CHAPTER X
QUEEN VICTORIA’S DISLOYAL SUBJECTS.
“We have lordlings in dozens, the Tories exclaim, To fill every place from the throng, Although the curs’d Whigs, be it told to our shame, Kept us poor Lords in waiting too long.”
_Contemporary Verse._
All through this period we get pleasant glimpses of the young Queen passing some at least of her time in a girlish way. She was a girl, surrounded by a bevy of girls, and was very fond of dancing, for which exercise she did not always wait for the presence of a band in the ballroom. Count von Bülow was once staying at Windsor, being given rooms which were directly under the Queen’s apartments, and one afternoon he could hear Victoria singing and playing the piano. On telling her at dinner what pleasure he had enjoyed, she looked very concerned, for, as she later confessed to Lord Melbourne, she had been dancing about her sitting-room with her Ladies in Waiting, and had “been quite extravagantly merry.” She would have small impromptu dances at Buckingham Palace, which were kept up sometimes till dawn. Georgiana Liddell, Lady Normanby’s sister, went to one of these, and when the dance was over the youthful Queen went out on to the roof of the portico to see the sun rise behind St. Paul’s. The Cathedral was distinctly visible, also Westminster Abbey, which, with the trees in the Green Park, stood out against a golden sky.
Most of the Liddell sisters played and sang well, and the Queen was anxious to hear the voice of the youngest of them all (and there were many, no fewer than seventeen brothers and sisters). Georgiana, in fear and trembling, sang one of Grisi’s favourite airs, omitting a shake at the end through pure nervousness. The Queen noticed this, and turning to Lady Normanby asked, “Does not your sister shake, Lady Normanby?” “Oh, yes, Ma’am,” was the reply; “she is shaking all over.”
Sometimes, perhaps, Her Majesty was thoughtless in satisfying her desire for pleasure; at least, Thalberg, a celebrated musician, thought so on one occasion. He was frequently commanded to play before the Queen, and one evening she gave him five subjects to perform. The next day someone congratulated him on his triumph. “Triumph!” he exclaimed; “a fine triumph to be nearly killed.”
The Queen often arranged concerts, and I have come across an announcement of a concert which she _might_ have organised, full of satirico-political allusions. The parenthetical additions have been inserted by way of elucidatory notes:--
“The Vicar of Bray.” By Lord Palmerston. (An allusion to his love of office.)
“Pray, Goody, please to Moderate.” By Lord Holland. (Lady Holland was noted as an untiring talker.)
“The Beautiful Boy.” By Lord Morpeth.
“I that once was a Plough-Boy.” By Baron Stockmar. (In allusion to his supposed low origin.)
“An old Man would be Wooing.” By Lord Melbourne.
“Buy a Broom!” By Baroness Lehzen. (Another allusion to low origin.)
“We are all nodding.” By Lord Glenelg.
“Oh, what a row!” By Lord Durham. (He was noted for his hot temper, and he was then scarcely out of the Canadian turmoil.)
“The Laird o’ Cockpen.” By Sir J. Campbell. (A Scotsman who was then English Attorney-General.)
“I’m a very knowing Prig.” By Sir James Clark.
“The King of the Cannibal Islands.” By King Leopold.
I do not know the reason for Lord Morpeth singing of a beautiful boy, but Sir James Clark seems to have justified by some of his actions the song chosen for him.
Though Victoria had been Queen for nearly two years, she still--to judge from various accounts--preferred simplicity in dress, and one story is admiringly told of her which, to an unbiassed mind, is open to the suggestion that she did not show politeness or good taste. The Duchess of Sutherland gave a great ball at Stafford House in honour of the Queen, and, that she might further show the respect she felt for her Royal mistress, she wore a most magnificent dress and glittered with diamonds. Her Majesty went “in a simple muslin embroidered in colours,” and, on shaking hands with her hostess, said:
“I come from my house to your palace.” This sounds too affected or too rude to be true, but it is given by Lady Dorothy Nevill in “Under Five Reigns.”
Victoria’s simplicity seems occasionally to have degenerated into carelessness, for I have come across different remarks upon the way in which she wore her shoes down at heel--remarks always accompanied with a suggestion that there was something wrong with her feet, though that was tempered with the addition that she walked gracefully.
