, Nov. 13, 1839 (unpublished).
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn14"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn14text">14</A>] Greville, Jan.  29, Feb. 15, 1840 (unpublished).
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn15"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn15text">15</A>] <I>Letters</I>, I, 201.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn16"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn16text">16</A>] <I>Letters</I>, I, 200-8; <I>Girlhood</I>, II, 287.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn17"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn17text">17</A>] <I>Dictionary of National Biography</I>, Art. Sir James Clark;
+<I>Letters</I>, I. 202.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn18"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn18text">18</A>] Grey, 292-303.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn19"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn19text">19</A>] Greville, Feb. 15, 1840 (unpublished).
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn20"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn20text">20</A>] <I>Letters</I>, I, 199.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn21"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn21text">21</A>] Martin, I, 71, 153.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn22"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn22text">22</A>] Grey, 319-20.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn23"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn23text">23</A>] Greville, April 3, 1840 (unpublished); Grey, 353-4; Ernest, I,
+93-4.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn24"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn24text">24</A>] Stockmar, 351.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn25"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn25text">25</A>] <I>Letters</I>, I, 224.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn26"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn26text">26</A>] Blomfield, I, 19.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn27"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn27text">27</A>] Grey, 340; <I>Letters</I>, I, 256.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn28"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn28text">28</A>] Ernest, I, 93.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn29"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn29text">29</A>] Jerrold, <I>Married Life</I>, 56.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn30"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn30text">30</A>] Grey, 320-1, 361-2.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn31"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn31text">31</A>] Stockmar, 352-7.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn32"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn32text">32</A>] Martin, I, 90-2.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn33"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn33text">33</A>] <I>Letters</I>, I, 271-4, 284-6.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn34"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn34text">34</A>] <I>Letters</I>, I, 280.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn35"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn35text">35</A>] <I>Letters</I>, I, 305; Greville, V, 39-40.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn36"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn36text">36</A>] <I>Letters</I>, I, 325-6, 329, 330-1, 339-42, 352-4, 360-3, 368.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn37"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn37text">37</A>] <I>Ibid.</I>, I, 291, 295.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn38"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn38text">38</A>] <I>Ibid.</I>, I, 303.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn39"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn39text">39</A>] Lyttelton, 282-3.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn40"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn40text">40</A>] Bloomfield, I, 215.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn41"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn41text">41</A>] Grey, 338-9; Bloomfield, I, 28, 123; Lyttelton, 300, 303, 305-6,
+312, 334-5; Martin, I, 488; <I>Letters</I>, I, 369.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn42"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn42text">42</A>] <I>Letters</I>, I, 366.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn43"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn43text">43</A>] <I>Ibid.</I>, III, 439.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn44"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn44text">44</A>] Martin, I, 125.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn45"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn45text">45</A>] <I>Girlhood</I>, II, 135.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn46"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn46text">46</A>] <I>Letters</I>, I, 366, 464-5, 475, etc.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn47"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn47text">47</A>] Lyttelton, 306.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn48"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn48text">48</A>] Crawford, 243
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn49"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn49text">49</A>] Lyttelton, 348.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn50"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn50text">50</A>] <I>Letters</I>, II, 13; Bunsen, II, 6; Bloomfield, I, 53-4.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn51"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn51text">51</A>] <I>Letters</I>, II, 12-16.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn52"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn52text">52</A>] Martin, I, 224.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn53"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn53text">53</A>] Lyttelton, 292; Bloomfield, I, 76-7.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn54"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn54text">54</A>] Gaskell, I, 313.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn55"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn55text">55</A>] Martin, I, 275, 306.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn56"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn56text">56</A>] Lyttelton, 303, 354, 402.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn57"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn57text">57</A>] Clarendon, I, 181-2; <I>Girlhood</I>, II, 299, 306.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn58"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn58text">58</A>] Martin, I, 119-25, 167; Stockmar, 660.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn59"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn59text">59</A>] Stockmar, 404-10; Martin, I, 156-60.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn60"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn60text">60</A>] <I>The Times</I>, Dec., 1840: March, July, Dec., 1841; Feb., Oct.,
+1842; July, 1844.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn61"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn61text">61</A>] <I>The Times</I> 'Life,' 45.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn62"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn62text">62</A>] Stockmar, 409-10; Martin, I, 161.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn63"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn63text">63</A>] Greville, VII, 132.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn64"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn64text">64</A>] Stockmar, 466-7.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn65"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn65text">65</A>] Disraeli, 311; Greville, VI, 367-8.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn66"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn66text">66</A>] <I>Letters</I>, II, 64.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn67"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn67text">67</A>] Greville, V, 329-30.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn68"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn68text">68</A>] Torrens, 502, chap. xxxiii; <I>Letters</I>, I, 451; II, 140; Greville,
+V, 359; VI, 125.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn69"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn69text">69</A>] Greville, VI, 255.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn70"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn70text">70</A>] <I>Letters</I>, II, 203.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn71"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn71text">71</A>] Greville, VI, 68-9.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn72"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn72text">72</A>] Martin, I, 247-9; Grey, 113.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn73"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn73text">73</A>] Stockmar, 363; Martin, I, 316.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn74"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn74text">74</A>] Martin, II, 87.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn75"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn75text">75</A>] Martin, I, 334.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn76"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn76text">76</A>] <I>Ibid.</I>, II, 224-5.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn77"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn77text">77</A>] Martin, II, 225, 243-51, 289, 297-9, 358-9; <I>Dictionary of
+National Biography</I>, Art. 'Joseph Paxton'; Bloomfield, II, 3-4.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn78"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn78text">78</A>] Martin, II, 364-8.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn79"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn79text">79</A>] Martin, II, 367 and note.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn80"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn80text">80</A>] <I>Letters</I>, II, 317-8.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn81"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn81text">81</A>] Greville, VI, 413.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap04fn82"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap04fn82text">82</A>] Martin, II, 369-72, 386-92, 403-5.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap05"></A>
+
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P149"></A>149}</SPAN>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER V
+</H3>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+LORD PALMERSTON
+</H4>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+I
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+In 1851 the Prince's fortunes reached their highwater mark.  The
+success of the Great Exhibition enormously increased his reputation and
+seemed to assure him henceforward a leading place in the national life.
+But before the year was out another triumph, in a very different sphere
+of action, was also his.  This triumph, big with fateful consequences,
+was itself the outcome of a series of complicated circumstances which
+had been gathering to a climax for many years.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The unpopularity of Albert in high society had not diminished with
+time.  Aristocratic persons continued to regard him with disfavour; and
+he on his side withdrew further and further into a contemptuous
+reserve.  For a moment, indeed, it appeared as if the dislike of the
+upper classes was about to be suddenly converted into cordiality; for
+they learnt with amazement that the Prince, during a country visit, had
+ridden to hounds and acquitted himself remarkably well.  They had
+always taken it for granted that his horsemanship was of some
+second-rate foreign quality, and here he was jumping five-barred gates
+and tearing after the fox as if he had been born and bred in
+Leicestershire.  They could hardly believe it; was it possible that
+they had made a mistake, and that Albert was a
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P150"></A>150}</SPAN>
+good fellow after
+all?  Had he wished to be thought so he would certainly have seized
+this opportunity, purchased several hunters, and used them constantly.
+But he had no such desire; hunting bored him, and made Victoria
+nervous.  He continued, as before, to ride, as he himself put it, for
+exercise or convenience, not for amusement; and it was agreed that
+though the Prince, no doubt, could keep in his saddle well enough, he
+was no sportsman.[<A NAME="chap05fn1text"></A><A HREF="#chap05fn1">1</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This was a serious matter.  It was not merely that Albert was laughed
+at by fine ladies and sneered at by fine gentlemen; it was not merely
+that Victoria, who before her marriage had cut some figure in society,
+had, under her husband's influence, almost completely given it up.
+Since Charles the Second the sovereigns of England had, with a single
+exception, always been unfashionable; and the fact that the exception
+was George the Fourth seemed to give an added significance to the rule.
+What was grave was not the lack of fashion, but the lack of other and
+more important qualities.  The hostility of the upper classes was
+symptomatic of an antagonism more profound than one of manners or even
+of tastes.  The Prince, in a word, was un-English.  What that word
+precisely meant it was difficult to say; but the fact was patent to
+every eye.  Lord Palmerston, also, was not fashionable; the great Whig
+aristocrats looked askance at him, and tolerated him only as an
+unpleasant necessity thrust upon them by fate.  But Lord Palmerston was
+English through and through; there was something in him that expressed,
+with extraordinary vigour, the fundamental qualities of the English
+race.  And he was the very antithesis of the Prince.  By a curious
+chance it so happened that this typical
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P151"></A>151}</SPAN>
+Englishman was brought
+into closer contact than any other of his countrymen with the alien
+from over the sea.  It thus fell out that differences which, in more
+fortunate circumstances, might have been smoothed away and obliterated,
+became accentuated to the highest pitch.  All the mysterious forces in
+Albert's soul leapt out to do battle with his adversary, and, in the
+long and violent conflict that followed, it almost seemed as if he was
+struggling with England herself.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Palmerston's whole life had been spent in the government of the
+country.  At twenty-two he had been a Minister; at twenty-five he had
+been offered the Chancellorship of the Exchequer, which, with that
+prudence which formed so unexpected a part of his character, he had
+declined to accept.  His first spell of office had lasted
+uninterruptedly for twenty-one years.  When Lord Grey came into power
+he received the Foreign Secretaryship, a post which he continued to
+occupy, with two intervals, for another twenty-one years.  Throughout
+this period his reputation with the public had steadily grown, and
+when, in 1846, he became Foreign Secretary for the third time, his
+position in the country was almost, if not quite, on an equality with
+that of the Prime Minister, Lord John Russell.  He was a tall, big man
+of sixty-two, with a jaunty air, a large face, dyed whiskers, and a
+long, sardonic upper lip.  His private life was far from respectable,
+but he had greatly strengthened his position in society by marrying,
+late in life, Lady Cowper, the sister of Lord Melbourne, and one of the
+most influential of the Whig hostesses.  Powerful, experienced, and
+supremely self-confident, he naturally paid very little attention to
+Albert.  Why should he?  The Prince was interested in foreign affairs?
+Very well, then; let the Prince
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P152"></A>152}</SPAN>
+pay attention to <I>him</I>&mdash;to him,
+who had been a Cabinet Minister when Albert was in the cradle, who was
+the chosen leader of a great nation, and who had never failed in
+anything he had undertaken in the whole course of his life.  Not that
+he wanted the Prince's attention&mdash;far from it: so far as he could see,
+Albert was merely a young foreigner, who suffered from having no vices,
+and whose only claim to distinction was that he had happened to marry
+the Queen of England.  This estimate, as he found out to his cost, was
+a mistaken one.  Albert was by no means insignificant, and, behind
+Albert, there was another figure by no means insignificant
+either&mdash;there was Stockmar.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But Palmerston, busy with his plans, his ambitions, and the management
+of a great department, brushed all such considerations on one side; it
+was his favourite method of action.  He lived by instinct&mdash;by a quick
+eye and a strong hand, a dexterous management of every crisis as it
+arose, a half-unconscious sense of the vital elements in a situation.
+He was very bold; and nothing gave him more exhilaration than to steer
+the ship of state in a high wind, on a rough sea, with every stitch of
+canvas on her that she could carry.  But there is a point beyond which
+boldness becomes rashness&mdash;a point perceptible only to intuition and
+not to reason; and beyond that point Palmerston never went.  When he
+saw that the case demanded it, he could go slow&mdash;very slow indeed; in
+fact, his whole career, so full of vigorous adventure, was nevertheless
+a masterly example of the proverb, 'Tout vient � point � qui sait
+attendre.'  But when he decided to go quick, nobody went quicker.  One
+day, returning from Osborne, he found that he had missed the train to
+London; he ordered a special, but the station-master told him that to
+put a special
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P153"></A>153}</SPAN>
+train upon the line at that time of day would be
+dangerous, and he could not allow it.  Palmerston insisted, declaring
+that he had important business in London, which could not wait.  The
+station-master, supported by all the officials, continued to demur; the
+company, he said, could not possibly take the responsibility.  'On my
+responsibility, then!' said Palmerston, in his off-hand, peremptory
+way; whereupon the stationmaster ordered up the train, and the Foreign
+Secretary reached London in time for his work, without an accident.[<A NAME="chap05fn2text"></A><A HREF="#chap05fn2">2</A>]
+The story is typical of the happy valiance with which he conducted both
+his own affairs and those of the nation.  'England,' he used to say,
+'is strong enough to brave consequences.'[<A NAME="chap05fn3text"></A><A HREF="#chap05fn3">3</A>]  Apparently, under
+Palmerston's guidance, she was.  While the officials protested and
+shook in their shoes, he would wave them away with his airy '<I>My</I>
+responsibility!' and carry the country swiftly along the line of his
+choice, to a triumphant destination,&mdash;without an accident.  His immense
+popularity was the result partly of his diplomatic successes, partly of
+his extraordinary personal affability, but chiefly of the genuine
+intensity with which he responded to the feelings and supported the
+interests of his countrymen.  The public knew that it had in Lord
+Palmerston not only a high-mettled master, but also a devoted
+servant&mdash;that he was, in every sense of the word, a public man.  When
+he was Prime Minister, he noticed that iron hurdles had been put up on
+the grass in the Green Park; he immediately wrote to the Minister
+responsible, ordering, in the severest language, their instant removal,
+declaring that they were 'an intolerable nuisance,' and that the
+purpose of the grass was 'to be walked upon freely and without
+restraint by the people,
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P154"></A>154}</SPAN>
+old and young, for whose enjoyment the
+parks are maintained.'[<A NAME="chap05fn4text"></A><A HREF="#chap05fn4">4</A>]  It was in this spirit that, as Foreign
+Secretary, he watched over the interests of Englishmen abroad.  Nothing
+could be more agreeable for Englishmen; but foreign governments were
+less pleased.  They found Lord Palmerston interfering, exasperating,
+and alarming.  In Paris they spoke with bated breath of 'ce terrible
+milord Palmerston'; and in Germany they made a little song about him&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+'Hat der Teufel einen Sohn,<BR>
+So ist er sicher Palmerston.'[<A NAME="chap05fn5text"></A><A HREF="#chap05fn5">5</A>]<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+But their complaints, their threats, and their agitations were all in
+vain.  Palmerston, with his upper lip sardonically curving, braved
+consequences, and held on his course.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The first diplomatic crisis which arose after his return to office,
+though the Prince and the Queen were closely concerned with it, passed
+off without serious disagreement between the Court and the Minister.
+For some years past a curious problem had been perplexing the
+chanceries of Europe.  Spain, ever since the time of Napoleon a prey to
+civil convulsions, had settled down for a short interval to a state of
+comparative quiet under the rule of Christina, the Queen Mother, and
+her daughter Isabella, the young Queen.  In 1846, the question of
+Isabella's marriage, which had for long been the subject of diplomatic
+speculations, suddenly became acute.  Various candidates for her hand
+were proposed&mdash;among others, two cousins of her own, another Spanish
+prince, and Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, a first cousin of Victoria's
+and Albert's; for different reasons, however, none of these young men
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P155"></A>155}</SPAN>
+seemed altogether satisfactory.  Isabella was not yet sixteen;
+and it might have been supposed that her marriage could be put off for
+a few years more; but this was considered to be out of the question.
+'Vous ne savez pas,' said a high authority, 'ce que c'est que ces
+princesses espagnoles; elles ont le diable au corps, et on a toujours
+dit que si nous ne nous h�tions pas, l'h�ritier viendrait avant le
+mari.'[<A NAME="chap05fn6text"></A><A HREF="#chap05fn6">6</A>]  It might also have been supposed that the young Queen's
+marriage was a matter to be settled by herself, her mother, and the
+Spanish Government; but this again was far from being the case.  It had
+become, by one of those periodical reversions to the ways of the
+eighteenth century, which, it is rumoured, are still not unknown in
+diplomacy, a question of dominating importance in the foreign policies
+both of France and England.  For several years, Louis Philippe and his
+Prime Minister Guizot had been privately maturing a very subtle plan.
+It was the object of the French King to repeat the glorious <I>coup</I> of
+Louis XIV, and to abolish the Pyrenees by placing one of his grandsons
+on the throne of Spain.  In order to bring this about, he did not
+venture to suggest that his younger son, the Duc de Montpensier, should
+marry Isabella; that would have been too obvious a move, which would
+have raised immediate and insurmountable opposition.  He therefore
+proposed that Isabella should marry her cousin, the Duke of Cadiz,
+while Montpensier married Isabella's younger sister, the Infanta
+Fernanda; and pray, what possible objection could there be to that?
+The wily old King whispered into the chaste ears of Guizot the key to
+the secret; he had good reason to believe that the Duke of Cadiz was
+incapable of having children, and therefore the offspring
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P156"></A>156}</SPAN>
+of
+Fernanda would inherit the Spanish crown.  Guizot rubbed his hands, and
+began at once to set the necessary springs in motion; but, of course,
+the whole scheme was very soon divulged and understood.  The English
+Government took an extremely serious view of the matter; the balance of
+power was clearly at stake, and the French intrigue must be frustrated
+at all hazards.  A diplomatic struggle of great intensity followed; and
+it occasionally appeared that a second War of the Spanish Succession
+was about to break out.  This was avoided, but the consequences of this
+strange imbroglio were far-reaching and completely different from what
+any of the parties concerned could have guessed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In the course of the long and intricate negotiations there was one
+point upon which Louis Philippe laid a special stress&mdash;the candidature
+of Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg.  The prospect of a marriage between a
+Coburg Prince and the Queen of Spain was, he declared, at least as
+threatening to the balance of power in Europe as that of a marriage
+between the Duc de Montpensier and the Infanta; and, indeed, there was
+much to be said for this contention.  The ruin which had fallen upon
+the House of Coburg during the Napoleonic wars had apparently served
+only to multiply its vitality, for that princely family had by now
+extended itself over Europe in an extraordinary manner.  King Leopold
+was firmly fixed in Belgium; his niece was Queen of England; one of his
+nephews was the husband of the Queen of England, and another the
+husband of the Queen of Portugal; yet another was Duke of W�rtemberg.
+Where was this to end?  There seemed to be a Coburg Trust ready to send
+out one of its members at any moment to fill up any vacant place among
+the ruling families of Europe.  And even beyond Europe there
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P157"></A>157}</SPAN>
+were
+signs of this infection spreading.  An American who had arrived in
+Brussels had assured King Leopold that there was a strong feeling in
+the United States in favour of monarchy instead of the misrule of mobs,
+and had suggested, to the delight of His Majesty, that some branch of
+the Coburg family might be available for the position.[<A NAME="chap05fn7text"></A><A HREF="#chap05fn7">7</A>]  That danger
+might, perhaps, be remote; but the Spanish danger was close at hand;
+and if Prince Leopold were to marry Queen Isabella the position of
+France would be one of humiliation, if not of positive danger.  Such
+were the asseverations of Louis Philippe.  The English Government had
+no wish to support Prince Leopold, and, though Albert and Victoria had
+had some hankerings for the match, the wisdom of Stockmar had induced
+them to give up all thoughts of it.  The way thus seemed open for a
+settlement: England would be reasonable about Leopold, if France would
+be reasonable about Montpensier.  At the Ch�teau d'Eu, the agreement
+was made, in a series of conversations between the King and Guizot on
+the one side, and the Queen, the Prince, and Lord Aberdeen on the
+other.  Aberdeen, as Foreign Minister, declared that England would
+neither recognise nor support Prince Leopold as a candidate for the
+hand of the Queen of Spain; while Louis Philippe solemnly promised,
+both to Aberdeen and to Victoria, that the Duc de Montpensier should
+not marry the Infanta Fernanda until after the Queen was married and
+had issue.  All went well, and the crisis seemed to be over, when the
+whole question was suddenly reopened by Palmerston, who had succeeded
+Aberdeen at the Foreign Office.  In a despatch to the English Minister
+at Madrid, he mentioned, in a list of possible candidates
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P158"></A>158}</SPAN>
+for
+Queen Isabella's hand, Prince Leopold of Coburg; and at the same time
+he took occasion to denounce in violent language the tyranny and
+incompetence of the Spanish Government.  This despatch, indiscreet in
+any case, was rendered infinitely more so by being communicated to
+Guizot.  Louis Philippe saw his opportunity and pounced on it.  Though
+there was nothing in Palmerston's language to show that he either
+recognised or supported Prince Leopold, the King at once assumed that
+the English had broken their engagement, and that he was therefore free
+to do likewise.  He then sent the despatch to the Queen Mother,
+declared that the English were intriguing for the Coburg marriage, bade
+her mark the animosity of Palmerston against the Spanish Government,
+and urged her to escape from her difficulties and ensure the friendship
+of France by marrying Isabella to the Duke of Cadiz and Fernanda to
+Montpensier.  The Queen Mother, alarmed and furious, was easily
+convinced.  There was only one difficulty: Isabella loathed the very
+sight of her cousin.  But this was soon surmounted; there was a wild
+supper-party at the Palace, and in the course of it the young girl was
+induced to consent to anything that was asked of her.  Shortly after,
+and on the same day, both the marriages took place.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The news burst like a bomb on the English Government, who saw with rage
+and mortification that they had been completely outmanoeuvred by the
+crafty King.  Victoria, in particular, was outraged.  Not only had she
+been the personal recipient of Louis Philippe's pledge, but he had won
+his way to her heart by presenting the Prince of Wales with a box of
+soldiers and sending the Princess Royal a beautiful Parisian doll with
+eyes that opened and shut.  And now insult was
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P159"></A>159}</SPAN>
+added to injury.
+The Queen of the French wrote her a formal letter, calmly announcing,
+as a family event in which she was sure Victoria would be interested,
+the marriage of her son, Montpensier&mdash;'qui ajoutera � notre bonheur
+int�rieur, le seul vrai dans ce monde, et que vous, madame, savez si
+bien appr�cier.'[<A NAME="chap05fn8text"></A><A HREF="#chap05fn8">8</A>]  But the English Queen had not long to wait for her
+revenge.  Within eighteen months the monarchy of Louis Philippe,
+discredited, unpopular, and fatally weakened by the withdrawal of
+English support, was swept into limbo, while he and his family threw
+themselves as suppliant fugitives at the feet of Victoria.[<A NAME="chap05fn9text"></A><A HREF="#chap05fn9">9</A>]
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+II
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+In this affair both the Queen and the Prince had been too much occupied
+with the delinquencies of Louis Philippe to have any wrath to spare for
+those of Palmerston; and, indeed, on the main issue, Palmerston's
+attitude and their own had been in complete agreement.  But in this the
+case was unique.  In every other foreign complication&mdash;and they were
+many and serious&mdash;during the ensuing years, the differences between the
+royal couple and the Foreign Secretary were constant and profound.
+There was a sharp quarrel over Portugal, where violently hostile
+parties were flying at each other's throats.  The royal sympathy was
+naturally enlisted on behalf of the Queen and her Coburg husband, while
+Palmerston gave his support to the progressive elements in the country.
+It was not until 1848, however, that the strain became really serious.
+In that year of revolutions, when, in all directions and with alarming
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P160"></A>160}</SPAN>
+frequency, crowns kept rolling off royal heads, Albert and
+Victoria were appalled to find that the policy of England was
+persistently directed&mdash;in Germany, in Switzerland, in Austria, in
+Italy, in Sicily&mdash;so as to favour the insurgent forces.  The situation,
+indeed, was just such an one as the soul of Palmerston loved.  There
+was danger and excitement, the necessity of decision, the opportunity
+for action, on every hand.  A disciple of Canning, with an English
+gentleman's contempt and dislike of foreign potentates deep in his
+heart, the spectacle of the popular uprisings, and of the oppressors
+bundled ignominiously out of the palaces they had disgraced, gave him
+unbounded pleasure, and he was determined that there should be no doubt
+whatever, all over the Continent, on which side in the great struggle
+England stood.  It was not that he had the slightest tincture in him of
+philosophical radicalism; he had no philosophical tinctures of any
+kind; he was quite content to be inconsistent&mdash;to be a Conservative at
+home and a Liberal abroad.  There were very good reasons for keeping
+the Irish in their places; but what had that to do with it?  The point
+was this&mdash;when any decent man read an account of the political prisons
+in Naples his gorge rose.  He did not want war; but he saw that without
+war a skilful and determined use of England's power might do much to
+further the cause of the Liberals in Europe.  It was a difficult and a
+hazardous game to play, but he set about playing it with delighted
+alacrity.  And then, to his intense annoyance, just as he needed all
+his nerve and all possible freedom of action, he found himself being
+hampered and distracted at every turn by ... those people at Osborne.
+He saw what it was; the opposition was systematic and informed, and the
+Queen alone would
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P161"></A>161}</SPAN>
+have been incapable of it; the Prince was at
+the bottom of the whole thing.  It was exceedingly vexatious; but
+Palmerston was in a hurry, and could not wait; the Prince, if he would
+insist upon interfering, must be brushed on one side.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Albert was very angry.  He highly disapproved both of Palmerston's
+policy and of his methods of action.  He was opposed to absolutism; but
+in his opinion Palmerston's proceedings were simply calculated to
+substitute for absolutism, all over Europe, something no better and
+very possibly worse&mdash;the anarchy of faction and mob violence.  The
+dangers of this revolutionary ferment were grave; even in England
+Chartism was rampant&mdash;a sinister movement, which might at any moment
+upset the Constitution and abolish the Monarchy.  Surely, with such
+dangers at home, this was a very bad time to choose for encouraging
+lawlessness abroad.  He naturally took a particular interest in
+Germany.  His instincts, his affections, his prepossessions, were
+ineradicably German; Stockmar was deeply involved in German politics;
+and he had a multitude of relatives among the ruling German families,
+who, from the midst of the hurly-burly of revolution, wrote him long
+and agitated letters once a week.  Having considered the question of
+Germany's future from every point of view, he came to the conclusion,
+under Stockmar's guidance, that the great aim for every lover of
+Germany should be her unification under the sovereignty of Prussia.
+The intricacy of the situation was extreme, and the possibilities of
+good or evil which every hour might bring forth were incalculable; yet
+he saw with horror that Palmerston neither understood nor cared to
+understand the niceties of this momentous problem, but rushed on
+blindly, dealing blows to right
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P162"></A>162}</SPAN>
+and left, quite&mdash;so far as he
+could see&mdash;without system, and even without motive&mdash;except, indeed, a
+totally unreasonable distrust of the Prussian State.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But his disagreement with the details of Palmerston's policy was in
+reality merely a symptom of the fundamental differences between the
+characters of the two men.  In Albert's eyes Palmerston was a coarse,
+reckless egotist, whose combined arrogance and ignorance must
+inevitably have their issue in folly and disaster.  Nothing could be
+more antipathetic to him than a mind so strangely lacking in patience,
+in reflection, in principle, and in the habits of ratiocination.  For
+to him it was intolerable to think in a hurry, to jump to slapdash
+decisions, to act on instincts that could not be explained.  Everything
+must be done in due order, with careful premeditation; the premises of
+the position must first be firmly established; and he must reach the
+correct conclusion by a regular series of rational steps.  In
+complicated questions&mdash;and what questions, rightly looked at, were not
+complicated?&mdash;to commit one's thoughts to paper was the wisest course,
+and it was the course which Albert, laborious though it might be,
+invariably adopted.  It was as well, too, to draw up a reasoned
+statement after an event, as well as before it; and accordingly,
+whatever happened, it was always found that the Prince had made a
+memorandum.  On one occasion he reduced to six pages of foolscap the
+substance of a confidential conversation with Sir Robert Peel, and,
+having read them aloud to him, asked him to append his signature; Sir
+Robert, who never liked to commit himself, became extremely uneasy;
+upon which the Prince, understanding that it was necessary to humour
+the singular susceptibilities of Englishmen, with great tact dropped
+that particular memorandum
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P163"></A>163}</SPAN>
+into the fire.  But as for Palmerston,
+he never even gave one so much as a chance to read him a memorandum; he
+positively seemed to dislike discussion; and, before one knew where one
+was, without any warning whatever, he would plunge into some
+hare-brained, violent project, which, as likely as not, would logically
+involve a European war.  Closely connected, too, with this cautious,
+painstaking reasonableness of Albert's, was his desire to examine
+questions thoroughly from every point of view, to go down to the roots
+of things, and to act in strict accordance with some well-defined
+principle.  Under Stockmar's tutelage he was constantly engaged in
+enlarging his outlook and in endeavouring to envisage vital problems
+both theoretically and practically&mdash;both with precision and with depth.
+To one whose mind was thus habitually occupied, the empirical
+activities of Palmerston, who had no notion what a principle meant,
+resembled the incoherent vagaries of a tiresome child.  What did
+Palmerston know of economics, of science, of history?  What did he care
+for morality and education?  How much consideration had he devoted in
+the whole course of his life to the improvement of the condition of the
+working-classes and to the general amelioration of the human race?  The
+answers to such questions were all too obvious; and yet it is easy to
+imagine, also, what might have been Palmerston's jaunty comment.  'Ah!
+your Royal Highness is busy with fine schemes and beneficent
+calculations&mdash;exactly!  Well, as for me, I must say I'm quite satisfied
+with my morning's work&mdash;I've had the iron hurdles taken out of the
+Green Park.'
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The exasperating man, however, preferred to make no comment, and to
+proceed in smiling silence on his inexcusable way.  The process of
+'brushing on one
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P164"></A>164}</SPAN>
+side' very soon came into operation.  Important
+Foreign Office despatches were either submitted to the Queen so late
+that there was no time to correct them, or they were not submitted to
+her at all; or, having been submitted, and some passage in them being
+objected to and an alteration suggested, they were after all sent off
+in their original form.  The Queen complained; the Prince complained;
+both complained together.  It was quite useless.  Palmerston was most
+apologetic&mdash;could not understand how it had occurred&mdash;must give the
+clerks a wigging&mdash;certainly Her Majesty's wishes should be attended to,
+and such a thing should never happen again.  But, of course, it very
+soon happened again, and the royal remonstrances redoubled.  Victoria,
+her partisan passions thoroughly aroused, imported into her protests a
+personal vehemence which those of Albert lacked.  Did Lord Palmerston
+forget that she was Queen of England?  How could she tolerate a state
+of affairs in which despatches written in her name were sent abroad
+without her approval or even her knowledge?  What could be more
+derogatory to her position than to be obliged to receive indignant
+letters from the crowned heads to whom those despatches were
+addressed&mdash;letters which she did not know how to answer, since she so
+thoroughly agreed with them?  She addressed herself to the Prime
+Minister.  'No remonstrance has any effect with Lord Palmerston,' she
+said.[<A NAME="chap05fn10text"></A><A HREF="#chap05fn10">10</A>]  'Lord Palmerston,' she told him on another occasion, 'has as
+usual pretended not to have had time to submit the draft to the Queen
+before he had sent it off.'[<A NAME="chap05fn11text"></A><A HREF="#chap05fn11">11</A>]  She summoned Lord John to her
+presence, poured out her indignation, and afterwards, on the advice of
+Albert, noted down what had passed in a memorandum: 'I said that I
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P165"></A>165}</SPAN>
+thought that Lord Palmerston often endangered the honour of
+England by taking a very prejudiced and one-sided view of a question;
+that his writings were always as bitter as gall and did great harm,
+which Lord John entirely assented to, and that I often felt quite ill
+from anxiety.'[<A NAME="chap05fn12text"></A><A HREF="#chap05fn12">12</A>]  Then she turned to her uncle.  'The state of
+Germany,' she wrote in a comprehensive and despairing review of the
+European situation, 'is dreadful, and one does feel quite ashamed about
+that once really so peaceful and happy country.  That there are still
+good people there I am sure, but they allow themselves to be worked
+upon in a frightful and shameful way.  In France a crisis seems at
+hand.  <I>What</I> a very bad figure we cut in this mediation!  Really it is
+quite immoral, with Ireland quivering in our grasp and ready to throw
+off her allegiance at any moment, for us to force Austria to give up
+her lawful possessions.[<A NAME="chap05fn13text"></A><A HREF="#chap05fn13">13</A>]  What shall we say if Canada, Malta, etc.,
+begin to trouble us?  It hurts me terribly.'[<A NAME="chap05fn14text"></A><A HREF="#chap05fn14">14</A>]  But what did Lord
+Palmerston care?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Lord John's position grew more and more irksome.  He did not approve of
+his colleague's treatment of the Queen.  When he begged him to be more
+careful, he was met with the reply that 28,000 despatches passed
+through the Foreign Office in a single year, that, if every one of
+these were to be subjected to the royal criticism, the delay would be
+most serious, that, as it was, the waste of time and the worry involved
+in submitting drafts to the meticulous examination of Prince Albert was
+almost too much for an overworked Minister, and that, as a matter of
+fact, the postponement of important decisions owing to this cause had
+already
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P166"></A>166}</SPAN>
+produced very unpleasant diplomatic consequences.[<A NAME="chap05fn15text"></A><A HREF="#chap05fn15">15</A>]
+These excuses would have impressed Lord John more favourably if he had
+not himself had to suffer from a similar neglect.  As often as not
+Palmerston failed to communicate even to him the most important
+despatches.  The Foreign Secretary was becoming an almost independent
+power, acting on his own initiative, and swaying the policy of England
+on his own responsibility.  On one occasion, in 1847, he had actually
+been upon the point of threatening to break off diplomatic relations
+with France without consulting either the Cabinet or the Prime
+Minister.[<A NAME="chap05fn16text"></A><A HREF="#chap05fn16">16</A>]  And such incidents were constantly recurring.  When this
+became known to the Prince, he saw that his opportunity had come.  If
+he could only drive in to the utmost the wedge between the two
+statesmen, if he could only secure the alliance of Lord John, then the
+suppression or the removal of Lord Palmerston would be almost certain
+to follow.  He set about the business with all the pertinacity of his
+nature.  Both he and the Queen put every kind of pressure upon the
+Prime Minister.  They wrote, they harangued, they relapsed into awful
+silence.  It occurred to them that Lord Clarendon, an important member
+of the Cabinet, would be a useful channel for their griefs.  They
+commanded him to dine at the Palace, and, directly the meal was over,
+'the Queen,' as he described it afterwards, 'exploded, and went with
+the utmost vehemence and bitterness into the whole of Palmerston's
+conduct, all the effects produced all over the world, and all her own
+feelings and sentiments about it.'  When she had finished, the Prince
+took up the tale, with less excitement, but with equal force.  Lord
+Clarendon found himself
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P167"></A>167}</SPAN>
+in an awkward situation; he disliked
+Palmerston's policy, but he was his colleague, and he disapproved of
+the attitude of his royal hosts.  In his opinion, they were 'wrong in
+wishing that courtiers rather than Ministers should conduct the affairs
+of the country,' and he thought that they 'laboured under the curious
+mistake that the Foreign Office was their peculiar department, and that
+they had the right to control, if not to direct, the foreign policy of
+England.'  He, therefore, with extreme politeness, gave it to be
+understood that he would not commit himself in any way.[<A NAME="chap05fn17text"></A><A HREF="#chap05fn17">17</A>]  But Lord
+John, in reality, needed no pressure.  Attacked by his Sovereign,
+ignored by his Foreign Secretary, he led a miserable life.[<A NAME="chap05fn18text"></A><A HREF="#chap05fn18">18</A>]  With
+the advent of the dreadful Schleswig-Holstein question&mdash;the most
+complex in the whole diplomatic history of Europe&mdash;his position,
+crushed between the upper and the nether millstones, grew positively
+unbearable.  He became anxious above all things to get Palmerston out
+of the Foreign Office.  But then&mdash;supposing Palmerston refused to go?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In a memorandum made by the Prince, at about this time, of an interview
+between himself, the Queen, and the Prime Minister, we catch a curious
+glimpse of the states of mind of those three high personages&mdash;the
+anxiety and irritation of Lord John, the vehement acrimony of Victoria,
+and the reasonable animosity of Albert&mdash;drawn together, as it were,
+under the shadow of an unseen Presence, the cause of that celestial
+anger&mdash;the gay, portentous Palmerston.  At one point in the
+conversation Lord John observed that he believed the Foreign Secretary
+would consent to a change of offices;
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P168"></A>168}</SPAN>
+Lord Palmerston, he said,
+realised that he had lost the Queen's confidence&mdash;though only on
+public, and not on personal, grounds.  But on that, the Prince noted,
+'the Queen interrupted Lord John by remarking that she distrusted him
+on <I>personal</I> grounds also, but I remarked that Lord Palmerston had so
+far at least seen rightly; that he had become disagreeable to the
+Queen, not on account of his person, but of his political doings&mdash;to
+which the Queen assented.'  Then the Prince suggested that there was a
+danger of the Cabinet breaking up, and of Lord Palmerston returning to
+office as Prime Minister.  But on that point Lord John was reassuring:
+he 'thought Lord Palmerston too old to do much in the future (having
+passed his sixty-fifth year).'  Eventually it was decided that nothing
+could be done for the present, but that the <I>utmost secrecy</I> must be
+observed; and so the conclave ended.[<A NAME="chap05fn19text"></A><A HREF="#chap05fn19">19</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At last, in 1850, deliverance seemed to be at hand.  There were signs
+that the public were growing weary of the alarums and excursions of
+Palmerston's diplomacy; and when his support of Don Pacifico, a British
+subject, in a quarrel with the Greek Government, seemed to be upon the
+point of involving the country in a war not only with Greece but also
+with France, and possibly with Russia into the bargain, a heavy cloud
+of distrust and displeasure appeared to be gathering and about to burst
+over his head.  A motion directed against him in the House of Lords was
+passed by a substantial majority.  The question was next to be
+discussed in the House of Commons, where another adverse vote was not
+improbable, and would seal the doom of the Minister.  Palmerston
+received the attack with complete nonchalance, and then, at the last
+possible moment, he struck.
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P169"></A>169}</SPAN>
+In a speech of over four hours, in
+which exposition, invective, argument, declamation, plain talk and
+resounding eloquence were mingled together with consummate art and
+extraordinary felicity, he annihilated his enemies.  The hostile motion
+was defeated, and Palmerston was once more the hero of the hour.
+Simultaneously, Atropos herself conspired to favour him.  Sir Robert
+Peel was thrown from his horse and killed.  By this tragic chance,
+Palmerston saw the one rival great enough to cope with him removed from
+his path.  He judged&mdash;and judged rightly&mdash;that he was the most popular
+man in England; and when Lord John revived the project of his
+exchanging the Foreign Office for some other position in the Cabinet,
+he absolutely refused to stir.[<A NAME="chap05fn20text"></A><A HREF="#chap05fn20">20</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Great was the disappointment of Albert; great was the indignation of
+Victoria.  'The House of Commons,' she wrote, 'is becoming very
+unmanageable and troublesome.'[<A NAME="chap05fn21text"></A><A HREF="#chap05fn21">21</A>]  The Prince, perceiving that
+Palmerston was more firmly fixed in the saddle than ever, decided that
+something drastic must be done.  Five months before, the prescient
+Baron had drawn up, in case of emergency, a memorandum, which had been
+carefully docketed, and placed in a pigeon-hole ready to hand.  The
+emergency had now arisen, and the memorandum must be used.  The Queen
+copied out the words of Stockmar, and sent them to the Prime Minister,
+requesting him to show her letter to Palmerston.  'She thinks it
+right,' she wrote, 'in order <I>to prevent any mistake for the future</I>,
+shortly to explain <I>what it is she expects from her Foreign Secretary</I>.
+She requires: (1) That he will distinctly state what he proposes in a
+given case, in order that the Queen may know as distinctly to <I>what</I>
+she has given her Royal sanction; (2) Having <I>once given</I> her sanction
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P170"></A>170}</SPAN>
+to a measure, that it be not arbitrarily altered or modified by
+the Minister; such an act she must consider as failing in sincerity
+towards the Crown, and justly to be visited by the exercise of her
+Constitutional right of dismissing that Minister.'[<A NAME="chap05fn22text"></A><A HREF="#chap05fn22">22</A>]  Lord John
+Russell did as he was bid, and forwarded the Queen's letter to Lord
+Palmerston.  This transaction, which was of grave constitutional
+significance, was entirely unknown to the outside world.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+If Palmerston had been a sensitive man, he would probably have resigned
+on the receipt of the Queen's missive.  But he was far from sensitive;
+he loved power, and his power was greater than ever; an unerring
+instinct told him that this was not the time to go.  Nevertheless, he
+was seriously perturbed.  He understood at last that he was struggling
+with a formidable adversary, whose skill and strength, unless they were
+mollified, might do irreparable injury to his career.  He therefore
+wrote to Lord John, briefly acquiescing in the Queen's requirements&mdash;'I
+have taken a copy of this memorandum of the Queen and will not fail to
+attend to the directions which it contains'&mdash;and at the same time, he
+asked for an interview with the Prince.  Albert at once summoned him to
+the Palace, and was astonished to observe, as he noted in a memorandum,
+that when Palmerston entered the room 'he was very much agitated,
+shook, and had tears in his eyes, so as quite to move me, who never
+under any circumstances had known him otherwise than with a bland smile
+on his face.'  The old statesman was profuse in protestations and
+excuses; the young one was coldly polite.  At last, after a long and
+inconclusive conversation, the Prince, drawing himself up, said that,
+in order to give Lord
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P171"></A>171}</SPAN>
+Palmerston 'an example of what the Queen
+wanted,' he would 'ask him a question point-blank.'  Lord Palmerston
+waited in respectful silence, while the Prince proceeded as
+follows:&mdash;'You are aware that the Queen has objected to the Protocol
+about Schleswig, and of the grounds on which she has done so.  Her
+opinion has been overruled, the Protocol stating the desire of the
+Great Powers to see the integrity of the Danish monarchy preserved has
+been signed, and upon this the King of Denmark has invaded Schleswig,
+where the war is raging.  If Holstein is attacked also, which is
+likely, the Germans will not be restrained from flying to her
+assistance, and Russia has menaced to interfere with arms, if the
+Schleswigers are successful.  What will you do, if this emergency
+arises (provoking most likely an European war), and which will arise
+very probably when we shall be at Balmoral and Lord John in another
+part of Scotland?  The Queen expects from your foresight that you have
+contemplated this possibility, and requires a categorical answer as to
+what you would do in the event supposed.'  Strangely enough, to this
+point-blank question, the Foreign Secretary appeared to be unable to
+reply.  The whole matter, he said, was extremely complicated, and the
+contingencies mentioned by His Royal Highness were very unlikely to
+arise.  The Prince persisted; but it was useless; for a full hour he
+struggled to extract a categorical answer, until at length Palmerston
+bowed himself out of the room.  Albert threw up his hands in shocked
+amazement: what could one do with such a man?[<A NAME="chap05fn23text"></A><A HREF="#chap05fn23">23</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+What indeed?  For, in spite of all his apologies and all his promises,
+within a few weeks the incorrigible reprobate was at his tricks again.
+The Austrian
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P172"></A>172}</SPAN>
+General Haynau, notorious as a rigorous suppressor
+of rebellion in Hungary and Italy, and in particular as a flogger of
+women, came to England and took it into his head to pay a visit to
+Messrs. Barclay and Perkins's brewery.  The features of 'General
+Hy�na,' as he was everywhere called&mdash;his grim thin face, his enormous
+pepper-and-salt moustaches&mdash;had gained a horrid celebrity; and it so
+happened that among the clerks at the brewery there was a refugee from
+Vienna, who had given his fellow-workers a first-hand account of the
+General's characteristics.  The Austrian Ambassador, scenting danger,
+begged his friend not to appear in public, or, if he must do so, to cut
+off his moustaches first.  But the General would take no advice.  He
+went to the brewery, was immediately recognised, surrounded by a crowd
+of angry draymen, pushed about, shouted at, punched in the ribs, and
+pulled by the moustaches until, bolting down an alley with the mob at
+his heels brandishing brooms and roaring 'Hyaena!' he managed to take
+refuge in a public-house, whence he was removed under the protection of
+several policemen.  The Austrian Government was angry and demanded
+explanations.  Palmerston, who, of course, was privately delighted by
+the incident, replied regretting what had occurred, but adding that in
+his opinion the General had 'evinced a want of propriety in coming to
+England at the present moment'; and he delivered his note to the
+Ambassador without having previously submitted it to the Queen or to
+the Prime Minister.  Naturally, when this was discovered, there was a
+serious storm.  The Prince was especially indignant; the conduct of the
+draymen he regarded, with disgust and alarm, as 'a slight foretaste of
+what an unregulated mass of illiterate people is capable'; and
+Palmerston
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P173"></A>173}</SPAN>
+was requested by Lord John to withdraw his note, and
+to substitute for it another from which all censure of the General had
+been omitted.  On this the Foreign Secretary threatened resignation,
+but the Prime Minister was firm.  For a moment the royal hopes rose
+high, only to be dashed to the ground again by the cruel compliance of
+the enemy.  Palmerston, suddenly lamb-like, agreed to everything; the
+note was withdrawn and altered, and peace was patched up once more.[<A NAME="chap05fn24text"></A><A HREF="#chap05fn24">24</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It lasted for a year, and then, in October 1851, the arrival of Kossuth
+in England brought on another crisis.  Palmerston's desire to receive
+the Hungarian patriot at his house in London was vetoed by Lord John;
+once more there was a sharp struggle; once more Palmerston, after
+threatening resignation, yielded.  But still the insubordinate man
+could not keep quiet.  A few weeks later a deputation of Radicals from
+Finsbury and Islington waited on him at the Foreign Office and
+presented him with an address, in which the Emperors of Austria and
+Russia were stigmatised as 'odious and detestable assassins' and
+'merciless tyrants and despots.'  The Foreign Secretary in his reply,
+while mildly deprecating these expressions, allowed his real sentiments
+to appear with a most undiplomatic <I>insouciance</I>.  There was an
+immediate scandal, and the Court flowed over with rage and
+vituperation.  'I think,' said the Baron, 'the man has been for some
+time insane.'  Victoria, in an agitated letter, urged Lord John to
+assert his authority.  But Lord John perceived that on this matter the
+Foreign Secretary had the support of public opinion, and he judged it
+wiser to bide his time.[<A NAME="chap05fn25text"></A><A HREF="#chap05fn25">25</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P174"></A>174}</SPAN>
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He had not long to wait.  The culmination of the long series of
+conflicts, threats, and exacerbations came before the year was out.  On
+December 2, Louis Napoleon's <I>coup d'�tat</I> took place in Paris; and on
+the following day Palmerston, without consulting anybody, expressed in
+a conversation with the French Ambassador his approval of Napoleon's
+act.  Two days later, he was instructed by the Prime Minister, in
+accordance with a letter from the Queen, that it was the policy of the
+English Government to maintain an attitude of strict neutrality towards
+the affairs of France.  Nevertheless, in an official despatch to the
+British Ambassador in Paris, he repeated the approval of the <I>coup
+d'�tat</I> which he had already given verbally to the French Ambassador in
+London.  This despatch was submitted neither to the Queen nor to the
+Prime Minister.  Lord John's patience, as he himself said, 'was drained
+to the last drop.'  He dismissed Lord Palmerston.[<A NAME="chap05fn26text"></A><A HREF="#chap05fn26">26</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Victoria was in ecstasies; and Albert knew that the triumph was his
+even more than Lord John's.  It was his wish that Lord Granville, a
+young man whom he believed to be pliant to his influence, should be
+Palmerston's successor; and Lord Granville was appointed.
+Henceforward, it seemed that the Prince would have his way in foreign
+affairs.  After years of struggle and mortification, success greeted
+him on every hand.  In his family, he was an adored master; in the
+country, the Great Exhibition had brought him respect and glory; and
+now in the secret seats of power he had gained a new supremacy.  He had
+wrestled with the terrible Lord Palmerston, the embodiment of
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P175"></A>175}</SPAN>
+all
+that was most hostile to him in the spirit of England, and his
+redoubtable opponent had been overthrown.[<A NAME="chap05fn27text"></A><A HREF="#chap05fn27">27</A>]  Was England herself at
+his feet?  It might be so; and yet ... it is said that the sons of
+England have a certain tiresome quality: they never know when they are
+beaten.  It was odd, but Palmerston was positively still jaunty.  Was
+it possible?  Could he believe, in his blind arrogance, that even his
+ignominious dismissal from office was something that could be brushed
+aside?
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+III
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+The Prince's triumph was short-lived.  A few weeks later, owing to
+Palmerston's influence, the Government was defeated in the House, and
+Lord John resigned.  Then, after a short interval, a coalition between
+the Whigs and the followers of Peel came into power, under the
+premiership of Lord Aberdeen.  Once more, Palmerston was in the
+Cabinet.  It was true that he did not return to the Foreign Office;
+that was something to the good; in the Home Department it might be
+hoped that his activities would be less dangerous and disagreeable.
+But the Foreign Secretary was no longer the complacent Granville; and
+in Lord Clarendon the Prince knew that he had a Minister to deal with,
+who, discreet and courteous as he was, had a mind of his own.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+These changes, however, were merely the preliminaries of a far more
+serious development.  Events, on every side, were moving towards a
+catastrophe.  Suddenly the nation found itself under the awful shadow
+of imminent war.  For several months, amid the
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P176"></A>176}</SPAN>
+shifting mysteries
+of diplomacy and the perplexed agitations of politics, the issue grew
+more doubtful and more dark, while the national temper was strained to
+the breaking-point.  At the very crisis of the long and ominous
+negotiations, it was announced that Lord Palmerston had resigned.  Then
+the pent-up fury of the people burst forth.  They had felt that in the
+terrible complexity of events they were being guided by weak and
+embarrassed counsels; but they had been reassured by the knowledge that
+at the centre of power there was one man with strength, with courage,
+with determination, in whom they could put their trust.  They now
+learnt that that man was no longer among their leaders.  Why?  In their
+rage, anxiety, and nervous exhaustion, they looked round desperately
+for some hidden and horrible explanation of what had occurred.  They
+suspected plots, they smelt treachery in the air.  It was easy to guess
+the object upon which their frenzy would vent itself.  Was there not a
+foreigner in the highest of high places, a foreigner whose hostility to
+their own adored champion was unrelenting and unconcealed?  The moment
+that Palmerston's resignation was known, there was a universal outcry;
+and an extraordinary tempest of anger and hatred burst, with
+unparalleled violence, upon the head of the Prince.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was everywhere asserted and believed that the Queen's husband was a
+traitor to the country, that he was a tool of the Russian Court, that
+in obedience to Russian influences he had forced Palmerston out of the
+Government, and that he was directing the foreign policy of England in
+the interests of England's enemies.  For many weeks these accusations
+filled the whole of the
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P177"></A>177}</SPAN>
+press; repeated at public meetings,
+elaborated in private talk, they flew over the country, growing every
+moment more extreme and more improbable.  While respectable newspapers
+thundered out their grave invectives, halfpenny broadsides, hawked
+through the streets of London, re-echoed in doggerel vulgarity the same
+sentiments and the same suspicions.[<A NAME="chap05fn28text"></A><A HREF="#chap05fn28">28</A>]  At last the wildest rumours
+began to spread.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In January 1854, it was whispered that the Prince had been seized, that
+he had been found guilty of high treason, that he was to be committed
+to the Tower.  The Queen herself, some declared, had been arrested,
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P178"></A>178}</SPAN>
+and large crowds actually collected round the Tower to watch the
+incarceration of the royal miscreants.[<A NAME="chap05fn29text"></A><A HREF="#chap05fn29">29</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+These fantastic hallucinations were the result of the fevered
+atmosphere of approaching war.  The cause of Palmerston's resignation,
+indeed, remains wrapped in obscurity, and it is possible that it was
+brought about by the continued hostility of the Court.[<A NAME="chap05fn30text"></A><A HREF="#chap05fn30">30</A>]  But the
+supposition that Albert's influence had been used to favour the
+interests of Russia was devoid of any basis in actual fact.  As often
+happens in such cases, the Government had been swinging backwards and
+forwards between two incompatible policies&mdash;that of non-interference
+and that of threats supported by force&mdash;either of which, if
+consistently followed, might well have had a successful and peaceful
+issue, but which, mingled together, could only lead to war.  Albert,
+with characteristic scrupulosity, attempted to thread his way through
+the complicated labyrinth of European diplomacy, and eventually was
+lost in the maze.  But so was the whole of the Cabinet; and, when war
+came, his anti-Russian feelings were quite as vehement as those of the
+most bellicose of Englishmen.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Nevertheless, though the gravest of the charges levelled against the
+Prince were certainly without foundation, there were underlying
+elements in the situation
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P179"></A>179}</SPAN>
+which explained, if they did not
+justify, the popular state of mind.  It was true that the Queen's
+husband was a foreigner, who had been brought up in a foreign Court,
+was impregnated with foreign ideas, and was closely related to a
+multitude of foreign princes.  Clearly this, though perhaps an
+unavoidable, was an undesirable, state of affairs; nor were the
+objections to it merely theoretical; it had in fact produced unpleasant
+consequences of a serious kind.  The Prince's German proclivities were
+perpetually lamented by English Ministers; Lord Palmerston, Lord
+Clarendon, Lord Aberdeen,[<A NAME="chap05fn31text"></A><A HREF="#chap05fn31">31</A>] all told the same tale; and it was
+constantly necessary, in grave questions of national policy, to combat
+the prepossessions of a Court in which German views and German
+sentiments held a disproportionate place.  As for Palmerston, his
+language on this topic was apt to be unbridled.  At the height of his
+annoyance over his resignation, he roundly declared that he had been
+made a victim to foreign intrigue.[<A NAME="chap05fn32text"></A><A HREF="#chap05fn32">32</A>]  He afterwards toned down this
+accusation; but the mere fact that such a suggestion from such a
+quarter was possible at all showed to what unfortunate consequences
+Albert's foreign birth and foreign upbringing might lead.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But this was not all.  A constitutional question of the most profound
+importance was raised by the position of the Prince in England.  His
+presence gave a new prominence to an old problem&mdash;the precise
+definition of the functions and the powers of the Crown.  Those
+functions and powers had become, in effect, his; and
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P180"></A>180}</SPAN>
+what sort of
+use was he making of them?  His views as to the place of the Crown in
+the Constitution are easily ascertainable; for they were Stockmar's;
+and it happens that we possess a detailed account of Stockmar's
+opinions upon the subject in a long letter addressed by him to the
+Prince at the time of this very crisis, just before the outbreak of the
+Crimean War.  Constitutional Monarchy, according to the Baron, had
+suffered an eclipse since the passing of the Reform Bill.  It was now
+'constantly in danger of becoming a pure Ministerial Government.'  The
+old race of Tories, who 'had a direct interest in upholding the
+prerogatives of the Crown,' had died out; and the Whigs were 'nothing
+but partly conscious, partly unconscious Republicans, who stand in the
+same relation to the Throne as the wolf does to the lamb.'  There was a
+rule that it was unconstitutional to introduce 'the name and person of
+the irresponsible Sovereign' into parliamentary debates on
+constitutional matters; this was 'a constitutional fiction, which,
+although undoubtedly of old standing, was fraught with danger'; and the
+Baron warned the Prince that 'if the English Crown permit a Whig
+Ministry to follow this rule in practice, without exception, you must
+not wonder if in a little time you find the majority of the people
+impressed with the belief that the King, in the view of the law, is
+nothing but a mandarin figure, which has to nod its head in assent, or
+shake it in denial, as his Minister pleases.'  To prevent this from
+happening, it was of extreme importance, said the Baron, 'that no
+opportunity should be let slip of vindicating the legitimate position
+of the Crown.'  'And this is not hard to do,' he added, 'and can never
+embarrass a Minister where such straightforward loyal personages as the
+Queen and
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P181"></A>181}</SPAN>
+the Prince are concerned.'  In his opinion, the very
+lowest claim of the Royal Prerogative should include 'a right on the
+part of the King to be the permanent President of his Ministerial
+Council.'  The Sovereign ought to be 'in the position of a permanent
+Premier, who takes rank above the temporary head of the Cabinet, and in
+matters of discipline exercises supreme authority.'  The Sovereign 'may
+even take a part in the initiation and the maturing of the Government
+measures; for it would be unreasonable to expect that a King, himself
+as able, as accomplished, and as patriotic as the best of his
+Ministers, should be prevented from making use of these qualities at
+the deliberations of his Council.'  'The judicious exercise of this
+right,' concluded the Baron, 'which certainly requires a master mind,
+would not only be the best guarantee for Constitutional Monarchy, but
+would raise it to a height of power, stability, and symmetry, which has
+never been attained.'[<A NAME="chap05fn33text"></A><A HREF="#chap05fn33">33</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now it may be that this reading of the Constitution is a possible one,
+though indeed it is hard to see how it can be made compatible with the
+fundamental doctrine of ministerial responsibility.  William III
+presided over his Council, and he was a constitutional monarch; and it
+seems that Stockmar had in his mind a conception of the Crown which
+would have given it a place in the Constitution analogous to that which
+it filled at the time of William III.  But it is clear that such a
+theory, which would invest the Crown with more power than it possessed
+even under George III, runs counter to the whole development of English
+public life since the Revolution; and the fact that it was held by
+Stockmar, and instilled by him into Albert, was of very serious
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P182"></A>182}</SPAN>
+importance.  For there was good reason to believe not only that these
+doctrines were held by Albert in theory, but that he was making a
+deliberate and sustained attempt to give them practical validity.  The
+history of the struggle between the Crown and Palmerston provided
+startling evidence that this was the case.  That struggle reached its
+culmination when, in Stockmar's memorandum of 1850, the Queen asserted
+her 'constitutional right' to dismiss the Foreign Secretary if he
+altered a despatch which had received her sanction.  The memorandum
+was, in fact, a plain declaration that the Crown intended to act
+independently of the Prime Minister.  Lord John Russell, anxious at all
+costs to strengthen himself against Palmerston, accepted the
+memorandum, and thereby implicitly allowed the claim of the Crown.
+More than that; after the dismissal of Palmerston, among the grounds on
+which Lord John justified that dismissal in the House of Commons he
+gave a prominent place to the memorandum of 1850.  It became apparent
+that the displeasure of the Sovereign might be a reason for the removal
+of a powerful and popular Minister.  It seemed indeed as if, under the
+guidance of Stockmar and Albert, the 'Constitutional Monarchy' might in
+very truth be rising 'to a height of power, stability, and symmetry,
+which had never been attained.'
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But this new development in the position of the Crown, grave as it was
+in itself, was rendered peculiarly disquieting by the unusual
+circumstances which surrounded it.  For the functions of the Crown were
+now, in effect, being exercised by a person unknown to the
+Constitution, who wielded over the Sovereign an undefined and unbounded
+influence.  The fact that this person was the Sovereign's husband,
+while it
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P183"></A>183}</SPAN>
+explained his influence and even made it inevitable, by
+no means diminished its strange and momentous import.  An ambiguous,
+prepotent figure had come to disturb the ancient, subtle, and jealously
+guarded balance of the English Constitution.  Such had been the
+unexpected outcome of the tentative and faint-hearted opening of
+Albert's political life.  He himself made no attempt to minimise either
+the multiplicity or the significance of the functions he performed.  He
+considered that it was his duty, he told the Duke of Wellington in
+1850, to 'sink his <I>own individual</I> existence in that of his wife ...
+&mdash;assume no separate responsibility before the public, but make his
+position entirely a part of hers&mdash;fill up every gap which, as a woman,
+she would naturally leave in the exercise of her regal
+functions&mdash;continually and anxiously watch every part of the public
+business, in order to be able to advise and assist her at any moment in
+any of the multifarious and difficult questions or duties brought
+before her, sometimes international, sometimes political, or social, or
+personal.  As the natural head of her family, superintendent of her
+household, manager of her private affairs, sole <I>confidential</I> adviser
+in politics, and only assistant in her communications with the officers
+of the Government, he is, besides, the husband of the Queen, the tutor
+of the royal children, the private secretary of the Sovereign, and her
+permanent minister.'[<A NAME="chap05fn34text"></A><A HREF="#chap05fn34">34</A>]  Stockmar's pupil had assuredly gone far and
+learnt well.  Stockmar's pupil!&mdash;precisely; the public, painfully aware
+of Albert's predominance, had grown, too, uneasily conscious that
+Victoria's master had a master of his own.  Deep in the darkness the
+Baron loomed.  Another foreigner!  Decidedly, there were elements
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P184"></A>184}</SPAN>
+in the situation which went far to justify the popular alarm.  A
+foreign Baron controlled a foreign Prince, and the foreign Prince
+controlled the Crown of England.  And the Crown itself was creeping
+forward ominously; and when, from under its shadow, the Baron and the
+Prince had frowned, a great Minister, beloved of the people, had
+fallen.  Where was all this to end?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Within a few weeks Palmerston withdrew his resignation, and the public
+frenzy subsided as quickly as it had arisen.  When Parliament met, the
+leaders of both the parties in both the Houses made speeches in favour
+of the Prince, asserting his unimpeachable loyalty to the country and
+vindicating his right to advise the Sovereign in all matters of State.
+Victoria was delighted.  'The position of my beloved lord and master,'
+she told the Baron, 'has been defined for once and all and his merits
+have been acknowledged on all sides most duly.  There was an immense
+concourse of people assembled when we went to the House of Lords, and
+the people were very friendly.'[<A NAME="chap05fn35text"></A><A HREF="#chap05fn35">35</A>]  Immediately afterwards, the
+country finally plunged into the Crimean War.  In the struggle that
+followed, Albert's patriotism was put beyond a doubt, and the
+animosities of the past were forgotten.  But the war had another
+consequence, less gratifying to the royal couple: it crowned the
+ambition of Lord Palmerston.  In 1855, the man who five years before
+had been pronounced by Lord John Russell to be 'too old to do much in
+the future,' became Prime Minister of England, and, with one short
+interval, remained in that position for ten years.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap05fn1"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap05fn1text">1</A>] Martin, I, 194-6; <I>Letters</I>, I, 510-11.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap05fn2"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap05fn2text">2</A>] Bunsen, II, 152.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap05fn3"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap05fn3text">3</A>] Dalling, I, 346.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap05fn4"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap05fn4text">4</A>] Dalling, III, 413-5.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap05fn5"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap05fn5text">5</A>] Ashley, II, 213.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap05fn6"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap05fn6text">6</A>] Greville, VI, 33.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap05fn7"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap05fn7text">7</A>] <I>Letters</I>, I, 511.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap05fn8"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap05fn8text">8</A>] <I>Letters</I>, II, 100-1.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap05fn9"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap05fn9text">9</A>] Dalling, III, chaps. vii and viii; Stockmar, cap. xxi.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap05fn10"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap05fn10text">10</A>] <I>Letters</I>, II, 181.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap05fn11"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap05fn11text">11</A>] <I>Ibid.</I>, II, 194.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap05fn12"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap05fn12text">12</A>] <I>Letters</I>, II, 195.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap05fn13"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap05fn13text">13</A>] Venice and Lombardy.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap05fn14"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap05fn14text">14</A>] <I>Letters</I>, II, 199.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap05fn15"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap05fn15text">15</A>] <I>Letters</I>, II, 221; Ashley, II, 195-6.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap05fn16"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap05fn16text">16</A>] Greville, VI, 63-4.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap05fn17"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap05fn17text">17</A>] Greville, VI, 324-6; Clarendon, I, 341.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap05fn18"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap05fn18text">18</A>] Clarendon, I, 337, 342.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap05fn19"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap05fn19text">19</A>] <I>Letters</I>, II, 235-7.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap05fn20"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap05fn20text">20</A>] <I>Letters</I>, II, 261-4.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap05fn21"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap05fn21text">21</A>] <I>Ibid.</I>, II, 253.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap05fn22"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap05fn22text">22</A>] <I>Letters</I>, II, 238 and 264.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap05fn23"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap05fn23text">23</A>] Martin, II, 307-10.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap05fn24"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap05fn24text">24</A>] <I>Letters</I>, II, 267-70; Martin, II, 324-7; Ashley, II, 169-70.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap05fn25"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap05fn25text">25</A>] <I>Letters</I>, II, 324-31; Martin, II, 406-11; Spencer Walpole, II,
+133-7; Stockmar, 642; Greville, VI, 421-4.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap05fn26"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap05fn26text">26</A>] <I>Letters</I>, II, 334-43; Martin, II, 411-18; Ashley, II, 200-12;
+Walpole, II, 138-42; Clarendon, I, 338.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap05fn27"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap05fn27text">27</A>] Ernest, III, 14.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap05fn28"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap05fn28text">28</A>] 'The Turkish war both far and near<BR>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Has played the very deuce then,<BR>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;And little Al, the royal pal,<BR>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;They say has turned a Russian;<BR>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Old Aberdeen, as may be seen,<BR>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Looks woeful pale and yellow,<BR>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;And Old John Bull had his belly full<BR>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Of dirty Russian tallow.<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<I>Chorus</I>.<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;'We'll send him home and make him groan,<BR>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Oh, Al! you've played the deuce then;<BR>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The German lad has acted sad<BR>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;And turned tail with the Russians.<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<SPAN STYLE="letter-spacing: 2em">*****</SPAN><BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;'Last Monday night, all in a fright,<BR>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Al out of bed did tumble.<BR>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The German lad was raving mad,<BR>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;How he did groan and grumble!<BR>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;He cried to Vic, "I've cut my stick:<BR>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;To St. Petersburg go right slap."<BR>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;When Vic, 'tis said, jumped out of bed,<BR>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;And wopped him with her night-cap.'<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+From <I>Lovely Albert!</I> a broadside preserved at the British Museum;
+Martin, II, 539-41; Greville, VII, 127-9.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap05fn29"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap05fn29text">29</A>] Martin, II, 540, 562.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;'You jolly Turks, now go to work,<BR>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;And show the Bear your power.<BR>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;It is rumoured over Britain's isle<BR>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;That A&mdash;&mdash; is in the Tower;<BR>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The Postmen some suspicion had,<BR>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;And opened the two letters,<BR>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;'Twas a pity sad the German lad<BR>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Should not have known much better.'<BR>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<I>Lovely Albert!</I><BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap05fn30"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap05fn30text">30</A>] Kinglake, II, 27-32.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap05fn31"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap05fn31text">31</A>] 'Aberdeen spoke much of the Queen and Prince, of course with great
+praise.  He said the Prince's views were generally sound and wise, with
+one exception, which was his violent and incorrigible German unionism.
+He goes all lengths with Prussia.'&mdash;Greville, VI, 305.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap05fn32"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap05fn32text">32</A>] Ashley, II, 218.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap05fn33"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap05fn33text">33</A>] Martin, II, 545-57.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap05fn34"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap05fn34text">34</A>] Martin, II, 259-60.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap05fn35"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap05fn35text">35</A>] Martin, II, 563-4.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="img-185"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-185.jpg" ALT="QUEEN VICTORIA AND THE PRINCE CONSORT IN 1860." BORDER="2">
+<H4 CLASS="h4center">
+QUEEN VICTORIA AND THE PRINCE CONSORT IN 1860.
+</H4>
+</CENTER>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap06"></A>
+
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P185"></A>185}</SPAN>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER VI
+</H3>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+LAST YEARS OF THE PRINCE CONSORT
+</H4>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+I
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+The weak-willed youth who took no interest in politics and never read a
+newspaper had grown into a man of unbending determination whose
+tireless energies were incessantly concentrated upon the laborious
+business of government and the highest questions of State.  He was busy
+now from morning till night.  In the winter, before the dawn, he was to
+be seen, seated at his writing-table, working by the light of the green
+reading-lamp which he had brought over with him from Germany, and the
+construction of which he had much improved by an ingenious device.
+Victoria was early too, but she was not so early as Albert; and when,
+in the chill darkness, she took her seat at her own writing-table,
+placed side by side with his, she invariably found upon it a neat pile
+of papers arranged for her inspection and her signature.[<A NAME="chap06fn1text"></A><A HREF="#chap06fn1">1</A>]  The day,
+thus begun, continued in unremitting industry.  At breakfast, the
+newspapers&mdash;the once hated newspapers&mdash;made their appearance, and the
+Prince, absorbed in their perusal, would answer no questions, or, if an
+article struck him, would read it aloud.  After that there were
+ministers and secretaries to interview; there was a vast correspondence
+to be carried on; there were numerous
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P186"></A>186}</SPAN>
+memoranda to be made.
+Victoria, treasuring every word, preserving every letter, was all
+breathless attention and eager obedience.  Sometimes Albert would
+actually ask her advice.  He consulted her about his English: 'Lese
+recht aufmerksam, und sage wenn irgend ein Fehler ist,'[<A NAME="chap06fn2text"></A><A HREF="#chap06fn2">2</A>] he would
+say; or, as he handed her a draft for her signature, he would observe
+'Ich hab' Dir hier ein Draft gemacht, lese es mal!  Ich d�chte es w�re
+recht so.'[<A NAME="chap06fn3text"></A><A HREF="#chap06fn3">3</A>]  Thus the diligent, scrupulous, absorbing hours passed
+by.  Fewer and fewer grew the moments of recreation and of exercise.
+The demands of society were narrowed down to the smallest limits, and
+even then but grudgingly attended to.  It was no longer a mere
+pleasure, it was a positive necessity, to go to bed as early as
+possible in order to be up and at work on the morrow betimes.[<A NAME="chap06fn4text"></A><A HREF="#chap06fn4">4</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The important and exacting business of government, which became at last
+the dominating preoccupation in Albert's mind, still left unimpaired
+his old tastes and interests; he remained devoted to art, to science,
+to philosophy; and a multitude of subsidiary activities showed how his
+energies increased as the demands upon them grew.  For whenever duty
+called, the Prince was all alertness.  With indefatigable perseverance
+he opened museums, laid the foundation-stones of hospitals, made
+speeches to the Royal Agricultural Society, and attended meetings of
+the British Association.[<A NAME="chap06fn5text"></A><A HREF="#chap06fn5">5</A>]  The National Gallery particularly
+interested him: he drew up careful regulations for the arrangement of
+the pictures according to schools; and he attempted&mdash;though
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P187"></A>187}</SPAN>
+in
+vain&mdash;to have the whole collection transported to South Kensington.[<A NAME="chap06fn6text"></A><A HREF="#chap06fn6">6</A>]
+Feodora, now the Princess Hohenlohe, after a visit to England,
+expressed in a letter to Victoria her admiration of Albert both as a
+private and a public character.  Nor did she rely only on her own
+opinion.  'I must just copy out,' she said, 'what Mr. Klumpp wrote to
+me some little time ago, and which is quite true.&mdash;"Prince Albert is
+one of the few Royal personages who can sacrifice to any principle (as
+soon as it has become evident to them to be good and noble) all those
+notions (or sentiments) to which others, owing to their
+narrow-mindedness, or to the prejudices of their rank, are so
+thoroughly inclined strongly to cling."&mdash;There is something so truly
+religious in this,' the Princess added, 'as well as humane and just,
+most soothing to my feelings which are so often hurt and disturbed by
+what I hear and see.'[<A NAME="chap06fn7text"></A><A HREF="#chap06fn7">7</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Victoria, from the depth of her heart, subscribed to all the eulogies
+of Feodora and Mr. Klumpp.  She only found that they were insufficient.
+As she watched her beloved Albert, after toiling with state documents
+and public functions, devoting every spare moment of his time to
+domestic duties, to artistic appreciation, and to intellectual
+improvements; as she listened to him cracking his jokes at the
+luncheon-table, or playing Mendelssohn on the organ, or pointing out
+the merits of Sir Edwin Landseer's pictures; as she followed him round
+while he gave instructions about the breeding of cattle, or decided
+that the Gainsboroughs must be hung higher up so that the Winterhalters
+might be properly seen&mdash;she felt perfectly certain that no other wife
+had ever had such a husband.  His mind was apparently capable of
+everything, and she was hardly
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P188"></A>188}</SPAN>
+surprised to learn that he had
+made an important discovery for the conversion of sewage into
+agricultural manure.  Filtration from below upwards, he explained,
+through some appropriate medium, which retained the solids and set free
+the fluid sewage for irrigation, was the principle of the scheme.  'All
+previous plans,' he said, 'would have cost millions; mine costs next to
+nothing.'  Unfortunately, owing to a slight miscalculation, the
+invention proved to be impracticable; but Albert's intelligence was
+unrebuffed, and he passed on, to plunge with all his accustomed ardour
+into a prolonged study of the rudiments of lithography.[<A NAME="chap06fn8text"></A><A HREF="#chap06fn8">8</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But naturally it was upon his children that his private interests and
+those of Victoria were concentrated most vigorously.  The royal
+nurseries showed no sign of emptying.  The birth of the Prince Arthur
+in 1850 was followed, three years later, by that of the Prince Leopold;
+and in 1857 the Princess Beatrice was born.  A family of nine must be,
+in any circumstances, a grave responsibility; and the Prince realised
+to the full how much the high destinies of his offspring intensified
+the need of parental care.  It was inevitable that he should believe
+profoundly in the importance of education; he himself had been the
+product of education; Stockmar had made him what he was; it was for
+him, in his turn, to be a Stockmar&mdash;to be even more than a Stockmar&mdash;to
+the young creatures he had brought into the world.  Victoria would
+assist him; a Stockmar, no doubt, she could hardly be; but she could be
+perpetually vigilant, she could mingle strictness with her affection,
+and she could always set a good example.  These considerations, of
+course, applied pre-eminently to the education of the Prince of Wales.
+How tremendous was the significance
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P189"></A>189}</SPAN>
+of every particle of
+influence which went to the making of the future King of England!
+Albert set to work with a will.  But, watching with Victoria the
+minutest details of the physical, intellectual, and moral training of
+his children, he soon perceived, to his distress, that there was
+something unsatisfactory in the development of his eldest son.  The
+Princess Royal was an extremely intelligent child; but Bertie, though
+he was good-humoured and gentle, seemed to display a deep-seated
+repugnance to every form of mental exertion.  This was most
+regrettable, but the remedy was obvious: the parental efforts must be
+redoubled; instruction must be multiplied; not for a single instant
+must the educational pressure be allowed to relax.  Accordingly, more
+tutors were selected, the curriculum was revised, the time-table of
+studies was rearranged, elaborate memoranda dealing with every possible
+contingency were drawn up.  It was above all essential that there
+should be no slackness: 'work,' said the Prince, 'must be work.'  And
+work indeed it was.  The boy grew up amid a ceaseless round of
+paradigms, syntactical exercises, dates, genealogical tables, and lists
+of capes.  Constant notes flew backwards and forwards between the
+Prince, the Queen, and the tutors, with inquiries, with reports of
+progress, with detailed recommendations; and these notes were all
+carefully preserved for future reference.  It was, besides, vital that
+the heir to the throne should be protected from the slightest
+possibility of contamination from the outside world.  The Prince of
+Wales was not as other boys; he might, occasionally, be allowed to
+invite some sons of the nobility, boys of good character, to play with
+him in the garden of Buckingham Palace; but his father presided, with
+alarming precision, over their sports.  In short, every
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P190"></A>190}</SPAN>
+possible
+precaution was taken, every conceivable effort was made.  Yet, strange
+to say, the object of all this vigilance and solicitude continued to be
+unsatisfactory&mdash;appeared, in fact, to be positively growing worse.  It
+was certainly very odd: the more lessons that Bertie had to do, the
+less he did them; and the more carefully he was guarded against
+excitements and frivolities, the more desirous of mere amusement he
+seemed to become.  Albert was deeply grieved and Victoria was sometimes
+very angry; but grief and anger produced no more effect than
+supervision and time-tables.  The Prince of Wales, in spite of
+everything, grew up into manhood without the faintest sign of
+'adherence to and perseverance in the plan both of studies and
+life'&mdash;as one of the Royal memoranda put it&mdash;which had been laid down
+with such extraordinary forethought by his father.[<A NAME="chap06fn9text"></A><A HREF="#chap06fn9">9</A>]
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+II
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Against the insidious worries of politics, the boredom of society
+functions, and the pompous publicity of state ceremonies, Osborne had
+afforded a welcome refuge; but it soon appeared that even Osborne was
+too little removed from the world.  After all, the Solent was a feeble
+barrier.  Oh, for some distant, some almost inaccessible sanctuary,
+where, in true domestic privacy, one could make happy holiday, just as
+if&mdash;or at least very, very, nearly&mdash;one were anybody else!  Victoria,
+ever since, together with Albert, she had visited Scotland in the early
+years of her marriage, had felt that her heart was in the Highlands.
+She had
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P191"></A>191}</SPAN>
+returned to them a few years later, and her passion had
+grown.  How romantic they were!  And how Albert enjoyed them too!  His
+spirits rose quite wonderfully as soon as he found himself among the
+hills and the conifers.  'It is a happiness to see him,' she wrote.
+'Oh!  What can equal the beauties of nature!' she exclaimed in her
+journal, during one of these visits.  'What enjoyment there is in them!
+Albert enjoys it so much; he is in ecstasies here.'  'Albert said,' she
+noted next day, 'that the chief beauty of mountain scenery consists in
+its frequent changes.  We came home at six o'clock.'  Then she went on
+a longer expedition&mdash;up to the very top of a high hill.  'It was quite
+romantic.  Here we were with only this Highlander behind us holding the
+ponies (for we got off twice and walked about) .... We came home at
+half past eleven,&mdash;the most delightful, most romantic ride and walk I
+ever had.  I had never been up such a mountain, and then the day was so
+fine.  The Highlanders, too, were such astonishing people.  They 'never
+make difficulties,' she noted, 'but are cheerful, and happy, and merry,
+and ready to walk, and run, and do anything.'  As for Albert he 'highly
+appreciated the good-breeding, simplicity, and intelligence, which make
+it so pleasant and even instructive to talk to them.'  'We were always
+in the habit,' wrote Her Majesty, 'of conversing with the
+Highlanders&mdash;with whom one comes so much in contact in the Highlands.'
+She loved everything about them&mdash;their customs, their dress, their
+dances, even their musical instruments.  'There were nine pipers at the
+castle,' she wrote, after staying with Lord Breadalbane; 'sometimes one
+and sometimes three played.  They always played about breakfast-time,
+again during the
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P192"></A>192}</SPAN>
+morning, at luncheon, and also whenever we went
+in and out; again before dinner, and during most of dinner-time.  We
+both have become quite fond of the bag-pipes.'[<A NAME="chap06fn10text"></A><A HREF="#chap06fn10">10</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was quite impossible not to wish to return to such pleasures again
+and again; and in 1848 the Queen took a lease of Balmoral House, a
+small residence near Braemar in the wilds of Aberdeenshire.  Four years
+later she bought the place outright.  Now she could be really happy
+every summer; now she could be simple and at her ease; now she could be
+romantic every evening, and dote upon Albert, without a single
+distraction, all day long.  The diminutive scale of the house was in
+itself a charm.  Nothing was more amusing than to find oneself living
+in two or three little sitting-rooms, with the children crammed away
+upstairs, and the Minister in attendance with only a tiny bedroom to do
+all his work in.  And then to be able to run in and out of doors as one
+liked, and to sketch, and to walk, and to watch the red deer coming so
+surprisingly close, and to pay visits to the cottagers!  And
+occasionally one could be more adventurous still&mdash;one could go and stay
+for a night or two at the Bothie at Alt-na-giuthasach&mdash;a mere couple of
+huts with 'a wooden addition'&mdash;and only eleven people in the whole
+party!  And there were mountains to be climbed and cairns to be built
+in solemn pomp.  'At last, when the cairn, which is, I think, seven or
+eight feet high, was nearly completed, Albert climbed up to the top of
+it, and placed the last stone; after which three cheers were given.  It
+was a gay, pretty, and touching sight; and I felt almost inclined to
+cry.  The view was so beautiful over the dear hills; the day so fine;
+the
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P193"></A>193}</SPAN>
+whole so <I>gem�thlich</I>.'[<A NAME="chap06fn11text"></A><A HREF="#chap06fn11">11</A>]  And in the evening there were
+sword-dances and reels.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But Albert had determined to pull down the little old house, and to
+build in its place a Castle of his own designing.  With great ceremony,
+in accordance with a memorandum drawn up by the Prince for the
+occasion, the foundation-stone of the new edifice was laid,[<A NAME="chap06fn12text"></A><A HREF="#chap06fn12">12</A>] and by
+1855 it was habitable.  Spacious, built of granite in the Scotch
+baronial style, with a tower 100 feet high, and minor turrets and
+castellated gables, the Castle was skilfully arranged to command the
+finest views of the surrounding mountains and of the neighbouring river
+Dee.  Upon the interior decorations Albert and Victoria lavished all
+their care.  The walls and the floors were of pitch-pine, and covered
+with specially manufactured tartans.  The Balmoral tartan, in red and
+grey, designed by the Prince, and the Victoria tartan, with a white
+stripe, designed by the Queen, were to be seen in every room: there
+were tartan curtains, and tartan chair-covers, and even tartan
+linoleums.  Occasionally the Royal Stuart tartan appeared, for Her
+Majesty always maintained that she was an ardent Jacobite.
+Water-colour sketches by Victoria hung upon the walls, together with
+innumerable stags' antlers, and the head of a boar, which had been shot
+by Albert in Germany.  In an alcove in the hall stood a life-sized
+statue of Albert in Highland dress.[<A NAME="chap06fn13text"></A><A HREF="#chap06fn13">13</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Victoria declared that it was perfection.  'Every year,' she wrote, 'my
+heart becomes more fixed in this dear paradise, and so much more so
+now, that <I>all</I> has become my dear Albert's <I>own</I> creation, own work,
+own
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P194"></A>194}</SPAN>
+building, own laying-out; ... and his great taste, and the
+impress of his dear hand, have been stamped everywhere.'[<A NAME="chap06fn14text"></A><A HREF="#chap06fn14">14</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And here, in very truth, her happiest days were passed.  In after
+years, when she looked back upon them, a kind of glory, a radiance as
+of an unearthly holiness, seemed to glow about these golden hours.
+Each hallowed moment stood out clear, beautiful, eternally significant.
+For, at the time, every experience there, sentimental, or grave, or
+trivial, had come upon her with a peculiar vividness, like a flashing
+of marvellous lights.  Albert's stalkings&mdash;an evening walk when she
+lost her way&mdash;Vicky sitting down on a wasps' nest&mdash;a torchlight
+dance&mdash;with what intensity such things, and ten thousand like them,
+impressed themselves upon her eager consciousness!  And how she flew to
+her journal to note them down!  The news of the Duke's death!  What a
+moment!&mdash;when, as she sat sketching after a picnic by a loch in the
+lonely hills, Lord Derby's letter had been brought to her, and she had
+learnt that '<I>England's</I>, or rather <I>Britain's</I> pride, her glory, her
+hero, the greatest man she had ever produced, was no more!'  For such
+were her reflections upon the 'old rebel' of former days.  But that
+past had been utterly obliterated&mdash;no faintest memory of it remained.
+For years she had looked up to the Duke as a figure almost superhuman.
+Had he not been a supporter of good Sir Robert?  Had he not asked
+Albert to succeed him as Commander-in-Chief?  And what a proud moment
+it had been when he stood as sponsor to her son Arthur, who was born on
+his eighty-first birthday!  So now she filled a whole page of her diary
+with panegyrical regrets.  'His position was the highest a subject ever
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P195"></A>195}</SPAN>
+had&mdash;above party,&mdash;looked up to by all,&mdash;revered by the whole
+nation,&mdash;the friend of the Sovereign ... The Crown never
+possessed,&mdash;and I fear never <I>will</I>&mdash;so <I>devoted</I>, loyal, and faithful
+a subject, so staunch a supporter!  To us his loss is <I>irreparable</I> ...
+To Albert he showed the greatest kindness and the utmost confidence ...
+Not an eye will be dry in the whole country.'[<A NAME="chap06fn15text"></A><A HREF="#chap06fn15">15</A>]  These were serious
+thoughts; but they were soon succeeded by others hardly less moving&mdash;by
+events as impossible to forget&mdash;by Mr. MacLeod's sermon on
+Nicodemus,&mdash;by the gift of a red flannel petticoat to Mrs. P.
+Farquharson, and another to old Kitty Kear.[<A NAME="chap06fn16text"></A><A HREF="#chap06fn16">16</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But, without doubt, most memorable, most delightful of all were the
+expeditions&mdash;the rare, exciting expeditions up distant mountains,
+across broad rivers, through strange country, and lasting several days.
+With only two gillies&mdash;Grant and Brown&mdash;for servants, and with assumed
+names ... it was more like something in a story than real life.  'We
+had decided to call ourselves <I>Lord and Lady Churchill and party</I>&mdash;Lady
+Churchill passing as <I>Miss Spencer</I> and General Grey as <I>Dr. Grey</I>!
+Brown once forgot this and called me "Your Majesty" as I was getting
+into the carriage, and Grant on the box once called Albert "Your Royal
+Highness," which set us off laughing, but no one observed it.'  Strong,
+vigorous, enthusiastic, bringing, so it seemed, good fortune with
+her&mdash;the Highlanders declared she had 'a lucky foot'&mdash;she relished
+everything&mdash;the scrambles and the views and the contretemps and the
+rough inns with their coarse fare and Brown and Grant waiting at table.
+She could have gone on for ever and ever, absolutely happy with Albert
+beside her and Brown at
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P196"></A>196}</SPAN>
+her pony's head.  But the time came for
+turning homewards; alas! the time came for going back to England.  She
+could hardly bear it; she sat disconsolate in her room and watched the
+snow falling.  The last day!  Oh!  If only she could be snowed up![<A NAME="chap06fn17text"></A><A HREF="#chap06fn17">17</A>]
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+III
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+The Crimean War brought new experiences, and most of them were pleasant
+ones.  It was pleasant to be patriotic and pugnacious, to look out
+appropriate prayers to be read in the churches, to have news of
+glorious victories, and to know oneself, more proudly than ever, the
+representative of England.  With that spontaneity of feeling which was
+so peculiarly her own, Victoria poured out her emotion, her admiration,
+her pity, her love, upon her 'dear soldiers.'  When she gave them their
+medals her exultation knew no bounds.  'Noble fellows!' she wrote to
+the King of the Belgians.  'I own I feel as if these were <I>my own
+children</I>; my heart beats for <I>them</I> as for my <I>nearest and dearest</I>.
+They were so touched, so pleased; many, I hear, cried&mdash;and they won't
+hear of giving up their medals to have their names engraved upon them
+for fear they should <I>not</I> receive the <I>identical one</I> put into <I>their
+hands by me</I>, which is quite touching.  Several came by in a sadly
+mutilated state.'[<A NAME="chap06fn18text"></A><A HREF="#chap06fn18">18</A>]  She and they were at one.  They felt that she
+had done them a splendid honour, and she, with perfect genuineness,
+shared their feeling.  Albert's attitude towards such things was
+different; there was an austerity in him which quite prohibited the
+expansions of emotion.  When General Williams returned
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P197"></A>197}</SPAN>
+from the
+heroic defence of Kars and was presented at Court, the quick, stiff,
+distant bow with which the Prince received him struck like ice upon the
+beholders.[<A NAME="chap06fn19text"></A><A HREF="#chap06fn19">19</A>]  He was a stranger still.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But he had other things to occupy him, more important, surely, than the
+personal impressions of military officers and people who went to Court.
+He was at work&mdash;ceaselessly at work&mdash;on the tremendous task of carrying
+through the war to a successful conclusion.  State papers, despatches,
+memoranda, poured from him in an overwhelming stream.  Between 1853 and
+1857 fifty folio volumes were filled with the comments of his pen upon
+the Eastern question.[<A NAME="chap06fn20text"></A><A HREF="#chap06fn20">20</A>]  Nothing would induce him to stop.  Weary
+ministers staggered under the load of his advice; but his advice
+continued, piling itself up over their writing-tables, and flowing out
+upon them from red box after red box.  Nor was it advice to be ignored.
+The talent for administration which had reorganised the royal palaces
+and planned the Great Exhibition asserted itself no less in the
+confused complexities of war.  Again and again the Prince's
+suggestions, rejected or unheeded at first, were adopted under the
+stress of circumstances and found to be full of value.  The enrolment
+of a foreign legion, the establishment of a dep�t for troops at Malta,
+the institution of periodical reports and tabulated returns as to the
+condition of the army at Sebastopol&mdash;such were the contrivances and the
+achievements of his indefatigable brain.  He went further: in a lengthy
+minute he laid down the lines for a radical reform in the entire
+administration of the army.  This was premature, but his proposal that
+'a camp of evolution' should be created, in which troops should
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P198"></A>198}</SPAN>
+be concentrated and drilled, proved to be the germ of Aldershot.[<A NAME="chap06fn21text"></A><A HREF="#chap06fn21">21</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Meanwhile Victoria had made a new friend: she had suddenly been
+captivated by Napoleon III.  Her dislike of him had been strong at
+first.  She considered that he was a disreputable adventurer who had
+usurped the throne of poor old Louis Philippe; and besides he was
+hand-in-glove with Lord Palmerston.  For a long time, although he was
+her ally, she was unwilling to meet him; but at last a visit of the
+Emperor and Empress to England was arranged.  Directly he appeared at
+Windsor her heart began to soften.  She found that she was charmed by
+his quiet manners, his low, soft voice, and by the soothing simplicity
+of his conversation.  The good-will of England was essential to the
+Emperor's position in Europe, and he had determined to fascinate the
+Queen.  He succeeded.  There was something deep within her which
+responded immediately and vehemently to natures that offered a romantic
+contrast with her own.  Her adoration of Lord Melbourne was intimately
+interwoven with her half-unconscious appreciation of the exciting
+unlikeness between herself and that sophisticated, subtle,
+aristocratical old man.  Very different was the quality of her
+unlikeness to Napoleon; but its quantity was at least as great.  From
+behind the vast solidity of her respectability, her conventionality,
+her established happiness, she peered out with a strange delicious
+pleasure at that unfamiliar, darkly-glittering foreign object, moving
+so meteorically before her, an ambiguous creature of wilfulness and
+Destiny.  And, to her surprise, where she had dreaded antagonisms, she
+discovered only sympathies.  He was, she said, 'so quiet, so simple,
+<I>na�f</I> even, so pleased to be informed
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P199"></A>199}</SPAN>
+about things he does not
+know, so gentle, so full of tact, dignity, and modesty, so full of kind
+attention towards us, never saying a word, or doing a thing, which
+could put me out ... There is something fascinating, melancholy, and
+engaging, which draws you to him, in spite of any <I>pr�vention</I> you may
+have against him, and certainly without the assistance of any outward
+appearance, though I like his face.'  She observed that he rode
+'extremely well, and looks well on horseback, as he sits high.'  And he
+danced 'with great dignity and spirit.'  Above all, he listened to
+Albert; listened with the most respectful attention; showed, in fact,
+how pleased he was 'to be informed about things he did not know'; and
+afterwards was heard to declare that he had never met the Prince's
+equal.  On one occasion, indeed&mdash;but only on one&mdash;he had seemed to grow
+slightly restive.  In a diplomatic conversation, 'I expatiated a little
+on the Holstein question,' wrote the Prince in a memorandum, 'which
+appeared to bore the Emperor as "tr�s-compliqu�e"'[<A NAME="chap06fn22text"></A><A HREF="#chap06fn22">22</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Victoria, too, became much attached to the Empress, whose looks and
+graces she admired without a touch of jealousy.  Eug�nie, indeed, in
+the plenitude of her beauty, exquisitely dressed in wonderful Parisian
+crinolines which set off to perfection her tall and willowy figure,
+might well have caused some heartburning in the breast of her hostess,
+who, very short, rather stout, quite plain, in garish middle-class
+garments, could hardly be expected to feel at her best in such company.
+But Victoria had no misgivings.  To her it mattered nothing that her
+face turned red in the heat and that her purple pork-pie hat was of
+last year's fashion, while Eug�nie, cool and modish, floated in an
+infinitude of
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P200"></A>200}</SPAN>
+flounces by her side.  She was Queen of England,
+and was not that enough?  It certainly seemed to be; true majesty was
+hers, and she knew it.  More than once, when the two were together in
+public, it was the woman to whom, as it seemed, nature and art had
+given so little, who, by the sheer force of an inherent grandeur,
+completely threw her adorned and beautiful companion into the shade.[<A NAME="chap06fn23text"></A><A HREF="#chap06fn23">23</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There were tears when the moment came for parting, and Victoria felt
+'quite wehm�thig,' as her guests went away from Windsor.  But before
+long she and Albert paid a return visit to France, where everything was
+very delightful, and she drove incognito through the streets of Paris
+in 'a common bonnet,' and saw a play in the theatre at St. Cloud, and,
+one evening, at a great party given by the Emperor in her honour at the
+Ch�teau of Versailles, talked a little to a distinguished-looking
+Prussian gentleman, whose name was Bismarck.  Her rooms were furnished
+so much to her taste that she declared they gave her quite a home
+feeling&mdash;that, if her little dog were there, she should really imagine
+herself at home.  Nothing was said, but three days later her little dog
+barked a welcome to her as she entered the apartments.  The Emperor
+himself, sparing neither trouble nor expense, had personally arranged
+the charming surprise.[<A NAME="chap06fn24text"></A><A HREF="#chap06fn24">24</A>]  Such were his attentions.  She returned to
+England more enchanted than ever.  'Strange indeed,' she exclaimed,
+'are the dispensations and ways of Providence!'[<A NAME="chap06fn25text"></A><A HREF="#chap06fn25">25</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The alliance prospered, and the war drew towards a conclusion.  Both
+the Queen and the Prince, it is true, were most anxious that there
+should not be a premature
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P201"></A>201}</SPAN>
+peace.  When Lord Aberdeen wished to
+open negotiations Albert attacked him in a '<I>geharnischten</I>' letter,
+while Victoria rode about on horseback reviewing the troops.  At last,
+however, Sebastopol was captured.  The news reached Balmoral late at
+night, and 'in a few minutes Albert and all the gentlemen in every
+species of attire sallied forth, followed by all the servants, and
+gradually by all the population of the village&mdash;keepers, gillies,
+workmen&mdash;up to the top of the cairn.'  A bonfire was lighted, the pipes
+were played, and guns were shot off.  'About three-quarters of an hour
+after Albert came down and said the scene had been wild and exciting
+beyond everything.  The people had been drinking healths in whisky and
+were in great ecstasy.'[<A NAME="chap06fn26text"></A><A HREF="#chap06fn26">26</A>]  The 'great ecstasy,' perhaps, would be
+replaced by other feelings next morning; but at any rate the war was
+over&mdash;though, to be sure, its end seemed as difficult to account for as
+its beginning.  The dispensations and ways of Providence continued to
+be strange.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+IV
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+An unexpected consequence of the war was a complete change in the
+relations between the royal pair and Palmerston.  The Prince and the
+Minister drew together over their hostility to Russia, and thus it came
+about that when Victoria found it necessary to summon her old enemy to
+form an administration she did so without reluctance.  The premiership,
+too, had a sobering effect upon Palmerston; he grew less impatient and
+dictatorial; considered with attention the suggestions of the Crown,
+and was, besides,
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P202"></A>202}</SPAN>
+genuinely impressed by the Prince's ability and
+knowledge.[<A NAME="chap06fn27text"></A><A HREF="#chap06fn27">27</A>]  Friction, no doubt, there still occasionally was, for,
+while the Queen and the Prince devoted themselves to foreign politics
+as much as ever, their views, when the war was over, became once more
+antagonistic to those of the Prime Minister.  This was especially the
+case with regard to Italy.  Albert, theoretically the friend of
+constitutional government, distrusted Cavour, was horrified by
+Garibaldi, and dreaded the danger of England being drawn into war with
+Austria.  Palmerston, on the other hand, was eager for Italian
+independence; but he was no longer at the Foreign Office, and the brunt
+of the royal displeasure had now to be borne by Lord John Russell.  In
+a few years the situation had curiously altered.  It was Lord John who
+now filled the subordinate and the ungrateful r�le; but the Foreign
+Secretary, in his struggle with the Crown, was supported, instead of
+opposed, by the Prime Minister.  Nevertheless the struggle was fierce,
+and the policy, by which the vigorous sympathy of England became one of
+the decisive factors in the final achievement of Italian unity, was
+only carried through in face of the violent opposition of the Court.[<A NAME="chap06fn28text"></A><A HREF="#chap06fn28">28</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Towards the other European storm-centre, also, the Prince's attitude
+continued to be very different from that of Palmerston.  Albert's great
+wish was for a united Germany under the leadership of a constitutional
+and virtuous Prussia; Palmerston did not think that there was much to
+be said for the scheme, but he took no particular interest in German
+politics, and was ready
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P203"></A>203}</SPAN>
+enough to agree to a proposal which was
+warmly supported by both the Prince and the Queen&mdash;that the royal
+Houses of England and Prussia should be united by the marriage of the
+Princess Royal with the Prussian Crown Prince.  Accordingly, when the
+Princess was not yet fifteen, the Prince, a young man of twenty-four,
+came over on a visit to Balmoral, and the betrothal took place.[<A NAME="chap06fn29text"></A><A HREF="#chap06fn29">29</A>]
+Two years later, in 1857, the marriage was celebrated.  At the last
+moment, however, it seemed that there might be a hitch.  It was pointed
+out in Prussia that it was customary for Princes of the blood-royal to
+be married in Berlin, and it was suggested that there was no reason why
+the present case should be treated as an exception.  When this reached
+the ears of Victoria, she was speechless with indignation.  In a note,
+emphatic even for Her Majesty, she instructed the Foreign Secretary to
+tell the Prussian Ambassador 'not to <I>entertain</I> the <I>possibility</I> of
+such a question....  The Queen <I>never</I> could consent to it, both for
+public and for private reasons, and the assumption of its being <I>too
+much</I> for a Prince Royal of Prussia to come over to marry <I>the Princess
+Royal of Great Britain</I> in England is too <I>absurd</I> to say the least....
