CHAPTER XII.

QUEEN VICTORIA’S LOVE.

“The noble Duke knows he is a Protestant; all England knows he is a Protestant; the whole world knows he is a Protestant.”--_Melbourne._

“There is no prohibition as to marriage with a Catholic. It is only attended with a penalty, and that penalty is _merely the forfeiture of the Crown_.”--_Brougham._

Wherever the blame of the Flora Hastings affair lay, it must be admitted that with it and the Bedchamber squabble the Queen had had a nerve-breaking time. If the people had shown in a vague way before that they were passing judgment upon her, they now did not fail to announce that the judgment was a thing assured. Her Drawing Rooms and Levées were almost deserted; there were whispers that she was running heavily into debt. “It is probable that before 1841 the help of a now powerful house will be required.”

“She’s not in debt--tho’ some have said it, or If, why then I’m not a creditor.”

was a couplet that it was pretended was the work of Sir John Conroy.

In addition to this there were rumours that the split between the Queen and her mother was complete, that disputes constantly took place, and that the Duchess was feeling anew the slights put upon Sir John Conroy: “There are insinuations that the Duchess of Kent is malignantly enraged at the removal of Sir John Conroy, and that there are deep dissensions between mother and daughter,” is one paragraph of many. When we remember that the animus against Sir John was believed to be one of the reasons for showing so much indelicate harshness to Lady Flora Hastings, it is easy to understand that the Duchess would have liked to bring the matter of Conroy to a head once for all.

Melbourne had been gravely troubled by Victoria’s display of temper and self-will over the Bedchamber question, and reports were now current everywhere of scenes of bad temper at the Palace; “even noble dames can brook no longer the rebuffs and contumely to which they are exposed.” “Tudor tempest bursts,” was the expression used by one journal.

At the end of August Leopold and his Queen came to England, staying at Ramsgate, and it was asserted that the visit had the express purpose of an attempt to reconcile the Queen and the Duchess of Kent, though before the King of the Belgians went away it was said that both he and Lord Melbourne were suffering from the Queen’s unevenness of temper; to which was added the news that the Duchess intended to go abroad for a time.

Poor little Queen! When we private people have gone through a period of shock and trouble, so that our nerves are all a-jangle, we indulge our little tempest-bursts, are rude to those about us and let the trouble wear itself away, without more than half-a-dozen people knowing or caring about it. But this imperious and wilful girl could utter no word that was not reported outside; in spite of her youth she was expected to be perfect, and when she proved entirely human and sometimes wrong-headed, the whole nation talked of it as a crime.

Only a year and a bit had passed since she had said that she would not marry for two or three years, yet now she was wondering where to look for sympathy and support. Of course, it was not the helpful hand of a husband that she needed, she was quite sure of that, and yet subconsciously this solution must have presented itself to her mind; so much so that a little earlier she had felt it necessary to impress once more upon her uncle that she did not mean yet to take the important step. It was in the midst of the indignation which followed Lady Flora Hastings’s death that she wrote again to Leopold on this subject, probably in answer to a letter from him urging the marriage. She said that she was anxious that the family should understand that even if she should like Albert she would make no final promise during that year and would not marry for two or three years. She spoke of her youth, her _great repugnance_ to change her position, and the fact that no anxiety was shown in the country for her marriage. The following paragraph is natural in one who had been practically disposed of in her childhood and who for two years had had a husband urged on her with a faint but unremitting pressure by her uncle:

“Though all the reports of Albert are most favourable, and though I have little doubt I shall like him, still one can never answer beforehand for _feelings_, and I may not have the _feeling_ for him which is requisite to insure happiness. I may like him as a _friend_, as a _cousin_, and as a _brother_, but not _more_; and should this be the case (which is not likely), I am _very_ anxious that it should be understood that I am _not_ guilty of any breach of promise, for I _never gave any_. I am sure you will understand my anxiety, for I should otherwise, were this not completely understood, be in a very painful position. As it is, I am rather nervous about the visit (a suggestion that the young Princes should come to England), for the subject I allude to is not an agreeable one to me.”

