The statesman added the further tribute to the young translator: “The Princess’s manner would not be what it is if it were not the reflection of a highly cultivated intellect, which, with a well-trained imagination, leads to the saying and doing of right things in right places.”
CHAPTER III
OPINION IN BOTH COUNTRIES
THE Queen and Prince Albert, as we know, much wished to keep the fact of the Princess’s engagement a secret from the public. But rumour was naturally busy with the visit of the Prussian Prince to Balmoral, and on the day after his departure, that is on October 3, there appeared in the Times a leading article, in which the proposed alliance of the Princess Royal was alluded to with anything but approval—indeed, in Germany the article was considered grossly insulting both to the King of Prussia and to Germany. Prince Albert was very much angered at the terms in which it was written, which he described as “foolish and degrading to this country.”
But the article was really inspired by a consciousness of the violent dislike of England entertained by the Court of Prussia, and especially by the camarilla surrounding the then sovereign and his consort, and this was better realised by publicists than by Royal circles in England.
Amazing as it may seem to us now, it is nevertheless abundantly clear that neither Queen Victoria nor Prince Albert, well served as they were in some respects by the faithful Stockmar, had any idea of the real situation at the Prussian Court. The extreme youth of their daughter made them wish to postpone the marriage for a while, but there is no hint in any of the many letters and documents which have now come to light of the slightest fear that she would lack a good reception in that new country which she already loved as part of Prince Albert’s fatherland. On the contrary, the Prince had evidently persuaded himself that his daughter’s marriage would be very popular in Germany—more popular than it happened to be just then in England. Like most men of high, strong, narrow character, Prince Albert never allowed himself to perceive what at the moment he did not wish to see.
This view is entirely borne out by the letters which Prince Albert wrote then and later to the Prince of Prussia. Even when addressing one who was far older than himself, and already in the position of a ruler, he always assumed the attitude of mentor rather than of adviser; and as one glances over the immensely long epistles, dealing with a state of things of which the writer could know but very little, one wonders if the future Emperor William had the patience always to read them to the very end. Even were there no other evidence existing, these letters remain to show how curiously lacking Prince Albert was in that knowledge of elementary human nature which belongs to so many commoner types of mind.
The Prince Consort’s misapprehension is the more extraordinary when we consider that his brother, Duke Ernest of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, judged the situation with accuracy. In a letter published in his memoirs the Duke says:
“The family events at Balmoral and Stolzenfels [King Frederick William IV was staying at Stolzenfels when he received the news of the engagement of his nephew to the Princess Royal and of his niece, Princess Louise, to the Prince Regent of Baden] gave rise to all kinds of dissatisfaction in many reactionary circles of the Prussian capital. The more the Liberal papers of Germany applauded, the more disagreeably was the other side affected by the unpopularity of the circumstances which threatened to strengthen, at the Court of Berlin, the influence of the Royal relations whose sentiments were not regarded with favour. One of the peculiarities of Frederick William IV was that, with reference to his personal sympathies, he would not submit to any coercion from those who were familiar with politics and affairs of State, so that the secret opponents had to beware of expressing their displeasure at the new family connections.”
As we have seen, the King of Prussia had kept his own counsel in the affair of his nephew’s engagement, which he had only sanctioned in consequence of Prince Frederick William’s strong personal appeal. His Queen was intensely pro-Russian, and as a result of the Crimean War had conceived a positive hatred for England and the English.
As for the Princess of Prussia, afterwards the Empress Augusta, she was a woman of the highest cultivation, the old cultivation of Weimar and of the French eighteenth century, but she had not much influence in Berlin, where even then she was said to be strongly inclined to Roman Catholicism. The Prince of Prussia was himself not really popular. It was inevitable therefore, in all the circumstances, that the prospect of an English alliance should become a fresh cause of contention and division, in which the voices of disapproval decidedly prevailed.