+Whatever may be the usual practice of Prussian princes, it is not
+<I>every</I> day that one marries the eldest daughter of the Queen of
+England.  The question must therefore be considered as settled and
+closed.'[<A NAME="chap06fn30text"></A><A HREF="#chap06fn30">30</A>]  It was, and the wedding took place in St. James's Chapel.
+There were great festivities&mdash;illuminations, state concerts, immense
+crowds, and general rejoicings.  At Windsor a magnificent banquet was
+given to the bride and bridegroom in the Waterloo room, at which,
+Victoria noted in her diary, 'everybody was most friendly and kind
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P204"></A>204}</SPAN>
+about Vicky and full of the universal enthusiasm, of which the
+Duke of Buccleuch gave us most pleasing instances, he having been in
+the very thick of the crowd and among the lowest of the low.'  Her
+feelings during several days had been growing more and more emotional,
+and when the time came for the young couple to depart she very nearly
+broke down&mdash;but not quite.  'Poor dear child!' she wrote afterwards.
+'I clasped her in my arms and blessed her, and knew not what to say.  I
+kissed good Fritz and pressed his hand again and again.  He was unable
+to speak and the tears were in his eyes.  I embraced them both again at
+the carriage door, and Albert got into the carriage, an open one, with
+them and Bertie....  The band struck up.  I wished good-bye to the good
+Perponchers.  General Schreckenstein was much affected.  I pressed his
+hand, and the good Dean's, and then went quickly upstairs.'[<A NAME="chap06fn31text"></A><A HREF="#chap06fn31">31</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Albert, as well as General Schreckenstein, was much affected.  He was
+losing his favourite child, whose opening intelligence had already
+begun to display a marked resemblance to his own&mdash;an adoring pupil,
+who, in a few years, might have become an almost adequate companion.
+An ironic fate had determined that the daughter who was taken from him
+should be sympathetic, clever, interested in the arts and sciences, and
+endowed with a strong taste for memoranda, while not a single one of
+these qualities could be discovered in the son who remained.  For
+certainly the Prince of Wales did not take after his father.
+Victoria's prayer had been unanswered, and with each succeeding year it
+became more obvious that Bertie was a true scion of the House of
+Brunswick.  But these evidences of
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P205"></A>205}</SPAN>
+innate characteristics served
+only to redouble the efforts of his parents; it still might not be too
+late to incline the young branch, by ceaseless pressure and careful
+fastenings, to grow in the proper direction.  Everything was tried.
+The boy was sent on a continental tour with a picked body of tutors,
+but the results were unsatisfactory.  At his father's request he kept a
+diary which, on his return, was inspected by the Prince.  It was found
+to be distressingly meagre: what a multitude of highly interesting
+reflections might have been arranged under the heading: 'The First
+Prince of Wales visiting the Pope!'  But there was not a single one.
+'Le jeune prince plaisait � tout le monde,' old Metternich reported to
+Guizot, 'mais avait l'air embarrass� et tr�s triste.'  On his
+seventeenth birthday a memorandum was drawn up over the names of the
+Queen and the Prince informing their eldest son that he was now
+entering upon the period of manhood, and directing him henceforward to
+perform the duties of a Christian gentleman.  'Life is composed of
+duties,' said the memorandum, 'and in the due, punctual and cheerful
+performance of them the true Christian, true soldier, and true
+gentleman is recognised....  A new sphere of life will open for you in
+which you will have to be taught what to do and what not to do, a
+subject requiring study more important than any in which you have
+hitherto been engaged.'  On receipt of the memorandum Bertie burst into
+tears.  At the same time another memorandum was drawn up, headed
+'Confidential: for the guidance of the gentlemen appointed to attend on
+the Prince of Wales.'  This long and elaborate document laid down
+'certain principles' by which the 'conduct and demeanour' of the
+gentlemen were to be regulated 'and which it
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P206"></A>206}</SPAN>
+is thought may
+conduce to the benefit of the Prince of Wales.'  'The qualities which
+distinguish a gentleman in society,' continued this remarkable paper,
+'are:&mdash;
+</P>
+
+<P>
+(1) His appearance, his deportment and dress.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+(2) The character of his relations with, and treatment of, others.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+(3) His desire and power to acquit himself creditably in conversation
+or whatever is the occupation of the society with which he mixes.'
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A minute and detailed analysis of these sub-headings followed, filling
+several pages, and the memorandum ended with a final exhortation to the
+gentlemen: 'If they will duly appreciate the responsibility of their
+position, and taking the points above laid down as the outline, will
+exercise their own good sense in acting <I>upon all occasions</I> upon these
+principles, thinking no point of detail too minute to be important, but
+maintaining one steady consistent line of conduct, they may render
+essential service to the young Prince and justify the flattering
+selection made by the royal parents.'  A year later the young Prince
+was sent to Oxford, where the greatest care was taken that he should
+not mix with the undergraduates.  Yes, everything had been
+tried&mdash;everything ... with one single exception.  The experiment had
+never been made of letting Bertie enjoy himself.  But why should it
+have been?  'Life is composed of duties.'  What possible place could
+there be for enjoyment in the existence of a Prince of Wales?[<A NAME="chap06fn32text"></A><A HREF="#chap06fn32">32</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The same year which deprived Albert of the Princess Royal brought him
+another and a still more serious loss.  The Baron had paid his last
+visit to England.  For twenty years, as he himself said in a letter to
+the
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P207"></A>207}</SPAN>
+King of the Belgians, he had performed 'the laborious and
+exhausting office of a paternal friend and trusted adviser' to the
+Prince and the Queen.  He was seventy; he was tired, physically and
+mentally; it was time to go.  He returned to his home in Coburg,
+exchanging, once for all, the momentous secrecies of European
+statecraft for the tittle-tattle of a provincial capital and the gossip
+of family life.  In his stiff chair by the fire he nodded now over old
+stories&mdash;not of emperors and generals, but of neighbours and relatives
+and the domestic adventures of long ago&mdash;the burning of his father's
+library&mdash;and the goat that ran upstairs to his sister's room and ran
+twice round the table and then ran down again.  Dyspepsia and
+depression still attacked him; but, looking back over his life, he was
+not dissatisfied.  His conscience was clear.  'I have worked as long as
+I had strength to work,' he said, 'and for a purpose no one can impugn.
+The consciousness of this is my reward&mdash;the only one which I desired to
+earn.'[<A NAME="chap06fn33text"></A><A HREF="#chap06fn33">33</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Apparently, indeed, his 'purpose' had been accomplished.  By his
+wisdom, his patience, and his example he had brought about, in the
+fullness of time, the miraculous metamorphosis of which he had dreamed.
+The Prince was his creation.  An indefatigable toiler, presiding, for
+the highest ends, over a great nation&mdash;that was his achievement; and he
+looked upon his work and it was good.  But had the Baron no misgivings?
+Did he never wonder whether, perhaps, he might have accomplished not
+too little but too much?  How subtle and how dangerous are the snares
+which fate lays for the wariest of men!  Albert, certainly, seemed to
+be everything that Stockmar could have
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P208"></A>208}</SPAN>
+wished&mdash;virtuous,
+industrious, persevering, intelligent.  And yet&mdash;why was it?&mdash;all was
+not well with him.  He was sick at heart.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For in spite of everything he had never reached to happiness.  His
+work, for which at last he came to crave with an almost morbid
+appetite, was a solace and not a cure; the dragon of his
+dissatisfaction devoured with dark relish that ever-growing tribute of
+laborious days and nights; but it was hungry still.  The causes of his
+melancholy were hidden, mysterious, unanalysable perhaps&mdash;too deeply
+rooted in the innermost recesses of his temperament for the eye of
+reason to apprehend.  There were contradictions in his nature, which,
+to some of those who knew him best, made him seem an inexplicable
+enigma: he was severe and gentle; he was modest and scornful; he longed
+for affection and he was cold.[<A NAME="chap06fn34text"></A><A HREF="#chap06fn34">34</A>]  He was lonely, not merely with the
+loneliness of exile but with the loneliness of conscious and
+unrecognised superiority.  He had the pride, at once resigned and
+overweening, of a doctrinaire.  And yet to say that he was simply a
+doctrinaire would be a false description; for the pure doctrinaire
+rejoices always in an internal contentment, and Albert was very far
+from doing that.  There was something that he wanted and that he could
+never get.  What was it?  Some absolute, some ineffable sympathy?  Some
+extraordinary, some sublime success?  Possibly, it was a mixture of
+both.  To dominate and to be understood!  To conquer, by the same
+triumphant influence, the submission and the appreciation of men&mdash;that
+would be worth while indeed!  But, to such imaginations, he saw too
+clearly how faint were the responses of his actual environment.  Who
+was there who appreciated
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P209"></A>209}</SPAN>
+him, really and truly?  Who <I>could</I>
+appreciate him in England?  And, if the gentle virtue of an inward
+excellence availed so little, could he expect more from the hard ways
+of skill and force?  The terrible land of his exile loomed before him a
+frigid, an impregnable mass.  Doubtless he had made some slight
+impression: it was true that he had gained the respect of his fellow
+workers, that his probity, his industry, his exactitude, had been
+recognised, that he was a highly influential, an extremely important
+man.  But how far, how very far, was all this from the goal of his
+ambitions!  How feeble and futile his efforts seemed against the
+enormous coagulation of dullness, of folly, of slackness, of ignorance,
+of confusion that confronted him!  He might have the strength or the
+ingenuity to make some small change for the better here or there&mdash;to
+rearrange some detail, to abolish some anomaly, to insist upon some
+obvious reform; but the heart of the appalling organism remained
+untouched.  England lumbered on, impervious and self-satisfied, in her
+old intolerable course.  He threw himself across the path of the
+monster with rigid purpose and set teeth, but he was brushed aside.
+Yes! even Palmerston was still unconquered&mdash;was still there to afflict
+him with his jauntiness, his muddle-headedness, his utter lack of
+principle.  It was too much.  Neither nature nor the Baron had given
+him a sanguine spirit; the seeds of pessimism, once lodged within him,
+flourished in a propitious soil.  He
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;'questioned things, and did not find<BR>
+One that would answer to his mind;<BR>
+And all the world appeared unkind.'<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+He believed that he was a failure and he began to despair.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P210"></A>210}</SPAN>
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Yet Stockmar had told him that he must 'never relax,' and he never
+would.  He would go on, working to the utmost and striving for the
+highest, to the bitter end.  His industry grew almost maniacal.
+Earlier and earlier was the green lamp lighted; more vast grew the
+correspondence; more searching the examination of the newspapers; the
+interminable memoranda more punctilious, analytical, and precise.  His
+very recreations became duties.  He enjoyed himself by time-table, went
+deer-stalking with meticulous gusto, and made puns at lunch&mdash;it was the
+right thing to do.  The mechanism worked with astonishing efficiency,
+but it never rested and it was never oiled.  In dry exactitude the
+innumerable cog-wheels perpetually revolved.  No, whatever happened,
+the Prince would not relax; he had absorbed the doctrines of Stockmar
+too thoroughly.  He knew what was right, and, at all costs, he would
+pursue it.  That was certain.  But alas! in this our life what are the
+certainties?  'In nothing be over-zealous!' says an old Greek.  'The
+due measure in all the works of man is best.  For often one who
+zealously pushes towards some excellence, though he be pursuing a gain,
+is really being led utterly astray by the will of some Power, which
+makes those things that are evil seem to him good, and those things
+seem to him evil that are for his advantage.'[<A NAME="chap06fn35text"></A><A HREF="#chap06fn35">35</A>]  Surely, both the
+Prince and the Baron might have learnt something from the frigid wisdom
+of Theognis.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Victoria noticed that her husband sometimes seemed to be depressed and
+overworked.  She tried to cheer him up.  Realising uneasily that he was
+still regarded as a foreigner, she hoped that by conferring upon him
+the title of Prince Consort (1857) she would improve his
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P211"></A>211}</SPAN>
+position
+in the country.  'The Queen has a right to claim that her husband
+should be an Englishman,' she wrote.[<A NAME="chap06fn36text"></A><A HREF="#chap06fn36">36</A>]  But unfortunately, in spite
+of the Royal Letters Patent, Albert remained as foreign as before; and
+as the years passed his dejection deepened.  She worked with him, she
+watched over him, she walked with him through the woods at Osborne,
+while he whistled to the nightingales, as he had whistled once at
+Rosenau so long ago.[<A NAME="chap06fn37text"></A><A HREF="#chap06fn37">37</A>]  When his birthday came round, she took the
+greatest pains to choose him presents that he would really like.  In
+1858, when he was thirty-nine, she gave him 'a picture of Beatrice,
+life-size, in oil, by Horsley, a complete collection of photographic
+views of Gotha and the country round, which I had taken by Bedford, and
+a paper-weight of Balmoral granite and deers' teeth, designed by
+Vicky.'[<A NAME="chap06fn38text"></A><A HREF="#chap06fn38">38</A>]  Albert was of course delighted, and his merriment at the
+family gathering was more pronounced than ever: and yet ... what was
+there that was wrong?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+No doubt it was his health.  He was wearing himself out in the service
+of the country; and certainly his constitution, as Stockmar had
+perceived from the first, was ill-adapted to meet a serious strain.  He
+was easily upset; he constantly suffered from minor ailments.  His
+appearance in itself was enough to indicate the infirmity of his
+physical powers.  The handsome youth of twenty years since with the
+flashing eyes and the soft complexion had grown into a sallow,
+tired-looking man, whose body, in its stoop and its loose fleshiness,
+betrayed the sedentary labourer, and whose head was quite bald on the
+top.  Unkind critics, who had once compared Albert to an operatic
+tenor, might
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P212"></A>212}</SPAN>
+have remarked that there was something of the butler
+about him now.  Beside Victoria, he presented a painful contrast.  She,
+too, was stout, but it was with the plumpness of a vigorous matron; and
+an eager vitality was everywhere visible&mdash;in her energetic bearing, her
+protruding, enquiring glances, her small, fat, capable, and commanding
+hands.  If only, by some sympathetic magic, she could have conveyed
+into that portly, flabby figure, that desiccated and discouraged brain,
+a measure of the stamina and the self-assurance which were so
+pre-eminently hers!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But suddenly she was reminded that there were other perils besides
+those of ill-health.  During a visit to Coburg in 1860, the Prince was
+very nearly killed in a carriage accident.  He escaped with a few cuts
+and bruises; but Victoria's alarm was extreme, though she concealed it.
+'It is when the Queen feels most deeply,' she wrote afterwards, 'that
+she always appears calmest, and she could not and dared not allow
+herself to speak of what might have been, or even to admit to herself
+(and she cannot and dare not now) the entire danger, for her head would
+turn!'  Her agitation, in fact, was only surpassed by her thankfulness
+to God.  She felt, she said, that she could not rest 'without doing
+something to mark permanently her feelings,' and she decided that she
+would endow a charity in Coburg.  '�1,000, or even �2,000, given either
+at once, or in instalments yearly, would not, in the Queen's opinion,
+be too much.'  Eventually, the smaller sum having been fixed upon, it
+was invested in a trust, called the 'Victoria-Stift,' in the names of
+the Burgomaster and chief clergyman of Coburg, who were directed to
+distribute the interest yearly among a certain number
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P213"></A>213}</SPAN>
+of young
+men and women of exemplary character belonging to the humbler ranks of
+life.[<A NAME="chap06fn39text"></A><A HREF="#chap06fn39">39</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Shortly afterwards the Queen underwent, for the first time in her life,
+the actual experience of close personal loss.  Early in 1861 the
+Duchess of Kent was taken seriously ill, and in March she died.  The
+event overwhelmed Victoria.  With a morbid intensity, she filled her
+diary for pages with minute descriptions of her mother's last hours,
+her dissolution, and her corpse, interspersed with vehement
+apostrophes, and the agitated outpourings of emotional reflection.  In
+the grief of the present the disagreements of the past were totally
+forgotten.  It was the horror and the mystery of Death&mdash;Death present
+and actual&mdash;that seized upon the imagination of the Queen.  Her whole
+being, so instinct with vitality, recoiled in agony from the grim
+spectacle of the triumph of that awful power.  Her own mother, with
+whom she had lived so closely and so long that she had become a part
+almost of her existence, had fallen into nothingness before her very
+eyes!  She tried to forget it, but she could not.  Her lamentations
+continued with a strange abundance, a strange persistency.  It was
+almost as if, by some mysterious and unconscious precognition, she
+realised that for her, in an especial manner, that grisly Majesty had a
+dreadful dart in store.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For indeed, before the year was out, a far more terrible blow was to
+fall upon her.  Albert, who had for long been suffering from
+sleeplessness, went, on a cold and drenching day towards the end of
+November, to inspect the buildings for the new Military Academy at
+Sandhurst.  On his return, it was clear that the
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P214"></A>214}</SPAN>
+fatigue and
+exposure to which he had been subjected had seriously affected his
+health.  He was attacked by rheumatism, his sleeplessness continued,
+and he complained that he felt thoroughly unwell.  Three days later a
+painful duty obliged him to visit Cambridge.  The Prince of Wales, who
+had been placed at that University in the previous year, was behaving
+in such a manner that a parental visit and a parental admonition had
+become necessary.  The disappointed father, suffering in mind and body,
+carried through his task; but, on his return journey to Windsor, he
+caught a fatal chill.[<A NAME="chap06fn40text"></A><A HREF="#chap06fn40">40</A>]  During the next week he gradually grew
+weaker and more miserable.  Yet, depressed and enfeebled as he was, he
+continued to work.  It so happened that at that very moment a grave
+diplomatic crisis had arisen.  Civil war had broken out in America, and
+it seemed as if England, owing to a violent quarrel with the Northern
+States, was upon the point of being drawn into the conflict.  A severe
+despatch by Lord John Russell was submitted to the Queen; and the
+Prince perceived that, if it were sent off unaltered, war would be the
+almost inevitable consequence.  At seven o'clock on the morning of
+December 1, he rose from his bed, and with a quavering hand wrote a
+series of suggestions for the alteration of the draft, by which its
+language might be softened, and a way left open for a peaceful solution
+of the question.  These changes were accepted by the Government, and
+war was averted.  It was the Prince's last memorandum.[<A NAME="chap06fn41text"></A><A HREF="#chap06fn41">41</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He had always declared that he viewed the prospect of death with
+equanimity.  'I do not cling to life,' he had once said to Victoria.
+'You do; but I set no
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P215"></A>215}</SPAN>
+store by it.'  And then he had added: 'I am
+sure, if I had a severe illness, I should give up at once, I should not
+struggle for life.  I have no tenacity of life.'[<A NAME="chap06fn42text"></A><A HREF="#chap06fn42">42</A>]  He had judged
+correctly.  Before he had been ill many days, he told a friend that he
+was convinced he would not recover.[<A NAME="chap06fn43text"></A><A HREF="#chap06fn43">43</A>]  He sank and sank.
+Nevertheless, if his case had been properly understood and skilfully
+treated from the first, he might conceivably have been saved; but the
+doctors failed to diagnose his symptoms; and it is noteworthy that his
+principal physician was Sir James Clark.  When it was suggested that
+other advice should be taken, Sir James pooh-poohed the idea: 'there
+was no cause for alarm,' he said.  But the strange illness grew worse.
+At last, after a letter of fierce remonstrance from Palmerston, Dr.
+Watson was sent for; and Dr. Watson saw at once that he had come too
+late.  The Prince was in the grip of typhoid fever.  'I think that
+everything so far is satisfactory,' said Sir James Clark.[<A NAME="chap06fn44text"></A><A HREF="#chap06fn44">44</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The restlessness and the acute suffering of the earlier days gave place
+to a settled torpor and an ever-deepening gloom.  Once the failing
+patient asked for music&mdash;'a fine chorale at a distance'; and a piano
+having been placed in the adjoining room, Princess Alice played on it
+some of Luther's hymns, after which the Prince repeated 'The Rock of
+Ages.'  Sometimes his mind wandered; sometimes the distant past came
+rushing upon him; he heard the birds in the early
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P216"></A>216}</SPAN>
+morning, and
+was at Rosenau again, a boy.  Or Victoria would come and read to him
+'Peveril of the Peak,' and he showed that he could follow the story,
+and then she would bend over him, and he would murmur 'liebes Frauchen'
+and 'gutes Weibchen,' stroking her cheek.  Her distress and her
+agitation were great, but she was not seriously frightened.  Buoyed up
+by her own abundant energies, she would not believe that Albert's might
+prove unequal to the strain.  She refused to face such a hideous
+possibility.  She declined to see Dr. Watson.  Why should she?  Had not
+Sir James Clark assured her that all would be well?  Only two days
+before the end, which was seen now to be almost inevitable by everyone
+about her, she wrote, full of apparent confidence, to the King of the
+Belgians: 'I do not sit up with him at night,' she said, 'as I could be
+of no use; and there is nothing to cause alarm.'[<A NAME="chap06fn45text"></A><A HREF="#chap06fn45">45</A>]  The Princess
+Alice tried to tell her the truth, but her hopefulness would not be
+daunted.  On the morning of December 14, Albert, just as she had
+expected, seemed to be better; perhaps the crisis was over.  But in the
+course of the day there was a serious relapse.  Then at last she
+allowed herself to see that she was standing on the edge of an
+appalling gulf.  The whole family was summoned, and, one after another,
+the children took a silent farewell of their father.  'It was a
+terrible moment,' Victoria wrote in her diary, 'but, thank God! I was
+able to command myself, and to be perfectly calm, and remained sitting
+by his side.'  He murmured something, but she could not hear what it
+was; she thought he was speaking in French.  Then all at once he began
+to arrange his hair, 'just as he used to do when well and he was
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P217"></A>217}</SPAN>
+dressing.'  'Es ist kleines Frauchen,' she whispered to him; and he
+seemed to understand.  For a moment, towards the evening, she went into
+another room, but was immediately called back: she saw at a glance that
+a ghastly change had taken place.  As she knelt by the bed, he breathed
+deeply, breathed gently, breathed at last no more.  His features became
+perfectly rigid.  She shrieked&mdash;one long wild shriek that rang through
+the terror-stricken Castle&mdash;and understood that she had lost him for
+ever.[<A NAME="chap06fn46text"></A><A HREF="#chap06fn46">46</A>]
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap06fn1"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap06fn1text">1</A>] Martin, II, 161.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap06fn2"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap06fn2text">2</A>] 'Read this carefully, and tell me if there are any mistakes in it.'
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap06fn3"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap06fn3text">3</A>] 'Here is a draft I have made for you.  Read it.  I should think
+this would do.'
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap06fn4"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap06fn4text">4</A>] Martin, V, 273-5.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap06fn5"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap06fn5text">5</A>] <I>Ibid.</I>, II, 379.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap06fn6"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap06fn6text">6</A>] Martin, IV, 14-15, 60.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap06fn7"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap06fn7text">7</A>] <I>Ibid.</I>, II, 479.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap06fn8"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap06fn8text">8</A>] Martin, II, 251-2; Bloomfield, II, 110.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap06fn9"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap06fn9text">9</A>] <I>D.N.B.</I>, Second Supplement, Art. 'Edward VII'; <I>Quarterly Review</I>,
+CCXIII, 4-7, 16.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap06fn10"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap06fn10text">10</A>] <I>Leaves</I>, 18, 33, 34, 36, 127-8, 132<I>n</I>.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap06fn11"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap06fn11text">11</A>] <I>Leaves</I>, 73-4, 95-6; Greville, VI, 303-4.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap06fn12"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap06fn12text">12</A>] <I>Leaves</I>, 99-100.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap06fn13"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap06fn13text">13</A>] <I>Private Life</I>, 209-11; <I>Quarterly Review</I>, CXCIII, 335.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap06fn14"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap06fn14text">14</A>] <I>Leaves</I>, 103, 111.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap06fn15"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap06fn15text">15</A>] <I>Leaves</I>, 92-4.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap06fn16"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap06fn16text">16</A>] <I>Ibid.</I>, 102, 113-4.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap06fn17"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap06fn17text">17</A>] <I>Leaves</I>, 72, 117, 137.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap06fn18"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap06fn18text">18</A>] <I>Letters</I>, III, 127.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap06fn19"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap06fn19text">19</A>] Private information.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap06fn20"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap06fn20text">20</A>] Martin, III, v.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap06fn21"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap06fn21text">21</A>] Martin, III, 146-7, 168-9, 177-9,
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap06fn22"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap06fn22text">22</A>] Martin, III, 242, 245, 351; IV, 111.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap06fn23"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap06fn23text">23</A>] <I>Quarterly Review</I>, CXCIII, 313-4; <I>Spinster Lady</I>, 7.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap06fn24"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap06fn24text">24</A>] Crawford, 311-2.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap06fn25"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap06fn25text">25</A>] Martin, III, 350.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap06fn26"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap06fn26text">26</A>] <I>Leaves</I>, 105-6.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap06fn27"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap06fn27text">27</A>] Martin, II, 429.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap06fn28"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap06fn28text">28</A>] <I>Letters</I>, III, especially July-December 1859; Martin, IV, 488-91;
+V, 189.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap06fn29"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap06fn29text">29</A>] <I>Leaves</I>, 107.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap06fn30"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap06fn30text">30</A>] <I>Letters</I>, III, 253.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap06fn31"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap06fn31text">31</A>] Martin, IV, 160-9.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap06fn32"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap06fn32text">32</A>] <I>D.N.B.</I>, Second Supplement, 551; <I>Quarterly Review</I>, CCXIII,
+9-20, 24; Greville, VIII, 217.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap06fn33"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap06fn33text">33</A>] Stockmar, 4, 44.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap06fn34"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap06fn34text">34</A>] Ernest, I, 140-1.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap06fn35"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap06fn35text">35</A>] Theognis, 401 ff.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap06fn36"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap06fn36text">36</A>] <I>Letters</I>, III, 194.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap06fn37"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap06fn37text">37</A>] Grey, 195<I>n</I>.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap06fn38"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap06fn38text">38</A>] Martin, IV, 298.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap06fn39"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap06fn39text">39</A>] Martin, V, 202-4, 217-9.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap06fn40"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap06fn40text">40</A>] <I>D.N.B.</I>, Second Supplement, 557.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap06fn41"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap06fn41text">41</A>] Martin, V, 416-27.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap06fn42"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap06fn42text">42</A>] Martin, V, 415.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap06fn43"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap06fn43text">43</A>] Bloomfield, II, 155.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap06fn44"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap06fn44text">44</A>] Martin, V, 427-35; Clarendon, II, 253-4: 'One cannot speak with
+certainty; but it is horrible to think that such a life <I>may</I> have been
+sacrificed to Sir J. Clark's selfish jealousy of every member of his
+profession.'&mdash;The Earl of Clarendon to the Duchess of Manchester, Dec.
+17, 1861.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap06fn45"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap06fn45text">45</A>] <I>Letters</I>, III, 472-3.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap06fn46"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap06fn46text">46</A>] Martin, V, 435-42; Hare, II, 286-8; <I>Spinster Lady</I>, 176-7.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap07"></A>
+
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P218"></A>218}</SPAN>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER VII
+</H3>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+WIDOWHOOD
+</H4>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+I
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+The death of the Prince Consort was the central turning-point in the
+history of Queen Victoria.  She herself felt that her true life had
+ceased with her husband's, and that the remainder of her days upon
+earth was of a twilight nature&mdash;an epilogue to a drama that was done.
+Nor is it possible that her biographer should escape a similar
+impression.  For him, too, there is a darkness over the latter half of
+that long career.  The first forty-two years of the Queen's life are
+illuminated by a great and varied quantity of authentic information.
+With Albert's death a veil descends.  Only occasionally, at fitful and
+disconnected intervals, does it lift for a moment or two; a few main
+outlines, a few remarkable details may be discerned; the rest is all
+conjecture and ambiguity.  Thus, though the Queen survived her great
+bereavement for almost as many years as she had lived before it, the
+chronicle of those years can bear no proportion to the tale of her
+earlier life.  We must be content in our ignorance with a brief and
+summary relation.
+</P>
+
+<A NAME="img-218"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-218.jpg" ALT="QUEEN VICTORIA IN 1863." BORDER="2">
+<H4 CLASS="h4center">
+QUEEN VICTORIA IN 1863.
+</H4>
+</CENTER>
+
+<P>
+The sudden removal of the Prince was not merely a matter of
+overwhelming personal concern to Victoria; it was an event of national,
+of European importance.  He was only forty-two, and in the ordinary
+course of
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P219"></A>219}</SPAN>
+nature he might have been expected to live at least
+thirty years longer.  Had he done so it can hardly be doubted that the
+whole development of the English polity would have been changed.
+Already at the time of his death he filled a unique place in English
+public life; already among the inner circle of politicians he was
+accepted as a necessary and useful part of the mechanism of the State.
+Lord Clarendon, for instance, spoke of his death as 'a national
+calamity of far greater importance than the public dream of,' and
+lamented the loss of his 'sagacity and foresight,' which, he declared,
+would have been 'more than ever valuable' in the event of an American
+war.[<A NAME="chap07fn1text"></A><A HREF="#chap07fn1">1</A>]  And, as time went on, the Prince's influence must have
+enormously increased.  For, in addition to his intellectual and moral
+qualities, he enjoyed, by virtue of his position, one supreme advantage
+which every other holder of high office in the country was without: he
+was permanent.  Politicians came and went, but the Prince was
+perpetually installed at the centre of affairs.  Who can doubt that,
+towards the end of the century, such a man, grown grey in the service
+of the nation, virtuous, intelligent, and with the unexampled
+experience of a whole lifetime of government, would have acquired an
+extraordinary prestige?  If, in his youth, he had been able to pit the
+Crown against the mighty Palmerston and to come off with equal honours
+from the contest, of what might he not have been capable in his old
+age?  What Minister, however able, however popular, could have
+withstood the wisdom, the irreproachability, the vast prescriptive
+authority, of the venerable Prince?  It is easy to imagine how, under
+such a ruler, an attempt might have been made to convert England into a
+State as exactly
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P220"></A>220}</SPAN>
+organised, as elaborately trained, as
+efficiently equipped, and as autocratically controlled, as Prussia
+herself.  Then perhaps, eventually, under some powerful leader&mdash;a
+Gladstone or a Bright&mdash;the democratic forces in the country might have
+rallied together, and a struggle might have followed in which the
+Monarchy would have been shaken to its foundations.  Or, on the other
+hand, Disraeli's hypothetical prophecy might have come true.  'With
+Prince Albert,' he said, 'we have buried our sovereign.  This German
+Prince has governed England for twenty-one years with a wisdom and
+energy such as none of our kings have ever shown....  If he had
+outlived some of our "old stagers" he would have given us the blessings
+of absolute government."[<A NAME="chap07fn2text"></A><A HREF="#chap07fn2">2</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The English Constitution&mdash;that indescribable entity&mdash;is a living thing,
+growing with the growth of men, and assuming ever-varying forms in
+accordance with the subtle and complex laws of human character.  It is
+the child of wisdom and chance.  The wise men of 1688 moulded it into
+the shape we know; but the chance that George I could not speak English
+gave it one of its essential peculiarities&mdash;the system of a Cabinet
+independent of the Crown and subordinate to the Prime Minister.  The
+wisdom of Lord Grey saved it from petrifaction and destruction, and set
+it upon the path of Democracy.  Then chance intervened once more; a
+female sovereign happened to marry an able and pertinacious man; and it
+seemed likely that an element which had been quiescent within it for
+years&mdash;the element of irresponsible administrative power&mdash;was about to
+become its predominant characteristic and to change completely the
+direction of its growth.  But what chance gave, chance took away.  The
+Consort perished
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P221"></A>221}</SPAN>
+in his prime; and the English Constitution,
+dropping the dead limb with hardly a tremor, continued its mysterious
+life as if he had never been.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+One human being, and one alone, felt the full force of what had
+happened.  The Baron, by his fireside at Coburg, suddenly saw the
+tremendous fabric of his creation crash down into sheer and
+irremediable ruin.  Albert was gone, and he had lived in vain.  Even
+his blackest hypochondria had never envisioned quite so miserable a
+catastrophe.  Victoria wrote to him, visited him, tried to console him
+by declaring with passionate conviction that she would carry on her
+husband's work.  He smiled a sad smile and looked into the fire.  Then
+he murmured that he was going where Albert was&mdash;that he would not be
+long.[<A NAME="chap07fn3text"></A><A HREF="#chap07fn3">3</A>]  He shrank into himself.  His children clustered round him and
+did their best to comfort him, but it was useless: the Baron's heart
+was broken.  He lingered for eighteen months, and then, with his pupil,
+explored the shadow and the dust.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+II
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+With appalling suddenness Victoria had exchanged the serene radiance of
+happiness for the utter darkness of woe.  In the first dreadful moments
+those about her had feared that she might lose her reason, but the iron
+strain within her held firm, and in the intervals between the intense
+paroxysms of grief it was observed that the Queen was calm.  She
+remembered, too, that Albert had always disapproved of exaggerated
+manifestations of feeling, and her one remaining desire was to do
+nothing but what he would have wished.  Yet there were moments when her
+royal anguish would
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P222"></A>222}</SPAN>
+brook no restraints.  One day she sent for
+the Duchess of Sutherland, and, leading her to the Prince's room, fell
+prostrate before his clothes in a flood of weeping, while she adjured
+the Duchess to tell her whether the beauty of Albert's character had
+ever been surpassed.[<A NAME="chap07fn4text"></A><A HREF="#chap07fn4">4</A>]  At other times a feeling akin to indignation
+swept over her.  'The poor fatherless baby of eight months,' she wrote
+to the King of the Belgians, 'is now the utterly heart-broken and
+crushed widow of forty-two!  My <I>life</I> as a <I>happy</I> one is <I>ended</I>!
+The world is gone for <I>me</I>!  ... Oh! to be cut off in the prime of
+life&mdash;to see our pure, happy, quiet, domestic life, which <I>alone</I>
+enabled me to bear my <I>much</I> disliked position, CUT OFF at
+forty-two&mdash;when I <I>had</I> hoped with such instinctive certainty that God
+never <I>would</I> part us, and would let us grow old together (though <I>he</I>
+always talked of the shortness of life)&mdash;is <I>too awful</I>, too cruel!'[<A NAME="chap07fn5text"></A><A HREF="#chap07fn5">5</A>]
+The tone of outraged Majesty seems to be discernible.  Did she wonder
+in her heart of hearts how the Deity could have dared?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But all other emotions gave way before her overmastering determination
+to continue, absolutely unchanged, and for the rest of her life on
+earth, her reverence, her obedience, her idolatry.  'I am anxious to
+repeat one thing,' she told her uncle, 'and <I>that one</I> is <I>my firm</I>
+resolve, my <I>irrevocable decision</I>, viz. that <I>his</I> wishes&mdash;<I>his</I>
+plans&mdash;about everything, <I>his</I> views about <I>every</I> thing are to be <I>my
+law</I>!  And <I>no human power</I> will make me swerve from <I>what he</I> decided
+and wished.'  She grew fierce, she grew furious, at the thought of any
+possible intrusion between her and her desire.  Her uncle was coming to
+visit her, and it flashed upon her that <I>he</I> might try to interfere
+with her and seek to 'rule the roast' as of old.  She would give him a
+hint.  'I
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P223"></A>223}</SPAN>
+am <I>also determined</I>,' she wrote, 'that <I>no one</I>
+person&mdash;may he be ever so good, ever so devoted among my servants&mdash;is
+to lead or guide or dictate <I>to me</I>.  I know <I>how he</I> would disapprove
+it ... Though miserably weak and utterly shattered, my spirit rises
+when I think any wish or plan of his is to be touched or changed, or I
+am to be <I>made to do</I> anything.'  She ended her letter in grief and
+affection.  She was, she said, his 'ever wretched but devoted child,
+Victoria R.'  And then she looked at the date: it was the 24th of
+December.  An agonising pang assailed her, and she dashed down a
+postscript&mdash;'What a Xmas!  I won't think of it.'[<A NAME="chap07fn6text"></A><A HREF="#chap07fn6">6</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At first, in the tumult of her distresses, she declared that she could
+not see her Ministers, and the Princess Alice, assisted by Sir Charles
+Phipps, the keeper of the Privy Purse, performed, to the best of her
+ability, the functions of an intermediary.  After a few weeks, however,
+the Cabinet, through Lord John Russell, ventured to warn the Queen that
+this could not continue.[<A NAME="chap07fn7text"></A><A HREF="#chap07fn7">7</A>]  She realised that they were right: Albert
+would have agreed with them; and so she sent for the Prime Minister.
+But when Lord Palmerston arrived at Osborne, in the pink of health,
+brisk, with his whiskers freshly dyed, and dressed in a brown overcoat,
+light grey trousers, green gloves, and blue studs, he did not create a
+very good impression.[<A NAME="chap07fn8text"></A><A HREF="#chap07fn8">8</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Nevertheless, she had grown attached to her old enemy, and the thought
+of a political change filled her with agitated apprehensions.  The
+Government, she knew, might fall at any moment; she felt she could not
+face such an eventuality; and therefore, six months after the death of
+the Prince, she took the unprecedented
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P224"></A>224}</SPAN>
+step of sending a private
+message to Lord Derby, the leader of the Opposition, to tell him that
+she was not in a fit state of mind or body to undergo the anxiety of a
+change of Government, and that if he turned the present Ministers out
+of office it would be at the risk of sacrificing her life&mdash;or her
+reason.  When this message reached Lord Derby he was considerably
+surprised.  'Dear me!' was his cynical comment.  'I didn't think she
+was so fond of them as <I>that</I>.'[<A NAME="chap07fn9text"></A><A HREF="#chap07fn9">9</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Though the violence of her perturbations gradually subsided, her
+cheerfulness did not return.  For months, for years, she continued in
+settled gloom.  Her life became one of almost complete seclusion.
+Arrayed in thickest <I>cr�pe</I>, she passed dolefully from Windsor to
+Osborne, from Osborne to Balmoral.  Rarely visiting the capital,
+refusing to take any part in the ceremonies of state, shutting herself
+off from the slightest intercourse with society, she became almost as
+unknown to her subjects as some potentate of the East.  They might
+murmur, but they did not understand.  What had she to do with empty
+shows and vain enjoyments?  No!  She was absorbed by very different
+preoccupations.  She was the devoted guardian of a sacred trust.  Her
+place was in the inmost shrine of the house of mourning&mdash;where she
+alone had the right to enter, where she could feel the effluence of a
+mysterious presence, and interpret, however faintly and feebly, the
+promptings of a still living soul.  That, and that only, was her
+glorious, her terrible duty.  For terrible indeed it was.  As the years
+passed her depression seemed to deepen and her loneliness to grow more
+intense.  'I am on a dreary sad pinnacle of solitary grandeur,' she
+said.[<A NAME="chap07fn10text"></A><A HREF="#chap07fn10">10</A>]  Again and again she felt that she
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P225"></A>225}</SPAN>
+could bear her
+situation no longer&mdash;that she would sink under the strain.  And then,
+instantly, that Voice spoke: and she braced herself once more to
+perform, with minute conscientiousness, her grim and holy task.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Above all else, what she had to do was to make her own the
+master-impulse of Albert's life&mdash;she must work, as he had worked, in
+the service of the country.  That vast burden of toil which he had
+taken upon his shoulders it was now for her to bear.  She assumed the
+gigantic load; and naturally she staggered under it.  While he had
+lived, she had worked, indeed, with regularity and application; but it
+was work made easy, made delicious, by his care, his forethought, his
+advice, and his infallibility.  The mere sound of his voice, asking her
+to sign a paper, had thrilled her; in such a presence she could have
+laboured gladly for ever.  But now there was a hideous change.  Now
+there were no neat piles and docketings under the green lamp; now there
+were no simple explanations of difficult matters; now there was nobody
+to tell her what was right and what was wrong.  She had her
+secretaries, no doubt: there were Sir Charles Phipps, and General Grey,
+and Sir Thomas Biddulph; and they did their best.  But they were mere
+subordinates: the whole weight of initiative and responsibility rested
+upon her alone.  For so it had to be.  'I am <I>determined</I>'&mdash;had she not
+declared it?&mdash;'that no one person is to lead or guide or dictate <I>to
+me</I>'; anything else would be a betrayal of her trust.  She would follow
+the Prince in all things.  He had refused to delegate authority; he had
+examined into every detail with his own eyes; he had made it a rule
+never to sign a paper without having first, not merely read it, but
+made notes on it too.  She
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P226"></A>226}</SPAN>
+would do the same.  She sat from
+morning till night surrounded by huge heaps of despatch-boxes, reading
+and writing at her desk&mdash;at her desk, alas! which stood alone now in
+the room.[<A NAME="chap07fn11text"></A><A HREF="#chap07fn11">11</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Within two years of Albert's death a violent disturbance in foreign
+politics put Victoria's faithfulness to a crucial test.  The fearful
+Schleswig-Holstein dispute, which had been smouldering for more than a
+decade, showed signs of bursting out into conflagration.  The
+complexity of the questions at issue was indescribable.  'Only three
+people,' said Palmerston, 'have ever really understood the
+Schleswig-Holstein business&mdash;the Prince Consort, who is dead&mdash;a German
+professor, who has gone mad&mdash;and I, who have forgotten all about
+it.'[<A NAME="chap07fn12text"></A><A HREF="#chap07fn12">12</A>]  But, though the Prince might be dead, had he not left a
+vicegerent behind him?  Victoria threw herself into the seething
+embroilment with the vigour of inspiration.  She devoted hours daily to
+the study of the affair in all its windings; but she had a clue through
+the labyrinth: whenever the question had been discussed, Albert, she
+recollected it perfectly, had always taken the side of Prussia.  Her
+course was clear.  She became an ardent champion of the Prussian point
+of view.  It was a legacy from the Prince, she said.[<A NAME="chap07fn13text"></A><A HREF="#chap07fn13">13</A>]  She did not
+realise that the Prussia of the Prince's days was dead, and that a new
+Prussia, the Prussia of Bismarck, was born.  Perhaps Palmerston, with
+his queer prescience, instinctively apprehended the new danger; at any
+rate, he and Lord John were agreed upon the necessity of
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P227"></A>227}</SPAN>
+supporting Denmark against Prussia's claims.  But opinion was sharply
+divided, not only in the country but in the Cabinet.  For eighteen
+months the controversy raged; while the Queen, with persistent
+vehemence, opposed the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary.  When
+at last the final crisis arose&mdash;when it seemed possible that England
+would join forces with Denmark in a war against Prussia&mdash;Victoria's
+agitation grew febrile in its intensity.  Towards her German relatives
+she preserved a discreet appearance of impartiality; but she poured out
+upon her Ministers a flood of appeals, protests, and expostulations.
+She invoked the sacred cause of Peace.  'The only chance of preserving
+peace for Europe,' she wrote, 'is by not assisting Denmark, who has
+brought this entirely upon herself....  The Queen suffers much, and her
+nerves are more and more totally shattered....  But though all this
+anxiety is wearing her out, it will not shake her firm purpose of
+resisting any attempt to involve this country in a mad and useless
+combat.'  She was, she declared, 'prepared to make a stand,' even if
+the resignation of the Foreign Secretary should follow.[<A NAME="chap07fn14text"></A><A HREF="#chap07fn14">14</A>]  'The
+Queen,' she told Lord Granville, 'is completely exhausted by the
+anxiety and suspense, and misses her beloved husband's help, advice,
+support, and love in an overwhelming manner.'  She was so worn out by
+her efforts for peace that she could 'hardly hold up her head or hold
+her pen.'[<A NAME="chap07fn15text"></A><A HREF="#chap07fn15">15</A>]  England did not go to war, and Denmark was left to her
+fate; but how far the attitude of the Queen contributed to this result
+it is impossible, with our present knowledge, to say.  On the whole,
+however, it seems probable that the determining factor in the situation
+was the
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P228"></A>228}</SPAN>
+powerful peace party in the Cabinet rather than the
+imperious and pathetic pressure of Victoria.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It is, at any rate, certain that the Queen's enthusiasm for the sacred
+cause of peace was short-lived.  Within a few months her mind had
+completely altered.  Her eyes were opened to the true nature of
+Prussia, whose designs upon Austria were about to culminate in the
+Seven Weeks' War.  Veering precipitately from one extreme to the other,
+she now urged her Ministers to interfere by force of arms in support of
+Austria.  But she urged in vain.[<A NAME="chap07fn16text"></A><A HREF="#chap07fn16">16</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Her political activity, no more than her social seclusion, was approved
+by the public.  As the years passed, and the royal mourning remained as
+unrelieved as ever, the animadversions grew more general and more
+severe.  It was observed that the Queen's protracted privacy not only
+cast a gloom over high society, not only deprived the populace of its
+pageantry, but also exercised a highly deleterious effect upon the
+dress-making, millinery, and hosiery trades.  This latter consideration
+carried great weight.  At last, early in 1864, the rumour spread that
+Her Majesty was about to go out of mourning, and there was much
+rejoicing in the newspapers; but unfortunately it turned out that the
+rumour was quite without foundation.  Victoria, with her own hand,
+wrote a letter to <I>The Times</I> to say so.  'This idea,' she declared,
+'cannot be too explicitly contradicted.'  'The Queen,' the letter
+continued, 'heartily appreciates the desire of her subjects to see her,
+and whatever she <I>can</I> do to gratify them in this loyal and
+affectionate wish, she <I>will</I> do....  But there are other and higher
+duties than those of mere representation which are now thrown upon the
+Queen, alone
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P229"></A>229}</SPAN>
+and unassisted&mdash;duties which she cannot neglect
+without injury to the public service, which weigh unceasingly upon her,
+overwhelming her with work and anxiety.'[<A NAME="chap07fn17text"></A><A HREF="#chap07fn17">17</A>]  The justification might
+have been considered more cogent had it not been known that those
+'other and higher duties' emphasised by the Queen consisted for the
+most part of an attempt to counteract the foreign policy of Lord
+Palmerston and Lord John Russell.  A large section&mdash;perhaps a
+majority&mdash;of the nation were violent partisans of Denmark in the
+Schleswig-Holstein quarrel; and Victoria's support of Prussia was
+widely denounced.  A wave of unpopularity, which reminded old observers
+of the period preceding the Queen's marriage more than twenty-five
+years before, was beginning to rise.  The press was rude; Lord
+Ellenborough attacked the Queen in the House of Lords; there were
+curious whispers in high quarters that she had had thoughts of
+abdicating&mdash;whispers followed by regrets that she had not done so.[<A NAME="chap07fn18text"></A><A HREF="#chap07fn18">18</A>]
+Victoria, outraged and injured, felt that she was misunderstood.  She
+was profoundly unhappy.  After Lord Ellenborough's speech, General Grey
+declared that he 'had never seen the Queen so completely upset.'  'Oh,
+how fearful it is,' she herself wrote to Lord Granville, 'to be
+suspected&mdash;uncheered&mdash;unguided and unadvised&mdash;and how alone the poor
+Queen feels!'[<A NAME="chap07fn19text"></A><A HREF="#chap07fn19">19</A>]  Nevertheless, suffer as she might, she was as
+resolute as ever; she would not move by a hair's-breadth from the
+course that a supreme obligation marked out for her; she would be
+faithful to the end.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And so, when Schleswig-Holstein was forgotten,
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P230"></A>230}</SPAN>
+and even the image
+of the Prince had begun to grow dim in the fickle memories of men, the
+solitary watcher remained immutably concentrated at her peculiar task.
+The world's hostility, steadily increasing, was confronted and outfaced
+by the impenetrable weeds of Victoria.  Would the world never
+understand?  It was not mere sorrow that kept her so strangely
+sequestered; it was devotion, it was self-immolation; it was the
+laborious legacy of love.  Unceasingly the pen moved over the
+black-edged paper.  The flesh might be weak, but that vast burden must
+be borne.  And fortunately, if the world would not understand, there
+were faithful friends who did.  There was Lord Granville, and there was
+kind Mr. Theodore Martin.  Perhaps Mr. Martin, who was so clever, would
+find means to make people realise the facts.  She would send him a
+letter, pointing out her arduous labours and the difficulties under
+which she struggled, and then he might write an article for one of the
+magazines.  It is not, she told him in 1863, 'the Queen's <I>sorrow</I> that
+keeps her secluded....  It is her <I>overwhelming work</I> and her health,
+which is greatly shaken by her sorrow, and the totally overwhelming
+amount of work and responsibility&mdash;work which she feels really wears
+her out.  Alice Helps was wonder-struck at the Queen's room; and if
+Mrs. Martin will look at it, she can tell Mr. Martin what surrounds
+her.  From the hour she gets out of bed till she gets into it again
+there is work, work, work,&mdash;letter-boxes, questions, &amp;c., which are
+dreadfully exhausting&mdash;and if she had not comparative rest and quiet in
+the evening she would most likely not be <I>alive</I>.  Her brain is
+constantly overtaxed.'[<A NAME="chap07fn20text"></A><A HREF="#chap07fn20">20</A>]  It was too true.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P231"></A>231}</SPAN>
+</P>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+III
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+To carry on Albert's work&mdash;that was her first duty; but there was
+another, second only to that, and yet nearer, if possible, to her
+heart&mdash;to impress the true nature of his genius and character upon the
+minds of her subjects.  She realised that during his life he had not
+been properly appreciated; the full extent of his powers, the supreme
+quality of his goodness, had been necessarily concealed; but death had
+removed the need of barriers, and now her husband, in his magnificent
+entirety, should stand revealed to all.  She set to work methodically.
+She directed Sir Arthur Helps to bring out a collection of the Prince's
+speeches and addresses, and the weighty tome appeared in 1862.  Then
+she commanded General Grey to write an account of the Prince's early
+years&mdash;from his birth to his marriage; she herself laid down the design
+of the book, contributed a number of confidential documents, and added
+numerous notes; General Grey obeyed, and the work was completed in
+1866.  But the principal part of the story was still untold, and Mr.
+Martin was forthwith instructed to write a complete biography of the
+Prince Consort.  Mr. Martin laboured for fourteen years.  The mass of
+material with which he had to deal was almost incredible, but he was
+extremely industrious, and he enjoyed throughout the gracious
+assistance of Her Majesty.  The first bulky volume was published in
+1874; four others slowly followed; so that it was not until 1880 that
+the monumental work was finished.[<A NAME="chap07fn21text"></A><A HREF="#chap07fn21">21</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mr. Martin was rewarded by a knighthood; and
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P232"></A>232}</SPAN>
+yet it was sadly
+evident that neither Sir Theodore nor his predecessors had achieved the
+purpose which the Queen had in view.  Perhaps she was unfortunate in
+her coadjutors, but, in reality, the responsibility for the failure
+must lie with Victoria herself.  Sir Theodore and the others faithfully
+carried out the task which she had set them&mdash;faithfully put before the
+public the very image of Albert that filled her own mind.  The fatal
+drawback was that the public did not find that image attractive.
+Victoria's emotional nature, far more remarkable for vigour than for
+subtlety, rejecting utterly the qualifications which perspicacity, or
+humour, might suggest, could be satisfied with nothing but the absolute
+and the categorical.  When she disliked she did so with an unequivocal
+emphasis which swept the object of her repugnance at once and finally
+outside the pale of consideration; and her feelings of affection were
+equally unmitigated.  In the case of Albert her passion for
+superlatives reached its height.  To have conceived of him as anything
+short of perfect&mdash;perfect in virtue, in wisdom, in beauty, in all the
+glories and graces of man&mdash;would have been an unthinkable blasphemy:
+perfect he was, and perfect he must be shown to have been.  And so Sir
+Arthur, Sir Theodore, and the General painted him.  In the
+circumstances, and under such supervision, to have done anything else
+would have required talents considerably more distinguished than any
+that those gentlemen possessed.  But that was not all.  By a curious
+mischance Victoria was also able to press into her service another
+writer, the distinction of whose talents was this time beyond a doubt.
+The Poet Laureate, adopting, either from complaisance or conviction,
+the tone of his sovereign, joined in the chorus, and endowed the royal
+formula
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P233"></A>233}</SPAN>
+with the magical resonance of verse.  This settled the
+matter.  Henceforward it was impossible to forget that Albert had worn
+the white flower of a blameless life.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The result was doubly unfortunate.  Victoria, disappointed and
+chagrined, bore a grudge against her people for their refusal, in spite
+of all her efforts, to rate her husband at his true worth.  She did not
+understand that the picture of an embodied perfection is distasteful to
+the majority of mankind.  The cause of this is not so much an envy of
+the perfect being as a suspicion that he must be inhuman; and thus it
+happened that the public, when it saw displayed for its admiration a
+figure resembling the sugary hero of a moral story-book rather than a
+fellow man of flesh and blood, turned away with a shrug, a smile, and a
+flippant ejaculation.  But in this the public was the loser as well as
+Victoria.  For in truth Albert was a far more interesting personage
+than the public dreamed.  By a curious irony an impeccable waxwork had
+been fixed by the Queen's love in the popular imagination, while the
+creature whom it represented&mdash;the real creature, so full of energy and
+stress and torment, so mysterious and so unhappy, and so fallible, and
+so very human&mdash;had altogether disappeared.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+IV
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Words and books may be ambiguous memorials; but who can misinterpret
+the visible solidity of bronze and stone?  At Frogmore, near Windsor,
+where her mother was buried, Victoria constructed, at the cost of
+�200,000, a vast and elaborate mausoleum for herself and her
+husband.[<A NAME="chap07fn22text"></A><A HREF="#chap07fn22">22</A>]  But that was a private and domestic
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P234"></A>234}</SPAN>
+monument, and
+the Queen desired that wherever her subjects might be gathered together
+they should be reminded of the Prince.  Her desire was gratified; all
+over the country&mdash;at Aberdeen, at Perth, and at Wolverhampton&mdash;statues
+of the Prince were erected; and the Queen, making an exception to her
+rule of retirement, unveiled them herself.  Nor did the capital lag
+behind.  A month after the Prince's death a meeting was called together
+at the Mansion House to discuss schemes for honouring his memory.
+Opinions, however, were divided upon the subject.  Was a statue or an
+institution to be preferred?  Meanwhile a subscription was opened; an
+influential committee was appointed, and the Queen was consulted as to
+her wishes in the matter.  Her Majesty replied that she would prefer a
+granite obelisk, with sculptures at the base, to an institution.  But
+the committee hesitated: an obelisk, to be worthy of the name, must
+clearly be a monolith; and where was the quarry in England capable of
+furnishing a granite block of the required size?  It was true that
+there was granite in Russian Finland; but the committee were advised
+that it was not adapted to resist exposure to the open air.  On the
+whole, therefore, they suggested that a Memorial Hall should be
+erected, together with a statue of the Prince.  Her Majesty assented;
+but then another difficulty arose.  It was found that not more than
+�60,000 had been subscribed&mdash;a sum insufficient to defray the double
+expense.  The Hall, therefore, was abandoned; a statue alone was to be
+erected; and certain eminent architects were asked to prepare designs.
+Eventually the committee had at their disposal a total sum of �120,000,
+since the public subscribed another �10,000, while �50,000 was voted by
+Parliament.  Some years later a joint-stock company
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P235"></A>235}</SPAN>
+was formed
+and built, as a private speculation, the Albert Hall.[<A NAME="chap07fn23text"></A><A HREF="#chap07fn23">23</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The architect whose design was selected, both by the committee and by
+the Queen, was Mr. Gilbert Scott, whose industry, conscientiousness,
+and genuine piety had brought him to the head of his profession.  His
+lifelong zeal for the Gothic style having given him a special
+prominence, his handiwork was strikingly visible, not only in a
+multitude of original buildings, but in most of the cathedrals of
+England.  Protests, indeed, were occasionally raised against his
+renovations; but Mr. Scott replied with such vigour and unction in
+articles and pamphlets that not a Dean was unconvinced, and he was
+permitted to continue his labours without interruption.  On one
+occasion, however, his devotion to Gothic had placed him in an
+unpleasant situation.  The Government offices in Whitehall were to be
+rebuilt; Mr. Scott competed, and his designs were successful.
+Naturally, they were in the Gothic style, combining 'a certain
+squareness and horizontality of outline' with pillar-mullions, gables,
+high-pitched roofs, and dormers; and the drawings, as Mr. Scott himself
+observed, 'were, perhaps, the best ever sent in to a competition, or
+nearly so.'  After the usual difficulties and delays the work was at
+last to be put in hand, when there was a change of Government and Lord
+Palmerston became Prime Minister.  Lord Palmerston at once sent for Mr.
+Scott.  'Well, Mr. Scott,' he said, in his jaunty way, 'I can't have
+anything to do with this Gothic style.  I must insist on your making a
+design in the Italian manner, which I am sure you can do very
+cleverly.'  Mr. Scott was appalled; the style of the Italian
+renaissance was not
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P236"></A>236}</SPAN>
+only unsightly, it was positively immoral,
+and he sternly refused to have anything to do with it.  Thereupon Lord
+Palmerston assumed a fatherly tone.  'Quite true; a Gothic architect
+can't be expected to put up a Classical building; I must find someone
+else.'  This was intolerable, and Mr. Scott, on his return home,
+addressed to the Prime Minister a strongly-worded letter, in which he
+dwelt upon his position as an architect, upon his having won two
+European competitions, his being an A.R.A., a gold medallist of the
+Institute, and a lecturer on architecture at the Royal Academy; but it
+was useless&mdash;Lord Palmerston did not even reply.  It then occurred to
+Mr. Scott that, by a judicious mixture, he might, while preserving the
+essential character of the Gothic, produce a design which would give a
+superficial impression of the Classical style.  He did so, but no
+effect was produced upon Lord Palmerston.  The new design, he said, was
+'neither one thing nor t'other&mdash;a regular mongrel affair&mdash;and he would
+have nothing to do with it either.'  After that Mr. Scott found it
+necessary to recruit for two months at Scarborough, 'with a course of
+quinine.'  He recovered his tone at last, but only at the cost of his
+convictions.  For the sake of his family he felt that it was his
+unfortunate duty to obey the Prime Minister; and, shuddering with
+horror, he constructed the Government offices in a strictly Renaissance
+style.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Shortly afterwards Mr. Scott found some consolation in building the St.
+Pancras Hotel in a style of his own.[<A NAME="chap07fn24text"></A><A HREF="#chap07fn24">24</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And now another and yet more satisfactory task was his.  'My idea in
+designing the Memorial,' he wrote, 'was to erect a kind of ciborium to
+protect a statue of
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P237"></A>237}</SPAN>
+the Prince; and its special characteristic
+was that the ciborium was designed in some degree on the principles of
+the ancient shrines.  These shrines were models of imaginary buildings,
+such as had never in reality been erected; and my idea was to realise
+one of these imaginary structures with its precious materials, its
+inlaying, its enamels, &amp;c. &amp;c.'[<A NAME="chap07fn25text"></A><A HREF="#chap07fn25">25</A>]  His idea was particularly
+appropriate since it chanced that a similar conception, though in the
+reverse order of magnitude, had occurred to the Prince himself, who had
+designed and executed several silver cruet-stands upon the same model.
+At the Queen's request a site was chosen in Kensington Gardens as near
+as possible to that of the Great Exhibition; and in May 1864 the first
+sod was turned.  The work was long, complicated, and difficult; a great
+number of workmen were employed, besides several subsidiary sculptors
+and metal-workers under Mr. Scott's direction, while at every stage
+sketches and models were submitted to her Majesty, who criticised all
+the details with minute care, and constantly suggested improvements.
+The frieze, which encircled the base of the monument, was in itself a
+very serious piece of work.  'This,' said Mr. Scott, 'taken as a whole,
+is perhaps one of the most laborious works of sculpture ever
+undertaken, consisting, as it does, of a continuous range of
+figure-sculpture of the most elaborate description, in the highest
+<I>alto-relievo</I> of life-size, of more than 200 feet in length,
+containing about 170 figures, and executed in the hardest marble which
+could be procured.'  After three years of toil the memorial was still
+far from completion, and Mr. Scott thought it advisable to give a
+dinner to the workmen, 'as a substantial recognition of his
+appreciation of their
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P238"></A>238}</SPAN>
+skill and energy.'  'Two long tables,' we
+are told, 'constructed of scaffold planks, were arranged in the
+workshops, and covered with newspapers, for want of table-cloths.
+Upwards of eighty men sat down.  Beef and mutton, plum-pudding and
+cheese, were supplied in abundance, and each man who desired it had
+three pints of beer, gingerbeer and lemonade being provided for the
+teetotalers, who formed a very considerable proportion....  Several
+toasts were given and many of the workmen spoke, almost all of them
+commencing by "Thanking God that they enjoyed good health"; some
+alluded to the temperance that prevailed amongst them, others observed
+how little swearing was ever heard, whilst all said how pleased and
+proud they were to be engaged on so great a work.'
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Gradually the edifice approached completion.  The one hundred and
+seventieth life-size figure in the frieze was chiselled, the granite
+pillars arose, the mosaics were inserted in the allegorical pediments,
+the four colossal statues representing the greater Christian virtues,
+the four other colossal statues representing the greater moral virtues,
+were hoisted into their positions, the eight bronzes representing the
+greater sciences&mdash;Astronomy, Chemistry, Geology, Geometry, Rhetoric,
+Medicine, Philosophy, and Physiology&mdash;were fixed on their glittering
+pinnacles, high in air.  The statue of Physiology was particularly
+admired.  'On her left arm,' the official description informs us, 'she
+bears a new-born infant, as a representation of the development of the
+highest and most perfect of physiological forms; her hand points
+towards a microscope, the instrument which lends its assistance for the
+investigation of the minuter forms of animal and vegetable organisms.'
+At last the gilded cross crowned the
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P239"></A>239}</SPAN>
+dwindling galaxies of
+superimposed angels, the four continents in white marble stood at the
+four corners of the base, and, seven years after its inception, in July
+1872, the monument was thrown open to the public.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But four more years were to elapse before the central figure was ready
+to be placed under its starry canopy.  It was designed by Mr. Foley,
+though in one particular the sculptor's freedom was restricted by Mr.
+Scott.  'I have chosen the sitting posture,' Mr. Scott said, 'as best
+conveying the idea of dignity befitting a royal personage.'  Mr. Foley
+ably carried out the conception of his principal.  'In the attitude and
+expression,' he said, 'the aim has been, with the individuality of
+portraiture, to embody rank, character, and enlightenment, and to
+convey a sense of that responsive intelligence indicating an active,
+rather than a passive, interest in those pursuits of civilisation
+illustrated in the surrounding figures, groups, and relievos....  To
+identify the figure with one of the most memorable undertakings of the
+public life of the Prince&mdash;the International Exhibition of 1851&mdash;a
+catalogue of the works collected in that first gathering of the
+industry of all nations, is placed in the right hand.'  The statue was
+of bronze gilt and weighed nearly ten tons.  It was rightly supposed
+that the simple word 'Albert,' cast on the base, would be a sufficient
+means of identification.[<A NAME="chap07fn26text"></A><A HREF="#chap07fn26">26</A>]
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap07fn1"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap07fn1text">1</A>] Clarendon, II, 251.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap07fn2"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap07fn2text">2</A>] Vitzthum, II, 161.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap07fn3"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap07fn3text">3</A>] Stockmar, 49; Ernest, IV-71
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap07fn4"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap07fn4text">4</A>] Clarendon, II, 251, 253.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap07fn5"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap07fn5text">5</A>] <I>Letters</I>, III, 474-5.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap07fn6"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap07fn6text">6</A>] <I>Letters</I>, III, 476.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap07fn7"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap07fn7text">7</A>] Lee, 322-3; Crawford, 368.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap07fn8"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap07fn8text">8</A>] Clarendon, II, 257.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap07fn9"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap07fn9text">9</A>] Clarendon, II, 261-2.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap07fn10"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap07fn10text">10</A>] Martin, <I>Queen Victoria</I>, 155.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap07fn11"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap07fn11text">11</A>] Clarendon, II, 261; Lee, 327; Martin, <I>Queen Victoria</I>, 30.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap07fn12"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap07fn12text">12</A>] Robertson, 156.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap07fn13"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap07fn13text">13</A>] Morley, II, 102; Ernest, IV, 133: 'I know that our dear angel
+Albert always regarded a strong Prussia as a necessity, for which,
+therefore, it is a sacred duty for me to work.'&mdash;Queen Victoria to the
+Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, August 29, 1863.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap07fn14"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap07fn14text">14</A>] Fitzmaurice, I, 459, 460.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap07fn15"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap07fn15text">15</A>] <I>Ibid.</I>, I, 472-3.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap07fn16"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap07fn16text">16</A>] Clarendon, II, 310-1.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap07fn17"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap07fn17text">17</A>] <I>The Times</I>, April 6, 1864; Clarendon, II, 290.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap07fn18"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap07fn18text">18</A>] Clarendon, II, 292-3.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap07fn19"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap07fn19text">19</A>] Fitzmaurice, I, 466, 469.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap07fn20"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap07fn20text">20</A>] Martin, <I>Queen Victoria</I>, 28-9.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap07fn21"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap07fn21text">21</A>] Martin, <I>Queen Victoria</I>, 97-106.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap07fn22"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap07fn22text">22</A>] Lee, 390
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap07fn23"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap07fn23text">23</A>] <I>National Memorial</I>.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap07fn24"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap07fn24text">24</A>] Scott, 177-201, 271.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap07fn25"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap07fn25text">25</A>] Scott, 225.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap07fn26"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap07fn26text">26</A>] <I>National Memorial</I>; Dafforne, 43-4.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap08"></A>
+
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P240"></A>240}</SPAN>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER VIII
+</H3>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+MR. GLADSTONE AND LORD BEACONSFIELD
+</H4>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+I
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Lord Palmerston's laugh&mdash;a queer metallic 'Ha! ha! ha!' with
+reverberations in it from the days of Pitt and the Congress of
+Vienna&mdash;was heard no more in Piccadilly;[<A NAME="chap08fn1text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn1">1</A>] Lord John Russell dwindled
+into senility; Lord Derby tottered from the stage.  A new scene opened;
+and new protagonists&mdash;Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Disraeli&mdash;struggled
+together in the limelight.  Victoria, from her post of vantage, watched
+these developments with that passionate and personal interest which she
+invariably imported into politics.  Her prepossessions were of an
+unexpected kind.  Mr. Gladstone had been the disciple of her revered
+Peel, and had won the approval of Albert; Mr. Disraeli had hounded Sir
+Robert to his fall with hideous virulence, and the Prince had
+pronounced that he 'had not one single element of a gentleman in his
+composition.'[<A NAME="chap08fn2text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn2">2</A>]  Yet she regarded Mr. Gladstone with a distrust and
+dislike which steadily deepened, while upon his rival she lavished an
+abundance of confidence, esteem, and affection such as Lord Melbourne
+himself had hardly known.
+</P>
+
+<A NAME="img-240"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-240.jpg" ALT="QUEEN VICTORIA IN 1876.  From the Portrait by Von Angeli." BORDER="2">
+<H4 CLASS="h4center">
+QUEEN VICTORIA IN 1876.  <BR>
+<I>From the Portrait by Von Angeli.</I>
+</H4>
+</CENTER>
+
+<P>
+Her attitude towards the Tory Minister had suddenly
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P241"></A>241}</SPAN>
+changed when
+she found that he alone among public men had divined her feelings at
+Albert's death.  Of the others she might have said 'they pity me and
+not my grief'; but Mr. Disraeli had understood; and all his condolences
+had taken the form of reverential eulogies of the departed.  The Queen
+declared that he was 'the only person who appreciated the Prince.'[<A NAME="chap08fn3text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn3">3</A>]
+She began to show him special favour; gave him and his wife two of the
+coveted seats in St. George's Chapel at the Prince of Wales's wedding,
+and invited him to stay a night at Windsor.  When the grant for the
+Albert Memorial came before the House of Commons, Disraeli, as leader
+of the Opposition, eloquently supported the project.  He was rewarded
+by a copy of the Prince's speeches, bound in white morocco, with an
+inscription in the royal hand.  In his letter of thanks he 'ventured to
+touch upon a sacred theme,' and, in a strain which re-echoed with
+masterly fidelity the sentiments of his correspondent, dwelt at length
+upon the absolute perfection of Albert.  'The Prince,' he said, 'is the
+only person whom Mr. Disraeli has ever known who realised the Ideal.
+None with whom he is acquainted have ever approached it.  There was in
+him an union of the manly grace and sublime simplicity, of chivalry
+with the intellectual splendour of the Attic Academe.  The only
+character in English history that would, in some respects, draw near to
+him is Sir Philip Sidney: the same high tone, the same universal
+accomplishment, the same blended tenderness and vigour, the same rare
+combination of romantic energy and classic repose.'  As for his own
+acquaintance with the Prince, it had been, he said, 'one of the most
+satisfactory incidents of his life: full of refined and beautiful
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P242"></A>242}</SPAN>
+memories, and exercising, as he hopes, over his remaining existence, a
+soothing and exalting influence.'  Victoria was much affected by 'the
+depth and delicacy of these touches,' and henceforward Disraeli's place
+in her affections was assured.[<A NAME="chap08fn4text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn4">4</A>]  When, in 1866, the Conservatives
+came into office, Disraeli's position as Chancellor of the Exchequer
+and leader of the House necessarily brought him into a closer relation
+with the Sovereign.  Two years later Lord Derby resigned, and Victoria,
+with intense delight and peculiar graciousness, welcomed Disraeli as
+her First Minister.[<A NAME="chap08fn5text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn5">5</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But only for nine agitated months did he remain in power.  The
+Ministry, in a minority in the Commons, was swept out of existence by a
+general election.  Yet by the end of that short period the ties which
+bound together the Queen and her Premier had grown far stronger than
+ever before; the relationship between them was now no longer merely
+that between a grateful mistress and a devoted servant: they were
+friends.  His official letters, in which the personal element had
+always been perceptible, developed into racy records of political news
+and social gossip, written, as Lord Clarendon said, 'in his best novel
+style,' Victoria was delighted; she had never, she declared, had such
+letters in her life, and had never before known <I>everything</I>.[<A NAME="chap08fn6text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn6">6</A>]  In
+return, she sent him, when the spring came, several bunches of flowers,
+picked by her own hands.  He despatched to her a set of his novels, for
+which, she said, she was 'most grateful, and which she values much.'
+She herself had lately published her 'Leaves from the Journal of our
+Life in the Highlands,' and it was observed that the Prime Minister, in
+conversing
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P243"></A>243}</SPAN>
+with Her Majesty at this period, constantly used the
+words 'we authors, ma'am.'[<A NAME="chap08fn7text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn7">7</A>]  Upon political questions, she was his
+staunch supporter.  'Really there never was such conduct as that of the
+Opposition,' she wrote.  And when the Government was defeated in the
+House she was 'really shocked at the way in which the House of Commons
+go on; they really bring discredit on Constitutional Government.'[<A NAME="chap08fn8text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn8">8</A>]
+She dreaded the prospect of a change; she feared that if the Liberals
+insisted upon disestablishing the Irish Church, her Coronation Oath
+might stand in the way.[<A NAME="chap08fn9text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn9">9</A>]  But a change there had to be, and Victoria
+vainly tried to console herself for the loss of her favourite Minister
+by bestowing a peerage upon Mrs. Disraeli.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mr. Gladstone was in his shirt-sleeves at Hawarden, cutting down a
+tree, when the royal message was brought to him.  'Very significant,'
+he remarked, when he had read the letter, and went on cutting down his
+tree.  His secret thoughts on the occasion were more explicit, and were
+committed to his diary.  'The Almighty,' he wrote, 'seems to sustain
+and spare me for some purpose of His own, deeply unworthy as I know
+myself to be.  Glory be to His name.'[<A NAME="chap08fn10text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn10">10</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Queen, however, did not share her new Minister's view of the
+Almighty's intentions.  She could not believe that there was any divine
+purpose to be detected in the programme of sweeping changes which Mr.
+Gladstone was determined to carry out.  But what could she do?  Mr.
+Gladstone, with his daemonic energy and his powerful majority in the
+House of Commons, was irresistible; and for five years (1869-74)
+Victoria found herself condemned
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P244"></A>244}</SPAN>
+to live in an agitating
+atmosphere of interminable reform&mdash;reform in the Irish Church and the
+Irish land system, reform in education, reform in parliamentary
+elections, reform in the organisation of the Army and the Navy, reform
+in the administration of justice.  She disapproved, she struggled, she
+grew very angry; she felt that if Albert had been living things would
+never have happened so; but her protests and her complaints were alike
+unavailing.  The mere effort of grappling with the mass of documents
+which poured in upon her in an ever-growing flood was terribly
+exhausting.  When the draft of the lengthy and intricate Irish Church
+Bill came before her, accompanied by an explanatory letter from Mr.
+Gladstone covering a dozen closely-written quarto pages, she almost
+despaired.  She turned from the Bill to the explanation, and from the
+explanation back again to the Bill, and she could not decide which was
+the most confusing.  But she had to do her duty: she had not only to
+read, but to make notes.  At last she handed the whole heap of papers
+to Mr. Martin, who happened to be staying at Osborne, and requested him
+to make a pr�cis of them.[<A NAME="chap08fn11text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn11">11</A>]  When he had done so, her disapproval of
+the measure became more marked than ever; but, such was the strength of
+the Government, she actually found herself obliged to urge moderation
+upon the Opposition, lest worse should ensue.[<A NAME="chap08fn12text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn12">12</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In the midst of this crisis, when the future of the Irish Church was
+hanging in the balance, Victoria's attention was drawn to another
+proposed reform.  It was suggested that the sailors in the Navy should
+henceforward be allowed to wear beards.  'Has Mr. Childers ascertained
+anything on the subject of the beards?' the Queen wrote anxiously to
+the First Lord
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P245"></A>245}</SPAN>
+of the Admiralty.  On the whole, Her Majesty was
+in favour of the change.  'Her own personal feeling,' she wrote, 'would
+be for the beards without the moustaches, as the latter have rather a
+soldierlike appearance; but then the object in view would not be
+obtained, viz. to prevent the necessity of shaving.  Therefore it had
+better be as proposed, the entire beard, only it should be kept short
+and very clean.'  After thinking over the question for another week,
+the Queen wrote a final letter.  She wished, she said, 'to make one
+additional observation respecting the beards, viz. that on no account
+should moustaches be allowed without beards.  That must be clearly
+understood.'[<A NAME="chap08fn13text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn13">13</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Changes in the Navy might be tolerated; to lay hands upon the Army was
+a more serious matter.  From time immemorial there had been a
+particularly close connection between the Army and the Crown; and
+Albert had devoted even more time and attention to the details of
+military business than to the processes of fresco-painting or the
+planning of sanitary cottages for the deserving poor.  But now there
+was to be a great alteration: Mr. Gladstone's fiat had gone forth, and
+the Commander-in-Chief was to be removed from his direct dependence
+upon the Sovereign, and made subordinate to Parliament and the
+Secretary of State for War.  Of all the liberal reforms this was the
+one which aroused the bitterest resentment in Victoria.  She considered
+that the change was an attack upon her personal position&mdash;almost an
+attack upon the personal position of Albert.  But she was helpless, and
+the Prime Minister had his way.  When she heard that the dreadful man
+had yet another reform in contemplation&mdash;that he was about to abolish
+the purchase of military
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P246"></A>246}</SPAN>
+commissions&mdash;she could only feel that it
+was just what might have been expected.  For a moment she hoped that
+the House of Lords would come to the rescue; the Peers opposed the
+change with unexpected vigour; but Mr. Gladstone, more conscious than
+ever of the support of the Almighty, was ready with an ingenious
+device.  The purchase of commissions had been originally allowed by
+Royal Warrant; it should now be disallowed by the same agency.
+Victoria was faced by a curious dilemma: she abominated the abolition
+of purchase; but she was asked to abolish it by an exercise of
+sovereign power which was very much to her taste.  She did not hesitate
+for long; and when the Cabinet, in a formal minute, advised her to sign
+the Warrant, she did so with a good grace.[<A NAME="chap08fn14text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn14">14</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Unacceptable as Mr. Gladstone's policy was, there was something else
+about him which was even more displeasing to Victoria.  She disliked
+his personal demeanour towards herself.  It was not that Mr. Gladstone,
+in his intercourse with her, was in any degree lacking in courtesy or
+respect.  On the contrary, an extraordinary reverence permeated his
+manner, both in his conversation and his correspondence with the
+Sovereign.  Indeed, with that deep and passionate conservatism which,
+to the very end of his incredible career, gave such an unexpected
+colouring to his inexplicable character, Mr. Gladstone viewed Victoria
+through a haze of awe which was almost religious&mdash;as a sacrosanct
+embodiment of venerable traditions&mdash;a vital element in the British
+Constitution&mdash;a Queen by Act of Parliament.  But unfortunately the lady
+did not appreciate the compliment.  The well-known complaint&mdash;'He
+speaks to me as if I were a public meeting'&mdash;whether authentic or
+no&mdash;and the turn of the sentence
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P247"></A>247}</SPAN>
+is surely a little too
+epigrammatic to be genuinely Victorian&mdash;undoubtedly expresses the
+essential element of her antipathy.  She had no objection to being
+considered as an institution; she was one, and she knew it.  But she
+was a woman too, and to be considered only as an institution&mdash;that was
+unbearable.  And thus all Mr. Gladstone's zeal and devotion, his
+ceremonious phrases, his low bows, his punctilious correctitudes, were
+utterly wasted; and when, in the excess of his loyalty, he went
+further, and imputed to the object of his veneration, with obsequious
+blindness, the subtlety of intellect, the wide reading, the grave
+enthusiasm, which he himself possessed, the misunderstanding became
+complete.  The discordance between the actual Victoria and this strange
+Divinity made in Mr. Gladstone's image produced disastrous results.
+Her discomfort and dislike turned at last into positive animosity, and,
+though her manners continued to be perfect, she never for a moment
+unbent; while he on his side was overcome with disappointment,
+perplexity, and mortification.[<A NAME="chap08fn15text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn15">15</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Yet his fidelity remained unshaken.  When the Cabinet met, the Prime
+Minister, filled with his beatific vision, would open the proceedings
+by reading aloud the letters which he had received from the Queen upon
+the questions of the hour.  The assembly sat in absolute silence while,
+one after another, the royal missives, with their emphases, their
+ejaculations, and their grammatical peculiarities, boomed forth in all
+the deep solemnity of Mr. Gladstone's utterance.  Not a single comment,
+of any kind, was ever hazarded; and, after a fitting pause, the Cabinet
+proceeded with the business of the day.[<A NAME="chap08fn16text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn16">16</A>]
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P248"></A>248}</SPAN>
+</P>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+II
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Little as Victoria appreciated her Prime Minister's attitude towards
+her, she found that it had its uses.  The popular discontent at her
+uninterrupted seclusion had been gathering force for many years, and
+now burst out in a new and alarming shape.  Republicanism was in the
+air.  Radical opinion in England, stimulated by the fall of Napoleon
+III and the establishment of a republican government in France,
+suddenly grew more extreme than it had ever been since 1848.  It also
+became for the first time almost respectable.  Chartism had been
+entirely an affair of the lower classes; but now Members of Parliament,
+learned professors, and ladies of title openly avowed the most
+subversive views.  The monarchy was attacked both in theory and in
+practice.  And it was attacked at a vital point: it was declared to be
+too expensive.  What benefits, it was asked, did the nation reap to
+counterbalance the enormous sums which were expended upon the
+Sovereign?  Victoria's retirement gave an unpleasant handle to the
+argument.  It was pointed out that the ceremonial functions of the
+Crown had virtually lapsed; and the awkward question remained whether
+any of the other functions which it did continue to perform were really
+worth �385,000 per annum.  The royal balance-sheet was curiously
+examined.  An anonymous pamphlet entitled 'What does she do with it?'
+appeared, setting forth the financial position with malicious clarity.
+The Queen, it stated, was granted by the Civil List �60,000 a year for
+her private use; but the rest of her vast annuity was given, as the Act
+declared, to enable her 'to defray the expenses of her royal household
+and to support the honour and dignity of the Crown.'  Now it was
+obvious that, since
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P249"></A>249}</SPAN>
+the death of the Prince, the expenditure for
+both these purposes must have been very considerably diminished, and it
+was difficult to resist the conclusion that a large sum of money was
+diverted annually from the uses for which it had been designed by
+Parliament, to swell the private fortune of Victoria.  The precise
+amount of that private fortune it was impossible to discover; but there
+was reason to suppose that it was gigantic; perhaps it reached a total
+of five million pounds.  The pamphlet protested against such a state of
+affairs, and its protests were repeated vigorously in newspapers and at
+public meetings.  Though it is certain that the estimate of Victoria's
+riches was much exaggerated, it is equally certain that she was an
+exceedingly wealthy woman.  She probably saved �20,000 a year from the
+Civil List, the revenues of the Duchy of Lancaster were steadily
+increasing, she had inherited a considerable property from the Prince
+Consort, and she had been left, in 1852, an estate of half a million by
+Mr. John Neild, an eccentric miser.  In these circumstances it was not
+surprising that when, in 1871, Parliament was asked to vote a dowry of
+�30,000 to the Princess Louise on her marriage with the eldest son of
+the Duke of Argyll, together with an annuity of �6,000, there should
+have been a serious outcry.[<A NAME="chap08fn17text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn17">17</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In order to conciliate public opinion, the Queen opened Parliament in
+person, and the vote was passed
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P250"></A>250}</SPAN>
+almost unanimously.  But a few
+months later another demand was made: the Prince Arthur had come of
+age, and the nation was asked to grant him an annuity of �15,000.  The
+outcry was redoubled.  The newspapers were filled with angry articles;
+Bradlaugh thundered against 'princely paupers' to one of the largest
+crowds that had ever been seen in Trafalgar Square; and Sir Charles
+Dilke expounded the case for a republic in a speech to his constituents
+at Newcastle.  The Prince's annuity was ultimately sanctioned in the
+House of Commons by a large majority; but a minority of fifty members
+voted in favour of reducing the sum to �10,000.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Towards every aspect of this distasteful question, Mr. Gladstone
+presented an iron front.  He absolutely discountenanced the extreme
+section of his followers.  He declared that the whole of the Queen's
+income was justly at her personal disposal, argued that to complain of
+royal savings was merely to encourage royal extravagance, and
+successfully convoyed through Parliament the unpopular annuities,
+which, he pointed out, were strictly in accordance with precedent.
+When, in 1872, Sir Charles Dilke once more returned to the charge in
+the House of Commons, introducing a motion for a full enquiry into the
+Queen's expenditure with a view to a root-and-branch reform of the
+Civil List, the Prime Minister brought all the resources of his
+powerful and ingenious eloquence to the support of the Crown.  He was
+completely successful; and amid a scene of great disorder the motion
+was ignominiously dismissed.  Victoria was relieved; but she grew no
+fonder of Mr. Gladstone.[<A NAME="chap08fn18text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn18">18</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P251"></A>251}</SPAN>
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was perhaps the most miserable moment of her life.  The Ministers,
+the press, the public, all conspired to vex her, to blame her, to
+misinterpret her actions, to be unsympathetic and disrespectful in
+every way.  She was 'a cruelly misunderstood woman,' she told Mr.
+Martin, complaining to him bitterly of the unjust attacks which were
+made upon her, and declaring that 'the great worry and anxiety and hard
+work for ten years, alone, unaided, with increasing age and never very
+strong health,' were breaking her down, and 'almost drove her to
+despair.'[<A NAME="chap08fn19text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn19">19</A>]  The situation was indeed deplorable.  It seemed as if
+her whole existence had gone awry; as if an irremediable antagonism had
+grown up between the Queen and the nation.  If Victoria had died in the
+early seventies, there can be little doubt that the voice of the world
+would have pronounced her a failure.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+III
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+But she was reserved for a very different fate.  The outburst of
+republicanism had been in fact the last flicker of an expiring cause.
+The liberal tide, which had been flowing steadily ever since the Reform
+Bill, reached its height with Mr. Gladstone's first administration; and
+towards the end of that administration the inevitable ebb began.  The
+reaction, when it came, was sudden and complete.  The General Election
+of 1874 changed the whole face of politics.  Mr. Gladstone and the
+Liberals were routed; and the Tory party, for the first time for over
+forty years, attained an unquestioned supremacy in England.  It was
+obvious that their surprising triumph was pre-eminently
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P252"></A>252}</SPAN>
+due to
+the skill and vigour of Disraeli.  He returned to office no longer the
+dubious commander of an insufficient host, but with drums beating and
+flags flying, a conquering hero.  And as a conquering hero Victoria
+welcomed her new Prime Minister.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then there followed six years of excitement, of enchantment, of
+felicity, of glory, of romance.  The amazing being, who now at last, at
+the age of seventy, after a lifetime of extraordinary struggles, had
+turned into reality the absurdest of his boyhood's dreams, knew well
+enough how to make his own, with absolute completeness, the heart of
+the Sovereign Lady whose servant, and whose master, he had so
+miraculously become.  In women's hearts he had always read as in an
+open book.  His whole career had turned upon those curious entities;
+and the more curious they were, the more intimately at home with them
+he seemed to be.  But Lady Beaconsfield, with her cracked idolatry, and
+Mrs. Brydges-Williams, with her clogs, her corpulence, and her legacy,
+were gone: an even more remarkable phenomenon stood in their place.  He
+surveyed what was before him with the eye of a past-master; and he was
+not for a moment at a loss.  He realised everything&mdash;the interacting
+complexities of circumstance and character, the pride of place mingled
+so inextricably with personal arrogance, the superabundant
+emotionalism, the ingenuousness of outlook, the solid, the laborious
+respectability, shot through so incongruously by temperamental cravings
+for the coloured and the strange, the singular intellectual
+limitations, and the mysteriously essential female element impregnating
+every particle of the whole.  A smile hovered over his impassive
+features, and he dubbed Victoria 'the Faery.'  The name delighted him,
+for, with that epigrammatic
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P253"></A>253}</SPAN>
+ambiguity so dear to his heart, it
+precisely expressed his vision of the Queen.  The Spenserian allusion
+was very pleasant&mdash;the elegant evocation of Gloriana; but there was
+more in it than that: there was the suggestion of a diminutive
+creature, endowed with magical&mdash;and mythical&mdash;properties, and a
+portentousness almost ridiculously out of keeping with the rest of her
+make-up.  The Faery, he determined, should henceforward wave her wand
+for him alone.  Detachment is always a rare quality, and rarest of all,
+perhaps, among politicians; but that veteran egotist possessed it in a
+supreme degree.  Not only did he know what he had to do, not only did
+he do it; he was in the audience as well as on the stage; and he took
+in with the rich relish of a connoisseur every feature of the
+entertaining situation, every phase of the delicate drama, and every
+detail of his own consummate performance.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The smile hovered and vanished, and, bowing low with Oriental gravity
+and Oriental submissiveness, he set himself to his task.  He had
+understood from the first that in dealing with the Faery the
+appropriate method of approach was the very antithesis of the
+Gladstonian; and such a method was naturally his.  It was not his habit
+to harangue and exhort and expatiate in official conscientiousness; he
+liked to scatter flowers along the path of business, to compress a
+weighty argument into a happy phrase, to insinuate what was in his mind
+with an air of friendship and confidential courtesy.  He was nothing if
+not personal; and he had perceived that personality was the key that
+opened the Faery's heart.  Accordingly, he never for a moment allowed
+his intercourse with her to lose the personal tone; he invested all the
+transactions of State with the charms of familiar conversation; she was
+always the royal lady,
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P254"></A>254}</SPAN>
+the adored and revered mistress, he the
+devoted and respectful friend.  When once the personal relation was
+firmly established, every difficulty disappeared.  But to maintain that
+relation uninterruptedly in a smooth and even course, a particular care
+was necessary: the bearings had to be most assiduously oiled.  Nor was
+Disraeli in any doubt as to the nature of the lubricant.  'You have
+heard me called a flatterer,' he said to Matthew Arnold, 'and it is
+true.  Everyone likes flattery; and when you come to royalty you should
+lay it on with a trowel.'[<A NAME="chap08fn20text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn20">20</A>]  He practised what he preached.  His
+adulation was incessant, and he applied it in the very thickest slabs.
+'There is no honor and no reward,' he declared, 'that with him can ever
+equal the possession of your Majesty's kind thoughts.  All his own
+thoughts and feelings and duties and affections are now concentrated in
+your Majesty, and he desires nothing more for his remaining years than
+to serve your Majesty, or, if that service ceases, to live still on its
+memory as a period of his existence most interesting and
+fascinating.'[<A NAME="chap08fn21text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn21">21</A>]  'In life,' he told her, 'one must have for one's
+thoughts a sacred depository, and Lord Beaconsfield ever presumes to
+seek that in his Sovereign Mistress.'[<A NAME="chap08fn22text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn22">22</A>]  She was not only his own
+solitary support; she was the one prop of the State.  'If your Majesty
+is ill,' he wrote during a grave political crisis, 'he is sure he will
+himself break down.  All, really, depends upon your Majesty.'  'He
+lives only for Her,' he asseverated, and works only for Her, and
+without Her all is lost.'[<A NAME="chap08fn23text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn23">23</A>]  When her birthday came he produced an
+elaborate confection of hyperbolic compliment.  'To-day Lord
+Beaconsfield ought fitly, perhaps, to congratulate a powerful Sovereign
+on her
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P255"></A>255}</SPAN>
+imperial sway, the vastness of her Empire, and the success
+and strength of her fleets and armies.  But he cannot, his mind is in
+another mood.  He can only think of the strangeness of his destiny that
+it has come to pass that he should be the servant of one so great, and
+whose infinite kindness, the brightness of whose intelligence and the
+firmness of whose will, have enabled him to undertake labours to which
+he otherwise would be quite unequal, and supported him in all things by
+a condescending sympathy, which in the hour of difficulty alike charms
+and inspires.  Upon the Sovereign of many lands and many hearts may an
+omnipotent Providence shed every blessing that the wise can desire and
+the virtuous deserve!'[<A NAME="chap08fn24text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn24">24</A>]  In those expert hands the trowel seemed to
+assume the qualities of some lofty masonic symbol&mdash;to be the ornate and
+glittering vehicle of verities unrealised by the profane.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Such tributes were delightful, but they remained in the nebulous region
+of words, and Disraeli had determined to give his blandishments a more
+significant solidity.  He deliberately encouraged those high views of
+her own position which had always been native to Victoria's mind and
+had been reinforced by the principles of Albert and the doctrines of
+Stockmar.  He professed to a belief in a theory of the Constitution
+which gave the Sovereign a leading place in the councils of government;
+but his pronouncements upon the subject were indistinct; and when he
+emphatically declared that there ought to be 'a real Throne,' it was
+probably with the mental addition that that throne would be a very
+unreal one indeed whose occupant was unamenable to his cajoleries.  But
+the vagueness of his language was in itself an added stimulant to
+Victoria.  Skilfully confusing the woman
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P256"></A>256}</SPAN>
+and the Queen, he threw,
+with a grandiose gesture, the government of England at her feet, as if
+in doing so he were performing an act of personal homage.  In his first
+audience after returning to power, he assured her that 'whatever she
+wished should be done.'[<A NAME="chap08fn25text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn25">25</A>]  When the intricate Public Worship
+Regulation Bill was being discussed by the Cabinet, he told the Faery
+that his 'only object' was 'to further your Majesty's wishes in this
+matter.'[<A NAME="chap08fn26text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn26">26</A>]  When he brought off his great <I>coup</I> over the Suez Canal,
+he used expressions which implied that the only gainer by the
+transaction was Victoria.  'It is just settled,' he wrote in triumph;
+'you have it, Madam ... Four millions sterling! and almost immediately.
+There was only one firm that could do it&mdash;Rothschilds.  They behaved
+admirably; advanced the money at a low rate, and the entire interest of
+the Khedive is now yours, Madam.'[<A NAME="chap08fn27text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn27">27</A>]  Nor did he limit himself to
+highly-spiced insinuations.  Writing with all the authority of his
+office, he advised the Queen that she had the constitutional right to
+dismiss a Ministry which was supported by a large majority in the House
+of Commons; he even urged her to do so, if, in her opinion, 'your
+Majesty's Government have from wilfulness, or even from weakness,
+deceived your Majesty.'[<A NAME="chap08fn28text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn28">28</A>]  To the horror of Mr. Gladstone, he not
+only kept the Queen informed as to the general course of business in
+the Cabinet, but revealed to her the part taken in its discussions by
+individual members of it.[<A NAME="chap08fn29text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn29">29</A>]  Lord Derby, the son of the late Prime
+Minister and Disraeli's Foreign Secretary, viewed these developments
+with grave mistrust.  'Is there not,' he ventured to write to his
+Chief, 'just a risk of encouraging her in too large ideas of her
+personal power, and too great
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P257"></A>257}</SPAN>
+indifference to what the public
+expects?  I only ask; it is for you to judge.'[<A NAME="chap08fn30text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn30">30</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As for Victoria, she accepted everything&mdash;compliments, flatteries,
+Elizabethan prerogatives&mdash;without a single qualm.  After the long gloom
+of her bereavement, after the chill of the Gladstonian discipline, she
+expanded to the rays of Disraeli's devotion like a flower in the sun.
+The change in her situation was indeed miraculous.  No longer was she
+obliged to puzzle for hours over the complicated details of business,
+for now she had only to ask Mr. Disraeli for an explanation, and he
+would give it her in the most concise, in the most amusing, way.  No
+longer was she worried by alarming novelties; no longer was she put out
+at finding herself treated, by a reverential gentleman in high collars,
+as if she were some embodied precedent, with a recondite knowledge of
+Greek.  And her deliverer was surely the most fascinating of men.  The
+strain of charlatanism, which had unconsciously captivated her in
+Napoleon III, exercised the same enchanting effect in the case of
+Disraeli.  Like a dram-drinker, whose ordinary life is passed in dull
+sobriety, her unsophisticated intelligence gulped down his rococo
+allurements with peculiar zest.  She became intoxicated, entranced.
+Believing all that he told her of herself, she completely regained the
+self-confidence which had been slipping away from her throughout the
+dark period that followed Albert's death.  She swelled with a new
+elation, while he, conjuring up before her wonderful Oriental visions,
+dazzled her eyes with an imperial grandeur of which she had only dimly
+dreamed.  Under the compelling influence, her very demeanour altered.
+Her short, stout figure, with its folds of black velvet, its muslin
+streamers, its heavy pearls at the heavy neck,
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P258"></A>258}</SPAN>
+assumed an almost
+menacing air.  In her countenance, from which the charm of youth had
+long since vanished, and which had not yet been softened by age, the
+traces of grief, of disappointment, and of displeasure were still
+visible, but they were overlaid by looks of arrogance and sharp lines
+of peremptory hauteur.  Only, when Mr. Disraeli appeared, the
+expression changed in an instant, and the forbidding visage became
+charged with smiles.[<A NAME="chap08fn31text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn31">31</A>]  For him she would do anything.  Yielding to
+his encouragements, she began to emerge from her seclusion; she
+appeared in London in semi-state, at hospitals and concerts; she opened
+Parliament; she reviewed troops and distributed medals at
+Aldershot.[<A NAME="chap08fn32text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn32">32</A>]  But such public signs of favour were trivial in
+comparison with her private attentions.  During his hours of audience,
+she could hardly restrain her excitement and delight.  'I can only
+describe my reception,' he wrote to a friend on one occasion, 'by
+telling you that I really thought she was going to embrace me.  She was
+wreathed with smiles, and, as she tattled, glided about the room like a
+bird.'[<A NAME="chap08fn33text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn33">33</A>]  In his absence, she talked of him perpetually, and there
+was a note of unusual vehemence in her solicitude for his health.