Leopold was wise enough to put no further pressure upon her, but to leave circumstances to do their work. There can be no doubt but that the Queen was very lonely and ill at ease just then. She had lost the confidence of the nation, and her pride stood in the way of her setting herself right with it. By her own acts she had alienated her mother, with whom, as a matter of fact, she showed no signs of renewing the lost intimacy; she had clung to the people accused of wrong behaviour in the Hastings affair, yet the sight of them constantly reminded her of her humiliation; and through prejudice she had turned her back upon a vast number of delightful people, whose only sin was to hold different political views from herself; in truth, there seemed to be no real comfort anywhere.

When the King and Queen of the Belgians went to Windsor after their stay at Ramsgate, and Leopold saw how matters stood, he came to the conclusion that it was time for him to act; thus on his return home he instructed his two nephews to go and pay the promised visit to England.

Gossip about Victoria’s marriage was always ready when other excitements failed, and it was now said that Prince Albert had refused to accept the position of husband to his cousin, and that the _Camarilla_ had failed in its object, and was now bending its energies to the keeping of the Queen unmarried, its method being to harp on the fate of Princess Charlotte, in the hope that that would deter her from making any matrimonial arrangement. Which, of course, was all nonsense. The Prince was preparing for his visit, and Victoria was preparing a way for herself which should at least halve all her troubles, even though it meant also submitting her own autocratic will.

In the summer of 1839 Stockmar gave an interesting criticism of the character of Prince Albert, which I reproduce, for it is by no means the judgment of one who flatters:--

“The Prince bears a striking resemblance to his mother, and, differences apart, is in many respects both in body and mind cast in her mould. He has the same intellectual quickness and adroitness, the same cleverness, the same desire to appear good-natured and amiable to others, and the same talent for fulfilling this desire, the same love of _espiègleries_ and of treating things and men from the comical side, the same way of not occupying himself long with the same subject.

“His constitution cannot be said to be a strong one, though I believe by careful attention to diet he could easily strengthen it and give it stamina. After exerting himself, he often for a short time appears pale and exhausted. He dislikes violent exertion, and both morally and physically tries to save himself. Full of the best intentions and noblest designs, he often fails in carrying them into practice.

“His judgment is in many subjects beyond his years, but, up to the present time, he has not shown the least possible interest in _political_ matters. Even the most important events of this kind never, even at the time of their taking place, induce him to read a newspaper. He has, as it is, a perfect horror of all foreign newspapers, and says that the only readable and necessary paper is the _Augsburger Allgemeine_, and even this he does not read through. In the matter of _les belles manières_ there is much to desire. This deficiency must be principally laid to the account of his having in his earliest years been deprived of the intercourse and supervision of a mother and of any cultivated woman. He will always have more success with men than with women. He is too little _empressé_ with the latter, too indifferent, and too reserved.”

As a matter of fact, Prince Albert was too reserved with men as well as with women, and to this must be attributed the fact that he was never really popular in England.

The _Morning Post_ of August 22nd made a premature announcement of the marriage;--“A matrimonial alliance is about to take place between Her Britannic Majesty and His Serene Highness Prince Albert Francis,” &c. Even in those days it seems that the newspapers were so eager to be first with their news that they sometimes went a long way ahead of events.

It was not until October 10th that Albert and his brother arrived at Windsor, the Prince presumably not knowing what his fate was likely to be, but resolved to tell the Queen that if she did not then make up her mind he would no longer be able to await her decision. This pronouncement must have been caused by the intelligent tutorial instructions of Leopold, for Albert had only then just attained his twentieth birthday, and could scarcely have feared a life of obscurity if his cousin declined to take him as her husband.

On the 14th of the month Victoria gave a ball, and at that she openly showed him a sign of her preference by taking some flowers from her bouquet and offering them to him. There being no buttonhole in which to place them, Albert took out a penknife, cut a hole in his uniform, and fixed the flowers over his heart. The next day the Queen sent for her cousin to come to her private room, and there--to quote Albert’s words when writing to his grandmother, the Dowager Duchess of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha--she declared, “in a genuine outburst of love and affection, that I had gained her whole heart, and would make her intensely happy if I would make the sacrifice of sharing her life with her; for she said she looked on it as a sacrifice; the only thing that troubled her was that she did not think she was worthy of me. The joyous openness of manner in which she told me this quite enchanted me, and I was quite carried away by it.”

