CHAPTER IX

.

THE HEIR-PRESUMPTIVE.

Disputes with American Belligerents--The Southern Privateers--Uneasiness of the Queen--Federal Recruiting in Ireland--Mr. Gladstone’s Budget--Revival of the Reform Agitation--Mr. Gladstone Joins the Reformers--“Essays and Reviews”--A Heresy-Hunt in Convocation--A Ribald Chancellor--The Parliamentary Duel between Wilberforce and Westbury--The Vote of Censure on Mr. Lowe--The Five Under-Secretaries and the House of Commons--Prorogation of Parliament--The Strife in the United States--Gambling in Cotton--A Commercial Panic in England--The Battle of Chancellorsville--Sherman’s March through Georgia--The Canadian Raiders--The Presidential Election--Birth of the Heir-Presumptive--Baptism of the Heir-Presumptive--The Queen’s Gift to her Little Grandson--The Queen and the Floods at Sheffield--The Murder of Mr. Briggs--The Queen Refuses a Reprieve to the Murderer--The Queen’s Letter to the Princess Louis--John Brown and the Queen’s Pony--Dr. Norman McLeod’s Message from the Queen--An Anniversary of Sorrow and Sympathy.

Next in importance to the Danish Question in 1864, were disputes which rose out of the relations of England to the belligerents in the American Civil War. The Southern States having no navy fit to cope with that of the Federal Government, had equipped swift steam cruisers which swept American commerce from the seas. They ran no risks in scuttling unarmed merchantmen, and their speed protected them from capture by men-of-war. The most formidable of these cruisers or privateers, such as the _Alabama_ and the _Georgia_, had been built in English yards, usually under the pretence of being destined for some Foreign Power which was at peace. When they escaped to sea and got their armament on board, they hoisted their true colours, and set forth to prey on American commerce. It has been shown how the precautions which the authorities had taken to prevent the Southern cruisers from escaping were evaded. The authorities, however, were more successful in arresting certain steam-rams--which were being built at the yard of Messrs. Laird in Birkenhead--the sailing of which Mr. Adams warned Lord Russell would be taken by the Federal Government as an act of war. Lord Monck, then Viceroy of Canada, in a letter to the late Mr. A. Hayward, says that the arrest of the rams had produced a good effect in favour of the English Government on the _official_ mind in America. On the other hand, the ship-building trade supported Messrs. Laird in denouncing the action of the authorities; and the Tory Opposition, and the sympathisers with the Slave States joined the shipbuilders in attacking the Government. These attacks were futile, but to avoid the annoyance of litigation, the Government virtually bribed Messrs. Laird into silence by buying the rams for her Majesty’s service. On the other hand, the partisans of the Northern States blamed the Government for being too generous in extending hospitality to the Southern cruisers, or “pirates,” as they were termed by the extreme Radicals of the period. When the _Georgia_, a Confederate cruiser, which had been built on the Clyde, and secretly equipped by a Liverpool firm, put into Liverpool, it was pointed out that she ought not to be treated as a ship of war. She had been preying on the commerce of a friendly Power. Like a pirate, she had never taken her prizes to be condemned in a Prize Court, but had scuttled them on the high seas. She had never once been in any of the ports of the belligerent Power under whose flag she sailed, and altogether a very unpleasant precedent for a great Maritime State was being created by her reception at Liverpool. The Queen was understood to be somewhat uneasy on the subject, and Mr. Thomas Baring, on the part of the commercial community, expressed a similar feeling of discomfort. It was admitted that the Government had the power to exclude these vessels from English ports, but Ministers contended that it would be inexpedient to act so conspicuously in favour of one of the belligerents, between whom they desired to stand absolutely neutral. The Government could not be induced to go further than promise to remonstrate with the Confederates on account of the conduct of their agents in this country.[214] Complaints were then made that the Federal Government were surreptitiously carrying on a system of recruiting in Ireland. Of this no proof could be obtained, because of the cloak which emigration gave to the proceedings of the American agents. It was well known in Ireland that any able-bodied labourer who emigrated to New York could get a bounty of nearly £100 if he joined the colours. Hence, it is difficult to believe that the American “crimps” had any inducements to effect the enlistment of Irish recruits at Cork, rather than at New York. There is reason to think that the “crimps” infested passenger ships and cajoled emigrants during the voyage to enlist when they arrived at New York. But public opinion was satisfied that the Government could not effectually stop proceedings of this sort--especially on imperfect evidence.