+'John Manners,' Disraeli told Lady Bradford, 'who has just come from
+Osborne, says that the Faery only talked of one subject, and that was
+her Primo.  According to him, it was her gracious opinion that the
+Government should make my health a Cabinet question.  Dear John seemed
+quite surprised at what she said; but you are more used to these
+ebullitions.'[<A NAME="chap08fn34text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn34">34</A>]  She often sent him presents; an illustrated album
+arrived for him regularly from Windsor on Christmas Day.[<A NAME="chap08fn35text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn35">35</A>]  But her
+most valued gifts were
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P259"></A>259}</SPAN>
+the bunches of spring flowers which,
+gathered by herself and her ladies in the woods at Osborne, marked in
+an especial manner the warmth and tenderness of her sentiments.  Among
+these it was, he declared, the primroses that he loved the best.  They
+were, he said, 'the ambassadors of Spring,' 'the gems and jewels of
+Nature.'  He liked them, he assured her, 'so much better for their
+being wild; they seem an offering from the Fauns and Dryads of
+Osborne.'  'They show,' he told her, 'that your Majesty's sceptre has
+touched the enchanted Isle.'  He sat at dinner with heaped-up bowls of
+them on every side, and told his guests that 'they were all sent to me
+this morning by the Queen from Osborne, as she knows it is my favourite
+flower.'[<A NAME="chap08fn36text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn36">36</A>]  As time went on, and as it became clearer and clearer
+that the Faery's thraldom was complete, his protestations grew steadily
+more highly coloured and more unabashed.  At last he ventured to import
+into his blandishments a strain of adoration that was almost avowedly
+romantic.  In phrases of baroque convolution, he delivered the message
+of his heart.  The pressure of business, he wrote, had 'so absorbed and
+exhausted him, that towards the hour of post he has not had clearness
+of mind, and vigour of pen, adequate to convey his thoughts and facts
+to the most loved and illustrious being, who deigns to consider
+them.'[<A NAME="chap08fn37text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn37">37</A>]  She sent him some primroses, and he replied that he could
+'truly say they are "more precious than rubies," coming, as they do,
+and at such a moment, from a Sovereign whom he adores.'[<A NAME="chap08fn38text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn38">38</A>]  She sent
+him snowdrops, and his sentiment overflowed into poetry.  'Yesterday
+eve,' he wrote, 'there appeared, in Whitehall Gardens, a
+delicate-looking case, with a royal superscription, which, when
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P260"></A>260}</SPAN>
+he opened, he thought, at first, that your Majesty had graciously
+bestowed upon him the stars of your Majesty's principal orders.  And,
+indeed, he was so impressed with this graceful illusion, that, having a
+banquet, where there were many stars and ribbons, he could not resist
+the temptation, by placing some snowdrops on his heart, of showing that
+he, too, was decorated by a gracious Sovereign.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+'Then, in the middle of the night, it occurred to him, that it might
+all be an enchantment, and that, perhaps, it was a Faery gift and came
+from another monarch: Queen Titania, gathering flowers, with her Court,
+in a soft and sea-girt isle, and sending magic blossoms, which, they
+say, turn the heads of those who receive them.'[<A NAME="chap08fn39text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn39">39</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A Faery gift!  Did he smile as he wrote the words?  Perhaps; and yet it
+would be rash to conclude that his perfervid declarations were
+altogether without sincerity.  Actor and spectator both, the two
+characters were so intimately blended together in that odd composition
+that they formed an inseparable unity, and it was impossible to say
+that one of them was less genuine than the other.  With one element, he
+could coldly appraise the Faery's intellectual capacity, note with some
+surprise that she could be on occasion 'most interesting and amusing,'
+and then continue his use of the trowel with an ironical solemnity;
+while, with the other, he could be overwhelmed by the immemorial
+panoply of royalty, and, thrilling with the sense of his own strange
+elevation, dream himself into a gorgeous phantasy of crowns and powers
+and chivalric love.  When he told Victoria that 'during a somewhat
+romantic and imaginative life, nothing has ever occurred to him so
+interesting as this confidential correspondence with one so exalted and
+so
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P261"></A>261}</SPAN>
+inspiring,'[<A NAME="chap08fn40text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn40">40</A>] was he not in earnest after all?  When he
+wrote to a lady about the Court, 'I love the Queen&mdash;perhaps the only
+person in this world left to me that I do love,'[<A NAME="chap08fn41text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn41">41</A>] was he not
+creating for himself an enchanted palace out of the Arabian Nights,
+full of melancholy and spangles, in which he actually believed?
+Victoria's state of mind was far more simple; untroubled by imaginative
+yearnings, she never lost herself in that nebulous region of the spirit
+where feeling and fancy grow confused.  Her emotions, with all their
+intensity and all their exaggeration, retained the plain prosaic
+texture of everyday life.  And it was fitting that her expression of
+them should be equally commonplace.  She was, she told her Prime
+Minister, at the end of an official letter, 'yours aff'ly V.R. and I.'
+In such a phrase the deep reality of her feeling is instantly manifest.
+The Faery's feet were on the solid earth; it was the <I>rus�</I> cynic who
+was in the air.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He had taught her, however, a lesson, which she had learnt with
+alarming rapidity.  A second Gloriana, did he call her?  Very well,
+then, she would show that she deserved the compliment.  Disquieting
+symptoms followed fast.  In May 1874, the Tsar, whose daughter had just
+been married to Victoria's second son, the Duke of Edinburgh, was in
+London, and, by an unfortunate error, it had been arranged that his
+departure should not take place until two days after the date on which
+his royal hostess had previously decided to go to Balmoral.  Her
+Majesty refused to modify her plans.  It was pointed out to her that
+the Tsar would certainly be offended, that the most serious
+consequences might follow; Lord Derby protested; Lord Salisbury, the
+Secretary of State for India, was much perturbed.  But
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P262"></A>262}</SPAN>
+the Faery
+was unconcerned; she had settled to go to Balmoral on the 18th, and on
+the 18th she would go.  At last Disraeli, exercising all his influence,
+induced her to agree to stay in London for two days more.  'My head is
+still on my shoulders,' he told Lady Bradford.  'The great lady has
+absolutely postponed her departure!  Everybody had failed, even the
+Prince of Wales; ... and I have no doubt I am not in favour.  I can't
+help it.  Salisbury says I have saved an Afghan War, and Derby
+compliments me on my unrivalled triumph.'[<A NAME="chap08fn42text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn42">42</A>]  But before very long, on
+another issue, the triumph was the Faery's.  Disraeli, who had suddenly
+veered towards a new Imperialism, had thrown out the suggestion that
+the Queen of England ought to become the Empress of India.  Victoria
+seized upon the idea with avidity, and, in season and out of season,
+pressed upon her Prime Minister the desirability of putting his
+proposal into practice.  He demurred; but she was not to be baulked;
+and in 1876, in spite of his own unwillingness and that of his entire
+Cabinet, he found himself obliged to add to the troubles of a stormy
+session by introducing a bill for the alteration of the Royal
+Title.[<A NAME="chap08fn43text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn43">43</A>]  His compliance, however, finally conquered the Faery's
+heart.  The measure was angrily attacked in both Houses, and Victoria
+was deeply touched by the untiring energy with which Disraeli defended
+it.  She was, she said, much grieved by 'the worry and annoyance' to
+which he was subjected; she feared she was the cause of it; and she
+would never forget what she owed to 'her kind, good, and considerate
+friend.'  At the same time, her wrath fell on the Opposition.  Their
+conduct, she declared, was 'extraordinary, incomprehensible, and
+mistaken,' and, in an emphatic sentence which seemed to contradict
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P263"></A>263}</SPAN>
+both itself and all her former proceedings, she protested that
+she 'would be glad if it were more generally known that it was <I>her</I>
+wish, as people <I>will</I> have it, that it has been <I>forced upon
+her!</I>'[<A NAME="chap08fn44text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn44">44</A>]  When the affair was successfully over, the imperial triumph
+was celebrated in a suitable manner.  On the day of the Delhi
+Proclamation, the new Earl of Beaconsfield went to Windsor to dine with
+the new Empress of India.  That night the Faery, usually so homely in
+her attire, appeared in a glittering panoply of enormous uncut jewels,
+which had been presented to her by the reigning Princes of her Raj.  At
+the end of the meal the Prime Minister, breaking through the rules of
+etiquette, arose, and in a flowery oration proposed the health of the
+Queen-Empress.  His audacity was well received, and his speech was
+rewarded by a smiling curtsey.[<A NAME="chap08fn45text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn45">45</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+These were significant episodes; but a still more serious manifestation
+of Victoria's temper occurred in the following year, during the
+crowning crisis of Beaconsfield's life.  His growing imperialism, his
+desire to magnify the power and prestige of England, his insistence
+upon a 'spirited foreign policy,' had brought him into collision with
+Russia; the terrible Eastern Question loomed up; and, when war broke
+out between Russia and Turkey, the gravity of the situation became
+extreme.  The Prime Minister's policy was fraught with difficulty and
+danger.  Realising perfectly the appalling implications of an
+Anglo-Russian war, he was yet prepared to face even that eventuality if
+he could obtain his ends by no other method; but he believed that
+Russia in reality was still less desirous of a rupture, and that, if he
+played his game with sufficient boldness and
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P264"></A>264}</SPAN>
+adroitness, she
+would yield, when it came to the point, all that he required without a
+blow.  It was clear that the course he had marked out for himself was
+full of hazard, and demanded an extraordinary nerve; a single false
+step, and either himself, or England, might be plunged in disaster.
+But nerve he had never lacked; he began his diplomatic egg-dance with
+high assurance; and then he discovered that, besides the Russian
+Government, besides the Liberals and Mr. Gladstone, there were two
+additional sources of perilous embarrassment with which he would have
+to reckon.  In the first place there was a strong party in the Cabinet,
+headed by Lord Derby, the Foreign Secretary, which was unwilling to
+take the risk of war; but his culminating anxiety was the Faery.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+From the first, her attitude was uncompromising.  The old hatred of
+Russia, which had been engendered by the Crimean War, surged up again
+within her; she remembered Albert's prolonged animosity; she felt the
+prickings of her own greatness; and she flung herself into the turmoil
+with passionate heat.  Her indignation with the Opposition&mdash;with anyone
+who ventured to sympathise with the Russians in their quarrel with the
+Turks&mdash;was unbounded.  When anti-Turkish meetings were held in London,
+presided over by the Duke of Westminster and Lord Shaftesbury, and
+attended by Mr. Gladstone and other prominent Radicals, she considered
+that 'the Attorney-General ought to be set at these men'; 'it can't,'
+she exclaimed, 'be constitutional.'[<A NAME="chap08fn46text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn46">46</A>]  Never in her life, not even in
+the crisis over the Ladies of the Bedchamber, did she show herself a
+more furious partisan.  But her displeasure was not reserved for the
+Radicals; the
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P265"></A>265}</SPAN>
+backsliding Conservatives equally felt its force.
+She was even discontented with Lord Beaconsfield himself.  Failing
+entirely to appreciate the delicate complexity of his policy, she
+constantly assailed him with demands for vigorous action, interpreted
+each finesse as a sign of weakness, and was ready at every juncture to
+let slip the dogs of war.  As the situation developed, her anxiety grew
+feverish.  'The Queen,' she wrote, 'is feeling terribly anxious lest
+delay should cause us to be too late and lose our prestige for ever!
+It worries her night and day.'[<A NAME="chap08fn47text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn47">47</A>]  'The Faery,' Beaconsfield told Lady
+Bradford, 'writes every day and telegraphs every hour; this is almost
+literally the case.'[<A NAME="chap08fn48text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn48">48</A>]  She raged loudly against the Russians.  'And
+the language,' she cried, 'the insulting language&mdash;used by the Russians
+against us!  It makes the Queen's blood boil!'[<A NAME="chap08fn49text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn49">49</A>]  'Oh,' she wrote a
+little later, 'if the Queen were a man, she would like to go and give
+those Russians, whose word one cannot believe, such a beating!  We
+shall never be friends again till we have it out.  This the Queen feels
+sure of.'[<A NAME="chap08fn50text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn50">50</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The unfortunate Prime Minister, urged on to violence by Victoria on one
+side, had to deal, on the other, with a Foreign Secretary who was
+fundamentally opposed to any policy of active interference at all.
+Between the Queen and Lord Derby he held a harassed course.  He gained,
+indeed, some slight satisfaction in playing off the one against the
+other&mdash;in stimulating Lord Derby with the Queen's missives, and in
+appeasing the Queen by repudiating Lord Derby's opinions; on one
+occasion he actually went so far as to compose, at Victoria's request,
+a letter bitterly attacking his colleague,
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P266"></A>266}</SPAN>
+which her Majesty
+forthwith signed, and sent, without alteration, to the Foreign
+Secretary.[<A NAME="chap08fn51text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn51">51</A>]  But such devices gave only a temporary relief; and it
+soon became evident that Victoria's martial ardour was not to be
+side-tracked by hostilities against Lord Derby; hostilities against
+Russia were what she wanted, what she would, what she must, have.  For
+now, casting aside the last relics of moderation, she began to attack
+her friend with a series of extraordinary threats.  Not once, not
+twice, but many times she held over his head the formidable menace of
+her imminent abdication.  'If England,' she wrote to Beaconsfield, 'is
+to kiss Russia's feet, she will not be a party to the humiliation of
+England and would lay down her crown,' and she added that the Prime
+Minister might, if he thought fit, repeat her words to the Cabinet.[<A NAME="chap08fn52text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn52">52</A>]
+'This delay,' she ejaculated, 'this uncertainty by which, abroad, we
+are losing our prestige and our position, while Russia is advancing and
+will be before Constantinople in no time!  Then the Government will be
+fearfully blamed and the Queen so humiliated that she thinks she would
+abdicate at once.  Be bold!'[<A NAME="chap08fn53text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn53">53</A>]  'She feels,' she reiterated, 'she
+cannot, as she before said, remain the Sovereign of a country that is
+letting itself down to kiss the feet of the great barbarians, the
+retarders of all liberty and civilisation that exists.'[<A NAME="chap08fn54text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn54">54</A>]  When the
+Russians advanced to the outskirts of Constantinople she fired off
+three letters in a day demanding war; and when she learnt that the
+Cabinet had only decided to send the Fleet to Gallipoli she declared
+that 'her first impulse' was 'to lay down the thorny crown, which she
+feels little satisfaction in retaining if the position of this country
+is
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P267"></A>267}</SPAN>
+to remain as it is now.'[<A NAME="chap08fn55text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn55">55</A>]  It is easy to imagine the
+agitating effect of such a correspondence upon Beaconsfield.  This was
+no longer the Faery; it was a genie whom he had rashly called out of
+her bottle, and who was now intent upon showing her supernal power.
+More than once, perplexed, dispirited, shattered by illness, he had
+thoughts of withdrawing altogether from the game.  One thing alone, he
+told Lady Bradford, with a wry smile, prevented him.  'If I could
+only,' he wrote, 'face the scene which would occur at headquarters if I
+resigned, I would do so at once.'[<A NAME="chap08fn56text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn56">56</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He held on, however, to emerge victorious at last.  The Queen was
+pacified; Lord Derby was replaced by Lord Salisbury; and at the
+Congress of Berlin <I>der alte Jude</I> carried all before him.  He returned
+to England in triumph, and assured the delighted Victoria that she
+would very soon be, if she was not already, the 'Dictatress of
+Europe.'[<A NAME="chap08fn57text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn57">57</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But soon there was an unexpected reverse.  At the General Election of
+1880 the country, mistrustful of the forward policy of the
+Conservatives, and carried away by Mr. Gladstone's oratory, returned
+the Liberals to power.  Victoria was horrified, but within a year she
+was to be yet more nearly hit.  The grand romance had come to its
+conclusion.  Lord Beaconsfield, worn out with age and maladies, but
+moving still, an assiduous mummy, from dinner-party to dinner-party,
+suddenly moved no longer.  When she knew that the end was inevitable,
+she seemed, by a pathetic instinct, to divest herself of her royalty,
+and to shrink, with hushed gentleness, beside him, a woman and nothing
+more.  'I send some Osborne primroses,' she wrote to him with touching
+simplicity, 'and I meant to pay you a little
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P268"></A>268}</SPAN>
+visit this week but
+I thought it better you should be quite quiet and not speak.  And I beg
+you will be very good and obey the doctors.'  She would see him, she
+said, 'when we come back from Osborne, which won't be long.'  'Everyone
+is so distressed at your not being well,' she added; and she was, 'Ever
+yours very aff'ly, V.R.I.'  When the royal letter was given him, the
+strange old comedian, stretched on his bed of death, poised it in his
+hand, appeared to consider deeply, and then whispered to those about
+him: 'This ought to be read to me by a Privy Councillor.'[<A NAME="chap08fn58text"></A><A HREF="#chap08fn58">58</A>]
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap08fn1"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap08fn1text">1</A>] Adams, 135.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap08fn2"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap08fn2text">2</A>] Clarendon, II, 342.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap08fn3"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap08fn3text">3</A>] Buckle, IV, 385.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap08fn4"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap08fn4text">4</A>] Buckle, IV, 382-95.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap08fn5"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap08fn5text">5</A>] <I>Ibid.</I>, IV, 592.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap08fn6"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap08fn6text">6</A>] Clarendon, II, 346.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap08fn7"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap08fn7text">7</A>] Buckle, V, 49.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap08fn8"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap08fn8text">8</A>] <I>Ibid.</I>, V, 48.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap08fn9"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap08fn9text">9</A>] <I>Ibid.</I>, V, 28.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap08fn10"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap08fn10text">10</A>] Morley, II, 252, 256.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap08fn11"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap08fn11text">11</A>] Martin, <I>Queen Victoria</I>, 50-1.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap08fn12"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap08fn12text">12</A>] Tait, II, chap. i.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap08fn13"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap08fn13text">13</A>] Childers, I, 175-7.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap08fn14"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap08fn14text">14</A>] Morley, II, 360-5.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap08fn15"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap08fn15text">15</A>] Morley, II, 423-8; Crawford, 356, 370-1.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap08fn16"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap08fn16text">16</A>] Private information.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap08fn17"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap08fn17text">17</A>] In 1889 it was officially stated that the Queen's total savings
+from the Civil List amounted to �824,025, but that out of this sum much
+had been spent on special entertainments to foreign visitors (Lee,
+499).  Taking into consideration the proceeds from the Duchy of
+Lancaster, which were more than �60,000 a year (Lee, 79), the savings
+of the Prince Consort, and Mr. Neild's legacy, it seems probable that,
+at the time of her death, Victoria's private fortune approached two
+million pounds.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap08fn18"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap08fn18text">18</A>] Morley, II, 425-6; Lee, 410-2, 415-8; Jerrold, <I>Widowhood</I>, 153-7,
+162-3, 169-71.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap08fn19"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap08fn19text">19</A>] Martin, <I>Queen Victoria</I>, 41-2.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap08fn20"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap08fn20text">20</A>] Buckle, VI, 463.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap08fn21"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap08fn21text">21</A>] <I>Ibid.</I>, VI, 226.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap08fn22"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap08fn22text">22</A>] <I>Ibid.</I>, VI, 445,7.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap08fn23"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap08fn23text">23</A>] <I>Ibid.</I>, VI, 254-5.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap08fn24"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap08fn24text">24</A>] Buckle, VI, 430.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap08fn25"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap08fn25text">25</A>] Buckle, V, 286.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap08fn26"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap08fn26text">26</A>] <I>Ibid.</I>, V, 321.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap08fn27"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap08fn27text">27</A>] <I>Ibid.</I>, V, 448-9.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap08fn28"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap08fn28text">28</A>] <I>Ibid.</I>, II, 246.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap08fn29"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap08fn29text">29</A>] Morley, II, 574-5.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap08fn30"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap08fn30text">30</A>] Buckle, V, 414.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap08fn31"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap08fn31text">31</A>] <I>Quarterly Review</I>, CXCIII, 334.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap08fn32"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap08fn32text">32</A>] Lee, 434-5.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap08fn33"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap08fn33text">33</A>] Buckle, V, 339.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap08fn34"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap08fn34text">34</A>] <I>Ibid</I>., V, 384.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap08fn35"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap08fn35text">35</A>] <I>Ibid.</I>, VI, 468.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap08fn36"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap08fn36text">36</A>] Buckle, VI, 629.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap08fn37"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap08fn37text">37</A>] <I>Ibid.</I>, VI, 248.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap08fn38"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap08fn38text">38</A>] <I>Ibid.</I>, VI, 246-7.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap08fn39"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap08fn39text">39</A>] Buckle, VI, 464-7.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap08fn40"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap08fn40text">40</A>] Buckle, VI, 238.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap08fn41"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap08fn41text">41</A>] <I>Ibid.</I>, VI, 462.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap08fn42"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap08fn42text">42</A>] Buckle, V, 414-5.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap08fn43"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap08fn43text">43</A>] <I>Ibid.</I>, V, 456-8; VI, 457-8.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap08fn44"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap08fn44text">44</A>] Buckle, V, 468-9, 473.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap08fn45"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap08fn45text">45</A>] Hamilton, 120; <I>Quarterly Review</I>, CXXXIX, 334.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap08fn46"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap08fn46text">46</A>] Buckle, VI, 106-7.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap08fn47"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap08fn47text">47</A>] Buckle, VI, 144.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap08fn48"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap08fn48text">48</A>] <I>Ibid.</I>, VI, 150.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap08fn49"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap08fn49text">49</A>] <I>Ibid.</I>, VI, 154.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap08fn50"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap08fn50text">50</A>] <I>Ibid.</I>, VI, 217.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap08fn51"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap08fn51text">51</A>] Buckle, VI, 157-9.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap08fn52"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap08fn52text">52</A>] <I>Ibid.</I>, VI, 132.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap08fn53"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap08fn53text">53</A>] <I>Ibid.</I>, VI, 148.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap08fn54"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap08fn54text">54</A>] <I>Ibid.</I>, VI, 217.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap08fn55"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap08fn55text">55</A>] Buckle, VI, 243-5.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap08fn56"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap08fn56text">56</A>] <I>Ibid.</I>. VI, 190.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap08fn57"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap08fn57text">57</A>] Lee, 445-6.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap08fn58"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap08fn58text">58</A>] Buckle, VI, 613-4.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap09"></A>
+
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P269"></A>269}</SPAN>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER IX
+</H3>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+OLD AGE
+</H4>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+I
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Meanwhile in Victoria's private life many changes and developments had
+taken place.  With the marriages of her elder children her family
+circle widened; grandchildren appeared; and a multitude of new domestic
+interests sprang up.  The death of King Leopold in 1865 had removed the
+predominant figure of the older generation, and the functions he had
+performed as the centre and adviser of a large group of relatives in
+Germany and in England devolved upon Victoria.  These functions she
+discharged with unremitting industry, carrying on an enormous
+correspondence, and following with absorbed interest every detail in
+the lives of the ever-ramifying cousinhood.  And she tasted to the full
+both the joys and the pains of family affection.  She took a particular
+delight in her grandchildren, to whom she showed an indulgence which
+their parents had not always enjoyed, though, even to her
+grandchildren, she could be, when the occasion demanded it, severe.
+The eldest of them, the little Prince Wilhelm of Prussia, was a
+remarkably headstrong child; he dared to be impertinent even to his
+grandmother; and once, when she told him to bow to a visitor at
+Osborne, he disobeyed her outright.  This would not do: the order was
+sternly repeated, and the naughty boy, noticing
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P270"></A>270}</SPAN>
+that his kind
+grandmama had suddenly turned into a most terrifying lady, submitted
+his will to hers, and bowed very low indeed.[<A NAME="chap09fn1text"></A><A HREF="#chap09fn1">1</A>]
+</P>
+
+<A NAME="img-269"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-269.jpg" ALT="QUEEN VICTORIA IN 1897." BORDER="2">
+<H4 CLASS="h4center">
+QUEEN VICTORIA IN 1897.
+</H4>
+</CENTER>
+
+<P>
+It would have been well if all the Queen's domestic troubles could have
+been got over as easily.  Among her more serious distresses was the
+conduct of the Prince of Wales.  The young man was now independent and
+married; he had shaken the parental yoke from his shoulders; he was
+positively beginning to do as he liked.  Victoria was much perturbed,
+and her worst fears seemed to be justified when in 1870 he appeared as
+a witness in a society divorce case.  It was clear that the heir to the
+throne had been mixing with people of whom she did not at all approve.
+What was to be done?  She saw that it was not only her son that was to
+blame&mdash;that it was the whole system of society; and so she despatched a
+letter to Mr. Delane, the editor of <I>The Times</I>, asking him if he would
+'frequently <I>write</I> articles pointing out the <I>immense</I> danger and evil
+of the wretched frivolity and levity of the views and lives of the
+Higher Classes.'  And five years later Mr. Delane did write an article
+upon that very subject.[<A NAME="chap09fn2text"></A><A HREF="#chap09fn2">2</A>]  Yet it seemed to have very little effect.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Ah! if only the Higher Classes would learn to live as she lived in the
+domestic sobriety of her sanctuary at Balmoral!  For more and more did
+she find solace and refreshment in her Highland domain; and twice
+yearly, in the spring and in the autumn, with a sigh of relief, she set
+her face northwards, in spite of the humble protests of Ministers, who
+murmured vainly in the royal ears that to transact the affairs of State
+over an interval of six hundred miles added considerably to the cares
+of government.  Her ladies, too,
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P271"></A>271}</SPAN>
+felt occasionally a slight
+reluctance to set out, for, especially in the early days, the long
+pilgrimage was not without its drawbacks.  For many years the Queen's
+conservatism forbade the continuation of the railway up Deeside, so
+that the last stages of the journey had to be accomplished in
+carriages.  But, after all, carriages had their good points; they were
+easy, for instance, to get in and out of, which was an important
+consideration, for the royal train remained for long immune from modern
+conveniences, and when it drew up, on some border moorland, far from
+any platform, the high-bred dames were obliged to descend to earth by
+the perilous foot-board, the only pair of folding steps being reserved
+for her Majesty's saloon.  In the days of crinolines such moments were
+sometimes awkward; and it was occasionally necessary to summon Mr.
+Johnstone, the short and sturdy Manager of the Caledonian Railway, who,
+more than once, in a high gale and drenching rain with great difficulty
+'pushed up'&mdash;as he himself described it&mdash;some unlucky Lady Blanche or
+Lady Agatha into her compartment.[<A NAME="chap09fn3text"></A><A HREF="#chap09fn3">3</A>]  But Victoria cared for none of
+these things.  She was only intent upon regaining, with the utmost
+swiftness, her enchanted Castle, where every spot was charged with
+memories, where every memory was sacred, and where life was passed in
+an incessant and delightful round of absolutely trivial events.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And it was not only the place that she loved; she was equally attached
+to 'the simple mountaineers,' from whom, she said, 'she learnt many a
+lesson of resignation and faith.'[<A NAME="chap09fn4text"></A><A HREF="#chap09fn4">4</A>]  Smith and Grant and Ross and
+Thompson&mdash;she was devoted to them all; but, beyond the rest, she was
+devoted to John Brown.  The
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P272"></A>272}</SPAN>
+Prince's gillie had now become the
+Queen's personal attendant&mdash;a body servant from whom she was never
+parted, who accompanied her on her drives, waited on her during the
+day, and slept in a neighbouring chamber at night.  She liked his
+strength, his solidity, the sense he gave her of physical security; she
+even liked his rugged manners and his rough unaccommodating speech.
+She allowed him to take liberties with her which would have been
+unthinkable from anybody else.  To bully the Queen, to order her about,
+to reprimand her&mdash;who could dream of venturing upon such audacities?
+And yet, when she received such treatment from John Brown, she
+positively seemed to enjoy it.  The eccentricity appeared to be
+extraordinary; but, after all, it is no uncommon thing for an
+autocratic dowager to allow some trusted indispensable servant to adopt
+towards her an attitude of authority which is jealously forbidden to
+relatives or friends: the power of a dependant still remains, by a
+psychological sleight-of-hand, one's own power, even when it is
+exercised over oneself.  When Victoria meekly obeyed the abrupt
+commands of her henchman to get off her pony or put on her shawl, was
+she not displaying, and in the highest degree, the force of her
+volition?  People might wonder; she could not help that; this was the
+manner in which it pleased her to act, and there was an end of it.  To
+have submitted her judgment to a son or a Minister might have seemed
+wiser or more natural; but if she had done so, she instinctively felt,
+she would indeed have lost her independence.  And yet upon somebody she
+longed to depend.  Her days were heavy with the long process of
+domination.  As she drove in silence over the moors she leaned back in
+the carriage, oppressed and weary; but what a relief!&mdash;John Brown was
+behind
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P273"></A>273}</SPAN>
+on the rumble, and his strong arm would be there for her
+to lean upon when she got out.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He had, too, in her mind, a special connection with Albert.  In their
+expeditions the Prince had always trusted him more than anyone; the
+gruff, kind, hairy Scotsman was, she felt, in some mysterious way, a
+legacy from the dead.  She came to believe at last&mdash;or so it
+appeared&mdash;that the spirit of Albert was nearer when Brown was near.
+Often, when seeking inspiration over some complicated question of
+political or domestic import, she would gaze with deep concentration at
+her late husband's bust.  But it was also noticed that sometimes in
+such moments of doubt and hesitation Her Majesty's looks would fix
+themselves upon John Brown.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Eventually, the 'simple mountaineer' became almost a state personage.
+The influence which he wielded was not to be overlooked.  Lord
+Beaconsfield was careful, from time to time, to send courteous messages
+to 'Mr. Brown' in his letters to the Queen, and the French Government
+took particular pains to provide for his comfort during the visits of
+the English Sovereign to France.  It was only natural that among the
+elder members of the royal family he should not have been popular, and
+that his failings&mdash;for failings he had, though Victoria would never
+notice his too acute appreciation of Scotch whisky&mdash;should have been
+the subject of acrimonious comment at Court.  But he served his
+mistress faithfully, and to ignore him would be a sign of disrespect in
+her biographer.  For the Queen, far from making a secret of her
+affectionate friendship, took care to publish it to the world.  By her
+orders two gold medals were struck in his honour; on his death, in
+1883, a long and eulogistic obituary notice
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P274"></A>274}</SPAN>
+of him appeared in
+the <I>Court Circular</I>; and a Brown memorial brooch&mdash;of gold, with the
+late gillie's head on one side and the royal monogram on the other&mdash;was
+designed by her Majesty for presentation to her Highland servants and
+cottagers, to be worn by them on the anniversary of his death, with a
+mourning scarf and pins.  In the second series of extracts from the
+Queen's Highland Journal, published in 1884, her 'devoted personal
+attendant and faithful friend' appears upon almost every page, and is
+in effect the hero of the book.  With an absence of reticence
+remarkable in royal persons, Victoria seemed to demand, in this private
+and delicate matter, the sympathy of the whole nation; and yet&mdash;such is
+the world!&mdash;there were those who actually treated the relations between
+their Sovereign and her servant as a theme for ribald jests.[<A NAME="chap09fn5text"></A><A HREF="#chap09fn5">5</A>]
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+II
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+The busy years hastened away; the traces of Time's unimaginable touch
+grew manifest; and old age, approaching, laid a gentle hold upon
+Victoria.  The grey hair whitened; the mature features mellowed; the
+short firm figure amplified and moved more slowly, supported by a
+stick.  And, simultaneously, in the whole tenour of the Queen's
+existence an extraordinary transformation came to pass.  The nation's
+attitude towards her, critical and even hostile as it had been for so
+many years, altogether changed; while there was a corresponding
+alteration in the temper of Victoria's own mind.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Many causes led to this result.  Among them were the repeated strokes
+of personal misfortune which befell
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P275"></A>275}</SPAN>
+the Queen during a cruelly
+short space of years.  In 1878 the Princess Alice, who had married in
+1862 the Prince Louis of Hesse-Darmstadt, died in tragic circumstances.
+In the following year the Prince Imperial, the only son of the Empress
+Eug�nie, to whom Victoria, since the catastrophe of 1870, had become
+devotedly attached, was killed in the Zulu War.  Two years later, in
+1881, the Queen lost Lord Beaconsfield, and, in 1883, John Brown.  In
+1884 the Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany, who had been an invalid from
+birth, died prematurely, shortly after his marriage.  Victoria's cup of
+sorrows was indeed overflowing: and the public, as it watched the
+widowed mother weeping for her children and her friends, displayed a
+constantly increasing sympathy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+An event which occurred in 1882 revealed and accentuated the feelings
+of the nation.  As the Queen, at Windsor, was walking from the train to
+her carriage, a youth named Roderick Maclean fired a pistol at her from
+a distance of a few yards.  An Eton boy struck up Maclean's arm with an
+umbrella before the pistol went off; no damage was done, and the
+culprit was at once arrested.  This was the last of a series of seven
+attempts upon the Queen&mdash;attempts which, taking place at sporadic
+intervals over a period of forty years, resembled one another in a
+curious manner.  All, with a single exception, were perpetrated by
+adolescents, whose motives were apparently not murderous, since, save
+in the case of Maclean, none of their pistols was loaded.  These
+unhappy youths, who, after buying their cheap weapons, stuffed them
+with gunpowder and paper, and then went off, with the certainty of
+immediate detection, to click them in the face of royalty, present a
+strange problem to the psychologist.  But, though
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P276"></A>276}</SPAN>
+in each case
+their actions and their purposes seemed to be so similar, their fates
+were remarkably varied.  The first of them, Edward Oxford, who fired at
+Victoria within a few months of her marriage, was tried for high
+treason, declared to be insane, and sent to an asylum for life.  It
+appears, however, that this sentence did not commend itself to Albert,
+for when, two years later, John Francis committed the same offence, and
+was tried upon the same charge, the Prince pronounced that there was no
+insanity in the matter.  'The wretched creature,' he told his father,
+was 'not out of his mind, but a thorough scamp.'  'I hope,' he added,
+'his trial will be conducted with the greatest strictness.'  Apparently
+it was; at any rate, the jury shared the view of the Prince, the plea
+of insanity was set aside, and Francis was found guilty of high treason
+and condemned to death; but, as there was no proof of an intent to kill
+or even to wound, this sentence, after a lengthened deliberation
+between the Home Secretary and the Judges, was commuted for one of
+transportation for life.  As the law stood, these assaults, futile as
+they were, could be treated only as high treason; the discrepancy
+between the actual deed and the tremendous penalties involved was
+obviously grotesque; and it was, besides, clear that a jury, knowing
+that a verdict of guilty implied a sentence of death, would tend to the
+alternative course, and find the prisoner not guilty but insane&mdash;a
+conclusion which, on the face of it, would have appeared to be the more
+reasonable.  In 1842, therefore, an Act was passed making any attempt
+to hurt the Queen a misdemeanour, punishable by transportation for
+seven years, or imprisonment, with or without hard labour, for a term
+not exceeding three years&mdash;the misdemeanant, at the discretion of the
+Court,
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P277"></A>277}</SPAN>
+'to be publicly or privately whipped, as often, and in
+such manner and form, as the Court shall direct, not exceeding
+thrice.'[<A NAME="chap09fn6text"></A><A HREF="#chap09fn6">6</A>]  The four subsequent attempts were all dealt with under
+this new law; William Bean, in 1842, was sentenced to eighteen months'
+imprisonment; William Hamilton, in 1849, was transported for seven
+years; and, in 1850, the same sentence was passed upon Lieutenant
+Robert Pate, who struck the Queen on the head with his cane in
+Piccadilly.  Pate, alone among these delinquents, was of mature years;
+he had held a commission in the Army, dressed himself as a dandy, and
+was, the Prince declared, 'manifestly deranged.'[<A NAME="chap09fn7text"></A><A HREF="#chap09fn7">7</A>]  In 1872 Arthur
+O'Connor, a youth of seventeen, fired an unloaded pistol at the Queen
+outside Buckingham Palace; he was immediately seized by John Brown, and
+sentenced to one year's imprisonment and twenty strokes of the birch
+rod.  It was for his bravery upon this occasion that Brown was
+presented with one of his gold medals.  In all these cases the jury had
+refused to allow the plea of insanity; but Roderick Maclean's attempt
+in 1882 had a different issue.  On this occasion the pistol was found
+to have been loaded, and the public indignation, emphasised as it was
+by Victoria's growing popularity, was particularly great.  Either for
+this or for some other reason the procedure of the last forty years was
+abandoned, and Maclean was tried for high treason.  The result was what
+might have been expected: the jury brought in a verdict of 'not guilty,
+but insane'; and the prisoner was sent to an asylum during Her
+Majesty's pleasure.[<A NAME="chap09fn8text"></A><A HREF="#chap09fn8">8</A>]  Their verdict, however, produced a remarkable
+consequence.  Victoria, who doubtless carried in her mind
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P278"></A>278}</SPAN>
+some
+memory of Albert's disapproval of a similar verdict in the case of
+Oxford, was very much annoyed.  What did the jury mean, she asked, by
+saying that Maclean was not guilty?  It was perfectly clear that he was
+guilty&mdash;she had seen him fire off the pistol herself.  It was in vain
+that Her Majesty's constitutional advisers reminded her of the
+principle of English law which lays down that no man can be found
+guilty of a crime unless he be proved to have had a criminal intention.
+Victoria was quite unconvinced.  'If that is the law,' she said, 'the
+law must be altered': and altered it was.  In 1883 an Act was passed
+changing the form of the verdict in cases of insanity, and the
+confusing anomaly remains upon the Statute Book to this day.[<A NAME="chap09fn9text"></A><A HREF="#chap09fn9">9</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But it was not only through the feelings&mdash;commiserating or
+indignant&mdash;of personal sympathy that the Queen and her people were
+being drawn more nearly together; they were beginning, at last, to come
+to a close and permanent agreement upon the conduct of public affairs.
+Mr. Gladstone's second administration (1880-85) was a succession of
+failures, ending in disaster and disgrace; liberalism fell into
+discredit with the country, and Victoria perceived with joy that her
+distrust of her Ministers was shared by an ever-increasing number of
+her subjects.  During the crisis in the Sudan, the popular temper was
+her own.  She had been among the first to urge the necessity of an
+expedition to Khartoum, and, when the news came of the catastrophic
+death of General Gordon, her voice led the chorus of denunciation which
+raved against the Government.  In her rage, she despatched a
+fulminating telegram to Mr. Gladstone, not in the usual cypher, but
+open;[<A NAME="chap09fn10text"></A><A HREF="#chap09fn10">10</A>] and
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P279"></A>279}</SPAN>
+her letter of condolence to Miss Gordon, in which
+she attacked her Ministers for breach of faith, was widely published.
+It was rumoured that she had sent for Lord Hartington, the Secretary of
+State for War, and vehemently upbraided him.  'She rated me,' he was
+reported to have told a friend, 'as if I'd been a footman.'  'Why
+didn't she send for the butler?' asked his friend.  'Oh,' was the
+reply, 'the butler generally manages to keep out of the way on such
+occasions.'[<A NAME="chap09fn11text"></A><A HREF="#chap09fn11">11</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But the day came when it was impossible to keep out of the way any
+longer.  Mr. Gladstone was defeated, and resigned.  Victoria, at a
+final interview, received him with her usual amenity, but, besides the
+formalities demanded by the occasion, the only remark which she made to
+him of a personal nature was to the effect that she supposed Mr.
+Gladstone would now require some rest.  He remembered with regret how,
+at a similar audience in 1874, she had expressed her trust in him as a
+supporter of the throne; but he noted the change without surprise.
+'Her mind and opinions,' he wrote in his diary afterwards, 'have since
+that day been seriously warped.'[<A NAME="chap09fn12text"></A><A HREF="#chap09fn12">12</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Such was Mr. Gladstone's view; but the majority of the nation by no
+means agreed with him; and, in the General Election of 1886, they
+showed decisively that Victoria's politics were identical with theirs
+by casting forth the contrivers of Home Rule&mdash;that abomination of
+desolation&mdash;into outer darkness, and placing Lord Salisbury in power.
+Victoria's satisfaction was profound.  A flood of new unwonted
+hopefulness swept over her, stimulating her vital spirits with a
+surprising force.  Her habit of life was suddenly altered; abandoning
+the long seclusion which Disraeli's persuasions
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P280"></A>280}</SPAN>
+had only
+momentarily interrupted, she threw herself vigorously into a multitude
+of public activities.  She appeared at drawing-rooms, at concerts, at
+reviews; she laid foundation-stones; she went to Liverpool to open an
+international exhibition, driving through the streets in her open
+carriage in heavy rain amid vast applauding crowds.  Delighted by the
+welcome which met her everywhere, she warmed to her work.  She visited
+Edinburgh, where the ovation of Liverpool was repeated and surpassed.
+In London, she opened in high state the Colonial and Indian Exhibition
+at South Kensington.  On this occasion the ceremonial was particularly
+magnificent; a blare of trumpets announced the approach of Her Majesty;
+the 'National Anthem' followed; and the Queen, seated on a gorgeous
+throne of hammered gold, replied with her own lips to the address that
+was presented to her.  Then she rose, and, advancing upon the platform
+with regal port, acknowledged the acclamations of the great assembly by
+a succession of curtseys, of elaborate and commanding grace.[<A NAME="chap09fn13text"></A><A HREF="#chap09fn13">13</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Next year was the fiftieth of her reign, and in June the splendid
+anniversary was celebrated in solemn pomp.  Victoria, surrounded by the
+highest dignitaries of her realm, escorted by a glittering galaxy of
+kings and princes, drove through the crowded enthusiasm of the capital
+to render thanks to God in Westminster Abbey.  In that triumphant hour
+the last remaining traces of past antipathies and past disagreements
+were altogether swept away.  The Queen was hailed at once as the mother
+of her people and as the embodied symbol of their imperial greatness;
+and she responded to the double sentiment with all the ardour of her
+spirit.
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P281"></A>281}</SPAN>
+England and the people of England, she knew it, she felt
+it, were, in some wonderful and yet quite simple manner, <I>hers</I>.
+Exultation, affection, gratitude, a profound sense of obligation, an
+unbounded pride&mdash;such were her emotions; and, colouring and
+intensifying the rest, there was something else.  At last, after so
+long, happiness&mdash;fragmentary, perhaps, and charged with gravity, but
+true and unmistakable none the less&mdash;had returned to her.  The
+unaccustomed feeling filled and warmed her consciousness.  When, at
+Buckingham Palace again, the long ceremony over, she was asked how she
+was, 'I am very tired, but very happy,' she said.[<A NAME="chap09fn14text"></A><A HREF="#chap09fn14">14</A>]
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+III
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+And so, after the toils and tempests of the day, a long evening
+followed&mdash;mild, serene, and lighted with a golden glory.  For an
+unexampled atmosphere of success and adoration invested the last period
+of Victoria's life.  Her triumph was the summary, the crown, of a
+greater triumph&mdash;the culminating prosperity of a nation.  The solid
+splendour of the decade between Victoria's two jubilees can hardly be
+paralleled in the annals of England.  The sage counsels of Lord
+Salisbury seemed to bring with them not only wealth and power, but
+security; and the country settled down, with calm assurance, to the
+enjoyment of an established grandeur.  And&mdash;it was only
+natural&mdash;Victoria settled down too.  For she was a part of the
+establishment&mdash;an essential part as it seemed&mdash;a fixture&mdash;a
+magnificent, immovable sideboard in the huge saloon of state.  Without
+her the heaped-up banquet of 1890 would have lost its distinctive
+quality&mdash;the comfortable order of the
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P282"></A>282}</SPAN>
+substantial unambiguous
+dishes, with their background of weighty glamour, half out of sight.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Her own existence came to harmonise more and more with what was around
+her.  Gradually, imperceptibly, Albert receded.  It was not that he was
+forgotten&mdash;that would have been impossible&mdash;but that the void created
+by his absence grew less agonising, and even, at last, less obvious.
+Eventually Victoria found it possible to regret the bad weather without
+immediately reflecting that her 'dear Albert always said we could not
+alter it, but must leave it as it was'; she could even enjoy a good
+breakfast without considering how 'dear Albert' would have liked the
+buttered eggs.[<A NAME="chap09fn15text"></A><A HREF="#chap09fn15">15</A>]  And, as that figure slowly faded, its place was
+taken, inevitably, by Victoria's own.  Her being, revolving for so many
+years round an external object, now changed its motion and found its
+centre in itself.  It had to be so: her domestic position, the pressure
+of her public work, her indomitable sense of duty, made anything else
+impossible.  Her egotism proclaimed its rights.  Her age increased
+still further the surrounding deference; and her force of character,
+emerging at length in all its plenitude, imposed itself absolutely upon
+its environment by the conscious effort of an imperious will.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Little by little it was noticed that the outward vestiges of Albert's
+posthumous domination grew less complete.  At Court the stringency of
+mourning was relaxed.  As the Queen drove through the Park in her open
+carriage with her Highlanders behind her, nursery-maids canvassed
+eagerly the growing patch of violet velvet in the bonnet with its jet
+appurtenances on the small bowing head.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P283"></A>283}</SPAN>
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was in her family that Victoria's ascendancy reached its highest
+point.  All her offspring were married; the number of her descendants
+rapidly increased; there were many marriages in the third generation;
+and no fewer than thirty-seven of her great-grandchildren were living
+at the time of her death.  A picture of the period displays the royal
+family collected together in one of the great rooms at Windsor&mdash;a
+crowded company of more than fifty persons, with the imperial matriarch
+in their midst.  Over them all she ruled with a most potent sway.  The
+small concerns of the youngest aroused her passionate interest; and the
+oldest she treated as if they were children still.  The Prince of
+Wales, in particular, stood in tremendous awe of his mother.  She had
+steadily refused to allow him the slightest participation in the
+business of government; and he had occupied himself in other ways.  Nor
+could it be denied that he enjoyed himself&mdash;out of her sight; but, in
+that redoubtable presence, his abounding manhood suffered a miserable
+eclipse.  Once, at Osborne, when, owing to no fault of his, he was too
+late for a dinner party, he was observed standing behind a pillar and,
+wiping the sweat from his forehead, trying to nerve himself to go up to
+the Queen.  When at last he did so, she gave him a stiff nod, whereupon
+he vanished immediately behind another pillar, and remained there until
+the party broke up.  At the time of this incident the Prince of Wales
+was over fifty years of age.[<A NAME="chap09fn16text"></A><A HREF="#chap09fn16">16</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was inevitable that the Queen's domestic activities should
+occasionally trench upon the domain of high diplomacy; and this was
+especially the case when the interests of her eldest daughter, the
+Crown Princess of Prussia, were at stake.  The Crown Prince held
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P284"></A>284}</SPAN>
+liberal opinions; he was much influenced by his wife; and both were
+detested by Bismarck, who declared with scurrilous emphasis that the
+Englishwoman and her mother were a menace to the Prussian State.  The
+feud was still further intensified when, on the death of the old
+Emperor (1888), the Crown Prince succeeded to the throne.  A family
+entanglement brought on a violent crisis.  One of the daughters of the
+new Empress had become betrothed to Prince Alexander of Battenberg, who
+had lately been ejected from the throne of Bulgaria owing to the
+hostility of the Tsar.  Victoria, as well as the Empress, highly
+approved of the match.  Of the two brothers of Prince Alexander, the
+elder had married another of her grand-daughters, and the younger was
+the husband of her daughter, the Princess Beatrice; she was devoted to
+the handsome young men; and she was delighted by the prospect of the
+third brother&mdash;on the whole the handsomest, she thought, of the
+three&mdash;also becoming a member of her family.  Unfortunately, however,
+Bismarck was opposed to the scheme.  He perceived that the marriage
+would endanger the friendship between Germany and Russia, which was
+vital to his foreign policy, and he announced that it must not take
+place.  A fierce struggle between the Empress and the Chancellor
+followed.  Victoria, whose hatred of her daughter's enemy was
+unbounded, came over to Charlottenburg to join in the fray.  Bismarck,
+over his pipe and his lager, snorted out his alarm.  The Queen of
+England's object, he said, was clearly political&mdash;she wished to
+estrange Germany and Russia&mdash;and very likely she would have her way.
+'In family matters,' he added, 'she is not used to contradiction'; she
+would 'bring the parson with her in her travelling-bag and the
+bridegroom in her trunk, and the marriage would
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P285"></A>285}</SPAN>
+come off on the
+spot.'  But the man of blood and iron was not to be thwarted so easily,
+and he asked for a private interview with the Queen.  The details of
+their conversation are unknown; but it is certain that in the course of
+it Victoria was forced to realise the meaning of resistance to that
+formidable personage, and that she promised to use all her influence to
+prevent the marriage.  The engagement was broken off; and in the
+following year Prince Alexander of Battenberg united himself to
+Fr�ulein Loisinger, an actress at the court theatre of Darmstadt.[<A NAME="chap09fn17text"></A><A HREF="#chap09fn17">17</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But such painful incidents were rare.  Victoria was growing very old;
+with no Albert to guide her, with no Beaconsfield to enflame her, she
+was willing enough to abandon the dangerous questions of diplomacy to
+the wisdom of Lord Salisbury, and to concentrate her energies upon
+objects which touched her more nearly and over which she could exercise
+an undisputed control.  Her home&mdash;her court&mdash;the monuments at
+Balmoral&mdash;the livestock at Windsor&mdash;the organisation of her
+engagements&mdash;the supervision of the multitudinous details of her daily
+routine&mdash;such matters played now an even greater part in her existence
+than before.  Her life passed in an extraordinary exactitude.  Every
+moment of her day was mapped out beforehand; the succession of her
+engagements was immutably fixed; the dates of her journeys&mdash;to Osborne,
+to Balmoral, to the South of France, to Windsor, to London&mdash;were hardly
+altered from year to year.  She demanded from those who surrounded her
+a rigid precision in details, and she was preternaturally quick in
+detecting the slightest deviation from the rules which she had laid
+down.  Such was the irresistible potency of her
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P286"></A>286}</SPAN>
+personality, that
+anything but the most implicit obedience to her wishes was felt to be
+impossible; but sometimes somebody was unpunctual; and unpunctuality
+was one of the most heinous of sins.  Then her displeasure&mdash;her
+dreadful displeasure&mdash;became all too visible.  At such moments there
+seemed nothing surprising in her having been the daughter of a
+martinet.[<A NAME="chap09fn18text"></A><A HREF="#chap09fn18">18</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But these storms, unnerving as they were while they lasted, were
+quickly over, and they grew more and more exceptional.  With the return
+of happiness a gentle benignity flowed from the aged Queen.  Her smile,
+once so rare a visitant to those saddened features, flitted over them
+with an easy alacrity; the blue eyes beamed; the whole face, starting
+suddenly from its pendulous expressionlessness, brightened and softened
+and cast over those who watched it an unforgettable charm.  For in her
+last years there was a fascination in Victoria's amiability which had
+been lacking even from the vivid impulse of her youth.  Over all who
+approached her&mdash;or very nearly all&mdash;she threw a peculiar spell.  Her
+grandchildren adored her; her ladies waited upon her with a reverential
+love.  The honour of serving her obliterated a thousand
+inconveniences&mdash;the monotony of a court existence, the fatigue of
+standing, the necessity for a superhuman attentiveness to the minutiae
+of time and space.  As one did one's wonderful duty one could forget
+that one's legs were aching from the infinitude of the passages at
+Windsor, or that one's bare arms were turning blue in the Balmoral cold.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+What, above all, seemed to make such service delightful was the
+detailed interest which the Queen took in the circumstances of those
+around her.  Her absorbing passion for the comfortable commonplaces,
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P287"></A>287}</SPAN>
+the small crises, the recurrent sentimentalities, of domestic
+life constantly demanded wider fields for its activity; the sphere of
+her own family, vast as it was, was not enough; she became the eager
+confidante of the household affairs of her ladies; her sympathies
+reached out to the palace domestics; even the housemaids and
+scullions&mdash;so it appeared&mdash;were the objects of her searching inquiries,
+and of her heartfelt solicitude when their lovers were ordered to a
+foreign station, or their aunts suffered from an attack of rheumatism
+which was more than usually acute.[<A NAME="chap09fn19text"></A><A HREF="#chap09fn19">19</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Nevertheless the due distinctions of rank were immaculately preserved.
+The Queen's mere presence was enough to ensure that; but, in addition,
+the dominion of court etiquette was paramount.  For that elaborate
+code, which had kept Lord Melbourne stiff upon the sofa and ranged the
+other guests in silence about the round table according to the order of
+precedence, was as punctiliously enforced as ever.  Every evening after
+dinner, the hearth-rug, sacred to royalty, loomed before the profane in
+inaccessible glory, or, on one or two terrific occasions, actually
+lured them magnetically forward to the very edge of the abyss.  The
+Queen, at the fitting moment, moved towards her guests; one after the
+other they were led up to her; and, while duologue followed duologue in
+constraint and embarrassment, the rest of the assembly stood still,
+without a word.[<A NAME="chap09fn20text"></A><A HREF="#chap09fn20">20</A>]  Only in one particular was the severity of the
+etiquette allowed to lapse.  Throughout the greater part of the reign
+the rule that ministers must stand
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P288"></A>288}</SPAN>
+during their audiences with
+the Queen had been absolute.  When Lord Derby, the Prime Minister, had
+an audience of Her Majesty after a serious illness, he mentioned it
+afterwards, as a proof of the royal favour, that the Queen had remarked
+'How sorry she was she could not ask him to be seated.'  Subsequently,
+Disraeli, after an attack of gout and in a moment of extreme expansion
+on the part of Victoria, had been offered a chair; but he had thought
+it wise humbly to decline the privilege.  In her later years, however,
+the Queen invariably asked Mr. Gladstone and Lord Salisbury to sit
+down.[<A NAME="chap09fn21text"></A><A HREF="#chap09fn21">21</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Sometimes the solemnity of the evening was diversified by a concert, an
+opera, or even a play.  One of the most marked indications of
+Victoria's enfranchisement from the thraldom of widowhood had been her
+resumption&mdash;after an interval of thirty years&mdash;of the custom of
+commanding dramatic companies from London to perform before the Court
+at Windsor.  On such occasions her spirits rose high.  She loved
+acting; she loved a good plot; above all, she loved a farce.  Engrossed
+by everything that passed upon the stage, she would follow, with
+childlike innocence, the unwinding of the story; or she would assume an
+air of knowing superiority and exclaim in triumph, 'There!  You didn't
+expect <I>that</I>, did you?' when the <I>d�nouement</I> came.  Her sense of
+humour was of a vigorous though primitive kind.  She had been one of
+the very few persons who had always been able to appreciate the Prince
+Consort's jokes; and, when those were cracked no more, she could still
+roar with laughter, in the privacy of her household, over some small
+piece of fun&mdash;some oddity of an ambassador, or some ignorant
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P289"></A>289}</SPAN>
+Minister's <I>faux pas</I>.  When the jest grew subtle she was less pleased;
+but, if it approached the confines of the indecorous, the danger was
+serious.  To take a liberty called down at once Her Majesty's most
+crushing disapprobation; and to say something improper was to take the
+greatest liberty of all.  Then the royal lips sank down at the corners,
+the royal eyes stared in astonished protrusion, and in fact the royal
+countenance became inauspicious in the highest degree, The transgressor
+shuddered into silence, while the awful 'We are not amused' annihilated
+the dinner table.  Afterwards, in her private entourage, the Queen
+would observe that the person in question was, she very much feared,
+'not discreet'; it was a verdict from which there was no appeal.[<A NAME="chap09fn22text"></A><A HREF="#chap09fn22">22</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In general, her �sthetic tastes had remained unchanged since the days
+of Mendelssohn, Landseer, and Lablache.  She still delighted in the
+roulades of Italian opera; she still demanded a high standard in the
+execution of a pianoforte duet.  Her views on painting were decided;
+Sir Edwin, she declared, was perfect; she was much impressed by Lord
+Leighton's manners; and she profoundly distrusted Mr. Watts.  From time
+to time she ordered engraved portraits to be taken of members of the
+royal family; on these occasions she would have the first proofs
+submitted to her, and, having inspected them with minute particularity,
+she would point out their mistakes to the artists, indicating at the
+same time how they might be corrected.  The artists invariably
+discovered that Her Majesty's suggestions were of the highest value.
+In literature her interests were more restricted.  She was devoted to
+Lord
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P290"></A>290}</SPAN>
+Tennyson; and, as the Prince Consort had admired George
+Eliot, she perused 'Middlemarch': she was disappointed.  There is
+reason to believe, however, that the romances of another female writer,
+whose popularity among the humbler classes of Her Majesty's subjects
+was at one time enormous, secured, no less, the approval of Her
+Majesty.  Otherwise she did not read very much.[<A NAME="chap09fn23text"></A><A HREF="#chap09fn23">23</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Once, however, the Queen's attention was drawn to a publication which
+it was impossible for her to ignore.  'The Greville Memoirs,' filled
+with a mass of historical information of extraordinary importance, but
+filled also with descriptions, which were by no means flattering, of
+George IV, William IV, and other royal persons, was brought out by Mr.
+Reeve.  Victoria read the book, and was appalled.  It was, she
+declared, a 'dreadful and really scandalous book,' and she could not
+say 'how <I>horrified</I> and <I>indignant</I>' she was at Greville's
+'indiscretion, indelicacy, ingratitude towards friends, betrayal of
+confidence and shameful disloyalty towards his Sovereign.'  She wrote
+to Disraeli to tell him that in her opinion it was '<I>very important</I>
+that the book should be severely censured and discredited.'  'The tone
+in which he speaks of royalty,' she added, 'is unlike anything one sees
+in history even, and is most reprehensible.'  Her anger was directed
+with almost equal vehemence against Mr. Reeve for his having published
+'such an abominable book,' and she charged Sir Arthur Helps to convey
+to him her deep displeasure.  Mr. Reeve, however, was impenitent.  When
+Sir Arthur told him that, in the Queen's opinion, 'the book degraded
+royalty,' he replied: 'Not at all; it elevates it by the contrast it
+offers
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P291"></A>291}</SPAN>
+between the present and the defunct state of affairs.' But
+this adroit defence failed to make any impression upon Victoria; and
+Mr. Reeve, when he retired from the public service, did not receive the
+knighthood which custom entitled him to expect.[<A NAME="chap09fn24text"></A><A HREF="#chap09fn24">24</A>]  Perhaps if the
+Queen had known how many caustic comments upon herself Mr. Reeve had
+quietly suppressed in the published Memoirs, she would have been almost
+grateful to him; but, in that case, what would she have said of
+Greville?  Imagination boggles at the thought.  As for more modern
+essays upon the same topic, Her Majesty, it is to be feared, would have
+characterised them as 'not discreet.'
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But as a rule the leisure hours of that active life were occupied with
+recreations of a less intangible quality than the study of literature
+or the appreciation of art.  Victoria was a woman not only of vast
+property but of innumerable possessions.  She had inherited an immense
+quantity of furniture, of ornaments, of china, of plate, of valuable
+objects of every kind; her purchases, throughout a long life, made a
+formidable addition to these stores; and there flowed in upon her,
+besides, from every quarter of the globe, a constant stream of gifts.
+Over this enormous mass she exercised an unceasing and minute
+supervision, and the arrangement and the contemplation of it, in all
+its details, filled her with an intimate satisfaction.  The collecting
+instinct has its roots in the very depths of human nature; and, in the
+case of Victoria, it seemed to owe its force to two of her dominating
+impulses&mdash;the intense sense, which had always been hers, of her own
+personality, and the craving which, growing with the years, had become
+in her old age almost an obsession, for fixity, for solidity, for
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P292"></A>292}</SPAN>
+the setting up of palpable barriers against the outrages of change and
+time.  When she considered the multitudinous objects which belonged to
+her, or, better still, when, choosing out some section of them as the
+fancy took her, she actually savoured the vivid richness of their
+individual qualities, she saw herself deliciously reflected from a
+million facets, felt herself magnified miraculously over a boundless
+area, and was well pleased.  That was just as it should be; but then
+came the dismaying thought&mdash;everything slips away, crumbles, vanishes;
+S�vres dinner-services get broken; even golden basins go unaccountably
+astray; even one's self, with all the recollections and experiences
+that make up one's being, fluctuates, perishes, dissolves ... But no!
+It could not, should not be so!  There should be no changes and no
+losses!  Nothing should ever move&mdash;neither the past nor the
+present&mdash;and she herself least of all!  And so the tenacious woman,
+hoarding her valuables, decreed their immortality with all the
+resolution of her soul.  She would not lose one memory or one pin.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She gave orders that nothing should be thrown away&mdash;and nothing was.
+There, in drawer after drawer, in wardrobe after wardrobe, reposed the
+dresses of seventy years.  But not only the dresses&mdash;the furs and the
+mantles and subsidiary frills and the muffs and the parasols and the
+bonnets&mdash;all were ranged in chronological order, dated and complete.  A
+great cupboard was devoted to the dolls; in the china-room at Windsor a
+special table held the mugs of her childhood, and her children's mugs
+as well.  Mementoes of the past surrounded her in serried
+accumulations.  In every room the tables were powdered thick with the
+photographs of relatives; their portraits, revealing
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P293"></A>293}</SPAN>
+them at all
+ages, covered the walls; their figures, in solid marble, rose up from
+pedestals, or gleamed from brackets in the form of gold and silver
+statuettes.  The dead, in every shape&mdash;in miniatures, in porcelain, in
+enormous life-size oil-paintings&mdash;were perpetually about her.  John
+Brown stood upon her writing-table in solid gold.  Her favourite horses
+and dogs, endowed with a new durability, crowded round her footsteps.
+Sharp, in silver-gilt, dominated the dinner-table; Boy and Boz lay
+together among unfading flowers, in bronze.  And it was not enough that
+each particle of the past should be given the stability of metal or of
+marble: the whole collection, in its arrangement, no less than its
+entity, should be immutably fixed.  There might be additions, but there
+might never be alterations.  No chintz might change, no carpet, no
+curtain, be replaced by another; or, if long use at last made it
+necessary, the stuffs and the patterns must be so identically
+reproduced that the keenest eye might not detect the difference.  No
+new picture could be hung upon the walls at Windsor, for those already
+there had been put in their places by Albert, whose decisions were
+eternal.  So, indeed, were Victoria's.  To ensure that they should be
+the aid of the camera was called in.  Every single article in the
+Queen's possession was photographed from several points of view.  These
+photographs were submitted to Her Majesty, and when, after careful
+inspection, she had approved of them, they were placed in a series of
+albums, richly bound.  Then, opposite each photograph, an entry was
+made, indicating the number of the article, the number of the room in
+which it was kept, its exact position in the room and all its principal
+characteristics.  The fate of every object which had undergone this
+process was henceforth
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P294"></A>294}</SPAN>
+irrevocably sealed.  The whole multitude,
+once and for all, took up its steadfast station.  And Victoria, with a
+gigantic volume or two of the endless catalogue always beside her, to
+look through, to ponder upon, to expatiate over, could feel, with a
+double contentment, that the transitoriness of this world had been
+arrested by the amplitude of her might.[<A NAME="chap09fn25text"></A><A HREF="#chap09fn25">25</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Thus the collection, ever multiplying, ever encroaching upon new fields
+of consciousness, ever rooting itself more firmly in the depths of
+instinct, became one of the dominating influences of that strange
+existence.  It was a collection not merely of things and of thoughts,
+but of states of mind and ways of living as well.  The celebration of
+anniversaries grew to be an important branch of it&mdash;of birthdays and
+marriage days and death days, each of which demanded its appropriate
+feeling, which, in its turn, must be itself expressed in an appropriate
+outward form.  And the form, of course&mdash;the ceremony of rejoicing or
+lamentation&mdash;was stereotyped with the rest: it was part of the
+collection.  On a certain day, for instance, flowers must be strewn on
+John Brown's monument at Balmoral; and the date of the yearly departure
+for Scotland was fixed by that fact.  Inevitably it was around the
+central circumstance of death&mdash;death, the final witness to human
+mutability&mdash;that these commemorative cravings clustered most thickly.
+Might not even death itself be humbled, if one could recall enough?&mdash;if
+one asserted, with a sufficiently passionate and reiterated emphasis,
+the eternity of love?  Accordingly, every bed in which Victoria slept
+had attached to it, at the back, on the right-hand side, above the
+pillow, a photograph of the head and shoulders of Albert
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P295"></A>295}</SPAN>
+as he
+lay dead, surmounted by a wreath of immortelles.[<A NAME="chap09fn26text"></A><A HREF="#chap09fn26">26</A>]  At Balmoral,
+where memories came crowding so closely, the solid signs of memory
+appeared in surprising profusion.  Obelisks, pyramids, tombs, statues,
+cairns, and seats of inscribed granite, proclaimed Victoria's
+dedication to the dead.  There, twice a year, on the days that followed
+her arrival, a solemn pilgrimage of inspection and meditation was
+performed.  There, on August 26&mdash;Albert's birthday&mdash;at the foot of the
+bronze statue of him in Highland dress, the Queen, her family, her
+Court, her servants, and her tenantry, met together and in silence
+drank to the memory of the dead.  In England the tokens of remembrance
+pullulated hardly less.  Not a day passed without some addition to the
+multifold assemblage&mdash;a gold statuette of Ross, the piper&mdash;a life-sized
+marble group of Victoria and Albert, in medieval costume, inscribed
+upon the base with the words: 'Allured to brighter worlds and led the
+way'&mdash;a granite slab in the shrubbery at Osborne, informing the visitor
+of 'Waldmann: the very favourite little dachshund of Queen Victoria;
+who brought him from Baden, April 1872; died, July 11, 1881.'[<A NAME="chap09fn27text"></A><A HREF="#chap09fn27">27</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At Frogmore, the great mausoleum, perpetually enriched, was visited
+almost daily by the Queen when the Court was at Windsor.[<A NAME="chap09fn28text"></A><A HREF="#chap09fn28">28</A>]  But there
+was another, a more secret and a hardly less holy shrine.  The suite of
+rooms which Albert had occupied in the Castle was kept for ever shut
+away from the eyes of any save the most privileged.  Within those
+precincts everything remained as it had been at the Prince's death; but
+the mysterious preoccupation of Victoria had commanded that her
+husband's clothing should be laid afresh, each
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P296"></A>296}</SPAN>
+evening, upon the
+bed, and that, each evening, the water should be set ready in the
+basin, as if he were still alive; and this incredible rite was
+performed with scrupulous regularity for nearly forty years.[<A NAME="chap09fn29text"></A><A HREF="#chap09fn29">29</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Such was the inner worship; and still the flesh obeyed the spirit;
+still the daily hours of labour proclaimed Victoria's consecration to
+duty and to the ideal of the dead.  Yet, with the years, the sense of
+self-sacrifice had faded; the natural energies of that ardent being
+discharged themselves with satisfaction into the channel of public
+work; the love of business which, from her girlhood, had been strong
+within her, reasserted itself in all its vigour, and, in her old age,
+to have been cut off from her papers and her boxes would have been, not
+a relief, but an agony to Victoria.  Thus, though toiling Ministers
+might sigh and suffer, the whole process of government continued, till
+the very end, to pass before her.  Nor was that all; ancient precedent
+had made the validity of an enormous number of official transactions
+dependent upon the application of the royal sign-manual; and a great
+proportion of the Queen's working hours was spent in this mechanical
+task.  Nor did she show any desire to diminish it.  On the contrary,
+she voluntarily resumed the duty of signing commissions in the Army,
+from which she had been set free by Act of Parliament, and from which,
+during the years of middle life, she had abstained.  In no case would
+she countenance the proposal that she should use a stamp.  But, at
+last, when the increasing pressure of business made the delays of the
+antiquated system intolerable, she consented that, for certain classes
+of documents, her oral sanction should be sufficient.  Each paper was
+read aloud to her, and she said at the end 'Approved.'
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P297"></A>297}</SPAN>
+Often, for
+hours at a time, she would sit, with Albert's bust in front of her,
+while the word 'Approved' issued at intervals from her lips.  The word
+came forth with a majestic sonority; for her voice now&mdash;how changed
+from the silvery treble of her girlhood!&mdash;was a contralto, full and
+strong.[<A NAME="chap09fn30text"></A><A HREF="#chap09fn30">30</A>]
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+IV
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+The final years were years of apotheosis.  In the dazzled imagination
+of her subjects Victoria soared aloft towards the regions of divinity
+through a nimbus of purest glory.  Criticism fell dumb; deficiencies
+which, twenty years earlier, would have been universally admitted, were
+now as universally ignored.  That the nation's idol was a very
+incomplete representative of the nation was a circumstance that was
+hardly noticed, and yet it was conspicuously true.  For the vast
+changes which, out of the England of 1837, had produced the England of
+1897, seemed scarcely to have touched the Queen.  The immense
+industrial development of the period, the significance of which had
+been so thoroughly understood by Albert, meant little indeed to
+Victoria.  The amazing scientific movement, which Albert had
+appreciated no less, left Victoria perfectly cold.  Her conception of
+the universe, and of man's place in it, and of the stupendous problems
+of nature and philosophy remained, throughout her life, entirely
+unchanged.  Her religion was the religion which she had learnt from the
+Baroness Lehzen and the Duchess of Kent.  Here, too, it might be
+supposed that Albert's views would have influenced her.  For Albert, in
+matters of religion,
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P298"></A>298}</SPAN>
+was advanced.  Disbelieving altogether in
+evil spirits, he had had his doubts about the miracle of the Gadarene
+Swine.[<A NAME="chap09fn31text"></A><A HREF="#chap09fn31">31</A>]  Stockmar, even, had thrown out, in a remarkable memorandum
+on the education of the Prince of Wales, the suggestion that while the
+child 'must unquestionably be brought up in the creed of the Church of
+England,' it might nevertheless be in accordance with the spirit of the
+times to exclude from his religious training the inculcation of a
+belief in 'the supernatural doctrines of Christianity.'[<A NAME="chap09fn32text"></A><A HREF="#chap09fn32">32</A>]  This,
+however, would have been going too far; and all the royal children were
+brought up in complete orthodoxy.  Anything else would have grieved
+Victoria, though her own conceptions of the orthodox were not very
+precise.  But her nature, in which imagination and subtlety held so
+small a place, made her instinctively recoil from the intricate
+ecstasies of High Anglicanism; and she seemed to feel most at home in
+the simple faith of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland.[<A NAME="chap09fn33text"></A><A HREF="#chap09fn33">33</A>]  This was
+what might have been expected; for Lehzen was the daughter of a
+Lutheran pastor, and the Lutherans and the Presbyterians have much in
+common.  For many years Dr. Norman Macleod, an innocent Scotch
+minister, was her principal spiritual adviser; and, when he was taken
+from her, she drew much comfort from quiet chats about life and death
+with the cottagers at Balmoral.[<A NAME="chap09fn34text"></A><A HREF="#chap09fn34">34</A>]  Her piety, absolutely genuine,
+found what it wanted in the sober exhortations of old John Grant and
+the devout saws of Mrs. P. Farquharson.  They possessed the qualities,
+which, as a child of fourteen, she had so sincerely admired in the
+Bishop of Chester's 'Exposition of the Gospel of St. Matthew'; they
+were 'just plain and comprehensible
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P299"></A>299}</SPAN>
+and full of truth and good
+feeling.'  The Queen, who gave her name to the Age of Mill and of
+Darwin, never got any further than that.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+From the social movements of her time Victoria was equally remote.
+Towards the smallest no less than towards the greatest changes she
+remained inflexible.  During her youth and middle-age smoking had been
+forbidden in polite society, and so long as she lived she would not
+withdraw her anathema against it.  Kings might protest; bishops and
+ambassadors, invited to Windsor, might be reduced, in the privacy of
+their bedrooms, to lie full-length upon the floor and smoke up the
+chimney&mdash;the interdict continued.[<A NAME="chap09fn35text"></A><A HREF="#chap09fn35">35</A>]  It might have been supposed that
+a female sovereign would have lent her countenance to one of the most
+vital of all the reforms to which her epoch gave birth&mdash;the
+emancipation of women&mdash;but, on the contrary, the mere mention of such a
+proposal sent the blood rushing to her head.  In 1870, her eye having
+fallen upon the report of a meeting in favour of Women's Suffrage, she
+wrote to Mr. Martin in royal rage&mdash;'The Queen is most anxious to enlist
+everyone who can speak or write to join in checking this mad, wicked
+folly of "Woman's Rights," with all its attendant horrors, on which her
+poor feeble sex is bent, forgetting every sense of womanly feeling and
+propriety.  Lady &mdash;&mdash; ought to get a <I>good whipping</I>.  It is a subject
+which makes the Queen so furious that she cannot contain herself.  God
+created men and women different&mdash;then let them remain each in their own
+position.  Tennyson has some beautiful lines on the difference of men
+and women in "The Princess."  Woman would become the most hateful,
+heartless, and disgusting of human beings were she allowed to
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P300"></A>300}</SPAN>
+unsex herself; and where would be the protection which man was intended
+to give the weaker sex?  The Queen is sure that Mrs. Martin agrees with
+her.'[<A NAME="chap09fn36text"></A><A HREF="#chap09fn36">36</A>]  The argument was irrefutable; Mrs. Martin agreed; and yet
+the canker spread.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In another direction Victoria's comprehension of the spirit of her age
+has been constantly asserted.  It was for long the custom for courtly
+historians and polite politicians to compliment the Queen upon the
+correctness of her attitude towards the Constitution.  But such praises
+seem hardly to be justified by the facts.  In her later years Victoria
+more than once alluded with regret to her conduct during the Bedchamber
+crisis, and let it be understood that she had grown wiser since.[<A NAME="chap09fn37text"></A><A HREF="#chap09fn37">37</A>]
+Yet in truth it is difficult to trace any fundamental change either in
+her theory or her practice in constitutional matters throughout her
+life.  The same despotic and personal spirit which led her to break off
+the negotiations with Peel is equally visible in her animosity towards
+Palmerston, in her threats of abdication to Disraeli, and in her desire
+to prosecute the Duke of Westminster for attending a meeting upon
+Bulgarian atrocities.  The complex and delicate principles of the
+Constitution cannot be said to have come within the compass of her
+mental faculties; and in the actual developments which it underwent
+during her reign she played a passive part.  From 1840 to 1861 the
+power of the Crown steadily increased in England; from 1861 to 1901 it
+steadily declined.  The first process was due to the influence of the
+Prince Consort, the second to that of a series of great Ministers.
+During the first Victoria was in effect a mere accessory; during the
+second the threads of power, which Albert had so laboriously collected,
+inevitably fell
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P301"></A>301}</SPAN>
+from her hands into the vigorous grasp of Mr.
+Gladstone, Lord Beaconsfield, and Lord Salisbury.  Perhaps, absorbed as
+she was in routine, and difficult as she found it to distinguish at all
+clearly between the trivial and the essential, she was only dimly aware
+of what was happening.  Yet, at the end of her reign, the Crown was
+weaker than at any other time in English history.  Paradoxically
+enough, Victoria received the highest eulogiums for assenting to a
+political evolution which, had she completely realised its import,
+would have filled her with supreme displeasure.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Nevertheless it must not be supposed that she was a second George III.
+Her desire to impose her will, vehement as it was, and unlimited by any
+principle, was yet checked by a certain shrewdness.  She might oppose
+her Ministers with extraordinary violence; she might remain utterly
+impervious to arguments and supplications; the pertinacity of her
+resolution might seem to be unconquerable; but, at the very last moment
+of all, her obstinacy would give way.  Her innate respect and capacity
+for business, and perhaps, too, the memory of Albert's scrupulous
+avoidance of extreme courses, prevented her from ever entering an
+<I>impasse</I>.  By instinct she understood when the facts were too much for
+her, and to them she invariably yielded.  After all, what else could
+she do?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But if, in all these ways, the Queen and her epoch were profoundly
+separated, the points of contact between them also were not few.
+Victoria understood very well the meaning and the attractions of power
+and property, and in such learning the English nation, too, had grown
+to be more and more proficient.  During the last fifteen years of the
+reign&mdash;for the short Liberal Administration of 1892 was a mere
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P302"></A>302}</SPAN>
+interlude&mdash;imperialism was the dominant creed of the country.  It was
+Victoria's as well.  In this direction, if in no other, she had allowed
+her mind to develop.  Under Disraeli's tutelage the British Dominions
+over the seas had come to mean much more to her than ever before, and,
+in particular, she had grown enamoured of the East.  The thought of
+India fascinated her; she set to, and learnt a little Hindustani; she
+engaged some Indian servants, who became her inseparable attendants,
+and one of whom, Munshi Abdul Karim, eventually almost succeeded to the
+position which had once been John Brown's.[<A NAME="chap09fn38text"></A><A HREF="#chap09fn38">38</A>]  At the same time, the
+imperialist temper of the nation invested her office with a new
+significance exactly harmonising with her own inmost proclivities.  The
+English polity was in the main a common-sense structure; but there was
+always a corner in it where common-sense could not enter&mdash;where,
+somehow or other, the ordinary measurements were not applicable and the
+ordinary rules did not apply.  So our ancestors had laid it down,
+giving scope, in their wisdom, to that mystical element which, as it
+seems, can never quite be eradicated from the affairs of men.
+Naturally it was in the Crown that the mysticism of the English polity
+was concentrated&mdash;the Crown, with its venerable antiquity, its sacred
+associations, its imposing spectacular array.  But, for nearly two
+centuries, common-sense had been predominant in the great building, and
+the little, unexplored, inexplicable corner had attracted small
+attention.  Then, with the rise of imperialism, there was a change.
+For imperialism is a faith as well as a business; as it grew, the
+mysticism in English public life grew with it; and simultaneously a new
+importance began to attach to the Crown.  The
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P303"></A>303}</SPAN>
+need for a
+symbol&mdash;a symbol of England's might, of England's worth, of England's
+extraordinary and mysterious destiny&mdash;became felt more urgently than
+ever before.  The Crown was that symbol: and the Crown rested upon the
+head of Victoria.  Thus it happened that while by the end of the reign
+the power of the sovereign had appreciably diminished, the prestige of
+the sovereign had enormously grown.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Yet this prestige was not merely the outcome of public changes; it was
+an intensely personal matter, too.  Victoria was the Queen of England,
+the Empress of India, the quintessential pivot round which the whole
+magnificent machine was revolving&mdash;but how much more besides!  For one
+thing, she was of a great age&mdash;an almost indispensable qualification
+for popularity in England.  She had given proof of one of the most
+admired characteristics of the race&mdash;persistent vitality.  She had
+reigned for sixty years, and she was not out.  And then, she was a
+character.  The outlines of her nature were firmly drawn, and, even
+through the mists which envelop royalty, clearly visible.  In the
+popular imagination her familiar figure filled, with satisfying ease, a
+distinct and memorable place.  It was, besides, the kind of figure
+which naturally called forth the admiring sympathy of the great
+majority of the nation.  Goodness they prized above every other human
+quality; and Victoria, who, at the age of twelve, had said that she
+would be good, had kept her word.  Duty, conscience, morality&mdash;yes! in
+the light of those high beacons the Queen had always lived.  She had
+passed her days in work and not in pleasure&mdash;in public responsibilities
+and family cares.  The standard of solid virtue which had been set up
+so long ago amid the domestic happiness of Osborne had never been
+lowered for an instant.  For
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P304"></A>304}</SPAN>
+more than half a century no divorced
+lady had approached the precincts of the Court.  Victoria, indeed, in
+her enthusiasm for wifely fidelity, had laid down a still stricter
+ordinance: she frowned severely upon any widow who married again.[<A NAME="chap09fn39text"></A><A HREF="#chap09fn39">39</A>]
+Considering that she herself was the offspring of a widow's second
+marriage, this prohibition might be regarded as an eccentricity; but,
+no doubt, it was an eccentricity on the right side.  The middle
+classes, firm in the triple brass of their respectability, rejoiced
+with a special joy over the most respectable of Queens.  They almost
+claimed her, indeed, as one of themselves; but this would have been an
+exaggeration.  For, though many of her characteristics were most often
+found among the middle classes, in other respects&mdash;in her manners, for
+instance&mdash;Victoria was decidedly aristocratic.  And, in one important
+particular, she was neither aristocratic nor middle-class: her attitude
+toward herself was simply regal.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Such qualities were obvious and important; but, in the impact of a
+personality, it is something deeper, something fundamental and common
+to all its qualities, that really tells.  In Victoria, it is easy to
+discern the nature of this underlying element: it was a peculiar
+sincerity.  Her truthfulness, her single-mindedness, the vividness of
+her emotions and her unrestrained expression of them, were the varied
+forms which this central characteristic assumed.  It was her sincerity
+which gave her at once her impressiveness, her charm, and her
+absurdity.  She moved through life with the imposing certitude of one
+to whom concealment was impossible&mdash;either towards her surroundings or
+towards herself.  There she was, all of her&mdash;the Queen of England,
+complete and obvious; the world might take her or
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P305"></A>305}</SPAN>
+leave her; she
+had nothing more to show, or to explain, or to modify; and, with her
+peerless carriage, she swept along her path.  And not only was
+concealment out of the question; reticence, reserve, even dignity
+itself, as it sometimes seemed, might be very well dispensed with.  As
+Lady Lyttelton said: 'There is a transparency in her truth that is very
+striking&mdash;not a shade of exaggeration in describing feelings or facts;
+like very few other people I ever knew.  Many may be as true, but I
+think it goes often along with some reserve.  She talks all out; just
+as it is, no more and no less.'[<A NAME="chap09fn40text"></A><A HREF="#chap09fn40">40</A>]  She talked all out; and she wrote
+all out, too.  Her letters, in the surprising jet of their expression,
+remind one of a turned-on tap.  What is within pours forth in an
+immediate, spontaneous rush.  Her utterly unliterary style has at least
+the merit of being a vehicle exactly suited to her thoughts and
+feelings; and even the platitude of her phraseology carries with it a
+curiously personal flavour.  Undoubtedly it was through her writings
+that she touched the heart of the public.  Not only in her 'Highland
+Journals,' where the mild chronicle of her private proceedings was laid
+bare without a trace either of affectation or of embarrassment, but
+also in those remarkable messages to the nation which, from time to
+time, she published in the newspapers, her people found her very close
+to them indeed.  They felt instinctively Victoria's irresistible
+sincerity, and they responded.  And in truth it was an endearing trait.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The personality and the position, too&mdash;the wonderful combination of
+them&mdash;that, perhaps, was what was finally fascinating in the case.  The
+little old lady, with her white hair and her plain mourning clothes, in
+her wheeled chair or her donkey-carriage&mdash;one saw her so;
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P306"></A>306}</SPAN>
+and
+then&mdash;close behind&mdash;with their immediate suggestion of singularity, of
+mystery, and of power&mdash;the Indian servants.  That was the familiar
+vision, and it was admirable; but, at chosen moments, it was right that
+the widow of Windsor should step forth apparent Queen.  The last and
+the most glorious of such occasions was the Jubilee of 1897.  Then, as
+the splendid procession passed along, escorting Victoria through the
+thronged re-echoing streets of London on her progress of thanksgiving
+to St. Paul's Cathedral, the greatness of her realm and the adoration
+of her subjects blazed out together.  The tears welled to her eyes,
+and, while the multitude roared round her, 'How kind they are to me!
+How kind they are!' she repeated over and over again.[<A NAME="chap09fn41text"></A><A HREF="#chap09fn41">41</A>]  That night
+her message flew over the Empire: 'From my heart I thank my beloved
+people.  May God bless them!'  The long journey was nearly done.  But
+the traveller, who had come so far, and through such strange
+experiences, moved on with the old unfaltering step.  The girl, the
+wife, the aged woman, were the same: vitality, conscientiousness,
+pride, and simplicity were hers to the latest hour.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap09fn1"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap09fn1text">1</A>] Hall�, 296.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap09fn2"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap09fn2text">2</A>] <I>Notes and Queries</I>, May 20, 1920.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap09fn3"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap09fn3text">3</A>] Neele, 476-8, 487.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap09fn4"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap09fn4text">4</A>] <I>More Leaves</I>, <I>v</I>.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap09fn5"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap09fn5text">5</A>] <I>More Leaves</I>, passim; Crawford, 326-31; private information.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap09fn6"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap09fn6text">6</A>] Martin, I, 88, 137-43.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap09fn7"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap09fn7text">7</A>] <I>Ibid.</I>, II, 285.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap09fn8"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap09fn8text">8</A>] <I>The Times</I>, April 20, 1882.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap09fn9"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap09fn9text">9</A>] Letter from Sir Herbert Stephen to <I>The Times</I>, December 15,1920.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap09fn10"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap09fn10text">10</A>] Morley, III, 167.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap09fn11"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap09fn11text">11</A>] Private information.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap09fn12"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap09fn12text">12</A>] Morley, III, 347-8.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap09fn13"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap09fn13text">13</A>] Jerrold, <I>Widowhood</I>, 344; private information.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap09fn14"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap09fn14text">14</A>] Lee, 487.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap09fn15"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap09fn15text">15</A>] <I>More Leaves</I>, 23, 29.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap09fn16"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap09fn16text">16</A>] Eckardstein, I, 184-7.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap09fn17"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap09fn17text">17</A>] Grant Robertson, 458-9; Busch, III, 174-188; Lee, 490-2.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap09fn18"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap09fn18text">18</A>] <I>Quarterly Review</I>, CXCIII, 305-6, 308-10.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap09fn19"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap09fn19text">19</A>] <I>Quarterly Review</I>, CXCIII, 315-6; Miss Ethel Smyth, <I>London
+Mercury</I>, Nov. 1920; private information.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap09fn20"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap09fn20text">20</A>] <I>Ibid.</I>, CXCIII, 325; Miss Ethel Smyth, <I>London Mercury</I>, Nov.
+1920.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap09fn21"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap09fn21text">21</A>] Buckle, V, 339; Morley, III, 347, 514.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap09fn22"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap09fn22text">22</A>] Quarterly Review, CXCIII, 315, 316-7, 324-5, 326; <I>Spinster Lady</I>,
+268-9; Lee, 504-5.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap09fn23"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap09fn23text">23</A>] <I>Quarterly Review</I>, CXCIII, 322-4; Martin, <I>Queen Victoria</I>, 46-9;
+private information.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap09fn24"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap09fn24text">24</A>] Buckle, V, 349-51; Laughton, II, 226.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap09fn25"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap09fn25text">25</A>] <I>Private Life</I>, 13, 66, 69, 70-1, 151, 182.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap09fn26"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap09fn26text">26</A>] <I>Private Life</I>, 19.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap09fn27"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap09fn27text">27</A>] <I>Ibid.</I>, 212, 207.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap09fn28"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap09fn28text">28</A>] <I>Ibid.</I>, 233.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap09fn29"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap09fn29text">29</A>] Private information.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap09fn30"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap09fn30text">30</A>] Lee, 514-15; Crawford, 362-3.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap09fn31"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap09fn31text">31</A>] Wilberforce, Samuel, II, 275.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap09fn32"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap09fn32text">32</A>] Martin, II, 185-7.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap09fn33"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap09fn33text">33</A>] <I>Quarterly Review</I>, CXCIII, 319-20.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap09fn34"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap09fn34text">34</A>] Crawford, 349.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap09fn35"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap09fn35text">35</A>] Eckardstein, I, 177.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap09fn36"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap09fn36text">36</A>] Martin, Queen Victoria, 69-70.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap09fn37"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap09fn37text">37</A>] <I>Girlhood</I>, II, 142.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap09fn38"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap09fn38text">38</A>] Lee, 485; private information.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap09fn39"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap09fn39text">39</A>] Lee, 555.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap09fn40"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap09fn40text">40</A>] Lyttelton, 331
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap09fn41"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap09fn41text">41</A>] <I>Quarterly Review</I>, CXCIII, 310.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap10"></A>
+
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P307"></A>307}</SPAN>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER X
+</H3>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+THE END
+</H4>
+
+<P>
+The evening had been golden; but, after all, the day was to close in
+cloud and tempest.  Imperial needs, imperial ambitions, involved the
+country in the South African War.  There were checks, reverses, bloody
+disasters; for a moment the nation was shaken, and the public
+distresses were felt with intimate solicitude by the Queen.  But her
+spirit was high, and neither her courage nor her confidence wavered for
+a moment.  Throwing herself heart and soul into the struggle, she
+laboured with redoubled vigour, interested herself in every detail of
+the hostilities, and sought by every means in her power to render
+service to the national cause.  In April 1900, when she was in her
+eighty-first year, she made the extraordinary decision to abandon her
+annual visit to the South of France, and to go instead to Ireland,
+which had provided a particularly large number of recruits to the
+armies in the field.  She stayed for three weeks in Dublin, driving
+through the streets, in spite of the warnings of her advisers, without
+an armed escort; and the visit was a complete success.  But, in the
+course of it, she began, for the first time, to show signs of the
+fatigue of age.[<A NAME="chap10fn1text"></A><A HREF="#chap10fn1">1</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For the long strain and the unceasing anxiety, brought by the war, made
+themselves felt at last.
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P308"></A>308}</SPAN>
+Endowed by nature with a robust
+constitution, Victoria, though in periods of depression she had
+sometimes supposed herself an invalid, had in reality throughout her
+life enjoyed remarkably good health.  In her old age, she had suffered
+from a rheumatic stiffness of the joints, which had necessitated the
+use of a stick, and, eventually, a wheeled chair; but no other ailments
+attacked her, until, in 1898, her eyesight began to be affected by
+incipient cataract.  After that, she found reading more and more
+difficult, though she could still sign her name, and even, with some
+difficulty, write letters.  In the summer of 1900, however, more
+serious symptoms appeared.  Her memory, in whose strength and precision
+she had so long prided herself, now sometimes deserted her; there was a
+tendency towards aphasia; and, while no specific disease declared
+itself, by the autumn there were unmistakable signs of a general
+physical decay.  Yet, even in these last months, the vein of iron held
+firm.  The daily work continued; nay, it actually increased; for the
+Queen, with an astonishing pertinacity, insisted upon communicating
+personally with an ever-growing multitude of men and women who had
+suffered through the war.[<A NAME="chap10fn2text"></A><A HREF="#chap10fn2">2</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+By the end of the year the last remains of her ebbing strength had
+almost deserted her; and through the early days of the opening century
+it was clear that her dwindling forces were kept together only by an
+effort of will.  On January 11, she had at Osborne an hour's interview
+with Lord Roberts, who had returned victorious from South Africa a few
+days before.  She inquired with acute anxiety into all the details of
+the war; she appeared to sustain the exertion successfully; but, when
+the audience was over, there was a collapse.  On the
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P309"></A>309}</SPAN>
+following
+day her medical attendants recognised that her state was hopeless; and
+yet, for two days more, the indomitable spirit fought on; for two days
+more she discharged the duties of a Queen of England.  But after that
+there was an end of working; and then, and not till then, did the last
+optimism of those about her break down.  The brain was failing, and
+life was gently slipping away.  Her family gathered round her; for a
+little more she lingered, speechless and apparently insensible; and, on
+January 22, 1901, she died.[<A NAME="chap10fn3text"></A><A HREF="#chap10fn3">3</A>]
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When, two days previously, the news of the approaching end had been
+made public, astonished grief had swept over the country.  It appeared
+as if some monstrous reversal of the course of nature was about to take
+place.  The vast majority of her subjects had never known a time when
+Queen Victoria had not been reigning over them.  She had become an
+indissoluble part of their whole scheme of things, and that they were
+about to lose her appeared a scarcely possible thought.  She herself,
+as she lay blind and silent, seemed to those who watched her to be
+divested of all thinking&mdash;to have glided already, unawares, into
+oblivion.  Yet, perhaps, in the secret chambers of consciousness, she
+had her thoughts, too.  Perhaps her fading mind called up once more the
+shadows of the past to float before it, and retraced, for the last
+time, the vanished visions of that long history&mdash;passing back and back,
+through the cloud of years, to older and ever older memories&mdash;to the
+spring woods at Osborne, so full of primroses for Lord Beaconsfield&mdash;to
+Lord Palmerston's queer clothes and high demeanour, and Albert's face
+under the green lamp, and Albert's first stag at Balmoral, and Albert
+in his blue and silver uniform, and the Baron coming in through
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P310"></A>310}</SPAN>
+a
+doorway, and Lord M. dreaming at Windsor with the rooks cawing in the
+elm-trees, and the Archbishop of Canterbury on his knees in the dawn,
+and the old King's turkey-cock ejaculations, and Uncle Leopold's soft
+voice at Claremont, and Lehzen with the globes, and her mother's
+feathers sweeping down towards her, and a great old repeater-watch of
+her father's in its tortoise-shell case, and a yellow rug, and some
+friendly flounces of sprigged muslin, and the trees and the grass at
+Kensington.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap10fn1"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap10fn1text">1</A>] <I>Quarterly Review</I>, CXCIII, 318, 336-7.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap10fn2"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap10fn2text">2</A>] Lee, 536-7; private information.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="footnote">
+<A NAME="chap10fn3"></A>
+[<A HREF="#chap10fn3text">3</A>] Lee, 537-9; <I>Quarterly Review</I>, CXCIII, 309.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap11"></A>
+
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P311"></A>311}</SPAN>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+BIBLIOGRAPHY
+</H3>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+AND
+</H4>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+LIST OF REFERENCES IN THE NOTES, ARRANGED ALPHABETICALLY
+</H4>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="biblio">
+ADAMS.  <I>The Education of Henry Adams: an autobiography</I>.  London, 1919.
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+
+<P>
+<SPAN CLASS="pagenum">{<A NAME="P314"></A>314}</SPAN>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="biblio">
+STOCKMAR.  <I>Denkw�rdigkeiten aus den Papieren des Freiherrn Christian
+Friedrich v. Stockmar</I>, zusammengestellt von Ernst Freiherr v.
+Stockmar.  Braunschweilg.  1872.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="biblio">
+TAIT.  <I>The Life of Archibald Campbell Tait, Archbishop of Canterbury</I>.
+2 vols.  1891.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="biblio">
+<I>The Times</I>.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="biblio">
+<I>The Times</I> LIFE.  <I>The Life of Queen Victoria</I>, reproduced from <I>The
+Times</I>.  1901.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="biblio">
+TORRENS.  <I>Memoirs of William Lamb, second Viscount Melbourne</I>.  By W.
+M. Torrens.  (Minerva Library Edition.)  1890.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="biblio">
+VITZTHUM.  <I>St. Petersburg und London in den Jahren 1852-1864</I>.  Carl
+Friedrich Graf Vitzthum von Eckstadt.  Stuttgart.  1886.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="biblio">
+WALPOLE.  <I>The Life of Lord John Russell</I>.  By Sir Spencer Walpole.  2
+vols.  1889.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="biblio">
+WILBERFORCE, SAMUEL.  <I>Life of Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford</I>.
+By his son, R. G. Wilberforce.  3 vols.  1881.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="biblio">
+WILBERFORCE, WILLIAM.  <I>The Life of William Wilberforce</I>.  5 vols.
+1838.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="biblio">
+WYNN.  <I>Diaries of a Lady of Quality</I>.  By Miss Frances Williams Wynn.
+1864.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<P CLASS="t4">
+Printed by SPOTTISWOODE, BALLANTYNE &amp; CO. LTD.
+<BR>
+Colchester, London &amp; Eton, England
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<HR>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap12"></A>
+
+<P CLASS="t3">
+<I>SOME OPINIONS ON 'EMINENT VICTORIANS'</I>
+<BR>
+<I>NOW IN ITS NINTH EDITION</I>
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+'Mr. Lytton Strachey's "Eminent Victorians" has had, I suppose, the
+most instant success that any book of account has won in this
+generation.  Some of Mr. Strachey's incidental portraits are of
+astonishing brilliancy&mdash;notably that of Mr. Gladstone, and the book is
+sure of long life.  This it will owe to its felicity of style and its
+finish and delicacy of moulding, no less than to its cynical wit and
+its perfectly serious and critical intention.'&mdash;<I>The Nation</I>.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+'A brilliant and extraordinarily witty book.  Mr. Strachey's method of
+presenting his characters is both masterly and subtle.  His purpose is
+to penetrate into the most hidden depths of his sitters' characters.
+There is something almost uncanny in the author's detachment.'&mdash;<I>The
+Times</I>.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+'An unusually interesting volume in a department of literature which,
+in England, has fallen to a grievously low level.'&mdash;<I>Manchester
+Guardian</I>.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+'Four short biographies which are certainly equal to anything of the
+kind which has been produced for a hundred years.  He elucidates with
+consummate dexterity&mdash;the book is a masterpiece of its kind.'&mdash;Mr. J.
+C. Squire, in <I>Land and Water</I>.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+'A brilliant book has recently appeared which illustrates in very
+vigorous and striking fashion the interval which seems to divide the
+twentieth century from the nineteenth.  Mr. Lytton Strachey's book has
+attained a celebrity quite remarkable for literary work produced in
+times of war.  There is no doubt as to its literary merits.'&mdash;Leading
+Article in <I>The Daily Telegraph</I>.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+'This book is brilliant and witty and iconoclastic enough, but it has
+also something in it which gives it greatness.  Regarded as an example
+of the manner in which biography can be written, it is almost
+unparalleled in English; and many readers will be rejoiced if Mr.