Both the young people poured out their hopes to Stockmar, who was in Germany at the time. “Albert has completely won my heart,” wrote the Queen, “and all was settled between us this morning.... I feel certain he will make me very happy. I wish I could say I felt as certain of my making him happy, but I shall do my best.” Albert enthused: “Victoria is so good and kind to me that I am often puzzled to believe that I should be the object of so much affection.... More, or more seriously, I cannot write. I am at this moment too bewildered to do so.”

But even in this matter of the heart Victoria’s sense of her exalted position never left her. When talking to the Duchess of Gloucester about making the declaration before Parliament, the old lady asked her if it was not a very nervous thing to do, upon which she answered, “I did a much more nervous thing a while ago. I had to propose to Albert.” Then she went on to explain that of course it would not have been possible for him to have proposed to the Queen of England; “he would never have presumed to have taken such a liberty.”

This is almost too good to be true, but as it is given in the Peel papers it may be regarded as reliable. To have loved a man and to have spoken of him in this way seems incredible; only a very young and inexperienced person could have done it, for the lover does not weigh etiquette against an honest expression of love. However, Her Majesty was truly young in her love and in her love-making, and had much to learn concerning the inner sentiments of life. That she learned it all through we believe, for we are told that her love for the man whom her uncle chose for her deepened and widened, so that her marriage was as happy as the most kind-hearted could have wished.

It is not to be wondered at that a girl brought up in such a guarded, reticent atmosphere as the Queen had been should be unduly reticent all through her days. The curious thing is that the impression she made upon all whom she met was that of absolute frankness; yet she had for eighteen years been accustomed to hide her thoughts and her emotions, to suppress all tendency to confidences, and it can scarcely be wondered at that in a matter which was very personal her secretiveness should reassert itself. It is impossible not to feel sorry that Melbourne should have been the person against whom she armed her mind in this case. The Queen did not speak to him of her marriage, neither by consulting him nor telling him of her intentions. He knew nothing but the report given in the _Morning Post_, and the talk of the clubs and the streets. At last he spoke to her, telling her that he could not pretend to be ignorant of the reports going about, nor could she; that though he would not presume to ask her what she intended to do, it was his duty to tell her that if she had any intentions it was necessary that the Ministers should know them. She replied that she had nothing to tell him. A somewhat doubtful statement, for she had already written to Leopold, asking him to keep her cousins from arriving before the 3rd of October, as she would have a number of Ministers at Windsor on that day, who, if they saw the Coburgs arrive, might say the Princes had come “_to settle matters_.”

A fortnight after Melbourne spoke and a day before her proposal to the Prince she told him that the matter was settled. These little evidences of haughty independence raised many apprehensions in the minds of those who served her, for they asked, “If she will deal thus with a Minister whom she likes, what will she do when those are in power whom she does not like?”

It is, of course, quite arguable that Victoria wished to have the opportunity, like other girls, of making up her mind in quiet and of having her little romance to herself. But she was not like other girls; and she did not forget what she considered the duties of her position when proposing to Albert, yet when those duties clashed with her inclination she allowed sentimentality to prevent her performing them.

The reports that Melbourne feared the loss of his power if Victoria married, and therefore was doing his best to induce her to keep single, were not confined to the gossip of London and Paris. There were many who wondered how Melbourne would behave if he saw before him the probability of the loss of his influence, as an introduction to the loss of his position. One of these was the Duke of Wellington, his great rival in personal weight at Court. Wellington felt that the genuineness of Melbourne’s devotion would be tested by such an event, for the old general knew that if, from personal or party motives, Melbourne wished to put off the Queen’s marriage, he could easily find specious, in fact almost unanswerable, reasons for such a course. Then if Victoria really made her choice, pretexts would be easy for causing delays. Thus our Prime Minister was watched with curiosity or malice from all sides. What will he do? Will he think of himself? Will he act the good father’s part? Will he feel disappointed that he is not the chosen man? Such were the questions prompted by those who knew much, little, or nothing, and these questions were asked everywhere, while the wags of the Press announced that the Devil’s Tower at Windsor had been assigned to him as a residence.

