Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 1.djvu/590

 assurances of assent to Gladstone's general proposition. But her unwillingness to pursue the matter in detail brought the negotiation to an end.

The prince's career underwent no essential change, although there was a steady widening of experience on the accepted lines. New titular honours were from time to time bestowed on him. On 29 June 1875 he was, much to his satisfaction, made a field-marshal. The distinction stimulated his interest in the army, which was in name at least his profession. Foreign tours abroad became more frequent, alike in France, Germany, and Austria. The great International Exhibition at Vienna in 1873 gave him opportunity of assiduous work. He was president of the royal commission for the British section, and took an active share in its organisation. At the opening ceremonies in Vienna in May he was the guest of the Emperor Francis Joseph, and played his part with his accustomed grace. At the beginning of 1874 he went for a second time to St. Petersburg, again as a wedding guest, now to attend the marriage of his next brother, Alfred, the duke of Edinburgh, to the Duchess Marie. The bride was Tsar Alexander II's daughter, and her sister-in-law, the tsarevna, was the Princess of Wales's sister. The prince's amiability won him fresh laurels at the Russian court. On his way home he stayed once more in Berlin with the old German Emperor William I, and then with the crown prince and princess at Potsdam, joining his brother-in-law in a boar-hunt. In July 1874 the prince and princess gave evidence of their earnest wish to play with brilliance their part at home at the head of London society. They then gave at Marlborough House a fancy dress ball on a more splendid scale of entertainment than any they had yet attempted. The prince wore a Van Dyck costume, with doublet cloak of light maroon satin embroidered in gold. The only guests who were excused fancy dress were the duke of Cambridge and Disraeli. Two days later the duke of Wellington acknowledged the force of the example by offering the prince a similar festivity at Apsley House, where the prince appeared in the same dress.

An experience a few months later illustrated the good-humour and cool conciliatory temper in which the prince faced public affairs. The prince and princess decided to pay a first visit to the city of Birmingham. The mayor, Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, a friend of Sir Charles Dilke, was acquiring a general reputation as an advocate of extreme radicalism, and had in articles in the 'Fortnightly Review' shown republican leanings. The programme included a procession of the royal party through the streets of the city, the reception of an address in the town hall, an entertainment at lunch by the mayor, and visits to leading manufactories. All anticipations of constraint or unpleasantness between the prince and the mayor were belied. With a tact which the prince himself could not excel, Mr. Chamberlain proposed his guest's health in the words: 'Here in England the throne is recognised and respected as the symbol of all constituted authority and settled government.' The prince was as discreet in reply (3 Nov.). (Sir) John Tenniel's cartoon in 'Punch ' (14 Nov. 1874), entitled 'A Brummagem Lion,' showed Mr. Chamberlain as a lion gently kneeling before the prince and princess, and the accompanying verses congratulated him on concealing his 'red republican claws and teeth,' and on comporting himself as 'a gentleman' in the glare of the princely sun. The episode merely served to illustrate the natural felicity with which both the chief actors in it could adapt themselves to circumstance.

In spite of the queen's qualms a more important public duty was laid on the prince than had yet been assigned him. Even in his father's lifetime a tour in India had been suggested, and Gladstone had considered a plan for associating the prince with the government of India at home. Early in 1875 Disraeli's government decided that the prince should make a tour through India, with a view to proving the sovereign's interest in her Indian subjects' welfare (20 March). The unrest from which native India was never wholly free seemed to involve the project in some peril, and at the outset controversial issues were raised by politicians at home. The expenses were estimated at a sum approaching 200,000l., although in the result they did not exceed 112,000l. The government decided to debit the amount to the Indian exchequer, and radical members of parliament raised a cry of injustice. The prince's status in India also raised a perplexing problem of a more academic kind. The unofficial position of the prince in England seemed to the queen and her advisers a just ground for denying him in India the formal rank