+Strachey can be induced to become a Plutarch of the modern
+world.'&mdash;<I>Westminster Gazette</I>.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+'It is impossible here even to outline the precise, vivid, and witty
+essays which Mr. Strachey has devoted to his four characters.  But he
+has certainly done something to redeem English biography from the
+reproach under which it suffers when compared with the art as practised
+in France; and he comes close to the standard which he sets himself
+when he speaks of the "Fontenelles and Condorcets."'&mdash;<I>New Statesman</I>.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+'Mr. Strachey's subtle and suggestive art.'&mdash;<I>Mr. Asquith's Romanes
+Lecture at Oxford</I>.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<P CLASS="t4">
+LONDON: CHATTO &amp; WINDUS
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR><BR>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Queen Victoria, by Lytton Strachey
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK QUEEN VICTORIA ***
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+</pre>
+
+</BODY>
+
+</HTML>
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Queen Victoria, by Lytton Strachey
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Queen Victoria
+
+Author: Lytton Strachey
+
+Release Date: August 21, 2011 [EBook #37153]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK QUEEN VICTORIA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Al Haines
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Frontispiece: QUEEN VICTORIA, PRINCE ALBERT AND THE ROYAL FAMILY.
+_From the Picture by F. Winterhalter_.]
+
+
+
+
+
+QUEEN VICTORIA
+
+
+BY
+
+LYTTON STRACHEY
+
+
+
+
+LONDON
+
+CHATTO & WINDUS
+
+1921
+
+
+
+
+TO
+
+VIRGINIA WOOLF
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER
+TOC
+    I. ANTECEDENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   1
+   II. CHILDHOOD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  18
+  III. LORD MELBOURNE  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  51
+   IV. MARRIAGE  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  97
+    V. LORD PALMERSTON . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
+   VI. LAST YEARS OF THE PRINCE CONSORT  . . . . . . 185
+  VII. WIDOWHOOD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
+ VIII. MR. GLADSTONE AND LORD BEACONSFIELD . . . . . 240
+   IX. OLD AGE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269
+    X. THE END . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307
+  ZZZ     BIBLIOGRAPHY  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311
+ETOC
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+QUEEN VICTORIA, PRINCE ALBERT AND THE ROYAL FAMILY.
+  From the picture of F. Winterhalter, at Buckingham
+  Palace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _Frontispiece_
+
+PRINCESS VICTORIA IN 1836.
+  From a print after the picture by F. Winterhalter
+
+LORD MELBOURNE.
+  From the portrait by Sir Edwin Landseer, R.A., in
+  possession of the Earl of Rosebery
+
+QUEEN VICTORIA IN 1838.
+  From the portrait by E. Corbould
+
+PRINCE ALBERT IN 1840.
+  From the portrait by John Partridge, at Buckingham Palace
+
+QUEEN VICTORIA AND THE PRINCE CONSORT IN 1860
+
+QUEEN VICTORIA IN 1863
+
+QUEEN VICTORIA IN 1876.
+  From the portrait by Von Angeli, in possession of
+  Coningsby Disraeli, Esq.  Presented by Her Majesty to
+  the Earl of Beaconsfield
+
+QUEEN VICTORIA IN 1897
+
+
+
+_For facilities afforded in regard to the reproduction of certain of
+the above, thanks are due to Mr. John Murray_.
+
+
+
+
+_Authority for every important statement of fact in the following pages
+will be found in the footnotes.  The full titles of the works to which
+reference is made are given in the Bibliography at the end of the
+volume_.
+
+_The author is indebted to the Trustees of the British Museum for their
+permission to make use of certain unpublished passages in the
+manuscript of the Greville Memoirs_.
+
+
+
+
+{1}
+
+QUEEN VICTORIA
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+ANTECEDENTS
+
+I
+
+On November 6, 1817, died the Princess Charlotte, only child of the
+Prince Regent, and heir to the crown of England.  Her short life had
+hardly been a happy one.  By nature impulsive, capricious, and
+vehement, she had always longed for liberty; and she had never
+possessed it.  She had been brought up among violent family quarrels,
+had been early separated from her disreputable and eccentric mother,
+and handed over to the care of her disreputable and selfish father.
+When she was seventeen, he decided to marry her off to the Prince of
+Orange; she, at first, acquiesced; but, suddenly falling in love with
+Prince Augustus of Prussia, she determined to break off the engagement.
+This was not her first love affair, for she had previously carried on a
+clandestine correspondence with a Captain Hess.  Prince Augustus was
+already married, morganatically, but she did not know it, and he did
+not tell her.  While she was spinning out the negotiations with the
+Prince of Orange, the allied sovereigns--it was June, 1814--arrived in
+London to celebrate their victory.  Among them, in the suite of the {2}
+Emperor of Russia, was the young and handsome Prince Leopold of
+Saxe-Coburg.  He made several attempts to attract the notice of the
+Princess, but she, with her heart elsewhere, paid very little
+attention.  Next month the Prince Regent, discovering that his daughter
+was having secret meetings with Prince Augustus, suddenly appeared upon
+the scene and, after dismissing her household, sentenced her to a
+strict seclusion in Windsor Park.  'God Almighty grant me patience!'
+she exclaimed, falling on her knees in an agony of agitation: then she
+jumped up, ran down the backstairs and out into the street, hailed a
+passing cab, and drove to her mother's house in Bayswater.  She was
+discovered, pursued, and at length, yielding to the persuasions of her
+uncles, the Dukes of York and Sussex, of Brougham, and of the Bishop of
+Salisbury, she returned to Carlton House at two o'clock in the morning.
+She was immured at Windsor, but no more was heard of the Prince of
+Orange.  Prince Augustus, too, disappeared.  The way was at last open
+to Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg.[1]
+
+This Prince was clever enough to get round the Regent, to impress the
+Ministers, and to make friends with another of the Princess's uncles,
+the Duke of Kent.  Through the Duke he was able to communicate
+privately with the Princess, who now declared that he was necessary to
+her happiness.  When, after Waterloo, he was in Paris, the Duke's
+aide-de-camp carried letters backwards and forwards across the Channel.
+In January 1816 he was invited to England, and in May the marriage took
+place.[2]
+
+{3}
+
+The character of Prince Leopold contrasted strangely with that of his
+wife.  The younger son of a German princeling, he was at this time
+twenty-six years of age; he had served with distinction in the war
+against Napoleon; he had shown considerable diplomatic skill at the
+Congress of Vienna;[3] and he was now to try his hand at the task of
+taming a tumultuous Princess.  Cold and formal in manner, collected in
+speech, careful in action, he soon dominated the wild, impetuous,
+generous creature by his side.  There was much in her, he found, of
+which he could not approve.  She quizzed, she stamped, she roared with
+laughter; she had very little of that self-command which is especially
+required of princes; her manners were abominable.  Of the latter he was
+a good judge, having moved, as he himself explained to his niece many
+years later, in the best society of Europe, being in fact 'what is
+called in French _de la fleur des pois_.'  There was continual
+friction, but every scene ended in the same way.  Standing before him
+like a rebellious boy in petticoats, her body pushed forward, her hands
+behind her back, with flaming cheeks and sparkling eyes, she would
+declare at last that she was ready to do whatever he wanted.  'If you
+wish it, I will do it,' she would say.  'I want nothing for myself,' he
+invariably answered; 'when I press something on you, it is from a
+conviction that it is for your interest and for your good.'[4]
+
+Among the members of the household at Claremont, near Esher, where the
+royal pair were established, was a young German physician, Christian
+Friedrich Stockmar.  He was the son of a minor magistrate in {4}
+Coburg, and, after taking part as a medical officer in the war, he had
+settled down as a doctor in his native town.  Here he had met Prince
+Leopold, who had been struck by his ability, and, on his marriage,
+brought him to England as his personal physician.  A curious fate
+awaited this young man; many were the gifts which the future held in
+store for him--many and various--influence, power, mystery,
+unhappiness, a broken heart.  At Claremont his position was a very
+humble one; but the Princess took a fancy to him, called him 'Stocky,'
+and romped with him along the corridors.  Dyspeptic by constitution,
+melancholic by temperament, he could yet be lively on occasion, and was
+known as a wit in Coburg.  He was virtuous, too, and observed the royal
+_menage_ with approbation.  'My master,' he wrote in his diary, 'is the
+best of all husbands in all the five quarters of the globe; and his
+wife bears him an amount of love, the greatness of which can only be
+compared with the English national debt.'  Before long he gave proof of
+another quality--a quality which was to colour the whole of his
+life--cautious sagacity.  When, in the spring of 1817, it was known
+that the Princess was expecting a child, the post of one of her
+physicians-in-ordinary was offered to him, and he had the good sense to
+refuse it.  He perceived that his colleagues would be jealous of him,
+that his advice would probably not be taken, but that, if anything were
+to go wrong, it would be certainly the foreign doctor who would be
+blamed.  Very soon, indeed, he came to the opinion that the low diet
+and constant bleedings, to which the unfortunate Princess was
+subjected, were an error; he drew the Prince aside, and begged him to
+communicate this opinion to the English doctors; but it was useless.
+The {5} fashionable lowering treatment was continued for months.  On
+November 5, at nine o'clock in the evening, after a labour of over
+fifty hours, the Princess was delivered of a dead boy.  At midnight her
+exhausted strength gave way.  Then, at last, Stockmar consented to see
+her; he went in, and found her obviously dying, while the doctors were
+plying her with wine.  She seized his hand and pressed it.  'They have
+made me tipsy,' she said.  After a little he left her, and was already
+in the next room when he heard her call out in her loud voice 'Stocky!
+Stocky!'  As he ran back the death-rattle was in her throat.  She
+tossed herself violently from side to side; then suddenly drew up her
+legs, and it was over.
+
+The Prince, after hours of watching, had left the room for a few
+moments' rest; and Stockmar had now to tell him that his wife was dead.
+At first he could not be made to realise what had happened.  On their
+way to her room he sank down on a chair while Stockmar knelt beside
+him: it was all a dream; it was impossible.  At last, by the bed, he,
+too, knelt down and kissed the cold hands.  Then rising and exclaiming,
+'Now I am quite desolate.  Promise me never to leave me,' he threw
+himself into Stockmar's arms.[5]
+
+
+II
+
+The tragedy at Claremont was of a most upsetting kind.  The royal
+kaleidoscope had suddenly shifted, and nobody could tell how the new
+pattern would arrange itself.  The succession to the throne, which had
+seemed so satisfactorily settled, now became a matter of urgent doubt.
+
+{6}
+
+George III was still living, an aged lunatic, at Windsor, completely
+impervious to the impressions of the outer world.  Of his seven sons,
+the youngest was of more than middle age, and none had legitimate
+offspring.  The outlook, therefore, was ambiguous.  It seemed highly
+improbable that the Prince Regent, who had lately been obliged to
+abandon his stays, and presented a preposterous figure of debauched
+obesity,[6] could ever again, even on the supposition that he divorced
+his wife and re-married, become the father of a family.  Besides the
+Duke of Kent, who must be noticed separately, the other brothers, in
+order of seniority, were the Dukes of York, Clarence, Cumberland,
+Sussex, and Cambridge; their situations and prospects require a brief
+description.  The Duke of York, whose escapades in times past with Mrs.
+Clarke and the army had brought him into trouble, now divided his life
+between London and a large, extravagantly ordered and extremely
+uncomfortable country house where he occupied himself with racing,
+whist, and improper stories.  He was remarkable among the princes for
+one reason: he was the only one of them--so we are informed by a highly
+competent observer--who had the feelings of a gentleman.  He had been
+long married to the Princess Royal of Prussia, a lady who rarely went
+to bed and was perpetually surrounded by vast numbers of dogs, parrots,
+and monkeys.[7]  They had no children.  The Duke of Clarence had lived
+for many years in complete obscurity with Mrs. Jordan, the actress, in
+Bushey Park.  By her he had had a large family of sons and daughters,
+and had {7} appeared, in effect, to be married to her, when he suddenly
+separated from her and offered to marry Miss Wykeham, a crazy woman of
+large fortune, who, however, would have nothing to say to him.  Shortly
+afterwards Mrs. Jordan died in distressed circumstances in Paris.[8]
+The Duke of Cumberland was probably the most unpopular man in England.
+Hideously ugly, with a distorted eye, he was bad-tempered and
+vindictive in private, a violent reactionary in politics, and was
+subsequently suspected of murdering his valet and of having carried on
+an amorous intrigue of an extremely scandalous kind.[9]  He had lately
+married a German Princess, but there were as yet no children by the
+marriage.  The Duke of Sussex had mildly literary tastes and collected
+books.[10]  He had married Lady Augusta Murray, by whom he had two
+children, but the marriage, under the Royal Marriages Act, was declared
+void.  On Lady Augusta's death, he married Lady Cecilia Buggin; she
+changed her name to Underwood; but this marriage also was void.  Of the
+Duke of Cambridge, the youngest of the brothers, not very much was
+known.  He lived in Hanover, wore a blonde wig, chattered and fidgeted
+a great deal, and was unmarried.[11]
+
+Besides his seven sons, George III had five surviving daughters.  Of
+these, two--the Queen of Wuertemberg and the Duchess of Gloucester--were
+married and childless.  The three unmarried princesses--Augusta,
+Elizabeth, and Sophia--were all over forty.
+
+
+{8}
+
+III
+
+The fourth son of George III was Edward, Duke of Kent.  He was now
+fifty years of age--a tall, stout, vigorous man, highly-coloured, with
+bushy eyebrows, a bald top to his head, and what hair he had carefully
+dyed a glossy black.  His dress was extremely neat, and in his whole
+appearance there was a rigidity which did not belie his character.  He
+had spent his early life in the army--at Gibraltar, in Canada, in the
+West Indies--and, under the influence of military training, had become
+at first a disciplinarian and at last a martinet.  In 1802, having been
+sent to Gibraltar to restore order in a mutinous garrison, he was
+recalled for undue severity, and his active career had come to an end.
+Since then he had spent his life regulating his domestic arrangements
+with great exactitude, busying himself with the affairs of his numerous
+dependents, designing clocks, and struggling to restore order to his
+finances, for, in spite of his being, as someone said who knew him
+well, '_regle comme du papier a musique_,' and in spite of an income of
+L24,000 a year, he was hopelessly in debt.  He had quarrelled with most
+of his brothers, particularly with the Prince Regent, and it was only
+natural that he should have joined the political Opposition and become
+a pillar of the Whigs.
+
+What his political opinions may actually have been is open to doubt; it
+has often been asserted that he was a Liberal, or even a Radical; and,
+if we are to believe Robert Owen, he was a necessitarian Socialist.
+His relations with Owen--the shrewd, gullible, high-minded,
+wrong-headed, illustrious and preposterous father of Socialism and
+Co-operation--were curious {9} and characteristic.  He talked of
+visiting the Mills at New Lanark; he did, in fact, preside at one of
+Owen's public meetings; he corresponded with him on confidential terms,
+and he even (so Owen assures us) returned, after his death, from 'the
+sphere of spirits' to give encouragement to the Owenites on earth.  'In
+an especial manner,' says Owen, 'I have to name the very anxious
+feelings of the spirit of his Royal Highness the late Duke of Kent (who
+early informed me there were no titles in the spiritual spheres into
+which he had entered), to benefit, not a class, a sect, a party, or any
+particular country, but the whole of the human race through futurity.'
+'His whole spirit-proceeding with me has been most beautiful,' Owen
+adds, 'making his own appointments; and never in one instance has this
+spirit not been punctual to the minute he had named.'  But Owen was of
+a sanguine temperament.  He also numbered among his proselytes
+President Jefferson, Prince Metternich, and Napoleon; so that some
+uncertainty must still linger over the Duke of Kent's views.  But there
+is no uncertainty about another circumstance: his Royal Highness
+borrowed from Robert Owen, on various occasions, various sums of money
+which were never repaid and amounted in all to several hundred
+pounds.[12]
+
+After the death of the Princess Charlotte it was clearly important, for
+more than one reason, that the Duke of Kent should marry.  From the
+point of view of the nation, the lack of heirs in the reigning family
+seemed to make the step almost obligatory; it was also likely to be
+highly expedient from the point of view of the Duke.  To marry as a
+public duty, for the {10} sake of the royal succession, would surely
+deserve some recognition from a grateful country.  When the Duke of
+York had married he had received a settlement of L25,000 a year.  Why
+should not the Duke of Kent look forward to an equal sum?  But the
+situation was not quite simple.  There was the Duke of Clarence to be
+considered; he was the elder brother, and, if he married, would clearly
+have the prior claim.  On the other hand, if the Duke of Kent married,
+it was important to remember that he would be making a serious
+sacrifice: a lady was involved.
+
+The Duke, reflecting upon all these matters with careful attention,
+happened, about a month after his niece's death, to visit Brussels, and
+learnt that Mr. Creevey was staying in the town.  Mr. Creevey was a
+close friend of the leading Whigs and an inveterate gossip; and it
+occurred to the Duke that there could be no better channel through
+which to communicate his views upon the situation to political circles
+at home.  Apparently it did not occur to him that Mr. Creevey was
+malicious and might keep a diary.  He therefore sent for him on some
+trivial pretext, and a remarkable conversation ensued.
+
+After referring to the death of the Princess, to the improbability of
+the Regent's seeking a divorce, to the childlessness of the Duke of
+York, and to the possibility of the Duke of Clarence marrying, the Duke
+adverted to his own position.  'Should the Duke of Clarence not marry,'
+he said, 'the next prince in succession is myself, and although I trust
+I shall be at all times ready to obey any call my country may make upon
+me, God only knows the sacrifice it will be to make, whenever I shall
+think it my duty to become a married man.  It is now seven-and-twenty
+years that Madame St. Laurent {11} and I have lived together: we are of
+the same age, and have been in all climates, and in all difficulties
+together, and you may well imagine, Mr. Creevey, the pang it will
+occasion me to part with her.  I put it to your own feelings--in the
+event of any separation between you and Mrs. Creevey....  As for Madame
+St. Laurent herself, I protest I don't know what is to become of her if
+a marriage is to be forced upon me; her feelings are already so
+agitated upon the subject.'  The Duke went on to describe how, one
+morning, a day or two after the Princess Charlotte's death, a paragraph
+had appeared in the _Morning Chronicle_, alluding to the possibility of
+his marriage.  He had received the newspaper at breakfast together with
+his letters, and 'I did as is my constant practice, I threw the
+newspaper across the table to Madame St. Laurent, and began to open and
+read my letters.  I had not done so but a very short time, when my
+attention was called to an extraordinary noise and a strong convulsive
+movement in Madame St. Laurent's throat.  For a short time I
+entertained serious apprehensions for her safety; and when, upon her
+recovery, I enquired into the occasion of this attack, she pointed to
+the article in the _Morning Chronicle_.'
+
+The Duke then returned to the subject of the Duke of Clarence.  'My
+brother the Duke of Clarence is the elder brother, and has certainly
+the right to marry if he chooses, and I would not interfere with him on
+any account.  If he wishes to be king--to be married and have children,
+poor man--God help him! let him do so.  For myself--I am a man of no
+ambition, and wish only to remain as I am....  Easter, you know, falls
+very early this year--the 22nd of March.  If the Duke of Clarence does
+not take any step before that {12} time, I must find some pretext to
+reconcile Madame St. Laurent to my going to England for a short time.
+When once there, it will be easy for me to consult with my friends as
+to the proper steps to be taken.  Should the Duke of Clarence do
+nothing before that time as to marrying it will become my duty, no
+doubt, to take some measures upon the subject myself.'  Two names, the
+Duke said, had been mentioned in this connection--those of the Princess
+of Baden and the Princess of Saxe-Coburg.  The latter, he thought,
+would perhaps be the better of the two, from the circumstance of Prince
+Leopold being so popular with the nation; but before any other steps
+were taken, he hoped and expected to see justice done to Madame St.
+Laurent.  'She is,' he explained, 'of very good family, and has never
+been an actress, and I am the first and only person who ever lived with
+her.  Her disinterestedness, too, has been equal to her fidelity.  When
+she first came to me it was upon L100 a year.  That sum was afterwards
+raised to L400, and finally to L1000; but when my debts made it
+necessary for me to sacrifice a great part of my income, Madame St.
+Laurent insisted upon again returning to her income of L400 a year.  If
+Madame St. Laurent is to return to live amongst her friends, it must be
+in such a state of independence as to command their respect.  I shall
+not require very much, but a certain number of servants and a carriage
+are essentials.'  As to his own settlement, the Duke observed that he
+would expect the Duke of York's marriage to be considered the
+precedent.  'That,' he said, 'was a marriage for the succession, and
+L25,000 for income was settled, in addition to all his other income,
+purely on that account.  I shall be contented with the same
+arrangement, without making any demands grounded {13} on the difference
+of the value of money in 1792 and at present.  As for the payment of my
+debts,' the Duke concluded, 'I don't call them great.  The nation, on
+the contrary, is greatly my debtor.'  Here a clock struck, and seemed
+to remind the Duke that he had an appointment; he rose, and Mr. Creevey
+left him.
+
+Who could keep such a communication secret?  Certainly not Mr. Creevey.
+He hurried off to tell the Duke of Wellington, who was very much
+amused, and he wrote a long account of it to Lord Sefton, who received
+the letter 'very apropos,' while a surgeon was sounding his bladder to
+ascertain whether he had a stone.  'I never saw a fellow more
+astonished than he was,' wrote Lord Sefton in his reply, 'at seeing me
+laugh as soon as the operation was over.  Nothing could be more
+first-rate than the royal Edward's ingenuousness.  One does not know
+which to admire most--the delicacy of his attachment to Madame St.
+Laurent, the refinement of his sentiments towards the Duke of Clarence,
+or his own perfect disinterestedness in pecuniary matters.'[13]
+
+As it turned out, both the brothers decided to marry.  The Duke of
+Kent, selecting the Princess of Saxe-Coburg in preference to the
+Princess of Baden, was united to her on May 29, 1818.  On June 11, the
+Duke of Clarence followed suit with a daughter of the Duke of
+Saxe-Meiningen.  But they were disappointed in their financial
+expectations; for though the Government brought forward proposals to
+increase their allowances, together with that of the Duke of
+Cumberland, the motions were defeated in the House of Commons.  At this
+the Duke of Wellington was not surprised.  'By God!' he said, 'there is
+a great deal to be said about that.  They are the damnedest {14}
+millstones about the necks of any Government that can be imagined.
+They have insulted--personally insulted--two-thirds of the gentlemen of
+England, and how can it be wondered at that they take their revenge
+upon them in the House of Commons?  It is their only opportunity, and I
+think, by God! they are quite right to use it.'[14]  Eventually,
+however, Parliament increased the Duke of Kent's annuity by L6000.
+
+The subsequent history of Madame St. Laurent has not transpired.
+
+
+IV
+
+The new Duchess of Kent, Victoria Mary Louisa, was a daughter of
+Francis, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, and a sister of Prince Leopold.
+The family was an ancient one, being a branch of the great House of
+Wettin, which since the eleventh century had ruled over the March of
+Meissen on the Elbe.  In the fifteenth century the whole possessions of
+the House had been divided between the Albertine and Ernestine
+branches: from the former descended the electors and kings of Saxony;
+the latter, ruling over Thuringia, became further subdivided into five
+branches, of which the duchy of Saxe-Coburg was one.  This principality
+was very small, containing about 60,000 inhabitants, but it enjoyed
+independent and sovereign rights.  During the disturbed years which
+followed the French Revolution, its affairs became terribly involved.
+The Duke was extravagant, and kept open house for the swarms of
+refugees, who fled eastward over Germany as the French power advanced.
+Among these was the {15} prince of Leiningen, an elderly beau, whose
+domains on the Moselle had been seized by the French, but who was
+granted in compensation the territory of Amorbach in Lower Franconia.
+In 1803 he married the Princess Victoria, at that time seventeen years
+of age.  Three years later Duke Francis died a ruined man.  The
+Napoleonic harrow passed over Saxe-Coburg.  The duchy was seized by the
+French, and the ducal family were reduced to beggary, almost to
+starvation.  At the same time the little principality of Amorbach was
+devastated by the French, Russian, and Austrian armies, marching and
+counter-marching across it.  For years there was hardly a cow in the
+country, nor enough grass to feed a flock of geese.  Such was the
+desperate plight of the family which, a generation later, was to have
+gained a foothold in half the reigning Houses of Europe.  The
+Napoleonic harrow had indeed done its work; the seed was planted; and
+the crop would have surprised Napoleon.  Prince Leopold, thrown upon
+his own resources at fifteen, made a career for himself and married the
+heiress of England.  The Princess of Leiningen, struggling at Amorbach
+with poverty, military requisitions, and a futile husband, developed an
+independence of character and a tenacity of purpose which were to prove
+useful in very different circumstances.  In 1814, her husband died,
+leaving her with two children and the regency of the principality.
+After her brother's marriage with the Princess Charlotte, it was
+proposed that she should marry the Duke of Kent; but she declined, on
+the ground that the guardianship of her children and the management of
+her domains made other ties undesirable.  The Princess Charlotte's
+death, however, altered the case; and when the Duke of Kent renewed his
+offer, she {16} accepted it.  She was thirty-two years old--short,
+stout, with brown eyes and hair, and rosy cheeks, cheerful and voluble,
+and gorgeously attired in rustling silks and bright velvets.[15]
+
+She was certainly fortunate in her contented disposition; for she was
+fated, all through her life, to have much to put up with.  Her second
+marriage, with its dubious prospects, seemed at first to be chiefly a
+source of difficulties and discomforts.  The Duke, declaring that he
+was still too poor to live in England, moved about with uneasy
+precision through Belgium and Germany, attending parades and inspecting
+barracks in a neat military cap, while the English notabilities looked
+askance, and the Duke of Wellington dubbed him the Corporal.  'God
+damme!' he exclaimed to Mr. Creevey, 'd'ye know what his sisters call
+him?  By God! they call him Joseph Surface!'  At Valenciennes, where
+there was a review and a great dinner, the Duchess arrived with an old
+and ugly lady-in-waiting, and the Duke of Wellington found himself in a
+difficulty.  'Who the devil is to take out the maid of honour?' he kept
+asking; but at last he thought of a solution.  'Damme, Freemantle, find
+out the mayor and let him do it.'  So the Mayor of Valenciennes was
+brought up for the purpose, and--so we learn from Mr. Creevey--'a
+capital figure he was.'  A few days later, at Brussels, Mr. Creevey
+himself had an unfortunate experience.  A military school was to be
+inspected--before breakfast.  The company assembled; everything was
+highly satisfactory; but the Duke of Kent continued for so long
+examining every detail and asking meticulous question after meticulous
+question, that Mr. Creevey at last could bear it no longer, and {17}
+whispered to his neighbour that he was damned hungry.  The Duke of
+Wellington heard him, and was delighted.  'I recommend you,' he said,
+'whenever you start with the royal family in a morning, and
+particularly with _the Corporal_, always to breakfast first.'  He and
+his staff, it turned out, had taken that precaution, and the great man
+amused himself, while the stream of royal inquiries poured on, by
+pointing at Mr. Creevey from time to time with the remark, 'Voila le
+monsieur qui n'a pas dejeune!'[16]
+
+Settled down at last at Amorbach, the time hung heavily on the Duke's
+hands.  The establishment was small, the country was impoverished; even
+clock-making grew tedious at last.  He brooded--for in spite of his
+piety the Duke was not without a vein of superstition--over the
+prophecy of a gipsy at Gibraltar who had told him that he was to have
+many losses and crosses, that he was to die in happiness, and that his
+only child was to be a great queen.  Before long it became clear that a
+child was to be expected: the Duke decided that it should be born in
+England.  Funds were lacking for the journey, but his determination was
+not to be set aside.  Come what might, he declared, his child must be
+English-born.  A carriage was hired, and the Duke himself mounted the
+box.  Inside were the Duchess, her daughter Feodora, a girl of
+fourteen, with maids, nurses, lap-dogs, and canaries.  Off they
+drove--through Germany, through France: bad roads, cheap inns, were
+nothing to the rigorous Duke and the equable, abundant Duchess.  The
+Channel was crossed, London was reached in safety.  The authorities
+provided a set of rooms in Kensington Palace; and there, on May 24,
+1819, a female infant was born.[17]
+
+
+
+[1] Greville, II, 326-8; Stockmar, chap. i, 86; Knight, I, chaps.
+xv-xviii and Appendix, and II, chap. i.
+
+[2] Grey, 384, 386-8; _Letters_, II, 40,
+
+[3] Grey, 375-86.
+
+[4] _Letters_, I, 216, 222-3; II, 39-40; Stockmar, 87-90.
+
+[5] Stockmar, _Biograpische Skizze_, and cap. iii.
+
+[6] Creevey, I, 264, 272: 'Prinny has let loose his belly, which now
+reaches his knees; otherwise he is said to be well,' 279.
+
+[7] Greville, I, 5-7.
+
+[8] Greville, IV, 2.
+
+[9] Stockmar, 95; Creevey, I, 148; Greville, I, 228; Lieven, 183-4.
+
+[10] Crawford, 24.
+
+[11] _Ibid._, 80, 113.
+
+[12] Stockmar, 112-3; _Letters_, I, 8; Crawford, 27-30; Owen, 193-4,
+197-8, 199, 229.
+
+[13] Creevey, I, 267-71.
+
+[14] Creevey, I, 276-7.
+
+[15] _Letters_, I, 1-3: Grey, 373-81, 389; Crawford, 30-4; Stockmar,
+113.
+
+[16] Creevey, I, 282-4.
+
+[17] Crawford, 25, 37-8.
+
+
+
+
+{18}
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+CHILDHOOD
+
+I
+
+The child who, in these not very impressive circumstances, appeared in
+the world, received but scant attention.  There was small reason to
+foresee her destiny.  The Duchess of Clarence, two months before, had
+given birth to a daughter; this infant, indeed, had died almost
+immediately; but it seemed highly probable that the Duchess would again
+become a mother; and so it actually fell out.  More than this, the
+Duchess of Kent was young, and the Duke was strong; there was every
+likelihood that before long a brother would follow, to snatch her faint
+chance of the succession from the little princess.
+
+Nevertheless, the Duke had other views: there were prophecies....  At
+any rate, he would christen the child Elizabeth, a name of happy
+augury.  In this, however, he reckoned without the Regent, who, seeing
+a chance of annoying his brother, suddenly announced that he himself
+would be present at the baptism, and signified at the same time that
+one of the godfathers was to be the Emperor Alexander of Russia.  And
+so when the ceremony took place, and the Archbishop of Canterbury asked
+by what name he was to baptise the child, the Regent replied
+'Alexandrina.'  At this the Duke ventured to suggest that another name
+might be {19} added.  'Certainly,' said the Regent; 'Georgina?' 'Or
+Elizabeth?' said the Duke.  There was a pause, during which the
+Archbishop, with the baby in his lawn sleeves, looked with some
+uneasiness from one Prince to the other.  'Very well, then,' said the
+Regent at last, 'call her after her mother.  But Alexandrina must come
+first.'  Thus, to the disgust of her father, the child was christened
+Alexandrina Victoria.[1]
+
+[Illustration: PRINCESS VICTORIA IN 1836.  _From the Portrait by F.
+Winterhalter._]
+
+The Duke had other subjects of disgust.  The meagre grant of the
+Commons had by no means put an end to his financial distresses.  It was
+to be feared that his services were not appreciated by the nation.  His
+debts continued to grow.  For many years he had lived upon L7000 a
+year; but now his expenses were exactly doubled; he could make no
+further reductions; as it was, there was not a single servant in his
+establishment who was idle for a moment from morning to night.  He
+poured out his griefs in a long letter to Robert Owen, whose sympathy
+had the great merit of being practical.  'I now candidly state,' he
+wrote, 'that, after viewing the subject in every possible way, I am
+satisfied that, to continue to live in England, even in the quiet way
+in which we are going on, _without splendour, and without show, nothing
+short of doubling the seven thousand pounds will do_, REDUCTION BEING
+IMPOSSIBLE.'  It was clear that he would be obliged to sell his house
+for L51,300: if that failed, he would go and live on the Continent.
+'If my services are useful to my country, it surely becomes _those who
+have the power_ to support me in substantiating those just claims I
+have for the very extensive losses and privations I have experienced,
+during the very long period of my professional servitude in the
+Colonies; and if this is not {20} attainable, _it is a clear proof to
+me that they are not appreciated_; and under that impression I shall
+not scruple, in due time, to resume my retirement abroad, when the
+Duchess and myself shall have fulfilled our duties in establishing the
+_English_ birth of my child, and giving it maternal nutriment on the
+soil of Old England; and which we shall certainly repeat, if Providence
+destines to give us any further increase of family.'[2]
+
+In the meantime, he decided to spend the winter at Sidmouth, 'in
+order,' he told Owen, 'that the Duchess may have the benefit of tepid
+sea bathing, and our infant that of sea air, on the fine coast of
+Devonshire, during the months of the year that are so odious in
+London.'[3]  In December the move was made.  With the new year, the
+Duke remembered another prophecy.  In 1820, a fortune-teller had told
+him, two members of the Royal Family would die.  Who would they be?  He
+speculated on the various possibilities: the King, it was plain, could
+not live much longer; and the Duchess of York had been attacked by a
+mortal disease.  Probably it would be the King and the Duchess of York;
+or perhaps the King and the Duke of York; or the King and the Regent.
+He himself was one of the healthiest men in England.[4]  'My brothers,'
+he declared, 'are not so strong as I am; I have lived a regular life.
+I shall outlive them all.  The crown will come to me and my
+children.'[5]  He went out for a walk, and got his feet wet.  On coming
+home, he neglected to change his stockings.  He caught cold,
+inflammation of the lungs set in, and on January 22 he was a dying man.
+By a curious chance, young Dr. Stockmar was staying in the house at the
+time; two {21} years before, he had stood by the death-bed of the
+Princess Charlotte; and now he was watching the Duke of Kent in his
+agony.  On Stockmar's advice, a will was hastily prepared.  The Duke's
+earthly possessions were of a negative character; but it was important
+that the guardianship of the unwitting child, whose fortunes were now
+so strangely changing, should be assured to the Duchess.  The Duke was
+just able to understand the document, and to append his signature.
+Having inquired whether his writing was perfectly clear, he became
+unconscious, and breathed his last on the following morning.[6]  Six
+days later came the fulfilment of the second half of the gipsy's
+prophecy.  The long, unhappy, and inglorious life of George the Third
+of England was ended.
+
+
+II
+
+Such was the confusion of affairs at Sidmouth, that the Duchess found
+herself without the means of returning to London.  Prince Leopold
+hurried down, and himself conducted his sister and her family, by slow
+and bitter stages, to Kensington.  The widowed lady, in her voluminous
+blacks, needed all her equanimity to support her.  Her prospects were
+more dubious than ever.  She had L6000 a year of her own; but her
+husband's debts loomed before her like a mountain.  Soon she learnt
+that the Duchess of Clarence was once more expecting a child.  What had
+she to look forward to in England?  Why should she remain in a foreign
+country, among strangers, whose language she could not speak, whose
+customs she could not understand?  Surely it would be best to {22}
+return to Amorbach, and there, among her own people, bring up her
+daughters in economical obscurity.  But she was an inveterate optimist;
+she had spent her life in struggles, and would not be daunted now.  And
+besides, she adored her baby.  'C'est mon bonheur, mes delices, mon
+existence,' she declared; the darling should be brought up as an
+English princess, whatever lot awaited her.  Prince Leopold came
+forward nobly with an offer of an additional L3000 a year; and the
+Duchess remained at Kensington.[7]
+
+The child herself was extremely fat, and bore a remarkable resemblance
+to her grandfather.  'C'est l'image du feu Roi!' exclaimed the Duchess.
+'C'est le Roi Georges en jupons,' echoed the surrounding ladies, as the
+little creature waddled with difficulty from one to the other.[8]
+
+Before long, the world began to be slightly interested in the nursery
+at Kensington.  When, early in 1821, the Duchess of Clarence's second
+child, the Princess Elizabeth, died within three months of its birth,
+the interest increased.  Great forces and fierce anatgonisms seemed to
+be moving, obscurely, about the royal cradle.  It was a time of faction
+and anger, of violent repression and profound discontent.  A powerful
+movement, which had for long been checked by adverse circumstances, was
+now spreading throughout the country.  New passions, new desires, were
+abroad; or rather, old passions and old desires, reincarnated with a
+new potency: love of freedom, hatred of injustice, hope for the future
+of man.  The mighty still sat proudly in their seats, dispensing their
+ancient tyranny; but a storm was gathering out of the darkness, and
+already there was {23} lightning in the sky.  But the vastest forces
+must needs operate through frail human instruments; and it seemed for
+many years as if the great cause of English liberalism hung upon the
+life of the little girl at Kensington.  She alone stood between the
+country and her terrible uncle, the Duke of Cumberland, the hideous
+embodiment of reaction.  Inevitably, the Duchess of Kent threw in her
+lot with her husband's party; Whig leaders, Radical agitators, rallied
+round her; she was intimate with the bold Lord Durham, she was on
+friendly terms with the redoubtable O'Connell himself.  She received
+Wilberforce--though, to be sure, she did not ask him to sit down.[9]
+She declared in public that she put her faith in 'the liberties of the
+People.'[10]  It was certain that the young Princess would be brought
+up in the way that she should go; yet there, close behind the throne,
+waiting, sinister, was the Duke of Cumberland.  Brougham, looking
+forward into the future in his scurrilous fashion, hinted at dreadful
+possibilities.  'I never prayed so heartily for a Prince before,' he
+wrote, on hearing that George IV had been attacked by illness.  'If he
+had gone, all the troubles of these villains [the Tory Ministers] went
+with him, and they had Fred. I [the Duke of York] their own man for his
+life....  He (Fred. I) won't live long either; that Prince of
+Blackguards, "Brother William," is as bad a life, so we come in the
+course of nature to be _assassinated_ by King Ernest I or Regent Ernest
+[the Duke of Cumberland].'[11]  Such thoughts were not peculiar to
+Brougham; in the seething state of public feeling, they constantly
+leapt to the surface; and, even so late as the year previous to her
+accession, the Radical newspapers were full of {24} suggestions that
+the Princess Victoria was in danger from the machinations of her wicked
+uncle.[12]
+
+But no echo of these conflicts and forebodings reached the little
+Drina--for so she was called in the family circle--as she played with
+her dolls, or scampered down the passages, or rode on the donkey her
+uncle York had given her[13] along the avenues of Kensington Gardens.
+The fair-haired, blue-eyed child was idolised by her nurses, and her
+mother's ladies, and her sister Feodora; and for a few years there was
+a danger, in spite of her mother's strictness, of her being spoilt.
+From time to time, she would fly into a violent passion, stamp her
+little foot, and set everyone at defiance; whatever they might say, she
+would not learn her letters--no, she _would not_; afterwards, she was
+very sorry, and burst into tears; but her letters remained unlearnt.
+When she was five years old, however, a change came, with the
+appearance of Fraeulein Lehzen.  This lady, who was the daughter of a
+Hanoverian clergyman and had previously been the Princess Feodora's
+governess, soon succeeded in instilling a new spirit into her charge.
+At first, indeed, she was appalled by the little Princess's outbursts
+of temper; never in her life, she declared, had she seen such a
+passionate and naughty child.  Then she observed something else; the
+child was extraordinarily truthful; whatever punishment might follow,
+she never told a lie.[14]  Firm, very firm, the new governess yet had
+the sense to see that all the firmness in the world would be useless,
+unless she could win her way into little Drina's heart.  She did so,
+and there were no more difficulties.  Drina learnt her letters like an
+angel; and she learnt other things as well.  The {25} Baroness de Spaeth
+taught her how to make little cardboard boxes and decorate them with
+tinsel and painted flowers;[15] her mother taught her religion.
+Sitting in the pew every Sunday morning, the child of six was seen
+listening in rapt attention to the clergyman's endless sermon, for she
+was to be examined upon it in the afternoon.[16]  The Duchess was
+determined that her daughter, from the earliest possible moment, should
+be prepared for her high station in a way that would commend itself to
+the most respectable; her good, plain, thrifty German mind recoiled
+with horror and amazement from the shameless junketings at Carlton
+House; Drina should never be allowed to forget for a moment the virtues
+of simplicity, regularity, propriety, and devotion.  The little girl,
+however, was really in small need of such lessons, for she was
+naturally simple and orderly, she was pious without difficulty, and her
+sense of propriety was keen.  She understood very well the niceties of
+her own position.  When, a child of six, Lady Jane Ellice was taken by
+her grandmother to Kensington Palace, she was put to play with the
+Princess Victoria, who was the same age as herself.  The young visitor,
+ignorant of etiquette, began to make free with the toys on the floor,
+in a way which was a little too familiar; but 'You must not touch
+those,' she was quickly told, 'they are mine; and I may call you Jane,
+but you must not call me Victoria.'[17]  The Princess's most constant
+playmate was Victoire, the daughter of Sir John Conroy, the Duchess's
+major-domo.  The two girls were very fond of one another; they would
+walk hand in hand together in Kensington Gardens.  But little Drina was
+perfectly aware for which of them {26} it was that they were followed,
+at a respectful distance, by a gigantic scarlet flunkey.[18]
+
+Warm-hearted, responsive, she loved her dear Lehzen, and she loved her
+dear Feodora, and her dear Victoire, and her dear Madame de Spaeth.  And
+her dear Mamma ... of course, she loved her too; it was her duty; and
+yet--she could not tell why it was--she was always happier when she was
+staying with her Uncle Leopold at Claremont.  There old Mrs. Louis,
+who, years ago, had waited on her cousin Charlotte, petted her to her
+heart's content; and her uncle himself was wonderfully kind to her,
+talking to her seriously and gently, almost as if she were a grown-up
+person.  She and Feodora invariably wept when the too short visit was
+over, and they were obliged to return to the dutiful monotony and the
+affectionate supervision of Kensington.  But sometimes when her mother
+had to stay at home, she was allowed to go out driving all alone with
+her dear Feodora and her dear Lehzen, and she could talk and look as
+she liked, and it was very delightful.[19]
+
+The visits to Claremont were frequent enough; but one day, on a special
+occasion, she paid one of a rarer and more exciting kind.  When she was
+seven years old, she and her mother and sister were asked by the King
+to go down to Windsor.  George IV, who had transferred his fraternal
+ill-temper to his sister-in-law and her family, had at last grown tired
+of sulking, and decided to be agreeable.  The old rip, bewigged and
+gouty, ornate and enormous, with his jewelled mistress by his side and
+his flaunting court about him, received the tiny creature who was one
+day to hold in those same halls a very different state.  'Give me your
+little {27} paw,' he said; and two ages touched.  Next morning, driving
+in his phaeton with the Duchess of Gloucester, he met the Duchess of
+Kent and her child in the Park.  'Pop her in,' were his orders, which,
+to the terror of the mother and the delight of the daughter, were
+immediately obeyed.  Off they dashed to Virginia Water, where there was
+a great barge, full of lords and ladies fishing, and another barge with
+a band; and the King ogled Feodora, and praised her manners, and then
+turned to his own small niece.  'What is your favourite tune?  The band
+shall play it.'  'God save the King, sir,' was the instant answer.  The
+Princess's reply has been praised as an early example of a tact which
+was afterwards famous.  But she was a very truthful child, and perhaps
+it was her genuine opinion.[20]
+
+
+III
+
+In 1827 the Duke of York, who had found some consolation for the loss
+of his wife in the sympathy of the Duchess of Rutland, died, leaving
+behind him the unfinished immensity of Stafford House and L200,000
+worth of debts.  Three years later George IV also disappeared, and the
+Duke of Clarence reigned in his stead.  The new Queen, it was now
+clear, would in all probability never again be a mother; the Princess
+Victoria, therefore, was recognised by Parliament as heir-presumptive;
+and the Duchess of Kent, whose annuity had been doubled five years
+previously, was now given an additional L10,000 for the maintenance of
+the Princess, and was appointed regent, in case of the death of the
+King before the majority of her daughter.  At the same time a great
+convulsion took {28} place in the constitution of the State.  The power
+of the Tories, who had dominated England for more than forty years,
+suddenly began to crumble.  In the tremendous struggle that followed,
+it seemed for a moment as if the tradition of generations might be
+snapped, as if the blind tenacity of the reactionaries and the
+determined fury of their enemies could have no other issue than
+revolution.  But the forces of compromise triumphed: the Reform Bill
+was passed.  The centre of gravity in the constitution was shifted
+towards the middle classes; the Whigs came into power; and the
+complexion of the Government assumed a Liberal tinge.  One of the
+results of this new state of affairs was a change in the position of
+the Duchess of Kent and her daughter.  From being the _protegees_ of an
+opposition clique, they became assets of the official majority of the
+nation.  The Princess Victoria was henceforward the living symbol of
+the victory of the middle classes.
+
+The Duke of Cumberland, on the other hand, suffered a corresponding
+eclipse: his claws had been pared by the Reform Act.  He grew
+insignificant and almost harmless, though his ugliness remained; he was
+the wicked uncle still--but only of a story.
+
+The Duchess's own liberalism was not very profound.  She followed
+naturally in the footsteps of her husband, repeating with conviction
+the catchwords of her husband's clever friends and the generalisations
+of her clever brother Leopold.  She herself had no pretensions to
+cleverness; she did not understand very much about the Poor Law and the
+Slave Trade and Political Economy; but she hoped that she did her duty;
+and she hoped--she ardently hoped--that the same might be said of
+Victoria.  Her educational conceptions were {29} those of Dr. Arnold,
+whose views were just then beginning to permeate society.  Dr. Arnold's
+object was, first and foremost, to make his pupils 'in the highest and
+truest sense of the words, Christian gentlemen'; intellectual
+refinements might follow.  The Duchess felt convinced that it was her
+supreme duty in life to make quite sure that her daughter should grow
+up into a Christian queen.  To this task she bent all her energies;
+and, as the child developed, she flattered herself that her efforts
+were not unsuccessful.  When the Princess was eleven, she desired the
+Bishops of London and Lincoln to submit her daughter to an examination,
+and report upon the progress that had been made.  'I feel the time to
+be now come,' the Duchess explained, in a letter obviously drawn up by
+her own hand, 'that what has been done should be put to some test, that
+if anything has been done in error of judgment it may be corrected, and
+that the plan for the future should be open to consideration and
+revision....  I attend almost always myself every lesson, or a part;
+and as the lady about the Princess is a competent person, she assists
+Her in preparing Her lessons, for the various masters, as I resolved to
+act in that manner so as to be Her governess myself....  When she was
+at a proper age she commenced attending Divine Service regularly with
+me, and I have every feeling that she has religion at Her heart, that
+she is morally impressed with it to that degree, that she is less
+liable to error by its application to her feelings as a Child capable
+of reflection.'  'The general bent of Her character,' added the
+Duchess, 'is strength of intellect, capable of receiving with ease,
+information, and with a peculiar readiness in coming to a very just and
+benignant decision on any point Her opinion is asked on.  Her adherence
+to {30} truth is of so marked a character that I feel no apprehension
+of that Bulwark being broken down by any circumstances.'  The Bishops
+attended at the Palace, and the result of their examination was all
+that could be wished.  'In answering a great variety of questions
+proposed to her,' they reported, 'the Princess displayed an accurate
+knowledge of the most important features of Scripture History, and of
+the leading truths and precepts of the Christian Religion as taught by
+the Church of England, as well as an acquaintance with the Chronology
+and principal facts of English History remarkable in so young a person.
+To questions in Geography, the use of the Globes, Arithmetic, and Latin
+Grammar, the answers which the Princess returned were equally
+satisfactory.'  They did not believe that the Duchess's plan of
+education was susceptible of any improvement; and the Archbishop of
+Canterbury, who was also consulted, came to the same gratifying
+conclusion.[21]
+
+One important step, however, remained to be taken.  So far, as the
+Duchess explained to the Bishops, the Princess had been kept in
+ignorance of the station that she was likely to fill.  'She is aware of
+its duties, and that a Sovereign should live for others; so that when
+Her innocent mind receives the impression of Her future fate, she
+receives it with a mind formed to be sensible of what is to be expected
+from Her, and it is to be hoped, she will be too well grounded in Her
+principles to be dazzled with the station she is to look to.'[22]  In
+the following year it was decided that she should be enlightened on
+this point.  The well-known scene followed: the history lesson, the
+genealogical table of the Kings of England slipped beforehand by the
+{31} governess into the book, the Princess's surprise, her inquiries,
+her final realisation of the facts.  When the child at last understood,
+she was silent for a moment, and then she spoke: 'I will be good,' she
+said.  The words were something more than a conventional protestation,
+something more than the expression of a superimposed desire; they were,
+in their limitation and their intensity, their egotism and their
+humility, an instinctive summary of the dominating qualities of a life.
+'I cried much on learning it,' her Majesty noted long afterwards.  No
+doubt, while the others were present, even her dear Lehzen, the little
+girl kept up her self-command; and then crept away somewhere to ease
+her heart of an inward, unfamiliar agitation, with a handkerchief, out
+of her mother's sight.[23]
+
+But her mother's sight was by no means an easy thing to escape.
+Morning and evening, day and night, there was no relaxation of the
+maternal vigilance.  The child grew into the girl, the girl into the
+young woman; but still she slept in her mother's bedroom; still she had
+no place allowed her where she might sit or work by herself.[24]  An
+extraordinary watchfulness surrounded her every step: up to the day of
+her accession, she never went downstairs without someone beside her
+holding her hand.[25]  Plainness and regularity ruled the household.
+The hours, the days, the years passed slowly and methodically by.  The
+dolls--the innumerable dolls, each one so neatly dressed, each one with
+its name so punctiliously entered in the catalogue--were laid aside,
+and a little music and a little dancing took their place.  Taglioni
+came, to give grace and dignity to the figure,[26] and Lablache, to
+train the piping treble upon his own {32} rich bass.  The Dean of
+Chester, the official preceptor, continued his endless instruction in
+Scripture history, while the Duchess of Northumberland, the official
+governess, presided over every lesson with becoming solemnity.  Without
+doubt, the Princess's main achievement during her schooldays was
+linguistic.  German was naturally the first language with which she was
+familiar; but English and French quickly followed; and she became
+virtually trilingual, though her mastery of English grammar remained
+incomplete.  At the same time, she acquired a working knowledge of
+Italian and some smattering of Latin.  Nevertheless, she did not read
+very much.  It was not an occupation that she cared for; partly,
+perhaps, because the books that were given her were all either sermons,
+which were very dull, or poetry, which was incomprehensible.  Novels
+were strictly forbidden.  Lord Durham persuaded her mother to get her
+some of Miss Martineau's tales, illustrating the truths of Political
+Economy, and they delighted her; but it is to be feared that it was the
+unaccustomed pleasure of the story that filled her mind, and that she
+never really mastered the theory of exchanges or the nature of rent.[27]
+
+It was her misfortune that the mental atmosphere which surrounded her
+during these years of adolescence was almost entirely feminine.  No
+father, no brother, was there to break in upon the gentle monotony of
+the daily round with impetuosity, with rudeness, with careless laughter
+and wafts of freedom from the outside world.  The Princess was never
+called by a voice that was loud and growling; never felt, as a matter
+of course, a hard rough cheek on her own soft one; never climbed a wall
+with a boy.  The visits to Claremont--delicious {33} little escapes
+into male society--came to an end when she was eleven years old and
+Prince Leopold left England to be King of the Belgians.  She loved him
+still; he was still 'il mio secondo padre--or, rather, _solo_ padre,
+for he is indeed like my real father, as I have none'; but his
+fatherliness now came to her dimly and indirectly, through the cold
+channel of correspondence.  Henceforward female duty, female elegance,
+female enthusiasm, hemmed her completely in; and her spirit, amid the
+enclosing folds, was hardly reached by those two great influences,
+without which no growing life can truly prosper--humour and
+imagination.  The Baroness Lehzen--for she had been raised to that rank
+in the Hanoverian nobility by George IV before he died--was the real
+centre of the Princess's world.  When Feodora married, when uncle
+Leopold went to Belgium, the Baroness was left without a competitor.
+The Princess gave her mother her dutiful regards; but Lehzen had her
+heart.  The voluble, shrewd daughter of the pastor in Hanover,
+lavishing her devotion on her royal charge, had reaped her reward in an
+unbounded confidence and a passionate adoration.  The girl would have
+gone through fire for her '_precious_ Lehzen,' the 'best and truest
+friend,' she declared, that she had had since her birth.  Her journal,
+begun when she was thirteen, where she registered day by day the small
+succession of her doings and her sentiments, bears on every page of it
+the traces of the Baroness and her circumambient influence.  The young
+creature that one sees there, self-depicted in ingenuous clarity, with
+her sincerity, her simplicity, her quick affections and pious
+resolutions, might almost have been the daughter of a German pastor
+herself.  Her enjoyments, her admirations, her _engouements_ were of
+the kind that {34} clothed themselves naturally in underlinings and
+exclamation marks.  'It was a _delightful_ ride.  We cantered a good
+deal.  SWEET LITTLE ROSY went BEAUTIFULLY!!  We came home at a 1/4 past
+1....  At 20 minutes to 7 we went out to the Opera....  Rubini came on
+and sang a song out of "Anna Boulena" _quite beautifully_.  We came
+home at 1/2 past 11.'[28]  In her comments on her readings, the mind of
+the Baroness is clearly revealed.  One day, by some mistake, she was
+allowed to take up a volume of memoirs by Fanny Kemble.  'It is
+certainly very pertly and oddly written.  One would imagine by the
+style that the authoress must be very pert, and not well bred; for
+there are so many vulgar expressions in it.  It is a great pity that a
+person endowed with so much talent, as Mrs. Butler really is, should
+turn it to so little account and publish a book which is so full of
+trash and nonsense which can only do her harm.  I stayed up till 20
+minutes past 9.'  Madame de Sevigne's letters, which the Baroness read
+aloud, met with more approval.  'How truly elegant and natural her
+style is!  It is so full of _naivete_, cleverness, and grace.'  But her
+highest admiration was reserved for the Bishop of Chester's 'Exposition
+of the Gospel of St. Matthew.'  'It is a very fine book indeed.  Just
+the sort of one I like; which is just plain and comprehensible and full
+of truth and good feeling.  It is not one of those learned books in
+which you have to cavil at almost every paragraph.  Lehzen gave it me
+on the Sunday that I took the Sacrament.'[29]  A few weeks previously
+she had been confirmed, and she described the event as follows: 'I felt
+that my confirmation was one of the most solemn and important events
+and acts in my life; and that I trusted that it might have a {35}
+salutary effect on my mind.  I felt deeply repentant for all what I had
+done which was wrong and trusted in God Almighty to strengthen my heart
+and mind; and to forsake all that is bad and follow all that is
+virtuous and right.  I went with the firm determination to become a
+true Christian, to try and comfort my dear Mamma in all her griefs,
+trials, and anxieties, and to become a dutiful and affectionate
+daughter to her.  Also to be obedient to _dear_ Lehzen, who has done so
+much for me.  I was dressed in a white lace dress, with a white crape
+bonnet with a wreath of white roses round it.  I went in the chariot
+with my dear Mamma and the others followed in another carriage.'[30]
+One seems to hold in one's hand a small smooth crystal pebble, without
+a flaw and without a scintillation, and so transparent that one can see
+through it at a glance.
+
+Yet perhaps, after all, to the discerning eye, the purity would not be
+absolute.  The careful searcher might detect, in the virgin soil, the
+first faint traces of an unexpected vein.  In that conventual existence
+visits were exciting events; and, as the Duchess had many relatives,
+they were not infrequent; aunts and uncles would often appear from
+Germany, and cousins too.  When the Princess was fourteen she was
+delighted by the arrival of a couple of boys from Wuertemberg, the
+Princes Alexander and Ernst, sons of her mother's sister and the
+reigning duke.  'They are both _extremely tall_,' she noted; 'Alexander
+is _very handsome_, and Ernst has a _very kind expression_.  They are
+both EXTREMELY _amiable_.'  And their departure filled her with
+corresponding regrets.  'We saw them get into the barge, and watched
+them sailing away for some time on the beach.  They were so amiable and
+so pleasant to have {36} in the house; they were always _satisfied,
+always good-humoured_; Alexander took such care of me in getting out of
+the boat, and rode next to me; so did Ernst.'[31]  Two years later, two
+other cousins arrived, the Princes Ferdinand and Augustus.  'Dear
+Ferdinand,' the Princess wrote, 'has elicited universal admiration from
+all parties....  He is so very unaffected, and has such a very
+distinguished appearance and carriage.  They are both very dear and
+charming young men.  Augustus is very amiable too, and, when known,
+shows much good sense.'  On another occasion, 'Dear Ferdinand came and
+sat near me and talked so dearly and sensibly.  I do _so_ love him.
+Dear Augustus sat near me and talked with me, and he is also a dear
+good young man, and is very handsome.'  She could not quite decide
+which was the handsomer of the two.  On the whole, she concluded, 'I
+think Ferdinand handsomer than Augustus, his eyes are so beautiful, and
+he has such a lively clever expression; _both_ have such a sweet
+expression; Ferdinand has something _quite beautiful_ in his expression
+when he speaks and smiles, and he is _so_ good.'  However, it was
+perhaps best to say that they were 'both very handsome and _very
+dear_.'[32]  But shortly afterwards two more cousins arrived, who threw
+all the rest into the shade.  These were the Princes Ernest and Albert,
+sons of her mother's eldest brother, the Duke of Saxe-Coburg.  This
+time the Princess was more particular in her observations.  'Ernest,'
+she remarked, 'is as tall as Ferdinand and Augustus; he has dark hair,
+and fine dark eyes and eyebrows, but the nose and mouth are not good;
+he has a most kind, honest and intelligent expression in his
+countenance, and has a very good figure.  Albert, who is just as tall
+{37} as Ernest but stouter, is extremely handsome; his hair is about
+the same colour as mine; his eyes are large and blue, and he has a
+beautiful nose and a very sweet mouth with fine teeth; but the charm of
+his countenance is his expression, which is most delightful; _cest a la
+fois_ full of goodness and sweetness, and very clever and intelligent.'
+'Both my cousins,' she added, 'are so kind and good; they are much more
+_formes_ and men of the world than Augustus; they speak English very
+well, and I speak it with them.  Ernest will be 18 years old on the
+21st of June, and Albert 17 on the 26th of August.  Dear Uncle Ernest
+made me the present of a most delightful _Lory_, which is so tame that
+it remains on your hand and you may put your finger into its beak, or
+do anything with it, without its ever attempting to bite.  It is larger
+than Mamma's grey parrot.'  A little later, 'I sat between my dear
+cousins on the sofa and we looked at drawings.  They both draw very
+well, particularly Albert, and are both exceedingly fond of music; they
+play very nicely on the piano.  The more I see them the more I am
+delighted with them, and the more I love them....  It is delightful to
+be with them; they are so fond of being occupied too; they are quite an
+example for any young person.'  When, after a stay of three weeks, the
+time came for the young men and their father to return to Germany, the
+moment of parting was a melancholy one.  'It was our last HAPPY HAPPY
+breakfast, with this dear Uncle and those _dearest_ beloved cousins,
+whom I _do_ love so VERY VERY dearly; _much more dearly_ than any other
+cousins in the _world_.  Dearly as I love Ferdinand, and also good
+Augustus, I love Ernest and Albert more than them, oh yes, MUCH
+_more_....  They have both learnt a good deal, and are very clever,
+naturally clever, {38} particularly Albert, who is the most reflecting
+of the two, and they like very much talking about serious and
+instructive things and yet are so _very very_ merry and gay and happy,
+like young people ought to be; Albert always used to have some fun and
+some clever witty answer at breakfast and everywhere; he used to play
+and fondle Dash so funnily too....  Dearest Albert was playing on the
+piano when I came down.  At 11 dear Uncle, my _dearest beloved_
+cousins, and Charles, left us, accompanied by Count Kolowrat.  I
+embraced both my dearest cousins most warmly, as also my dear Uncle.  I
+cried bitterly, very bitterly.'[33]  The Princes shared her ecstasies
+and her italics between them; but it is clear enough where her secret
+preference lay.  'Particularly Albert'!  She was just seventeen; and
+deep was the impression left upon that budding organism by the young
+man's charm and goodness and accomplishments, and his large blue eyes
+and beautiful nose, and his sweet mouth and fine teeth.
+
+
+IV
+
+King William could not away with his sister-in-law, and the Duchess
+fully returned his antipathy.  Without considerable tact and
+considerable forbearance their relative positions were well calculated
+to cause ill-feeling; and there was very little tact in the composition
+of the Duchess, and no forbearance at all in that of his Majesty.  A
+bursting, bubbling old gentleman, with quarter-deck gestures, round
+rolling eyes, and a head like a pineapple, his sudden elevation to the
+throne after fifty-six years of utter insignificance had almost sent
+him crazy.  His natural {39} exuberance completely got the better of
+him; he rushed about doing preposterous things in an extraordinary
+manner, spreading amusement and terror in every direction, and talking
+all the time.  His tongue was decidedly Hanoverian, with its
+repetitions, its catchwords--'That's quite another thing!  That's quite
+another thing!'--its rattling indomitability, its loud indiscreetness.
+His speeches, made repeatedly at the most inopportune junctures, and
+filled pell-mell with all the fancies and furies that happened at the
+moment to be whisking about in his head, were the consternation of
+Ministers.  He was one part blackguard, people said, and three parts
+buffoon; but those who knew him better could not help liking him--he
+meant well; and he was really good-humoured and kind-hearted, if you
+took him the right way.  If you took him the wrong way, however, you
+must look out for squalls, as the Duchess of Kent discovered.
+
+She had no notion of how to deal with him--could not understand him in
+the least.  Occupied with her own position, her own responsibilities,
+her duty, and her daughter, she had no attention to spare for the
+peppery susceptibilities of a foolish, disreputable old man.  She was
+the mother of the heiress of England; and it was for him to recognise
+the fact--to put her at once upon a proper footing--to give her the
+precedence of a dowager Princess of Wales, with a large annuity from
+the privy purse.[34]  It did not occur to her that such pretensions
+might be galling to a king who had no legitimate child of his own, and
+who yet had not altogether abandoned the hope of having one.  She
+pressed on, with bulky vigour, along the course she had laid out.  Sir
+John Conroy, an Irishman with no {40} judgment and a great deal of
+self-importance, was her intimate counsellor, and egged her on.  It was
+advisable that Victoria should become acquainted with the various
+districts of England, and through several summers a succession of
+tours--in the West, in the Midlands, in Wales--were arranged for her.
+The intention of the plan was excellent, but its execution was
+unfortunate.  The journeys, advertised in the Press, attracting
+enthusiastic crowds, and involving official receptions, took on the air
+of royal progresses.  Addresses were presented by loyal citizens; the
+delighted Duchess, swelling in sweeping feathers and almost
+obliterating the diminutive Princess, read aloud, in her German accent,
+gracious replies prepared beforehand by Sir John, who, bustling and
+ridiculous, seemed to be mingling the roles of major-domo and Prime
+Minister.  Naturally the King fumed over his newspaper at Windsor.
+'That woman is a nuisance!  That woman is a nuisance!' he exclaimed.
+Poor Queen Adelaide, amiable though disappointed, did her best to
+smooth things down, changed the subject, and wrote affectionate letters
+to Victoria; but it was useless.  News arrived that the Duchess of
+Kent, sailing in the Solent, had insisted that whenever her yacht
+appeared it should be received by royal salutes from all the men-of-war
+and all the forts.  The King declared that these continual poppings
+must cease; the Premier and the First Lord of the Admiralty were
+consulted; and they wrote privately to the Duchess, begging her to
+waive her rights.  But she would not hear of it; Sir John Conroy was
+adamant.  'As her Royal Highness's _confidential adviser_,' he said, 'I
+cannot recommend her to give way on this point.'  Eventually the King,
+in a great state of excitement, issued a special Order in {41} Council,
+prohibiting the firing of royal salutes to any ships except those which
+carried the reigning sovereign or his consort on board.[35]
+
+When King William quarrelled with his Whig Ministers the situation grew
+still more embittered, for now the Duchess, in addition to her other
+shortcomings, was the political partisan of his enemies.  In 1836 he
+made an attempt to prepare the ground for a match between the Princess
+Victoria and one of the sons of the Prince of Orange, and at the same
+time did his best to prevent the visit of the young Coburg princes to
+Kensington.  He failed in both these objects; and the only result of
+his efforts was to raise the anger of the King of the Belgians, who,
+forgetting for a moment his royal reserve, addressed an indignant
+letter on the subject to his niece.  'I am really _astonished_,' he
+wrote, 'at the conduct of your old Uncle the King; this invitation of
+the Prince of Orange and his sons, this forcing him on others, is very
+extraordinary....  Not later than yesterday I got a half-official
+communication from England, insinuating that it would be _highly_
+desirable that the visit of your relatives _should not take place this
+year_--qu'en dites-vous?  The relations of the Queen and the King,
+therefore, to the God-knows-what degree, are to come in shoals and rule
+the land, when _your relations_ are to be _forbidden_ the country, and
+that when, as you know, the whole of your relations have ever been very
+dutiful and kind to the King.  Really and truly I never heard or saw
+anything like it, and I hope it will a little _rouse your spirit_; now
+that slavery is even abolished in the British Colonies, I do not
+comprehend _why your lot alone should be to be kept a white little
+slavey in England_, for the pleasure of the {42} Court, who never
+bought you, as I am not aware of their ever having gone to any expense
+on that head, or the King's ever having _spent a sixpence for your
+existence_.... Oh, consistency and political or _other honesty_, where
+must one look for you!'[36]
+
+Shortly afterwards King Leopold came to England himself, and his
+reception was as cold at Windsor as it was warm at Kensington.  'To
+hear dear Uncle speak on any subject,' the Princess wrote in her diary,
+'is like reading a highly instructive book; his conversation is so
+enlightened, so clear.  He is universally admitted to be one of the
+first politicians now extant.  He speaks so mildly, yet firmly and
+impartially, about politics.  Uncle tells me that Belgium is quite a
+pattern for its organisation, its industry, and prosperity; the
+finances are in the greatest perfection.  Uncle is so beloved and
+revered by his Belgian subjects, that it must be a great compensation
+for all his extreme trouble.'[37]  But her other uncle by no means
+shared her sentiments.  He could not, he said, put up with a
+water-drinker; and King Leopold would touch no wine.  'What's that
+you're drinking, sir?' he asked him one day at dinner.  'Water, sir.'
+'God damn it, sir!' was the rejoinder.  'Why don't you drink wine?  I
+never allow anybody to drink water at my table.'[38]
+
+It was clear that before very long there would be a great explosion;
+and in the hot days of August it came.  The Duchess and the Princess
+had gone down to stay at Windsor for the King's birthday party, and the
+King himself, who was in London for the day to prorogue Parliament,
+paid a visit at Kensington Palace in their absence.  There he found
+that the Duchess {43} had just appropriated, against his express
+orders, a suite of seventeen apartments for her own use.  He was
+extremely angry, and, when he returned to Windsor, after greeting the
+Princess with affection, he publicly rebuked the Duchess for what she
+had done.  But this was little to what followed.  On the next day was
+the birthday banquet; there were a hundred guests; the Duchess of Kent
+sat on the King's right hand, and the Princess Victoria opposite.  At
+the end of the dinner, in reply to the toast of the King's health, he
+rose, and, in a long, loud, passionate speech, poured out the vials of
+his wrath upon the Duchess.  She had, he declared, insulted
+him--grossly and continually; she had kept the Princess away from him
+in the most improper manner; she was surrounded by evil advisers, and
+was incompetent to act with propriety in the high station which she
+filled; but he would bear it no longer; he would have her to know he
+was King; he was determined that his authority should be respected;
+henceforward the Princess should attend at every Court function with
+the utmost regularity; and he hoped to God that his life might be
+spared for six months longer, so that the calamity of a regency might
+be avoided, and the functions of the Crown pass directly to the
+heiress-presumptive instead of into the hands of the 'person now near
+him,' upon whose conduct and capacity no reliance whatever could be
+placed.  The flood of vituperation rushed on for what seemed an
+interminable period, while the Queen blushed scarlet, the Princess
+burst into tears, and the hundred guests sat aghast.  The Duchess said
+not a word until the tirade was over and the company had retired; then
+in a tornado of rage and mortification, she called for her carriage and
+announced her immediate return to {44} Kensington.  It was only with
+the utmost difficulty that some show of a reconciliation was patched
+up, and the outraged lady was prevailed upon to put off her departure
+till the morrow.[39]
+
+Her troubles, however, were not over when she had shaken the dust of
+Windsor from her feet.  In her own household she was pursued by
+bitterness and vexation of spirit.  The apartments at Kensington were
+seething with subdued disaffection, with jealousies and animosities
+virulently intensified by long years of propinquity and spite.
+
+There was a deadly feud between Sir John Conroy and Baroness Lehzen.
+But that was not all.  The Duchess had grown too fond of her
+major-domo.  There were familiarities, and one day the Princess
+Victoria discovered the fact.  She confided what she had seen to the
+Baroness, and to the Baroness's beloved ally, Madame de Spaeth.
+Unfortunately, Madame de Spaeth could not hold her tongue, and was
+actually foolish enough to reprove the Duchess; whereupon she was
+instantly dismissed.  It was not so easy to get rid of the Baroness.
+That lady, prudent and reserved, maintained an irreproachable
+demeanour.  Her position was strongly entrenched; she had managed to
+secure the support of the King; and Sir John found that he could do
+nothing against her.  But henceforward the household was divided into
+two camps.[40] The Duchess {45} supported Sir John with all the
+amplitude of her authority; but the Baroness, too, had an adherent who
+could not be neglected.  The Princess Victoria said nothing, but she
+had been much attached to Madame de Spaeth, and she adored her Lehzen.
+The Duchess knew only too well that in this horrid embroilment her
+daughter was against her.  Chagrin, annoyance, moral reprobation,
+tossed her to and fro.  She did her best to console herself with Sir
+John's affectionate loquacity, or with the sharp remarks of Lady Flora
+Hastings, one of her maids of honour, who had no love for the Baroness.
+The subject lent itself to satire; for the pastor's daughter, with all
+her airs of stiff superiority, had habits which betrayed her origin.
+Her passion for caraway seeds, for instance, was uncontrollable.
+Little bags of them came over to her from Hanover, and she sprinkled
+them on her bread and butter, her cabbage, and even her roast beef.
+Lady Flora could not resist a caustic observation; it was repeated to
+the Baroness, who pursed her lips in fury; and so the mischief grew.[41]
+
+
+V
+
+The King had prayed that he might live till his niece was of age; and a
+few days before her eighteenth birthday--the date of her legal
+majority--a sudden attack of illness very nearly carried him off.  He
+recovered, however, and the Princess was able to go through her
+birthday festivities--a state ball and a drawing-room--with unperturbed
+enjoyment.  'Count {46} Zichy,' she noted in her diary, 'is very
+good-looking in uniform, but not in plain clothes.  Count Waldstein
+looks remarkably well in his pretty Hungarian uniform.'[42]  With the
+latter young gentleman she wished to dance, but there was an
+insurmountable difficulty.  'He could not dance quadrilles, and, as in
+my station I unfortunately cannot valse and galop, I could not dance
+with him.'[43]  Her birthday present from the King was of a pleasing
+nature, but it led to a painful domestic scene.  In spite of the anger
+of her Belgian uncle, she had remained upon good terms with her English
+one.  He had always been very kind to her, and the fact that he had
+quarrelled with her mother did not appear to be a reason for disliking
+him.  He was, she said, 'odd, very odd and singular,' but 'his
+intentions were often ill interpreted.'[44]  He now wrote her a letter,
+offering her an allowance of L10,000 a year, which he proposed should
+be at her own disposal, and independent of her mother.  Lord Conyngham,
+the Lord Chamberlain, was instructed to deliver the letter into the
+Princess's own hands.  When he arrived at Kensington, he was ushered
+into the presence of the Duchess and the Princess, and, when he
+produced the letter, the Duchess put out her hand to take it.  Lord
+Conyngham begged her Royal Highness's pardon, and repeated the King's
+commands.  Thereupon the Duchess drew back, and the Princess took the
+letter.  She immediately wrote to her uncle, accepting his kind
+proposal.  The Duchess was much displeased; L4000 a year, she said,
+would be quite enough for Victoria; as for the remaining L6000, it
+would be only proper that she should have that herself.[45]
+
+{47}
+
+King William had thrown off his illness, and returned to his normal
+life.  Once more the royal circle at Windsor--their Majesties, the
+elder Princesses, and some unfortunate Ambassadress or Minister's
+wife--might be seen ranged for hours round a mahogany table, while the
+Queen netted a purse, and the King slept, occasionally waking from his
+slumbers to observe 'Exactly so, ma'am, exactly so!'[46]  But this
+recovery was of short duration.  The old man suddenly collapsed; with
+no specific symptoms besides an extreme weakness, he yet showed no
+power of rallying; and it was clear to everyone that his death was now
+close at hand.
+
+All eyes, all thoughts, turned towards the Princess Victoria; but she
+still remained, shut away in the seclusion of Kensington, a small,
+unknown figure, lost in the large shadow of her mother's domination.
+The preceding year had in fact been an important one in her
+development.  The soft tendrils of her mind had for the first time
+begun to stretch out towards unchildish things.  In this King Leopold
+encouraged her.  After his return to Brussels, he had resumed his
+correspondence in a more serious strain; he discussed the details of
+foreign politics; he laid down the duties of kingship; he pointed out
+the iniquitous foolishness of the newspaper press.  On the latter
+subject, indeed, he wrote with some asperity.  'If all the editors,' he
+said, 'of the papers in the countries where the liberty of the press
+exists were to be assembled, we should have a _crew_ to which you would
+_not_ confide a dog that you would value, still less your honour and
+reputation.'[47]  On the functions of a monarch, his views were
+unexceptionable.  'The business of the highest in a State,' he wrote,
+'is {48} certainly, in my opinion, to act with great impartiality and a
+spirit of justice for the good of all.'[48]  At the same time the
+Princess's tastes were opening out.  Though she was still passionately
+devoted to riding and dancing, she now began to have a genuine love of
+music as well, and to drink in the roulades and arias of the Italian
+opera with high enthusiasm.  She even enjoyed reading poetry--at any
+rate, the poetry of Sir Walter Scott.[49]
+
+When King Leopold learnt that King William's death was approaching, he
+wrote several long letters of excellent advice to his niece.  'In every
+letter I shall write to you,' he said, 'I mean to repeat to you, as a
+_fundamental rule, to be courageous, firm, and honest, as you have been
+till now_.'  For the rest, in the crisis that was approaching, she was
+not to be alarmed, but to trust in her 'good natural sense and the
+truth' of her character; she was to do nothing in a hurry; to hurt no
+one's _amour-propre_, and to continue her confidence in the Whig
+administration.[50]  Not content with letters, however, King Leopold
+determined that the Princess should not lack personal guidance, and
+sent over to her aid the trusted friend whom, twenty years before, he
+had taken to his heart by the death-bed at Claremont.  Thus, once
+again, as if in accordance with some preordained destiny, the figure of
+Stockmar is discernible--inevitably present at a momentous hour.
+
+On June 18, the King was visibly sinking.  The Archbishop of Canterbury
+was by his side, with all the comforts of the church.  Nor did the holy
+words fall upon a rebellious spirit; for many years his Majesty had
+been a devout believer.  'When I was a young man,' he once explained at
+a public banquet, 'as well {49} as I can remember, I believed in
+nothing but pleasure and folly--nothing at all.  But when I went to
+sea, got into a gale, and saw the wonders of the mighty deep, then I
+believed; and I have been a sincere Christian ever since.'[51]  It was
+the anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo, and the dying man remembered
+it.  He should be glad to live, he said, over that day; he would never
+see another sunset.  'I hope your Majesty may live to see many,' said
+Dr. Chambers.  'Oh! that's quite another thing, that's quite another
+thing,' was the answer.[52]  One other sunset he did live to see; and
+he died in the early hours of the following morning.  It was June 20,
+1837.
+
+When all was over, the Archbishop and the Lord Chamberlain ordered a
+carriage, and drove post-haste from Windsor to Kensington.  They
+arrived at the Palace at five o'clock, and it was only with
+considerable difficulty that they gained admittance.[53]  At six the
+Duchess woke up her daughter, and told her that the Archbishop of
+Canterbury and Lord Conyngham were there, and wished to see her.  She
+got out of bed, put on her dressing-gown, and went, alone, into the
+room where the messengers were standing.  Lord Conyngham fell on his
+knees, and officially announced the death of the King; the Archbishop
+added some personal details.  Looking at the bending, murmuring
+dignitaries before her, she knew that she was Queen of England.  'Since
+it has pleased Providence,' she wrote that day in her journal, 'to
+place me in this station, I shall do my utmost to fulfil my duty
+towards my country; I am very young, and perhaps in many, though not in
+all things, inexperienced, but I am sure, that very few have more real
+good will and more real desire to do what is fit and {50} right than I
+have.'[54]  But there was scant time for resolutions and reflections.
+At once, affairs were thick upon her.  Stockmar came to breakfast, and
+gave some good advice.  She wrote a letter to her uncle Leopold, and a
+hurried note to her sister Feodora.  A letter came from the Prime
+Minister, Lord Melbourne, announcing his approaching arrival.  He came
+at nine, in full court dress, and kissed her hand.  She saw him alone,
+and repeated to him the lesson which, no doubt, the faithful Stockmar
+had taught her at breakfast, 'It has long been my intention to retain
+your Lordship and the rest of the present Ministry at the head of
+affairs'; whereupon Lord Melbourne again kissed her hand and shortly
+after left her.  She then wrote a letter of condolence to Queen
+Adelaide.  At eleven, Lord Melbourne came again; and at half past
+eleven she went downstairs into the red saloon to hold her first
+Council.[55]  The great assembly of lords and notables, bishops,
+generals, and Ministers of State, saw the doors thrown open and a very
+short, very slim girl in deep plain mourning come into the room alone
+and move forward to her seat with extraordinary dignity and grace; they
+saw a countenance, not beautiful, but prepossessing--fair hair, blue
+prominent eyes, a small curved nose, an open mouth revealing the upper
+teeth, a tiny chin, a clear complexion, and, over all, the strangely
+mingled signs of innocence, of gravity, of youth, and of composure;
+they heard a high unwavering voice reading aloud with perfect clarity;
+and then, the ceremony over, they saw the small figure rise and, with
+the same consummate grace, the same amazing dignity, pass out from
+among them, as she had come in, alone.[56]
+
+
+
+[1] Murray, 62-3; Lee, 11-12.
+
+[2] Owen, Journal, No. 1, February, 1853, 28-9.
+
+[3] _Ibid._, 31.
+
+[4] Croker, I, 155.
+
+[5] Stockmar, 113.
+
+[6] Stockmar, 114-5.
+
+[7] _Letters_, I, 15, 257-8; Grey, App. A.
+
+[8] Granville, I, 168-9.
+
+[9] _Wilberforce, William_, V, 71-2.
+
+[10] _Letters_, I, 17.
+
+[11] Creevey, I, 297-8.
+
+[12] Jerrold, _Early Court_, 15-17.
+
+[13] _Letters_, I, 10.
+
+[14] _Ibid._, I, 14; _Girlhood_, I, 280.
+
+[15] Crawford, 6.
+
+[16] Smith, 21-2.
+
+[17] _Cornhill Magazine_, LXXV, 730.
+
+[18] Hunt, II, 257-8.
+
+[19] _Letters_, I, 10, 18.
+
+[20] _Letters_, I, 11-12; Lee, 26.
+
+[21] _Letters_, I, 14-17.
+
+[22] _Ibid._, I, 16.
+
+[23] Martin, I, 13.
+
+[24] _Letters_, I, 11.
+
+[25] _Girlhood_, I, 42.
+
+[26] Crawford, 87.
+
+[27] Martineau, II, 118-9.
+
+[28] _Girlhood_, I, 66-7.
+
+[29] _Ibid._, I, 129.
+
+[30] _Girlhood_, I, 124-5.
+
+[31] _Girlhood_, I, 78, 82.
+
+[32] _Ibid._, I, 150-3.
+
+[33] _Girlhood_, I, 157-61.
+
+[34] Greville, II, 195-6
+
+[35] Greville, III, 321, 324.
+
+[36] _Letters_, I, 47-8.
+
+[37] _Girlhood_, I, 168.
+
+[38] Greville, III, 377.
+
+[39] Greville, III, 374-6.
+
+[40] _Ibid._, IV, 21; and August 15, 1839 (unpublished).  'The cause of
+the Queen's alienation from the Duchess and hatred of Conroy, the Duke
+[of Wellington] said, was unquestionably owing to her having witnessed
+some familiarities between them.  What she had seen she repeated to
+Baroness Spaeth, and Spaeth not only did not hold her tongue, but (he
+thinks) remonstrated with the Duchess herself on the subject.  The
+consequence was that they got rid of Spaeth, and they would have got
+rid of Lehzen, too, if they had been able, but Lehzen, who knew very
+well what was going on, was prudent enough not to commit herself, and
+she was, besides, powerfully protected by George IV and William IV, so
+that they did not dare to attempt to expel her.'
+
+[41] Greville, IV, 21; Crawford, 128-9.
+
+[42] _Girlhood_, I, 192-3.
+
+[43] _Ibid._, I, 191.
+
+[44] _Ibid._, I, 194.
+
+[45] Greville, III, 407-8.
+
+[46] Creevey, II, 262.
+
+[47] _Letters_, I, 53.
+
+[48] _Letters_, I, 61.
+
+[49] _Girlhood_, I, 175.
+
+[50] _Letters_, I, 70-1.
+
+[51] Torrens, 419.
+
+[52] Huish, 686.
+
+[53] Wynn, 281.
+
+[54] _Girlhood_, I, 195-6.
+
+[55] _Ibid._, I, 196-7.
+
+[56] Greville, III, 414-6.
+
+
+[Illustration: LORD MELBOURNE.  _From the Portrait by Sir Edwin
+Landseer, R.A._]
+
+
+
+
+{51}
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+LORD MELBOURNE
+
+I
+
+The new queen was almost entirely unknown to her subjects.  In her
+public appearances her mother had invariably dominated the scene.  Her
+private life had been that of a novice in a convent: hardly a human
+being from the outside world had ever spoken to her; and no human being
+at all, except her mother and the Baroness Lehzen, had ever been alone
+with her in a room.  Thus it was not only the public at large that was
+in ignorance of everything concerning her; the inner circles of
+statesmen and officials and high-born ladies were equally in the
+dark.[1]  When she suddenly emerged from this deep obscurity, the
+impression that she created was immediate and profound.  Her bearing at
+her first Council filled the whole gathering with astonishment and
+admiration; the Duke of Wellington, Sir Robert Peel, even the savage
+Croker, even the cold and caustic Greville--all were completely carried
+away.  Everything that was reported of her subsequent proceedings
+seemed to be of no less happy augury.  Her perceptions were quick, her
+decisions were sensible, her language was discreet; she performed her
+royal duties with extraordinary facility.[2]  Among the outside public
+there was a great wave of enthusiasm.  {52} Sentiment and romance were
+coming into fashion; and the spectacle of the little girl-queen,
+innocent, modest, with fair hair and pink cheeks, driving through her
+capital, filled the hearts of the beholders with raptures of
+affectionate loyalty.  What, above all, struck everybody with
+overwhelming force was the contrast between Queen Victoria and her
+uncles.  The nasty old men, debauched and selfish, pig-headed and
+ridiculous, with their perpetual burden of debts, confusions, and
+disreputabilities--they had vanished like the snows of winter, and here
+at last, crowned and radiant, was the spring.  Lord John Russell, in an
+elaborate oration, gave voice to the general sentiment.  He hoped that
+Victoria might prove an Elizabeth without her tyranny, an Anne without
+her weakness.  He asked England to pray that the illustrious Princess
+who had just ascended the throne with the purest intentions and the
+justest desires might see slavery abolished, crime diminished, and
+education improved.  He trusted that her people would henceforward
+derive their strength, their conduct, and their loyalty from
+enlightened religious and moral principles, and that, so fortified, the
+reign of Victoria might prove celebrated to posterity and to all the
+nations of the earth.[3]
+
+Very soon, however, there were signs that the future might turn out to
+be not quite so simple and roseate as a delighted public dreamed.  The
+'illustrious Princess' might perhaps, after all, have something within
+her which squared ill with the easy vision of a well-conducted heroine
+in an edifying story-book.  The purest intentions and the justest
+desires?  No doubt; but was that all?  To those who watched closely,
+for instance, there might be something ominous in the {53} curious
+contour of that little mouth.  When, after her first Council, she
+crossed the ante-room and found her mother waiting for her, she said,
+'And now, Mamma, am I really and truly Queen?'  'You see, my dear, that
+it is so.'  'Then, dear Mamma, I hope you will grant me the first
+request I make to you, as Queen.  Let me be by myself for an hour.'[4]
+For an hour she remained in solitude.  Then she reappeared, and gave a
+significant order: her bed was to be moved out of her mother's room.
+It was the doom of the Duchess of Kent.  The long years of waiting were
+over at last; the moment of a lifetime had come; her daughter was Queen
+of England; and that very moment brought her own annihilation.  She
+found herself, absolutely and irretrievably, shut off from every
+vestige of influence, of confidence, of power.  She was surrounded,
+indeed, by all the outward signs of respect and consideration; but that
+made the inward truth of her position only the more intolerable.
+Through the mingled formalities of Court etiquette and filial duty, she
+could never penetrate to Victoria.  She was unable to conceal her
+disappointment and her rage.  'Il n'y a plus d'avenir pour moi,' she
+exclaimed to Madame de Lieven; 'je ne suis plus rien.'  For eighteen
+years, she said, this child had been the sole object of her existence,
+of her thoughts, her hopes, and now--no! she would not be comforted,
+she had lost everything, she was to the last degree unhappy.[5]
+Sailing, so gallantly and so pertinaciously, through the buffeting
+storms of life, the stately vessel, with sails still swelling and
+pennons flying, had put into harbour at last; to find there nothing--a
+land of bleak desolation.
+
+Within a month of the accession, the realities of {54} the new
+situation assumed a visible shape.  The whole royal household moved
+from Kensington to Buckingham Palace, and, in the new abode, the
+Duchess of Kent was given a suite of apartments entirely separate from
+the Queen's.  By Victoria herself the change was welcomed, though, at
+the moment of departure, she could afford to be sentimental.  'Though I
+rejoice to go into B.P. for many reasons,' she wrote in her diary, 'it
+is not without feelings of regret that I shall bid adieu _for ever_ to
+this my birthplace, where I have been born and bred, and to which I am
+really attached!'  Her memory lingered for a moment over visions of the
+past: her sister's wedding, pleasant balls and _delicious_ concerts ...
+and there were other recollections.  'I have gone through painful and
+disagreeable scenes here, 'tis true,' she concluded, 'but still I am
+fond of the poor old palace.'[6]
+
+At the same time she took another decided step.  She had determined
+that she would see no more of Sir John Conroy.  She rewarded his past
+services with liberality: he was given a baronetcy and a pension of
+L3000 a year; he remained a member of the Duchess's household, but his
+personal intercourse with the Queen came to an abrupt conclusion.[7]
+
+
+II
+
+It was clear that these interior changes--whatever else they might
+betoken--marked the triumph of one person--the Baroness Lehzen.  The
+pastor's daughter observed the ruin of her enemies.  Discreet and
+victorious, she remained in possession of the field.  More closely than
+ever did she cleave to the side of her {55} mistress, her pupil, and
+her friend; and in the recesses of the palace her mysterious figure was
+at once invisible and omnipresent.  When the Queen's Ministers came in
+at one door, the Baroness went out by another; when they retired, she
+immediately returned.[8]  Nobody knew--nobody ever will know--the
+precise extent and the precise nature of her influence.  She herself
+declared that she never discussed public affairs with the Queen, that
+she was concerned with private matters only--with private letters and
+the details of private life.[9]  Certainly her hand is everywhere
+discernible in Victoria's early correspondence.  The Journal is written
+in the style of a child; the Letters are not so simple; they are the
+work of a child, rearranged--with the minimum of alteration, no doubt,
+and yet perceptibly--by a governess.  And the governess was no fool:
+narrow, jealous, provincial, she might be; but she was an acute and
+vigorous woman, who had gained, by a peculiar insight, a peculiar
+ascendancy.  That ascendancy she meant to keep.  No doubt it was true
+that technically she took no part in public business; but the
+distinction between what is public and what is private is always a
+subtle one; and in the case of a reigning sovereign--as the next few
+years were to show--it is often imaginary.  Considering all things--the
+characters of the persons, and the character of the times--it was
+something more than a mere matter of private interest that the bedroom
+of Baroness Lehzen at Buckingham Palace should have been next door to
+the bedroom of the Queen.
+
+But the influence wielded by the Baroness, supreme as it seemed within
+its own sphere, was not unlimited; {56} there were other forces at
+work.  For one thing, the faithful Stockmar had taken up his residence
+in the palace.  During the twenty years which had elapsed since the
+death of the Princess Charlotte, his experiences had been varied and
+remarkable.  The unknown counsellor of a disappointed princeling had
+gradually risen to a position of European importance.  His devotion to
+his master had been not only whole-hearted but cautious and wise.  It
+was Stockmar's advice that had kept Prince Leopold in England during
+the critical years which followed his wife's death, and had thus
+secured to him the essential requisite of a _point d'appui_ in the
+country of his adoption.[10]  It was Stockmar's discretion which had
+smoothed over the embarrassments surrounding the Prince's acceptance
+and rejection of the Greek crown.  It was Stockmar who had induced the
+Prince to become the constitutional Sovereign of Belgium.[11]  Above
+all, it was Stockmar's tact, honesty, and diplomatic skill which,
+through a long series of arduous and complicated negotiations, had led
+to the guarantee of Belgian neutrality by the Great Powers.[12]  His
+labours had been rewarded by a German barony and by the complete
+confidence of King Leopold.  Nor was it only in Brussels that he was
+treated with respect and listened to with attention.  The statesmen who
+governed England--Lord Grey, Sir Robert Peel, Lord Palmerston, Lord
+Melbourne--had learnt to put a high value upon his probity and his
+intelligence.  'He is one of the cleverest fellows I ever saw,' said
+Lord Melbourne--'the most discreet man, the most well-judging, and most
+cool man.'[13]  And Lord Palmerston cited Baron Stockmar as the only
+absolutely disinterested {57} man he had come across in life.[14]  At
+last he was able to retire to Coburg, and to enjoy for a few years the
+society of the wife and children whom his labours in the service of his
+master had hitherto only allowed him to visit at long intervals for a
+month or two at a time.  But in 1836 he had been again entrusted with
+an important negotiation, which he had brought to a successful
+conclusion in the marriage of Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg, a nephew
+of King Leopold's, with Queen Maria II of Portugal.[15]  The House of
+Coburg was beginning to spread over Europe; and the establishment of
+the Baron at Buckingham Palace in 1837 was to be the prelude of another
+and a more momentous advance.[16]
+
+King Leopold and his counsellor provide in their careers an example of
+the curious diversity of human ambitions.  The desires of man are
+wonderfully various; but no less various are the means by which those
+desires may reach satisfaction: and so the work of the world gets done.
+The correct mind of Leopold craved for the whole apparatus of royalty.
+Mere power would have held no attractions for him; he must be an actual
+king--the crowned head of a people.  It was not enough to do; it was
+essential also to be recognised; anything else would not be fitting.
+The greatness that he dreamt of was surrounded by every appropriate
+circumstance.  To be a Majesty, to be a cousin of Sovereigns, to marry
+a Bourbon for diplomatic ends, to correspond with the Queen of England,
+to be very stiff and very punctual, to found a dynasty, to bore
+ambassadresses into fits, to live, on the highest pinnacle, an
+exemplary life devoted to the public service--such {58} were his
+objects, and such, in fact, were his achievements.  The 'Marquis
+Peu-a-peu,' as George IV called him,[17] had what he wanted.  But this
+would never have been the case if it had not happened that the ambition
+of Stockmar took a form exactly complementary to his own.  The
+sovereignty that the Baron sought for was by no means obvious.  The
+satisfaction of his essential being lay in obscurity, in
+invisibility--in passing, unobserved, through a hidden entrance, into
+the very central chamber of power, and in sitting there, quietly,
+pulling the subtle strings that set the wheels of the whole world in
+motion.  A very few people, in very high places, and exceptionally
+well-informed, knew that Baron Stockmar was a most important person:
+that was enough.  The fortunes of the master and the servant,
+intimately interacting, rose together.  The Baron's secret skill had
+given Leopold his unexceptionable kingdom; and Leopold, in his turn, as
+time went on, was able to furnish the Baron with more and more keys to
+more and more back doors.
+
+Stockmar took up his abode in the Palace partly as the emissary of King
+Leopold, but more particularly as the friend and adviser of a queen who
+was almost a child, and who, no doubt, would be much in need of advice
+and friendship.  For it would be a mistake to suppose that either of
+these two men was actuated by a vulgar selfishness.  The King, indeed,
+was very well aware on which side his bread was buttered; during an
+adventurous and chequered life he had acquired a shrewd knowledge of
+the world's workings; and he was ready enough to use that knowledge to
+strengthen his position and to spread his influence.  But then, the
+firmer his position and the wider his influence, the {59} better for
+Europe; of that he was quite certain.  And besides, he was a
+constitutional monarch; and it would be highly indecorous in a
+constitutional monarch to have any aims that were low or personal.  As
+for Stockmar, the disinterestedness which Palmerston had noted was
+undoubtedly a basic element in his character.  The ordinary schemer is
+always an optimist; and Stockmar, racked by dyspepsia and haunted by
+gloomy forebodings, was a constitutionally melancholy man.  A schemer,
+no doubt, he was; but he schemed distrustfully, splenetically, to do
+good.  To do good!  What nobler end could a man scheme for?  Yet it is
+perilous to scheme at all.
+
+With Lehzen to supervise every detail of her conduct, with Stockmar in
+the next room, so full of wisdom and experience of affairs, with her
+Uncle Leopold's letters, too, pouring out so constantly their stream of
+encouragements, general reflections, and highly valuable tips,
+Victoria, even had she been without other guidance, would have stood in
+no lack of private counsellors.  But other guidance she had; for all
+these influences paled before a new star, of the first magnitude,
+which, rising suddenly upon her horizon, immediately dominated her life.
+
+
+III
+
+William Lamb, Viscount Melbourne, was fifty-eight years of age, and had
+been for the last three years Prime Minister of England.  In every
+outward respect he was one of the most fortunate of mankind.  He had
+been born into the midst of riches, brilliance, and power.  His mother,
+fascinating and intelligent, had been a great Whig hostess, and he had
+been bred up as a {60} member of that radiant society which, during the
+last quarter of the eighteenth century, concentrated within itself the
+ultimate perfections of a hundred years of triumphant aristocracy.
+Nature had given him beauty and brains; the unexpected death of an
+elder brother brought him wealth, a peerage, and the possibility of
+high advancement.  Within that charmed circle, whatever one's personal
+disabilities, it was difficult to fail; and to him, with all his
+advantages, success was well-nigh unavoidable.  With little effort, he
+attained political eminence.  On the triumph of the Whigs he became one
+of the leading members of the Government; and when Lord Grey retired
+from the premiership he quietly stepped into the vacant place.  Nor was
+it only in the visible signs of fortune that Fate had been kind to him.
+Bound to succeed, and to succeed easily, he was gifted with so fine a
+nature that his success became him.  His mind, at once supple and
+copious, his temperament, at once calm and sensitive, enabled him not
+merely to work but to live with perfect facility and with the grace of
+strength.  In society he was a notable talker, a captivating companion,
+a charming man.  If one looked deeper, one saw at once that he was not
+ordinary, that the piquancies of his conversation and his manner--his
+free-and-easy vaguenesses, his abrupt questions, his lollings and
+loungings, his innumerable oaths--were something more than an amusing
+ornament, were the outward manifestation of an individuality peculiar
+to the core.
+
+The precise nature of this individuality was very difficult to gauge:
+it was dubious, complex, perhaps self-contradictory.  Certainly there
+was an ironical discordance between the inner history of the man and
+his apparent fortunes.  He owed all he had to his birth, {61} and his
+birth was shameful; it was known well enough that his mother had
+passionately loved Lord Egremont, and that Lord Melbourne was not his
+father.[18]  His marriage, which had seemed to be the crown of his
+youthful ardours, was a long, miserable, desperate failure: the
+incredible Lady Caroline,
+
+      ... 'with pleasures too refined to please,
+  With too much spirit to be e'er at ease,
+  With too much quickness to be ever taught,
+  With too much thinking to have common thought,'
+
+was very nearly the destruction of his life.  When at last he emerged
+from the anguish and confusion of her folly, her extravagance, her
+rage, her despair, and her devotion, he was left alone with endless
+memories of intermingled farce and tragedy, and an only son who was an
+imbecile.  But there was something else that he owed to Lady Caroline.