In 1864 finance was again the mainstay of Lord Palmerston’s Administration. Mr. Gladstone had come to be regarded as a kind of fiscal magician. He rose superior to every reverse of fortune, and he had an expedient ready to meet every emergency. In spite of monetary panics, cotton famines, lavish military expenditure, and large remissions of taxation, the elasticity of the revenue under his fostering care supplied every deficit almost as soon as it was created. The public credit of England had never been higher; her finances had never been more stable or productive. On the 7th of April, when the Budget was introduced, he spoke to an overflowing House, and

[Illustration: THE GUARD ROOM, WINDSOR CASTLE.]

princes, peers, foreign envoys, and men of distinction in all ranks gathered together to listen to the orator. The year had been uneventfully prosperous, and again the balances were on the right side of the national ledger. The revenue had produced £70,208,000, or £2,037,000 above the estimates; the expenditure had been £67,056,000, or £1,227,000 below the estimates. On the existing basis of taxation, Mr. Gladstone estimated for the coming year a revenue of £69,460,000; but his estimated expenditure was only £66,890,000, so that there was a large margin for financial readjustments. He got rid of £20,000 by modifying the duty on corn and grain and the tax on small licences; he devoted £1,330,000 to reduce the sugar duties, and by taking a penny off the Income Tax he sacrificed at once £800,000, though ultimately £1,200,000; he reduced the duty on fire insurances on stock-in-trade from 3s. to 1s. 6d. per £, which involved a loss of £283,000. The net result of his scheme was a loss of revenue of £2,332,000, while the relief from taxation amounted to £3,000,000. This left him with an estimated surplus for the coming year of £238,000. The Budget was popular, not only on its own account, but on account of the masterly exposition of the financial state of England which accompanied it. Englishmen read with swelling pride the figures in which Mr. Gladstone congratulated them on a steady increase of £1,000,000 every year to their revenue--an increase due to its “inherent vigour.” As for the movement of trade, it was marvellous, the value of exports and imports having increased from £377,000,000 in 1871, to £444,000,000 in 1874. Nor was the Queen capable of concealing her satisfaction at the results of the great fiscal policy, the responsibility for initiating which, she and her husband had anxiously shared with Peel. It was the justification, not only of his foresight, but of their unswerving faith in his insight and ideas, that since 1842 the trade of her people had simply been trebled--that what men of business called their “turnover” had now reached the enormous sum of £1,500,000 for every working day of the year. It was not surprising that, with such mighty interests at stake, her Majesty cast her personal influence into the scale against Lord Palmerston and Lord Russell, who led the War Party in the Cabinet, and shrank from putting such a vast fabric of industry in jeopardy, merely to gratify the wounded vanity of a Minister who, having signed an invalid Treaty, was enraged because it was torn up under his eyes. Mr. Gladstone carried his Budget, though he failed to carry a useful measure to substitute the Scottish for the English system of collecting Imperial taxes.[215] He was successful, however, in spite of the clamour of the private companies, in passing a beneficial measure removing the restriction on Government life insurances.[216]

Lord Russell in his speech at Blairgowrie, in the recess of 1863, had told Reformers that they should “rest and be thankful.” In 1864, however, they not only refused to follow the advice, but were rewarded for their enterprise by taking captive no less prominent a personage than the Chancellor of the Exchequer. There had been the usual debate on the ballot, in which the old arguments for and against it were set forth in the old way. Mr. Locke King had revived his scheme for extending the £20 franchise to counties. But both projects had been rejected, and everybody felt that the cause of reform was once more shelved, till suddenly the whole question was quickened into life by Mr. Gladstone’s unexpected declaration of policy. Mr. Baines, one of the members for Leeds, had brought in a Bill substituting a £6 for a £10 rental in boroughs, and it was met by Mr. Cave moving the previous question, on the ground that the working classes did not need or want any better representation of their interests than they enjoyed already. Mr. Gladstone, however, to the consternation of the Whigs and Tories, intervened in the debate, and declared that he thought there ought to be “a sensible and considerable addition” to the infinitesimal portion of the working classes then in possession of the franchise. This he defined to be such as would have been made by the Government proposal of 1860. The Whigs grew pale with fear when they heard him, amidst Radical cheers, declare “that every man who is not presumably incapacitated by some consideration of personal unfitness or political danger is morally entitled to come within the pale of the constitution.” The upper stratum of the working class which was deprived of votes was not inferior to the lower stratum of the middle class, which had votes--indeed, the one section of society was as worthy as the other. As Mr. Forster observed, this speech from the leading member of the Government in the House--Lord Palmerston was absent on the occasion--rendered it impossible for the Ministry to set aside the question of Reform much longer. All men saw that Parties would soon have to join issue and decide whether the country was to be governed by a Tory Ministry on Tory principles, or by a Liberal Ministry acting on Conservative ideas and in secret league with the Conservative Leaders. Mr. Baines’s Bill was got rid of by carrying the “previous question”--but from that day it was settled that the reversion of the leadership of the Liberal Party in the Commons must fall to Mr. Gladstone.

