Page:Dictionary of National Biography. Sup. Vol III (1901).djvu/445

 alleviation of her lot. On 2 Dec. 1851 Prince Louis Napoleon by a coup d'état made himself absolute head of the French government. Palmerston believed in Napoleon's ability, and a day or two later, in conversation with the French ambassador, Walewski, expressed of his own initiative approbation of the new form of government in France. The queen and Lord John viewed Napoleon's accession to power, and the means whereby it had been accomplished, with detestation. Palmerston's precipitate committal of England to a friendly recognition of the new regime before he had communicated with the queen or his colleagues untied the Gordian knot that bound him to the queen. This display of self-sufficiency roused the temper of Lord John, who had assured the queen that for the present England would extend to Napoleon the coldest neutrality. To the queen's surprise and delight, Lord John summarily demanded Palmerston's resignation (19 Dec.) Palmerston feebly defended himself by claiming that in his intercourse with Walewski he had only expressed his personal views, and that he was entitled to converse at will with ambassadors. Lord John offered to rearrange the government so as to give him another office, but this Palmerston declined. The seals of the foreign office were transferred to the queen's friend, Lord Granville.

The queen and the prince did not conceal their joy at the turn of events. To his brother Ernest, Prince Albert wrote without reserve : 'And now the year closes with the happy circumstance for us, that the man who embittered our whole life, by continually placing before us the shameful alternative of either sanctioning his misdeeds throughout Europe, and rearing up the radical party here to a power under his leadership, or bringing about an open conflict with the crown, and thus plunging the only country where liberty, order, and lawfulness exist together into the general chaos that this man has, as it were, cut his own throat. "Give a rogue rope enough and he will hang himself" is an old English adage with which we have sometimes tried to console ourselves, and which has proved true again here. . . .' (Duke Ernest's Memoirs). As a matter of fact, Palmerston's dismissal was a doubtful triumph for the crown. It was, in the first place, not the queen's act ; it was the act of Lord John, who was not greatly influenced by court feeling, and it was an act that Lord John lived to regret. Palmerston's popularity in the country grew in proportion to his unpopularity at court, and, in the decade that followed, his power and ministerial power generally increased steadily at the expense of the crown's influence in both home and foreign affairs. The genuine victory lay with the minister.

IV

Palmerston's removal did not, in fact, even at the moment diminish anxiety at court. 1852 opened ominously. The intentions of France were doubtful. The need of increasing the naval and military forces was successfully urged on the government, but no sooner had the discussions on that subject opened in the House of Commons than Palmerston condemned as inadequate the earliest proposals of the government which were embodied in a militia bill, and, inflicting a defeat on his former colleagues, brought about their resignation on 20 Feb. 1852, within two months of his own dismissal. The queen summoned Lord Derby, who formed a conservative government, with Disraeli as chancellor of the exchequer and leader of the House of Commons. It was not a strong ministry. Its members, almost all of whom were new to official life, belonged to the party of protection; but protection had long since vanished from practical politics, and the queen was disposed to reproach her new advisers with their delay in discerning the impracticability of their obsolete policy. A little more haste, she said, 'would have saved so much annoyance, so much difficulty.' But personal intercourse rapidly overcame her prejudices. Lord Derby proved extremely courteous. Lord Malmesbury, the foreign minister, kept her thoroughly well informed of the affairs of his office, and the personal difficulty that she and her friends had anticipated from Disraeli was held in check. Disraeli had won his first parliamentary repute by his caustic denunciations of the queen's friend Peel, and she was inclined to adopt the widespread view that he was an unprincipled adventurer. He was perfectly aware of her sentiment, and during the ministerial crisis 'of 1851 he expressed himself quite ready to accept a post that should not bring him into frequent relations with the court. But personal acquaintance with him at once diminished the queen's distrust ; his clever conversation amused her. She afterwards gave signal proof of a dispassionate spirit by dismissing every trace of early hostility, and by extending to him in course of time a confidence and a devotion which far exceeded