But Melbourne had watched the Queen with something more than affectionate criticism; he saw that she had grave faults which, if not trained into virtues, would lead her into evil, and he knew that outside influence would never be strong enough to counteract them. Gravely and anxiously he talked over all the possibilities of the matter with King Leopold. He felt that Albert, a young, untried man, who knew nothing of public business, and had practically no knowledge of the world, might be a great danger in himself, yet on the other hand he thought it very possible that the union might be all the more successful because of the youth of the two, and that Victoria’s influence would probably complete and strengthen the character of the young Prince. Melbourne had been assailed on every side for his residence in the Palace, for his untiring devotion to the Queen, yet it was his pride to be recognised as being the faithful and affectionate friend of Her Majesty. He knew well enough that he would be giving his own power into the hands of another, yet his sole desire was to do the best he could for his Queen and his country. It was natural in these circumstances that he should wish to know the Queen’s intentions in the matter, and when he received the news on the 14th of October, the day before Victoria’s momentous interview with Albert, his natural sweetness of disposition showed itself; for he said: “I think your news will be very well received everywhere; for I hear that there is an anxiety now that it should be, and I am very glad of it. You will be much more comfortable; for a woman cannot stand alone for any time, in whatever position she may be.”

Of Melbourne in this instance Leopold said to the Queen, he “has shown himself the amiable and excellent man I always took him for. Another man in his position, instead of _your_ happiness, might have merely looked to his own personal views and imaginary interests. Not so our good friend; he saw what was best _for you_; and I feel it deeply to his praise.”

The Queen wrote to all her Royal relatives to impart her great news, and in writing to the Dowager Queen there was a curious mistake made by her secretary in addressing the envelope. Lord Howe, at his private residence, received a letter addressed to _Lord How_, the envelope being whitey-brown inscribed “per railroad.” He supposed it to be one of many letters he was in the habit of receiving from people who wanted money or subscriptions, or permission to dedicate something to him, or something equally unimportant, and very nearly threw it into the fire. However, he thought better of it, and opened the curious missive--to discover a letter from Queen Victoria announcing to Queen Adelaide her approaching marriage; it was written by her own hand, was instinct with kindness and affection, and “as full of love as Juliet!” Said Sir Robert Peel, in commenting on this, “I suppose some footboy at Windsor Castle had enclosed and directed it to Lord _How_. If it had been disregarded, and had thus remained unanswered, what an outcry there would have been of neglect, insult, and so forth--and not unjustly.”

When Daniel O’Connell heard the news he made an extravagant speech at Bandon--before the engagement, as a matter of fact--in which he said: “We must be--we are--loyal to our young and lovely Queen--God bless her! We must be--we are--attached to the Throne, and to the lovely being by whom it is filled. She is going to be married! I wish she may have as many children as my grandmother had--two-and-twenty! God bless the Queen! I am a father and a grandfather; and in the face of heaven I pray with as much honesty and fervency for Queen Victoria as I do for any one of my own progeny. The moment I heard of the daring and audacious menaces of the Tories towards the Sovereign[6] I promulgated, through the press, my feelings of detestation and my determination on the matter! Oh! if I be not greatly mistaken, I’d get in one day 500,000 brave Irishmen to defend the life, the honour, and the person of the beloved young lady by whom England’s Throne is now filled! Let every man in this vast and multitudinous assembly stretched out before me, who is loyal to the Queen and would defend her to the last, lift up his right hand! (_The entire assembly responded to the appeal._) There are hearts in those hands. I tell you that, if necessity required, there would be swords in them! (_Awful cheering._)” Thus reported the _Annual Register_ of that date.

This sounds absurd and high falutin’, but it must have warmed the heart of the young lady. However, if some people welcomed the marriage, there were others who foretold from it national calamity. I have shown how keenly the ultra-Tories hated the idea of another Coburg alliance, and as soon as the matter was assured the whole Papist scare recommenced. Society people were filled with disdain for the Prince’s birth and position--“a younger son of a petty and undistinguished German Duke”! Albert was also accused of want of knowledge, want of manners, want of morals, and, in fact, a general poverty in all that made a good man; besides this--greatest crime of all--he was said to be a Whig! Thus the Queen had by no means regained her popularity with the disaffected of her people, and all the bitterness of feeling against her came out when the necessary arrangements were being made for Albert’s reception into English life.

It is not difficult to see that with her sense of Royal infallibility the Queen was likely to show little tact, and indeed she made such extravagant demands for her prospective husband that dismay was felt even by her warmest supporters.

