Cobden, travelling in France very shortly before the outbreak of 1848, saw nothing which led him to expect any political disturbance; he believed the future to promise nothing but tranquillity and commercial development, and that Free Trade spelt “peace on earth.”
Stockmar was a Free Trader too, but he had learnt that that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit. He did not look for spiritual results from purely material causes; and perhaps his vantage-ground on what he called the watch-tower of London, or even his position at the “hole in the stove” in Coburg, enabled him to gauge more correctly than Cobden the political forces of the time. He had foreseen the outbreak of revolution, as the result to be expected from despotism and bad government on the Continent, added to the misery and destitution of the great masses of the people. The storm of 1848 did not find him unprepared; and in England and Belgium, where the principles of constitutionalism, as understood and taught by him, had taken firm hold, were almost the only countries in Europe where revolution did not get the upper hand.
But although this was so, 1848 was a sufficiently serious time in England. In Ireland the misery of the people had amounted to actual famine, and notwithstanding everything that lavish expenditure and devoted services, both by public servants and private individuals, could do, hundreds of thousands perished from starvation or its attendant pestilence. In the Union of Skibbereen nearly the whole population, 11,000 persons, perished. The shopkeepers of the little Kerry town of Kenmare told the writer of these pages in 1870 that during the worst months of the famine of 1847 they seldom took down their shutters in the morning without finding one or two corpses in the street, poor things who had been living in the mountains and had just had strength to crawl down into Kenmare to die. And what was famine in Ireland was the bitter pinch of scarcity in England and Scotland. In February, 1847, wheat was 102 shillings a quarter; added to this there was a general sense of alarm and absence of security, bringing with it want of capital, want of employment, want of wages. There was hardly a house, rich or poor, that was not suffering loss; but while to the rich the loss meant giving up luxuries which only custom had made seem necessaries, to the poor it meant actual want and privation;[24] when men are low and miserable, and feel they have nothing to lose, is the time when revolutionary propaganda works like wildfire among them. There was an avowedly revolutionary political party in Ireland, always ready to take advantage of any difficulty the Government might be in, foreign or domestic, in order to harass and thwart them. “Refuse us this” (repeal of the Union) O’Connell had said in 1840, when war with France hung in the balance about the Eastern Question, “and then in the day of your weakness dare to go to war with the most insignificant of the powers of Europe.” In 1848, the mantle of O’Connell had fallen on John Mitchel, who, in his paper called The United Irishman, gave instructions for the successful carrying on of revolutionary street warfare; he recommended the covering of the streets with broken glass to lame the horses of the soldiery, and suggested that the citizens should provide themselves with missiles to throw from the houses; these, he said, could be used with great effect from the elevation of a top story, especially if forethought had been used to provide “boiling water or grease, or, better, cold vitriol if available. Molten lead is good, but too valuable; it should always be cast in bullets and allowed to cool.” This and a great deal of similar rubbish was poured forth day by day, or week by week, in the rebel papers. It would be harmless enough in an ordinary way; but amid the excitements of 1848, and addressed to such an excitable people, it might have proved a spark in a powder magazine. Mr. Mitchel proclaimed his intention of committing high treason, but he was arrested before he had had an opportunity of doing so. A deputation of Irish revolutionists was sent to the Provisional Government in Paris to demand “what they were sure to obtain, the assistance of 50,000 troops for Ireland.” The French Government absolutely declined the proposal, and said they were at peace with Great Britain, and wished to remain so. Mitchel was sentenced to transportation, and the heads of the deputation to Paris were found guilty of high treason and sentenced to death. Their sentences were, however, commuted to transportation, and then the fate which so often throws a ludicrous aspect over Irish revolutionary affairs overtook them; they denied the right of the Crown to reduce the severity of their sentences, and demanded that they should either be set at liberty, or hanged, drawn, and quartered,—a request which it is needless to say was disregarded.
But Ireland was not the only source of anxiety; there was a threatening of riot and pillage in Scotland, and one very serious rising took place near Glasgow. It was suppressed through the personal and moral courage of the Sheriff of Lanarkshire, Sir Archibald Alison; but if it had been successful the whole of the manufacturing district of the West of Scotland would probably have taken fire. In England danger appeared to threaten from the Chartist movement. The Chartists gave notice that they intended to assemble at Kennington Common 500,000 strong, on the 10th April, 1848, and to march thence to the House of Commons, there to present their petition, which they said had received nearly 6,000,000 signatures. It is rather significant that Englishmen, even when they talk revolution, can, when it comes to action, think of nothing less constitutional than the presenting of a petition to Parliament. Sampson, the servant in Romeo and Juliet, is the typical English revolutionist. “Is the law on our side if I say—ay?” However, the Queen, the Ministry, and the whole country were alarmed. In London thousands of special constables voluntarily enrolled themselves, as a civil force, to help the military, if need were, to maintain order. The Duke of Wellington as Commander-in-Chief, directed special preparations for the defence of London; but with this usual good sense he took care that not a single extra soldier or piece of artillery was to be seen on the eventful day. The Admiralty, Horse Guards, and Treasury were strongly garrisoned and filled with arms; there were 800 men with cannon in Buckingham Palace, and steamers and gunboats lay in readiness on the river. Country gentlemen garrisoned their London houses with their gamekeepers armed with double-barrelled guns. As everybody knows now, it all ended in smoke. The 10th of April, 1848, came and went; the Chartists met at Kennington, not 500,000, but about 25,000 strong; their petition contained not six million, but about two million signatures, a very large proportion of which were fictitious. About 8,000 men from the mass meeting walked in procession towards Westminster. On being met on the bridge by a police force, and informed they would not be allowed to cross in mass, they bowed to the inevitable, and sent their petition to Parliament in three four-wheeled cabs! In this humble and unromantic manner ended the English revolution of ‘48. The whole movement was overwhelmed with ridicule, from which it never recovered, and the ordinary law-abiding people felt ashamed that they had allowed themselves ever to believe in its seriousness.