The Session would have been dull and leaden save for a debate with which the Peers diverted the town in the dog days. On the 15th of July Lord Houghton, in the House of Lords, protested against Convocation issuing a synodical condemnation of a now forgotten book entitled “Essays and Reviews,” in which seven clever clergymen discoursed with mild and timorous heterodoxy on seven burning theological questions. Current views were challenged in the light of modern German research and criticism, and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council had acquitted two of the authors who had been prosecuted for heresy.[217] Convocation, however, issued a synodical condemnation of the book which created a considerable sensation at the time, as it was the first occasion during a century and a half on which the Church of England asserted her claim to pronounce authoritatively in controversies of faith. Lord Houghton challenged the legality of the condemnation, and pressed the Government to take action in the matter. Lord Chancellor Westbury disposed of the subject in a provokingly contemptuous statement. There

[Illustration: OLIVER KING’S CHANTRY, ST. GEORGE’S CHAPEL, WINDSOR.]

were, he said, three modes of dealing with Convocation. The first was to take no notice of its proceedings when they were harmless; the second was, when it was likely to do mischief, to prorogue it and put an end to its power; the third was to bring its members to the bar of justice. To pass such a judgment as had been pronounced on “Essays and Reviews,” Lord Westbury held was technically a usurpation of the prerogative of the Crown as the head of the Anglican Church. Hence members of Convocation had rendered themselves liable to the penalties of _præmunire_, and to appear as penitents in sackcloth and ashes. Something like £40,000 in fines, he declared, might be exacted from them, but still the Government in the circumstances meant to take no

## action. _Solvuntur risu tabulæ._ Westbury’s mincing sneering tones would

have sufficed to stir the old Adam in militant ecclesiastics, but it happened that in describing a synodical judgment he directed a personal attack with biting wit and bad taste against the Bishop of Oxford. Such a sentence could not conveniently be dealt with, said Westbury, because “it was a set of what he might call well-lubricated words, but it was a sentence so oily, so absurd, and so saponaceous[218] that no one could grasp it, but, like an eel, it slipped through the fingers. It must mean something or nothing, and he was glad to be able to tell his noble friend (Lord Houghton) that it had literally no signification whatever.” Wilberforce

[Illustration: MR. LOWE (AFTERWARDS LORD SHERBROOKE).]

lifted the gage of battle with the spirit of a trained gladiator of debate, and he certainly had not the worst of the duel. “If,” said he, “a man has no respect for himself, he ought at all events to respect the tribunal before which he speaks, and when the highest representative of the law of England in your Lordships’ Court, upon a matter involving the liberties of the subject and the religion of the Realm, and all those high truths concerning which this discussion is, can think it fitting to descend to a ribaldry in which he knows that he can safely indulge, because those to whom he addresses it will have too much respect for their character to answer it in like sort, I say that this House has ground to complain of having its high character unnecessarily injured in the sight of the people of this land by one occupying so high a position within it.”[219] The edifying spectacle of a Bishop and the Keeper of the Queen’s Conscience waking the funereal echoes of the House of Lords with acrimonious personalities naturally enlivened the London season of 1864. Quite a year elapsed before the Bishop of Oxford and Lord Westbury resumed anything approaching friendly relations.

Two other personal questions marked the history of Parliament during the year. Lord Robert Cecil carried a resolution virtually censuring Mr. Robert Lowe (afterwards Lord Sherbrooke), the Vice-President of the Council, for cutting out of the Reports of Inspectors of Schools all views which were not in accordance with his own. Mr. Lowe resigned, Mr. H. A. Bruce being appointed in his place. But subsequently the report of a Committee exculpated Mr. Lowe, and the Resolution which censured him, was, on Lord Palmerston’s motion, rescinded. The other personal discussion arose out of a curious oversight by which five under-secretaries were placed in the House of Commons. Mr. Disraeli showed very clearly that, according to law, only four Secretaries of State and four under-secretaries could sit in the Representative Chamber, and the Prime Minister had in consequence to redistribute the Ministerial offices so as to meet the requirements of the Statute. A Select Committee reported that this breach of the law did not vacate the seats of any of these officials, but the House passed a Bill of Indemnity releasing them from any penalty that might possibly attach to the violation of the established practice.

