“Prussia has been always talking of being the only natural and real ally of England, but since 1815 she has taken no part in any European question. Prussia sets up a claim to stand at the head of Germany, but she is not German in her conduct. The Zollverein was the only really German action to which she can point. She leads Germany, not upon the path of liberty and constitutional development, which Germany (Prussia included) requires and desires. I can imagine that with the high military pretensions to which she has laid claim for the last forty-five years, she suffers under an oppressive consciousness that her army is the only one which during this long period has not been called into action. I repeat, however, that a large, liberal, generous policy is the preliminary condition for an alliance with England, for hegemony in Germany, and for her military renown.”
These were the views with which the Crown Princess was steadily indoctrinated. It is possible that she found them a little too cool and impartially objective for her patriotism, but if so, there is no trace of such disagreement in Prince Albert’s correspondence.
It was fortunate that Prussian opinion was at this time distracted by the thought of the coming coronation of the new King. The ceremony raised certain questions which, though nominally concerned with mere ceremonial, possessed in reality considerable importance from a constitutional point of view. The principal question was whether the oath of allegiance traditionally taken by the estates of the realm was consistent with the new constitutional law desired by the King. Apparently the King wished the oath to be taken, but was dissuaded by his Ministers, and it was decided that his Majesty should simply be crowned at Königsberg in the presence of the Landtag.
In July, 1861, the Crown Prince, who had gone with the Crown Princess to pay a visit to Queen Victoria, wrote from Osborne a long and remarkable letter to his father, a passage in which shows how constantly he consulted his wife on questions of high politics.
The Crown Prince begs the King not to regard the coronation with repugnance on account of the omission of the oath of allegiance. He describes the act of assuming the crown as a despotic act, and as solemn proof that the crown is not conferred by any earthly power, in spite of the prerogatives abandoned in 1848. He goes on to argue that the ceremony will compel the Great Powers to show deference to Prussia by sending ambassadors, and that therefore it ought to take place in Berlin. In this way it would exhibit the development of Prussia. Frederick I, by being crowned at Königsberg, marked the beginning of a new era for the State, but now a coronation at Berlin would mark the new future which opened out for Prussia as the defender of the united German territories. The Crown Prince advised that the King and Queen should go to Königsberg before the coronation in Berlin, either to receive the oath of allegiance or to hold a great reception, and then he goes on:
“I have ventured, dear father, to express my opinion quite frankly, though you may perhaps be surprised by my strong inclination for the coronation ceremony. The fact is simply that I have often calmly discussed this with Vicky as the only desirable conclusion, when I saw the increasing difficulties arising in your mind with reference to the oath of allegiance.”
These opinions of the Crown Prince’s, in which his wife evidently concurred, would hardly have been approved by Prince Albert. They show the future Emperor Frederick in a new light—no longer as the liberal constitutionalist, the firm admirer of England’s free polity, but as the champion of the divine right of the Hohenzollerns, with a splendid vision of a united Germany under the military protection of Prussia. At the same time there is that qualifying sentence in which the Crown Prince refers to the plan of a coronation at Berlin almost as if he and his wife had been driven to recommend it as the only solution of the King’s difficulties regarding the oath of allegiance.