+While she whirled with Byron in a hectic frenzy of love and fashion, he
+had stayed at home in an indulgence bordering on cynicism, and occupied
+his solitude with reading.  It was thus that he had acquired those
+habits of study, that love of learning, and that wide and accurate
+knowledge of ancient and modern literature, which formed so unexpected
+a part of his mental equipment.  His passion for reading never deserted
+him; even when he was Prime Minister he found time to master every new
+important book.[19]  With an incongruousness that was characteristic,
+his favourite study was theology.  An accomplished classical scholar,
+he was deeply read in the Fathers of the Church; heavy volumes of
+commentary and exegesis he examined with scrupulous diligence; and at
+any odd moment he might be found turning over {62} the pages of the
+Bible.[20]  To the ladies whom he most liked he would lend some learned
+work on the Revelation, crammed with marginal notes in his own hand, or
+Dr. Lardner's 'Observations upon the Jewish Errors with respect to the
+Conversion of Mary Magdalene.'  The more pious among them had high
+hopes that these studies would lead him into the right way; but of this
+there were no symptoms in his after-dinner conversation.[21]  The
+paradox of his political career was no less curious.  By temperament an
+aristocrat, by conviction a conservative, he came to power as the
+leader of the popular party, the party of change.  He had profoundly
+disliked the Reform Bill, which he had only accepted at last as a
+necessary evil; and the Reform Bill lay at the root of the very
+existence, of the very meaning, of his government.  He was far too
+sceptical to believe in progress of any kind.  Things were best as they
+were--or rather, they were least bad.  'You'd better try to do no
+good,' was one of his dictums, 'and then you'll get into no scrapes.'
+Education at best was futile; education of the poor was positively
+dangerous.  The factory children?  'Oh, if you'd only have the goodness
+to leave them alone!'  Free Trade was a delusion; the ballot was
+nonsense; and there was no such thing as a democracy.  Nevertheless, he
+was not a reactionary; he was simply an opportunist.  The whole duty of
+government, he said, was 'to prevent crime and to preserve contracts.'
+All one could really hope to do was to carry on.  He himself carried on
+in a remarkable manner--with perpetual compromises, with fluctuations
+and {63} contradictions, with every kind of weakness, and yet with
+shrewdness, with gentleness, even with conscientiousness, and a light
+and airy mastery of men and of events.  He conducted the transactions
+of business with extraordinary nonchalance.  Important persons, ushered
+up for some grave interview, found him in a towselled bed, littered
+with books and papers, or vaguely shaving in a dressing-room; but, when
+they went downstairs again, they would realise that somehow or other
+they had been pumped.  When he had to receive a deputation, he could
+hardly ever do so with becoming gravity.  The worthy delegates of the
+tallow-chandlers, or the Society for the Abolition of Capital
+Punishment, were distressed and mortified when, in the midst of their
+speeches, the Prime Minister became absorbed in blowing a feather, or
+suddenly cracked an unseemly joke.  How could they have guessed that he
+had spent the night before diligently getting up the details of their
+case?  He hated patronage and the making of appointments--a feeling
+rare in Ministers.  'As for the Bishops,' he burst out, 'I positively
+believe they die to vex me.'  But when at last the appointment was
+made, it was made with keen discrimination.  His colleagues observed
+another symptom--was it of his irresponsibility or his wisdom?  He went
+to sleep in the Cabinet.[22]
+
+Probably, if he had been born a little earlier, he would have been a
+simpler and a happier man.  As it was, he was a child of the eighteenth
+century whose lot was cast in a new, difficult, unsympathetic age.  He
+was an autumn rose.  With all his gracious amenity, his humour, his
+happy-go-lucky ways, a deep disquietude possessed him.  A sentimental
+cynic, a sceptical believer, {64} he was restless and melancholy at
+heart.  Above all, he could never harden himself; those sensitive
+petals shivered in every wind.  Whatever else he might be, one thing
+was certain: Lord Melbourne was always human, supremely human--too
+human, perhaps.[23]
+
+And now, with old age upon him, his life took a sudden, new,
+extraordinary turn.  He became, in the twinkling of an eye, the
+intimate adviser and the daily companion of a young girl who had
+stepped all at once from a nursery to a throne.  His relations with
+women had been, like everything else about him, ambiguous.  Nobody had
+ever been able quite to gauge the shifting, emotional complexities of
+his married life; Lady Caroline vanished; but his peculiar
+susceptibilities remained.  Female society of some kind or other was
+necessary to him, and he did not stint himself; a great part of every
+day was invariably spent in it.  The feminine element in him made it
+easy, made it natural and inevitable for him to be the friend of a
+great many women; but the masculine element in him was strong as well.
+In such circumstances it is also easy, it is even natural, perhaps it
+is even inevitable, to be something more than a friend.  There were
+rumours and combustions.  Lord Melbourne was twice a co-respondent in a
+divorce action; but on each occasion he won his suit.  The lovely Lady
+Brandon, the unhappy and brilliant Mrs. Norton ... the law exonerated
+them both.  Beyond that hung an impenetrable veil.  But at any rate it
+was clear that, with such a record, the Prime Minister's position in
+Buckingham Palace must be a highly delicate one.  However, he was used
+to delicacies, and he met the situation with consummate success.  His
+behaviour was from the first moment {65} impeccable.  His manner
+towards the young Queen mingled, with perfect facility, the
+watchfulness and the respect of a statesman and a courtier with the
+tender solicitude of a parent.  He was at once reverential and
+affectionate, at once the servant and the guide.  At the same time the
+habits of his life underwent a surprising change.  His comfortable,
+unpunctual days became subject to the unaltering routine of a palace;
+no longer did he sprawl on sofas; not a single 'damn' escaped his lips.
+The man of the world who had been the friend of Byron and the Regent,
+the talker whose paradoxes had held Holland House enthralled, the cynic
+whose ribaldries had enlivened so many deep potations, the lover whose
+soft words had captivated such beauty and such passion and such wit,
+might now be seen, evening after evening, talking with infinite
+politeness to a schoolgirl, bolt upright, amid the silence and the
+rigidity of Court etiquette.[24]
+
+
+IV
+
+On her side, Victoria was instantaneously fascinated by Lord Melbourne.
+The good report of Stockmar had no doubt prepared the way; Lehzen was
+wisely propitiated; and the first highly favourable impression was
+never afterwards belied.  She found him perfect; and perfect in her
+sight he remained.  Her absolute and unconcealed adoration was very
+natural; what innocent young creature could have resisted, in any
+circumstances, the charm and the devotion of such a man?  But, in her
+situation, there was a special influence which gave a peculiar glow to
+all she felt.  After years of emptiness and dullness and suppression,
+she had come suddenly, in {66} the heyday of youth, into freedom and
+power.  She was mistress of herself, of great domains and palaces; she
+was Queen of England.  Responsibilities and difficulties she might
+have, no doubt, and in heavy measure; but one feeling dominated and
+absorbed all others--the feeling of joy.  Everything pleased her.  She
+was in high spirits from morning till night.  Mr. Creevey, grown old
+now, and very near his end, catching a glimpse of her at Brighton, was
+much amused, in his sharp fashion, by the ingenuous gaiety of 'little
+Vic.'--'A more homely little being you never beheld, _when she is at
+her ease_, and she is evidently dying to be always more so.  She laughs
+in real earnest, opening her mouth as wide as it can go, showing not
+very pretty gums....  She eats quite as heartily as she laughs, I think
+I may say she gobbles....  She blushes and laughs every instant in so
+natural a way as to disarm anybody.'[25]  But it was not merely when
+she was laughing or gobbling that she enjoyed herself; the performance
+of her official duties gave her intense satisfaction.  'I really have
+immensely to do,' she wrote in her journal a few days after her
+accession; 'I receive so many communications from my Ministers, but I
+like it very much.'[26]  And again, a week later, 'I repeat what I said
+before that I have so many communications from the Ministers, and from
+me to them, and I get so many papers to sign every day, that I have
+always a _very great deal_ to do.  I _delight_ in this work.'[27]
+Through the girl's immaturity the vigorous predestined tastes of the
+woman were pushing themselves into existence with eager velocity, with
+delicious force.
+
+One detail of her happy situation deserves particular mention.  Apart
+from the splendour of her {67} social position and the momentousness of
+her political one, she was a person of great wealth.  As soon as
+Parliament met, an annuity of L385,000 was settled upon her.  When the
+expenses of her household had been discharged, she was left with
+L68,000 a year of her own.  She enjoyed besides the revenues of the
+Duchy of Lancaster, which amounted annually to over L27,000.  The first
+use to which she put her money was characteristic: she paid off her
+father's debts.  In money matters, no less than in other matters, she
+was determined to be correct.  She had the instincts of a man of
+business; and she never could have borne to be in a position that was
+financially unsound.[28]
+
+With youth and happiness gilding every hour, the days passed merrily
+enough.  And each day hinged upon Lord Melbourne.  Her diary shows us,
+with undiminished clarity, the life of the young sovereign during the
+early months of her reign--a life satisfactorily regular, full of
+delightful business, a life of simple pleasures, mostly
+physical--riding, eating, dancing--a quick, easy, highly
+unsophisticated life, sufficient unto itself.  The light of the morning
+is upon it; and, in the rosy radiance, the figure of 'Lord M.' emerges,
+glorified and supreme.  If she is the heroine of the story, he is the
+hero; but indeed they are more than hero and heroine, for there are no
+other characters at all.  Lehzen, the Baron, Uncle Leopold, are
+unsubstantial shadows--the incidental supers of the piece.  Her
+paradise was peopled by two persons, and surely that was enough.  One
+sees them together still, a curious couple, strangely united in those
+artless pages, under the magical illumination of that dawn of eighty
+years ago: the polished high fine gentleman with the whitening {68}
+hair and whiskers and the thick dark eyebrows and the mobile lips and
+the big expressive eyes; and beside him the tiny Queen--fair, slim,
+elegant, active, in her plain girl's dress and little tippet, looking
+up at him earnestly, adoringly, with eyes blue and projecting, and
+half-open mouth.  So they appear upon every page of the Journal; upon
+every page Lord M. is present, Lord M. is speaking, Lord M. is being
+amusing, instructive, delightful, and affectionate at once, while
+Victoria drinks in the honeyed words, laughs till she shows her gums,
+tries hard to remember, and runs off, as soon as she is left alone, to
+put it all down.  Their long conversations touched upon a multitude of
+topics.  Lord M. would criticise books, throw out a remark or two on
+the British Constitution, make some passing reflections on human life,
+and tell story after story of the great people of the eighteenth
+century.  Then there would be business--a despatch perhaps from Lord
+Durham in Canada, which Lord M. would read.  But first he must explain
+a little.  'He said that I must know that Canada originally belonged to
+the French, and was only ceded to the English in 1760, when it was
+taken in an expedition under Wolfe; "a very daring enterprise," he
+said.  Canada was then entirely French, and the British only came
+afterwards....  Lord M. explained this very clearly (and much better
+than I have done) and said a good deal more about it.  He then read me
+Durham's despatch, which is a very long one and took him more than 1/2 an
+hour to read.  Lord M. read it beautifully with that fine soft voice of
+his, and with so much expression, so that it is needless to say I was
+much interested by it.'[29]  And then the talk would take a more
+personal turn.  Lord {69} M. would describe his boyhood, and she would
+learn that 'he wore his hair long, as all boys then did, till he was
+17; (_how_ handsome he must have looked!).'[30]  Or she would find out
+about his queer tastes and habits--how he never carried a watch, which
+seemed quite extraordinary.  '"I always ask the servant what o'clock it
+is, and then he tells me what he likes," said Lord M.'[31]  Or, as the
+rooks wheeled about round the trees, 'in a manner which indicated
+rain,' he would say that he could sit looking at them for an hour, and
+'was quite surprised at my disliking them....  Lord M. said, "The rooks
+are my delight."'[32]
+
+[Illustration: QUEEN VICTORIA IN 1838.  _From the painting by E.
+Corbould_.]
+
+The day's routine, whether in London or at Windsor, was almost
+invariable.  The morning was devoted to business and Lord M.  In the
+afternoon the whole Court went out riding.  The Queen, in her velvet
+riding-habit and a top-hat with a veil draped about the brim, headed
+the cavalcade; and Lord M. rode beside her.  The lively troupe went
+fast and far, to the extreme exhilaration of Her Majesty.  Back in the
+Palace again, there was still time for a little more fun before
+dinner--a game of battledore and shuttlecock perhaps, or a romp along
+the galleries with some children.[33]  Dinner came, and the ceremonial
+decidedly tightened.  The gentleman of highest rank sat on the right
+hand of the Queen; on her left--it soon became an established rule--sat
+Lord Melbourne.  After the ladies had left the dining-room, the
+gentlemen were not permitted to remain behind for very long; indeed,
+the short time allowed them for their wine-drinking formed the
+subject--so it was rumoured--of one of the very few disputes between
+the Queen and her Prime {70} Minister[34]; but her determination
+carried the day, and from that moment after-dinner drunkenness began to
+go out of fashion.  When the company was reassembled in the
+drawing-room the etiquette was stiff.  For a few minutes the Queen
+spoke in turn to each one of her guests; and during these short uneasy
+colloquies the aridity of royalty was apt to become painfully evident.
+One night Mr. Greville, the Clerk of the Privy Council, was present;
+his turn soon came; the middle-aged, hard-faced _viveur_ was addressed
+by his young hostess.  'Have you been riding to-day, Mr. Greville?'
+asked the Queen.  'No, Madam, I have not,' replied Mr. Greville.  'It
+was a fine day,' continued the Queen.  'Yes, Madam, a very fine day,'
+said Mr. Greville.  'It was rather cold, though,' said the Queen.  'It
+was rather cold, Madam,' said Mr. Greville.  'Your sister, Lady Frances
+Egerton, rides, I think, doesn't she?' said the Queen.  'She does ride
+sometimes, Madam,' said Mr. Greville.  There was a pause, after which
+Mr. Greville ventured to take the lead, though he did not venture to
+change the subject.  'Has your Majesty been riding to-day?' asked Mr.
+Greville.  'Oh yes, a very long ride,' answered the Queen with
+animation.  'Has your Majesty got a nice horse?' said Mr. Greville.
+'Oh, a very nice horse,' said the Queen.  It was over.  Her Majesty
+gave a smile and an inclination of the head, Mr. Greville a profound
+bow, and the next conversation began with the next gentleman.[35]  When
+all the guests {71} had been disposed of, the Duchess of Kent sat down
+to her whist, while everybody else was ranged about the round table.
+Lord Melbourne sat beside the Queen, and talked pertinaciously--very
+often _a propos_ to the contents of one of the large albums of
+engravings with which the round table was covered--until it was
+half-past eleven and time to go to bed.[36]
+
+Occasionally, there were little diversions: the evening might be spent
+at the opera or at the play.  Next morning the royal critic was careful
+to note down her impressions.  'It was Shakespeare's tragedy of
+_Hamlet_, and we came in at the beginning of it.  Mr. Charles Kean (son
+of old Kean) acted the part of Hamlet, and I must say beautifully.  His
+conception of this very difficult, and I may almost say
+incomprehensible, character is admirable; his delivery of all the fine
+long speeches quite beautiful; he is excessively graceful and all his
+actions and attitudes are good, though not at all good-looking in
+face....  I came away just as _Hamlet_ was over.'[37]  Later on, she
+went to see Macready in _King Lear_.  The story was new to her; she
+knew nothing about it, and at first she took very little interest in
+what was passing on the stage; she preferred to chatter and laugh with
+the Lord Chamberlain.  But, as the play went on, her mood changed; her
+attention was fixed, and then she laughed no more.  Yet she was
+puzzled; it seemed a strange, a horrible business.  What did Lord M.
+think?  Lord M. thought it was a very fine play, but to be sure, 'a
+rough, coarse play, written for those times, with exaggerated
+characters.' 'I'm glad you've seen it,' he added.[38]  But,
+undoubtedly, the evenings which she enjoyed most were those on {72}
+which there was dancing.  She was always ready enough to seize any
+excuse--the arrival of cousins--a birthday--a gathering of young
+people--to give the command for that.  Then, when the band played, and
+the figures of the dancers swayed to the music, and she felt her own
+figure swaying too, with youthful spirits so close on every side--then
+her happiness reached its height, her eyes sparkled, she must go on and
+on into the small hours of the morning.  For a moment Lord M. himself
+was forgotten.
+
+
+V
+
+The months flew past.  The summer was over: 'the pleasantest summer I
+EVER passed in _my life_, and I shall never forget this first summer of
+my reign.'[39]  With surprising rapidity, another summer was upon her.
+The coronation came and went--a curious dream.  The antique, intricate,
+endless ceremonial worked itself out as best it could, like some
+machine of gigantic complexity which was a little out of order.  The
+small central figure went through her gyrations.  She sat; she walked;
+she prayed; she carried about an orb that was almost too heavy to hold;
+the Archbishop of Canterbury came and crushed a ring upon the wrong
+finger, so that she was ready to cry out with the pain; old Lord Rolle
+tripped up in his mantle and fell down the steps as he was doing
+homage; she was taken into a side chapel, where the altar was covered
+with a tablecloth, sandwiches, and bottles of wine; she perceived
+Lehzen in an upper box and exchanged a smile with her as she sat, robed
+and crowned, on the Confessor's throne.  'I shall ever remember this
+day as the _proudest_ {73} of my life,' she noted.  But the pride was
+soon merged once more in youth and simplicity.  When she returned to
+Buckingham Palace at last she was not tired; she ran up to her private
+rooms, doffed her splendours, and gave her dog Dash its evening
+bath.[40]
+
+Life flowed on again with its accustomed smoothness--though, of course,
+the smoothness was occasionally disturbed.  For one thing, there was
+the distressing behaviour of Uncle Leopold.  The King of the Belgians
+had not been able to resist attempting to make use of his family
+position to further his diplomatic ends.  But, indeed, why should there
+be any question of resisting?  Was not such a course of conduct, far
+from being a temptation, simply _selon les regles_?  What were royal
+marriages for, if they did not enable sovereigns, in spite of the
+hindrances of constitutions, to control foreign politics?  For the
+highest purposes, of course; that was understood.  The Queen of England
+was his niece--more than that--almost his daughter; his confidential
+agent was living, in a position of intimate favour, at her court.
+Surely, in such circumstances, it would be preposterous, it would be
+positively incorrect, to lose the opportunity of bending to his wishes
+by means of personal influence, behind the backs of the English
+Ministers, the foreign policy of England.
+
+He set about the task with becoming precautions.  He continued in his
+letters his admirable advice.  Within a few days of her accession, he
+recommended the young Queen to lay emphasis, on every possible
+occasion, upon her English birth; to praise the English nation; 'the
+Established Church I also recommend strongly; you cannot, without
+_pledging_ yourself to anything _particular, say too much on the
+subject_.'  And then 'before you {74} decide on anything important I
+should be glad if you would consult me; this would also have the
+advantage of giving you time'; nothing was more injurious than to be
+hurried into wrong decisions unawares.  His niece replied at once with
+all the accustomed warmth of her affection; but she wrote
+hurriedly--and, perhaps, a trifle vaguely too.  '_Your_ advice is
+always of the _greatest importance_ to me,' she said.[41]
+
+Had he, possibly, gone too far?  He could not be certain; perhaps
+Victoria _had_ been hurried.  In any case, he would be careful; he
+would draw back--_pour mieux sauter_, he added to himself with a smile.
+In his next letters he made no reference to his suggestion of
+consultations with himself; he merely pointed out the wisdom, in
+general, of refusing to decide upon important questions off-hand.  So
+far, his advice was taken; and it was noticed that the Queen, when
+applications were made to her, rarely gave an immediate answer.  Even
+with Lord Melbourne, it was the same; when he asked for her opinion
+upon any subject, she would reply that she would think it over, and
+tell him her conclusions next day.[42]
+
+King Leopold's counsels continued.  The Princess de Lieven, he said,
+was a dangerous woman; there was reason to think that she would make
+attempts to pry into what did not concern her; let Victoria beware.  'A
+rule which I cannot sufficiently recommend is _never to permit_ people
+to speak on subjects concerning yourself or your affairs, without you
+having yourself desired them to do so.'  Should such a thing occur,
+'change the conversation, and make the individual feel that he has made
+a mistake.'  This piece of advice was also taken; for it fell out as
+the King had predicted.  Madame de {75} Lieven sought an audience, and
+appeared to be verging towards confidential topics; whereupon the
+Queen, becoming slightly embarrassed, talked of nothing but
+commonplaces.  The individual felt that she had made a mistake.[43]
+
+The King's next warning was remarkable.  Letters, he pointed out, are
+almost invariably read in the post.  This was inconvenient, no doubt;
+but the fact, once properly grasped, was not without its advantages.
+'I will give you an example: we are still plagued by Prussia concerning
+those fortresses; now to tell the Prussian Government many things,
+which we _should not like_ to tell them officially, the Minister is
+going to write a despatch to our man at Berlin, sending it _by post_;
+the Prussians _are sure_ to read it, and to learn in this way what we
+wish them to hear.'  Analogous circumstances might very probably occur
+in England.  'I tell you the _trick_,' wrote His Majesty, 'that you
+should be able to guard against it.'  Such were the subtleties of
+constitutional sovereignty.[44]
+
+It seemed that the time had come for another step.  The King's next
+letter was full of foreign politics--the situation in Spain and
+Portugal, the character of Louis-Philippe; and he received a favourable
+answer.  Victoria, it is true, began by saying that she had shown the
+_political part_ of his letter to Lord Melbourne; but she proceeded to
+a discussion of foreign affairs.  It appeared that she was not
+unwilling to exchange observations on such matters with her uncle.[45]
+So far, so good.  But King Leopold was still cautious; though a crisis
+was impending in his diplomacy, he still hung back; at last, however,
+he could keep silence no longer.  It {76} was of the utmost importance
+to him that, in his manoeuvrings with France and Holland, he should
+have, or at any rate appear to have, English support.  But the English
+Government appeared to adopt a neutral attitude; it was too bad; not to
+be for him was to be against him--could they not see that?  Yet,
+perhaps, they were only wavering, and a little pressure upon them from
+Victoria might still save all.  He determined to put the case before
+her, delicately yet forcibly--just as he saw it himself.  'All I want
+from your kind Majesty,' he wrote, 'is, that you will _occasionally_
+express to your Ministers, and particularly to good Lord Melbourne,
+that, as far as it is _compatible_ with the interests _of your own_
+dominions, you do _not_ wish that your Government should take the lead
+in such measures as might in a short time bring on the _destruction_ of
+this country, as well as that of your uncle and his family.'[46]  The
+result of this appeal was unexpected: there was dead silence for more
+than a week.  When Victoria at last wrote, she was prodigal of her
+affection--'it would, indeed, my dearest Uncle, be _very wrong_ of you,
+if you thought my feelings of warm and devoted attachment to you, and
+of great affection for you, could be changed--_nothing_ can ever change
+them'--but her references to foreign politics, though they were lengthy
+and elaborate, were non-committal in the extreme; they were almost cast
+in an official and diplomatic form.  Her Ministers, she said, entirely
+shared her views upon the subject; she understood and sympathised with
+the difficulties of her beloved uncle's position; and he might rest
+assured 'that both Lord Melbourne and Lord Palmerston are most anxious
+at all times for the prosperity and welfare of Belgium.'  That was all.
+The King in his reply {77} declared himself delighted, and re-echoed
+the affectionate protestations of his niece.  'My dearest and most
+beloved Victoria,' he said, 'you have written me a _very dear_ and long
+letter, which has given me _great pleasure and satisfaction_.'  He
+would not admit that he had had a rebuff.[47]
+
+A few months later the crisis came.  King Leopold determined to make a
+bold push, and to carry Victoria with him, this time, by a display of
+royal vigour and avuncular authority.  In an abrupt, an almost
+peremptory letter, he laid his case, once more, before his niece.  'You
+know from experience,' he wrote, 'that I _never ask anything of
+you_....  But, as I said before, if we are not careful we may see
+serious consequences which may affect more or less everybody, and
+_this_ ought to be the object of our most anxious attention.  I remain,
+my dear Victoria, your affectionate uncle, Leopold R.'[48]  The Queen
+immediately despatched this letter to Lord Melbourne, who replied with
+a carefully thought-out form of words, signifying nothing whatever,
+which, he suggested, she should send to her uncle.  She did so, copying
+out the elaborate formula, with a liberal scattering of 'dear Uncles'
+interspersed; and she concluded her letter with a message of
+'affectionate love to Aunt Louise and the children.'  Then at last King
+Leopold was obliged to recognise the facts.  His next letter contained
+no reference at all to politics.  'I am glad,' he wrote, 'to find that
+you like Brighton better than last year.  I think Brighton very
+agreeable at this time of the year, till the east winds set in.  The
+pavilion, besides, is comfortable; that cannot be denied.  Before my
+marriage, it was there that I met the Regent.  Charlotte afterwards
+came with old Queen Charlotte.  {78} How distant all this already, but
+still how present to one's memory.'  Like poor Madame de Lieven, his
+Majesty felt that he had made a mistake.[49]
+
+Nevertheless, he could not quite give up all hope.  Another opportunity
+offered, and he made another effort--but there was not very much
+conviction in it, and it was immediately crushed.  'My dear Uncle,' the
+Queen wrote, 'I have to thank you for your last letter, which I
+received on Sunday.  Though you seem not to dislike my political
+sparks, I think it is better not to increase them, as they might
+finally take fire, particularly as I see with regret that upon this one
+subject we cannot agree.  I shall, therefore, limit myself to my
+expressions of very sincere wishes for the welfare and prosperity of
+Belgium.'[50]  After that, it was clear that there was no more to be
+said.  Henceforward there is audible in the King's letters a curiously
+elegiac note.  'My dearest Victoria, your _delightful_ little letter
+has just arrived and went like _an arrow to my heart_.  Yes, my beloved
+Victoria!  I do love you tenderly ... I love you _for yourself_, and I
+love in you the dear child whose welfare I tenderly watched.'  He had
+gone through much; yet, if life had its disappointments, it had its
+satisfactions too.  'I have all the honours that can be given, and I
+am, politically speaking, very solidly established.'  But there were
+other things besides politics; there were romantic yearnings in his
+heart.  'The only longing I still have is for the Orient, where I
+perhaps shall once end my life, rising in the west and setting in the
+east.'  As for his devotion to his niece, that could never end.  'I
+never press my services on you, nor my councils, though I may say with
+some truth that from the extraordinary fate which the higher powers
+{79} had ordained for me, my experience, both political and of private
+life, is great.  I am _always ready_ to be useful to you _when and
+where_ it may be, and I repeat it, _all I want in return is some little
+sincere affection from you_.'[51]
+
+
+VI
+
+The correspondence with King Leopold was significant of much that still
+lay partly hidden in the character of Victoria.  Her attitude towards
+her uncle had never wavered for a moment.  To all his advances she had
+presented an absolutely unyielding front.  The foreign policy of
+England was not his province; it was hers and her Ministers'; his
+insinuations, his entreaties, his struggles--all were quite useless;
+and he must understand that this was so.  The rigidity of her position
+was the more striking owing to the respectfulness and the affection
+with which it was accompanied.  From start to finish the unmoved Queen
+remained the devoted niece.  Leopold himself must have envied such
+perfect correctitude; but what may be admirable in an elderly statesman
+is alarming in a maiden of nineteen.  And privileged observers were not
+without their fears.  The strange mixture of ingenuous
+light-heartedness and fixed determination, of frankness and reticence,
+of childishness and pride, seemed to augur a future perplexed and full
+of dangers.  As time passed the less pleasant qualities in this curious
+composition revealed themselves more often and more seriously.  There
+were signs of an imperious, a peremptory temper, an egotism that was
+strong and hard.  It was noticed that the palace etiquette, far from
+relaxing, grew ever more and more inflexible.  By some, this was
+attributed to {80} Lehzen's influence; but, if that was so, Lehzen had
+a willing pupil; for the slightest infringements of the freezing rules
+of regularity and deference were invariably and immediately visited by
+the sharp and haughty glances of the Queen.[52]  Yet Her Majesty's
+eyes, crushing as they could be, were less crushing than her mouth.
+The self-will depicted in those small projecting teeth and that small
+receding chin was of a more dismaying kind than that which a powerful
+jaw betokens; it was a self-will imperturbable, impenetrable,
+unreasoning; a self-will dangerously akin to obstinacy.  And the
+obstinacy of monarchs is not as that of other men.
+
+Within two years of her accession, the storm-clouds which, from the
+first, had been dimly visible on the horizon, gathered and burst.
+Victoria's relations with her mother had not improved.  The Duchess of
+Kent, still surrounded by all the galling appearances of filial
+consideration, remained in Buckingham Palace a discarded figure,
+powerless and inconsolable.  Sir John Conroy, banished from the
+presence of the Queen, still presided over the Duchess's household, and
+the hostilities of Kensington continued unabated in the new
+surroundings.  Lady Flora Hastings still cracked her malicious jokes;
+the animosity of the Baroness was still unappeased.  One day, Lady
+Flora found the joke was turned against her.  Early in 1839, travelling
+in the suite of the Duchess, she had returned from Scotland in the same
+carriage with Sir John.  A change in her figure became the subject of
+an unseemly jest; tongues wagged; and the jest grew serious.  It was
+whispered that Lady Flora was with child.[53]  The state of her {81}
+health seemed to confirm the suspicion; she consulted Sir James Clark,
+the royal physician, and, after the consultation, Sir James let his
+tongue wag, too.  On this, the scandal flared up sky-high.  Everyone
+was talking; the Baroness was not surprised; the Duchess rallied
+tumultuously to the support of her lady; the Queen was informed.  At
+last, the extraordinary expedient of a medical examination was resorted
+to, during which Sir James, according to Lady Flora, behaved with
+brutal rudeness, while a second doctor was extremely polite.  Finally,
+both physicians signed a certificate entirely exculpating the lady.
+But this was by no means the end of the business.  The Hastings family,
+socially a very powerful one, threw itself into the fray with all the
+fury of outraged pride and injured innocence; Lord Hastings insisted
+upon an audience of the Queen, wrote to the papers, and demanded the
+dismissal of Sir James Clark.  The Queen expressed her regret to Lady
+Flora, but Sir James Clark was not dismissed.  The tide of opinion
+turned violently against the Queen and her advisers; high society was
+disgusted by all this washing of dirty linen in Buckingham Palace; the
+public at large was indignant at the ill-treatment of Lady Flora.  By
+the end of March, the popularity, so radiant and so abundant, with
+which the young Sovereign had begun her reign, had entirely
+disappeared.[54]
+
+There can be no doubt that a great lack of discretion had been shown by
+the Court.  Ill-natured tittle-tattle, which should have been instantly
+nipped in the bud, had been allowed to assume disgraceful proportions;
+and the Throne itself had become involved in the personal {82}
+malignities of the palace.  A particularly awkward question had been
+raised by the position of Sir James Clark.  The Duke of Wellington,
+upon whom it was customary to fall back, in cases of great difficulty
+in high places, had been consulted upon this question, and he had given
+it as his opinion that, as it would be impossible to remove Sir James
+without a public enquiry, Sir James must certainly stay where he
+was.[55]  Probably the Duke was right; but the fact that the peccant
+doctor continued in the Queen's service made the Hastings family
+irreconcilable and produced an unpleasant impression of unrepentant
+error upon the public mind.  As for Victoria, she was very young and
+quite inexperienced; and she can hardly be blamed for having failed to
+control an extremely difficult situation.  That was clearly Lord
+Melbourne's task; he was a man of the world, and, with vigilance and
+circumspection, he might have quietly put out the ugly flames while
+they were still smouldering.  He did not do so; he was lazy and
+easy-going; the Baroness was persistent, and he let things slide.  But
+doubtless his position was not an easy one; passions ran high in the
+palace; and Victoria was not only very young, she was very headstrong,
+too.  Did he possess the magic bridle which would curb that fiery
+steed?  He could not be certain.  And then, suddenly, another violent
+crisis revealed more unmistakably than ever the nature of the mind with
+which he had to deal.
+
+
+VII
+
+The Queen had for long been haunted by a terror that the day might come
+when she would be obliged {83} to part with her Minister.  Ever since
+the passage of the Reform Bill, the power of the Whig Government had
+steadily declined.  The General Election of 1837 had left them with a
+very small majority in the House of Commons; since then, they had been
+in constant difficulties--abroad, at home, in Ireland; the Radical
+group had grown hostile; it became highly doubtful how much longer they
+could survive.  The Queen watched the development of events in great
+anxiety.  She was a Whig by birth, by upbringing, by every association,
+public and private; and, even if those ties had never existed, the mere
+fact that Lord M. was the head of the Whigs would have amply sufficed
+to determine her politics.  The fall of the Whigs would mean a sad
+upset for Lord M.  But it would have a still more terrible consequence:
+Lord M. would have to leave her; and the daily, the hourly, presence of
+Lord M. had become an integral part of her life.  Six months after her
+accession she had noted in her diary 'I shall be very sorry to lose him
+_even_ for _one_ night';[56] and this feeling of personal dependence on
+her Minister steadily increased.  In these circumstances it was natural
+that she should have become a Whig partisan.  Of the wider significance
+of political questions she knew nothing; all she saw was that her
+friends were in office and about her, and that it would be dreadful if
+they ceased to be so.  'I cannot say,' she wrote when a critical
+division was impending, '(though I feel _confident of our success_) HOW
+_low_, HOW _sad_ I feel, when I think of the POSSIBILITY of this
+excellent and truly kind man not _remaining_ my Minister!  Yet I trust
+fervently that _He_ who has so wonderfully protected me through such
+manifold difficulties will not _now_ desert me!  I should {84} have
+liked to have expressed to Lord M. my anxiety, but the tears were
+nearer than words throughout the time I saw him, and I felt I should
+have choked, had I attempted to say anything.'[57]  Lord Melbourne
+realised clearly enough how undesirable was such a state of mind in a
+constitutional sovereign who might be called upon at any moment to
+receive as her Ministers the leaders of the opposite party; he did what
+he could to cool her ardour; but in vain.
+
+With considerable lack of foresight, too, he had himself helped to
+bring about this unfortunate condition of affairs.  From the moment of
+her accession, he had surrounded the Queen with ladies of his own
+party: the Mistress of the Robes and all the Ladies of the Bedchamber
+were Whigs.  In the ordinary course, the Queen never saw a Tory;
+eventually she took pains never to see one in any circumstances.  She
+disliked the whole tribe, and she did not conceal the fact.  She
+particularly disliked Sir Robert Peel, who would almost certainly be
+the next Prime Minister.  His manners were detestable, and he wanted to
+turn out Lord M.  His supporters, without exception, were equally bad;
+and as for Sir James Graham, she could not bear the sight of him; he
+was exactly like Sir John Conroy.[58]
+
+The affair of Lady Flora intensified these party rumours still further.
+The Hastings were Tories, and Lord Melbourne and the Court were
+attacked by the Tory press in unmeasured language.  The Queen's
+sectarian zeal proportionately increased.  But the dreaded hour was now
+fast approaching.  Early in May the Ministers were visibly tottering;
+on a vital point of policy they could only secure a majority of five in
+{85} the House of Commons; they determined to resign.  When Victoria
+heard the news she burst into tears.  Was it possible, then, that all
+was over?  Was she indeed about to see Lord M. for the last time?  Lord
+M. came; and it is a curious fact that, even in this crowning moment of
+misery and agitation, the precise girl noted, to the minute, the exact
+time of the arrival and the departure of her beloved Minister.  The
+conversation was touching and prolonged; but it could only end in one
+way--the Queen must send for the Duke of Wellington.  When, next
+morning, the Duke came, he advised her Majesty to send for Sir Robert
+Peel.  She was in 'a state of dreadful grief,' but she swallowed down
+her tears, and braced herself, with royal resolution, for the odious,
+odious interview.
+
+Peel was by nature reserved, proud, and shy.  His manners were not
+perfect, and he knew it; he was easily embarrassed, and, at such
+moments, he grew even more stiff and formal than before, while his feet
+mechanically performed upon the carpet a dancing-master's measure.
+Anxious as he now was to win the Queen's good graces, his very anxiety
+to do so made the attainment of his object the more difficult.  He
+entirely failed to make any headway whatever with the haughty hostile
+girl before him.  She coldly noted that he appeared to be unhappy and
+'put out,' and, while he stood in painful fixity, with an occasional
+uneasy pointing of the toe, her heart sank within her at the sight of
+that manner, 'oh! how different, how dreadfully different, to the
+frank, open, natural, and most kind warm manner of Lord Melbourne.'
+Nevertheless, the audience passed without disaster.  Only at one point
+had there been some slight hint of a disagreement.  Peel had decided
+that a change would be necessary in {86} the composition of the royal
+Household: the Queen must no longer be entirely surrounded by the wives
+and sisters of his opponents; some, at any rate, of the Ladies of the
+Bedchamber should be friendly to his Government.  When this matter was
+touched upon, the Queen had intimated that she wished her Household to
+remain unchanged; to which Sir Robert had replied that the question
+could be settled later, and shortly afterwards withdrew to arrange the
+details of his Cabinet.  While he was present, Victoria had remained,
+as she herself said, 'very much collected, civil and high, and betrayed
+no agitation'; but as soon as she was alone she completely broke down.
+Then she pulled herself together to write to Lord Melbourne an account
+of all that had happened, and of her own wretchedness.  'She feels,'
+she said, 'Lord Melbourne will understand it, amongst enemies to those
+she most relied on and most esteemed; but what is worst of all is the
+being deprived of seeing Lord Melbourne as she used to do.'
+
+Lord Melbourne replied with a very wise letter.  He attempted to calm
+the Queen and to induce her to accept the new position gracefully; and
+he had nothing but good words for the Tory leaders.  As for the
+question of the Ladies of the Household, the Queen, he said, should
+strongly urge what she desired, as it was a matter which concerned her
+personally; 'but,' he added, 'if Sir Robert is unable to concede it, it
+will not do to refuse and to put off the negotiation upon it.'
+
+On this point there can be little doubt that Lord Melbourne was right.
+The question was a complicated and subtle one, and it had never arisen
+before; but subsequent constitutional practice has determined that a
+Queen Regnant must accede to the wishes of her Prime Minister as to the
+_personnel_ of the female part of her {87} Household.  Lord Melbourne's
+wisdom, however, was wasted.  The Queen would not be soothed, and still
+less would she take advice.  It was outrageous of the Tories to want to
+deprive her of her Ladies, and that night she made up her mind that,
+whatever Sir Robert might say, she would refuse to consent to the
+removal of a single one of them.  Accordingly, when, next morning, Peel
+appeared again, she was ready for action.  He began by detailing the
+Cabinet appointments, and then he added 'Now, Ma'am, about the
+Ladies'--when the Queen sharply interrupted him.  'I cannot give up
+_any_ of my Ladies,' she said.  'What, Ma'am!' said Sir Robert, 'does
+your Majesty mean to retain them _all_?'  '_All_,' said the Queen.  Sir
+Robert's face worked strangely; he could not conceal his agitation.
+'The Mistress of the Robes and the Ladies of the Bedchamber?' he
+brought out at last.  '_All_', replied once more Her Majesty.  It was
+in vain that Peel pleaded and argued; in vain that he spoke, growing
+every moment more pompous and uneasy, of the constitution, and Queens
+Regnant, and the public interest; in vain that he danced his pathetic
+minuet.  She was adamant; but he, too, through all his embarrassment,
+showed no sign of yielding; and when at last he left her nothing had
+been decided--the whole formation of the Government was hanging in the
+wind.  A frenzy of excitement now seized upon Victoria.  Sir Robert,
+she believed in her fury, had tried to outwit her, to take her friends
+from her, to impose his will upon her own; but that was not all: she
+had suddenly perceived, while the poor man was moving so uneasily
+before her, the one thing that she was desperately longing for--a
+loophole of escape.  She seized a pen and dashed off a note to Lord
+Melbourne.
+
+{88}
+
+'Sir Robert has behaved very ill,' she wrote; 'he insisted on my giving
+up my Ladies, to which I replied that I _never_ would consent, and I
+never saw a man so frightened....  I was calm but very decided, and I
+think you would have been pleased to see my composure and great
+firmness; the Queen of England will not submit to such trickery.  Keep
+yourself in readiness, for you may soon be wanted.'  Hardly had she
+finished when the Duke of Wellington was announced.  'Well, Ma'am,' he
+said as he entered, 'I am very sorry to find there is a difficulty.'
+'Oh!' she instantly replied, '_he_ began it, not me.'  She felt that
+only one thing now was needed: she must be firm.  And firm she was.
+The venerable conqueror of Napoleon was outfaced by the relentless
+equanimity of a girl in her teens.  He could not move the Queen one
+inch.  At last, she even ventured to rally him.  'Is Sir Robert so
+weak,' she asked, 'that even the Ladies must be of his opinion?'  On
+which the Duke made a brief and humble expostulation, bowed low; and
+departed.
+
+Had she won?  Time would show; and in the meantime she scribbled down
+another letter.  'Lord Melbourne must not think the Queen rash in her
+conduct....  The Queen felt this was an attempt to see whether she
+could be led and managed like a child.'  The Tories were not only
+wicked but ridiculous.  Peel, having, as she understood, expressed a
+wish to remove only those members of the Household who were in
+Parliament, now objected to her Ladies.  'I should like to know,' she
+exclaimed in triumphant scorn, 'if they mean to give the _Ladies_ seats
+in Parliament?'
+
+The end of the crisis was now fast approaching.  Sir Robert returned,
+and told her that if she insisted upon retaining all her Ladies he
+could not form a {89} Government.  She replied that she would send him
+her final decision in writing.  Next morning the late Whig Cabinet met.
+Lord Melbourne read to them the Queen's letters, and the group of
+elderly politicians were overcome by an extraordinary wave of
+enthusiasm.  They knew very well that, to say the least, it was highly
+doubtful whether the Queen had acted in strict accordance with the
+constitution; that in doing what she had done she had brushed aside
+Lord Melbourne's advice; that, in reality, there was no public reason
+whatever why they should go back upon their decision to resign.  But
+such considerations vanished before the passionate urgency of Victoria.
+The intensity of her determination swept them headlong down the stream
+of her desire.  They unanimously felt that 'it was impossible to
+abandon such a Queen and such a woman.'  Forgetting that they were no
+longer her Majesty's Ministers, they took the unprecedented course of
+advising the Queen by letter to put an end to her negotiation with Sir
+Robert Peel.  She did so; all was over; she had triumphed.  That
+evening there was a ball at the Palace.  Everyone was present.  'Peel
+and the Duke of Wellington came by looking very much put out.'  She was
+perfectly happy; Lord M. was Prime Minister once more, and he was by
+her side.[59]
+
+
+{90}
+
+VIII
+
+Happiness had returned with Lord M., but it was happiness in the midst
+of agitation.  The domestic imbroglio continued unabated, until at last
+the Duke, rejected as a Minister, was called in once again in his old
+capacity as moral physician to the family.  Something was accomplished
+when, at last, he induced Sir John Conroy to resign his place about the
+Duchess of Kent and leave the Palace for ever; something more when he
+persuaded the Queen to write an affectionate letter to her mother.  The
+way seemed open for a reconciliation, but the Duchess was stormy still.
+She didn't believe that Victoria had written that letter; it was not in
+her handwriting; and she sent for the Duke to tell him so.  The Duke,
+assuring her that the letter was genuine, begged her to forget the
+past.  But that was not so easy.  'What am I to do if Lord Melbourne
+comes up to me?'  'Do, ma'am?  Why, receive him with civility.'  Well,
+she would make an effort....  'But what am I to do if Victoria asks me
+to shake hands with Lehzen?'  'Do, ma'am?  Why, take her in your arms
+and kiss her.'  'What!'  The Duchess bristled in every feather, and
+then she burst into a hearty laugh.  'No, ma'am, no,' said the Duke,
+laughing too.  'I don't mean you are to take _Lehzen_ in your arms and
+kiss _her_, but the Queen.'[60]
+
+The Duke might perhaps have succeeded, had not all attempts at
+conciliation been rendered hopeless by a tragical event.  Lady Flora,
+it was discovered, had been suffering from a terrible internal malady,
+which now grew rapidly worse.  There could be little doubt {91} that
+she was dying.  The Queen's unpopularity reached an extraordinary
+height.  More than once she was publicly insulted.  'Mrs. Melbourne,'
+was shouted at her when she appeared at her balcony; and, at Ascot, she
+was hissed by the Duchess of Montrose and Lady Sarah Ingestre as she
+passed.  Lady Flora died.  The whole scandal burst out again with
+redoubled vehemence; while, in the Palace, the two parties were
+henceforth divided by an impassable, a Stygian, gulf.[61]
+
+Nevertheless, Lord M. was back, and every trouble faded under the
+enchantment of his presence and his conversation.  He, on his side, had
+gone through much; and his distresses were intensified by a
+consciousness of his own shortcomings.  He realised clearly enough
+that, if he had intervened at the right moment, the Hastings scandal
+might have been averted; and, in the bedchamber crisis, he knew that he
+had allowed his judgment to be overruled and his conduct to be swayed
+by private feelings and the impetuosity of Victoria.[62]  But he was
+not one to suffer too acutely from the pangs of conscience.  In spite
+of the dullness and the formality of the Court, his relationship with
+the Queen had come to be the dominating interest in his life; to have
+been deprived of it would have been heart-rending; that dread
+eventuality had been--somehow--avoided; he was installed once more, in
+a kind of triumph; let him enjoy the fleeting hours to the full!  And
+so, cherished by the favour of a sovereign and warmed by the adoration
+of a girl, the autumn rose, in those autumn months of 1839, came to a
+wondrous blooming.  The petals expanded, beautifully, for the last
+time.  For the last time in this unlooked-for, this {92} incongruous,
+this almost incredible intercourse, the old epicure tasted the
+exquisiteness of romance.  To watch, to teach, to restrain, to
+encourage the royal young creature beside him--that was much; to feel
+with such a constant intimacy the impact of her quick affection, her
+radiant vitality--that was more; most of all, perhaps, was it good to
+linger vaguely in humorous contemplation, in idle apostrophe, to talk
+disconnectedly, to make a little joke about an apple or a furbelow, to
+dream.  The springs of his sensibility, hidden deep within him, were
+overflowing.  Often, as he bent over her hand and kissed it, he found
+himself in tears.[63]
+
+Upon Victoria, with all her impermeability, it was inevitable that such
+a companionship should have produced, eventually, an effect.  She was
+no longer the simple schoolgirl of two years since.  The change was
+visible even in her public demeanour.  Her expression, once 'ingenuous
+and serene,' now appeared to a shrewd observer to be 'bold and
+discontented.'[64]  She had learnt something of the pleasures of power
+and the pains of it; but that was not all.  Lord Melbourne with his
+gentle instruction had sought to lead her into the paths of wisdom and
+moderation, but the whole unconscious movement of his character had
+swayed her in a very different direction.  The hard clear pebble,
+subjected for so long and so constantly to that encircling and
+insidious fluidity, had suffered a curious corrosion; it seemed to be
+actually growing a little soft and a little clouded.  Humanity and
+fallibility are infectious things; was it possible that Lehzen's prim
+pupil had caught them?  That she was beginning to listen to siren
+voices?  That the secret impulses of self-expression, of {93}
+self-indulgence even, were mastering her life?  For a moment the child
+of a new age looked back, and wavered towards the eighteenth century.
+It was the most critical moment of her career.  Had those influences
+lasted, the development of her character, the history of her life,
+would have been completely changed.
+
+And why should they not last?  She, for one, was very anxious that they
+should.  Let them last for ever!  She was surrounded by Whigs, she was
+free to do whatever she wanted, she had Lord M.; she could not believe
+that she could ever be happier.  Any change would be for the worse; and
+the worst change of all ... no, she would not hear of it; it would be
+quite intolerable, it would upset everything, if she were to marry.
+And yet everyone seemed to want her to--the general public, the
+Ministers, her Saxe-Coburg relations--it was always the same story.  Of
+course, she knew very well that there were excellent reasons for it.
+For one thing, if she remained childless, and were to die, her uncle
+Cumberland, who was now the King of Hanover, would succeed to the
+Throne of England.  That, no doubt, would be a most unpleasant event;
+and she entirely sympathised with everybody who wished to avoid it.
+But there was no hurry; naturally, she would marry in the end--but not
+just yet--not for three or four years.  What was tiresome was that her
+uncle Leopold had apparently determined, not only that she ought to
+marry, but that her cousin Albert ought to be her husband.  That was
+very like her uncle Leopold, who wanted to have a finger in every pie;
+and it was true that long ago, in far-off days, before her accession
+even, she had written to him in a way which might well have encouraged
+him in such a notion.  She had told him then that Albert possessed {94}
+'every quality that could be desired to render her perfectly happy,'
+and had begged her 'dearest uncle to take care of the health of one,
+now _so dear_ to me, and to take him under _your special_ protection,'
+adding, 'I hope and trust all will go on prosperously and well on this
+subject of so much importance to me.'[65]  But that had been years ago,
+when she was a mere child; perhaps, indeed, to judge from the language,
+the letter had been dictated by Lehzen; at any rate, her feelings., and
+all the circumstances, had now entirely changed.  Albert hardly
+interested her at all.
+
+In later life the Queen declared that she had never for a moment dreamt
+of marrying anyone but her cousin;[66] her letters and diaries tell a
+very different story.  On August 26, 1837, she wrote in her journal:
+'To-day is my _dearest_ cousin Albert's 18th birthday, and I pray
+Heaven to pour its choicest blessings on his beloved head!'  In the
+subsequent years, however, the date passes unnoticed.  It had been
+arranged that Stockmar should accompany the Prince to Italy, and the
+faithful Baron left her side for that purpose.  He wrote to her more
+than once with sympathetic descriptions of his young companion; but her
+mind was by this time made up.  She liked and admired Albert very much,
+but she did not want to marry him.  'At present,' she told Lord
+Melbourne in April 1839, '_my_ feeling is quite against ever
+marrying.'[67]  When her cousin's Italian tour came to an end, she
+began to grow nervous; she knew that, according to a long-standing
+engagement, his next journey would be to England.  He would probably
+arrive in the autumn, and by July her uneasiness was intense.  She
+determined to write to her uncle, in order to make her position clear.
+It must be understood, she {95} said, that 'there is _no engagement_
+between us.'  If she should like Albert, she could 'make _no final
+promise this year_, for, at the _very earliest_, any such event could
+not take place till _two or three years hence_.'  She had, she said, 'a
+_great_ repugnance' to change her present position; and, if she should
+not like him, she was '_very_ anxious that it should be understood that
+she would _not_ be guilty of any breach of promise, for she never gave
+any.'[68]  To Lord Melbourne she was more explicit.  She told him that
+she 'had no great wish to see Albert, as the whole subject was an
+odious one'; she hated to have to decide about it; and she repeated
+once again that seeing Albert would be 'a disagreeable thing.'[69]  But
+there was no escaping the horrid business; the visit must be made, and
+she must see him.  The summer slipped by and was over; it was the
+autumn already; on the evening of October 10 Albert, accompanied by his
+brother Ernest, arrived at Windsor.
+
+Albert arrived; and the whole structure of her existence crumbled into
+nothingness like a house of cards.  He was beautiful--she gasped--she
+knew no more.  Then, in a flash, a thousand mysteries were revealed to
+her; the past, the present, rushed upon her with a new significance;
+the delusions of years were abolished, and an extraordinary, an
+irresistible certitude leapt into being in the light of those blue
+eyes, the smile of that lovely mouth.  The succeeding hours passed in a
+rapture.  She was able to observe a few more details--the 'exquisite
+nose,' the 'delicate moustachios and slight but very slight whiskers,'
+the 'beautiful figure, broad in the shoulders and a fine waist.' She
+rode with him, danced with him, talked with him, and it was all
+perfection.  She had no shadow of a doubt.  He had {96} come on a
+Thursday evening, and on the following Sunday morning she told Lord
+Melbourne that she had 'a good deal changed her opinion as to
+marrying.'  Next morning, she told him that she had made up her mind to
+marry Albert.  The morning after that, she sent for her cousin.  She
+received him alone, and 'after a few minutes I said to him that I
+thought he must be aware _why_ I wished them to come here--and that it
+would make me _too happy_ if he would consent to what I wished (to
+marry me).'  Then 'we embraced each other, and he was _so_ kind, _so_
+affectionate.'  She said that she was quite unworthy of him, while he
+murmured that he would be very happy 'Das Leben mit dir zu zubringen.'
+They parted, and she felt 'the happiest of human beings,' when Lord M.
+came in.  At first she beat about the bush, and talked of the weather,
+and indifferent subjects.  Somehow or other she felt a little nervous
+with her old friend.  At last, summoning up her courage, she said, 'I
+have got well through this with Albert.'  'Oh! you have,' said Lord
+M.[70]
+
+
+
+[1] Greville, III, 411.
+
+[2] _Ibid._, IV, 7, 9, 14-15.
+
+[3] Walpole, I, 284.
+
+[4] Crawford, 156-7.
+
+[5] Greville, IV, 16.
+
+[6] _Girlhood_, I, 210-1.
+
+[7] Greville, IV, 15.
+
+[8] Greville, IV, 21-2.
+
+[9] Stockmar, 322-3; Maxwell, 159-60.
+
+[10] Stockmar, 109-10.
+
+[11] _Ibid._, 165-6.
+
+[12] _Ibid._, chaps. viii, ix, x, and xi.
+
+[13] _Girlhood_, II, 303.
+
+[14] Stockmar, 324.
+
+[15] _Ibid._, chap. xv, pt. 2.
+
+[16] _Ibid._, chap. xvii.
+
+[17] Stein, VI, 932.
+
+[18] Greville, VI, 247; Torrens, 14; Hayward, I, 336.
+
+[19] Greville, VI, 248.
+
+[20] Greville, III, 331; VI, 254; Haydon, III, 12: 'March 1, 1835.
+Called on Lord Melbourne, and found him reading the Acts, with a quarto
+Greek Testament that belonged to Samuel Johnson.'
+
+[21] Greville, III, 142; Torrens, 545.
+
+[22] _Girlhood_, II, 148; Torrens, 278, 431, 517; Greville, IV, 331;
+VIII, 162.
+
+[23] Greville, VI, 253-4; Torrens, 354.
+
+[24] Greville, IV, 135, 154; _Girlhood_, I, 249.
+
+[25] Creevey, II, 326.
+
+[26] _Girlhood_, I, 203.
+
+[27] _Ibid._, I, 206.
+
+[28] Lee, 79-81.
+
+[29] _Girlhood_, II, 3.
+
+[30] _Girlhood_, II, 29.
+
+[31] _Ibid._, II, 100.
+
+[32] _Ibid._, II, 57, 256.
+
+[33] Lee, 71.
+
+[34] The Duke of Bedford told Greville he was 'sure there was a battle
+between her and Melbourne....  He is sure there was one about the men's
+sitting after dinner, for he heard her say to him rather angrily, "it
+is a horrid custom"--but when the ladies left the room (he dined there)
+directions were given that the men should remain _five minutes_
+longer.'  Greville, Feb. 26, 1840 (unpublished).
+
+[35] Greville, March 11, 1838 (unpublished).
+
+[36] Greville, IV, 152-3.
+
+[37] _Girlhood_, I, 265-6.
+
+[38] Martineau, II, 119-20; _Girlhood_, II, 121-2.
+
+[39] _Girlhood_, I, 229
+
+[40] _Girlhood_, I, 356-64; Leslie, II, 239.
+
+[41] _Letters_, I, 79.
+
+[42] _Ibid._, I, 80; Greville, IV, 22.
+
+[43] _Letters_, I, 85-6; Greville, IV, 16.
+
+[44] _Ibid._, I, 93.
+
+[45] _Ibid._, I, 93-5.
+
+[46] _Letters_, I, 116.
+
+[47] _Letters_, I, 117-20.
+
+[48] _Ibid._, I, 134.
+
+[49] _Letters_, I, 134-6, 140.
+
+[50] _Ibid._, I, 154.
+
+[51] _Letters_, I, 185.
+
+[52] Greville, IV, 16-17; Crawford, 163-4.
+
+[53] Greville, IV, 178, and August 15, 1839 (unpublished).
+
+[54] 'Nobody cares for the Queen, her popularity has sunk to zero, and
+loyalty is a dead letter.'  Greville, March 25, 1839; _Morning Post_,
+Sept. 14, 1839.
+
+[55] Greville, August 15, 1839 (unpublished).
+
+[56] _Girlhood_, I, 254.
+
+[57] _Girlhood_, I, 324.
+
+[58] Greville, August 4, 1841 (unpublished); _Girlhood_, II, 154, 162.
+
+[59] _Letters_, I, 154-72; _Girlhood_, II, 163-75; Greville, IV,
+206-217, and unpublished passages; Broughton, V, 195; Clarendon, I,
+165.  The exclamation 'They wished to treat me like a girl, but I will
+show them that I am Queen of England!' often quoted as the Queen's, is
+apocryphal.  It is merely part of Greville's summary of the two letters
+to Melbourne, printed in _Letters_, 162 and 163.  It may be noted that
+the phrase 'the Queen of England will not submit to such trickery' is
+omitted in _Girlhood_, 169; and in general there are numerous verbal
+discrepancies between the versions of the journal and the letters in
+the two books.
+
+[60] Greville, June 7, June 10, June 15, August 15, 1839 (unpublished).
+
+[61] Greville, June 24 and July 7, 1839 (unpublished); Crawford, 222.
+
+[62] Greville, VI, 251-2.
+
+[63] Greville, VI, 251; _Girlhood_, I, 236, 238; II, 267.
+
+[64] Martineau, II, 120.
+
+[65] _Letters_, I, 49.
+
+[66] Grey, 2-19.
+
+[67] _Girlhood_, II, 153.
+
+[68] _Letters_, I, 177-8.
+
+[69] _Girlhood_, II, 215-6.
+
+[70] _Girlhood_, II, 262-9.  Greville's statement (Nov. 27, 1839) that
+'the Queen settled everything about her marriage herself, and without
+consulting Melbourne at all on the subject, not even communicating to
+him her intention,' has no foundation in fact.  The Queen's journal
+proves that she consulted Melbourne at every point.
+
+
+[Illustration: PRINCE ALBERT IN 1840.  _From the Portrait by John
+Partridge._]
+
+
+
+
+{97}
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+MARRIAGE
+
+I
+
+It was decidedly a family match.  Prince Francis Charles Augustus
+Albert Emmanuel of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha--for such was his full title--had
+been born just three months after his cousin Victoria, and the same
+midwife had assisted at the two births.  The children's grandmother,
+the Dowager Duchess of Coburg, had from the first looked forward to
+their marriage; as they grew up, the Duke, the Duchess of Kent, and
+King Leopold came equally to desire it.  The Prince, ever since the
+time when, as a child of three, his nurse had told him that some day
+'the little English May flower' would be his wife, had never thought of
+marrying anyone else.  When eventually Baron Stockmar himself signified
+his assent, the affair seemed as good as settled.[1]
+
+The Duke had one other child--Prince Ernest, Albert's senior by one
+year, and heir to the principality.  The Duchess was a sprightly and
+beautiful woman, with fair hair and blue eyes; Albert was very like her
+and was her declared favourite.  But in his fifth year he was parted
+from her for ever.  The ducal court was not noted for the strictness of
+its morals; the Duke was a man of gallantry, and it was rumoured that
+the Duchess followed her husband's example.  There were {98} scandals:
+one of the Court Chamberlains, a charming and cultivated man of Jewish
+extraction, was talked of; at last there was a separation, followed by
+a divorce.  The Duchess retired to Paris, and died unhappily in 1831.
+Her memory was always very dear to Albert.[2]
+
+He grew up a pretty, clever, and high-spirited boy.  Usually
+well-behaved, he was, however, sometimes violent.  He had a will of his
+own, and asserted it; his elder brother was less passionate, less
+purposeful, and, in their wrangles, it was Albert who came out top.
+The two boys, living for the most part in one or other of the Duke's
+country houses, among pretty hills and woods and streams, had been at a
+very early age--Albert was less than four--separated from their nurses
+and put under a tutor, in whose charge they remained until they went to
+the University.  They were brought up in a simple and unostentatious
+manner, for the Duke was poor and the duchy very small and very
+insignificant.  Before long it became evident that Albert was a model
+lad.  Intelligent and painstaking, he had been touched by the moral
+earnestness of his generation; at the age of eleven he surprised his
+father by telling him that he hoped to make himself 'a good and useful
+man.'  And yet he was not over-serious; though, perhaps, he had little
+humour, he was full of fun--of practical jokes and mimicry.  He was no
+milksop; he rode, and shot, and fenced; above all did he delight in
+being out of doors, and never was he happier than in his long rambles
+with his brother through the wild country round his beloved
+Rosenau--stalking the deer, admiring the scenery, and returning laden
+with specimens for his natural history collection.  He was, besides,
+passionately fond of music.  In one particular it was observed {99}
+that he did not take after his father: owing either to his peculiar
+upbringing or to a more fundamental idiosyncrasy he had a marked
+distaste for the opposite sex.  At the age of five, at a children's
+dance, he screamed with disgust and anger when a little girl was led up
+to him for a partner; and though, later on, he grew more successful in
+disguising such feelings, the feelings remained.[3]
+
+The brothers were very popular in Coburg, and, when the time came for
+them to be confirmed, the preliminary examination, which, according to
+ancient custom, was held in public in the 'Giants' Hall' of the Castle,
+was attended by an enthusiastic crowd of functionaries, clergy,
+delegates from the villages of the duchy, and miscellaneous onlookers.
+There were also present, besides the Duke and the Dowager Duchess,
+their Serene Highnesses the Princes Alexander and Ernest of Wuertemberg,
+Prince Leiningen, Princess Hohenlohe-Langenburg, and Princess
+Hohenlohe-Schillingsfuerst.  Dr. Jacobi, the Court chaplain, presided at
+an altar, simply but appropriately decorated, which had been placed at
+the end of the hall; and the proceedings began by the choir singing the
+first verse of the hymn, 'Come, Holy Ghost.'  After some introductory
+remarks, Dr. Jacobi began the examination.  'The dignified and decorous
+bearing of the Princes,' we are told in a contemporary account, 'their
+strict attention to the questions, the frankness, decision, and
+correctness of their answers, produced a deep impression on the
+numerous assembly.  Nothing was more striking in their answers than the
+evidence they gave of deep feeling and of inward strength of
+conviction.  The questions put by the examiner were not such as to be
+{100} met by a simple "yes" or "no."  They were carefully considered in
+order to give the audience a clear insight into the views and feelings
+of the young princes.  One of the most touching moments was when the
+examiner asked the hereditary prince whether he intended steadfastly to
+hold to the Evangelical Church, and the Prince answered not only "Yes!"
+but added in a clear and decided tone: "I and my brother are firmly
+resolved ever to remain faithful to the acknowledged truth."  The
+examination having lasted an hour, Dr. Jacobi made some concluding
+observations, followed by a short prayer; the second and third verses
+of the opening hymn were sung; and the ceremony was over.  The Princes,
+stepping down from the altar, were embraced by the Duke and the Dowager
+Duchess; after which the loyal inhabitants of Coburg dispersed, well
+satisfied with their entertainment.[4]
+
+Albert's mental development now proceeded apace.  In his seventeenth
+year he began a careful study of German literature and German
+philosophy.  He set about, he told his tutor, 'to follow the thoughts
+of the great Klopstock into their depths--though in this, for the most
+part,' he modestly added, 'I do not succeed.'  He wrote an essay on the
+'Mode of Thought of the Germans, and a Sketch of the History of German
+Civilisation,' 'making use,' he said, 'in its general outlines, of the
+divisions which the treatment of the subject itself demands,' and
+concluding with 'a retrospect of the shortcomings of our time, with an
+appeal to every one to correct those shortcomings in his own case, and
+thus set a good example to others.'[5]  Placed for some months under
+the care of King Leopold at Brussels, he came under the influence of
+Adolphe Quetelet, a mathematical {101} professor, who was particularly
+interested in the application of the laws of probability to political
+and moral phenomena; this line of inquiry attracted the Prince, and the
+friendship thus begun continued till the end of his life.[6]  From
+Brussels he went to the University of Bonn, where he was speedily
+distinguished both by his intellectual and his social activities; his
+energies were absorbed in metaphysics, law, political economy, music,
+fencing, and amateur theatricals.  Thirty years later his
+fellow-students recalled with delight the fits of laughter into which
+they had been sent by Prince Albert's mimicry.  The _verve_ with which
+his Serene Highness reproduced the tones and gestures of one of the
+professors who used to point to a picture of a row of houses in Venice
+with the remark, 'That is the Ponte Realte,' and of another who fell
+down in a race and was obliged to look for his spectacles, was
+especially appreciated.[7]
+
+After a year at Bonn, the time had come for a foreign tour, and Baron
+Stockmar arrived from England to accompany the Prince on an expedition
+to Italy.  The Baron had been already, two years previously, consulted
+by King Leopold as to his views upon the proposed marriage of Albert
+and Victoria.  His reply had been remarkable.  With a characteristic
+foresight, a characteristic absence of optimism, a characteristic sense
+of the moral elements in the situation, Stockmar had pointed out what
+were, in his opinion, the conditions essential to make the marriage a
+success.  Albert, he wrote, was a fine young fellow, well grown for his
+age, with agreeable and valuable qualities; and it was probable that in
+a few years he would turn out a strong, handsome man, of a kindly,
+simple, yet dignified demeanour.  {102} 'Thus, externally, he possesses
+all that pleases the sex, and at all times and in all countries must
+please.'  Supposing, therefore, that Victoria herself was in favour of
+the marriage, the further question arose as to whether Albert's mental
+qualities were such as to fit him for the position of husband of the
+Queen of England.  On this point, continued the Baron, one heard much
+to his credit; the Prince was said to be discreet and intelligent; but
+all such judgments were necessarily partial, and the Baron preferred to
+reserve his opinion until he could come to a trustworthy conclusion
+from personal observation.  And then he added: 'But all this is not
+enough.  The young man ought to have not merely great ability, but a
+_right_ ambition, and great force of will as well.  To pursue for a
+lifetime a political career so arduous demands more than energy and
+inclination--it demands also that earnest frame of mind which is ready
+of its own accord to sacrifice mere pleasure to real usefulness.  If he
+is not satisfied hereafter with the consciousness of having achieved
+one of the most influential positions in Europe, how often will he feel
+tempted to repent his adventure!  If he does not from the very outset
+accept it as a vocation of grave responsibility, on the efficient
+performance of which his honour and happiness depend, there is small
+likelihood of his succeeding.'[8]
+
+Such were the views of Stockmar on the qualifications necessary for the
+due fulfilment of that destiny which Albert's family had marked out for
+him; and he hoped, during the tour in Italy, to come to some conclusion
+as to how far the Prince possessed them.  Albert on his side was much
+impressed by the Baron, whom he had previously seen but rarely; he also
+became acquainted, for the first time in his life, with a young {103}
+Englishman, Lieut. Francis Seymour, who had been engaged to accompany
+him, whom he found _sehr liebenswuerdig_, and with whom he struck up a
+warm friendship.  He delighted in the galleries and scenery of
+Florence, though with Rome he was less impressed.  'But for some
+beautiful palaces,' he said, 'it might just as well be any town in
+Germany.'  In an interview with Pope Gregory XVI, he took the
+opportunity of displaying his erudition.  When the Pope observed that
+the Greeks had taken their art from the Etruscans, Albert replied that,
+on the contrary, in his opinion, they had borrowed from the Egyptians:
+his Holiness politely acquiesced.  Wherever he went he was eager to
+increase his knowledge, and, at a ball in Florence, he was observed
+paying no attention whatever to the ladies, and deep in conversation
+with the learned Signor Capponi.  'Voila un prince dont nous pouvons
+etre fiers,' said the Grand Duke of Tuscany, who was standing by: 'la
+belle danseuse l'attend, le savant l'occupe.'[9]
+
+On his return to Germany, Stockmar's observations, imparted to King
+Leopold, were still critical.  Albert, he said, was intelligent, kind,
+and amiable; he was full of the best intentions and the noblest
+resolutions, and his judgment was in many things beyond his years.  But
+great exertion was repugnant to him; he seemed to be too willing to
+spare himself, and his good resolutions too often came to nothing.  It
+was particularly unfortunate that he took not the slightest interest in
+politics, and never read a newspaper.  In his manners, too, there was
+still room for improvement.  'He will always,' said the Baron, 'have
+more success with men than with women, in whose society he shows too
+little {104} _empressement_, and is too indifferent and retiring.'  One
+other feature of the case was noted by the keen eye of the old
+physician: the Prince's constitution was not a strong one.[10]  Yet, on
+the whole, he was favourable to the projected marriage.  But by now the
+chief obstacle seemed to lie in another quarter.  Victoria was
+apparently determined to commit herself to nothing.  And so it happened
+that when Albert went to England he had made up his mind to withdraw
+entirely from the affair.  Nothing would induce him, he confessed to a
+friend, to be kept vaguely waiting; he would break it all off at once.
+His reception at Windsor threw an entirely new light upon the
+situation.  The wheel of fortune turned with a sudden rapidity; and he
+found, in the arms of Victoria, the irrevocable assurance of his
+overwhelming fate.[11]
+
+
+II
+
+He was not in love with her.  Affection, gratitude, the natural
+reactions to the unqualified devotion of a lively young cousin who was
+also a queen--such feelings possessed him, but the ardours of
+reciprocal passion were not his.  Though he found that he liked
+Victoria very much, what immediately interested him in his curious
+position was less her than himself.  Dazzled and delighted, riding,
+dancing, singing, laughing, amid the splendours of Windsor, he was
+aware of a new sensation--the stirrings of ambition in his breast.  His
+place would indeed be a high, an enviable one!  And then, on the
+instant, came another thought.  The teaching of religion, the
+admonitions of Stockmar, his {105} own inmost convictions, all spoke
+with the same utterance.  He would not be there to please himself, but
+for a very different purpose--to do good.  He must be 'noble, manly,
+and princely in all things,' he would have 'to live and to sacrifice
+himself for the benefit of his new country,' to 'use his powers and
+endeavours for a great object--that of promoting the welfare of
+multitudes of his fellow-men.'  One serious thought led on to another.
+The wealth and the bustle of the English Court might be delightful for
+the moment, but, after all, it was Coburg that had his heart.  'While I
+shall be untiring,' he wrote to his grandmother, 'in my efforts and
+labours for the country to which I shall in future belong, and where I
+am called to so high a position, I shall never cease _ein treuer
+Deutscher, Coburger, Gothaner zu sein_.'  And now he must part from
+Coburg for ever!  Sobered and sad, he sought relief in his brother
+Ernest's company; the two young men would shut themselves up together,
+and, sitting down at the pianoforte, would escape from the present and
+the future in the sweet familiar gaiety of a Haydn duet.[12]
+
+They returned to Germany; and while Albert, for a few farewell months,
+enjoyed, for the last time, the happiness of home, Victoria, for the
+last time, resumed her old life in London and Windsor.  She
+corresponded daily with her future husband in a mingled flow of German
+and English; but the accustomed routine reasserted itself; the business
+and the pleasures of the day would brook no interruption; Lord M. was
+once more constantly beside her; and the Tories were as intolerable as
+ever.  Indeed, they were more so.  For {106} now, in these final
+moments, the old feud burst out with redoubled fury.[13]  The impetuous
+sovereign found, to her chagrin, that there might be disadvantages in
+being the declared enemy of one of the great parties in the State.  On
+two occasions, the Tories directly thwarted her in a matter on which
+she had set her heart.  She wished her husband's rank to be fixed by
+statute, and their opposition prevented it.  She wished her husband to
+receive a settlement from the nation of L50,000 a year; and, again
+owing to the Tories, he was allowed only L30,000.  It was too bad.
+When the question was discussed in Parliament, it had been pointed out
+that the bulk of the population was suffering from great poverty, and
+that L30,000 was the whole revenue of Coburg; but her uncle Leopold had
+been given L50,000, and it would be monstrous to give Albert less.  Sir
+Robert Peel--it might have been expected--had had the effrontery to
+speak and vote for the smaller sum.  She was very angry, and determined
+to revenge herself by omitting to invite a single Tory to her wedding.
+She would make an exception in favour of old Lord Liverpool, but even
+the Duke of Wellington she refused to ask.  When it was represented to
+her that it would amount to a national scandal if the Duke were absent
+from her wedding, she was angrier than ever.  'What!  That old rebel!
+I won't have him,' she was reported to have said.  Eventually she was
+induced to send him an invitation; but she made no attempt to conceal
+the {107} bitterness of her feelings, and the Duke himself was only too
+well aware of all that had passed.[14]
+
+Nor was it only against the Tories that her irritation rose.  As the
+time for her wedding approached, her temper grew steadily sharper and
+more arbitrary.  Queen Adelaide annoyed her.  King Leopold, too, was
+'ungracious' in his correspondence; 'Dear Uncle,' she told Albert, 'is
+given to believe that he must rule the roost everywhere.  However,' she
+added with asperity, 'that is not a necessity.'[15]  Even Albert
+himself was not impeccable.  Engulfed in Coburgs, he failed to
+appreciate the complexity of English affairs.  There were difficulties
+about his household.  He had a notion that he ought not to be
+surrounded by violent Whigs; very likely, but he would not understand
+that the only alternatives to violent Whigs were violent Tories; and it
+would be preposterous if his Lords and Gentlemen were to be found
+voting against the Queen's.  He wanted to appoint his own Private
+Secretary.  But how could he choose the right person?  Lord M. was
+obviously best qualified to make the appointment; and Lord M. had
+decided that the Prince should take over his own Private
+Secretary--George Anson, a staunch Whig.  Albert protested, but it was
+useless; Victoria simply announced that Anson was appointed, and
+instructed Lehzen to send the Prince an explanation of the details of
+the case.  Then, again, he had written anxiously upon the necessity of
+maintaining unspotted the moral purity of the Court.  Lord M.'s pupil
+considered that dear Albert was strait-laced, and, in a brisk
+Anglo-German missive, set forth her own views.  'I like Lady A. very
+much,' she told him, 'only she is {108} a little _strict and
+particular_, and too severe towards others, which is not right; for I
+think one ought always to be indulgent towards other people, as I
+always think, if we had not been well taken care of, we might also have
+gone astray.  That is always my feeling.  Yet it is always right to
+show that one does not like to see what is obviously wrong; but it is
+very dangerous to be too severe, and I am certain that as a rule such
+people always greatly regret that in their youth they have not been so
+careful as they ought to have been.  I have explained this so badly and
+written it so badly, that I fear you will hardly be able to make it
+out.'[16]
+
+On one other matter she was insistent.  Since the affair of Lady Flora
+Hastings, a sad fate had overtaken Sir James Clark.  His flourishing
+practice had quite collapsed; nobody would go to him any more.  But the
+Queen remained faithful.  She would show the world how little she cared
+for its disapproval, and she desired Albert to make 'poor Clark' his
+physician in ordinary.  He did as he was told; but, as it turned out,
+the appointment was not a happy one.[17]
+
+The wedding-day was fixed, and it was time for Albert to tear himself
+away from his family and the scenes of his childhood.  With an aching
+heart, he had revisited his beloved haunts--the woods and the valleys
+where he had spent so many happy hours shooting rabbits and collecting
+botanical specimens; in deep depression, he had sat through the
+farewell banquets in the Palace and listened to the _Freischuetz_
+performed by the State band.  It was time to go.  The streets were
+packed as he drove through them; for a short space his {109} eyes were
+gladdened by a sea of friendly German faces, and his ears by a
+gathering volume of good guttural sounds.  He stopped to bid a last
+adieu to his grandmother.  It was a heart-rending moment.  'Albert!
+Albert!' she shrieked, and fell fainting into the arms of her
+attendants as his carriage drove away.  He was whirled rapidly to his
+destiny.  At Calais a steamboat awaited him, and, together with his
+father and his brother, he stepped, dejected, on board.  A little
+later, he was more dejected still.  The crossing was a very rough one;
+the Duke went hurriedly below; while the two Princes, we are told, lay
+on either side of the cabin staircase 'in an almost helpless state.'
+At Dover a large crowd was collected on the pier, and 'it was by no
+common effort that Prince Albert, who had continued to suffer up to the
+last moment, got up to bow to the people.'  His sense of duty
+triumphed.  It was a curious omen: his whole life in England was
+foreshadowed as he landed on English ground.[18]
+
+Meanwhile Victoria, in growing agitation, was a prey to temper and to
+nerves.  She grew feverish, and at last Sir James Clark pronounced that
+she was going to have the measles.  But, once again, Sir James's
+diagnosis was incorrect.  It was not the measles that was attacking
+her, but a very different malady; she was suddenly prostrated by alarm,
+regret, and doubt.  For two years she had been her own mistress--the
+two happiest years, by far, of her life.  And now it was all to end!
+She was to come under an alien domination--she would have to promise
+that she would honour and obey ... someone, who might, after all,
+thwart her, oppose her--and how dreadful that would be!  Why had she
+embarked on this hazardous experiment?  Why {110} had she not been
+contented with Lord M.?  No doubt, she loved Albert; but she loved
+power too.  At any rate, one thing was certain: she might be Albert's
+wife, but she would always be Queen of England.[19]  He reappeared, in
+an exquisite uniform, and her hesitations melted in his presence like
+mist before the sun.  On February 10, 1840, the marriage took place.
+The wedded pair drove down to Windsor; but they were not, of course,
+entirely alone.  They were accompanied by their suites, and, in
+particular, by two persons--the Baron Stockmar and the Baroness Lehzen.
+
+
+III
+
+Albert had foreseen that his married life would not be all plain
+sailing; but he had by no means realised the gravity and the
+complication of the difficulties which he would have to face.
+Politically, he was a cipher.  Lord Melbourne was not only Prime
+Minister, he was in effect the Private Secretary of the Queen, and thus
+controlled the whole of the political existence of the sovereign.  A
+queen's husband was an entity unknown to the British Constitution.  In
+State affairs there seemed to be no place for him; nor was Victoria
+herself at all unwilling that this should be so.  'The English,' she
+had told the Prince when, during their engagement, a proposal had been
+made to give him a peerage, 'are very jealous of any foreigner
+interfering in the government of this country, and have already in some
+of the papers expressed a hope that you would not interfere.  Now,
+though I know you never would, still, if you were a Peer, they would
+all say, the Prince meant to play a political part.'[20]  'I know you
+never would!'  In {111} reality, she was not quite so certain; but she
+wished Albert to understand her views.  He would, she hoped, make a
+perfect husband; but, as for governing the country, he would see that
+she and Lord M. between them could manage that very well, without his
+help.
+
+But it was not only in politics that the Prince discovered that the
+part cut out for him was a negligible one.  Even as a husband, he
+found, his functions were to be of an extremely limited kind.  Over the
+whole of Victoria's private life the Baroness reigned supreme; and she
+had not the slightest intention of allowing that supremacy to be
+diminished by one iota.  Since the accession, her power had greatly
+increased.  Besides the undefined and enormous influence which she
+exercised through her management of the Queen's private correspondence,
+she was now the superintendent of the royal establishment and
+controlled the important office of Privy Purse.[21]  Albert very soon
+perceived that he was not master in his own house.[22]  Every detail of
+his own and his wife's existence was supervised by a third person:
+nothing could be done until the consent of Lehzen had first been
+obtained.  And Victoria, who adored Lehzen with unabated intensity, saw
+nothing in all this that was wrong.
+
+Nor was the Prince happier in his social surroundings.  A shy young
+foreigner, awkward in ladies' company, unexpansive and
+self-opinionated, it was improbable that, in any circumstances, he
+would have been a society success.  His appearance, too, was against
+him.  Though in the eyes of Victoria he was the mirror of manly beauty,
+her subjects, whose eyes were of a less Teutonic cast, did not agree
+with her.  To them--and particularly to the high-born ladies and {112}
+gentlemen who naturally saw him most--what was immediately and
+distressingly striking in Albert's face and figure and whole demeanour
+was his un-English look.  His features were regular, no doubt, but
+there was something smooth and smug about them; he was tall, but he was
+clumsily put together, and he walked with a slight slouch.  Really,
+they thought, this youth was more like some kind of foreign tenor than
+anything else.  These were serious disadvantages; but the line of
+conduct which the Prince adopted from the first moment of his arrival
+was far from calculated to dispel them.  Owing partly to a natural
+awkwardness, partly to a fear of undue familiarity, and partly to a
+desire to be absolutely correct, his manners were infused with an
+extraordinary stiffness and formality.  Whenever he appeared in
+company, he seemed to be surrounded by a thick hedge of prickly
+etiquette.  He never went out into ordinary society; he never walked in
+the streets of London; he was invariably accompanied by an equerry when
+he rode or drove.  He wanted to be irreproachable and, if that involved
+friendlessness, it could not be helped.  Besides, he had no very high
+opinion of the English.  So far as he could see, they cared for nothing
+but fox-hunting and Sunday observances; they oscillated between an
+undue frivolity and an undue gloom; if you spoke to them of friendly
+joyousness they stared; and they did not understand either the Laws of
+Thought or the wit of a German University.  Since it was clear that
+with such people he could have very little in common, there was no
+reason whatever for relaxing in their favour the rules of etiquette.
+In strict privacy, he could be natural and charming; Seymour and Anson
+were devoted to him, and he returned their affection; but they were
+subordinates--the {113} receivers of his confidences and the agents of
+his will.  From the support and the solace of true companionship he was
+utterly cut off.[23]
+
+A friend, indeed, he had--or rather, a mentor.  The Baron, established
+once more in the royal residence, was determined to work with as
+whole-hearted a detachment for the Prince's benefit as, more than
+twenty years before, he had worked for his uncle's.  The situations
+then and now, similar in many respects, were yet full of differences.
+Perhaps in either case the difficulties to be encountered were equally
+great; but the present problem was the more complex and the more
+interesting.  The young doctor, unknown and insignificant, whose only
+assets were his own wits and the friendship of an unimportant Prince,
+had been replaced by the accomplished confidant of kings and ministers,
+ripe in years, in reputation, and in the wisdom of a vast experience.
+It was possible for him to treat Albert with something of the
+affectionate authority of a father; but, on the other hand, Albert was
+no Leopold.  As the Baron was very well aware, he had none of his
+uncle's rigidity of ambition, none of his overweening impulse to be
+personally great.  He was virtuous and well-intentioned; he was clever
+and well-informed; but he took no interest in politics, and there were
+no signs that he possessed any commanding force of character.  Left to
+himself, he would almost certainly have subsided into a high-minded
+nonentity, an aimless dilettante busy over culture, a palace appendage
+without influence or power.  But he was not left to himself: Stockmar
+saw to that.  For ever at his pupil's elbow, the hidden Baron pushed
+him forward, with tireless pressure, {114} along the path which had
+been trod by Leopold so many years ago.  But, this time, the goal at
+the end of it was something more than the mediocre royalty that Leopold
+had reached.  The prize which Stockmar, with all the energy of
+disinterested devotion, had determined should be Albert's was a
+tremendous prize indeed.
+
+The beginning of the undertaking proved to be the most arduous part of
+it.  Albert was easily dispirited: what was the use of struggling to
+perform in a role which bored him and which, it was quite clear, nobody
+but the dear good Baron had any desire that he should take up?  It was
+simpler, and it saved a great deal of trouble, to let things slide.
+But Stockmar would not have it.[24]  Incessantly, he harped upon two
+strings--Albert's sense of duty and his personal pride.  Had the Prince
+forgotten the noble aims to which his life was to be devoted?  And was
+he going to allow himself, his wife, his family, his whole existence,
+to be governed by Baroness Lehzen?  The latter consideration was a
+potent one.  Albert had never been accustomed to giving way; and now,
+more than ever before, it would be humiliating to do so.  Not only was
+he constantly exasperated by the position of the Baroness in the royal
+household; there was another and a still more serious cause of
+complaint.  He was, he knew very well, his wife's intellectual
+superior, and yet he found, to his intense annoyance, that there were
+parts of her mind over which he exercised no influence.  When, urged on
+by the Baron, he attempted to discuss politics with Victoria, she
+eluded the subject, drifted into generalities, and then began to talk
+of something else.  She was treating him as she had once treated their
+uncle Leopold.  {115} When at last he protested, she replied that her
+conduct was merely the result of indolence; that when she was with
+_him_ she could not bear to bother her head with anything so dull as
+politics.  The excuse was worse than the fault: was he the wife and she
+the husband?  It almost seemed so.  But the Baron declared that the
+root of the mischief was Lehzen: that it was she who encouraged the
+Queen to have secrets; who did worse--undermined the natural
+ingenuousness of Victoria, and induced her to give, unconsciously no
+doubt, false reasons to explain away her conduct.[25]
+
+Minor disagreements made matters worse.  The royal couple differed in
+their tastes.  Albert, brought up in a regime of Spartan simplicity and
+early hours, found the great Court functions intolerably wearisome, and
+was invariably observed to be nodding on the sofa at half-past ten;
+while the Queen's favourite form of enjoyment was to dance through the
+night, and then, going out into the portico of the Palace, watch the
+sun rise behind St. Paul's and the towers of Westminster.[26]  She
+loved London and he detested it.  It was only in Windsor that he felt
+he could really breathe; but Windsor too had its terrors: though during
+the day there he could paint and walk and play on the piano, after
+dinner black tedium descended like a pall.  He would have liked to
+summon distinguished scientific and literary men to his presence, and
+after ascertaining their views upon various points of art and learning,
+to set forth his own; but unfortunately Victoria 'had no fancy to
+encourage such people'; knowing that she was unequal to taking a part
+in their conversation, she insisted that the evening routine should
+remain unaltered; the regulation interchange of platitudes with {116}
+official persons was followed as usual by the round table and the books
+of engravings, while the Prince, with three of his attendants, played
+game after game of double chess.[27]
+
+It was only natural that in so peculiar a situation, in which the
+elements of power, passion, and pride were so strangely apportioned,
+there should have been occasionally something more than mere
+irritation--a struggle of angry wills.  Victoria, no more than Albert,
+was in the habit of playing second fiddle.  Her arbitrary temper
+flashed out.  Her vitality, her obstinacy, her overweening sense of her
+own position, might well have beaten down before them his superiorities
+and his rights.  But she fought at a disadvantage; she was, in very
+truth, no longer her own mistress; a profound preoccupation dominated
+her, seizing upon her inmost purposes for its own extraordinary ends.
+She was madly in love.  The details of those curious battles are
+unknown to us; but Prince Ernest, who remained in England with his
+brother for some months, noted them with a friendly and startled
+eye.[28]  One story, indeed, survives, ill-authenticated and perhaps
+mythical, yet summing up, as such stories often do, the central facts
+of the case.  When, in wrath, the Prince one day had locked himself
+into his room, Victoria, no less furious, knocked on the door to be
+admitted.  'Who is there?' he asked.  'The Queen of England,' was the
+answer.  He did not move, and again there was a hail of knocks.  The
+question and the answer were repeated many times; but at last there was
+a pause, and then a gentler knocking.  'Who is there?' came once more
+the relentless question.  But this time the reply was different.  'Your
+wife, Albert.'  And the door was immediately opened.[29]
+
+{117}
+
+Very gradually the Prince's position changed.  He began to find the
+study of politics less uninteresting than he had supposed; he read
+Blackstone, and took lessons in English Law; he was occasionally
+present when the Queen interviewed her Ministers; and at Lord
+Melbourne's suggestion he was shown all the despatches relating to
+Foreign Affairs.  Sometimes he would commit his views to paper, and
+read them aloud to the Prime Minister, who, infinitely kind and
+courteous, listened with attention, but seldom made any reply.[30]  An
+important step was taken when, before the birth of the Princess Royal,
+the Prince, without any opposition in Parliament, was appointed Regent
+in case of the death of the Queen.[31]  Stockmar, owing to whose
+intervention with the Tories this happy result had been brought about,
+now felt himself at liberty to take a holiday with his family in
+Coburg; but his solicitude, poured out in innumerable letters, still
+watched over his pupil from afar.  'Dear Prince,' he wrote, 'I am
+satisfied with the news you have sent me.  Mistakes, misunderstandings,
+obstructions, which come in vexatious opposition to one's views, are
+always to be taken for just what they are--namely, natural phenomena of
+life, which represent one of its sides, and that the shady one.  In
+overcoming them with dignity, your mind has to exercise, to train, to
+enlighten itself; and your character to gain force, endurance, and the
+necessary hardness.'  The Prince had done well so far; but he must
+continue in the right path; above all, he was 'never to relax.'--'Never
+to relax in putting your magnanimity to the proof; never to relax in
+logical separation of what is great and essential from what is trivial
+and of no moment; never to relax in keeping {118} yourself up to a high
+standard--in the determination, daily renewed, to be consistent,
+patient, courageous.'  It was a hard programme, perhaps, for a young
+man of twenty-one; and yet there was something in it which touched the
+very depths of Albert's soul.  He sighed, but he listened--listened as
+to the voice of a spiritual director inspired with divine truth.  'The
+stars which are needful to you now,' the voice continued, 'and perhaps
+for some time to come, are _Love, Honesty, Truth_.  All those whose
+minds are warped, or who are destitute of true feeling, will _be apt to
+mistake you_, and to persuade themselves and the world that you are not
+the man you are--or, at least, may become....  Do you, therefore, be on
+the alert betimes, with your eyes open in every direction....  I wish
+for my Prince a great, noble, warm, and true heart, such as shall serve
+as the richest and surest basis for the noblest views of human nature,
+and the firmest resolve to give them development.'[32]
+
+Before long, the decisive moment came.  There was a General Election,
+and it became certain that the Tories, at last, must come into power.
+The Queen disliked them as much as ever; but, with a large majority in
+the House of Commons, they would now be in a position to insist upon
+their wishes being attended to.  Lord Melbourne himself was the first
+to realise the importance of carrying out the inevitable transition
+with as little friction as possible; and with his consent, the Prince,
+following up the _rapprochement_ which had begun over the Regency Act,
+opened, through Anson, a negotiation with Sir Robert Peel.  In a series
+of secret interviews, a complete understanding was reached upon the
+difficult and complex question of the Bedchamber.  It was agreed that
+the constitutional point {119} should not be raised, but that, on the
+formation of the Tory Government, the principal Whig ladies should
+retire, and their places be filled by others appointed by Sir
+Robert.[33]  Thus, in effect, though not in form, the Crown abandoned
+the claims of 1839, and they have never been subsequently put forward.
+The transaction was a turning-point in the Prince's career.  He had
+conducted an important negotiation with skill and tact; he had been
+brought into close and friendly relations with the new Prime Minister;
+it was obvious that a great political future lay before him.  Victoria
+was much impressed and deeply grateful.  'My dearest Angel,' she told
+King Leopold, 'is indeed a great comfort to me.  He takes the greatest
+interest in what goes on, feeling with and for me, and yet abstaining
+as he ought from biassing me either way, though we talk much on the
+subject, and his judgment is, as you say, good and mild.'[34]  She was
+in need of all the comfort and assistance he could give her.  Lord M.
+was going; and she could hardly bring herself to speak to Peel.  Yes;
+she would discuss everything with Albert now!
+
+Stockmar, who had returned to England, watched the departure of Lord
+Melbourne with satisfaction.  If all went well, the Prince should now
+wield a supreme political influence over Victoria.  But would all go
+well?  An unexpected development put the Baron into a serious fright.
+When the dreadful moment finally came, and the Queen, in anguish, bade
+adieu to her beloved Minister, it was settled between them that, though
+it would be inadvisable to meet very often, they could continue to
+correspond.  Never were the inconsistencies of Lord Melbourne's
+character shown more clearly than in what followed.  So long as he was
+{120} in office, his attitude towards Peel had been irreproachable; he
+had done all he could to facilitate the change of government; he had
+even, through more than one channel, transmitted privately to his
+successful rival advice as to the best means of winning the Queen's
+good graces.[35]  Yet, no sooner was he in opposition than his heart
+failed him.  He could not bear the thought of surrendering altogether
+the privilege and the pleasure of giving counsel to Victoria--of being
+cut off completely from the power and the intimacy which had been his
+for so long and in such abundant measure.  Though he had declared that
+he would be perfectly discreet in his letters, he could not resist
+taking advantage of the opening they afforded.  He discussed in detail
+various public questions, and, in particular, gave the Queen a great
+deal of advice in the matter of appointments.  This advice was
+followed.  Lord Melbourne recommended that Lord Heytesbury, who, he
+said, was an able man, should be made Ambassador at Vienna; and a week
+later the Queen wrote to the Foreign Secretary urging that Lord
+Heytesbury, whom she believed to be a very able man, should be employed
+'on some important mission.'  Stockmar was very much alarmed.  He wrote
+a memorandum, pointing out the unconstitutional nature of Lord
+Melbourne's proceedings and the unpleasant position in which the Queen
+might find herself if they were discovered by Peel; and he instructed
+Anson to take this memorandum to the ex-Minister.  Lord Melbourne,
+lounging on a sofa, read it through with compressed lips.  'This is
+quite an apple-pie opinion,' he said.  When Anson ventured to
+expostulate further, suggesting that it was unseemly in the leader of
+the Opposition to maintain an intimate {121} relationship with the
+Sovereign, the old man lost his temper.  'God eternally damn it!' he
+exclaimed, leaping up from his sofa, and dashing about the room.
+'Flesh and blood cannot stand this!'  He continued to write to the
+Queen, as before; and two more violent bombardments from the Baron were
+needed before he was brought to reason.  Then, gradually, his letters
+grew less and less frequent, with fewer and fewer references to public
+concerns; at last, they were entirely innocuous.  The Baron smiled;
+Lord M. had accepted the inevitable.[36]
+
+The Whig ministry resigned in September, 1841; but more than a year was
+to elapse before another and an equally momentous change was
+effected--the removal of Lehzen.  For, in the end, the mysterious
+governess was conquered.  The steps are unknown by which Victoria was
+at last led to accept her withdrawal with composure--perhaps with
+relief; but it is clear that Albert's domestic position must have been
+greatly strengthened by the appearance of children.  The birth of the
+Princess Royal had been followed in November 1841 by that of the Prince
+of Wales; and before very long another baby was expected.  The
+Baroness, with all her affection, could have but a remote share in such
+family delights.  She lost ground perceptibly.  It was noticed as a
+phenomenon that, once or twice, when the Court travelled, she was left
+behind at Windsor.[37]  The Prince was very cautious; at the change of
+Ministry, Lord Melbourne had advised him to choose that moment for
+decisive action; but he judged it wiser to wait.[38]  Time and the
+pressure of inevitable circumstances were for him; every day his {122}
+predominance grew more assured--and every night.  At length he
+perceived that he need hesitate no longer--that every wish, every
+velleity of his had only to be expressed to be at once Victoria's.  He
+spoke, and Lehzen vanished for ever.  No more would she reign in that
+royal heart and those royal halls.  No more, watching from a window at
+Windsor, would she follow her pupil and her sovereign, walking on the
+terrace among the obsequious multitude, with the eye of triumphant
+love.[39]  Returning to her native Hanover she established herself at
+Bueckeburg in a small but comfortable house, the walls of which were
+entirely covered by portraits of Her Majesty.[40]  The Baron, in spite
+of his dyspepsia, smiled again: Albert was supreme.
+
+
+IV
+
+The early discords had passed away completely--resolved into the
+absolute harmony of married life.  Victoria, overcome by a new, an
+unimagined revelation, had surrendered her whole soul to her husband.
+The beauty and the charm which so suddenly had made her his at first
+were, she now saw, no more than the outward manifestation of the true
+Albert.  There was an inward beauty, an inward glory which, blind that
+she was, she had then but dimly apprehended, but of which now she was
+aware in every fibre of her being--he was good--he was great!  How
+could she ever have dreamt of setting up her will against his wisdom,
+her ignorance against his knowledge, her fancies against his perfect
+taste?  Had she really once loved London and late hours and
+dissipation?  She who now was {123} only happy in the country, she who
+jumped out of bed every morning--oh, so early!--with Albert, to take a
+walk, before breakfast, with Albert alone!  How wonderful it was to be
+taught by him!  To be told by him which trees were which; and to learn
+all about the bees!  And then to sit doing cross-stitch while he read
+aloud to her Hallam's Constitutional History of England!  Or to listen
+to him playing on his new organ ('The organ is the first of
+instruments,' he said); or to sing to him a song by Mendelssohn, with a
+great deal of care over the time and the breathing, and only a very
+occasional false note!  And, after dinner, too--oh, how good of him!
+He had given up his double chess!  And so there could be round games at
+the round table, or everyone could spend the evening in the most
+amusing way imaginable--spinning counters and rings.[41]  When the
+babies came it was still more wonderful.  Pussy was such a clever
+little girl ('I am not Pussy!  I am the Princess Royal!' she had
+angrily exclaimed on one occasion); and Bertie--well, she could only
+pray _most_ fervently that the little Prince of Wales would grow up to
+'resemble his angelic dearest Father in _every, every_ respect, both in
+body and mind.'[42]  Her dear Mamma, too, had been drawn once more into
+the family circle, for Albert had brought about a reconciliation, and
+the departure of Lehzen had helped to obliterate the past.[43]  In
+Victoria's eyes, life had become an idyll, and, if the essential
+elements of an idyll are happiness, love and simplicity, an idyll it
+was; though, indeed, it was of a kind that might have disconcerted
+Theocritus.  'Albert brought in {124} dearest little Pussy,' wrote Her
+Majesty in her journal, 'in such a smart white merino dress trimmed
+with blue, which Mamma had given her, and a pretty cap, and placed her
+on my bed, seating himself next to her, and she was very dear and good.