However, the first thing for her to do was to announce to her Privy Council, which was summoned to Buckingham Palace for the 23rd of November, her decision to accept Prince Albert as her husband. There were eighty-three Councillors present, among them being the Duke of Wellington, who had just alarmed the country by having a serious attack--supposed to be paralytic--on the previous Monday, and the results of which were visible in a slight twist of the right corner of his mouth, and some constraint in using the left arm. When all the Privy Councillors were assembled, the doors were thrown open, and the Queen, dressed in a plain morning gown, wearing a bracelet in which the Prince’s portrait was set, was handed in by the Lord Chamberlain. She bowed to her Councillors, sat down and said, “Your Lordships will be seated.” Then she unfolded a paper and read, with “a mixture of self-possession and feminine delicacy,” her declaration, which ran:--

“It is my intention to ally myself in marriage with the Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. Deeply impressed with the solemnity of the engagement which I am about to contract, I have not come to this decision without mature consideration, nor without feeling a strong assurance that, with the blessing of Almighty God, it will at once secure my domestic felicity, and serve the interests of my country.”

She read, we are told, in a clear, sonorous, sweet-toned voice, but her hands trembled excessively, though her eyes were bright and calm, neither bold nor downcast, but firm and soft. Several times she looked towards the Duke of Wellington, for he was still ill, and she had been anxious about him; and when it was all over she wrote in her journal: “Lord Melbourne I saw, looking at me with tears in his eyes, but he was not near me.... I felt that my hands shook, but I did not make one mistake. I felt more happy and thankful when it was over.” In a letter to Prince Albert she wrote: “I wish you could have seen the crowds of people who cheered me loudly as I left the Palace for Windsor. I am so happy to-day! Oh, if only _you_ could be here!”

For three months Victoria’s emotions alternated between happiness and annoyance, for she could by no means get all she desired for her beloved Albert. The political animus against herself made the Opposition captious, and they and the Lords behaved like naughty children, finding fault with everything. From the very first, from the day that it was known that Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha was coming to England as the Queen’s husband, the Prince’s character was calumniated and his prospects treated with contempt. Our enmity to the German race, begun when we were obliged to see our Throne filled with Germans--for even the later Georges were more German than English--and continued with something of the rancour of a conquered nation, as one German alliance after another took place; which has been fed of late years by commercial jealousy, and by a latent fear of what our cousin the Kaiser might do; this enmity was gaining strength seventy years ago, and found its whole expression in diatribes against the young man who, being one of the most amiable people in existence, had been forced into his position as surely as a Japanese tree is forced into its pygmy development. This may sound exaggerated, but it is true nevertheless. From his boyhood Albert was educated, moulded, pruned, into the shape--morally and mentally--that seemed most suitable for the Consort of the Queen. There was no escape for him, and so carefully had he been prepared that he did not even think of escape. It has always been held that England did very well for the poor, undistinguished Prince who was allowed the supreme honour of marrying England’s Queen; and to make him feel how magnanimous they had been, the English people and the newspapers comported themselves as the street boy now bears himself when he feels that a foreigner is pressed upon his notice. I once had two French servants, who often together took my children out, but they never appeared in the street without the youth of the neighbourhood pelting them with ribald remarks and sometimes with stones. In this way did the vulgar among the well-bred treat Albert, and some of them did it even to the time of his death.

The first stone thrown was one picked from the Declaration which Her Majesty made before Parliament, in which no mention had been made of the Prince’s religion. At once the most lying and libellous articles were written, asserting that Albert was a Catholic, and, if not, that he belonged to a sect which made it impossible that he could ever take the Communion in the English Church; and if he could bring himself to do that his religious beliefs were of that light type that he could be a Catholic to Catholics, but for the sake of his advancement he could also be a Protestant to Protestants. To this was added that at heart he was an infidel and a radical--evidently interchangeable terms with these violent supporters of a man who stood for the most prejudiced and retrograde views, Ernest, King of Hanover. There seems to have been little doubt that he was at the bottom of the reports about Albert; he still hoped to be King of England, or at least to know that his son would wear its crown; and it was at the time an open secret that he was doing his best to upset the marriage.