When Lord Durham set England a-talking by his autocratic actions in Canada, and was, through the demands of the Opposition, recalled, the Duchess of Kent must have felt grief at this second failure in the little circle of her close friends. If all that has been said was true, she relied very largely upon the advice of Lord Durham before he became Ambassador to St. Petersburg, for she was then in the habit of trusting implicitly in her brother. I have seen a report of a speech made by a Mr. Wilks, the Liberal Member for Boston in 1836, part of which ran: “Never was there a more excellent and amiable being than the Duchess of Kent. She consulted Lord Durham (he was the great man of the neighbourhood), by Leopold’s desire, upon everything that belonged to the political opinions of the Duchess and the Princess. He was asked to prepare replies and to acknowledge communications, and everything breathed a spirit of attachment on their part to the constitutional rights of the people.” As Lord Durham was looked upon as the leader of the Radical party, it is hardly to be wondered at that the Tories disliked him and thought him a dangerous influence.
Lady Durham had been made one of the Ladies of the Bedchamber at the accession of Victoria, drawing from the Princess Lieven the opinion that the Queen could not have a better or a nobler woman; but when her husband came back from Canada the Countess resigned her post, much to the Queen’s sorrow, for she, too, was fond of the Durhams. Early in her reign she had given Lady Durham apartments at Windsor in which she could reside permanently, and when she was in waiting invited her always to bring her little girl, “the most charming child,” to remain with her. Durham died in 1840, while still a young man.
Victoria was very fond of children, and would always, if possible, have some staying at the Palace, spending a part of each day playing with them. She once instructed Lord Melbourne to invite Lord and Lady John Russell to stay three days with her, saying that she “would be delighted to see Lady Russell’s little girl, and would be very happy if she would bring the baby also.” Poor little Lady John! not many months later another baby brought death to her!
Occasionally the newspapers spoke of the Queen in lighter vein, and this paragraph appeared in 1838:--“Could anything have been less expected than to see her present Majesty, a lovely young female, encouraging the practice of snuffing by allowing herself to be named patron of certain snuff-shops? ‘By Special Appointment Snuff Manufacturer to Her Majesty Queen Victoria’! What next?”
This second story appeared in a contemporary book of reminiscences. An Irish check-taker at the Zoological Gardens told a friend that the Queen had come once to the gardens _incog_.
“Why,” said his friend, “it is odd that we never heard of it.”
“Not at all, not at all,” replied Pat, “for she didn’t come like a Queen, but _clane_ and dacent like any other body.”
During the year of 1839 the spite against Melbourne became stronger and led to absurdly wild statements; indeed, the whole agitation was the result of an acute and semi-public hysteria. His popularity with the Queen had led the Tory papers more or less to withdraw their support of the Crown, thus giving rise to annoying episodes, not only in political, but in social life. It was asserted that Victoria was surrounded with people of bad character, and though all the world, even the journals which delighted in scandal, had acclaimed the acquittal of Melbourne in the Norton case, the mud of the past was diligently scraped up and flung over him, with the evident desire that some of it would stick on the Queen. _The Morning Herald_ remarked, “It is one of the unfortunate signs of the times that we see so many persons of known immoral character selected for office.” To this another paper added a list of a dozen people who were supposed to be unfit, about many of whom no evidence of being worse than their brothers remains. Of course, the person who heads the list is “Lord Melbourne, dinner eater and private secretary.” He is followed by the Marquis of Headford, who, many years earlier, had been convicted of adultery with his wife’s sister. The Marquis of Anglesey was a third, and I suppose it would be difficult for anyone to hold a brief for the particular line of Anglesey lords which was extinguished so dramatically a few years ago. Lord Palmerston had his place in the list, as it was whispered that Lady Cowper, Melbourne’s sister, had long been his mistress. Some time after her widowhood she married Palmerston--in December, 1839--of which event Princess Lieven says: “She wrote to me on the subject, and such a simple, natural, good letter, so full of yearning for that happiness and comfort and support which every woman needs, that I am quite convinced she is right in what she does.” Lady Cardigan, in her recent book of reminiscences, adds to this: “She was a perfect hostess, a charming woman, and an ideal helpmeet. At one of her parties her son (by Lord Cowper) was presented to a foreign ambassador, who, not understanding, looked at him and at Lord Palmerston, saying, ‘On voit bien, m’s’u, que c’est votre fils, il vous ressemble tant.’”