Parliament was prorogued by Commission on the 29th of July, and it left the country satisfied with its relations to Foreign Powers and in a state of expectancy as to domestic reforms. The Eastern Question was virtually in abeyance in 1864, the ruler of the Danubian principalities having formed a government on the basis of a revolution organised on a Napoleonic model. The Ionian Islands were formally ceded by England to Greece. Russia was stamping out the last embers of the Polish insurrection, and she had still further ingratiated herself with the Polish peasants by the Imperial Ukase of the 6th of March, which released them from the oppressive rights of their landlords. Circassia was annexed, and the tide of Russian expansion was beginning to set in the direction of Central Asia. France and Italy by a convention signed at Paris, had come to an agreement, first, that French troops should quit Rome, and that Italy should pledge herself to respect the territory of the Holy See. At the same time Italy resolved to transfer her capital from Turin to Florence, the reason being that Florence was less exposed to an attack from France or Austria. The French Emperor had the good fortune in the course of the year to see his _protégé_, the Archduke Maximilian crowned in the Mexican capital, and the Latin Empire of the West recognised by the chief European Powers. The Government of the United States withheld its recognition, but the House of Representatives at Washington on the 5th of April passed a resolution declaring that the people of the United States would never recognise a Monarchy under the protection of a European Power, which had been established in the Western Hemisphere on the ruins of an American Republic.

But the truth is, that after the defeat of the War Party on the Danish Question, the English people in 1864 felt little interest in any foreign affairs save the Civil War in the United States, which is, however, hardly a foreign nation to Englishmen. They followed every phase of that struggle as closely as if it had been one of their own. The commercial community had good reason for doing so. Cotton was the favourite article for gambling with, and, when prices had risen to their highest point, suddenly rumours flew round to the effect that the war was coming to an end. Both sides were said to be tired of strife, and even Republican organs and orators began to hint that the end of Mr. Lincoln’s term of office in March, 1865, and the election of a new President in November, 1864, offered a good opportunity for a truce to hostilities. The Democratic Party were in favour of assembling a Convention of all the States to argue the points at issue between North and South, and everybody began to talk as if the Southern ports would soon be open. The price of cotton and the prices of other staples that had risen with it fell at once, and speculators for the rise were ruined. In September the pressure on the Money Market was enormously increased. The Leeds Bank failed; general distrust prevailed as to all financial institutions; and the Bank of England raised its rate of discount to 9 per cent. But when the weak and unstable firms were eliminated, low prices began to rule and attract buyers once again, and at the end of the year confidence revived, and the Bank rate dropped to 6 per cent. The wavering and tortuous policy of the Cabinet during the Danish Conference certainly produced one panic in the City during the early part of the year. Till spring let loose the dogs of war in America, the Northern and Southern armies were inactive. In April the rank of Lieutenant-General was conferred by Congress on General Grant, who took supreme command of all the Federal forces. He resolved to conduct the campaign in Virginia, while to General Sherman was entrusted the command of the Western army on the southern frontier of Tennessee. In the beginning of May both forces made their first move. On the 3rd of May Grant resolved to strike at Richmond, and he sent Meade with his main body over the Rapidan, so that he might gain the shelter of the wooded country south of Chancellorsville before General Lee, who covered Richmond, could attack him. Lee, however, foiled this movement by his prompt attack of the 5th and 6th of May, during which days the battle of Chancellorsville raged without ceasing. The Confederate Generals Longstreet and Jenkins fell in this fight, the result of which was not quite decisive. On former occasions, when Burnside and Hooker met with such an attack, they had shrunk from proceeding farther on the road to Richmond. But Grant was undaunted by the losses he had suffered, and persistently pressed Lee by flanking movements, which drove him back step by step. In Grant’s

[Illustration: THE JAMES RIVER AND COUNTRY NEAR RICHMOND.]

own words, he kept “pegging away” till, on the 19th of May, Lee, by an artful feigned attack on the Federal right, was able to effect a retreat with his main army to a position twenty miles in front of Richmond. Grant’s losses during these ten days were enormous. On the 16th of May 33,800 of his wounded were under treatment in the hospitals in various parts of the country. Lee’s position on the right was covered by a swamp, and on the left by a rivulet. His front was defended by a curved line of works, the convexity of which projected forward. Grant’s object was now to get between Lee and Richmond. Lee’s object was to compel Grant to attack him before he could reach Richmond, and, as he could always move on a smaller arc than that on which Grant had to manœuvre, the strategic advantage was with Lee. He could always keep his face to the foe, and have the lines of Richmond in his rear as a refuge. On the line of the Chickahominy, attack followed counter-attack, but it was observed that in every instance the attacking party failed, for the configuration of the country enabled troops to entrench themselves easily. In June Grant suddenly changed his plans, and

[Illustration: GENERAL SHERMAN.]

transferred his whole army to the south side of the James River.[220] He failed to surprise Petersburg on the 16th of Jane, and he then formed an entrenched camp on the angle between the James River and the Appomattox. Lee had now forced him to describe more than half the circuit of Richmond, and, in spite of all his sacrifices, he was no nearer his objective point. Concerted movements by Butler on the James River and by Hunter in the neighbourhood of Lynchburg were foiled by the Confederates, and Grant’s next attack on Petersburg on the 26th of July was repelled. In September, however, he pushed his left wing across the Welden Valley, and menaced the remaining communications between Richmond and the South. The Confederate General Early about the same time effected a diversion by crossing the Potomac, and threatening Washington and Baltimore, but he was driven back by Sheridan. Richmond, however, was now invested by 100,000 enemies, and night and day the thundering of cannon broke on the ears of its inhabitants.

