By a strange irony of fate it was Douglas Jerrold's own son, William Blanchard Jerrold, who, working upon materials supplied him by the Empress Eugénie, produced in the four volumes of his Life of Napoleon III the chief apologia in English of the Second Empire.
But to return to the Queen and the English Royal Family. Amongst Punch's unconscious prophecies room must certainly be found for his reference, in a satire of the Queen's speech when Peel was Premier, to Her Majesty as "Victoria Windsor" nearly seventy-five years before the surname was formally adopted by her grandson. The suggested statue to Cromwell at the new Houses of Parliament gave rise to a long and heated controversy in 1845 in which Punch ranged himself militantly among the partisans of the Protector. He published mock protests from various sovereigns; he considered Cromwell's claim side by side with those of the "Sexigamist" murderer Henry VIII and other kings, and printed a burlesque design of his own, with a sneer at Pugin for his "determined zeal in keeping up the bad drawing of the Middle Ages."
SHOULD CROMWELL HAVE A STATUE?
The Queen's visit to Ireland in 1849 is treated in considerable detail, and in an optimistic vein. Punch never believed in the Repeal Agitation or in Daniel O'Connell, whom he regarded as a trading patriot and a self-seeking demagogue, contrasting him unfavourably with Father Mathew. Nor had he any sympathy with "Young Ireland," or Thomas Davis, or the romantic leaders of the movement of 1848; as for Smith O'Brien, an immortality of ridicule was conferred on him in Thackeray's famous ballad on "The Battle of Limerick." The terrible ravages of the potato famine had evoked Punch's sympathy; but his hopes of an enduring reconciliation were small, and he quotes the tremendous saying of Giraldus Cambrensis that Ireland would be pacified vix paulò ante Diem Judicii—or only just before the Day of Judgment. Still, the Queen's visit was hailed as of good omen, though Punch reminds her that she had only seen the bright side of the dark Rosaleen—palaces and not cabins. "Let Erin forget the days of old" is the burden of his song; at least he refrained from quoting—if he ever knew of it—that other terrible saying that "Ireland never forgets anything except the benefits that she has received." The Queen's magnanimity and clemency to her traducer Jasper Judge in the same year called forth a warm eulogium. Judge was a thief and a spy, yet the Queen, on the petition of his wife, paid the costs of her vilifier.
The Princess Royal's Betrothal
In 1849, also, Punch, evidently still in mellower mood, published an enthusiastic tribute to the memory of the Dowager Queen Adelaide, who died on December 2. Punch specially refers to her generosity to Mrs. Jordan, the mistress of William IV, when he was Duke of Clarence, and the mother of ten of his children. "Let those who withhold their aid from the daughter of Nelson, because the daughter of Lady Hamilton, consider this and know that the best chastity is adorned by the largest charity." Queen Adelaide had long outlived the unpopularity caused by her supposed interference in politics at the time of the Reform Agitation, and Punch's homage was well deserved. It is a sign of the times that Punch begins to allude to the Queen as "our good Queen," or more affectionately as "our little Queen," and this growth of her popularity continues (with occasional setbacks) throughout the 'fifties. At the close of 1852 Punch ridicules as absurd the rumour of the betrothal of the Princess Royal to Prince Frederick William of Prussia, the Princess being only twelve years old. The report appeared in a German paper, and proved true. Punch's chief objection was sentimental: "The age is past when Royalty respected its family at the rate of live stock," and he could not believe that such a principle would govern the Court, seeing that it was "adorned now at last with the domestic graces." Besides, Punch in the summer of 1844 had published his own New Royal Marriage Act (suggested by The Times's comment on the late Duke of Sussex's love letters), which winds up: "Be it therefore enacted that a member of the Royal Family shall be at liberty to marry whom or how or when, where or anywhere, he or she likes or pleases."
Scepticism of the report animates the set of verses published three years later:—
ABSURD RUMOUR OF AN APPROACHING MARRIAGE IN THE HIGHEST LIFE