Upon the publication of this list of evil doers, other journals took up the cry, and indignant paragraphs, similar to the following, appeared on all sides.
“Is there a father in the Empire who would endure such a person as Lord Melbourne to be perpetually by the side of a young girl? Lord Melbourne may smile, because he had cast aside manly generosity, but we tell him that if loyalty is becoming dull, and sneers are taking the place of blessings; if, where the land would honour, it begins to censure, and where it would pay homage it passes an unwelcome jest; and if, as the result of all this, hearts grow cold, and regard only as a Ministerial puppet one who even yet is the object of love, he will have to thank his own selfishness for the blight he will have thus brought upon the Crown.”
_The Glasgow Constitutional_ published an effusion upon the indifferent Prime Minister, and in considering these articles we must remember that if Melbourne had been a Tory he would have received praise and approbation from these very papers, while the quiescent Whig journals would probably have been ladling out abuse. “Even his private conduct is in some respects national property, and by acceptance of high office, even his personal character becomes no longer altogether his own, but is intimately associated both with the nation and its head. It is therefore a fair subject both of observation and comment, and the time has now arrived when these are imperiously called for. His present demeanour has led to most invidious remarks. It has become too notorious to escape the most unobservant eye, and whispers of suspicion have been poured into the dullest ear.”
Disloyalty and disrespect began to be shown openly for the Queen. Greville, the cynic and pessimist, constantly informs us that her people no longer cared for her. In 1838 Her Majesty was at Ascot, and was only tolerably received by a great concourse of people; there was some shouting, but not a great deal, and few hats taken off. “This mark of respect has quite gone out of use, and neither her station nor her sex secures it; we are not the nearer a revolution for this, but it is ugly. All the world went to the Royal stand, and Her Majesty was very gracious and civil, speaking to everybody.”
In March of the next year Greville shows how this antipathetic feeling had increased. “The great characteristic of the present time is indifference, nobody appears to care for anything; nobody cares for the Queen, her popularity has sunk to zero, and loyalty is a dead letter; nobody cares for the Government or for any man or set of men.... Melbourne seems to hold office for no other purpose but that of dining at Buckingham House, and he is content to rub on from day to day, letting all things take their chance. Palmerston, the most enigmatical of Ministers, who is detested by the Corps Diplomatique, abhorred in his own office, unpopular in the House of Commons, liked by nobody, abused by everybody, still reigns in his little kingdom of the Foreign Office, and is impervious to any sense of shame for the obloquy which has been cast upon him, and apparently not troubling himself about the affairs of the Government generally.”
Harriet Martineau adds her testimony to this state of affairs when she notes that “some rabid Tory gentlemen have lately grown insolent, and taken insufferable liberties with the Royal name.” This disloyalty was indeed recognised and justified to their own satisfaction by the Tories themselves; in alluding to Lord Melbourne one of their organs asserted:--
“If he sees the virtuous of the land avoiding the Palace Halls and Court receptions as they would a pestilence--if he sees even common respect withheld from one whom, but for his despicable policy, we should reverence and love--if he discovers that cold loyalty towards the wearer of the Crown in these days puts the Crown itself in jeopardy--he will then, perhaps, see the full extent of the scorn and loathing with which he is regarded by everyone not lost to the proprieties, decencies, and modesty of social life.”