+And as my precious, invaluable Albert sat there, and our little Love
+between us, I felt quite moved with happiness and gratitude to God.'[44]
+
+The past--the past of only three years since--when she looked back upon
+it, seemed a thing so remote and alien that she could explain it to
+herself in no other way than as some kind of delusion--an unfortunate
+mistake.  Turning over an old volume of her diary, she came upon this
+sentence--'As for "the confidence of the Crown," God knows!  No
+_Minister, no friend_ EVER possessed it so entirely as this truly
+excellent Lord Melbourne possesses mine!'  A pang shot through her--she
+seized a pen, and wrote upon the margin--'Reading this again, I cannot
+forbear remarking what an artificial sort of happiness _mine_ was
+_then_, and what a blessing it is I have now in my beloved Husband
+_real_ and solid happiness, which no Politics, no worldly reverses
+_can_ change; it could not have lasted long as it was then, for after
+all, kind and excellent as Lord M. is, and kind as he was to me, it was
+but in Society that I had amusement, and I was only living on that
+superficial resource, which I _then fancied_ was happiness!  Thank God!
+for me and others, this is changed, and I _know what_ REAL _happiness_
+is--V.R.'[45]  How did she know?  What is the distinction between
+happiness that is real and happiness that is felt?  So a
+philosopher--Lord M. himself perhaps--might have inquired.  But she was
+no philosopher, and Lord M. was a phantom, and Albert was beside her,
+and that was enough.
+
+{125}
+
+Happy, certainly, she was; and she wanted everyone to know it.  Her
+letters to King Leopold are sprinkled thick with raptures.  'Oh! my
+dearest uncle, I am sure if you knew _how_ happy, how blessed I feel,
+and how _proud_ I feel in possessing _such_ a perfect being as my
+husband...' such ecstasies seemed to gush from her pen unceasingly and
+almost of their own accord.[46]  When, one day, without thinking, Lady
+Lyttelton described someone to her as being 'as happy as a queen,' and
+then grew a little confused, 'Don't correct yourself, Lady Lyttelton,'
+said Her Majesty.  'A queen _is_ a very happy woman.'[47]
+
+But this new happiness was no lotus dream.  On the contrary, it was
+bracing, rather than relaxing.  Never before had she felt so acutely
+the necessity for doing her duty.  She worked more methodically than
+ever at the business of State; she watched over her children with
+untiring vigilance.  She carried on a large correspondence; she was
+occupied with her farm--her dairy--a whole multitude of household
+avocations--from morning till night.  Her active, eager little body
+hurrying with quick steps after the long strides of Albert down the
+corridors and avenues of Windsor,[48] seemed the very expression of her
+spirit.  Amid all the softness, the deliciousness of unmixed joy, all
+the liquescence, the overflowings of inexhaustible sentiment, her
+native rigidity remained.  'A vein of iron,' said Lady Lyttelton, who,
+as royal governess, had good means of observation, 'runs through her
+most extraordinary character.'[49]
+
+Sometimes the delightful routine of domestic existence had to be
+interrupted.  It was necessary to {126} exchange Windsor for Buckingham
+Palace, to open Parliament, or to interview official personages, or,
+occasionally, to entertain foreign visitors at the Castle.  Then the
+quiet Court put on a sudden magnificence, and sovereigns from over the
+seas--Louis Philippe, or the King of Prussia, or the King of
+Saxony--found at Windsor an entertainment that was indeed a royal one.
+Few spectacles in Europe, it was agreed, produced an effect so imposing
+as the great Waterloo banqueting hall, crowded with guests in sparkling
+diamonds and blazing uniforms, the long walls hung with the stately
+portraits of heroes, and the tables loaded with the gorgeous gold plate
+of the Kings of England.[50]  But, in that wealth of splendour, the
+most imposing spectacle of all was the Queen.  The little _Hausfrau_,
+who had spent the day before walking out with her children, inspecting
+her livestock, practising shakes at the piano, and filling up her
+journal with adoring descriptions of her husband, suddenly shone forth,
+without art, without effort, by a spontaneous and natural transition,
+the very culmination of Majesty.  The Tsar of Russia himself was deeply
+impressed.  Victoria on her side viewed with secret awe the tremendous
+Nicholas.  'A great event and a great compliment _his_ visit certainly
+is,' she told her uncle, 'and the people _here_ are extremely flattered
+at it.  He is certainly a _very striking_ man; still very handsome.
+His profile is _beautiful_, and his manners _most_ dignified and
+graceful; extremely civil--quite alarmingly so, as he is so full of
+attentions and _politeness_.  But the expression of the _eyes_ is
+_formidable_, and unlike anything I ever saw before.'[51]  She and
+Albert and 'the good King of Saxony,' who happened {127} to be there at
+the same time, and whom, she said, 'we like much--he is _so_
+unassuming'--drew together like tame villatic fowl in the presence of
+that awful eagle.  When he was gone, they compared notes about his
+face, his unhappiness, and his despotic power over millions.  Well!
+She for her part could not help pitying him, and she thanked God she
+was Queen of England.[52]
+
+When the time came for returning some of these visits, the royal pair
+set forth in their yacht, much to Victoria's satisfaction.  'I do love
+a ship!' she exclaimed, ran up and down ladders with the greatest
+agility, and cracked jokes with the sailors.[53]  The Prince was more
+aloof.  They visited Louis Philippe at the Chateau d'Eu; they visited
+King Leopold in Brussels.  It happened that a still more remarkable
+Englishwoman was in the Belgian capital, but she was not remarked; and
+Queen Victoria passed unknowing before the steady gaze of one of the
+mistresses in M. Heger's _pensionnat_.  'A little, stout, vivacious
+lady, very plainly dressed--not much dignity or pretension about her,'
+was Charlotte Bronte's comment as the royal carriage and six flashed by
+her, making her wait on the pavement for a moment, and interrupting the
+train of her reflections.[54]  Victoria was in high spirits, and even
+succeeded in instilling a little cheerfulness into her uncle's sombre
+Court.  King Leopold, indeed, was perfectly contented.  His dearest
+hopes had been fulfilled; all his ambitions were satisfied; and for the
+rest of his life he had only to enjoy, in undisturbed decorum, his
+throne, his respectability, the table of precedence, and the punctual
+discharge of his irksome duties.  But unfortunately the felicity of
+those who {128} surrounded him was less complete.  His Court, it was
+murmured, was as gloomy as a conventicle, and the most dismal of all
+the sufferers was his wife.  'Pas de plaisanteries, madame!' he had
+exclaimed to the unfortunate successor of the Princess Charlotte, when,
+in the early days of their marriage, she had attempted a feeble joke.
+Did she not understand that the consort of a constitutional sovereign
+must not be frivolous?  She understood, at last, only too well; and
+when the startled walls of the state apartments re-echoed to the
+chattering and the laughter of Victoria, the poor lady found that she
+had almost forgotten how to smile.
+
+Another year, Germany was visited, and Albert displayed the beauties of
+his home.  When Victoria crossed the frontier, she was much
+excited--and she was astonished as well.  'To hear the people speak
+German,' she noted in her diary, 'and to see the German soldiers, etc.,
+seemed to me so singular.'  Having recovered from this slight shock,
+she found the country charming.  She was feted everywhere, crowds of
+the surrounding royalties swooped down to welcome her, and the
+prettiest groups of peasant children, dressed in their best clothes,
+presented her with bunches of flowers.  The principality of Coburg,
+with its romantic scenery and its well-behaved inhabitants,
+particularly delighted her; and when she woke up one morning to find
+herself in 'dear Rosenau, my Albert's birthplace,' it was 'like a
+beautiful dream.'  On her return home, she expatiated, in a letter to
+King Leopold, upon the pleasures of the trip, dwelling especially upon
+the intensity of her affection for Albert's native land.  'I have a
+feeling,' she said, 'for our dear little Germany, which I cannot
+describe.  I felt it at Rosenau so much.  It is a something which
+touches me, and which goes {129} to my heart, and makes me inclined to
+cry.  I never felt at any other place that sort of pensive pleasure and
+peace which I felt there.  I fear I almost like it too much.'[55]
+
+
+V
+
+The husband was not so happy as the wife.  In spite of the great
+improvement in his situation, in spite of a growing family and the
+adoration of Victoria, Albert was still a stranger in a strange land,
+and the serenity of spiritual satisfaction was denied him.  It was
+something, no doubt, to have dominated his immediate environment; but
+it was not enough; and, besides, in the very completeness of his
+success, there was a bitterness.  Victoria idolised him; but it was
+understanding that he craved for, not idolatry; and how much did
+Victoria, filled to the brim though she was with him, understand him?
+How much does the bucket understand the well?  He was lonely.  He went
+to his organ and improvised with learned modulations until the sounds,
+swelling and subsiding through elaborate cadences, brought some solace
+to his heart.  Then, with the elasticity of youth, he hurried off to
+play with the babies, or to design a new pigsty, or to read aloud the
+'Church History of Scotland' to Victoria, or to pirouette before her on
+one toe, like a ballet-dancer, with a fixed smile, to show her how she
+ought to behave when she appeared in public places.[56]  Thus did he
+amuse himself; but there was one distraction in which he did not
+indulge.  He never flirted--no, not with the prettiest ladies of the
+Court.  When, during their engagement, the Queen had remarked with
+pride to {130} Lord Melbourne that the Prince paid no attention to any
+other woman, the cynic had answered 'No, that sort of thing is apt to
+come later'; upon which she had scolded him severely, and then hurried
+off to Stockmar to repeat what Lord M. had said.  But the Baron had
+reassured her; though in other cases, he had replied, that might
+happen, he did not think it would in Albert's.  And the Baron was
+right.  Throughout their married life no rival female charms ever gave
+cause to Victoria for one moment's pang of jealousy.[57]
+
+What more and more absorbed him--bringing with it a curious comfort of
+its own--was his work.  With the advent of Peel, he began to intervene
+actively in the affairs of the State.  In more ways than one--in the
+cast of their intelligence, in their moral earnestness, even in the
+uneasy formalism of their manners--the two men resembled each other;
+there was a sympathy between them; and thus Peel was ready enough to
+listen to the advice of Stockmar, and to urge the Prince forward into
+public life.  A royal commission was about to be formed to enquire
+whether advantage might not be taken of the rebuilding of the Houses of
+Parliament to encourage the Fine Arts in the United Kingdom; and Peel,
+with great perspicacity, asked the Prince to preside over it.  The work
+was of a kind which precisely suited Albert: his love of art, his love
+of method, his love of coming into contact--close yet dignified--with
+distinguished men--it satisfied them all; and he threw himself into it
+_con amore_.  Some of the members of the commission were somewhat
+alarmed when, in his opening speech, he pointed out the necessity of
+dividing the subjects to be considered into {131} 'categories'--the
+word, they thought, smacked dangerously of German metaphysics; but
+their confidence returned when they observed His Royal Highness's
+extraordinary technical acquaintance with the processes of
+fresco-painting.  When the question arose as to whether the decorations
+upon the walls of the new buildings should, or should not, have a moral
+purpose, the Prince spoke strongly for the affirmative.  Although many,
+he observed, would give but a passing glance to the works, the painter
+was not therefore to forget that others might view them with more
+thoughtful eyes.  This argument convinced the commission, and it was
+decided that the subjects to be depicted should be of an improving
+nature.  The frescoes were carried out in accordance with the
+commission's instructions, but unfortunately before very long they had
+become, even to the most thoughtful eyes, totally invisible.  It seems
+that His Royal Highness's technical acquaintance with the processes of
+fresco-painting was incomplete.[58]
+
+The next task upon which the Prince embarked was a more arduous one: he
+determined to reform the organisation of the royal household.  This
+reform had been long overdue.  For years past the confusion,
+discomfort, and extravagance in the royal residences, and in Buckingham
+Palace particularly, had been scandalous; no reform had been
+practicable under the rule of the Baroness; but her functions had now
+devolved upon the Prince, and in 1844 he boldly attacked the problem.
+Three years earlier, Stockmar, after careful enquiry, had revealed in
+an elaborate memorandum an extraordinary state of affairs.  The control
+of the household, it appeared, was divided in the strangest manner
+between a number of authorities, {132} each independent of the other,
+each possessed of vague and fluctuating powers, without responsibility
+and without co-ordination.  Of these authorities, the most prominent
+were the Lord Steward and the Lord Chamberlain--noblemen of high rank
+and political importance, who changed office with every administration,
+who did not reside with the Court, and had no effective representatives
+attached to it.  The distribution of their respective functions was
+uncertain and peculiar.  In Buckingham Palace, it was believed that the
+Lord Chamberlain had charge of the whole of the rooms, with the
+exception of the kitchen, sculleries, and pantries, which were claimed
+by the Lord Steward.  At the same time, the outside of the Palace was
+under the control of neither of these functionaries--but of the Office
+of Woods and Forests; and thus, while the insides of the windows were
+cleaned by the department of the Lord Chamberlain--or possibly, in
+certain cases, of the Lord Steward--the Office of Woods and Forests
+cleaned their outsides.  Of the servants, the housekeepers, the pages,
+and the housemaids were under the authority of the Lord Chamberlain;
+the clerk of the kitchen, the cooks, and the porters were under that of
+the Lord Steward; but the footmen, the livery-porters, and the
+under-butlers took their orders from yet another official--the Master
+of the Horse.  Naturally, in these circumstances the service was
+extremely defective and the lack of discipline among the servants
+disgraceful.  They absented themselves for as long as they pleased and
+whenever the fancy took them; 'and if,' as the Baron put it, 'smoking,
+drinking, and other irregularities occur in the dormitories, where
+footmen, etc., sleep ten and twelve in each room, no one can help it.'
+As for Her Majesty's {133} guests, there was nobody to show them to
+their rooms, and they were often left, having utterly lost their way in
+the complicated passages, to wander helpless by the hour.  The strange
+divisions of authority extended not only to persons but to things.  The
+Queen observed that there was never a fire in the dining-room.  She
+enquired why.  The answer was, 'The Lord Steward lays the fire, and the
+Lord Chamberlain lights it'; the underlings of those two great noblemen
+having failed to come to an accommodation, there was no help for
+it--the Queen must eat in the cold.[59]
+
+A surprising incident opened everyone's eyes to the confusion and
+negligence that reigned in the Palace.  A fortnight after the birth of
+the Princess Royal the nurse heard a suspicious noise in the room next
+to the Queen's bedroom.  She called to one of the pages, who, looking
+under a large sofa, perceived there a crouching figure 'with a most
+repulsive appearance.'  It was 'the boy Jones.'  This enigmatical
+personage, whose escapades dominated the newspapers for several ensuing
+months, and whose motives and character remained to the end ambiguous,
+was an undersized lad of seventeen, the son of a tailor, who had
+apparently gained admittance to the Palace by climbing over the garden
+wall and walking in through an open window.  Two years before he had
+paid a similar visit in the guise of a chimney-sweep.  He now declared
+that he had spent three days in the Palace, hiding under various beds,
+that he had 'helped himself to soup and other eatables,' and that he
+had 'sat upon the throne, seen the Queen, and heard the Princess Royal
+squall.'  Every detail of the strange affair was eagerly canvassed.
+_The Times_ reported that the boy {134} Jones had 'from his infancy
+been fond of reading,' but that 'his countenance is exceedingly
+sullen.'  It added: 'The sofa under which the boy Jones was discovered,
+we understand, is one of the most costly and magnificent material and
+workmanship, and ordered expressly for the accommodation of the royal
+and illustrious visitors who call to pay their respects to Her
+Majesty.'  The culprit was sent for three months to the 'House of
+Correction.'  When he emerged, he immediately returned to Buckingham
+Palace.  He was discovered, and sent back to the 'House of Correction'
+for another three months, after which he was offered L4 a week by a
+music hall to appear upon the stage.  He refused this offer, and
+shortly afterwards was found by the police loitering round Buckingham
+Palace.  The authorities acted vigorously, and, without any trial or
+process of law, shipped the boy Jones off to sea.  A year later his
+ship put into Portsmouth to refit, and he at once disembarked and
+walked to London.  He was re-arrested before he reached the Palace, and
+sent back to his ship, the _Warspite_.  On this occasion it was noticed
+that he had 'much improved in personal appearance and grown quite
+corpulent'; and so the boy Jones passed out of history, though we catch
+one last glimpse of him in 1844 falling overboard in the night between
+Tunis and Algiers.  He was fished up again; but it was conjectured--as
+one of the _Warspite's_ officers explained in a letter to _The
+Times_--that his fall had not been accidental, but that he had
+deliberately jumped into the Mediterranean in order to 'see the
+life-buoy light burning.'  Of a boy with such a record, what else could
+be supposed?[60]
+
+{135}
+
+But discomfort and alarm were not the only results of the mismanagement
+of the household; the waste, extravagance, and peculation that also
+flowed from it were immeasurable.  There were preposterous perquisites
+and malpractices of every kind.  It was, for instance, an ancient and
+immutable rule that a candle that had once been lighted should never be
+lighted again; what happened to the old candles nobody knew.  Again,
+the Prince, examining the accounts, was puzzled by a weekly expenditure
+of thirty-five shillings on 'Red Room Wine.'  He enquired into the
+matter, and after great difficulty discovered that in the time of
+George III a room in Windsor Castle with red hangings had once been
+used as a guard-room, and that five shillings a day had been allowed to
+provide wine for the officers.  The guard had long since been moved
+elsewhere, but the payment for wine in the Red Room continued, the
+money being received by a half-pay officer who held the sinecure
+position of under-butler.[61]
+
+After much laborious investigation, and a stiff struggle with the
+multitude of vested interests which had been brought into being by long
+years of neglect, the Prince succeeded in effecting a complete reform.
+The various conflicting authorities were induced to resign their powers
+into the hands of a single official, the Master of the Household, who
+became responsible for the entire management of the royal palaces.
+Great economies were made, and the whole crowd of venerable abuses was
+swept away.  Among others, the unlucky half-pay officer of the Red Room
+was, much to his surprise, given the choice of relinquishing his weekly
+emolument or of performing the duties of an under-butler.  Even the
+irregularities among the footmen, {136} etc., were greatly diminished.
+There were outcries and complaints; the Prince was accused of meddling,
+of injustice, and of saving candle-ends; but he held on his course, and
+before long the admirable administration of the royal household was
+recognised as a convincing proof of his perseverance and capacity.[62]
+
+At the same time his activity was increasing enormously in a more
+important sphere.  He had become the Queen's Private Secretary, her
+confidential adviser, her second self.  He was now always present at
+her interviews with Ministers.[63]  He took, like the Queen, a special
+interest in foreign policy; but there was no public question in which
+his influence was not felt.  A double process was at work; while
+Victoria fell more and more absolutely under his intellectual
+predominance, he, simultaneously, grew more and more completely
+absorbed by the machinery of high politics--the incessant and
+multifarious business of a great State.  Nobody any more could call him
+a dilettante; he was a worker, a public personage, a man of affairs.
+Stockmar noted the change with exultation.  'The Prince,' he wrote,
+'has improved very much lately.  He has evidently a head for politics.
+He has become, too, far more independent.  His mental activity is
+constantly on the increase, and he gives the greater part of his time
+to business, without complaining.'  'The relations between husband and
+wife,' added the Baron, 'are all one could desire.'[64]
+
+Long before Peel's ministry came to an end, there had been a complete
+change in Victoria's attitude towards him.  His appreciation of the
+Prince had softened her heart; the sincerity and warmth of his {137}
+nature, which, in private intercourse with those whom he wished to
+please, had the power of gradually dissipating the awkwardness of his
+manners, did the rest.[65]  She came in time to regard him with intense
+feelings of respect and attachment.  She spoke of 'our worthy Peel,'
+for whom, she said, she had 'an _extreme_ admiration' and who had shown
+himself 'a man of unbounded _loyalty, courage_, patriotism, and
+_high-mindedness_, and his conduct towards me has been _chivalrous_
+almost, I might say.'[66]  She dreaded his removal from office almost
+as frantically as she had once dreaded that of Lord M.  It would be,
+she declared, a _great calamity_.  Six years before, what would she
+have said, if a prophet had told her that the day would come when she
+would be horrified by the triumph of the Whigs?  Yet there was no
+escaping it; she had to face the return of her old friends.  In the
+ministerial crises of 1845 and 1846, the Prince played a dominating
+part.  Everybody recognised that he was the real centre of the
+negotiations--the actual controller of the forces and the functions of
+the Crown.  The process by which this result was reached had been so
+gradual as to be almost imperceptible; but it may be said with
+certainty that, by the close of Peel's administration, Albert had
+become, in effect, the King of England.[67]
+
+
+VI
+
+With the final emergence of the Prince came the final extinction of
+Lord Melbourne.  A year after his loss of office, he had been struck
+down by a paralytic seizure; he had apparently recovered, but his old
+{138} elasticity had gone for ever.  Moody, restless, and unhappy, he
+wandered like a ghost about the town, bursting into soliloquies in
+public places, or asking odd questions, suddenly, _a propos de bottes_,
+'I'll be hanged if I'll do it for you, my Lord,' he was heard to say in
+the hall at Brooks's, standing by himself, and addressing the air after
+much thought.  'Don't you consider,' he abruptly asked a fellow-guest
+at Lady Holland's, leaning across the dinner-table in a pause of the
+conversation, 'that it was a most damnable act of Henri Quatre to
+change his religion with a view to securing the Crown?'  He sat at
+home, brooding for hours in miserable solitude.  He turned over his
+books--his classics and his Testaments--but they brought him no comfort
+at all.  He longed for the return of the past, for the impossible, for
+he knew not what, for the devilries of Caro, for the happy platitudes
+of Windsor.  His friends had left him, and no wonder, he said in
+bitterness--the fire was out.  He secretly hoped for a return to power,
+scanning the newspapers with solicitude, and occasionally making a
+speech in the House of Lords.  His correspondence with the Queen
+continued, and he appeared from time to time at Court; but he was a
+mere simulacrum of his former self; 'the dream,' wrote Victoria, 'is
+_past_.'  As for his political views, they could no longer be
+tolerated.  The Prince was an ardent Free Trader, and so, of course,
+was the Queen; and when, dining at Windsor at the time of the repeal of
+the Corn Laws, Lord Melbourne suddenly exclaimed, 'Ma'am, it's a damned
+dishonest act!' everyone was extremely embarrassed.  Her Majesty
+laughed and tried to change the conversation, but without avail; Lord
+Melbourne returned to the charge again and again with--'I say, Ma'am,
+it's damned dishonest!'--until {139} the Queen said 'Lord Melbourne, I
+must beg you not to say anything more on this subject now'; and then he
+held his tongue.  She was kind to him, writing him long letters, and
+always remembering his birthday; but it was kindness at a distance, and
+he knew it.  He had become 'poor Lord Melbourne.'  A profound
+disquietude devoured him.  He tried to fix his mind on the condition of
+agriculture and the Oxford Movement.  He wrote long memoranda in
+utterly undecipherable handwriting.  He was convinced that he had lost
+all his money, and could not possibly afford to be a Knight of the
+Garter.  He had run through everything, and yet--if Peel went out, he
+might be sent for--why not?  He was never sent for.  The Whigs ignored
+him in their consultations, and the leadership of the party passed to
+Lord John Russell.  When Lord John became Prime Minister, there was
+much politeness, but Lord Melbourne was not asked to join the Cabinet.
+He bore the blow with perfect amenity; but he understood, at last, that
+that was the end.[68]
+
+For two years more he lingered, sinking slowly into unconsciousness and
+imbecility.  Sometimes, propped up in his chair, he would be heard to
+murmur, with unexpected appositeness, the words of Samson:--
+
+  'So much I feel my general spirit droop,
+  My hopes all flat, nature within me seems
+  In all her functions weary of herself,
+  My race of glory run, and race of shame,
+  And I shall shortly be with them that rest.'[69]
+
+A few days before his death, Victoria, learning that there was no hope
+of his recovery, turned her mind for {140} a little towards that which
+had once been Lord M.  'You will grieve to hear,' she told King
+Leopold, 'that our good, dear, old friend Melbourne is dying....  One
+cannot forget how good and kind and amiable he was, and it brings back
+so many recollections to my mind, though, God knows!  I never wish that
+time back again.'[70]
+
+She was in little danger.  The tide of circumstance was flowing now
+with irresistible fullness towards a very different consummation.  The
+seriousness of Albert, the claims of her children, her own inmost
+inclinations, and the movement of the whole surrounding world, combined
+to urge her forward along the narrow way of public and domestic duty.
+Her family steadily increased.  Within eighteen months of the birth of
+the Prince of Wales the Princess Alice appeared, and a year later the
+Prince Alfred, and then the Princess Helena, and, two years afterwards,
+the Princess Louise; and still there were signs that the pretty row of
+royal infants was not complete.  The parents, more and more involved in
+family cares and family happiness, found the pomp of Windsor galling,
+and longed for some more intimate and remote retreat.  On the advice of
+Peel they purchased the estate of Osborne, in the Isle of Wight.  Their
+skill and economy in financial matters had enabled them to lay aside a
+substantial sum of money; and they could afford, out of their savings,
+not merely to buy the property but to build a new house for themselves
+and to furnish it at a cost of L200,000.[71]  At Osborne, by the
+sea-shore, and among the woods, which Albert, with memories of Rosenau
+in his mind, had so carefully planted, the royal family spent every
+{141} hour that could be snatched from Windsor and London--delightful
+hours of deep retirement and peaceful work.[72]  The public looked on
+with approval.  A few aristocrats might sniff or titter; but with the
+nation at large the Queen was now once more extremely popular.  The
+middle-classes, in particular, were pleased.  They liked a love-match;
+they liked a household which combined the advantages of royalty and
+virtue, and in which they seemed to see, reflected as in some
+resplendent looking-glass, the ideal image of the very lives they led
+themselves.  Their own existences, less exalted, but oh! so soothingly
+similar, acquired an added excellence, an added succulence, from the
+early hours, the regularity, the plain tuckers, the round games, the
+roast beef and Yorkshire pudding of Osborne.  It was indeed a model
+Court.  Not only were its central personages the patterns of propriety,
+but no breath of scandal, no shadow of indecorum, might approach its
+utmost boundaries.[73]  For Victoria, with all the zeal of a convert,
+upheld now the standard of moral purity with an inflexibility
+surpassing, if that were possible, Albert's own.  She blushed to think
+how she had once believed--how she had once actually told _him_--that
+one might be too strict and particular in such matters, and that one
+ought to be indulgent towards other people's dreadful sins.  But she
+was no longer Lord M.'s pupil: she was Albert's wife.  She was
+more--the embodiment, the living apex of a new era in the generations
+of mankind.  The last vestige of the eighteenth century had
+disappeared; cynicism and subtlety were shrivelled into powder; and
+duty, industry, morality, and domesticity triumphed over {142} them.
+Even the very chairs and tables had assumed, with a singular
+responsiveness, the forms of prim solidity.  The Victorian Age was in
+full swing.
+
+
+VII
+
+Only one thing more was needed: material expression must be given to
+the new ideals and the new forces, so that they might stand revealed in
+visible glory before the eyes of an astonished world.  It was for
+Albert to supply this want.  He mused, and was inspired: the Great
+Exhibition came into his head.
+
+Without consulting anyone, he thought out the details of his conception
+with the minutest care.  There had been exhibitions before in the
+world, but this should surpass them all.  It should contain specimens
+of what every country could produce in raw materials, in machinery and
+mechanical inventions, in manufactures, and in the applied and plastic
+arts.  It should not be merely useful and ornamental; it should teach a
+high moral lesson.  It should be an international monument to those
+supreme blessings of civilisation--peace, progress, and prosperity.
+For some time past the Prince had been devoting much of his attention
+to the problems of commerce and industry.  He had a taste for machinery
+of every kind, and his sharp eye had more than once detected, with the
+precision of an expert, a missing cog-wheel in some vast and
+complicated engine.[74]  A visit to Liverpool, where he opened the
+Albert Dock, impressed upon his mind the immensity of modern industrial
+forces, though in a letter to Victoria describing his experiences, he
+was careful to retain his customary lightness of touch.  'As {143} I
+write,' he playfully remarked, 'you will be making your evening
+toilette, and not be ready in time for dinner.  I must set about the
+same task, and not, let me hope, with the same result....  The loyalty
+and enthusiasm of the inhabitants are great; but the heat is greater
+still.  I am satisfied that if the population of Liverpool had been
+weighed this morning, and were to be weighed again now, they would be
+found many degrees lighter.  The docks are wonderful, and the mass of
+shipping incredible.'[75]  In art and science he had been deeply
+interested since boyhood; his reform of the household had put his
+talent for organisation beyond a doubt; and thus from every point of
+view the Prince was well qualified for his task.  Having matured his
+plans, he summoned a small committee and laid an outline of his scheme
+before it.  The committee approved, and the great undertaking was set
+on foot without delay.[76]
+
+Two years, however, passed before it was completed.  For two years the
+Prince laboured with extraordinary and incessant energy.  At first all
+went smoothly.  The leading manufacturers warmly took up the idea; the
+colonies and the East India Company were sympathetic; the great foreign
+nations were eager to send in their contributions; the powerful support
+of Sir Robert Peel was obtained, and the use of a site in Hyde Park,
+selected by the Prince, was sanctioned by the Government.  Out of 234
+plans for the Exhibition building, the Prince chose that of Joseph
+Paxton, famous as a designer of gigantic conservatories; and the work
+was on the point of being put in hand when a series of unexpected
+difficulties arose.  Opposition to the whole scheme, which had long
+been smouldering {144} in various quarters, suddenly burst forth.
+There was an outcry, headed by _The Times_, against the use of the Park
+for the Exhibition; for a moment it seemed as if the building would be
+relegated to a suburb; but, after a fierce debate in the House, the
+supporters of the site in the Park won the day.  Then it appeared that
+the project lacked a sufficient financial backing; but this obstacle,
+too, was surmounted, and eventually L200,000 was subscribed as a
+guarantee fund.  The enormous glass edifice rose higher and higher,
+covering acres and enclosing towering elm trees beneath its roof: and
+then the fury of its enemies reached a climax.  The fashionable, the
+cautious, the Protectionists, the pious, all joined in the hue and cry.
+It was pointed out that the Exhibition would serve as a rallying point
+for all the ruffians in England, for all the malcontents in Europe; and
+that on the day of its opening there would certainly be a riot and
+probably a revolution.  It was asserted that the glass roof was porous,
+and that the droppings of fifty million sparrows would utterly destroy
+every object beneath it.  Agitated Nonconformists declared that the
+Exhibition was an arrogant and wicked enterprise which would infallibly
+bring down God's punishment upon the nation.  Colonel Sibthorpe, in the
+debate on the Address, prayed that hail and lightning might descend
+from heaven on the accursed thing.  The Prince, with unyielding
+perseverance and infinite patience, pressed on to his goal.  His health
+was seriously affected; he suffered from constant sleeplessness; his
+strength was almost worn out.  But he remembered the injunctions of
+Stockmar and never relaxed.  The volume of his labours grew more
+prodigious every day; he toiled at committees, presided over public
+meetings, made speeches, and carried on {145} communications with every
+corner of the civilised world--and his efforts were rewarded.  On May
+1, 1851, the Great Exhibition was opened by the Queen before an
+enormous concourse of persons, amid scenes of dazzling brilliancy and
+triumphant enthusiasm.[77]
+
+Victoria herself was in a state of excitement which bordered on
+delirium.  She performed her duties in a trance of joy, gratitude, and
+amazement, and, when it was all over, her feelings poured themselves
+out into her journal in a torrential flood.  The day had been nothing
+but an endless succession of glories--or rather, one vast glory--one
+vast radiation of Albert.  Everything she had seen, everything she had
+felt or heard, had been so beautiful, so wonderful, that even the royal
+underlinings broke down under the burden of emphasis, while her
+remembering pen rushed on, regardless, from splendour to splendour--the
+huge crowds, so well-behaved and loyal--flags of all the nations
+floating--the inside of the building, so immense, with myriads of
+people and the sun shining through the roof--a little side-room, where
+we left our shawls--palm-trees and machinery--dear Albert--the place so
+big that we could hardly hear the organ--thankfulness to God--a curious
+assemblage of political and distinguished men--the March from
+'Athalie'--God bless my dearest Albert, God bless my dearest
+country!--a glass fountain--the Duke and Lord Anglesey walking arm in
+arm--a beautiful Amazon, in bronze, by Kiss--Mr. Paxton, who might be
+justly proud, and rose from being a common gardener's boy--Sir George
+Grey in tears, and everybody astonished and delighted.[78]
+
+{146}
+
+A striking incident occurred when, after a short prayer by the
+Archbishop of Canterbury, the choir of 600 voices burst into the
+'Hallelujah Chorus.'  At that moment a Chinaman, dressed in full
+national costume, stepped out into the middle of the central nave, and,
+advancing slowly towards the royal group, did obeisance to Her Majesty.
+The Queen, much impressed, had no doubt that he was an eminent
+mandarin; and, when the final procession was formed, orders were given
+that, as no representative of the Celestial Empire was present, he
+should be included in the diplomatic cortege.  He accordingly, with the
+utmost gravity, followed immediately behind the Ambassadors.  He
+subsequently disappeared, and it was rumoured, among ill-natured
+people, that, far from being a mandarin, the fellow was a mere
+impostor.  But nobody ever really discovered the nature of the comments
+that had been lurking behind the matchless impassivity of that yellow
+face.[79]
+
+A few days later Victoria poured out her heart to her uncle.  The first
+of May, she said, was 'the _greatest_ day in our history, the most
+_beautiful_ and _imposing_ and _touching_ spectacle ever seen, and the
+triumph of my beloved Albert....  It was the _happiest, proudest_ day
+in my life, and I can think of nothing else.  Albert's dearest name is
+immortalised with this _great_ conception, _his_ own, and my _own_ dear
+country _showed_ she was _worthy_ of it.  The triumph is _immense_.'[80]
+
+It was.  The enthusiasm was universal; even the bitterest scoffers were
+converted, and joined in the {147} chorus of praise.[81]
+Congratulations from public bodies poured in; the City of Paris gave a
+great _fete_ to the Exhibition committee; and the Queen and the Prince
+made a triumphal progress through the North of England.  The financial
+results were equally remarkable.  The total profit made by the
+Exhibition amounted to a sum of L165,000, which was employed in the
+purchase of land for the erection of a permanent National Museum in
+South Kensington.  During the six months of its existence in Hyde Park
+over six million persons visited it, and not a single accident
+occurred.  But there is an end to all things; and the time had come for
+the Crystal Palace to be removed to the salubrious seclusion of
+Sydenham.  Victoria, sad but resigned, paid her final visit.  'It
+looked so beautiful,' she said, 'I could not believe it was the last
+time I was to see it.  An organ, accompanied by a fine and powerful
+wind instrument called the sommerophone, was being played, and it
+nearly upset me.  The canvas is very dirty, the red curtains are faded
+and many things are very much soiled, still the effect is fresh and new
+as ever and most beautiful.  The glass fountain was already removed ...
+and the sappers and miners were rolling about the little boxes just as
+they did at the beginning.  It made us all very melancholy.'  But more
+cheerful thoughts followed.  When all was over, she expressed her
+boundless satisfaction in a dithyrambic letter to the Prime Minister.
+Her beloved husband's name, she said, was for ever immortalised, and
+that this was universally recognised by the country was a source to her
+of immense happiness and gratitude.  'She feels grateful to
+Providence,' her Majesty concluded, 'to have permitted her to be united
+to so great, so noble, {148} so excellent a Prince, and this year will
+ever remain the proudest and happiest of her life.  The day of the
+closing of the Exhibition (which the Queen regretted much she could not
+witness), was the twelfth anniversary of her betrothal to the Prince,
+which is a curious coincidence.'[82]
+
+
+
+[1] Martin, I, 1-2; Grey, 213-4.
+
+[2] Grey, 7-9; Crawford, 245-6; Panam, 256-7.
+
+[3] Grey, chaps. i to vi; Ernest, I, 18-23.
+
+[4] Grey, App. B.
+
+[5] _Ibid._, 124-7.
+
+[6] Gossart; Ernest, I, 72-3
+
+[7] Grey, 169-73,
+
+[8] Stockmar, 310.
+
+[9] Grey, 133, 415, 416, 419.
+
+[10] Stockmar, 331-2.
+
+[11] Grey, 425.
+
+[12] Grey, 421-5; _Letters_, I, 188.
+
+[13] 'I had much talk with Lady Cowper about the Court.  She lamented
+the obstinate character of the Queen, from which she thought that
+hereafter great evils might be apprehended.  She said that her
+prejudices and antipathies were deep and strong, and her disposition
+very inflexible.  Her hatred of Peel and her resentment against the
+Duke for having sided with him rather than with her in the old quarrel
+are unabated.'  Greville, Nov. 13, 1839 (unpublished).
+
+[14] Greville, Jan.  29, Feb. 15, 1840 (unpublished).
+
+[15] _Letters_, I, 201.
+
+[16] _Letters_, I, 200-8; _Girlhood_, II, 287.
+
+[17] _Dictionary of National Biography_, Art. Sir James Clark;
+_Letters_, I. 202.
+
+[18] Grey, 292-303.
+
+[19] Greville, Feb. 15, 1840 (unpublished).
+
+[20] _Letters_, I, 199.
+
+[21] Martin, I, 71, 153.
+
+[22] Grey, 319-20.
+
+[23] Greville, April 3, 1840 (unpublished); Grey, 353-4; Ernest, I,
+93-4.
+
+[24] Stockmar, 351.
+
+[25] _Letters_, I, 224.
+
+[26] Blomfield, I, 19.
+
+[27] Grey, 340; _Letters_, I, 256.
+
+[28] Ernest, I, 93.
+
+[29] Jerrold, _Married Life_, 56.
+
+[30] Grey, 320-1, 361-2.
+
+[31] Stockmar, 352-7.
+
+[32] Martin, I, 90-2.
+
+[33] _Letters_, I, 271-4, 284-6.
+
+[34] _Letters_, I, 280.
+
+[35] _Letters_, I, 305; Greville, V, 39-40.
+
+[36] _Letters_, I, 325-6, 329, 330-1, 339-42, 352-4, 360-3, 368.
+
+[37] _Ibid._, I, 291, 295.
+
+[38] _Ibid._, I, 303.
+
+[39] Lyttelton, 282-3.
+
+[40] Bloomfield, I, 215.
+
+[41] Grey, 338-9; Bloomfield, I, 28, 123; Lyttelton, 300, 303, 305-6,
+312, 334-5; Martin, I, 488; _Letters_, I, 369.
+
+[42] _Letters_, I, 366.
+
+[43] _Ibid._, III, 439.
+
+[44] Martin, I, 125.
+
+[45] _Girlhood_, II, 135.
+
+[46] _Letters_, I, 366, 464-5, 475, etc.
+
+[47] Lyttelton, 306.
+
+[48] Crawford, 243
+
+[49] Lyttelton, 348.
+
+[50] _Letters_, II, 13; Bunsen, II, 6; Bloomfield, I, 53-4.
+
+[51] _Letters_, II, 12-16.
+
+[52] Martin, I, 224.
+
+[53] Lyttelton, 292; Bloomfield, I, 76-7.
+
+[54] Gaskell, I, 313.
+
+[55] Martin, I, 275, 306.
+
+[56] Lyttelton, 303, 354, 402.
+
+[57] Clarendon, I, 181-2; _Girlhood_, II, 299, 306.
+
+[58] Martin, I, 119-25, 167; Stockmar, 660.
+
+[59] Stockmar, 404-10; Martin, I, 156-60.
+
+[60] _The Times_, Dec., 1840: March, July, Dec., 1841; Feb., Oct.,
+1842; July, 1844.
+
+[61] _The Times_ 'Life,' 45.
+
+[62] Stockmar, 409-10; Martin, I, 161.
+
+[63] Greville, VII, 132.
+
+[64] Stockmar, 466-7.
+
+[65] Disraeli, 311; Greville, VI, 367-8.
+
+[66] _Letters_, II, 64.
+
+[67] Greville, V, 329-30.
+
+[68] Torrens, 502, chap. xxxiii; _Letters_, I, 451; II, 140; Greville,
+V, 359; VI, 125.
+
+[69] Greville, VI, 255.
+
+[70] _Letters_, II, 203.
+
+[71] Greville, VI, 68-9.
+
+[72] Martin, I, 247-9; Grey, 113.
+
+[73] Stockmar, 363; Martin, I, 316.
+
+[74] Martin, II, 87.
+
+[75] Martin, I, 334.
+
+[76] _Ibid._, II, 224-5.
+
+[77] Martin, II, 225, 243-51, 289, 297-9, 358-9; _Dictionary of
+National Biography_, Art. 'Joseph Paxton'; Bloomfield, II, 3-4.
+
+[78] Martin, II, 364-8.
+
+[79] Martin, II, 367 and note.
+
+[80] _Letters_, II, 317-8.
+
+[81] Greville, VI, 413.
+
+[82] Martin, II, 369-72, 386-92, 403-5.
+
+
+
+
+{149}
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+LORD PALMERSTON
+
+I
+
+In 1851 the Prince's fortunes reached their highwater mark.  The
+success of the Great Exhibition enormously increased his reputation and
+seemed to assure him henceforward a leading place in the national life.
+But before the year was out another triumph, in a very different sphere
+of action, was also his.  This triumph, big with fateful consequences,
+was itself the outcome of a series of complicated circumstances which
+had been gathering to a climax for many years.
+
+The unpopularity of Albert in high society had not diminished with
+time.  Aristocratic persons continued to regard him with disfavour; and
+he on his side withdrew further and further into a contemptuous
+reserve.  For a moment, indeed, it appeared as if the dislike of the
+upper classes was about to be suddenly converted into cordiality; for
+they learnt with amazement that the Prince, during a country visit, had
+ridden to hounds and acquitted himself remarkably well.  They had
+always taken it for granted that his horsemanship was of some
+second-rate foreign quality, and here he was jumping five-barred gates
+and tearing after the fox as if he had been born and bred in
+Leicestershire.  They could hardly believe it; was it possible that
+they had made a mistake, and that Albert was a {150} good fellow after
+all?  Had he wished to be thought so he would certainly have seized
+this opportunity, purchased several hunters, and used them constantly.
+But he had no such desire; hunting bored him, and made Victoria
+nervous.  He continued, as before, to ride, as he himself put it, for
+exercise or convenience, not for amusement; and it was agreed that
+though the Prince, no doubt, could keep in his saddle well enough, he
+was no sportsman.[1]
+
+This was a serious matter.  It was not merely that Albert was laughed
+at by fine ladies and sneered at by fine gentlemen; it was not merely
+that Victoria, who before her marriage had cut some figure in society,
+had, under her husband's influence, almost completely given it up.
+Since Charles the Second the sovereigns of England had, with a single
+exception, always been unfashionable; and the fact that the exception
+was George the Fourth seemed to give an added significance to the rule.
+What was grave was not the lack of fashion, but the lack of other and
+more important qualities.  The hostility of the upper classes was
+symptomatic of an antagonism more profound than one of manners or even
+of tastes.  The Prince, in a word, was un-English.  What that word
+precisely meant it was difficult to say; but the fact was patent to
+every eye.  Lord Palmerston, also, was not fashionable; the great Whig
+aristocrats looked askance at him, and tolerated him only as an
+unpleasant necessity thrust upon them by fate.  But Lord Palmerston was
+English through and through; there was something in him that expressed,
+with extraordinary vigour, the fundamental qualities of the English
+race.  And he was the very antithesis of the Prince.  By a curious
+chance it so happened that this typical {151} Englishman was brought
+into closer contact than any other of his countrymen with the alien
+from over the sea.  It thus fell out that differences which, in more
+fortunate circumstances, might have been smoothed away and obliterated,
+became accentuated to the highest pitch.  All the mysterious forces in
+Albert's soul leapt out to do battle with his adversary, and, in the
+long and violent conflict that followed, it almost seemed as if he was
+struggling with England herself.
+
+Palmerston's whole life had been spent in the government of the
+country.  At twenty-two he had been a Minister; at twenty-five he had
+been offered the Chancellorship of the Exchequer, which, with that
+prudence which formed so unexpected a part of his character, he had
+declined to accept.  His first spell of office had lasted
+uninterruptedly for twenty-one years.  When Lord Grey came into power
+he received the Foreign Secretaryship, a post which he continued to
+occupy, with two intervals, for another twenty-one years.  Throughout
+this period his reputation with the public had steadily grown, and
+when, in 1846, he became Foreign Secretary for the third time, his
+position in the country was almost, if not quite, on an equality with
+that of the Prime Minister, Lord John Russell.  He was a tall, big man
+of sixty-two, with a jaunty air, a large face, dyed whiskers, and a
+long, sardonic upper lip.  His private life was far from respectable,
+but he had greatly strengthened his position in society by marrying,
+late in life, Lady Cowper, the sister of Lord Melbourne, and one of the
+most influential of the Whig hostesses.  Powerful, experienced, and
+supremely self-confident, he naturally paid very little attention to
+Albert.  Why should he?  The Prince was interested in foreign affairs?
+Very well, then; let the Prince {152} pay attention to _him_--to him,
+who had been a Cabinet Minister when Albert was in the cradle, who was
+the chosen leader of a great nation, and who had never failed in
+anything he had undertaken in the whole course of his life.  Not that
+he wanted the Prince's attention--far from it: so far as he could see,
+Albert was merely a young foreigner, who suffered from having no vices,
+and whose only claim to distinction was that he had happened to marry
+the Queen of England.  This estimate, as he found out to his cost, was
+a mistaken one.  Albert was by no means insignificant, and, behind
+Albert, there was another figure by no means insignificant
+either--there was Stockmar.
+
+But Palmerston, busy with his plans, his ambitions, and the management
+of a great department, brushed all such considerations on one side; it
+was his favourite method of action.  He lived by instinct--by a quick
+eye and a strong hand, a dexterous management of every crisis as it
+arose, a half-unconscious sense of the vital elements in a situation.
+He was very bold; and nothing gave him more exhilaration than to steer
+the ship of state in a high wind, on a rough sea, with every stitch of
+canvas on her that she could carry.  But there is a point beyond which
+boldness becomes rashness--a point perceptible only to intuition and
+not to reason; and beyond that point Palmerston never went.  When he
+saw that the case demanded it, he could go slow--very slow indeed; in
+fact, his whole career, so full of vigorous adventure, was nevertheless
+a masterly example of the proverb, 'Tout vient a point a qui sait
+attendre.'  But when he decided to go quick, nobody went quicker.  One
+day, returning from Osborne, he found that he had missed the train to
+London; he ordered a special, but the station-master told him that to
+put a special {153} train upon the line at that time of day would be
+dangerous, and he could not allow it.  Palmerston insisted, declaring
+that he had important business in London, which could not wait.  The
+station-master, supported by all the officials, continued to demur; the
+company, he said, could not possibly take the responsibility.  'On my
+responsibility, then!' said Palmerston, in his off-hand, peremptory
+way; whereupon the stationmaster ordered up the train, and the Foreign
+Secretary reached London in time for his work, without an accident.[2]
+The story is typical of the happy valiance with which he conducted both
+his own affairs and those of the nation.  'England,' he used to say,
+'is strong enough to brave consequences.'[3]  Apparently, under
+Palmerston's guidance, she was.  While the officials protested and
+shook in their shoes, he would wave them away with his airy '_My_
+responsibility!' and carry the country swiftly along the line of his
+choice, to a triumphant destination,--without an accident.  His immense
+popularity was the result partly of his diplomatic successes, partly of
+his extraordinary personal affability, but chiefly of the genuine
+intensity with which he responded to the feelings and supported the
+interests of his countrymen.  The public knew that it had in Lord
+Palmerston not only a high-mettled master, but also a devoted
+servant--that he was, in every sense of the word, a public man.  When
+he was Prime Minister, he noticed that iron hurdles had been put up on
+the grass in the Green Park; he immediately wrote to the Minister
+responsible, ordering, in the severest language, their instant removal,
+declaring that they were 'an intolerable nuisance,' and that the
+purpose of the grass was 'to be walked upon freely and without
+restraint by the people, {154} old and young, for whose enjoyment the
+parks are maintained.'[4]  It was in this spirit that, as Foreign
+Secretary, he watched over the interests of Englishmen abroad.  Nothing
+could be more agreeable for Englishmen; but foreign governments were
+less pleased.  They found Lord Palmerston interfering, exasperating,
+and alarming.  In Paris they spoke with bated breath of 'ce terrible
+milord Palmerston'; and in Germany they made a little song about him--
+
+  'Hat der Teufel einen Sohn,
+  So ist er sicher Palmerston.'[5]
+
+But their complaints, their threats, and their agitations were all in
+vain.  Palmerston, with his upper lip sardonically curving, braved
+consequences, and held on his course.
+
+The first diplomatic crisis which arose after his return to office,
+though the Prince and the Queen were closely concerned with it, passed
+off without serious disagreement between the Court and the Minister.
+For some years past a curious problem had been perplexing the
+chanceries of Europe.  Spain, ever since the time of Napoleon a prey to
+civil convulsions, had settled down for a short interval to a state of
+comparative quiet under the rule of Christina, the Queen Mother, and
+her daughter Isabella, the young Queen.  In 1846, the question of
+Isabella's marriage, which had for long been the subject of diplomatic
+speculations, suddenly became acute.  Various candidates for her hand
+were proposed--among others, two cousins of her own, another Spanish
+prince, and Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, a first cousin of Victoria's
+and Albert's; for different reasons, however, none of these young men
+{155} seemed altogether satisfactory.  Isabella was not yet sixteen;
+and it might have been supposed that her marriage could be put off for
+a few years more; but this was considered to be out of the question.
+'Vous ne savez pas,' said a high authority, 'ce que c'est que ces
+princesses espagnoles; elles ont le diable au corps, et on a toujours
+dit que si nous ne nous hations pas, l'heritier viendrait avant le
+mari.'[6]  It might also have been supposed that the young Queen's
+marriage was a matter to be settled by herself, her mother, and the
+Spanish Government; but this again was far from being the case.  It had
+become, by one of those periodical reversions to the ways of the
+eighteenth century, which, it is rumoured, are still not unknown in
+diplomacy, a question of dominating importance in the foreign policies
+both of France and England.  For several years, Louis Philippe and his
+Prime Minister Guizot had been privately maturing a very subtle plan.
+It was the object of the French King to repeat the glorious _coup_ of
+Louis XIV, and to abolish the Pyrenees by placing one of his grandsons
+on the throne of Spain.  In order to bring this about, he did not
+venture to suggest that his younger son, the Duc de Montpensier, should
+marry Isabella; that would have been too obvious a move, which would
+have raised immediate and insurmountable opposition.  He therefore
+proposed that Isabella should marry her cousin, the Duke of Cadiz,
+while Montpensier married Isabella's younger sister, the Infanta
+Fernanda; and pray, what possible objection could there be to that?
+The wily old King whispered into the chaste ears of Guizot the key to
+the secret; he had good reason to believe that the Duke of Cadiz was
+incapable of having children, and therefore the offspring {156} of
+Fernanda would inherit the Spanish crown.  Guizot rubbed his hands, and
+began at once to set the necessary springs in motion; but, of course,
+the whole scheme was very soon divulged and understood.  The English
+Government took an extremely serious view of the matter; the balance of
+power was clearly at stake, and the French intrigue must be frustrated
+at all hazards.  A diplomatic struggle of great intensity followed; and
+it occasionally appeared that a second War of the Spanish Succession
+was about to break out.  This was avoided, but the consequences of this
+strange imbroglio were far-reaching and completely different from what
+any of the parties concerned could have guessed.
+
+In the course of the long and intricate negotiations there was one
+point upon which Louis Philippe laid a special stress--the candidature
+of Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg.  The prospect of a marriage between a
+Coburg Prince and the Queen of Spain was, he declared, at least as
+threatening to the balance of power in Europe as that of a marriage
+between the Duc de Montpensier and the Infanta; and, indeed, there was
+much to be said for this contention.  The ruin which had fallen upon
+the House of Coburg during the Napoleonic wars had apparently served
+only to multiply its vitality, for that princely family had by now
+extended itself over Europe in an extraordinary manner.  King Leopold
+was firmly fixed in Belgium; his niece was Queen of England; one of his
+nephews was the husband of the Queen of England, and another the
+husband of the Queen of Portugal; yet another was Duke of Wuertemberg.
+Where was this to end?  There seemed to be a Coburg Trust ready to send
+out one of its members at any moment to fill up any vacant place among
+the ruling families of Europe.  And even beyond Europe there {157} were
+signs of this infection spreading.  An American who had arrived in
+Brussels had assured King Leopold that there was a strong feeling in
+the United States in favour of monarchy instead of the misrule of mobs,
+and had suggested, to the delight of His Majesty, that some branch of
+the Coburg family might be available for the position.[7]  That danger
+might, perhaps, be remote; but the Spanish danger was close at hand;
+and if Prince Leopold were to marry Queen Isabella the position of
+France would be one of humiliation, if not of positive danger.  Such
+were the asseverations of Louis Philippe.  The English Government had
+no wish to support Prince Leopold, and, though Albert and Victoria had
+had some hankerings for the match, the wisdom of Stockmar had induced
+them to give up all thoughts of it.  The way thus seemed open for a
+settlement: England would be reasonable about Leopold, if France would
+be reasonable about Montpensier.  At the Chateau d'Eu, the agreement
+was made, in a series of conversations between the King and Guizot on
+the one side, and the Queen, the Prince, and Lord Aberdeen on the
+other.  Aberdeen, as Foreign Minister, declared that England would
+neither recognise nor support Prince Leopold as a candidate for the
+hand of the Queen of Spain; while Louis Philippe solemnly promised,
+both to Aberdeen and to Victoria, that the Duc de Montpensier should
+not marry the Infanta Fernanda until after the Queen was married and
+had issue.  All went well, and the crisis seemed to be over, when the
+whole question was suddenly reopened by Palmerston, who had succeeded
+Aberdeen at the Foreign Office.  In a despatch to the English Minister
+at Madrid, he mentioned, in a list of possible candidates {158} for
+Queen Isabella's hand, Prince Leopold of Coburg; and at the same time
+he took occasion to denounce in violent language the tyranny and
+incompetence of the Spanish Government.  This despatch, indiscreet in
+any case, was rendered infinitely more so by being communicated to
+Guizot.  Louis Philippe saw his opportunity and pounced on it.  Though
+there was nothing in Palmerston's language to show that he either
+recognised or supported Prince Leopold, the King at once assumed that
+the English had broken their engagement, and that he was therefore free
+to do likewise.  He then sent the despatch to the Queen Mother,
+declared that the English were intriguing for the Coburg marriage, bade
+her mark the animosity of Palmerston against the Spanish Government,
+and urged her to escape from her difficulties and ensure the friendship
+of France by marrying Isabella to the Duke of Cadiz and Fernanda to
+Montpensier.  The Queen Mother, alarmed and furious, was easily
+convinced.  There was only one difficulty: Isabella loathed the very
+sight of her cousin.  But this was soon surmounted; there was a wild
+supper-party at the Palace, and in the course of it the young girl was
+induced to consent to anything that was asked of her.  Shortly after,
+and on the same day, both the marriages took place.
+
+The news burst like a bomb on the English Government, who saw with rage
+and mortification that they had been completely outmanoeuvred by the
+crafty King.  Victoria, in particular, was outraged.  Not only had she
+been the personal recipient of Louis Philippe's pledge, but he had won
+his way to her heart by presenting the Prince of Wales with a box of
+soldiers and sending the Princess Royal a beautiful Parisian doll with
+eyes that opened and shut.  And now insult was {159} added to injury.
+The Queen of the French wrote her a formal letter, calmly announcing,
+as a family event in which she was sure Victoria would be interested,
+the marriage of her son, Montpensier--'qui ajoutera a notre bonheur
+interieur, le seul vrai dans ce monde, et que vous, madame, savez si
+bien apprecier.'[8]  But the English Queen had not long to wait for her
+revenge.  Within eighteen months the monarchy of Louis Philippe,
+discredited, unpopular, and fatally weakened by the withdrawal of
+English support, was swept into limbo, while he and his family threw
+themselves as suppliant fugitives at the feet of Victoria.[9]
+
+
+II
+
+In this affair both the Queen and the Prince had been too much occupied
+with the delinquencies of Louis Philippe to have any wrath to spare for
+those of Palmerston; and, indeed, on the main issue, Palmerston's
+attitude and their own had been in complete agreement.  But in this the
+case was unique.  In every other foreign complication--and they were
+many and serious--during the ensuing years, the differences between the
+royal couple and the Foreign Secretary were constant and profound.
+There was a sharp quarrel over Portugal, where violently hostile
+parties were flying at each other's throats.  The royal sympathy was
+naturally enlisted on behalf of the Queen and her Coburg husband, while
+Palmerston gave his support to the progressive elements in the country.
+It was not until 1848, however, that the strain became really serious.
+In that year of revolutions, when, in all directions and with alarming
+{160} frequency, crowns kept rolling off royal heads, Albert and
+Victoria were appalled to find that the policy of England was
+persistently directed--in Germany, in Switzerland, in Austria, in
+Italy, in Sicily--so as to favour the insurgent forces.  The situation,
+indeed, was just such an one as the soul of Palmerston loved.  There
+was danger and excitement, the necessity of decision, the opportunity
+for action, on every hand.  A disciple of Canning, with an English
+gentleman's contempt and dislike of foreign potentates deep in his
+heart, the spectacle of the popular uprisings, and of the oppressors
+bundled ignominiously out of the palaces they had disgraced, gave him
+unbounded pleasure, and he was determined that there should be no doubt
+whatever, all over the Continent, on which side in the great struggle
+England stood.  It was not that he had the slightest tincture in him of
+philosophical radicalism; he had no philosophical tinctures of any
+kind; he was quite content to be inconsistent--to be a Conservative at
+home and a Liberal abroad.  There were very good reasons for keeping
+the Irish in their places; but what had that to do with it?  The point
+was this--when any decent man read an account of the political prisons
+in Naples his gorge rose.  He did not want war; but he saw that without
+war a skilful and determined use of England's power might do much to
+further the cause of the Liberals in Europe.  It was a difficult and a
+hazardous game to play, but he set about playing it with delighted
+alacrity.  And then, to his intense annoyance, just as he needed all
+his nerve and all possible freedom of action, he found himself being
+hampered and distracted at every turn by ... those people at Osborne.
+He saw what it was; the opposition was systematic and informed, and the
+Queen alone would {161} have been incapable of it; the Prince was at
+the bottom of the whole thing.  It was exceedingly vexatious; but
+Palmerston was in a hurry, and could not wait; the Prince, if he would
+insist upon interfering, must be brushed on one side.
+
+Albert was very angry.  He highly disapproved both of Palmerston's
+policy and of his methods of action.  He was opposed to absolutism; but
+in his opinion Palmerston's proceedings were simply calculated to
+substitute for absolutism, all over Europe, something no better and
+very possibly worse--the anarchy of faction and mob violence.  The
+dangers of this revolutionary ferment were grave; even in England
+Chartism was rampant--a sinister movement, which might at any moment
+upset the Constitution and abolish the Monarchy.  Surely, with such
+dangers at home, this was a very bad time to choose for encouraging
+lawlessness abroad.  He naturally took a particular interest in
+Germany.  His instincts, his affections, his prepossessions, were
+ineradicably German; Stockmar was deeply involved in German politics;
+and he had a multitude of relatives among the ruling German families,
+who, from the midst of the hurly-burly of revolution, wrote him long
+and agitated letters once a week.  Having considered the question of
+Germany's future from every point of view, he came to the conclusion,
+under Stockmar's guidance, that the great aim for every lover of
+Germany should be her unification under the sovereignty of Prussia.
+The intricacy of the situation was extreme, and the possibilities of
+good or evil which every hour might bring forth were incalculable; yet
+he saw with horror that Palmerston neither understood nor cared to
+understand the niceties of this momentous problem, but rushed on
+blindly, dealing blows to right {162} and left, quite--so far as he
+could see--without system, and even without motive--except, indeed, a
+totally unreasonable distrust of the Prussian State.
+
+But his disagreement with the details of Palmerston's policy was in
+reality merely a symptom of the fundamental differences between the
+characters of the two men.  In Albert's eyes Palmerston was a coarse,
+reckless egotist, whose combined arrogance and ignorance must
+inevitably have their issue in folly and disaster.  Nothing could be
+more antipathetic to him than a mind so strangely lacking in patience,
+in reflection, in principle, and in the habits of ratiocination.  For
+to him it was intolerable to think in a hurry, to jump to slapdash
+decisions, to act on instincts that could not be explained.  Everything
+must be done in due order, with careful premeditation; the premises of
+the position must first be firmly established; and he must reach the
+correct conclusion by a regular series of rational steps.  In
+complicated questions--and what questions, rightly looked at, were not
+complicated?--to commit one's thoughts to paper was the wisest course,
+and it was the course which Albert, laborious though it might be,
+invariably adopted.  It was as well, too, to draw up a reasoned
+statement after an event, as well as before it; and accordingly,
+whatever happened, it was always found that the Prince had made a
+memorandum.  On one occasion he reduced to six pages of foolscap the
+substance of a confidential conversation with Sir Robert Peel, and,
+having read them aloud to him, asked him to append his signature; Sir
+Robert, who never liked to commit himself, became extremely uneasy;
+upon which the Prince, understanding that it was necessary to humour
+the singular susceptibilities of Englishmen, with great tact dropped
+that particular memorandum {163} into the fire.  But as for Palmerston,
+he never even gave one so much as a chance to read him a memorandum; he
+positively seemed to dislike discussion; and, before one knew where one
+was, without any warning whatever, he would plunge into some
+hare-brained, violent project, which, as likely as not, would logically
+involve a European war.  Closely connected, too, with this cautious,
+painstaking reasonableness of Albert's, was his desire to examine
+questions thoroughly from every point of view, to go down to the roots
+of things, and to act in strict accordance with some well-defined
+principle.  Under Stockmar's tutelage he was constantly engaged in
+enlarging his outlook and in endeavouring to envisage vital problems
+both theoretically and practically--both with precision and with depth.
+To one whose mind was thus habitually occupied, the empirical
+activities of Palmerston, who had no notion what a principle meant,
+resembled the incoherent vagaries of a tiresome child.  What did
+Palmerston know of economics, of science, of history?  What did he care
+for morality and education?  How much consideration had he devoted in
+the whole course of his life to the improvement of the condition of the
+working-classes and to the general amelioration of the human race?  The
+answers to such questions were all too obvious; and yet it is easy to
+imagine, also, what might have been Palmerston's jaunty comment.  'Ah!
+your Royal Highness is busy with fine schemes and beneficent
+calculations--exactly!  Well, as for me, I must say I'm quite satisfied
+with my morning's work--I've had the iron hurdles taken out of the
+Green Park.'
+
+The exasperating man, however, preferred to make no comment, and to
+proceed in smiling silence on his inexcusable way.  The process of
+'brushing on one {164} side' very soon came into operation.  Important
+Foreign Office despatches were either submitted to the Queen so late
+that there was no time to correct them, or they were not submitted to
+her at all; or, having been submitted, and some passage in them being
+objected to and an alteration suggested, they were after all sent off
+in their original form.  The Queen complained; the Prince complained;
+both complained together.  It was quite useless.  Palmerston was most
+apologetic--could not understand how it had occurred--must give the
+clerks a wigging--certainly Her Majesty's wishes should be attended to,
+and such a thing should never happen again.  But, of course, it very
+soon happened again, and the royal remonstrances redoubled.  Victoria,
+her partisan passions thoroughly aroused, imported into her protests a
+personal vehemence which those of Albert lacked.  Did Lord Palmerston
+forget that she was Queen of England?  How could she tolerate a state
+of affairs in which despatches written in her name were sent abroad
+without her approval or even her knowledge?  What could be more
+derogatory to her position than to be obliged to receive indignant
+letters from the crowned heads to whom those despatches were
+addressed--letters which she did not know how to answer, since she so
+thoroughly agreed with them?  She addressed herself to the Prime
+Minister.  'No remonstrance has any effect with Lord Palmerston,' she
+said.[10]  'Lord Palmerston,' she told him on another occasion, 'has as
+usual pretended not to have had time to submit the draft to the Queen
+before he had sent it off.'[11]  She summoned Lord John to her
+presence, poured out her indignation, and afterwards, on the advice of
+Albert, noted down what had passed in a memorandum: 'I said that I
+{165} thought that Lord Palmerston often endangered the honour of
+England by taking a very prejudiced and one-sided view of a question;
+that his writings were always as bitter as gall and did great harm,
+which Lord John entirely assented to, and that I often felt quite ill
+from anxiety.'[12]  Then she turned to her uncle.  'The state of
+Germany,' she wrote in a comprehensive and despairing review of the
+European situation, 'is dreadful, and one does feel quite ashamed about
+that once really so peaceful and happy country.  That there are still
+good people there I am sure, but they allow themselves to be worked
+upon in a frightful and shameful way.  In France a crisis seems at
+hand.  _What_ a very bad figure we cut in this mediation!  Really it is
+quite immoral, with Ireland quivering in our grasp and ready to throw
+off her allegiance at any moment, for us to force Austria to give up
+her lawful possessions.[13]  What shall we say if Canada, Malta, etc.,
+begin to trouble us?  It hurts me terribly.'[14]  But what did Lord
+Palmerston care?
+
+Lord John's position grew more and more irksome.  He did not approve of
+his colleague's treatment of the Queen.  When he begged him to be more
+careful, he was met with the reply that 28,000 despatches passed
+through the Foreign Office in a single year, that, if every one of
+these were to be subjected to the royal criticism, the delay would be
+most serious, that, as it was, the waste of time and the worry involved
+in submitting drafts to the meticulous examination of Prince Albert was
+almost too much for an overworked Minister, and that, as a matter of
+fact, the postponement of important decisions owing to this cause had
+already {166} produced very unpleasant diplomatic consequences.[15]
+These excuses would have impressed Lord John more favourably if he had
+not himself had to suffer from a similar neglect.  As often as not
+Palmerston failed to communicate even to him the most important
+despatches.  The Foreign Secretary was becoming an almost independent
+power, acting on his own initiative, and swaying the policy of England
+on his own responsibility.  On one occasion, in 1847, he had actually
+been upon the point of threatening to break off diplomatic relations
+with France without consulting either the Cabinet or the Prime
+Minister.[16]  And such incidents were constantly recurring.  When this
+became known to the Prince, he saw that his opportunity had come.  If
+he could only drive in to the utmost the wedge between the two
+statesmen, if he could only secure the alliance of Lord John, then the
+suppression or the removal of Lord Palmerston would be almost certain
+to follow.  He set about the business with all the pertinacity of his
+nature.  Both he and the Queen put every kind of pressure upon the
+Prime Minister.  They wrote, they harangued, they relapsed into awful
+silence.  It occurred to them that Lord Clarendon, an important member
+of the Cabinet, would be a useful channel for their griefs.  They
+commanded him to dine at the Palace, and, directly the meal was over,
+'the Queen,' as he described it afterwards, 'exploded, and went with
+the utmost vehemence and bitterness into the whole of Palmerston's
+conduct, all the effects produced all over the world, and all her own
+feelings and sentiments about it.'  When she had finished, the Prince
+took up the tale, with less excitement, but with equal force.  Lord
+Clarendon found himself {167} in an awkward situation; he disliked
+Palmerston's policy, but he was his colleague, and he disapproved of
+the attitude of his royal hosts.  In his opinion, they were 'wrong in
+wishing that courtiers rather than Ministers should conduct the affairs
+of the country,' and he thought that they 'laboured under the curious
+mistake that the Foreign Office was their peculiar department, and that
+they had the right to control, if not to direct, the foreign policy of
+England.'  He, therefore, with extreme politeness, gave it to be
+understood that he would not commit himself in any way.[17]  But Lord
+John, in reality, needed no pressure.  Attacked by his Sovereign,
+ignored by his Foreign Secretary, he led a miserable life.[18]  With
+the advent of the dreadful Schleswig-Holstein question--the most
+complex in the whole diplomatic history of Europe--his position,
+crushed between the upper and the nether millstones, grew positively
+unbearable.  He became anxious above all things to get Palmerston out
+of the Foreign Office.  But then--supposing Palmerston refused to go?
+
+In a memorandum made by the Prince, at about this time, of an interview
+between himself, the Queen, and the Prime Minister, we catch a curious
+glimpse of the states of mind of those three high personages--the
+anxiety and irritation of Lord John, the vehement acrimony of Victoria,
+and the reasonable animosity of Albert--drawn together, as it were,
+under the shadow of an unseen Presence, the cause of that celestial
+anger--the gay, portentous Palmerston.  At one point in the
+conversation Lord John observed that he believed the Foreign Secretary
+would consent to a change of offices; {168} Lord Palmerston, he said,
+realised that he had lost the Queen's confidence--though only on
+public, and not on personal, grounds.  But on that, the Prince noted,
+'the Queen interrupted Lord John by remarking that she distrusted him
+on _personal_ grounds also, but I remarked that Lord Palmerston had so
+far at least seen rightly; that he had become disagreeable to the
+Queen, not on account of his person, but of his political doings--to
+which the Queen assented.'  Then the Prince suggested that there was a
+danger of the Cabinet breaking up, and of Lord Palmerston returning to
+office as Prime Minister.  But on that point Lord John was reassuring:
+he 'thought Lord Palmerston too old to do much in the future (having
+passed his sixty-fifth year).'  Eventually it was decided that nothing
+could be done for the present, but that the _utmost secrecy_ must be
+observed; and so the conclave ended.[19]
+
+At last, in 1850, deliverance seemed to be at hand.  There were signs
+that the public were growing weary of the alarums and excursions of
+Palmerston's diplomacy; and when his support of Don Pacifico, a British
+subject, in a quarrel with the Greek Government, seemed to be upon the
+point of involving the country in a war not only with Greece but also
+with France, and possibly with Russia into the bargain, a heavy cloud
+of distrust and displeasure appeared to be gathering and about to burst
+over his head.  A motion directed against him in the House of Lords was
+passed by a substantial majority.  The question was next to be
+discussed in the House of Commons, where another adverse vote was not
+improbable, and would seal the doom of the Minister.  Palmerston
+received the attack with complete nonchalance, and then, at the last
+possible moment, he struck.  {169} In a speech of over four hours, in
+which exposition, invective, argument, declamation, plain talk and
+resounding eloquence were mingled together with consummate art and
+extraordinary felicity, he annihilated his enemies.  The hostile motion
+was defeated, and Palmerston was once more the hero of the hour.
+Simultaneously, Atropos herself conspired to favour him.  Sir Robert
+Peel was thrown from his horse and killed.  By this tragic chance,
+Palmerston saw the one rival great enough to cope with him removed from
+his path.  He judged--and judged rightly--that he was the most popular
+man in England; and when Lord John revived the project of his
+exchanging the Foreign Office for some other position in the Cabinet,
+he absolutely refused to stir.[20]
+
+Great was the disappointment of Albert; great was the indignation of
+Victoria.  'The House of Commons,' she wrote, 'is becoming very
+unmanageable and troublesome.'[21]  The Prince, perceiving that
+Palmerston was more firmly fixed in the saddle than ever, decided that
+something drastic must be done.  Five months before, the prescient
+Baron had drawn up, in case of emergency, a memorandum, which had been
+carefully docketed, and placed in a pigeon-hole ready to hand.  The
+emergency had now arisen, and the memorandum must be used.  The Queen
+copied out the words of Stockmar, and sent them to the Prime Minister,
+requesting him to show her letter to Palmerston.  'She thinks it
+right,' she wrote, 'in order _to prevent any mistake for the future_,
+shortly to explain _what it is she expects from her Foreign Secretary_.
+She requires: (1) That he will distinctly state what he proposes in a
+given case, in order that the Queen may know as distinctly to _what_
+she has given her Royal sanction; (2) Having _once given_ her sanction
+{170} to a measure, that it be not arbitrarily altered or modified by
+the Minister; such an act she must consider as failing in sincerity
+towards the Crown, and justly to be visited by the exercise of her
+Constitutional right of dismissing that Minister.'[22]  Lord John
+Russell did as he was bid, and forwarded the Queen's letter to Lord
+Palmerston.  This transaction, which was of grave constitutional
+significance, was entirely unknown to the outside world.
+
+If Palmerston had been a sensitive man, he would probably have resigned
+on the receipt of the Queen's missive.  But he was far from sensitive;
+he loved power, and his power was greater than ever; an unerring
+instinct told him that this was not the time to go.  Nevertheless, he
+was seriously perturbed.  He understood at last that he was struggling
+with a formidable adversary, whose skill and strength, unless they were
+mollified, might do irreparable injury to his career.  He therefore
+wrote to Lord John, briefly acquiescing in the Queen's requirements--'I
+have taken a copy of this memorandum of the Queen and will not fail to
+attend to the directions which it contains'--and at the same time, he
+asked for an interview with the Prince.  Albert at once summoned him to
+the Palace, and was astonished to observe, as he noted in a memorandum,
+that when Palmerston entered the room 'he was very much agitated,
+shook, and had tears in his eyes, so as quite to move me, who never
+under any circumstances had known him otherwise than with a bland smile
+on his face.'  The old statesman was profuse in protestations and
+excuses; the young one was coldly polite.  At last, after a long and
+inconclusive conversation, the Prince, drawing himself up, said that,
+in order to give Lord {171} Palmerston 'an example of what the Queen
+wanted,' he would 'ask him a question point-blank.'  Lord Palmerston
+waited in respectful silence, while the Prince proceeded as
+follows:--'You are aware that the Queen has objected to the Protocol
+about Schleswig, and of the grounds on which she has done so.  Her
+opinion has been overruled, the Protocol stating the desire of the
+Great Powers to see the integrity of the Danish monarchy preserved has
+been signed, and upon this the King of Denmark has invaded Schleswig,
+where the war is raging.  If Holstein is attacked also, which is
+likely, the Germans will not be restrained from flying to her
+assistance, and Russia has menaced to interfere with arms, if the
+Schleswigers are successful.  What will you do, if this emergency
+arises (provoking most likely an European war), and which will arise
+very probably when we shall be at Balmoral and Lord John in another
+part of Scotland?  The Queen expects from your foresight that you have
+contemplated this possibility, and requires a categorical answer as to
+what you would do in the event supposed.'  Strangely enough, to this
+point-blank question, the Foreign Secretary appeared to be unable to
+reply.  The whole matter, he said, was extremely complicated, and the
+contingencies mentioned by His Royal Highness were very unlikely to
+arise.  The Prince persisted; but it was useless; for a full hour he
+struggled to extract a categorical answer, until at length Palmerston
+bowed himself out of the room.  Albert threw up his hands in shocked
+amazement: what could one do with such a man?[23]
+
+What indeed?  For, in spite of all his apologies and all his promises,
+within a few weeks the incorrigible reprobate was at his tricks again.
+The Austrian {172} General Haynau, notorious as a rigorous suppressor
+of rebellion in Hungary and Italy, and in particular as a flogger of
+women, came to England and took it into his head to pay a visit to
+Messrs. Barclay and Perkins's brewery.  The features of 'General
+Hyaena,' as he was everywhere called--his grim thin face, his enormous
+pepper-and-salt moustaches--had gained a horrid celebrity; and it so
+happened that among the clerks at the brewery there was a refugee from
+Vienna, who had given his fellow-workers a first-hand account of the
+General's characteristics.  The Austrian Ambassador, scenting danger,
+begged his friend not to appear in public, or, if he must do so, to cut
+off his moustaches first.  But the General would take no advice.  He
+went to the brewery, was immediately recognised, surrounded by a crowd
+of angry draymen, pushed about, shouted at, punched in the ribs, and
+pulled by the moustaches until, bolting down an alley with the mob at
+his heels brandishing brooms and roaring 'Hyaena!' he managed to take
+refuge in a public-house, whence he was removed under the protection of
+several policemen.  The Austrian Government was angry and demanded
+explanations.  Palmerston, who, of course, was privately delighted by
+the incident, replied regretting what had occurred, but adding that in
+his opinion the General had 'evinced a want of propriety in coming to
+England at the present moment'; and he delivered his note to the
+Ambassador without having previously submitted it to the Queen or to
+the Prime Minister.  Naturally, when this was discovered, there was a
+serious storm.  The Prince was especially indignant; the conduct of the
+draymen he regarded, with disgust and alarm, as 'a slight foretaste of
+what an unregulated mass of illiterate people is capable'; and
+Palmerston {173} was requested by Lord John to withdraw his note, and
+to substitute for it another from which all censure of the General had
+been omitted.  On this the Foreign Secretary threatened resignation,
+but the Prime Minister was firm.  For a moment the royal hopes rose
+high, only to be dashed to the ground again by the cruel compliance of
+the enemy.  Palmerston, suddenly lamb-like, agreed to everything; the
+note was withdrawn and altered, and peace was patched up once more.[24]
+
+It lasted for a year, and then, in October 1851, the arrival of Kossuth
+in England brought on another crisis.  Palmerston's desire to receive
+the Hungarian patriot at his house in London was vetoed by Lord John;
+once more there was a sharp struggle; once more Palmerston, after
+threatening resignation, yielded.  But still the insubordinate man
+could not keep quiet.  A few weeks later a deputation of Radicals from
+Finsbury and Islington waited on him at the Foreign Office and
+presented him with an address, in which the Emperors of Austria and
+Russia were stigmatised as 'odious and detestable assassins' and
+'merciless tyrants and despots.'  The Foreign Secretary in his reply,
+while mildly deprecating these expressions, allowed his real sentiments
+to appear with a most undiplomatic _insouciance_.  There was an
+immediate scandal, and the Court flowed over with rage and
+vituperation.  'I think,' said the Baron, 'the man has been for some
+time insane.'  Victoria, in an agitated letter, urged Lord John to
+assert his authority.  But Lord John perceived that on this matter the
+Foreign Secretary had the support of public opinion, and he judged it
+wiser to bide his time.[25]
+
+{174}
+
+He had not long to wait.  The culmination of the long series of
+conflicts, threats, and exacerbations came before the year was out.  On
+December 2, Louis Napoleon's _coup d'etat_ took place in Paris; and on
+the following day Palmerston, without consulting anybody, expressed in
+a conversation with the French Ambassador his approval of Napoleon's
+act.  Two days later, he was instructed by the Prime Minister, in
+accordance with a letter from the Queen, that it was the policy of the
+English Government to maintain an attitude of strict neutrality towards
+the affairs of France.  Nevertheless, in an official despatch to the
+British Ambassador in Paris, he repeated the approval of the _coup
+d'etat_ which he had already given verbally to the French Ambassador in
+London.  This despatch was submitted neither to the Queen nor to the
+Prime Minister.  Lord John's patience, as he himself said, 'was drained
+to the last drop.'  He dismissed Lord Palmerston.[26]
+
+Victoria was in ecstasies; and Albert knew that the triumph was his
+even more than Lord John's.  It was his wish that Lord Granville, a
+young man whom he believed to be pliant to his influence, should be
+Palmerston's successor; and Lord Granville was appointed.
+Henceforward, it seemed that the Prince would have his way in foreign
+affairs.  After years of struggle and mortification, success greeted
+him on every hand.  In his family, he was an adored master; in the
+country, the Great Exhibition had brought him respect and glory; and
+now in the secret seats of power he had gained a new supremacy.  He had
+wrestled with the terrible Lord Palmerston, the embodiment of {175} all
+that was most hostile to him in the spirit of England, and his
+redoubtable opponent had been overthrown.[27]  Was England herself at
+his feet?  It might be so; and yet ... it is said that the sons of
+England have a certain tiresome quality: they never know when they are
+beaten.  It was odd, but Palmerston was positively still jaunty.  Was
+it possible?  Could he believe, in his blind arrogance, that even his
+ignominious dismissal from office was something that could be brushed
+aside?
+
+
+III
+
+The Prince's triumph was short-lived.  A few weeks later, owing to
+Palmerston's influence, the Government was defeated in the House, and
+Lord John resigned.  Then, after a short interval, a coalition between
+the Whigs and the followers of Peel came into power, under the
+premiership of Lord Aberdeen.  Once more, Palmerston was in the
+Cabinet.  It was true that he did not return to the Foreign Office;
+that was something to the good; in the Home Department it might be
+hoped that his activities would be less dangerous and disagreeable.
+But the Foreign Secretary was no longer the complacent Granville; and
+in Lord Clarendon the Prince knew that he had a Minister to deal with,
+who, discreet and courteous as he was, had a mind of his own.
+
+These changes, however, were merely the preliminaries of a far more
+serious development.  Events, on every side, were moving towards a
+catastrophe.  Suddenly the nation found itself under the awful shadow
+of imminent war.  For several months, amid the {176} shifting mysteries
+of diplomacy and the perplexed agitations of politics, the issue grew
+more doubtful and more dark, while the national temper was strained to
+the breaking-point.  At the very crisis of the long and ominous
+negotiations, it was announced that Lord Palmerston had resigned.  Then
+the pent-up fury of the people burst forth.  They had felt that in the
+terrible complexity of events they were being guided by weak and
+embarrassed counsels; but they had been reassured by the knowledge that
+at the centre of power there was one man with strength, with courage,
+with determination, in whom they could put their trust.  They now
+learnt that that man was no longer among their leaders.  Why?  In their
+rage, anxiety, and nervous exhaustion, they looked round desperately
+for some hidden and horrible explanation of what had occurred.  They
+suspected plots, they smelt treachery in the air.  It was easy to guess
+the object upon which their frenzy would vent itself.  Was there not a
+foreigner in the highest of high places, a foreigner whose hostility to
+their own adored champion was unrelenting and unconcealed?  The moment
+that Palmerston's resignation was known, there was a universal outcry;
+and an extraordinary tempest of anger and hatred burst, with
+unparalleled violence, upon the head of the Prince.
+
+It was everywhere asserted and believed that the Queen's husband was a
+traitor to the country, that he was a tool of the Russian Court, that
+in obedience to Russian influences he had forced Palmerston out of the
+Government, and that he was directing the foreign policy of England in
+the interests of England's enemies.  For many weeks these accusations
+filled the whole of the {177} press; repeated at public meetings,
+elaborated in private talk, they flew over the country, growing every
+moment more extreme and more improbable.  While respectable newspapers
+thundered out their grave invectives, halfpenny broadsides, hawked
+through the streets of London, re-echoed in doggerel vulgarity the same
+sentiments and the same suspicions.[28]  At last the wildest rumours
+began to spread.
+
+In January 1854, it was whispered that the Prince had been seized, that
+he had been found guilty of high treason, that he was to be committed
+to the Tower.  The Queen herself, some declared, had been arrested,
+{178} and large crowds actually collected round the Tower to watch the
+incarceration of the royal miscreants.[29]
+
+These fantastic hallucinations were the result of the fevered
+atmosphere of approaching war.  The cause of Palmerston's resignation,
+indeed, remains wrapped in obscurity, and it is possible that it was
+brought about by the continued hostility of the Court.[30]  But the
+supposition that Albert's influence had been used to favour the
+interests of Russia was devoid of any basis in actual fact.  As often
+happens in such cases, the Government had been swinging backwards and
+forwards between two incompatible policies--that of non-interference
+and that of threats supported by force--either of which, if
+consistently followed, might well have had a successful and peaceful
+issue, but which, mingled together, could only lead to war.  Albert,
+with characteristic scrupulosity, attempted to thread his way through
+the complicated labyrinth of European diplomacy, and eventually was
+lost in the maze.  But so was the whole of the Cabinet; and, when war
+came, his anti-Russian feelings were quite as vehement as those of the
+most bellicose of Englishmen.
+
+Nevertheless, though the gravest of the charges levelled against the
+Prince were certainly without foundation, there were underlying
+elements in the situation {179} which explained, if they did not
+justify, the popular state of mind.  It was true that the Queen's
+husband was a foreigner, who had been brought up in a foreign Court,
+was impregnated with foreign ideas, and was closely related to a
+multitude of foreign princes.  Clearly this, though perhaps an
+unavoidable, was an undesirable, state of affairs; nor were the
+objections to it merely theoretical; it had in fact produced unpleasant
+consequences of a serious kind.  The Prince's German proclivities were
+perpetually lamented by English Ministers; Lord Palmerston, Lord
+Clarendon, Lord Aberdeen,[31] all told the same tale; and it was
+constantly necessary, in grave questions of national policy, to combat
+the prepossessions of a Court in which German views and German
+sentiments held a disproportionate place.  As for Palmerston, his
+language on this topic was apt to be unbridled.  At the height of his
+annoyance over his resignation, he roundly declared that he had been
+made a victim to foreign intrigue.[32]  He afterwards toned down this
+accusation; but the mere fact that such a suggestion from such a
+quarter was possible at all showed to what unfortunate consequences
+Albert's foreign birth and foreign upbringing might lead.
+
+But this was not all.  A constitutional question of the most profound
+importance was raised by the position of the Prince in England.  His
+presence gave a new prominence to an old problem--the precise
+definition of the functions and the powers of the Crown.  Those
+functions and powers had become, in effect, his; and {180} what sort of
+use was he making of them?  His views as to the place of the Crown in
+the Constitution are easily ascertainable; for they were Stockmar's;
+and it happens that we possess a detailed account of Stockmar's
+opinions upon the subject in a long letter addressed by him to the
+Prince at the time of this very crisis, just before the outbreak of the
+Crimean War.  Constitutional Monarchy, according to the Baron, had
+suffered an eclipse since the passing of the Reform Bill.  It was now
+'constantly in danger of becoming a pure Ministerial Government.'  The
+old race of Tories, who 'had a direct interest in upholding the
+prerogatives of the Crown,' had died out; and the Whigs were 'nothing
+but partly conscious, partly unconscious Republicans, who stand in the
+same relation to the Throne as the wolf does to the lamb.'  There was a
+rule that it was unconstitutional to introduce 'the name and person of
+the irresponsible Sovereign' into parliamentary debates on
+constitutional matters; this was 'a constitutional fiction, which,
+although undoubtedly of old standing, was fraught with danger'; and the
+Baron warned the Prince that 'if the English Crown permit a Whig
+Ministry to follow this rule in practice, without exception, you must
+not wonder if in a little time you find the majority of the people
+impressed with the belief that the King, in the view of the law, is
+nothing but a mandarin figure, which has to nod its head in assent, or
+shake it in denial, as his Minister pleases.'  To prevent this from
+happening, it was of extreme importance, said the Baron, 'that no
+opportunity should be let slip of vindicating the legitimate position
+of the Crown.'  'And this is not hard to do,' he added, 'and can never
+embarrass a Minister where such straightforward loyal personages as the
+Queen and {181} the Prince are concerned.'  In his opinion, the very
+lowest claim of the Royal Prerogative should include 'a right on the
+part of the King to be the permanent President of his Ministerial
+Council.'  The Sovereign ought to be 'in the position of a permanent
+Premier, who takes rank above the temporary head of the Cabinet, and in
+matters of discipline exercises supreme authority.'  The Sovereign 'may
+even take a part in the initiation and the maturing of the Government
+measures; for it would be unreasonable to expect that a King, himself
+as able, as accomplished, and as patriotic as the best of his
+Ministers, should be prevented from making use of these qualities at
+the deliberations of his Council.'  'The judicious exercise of this
+right,' concluded the Baron, 'which certainly requires a master mind,
+would not only be the best guarantee for Constitutional Monarchy, but
+would raise it to a height of power, stability, and symmetry, which has
+never been attained.'[33]
+
+Now it may be that this reading of the Constitution is a possible one,
+though indeed it is hard to see how it can be made compatible with the
+fundamental doctrine of ministerial responsibility.  William III
+presided over his Council, and he was a constitutional monarch; and it
+seems that Stockmar had in his mind a conception of the Crown which
+would have given it a place in the Constitution analogous to that which
+it filled at the time of William III.  But it is clear that such a
+theory, which would invest the Crown with more power than it possessed
+even under George III, runs counter to the whole development of English
+public life since the Revolution; and the fact that it was held by
+Stockmar, and instilled by him into Albert, was of very serious {182}
+importance.  For there was good reason to believe not only that these
+doctrines were held by Albert in theory, but that he was making a
+deliberate and sustained attempt to give them practical validity.  The
+history of the struggle between the Crown and Palmerston provided
+startling evidence that this was the case.  That struggle reached its
+culmination when, in Stockmar's memorandum of 1850, the Queen asserted
+her 'constitutional right' to dismiss the Foreign Secretary if he
+altered a despatch which had received her sanction.  The memorandum
+was, in fact, a plain declaration that the Crown intended to act
+independently of the Prime Minister.  Lord John Russell, anxious at all
+costs to strengthen himself against Palmerston, accepted the
+memorandum, and thereby implicitly allowed the claim of the Crown.
+More than that; after the dismissal of Palmerston, among the grounds on
+which Lord John justified that dismissal in the House of Commons he
+gave a prominent place to the memorandum of 1850.  It became apparent
+that the displeasure of the Sovereign might be a reason for the removal
+of a powerful and popular Minister.  It seemed indeed as if, under the
+guidance of Stockmar and Albert, the 'Constitutional Monarchy' might in
+very truth be rising 'to a height of power, stability, and symmetry,
+which had never been attained.'
+
+But this new development in the position of the Crown, grave as it was
+in itself, was rendered peculiarly disquieting by the unusual
+circumstances which surrounded it.  For the functions of the Crown were
+now, in effect, being exercised by a person unknown to the
+Constitution, who wielded over the Sovereign an undefined and unbounded
+influence.  The fact that this person was the Sovereign's husband,
+while it {183} explained his influence and even made it inevitable, by
+no means diminished its strange and momentous import.  An ambiguous,
+prepotent figure had come to disturb the ancient, subtle, and jealously
+guarded balance of the English Constitution.  Such had been the
+unexpected outcome of the tentative and faint-hearted opening of
+Albert's political life.  He himself made no attempt to minimise either
+the multiplicity or the significance of the functions he performed.  He
+considered that it was his duty, he told the Duke of Wellington in
+1850, to 'sink his _own individual_ existence in that of his wife ...
+--assume no separate responsibility before the public, but make his
+position entirely a part of hers--fill up every gap which, as a woman,
+she would naturally leave in the exercise of her regal
+functions--continually and anxiously watch every part of the public
+business, in order to be able to advise and assist her at any moment in
+any of the multifarious and difficult questions or duties brought
+before her, sometimes international, sometimes political, or social, or
+personal.  As the natural head of her family, superintendent of her
+household, manager of her private affairs, sole _confidential_ adviser
+in politics, and only assistant in her communications with the officers
+of the Government, he is, besides, the husband of the Queen, the tutor
+of the royal children, the private secretary of the Sovereign, and her
+permanent minister.'[34]  Stockmar's pupil had assuredly gone far and
+learnt well.  Stockmar's pupil!--precisely; the public, painfully aware
+of Albert's predominance, had grown, too, uneasily conscious that
+Victoria's master had a master of his own.  Deep in the darkness the
+Baron loomed.  Another foreigner!  Decidedly, there were elements {184}
+in the situation which went far to justify the popular alarm.  A
+foreign Baron controlled a foreign Prince, and the foreign Prince
+controlled the Crown of England.  And the Crown itself was creeping
+forward ominously; and when, from under its shadow, the Baron and the
+Prince had frowned, a great Minister, beloved of the people, had
+fallen.  Where was all this to end?
+
+Within a few weeks Palmerston withdrew his resignation, and the public
+frenzy subsided as quickly as it had arisen.  When Parliament met, the
+leaders of both the parties in both the Houses made speeches in favour
+of the Prince, asserting his unimpeachable loyalty to the country and
+vindicating his right to advise the Sovereign in all matters of State.
+Victoria was delighted.  'The position of my beloved lord and master,'
+she told the Baron, 'has been defined for once and all and his merits
+have been acknowledged on all sides most duly.  There was an immense
+concourse of people assembled when we went to the House of Lords, and
+the people were very friendly.'[35]  Immediately afterwards, the
+country finally plunged into the Crimean War.  In the struggle that
+followed, Albert's patriotism was put beyond a doubt, and the
+animosities of the past were forgotten.  But the war had another
+consequence, less gratifying to the royal couple: it crowned the
+ambition of Lord Palmerston.  In 1855, the man who five years before
+had been pronounced by Lord John Russell to be 'too old to do much in
+the future,' became Prime Minister of England, and, with one short
+interval, remained in that position for ten years.
+
+
+
+[1] Martin, I, 194-6; _Letters_, I, 510-11.
+
+[2] Bunsen, II, 152.
+
+[3] Dalling, I, 346.
+
+[4] Dalling, III, 413-5.
+
+[5] Ashley, II, 213.
+
+[6] Greville, VI, 33.
+
+[7] _Letters_, I, 511.
+
+[8] _Letters_, II, 100-1.
+
+[9] Dalling, III, chaps. vii and viii; Stockmar, cap. xxi.
+
+[10] _Letters_, II, 181.
+
+[11] _Ibid._, II, 194.
+
+[12] _Letters_, II, 195.
+
+[13] Venice and Lombardy.
+
+[14] _Letters_, II, 199.
+
+[15] _Letters_, II, 221; Ashley, II, 195-6.
+
+[16] Greville, VI, 63-4.
+
+[17] Greville, VI, 324-6; Clarendon, I, 341.
+
+[18] Clarendon, I, 337, 342.
+
+[19] _Letters_, II, 235-7.
+
+[20] _Letters_, II, 261-4.
+
+[21] _Ibid._, II, 253.
+
+[22] _Letters_, II, 238 and 264.
+
+[23] Martin, II, 307-10.
+
+[24] _Letters_, II, 267-70; Martin, II, 324-7; Ashley, II, 169-70.
+
+[25] _Letters_, II, 324-31; Martin, II, 406-11; Spencer Walpole, II,
+133-7; Stockmar, 642; Greville, VI, 421-4.
+
+[26] _Letters_, II, 334-43; Martin, II, 411-18; Ashley, II, 200-12;
+Walpole, II, 138-42; Clarendon, I, 338.
+
+[27] Ernest, III, 14.
+
+[28] 'The Turkish war both far and near
+      Has played the very deuce then,
+    And little Al, the royal pal,
+      They say has turned a Russian;
+    Old Aberdeen, as may be seen,
+      Looks woeful pale and yellow,
+    And Old John Bull had his belly full
+      Of dirty Russian tallow.
+
+    _Chorus_.
+
+        'We'll send him home and make him groan,
+          Oh, Al! you've played the deuce then;
+        The German lad has acted sad
+          And turned tail with the Russians.
+
+          *      *      *      *
+
+    'Last Monday night, all in a fright,
+      Al out of bed did tumble.
+    The German lad was raving mad,
+      How he did groan and grumble!
+    He cried to Vic, "I've cut my stick:
+      To St. Petersburg go right slap."
+    When Vic, 'tis said, jumped out of bed,
+      And wopped him with her night-cap.'
+
+From _Lovely Albert!_ a broadside preserved at the British Museum;
+Martin, II, 539-41; Greville, VII, 127-9.
+
+[29] Martin, II, 540, 562.
+
+    'You jolly Turks, now go to work,
+      And show the Bear your power.
+    It is rumoured over Britain's isle
+      That A---- is in the Tower;
+    The Postmen some suspicion had,
+      And opened the two letters,
+    'Twas a pity sad the German lad
+      Should not have known much better.'
+                      _Lovely Albert!_
+
+[30] Kinglake, II, 27-32.
+
+[31] 'Aberdeen spoke much of the Queen and Prince, of course with great
+praise.  He said the Prince's views were generally sound and wise, with
+one exception, which was his violent and incorrigible German unionism.
+He goes all lengths with Prussia.'--Greville, VI, 305.
+
+[32] Ashley, II, 218.
+
+[33] Martin, II, 545-57.
+
+[34] Martin, II, 259-60.
+
+[35] Martin, II, 563-4.
+
+
+
+[Illustration: QUEEN VICTORIA AND THE PRINCE CONSORT IN 1860.]
+
+
+
+
+{185}
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+LAST YEARS OF THE PRINCE CONSORT
+
+I
+
+The weak-willed youth who took no interest in politics and never read a
+newspaper had grown into a man of unbending determination whose
+tireless energies were incessantly concentrated upon the laborious
+business of government and the highest questions of State.  He was busy
+now from morning till night.  In the winter, before the dawn, he was to
+be seen, seated at his writing-table, working by the light of the green
+reading-lamp which he had brought over with him from Germany, and the
+construction of which he had much improved by an ingenious device.
+Victoria was early too, but she was not so early as Albert; and when,
+in the chill darkness, she took her seat at her own writing-table,
+placed side by side with his, she invariably found upon it a neat pile
+of papers arranged for her inspection and her signature.[1]  The day,
+thus begun, continued in unremitting industry.  At breakfast, the
+newspapers--the once hated newspapers--made their appearance, and the
+Prince, absorbed in their perusal, would answer no questions, or, if an
+article struck him, would read it aloud.  After that there were
+ministers and secretaries to interview; there was a vast correspondence
+to be carried on; there were numerous {186} memoranda to be made.
+Victoria, treasuring every word, preserving every letter, was all
+breathless attention and eager obedience.  Sometimes Albert would
+actually ask her advice.  He consulted her about his English: 'Lese
+recht aufmerksam, und sage wenn irgend ein Fehler ist,'[2] he would
+say; or, as he handed her a draft for her signature, he would observe
+'Ich hab' Dir hier ein Draft gemacht, lese es mal!  Ich daechte es waere
+recht so.'[3]  Thus the diligent, scrupulous, absorbing hours passed
+by.  Fewer and fewer grew the moments of recreation and of exercise.