Constitutional government was stronger than it knew itself to be. It was easy to be wise after the event; but before, many brave hearts had failed them for fear. The Queen was, of course, specially affected by events on the Continent, as the monarchs whose rule was being either overturned or threatened were in many instances her relations and friends. She wrote on the 6th March to Stockmar, “I am quite well, indeed particularly so, though God knows we have had since the 25th enough for a whole life,—anxiety, sorrow, excitement.” On the very day on which the Queen wrote, a mob had rushed to Buckingham Palace, breaking lamps and shouting, “Vive la République!” However, their leader, when arrested, began to cry! so that he could not be considered a dangerous revolutionist.
It was in the midst of all this excitement that Princess Louise was born, on March 18th, 1848. With all the fear caused by the anticipation of the Chartist movement on April 10th, it is not surprising that the Prime Minister, Lord John Russell, strongly urged the removal of the Court to Osborne. It is not impossible that the three-weeks-old baby was even more persuasive than the Prime Minister. However this may be, the Queen left London for Osborne on April 8th, not without some criticism from Greville. Greville was nothing if not critical; he had blamed Sir Robert Peel for resigning in 1844, and thus causing a ministerial crisis when the Queen was near her confinement, and he now blamed Lord John Russell for advising the Queen to go to Osborne with her new-born infant, in anticipation of a Chartist riot in London on April 10, 1848.
There was an immense feeling of relief all over the country when the day passed off so quietly. The popular feeling in London was manifested by the cheers which greeted the Duke of Wellington when he turned out early the next morning to his post at the Horse Guards. The Prince wrote to his private secretary on April 11th, “What a glorious day was yesterday for England.... How mightily this will tell all over the world!” The utter inability of the revolutionary germ to thrive in the soil of constitutional liberty was the lesson of 1848. Repeated illustrations of the same fact have been given in more recent times. After the explosion in Greenwich Park in 1894, caused by the Frenchman Bourdin, the police seized an anarchist club near Tottenham Court Road, and caught a gang of eighty men representing the anarchist propaganda in London. Every man but one was a foreigner, and the solitary Englishman was a journalist who had come, not to revolutionize, but to get copy for his paper!
With characteristic conscientiousness the Queen and her husband did not rest content with the fact that the social peace of England was not endangered. They felt there never would have been even the anticipation of danger, unless there had been much in the condition of the poorer classes which called for redress. They had not been many days at Osborne before they sent for Lord Ashley (better known to this generation as Lord Shaftesbury), and asked his advice as to what could be done to render more happy the condition of the poor. This was a subject which, as is well known, was to Lord Ashley, not merely an occupation, but a passion. His whole life, from youth to old age, was given to it; almost his last words, at the age of 85, when he knew he was dying, were: “I cannot bear to leave the world, with all the misery in it.” The Prince could not, therefore, have sent for a better counsellor. They had a long conversation in the gardens at Osborne. The Prince asked for advice, and how he could best assist towards the common weal. “Now, sir,” replied Lord Ashley, “I have to ask your Royal Highness whether I am to speak out freely, or to observe Court form.” “For God’s sake,” said the Prince, “speak out freely.”
Lord Ashley then advised him to throw himself into movements to promote the social well-being of the masses of the people, and to show in public that he was doing so. On the Prince asking for more detail, Lord Ashley urged him to come and see for himself how the poorest people in London lived; to go into their houses, and he offered himself to conduct the Prince over houses in St. Giles, near Seven Dials. He also urged him to take the chair a month later at the meeting of the Laborers’ Friend Society, and (with the little bit of worldly wisdom that guileless people so often pride themselves on) to come in semi-state, with several carriages, four horses, outriders and scarlet liveries. The Prince felt he ought not to consent to all this without asking Lord John Russell’s advice; but he gave a conditional consent. Lord John, however, was hostile, and offered strong opposition to the Prince acting on Lord Ashley’s advice. However, Lord Ashley stuck to his guns. He admitted that in any strictly political matter the Prince was bound to abide by the advice of the Prime Minister, but on a matter like this he advised the Prince to tell Lord John that “Your Royal Highness is as good a judge as he is.” Lord Ashley finally prevailed, and the Prince took the chair at the Laborers’ Friend meeting on May 18th, 1848. The outriders and the scarlet liveries were not omitted, and the Prince made a speech which Sir Theodore Martin says first fairly showed the country what he was, and gave a very important impulse to the manifold movements towards social improvement which have been so marked a feature of the present reign. Thus out of the “nettle, danger,” we were enabled “to pluck the flower, safety.”
[22] The poor excuse put forward by Louis Philippe was that the English Foreign Secretary, then Lord Palmerston, was manœuvring to bring about a marriage between a Coburg Prince and the Queen of Spain. There was no foundation for this charge; but Louis Philippe seems to have had a terror of Lord Palmerston which deprived him of all self-control, and capacity for judging of evidence.