_The Age_, probably the most virulent of all Melbourne’s paper enemies, published an open letter to him, saying that he was exposing the highest personage in the land to be the jest of the vicious and a source of pity to the well-disposed. “Do you think it likely that any other young lady who had a father or a brother to protect her would allow a person of notorious gallantry to be constantly whispering soft nonsense in her ear? Why, then, should the highest lady in the realm, who, in fact, belongs to the country at large, be subjected to what would not be allowed in any private family?... If you affect not to know it I tell you plainly that ever since the Coronation, the enthusiasm of the people for their young Queen has been sensibly decreasing, owing solely to the bad advice of her Ministers.... However unpalatable it may be, I again tell you that your constant attendance on the Queen is unconstitutional, indecent, and disgraceful; whatever motive you have, it is impossible to justify it. I defy you to name an instance of any Prime Minister acting as you have done; and considering the age and sex of the Sovereign, I denounce it as unmanly and unprincipled. Lolling on your couch at the Palace, you may pretend to despise these unvarnished truths; but that you are conscious of your unwarrantable conduct was plainly evinced by the passion you flew into when Lord Brougham so admirably twitted you with it.”
That Melbourne allowed Robert Owen, the reformer, to be presented to the Queen was, some months after the event, used in passionate eagerness against him. The Duke of Kent had known Owen, and at the time of his death had been arranging to visit his co-operative settlement at New Lanark, near Glasgow; for the Duke agreed with Owen’s principles, so much so that he took the chair at a meeting which was called to appoint a committee to investigate and report on Owen’s plans to provide for the poor and to ameliorate the conditions of the working class. Owen’s ideas had enlarged during the ten years which had intervened, and he was in 1839 keen upon education, the disuse of arms, the alteration of ecclesiastical law, &c. Wishing to present a petition to Her Majesty, he approached Melbourne, who told him that the right method of procedure was to attend a levée. This the reformer did, in regulation white silk stockings, buckle shoes, bag-wig, and sword. He presented his petition, no one noticed his presence or gave a thought to it until, some time later, some speaker holding Socialistic views won notoriety. This caused the Bishop of Exeter to present to the House of Lords in January, 1840, a petition of his own, demanding that legal proceedings should be taken against any person who spread Socialistic views, and attacking Melbourne for having allowed such a man as Owen to approach the Queen. There was a certain bitterness about this, which was later intensified by Victoria’s attitude upon education.
The Government had, by a majority of two only, voted a sum of money for the support of National Education, and the Lords, under the plea of defending the National Religion, prayed the Queen that she should give directions that no steps should be taken with respect to the establishment of any plan of general education without giving them an opportunity of considering such a measure.
From time immemorial, education, that is to say knowledge, has been regarded as the sworn enemy of religion; the Catholics were afraid of the influence of the Bible; the Protestants were, and are, equally afraid of the influence of thought; both believe that religion can be killed by knowledge. One of the greatest of olden philosophers affirmed practically that the ignorant person could not be good, that goodness, which should be synonymous with religion, could not exist without knowledge. This really seems to be the more sensible view; the ignorant child eats poisoned berries, the child who knows avoids them; the ignorant man debases his body and his mind without realising what he is doing; the man who knows enough to forecast events has at least that safeguard against destruction. It is not too much to say that those who believe that ignorance is the best preserver of religion do no honour to real religion, which is an attitude of mind and not an outward conformity to this or that view or creed.
However, this is a digression. The act of the Lords was an encroachment upon the function of the Commons to deal with money Bills, and thus was, as the historian says, “an attempt to overstep the limits which the Constitution laid down.” The Queen, in her answer, expressed regret that the Lords should have taken such a step, adding that it was with a deep sense of duty that she thought it right to appoint a Committee of her Privy Council to superintend the distribution of the grant voted by the House of Commons.
Two sermons preached about this time before Her Majesty, which made something of a stir, were a sign of the independent way in which she was regarded by dignitaries of the Church. In one, her chaplain, Mr. Percival, dealt with recent history, for he made his discourse take the form of an attack upon Peel, or someone believed to be Peel, who, he said, had sacrificed his conscience to political objects in consenting to Catholic Emancipation. The other was more personal to Queen Victoria, for Hook--nephew of Theodore Hook, and afterwards Dean of Chester--announced that the Church would endure, “let what might happen to the Throne.” On Victoria’s return to Buckingham Palace Lord Normanby politely inquired whether Her Majesty had not found it very hot in church.
“Yes,” she replied, “and the sermon was very hot too.”
