Page:EB1911 - Volume 28.djvu/48

Rh “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 given her sanction to a measure, that it be not arbitrarily altered or modified by the minister. Such an act she must regard as failing in sincerity to the crown, and justly to be visited by the exercise of her constitutional right of dismissing that minister. She expects to be kept informed of what passes between him and the foreign ministers, before important decisions are taken, based upon that intercourse; to receive the foreign dispatches in good time, and to have the drafts for her approval sent her in sufficient time to make herself acquainted with their contents before they must be sent off. The queen thinks it best that Lord John Russell should show this letter to Lord Palmerston.”

Lord Palmerston took a copy of this letter, and promised to attend to its direction. But the queen thoroughly distrusted him, and in October 1851 his proposed reception of Kossuth nearly led to a crisis. Then finally she discovered (December 13) at the time of the coup d'état, that he had, of his own initiative, given assurances of approval to Count Walewski, which were not in accord with the views of the cabinet and with the “neutrality which had been enjoined” by the queen. This was too much even for Lord John Russell, and after a short and decisive correspondence Lord Palmerston resigned the seals of office.

The death of the duke of Wellington in 1852 deeply affected the queen. The duke had acquired a position above parties,

and was the trusted adviser of all statesmen and of the court in emergencies. The queen sadly needed such a counsellor, for Prince Albert's position was one full of difficulty, and party malignity was continually putting wrong constructions upon the advice which he gave, and imputing to him advice which he did not give. During the Corn Law agitation offence was taken at his having attended a debate in the House of Commons, the Tories declaring that he had gone down to overawe the house in favour of Peel's measures. After Palmerston's enforced resignation, there was a new and more absurd hubbub. A climax was reached when the difficulties with Russia arose which led to the Crimean War; the prince was accused by the peace party of wanting war, and by the war party of plotting surrender; and it came to be publicly rumoured that the queen's husband had been found conspiring against the state, and had been committed to the Tower. Some said that the queen had been arrested too, and the prince wrote to Stockmar: “Thousands of people surrounded the Tower to see the queen and me brought to it.” This gave infinite pain to the queen, and at length she wrote to Lord Aberdeen on the subject. Eventually, on 31st January 1854, Lord John Russell took occasion to deny most emphatically that Prince Albert interfered unduly with foreign affairs, and in both houses the statesmen of the two parties delivered feeling panegyrics of the prince, asserting at the same time his entire constitutional right to give private advice to the sovereign on matters of state. From this time it may be said that Prince Albert's position was established on a secure footing. He had declined (1850) to accept the post of commander-in-chief at the duke of Wellington's suggestion, and he always refused to let himself be placed in any situation which would have modified ever so slightly his proper relations with the queen. The queen was very anxious that he should receive the title of “King Consort,” and that the crown should be jointly borne as it was by William III. and Mary; but he himself never spoke a word for this arrangement. It was only to please the queen that he consented to take the title of Prince Consort (by letters patent of June 25, 1857), and he only did this when it was manifest that statesmen of all parties approved the change.

For the queen and royal family the Crimean War time was a very busy and exciting one. Her majesty personally

superintended the committees of ladies who organized relief for the wounded; she helped Florence Nightingale in raising bands of trained nurses; she visited the crippled soldiers in the hospitals, and it was through her resolute complaints of the utter insufficiency of the hospital accommodation that Netley Hospital was built. The

distribution of medals to the soldiers and the institution of the Victoria Cross (February 1857) as a reward for individual instances of merit and valour must also be noted among the incidents which occupied the queen's time and thoughts. In 1855 the emperor and empress of the French visited the queen at Windsor Castle, and the same year her majesty and the prince consort paid a visit to Paris.

The queen's family life was most happy. At Balmoral and Windsor the court lived in virtual privacy, and the queen and

the prince consort saw much of their children. Countless entries in the queen's diaries testify to the anxious affection with which the progress of each little member of the household was watched. Two more children had been born to the royal pair, Prince Leopold (duke of Albany) on the 7th of April 1853, and on the 14th of April 1857 their last child, the princess Beatrice (Princess Henry of Battenberg), bringing the royal family up to nine—four sons and five daughters. Less than a year after Princess Beatrice's birth the princess royal was married to Prince Frederick William of Prussia, afterwards the emperor Frederick. The next marriage after the princess royal's was that of the princess Alice to Prince Louis (afterwards grand duke) of Hesse-Darmstadt in 1862. In 1863 the prince of Wales married the princess Alexandra of Denmark. In 1866 the princess Helena became the wife of Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein. In 1871 the princess Louise was wedded to the marquis of Lorne, eldest son of the duke of Argyll. In 1874 Prince Alfred, duke of Edinburgh, married Princess Marie Alexandrovna, only daughter of the tsar Alexander II. The duke of Connaught married in 1879 the princess Louise of Prussia, daughter of the soldier-prince Frederick Charles. In 1882 Prince Leopold, duke of Albany, wedded the princess Helen of Waldeck-Pyrmont. Finally came the marriage of Princess Beatrice in 1885 with Prince Henry of Battenberg.

On the occasion of the coming of age of the queen's sons and the marriages of her daughters parliament made provision. The prince of Wales, in addition to the revenues of the duchy of Cornwall, had £40,000 a year, the princess £10,000, and an addition of £36,000 a year for their children was granted by parliament in 1889. The princess royal received a dowry of £40,000 and £8000 a year for life, the younger daughters £30,000 and £6000 a year each. The dukes of Edinburgh, Connaught and Albany were each voted an income of £15,000, and £10,000 on marrying.

The dispute with the United States concerning the “Trent” affair of 1861 will always be memorable for the part played in

its settlement by the queen and the prince consort. In 1861 the accession of Abraham Lincoln to the presidency of the United States of America caused the Southern States of the Union to revolt, and the war began. During November the British West India steamer “Trent” was boarded by a vessel of the Federal Navy, the “San Jacinto,” and Messrs Slidell and Mason, commissioners for the Confederate States, who were on their way to England, were seized. The British government were on the point of demanding reparation for this act in a peremptory manner which could hardly have meant anything but war, but Prince Albert insisted on revising Lord Russell's despatch in a way which gave the American government an opportunity to concede the surrender of the prisoners without humiliation. The memorandum from the queen on this point was the prince consort's last political draft.

The year 1861 was the saddest in the queen's life. On 16th March, her mother, the duchess of Kent, died, and on 14th

December, while the dispute with America about the “Trent” affair was yet unsettled, the prince consort breathed his last at Windsor. His death left a void in the queen's life which nothing could ever fill. She built at Frogmore a magnificent mausoleum where she might be buried with him.

Never again during her reign did the queen live in London, and Buckingham Palace was only used for occasional visits of a few days.