The third period of British monarchical history in this connection was that marked by the growth toward constitutional government under the sway of the House of Hanover. Coupled with this was the equally important foundation of a great Colonial empire, and the loss of a large portion of it in the reign of George III. But the development of constitutional rule under the Georges should not be confounded with the growth of the popular and Imperial system which exists to-day. The latter is simply a progressive evolution out of the aristocratic and oligarchical government of the Hanoverian period, just as that system had been a step from the kingly power of the Tudors and the Stuarts, which, in turn, had arisen upon the ruins of feudalism and military monarchical power. It is this gradual growth, this "gently broadening down from precedent to precedent," which makes the British constitution of to-day the more or less perfected result of centuries of experience and struggle. But that result has only been made possible by a peculiar series of national adjustments in which the power of the Monarchs has been modified from time to time to suit the will of the people, while the ability of individual Sovereigns has been at the same time given full scope in which to exercise wise kingcraft or pronounced military skill. It has, in fact, been a most elastic system in its application and to that elasticity has been due its prolonged stability of form under a succession of dynastic or personal changes.
THE CONSTITUTION AND THE MONARCHY
It is a common mistake to minimize the importance and value of the aristocratic rule by which the government of England was graded down from the high exercise of royal power under the Tudors and Stuarts to that beneficial exercise of royal influence which marks the opening of the present century period. To the aristocracy of those two centuries is mainly due the fact that the growth from paternal government and personal rule to direct popular administration was a gradual development, through only occasional scenes of storm and stress, instead of involving a succession of revolutions alternating with civil war. Somers and Godolphin, Walpole and Chatham, Pitt and Shelburne, Eldon and Canning, Grey and Liverpool, Wellington and Durham, Melbourne and Palmerston, were all of this aristocratic class, though of varying degrees in rank and title and with varied views of politics. They filled the chief places in the Government of the country during a period when the people were being slowly trained in the perception and practice of constitutional and religious liberty. At the best such processes are difficult and often prove bitter tests of national endurance; and it was well for Great Britain that the two centuries under review produced a class of able and cultured men who—though naturally aristocratic at heart—were upon the whole honestly bent upon furthering the best interests of the masses. And this despite the mistakes of a Danby or a North.
Yet, even towards the close of this period of preparation, popular government, as now practised, was neither understood by the immediate predecessors of Queen Victoria, nor by the nobles who presided over the changing administrations of the day. It was not clearly comprehended by Liberals like Russell and Grey; it was feared by Wellington and the Tories as being republican and revolutionary; it was dreaded by many who could hardly be called Tories and who, in the condition of things then prevalent, could scarcely even be termed Loyalists. Writing in 1812, Charles Knight, the historian, described the fierce national struggle of the previous twenty years with Napoleon and expressed a longing wish for the prop of a sincere and spontaneous loyalty to the throne in the critical times that were to follow. But such a sentiment of loyalty was not then expressed, and could hardly have been publicly evoked by a ruler of the type of George IV., whether governing as Prince-Regent or as King.
There is, however, no doubt of its having existed, and there seems to have been, even through those troubled years, an inborn spirit of loyalty to the Crown as being the symbol of the State and of public order. Its wearer might make mistakes and be personally unpopular, but he represented the nation as a whole and must consequently be respected. This powerful feeling has often in English history made the bravest and strongest submit to slights from their Sovereign, and has won the most disinterested devotion and energetic action from men who have never even seen the Monarch in whose personal character there was sometimes little to evoke or deserve such faith and sacrifice. For ages this loyalty had been the preservative of society in England, and it is still indispensable to the tranquility and permanence of a state, whether given in its full degree to the Sovereign of Great Britain, or in a more divided sense to the elective and partisan head of a modern republic.
In the time of the Georges, as well as in the middle ages and at the present moment, loyalty was and is a sincere and honest patriotism, refining the instincts and elevating the actions of those who were willing to waive self-interest on any given occasion in order to guard what they believed to be the true basis of national stability and order. Certainly, a Monarchy which could survive the wars and European revolutions, the internal discontents and personal deficiencies, of the period which commenced with the reign of George I. and closed with that of William IV., must have possessed some inherent strength greater than may be gathered from many of the superficial works which pass for history. But, whatever that influence was, it does not appear to have been personal. With the close of the reign of Queen Anne the brilliant prestige of personal authority and power wielded by the Sovereign had passed quietly away and, up to the death of William IV. and the accession of Victoria, had not been replaced by the personal influence of a constitutional ruler.
PRESENT POSITION OF THE MONARCHY
Out of all these changing developments has come a military position in which the Sovereign no longer leads his forces in war but in which he commands a sentiment of loyalty as hearty, in the breasts of the Colonial soldiers ten thousand miles away from his home at Windsor, as ever did the personal presence of an Edward I., or a Richard the Lion-Hearted. Out of them has come a religious position in which the Sovereign is head of a particular Church and yet, as such, gives no serious offence to masses of his subjects who belong to other faiths and who receive through his Governments around the world absolute freedom of religious worship—almost as a matter of course. Out of the constitutional evolution has come the adaptation of the Monarchy to not only new conditions but to countries separated by oceans and continents from the mother-state, and the evolution of a system which combines 420,000,000 people under one Crown and one flag. In August, 1884, the Times spoke of a correspondent amongst the Khirgese of Central Asia who stated that the people of that region had not the remotest idea of where or what England was—but they had heard of Queen Victoria; and a few years later Mr. Henry Labouchere, the inconsistent and bitter Radical, told the Forum of New York that "were a Parliamentary candidate to address an electoral meeting on the advantages of a republic he would be deemed a tilter at a windmill."
Such is a summary of the history and position of the British Monarchy. A thousand years ago it combined the seven little Kingdoms of England into one; to-day it combines the Kingdoms and Dominions and Commonwealths and Islands of a quarter of the earth's surface into one. The power of the Crown was once chiefly employed in making war and compelling peace by force of arms and military skill; to-day it is largely utilized in promoting peace and controlling diplomacy. The position of the Monarch was once that of the head of a class, or the leader of some distinct manifestation of public feeling, or the military chief of a great faction; to-day it is that of embodying the power of a united people, giving dignified interpretation to the policy of a nation, and serving as the symbol of unity to the masses of population in an extended empire.
One of the interesting features in the Crown's popularity and influence is the absence of serious criticism or controversy over the expense of its maintenance. Perhaps the only practical expression of disapproval affecting the Monarchy heard during Queen Victoria's long reign was an occasional grumbling as to the paucity of Court functions, the absence of Royal splendour and expenditures from the City of London, the sombreness and quiet which characterized the ordinary, everyday life of the Sovereign. The total financial cost of the Monarchy has been placed at a million pounds sterling per annum, but this total includes various large sums which could just as properly be charged to the ordinary governing requirements of the country without reference to the particular form of its institutions. Against this sum may also be placed the proceeds of the Crown Lands which were surrendered to Parliament upon the accession of William and Mary and which had before that been recognized as a personal estate of the Sovereign over which Parliament had no control. In addition to these Crown Land revenues other sums were voted as required. Upon their surrender to the nation (during the life of each Sovereign) it has become the custom, since 1868, to vote a permanent Civil List for the ensuing reign and out of this sum the ordinary Court and personal expenses are supposed to be met. In the case of Queen Victoria the amount was £385,000 a year, supplemented, however, by other votes and special allowances to herself and the Royal family from time to time.