The disaffection among the Tories was the result entirely of their exclusion from office, and it spread all over the country. At a dinner at Shrewsbury the company refused to drink the health of the new Lord Lieutenant (the Duke of Sutherland) because Lady Sutherland was at the head of the Queen’s ladies. Greville said that the leaders of the party were too wise and too decorous to approve of such conduct, and that it was caused by the animus of the tail and the body. James Bradshaw, the Tory M.P. for Canterbury, made a speech at that town remarkable for being a personal attack of the most violent and indecent kind on the Queen, “a tissue of folly and impertinence,” which was received with shouts of applause at a Conservative dinner, and reported with many compliments and some gentle reprehension by the Tory Press. Others followed, and indeed the party which thought itself injured did its very best to prejudice Her Majesty against itself. Upon this, Edward Horsman, the Whig Member for Cockermouth, made a speech in his constituency, in which, alluding to Bradshaw’s _Victorippicks_, he said that Bradshaw had the tongue of a traitor and the heart of a coward. Six weeks later Bradshaw, who had probably been made in various ways to feel his position keenly, sent a challenge to Horsman. George Anson, Melbourne’s private secretary, and brother of Lord Lichfield, acted as Horsman’s second, and Colonel Gurwood, the editor of Wellington’s Despatches and his confidential friend, seconded Bradshaw. There was much indignation over this, not only among the Whigs, but among the respectable Tories, for Gurwood had just been appointed to the Governorship of the Tower, being thus given both a pension and a place. His excuse for going out with Bradshaw was that he had never read the offending speech, upon which Greville remarks: “As Gurwood is a man of honour and veracity, this must be true; but it is passing strange that he alone should not have read what everybody else has been talking about for the last two months, and that he should go out with a man as his second on account of words spoken, and not inquire what they were.” When George Anson offered to show him the speech he declined to read it.
The two men met, shots were exchanged, and no harm done, and then Gurwood asked if Horsman would retract. “Not until Bradshaw does, or apologises,” was Anson’s answer.
Bradshaw seemed miserable and upset, and saying that he could not live without honour, expressed himself ready to say anything that the two seconds agreed upon. So George Anson drew him up an apology. Horsman took back his words, and the matter ended.
At Ascot, in 1839, as the Queen’s cortège drove up the racecourse it was greeted with silence, only broken by occasional hisses. Poor little Queen! to have come to this in two years! This reception led to silly reports with--if they were true--sillier action behind them. The papers all got hold of some version of the same affair, and the substance of the article that appeared in _The Morning Post_ was that Lady Lichfield had told the Queen that two of the most prominent among those who had thus annoyed Her Majesty were the Duchess of Montrose and Lady Sarah Ingestre; and, further, that those two ladies were informed--whether officially or not is not said--that the Queen knew of their action. The Duchess and Lady Sarah immediately saw Lady Lichfield, who denied that she had said anything about them, and on pressure gave an explicit denial in writing. When a Ball at Buckingham Palace followed the Ascot festivities, the two suspected of hissing discovered that they were out of favour; so the Duchess went to the Palace and requested an audience of Her Majesty. After being kept waiting for two hours, the Earl of Uxbridge told her she could not be admitted to an audience, as only Peeresses in their own right could demand such a privilege. Upon this, her Grace insisted that the Earl should take down in writing what she had to say and lay her communication immediately before the Queen. So the matter rested, until the Duke of Montrose thought it needful to open a correspondence with Melbourne on the subject. Then on July 5th _The Times_ published a denial of part of the report, one which by no means exonerated the two accused ladies. “We are authorised to give the most positive denial to a report which has been inserted in most of the public papers, that the Countess of Lichfield informed the Queen that the Duchess of Montrose and Lady Sarah Ingestre hissed Her Majesty on the racecourse at Ascot, and there could have been no foundation for so unjust an accusation.” Thus Lady Lichfield was practically cleared, but the other two suspects were “where they were”; and the Queen? She remained under the unspoken imputation of being pettish and injudicious. But in those days she had not learnt the wisdom which came to her later, and when her dignity was wounded she was often too angry to use any tact, and would let the wound fester until it caused much ill-will.