Page:Dictionary of National Biography. Sup. Vol III (1901).djvu/432

 and political interests made the strengthening of the personal tie desirable. He attended a great review at Windsor Park with the queen, and went with her to Ascot and to the opera. At a grand concert given in his honour at Buckingham Palace, Joseph Joachim, then on a visit to England as a boy, was engaged to perform. A rough soldier in appearance and manner, the tsar treated his hostess with a courtesy which seemed to her pathetic, and, although preoccupied by public affairs, civilly ignored all likelihood of a divergence of political interests between England and his own country.

At the time domestic politics were agitating the queen. The spread of disaffection in Ireland during the repeal agitation distressed her, and her name was made more prominent in the controversy than was prudent. The Irish lord chancellor, Sir Edward Sugden, publicly asserted that the queen was personally determined to prevent repeal (May 1843). The repeal leader O'Connell, a warm admirer of the queen, promptly denied the statement. Peel mildly reprimanded Sugden, but truth forced him to admit that the queen 'would do all in her power to maintain the union as the bond of connection between the two countries' (Peel Papers, iii. 52). The obstructive policy of the opposition in parliament at the same time caused her concern. She wrote to Peel on 15 Aug. of 'her indignation at the very unjustifiable manner in which the minority were obstructing the order of business;' she hoped that every attempt would be made 'to put an end to what is really indecent conduct,' and that Sir Robert Peel would 'make no kind of concession to these gentlemen which could encourage them to go on in the same way' (ib. iii. 568). Worse followed in the month of the tsar's visit. On 14 June the government were defeated on a proposal to reduce the sugar duties. To the queen's consternation, Peel expressed an intention of resigning at once. Happily, four days later a vote of confidence was carried and the crisis passed. The queen wrote at once to express her relief (18 June). 'Last night,' she said, 'every one thought that the government would be beat, and therefore the surprise was the more unexpected and gratifying' (ib. iii. 153). Foreign affairs, too, despite the hospitalities of the English court to royal visitors, were threatening. The jealousy between the English and French peoples might be restrained, but could not be stifled, by the friendliness subsisting between the courts, and in the autumn of 1843 the maltreatment by French officials of an English consul, George Pritchard, in the island of Tahiti, which the French had lately occupied, caused in England an explosion of popular wrath with France, which the queen and her government at one time feared must end in war.

Amid these excitements a second son, Prince Alfred, was born to the queen at Windsor on 6 Aug., and at the end of the month she entertained another royal personage from Germany, the prince of Prussia, brother of the king, and eventually first emperor of Germany. There sprang up between her and her new guest a warm friendship which lasted for more than forty years. A peaceful autumn holiday was again spent in Scotland, whither they proceeded by sea from Woolwich to Dundee. Thence they drove to Blair Athol to visit Lord and Lady Glenlyon, afterwards Duke and Duchess of Athol. Prince Albert engaged in deerstalking, and the queen did much sketching. They thoroughly enjoyed 'the life of quiet and liberty,' and with regret disembarked at Woolwich on 3 Oct. to face anew official anxieties (Journal, pp. 29–42).

Five days later Louis Philippe returned the queen's visit, and thus for the first time a French monarch voluntarily landed on English shores. The Tahiti quarrel had been composed, and the interchange of hospitable amenities was unclouded. On 9 Oct. the king was invested with the order of the Garter. On the 14th the visit ended, and the queen and Prince Albert accompanied their visitor to Portsmouth, though the stormy weather ultimately compelled him to proceed to Dover to take the short sea trip to Calais. Another elaborate ceremony at home attested the queen's popularity, which she liked to trace to public sympathy with her happy domestic life. She went in state to the city, 28 Oct., to open the new Royal Exchange. An elaborate coloured panoramic plate of the procession which was published at the time is now rare. Of her reception Peel wrote to Sir Henry Hardinge (6 Nov. 1844): 'As usual she had a fine day, and uninterrupted success. It was a glorious spectacle. But she saw a sight which few sovereigns have ever seen, and perhaps none may see again, a million human faces with a smile on each. She did not hear one discordant sound' (Peel Papers, iii. 264). On 12 Nov. the radical town of Northampton gave her a hardly less enthusiastic greeting when she passed through it on her way to visit the Marquis of Exeter at Burghley House. Other noble hosts