In the west the Federals were more successful. Sherman, starting with a splendid army from Chattanooga in May, drove Johnston before him towards Atalanta, which was evacuated by the Confederates on the 27th of September. The Confederate General, Hood, however, by a rapid movement passed round Sherman’s right wing, and cut his communications with the North. Whenever Sherman attacked him, Hood turned towards Alabama. Then the daring and original idea occurred to Sherman to quit Atalanta--which could not be conveniently held while Hood hovered over his rear--and march straight onwards through Georgia to the sea. He left Thomas with 20,000 men to hold Hood in Tennessee, whilst he himself with 50,000 men proceeded to devastate Georgia by fire and sword. His march was marked by a track of desolation from forty to fifty miles broad. As the year closed he received the capitulation of Savannah, and demonstrated to the world by his marvellous strategy that the Southern Confederacy was like a nut with a hard shell, but no kernel inside. It is the mark of genius to convert defeat into victory, and this was the feat that Sherman achieved when Hood, by cutting his communications with the North, suggested to him the daring stroke by which he pierced the very vitals of the Confederacy. It need hardly be said that Sherman’s march through Georgia was represented to the English people by many aristocratic organs as a retreat, and that his abandonment of Atalanta, when Hood worked round his right, was hailed by Society as a supreme disaster for “the bubble Republic.” At sea the Federals were also fortunate. In June the United States ship of war _Kersarge_ sank the _Alabama_ near Cherbourg, and the _Wachusett_ captured the _Florida_, though by a violation of the laws of neutrality, in the harbour of Bahia. Confederate partisans from Canada had made futile raids on the territory of New York, thereby increasing the animosity of the Americans against England. The Canadian authorities no doubt arrested the raiders, but they also discharged them because of some technical flaw in their jurisdiction. President Lincoln in July called out a fresh draft of 500,000 men for service, and this did not tend to make the war popular at the beginning of the year. The enormous sacrifices of life which Grant’s strategy involved, also strengthened the hands of the Peace Party or Democrats. When arrangements had to be made for choosing Presidential candidates there was a strange cleavage of Parties. The old Abolitionists nominated General Fremont. The Republican Party, however, at the Baltimore Convention, nominated Mr. Lincoln. The Democrats, on the other hand, selected General McClellan. His manifesto practically meant that he desired negotiations to be opened up for the purpose of restoring the Union with slavery on the old footing--but the Union must be restored. This alienated a strong faction of Democrats, who were for peace at any price--even at the price of cutting the Slave States adrift--and dissolving the Union. General Fremont withdrew, and it was soon evident, especially when news of Sherman’s successes came in, that Mr. Lincoln, as the representative of the national war policy, was the popular favourite.