The angry and younger Tories needed little goading, and they acted as a spur to their leaders. One feels really sorry that such a man as the Duke of Wellington should have led the attack in the House of Lords. The Duke knew as everyone knew that Albert was a Protestant, yet he and Peel, chafed by the events of the past year, felt that some stratagem must be employed to discredit the Ministry. “It proceeds from the boiling impatience of the party, indoors and out. The Tory masses complain that nothing is done; and so, to gratify them, an immediate assault is resolved upon.” Peel suggested to Wellington that some hostile movement must be made against the Government, adding, “It might be ungracious to cause conflict in an address congratulating a Queen Regnant on her marriage.” The Duke agreed with this, yet took the first opportunity which came along of sinking his loyalty to the Crown in party politics and personal feelings. After some acrid speeches and many columns in the papers, this quarrel, which was entirely one of bluff, was soothed by Baron Stockmar’s affirmation that the Prince was a Protestant who could take Communion in the English Church as though he were in his own Lutheran Church. Greville, a good Tory, says of this: “The Duke moved an amendment, and foisted in the word Protestant--a sop to the silly. I was grieved to see him descend to such miserable humbug, and was in hopes that he was superior to it.” As the Queen said in a letter to her uncle, “There was no need to affirm such a fact, as by law it was impossible that I could marry any but a Protestant.”

This made a certain amount of stir, but not sufficient to satisfy the rank and file of the Tory party and the men who desired office; so it was unfortunate that the next Bill before the House should be one concerning the allowance to be given to the Prince. Here a new element came in, our delightful English snobbery. Had Albert come to us as a millionaire, his life would have been one of roses in our midst, but his total income then was about £2,500, and he had only a small estate in Germany. Was not this enough justification for putting him in his place? Tories and Radicals alike thought so, and when it came to considering the income suitable for a Prince Consort they practically said so. The sum asked for as an allowance was £50,000 a year. This had been given to the husband of Queen Anne, to the Queens Consort of George III. and William IV., and to Prince Leopold when he married the Princess Charlotte, but as soon as it was suggested in Parliament that Queen Victoria’s husband should have the same amount an outcry was raised. So far as can be judged from all the arguments put forward, this was simply an indication that at that moment a feminine Sovereign could be treated with less consideration than a King. Had it been a Queen Consort for whom provision was needed, it is certain, to judge by the Parliamentary speeches, that the sum asked for would have been granted, and it is also certain that had the Queen chosen George of Cambridge, neither the Duke of Wellington nor any other leader of the Opposition would have opposed the proposal. Even the frivolous Prince of Orange would have been accorded more favour. However, fortunately for England, Victoria was not intending to make her simple-minded cousin King, and the Prince of Orange had found no favour with her, also fortunately for England--and for her.

An amendment was proposed by Joseph Hume, the Radical, allowing the Prince the magnificent income of £21,000 a year, whereupon Colonel Sibthorp, who was, as Sir Sidney Lee says, “a Tory of a very pronounced kind, who warmly championed every insular prejudice,” moved another amendment to make the sum stand at £30,000.

This was carried by a junction of extremes, the Tories and the Radicals; a year earlier the former had been as insistent in their demands that the Coronation expenses should be increased by a tremendous amount that Royal dignity should be sustained. Now so bitter was their feeling against the Government that they were ready to strike the Queen over Melbourne’s head. Victoria wrote of this: “It is a curious sight to see those who, as Tories, used to pique themselves upon their excessive loyalty, doing everything to degrade their young Sovereign in the eyes of the people. Of course, there are exceptions.”

Stockmar says that after the division he met Melbourne on the staircase of the House, and that the Prime Minister said to him, “The Prince will be very annoyed with the Tories, but it is not only the Tories who have lessened his income; there were beside Radicals and some of our own people who voted against him.” It was said that the less honest Whigs did this because they thought that as the whole blame of the proceedings would fall upon the Tories, the reduction of the Prince’s income would widen the breach between the Queen and the Opposition. Both the Whigs and Tories of the baser sort were ready to go to any dishonourable length in their desire to secure or to hold power, only those who had for long been out of office went a little further than their opponents and cried their sentiments in a very much louder voice, and thus we hear more about them. Melbourne at least proved himself an honest man, and he was guilty of that stupidity which is much the same thing as wickedness; he knew the spirit of the politicians, yet he did not take necessary precautions, while he seemed always ready to take unnecessary risks: “There is no doubt that all will go through easily,” was his feeling, and so he allowed matters to slip into public discussion and recrimination.

