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,