+The demands of society were narrowed down to the smallest limits, and
+even then but grudgingly attended to.  It was no longer a mere
+pleasure, it was a positive necessity, to go to bed as early as
+possible in order to be up and at work on the morrow betimes.[4]
+
+The important and exacting business of government, which became at last
+the dominating preoccupation in Albert's mind, still left unimpaired
+his old tastes and interests; he remained devoted to art, to science,
+to philosophy; and a multitude of subsidiary activities showed how his
+energies increased as the demands upon them grew.  For whenever duty
+called, the Prince was all alertness.  With indefatigable perseverance
+he opened museums, laid the foundation-stones of hospitals, made
+speeches to the Royal Agricultural Society, and attended meetings of
+the British Association.[5]  The National Gallery particularly
+interested him: he drew up careful regulations for the arrangement of
+the pictures according to schools; and he attempted--though {187} in
+vain--to have the whole collection transported to South Kensington.[6]
+Feodora, now the Princess Hohenlohe, after a visit to England,
+expressed in a letter to Victoria her admiration of Albert both as a
+private and a public character.  Nor did she rely only on her own
+opinion.  'I must just copy out,' she said, 'what Mr. Klumpp wrote to
+me some little time ago, and which is quite true.--"Prince Albert is
+one of the few Royal personages who can sacrifice to any principle (as
+soon as it has become evident to them to be good and noble) all those
+notions (or sentiments) to which others, owing to their
+narrow-mindedness, or to the prejudices of their rank, are so
+thoroughly inclined strongly to cling."--There is something so truly
+religious in this,' the Princess added, 'as well as humane and just,
+most soothing to my feelings which are so often hurt and disturbed by
+what I hear and see.'[7]
+
+Victoria, from the depth of her heart, subscribed to all the eulogies
+of Feodora and Mr. Klumpp.  She only found that they were insufficient.
+As she watched her beloved Albert, after toiling with state documents
+and public functions, devoting every spare moment of his time to
+domestic duties, to artistic appreciation, and to intellectual
+improvements; as she listened to him cracking his jokes at the
+luncheon-table, or playing Mendelssohn on the organ, or pointing out
+the merits of Sir Edwin Landseer's pictures; as she followed him round
+while he gave instructions about the breeding of cattle, or decided
+that the Gainsboroughs must be hung higher up so that the Winterhalters
+might be properly seen--she felt perfectly certain that no other wife
+had ever had such a husband.  His mind was apparently capable of
+everything, and she was hardly {188} surprised to learn that he had
+made an important discovery for the conversion of sewage into
+agricultural manure.  Filtration from below upwards, he explained,
+through some appropriate medium, which retained the solids and set free
+the fluid sewage for irrigation, was the principle of the scheme.  'All
+previous plans,' he said, 'would have cost millions; mine costs next to
+nothing.'  Unfortunately, owing to a slight miscalculation, the
+invention proved to be impracticable; but Albert's intelligence was
+unrebuffed, and he passed on, to plunge with all his accustomed ardour
+into a prolonged study of the rudiments of lithography.[8]
+
+But naturally it was upon his children that his private interests and
+those of Victoria were concentrated most vigorously.  The royal
+nurseries showed no sign of emptying.  The birth of the Prince Arthur
+in 1850 was followed, three years later, by that of the Prince Leopold;
+and in 1857 the Princess Beatrice was born.  A family of nine must be,
+in any circumstances, a grave responsibility; and the Prince realised
+to the full how much the high destinies of his offspring intensified
+the need of parental care.  It was inevitable that he should believe
+profoundly in the importance of education; he himself had been the
+product of education; Stockmar had made him what he was; it was for
+him, in his turn, to be a Stockmar--to be even more than a Stockmar--to
+the young creatures he had brought into the world.  Victoria would
+assist him; a Stockmar, no doubt, she could hardly be; but she could be
+perpetually vigilant, she could mingle strictness with her affection,
+and she could always set a good example.  These considerations, of
+course, applied pre-eminently to the education of the Prince of Wales.
+How tremendous was the significance {189} of every particle of
+influence which went to the making of the future King of England!
+Albert set to work with a will.  But, watching with Victoria the
+minutest details of the physical, intellectual, and moral training of
+his children, he soon perceived, to his distress, that there was
+something unsatisfactory in the development of his eldest son.  The
+Princess Royal was an extremely intelligent child; but Bertie, though
+he was good-humoured and gentle, seemed to display a deep-seated
+repugnance to every form of mental exertion.  This was most
+regrettable, but the remedy was obvious: the parental efforts must be
+redoubled; instruction must be multiplied; not for a single instant
+must the educational pressure be allowed to relax.  Accordingly, more
+tutors were selected, the curriculum was revised, the time-table of
+studies was rearranged, elaborate memoranda dealing with every possible
+contingency were drawn up.  It was above all essential that there
+should be no slackness: 'work,' said the Prince, 'must be work.'  And
+work indeed it was.  The boy grew up amid a ceaseless round of
+paradigms, syntactical exercises, dates, genealogical tables, and lists
+of capes.  Constant notes flew backwards and forwards between the
+Prince, the Queen, and the tutors, with inquiries, with reports of
+progress, with detailed recommendations; and these notes were all
+carefully preserved for future reference.  It was, besides, vital that
+the heir to the throne should be protected from the slightest
+possibility of contamination from the outside world.  The Prince of
+Wales was not as other boys; he might, occasionally, be allowed to
+invite some sons of the nobility, boys of good character, to play with
+him in the garden of Buckingham Palace; but his father presided, with
+alarming precision, over their sports.  In short, every {190} possible
+precaution was taken, every conceivable effort was made.  Yet, strange
+to say, the object of all this vigilance and solicitude continued to be
+unsatisfactory--appeared, in fact, to be positively growing worse.  It
+was certainly very odd: the more lessons that Bertie had to do, the
+less he did them; and the more carefully he was guarded against
+excitements and frivolities, the more desirous of mere amusement he
+seemed to become.  Albert was deeply grieved and Victoria was sometimes
+very angry; but grief and anger produced no more effect than
+supervision and time-tables.  The Prince of Wales, in spite of
+everything, grew up into manhood without the faintest sign of
+'adherence to and perseverance in the plan both of studies and
+life'--as one of the Royal memoranda put it--which had been laid down
+with such extraordinary forethought by his father.[9]
+
+
+II
+
+Against the insidious worries of politics, the boredom of society
+functions, and the pompous publicity of state ceremonies, Osborne had
+afforded a welcome refuge; but it soon appeared that even Osborne was
+too little removed from the world.  After all, the Solent was a feeble
+barrier.  Oh, for some distant, some almost inaccessible sanctuary,
+where, in true domestic privacy, one could make happy holiday, just as
+if--or at least very, very, nearly--one were anybody else!  Victoria,
+ever since, together with Albert, she had visited Scotland in the early
+years of her marriage, had felt that her heart was in the Highlands.
+She had {191} returned to them a few years later, and her passion had
+grown.  How romantic they were!  And how Albert enjoyed them too!  His
+spirits rose quite wonderfully as soon as he found himself among the
+hills and the conifers.  'It is a happiness to see him,' she wrote.
+'Oh!  What can equal the beauties of nature!' she exclaimed in her
+journal, during one of these visits.  'What enjoyment there is in them!
+Albert enjoys it so much; he is in ecstasies here.'  'Albert said,' she
+noted next day, 'that the chief beauty of mountain scenery consists in
+its frequent changes.  We came home at six o'clock.'  Then she went on
+a longer expedition--up to the very top of a high hill.  'It was quite
+romantic.  Here we were with only this Highlander behind us holding the
+ponies (for we got off twice and walked about) .... We came home at
+half past eleven,--the most delightful, most romantic ride and walk I
+ever had.  I had never been up such a mountain, and then the day was so
+fine.  The Highlanders, too, were such astonishing people.  They 'never
+make difficulties,' she noted, 'but are cheerful, and happy, and merry,
+and ready to walk, and run, and do anything.'  As for Albert he 'highly
+appreciated the good-breeding, simplicity, and intelligence, which make
+it so pleasant and even instructive to talk to them.'  'We were always
+in the habit,' wrote Her Majesty, 'of conversing with the
+Highlanders--with whom one comes so much in contact in the Highlands.'
+She loved everything about them--their customs, their dress, their
+dances, even their musical instruments.  'There were nine pipers at the
+castle,' she wrote, after staying with Lord Breadalbane; 'sometimes one
+and sometimes three played.  They always played about breakfast-time,
+again during the {192} morning, at luncheon, and also whenever we went
+in and out; again before dinner, and during most of dinner-time.  We
+both have become quite fond of the bag-pipes.'[10]
+
+It was quite impossible not to wish to return to such pleasures again
+and again; and in 1848 the Queen took a lease of Balmoral House, a
+small residence near Braemar in the wilds of Aberdeenshire.  Four years
+later she bought the place outright.  Now she could be really happy
+every summer; now she could be simple and at her ease; now she could be
+romantic every evening, and dote upon Albert, without a single
+distraction, all day long.  The diminutive scale of the house was in
+itself a charm.  Nothing was more amusing than to find oneself living
+in two or three little sitting-rooms, with the children crammed away
+upstairs, and the Minister in attendance with only a tiny bedroom to do
+all his work in.  And then to be able to run in and out of doors as one
+liked, and to sketch, and to walk, and to watch the red deer coming so
+surprisingly close, and to pay visits to the cottagers!  And
+occasionally one could be more adventurous still--one could go and stay
+for a night or two at the Bothie at Alt-na-giuthasach--a mere couple of
+huts with 'a wooden addition'--and only eleven people in the whole
+party!  And there were mountains to be climbed and cairns to be built
+in solemn pomp.  'At last, when the cairn, which is, I think, seven or
+eight feet high, was nearly completed, Albert climbed up to the top of
+it, and placed the last stone; after which three cheers were given.  It
+was a gay, pretty, and touching sight; and I felt almost inclined to
+cry.  The view was so beautiful over the dear hills; the day so fine;
+the {193} whole so _gemuethlich_.'[11]  And in the evening there were
+sword-dances and reels.
+
+But Albert had determined to pull down the little old house, and to
+build in its place a Castle of his own designing.  With great ceremony,
+in accordance with a memorandum drawn up by the Prince for the
+occasion, the foundation-stone of the new edifice was laid,[12] and by
+1855 it was habitable.  Spacious, built of granite in the Scotch
+baronial style, with a tower 100 feet high, and minor turrets and
+castellated gables, the Castle was skilfully arranged to command the
+finest views of the surrounding mountains and of the neighbouring river
+Dee.  Upon the interior decorations Albert and Victoria lavished all
+their care.  The walls and the floors were of pitch-pine, and covered
+with specially manufactured tartans.  The Balmoral tartan, in red and
+grey, designed by the Prince, and the Victoria tartan, with a white
+stripe, designed by the Queen, were to be seen in every room: there
+were tartan curtains, and tartan chair-covers, and even tartan
+linoleums.  Occasionally the Royal Stuart tartan appeared, for Her
+Majesty always maintained that she was an ardent Jacobite.
+Water-colour sketches by Victoria hung upon the walls, together with
+innumerable stags' antlers, and the head of a boar, which had been shot
+by Albert in Germany.  In an alcove in the hall stood a life-sized
+statue of Albert in Highland dress.[13]
+
+Victoria declared that it was perfection.  'Every year,' she wrote, 'my
+heart becomes more fixed in this dear paradise, and so much more so
+now, that _all_ has become my dear Albert's _own_ creation, own work,
+own {194} building, own laying-out; ... and his great taste, and the
+impress of his dear hand, have been stamped everywhere.'[14]
+
+And here, in very truth, her happiest days were passed.  In after
+years, when she looked back upon them, a kind of glory, a radiance as
+of an unearthly holiness, seemed to glow about these golden hours.
+Each hallowed moment stood out clear, beautiful, eternally significant.
+For, at the time, every experience there, sentimental, or grave, or
+trivial, had come upon her with a peculiar vividness, like a flashing
+of marvellous lights.  Albert's stalkings--an evening walk when she
+lost her way--Vicky sitting down on a wasps' nest--a torchlight
+dance--with what intensity such things, and ten thousand like them,
+impressed themselves upon her eager consciousness!  And how she flew to
+her journal to note them down!  The news of the Duke's death!  What a
+moment!--when, as she sat sketching after a picnic by a loch in the
+lonely hills, Lord Derby's letter had been brought to her, and she had
+learnt that '_England's_, or rather _Britain's_ pride, her glory, her
+hero, the greatest man she had ever produced, was no more!'  For such
+were her reflections upon the 'old rebel' of former days.  But that
+past had been utterly obliterated--no faintest memory of it remained.
+For years she had looked up to the Duke as a figure almost superhuman.
+Had he not been a supporter of good Sir Robert?  Had he not asked
+Albert to succeed him as Commander-in-Chief?  And what a proud moment
+it had been when he stood as sponsor to her son Arthur, who was born on
+his eighty-first birthday!  So now she filled a whole page of her diary
+with panegyrical regrets.  'His position was the highest a subject ever
+{195} had--above party,--looked up to by all,--revered by the whole
+nation,--the friend of the Sovereign ... The Crown never
+possessed,--and I fear never _will_--so _devoted_, loyal, and faithful
+a subject, so staunch a supporter!  To us his loss is _irreparable_ ...
+To Albert he showed the greatest kindness and the utmost confidence ...
+Not an eye will be dry in the whole country.'[15]  These were serious
+thoughts; but they were soon succeeded by others hardly less moving--by
+events as impossible to forget--by Mr. MacLeod's sermon on
+Nicodemus,--by the gift of a red flannel petticoat to Mrs. P.
+Farquharson, and another to old Kitty Kear.[16]
+
+But, without doubt, most memorable, most delightful of all were the
+expeditions--the rare, exciting expeditions up distant mountains,
+across broad rivers, through strange country, and lasting several days.
+With only two gillies--Grant and Brown--for servants, and with assumed
+names ... it was more like something in a story than real life.  'We
+had decided to call ourselves _Lord and Lady Churchill and party_--Lady
+Churchill passing as _Miss Spencer_ and General Grey as _Dr. Grey_!
+Brown once forgot this and called me "Your Majesty" as I was getting
+into the carriage, and Grant on the box once called Albert "Your Royal
+Highness," which set us off laughing, but no one observed it.'  Strong,
+vigorous, enthusiastic, bringing, so it seemed, good fortune with
+her--the Highlanders declared she had 'a lucky foot'--she relished
+everything--the scrambles and the views and the contretemps and the
+rough inns with their coarse fare and Brown and Grant waiting at table.
+She could have gone on for ever and ever, absolutely happy with Albert
+beside her and Brown at {196} her pony's head.  But the time came for
+turning homewards; alas! the time came for going back to England.  She
+could hardly bear it; she sat disconsolate in her room and watched the
+snow falling.  The last day!  Oh!  If only she could be snowed up![17]
+
+
+III
+
+The Crimean War brought new experiences, and most of them were pleasant
+ones.  It was pleasant to be patriotic and pugnacious, to look out
+appropriate prayers to be read in the churches, to have news of
+glorious victories, and to know oneself, more proudly than ever, the
+representative of England.  With that spontaneity of feeling which was
+so peculiarly her own, Victoria poured out her emotion, her admiration,
+her pity, her love, upon her 'dear soldiers.'  When she gave them their
+medals her exultation knew no bounds.  'Noble fellows!' she wrote to
+the King of the Belgians.  'I own I feel as if these were _my own
+children_; my heart beats for _them_ as for my _nearest and dearest_.
+They were so touched, so pleased; many, I hear, cried--and they won't
+hear of giving up their medals to have their names engraved upon them
+for fear they should _not_ receive the _identical one_ put into _their
+hands by me_, which is quite touching.  Several came by in a sadly
+mutilated state.'[18]  She and they were at one.  They felt that she
+had done them a splendid honour, and she, with perfect genuineness,
+shared their feeling.  Albert's attitude towards such things was
+different; there was an austerity in him which quite prohibited the
+expansions of emotion.  When General Williams returned {197} from the
+heroic defence of Kars and was presented at Court, the quick, stiff,
+distant bow with which the Prince received him struck like ice upon the
+beholders.[19]  He was a stranger still.
+
+But he had other things to occupy him, more important, surely, than the
+personal impressions of military officers and people who went to Court.
+He was at work--ceaselessly at work--on the tremendous task of carrying
+through the war to a successful conclusion.  State papers, despatches,
+memoranda, poured from him in an overwhelming stream.  Between 1853 and
+1857 fifty folio volumes were filled with the comments of his pen upon
+the Eastern question.[20]  Nothing would induce him to stop.  Weary
+ministers staggered under the load of his advice; but his advice
+continued, piling itself up over their writing-tables, and flowing out
+upon them from red box after red box.  Nor was it advice to be ignored.
+The talent for administration which had reorganised the royal palaces
+and planned the Great Exhibition asserted itself no less in the
+confused complexities of war.  Again and again the Prince's
+suggestions, rejected or unheeded at first, were adopted under the
+stress of circumstances and found to be full of value.  The enrolment
+of a foreign legion, the establishment of a depot for troops at Malta,
+the institution of periodical reports and tabulated returns as to the
+condition of the army at Sebastopol--such were the contrivances and the
+achievements of his indefatigable brain.  He went further: in a lengthy
+minute he laid down the lines for a radical reform in the entire
+administration of the army.  This was premature, but his proposal that
+'a camp of evolution' should be created, in which troops should {198}
+be concentrated and drilled, proved to be the germ of Aldershot.[21]
+
+Meanwhile Victoria had made a new friend: she had suddenly been
+captivated by Napoleon III.  Her dislike of him had been strong at
+first.  She considered that he was a disreputable adventurer who had
+usurped the throne of poor old Louis Philippe; and besides he was
+hand-in-glove with Lord Palmerston.  For a long time, although he was
+her ally, she was unwilling to meet him; but at last a visit of the
+Emperor and Empress to England was arranged.  Directly he appeared at
+Windsor her heart began to soften.  She found that she was charmed by
+his quiet manners, his low, soft voice, and by the soothing simplicity
+of his conversation.  The good-will of England was essential to the
+Emperor's position in Europe, and he had determined to fascinate the
+Queen.  He succeeded.  There was something deep within her which
+responded immediately and vehemently to natures that offered a romantic
+contrast with her own.  Her adoration of Lord Melbourne was intimately
+interwoven with her half-unconscious appreciation of the exciting
+unlikeness between herself and that sophisticated, subtle,
+aristocratical old man.  Very different was the quality of her
+unlikeness to Napoleon; but its quantity was at least as great.  From
+behind the vast solidity of her respectability, her conventionality,
+her established happiness, she peered out with a strange delicious
+pleasure at that unfamiliar, darkly-glittering foreign object, moving
+so meteorically before her, an ambiguous creature of wilfulness and
+Destiny.  And, to her surprise, where she had dreaded antagonisms, she
+discovered only sympathies.  He was, she said, 'so quiet, so simple,
+_naif_ even, so pleased to be informed {199} about things he does not
+know, so gentle, so full of tact, dignity, and modesty, so full of kind
+attention towards us, never saying a word, or doing a thing, which
+could put me out ... There is something fascinating, melancholy, and
+engaging, which draws you to him, in spite of any _prevention_ you may
+have against him, and certainly without the assistance of any outward
+appearance, though I like his face.'  She observed that he rode
+'extremely well, and looks well on horseback, as he sits high.'  And he
+danced 'with great dignity and spirit.'  Above all, he listened to
+Albert; listened with the most respectful attention; showed, in fact,
+how pleased he was 'to be informed about things he did not know'; and
+afterwards was heard to declare that he had never met the Prince's
+equal.  On one occasion, indeed--but only on one--he had seemed to grow
+slightly restive.  In a diplomatic conversation, 'I expatiated a little
+on the Holstein question,' wrote the Prince in a memorandum, 'which
+appeared to bore the Emperor as "tres-compliquee"'[22]
+
+Victoria, too, became much attached to the Empress, whose looks and
+graces she admired without a touch of jealousy.  Eugenie, indeed, in
+the plenitude of her beauty, exquisitely dressed in wonderful Parisian
+crinolines which set off to perfection her tall and willowy figure,
+might well have caused some heartburning in the breast of her hostess,
+who, very short, rather stout, quite plain, in garish middle-class
+garments, could hardly be expected to feel at her best in such company.
+But Victoria had no misgivings.  To her it mattered nothing that her
+face turned red in the heat and that her purple pork-pie hat was of
+last year's fashion, while Eugenie, cool and modish, floated in an
+infinitude of {200} flounces by her side.  She was Queen of England,
+and was not that enough?  It certainly seemed to be; true majesty was
+hers, and she knew it.  More than once, when the two were together in
+public, it was the woman to whom, as it seemed, nature and art had
+given so little, who, by the sheer force of an inherent grandeur,
+completely threw her adorned and beautiful companion into the shade.[23]
+
+There were tears when the moment came for parting, and Victoria felt
+'quite wehmuethig,' as her guests went away from Windsor.  But before
+long she and Albert paid a return visit to France, where everything was
+very delightful, and she drove incognito through the streets of Paris
+in 'a common bonnet,' and saw a play in the theatre at St. Cloud, and,
+one evening, at a great party given by the Emperor in her honour at the
+Chateau of Versailles, talked a little to a distinguished-looking
+Prussian gentleman, whose name was Bismarck.  Her rooms were furnished
+so much to her taste that she declared they gave her quite a home
+feeling--that, if her little dog were there, she should really imagine
+herself at home.  Nothing was said, but three days later her little dog
+barked a welcome to her as she entered the apartments.  The Emperor
+himself, sparing neither trouble nor expense, had personally arranged
+the charming surprise.[24]  Such were his attentions.  She returned to
+England more enchanted than ever.  'Strange indeed,' she exclaimed,
+'are the dispensations and ways of Providence!'[25]
+
+The alliance prospered, and the war drew towards a conclusion.  Both
+the Queen and the Prince, it is true, were most anxious that there
+should not be a premature {201} peace.  When Lord Aberdeen wished to
+open negotiations Albert attacked him in a '_geharnischten_' letter,
+while Victoria rode about on horseback reviewing the troops.  At last,
+however, Sebastopol was captured.  The news reached Balmoral late at
+night, and 'in a few minutes Albert and all the gentlemen in every
+species of attire sallied forth, followed by all the servants, and
+gradually by all the population of the village--keepers, gillies,
+workmen--up to the top of the cairn.'  A bonfire was lighted, the pipes
+were played, and guns were shot off.  'About three-quarters of an hour
+after Albert came down and said the scene had been wild and exciting
+beyond everything.  The people had been drinking healths in whisky and
+were in great ecstasy.'[26]  The 'great ecstasy,' perhaps, would be
+replaced by other feelings next morning; but at any rate the war was
+over--though, to be sure, its end seemed as difficult to account for as
+its beginning.  The dispensations and ways of Providence continued to
+be strange.
+
+
+IV
+
+An unexpected consequence of the war was a complete change in the
+relations between the royal pair and Palmerston.  The Prince and the
+Minister drew together over their hostility to Russia, and thus it came
+about that when Victoria found it necessary to summon her old enemy to
+form an administration she did so without reluctance.  The premiership,
+too, had a sobering effect upon Palmerston; he grew less impatient and
+dictatorial; considered with attention the suggestions of the Crown,
+and was, besides, {202} genuinely impressed by the Prince's ability and
+knowledge.[27]  Friction, no doubt, there still occasionally was, for,
+while the Queen and the Prince devoted themselves to foreign politics
+as much as ever, their views, when the war was over, became once more
+antagonistic to those of the Prime Minister.  This was especially the
+case with regard to Italy.  Albert, theoretically the friend of
+constitutional government, distrusted Cavour, was horrified by
+Garibaldi, and dreaded the danger of England being drawn into war with
+Austria.  Palmerston, on the other hand, was eager for Italian
+independence; but he was no longer at the Foreign Office, and the brunt
+of the royal displeasure had now to be borne by Lord John Russell.  In
+a few years the situation had curiously altered.  It was Lord John who
+now filled the subordinate and the ungrateful role; but the Foreign
+Secretary, in his struggle with the Crown, was supported, instead of
+opposed, by the Prime Minister.  Nevertheless the struggle was fierce,
+and the policy, by which the vigorous sympathy of England became one of
+the decisive factors in the final achievement of Italian unity, was
+only carried through in face of the violent opposition of the Court.[28]
+
+Towards the other European storm-centre, also, the Prince's attitude
+continued to be very different from that of Palmerston.  Albert's great
+wish was for a united Germany under the leadership of a constitutional
+and virtuous Prussia; Palmerston did not think that there was much to
+be said for the scheme, but he took no particular interest in German
+politics, and was ready {203} enough to agree to a proposal which was
+warmly supported by both the Prince and the Queen--that the royal
+Houses of England and Prussia should be united by the marriage of the
+Princess Royal with the Prussian Crown Prince.  Accordingly, when the
+Princess was not yet fifteen, the Prince, a young man of twenty-four,
+came over on a visit to Balmoral, and the betrothal took place.[29]
+Two years later, in 1857, the marriage was celebrated.  At the last
+moment, however, it seemed that there might be a hitch.  It was pointed
+out in Prussia that it was customary for Princes of the blood-royal to
+be married in Berlin, and it was suggested that there was no reason why
+the present case should be treated as an exception.  When this reached
+the ears of Victoria, she was speechless with indignation.  In a note,
+emphatic even for Her Majesty, she instructed the Foreign Secretary to
+tell the Prussian Ambassador 'not to _entertain_ the _possibility_ of
+such a question....  The Queen _never_ could consent to it, both for
+public and for private reasons, and the assumption of its being _too
+much_ for a Prince Royal of Prussia to come over to marry _the Princess
+Royal of Great Britain_ in England is too _absurd_ to say the least....
+Whatever may be the usual practice of Prussian princes, it is not
+_every_ day that one marries the eldest daughter of the Queen of
+England.  The question must therefore be considered as settled and
+closed.'[30]  It was, and the wedding took place in St. James's Chapel.
+There were great festivities--illuminations, state concerts, immense
+crowds, and general rejoicings.  At Windsor a magnificent banquet was
+given to the bride and bridegroom in the Waterloo room, at which,
+Victoria noted in her diary, 'everybody was most friendly and kind
+{204} about Vicky and full of the universal enthusiasm, of which the
+Duke of Buccleuch gave us most pleasing instances, he having been in
+the very thick of the crowd and among the lowest of the low.'  Her
+feelings during several days had been growing more and more emotional,
+and when the time came for the young couple to depart she very nearly
+broke down--but not quite.  'Poor dear child!' she wrote afterwards.
+'I clasped her in my arms and blessed her, and knew not what to say.  I
+kissed good Fritz and pressed his hand again and again.  He was unable
+to speak and the tears were in his eyes.  I embraced them both again at
+the carriage door, and Albert got into the carriage, an open one, with
+them and Bertie....  The band struck up.  I wished good-bye to the good
+Perponchers.  General Schreckenstein was much affected.  I pressed his
+hand, and the good Dean's, and then went quickly upstairs.'[31]
+
+Albert, as well as General Schreckenstein, was much affected.  He was
+losing his favourite child, whose opening intelligence had already
+begun to display a marked resemblance to his own--an adoring pupil,
+who, in a few years, might have become an almost adequate companion.
+An ironic fate had determined that the daughter who was taken from him
+should be sympathetic, clever, interested in the arts and sciences, and
+endowed with a strong taste for memoranda, while not a single one of
+these qualities could be discovered in the son who remained.  For
+certainly the Prince of Wales did not take after his father.
+Victoria's prayer had been unanswered, and with each succeeding year it
+became more obvious that Bertie was a true scion of the House of
+Brunswick.  But these evidences of {205} innate characteristics served
+only to redouble the efforts of his parents; it still might not be too
+late to incline the young branch, by ceaseless pressure and careful
+fastenings, to grow in the proper direction.  Everything was tried.
+The boy was sent on a continental tour with a picked body of tutors,
+but the results were unsatisfactory.  At his father's request he kept a
+diary which, on his return, was inspected by the Prince.  It was found
+to be distressingly meagre: what a multitude of highly interesting
+reflections might have been arranged under the heading: 'The First
+Prince of Wales visiting the Pope!'  But there was not a single one.
+'Le jeune prince plaisait a tout le monde,' old Metternich reported to
+Guizot, 'mais avait l'air embarrasse et tres triste.'  On his
+seventeenth birthday a memorandum was drawn up over the names of the
+Queen and the Prince informing their eldest son that he was now
+entering upon the period of manhood, and directing him henceforward to
+perform the duties of a Christian gentleman.  'Life is composed of
+duties,' said the memorandum, 'and in the due, punctual and cheerful
+performance of them the true Christian, true soldier, and true
+gentleman is recognised....  A new sphere of life will open for you in
+which you will have to be taught what to do and what not to do, a
+subject requiring study more important than any in which you have
+hitherto been engaged.'  On receipt of the memorandum Bertie burst into
+tears.  At the same time another memorandum was drawn up, headed
+'Confidential: for the guidance of the gentlemen appointed to attend on
+the Prince of Wales.'  This long and elaborate document laid down
+'certain principles' by which the 'conduct and demeanour' of the
+gentlemen were to be regulated 'and which it {206} is thought may
+conduce to the benefit of the Prince of Wales.'  'The qualities which
+distinguish a gentleman in society,' continued this remarkable paper,
+'are:--
+
+(1) His appearance, his deportment and dress.
+
+(2) The character of his relations with, and treatment of, others.
+
+(3) His desire and power to acquit himself creditably in conversation
+or whatever is the occupation of the society with which he mixes.'
+
+A minute and detailed analysis of these sub-headings followed, filling
+several pages, and the memorandum ended with a final exhortation to the
+gentlemen: 'If they will duly appreciate the responsibility of their
+position, and taking the points above laid down as the outline, will
+exercise their own good sense in acting _upon all occasions_ upon these
+principles, thinking no point of detail too minute to be important, but
+maintaining one steady consistent line of conduct, they may render
+essential service to the young Prince and justify the flattering
+selection made by the royal parents.'  A year later the young Prince
+was sent to Oxford, where the greatest care was taken that he should
+not mix with the undergraduates.  Yes, everything had been
+tried--everything ... with one single exception.  The experiment had
+never been made of letting Bertie enjoy himself.  But why should it
+have been?  'Life is composed of duties.'  What possible place could
+there be for enjoyment in the existence of a Prince of Wales?[32]
+
+The same year which deprived Albert of the Princess Royal brought him
+another and a still more serious loss.  The Baron had paid his last
+visit to England.  For twenty years, as he himself said in a letter to
+the {207} King of the Belgians, he had performed 'the laborious and
+exhausting office of a paternal friend and trusted adviser' to the
+Prince and the Queen.  He was seventy; he was tired, physically and
+mentally; it was time to go.  He returned to his home in Coburg,
+exchanging, once for all, the momentous secrecies of European
+statecraft for the tittle-tattle of a provincial capital and the gossip
+of family life.  In his stiff chair by the fire he nodded now over old
+stories--not of emperors and generals, but of neighbours and relatives
+and the domestic adventures of long ago--the burning of his father's
+library--and the goat that ran upstairs to his sister's room and ran
+twice round the table and then ran down again.  Dyspepsia and
+depression still attacked him; but, looking back over his life, he was
+not dissatisfied.  His conscience was clear.  'I have worked as long as
+I had strength to work,' he said, 'and for a purpose no one can impugn.
+The consciousness of this is my reward--the only one which I desired to
+earn.'[33]
+
+Apparently, indeed, his 'purpose' had been accomplished.  By his
+wisdom, his patience, and his example he had brought about, in the
+fullness of time, the miraculous metamorphosis of which he had dreamed.
+The Prince was his creation.  An indefatigable toiler, presiding, for
+the highest ends, over a great nation--that was his achievement; and he
+looked upon his work and it was good.  But had the Baron no misgivings?
+Did he never wonder whether, perhaps, he might have accomplished not
+too little but too much?  How subtle and how dangerous are the snares
+which fate lays for the wariest of men!  Albert, certainly, seemed to
+be everything that Stockmar could have {208} wished--virtuous,
+industrious, persevering, intelligent.  And yet--why was it?--all was
+not well with him.  He was sick at heart.
+
+For in spite of everything he had never reached to happiness.  His
+work, for which at last he came to crave with an almost morbid
+appetite, was a solace and not a cure; the dragon of his
+dissatisfaction devoured with dark relish that ever-growing tribute of
+laborious days and nights; but it was hungry still.  The causes of his
+melancholy were hidden, mysterious, unanalysable perhaps--too deeply
+rooted in the innermost recesses of his temperament for the eye of
+reason to apprehend.  There were contradictions in his nature, which,
+to some of those who knew him best, made him seem an inexplicable
+enigma: he was severe and gentle; he was modest and scornful; he longed
+for affection and he was cold.[34]  He was lonely, not merely with the
+loneliness of exile but with the loneliness of conscious and
+unrecognised superiority.  He had the pride, at once resigned and
+overweening, of a doctrinaire.  And yet to say that he was simply a
+doctrinaire would be a false description; for the pure doctrinaire
+rejoices always in an internal contentment, and Albert was very far
+from doing that.  There was something that he wanted and that he could
+never get.  What was it?  Some absolute, some ineffable sympathy?  Some
+extraordinary, some sublime success?  Possibly, it was a mixture of
+both.  To dominate and to be understood!  To conquer, by the same
+triumphant influence, the submission and the appreciation of men--that
+would be worth while indeed!  But, to such imaginations, he saw too
+clearly how faint were the responses of his actual environment.  Who
+was there who appreciated {209} him, really and truly?  Who _could_
+appreciate him in England?  And, if the gentle virtue of an inward
+excellence availed so little, could he expect more from the hard ways
+of skill and force?  The terrible land of his exile loomed before him a
+frigid, an impregnable mass.  Doubtless he had made some slight
+impression: it was true that he had gained the respect of his fellow
+workers, that his probity, his industry, his exactitude, had been
+recognised, that he was a highly influential, an extremely important
+man.  But how far, how very far, was all this from the goal of his
+ambitions!  How feeble and futile his efforts seemed against the
+enormous coagulation of dullness, of folly, of slackness, of ignorance,
+of confusion that confronted him!  He might have the strength or the
+ingenuity to make some small change for the better here or there--to
+rearrange some detail, to abolish some anomaly, to insist upon some
+obvious reform; but the heart of the appalling organism remained
+untouched.  England lumbered on, impervious and self-satisfied, in her
+old intolerable course.  He threw himself across the path of the
+monster with rigid purpose and set teeth, but he was brushed aside.
+Yes! even Palmerston was still unconquered--was still there to afflict
+him with his jauntiness, his muddle-headedness, his utter lack of
+principle.  It was too much.  Neither nature nor the Baron had given
+him a sanguine spirit; the seeds of pessimism, once lodged within him,
+flourished in a propitious soil.  He
+
+        'questioned things, and did not find
+  One that would answer to his mind;
+  And all the world appeared unkind.'
+
+He believed that he was a failure and he began to despair.
+
+{210}
+
+Yet Stockmar had told him that he must 'never relax,' and he never
+would.  He would go on, working to the utmost and striving for the
+highest, to the bitter end.  His industry grew almost maniacal.
+Earlier and earlier was the green lamp lighted; more vast grew the
+correspondence; more searching the examination of the newspapers; the
+interminable memoranda more punctilious, analytical, and precise.  His
+very recreations became duties.  He enjoyed himself by time-table, went
+deer-stalking with meticulous gusto, and made puns at lunch--it was the
+right thing to do.  The mechanism worked with astonishing efficiency,
+but it never rested and it was never oiled.  In dry exactitude the
+innumerable cog-wheels perpetually revolved.  No, whatever happened,
+the Prince would not relax; he had absorbed the doctrines of Stockmar
+too thoroughly.  He knew what was right, and, at all costs, he would
+pursue it.  That was certain.  But alas! in this our life what are the
+certainties?  'In nothing be over-zealous!' says an old Greek.  'The
+due measure in all the works of man is best.  For often one who
+zealously pushes towards some excellence, though he be pursuing a gain,
+is really being led utterly astray by the will of some Power, which
+makes those things that are evil seem to him good, and those things
+seem to him evil that are for his advantage.'[35]  Surely, both the
+Prince and the Baron might have learnt something from the frigid wisdom
+of Theognis.
+
+Victoria noticed that her husband sometimes seemed to be depressed and
+overworked.  She tried to cheer him up.  Realising uneasily that he was
+still regarded as a foreigner, she hoped that by conferring upon him
+the title of Prince Consort (1857) she would improve his {211} position
+in the country.  'The Queen has a right to claim that her husband
+should be an Englishman,' she wrote.[36]  But unfortunately, in spite
+of the Royal Letters Patent, Albert remained as foreign as before; and
+as the years passed his dejection deepened.  She worked with him, she
+watched over him, she walked with him through the woods at Osborne,
+while he whistled to the nightingales, as he had whistled once at
+Rosenau so long ago.[37]  When his birthday came round, she took the
+greatest pains to choose him presents that he would really like.  In
+1858, when he was thirty-nine, she gave him 'a picture of Beatrice,
+life-size, in oil, by Horsley, a complete collection of photographic
+views of Gotha and the country round, which I had taken by Bedford, and
+a paper-weight of Balmoral granite and deers' teeth, designed by
+Vicky.'[38]  Albert was of course delighted, and his merriment at the
+family gathering was more pronounced than ever: and yet ... what was
+there that was wrong?
+
+No doubt it was his health.  He was wearing himself out in the service
+of the country; and certainly his constitution, as Stockmar had
+perceived from the first, was ill-adapted to meet a serious strain.  He
+was easily upset; he constantly suffered from minor ailments.  His
+appearance in itself was enough to indicate the infirmity of his
+physical powers.  The handsome youth of twenty years since with the
+flashing eyes and the soft complexion had grown into a sallow,
+tired-looking man, whose body, in its stoop and its loose fleshiness,
+betrayed the sedentary labourer, and whose head was quite bald on the
+top.  Unkind critics, who had once compared Albert to an operatic
+tenor, might {212} have remarked that there was something of the butler
+about him now.  Beside Victoria, he presented a painful contrast.  She,
+too, was stout, but it was with the plumpness of a vigorous matron; and
+an eager vitality was everywhere visible--in her energetic bearing, her
+protruding, enquiring glances, her small, fat, capable, and commanding
+hands.  If only, by some sympathetic magic, she could have conveyed
+into that portly, flabby figure, that desiccated and discouraged brain,
+a measure of the stamina and the self-assurance which were so
+pre-eminently hers!
+
+But suddenly she was reminded that there were other perils besides
+those of ill-health.  During a visit to Coburg in 1860, the Prince was
+very nearly killed in a carriage accident.  He escaped with a few cuts
+and bruises; but Victoria's alarm was extreme, though she concealed it.
+'It is when the Queen feels most deeply,' she wrote afterwards, 'that
+she always appears calmest, and she could not and dared not allow
+herself to speak of what might have been, or even to admit to herself
+(and she cannot and dare not now) the entire danger, for her head would
+turn!'  Her agitation, in fact, was only surpassed by her thankfulness
+to God.  She felt, she said, that she could not rest 'without doing
+something to mark permanently her feelings,' and she decided that she
+would endow a charity in Coburg.  'L1,000, or even L2,000, given either
+at once, or in instalments yearly, would not, in the Queen's opinion,
+be too much.'  Eventually, the smaller sum having been fixed upon, it
+was invested in a trust, called the 'Victoria-Stift,' in the names of
+the Burgomaster and chief clergyman of Coburg, who were directed to
+distribute the interest yearly among a certain number {213} of young
+men and women of exemplary character belonging to the humbler ranks of
+life.[39]
+
+Shortly afterwards the Queen underwent, for the first time in her life,
+the actual experience of close personal loss.  Early in 1861 the
+Duchess of Kent was taken seriously ill, and in March she died.  The
+event overwhelmed Victoria.  With a morbid intensity, she filled her
+diary for pages with minute descriptions of her mother's last hours,
+her dissolution, and her corpse, interspersed with vehement
+apostrophes, and the agitated outpourings of emotional reflection.  In
+the grief of the present the disagreements of the past were totally
+forgotten.  It was the horror and the mystery of Death--Death present
+and actual--that seized upon the imagination of the Queen.  Her whole
+being, so instinct with vitality, recoiled in agony from the grim
+spectacle of the triumph of that awful power.  Her own mother, with
+whom she had lived so closely and so long that she had become a part
+almost of her existence, had fallen into nothingness before her very
+eyes!  She tried to forget it, but she could not.  Her lamentations
+continued with a strange abundance, a strange persistency.  It was
+almost as if, by some mysterious and unconscious precognition, she
+realised that for her, in an especial manner, that grisly Majesty had a
+dreadful dart in store.
+
+For indeed, before the year was out, a far more terrible blow was to
+fall upon her.  Albert, who had for long been suffering from
+sleeplessness, went, on a cold and drenching day towards the end of
+November, to inspect the buildings for the new Military Academy at
+Sandhurst.  On his return, it was clear that the {214} fatigue and
+exposure to which he had been subjected had seriously affected his
+health.  He was attacked by rheumatism, his sleeplessness continued,
+and he complained that he felt thoroughly unwell.  Three days later a
+painful duty obliged him to visit Cambridge.  The Prince of Wales, who
+had been placed at that University in the previous year, was behaving
+in such a manner that a parental visit and a parental admonition had
+become necessary.  The disappointed father, suffering in mind and body,
+carried through his task; but, on his return journey to Windsor, he
+caught a fatal chill.[40]  During the next week he gradually grew
+weaker and more miserable.  Yet, depressed and enfeebled as he was, he
+continued to work.  It so happened that at that very moment a grave
+diplomatic crisis had arisen.  Civil war had broken out in America, and
+it seemed as if England, owing to a violent quarrel with the Northern
+States, was upon the point of being drawn into the conflict.  A severe
+despatch by Lord John Russell was submitted to the Queen; and the
+Prince perceived that, if it were sent off unaltered, war would be the
+almost inevitable consequence.  At seven o'clock on the morning of
+December 1, he rose from his bed, and with a quavering hand wrote a
+series of suggestions for the alteration of the draft, by which its
+language might be softened, and a way left open for a peaceful solution
+of the question.  These changes were accepted by the Government, and
+war was averted.  It was the Prince's last memorandum.[41]
+
+He had always declared that he viewed the prospect of death with
+equanimity.  'I do not cling to life,' he had once said to Victoria.
+'You do; but I set no {215} store by it.'  And then he had added: 'I am
+sure, if I had a severe illness, I should give up at once, I should not
+struggle for life.  I have no tenacity of life.'[42]  He had judged
+correctly.  Before he had been ill many days, he told a friend that he
+was convinced he would not recover.[43]  He sank and sank.
+Nevertheless, if his case had been properly understood and skilfully
+treated from the first, he might conceivably have been saved; but the
+doctors failed to diagnose his symptoms; and it is noteworthy that his
+principal physician was Sir James Clark.  When it was suggested that
+other advice should be taken, Sir James pooh-poohed the idea: 'there
+was no cause for alarm,' he said.  But the strange illness grew worse.
+At last, after a letter of fierce remonstrance from Palmerston, Dr.
+Watson was sent for; and Dr. Watson saw at once that he had come too
+late.  The Prince was in the grip of typhoid fever.  'I think that
+everything so far is satisfactory,' said Sir James Clark.[44]
+
+The restlessness and the acute suffering of the earlier days gave place
+to a settled torpor and an ever-deepening gloom.  Once the failing
+patient asked for music--'a fine chorale at a distance'; and a piano
+having been placed in the adjoining room, Princess Alice played on it
+some of Luther's hymns, after which the Prince repeated 'The Rock of
+Ages.'  Sometimes his mind wandered; sometimes the distant past came
+rushing upon him; he heard the birds in the early {216} morning, and
+was at Rosenau again, a boy.  Or Victoria would come and read to him
+'Peveril of the Peak,' and he showed that he could follow the story,
+and then she would bend over him, and he would murmur 'liebes Frauchen'
+and 'gutes Weibchen,' stroking her cheek.  Her distress and her
+agitation were great, but she was not seriously frightened.  Buoyed up
+by her own abundant energies, she would not believe that Albert's might
+prove unequal to the strain.  She refused to face such a hideous
+possibility.  She declined to see Dr. Watson.  Why should she?  Had not
+Sir James Clark assured her that all would be well?  Only two days
+before the end, which was seen now to be almost inevitable by everyone
+about her, she wrote, full of apparent confidence, to the King of the
+Belgians: 'I do not sit up with him at night,' she said, 'as I could be
+of no use; and there is nothing to cause alarm.'[45]  The Princess
+Alice tried to tell her the truth, but her hopefulness would not be
+daunted.  On the morning of December 14, Albert, just as she had
+expected, seemed to be better; perhaps the crisis was over.  But in the
+course of the day there was a serious relapse.  Then at last she
+allowed herself to see that she was standing on the edge of an
+appalling gulf.  The whole family was summoned, and, one after another,
+the children took a silent farewell of their father.  'It was a
+terrible moment,' Victoria wrote in her diary, 'but, thank God! I was
+able to command myself, and to be perfectly calm, and remained sitting
+by his side.'  He murmured something, but she could not hear what it
+was; she thought he was speaking in French.  Then all at once he began
+to arrange his hair, 'just as he used to do when well and he was {217}
+dressing.'  'Es ist kleines Frauchen,' she whispered to him; and he
+seemed to understand.  For a moment, towards the evening, she went into
+another room, but was immediately called back: she saw at a glance that
+a ghastly change had taken place.  As she knelt by the bed, he breathed
+deeply, breathed gently, breathed at last no more.  His features became
+perfectly rigid.  She shrieked--one long wild shriek that rang through
+the terror-stricken Castle--and understood that she had lost him for
+ever.[46]
+
+
+
+[1] Martin, II, 161.
+
+[2] 'Read this carefully, and tell me if there are any mistakes in it.'
+
+[3] 'Here is a draft I have made for you.  Read it.  I should think
+this would do.'
+
+[4] Martin, V, 273-5.
+
+[5] _Ibid._, II, 379.
+
+[6] Martin, IV, 14-15, 60.
+
+[7] _Ibid._, II, 479.
+
+[8] Martin, II, 251-2; Bloomfield, II, 110.
+
+[9] _D.N.B._, Second Supplement, Art. 'Edward VII'; _Quarterly Review_,
+CCXIII, 4-7, 16.
+
+[10] _Leaves_, 18, 33, 34, 36, 127-8, 132_n_.
+
+[11] _Leaves_, 73-4, 95-6; Greville, VI, 303-4.
+
+[12] _Leaves_, 99-100.
+
+[13] _Private Life_, 209-11; _Quarterly Review_, CXCIII, 335.
+
+[14] _Leaves_, 103, 111.
+
+[15] _Leaves_, 92-4.
+
+[16] _Ibid._, 102, 113-4.
+
+[17] _Leaves_, 72, 117, 137.
+
+[18] _Letters_, III, 127.
+
+[19] Private information.
+
+[20] Martin, III, v.
+
+[21] Martin, III, 146-7, 168-9, 177-9,
+
+[22] Martin, III, 242, 245, 351; IV, 111.
+
+[23] _Quarterly Review_, CXCIII, 313-4; _Spinster Lady_, 7.
+
+[24] Crawford, 311-2.
+
+[25] Martin, III, 350.
+
+[26] _Leaves_, 105-6.
+
+[27] Martin, II, 429.
+
+[28] _Letters_, III, especially July-December 1859; Martin, IV, 488-91;
+V, 189.
+
+[29] _Leaves_, 107.
+
+[30] _Letters_, III, 253.
+
+[31] Martin, IV, 160-9.
+
+[32] _D.N.B._, Second Supplement, 551; _Quarterly Review_, CCXIII,
+9-20, 24; Greville, VIII, 217.
+
+[33] Stockmar, 4, 44.
+
+[34] Ernest, I, 140-1.
+
+[35] Theognis, 401 ff.
+
+[36] _Letters_, III, 194.
+
+[37] Grey, 195_n_.
+
+[38] Martin, IV, 298.
+
+[39] Martin, V, 202-4, 217-9.
+
+[40] _D.N.B._, Second Supplement, 557.
+
+[41] Martin, V, 416-27.
+
+[42] Martin, V, 415.
+
+[43] Bloomfield, II, 155.
+
+[44] Martin, V, 427-35; Clarendon, II, 253-4: 'One cannot speak with
+certainty; but it is horrible to think that such a life _may_ have been
+sacrificed to Sir J. Clark's selfish jealousy of every member of his
+profession.'--The Earl of Clarendon to the Duchess of Manchester, Dec.
+17, 1861.
+
+[45] _Letters_, III, 472-3.
+
+[46] Martin, V, 435-42; Hare, II, 286-8; _Spinster Lady_, 176-7.
+
+
+
+
+{218}
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+WIDOWHOOD
+
+I
+
+The death of the Prince Consort was the central turning-point in the
+history of Queen Victoria.  She herself felt that her true life had
+ceased with her husband's, and that the remainder of her days upon
+earth was of a twilight nature--an epilogue to a drama that was done.
+Nor is it possible that her biographer should escape a similar
+impression.  For him, too, there is a darkness over the latter half of
+that long career.  The first forty-two years of the Queen's life are
+illuminated by a great and varied quantity of authentic information.
+With Albert's death a veil descends.  Only occasionally, at fitful and
+disconnected intervals, does it lift for a moment or two; a few main
+outlines, a few remarkable details may be discerned; the rest is all
+conjecture and ambiguity.  Thus, though the Queen survived her great
+bereavement for almost as many years as she had lived before it, the
+chronicle of those years can bear no proportion to the tale of her
+earlier life.  We must be content in our ignorance with a brief and
+summary relation.
+
+[Illustration: QUEEN VICTORIA IN 1863.]
+
+The sudden removal of the Prince was not merely a matter of
+overwhelming personal concern to Victoria; it was an event of national,
+of European importance.  He was only forty-two, and in the ordinary
+course of {219} nature he might have been expected to live at least
+thirty years longer.  Had he done so it can hardly be doubted that the
+whole development of the English polity would have been changed.
+Already at the time of his death he filled a unique place in English
+public life; already among the inner circle of politicians he was
+accepted as a necessary and useful part of the mechanism of the State.
+Lord Clarendon, for instance, spoke of his death as 'a national
+calamity of far greater importance than the public dream of,' and
+lamented the loss of his 'sagacity and foresight,' which, he declared,
+would have been 'more than ever valuable' in the event of an American
+war.[1]  And, as time went on, the Prince's influence must have
+enormously increased.  For, in addition to his intellectual and moral
+qualities, he enjoyed, by virtue of his position, one supreme advantage
+which every other holder of high office in the country was without: he
+was permanent.  Politicians came and went, but the Prince was
+perpetually installed at the centre of affairs.  Who can doubt that,
+towards the end of the century, such a man, grown grey in the service
+of the nation, virtuous, intelligent, and with the unexampled
+experience of a whole lifetime of government, would have acquired an
+extraordinary prestige?  If, in his youth, he had been able to pit the
+Crown against the mighty Palmerston and to come off with equal honours
+from the contest, of what might he not have been capable in his old
+age?  What Minister, however able, however popular, could have
+withstood the wisdom, the irreproachability, the vast prescriptive
+authority, of the venerable Prince?  It is easy to imagine how, under
+such a ruler, an attempt might have been made to convert England into a
+State as exactly {220} organised, as elaborately trained, as
+efficiently equipped, and as autocratically controlled, as Prussia
+herself.  Then perhaps, eventually, under some powerful leader--a
+Gladstone or a Bright--the democratic forces in the country might have
+rallied together, and a struggle might have followed in which the
+Monarchy would have been shaken to its foundations.  Or, on the other
+hand, Disraeli's hypothetical prophecy might have come true.  'With
+Prince Albert,' he said, 'we have buried our sovereign.  This German
+Prince has governed England for twenty-one years with a wisdom and
+energy such as none of our kings have ever shown....  If he had
+outlived some of our "old stagers" he would have given us the blessings
+of absolute government."[2]
+
+The English Constitution--that indescribable entity--is a living thing,
+growing with the growth of men, and assuming ever-varying forms in
+accordance with the subtle and complex laws of human character.  It is
+the child of wisdom and chance.  The wise men of 1688 moulded it into
+the shape we know; but the chance that George I could not speak English
+gave it one of its essential peculiarities--the system of a Cabinet
+independent of the Crown and subordinate to the Prime Minister.  The
+wisdom of Lord Grey saved it from petrifaction and destruction, and set
+it upon the path of Democracy.  Then chance intervened once more; a
+female sovereign happened to marry an able and pertinacious man; and it
+seemed likely that an element which had been quiescent within it for
+years--the element of irresponsible administrative power--was about to
+become its predominant characteristic and to change completely the
+direction of its growth.  But what chance gave, chance took away.  The
+Consort perished {221} in his prime; and the English Constitution,
+dropping the dead limb with hardly a tremor, continued its mysterious
+life as if he had never been.
+
+One human being, and one alone, felt the full force of what had
+happened.  The Baron, by his fireside at Coburg, suddenly saw the
+tremendous fabric of his creation crash down into sheer and
+irremediable ruin.  Albert was gone, and he had lived in vain.  Even
+his blackest hypochondria had never envisioned quite so miserable a
+catastrophe.  Victoria wrote to him, visited him, tried to console him
+by declaring with passionate conviction that she would carry on her
+husband's work.  He smiled a sad smile and looked into the fire.  Then
+he murmured that he was going where Albert was--that he would not be
+long.[3]  He shrank into himself.  His children clustered round him and
+did their best to comfort him, but it was useless: the Baron's heart
+was broken.  He lingered for eighteen months, and then, with his pupil,
+explored the shadow and the dust.
+
+
+II
+
+With appalling suddenness Victoria had exchanged the serene radiance of
+happiness for the utter darkness of woe.  In the first dreadful moments
+those about her had feared that she might lose her reason, but the iron
+strain within her held firm, and in the intervals between the intense
+paroxysms of grief it was observed that the Queen was calm.  She
+remembered, too, that Albert had always disapproved of exaggerated
+manifestations of feeling, and her one remaining desire was to do
+nothing but what he would have wished.  Yet there were moments when her
+royal anguish would {222} brook no restraints.  One day she sent for
+the Duchess of Sutherland, and, leading her to the Prince's room, fell
+prostrate before his clothes in a flood of weeping, while she adjured
+the Duchess to tell her whether the beauty of Albert's character had
+ever been surpassed.[4]  At other times a feeling akin to indignation
+swept over her.  'The poor fatherless baby of eight months,' she wrote
+to the King of the Belgians, 'is now the utterly heart-broken and
+crushed widow of forty-two!  My _life_ as a _happy_ one is _ended_!
+The world is gone for _me_!  ... Oh! to be cut off in the prime of
+life--to see our pure, happy, quiet, domestic life, which _alone_
+enabled me to bear my _much_ disliked position, CUT OFF at
+forty-two--when I _had_ hoped with such instinctive certainty that God
+never _would_ part us, and would let us grow old together (though _he_
+always talked of the shortness of life)--is _too awful_, too cruel!'[5]
+The tone of outraged Majesty seems to be discernible.  Did she wonder
+in her heart of hearts how the Deity could have dared?
+
+But all other emotions gave way before her overmastering determination
+to continue, absolutely unchanged, and for the rest of her life on
+earth, her reverence, her obedience, her idolatry.  'I am anxious to
+repeat one thing,' she told her uncle, 'and _that one_ is _my firm_
+resolve, my _irrevocable decision_, viz. that _his_ wishes--_his_
+plans--about everything, _his_ views about _every_ thing are to be _my
+law_!  And _no human power_ will make me swerve from _what he_ decided
+and wished.'  She grew fierce, she grew furious, at the thought of any
+possible intrusion between her and her desire.  Her uncle was coming to
+visit her, and it flashed upon her that _he_ might try to interfere
+with her and seek to 'rule the roost' as of old.  She would give him a
+hint.  'I {223} am _also determined_,' she wrote, 'that _no one_
+person--may he be ever so good, ever so devoted among my servants--is
+to lead or guide or dictate _to me_.  I know _how he_ would disapprove
+it ... Though miserably weak and utterly shattered, my spirit rises
+when I think any wish or plan of his is to be touched or changed, or I
+am to be _made to do_ anything.'  She ended her letter in grief and
+affection.  She was, she said, his 'ever wretched but devoted child,
+Victoria R.'  And then she looked at the date: it was the 24th of
+December.  An agonising pang assailed her, and she dashed down a
+postscript--'What a Xmas!  I won't think of it.'[6]
+
+At first, in the tumult of her distresses, she declared that she could
+not see her Ministers, and the Princess Alice, assisted by Sir Charles
+Phipps, the keeper of the Privy Purse, performed, to the best of her
+ability, the functions of an intermediary.  After a few weeks, however,
+the Cabinet, through Lord John Russell, ventured to warn the Queen that
+this could not continue.[7]  She realised that they were right: Albert
+would have agreed with them; and so she sent for the Prime Minister.
+But when Lord Palmerston arrived at Osborne, in the pink of health,
+brisk, with his whiskers freshly dyed, and dressed in a brown overcoat,
+light grey trousers, green gloves, and blue studs, he did not create a
+very good impression.[8]
+
+Nevertheless, she had grown attached to her old enemy, and the thought
+of a political change filled her with agitated apprehensions.  The
+Government, she knew, might fall at any moment; she felt she could not
+face such an eventuality; and therefore, six months after the death of
+the Prince, she took the unprecedented {224} step of sending a private
+message to Lord Derby, the leader of the Opposition, to tell him that
+she was not in a fit state of mind or body to undergo the anxiety of a
+change of Government, and that if he turned the present Ministers out
+of office it would be at the risk of sacrificing her life--or her
+reason.  When this message reached Lord Derby he was considerably
+surprised.  'Dear me!' was his cynical comment.  'I didn't think she
+was so fond of them as _that_.'[9]
+
+Though the violence of her perturbations gradually subsided, her
+cheerfulness did not return.  For months, for years, she continued in
+settled gloom.  Her life became one of almost complete seclusion.
+Arrayed in thickest _crepe_, she passed dolefully from Windsor to
+Osborne, from Osborne to Balmoral.  Rarely visiting the capital,
+refusing to take any part in the ceremonies of state, shutting herself
+off from the slightest intercourse with society, she became almost as
+unknown to her subjects as some potentate of the East.  They might
+murmur, but they did not understand.  What had she to do with empty
+shows and vain enjoyments?  No!  She was absorbed by very different
+preoccupations.  She was the devoted guardian of a sacred trust.  Her
+place was in the inmost shrine of the house of mourning--where she
+alone had the right to enter, where she could feel the effluence of a
+mysterious presence, and interpret, however faintly and feebly, the
+promptings of a still living soul.  That, and that only, was her
+glorious, her terrible duty.  For terrible indeed it was.  As the years
+passed her depression seemed to deepen and her loneliness to grow more
+intense.  'I am on a dreary sad pinnacle of solitary grandeur,' she
+said.[10]  Again and again she felt that she {225} could bear her
+situation no longer--that she would sink under the strain.  And then,
+instantly, that Voice spoke: and she braced herself once more to
+perform, with minute conscientiousness, her grim and holy task.
+
+Above all else, what she had to do was to make her own the
+master-impulse of Albert's life--she must work, as he had worked, in
+the service of the country.  That vast burden of toil which he had
+taken upon his shoulders it was now for her to bear.  She assumed the
+gigantic load; and naturally she staggered under it.  While he had
+lived, she had worked, indeed, with regularity and application; but it
+was work made easy, made delicious, by his care, his forethought, his
+advice, and his infallibility.  The mere sound of his voice, asking her
+to sign a paper, had thrilled her; in such a presence she could have
+laboured gladly for ever.  But now there was a hideous change.  Now
+there were no neat piles and docketings under the green lamp; now there
+were no simple explanations of difficult matters; now there was nobody
+to tell her what was right and what was wrong.  She had her
+secretaries, no doubt: there were Sir Charles Phipps, and General Grey,
+and Sir Thomas Biddulph; and they did their best.  But they were mere
+subordinates: the whole weight of initiative and responsibility rested
+upon her alone.  For so it had to be.  'I am _determined_'--had she not
+declared it?--'that no one person is to lead or guide or dictate _to
+me_'; anything else would be a betrayal of her trust.  She would follow
+the Prince in all things.  He had refused to delegate authority; he had
+examined into every detail with his own eyes; he had made it a rule
+never to sign a paper without having first, not merely read it, but
+made notes on it too.  She {226} would do the same.  She sat from
+morning till night surrounded by huge heaps of despatch-boxes, reading
+and writing at her desk--at her desk, alas! which stood alone now in
+the room.[11]
+
+Within two years of Albert's death a violent disturbance in foreign
+politics put Victoria's faithfulness to a crucial test.  The fearful
+Schleswig-Holstein dispute, which had been smouldering for more than a
+decade, showed signs of bursting out into conflagration.  The
+complexity of the questions at issue was indescribable.  'Only three
+people,' said Palmerston, 'have ever really understood the
+Schleswig-Holstein business--the Prince Consort, who is dead--a German
+professor, who has gone mad--and I, who have forgotten all about
+it.'[12]  But, though the Prince might be dead, had he not left a
+vicegerent behind him?  Victoria threw herself into the seething
+embroilment with the vigour of inspiration.  She devoted hours daily to
+the study of the affair in all its windings; but she had a clue through
+the labyrinth: whenever the question had been discussed, Albert, she
+recollected it perfectly, had always taken the side of Prussia.  Her
+course was clear.  She became an ardent champion of the Prussian point
+of view.  It was a legacy from the Prince, she said.[13]  She did not
+realise that the Prussia of the Prince's days was dead, and that a new
+Prussia, the Prussia of Bismarck, was born.  Perhaps Palmerston, with
+his queer prescience, instinctively apprehended the new danger; at any
+rate, he and Lord John were agreed upon the necessity of {227}
+supporting Denmark against Prussia's claims.  But opinion was sharply
+divided, not only in the country but in the Cabinet.  For eighteen
+months the controversy raged; while the Queen, with persistent
+vehemence, opposed the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary.  When
+at last the final crisis arose--when it seemed possible that England
+would join forces with Denmark in a war against Prussia--Victoria's
+agitation grew febrile in its intensity.  Towards her German relatives
+she preserved a discreet appearance of impartiality; but she poured out
+upon her Ministers a flood of appeals, protests, and expostulations.
+She invoked the sacred cause of Peace.  'The only chance of preserving
+peace for Europe,' she wrote, 'is by not assisting Denmark, who has
+brought this entirely upon herself....  The Queen suffers much, and her
+nerves are more and more totally shattered....  But though all this
+anxiety is wearing her out, it will not shake her firm purpose of
+resisting any attempt to involve this country in a mad and useless
+combat.'  She was, she declared, 'prepared to make a stand,' even if
+the resignation of the Foreign Secretary should follow.[14]  'The
+Queen,' she told Lord Granville, 'is completely exhausted by the
+anxiety and suspense, and misses her beloved husband's help, advice,
+support, and love in an overwhelming manner.'  She was so worn out by
+her efforts for peace that she could 'hardly hold up her head or hold
+her pen.'[15]  England did not go to war, and Denmark was left to her
+fate; but how far the attitude of the Queen contributed to this result
+it is impossible, with our present knowledge, to say.  On the whole,
+however, it seems probable that the determining factor in the situation
+was the {228} powerful peace party in the Cabinet rather than the
+imperious and pathetic pressure of Victoria.
+
+It is, at any rate, certain that the Queen's enthusiasm for the sacred
+cause of peace was short-lived.  Within a few months her mind had
+completely altered.  Her eyes were opened to the true nature of
+Prussia, whose designs upon Austria were about to culminate in the
+Seven Weeks' War.  Veering precipitately from one extreme to the other,
+she now urged her Ministers to interfere by force of arms in support of
+Austria.  But she urged in vain.[16]
+
+Her political activity, no more than her social seclusion, was approved
+by the public.  As the years passed, and the royal mourning remained as
+unrelieved as ever, the animadversions grew more general and more
+severe.  It was observed that the Queen's protracted privacy not only
+cast a gloom over high society, not only deprived the populace of its
+pageantry, but also exercised a highly deleterious effect upon the
+dress-making, millinery, and hosiery trades.  This latter consideration
+carried great weight.  At last, early in 1864, the rumour spread that
+Her Majesty was about to go out of mourning, and there was much
+rejoicing in the newspapers; but unfortunately it turned out that the
+rumour was quite without foundation.  Victoria, with her own hand,
+wrote a letter to _The Times_ to say so.  'This idea,' she declared,
+'cannot be too explicitly contradicted.'  'The Queen,' the letter
+continued, 'heartily appreciates the desire of her subjects to see her,
+and whatever she _can_ do to gratify them in this loyal and
+affectionate wish, she _will_ do....  But there are other and higher
+duties than those of mere representation which are now thrown upon the
+Queen, alone {229} and unassisted--duties which she cannot neglect
+without injury to the public service, which weigh unceasingly upon her,
+overwhelming her with work and anxiety.'[17]  The justification might
+have been considered more cogent had it not been known that those
+'other and higher duties' emphasised by the Queen consisted for the
+most part of an attempt to counteract the foreign policy of Lord
+Palmerston and Lord John Russell.  A large section--perhaps a
+majority--of the nation were violent partisans of Denmark in the
+Schleswig-Holstein quarrel; and Victoria's support of Prussia was
+widely denounced.  A wave of unpopularity, which reminded old observers
+of the period preceding the Queen's marriage more than twenty-five
+years before, was beginning to rise.  The press was rude; Lord
+Ellenborough attacked the Queen in the House of Lords; there were
+curious whispers in high quarters that she had had thoughts of
+abdicating--whispers followed by regrets that she had not done so.[18]
+Victoria, outraged and injured, felt that she was misunderstood.  She
+was profoundly unhappy.  After Lord Ellenborough's speech, General Grey
+declared that he 'had never seen the Queen so completely upset.'  'Oh,
+how fearful it is,' she herself wrote to Lord Granville, 'to be
+suspected--uncheered--unguided and unadvised--and how alone the poor
+Queen feels!'[19]  Nevertheless, suffer as she might, she was as
+resolute as ever; she would not move by a hair's-breadth from the
+course that a supreme obligation marked out for her; she would be
+faithful to the end.
+
+And so, when Schleswig-Holstein was forgotten, {230} and even the image
+of the Prince had begun to grow dim in the fickle memories of men, the
+solitary watcher remained immutably concentrated at her peculiar task.
+The world's hostility, steadily increasing, was confronted and outfaced
+by the impenetrable weeds of Victoria.  Would the world never
+understand?  It was not mere sorrow that kept her so strangely
+sequestered; it was devotion, it was self-immolation; it was the
+laborious legacy of love.  Unceasingly the pen moved over the
+black-edged paper.  The flesh might be weak, but that vast burden must
+be borne.  And fortunately, if the world would not understand, there
+were faithful friends who did.  There was Lord Granville, and there was
+kind Mr. Theodore Martin.  Perhaps Mr. Martin, who was so clever, would
+find means to make people realise the facts.  She would send him a
+letter, pointing out her arduous labours and the difficulties under
+which she struggled, and then he might write an article for one of the
+magazines.  It is not, she told him in 1863, 'the Queen's _sorrow_ that
+keeps her secluded....  It is her _overwhelming work_ and her health,
+which is greatly shaken by her sorrow, and the totally overwhelming
+amount of work and responsibility--work which she feels really wears
+her out.  Alice Helps was wonder-struck at the Queen's room; and if
+Mrs. Martin will look at it, she can tell Mr. Martin what surrounds
+her.  From the hour she gets out of bed till she gets into it again
+there is work, work, work,--letter-boxes, questions, &c., which are
+dreadfully exhausting--and if she had not comparative rest and quiet in
+the evening she would most likely not be _alive_.  Her brain is
+constantly overtaxed.'[20]  It was too true.
+
+
+{231}
+
+III
+
+To carry on Albert's work--that was her first duty; but there was
+another, second only to that, and yet nearer, if possible, to her
+heart--to impress the true nature of his genius and character upon the
+minds of her subjects.  She realised that during his life he had not
+been properly appreciated; the full extent of his powers, the supreme
+quality of his goodness, had been necessarily concealed; but death had
+removed the need of barriers, and now her husband, in his magnificent
+entirety, should stand revealed to all.  She set to work methodically.
+She directed Sir Arthur Helps to bring out a collection of the Prince's
+speeches and addresses, and the weighty tome appeared in 1862.  Then
+she commanded General Grey to write an account of the Prince's early
+years--from his birth to his marriage; she herself laid down the design
+of the book, contributed a number of confidential documents, and added
+numerous notes; General Grey obeyed, and the work was completed in
+1866.  But the principal part of the story was still untold, and Mr.
+Martin was forthwith instructed to write a complete biography of the
+Prince Consort.  Mr. Martin laboured for fourteen years.  The mass of
+material with which he had to deal was almost incredible, but he was
+extremely industrious, and he enjoyed throughout the gracious
+assistance of Her Majesty.  The first bulky volume was published in
+1874; four others slowly followed; so that it was not until 1880 that
+the monumental work was finished.[21]
+
+Mr. Martin was rewarded by a knighthood; and {232} yet it was sadly
+evident that neither Sir Theodore nor his predecessors had achieved the
+purpose which the Queen had in view.  Perhaps she was unfortunate in
+her coadjutors, but, in reality, the responsibility for the failure
+must lie with Victoria herself.  Sir Theodore and the others faithfully
+carried out the task which she had set them--faithfully put before the
+public the very image of Albert that filled her own mind.  The fatal
+drawback was that the public did not find that image attractive.
+Victoria's emotional nature, far more remarkable for vigour than for
+subtlety, rejecting utterly the qualifications which perspicacity, or
+humour, might suggest, could be satisfied with nothing but the absolute
+and the categorical.  When she disliked she did so with an unequivocal
+emphasis which swept the object of her repugnance at once and finally
+outside the pale of consideration; and her feelings of affection were
+equally unmitigated.  In the case of Albert her passion for
+superlatives reached its height.  To have conceived of him as anything
+short of perfect--perfect in virtue, in wisdom, in beauty, in all the
+glories and graces of man--would have been an unthinkable blasphemy:
+perfect he was, and perfect he must be shown to have been.  And so Sir
+Arthur, Sir Theodore, and the General painted him.  In the
+circumstances, and under such supervision, to have done anything else
+would have required talents considerably more distinguished than any
+that those gentlemen possessed.  But that was not all.  By a curious
+mischance Victoria was also able to press into her service another
+writer, the distinction of whose talents was this time beyond a doubt.
+The Poet Laureate, adopting, either from complaisance or conviction,
+the tone of his sovereign, joined in the chorus, and endowed the royal
+formula {233} with the magical resonance of verse.  This settled the
+matter.  Henceforward it was impossible to forget that Albert had worn
+the white flower of a blameless life.
+
+The result was doubly unfortunate.  Victoria, disappointed and
+chagrined, bore a grudge against her people for their refusal, in spite
+of all her efforts, to rate her husband at his true worth.  She did not
+understand that the picture of an embodied perfection is distasteful to
+the majority of mankind.  The cause of this is not so much an envy of
+the perfect being as a suspicion that he must be inhuman; and thus it
+happened that the public, when it saw displayed for its admiration a
+figure resembling the sugary hero of a moral story-book rather than a
+fellow man of flesh and blood, turned away with a shrug, a smile, and a
+flippant ejaculation.  But in this the public was the loser as well as
+Victoria.  For in truth Albert was a far more interesting personage
+than the public dreamed.  By a curious irony an impeccable waxwork had
+been fixed by the Queen's love in the popular imagination, while the
+creature whom it represented--the real creature, so full of energy and
+stress and torment, so mysterious and so unhappy, and so fallible, and
+so very human--had altogether disappeared.
+
+
+IV
+
+Words and books may be ambiguous memorials; but who can misinterpret
+the visible solidity of bronze and stone?  At Frogmore, near Windsor,
+where her mother was buried, Victoria constructed, at the cost of
+L200,000, a vast and elaborate mausoleum for herself and her
+husband.[22]  But that was a private and domestic {234} monument, and
+the Queen desired that wherever her subjects might be gathered together
+they should be reminded of the Prince.  Her desire was gratified; all
+over the country--at Aberdeen, at Perth, and at Wolverhampton--statues
+of the Prince were erected; and the Queen, making an exception to her
+rule of retirement, unveiled them herself.  Nor did the capital lag
+behind.  A month after the Prince's death a meeting was called together
+at the Mansion House to discuss schemes for honouring his memory.
+Opinions, however, were divided upon the subject.  Was a statue or an
+institution to be preferred?  Meanwhile a subscription was opened; an
+influential committee was appointed, and the Queen was consulted as to
+her wishes in the matter.  Her Majesty replied that she would prefer a
+granite obelisk, with sculptures at the base, to an institution.  But
+the committee hesitated: an obelisk, to be worthy of the name, must
+clearly be a monolith; and where was the quarry in England capable of
+furnishing a granite block of the required size?  It was true that
+there was granite in Russian Finland; but the committee were advised
+that it was not adapted to resist exposure to the open air.  On the
+whole, therefore, they suggested that a Memorial Hall should be
+erected, together with a statue of the Prince.  Her Majesty assented;
+but then another difficulty arose.  It was found that not more than
+L60,000 had been subscribed--a sum insufficient to defray the double
+expense.  The Hall, therefore, was abandoned; a statue alone was to be
+erected; and certain eminent architects were asked to prepare designs.
+Eventually the committee had at their disposal a total sum of L120,000,
+since the public subscribed another L10,000, while L50,000 was voted by
+Parliament.  Some years later a joint-stock company {235} was formed
+and built, as a private speculation, the Albert Hall.[23]
+
+The architect whose design was selected, both by the committee and by
+the Queen, was Mr. Gilbert Scott, whose industry, conscientiousness,
+and genuine piety had brought him to the head of his profession.  His
+lifelong zeal for the Gothic style having given him a special
+prominence, his handiwork was strikingly visible, not only in a
+multitude of original buildings, but in most of the cathedrals of
+England.  Protests, indeed, were occasionally raised against his
+renovations; but Mr. Scott replied with such vigour and unction in
+articles and pamphlets that not a Dean was unconvinced, and he was
+permitted to continue his labours without interruption.  On one
+occasion, however, his devotion to Gothic had placed him in an
+unpleasant situation.  The Government offices in Whitehall were to be
+rebuilt; Mr. Scott competed, and his designs were successful.
+Naturally, they were in the Gothic style, combining 'a certain
+squareness and horizontality of outline' with pillar-mullions, gables,
+high-pitched roofs, and dormers; and the drawings, as Mr. Scott himself
+observed, 'were, perhaps, the best ever sent in to a competition, or
+nearly so.'  After the usual difficulties and delays the work was at
+last to be put in hand, when there was a change of Government and Lord
+Palmerston became Prime Minister.  Lord Palmerston at once sent for Mr.
+Scott.  'Well, Mr. Scott,' he said, in his jaunty way, 'I can't have
+anything to do with this Gothic style.  I must insist on your making a
+design in the Italian manner, which I am sure you can do very
+cleverly.'  Mr. Scott was appalled; the style of the Italian
+renaissance was not {236} only unsightly, it was positively immoral,
+and he sternly refused to have anything to do with it.  Thereupon Lord
+Palmerston assumed a fatherly tone.  'Quite true; a Gothic architect
+can't be expected to put up a Classical building; I must find someone
+else.'  This was intolerable, and Mr. Scott, on his return home,
+addressed to the Prime Minister a strongly-worded letter, in which he
+dwelt upon his position as an architect, upon his having won two
+European competitions, his being an A.R.A., a gold medallist of the
+Institute, and a lecturer on architecture at the Royal Academy; but it
+was useless--Lord Palmerston did not even reply.  It then occurred to
+Mr. Scott that, by a judicious mixture, he might, while preserving the
+essential character of the Gothic, produce a design which would give a
+superficial impression of the Classical style.  He did so, but no
+effect was produced upon Lord Palmerston.  The new design, he said, was
+'neither one thing nor t'other--a regular mongrel affair--and he would
+have nothing to do with it either.'  After that Mr. Scott found it
+necessary to recruit for two months at Scarborough, 'with a course of
+quinine.'  He recovered his tone at last, but only at the cost of his
+convictions.  For the sake of his family he felt that it was his
+unfortunate duty to obey the Prime Minister; and, shuddering with
+horror, he constructed the Government offices in a strictly Renaissance
+style.
+
+Shortly afterwards Mr. Scott found some consolation in building the St.
+Pancras Hotel in a style of his own.[24]
+
+And now another and yet more satisfactory task was his.  'My idea in
+designing the Memorial,' he wrote, 'was to erect a kind of ciborium to
+protect a statue of {237} the Prince; and its special characteristic
+was that the ciborium was designed in some degree on the principles of
+the ancient shrines.  These shrines were models of imaginary buildings,
+such as had never in reality been erected; and my idea was to realise
+one of these imaginary structures with its precious materials, its
+inlaying, its enamels, &c. &c.'[25]  His idea was particularly
+appropriate since it chanced that a similar conception, though in the
+reverse order of magnitude, had occurred to the Prince himself, who had
+designed and executed several silver cruet-stands upon the same model.
+At the Queen's request a site was chosen in Kensington Gardens as near
+as possible to that of the Great Exhibition; and in May 1864 the first
+sod was turned.  The work was long, complicated, and difficult; a great
+number of workmen were employed, besides several subsidiary sculptors
+and metal-workers under Mr. Scott's direction, while at every stage
+sketches and models were submitted to her Majesty, who criticised all
+the details with minute care, and constantly suggested improvements.
+The frieze, which encircled the base of the monument, was in itself a
+very serious piece of work.  'This,' said Mr. Scott, 'taken as a whole,
+is perhaps one of the most laborious works of sculpture ever
+undertaken, consisting, as it does, of a continuous range of
+figure-sculpture of the most elaborate description, in the highest
+_alto-relievo_ of life-size, of more than 200 feet in length,
+containing about 170 figures, and executed in the hardest marble which
+could be procured.'  After three years of toil the memorial was still
+far from completion, and Mr. Scott thought it advisable to give a
+dinner to the workmen, 'as a substantial recognition of his
+appreciation of their {238} skill and energy.'  'Two long tables,' we
+are told, 'constructed of scaffold planks, were arranged in the
+workshops, and covered with newspapers, for want of table-cloths.
+Upwards of eighty men sat down.  Beef and mutton, plum-pudding and
+cheese, were supplied in abundance, and each man who desired it had
+three pints of beer, gingerbeer and lemonade being provided for the
+teetotalers, who formed a very considerable proportion....  Several
+toasts were given and many of the workmen spoke, almost all of them
+commencing by "Thanking God that they enjoyed good health"; some
+alluded to the temperance that prevailed amongst them, others observed
+how little swearing was ever heard, whilst all said how pleased and
+proud they were to be engaged on so great a work.'
+
+Gradually the edifice approached completion.  The one hundred and
+seventieth life-size figure in the frieze was chiselled, the granite
+pillars arose, the mosaics were inserted in the allegorical pediments,
+the four colossal statues representing the greater Christian virtues,
+the four other colossal statues representing the greater moral virtues,
+were hoisted into their positions, the eight bronzes representing the
+greater sciences--Astronomy, Chemistry, Geology, Geometry, Rhetoric,
+Medicine, Philosophy, and Physiology--were fixed on their glittering
+pinnacles, high in air.  The statue of Physiology was particularly
+admired.  'On her left arm,' the official description informs us, 'she
+bears a new-born infant, as a representation of the development of the
+highest and most perfect of physiological forms; her hand points
+towards a microscope, the instrument which lends its assistance for the
+investigation of the minuter forms of animal and vegetable organisms.'
+At last the gilded cross crowned the {239} dwindling galaxies of
+superimposed angels, the four continents in white marble stood at the
+four corners of the base, and, seven years after its inception, in July
+1872, the monument was thrown open to the public.
+
+But four more years were to elapse before the central figure was ready
+to be placed under its starry canopy.  It was designed by Mr. Foley,
+though in one particular the sculptor's freedom was restricted by Mr.
+Scott.  'I have chosen the sitting posture,' Mr. Scott said, 'as best
+conveying the idea of dignity befitting a royal personage.'  Mr. Foley
+ably carried out the conception of his principal.  'In the attitude and
+expression,' he said, 'the aim has been, with the individuality of
+portraiture, to embody rank, character, and enlightenment, and to
+convey a sense of that responsive intelligence indicating an active,
+rather than a passive, interest in those pursuits of civilisation
+illustrated in the surrounding figures, groups, and relievos....  To
+identify the figure with one of the most memorable undertakings of the
+public life of the Prince--the International Exhibition of 1851--a
+catalogue of the works collected in that first gathering of the
+industry of all nations, is placed in the right hand.'  The statue was
+of bronze gilt and weighed nearly ten tons.  It was rightly supposed
+that the simple word 'Albert,' cast on the base, would be a sufficient
+means of identification.[26]
+
+
+
+[1] Clarendon, II, 251.
+
+[2] Vitzthum, II, 161.
+
+[3] Stockmar, 49; Ernest, IV-71
+
+[4] Clarendon, II, 251, 253.
+
+[5] _Letters_, III, 474-5.
+
+[6] _Letters_, III, 476.
+
+[7] Lee, 322-3; Crawford, 368.
+
+[8] Clarendon, II, 257.
+
+[9] Clarendon, II, 261-2.
+
+[10] Martin, _Queen Victoria_, 155.
+
+[11] Clarendon, II, 261; Lee, 327; Martin, _Queen Victoria_, 30.
+
+[12] Robertson, 156.
+
+[13] Morley, II, 102; Ernest, IV, 133: 'I know that our dear angel
+Albert always regarded a strong Prussia as a necessity, for which,
+therefore, it is a sacred duty for me to work.'--Queen Victoria to the
+Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, August 29, 1863.
+
+[14] Fitzmaurice, I, 459, 460.
+
+[15] _Ibid._, I, 472-3.
+
+[16] Clarendon, II, 310-1.
+
+[17] _The Times_, April 6, 1864; Clarendon, II, 290.
+
+[18] Clarendon, II, 292-3.
+
+[19] Fitzmaurice, I, 466, 469.
+
+[20] Martin, _Queen Victoria_, 28-9.
+
+[21] Martin, _Queen Victoria_, 97-106.
+
+[22] Lee, 390
+
+[23] _National Memorial_.
+
+[24] Scott, 177-201, 271.
+
+[25] Scott, 225.
+
+[26] _National Memorial_; Dafforne, 43-4.
+
+
+
+
+{240}
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+MR. GLADSTONE AND LORD BEACONSFIELD
+
+I
+
+Lord Palmerston's laugh--a queer metallic 'Ha! ha! ha!' with
+reverberations in it from the days of Pitt and the Congress of
+Vienna--was heard no more in Piccadilly;[1] Lord John Russell dwindled
+into senility; Lord Derby tottered from the stage.  A new scene opened;
+and new protagonists--Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Disraeli--struggled
+together in the limelight.  Victoria, from her post of vantage, watched
+these developments with that passionate and personal interest which she
+invariably imported into politics.  Her prepossessions were of an
+unexpected kind.  Mr. Gladstone had been the disciple of her revered
+Peel, and had won the approval of Albert; Mr. Disraeli had hounded Sir
+Robert to his fall with hideous virulence, and the Prince had
+pronounced that he 'had not one single element of a gentleman in his
+composition.'[2]  Yet she regarded Mr. Gladstone with a distrust and
+dislike which steadily deepened, while upon his rival she lavished an
+abundance of confidence, esteem, and affection such as Lord Melbourne
+himself had hardly known.
+
+[Illustration: QUEEN VICTORIA IN 1876.  _From the Portrait by Von
+Angeli_.]
+
+Her attitude towards the Tory Minister had suddenly {241} changed when
+she found that he alone among public men had divined her feelings at
+Albert's death.  Of the others she might have said 'they pity me and
+not my grief'; but Mr. Disraeli had understood; and all his condolences
+had taken the form of reverential eulogies of the departed.  The Queen
+declared that he was 'the only person who appreciated the Prince.'[3]
+She began to show him special favour; gave him and his wife two of the
+coveted seats in St. George's Chapel at the Prince of Wales's wedding,
+and invited him to stay a night at Windsor.  When the grant for the
+Albert Memorial came before the House of Commons, Disraeli, as leader
+of the Opposition, eloquently supported the project.  He was rewarded
+by a copy of the Prince's speeches, bound in white morocco, with an
+inscription in the royal hand.  In his letter of thanks he 'ventured to
+touch upon a sacred theme,' and, in a strain which re-echoed with
+masterly fidelity the sentiments of his correspondent, dwelt at length
+upon the absolute perfection of Albert.  'The Prince,' he said, 'is the
+only person whom Mr. Disraeli has ever known who realised the Ideal.
+None with whom he is acquainted have ever approached it.  There was in
+him an union of the manly grace and sublime simplicity, of chivalry
+with the intellectual splendour of the Attic Academe.  The only
+character in English history that would, in some respects, draw near to
+him is Sir Philip Sidney: the same high tone, the same universal
+accomplishment, the same blended tenderness and vigour, the same rare
+combination of romantic energy and classic repose.'  As for his own
+acquaintance with the Prince, it had been, he said, 'one of the most
+satisfactory incidents of his life: full of refined and beautiful {242}
+memories, and exercising, as he hopes, over his remaining existence, a
+soothing and exalting influence.'  Victoria was much affected by 'the
+depth and delicacy of these touches,' and henceforward Disraeli's place
+in her affections was assured.[4]  When, in 1866, the Conservatives
+came into office, Disraeli's position as Chancellor of the Exchequer
+and leader of the House necessarily brought him into a closer relation
+with the Sovereign.  Two years later Lord Derby resigned, and Victoria,
+with intense delight and peculiar graciousness, welcomed Disraeli as
+her First Minister.[5]
+
+But only for nine agitated months did he remain in power.  The
+Ministry, in a minority in the Commons, was swept out of existence by a
+general election.  Yet by the end of that short period the ties which
+bound together the Queen and her Premier had grown far stronger than
+ever before; the relationship between them was now no longer merely
+that between a grateful mistress and a devoted servant: they were
+friends.  His official letters, in which the personal element had
+always been perceptible, developed into racy records of political news
+and social gossip, written, as Lord Clarendon said, 'in his best novel
+style,' Victoria was delighted; she had never, she declared, had such
+letters in her life, and had never before known _everything_.[6]  In
+return, she sent him, when the spring came, several bunches of flowers,
+picked by her own hands.  He despatched to her a set of his novels, for
+which, she said, she was 'most grateful, and which she values much.'
+She herself had lately published her 'Leaves from the Journal of our
+Life in the Highlands,' and it was observed that the Prime Minister, in
+conversing {243} with Her Majesty at this period, constantly used the
+words 'we authors, ma'am.'[7]  Upon political questions, she was his
+staunch supporter.  'Really there never was such conduct as that of the
+Opposition,' she wrote.  And when the Government was defeated in the
+House she was 'really shocked at the way in which the House of Commons
+go on; they really bring discredit on Constitutional Government.'[8]
+She dreaded the prospect of a change; she feared that if the Liberals
+insisted upon disestablishing the Irish Church, her Coronation Oath
+might stand in the way.[9]  But a change there had to be, and Victoria
+vainly tried to console herself for the loss of her favourite Minister
+by bestowing a peerage upon Mrs. Disraeli.
+
+Mr. Gladstone was in his shirt-sleeves at Hawarden, cutting down a
+tree, when the royal message was brought to him.  'Very significant,'
+he remarked, when he had read the letter, and went on cutting down his
+tree.  His secret thoughts on the occasion were more explicit, and were
+committed to his diary.  'The Almighty,' he wrote, 'seems to sustain
+and spare me for some purpose of His own, deeply unworthy as I know
+myself to be.  Glory be to His name.'[10]
+
+The Queen, however, did not share her new Minister's view of the
+Almighty's intentions.  She could not believe that there was any divine
+purpose to be detected in the programme of sweeping changes which Mr.
+Gladstone was determined to carry out.  But what could she do?  Mr.
+Gladstone, with his daemonic energy and his powerful majority in the
+House of Commons, was irresistible; and for five years (1869-74)
+Victoria found herself condemned {244} to live in an agitating
+atmosphere of interminable reform--reform in the Irish Church and the
+Irish land system, reform in education, reform in parliamentary
+elections, reform in the organisation of the Army and the Navy, reform
+in the administration of justice.  She disapproved, she struggled, she
+grew very angry; she felt that if Albert had been living things would
+never have happened so; but her protests and her complaints were alike
+unavailing.  The mere effort of grappling with the mass of documents
+which poured in upon her in an ever-growing flood was terribly
+exhausting.  When the draft of the lengthy and intricate Irish Church
+Bill came before her, accompanied by an explanatory letter from Mr.
+Gladstone covering a dozen closely-written quarto pages, she almost
+despaired.  She turned from the Bill to the explanation, and from the
+explanation back again to the Bill, and she could not decide which was
+the most confusing.  But she had to do her duty: she had not only to
+read, but to make notes.  At last she handed the whole heap of papers
+to Mr. Martin, who happened to be staying at Osborne, and requested him
+to make a precis of them.[11]  When he had done so, her disapproval of
+the measure became more marked than ever; but, such was the strength of
+the Government, she actually found herself obliged to urge moderation
+upon the Opposition, lest worse should ensue.[12]
+
+In the midst of this crisis, when the future of the Irish Church was
+hanging in the balance, Victoria's attention was drawn to another
+proposed reform.  It was suggested that the sailors in the Navy should
+henceforward be allowed to wear beards.  'Has Mr. Childers ascertained
+anything on the subject of the beards?' the Queen wrote anxiously to
+the First Lord {245} of the Admiralty.  On the whole, Her Majesty was
+in favour of the change.  'Her own personal feeling,' she wrote, 'would
+be for the beards without the moustaches, as the latter have rather a
+soldierlike appearance; but then the object in view would not be
+obtained, viz. to prevent the necessity of shaving.  Therefore it had
+better be as proposed, the entire beard, only it should be kept short
+and very clean.'  After thinking over the question for another week,
+the Queen wrote a final letter.  She wished, she said, 'to make one
+additional observation respecting the beards, viz. that on no account
+should moustaches be allowed without beards.  That must be clearly
+understood.'[13]
+
+Changes in the Navy might be tolerated; to lay hands upon the Army was
+a more serious matter.  From time immemorial there had been a
+particularly close connection between the Army and the Crown; and
+Albert had devoted even more time and attention to the details of
+military business than to the processes of fresco-painting or the
+planning of sanitary cottages for the deserving poor.  But now there
+was to be a great alteration: Mr. Gladstone's fiat had gone forth, and
+the Commander-in-Chief was to be removed from his direct dependence
+upon the Sovereign, and made subordinate to Parliament and the
+Secretary of State for War.  Of all the liberal reforms this was the
+one which aroused the bitterest resentment in Victoria.  She considered
+that the change was an attack upon her personal position--almost an
+attack upon the personal position of Albert.  But she was helpless, and
+the Prime Minister had his way.  When she heard that the dreadful man
+had yet another reform in contemplation--that he was about to abolish
+the purchase of military {246} commissions--she could only feel that it
+was just what might have been expected.  For a moment she hoped that
+the House of Lords would come to the rescue; the Peers opposed the
+change with unexpected vigour; but Mr. Gladstone, more conscious than
+ever of the support of the Almighty, was ready with an ingenious
+device.  The purchase of commissions had been originally allowed by
+Royal Warrant; it should now be disallowed by the same agency.
+Victoria was faced by a curious dilemma: she abominated the abolition
+of purchase; but she was asked to abolish it by an exercise of
+sovereign power which was very much to her taste.  She did not hesitate
+for long; and when the Cabinet, in a formal minute, advised her to sign
+the Warrant, she did so with a good grace.[14]
+
+Unacceptable as Mr. Gladstone's policy was, there was something else
+about him which was even more displeasing to Victoria.  She disliked
+his personal demeanour towards herself.  It was not that Mr. Gladstone,
+in his intercourse with her, was in any degree lacking in courtesy or
+respect.  On the contrary, an extraordinary reverence permeated his
+manner, both in his conversation and his correspondence with the
+Sovereign.  Indeed, with that deep and passionate conservatism which,
+to the very end of his incredible career, gave such an unexpected
+colouring to his inexplicable character, Mr. Gladstone viewed Victoria
+through a haze of awe which was almost religious--as a sacrosanct
+embodiment of venerable traditions--a vital element in the British
+Constitution--a Queen by Act of Parliament.  But unfortunately the lady
+did not appreciate the compliment.  The well-known complaint--'He
+speaks to me as if I were a public meeting'--whether authentic or
+no--and the turn of the sentence {247} is surely a little too
+epigrammatic to be genuinely Victorian--undoubtedly expresses the
+essential element of her antipathy.  She had no objection to being
+considered as an institution; she was one, and she knew it.  But she
+was a woman too, and to be considered only as an institution--that was
+unbearable.  And thus all Mr. Gladstone's zeal and devotion, his
+ceremonious phrases, his low bows, his punctilious correctitudes, were
+utterly wasted; and when, in the excess of his loyalty, he went
+further, and imputed to the object of his veneration, with obsequious
+blindness, the subtlety of intellect, the wide reading, the grave
+enthusiasm, which he himself possessed, the misunderstanding became
+complete.  The discordance between the actual Victoria and this strange
+Divinity made in Mr. Gladstone's image produced disastrous results.
+Her discomfort and dislike turned at last into positive animosity, and,
+though her manners continued to be perfect, she never for a moment
+unbent; while he on his side was overcome with disappointment,
+perplexity, and mortification.[15]
+
+Yet his fidelity remained unshaken.  When the Cabinet met, the Prime
+Minister, filled with his beatific vision, would open the proceedings
+by reading aloud the letters which he had received from the Queen upon
+the questions of the hour.  The assembly sat in absolute silence while,
+one after another, the royal missives, with their emphases, their
+ejaculations, and their grammatical peculiarities, boomed forth in all
+the deep solemnity of Mr. Gladstone's utterance.  Not a single comment,
+of any kind, was ever hazarded; and, after a fitting pause, the Cabinet
+proceeded with the business of the day.[16]
+
+
+{248}
+
+II
+
+Little as Victoria appreciated her Prime Minister's attitude towards
+her, she found that it had its uses.  The popular discontent at her
+uninterrupted seclusion had been gathering force for many years, and
+now burst out in a new and alarming shape.  Republicanism was in the
+air.  Radical opinion in England, stimulated by the fall of Napoleon
+III and the establishment of a republican government in France,
+suddenly grew more extreme than it had ever been since 1848.  It also
+became for the first time almost respectable.  Chartism had been
+entirely an affair of the lower classes; but now Members of Parliament,
+learned professors, and ladies of title openly avowed the most
+subversive views.  The monarchy was attacked both in theory and in
+practice.  And it was attacked at a vital point: it was declared to be
+too expensive.  What benefits, it was asked, did the nation reap to
+counterbalance the enormous sums which were expended upon the
+Sovereign?  Victoria's retirement gave an unpleasant handle to the
+argument.  It was pointed out that the ceremonial functions of the
+Crown had virtually lapsed; and the awkward question remained whether
+any of the other functions which it did continue to perform were really
+worth L385,000 per annum.  The royal balance-sheet was curiously
+examined.  An anonymous pamphlet entitled 'What does she do with it?'
+appeared, setting forth the financial position with malicious clarity.
+The Queen, it stated, was granted by the Civil List L60,000 a year for
+her private use; but the rest of her vast annuity was given, as the Act
+declared, to enable her 'to defray the expenses of her royal household
+and to support the honour and dignity of the Crown.'  Now it was
+obvious that, since {249} the death of the Prince, the expenditure for
+both these purposes must have been very considerably diminished, and it
+was difficult to resist the conclusion that a large sum of money was
+diverted annually from the uses for which it had been designed by
+Parliament, to swell the private fortune of Victoria.  The precise
+amount of that private fortune it was impossible to discover; but there
+was reason to suppose that it was gigantic; perhaps it reached a total
+of five million pounds.  The pamphlet protested against such a state of
+affairs, and its protests were repeated vigorously in newspapers and at
+public meetings.  Though it is certain that the estimate of Victoria's
+riches was much exaggerated, it is equally certain that she was an
+exceedingly wealthy woman.  She probably saved L20,000 a year from the
+Civil List, the revenues of the Duchy of Lancaster were steadily
+increasing, she had inherited a considerable property from the Prince
+Consort, and she had been left, in 1852, an estate of half a million by
+Mr. John Neild, an eccentric miser.  In these circumstances it was not
+surprising that when, in 1871, Parliament was asked to vote a dowry of
+L30,000 to the Princess Louise on her marriage with the eldest son of
+the Duke of Argyll, together with an annuity of L6,000, there should
+have been a serious outcry.[17]
+
+In order to conciliate public opinion, the Queen opened Parliament in
+person, and the vote was passed {250} almost unanimously.  But a few
+months later another demand was made: the Prince Arthur had come of
+age, and the nation was asked to grant him an annuity of L15,000.  The
+outcry was redoubled.  The newspapers were filled with angry articles;
+Bradlaugh thundered against 'princely paupers' to one of the largest
+crowds that had ever been seen in Trafalgar Square; and Sir Charles
+Dilke expounded the case for a republic in a speech to his constituents
+at Newcastle.  The Prince's annuity was ultimately sanctioned in the
+House of Commons by a large majority; but a minority of fifty members
+voted in favour of reducing the sum to L10,000.