Very early in the year, on the 8th of January, the Queen had the gratification of learning that a son and heir had been born to the Prince and Princess of Wales. The event was not expected by her Majesty till March, so that no preparations had been made by the Queen or her Household, at Frogmore--where the Princess was staying at the time--for the accouchement. “There was no nurse,” writes Lord Malmesbury in his Diary, “no baby-linen, and no doctor, except Mr. Brown, the Windsor physician, who attended [the Princess] and brought the child into the world, for which it is said he will be made a knight and receive £500. Lady Macclesfield was fortunately in waiting, and as she has had a great many children, she was probably of use. Lord Granville was the only Minister in attendance, having come to dine with the Prince, and there was not time to summon the others, as the Princess was not ill more than three hours. She had been to see the skating, and did not return to Frogmore till four o’clock, soon after which she was taken ill.”[221] A telegram was sent to the Queen at Osborne immediately after the birth of the little Prince, and next day Frogmore was a scene of busy excitement--Ministers of State and the chief members of the nobility thronging in large numbers to offer their congratulations to the Prince of Wales. All over the kingdom the birth of the Prince was hailed with demonstrations of joy, and in London, when the news was announced, the Tower guns fired a double Royal salute. On the 10th of March, the first anniversary of the marriage of the Prince and Princess of Wales, their child was christened in the private chapel of Buckingham Palace, the Queen being present on the occasion. The King of the Belgians was also there, and among the company were the Duke of Cambridge, Lord Palmerston, many Ministers of State, and nearly all the representatives of Foreign Courts. The King of the Belgians and Princess Helena represented the Crown Prince and Princess of Prussia, who were sponsors, the others being the Duchess of Cambridge; the Dowager Duchess of Sleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg; Prince John of Sleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg representing the King of Denmark; the Grand Duchess of Mecklenberg-Strelitz representing the Duchess of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha; Prince Alfred and the Duke of Cambridge. Crimson velvet, panelled with gold lace, covered the altar of the chapel. The splendid church plate was displayed, and seats covered with crimson and gold were arranged within the rail for the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of London, and the officiating clergy. Over the altar was hung a rich piece of tapestry, representing the Baptism of our Saviour. A fluted white plinth, picked out with gold, supported the font, which was a tazza of silver-gilt, the rim representing the flowers and leaves of the water-lily, whilst a group of cherubs were shown playing round the base. The Queen, who was dressed in black silk and crape, formed a sombre figure in this brilliant assembly. The Lord Chamberlain and the Groom of the Stole conducted the infant Prince into the chapel, his Royal Highness being carried in the arms of his nurse, Mrs. Clark, and attended by the Countess of Macclesfield, one of the Ladies of the Bedchamber to the Princess of Wales. The little Prince wore the same robe of rich Honiton lace which had been used for his father at his christening. When the Archbishop came to that part of the service for naming the child, he asked how it should be named. The Queen answered quite audibly, “Albert Victor Christian Edward,” and his Grace accordingly baptised it in these names. After the ceremony was over the company proceeded to the Green Drawing-room and the Picture-gallery, and shortly afterwards partook of a cold luncheon with the Royal Family in the supper-room. In the evening the Prince and Princess of Wales gave a banquet at Marlborough House, where some embarrassment was said at the time to have been caused by Count Bernstoff, the Prussian Minister, refusing to drink the health of the King of Denmark. This incident was for a few days eagerly canvassed by the gossips of clubland, but Bernstoff himself always denied the tale. In fact, he was so much annoyed by the persistency with which it was repeated in Society that he sent an official contradiction to Earl Russell.[222] Among the baptismal gifts one of the most striking was that which was presented by the Queen to her little grandson. It was a beautiful little statuette of the Prince Consort, made to the Queen’s design, and with inscriptions written by herself. The Prince’s figure is clad in gilt armour, copied from the effigy of the Earl of Warwick, in St. Mary’s Church, Warwick, and he is represented as Christian in the “Pilgrim’s Progress.” Round the plinth is the verse from Timothy--“I have fought the good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.” On the stump of an old oak behind the figure rests Christian’s helmet, while hard by are the lilies of purity which one always associates with old pictures of the Pilgrim. Beneath the plinth and in front of the entablature of the pedestal is the inscription, “Given to Albert Victor Christian Edward on the occasion of his baptism by Victoria R., his grandmother, and godmother, in memory of Albert, his beloved grandfather.” Appropriate verses written by Mrs. Protheroe, wife of the rector of Whippingham, the Queen’s parish church at Osborne, are inscribed on three of the panels. Beneath the front panel, over the figures 1864, are inscribed in large letters the Prince’s name, and the dates of his birth and baptism. Figures of Faith and Hope, in oxidised silver, stand at the right and left side of the work, and in a third niche behind is the figure of Charity. At the side of each figure are lilies in enamel, and on the frieze over the figure of Faith are the words, “Walk as he walked in--Faith,” the last word being inscribed beneath the figure. This pretty conceit is carried all through. For in the same way one reads, “Strive as he strove in--Hope,” and over the third group one reads, “Think as he thought in--Charity.” To the right of the Prince of Wales’s shield is an infant boy looking up at a full-blown rose on a perfect stem, and beside it a white lily, whilst over the baby fingers droop a cluster of snowdrops, emblematic of the dawning flower-life of the year. The rose, shamrock, and thistle are worked into the background.

[Illustration: THE ROYAL NURSERY, OSBORNE.