Leopold was enraged. “The whole mode and way in which those who have opposed the grant treated the question was so extremely _vulgar_ and _disrespectful_, that I cannot comprehend the Tories. The men who uphold the dignity of the Crown to treat their Sovereign in such a manner, on such an occasion!” Prince Albert may well have been irritated on his part, and of him his uncle said, “he does not care about the money, but he is much shocked and exasperated by the disrespect of the thing, as he well may.”

The third trouble was the Naturalisation Bill, which included the question of Precedency.

All through her life Victoria was a sentimentalist, and no sooner did she really feel herself in love with Albert than her impulse was to kiss his feet. This young man had spent years travelling from one town to another in Europe, seeking the education which would best enable him to fill his position as Prince Consort; he had, in fact, rarely been at home, to judge by Leopold’s accounts of his doings. Yet as soon as he offered to settle down in England, Victoria began to see in him a martyr, one who was sacrificing his family and his country to live with her in an alien land, and she regarded it as her real duty to compensate him for the terrible expatriation from which he would suffer. Leopold wanted Albert to be made a peer; Victoria went a good step further, she desired that he should be made a King-Consort. The Ministers listened and hesitated, but Melbourne pointed out that for the Legislature to make a King would be to infer that the Legislature could unmake a King. Precedent, he said, was the only thing to accept as guidance, and Prince Albert must take the same position as Prince George of Denmark, and he ended emphatically with:

“For God’s sake, Ma’am, let’s hear no more of it!”

This was one of the times when the Queen was angry with Melbourne; how could he compare the stupid and insignificant husband of Queen Anne with _her_ Prince?

Failing the highest dignity, she was against Albert’s being made a peer, writing to him on that subject: “The English are very jealous of any foreigner interfering in the government of this country, and have already in some of the papers (which are friendly to me and to you) expressed a hope that you will not interfere. Now, though I know you never would, still if you were a Peer they would all say, the Prince meant to play a political part.”

It is doubtful whether, in spite of her ambition for him, Victoria had any desire that the Prince should take part in any way in the important art of governing. She intended to marry, but she was really quite innocent of a wish to receive a partner in her legislative duties as well as a partner in her home.

When the Naturalisation Bill was introduced, Lyndhurst watched the case, as it were, for the King of Hanover, and he objected very much to the Bill as framed, for it gave Albert the precedence next the Queen for life. Thus, had he survived Victoria, he would still have taken precedence of the Heir-Presumptive. The Royal Dukes and their party wanted to give Albert precedence only over Archbishops and Dukes, excepting Dukes of Royal blood and other peers of the realm as the Queen should deem fit and proper. This had the difficulty of giving precedence, not only to the Royal Dukes, but to Prince George of Cambridge and Prince George of Cumberland when their fathers died. In this dispute Lord Lyndhurst and Lord Ellenborough were bracketted together as the impossibles. Greville saw the latter at his door one day, and asked what he was going to do about the precedence.

“Oh, give him the same which Prince George of Denmark had: place him next before the Archbishop of Canterbury.”

“That will by no means satisfy Her Majesty!” replied Greville, at which Ellenborough tossed up his head, saying,

“What does that signify?”

It would have been a curious thing to see the Queen enter a room, followed first by all the Guelphs, and at a distance by the humble and devoted husband. This was naturally not acceptable, so the whole idea of precedency was dropped, and the Bill became one of naturalisation only. The Dukes of Cambridge and Sussex, “who both wanted an increase in their incomes,” would have given way, but Ernest of Hanover affirmed contemptuously that he would not stand below any “paper royal highness.” Charles Greville studied up the law on this matter, and wrote a pamphlet proving that the Queen could grant her husband by Royal Warrant what precedence she chose without appeal to Parliament. This unfortunately only applied to his position in her own dominions, and as long as he lived foreign Courts would only recognise the Prince according to his birth, thus making a tremendous difference between his rank and that of his wife. This explains such incidents as that when he once went to Boulogne, the Kings of Portugal and Belgium, who were there, both took their departure before Prince Albert arrived, that he might be the greatest man in the place. Before the Queen and Prince had been married a month we find the old Duke of Cambridge agitated like any society woman as to whether he _could_ accept an invitation to meet the Prince and the Queen at the Queen Dowager’s, because what _were_ they to do about precedence if he went? As the law--an old Act of the time of Henry VIII.--stood, Lyndhurst and the Duke of Wellington told him he had no choice but to give precedence to the Prince. So the knotty point being settled, the Duke felt himself able to accept the invitation.