Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 1.djvu/584

 Agricultural Exhibition at Dublin. Earl Spencer, the lord-lieutenant, and Lord Hartington, the chief secretary, were his personal friends, and under their auspices he enjoyed a week of brilliant festivity. Unluckily at its close (Sunday, 7 Aug.), while he was staying at the Viceregal Lodge in Phoenix Park, a proposed meeting in the park of sympathisers with Fenian prisoners in England was prohibited. A riot broke out by way of demonstrating that 'patriots are dearer to [Irish] hearts than princes.' The political disaffection, although it did not prejudice the prince's relations with the Irish masses, was not easily silenced, and fourteen years passed before the prince sought a new experience of Irish hospitality.

III His mother's desire to exclude the prince from all political counsels was not altogether fulfilled. Her ministers at the foreign outset of his adult career questioned her prudence in keeping him in complete ignorance of political affairs. From 1864 onwards the prince, stirred in part by the princess's anxiety for the fortunes of her family, was deeply interested in the wars which disturbed central Europe. Prussia and Austria continued their endeavours to deprive Denmark of all hold on Schleswig-Holstein. The prince's Danish sentiment was in accord with popular English feeling. But it caused embarrassment to Queen Victoria, who in spite of her private German leanings was resolved on the maintenance of England's neutrality. Her relations with her son were often strained by his warm support of the Danes.

In 1865 Lord Russell, the prime minister, avowed sympathy with the prince's request for access to those foreign despatches which were regularly placed at the disposal of all cabinet ministers. The queen reluctantly so far gave way as to sanction the communication to the prince of carefully selected specimens of the confidential foreign correspondence. The restrictions which guarded the privilege dissatisfied the prince, and his endeavours to secure their (diminution or removal formed a constant theme of debate with the sovereign and ministers till near the end of his mother's reign. The queen's oft-repeated justification for her restraints was the prince's alleged lack of discretion and his inability to keep a secret from his intimates. Resigning himself with some impatience to the maternal interdict, the prince sought other than official means of information and influence in foreign matters. To foreign ambassadors he offered abundant hospitality, and with them he always cherished frank and cordial intercourse.

The prince's relations with the French ambassador in London, Prince de la Tour d'Auvergne, during the Danish crisis of 1864 show him in a characteristic light. On 8 Jan. 1864 a first child, a boy, had been born to the prince and princess an heir, at Frogmore. There were many festive celebrations, and the prince's guests were influential. But the rejoicings over the new experience of fatherhood did not lessen the prince's excitement regarding the foreign situation. On 10 March the christening took place at Buckingham Palace. At a concert in the evening the French ambassador was present. Napoleon III was making proposals for arbitration between Denmark and the German powers. The prince at once questioned his French guest on the subject with what the latter described to his government as the prince's customary indifference to rules of etiquette. The prince warned the ambassador with heat that the Danes were a brave people, who were ready to meet death rather than any kind of humiliation (10 March 1864). Bang Leopold, who was staying with Queen Victoria, sought to moderate the prince's energy. Twelve days later the ambassador dined at Marlborough House, and was surprised by signs of greater prudence and moderation in the prince's talk, which he attributed to the influence of King Leopold. The prince now agreed that Denmark would be wise in assenting to a pacification. He also spoke in favour of the idea of Scandinavian unity. The ambassador in reporting fully to his government the prince's deliverances, pointed out that the views of the heir to the English throne needed consideration, and that it would be wise for France, in view of the prince's opinion, to do what was practicable in support of Danish interests (Les origines diplomatiques de la guerre de 1870–1, Paris 1910, torn. ii. pp. 109 seq.). Thus while Queen Victoria and her ministers held that the prince's opinions counted for nothing, he contrived privately to give foreign ambassadors quite a different impression. The discrepancy between the home and foreign verdicts on his relations with foreign policy grew steadily.

The prince's tact always more or less controlled his personal feelings. Gladstone detected only 'a little Danism' in the