'It is perhaps natural,' says a contemporary writer, 'for the laureates to be loyal, but there is no doubt that the sincere tributes which he paid to the Queen and to her consort contributed materially to the steadying of the foundation of the British throne. He almost alone among the poets gave expression to the inarticulate loyalty of the ordinary Englishman, and he did it without being either servile or sycophantic. If it were only for his dedication to the Queen and Prince-Consort, he would have repaid a thousand times over the value of all the bottles of sherry and the annual stipends the poet-laureates have received since the days of Ben Jonson.'
Mrs Gilchrist writes: 'Tennyson likes and admires the Queen personally much, enjoys conversation with her. Mrs Tennyson generally goes too, and says the Queen's manner towards him is childlike and charming, and they both give their opinions freely, even when these differ from the Queen's, which she takes with perfect humour, and is very animated herself.' The Prince-Consort, to whom Tennyson dedicated his Idylls of the King,
Since he held them dear,
Perchance as finding there unconsciously
Some image of himself,
had his copy inscribed with the poet's autograph.
One most characteristic feature of the Queen's reign was the inauguration, in 1851, of that system of International Exhibitions which has infused a new and larger spirit into commerce, and whose influence as yet only begins to work. The idea came from the Prince-Consort, and was carried out by his unfailing industry, energy, and perseverance. Sir Joseph Paxton's genius raised a palace of crystal in Hyde Park, inclosing within it some of the magnificent trees, few, if any, of which were destroyed by the undertaking. As Thackeray wrote:
A blazing arch of lucid glass
Leaps like a fountain from the grass
To meet the sun.
The Queen took the greatest interest in the work, which she felt was her husband's. She visited it almost daily, entering into interested conversation with the manufacturers who had brought their wares for display. The building was opened on the 1st of May, which the Queen names in her diary as 'a day which makes my heart swell with pride and glory and thankfulness.' She dwells lovingly on 'the tremendous cheers, the joy expressed in every face,' adding, 'We feel happy—so full of thankfulness. God is indeed our kind and merciful Father.'
After the building had served its purpose, the exhibition building was removed to Sydenham, a London suburb then almost in the country, and opened by the Queen, 10th June 1854. Under its new name of the 'Crystal Palace' it has since been the resort of millions of pleasure-seekers. It was fondly hoped by its promoters that the Great Exhibition would knit the nations together in friendship, and 'inaugurate a long reign of peace.' Yet the year 1851 was not out before Louis Napoleon overthrew the new French Republic, of which he had been elected president, by a coup d'état, or 'stroke of policy,' as cruel as it was cowardly. Lord Palmerston's approval of this outrage, without the knowledge of either the Queen or Lord John Russell, procured him his dismissal from the cabinet. Two months later, however, Palmerston 'gave Russell his tit-for-tat,' defeating him over a Militia Bill.
In the year 1852, amid the anxieties consequent on the sudden assumption of imperial power by Louis Napoleon, the Queen writes thus to her uncle, King Leopold: 'I grow daily to dislike politics and business more and more. We women are not made for governing, and if we are good women, we must dislike these masculine occupations.'
It was about this time that unjust reports were circulated concerning the political influence of Prince Albert, who was represented as 'inimical to the progress of liberty throughout the world, and the friend of reactionary movements and absolute government.' When parliament was opened, the prince was completely vindicated, and his past services to the country, as the bosom counsellor of the sovereign, were made clear. The Queen naturally felt the pain of these calumnies more deeply than did the prince himself, but on the anniversary of her wedding day she could write: 'Trials we must have; but what are they if we are together?'