(_From a Photograph by Hughes and Mullins, Ryde._)]

The day after the ceremony at Buckingham Palace was marked by a catastrophe which seriously shocked the Queen. The Bradfield reservoir of the Sheffield Waterworks burst, and the letting loose of its pent-up waters spread desolation far and wide all along the river from Bradfield to Sheffield. Whole villages were swept down the Valley of the Don, and places once populous were suddenly converted into a swamp of mud, with here and there a broken mill wheel left to mark the site of what had once been a happy hive of industry. Some of the streets of Sheffield itself were flooded, and low-lying, open spaces were turned into lakes dotted with islands formed by rubbish heaps. Wreckage of all kinds and the corpses of the drowned marked the track of the current. The disaster was appalling in the suddenness of its occurrence. The first intimation that hundreds of people had of it was the lifting up of their beds by the water as they lay asleep in their homes. In Sheffield, during the stillness of the night, those who were awake said they suddenly heard an unearthly roar which increased in volume, that this was succeeded by a hissing noise, as of angry waves dashing on sharp and beetling crags, and then by weird shrieks, soon followed by the rush of a panic-stricken crowd, flying with their families from the neighbourhood of the river for safety, and crying, “Oh, God! the flood! the flood!” Some 270 lives were lost, and property to the value of £1,000,000 was destroyed. A relief fund was at once started both in Sheffield and in London, and on the 16th of January Mr. Roebuck, M.P. for Sheffield, received the following letter, which testified to the sympathetic interest with which the Queen had read the accounts of what had happened:--

“SIR,--I have had the honour to submit to her Majesty the Queen your letter received last night. Her Majesty had already directed me to make inquiry whether any subscription had been commenced for the relief of the sufferers by the fearful calamity which has occurred near Sheffield. The Queen has commanded me to inform you that it is her Majesty’s intention to contribute £200 towards the objects advocated in your letter. Her Majesty has commanded me to add the expression of her deep sympathy for the poor persons thus suddenly overwhelmed with grief, and exposed to suffering of every description in consequence of this unexpected and dire calamity. As I am not aware of the name of the treasurer, I shall be very much obliged to you if you will take the trouble to forward the enclosed cheque to the proper quarter.

“I have the honour to be, Sir, your obedient humble servant, “C. B. PHIPPS.”

An official investigation was made into the cause of the disaster, in the course of which Mr. Rawlinson, the eminent engineer, said, “Several causes may have led to the catastrophe--a fractured pipe, a blown or drawn joint, a creep along the pipes, a pressing down of the pipes in the puddle-trench by the heavy material on both sides of it, or the washing away of the outer slope by a landslip, caused by undiscovered fissures and springs in communication with the interior of the reservoir, which fissures and springs, if they existed, would become

## active for mischief as the water rose in the reservoir.” The general

opinion was that a mistake had been made in laying pipes in the centre of the embankment upon an artificially compressible material--that the bursting of some of these pipes caused a great volume of water suddenly to blow a chasm in the embankment. The celebrated Telford was always opposed to laying pipes through the embankment of a dam, and there could be little doubt that the coroner’s jury came to the right conclusion when they declared in their verdict, that the works had not been constructed with the engineering skill and attention which their magnitude and importance demanded.

On the 30th of April the Queen appeared in public for the first time since the death of the Prince Consort. She visited the gardens of the Horticultural Society, where a flower-show was going on, but the weather was bleak and cold and sleety, and the company assembled to see her were fain to take shelter in the conservatory. She was dressed in deep mourning, yet the visitors all agreed that her appearance was less downcast than they had been led to expect, and she was observed to chat cheerfully with the ladies and gentlemen who were around her. This year, it may also be observed, the Queen’s birthday was kept in London, with all the old ceremonies of high state, for the first time since Prince Albert’s death. The Guards trooped their colours in presence of the Prince and Princess of Wales, and the church bells of the “three Royal Parishes” in London--Westminster, Kensington, and St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields--rang out their most joyous chimes. There was a floral _fête_ at the Horticultural Gardens, and the houses of Ministers of State, of the Clubs, the Government Offices, together with the shops of the Royal tradesmen at the West End, were illuminated as in old times. From May to August the Queen had enjoyed the company of the Princess Louis of Hesse, but when autumn set in and Parliament had been prorogued, the Court migrated to Scotland, and on the 28th of August the Queen broke her journey at Perth to inaugurate a statue to the Prince Consort. The Lord Provost and magistrates of the “Fair City,” and all the local magnates of the county gave her a cordial welcome, and in her suite were the Princess Helena, the Princess Louise, the Duke and Duchess of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Princess Beatrice, and Prince Leopold, the Marchioness of Ely, Sir Charles Wood, and Sir Charles Phipps. After the Queen uncovered the statue, which was greatly admired, she conferred the honour of Knighthood on Lord Provost Ross.