+
+Towards every aspect of this distasteful question, Mr. Gladstone
+presented an iron front.  He absolutely discountenanced the extreme
+section of his followers.  He declared that the whole of the Queen's
+income was justly at her personal disposal, argued that to complain of
+royal savings was merely to encourage royal extravagance, and
+successfully convoyed through Parliament the unpopular annuities,
+which, he pointed out, were strictly in accordance with precedent.
+When, in 1872, Sir Charles Dilke once more returned to the charge in
+the House of Commons, introducing a motion for a full enquiry into the
+Queen's expenditure with a view to a root-and-branch reform of the
+Civil List, the Prime Minister brought all the resources of his
+powerful and ingenious eloquence to the support of the Crown.  He was
+completely successful; and amid a scene of great disorder the motion
+was ignominiously dismissed.  Victoria was relieved; but she grew no
+fonder of Mr. Gladstone.[18]
+
+{251}
+
+It was perhaps the most miserable moment of her life.  The Ministers,
+the press, the public, all conspired to vex her, to blame her, to
+misinterpret her actions, to be unsympathetic and disrespectful in
+every way.  She was 'a cruelly misunderstood woman,' she told Mr.
+Martin, complaining to him bitterly of the unjust attacks which were
+made upon her, and declaring that 'the great worry and anxiety and hard
+work for ten years, alone, unaided, with increasing age and never very
+strong health,' were breaking her down, and 'almost drove her to
+despair.'[19]  The situation was indeed deplorable.  It seemed as if
+her whole existence had gone awry; as if an irremediable antagonism had
+grown up between the Queen and the nation.  If Victoria had died in the
+early seventies, there can be little doubt that the voice of the world
+would have pronounced her a failure.
+
+
+III
+
+But she was reserved for a very different fate.  The outburst of
+republicanism had been in fact the last flicker of an expiring cause.
+The liberal tide, which had been flowing steadily ever since the Reform
+Bill, reached its height with Mr. Gladstone's first administration; and
+towards the end of that administration the inevitable ebb began.  The
+reaction, when it came, was sudden and complete.  The General Election
+of 1874 changed the whole face of politics.  Mr. Gladstone and the
+Liberals were routed; and the Tory party, for the first time for over
+forty years, attained an unquestioned supremacy in England.  It was
+obvious that their surprising triumph was pre-eminently {252} due to
+the skill and vigour of Disraeli.  He returned to office no longer the
+dubious commander of an insufficient host, but with drums beating and
+flags flying, a conquering hero.  And as a conquering hero Victoria
+welcomed her new Prime Minister.
+
+Then there followed six years of excitement, of enchantment, of
+felicity, of glory, of romance.  The amazing being, who now at last, at
+the age of seventy, after a lifetime of extraordinary struggles, had
+turned into reality the absurdest of his boyhood's dreams, knew well
+enough how to make his own, with absolute completeness, the heart of
+the Sovereign Lady whose servant, and whose master, he had so
+miraculously become.  In women's hearts he had always read as in an
+open book.  His whole career had turned upon those curious entities;
+and the more curious they were, the more intimately at home with them
+he seemed to be.  But Lady Beaconsfield, with her cracked idolatry, and
+Mrs. Brydges-Williams, with her clogs, her corpulence, and her legacy,
+were gone: an even more remarkable phenomenon stood in their place.  He
+surveyed what was before him with the eye of a past-master; and he was
+not for a moment at a loss.  He realised everything--the interacting
+complexities of circumstance and character, the pride of place mingled
+so inextricably with personal arrogance, the superabundant
+emotionalism, the ingenuousness of outlook, the solid, the laborious
+respectability, shot through so incongruously by temperamental cravings
+for the coloured and the strange, the singular intellectual
+limitations, and the mysteriously essential female element impregnating
+every particle of the whole.  A smile hovered over his impassive
+features, and he dubbed Victoria 'the Faery.'  The name delighted him,
+for, with that epigrammatic {253} ambiguity so dear to his heart, it
+precisely expressed his vision of the Queen.  The Spenserian allusion
+was very pleasant--the elegant evocation of Gloriana; but there was
+more in it than that: there was the suggestion of a diminutive
+creature, endowed with magical--and mythical--properties, and a
+portentousness almost ridiculously out of keeping with the rest of her
+make-up.  The Faery, he determined, should henceforward wave her wand
+for him alone.  Detachment is always a rare quality, and rarest of all,
+perhaps, among politicians; but that veteran egotist possessed it in a
+supreme degree.  Not only did he know what he had to do, not only did
+he do it; he was in the audience as well as on the stage; and he took
+in with the rich relish of a connoisseur every feature of the
+entertaining situation, every phase of the delicate drama, and every
+detail of his own consummate performance.
+
+The smile hovered and vanished, and, bowing low with Oriental gravity
+and Oriental submissiveness, he set himself to his task.  He had
+understood from the first that in dealing with the Faery the
+appropriate method of approach was the very antithesis of the
+Gladstonian; and such a method was naturally his.  It was not his habit
+to harangue and exhort and expatiate in official conscientiousness; he
+liked to scatter flowers along the path of business, to compress a
+weighty argument into a happy phrase, to insinuate what was in his mind
+with an air of friendship and confidential courtesy.  He was nothing if
+not personal; and he had perceived that personality was the key that
+opened the Faery's heart.  Accordingly, he never for a moment allowed
+his intercourse with her to lose the personal tone; he invested all the
+transactions of State with the charms of familiar conversation; she was
+always the royal lady, {254} the adored and revered mistress, he the
+devoted and respectful friend.  When once the personal relation was
+firmly established, every difficulty disappeared.  But to maintain that
+relation uninterruptedly in a smooth and even course, a particular care
+was necessary: the bearings had to be most assiduously oiled.  Nor was
+Disraeli in any doubt as to the nature of the lubricant.  'You have
+heard me called a flatterer,' he said to Matthew Arnold, 'and it is
+true.  Everyone likes flattery; and when you come to royalty you should
+lay it on with a trowel.'[20]  He practised what he preached.  His
+adulation was incessant, and he applied it in the very thickest slabs.
+'There is no honor and no reward,' he declared, 'that with him can ever
+equal the possession of your Majesty's kind thoughts.  All his own
+thoughts and feelings and duties and affections are now concentrated in
+your Majesty, and he desires nothing more for his remaining years than
+to serve your Majesty, or, if that service ceases, to live still on its
+memory as a period of his existence most interesting and
+fascinating.'[21]  'In life,' he told her, 'one must have for one's
+thoughts a sacred depository, and Lord Beaconsfield ever presumes to
+seek that in his Sovereign Mistress.'[22]  She was not only his own
+solitary support; she was the one prop of the State.  'If your Majesty
+is ill,' he wrote during a grave political crisis, 'he is sure he will
+himself break down.  All, really, depends upon your Majesty.'  'He
+lives only for Her,' he asseverated, and works only for Her, and
+without Her all is lost.'[23]  When her birthday came he produced an
+elaborate confection of hyperbolic compliment.  'To-day Lord
+Beaconsfield ought fitly, perhaps, to congratulate a powerful Sovereign
+on her {255} imperial sway, the vastness of her Empire, and the success
+and strength of her fleets and armies.  But he cannot, his mind is in
+another mood.  He can only think of the strangeness of his destiny that
+it has come to pass that he should be the servant of one so great, and
+whose infinite kindness, the brightness of whose intelligence and the
+firmness of whose will, have enabled him to undertake labours to which
+he otherwise would be quite unequal, and supported him in all things by
+a condescending sympathy, which in the hour of difficulty alike charms
+and inspires.  Upon the Sovereign of many lands and many hearts may an
+omnipotent Providence shed every blessing that the wise can desire and
+the virtuous deserve!'[24]  In those expert hands the trowel seemed to
+assume the qualities of some lofty masonic symbol--to be the ornate and
+glittering vehicle of verities unrealised by the profane.
+
+Such tributes were delightful, but they remained in the nebulous region
+of words, and Disraeli had determined to give his blandishments a more
+significant solidity.  He deliberately encouraged those high views of
+her own position which had always been native to Victoria's mind and
+had been reinforced by the principles of Albert and the doctrines of
+Stockmar.  He professed to a belief in a theory of the Constitution
+which gave the Sovereign a leading place in the councils of government;
+but his pronouncements upon the subject were indistinct; and when he
+emphatically declared that there ought to be 'a real Throne,' it was
+probably with the mental addition that that throne would be a very
+unreal one indeed whose occupant was unamenable to his cajoleries.  But
+the vagueness of his language was in itself an added stimulant to
+Victoria.  Skilfully confusing the woman {256} and the Queen, he threw,
+with a grandiose gesture, the government of England at her feet, as if
+in doing so he were performing an act of personal homage.  In his first
+audience after returning to power, he assured her that 'whatever she
+wished should be done.'[25]  When the intricate Public Worship
+Regulation Bill was being discussed by the Cabinet, he told the Faery
+that his 'only object' was 'to further your Majesty's wishes in this
+matter.'[26]  When he brought off his great _coup_ over the Suez Canal,
+he used expressions which implied that the only gainer by the
+transaction was Victoria.  'It is just settled,' he wrote in triumph;
+'you have it, Madam ... Four millions sterling! and almost immediately.
+There was only one firm that could do it--Rothschilds.  They behaved
+admirably; advanced the money at a low rate, and the entire interest of
+the Khedive is now yours, Madam.'[27]  Nor did he limit himself to
+highly-spiced insinuations.  Writing with all the authority of his
+office, he advised the Queen that she had the constitutional right to
+dismiss a Ministry which was supported by a large majority in the House
+of Commons; he even urged her to do so, if, in her opinion, 'your
+Majesty's Government have from wilfulness, or even from weakness,
+deceived your Majesty.'[28]  To the horror of Mr. Gladstone, he not
+only kept the Queen informed as to the general course of business in
+the Cabinet, but revealed to her the part taken in its discussions by
+individual members of it.[29]  Lord Derby, the son of the late Prime
+Minister and Disraeli's Foreign Secretary, viewed these developments
+with grave mistrust.  'Is there not,' he ventured to write to his
+Chief, 'just a risk of encouraging her in too large ideas of her
+personal power, and too great {257} indifference to what the public
+expects?  I only ask; it is for you to judge.'[30]
+
+As for Victoria, she accepted everything--compliments, flatteries,
+Elizabethan prerogatives--without a single qualm.  After the long gloom
+of her bereavement, after the chill of the Gladstonian discipline, she
+expanded to the rays of Disraeli's devotion like a flower in the sun.
+The change in her situation was indeed miraculous.  No longer was she
+obliged to puzzle for hours over the complicated details of business,
+for now she had only to ask Mr. Disraeli for an explanation, and he
+would give it her in the most concise, in the most amusing, way.  No
+longer was she worried by alarming novelties; no longer was she put out
+at finding herself treated, by a reverential gentleman in high collars,
+as if she were some embodied precedent, with a recondite knowledge of
+Greek.  And her deliverer was surely the most fascinating of men.  The
+strain of charlatanism, which had unconsciously captivated her in
+Napoleon III, exercised the same enchanting effect in the case of
+Disraeli.  Like a dram-drinker, whose ordinary life is passed in dull
+sobriety, her unsophisticated intelligence gulped down his rococo
+allurements with peculiar zest.  She became intoxicated, entranced.
+Believing all that he told her of herself, she completely regained the
+self-confidence which had been slipping away from her throughout the
+dark period that followed Albert's death.  She swelled with a new
+elation, while he, conjuring up before her wonderful Oriental visions,
+dazzled her eyes with an imperial grandeur of which she had only dimly
+dreamed.  Under the compelling influence, her very demeanour altered.
+Her short, stout figure, with its folds of black velvet, its muslin
+streamers, its heavy pearls at the heavy neck, {258} assumed an almost
+menacing air.  In her countenance, from which the charm of youth had
+long since vanished, and which had not yet been softened by age, the
+traces of grief, of disappointment, and of displeasure were still
+visible, but they were overlaid by looks of arrogance and sharp lines
+of peremptory hauteur.  Only, when Mr. Disraeli appeared, the
+expression changed in an instant, and the forbidding visage became
+charged with smiles.[31]  For him she would do anything.  Yielding to
+his encouragements, she began to emerge from her seclusion; she
+appeared in London in semi-state, at hospitals and concerts; she opened
+Parliament; she reviewed troops and distributed medals at
+Aldershot.[32]  But such public signs of favour were trivial in
+comparison with her private attentions.  During his hours of audience,
+she could hardly restrain her excitement and delight.  'I can only
+describe my reception,' he wrote to a friend on one occasion, 'by
+telling you that I really thought she was going to embrace me.  She was
+wreathed with smiles, and, as she tattled, glided about the room like a
+bird.'[33]  In his absence, she talked of him perpetually, and there
+was a note of unusual vehemence in her solicitude for his health.
+'John Manners,' Disraeli told Lady Bradford, 'who has just come from
+Osborne, says that the Faery only talked of one subject, and that was
+her Primo.  According to him, it was her gracious opinion that the
+Government should make my health a Cabinet question.  Dear John seemed
+quite surprised at what she said; but you are more used to these
+ebullitions.'[34]  She often sent him presents; an illustrated album
+arrived for him regularly from Windsor on Christmas Day.[35]  But her
+most valued gifts were {259} the bunches of spring flowers which,
+gathered by herself and her ladies in the woods at Osborne, marked in
+an especial manner the warmth and tenderness of her sentiments.  Among
+these it was, he declared, the primroses that he loved the best.  They
+were, he said, 'the ambassadors of Spring,' 'the gems and jewels of
+Nature.'  He liked them, he assured her, 'so much better for their
+being wild; they seem an offering from the Fauns and Dryads of
+Osborne.'  'They show,' he told her, 'that your Majesty's sceptre has
+touched the enchanted Isle.'  He sat at dinner with heaped-up bowls of
+them on every side, and told his guests that 'they were all sent to me
+this morning by the Queen from Osborne, as she knows it is my favourite
+flower.'[36]  As time went on, and as it became clearer and clearer
+that the Faery's thraldom was complete, his protestations grew steadily
+more highly coloured and more unabashed.  At last he ventured to import
+into his blandishments a strain of adoration that was almost avowedly
+romantic.  In phrases of baroque convolution, he delivered the message
+of his heart.  The pressure of business, he wrote, had 'so absorbed and
+exhausted him, that towards the hour of post he has not had clearness
+of mind, and vigour of pen, adequate to convey his thoughts and facts
+to the most loved and illustrious being, who deigns to consider
+them.'[37]  She sent him some primroses, and he replied that he could
+'truly say they are "more precious than rubies," coming, as they do,
+and at such a moment, from a Sovereign whom he adores.'[38]  She sent
+him snowdrops, and his sentiment overflowed into poetry.  'Yesterday
+eve,' he wrote, 'there appeared, in Whitehall Gardens, a
+delicate-looking case, with a royal superscription, which, when {260}
+he opened, he thought, at first, that your Majesty had graciously
+bestowed upon him the stars of your Majesty's principal orders.  And,
+indeed, he was so impressed with this graceful illusion, that, having a
+banquet, where there were many stars and ribbons, he could not resist
+the temptation, by placing some snowdrops on his heart, of showing that
+he, too, was decorated by a gracious Sovereign.
+
+'Then, in the middle of the night, it occurred to him, that it might
+all be an enchantment, and that, perhaps, it was a Faery gift and came
+from another monarch: Queen Titania, gathering flowers, with her Court,
+in a soft and sea-girt isle, and sending magic blossoms, which, they
+say, turn the heads of those who receive them.'[39]
+
+A Faery gift!  Did he smile as he wrote the words?  Perhaps; and yet it
+would be rash to conclude that his perfervid declarations were
+altogether without sincerity.  Actor and spectator both, the two
+characters were so intimately blended together in that odd composition
+that they formed an inseparable unity, and it was impossible to say
+that one of them was less genuine than the other.  With one element, he
+could coldly appraise the Faery's intellectual capacity, note with some
+surprise that she could be on occasion 'most interesting and amusing,'
+and then continue his use of the trowel with an ironical solemnity;
+while, with the other, he could be overwhelmed by the immemorial
+panoply of royalty, and, thrilling with the sense of his own strange
+elevation, dream himself into a gorgeous phantasy of crowns and powers
+and chivalric love.  When he told Victoria that 'during a somewhat
+romantic and imaginative life, nothing has ever occurred to him so
+interesting as this confidential correspondence with one so exalted and
+so {261} inspiring,'[40] was he not in earnest after all?  When he
+wrote to a lady about the Court, 'I love the Queen--perhaps the only
+person in this world left to me that I do love,'[41] was he not
+creating for himself an enchanted palace out of the Arabian Nights,
+full of melancholy and spangles, in which he actually believed?
+Victoria's state of mind was far more simple; untroubled by imaginative
+yearnings, she never lost herself in that nebulous region of the spirit
+where feeling and fancy grow confused.  Her emotions, with all their
+intensity and all their exaggeration, retained the plain prosaic
+texture of everyday life.  And it was fitting that her expression of
+them should be equally commonplace.  She was, she told her Prime
+Minister, at the end of an official letter, 'yours aff'ly V.R. and I.'
+In such a phrase the deep reality of her feeling is instantly manifest.
+The Faery's feet were on the solid earth; it was the _ruse_ cynic who
+was in the air.
+
+He had taught her, however, a lesson, which she had learnt with
+alarming rapidity.  A second Gloriana, did he call her?  Very well,
+then, she would show that she deserved the compliment.  Disquieting
+symptoms followed fast.  In May 1874, the Tsar, whose daughter had just
+been married to Victoria's second son, the Duke of Edinburgh, was in
+London, and, by an unfortunate error, it had been arranged that his
+departure should not take place until two days after the date on which
+his royal hostess had previously decided to go to Balmoral.  Her
+Majesty refused to modify her plans.  It was pointed out to her that
+the Tsar would certainly be offended, that the most serious
+consequences might follow; Lord Derby protested; Lord Salisbury, the
+Secretary of State for India, was much perturbed.  But {262} the Faery
+was unconcerned; she had settled to go to Balmoral on the 18th, and on
+the 18th she would go.  At last Disraeli, exercising all his influence,
+induced her to agree to stay in London for two days more.  'My head is
+still on my shoulders,' he told Lady Bradford.  'The great lady has
+absolutely postponed her departure!  Everybody had failed, even the
+Prince of Wales; ... and I have no doubt I am not in favour.  I can't
+help it.  Salisbury says I have saved an Afghan War, and Derby
+compliments me on my unrivalled triumph.'[42]  But before very long, on
+another issue, the triumph was the Faery's.  Disraeli, who had suddenly
+veered towards a new Imperialism, had thrown out the suggestion that
+the Queen of England ought to become the Empress of India.  Victoria
+seized upon the idea with avidity, and, in season and out of season,
+pressed upon her Prime Minister the desirability of putting his
+proposal into practice.  He demurred; but she was not to be baulked;
+and in 1876, in spite of his own unwillingness and that of his entire
+Cabinet, he found himself obliged to add to the troubles of a stormy
+session by introducing a bill for the alteration of the Royal
+Title.[43]  His compliance, however, finally conquered the Faery's
+heart.  The measure was angrily attacked in both Houses, and Victoria
+was deeply touched by the untiring energy with which Disraeli defended
+it.  She was, she said, much grieved by 'the worry and annoyance' to
+which he was subjected; she feared she was the cause of it; and she
+would never forget what she owed to 'her kind, good, and considerate
+friend.'  At the same time, her wrath fell on the Opposition.  Their
+conduct, she declared, was 'extraordinary, incomprehensible, and
+mistaken,' and, in an emphatic sentence which seemed to contradict
+{263} both itself and all her former proceedings, she protested that
+she 'would be glad if it were more generally known that it was _her_
+wish, as people _will_ have it, that it has been _forced upon
+her!_'[44]  When the affair was successfully over, the imperial triumph
+was celebrated in a suitable manner.  On the day of the Delhi
+Proclamation, the new Earl of Beaconsfield went to Windsor to dine with
+the new Empress of India.  That night the Faery, usually so homely in
+her attire, appeared in a glittering panoply of enormous uncut jewels,
+which had been presented to her by the reigning Princes of her Raj.  At
+the end of the meal the Prime Minister, breaking through the rules of
+etiquette, arose, and in a flowery oration proposed the health of the
+Queen-Empress.  His audacity was well received, and his speech was
+rewarded by a smiling curtsey.[45]
+
+These were significant episodes; but a still more serious manifestation
+of Victoria's temper occurred in the following year, during the
+crowning crisis of Beaconsfield's life.  His growing imperialism, his
+desire to magnify the power and prestige of England, his insistence
+upon a 'spirited foreign policy,' had brought him into collision with
+Russia; the terrible Eastern Question loomed up; and, when war broke
+out between Russia and Turkey, the gravity of the situation became
+extreme.  The Prime Minister's policy was fraught with difficulty and
+danger.  Realising perfectly the appalling implications of an
+Anglo-Russian war, he was yet prepared to face even that eventuality if
+he could obtain his ends by no other method; but he believed that
+Russia in reality was still less desirous of a rupture, and that, if he
+played his game with sufficient boldness and {264} adroitness, she
+would yield, when it came to the point, all that he required without a
+blow.  It was clear that the course he had marked out for himself was
+full of hazard, and demanded an extraordinary nerve; a single false
+step, and either himself, or England, might be plunged in disaster.
+But nerve he had never lacked; he began his diplomatic egg-dance with
+high assurance; and then he discovered that, besides the Russian
+Government, besides the Liberals and Mr. Gladstone, there were two
+additional sources of perilous embarrassment with which he would have
+to reckon.  In the first place there was a strong party in the Cabinet,
+headed by Lord Derby, the Foreign Secretary, which was unwilling to
+take the risk of war; but his culminating anxiety was the Faery.
+
+From the first, her attitude was uncompromising.  The old hatred of
+Russia, which had been engendered by the Crimean War, surged up again
+within her; she remembered Albert's prolonged animosity; she felt the
+prickings of her own greatness; and she flung herself into the turmoil
+with passionate heat.  Her indignation with the Opposition--with anyone
+who ventured to sympathise with the Russians in their quarrel with the
+Turks--was unbounded.  When anti-Turkish meetings were held in London,
+presided over by the Duke of Westminster and Lord Shaftesbury, and
+attended by Mr. Gladstone and other prominent Radicals, she considered
+that 'the Attorney-General ought to be set at these men'; 'it can't,'
+she exclaimed, 'be constitutional.'[46]  Never in her life, not even in
+the crisis over the Ladies of the Bedchamber, did she show herself a
+more furious partisan.  But her displeasure was not reserved for the
+Radicals; the {265} backsliding Conservatives equally felt its force.
+She was even discontented with Lord Beaconsfield himself.  Failing
+entirely to appreciate the delicate complexity of his policy, she
+constantly assailed him with demands for vigorous action, interpreted
+each finesse as a sign of weakness, and was ready at every juncture to
+let slip the dogs of war.  As the situation developed, her anxiety grew
+feverish.  'The Queen,' she wrote, 'is feeling terribly anxious lest
+delay should cause us to be too late and lose our prestige for ever!
+It worries her night and day.'[47]  'The Faery,' Beaconsfield told Lady
+Bradford, 'writes every day and telegraphs every hour; this is almost
+literally the case.'[48]  She raged loudly against the Russians.  'And
+the language,' she cried, 'the insulting language--used by the Russians
+against us!  It makes the Queen's blood boil!'[49]  'Oh,' she wrote a
+little later, 'if the Queen were a man, she would like to go and give
+those Russians, whose word one cannot believe, such a beating!  We
+shall never be friends again till we have it out.  This the Queen feels
+sure of.'[50]
+
+The unfortunate Prime Minister, urged on to violence by Victoria on one
+side, had to deal, on the other, with a Foreign Secretary who was
+fundamentally opposed to any policy of active interference at all.
+Between the Queen and Lord Derby he held a harassed course.  He gained,
+indeed, some slight satisfaction in playing off the one against the
+other--in stimulating Lord Derby with the Queen's missives, and in
+appeasing the Queen by repudiating Lord Derby's opinions; on one
+occasion he actually went so far as to compose, at Victoria's request,
+a letter bitterly attacking his colleague, {266} which her Majesty
+forthwith signed, and sent, without alteration, to the Foreign
+Secretary.[51]  But such devices gave only a temporary relief; and it
+soon became evident that Victoria's martial ardour was not to be
+side-tracked by hostilities against Lord Derby; hostilities against
+Russia were what she wanted, what she would, what she must, have.  For
+now, casting aside the last relics of moderation, she began to attack
+her friend with a series of extraordinary threats.  Not once, not
+twice, but many times she held over his head the formidable menace of
+her imminent abdication.  'If England,' she wrote to Beaconsfield, 'is
+to kiss Russia's feet, she will not be a party to the humiliation of
+England and would lay down her crown,' and she added that the Prime
+Minister might, if he thought fit, repeat her words to the Cabinet.[52]
+'This delay,' she ejaculated, 'this uncertainty by which, abroad, we
+are losing our prestige and our position, while Russia is advancing and
+will be before Constantinople in no time!  Then the Government will be
+fearfully blamed and the Queen so humiliated that she thinks she would
+abdicate at once.  Be bold!'[53]  'She feels,' she reiterated, 'she
+cannot, as she before said, remain the Sovereign of a country that is
+letting itself down to kiss the feet of the great barbarians, the
+retarders of all liberty and civilisation that exists.'[54]  When the
+Russians advanced to the outskirts of Constantinople she fired off
+three letters in a day demanding war; and when she learnt that the
+Cabinet had only decided to send the Fleet to Gallipoli she declared
+that 'her first impulse' was 'to lay down the thorny crown, which she
+feels little satisfaction in retaining if the position of this country
+is {267} to remain as it is now.'[55]  It is easy to imagine the
+agitating effect of such a correspondence upon Beaconsfield.  This was
+no longer the Faery; it was a genie whom he had rashly called out of
+her bottle, and who was now intent upon showing her supernal power.
+More than once, perplexed, dispirited, shattered by illness, he had
+thoughts of withdrawing altogether from the game.  One thing alone, he
+told Lady Bradford, with a wry smile, prevented him.  'If I could
+only,' he wrote, 'face the scene which would occur at headquarters if I
+resigned, I would do so at once.'[56]
+
+He held on, however, to emerge victorious at last.  The Queen was
+pacified; Lord Derby was replaced by Lord Salisbury; and at the
+Congress of Berlin _der alte Jude_ carried all before him.  He returned
+to England in triumph, and assured the delighted Victoria that she
+would very soon be, if she was not already, the 'Dictatress of
+Europe.'[57]
+
+But soon there was an unexpected reverse.  At the General Election of
+1880 the country, mistrustful of the forward policy of the
+Conservatives, and carried away by Mr. Gladstone's oratory, returned
+the Liberals to power.  Victoria was horrified, but within a year she
+was to be yet more nearly hit.  The grand romance had come to its
+conclusion.  Lord Beaconsfield, worn out with age and maladies, but
+moving still, an assiduous mummy, from dinner-party to dinner-party,
+suddenly moved no longer.  When she knew that the end was inevitable,
+she seemed, by a pathetic instinct, to divest herself of her royalty,
+and to shrink, with hushed gentleness, beside him, a woman and nothing
+more.  'I send some Osborne primroses,' she wrote to him with touching
+simplicity, 'and I meant to pay you a little {268} visit this week but
+I thought it better you should be quite quiet and not speak.  And I beg
+you will be very good and obey the doctors.'  She would see him, she
+said, 'when we come back from Osborne, which won't be long.'  'Everyone
+is so distressed at your not being well,' she added; and she was, 'Ever
+yours very aff'ly, V.R.I.'  When the royal letter was given him, the
+strange old comedian, stretched on his bed of death, poised it in his
+hand, appeared to consider deeply, and then whispered to those about
+him: 'This ought to be read to me by a Privy Councillor.'[58]
+
+
+
+[1] Adams, 135.
+
+[2] Clarendon, II, 342.
+
+[3] Buckle, IV, 385.
+
+[4] Buckle, IV, 382-95.
+
+[5] _Ibid._, IV, 592.
+
+[6] Clarendon, II, 346.
+
+[7] Buckle, V, 49.
+
+[8] _Ibid._, V, 48.
+
+[9] _Ibid._, V, 28.
+
+[10] Morley, II, 252, 256.
+
+[11] Martin, _Queen Victoria_, 50-1.
+
+[12] Tait, II, chap. i.
+
+[13] Childers, I, 175-7.
+
+[14] Morley, II, 360-5.
+
+[15] Morley, II, 423-8; Crawford, 356, 370-1.
+
+[16] Private information.
+
+[17] In 1889 it was officially stated that the Queen's total savings
+from the Civil List amounted to L824,025, but that out of this sum much
+had been spent on special entertainments to foreign visitors (Lee,
+499).  Taking into consideration the proceeds from the Duchy of
+Lancaster, which were more than L60,000 a year (Lee, 79), the savings
+of the Prince Consort, and Mr. Neild's legacy, it seems probable that,
+at the time of her death, Victoria's private fortune approached two
+million pounds.
+
+[18] Morley, II, 425-6; Lee, 410-2, 415-8; Jerrold, _Widowhood_, 153-7,
+162-3, 169-71.
+
+[19] Martin, _Queen Victoria_, 41-2.
+
+[20] Buckle, VI, 463.
+
+[21] _Ibid._, VI, 226.
+
+[22] _Ibid._, VI, 445,7.
+
+[23] _Ibid._, VI, 254-5.
+
+[24] Buckle, VI, 430.
+
+[25] Buckle, V, 286.
+
+[26] _Ibid._, V, 321.
+
+[27] _Ibid._, V, 448-9.
+
+[28] _Ibid._, II, 246.
+
+[29] Morley, II, 574-5.
+
+[30] Buckle, V, 414.
+
+[31] _Quarterly Review_, CXCIII, 334.
+
+[32] Lee, 434-5.
+
+[33] Buckle, V, 339.
+
+[34] _Ibid_., V, 384.
+
+[35] _Ibid._, VI, 468.
+
+[36] Buckle, VI, 629.
+
+[37] _Ibid._, VI, 248.
+
+[38] _Ibid._, VI, 246-7.
+
+[39] Buckle, VI, 464-7.
+
+[40] Buckle, VI, 238.
+
+[41] _Ibid._, VI, 462.
+
+[42] Buckle, V, 414-5.
+
+[43] _Ibid._, V, 456-8; VI, 457-8.
+
+[44] Buckle, V, 468-9, 473.
+
+[45] Hamilton, 120; _Quarterly Review_, CXXXIX, 334.
+
+[46] Buckle, VI, 106-7.
+
+[47] Buckle, VI, 144.
+
+[48] _Ibid._, VI, 150.
+
+[49] _Ibid._, VI, 154.
+
+[50] _Ibid._, VI, 217.
+
+[51] Buckle, VI, 157-9.
+
+[52] _Ibid._, VI, 132.
+
+[53] _Ibid._, VI, 148.
+
+[54] _Ibid._, VI, 217.
+
+[55] Buckle, VI, 243-5.
+
+[56] _Ibid._. VI, 190.
+
+[57] Lee, 445-6.
+
+[58] Buckle, VI, 613-4.
+
+
+
+
+{269}
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+OLD AGE
+
+I
+
+Meanwhile in Victoria's private life many changes and developments had
+taken place.  With the marriages of her elder children her family
+circle widened; grandchildren appeared; and a multitude of new domestic
+interests sprang up.  The death of King Leopold in 1865 had removed the
+predominant figure of the older generation, and the functions he had
+performed as the centre and adviser of a large group of relatives in
+Germany and in England devolved upon Victoria.  These functions she
+discharged with unremitting industry, carrying on an enormous
+correspondence, and following with absorbed interest every detail in
+the lives of the ever-ramifying cousinhood.  And she tasted to the full
+both the joys and the pains of family affection.  She took a particular
+delight in her grandchildren, to whom she showed an indulgence which
+their parents had not always enjoyed, though, even to her
+grandchildren, she could be, when the occasion demanded it, severe.
+The eldest of them, the little Prince Wilhelm of Prussia, was a
+remarkably headstrong child; he dared to be impertinent even to his
+grandmother; and once, when she told him to bow to a visitor at
+Osborne, he disobeyed her outright.  This would not do: the order was
+sternly repeated, and the naughty boy, noticing {270} that his kind
+grandmama had suddenly turned into a most terrifying lady, submitted
+his will to hers, and bowed very low indeed.[1]
+
+[Illustration: QUEEN VICTORIA IN 1897.]
+
+It would have been well if all the Queen's domestic troubles could have
+been got over as easily.  Among her more serious distresses was the
+conduct of the Prince of Wales.  The young man was now independent and
+married; he had shaken the parental yoke from his shoulders; he was
+positively beginning to do as he liked.  Victoria was much perturbed,
+and her worst fears seemed to be justified when in 1870 he appeared as
+a witness in a society divorce case.  It was clear that the heir to the
+throne had been mixing with people of whom she did not at all approve.
+What was to be done?  She saw that it was not only her son that was to
+blame--that it was the whole system of society; and so she despatched a
+letter to Mr. Delane, the editor of _The Times_, asking him if he would
+'frequently _write_ articles pointing out the _immense_ danger and evil
+of the wretched frivolity and levity of the views and lives of the
+Higher Classes.'  And five years later Mr. Delane did write an article
+upon that very subject.[2]  Yet it seemed to have very little effect.
+
+Ah! if only the Higher Classes would learn to live as she lived in the
+domestic sobriety of her sanctuary at Balmoral!  For more and more did
+she find solace and refreshment in her Highland domain; and twice
+yearly, in the spring and in the autumn, with a sigh of relief, she set
+her face northwards, in spite of the humble protests of Ministers, who
+murmured vainly in the royal ears that to transact the affairs of State
+over an interval of six hundred miles added considerably to the cares
+of government.  Her ladies, too, {271} felt occasionally a slight
+reluctance to set out, for, especially in the early days, the long
+pilgrimage was not without its drawbacks.  For many years the Queen's
+conservatism forbade the continuation of the railway up Deeside, so
+that the last stages of the journey had to be accomplished in
+carriages.  But, after all, carriages had their good points; they were
+easy, for instance, to get in and out of, which was an important
+consideration, for the royal train remained for long immune from modern
+conveniences, and when it drew up, on some border moorland, far from
+any platform, the high-bred dames were obliged to descend to earth by
+the perilous foot-board, the only pair of folding steps being reserved
+for her Majesty's saloon.  In the days of crinolines such moments were
+sometimes awkward; and it was occasionally necessary to summon Mr.
+Johnstone, the short and sturdy Manager of the Caledonian Railway, who,
+more than once, in a high gale and drenching rain with great difficulty
+'pushed up'--as he himself described it--some unlucky Lady Blanche or
+Lady Agatha into her compartment.[3]  But Victoria cared for none of
+these things.  She was only intent upon regaining, with the utmost
+swiftness, her enchanted Castle, where every spot was charged with
+memories, where every memory was sacred, and where life was passed in
+an incessant and delightful round of absolutely trivial events.
+
+And it was not only the place that she loved; she was equally attached
+to 'the simple mountaineers,' from whom, she said, 'she learnt many a
+lesson of resignation and faith.'[4]  Smith and Grant and Ross and
+Thompson--she was devoted to them all; but, beyond the rest, she was
+devoted to John Brown.  The {272} Prince's gillie had now become the
+Queen's personal attendant--a body servant from whom she was never
+parted, who accompanied her on her drives, waited on her during the
+day, and slept in a neighbouring chamber at night.  She liked his
+strength, his solidity, the sense he gave her of physical security; she
+even liked his rugged manners and his rough unaccommodating speech.
+She allowed him to take liberties with her which would have been
+unthinkable from anybody else.  To bully the Queen, to order her about,
+to reprimand her--who could dream of venturing upon such audacities?
+And yet, when she received such treatment from John Brown, she
+positively seemed to enjoy it.  The eccentricity appeared to be
+extraordinary; but, after all, it is no uncommon thing for an
+autocratic dowager to allow some trusted indispensable servant to adopt
+towards her an attitude of authority which is jealously forbidden to
+relatives or friends: the power of a dependant still remains, by a
+psychological sleight-of-hand, one's own power, even when it is
+exercised over oneself.  When Victoria meekly obeyed the abrupt
+commands of her henchman to get off her pony or put on her shawl, was
+she not displaying, and in the highest degree, the force of her
+volition?  People might wonder; she could not help that; this was the
+manner in which it pleased her to act, and there was an end of it.  To
+have submitted her judgment to a son or a Minister might have seemed
+wiser or more natural; but if she had done so, she instinctively felt,
+she would indeed have lost her independence.  And yet upon somebody she
+longed to depend.  Her days were heavy with the long process of
+domination.  As she drove in silence over the moors she leaned back in
+the carriage, oppressed and weary; but what a relief!--John Brown was
+behind {273} on the rumble, and his strong arm would be there for her
+to lean upon when she got out.
+
+He had, too, in her mind, a special connection with Albert.  In their
+expeditions the Prince had always trusted him more than anyone; the
+gruff, kind, hairy Scotsman was, she felt, in some mysterious way, a
+legacy from the dead.  She came to believe at last--or so it
+appeared--that the spirit of Albert was nearer when Brown was near.
+Often, when seeking inspiration over some complicated question of
+political or domestic import, she would gaze with deep concentration at
+her late husband's bust.  But it was also noticed that sometimes in
+such moments of doubt and hesitation Her Majesty's looks would fix
+themselves upon John Brown.
+
+Eventually, the 'simple mountaineer' became almost a state personage.
+The influence which he wielded was not to be overlooked.  Lord
+Beaconsfield was careful, from time to time, to send courteous messages
+to 'Mr. Brown' in his letters to the Queen, and the French Government
+took particular pains to provide for his comfort during the visits of
+the English Sovereign to France.  It was only natural that among the
+elder members of the royal family he should not have been popular, and
+that his failings--for failings he had, though Victoria would never
+notice his too acute appreciation of Scotch whisky--should have been
+the subject of acrimonious comment at Court.  But he served his
+mistress faithfully, and to ignore him would be a sign of disrespect in
+her biographer.  For the Queen, far from making a secret of her
+affectionate friendship, took care to publish it to the world.  By her
+orders two gold medals were struck in his honour; on his death, in
+1883, a long and eulogistic obituary notice {274} of him appeared in
+the _Court Circular_; and a Brown memorial brooch--of gold, with the
+late gillie's head on one side and the royal monogram on the other--was
+designed by her Majesty for presentation to her Highland servants and
+cottagers, to be worn by them on the anniversary of his death, with a
+mourning scarf and pins.  In the second series of extracts from the
+Queen's Highland Journal, published in 1884, her 'devoted personal
+attendant and faithful friend' appears upon almost every page, and is
+in effect the hero of the book.  With an absence of reticence
+remarkable in royal persons, Victoria seemed to demand, in this private
+and delicate matter, the sympathy of the whole nation; and yet--such is
+the world!--there were those who actually treated the relations between
+their Sovereign and her servant as a theme for ribald jests.[5]
+
+
+II
+
+The busy years hastened away; the traces of Time's unimaginable touch
+grew manifest; and old age, approaching, laid a gentle hold upon
+Victoria.  The grey hair whitened; the mature features mellowed; the
+short firm figure amplified and moved more slowly, supported by a
+stick.  And, simultaneously, in the whole tenour of the Queen's
+existence an extraordinary transformation came to pass.  The nation's
+attitude towards her, critical and even hostile as it had been for so
+many years, altogether changed; while there was a corresponding
+alteration in the temper of Victoria's own mind.
+
+Many causes led to this result.  Among them were the repeated strokes
+of personal misfortune which befell {275} the Queen during a cruelly
+short space of years.  In 1878 the Princess Alice, who had married in
+1862 the Prince Louis of Hesse-Darmstadt, died in tragic circumstances.
+In the following year the Prince Imperial, the only son of the Empress
+Eugenie, to whom Victoria, since the catastrophe of 1870, had become
+devotedly attached, was killed in the Zulu War.  Two years later, in
+1881, the Queen lost Lord Beaconsfield, and, in 1883, John Brown.  In
+1884 the Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany, who had been an invalid from
+birth, died prematurely, shortly after his marriage.  Victoria's cup of
+sorrows was indeed overflowing: and the public, as it watched the
+widowed mother weeping for her children and her friends, displayed a
+constantly increasing sympathy.
+
+An event which occurred in 1882 revealed and accentuated the feelings
+of the nation.  As the Queen, at Windsor, was walking from the train to
+her carriage, a youth named Roderick Maclean fired a pistol at her from
+a distance of a few yards.  An Eton boy struck up Maclean's arm with an
+umbrella before the pistol went off; no damage was done, and the
+culprit was at once arrested.  This was the last of a series of seven
+attempts upon the Queen--attempts which, taking place at sporadic
+intervals over a period of forty years, resembled one another in a
+curious manner.  All, with a single exception, were perpetrated by
+adolescents, whose motives were apparently not murderous, since, save
+in the case of Maclean, none of their pistols was loaded.  These
+unhappy youths, who, after buying their cheap weapons, stuffed them
+with gunpowder and paper, and then went off, with the certainty of
+immediate detection, to click them in the face of royalty, present a
+strange problem to the psychologist.  But, though {276} in each case
+their actions and their purposes seemed to be so similar, their fates
+were remarkably varied.  The first of them, Edward Oxford, who fired at
+Victoria within a few months of her marriage, was tried for high
+treason, declared to be insane, and sent to an asylum for life.  It
+appears, however, that this sentence did not commend itself to Albert,
+for when, two years later, John Francis committed the same offence, and
+was tried upon the same charge, the Prince pronounced that there was no
+insanity in the matter.  'The wretched creature,' he told his father,
+was 'not out of his mind, but a thorough scamp.'  'I hope,' he added,
+'his trial will be conducted with the greatest strictness.'  Apparently
+it was; at any rate, the jury shared the view of the Prince, the plea
+of insanity was set aside, and Francis was found guilty of high treason
+and condemned to death; but, as there was no proof of an intent to kill
+or even to wound, this sentence, after a lengthened deliberation
+between the Home Secretary and the Judges, was commuted for one of
+transportation for life.  As the law stood, these assaults, futile as
+they were, could be treated only as high treason; the discrepancy
+between the actual deed and the tremendous penalties involved was
+obviously grotesque; and it was, besides, clear that a jury, knowing
+that a verdict of guilty implied a sentence of death, would tend to the
+alternative course, and find the prisoner not guilty but insane--a
+conclusion which, on the face of it, would have appeared to be the more
+reasonable.  In 1842, therefore, an Act was passed making any attempt
+to hurt the Queen a misdemeanour, punishable by transportation for
+seven years, or imprisonment, with or without hard labour, for a term
+not exceeding three years--the misdemeanant, at the discretion of the
+Court, {277} 'to be publicly or privately whipped, as often, and in
+such manner and form, as the Court shall direct, not exceeding
+thrice.'[6]  The four subsequent attempts were all dealt with under
+this new law; William Bean, in 1842, was sentenced to eighteen months'
+imprisonment; William Hamilton, in 1849, was transported for seven
+years; and, in 1850, the same sentence was passed upon Lieutenant
+Robert Pate, who struck the Queen on the head with his cane in
+Piccadilly.  Pate, alone among these delinquents, was of mature years;
+he had held a commission in the Army, dressed himself as a dandy, and
+was, the Prince declared, 'manifestly deranged.'[7]  In 1872 Arthur
+O'Connor, a youth of seventeen, fired an unloaded pistol at the Queen
+outside Buckingham Palace; he was immediately seized by John Brown, and
+sentenced to one year's imprisonment and twenty strokes of the birch
+rod.  It was for his bravery upon this occasion that Brown was
+presented with one of his gold medals.  In all these cases the jury had
+refused to allow the plea of insanity; but Roderick Maclean's attempt
+in 1882 had a different issue.  On this occasion the pistol was found
+to have been loaded, and the public indignation, emphasised as it was
+by Victoria's growing popularity, was particularly great.  Either for
+this or for some other reason the procedure of the last forty years was
+abandoned, and Maclean was tried for high treason.  The result was what
+might have been expected: the jury brought in a verdict of 'not guilty,
+but insane'; and the prisoner was sent to an asylum during Her
+Majesty's pleasure.[8]  Their verdict, however, produced a remarkable
+consequence.  Victoria, who doubtless carried in her mind {278} some
+memory of Albert's disapproval of a similar verdict in the case of
+Oxford, was very much annoyed.  What did the jury mean, she asked, by
+saying that Maclean was not guilty?  It was perfectly clear that he was
+guilty--she had seen him fire off the pistol herself.  It was in vain
+that Her Majesty's constitutional advisers reminded her of the
+principle of English law which lays down that no man can be found
+guilty of a crime unless he be proved to have had a criminal intention.
+Victoria was quite unconvinced.  'If that is the law,' she said, 'the
+law must be altered': and altered it was.  In 1883 an Act was passed
+changing the form of the verdict in cases of insanity, and the
+confusing anomaly remains upon the Statute Book to this day.[9]
+
+But it was not only through the feelings--commiserating or
+indignant--of personal sympathy that the Queen and her people were
+being drawn more nearly together; they were beginning, at last, to come
+to a close and permanent agreement upon the conduct of public affairs.
+Mr. Gladstone's second administration (1880-85) was a succession of
+failures, ending in disaster and disgrace; liberalism fell into
+discredit with the country, and Victoria perceived with joy that her
+distrust of her Ministers was shared by an ever-increasing number of
+her subjects.  During the crisis in the Sudan, the popular temper was
+her own.  She had been among the first to urge the necessity of an
+expedition to Khartoum, and, when the news came of the catastrophic
+death of General Gordon, her voice led the chorus of denunciation which
+raved against the Government.  In her rage, she despatched a
+fulminating telegram to Mr. Gladstone, not in the usual cypher, but
+open;[10] and {279} her letter of condolence to Miss Gordon, in which
+she attacked her Ministers for breach of faith, was widely published.
+It was rumoured that she had sent for Lord Hartington, the Secretary of
+State for War, and vehemently upbraided him.  'She rated me,' he was
+reported to have told a friend, 'as if I'd been a footman.'  'Why
+didn't she send for the butler?' asked his friend.  'Oh,' was the
+reply, 'the butler generally manages to keep out of the way on such
+occasions.'[11]
+
+But the day came when it was impossible to keep out of the way any
+longer.  Mr. Gladstone was defeated, and resigned.  Victoria, at a
+final interview, received him with her usual amenity, but, besides the
+formalities demanded by the occasion, the only remark which she made to
+him of a personal nature was to the effect that she supposed Mr.
+Gladstone would now require some rest.  He remembered with regret how,
+at a similar audience in 1874, she had expressed her trust in him as a
+supporter of the throne; but he noted the change without surprise.
+'Her mind and opinions,' he wrote in his diary afterwards, 'have since
+that day been seriously warped.'[12]
+
+Such was Mr. Gladstone's view; but the majority of the nation by no
+means agreed with him; and, in the General Election of 1886, they
+showed decisively that Victoria's politics were identical with theirs
+by casting forth the contrivers of Home Rule--that abomination of
+desolation--into outer darkness, and placing Lord Salisbury in power.
+Victoria's satisfaction was profound.  A flood of new unwonted
+hopefulness swept over her, stimulating her vital spirits with a
+surprising force.  Her habit of life was suddenly altered; abandoning
+the long seclusion which Disraeli's persuasions {280} had only
+momentarily interrupted, she threw herself vigorously into a multitude
+of public activities.  She appeared at drawing-rooms, at concerts, at
+reviews; she laid foundation-stones; she went to Liverpool to open an
+international exhibition, driving through the streets in her open
+carriage in heavy rain amid vast applauding crowds.  Delighted by the
+welcome which met her everywhere, she warmed to her work.  She visited
+Edinburgh, where the ovation of Liverpool was repeated and surpassed.
+In London, she opened in high state the Colonial and Indian Exhibition
+at South Kensington.  On this occasion the ceremonial was particularly
+magnificent; a blare of trumpets announced the approach of Her Majesty;
+the 'National Anthem' followed; and the Queen, seated on a gorgeous
+throne of hammered gold, replied with her own lips to the address that
+was presented to her.  Then she rose, and, advancing upon the platform
+with regal port, acknowledged the acclamations of the great assembly by
+a succession of curtseys, of elaborate and commanding grace.[13]
+
+Next year was the fiftieth of her reign, and in June the splendid
+anniversary was celebrated in solemn pomp.  Victoria, surrounded by the
+highest dignitaries of her realm, escorted by a glittering galaxy of
+kings and princes, drove through the crowded enthusiasm of the capital
+to render thanks to God in Westminster Abbey.  In that triumphant hour
+the last remaining traces of past antipathies and past disagreements
+were altogether swept away.  The Queen was hailed at once as the mother
+of her people and as the embodied symbol of their imperial greatness;
+and she responded to the double sentiment with all the ardour of her
+spirit.  {281} England and the people of England, she knew it, she felt
+it, were, in some wonderful and yet quite simple manner, _hers_.
+Exultation, affection, gratitude, a profound sense of obligation, an
+unbounded pride--such were her emotions; and, colouring and
+intensifying the rest, there was something else.  At last, after so
+long, happiness--fragmentary, perhaps, and charged with gravity, but
+true and unmistakable none the less--had returned to her.  The
+unaccustomed feeling filled and warmed her consciousness.  When, at
+Buckingham Palace again, the long ceremony over, she was asked how she
+was, 'I am very tired, but very happy,' she said.[14]
+
+
+III
+
+And so, after the toils and tempests of the day, a long evening
+followed--mild, serene, and lighted with a golden glory.  For an
+unexampled atmosphere of success and adoration invested the last period
+of Victoria's life.  Her triumph was the summary, the crown, of a
+greater triumph--the culminating prosperity of a nation.  The solid
+splendour of the decade between Victoria's two jubilees can hardly be
+paralleled in the annals of England.  The sage counsels of Lord
+Salisbury seemed to bring with them not only wealth and power, but
+security; and the country settled down, with calm assurance, to the
+enjoyment of an established grandeur.  And--it was only
+natural--Victoria settled down too.  For she was a part of the
+establishment--an essential part as it seemed--a fixture--a
+magnificent, immovable sideboard in the huge saloon of state.  Without
+her the heaped-up banquet of 1890 would have lost its distinctive
+quality--the comfortable order of the {282} substantial unambiguous
+dishes, with their background of weighty glamour, half out of sight.
+
+Her own existence came to harmonise more and more with what was around
+her.  Gradually, imperceptibly, Albert receded.  It was not that he was
+forgotten--that would have been impossible--but that the void created
+by his absence grew less agonising, and even, at last, less obvious.
+Eventually Victoria found it possible to regret the bad weather without
+immediately reflecting that her 'dear Albert always said we could not
+alter it, but must leave it as it was'; she could even enjoy a good
+breakfast without considering how 'dear Albert' would have liked the
+buttered eggs.[15]  And, as that figure slowly faded, its place was
+taken, inevitably, by Victoria's own.  Her being, revolving for so many
+years round an external object, now changed its motion and found its
+centre in itself.  It had to be so: her domestic position, the pressure
+of her public work, her indomitable sense of duty, made anything else
+impossible.  Her egotism proclaimed its rights.  Her age increased
+still further the surrounding deference; and her force of character,
+emerging at length in all its plenitude, imposed itself absolutely upon
+its environment by the conscious effort of an imperious will.
+
+Little by little it was noticed that the outward vestiges of Albert's
+posthumous domination grew less complete.  At Court the stringency of
+mourning was relaxed.  As the Queen drove through the Park in her open
+carriage with her Highlanders behind her, nursery-maids canvassed
+eagerly the growing patch of violet velvet in the bonnet with its jet
+appurtenances on the small bowing head.
+
+{283}
+
+It was in her family that Victoria's ascendancy reached its highest
+point.  All her offspring were married; the number of her descendants
+rapidly increased; there were many marriages in the third generation;
+and no fewer than thirty-seven of her great-grandchildren were living
+at the time of her death.  A picture of the period displays the royal
+family collected together in one of the great rooms at Windsor--a
+crowded company of more than fifty persons, with the imperial matriarch
+in their midst.  Over them all she ruled with a most potent sway.  The
+small concerns of the youngest aroused her passionate interest; and the
+oldest she treated as if they were children still.  The Prince of
+Wales, in particular, stood in tremendous awe of his mother.  She had
+steadily refused to allow him the slightest participation in the
+business of government; and he had occupied himself in other ways.  Nor
+could it be denied that he enjoyed himself--out of her sight; but, in
+that redoubtable presence, his abounding manhood suffered a miserable
+eclipse.  Once, at Osborne, when, owing to no fault of his, he was too
+late for a dinner party, he was observed standing behind a pillar and,
+wiping the sweat from his forehead, trying to nerve himself to go up to
+the Queen.  When at last he did so, she gave him a stiff nod, whereupon
+he vanished immediately behind another pillar, and remained there until
+the party broke up.  At the time of this incident the Prince of Wales
+was over fifty years of age.[16]
+
+It was inevitable that the Queen's domestic activities should
+occasionally trench upon the domain of high diplomacy; and this was
+especially the case when the interests of her eldest daughter, the
+Crown Princess of Prussia, were at stake.  The Crown Prince held {284}
+liberal opinions; he was much influenced by his wife; and both were
+detested by Bismarck, who declared with scurrilous emphasis that the
+Englishwoman and her mother were a menace to the Prussian State.  The
+feud was still further intensified when, on the death of the old
+Emperor (1888), the Crown Prince succeeded to the throne.  A family
+entanglement brought on a violent crisis.  One of the daughters of the
+new Empress had become betrothed to Prince Alexander of Battenberg, who
+had lately been ejected from the throne of Bulgaria owing to the
+hostility of the Tsar.  Victoria, as well as the Empress, highly
+approved of the match.  Of the two brothers of Prince Alexander, the
+elder had married another of her grand-daughters, and the younger was
+the husband of her daughter, the Princess Beatrice; she was devoted to
+the handsome young men; and she was delighted by the prospect of the
+third brother--on the whole the handsomest, she thought, of the
+three--also becoming a member of her family.  Unfortunately, however,
+Bismarck was opposed to the scheme.  He perceived that the marriage
+would endanger the friendship between Germany and Russia, which was
+vital to his foreign policy, and he announced that it must not take
+place.  A fierce struggle between the Empress and the Chancellor
+followed.  Victoria, whose hatred of her daughter's enemy was
+unbounded, came over to Charlottenburg to join in the fray.  Bismarck,
+over his pipe and his lager, snorted out his alarm.  The Queen of
+England's object, he said, was clearly political--she wished to
+estrange Germany and Russia--and very likely she would have her way.
+'In family matters,' he added, 'she is not used to contradiction'; she
+would 'bring the parson with her in her travelling-bag and the
+bridegroom in her trunk, and the marriage would {285} come off on the
+spot.'  But the man of blood and iron was not to be thwarted so easily,
+and he asked for a private interview with the Queen.  The details of
+their conversation are unknown; but it is certain that in the course of
+it Victoria was forced to realise the meaning of resistance to that
+formidable personage, and that she promised to use all her influence to
+prevent the marriage.  The engagement was broken off; and in the
+following year Prince Alexander of Battenberg united himself to
+Fraeulein Loisinger, an actress at the court theatre of Darmstadt.[17]
+
+But such painful incidents were rare.  Victoria was growing very old;
+with no Albert to guide her, with no Beaconsfield to enflame her, she
+was willing enough to abandon the dangerous questions of diplomacy to
+the wisdom of Lord Salisbury, and to concentrate her energies upon
+objects which touched her more nearly and over which she could exercise
+an undisputed control.  Her home--her court--the monuments at
+Balmoral--the livestock at Windsor--the organisation of her
+engagements--the supervision of the multitudinous details of her daily
+routine--such matters played now an even greater part in her existence
+than before.  Her life passed in an extraordinary exactitude.  Every
+moment of her day was mapped out beforehand; the succession of her
+engagements was immutably fixed; the dates of her journeys--to Osborne,
+to Balmoral, to the South of France, to Windsor, to London--were hardly
+altered from year to year.  She demanded from those who surrounded her
+a rigid precision in details, and she was preternaturally quick in
+detecting the slightest deviation from the rules which she had laid
+down.  Such was the irresistible potency of her {286} personality, that
+anything but the most implicit obedience to her wishes was felt to be
+impossible; but sometimes somebody was unpunctual; and unpunctuality
+was one of the most heinous of sins.  Then her displeasure--her
+dreadful displeasure--became all too visible.  At such moments there
+seemed nothing surprising in her having been the daughter of a
+martinet.[18]
+
+But these storms, unnerving as they were while they lasted, were
+quickly over, and they grew more and more exceptional.  With the return
+of happiness a gentle benignity flowed from the aged Queen.  Her smile,
+once so rare a visitant to those saddened features, flitted over them
+with an easy alacrity; the blue eyes beamed; the whole face, starting
+suddenly from its pendulous expressionlessness, brightened and softened
+and cast over those who watched it an unforgettable charm.  For in her
+last years there was a fascination in Victoria's amiability which had
+been lacking even from the vivid impulse of her youth.  Over all who
+approached her--or very nearly all--she threw a peculiar spell.  Her
+grandchildren adored her; her ladies waited upon her with a reverential
+love.  The honour of serving her obliterated a thousand
+inconveniences--the monotony of a court existence, the fatigue of
+standing, the necessity for a superhuman attentiveness to the minutiae
+of time and space.  As one did one's wonderful duty one could forget
+that one's legs were aching from the infinitude of the passages at
+Windsor, or that one's bare arms were turning blue in the Balmoral cold.
+
+What, above all, seemed to make such service delightful was the
+detailed interest which the Queen took in the circumstances of those
+around her.  Her absorbing passion for the comfortable commonplaces,
+{287} the small crises, the recurrent sentimentalities, of domestic
+life constantly demanded wider fields for its activity; the sphere of
+her own family, vast as it was, was not enough; she became the eager
+confidante of the household affairs of her ladies; her sympathies
+reached out to the palace domestics; even the housemaids and
+scullions--so it appeared--were the objects of her searching inquiries,
+and of her heartfelt solicitude when their lovers were ordered to a
+foreign station, or their aunts suffered from an attack of rheumatism
+which was more than usually acute.[19]
+
+Nevertheless the due distinctions of rank were immaculately preserved.
+The Queen's mere presence was enough to ensure that; but, in addition,
+the dominion of court etiquette was paramount.  For that elaborate
+code, which had kept Lord Melbourne stiff upon the sofa and ranged the
+other guests in silence about the round table according to the order of
+precedence, was as punctiliously enforced as ever.  Every evening after
+dinner, the hearth-rug, sacred to royalty, loomed before the profane in
+inaccessible glory, or, on one or two terrific occasions, actually
+lured them magnetically forward to the very edge of the abyss.  The
+Queen, at the fitting moment, moved towards her guests; one after the
+other they were led up to her; and, while duologue followed duologue in
+constraint and embarrassment, the rest of the assembly stood still,
+without a word.[20]  Only in one particular was the severity of the
+etiquette allowed to lapse.  Throughout the greater part of the reign
+the rule that ministers must stand {288} during their audiences with
+the Queen had been absolute.  When Lord Derby, the Prime Minister, had
+an audience of Her Majesty after a serious illness, he mentioned it
+afterwards, as a proof of the royal favour, that the Queen had remarked
+'How sorry she was she could not ask him to be seated.'  Subsequently,
+Disraeli, after an attack of gout and in a moment of extreme expansion
+on the part of Victoria, had been offered a chair; but he had thought
+it wise humbly to decline the privilege.  In her later years, however,
+the Queen invariably asked Mr. Gladstone and Lord Salisbury to sit
+down.[21]
+
+Sometimes the solemnity of the evening was diversified by a concert, an
+opera, or even a play.  One of the most marked indications of
+Victoria's enfranchisement from the thraldom of widowhood had been her
+resumption--after an interval of thirty years--of the custom of
+commanding dramatic companies from London to perform before the Court
+at Windsor.  On such occasions her spirits rose high.  She loved
+acting; she loved a good plot; above all, she loved a farce.  Engrossed
+by everything that passed upon the stage, she would follow, with
+childlike innocence, the unwinding of the story; or she would assume an
+air of knowing superiority and exclaim in triumph, 'There!  You didn't
+expect _that_, did you?' when the _denouement_ came.  Her sense of
+humour was of a vigorous though primitive kind.  She had been one of
+the very few persons who had always been able to appreciate the Prince
+Consort's jokes; and, when those were cracked no more, she could still
+roar with laughter, in the privacy of her household, over some small
+piece of fun--some oddity of an ambassador, or some ignorant {289}
+Minister's _faux pas_.  When the jest grew subtle she was less pleased;
+but, if it approached the confines of the indecorous, the danger was
+serious.  To take a liberty called down at once Her Majesty's most
+crushing disapprobation; and to say something improper was to take the
+greatest liberty of all.  Then the royal lips sank down at the corners,
+the royal eyes stared in astonished protrusion, and in fact the royal
+countenance became inauspicious in the highest degree, The transgressor
+shuddered into silence, while the awful 'We are not amused' annihilated
+the dinner table.  Afterwards, in her private entourage, the Queen
+would observe that the person in question was, she very much feared,
+'not discreet'; it was a verdict from which there was no appeal.[22]
+
+In general, her aesthetic tastes had remained unchanged since the days
+of Mendelssohn, Landseer, and Lablache.  She still delighted in the
+roulades of Italian opera; she still demanded a high standard in the
+execution of a pianoforte duet.  Her views on painting were decided;
+Sir Edwin, she declared, was perfect; she was much impressed by Lord
+Leighton's manners; and she profoundly distrusted Mr. Watts.  From time
+to time she ordered engraved portraits to be taken of members of the
+royal family; on these occasions she would have the first proofs
+submitted to her, and, having inspected them with minute particularity,
+she would point out their mistakes to the artists, indicating at the
+same time how they might be corrected.  The artists invariably
+discovered that Her Majesty's suggestions were of the highest value.
+In literature her interests were more restricted.  She was devoted to
+Lord {290} Tennyson; and, as the Prince Consort had admired George
+Eliot, she perused 'Middlemarch': she was disappointed.  There is
+reason to believe, however, that the romances of another female writer,
+whose popularity among the humbler classes of Her Majesty's subjects
+was at one time enormous, secured, no less, the approval of Her
+Majesty.  Otherwise she did not read very much.[23]
+
+Once, however, the Queen's attention was drawn to a publication which
+it was impossible for her to ignore.  'The Greville Memoirs,' filled
+with a mass of historical information of extraordinary importance, but
+filled also with descriptions, which were by no means flattering, of
+George IV, William IV, and other royal persons, was brought out by Mr.
+Reeve.  Victoria read the book, and was appalled.  It was, she
+declared, a 'dreadful and really scandalous book,' and she could not
+say 'how _horrified_ and _indignant_' she was at Greville's
+'indiscretion, indelicacy, ingratitude towards friends, betrayal of
+confidence and shameful disloyalty towards his Sovereign.'  She wrote
+to Disraeli to tell him that in her opinion it was '_very important_
+that the book should be severely censured and discredited.'  'The tone
+in which he speaks of royalty,' she added, 'is unlike anything one sees
+in history even, and is most reprehensible.'  Her anger was directed
+with almost equal vehemence against Mr. Reeve for his having published
+'such an abominable book,' and she charged Sir Arthur Helps to convey
+to him her deep displeasure.  Mr. Reeve, however, was impenitent.  When
+Sir Arthur told him that, in the Queen's opinion, 'the book degraded
+royalty,' he replied: 'Not at all; it elevates it by the contrast it
+offers {291} between the present and the defunct state of affairs.' But
+this adroit defence failed to make any impression upon Victoria; and
+Mr. Reeve, when he retired from the public service, did not receive the
+knighthood which custom entitled him to expect.[24]  Perhaps if the
+Queen had known how many caustic comments upon herself Mr. Reeve had
+quietly suppressed in the published Memoirs, she would have been almost
+grateful to him; but, in that case, what would she have said of
+Greville?  Imagination boggles at the thought.  As for more modern
+essays upon the same topic, Her Majesty, it is to be feared, would have
+characterised them as 'not discreet.'
+
+But as a rule the leisure hours of that active life were occupied with
+recreations of a less intangible quality than the study of literature
+or the appreciation of art.  Victoria was a woman not only of vast
+property but of innumerable possessions.  She had inherited an immense
+quantity of furniture, of ornaments, of china, of plate, of valuable
+objects of every kind; her purchases, throughout a long life, made a
+formidable addition to these stores; and there flowed in upon her,
+besides, from every quarter of the globe, a constant stream of gifts.
+Over this enormous mass she exercised an unceasing and minute
+supervision, and the arrangement and the contemplation of it, in all
+its details, filled her with an intimate satisfaction.  The collecting
+instinct has its roots in the very depths of human nature; and, in the
+case of Victoria, it seemed to owe its force to two of her dominating
+impulses--the intense sense, which had always been hers, of her own
+personality, and the craving which, growing with the years, had become
+in her old age almost an obsession, for fixity, for solidity, for {292}
+the setting up of palpable barriers against the outrages of change and
+time.  When she considered the multitudinous objects which belonged to
+her, or, better still, when, choosing out some section of them as the
+fancy took her, she actually savoured the vivid richness of their
+individual qualities, she saw herself deliciously reflected from a
+million facets, felt herself magnified miraculously over a boundless
+area, and was well pleased.  That was just as it should be; but then
+came the dismaying thought--everything slips away, crumbles, vanishes;
+Sevres dinner-services get broken; even golden basins go unaccountably
+astray; even one's self, with all the recollections and experiences
+that make up one's being, fluctuates, perishes, dissolves ... But no!
+It could not, should not be so!  There should be no changes and no
+losses!  Nothing should ever move--neither the past nor the
+present--and she herself least of all!  And so the tenacious woman,
+hoarding her valuables, decreed their immortality with all the
+resolution of her soul.  She would not lose one memory or one pin.
+
+She gave orders that nothing should be thrown away--and nothing was.
+There, in drawer after drawer, in wardrobe after wardrobe, reposed the
+dresses of seventy years.  But not only the dresses--the furs and the
+mantles and subsidiary frills and the muffs and the parasols and the
+bonnets--all were ranged in chronological order, dated and complete.  A
+great cupboard was devoted to the dolls; in the china-room at Windsor a
+special table held the mugs of her childhood, and her children's mugs
+as well.  Mementoes of the past surrounded her in serried
+accumulations.  In every room the tables were powdered thick with the
+photographs of relatives; their portraits, revealing {293} them at all
+ages, covered the walls; their figures, in solid marble, rose up from
+pedestals, or gleamed from brackets in the form of gold and silver
+statuettes.  The dead, in every shape--in miniatures, in porcelain, in
+enormous life-size oil-paintings--were perpetually about her.  John
+Brown stood upon her writing-table in solid gold.  Her favourite horses
+and dogs, endowed with a new durability, crowded round her footsteps.
+Sharp, in silver-gilt, dominated the dinner-table; Boy and Boz lay
+together among unfading flowers, in bronze.  And it was not enough that
+each particle of the past should be given the stability of metal or of
+marble: the whole collection, in its arrangement, no less than its
+entity, should be immutably fixed.  There might be additions, but there
+might never be alterations.  No chintz might change, no carpet, no
+curtain, be replaced by another; or, if long use at last made it
+necessary, the stuffs and the patterns must be so identically
+reproduced that the keenest eye might not detect the difference.  No
+new picture could be hung upon the walls at Windsor, for those already
+there had been put in their places by Albert, whose decisions were
+eternal.  So, indeed, were Victoria's.  To ensure that they should be
+the aid of the camera was called in.  Every single article in the
+Queen's possession was photographed from several points of view.  These
+photographs were submitted to Her Majesty, and when, after careful
+inspection, she had approved of them, they were placed in a series of
+albums, richly bound.  Then, opposite each photograph, an entry was
+made, indicating the number of the article, the number of the room in
+which it was kept, its exact position in the room and all its principal
+characteristics.  The fate of every object which had undergone this
+process was henceforth {294} irrevocably sealed.  The whole multitude,
+once and for all, took up its steadfast station.  And Victoria, with a
+gigantic volume or two of the endless catalogue always beside her, to
+look through, to ponder upon, to expatiate over, could feel, with a
+double contentment, that the transitoriness of this world had been
+arrested by the amplitude of her might.[25]
+
+Thus the collection, ever multiplying, ever encroaching upon new fields
+of consciousness, ever rooting itself more firmly in the depths of
+instinct, became one of the dominating influences of that strange
+existence.  It was a collection not merely of things and of thoughts,
+but of states of mind and ways of living as well.  The celebration of
+anniversaries grew to be an important branch of it--of birthdays and
+marriage days and death days, each of which demanded its appropriate
+feeling, which, in its turn, must be itself expressed in an appropriate
+outward form.  And the form, of course--the ceremony of rejoicing or
+lamentation--was stereotyped with the rest: it was part of the
+collection.  On a certain day, for instance, flowers must be strewn on
+John Brown's monument at Balmoral; and the date of the yearly departure
+for Scotland was fixed by that fact.  Inevitably it was around the
+central circumstance of death--death, the final witness to human
+mutability--that these commemorative cravings clustered most thickly.
+Might not even death itself be humbled, if one could recall enough?--if
+one asserted, with a sufficiently passionate and reiterated emphasis,
+the eternity of love?  Accordingly, every bed in which Victoria slept
+had attached to it, at the back, on the right-hand side, above the
+pillow, a photograph of the head and shoulders of Albert {295} as he
+lay dead, surmounted by a wreath of immortelles.[26]  At Balmoral,
+where memories came crowding so closely, the solid signs of memory
+appeared in surprising profusion.  Obelisks, pyramids, tombs, statues,
+cairns, and seats of inscribed granite, proclaimed Victoria's
+dedication to the dead.  There, twice a year, on the days that followed
+her arrival, a solemn pilgrimage of inspection and meditation was
+performed.  There, on August 26--Albert's birthday--at the foot of the
+bronze statue of him in Highland dress, the Queen, her family, her
+Court, her servants, and her tenantry, met together and in silence
+drank to the memory of the dead.  In England the tokens of remembrance
+pullulated hardly less.  Not a day passed without some addition to the
+multifold assemblage--a gold statuette of Ross, the piper--a life-sized
+marble group of Victoria and Albert, in medieval costume, inscribed
+upon the base with the words: 'Allured to brighter worlds and led the
+way'--a granite slab in the shrubbery at Osborne, informing the visitor
+of 'Waldmann: the very favourite little dachshund of Queen Victoria;
+who brought him from Baden, April 1872; died, July 11, 1881.'[27]
+
+At Frogmore, the great mausoleum, perpetually enriched, was visited
+almost daily by the Queen when the Court was at Windsor.[28]  But there
+was another, a more secret and a hardly less holy shrine.  The suite of
+rooms which Albert had occupied in the Castle was kept for ever shut
+away from the eyes of any save the most privileged.  Within those
+precincts everything remained as it had been at the Prince's death; but
+the mysterious preoccupation of Victoria had commanded that her
+husband's clothing should be laid afresh, each {296} evening, upon the
+bed, and that, each evening, the water should be set ready in the
+basin, as if he were still alive; and this incredible rite was
+performed with scrupulous regularity for nearly forty years.[29]
+
+Such was the inner worship; and still the flesh obeyed the spirit;
+still the daily hours of labour proclaimed Victoria's consecration to
+duty and to the ideal of the dead.  Yet, with the years, the sense of
+self-sacrifice had faded; the natural energies of that ardent being
+discharged themselves with satisfaction into the channel of public
+work; the love of business which, from her girlhood, had been strong
+within her, reasserted itself in all its vigour, and, in her old age,
+to have been cut off from her papers and her boxes would have been, not
+a relief, but an agony to Victoria.  Thus, though toiling Ministers
+might sigh and suffer, the whole process of government continued, till
+the very end, to pass before her.  Nor was that all; ancient precedent
+had made the validity of an enormous number of official transactions
+dependent upon the application of the royal sign-manual; and a great
+proportion of the Queen's working hours was spent in this mechanical
+task.  Nor did she show any desire to diminish it.  On the contrary,
+she voluntarily resumed the duty of signing commissions in the Army,
+from which she had been set free by Act of Parliament, and from which,
+during the years of middle life, she had abstained.  In no case would
+she countenance the proposal that she should use a stamp.  But, at
+last, when the increasing pressure of business made the delays of the
+antiquated system intolerable, she consented that, for certain classes
+of documents, her oral sanction should be sufficient.  Each paper was
+read aloud to her, and she said at the end 'Approved.' {297} Often, for
+hours at a time, she would sit, with Albert's bust in front of her,
+while the word 'Approved' issued at intervals from her lips.  The word
+came forth with a majestic sonority; for her voice now--how changed
+from the silvery treble of her girlhood!--was a contralto, full and
+strong.[30]
+
+
+IV
+
+The final years were years of apotheosis.  In the dazzled imagination
+of her subjects Victoria soared aloft towards the regions of divinity
+through a nimbus of purest glory.  Criticism fell dumb; deficiencies
+which, twenty years earlier, would have been universally admitted, were
+now as universally ignored.  That the nation's idol was a very
+incomplete representative of the nation was a circumstance that was
+hardly noticed, and yet it was conspicuously true.  For the vast
+changes which, out of the England of 1837, had produced the England of
+1897, seemed scarcely to have touched the Queen.  The immense
+industrial development of the period, the significance of which had
+been so thoroughly understood by Albert, meant little indeed to
+Victoria.  The amazing scientific movement, which Albert had
+appreciated no less, left Victoria perfectly cold.  Her conception of
+the universe, and of man's place in it, and of the stupendous problems
+of nature and philosophy remained, throughout her life, entirely
+unchanged.  Her religion was the religion which she had learnt from the
+Baroness Lehzen and the Duchess of Kent.  Here, too, it might be
+supposed that Albert's views would have influenced her.  For Albert, in
+matters of religion, {298} was advanced.  Disbelieving altogether in
+evil spirits, he had had his doubts about the miracle of the Gadarene
+Swine.[31]  Stockmar, even, had thrown out, in a remarkable memorandum
+on the education of the Prince of Wales, the suggestion that while the
+child 'must unquestionably be brought up in the creed of the Church of
+England,' it might nevertheless be in accordance with the spirit of the
+times to exclude from his religious training the inculcation of a
+belief in 'the supernatural doctrines of Christianity.'[32]  This,
+however, would have been going too far; and all the royal children were
+brought up in complete orthodoxy.  Anything else would have grieved
+Victoria, though her own conceptions of the orthodox were not very
+precise.  But her nature, in which imagination and subtlety held so
+small a place, made her instinctively recoil from the intricate
+ecstasies of High Anglicanism; and she seemed to feel most at home in
+the simple faith of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland.[33]  This was
+what might have been expected; for Lehzen was the daughter of a
+Lutheran pastor, and the Lutherans and the Presbyterians have much in
+common.  For many years Dr. Norman Macleod, an innocent Scotch
+minister, was her principal spiritual adviser; and, when he was taken
+from her, she drew much comfort from quiet chats about life and death
+with the cottagers at Balmoral.[34]  Her piety, absolutely genuine,
+found what it wanted in the sober exhortations of old John Grant and
+the devout saws of Mrs. P. Farquharson.  They possessed the qualities,
+which, as a child of fourteen, she had so sincerely admired in the
+Bishop of Chester's 'Exposition of the Gospel of St. Matthew'; they
+were 'just plain and comprehensible {299} and full of truth and good
+feeling.'  The Queen, who gave her name to the Age of Mill and of
+Darwin, never got any further than that.
+
+From the social movements of her time Victoria was equally remote.
+Towards the smallest no less than towards the greatest changes she
+remained inflexible.  During her youth and middle-age smoking had been
+forbidden in polite society, and so long as she lived she would not
+withdraw her anathema against it.  Kings might protest; bishops and
+ambassadors, invited to Windsor, might be reduced, in the privacy of
+their bedrooms, to lie full-length upon the floor and smoke up the
+chimney--the interdict continued.[35]  It might have been supposed that
+a female sovereign would have lent her countenance to one of the most
+vital of all the reforms to which her epoch gave birth--the
+emancipation of women--but, on the contrary, the mere mention of such a
+proposal sent the blood rushing to her head.  In 1870, her eye having
+fallen upon the report of a meeting in favour of Women's Suffrage, she
+wrote to Mr. Martin in royal rage--'The Queen is most anxious to enlist
+everyone who can speak or write to join in checking this mad, wicked
+folly of "Woman's Rights," with all its attendant horrors, on which her
+poor feeble sex is bent, forgetting every sense of womanly feeling and
+propriety.  Lady ---- ought to get a _good whipping_.  It is a subject
+which makes the Queen so furious that she cannot contain herself.  God
+created men and women different--then let them remain each in their own
+position.  Tennyson has some beautiful lines on the difference of men
+and women in "The Princess."  Woman would become the most hateful,
+heartless, and disgusting of human beings were she allowed to {300}
+unsex herself; and where would be the protection which man was intended
+to give the weaker sex?  The Queen is sure that Mrs. Martin agrees with
+her.'[36]  The argument was irrefutable; Mrs. Martin agreed; and yet
+the canker spread.
+
+In another direction Victoria's comprehension of the spirit of her age
+has been constantly asserted.  It was for long the custom for courtly
+historians and polite politicians to compliment the Queen upon the
+correctness of her attitude towards the Constitution.  But such praises
+seem hardly to be justified by the facts.  In her later years Victoria
+more than once alluded with regret to her conduct during the Bedchamber
+crisis, and let it be understood that she had grown wiser since.[37]
+Yet in truth it is difficult to trace any fundamental change either in
+her theory or her practice in constitutional matters throughout her
+life.  The same despotic and personal spirit which led her to break off
+the negotiations with Peel is equally visible in her animosity towards
+Palmerston, in her threats of abdication to Disraeli, and in her desire
+to prosecute the Duke of Westminster for attending a meeting upon
+Bulgarian atrocities.  The complex and delicate principles of the
+Constitution cannot be said to have come within the compass of her
+mental faculties; and in the actual developments which it underwent
+during her reign she played a passive part.  From 1840 to 1861 the
+power of the Crown steadily increased in England; from 1861 to 1901 it
+steadily declined.  The first process was due to the influence of the
+Prince Consort, the second to that of a series of great Ministers.
+During the first Victoria was in effect a mere accessory; during the
+second the threads of power, which Albert had so laboriously collected,
+inevitably fell {301} from her hands into the vigorous grasp of Mr.
+Gladstone, Lord Beaconsfield, and Lord Salisbury.  Perhaps, absorbed as
+she was in routine, and difficult as she found it to distinguish at all
+clearly between the trivial and the essential, she was only dimly aware
+of what was happening.  Yet, at the end of her reign, the Crown was
+weaker than at any other time in English history.  Paradoxically
+enough, Victoria received the highest eulogiums for assenting to a
+political evolution which, had she completely realised its import,
+would have filled her with supreme displeasure.
+
+Nevertheless it must not be supposed that she was a second George III.
+Her desire to impose her will, vehement as it was, and unlimited by any
+principle, was yet checked by a certain shrewdness.  She might oppose
+her Ministers with extraordinary violence; she might remain utterly
+impervious to arguments and supplications; the pertinacity of her
+resolution might seem to be unconquerable; but, at the very last moment
+of all, her obstinacy would give way.  Her innate respect and capacity
+for business, and perhaps, too, the memory of Albert's scrupulous
+avoidance of extreme courses, prevented her from ever entering an
+_impasse_.  By instinct she understood when the facts were too much for
+her, and to them she invariably yielded.  After all, what else could
+she do?
+
+But if, in all these ways, the Queen and her epoch were profoundly
+separated, the points of contact between them also were not few.
+Victoria understood very well the meaning and the attractions of power
+and property, and in such learning the English nation, too, had grown
+to be more and more proficient.  During the last fifteen years of the
+reign--for the short Liberal Administration of 1892 was a mere {302}
+interlude--imperialism was the dominant creed of the country.  It was
+Victoria's as well.  In this direction, if in no other, she had allowed
+her mind to develop.  Under Disraeli's tutelage the British Dominions
+over the seas had come to mean much more to her than ever before, and,
+in particular, she had grown enamoured of the East.  The thought of
+India fascinated her; she set to, and learnt a little Hindustani; she
+engaged some Indian servants, who became her inseparable attendants,
+and one of whom, Munshi Abdul Karim, eventually almost succeeded to the
+position which had once been John Brown's.[38]  At the same time, the
+imperialist temper of the nation invested her office with a new
+significance exactly harmonising with her own inmost proclivities.  The
+English polity was in the main a common-sense structure; but there was
+always a corner in it where common-sense could not enter--where,
+somehow or other, the ordinary measurements were not applicable and the
+ordinary rules did not apply.  So our ancestors had laid it down,
+giving scope, in their wisdom, to that mystical element which, as it
+seems, can never quite be eradicated from the affairs of men.
+Naturally it was in the Crown that the mysticism of the English polity
+was concentrated--the Crown, with its venerable antiquity, its sacred
+associations, its imposing spectacular array.  But, for nearly two
+centuries, common-sense had been predominant in the great building, and
+the little, unexplored, inexplicable corner had attracted small
+attention.  Then, with the rise of imperialism, there was a change.
+For imperialism is a faith as well as a business; as it grew, the
+mysticism in English public life grew with it; and simultaneously a new
+importance began to attach to the Crown.  The {303} need for a
+symbol--a symbol of England's might, of England's worth, of England's
+extraordinary and mysterious destiny--became felt more urgently than
+ever before.  The Crown was that symbol: and the Crown rested upon the
+head of Victoria.  Thus it happened that while by the end of the reign
+the power of the sovereign had appreciably diminished, the prestige of
+the sovereign had enormously grown.
+
+Yet this prestige was not merely the outcome of public changes; it was
+an intensely personal matter, too.  Victoria was the Queen of England,
+the Empress of India, the quintessential pivot round which the whole
+magnificent machine was revolving--but how much more besides!  For one
+thing, she was of a great age--an almost indispensable qualification
+for popularity in England.  She had given proof of one of the most
+admired characteristics of the race--persistent vitality.  She had
+reigned for sixty years, and she was not out.  And then, she was a
+character.  The outlines of her nature were firmly drawn, and, even
+through the mists which envelop royalty, clearly visible.  In the
+popular imagination her familiar figure filled, with satisfying ease, a
+distinct and memorable place.  It was, besides, the kind of figure
+which naturally called forth the admiring sympathy of the great
+majority of the nation.  Goodness they prized above every other human
+quality; and Victoria, who, at the age of twelve, had said that she
+would be good, had kept her word.  Duty, conscience, morality--yes! in
+the light of those high beacons the Queen had always lived.  She had
+passed her days in work and not in pleasure--in public responsibilities
+and family cares.  The standard of solid virtue which had been set up
+so long ago amid the domestic happiness of Osborne had never been
+lowered for an instant.  For {304} more than half a century no divorced
+lady had approached the precincts of the Court.  Victoria, indeed, in
+her enthusiasm for wifely fidelity, had laid down a still stricter
+ordinance: she frowned severely upon any widow who married again.[39]
+Considering that she herself was the offspring of a widow's second
+marriage, this prohibition might be regarded as an eccentricity; but,
+no doubt, it was an eccentricity on the right side.  The middle
+classes, firm in the triple brass of their respectability, rejoiced
+with a special joy over the most respectable of Queens.  They almost
+claimed her, indeed, as one of themselves; but this would have been an
+exaggeration.  For, though many of her characteristics were most often
+found among the middle classes, in other respects--in her manners, for
+instance--Victoria was decidedly aristocratic.  And, in one important
+particular, she was neither aristocratic nor middle-class: her attitude
+toward herself was simply regal.
+
+Such qualities were obvious and important; but, in the impact of a
+personality, it is something deeper, something fundamental and common
+to all its qualities, that really tells.  In Victoria, it is easy to
+discern the nature of this underlying element: it was a peculiar
+sincerity.  Her truthfulness, her single-mindedness, the vividness of
+her emotions and her unrestrained expression of them, were the varied
+forms which this central characteristic assumed.  It was her sincerity
+which gave her at once her impressiveness, her charm, and her
+absurdity.  She moved through life with the imposing certitude of one
+to whom concealment was impossible--either towards her surroundings or
+towards herself.  There she was, all of her--the Queen of England,
+complete and obvious; the world might take her or {305} leave her; she
+had nothing more to show, or to explain, or to modify; and, with her
+peerless carriage, she swept along her path.  And not only was
+concealment out of the question; reticence, reserve, even dignity
+itself, as it sometimes seemed, might be very well dispensed with.  As
+Lady Lyttelton said: 'There is a transparency in her truth that is very
+striking--not a shade of exaggeration in describing feelings or facts;
+like very few other people I ever knew.  Many may be as true, but I
+think it goes often along with some reserve.  She talks all out; just
+as it is, no more and no less.'[40]  She talked all out; and she wrote
+all out, too.  Her letters, in the surprising jet of their expression,
+remind one of a turned-on tap.  What is within pours forth in an
+immediate, spontaneous rush.  Her utterly unliterary style has at least
+the merit of being a vehicle exactly suited to her thoughts and
+feelings; and even the platitude of her phraseology carries with it a
+curiously personal flavour.  Undoubtedly it was through her writings
+that she touched the heart of the public.  Not only in her 'Highland
+Journals,' where the mild chronicle of her private proceedings was laid
+bare without a trace either of affectation or of embarrassment, but
+also in those remarkable messages to the nation which, from time to
+time, she published in the newspapers, her people found her very close
+to them indeed.  They felt instinctively Victoria's irresistible
+sincerity, and they responded.  And in truth it was an endearing trait.
+
+The personality and the position, too--the wonderful combination of
+them--that, perhaps, was what was finally fascinating in the case.  The
+little old lady, with her white hair and her plain mourning clothes, in
+her wheeled chair or her donkey-carriage--one saw her so; {306} and
+then--close behind--with their immediate suggestion of singularity, of
+mystery, and of power--the Indian servants.  That was the familiar
+vision, and it was admirable; but, at chosen moments, it was right that
+the widow of Windsor should step forth apparent Queen.  The last and
+the most glorious of such occasions was the Jubilee of 1897.  Then, as
+the splendid procession passed along, escorting Victoria through the
+thronged re-echoing streets of London on her progress of thanksgiving
+to St. Paul's Cathedral, the greatness of her realm and the adoration
+of her subjects blazed out together.  The tears welled to her eyes,
+and, while the multitude roared round her, 'How kind they are to me!
+How kind they are!' she repeated over and over again.[41]  That night
+her message flew over the Empire: 'From my heart I thank my beloved
+people.  May God bless them!'  The long journey was nearly done.  But
+the traveller, who had come so far, and through such strange
+experiences, moved on with the old unfaltering step.  The girl, the
+wife, the aged woman, were the same: vitality, conscientiousness,
+pride, and simplicity were hers to the latest hour.
+
+
+
+[1] Halle, 296.
+
+[2] _Notes and Queries_, May 20, 1920.
+
+[3] Neele, 476-8, 487.
+
+[4] _More Leaves_, _v_.
+
+[5] _More Leaves_, passim; Crawford, 326-31; private information.
+
+[6] Martin, I, 88, 137-43.
+
+[7] _Ibid._, II, 285.
+
+[8] _The Times_, April 20, 1882.
+
+[9] Letter from Sir Herbert Stephen to _The Times_, December 15,1920.
+
+[10] Morley, III, 167.
+
+[11] Private information.
+
+[12] Morley, III, 347-8.
+
+[13] Jerrold, _Widowhood_, 344; private information.
+
+[14] Lee, 487.
+
+[15] _More Leaves_, 23, 29.
+
+[16] Eckardstein, I, 184-7.
+
+[17] Grant Robertson, 458-9; Busch, III, 174-188; Lee, 490-2.
+
+[18] _Quarterly Review_, CXCIII, 305-6, 308-10.
+
+[19] _Quarterly Review_, CXCIII, 315-6; Miss Ethel Smyth, _London
+Mercury_, Nov. 1920; private information.
+
+[20] _Ibid._, CXCIII, 325; Miss Ethel Smyth, _London Mercury_, Nov.
+1920.
+
+[21] Buckle, V, 339; Morley, III, 347, 514.
+
+[22] Quarterly Review, CXCIII, 315, 316-7, 324-5, 326; _Spinster Lady_,
+268-9; Lee, 504-5.
+
+[23] _Quarterly Review_, CXCIII, 322-4; Martin, _Queen Victoria_, 46-9;
+private information.
+
+[24] Buckle, V, 349-51; Laughton, II, 226.
+
+[25] _Private Life_, 13, 66, 69, 70-1, 151, 182.
+
+[26] _Private Life_, 19.
+
+[27] _Ibid._, 212, 207.
+
+[28] _Ibid._, 233.
+
+[29] Private information.
+
+[30] Lee, 514-15; Crawford, 362-3.
+
+[31] Wilberforce, Samuel, II, 275.
+
+[32] Martin, II, 185-7.
+
+[33] _Quarterly Review_, CXCIII, 319-20.
+
+[34] Crawford, 349.
+
+[35] Eckardstein, I, 177.
+
+[36] Martin, Queen Victoria, 69-70.
+
+[37] _Girlhood_, II, 142.
+
+[38] Lee, 485; private information.
+
+[39] Lee, 555.
+
+[40] Lyttelton, 331
+
+[41] _Quarterly Review_, CXCIII, 310.
+
+
+
+
+{307}
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE END
+
+The evening had been golden; but, after all, the day was to close in
+cloud and tempest.  Imperial needs, imperial ambitions, involved the
+country in the South African War.  There were checks, reverses, bloody
+disasters; for a moment the nation was shaken, and the public
+distresses were felt with intimate solicitude by the Queen.  But her
+spirit was high, and neither her courage nor her confidence wavered for
+a moment.  Throwing herself heart and soul into the struggle, she
+laboured with redoubled vigour, interested herself in every detail of
+the hostilities, and sought by every means in her power to render
+service to the national cause.  In April 1900, when she was in her
+eighty-first year, she made the extraordinary decision to abandon her
+annual visit to the South of France, and to go instead to Ireland,
+which had provided a particularly large number of recruits to the
+armies in the field.  She stayed for three weeks in Dublin, driving
+through the streets, in spite of the warnings of her advisers, without
+an armed escort; and the visit was a complete success.  But, in the
+course of it, she began, for the first time, to show signs of the
+fatigue of age.[1]
+
+For the long strain and the unceasing anxiety, brought by the war, made
+themselves felt at last.  {308} Endowed by nature with a robust
+constitution, Victoria, though in periods of depression she had
+sometimes supposed herself an invalid, had in reality throughout her
+life enjoyed remarkably good health.  In her old age, she had suffered
+from a rheumatic stiffness of the joints, which had necessitated the
+use of a stick, and, eventually, a wheeled chair; but no other ailments
+attacked her, until, in 1898, her eyesight began to be affected by
+incipient cataract.  After that, she found reading more and more
+difficult, though she could still sign her name, and even, with some
+difficulty, write letters.  In the summer of 1900, however, more
+serious symptoms appeared.  Her memory, in whose strength and precision
+she had so long prided herself, now sometimes deserted her; there was a
+tendency towards aphasia; and, while no specific disease declared
+itself, by the autumn there were unmistakable signs of a general
+physical decay.  Yet, even in these last months, the vein of iron held
+firm.  The daily work continued; nay, it actually increased; for the
+Queen, with an astonishing pertinacity, insisted upon communicating
+personally with an ever-growing multitude of men and women who had
+suffered through the war.[2]
+
+By the end of the year the last remains of her ebbing strength had
+almost deserted her; and through the early days of the opening century
+it was clear that her dwindling forces were kept together only by an
+effort of will.  On January 11, she had at Osborne an hour's interview
+with Lord Roberts, who had returned victorious from South Africa a few
+days before.  She inquired with acute anxiety into all the details of
+the war; she appeared to sustain the exertion successfully; but, when
+the audience was over, there was a collapse.  On the {309} following
+day her medical attendants recognised that her state was hopeless; and
+yet, for two days more, the indomitable spirit fought on; for two days
+more she discharged the duties of a Queen of England.  But after that
+there was an end of working; and then, and not till then, did the last
+optimism of those about her break down.  The brain was failing, and
+life was gently slipping away.  Her family gathered round her; for a
+little more she lingered, speechless and apparently insensible; and, on
+January 22, 1901, she died.[3]
+
+When, two days previously, the news of the approaching end had been
+made public, astonished grief had swept over the country.  It appeared
+as if some monstrous reversal of the course of nature was about to take
+place.  The vast majority of her subjects had never known a time when
+Queen Victoria had not been reigning over them.  She had become an
+indissoluble part of their whole scheme of things, and that they were
+about to lose her appeared a scarcely possible thought.  She herself,
+as she lay blind and silent, seemed to those who watched her to be
+divested of all thinking--to have glided already, unawares, into
+oblivion.  Yet, perhaps, in the secret chambers of consciousness, she
+had her thoughts, too.  Perhaps her fading mind called up once more the
+shadows of the past to float before it, and retraced, for the last
+time, the vanished visions of that long history--passing back and back,
+through the cloud of years, to older and ever older memories--to the
+spring woods at Osborne, so full of primroses for Lord Beaconsfield--to
+Lord Palmerston's queer clothes and high demeanour, and Albert's face
+under the green lamp, and Albert's first stag at Balmoral, and Albert
+in his blue and silver uniform, and the Baron coming in through {310} a
+doorway, and Lord M. dreaming at Windsor with the rooks cawing in the
+elm-trees, and the Archbishop of Canterbury on his knees in the dawn,
+and the old King's turkey-cock ejaculations, and Uncle Leopold's soft
+voice at Claremont, and Lehzen with the globes, and her mother's
+feathers sweeping down towards her, and a great old repeater-watch of
+her father's in its tortoise-shell case, and a yellow rug, and some
+friendly flounces of sprigged muslin, and the trees and the grass at
+Kensington.
+
+
+
+[1] _Quarterly Review_, CXCIII, 318, 336-7.
+
+[2] Lee, 536-7; private information.
+
+[3] Lee, 537-9; _Quarterly Review_, CXCIII, 309.
+
+
+
+
+{311}
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY
+
+AND
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+
+Colchester, London & Eton, England
+
+
+
+
+_SOME OPINIONS ON 'EMINENT VICTORIANS'_
+
+_NOW IN ITS NINTH EDITION_
+
+
+'Mr. Lytton Strachey's "Eminent Victorians" has had, I suppose, the
+most instant success that any book of account has won in this
+generation.  Some of Mr. Strachey's incidental portraits are of
+astonishing brilliancy--notably that of Mr. Gladstone, and the book is
+sure of long life.  This it will owe to its felicity of style and its
+finish and delicacy of moulding, no less than to its cynical wit and
+its perfectly serious and critical intention.'--_The Nation_.
+
+'A brilliant and extraordinarily witty book.  Mr. Strachey's method of
+presenting his characters is both masterly and subtle.  His purpose is
+to penetrate into the most hidden depths of his sitters' characters.
+There is something almost uncanny in the author's detachment.'--_The
+Times_.
+
+'An unusually interesting volume in a department of literature which,
+in England, has fallen to a grievously low level.'--_Manchester
+Guardian_.
+
+'Four short biographies which are certainly equal to anything of the
+kind which has been produced for a hundred years.  He elucidates with
+consummate dexterity--the book is a masterpiece of its kind.'--Mr. J.
+C. Squire, in _Land and Water_.
+
+'A brilliant book has recently appeared which illustrates in very
+vigorous and striking fashion the interval which seems to divide the
+twentieth century from the nineteenth.  Mr. Lytton Strachey's book has
+attained a celebrity quite remarkable for literary work produced in
+times of war.  There is no doubt as to its literary merits.'--Leading
+Article in _The Daily Telegraph_.
+
+'This book is brilliant and witty and iconoclastic enough, but it has
+also something in it which gives it greatness.  Regarded as an example
+of the manner in which biography can be written, it is almost
+unparalleled in English; and many readers will be rejoiced if Mr.
+Strachey can be induced to become a Plutarch of the modern
+world.'--_Westminster Gazette_.
+
+'It is impossible here even to outline the precise, vivid, and witty
+essays which Mr. Strachey has devoted to his four characters.  But he
+has certainly done something to redeem English biography from the
+reproach under which it suffers when compared with the art as practised
+in France; and he comes close to the standard which he sets himself
+when he speaks of the "Fontenelles and Condorcets."'--_New Statesman_.
+
+'Mr. Strachey's subtle and suggestive art.'--_Mr. Asquith's Romanes
+Lecture at Oxford_.
+
+
+
+
+LONDON: CHATTO & WINDUS
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Queen Victoria, by Lytton Strachey
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK QUEEN VICTORIA ***
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