The Prince and Princess of Wales left the Highlands in the beginning of September for Denmark, and the Queen’s holiday was restful and quiet. The only incident that troubled it seriously was due to the pressure which was put upon her to save the life of Franz Müller, the murderer of Mr. Briggs, chief clerk of Messrs. Robarts and Co., the great bankers in the City. Müller had murdered Mr. Briggs in a railway carriage on the night of the 9th July, between Fenchurch Street Station and Hackney Wick, and after robbing his victim threw his body out on the line. He exchanged Mr. Briggs’ watch-chain for another at the shop of a jeweller called Death in Cheapside, who identified his photograph. He left a hat in the carriage which was traced to him. He then fled to America. The crime was perpetrated with ruthless brutality, and for a time railway travelling was rendered an agony to nervous passengers. The detective police had displayed great skill in following up every clue that led them on the track of the criminal, and their exciting pursuit of him across the Atlantic, his arrest in New York, his return, his trial, at which counsel fought for his life with great courage and audacity, his conviction, his stoical denial of guilt, till at the last moment as the hangman drew the fatal bolt he uttered his confession, with the halter tightening round his throat--all contributed to rivet public attention on this most melodramatic of atrocities. A clever attempt at proving an _alibi_ had been made by his counsel, and there were some who believed in Müller’s innocence. The German colony in England took up his case most warmly, and it was whispered that the Queen herself was among those who feared that a judicial murder would be committed if Müller were hanged. For many days nothing else but his chances of being reprieved were discussed, and the King of Prussia, not to mention several other German Princes, sent autograph letters to the Queen pressing her to pardon the assassin. But her Majesty had watched the case carefully. She refused to interfere with the course of justice, and her prudence was justified by Müller’s strange confession, made just at the moment when he leapt into eternity.[223]

The Queen’s correspondence with the Princess Louis of Hesse seems at this time to have become again overcast by the gloom of her great sorrow. Amidst the solemn silence of her mountain home, the Queen felt the loss of the Prince Consort more acutely than while immersed in the busy life of the political year at Windsor. Her younger children were growing apace, and she now felt the need of her husband’s wise and kindly counsel in educating them for their high station. To the Princess Louis she confided her thoughts, and in one of her Royal Highness’s letters to the Queen, bearing date 20th of September, the following passage on the subject occurs:--“... What you say about the poor sisters, and, indeed, of all the younger ones, is true. The little brothers and Beatrice are those who have lost most, poor little things! I can’t bear to think of it, for dear papa, more peculiarly than any other father, was wanted for his children; and he was the dear friend and even playfellow besides. Such a loss as ours is indeed unique. Time only increases its magnitude, and the knowledge of the want is felt more keenly.”[224] In November the birth of a little grand-daughter at Hesse (the Princess Elizabeth) gave rise to an affectionate interchange of letters between the Queen and the Princess Louis, and in one of these she refers to the efforts made by those round her Majesty to free her from the tyranny of her sad thoughts. “We are both much pleased,” writes the Princess Louis to the Queen on the 20th of November, “at the arrangement about Brown and your pony, and I think it is so sensible. I am sure it will do you good, and relieve a little the monotony of your out-of-door existence, besides doing your nerves good. I had long wished you would do something of the kind, for indeed only driving is not wholesome.” On the 18th of December Dr. Norman McLeod, writing in his Diary at Darmstadt, says:--“I was invited

[Illustration: THE QUEEN AT OSBORNE.

(_After W. Holl’s Engraving of the Original Portrait by Graefle. By Permission of Mr. Mitchell, Old Bond Street, W._)]

by Prince Alfred to spend the fourth anniversary of his father’s death with him at Darmstadt. The Queen commanded me to see her before I went, so on Monday I went to Windsor. I told her that the more I was confided in, the more I felt my responsibility to speak the truth.”[225] Dr. McLeod was charged with loving messages to the Princess Louis, who, on December 15, writes to the Queen in reply as follows:--“I had not a moment to myself to write to you yesterday, and to thank you for the kind lines you sent me through dear Dr. McLeod. He gave us a most beautiful service, a sermon giving an outline of dear papa’s noble, great, and good character, and there were most beautiful allusions to you in his prayer, in which we all prayed together most earnestly for you, precious mamma! We talked long together afterwards about dear papa, and about you, and, though absent, were very near you in thought and prayer. Dear Vicky[226] talked so lovingly and tenderly of you, of how home-sick she sometimes felt. She was not with us on that dreadful day three years ago, and that is so painful to her. Dear Affie[227] was, as we all were, so much overcome by all Dr. McLeod said. Vicky, Affie, Louis, and myself sat in the little dining-room; he read to us there. Fritz had left early in the morning. The day was passed quietly and peaceably together, and I was most grateful to have dear Vicky and Affie with me on that day.[228] My dear Louis wishes me to express to you how tenderly he thought of you, and with what sympathy on this sad anniversary. Never can we cease talking of home, of you, and of all your trials.” If these trials were heavy, they were, even in the darkest hours of the Queen’s life, lightened by the love with which her children cherished her.

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