Footnote 26: Henry Phillpotts, Bishop of Exeter, 1830-1869.
Viscount Melbourne to Queen Victoria.
LORD MELBOURNE
Brocket Hall, 30th December 1847.
Lord Melbourne presents his humble duty to your Majesty. He has received with great pleasure your Majesty's letter of this morning, and reciprocates with the most cordial heartiness your Majesty's good wishes of the season, both for your Majesty and His Royal Highness. Lord Melbourne is pretty well in health, perhaps rather better than he has been, but low and depressed in spirits for a cause which has long pressed upon his mind, but which he has never before communicated to your Majesty. Lord Melbourne has for a long time found himself much straitened in his pecuniary circumstances, and these embarrassments are growing now every day more and more urgent, so that he dreads before long that he shall be obliged to add another to the list of failures and bankruptcies of which there have lately been so many. This is the true reason why Lord Melbourne has always avoided the honour of the Garter, when pressed upon him by his late Majesty and also by your Majesty. Lord Melbourne knows that the expense of accepting the blue ribbon amounts to £1000, and there has been of late years no period at which it would not have been seriously inconvenient to Lord Melbourne to lay down such a sum.27
Footnote 27: The Queen, through the agency of Mr Anson, advanced Lord Melbourne a considerable sum of money, which seems to have been repaid at his death. Apparently Lord Melbourne's declining health caused him to magnify his difficulties. The report which Mr Anson made shows that he was in no sense seriously embarrassed.
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
TO CHAPTER XVII
At the outset of the year 1848 great alarm was felt throughout England at the supposed inadequacy of her defences, a panic being caused by the indiscreet publication of a confidential letter from the Duke of Wellington to Sir John Burgoyne, to the effect that in his judgment the whole South Coast was open to invasion, and that there were no means of opposing a hostile force. The Government turned its attention to reconstructing the Militia, and raising the Income Tax for the purpose. But the outlook was completely changed by the French Revolution; Louis Philippe, who had just lost his sister and counsellor, Madame Adélaïde, impulsively abdicated, on a rising taking place, and escaped with his family to this country. England and Belgium were unaffected by the outburst of revolution which convulsed Europe: the Emperor of Austria was forced to abdicate, and Metternich, like Guizot, became a fugitive; Prussia was shaken to her foundation, and throughout Germany the movement in favour of representative institutions made rapid headway; a National Assembly for Germany was constituted, and Schleswig was claimed as an integral part of the German dominions. In Italy also the Revolution, though premature, was serious. The Pope, not yet reactionary, declared war against Austria; the Milanese rose against Radetzky, the Austrian Governor, and King Charles Albert of Sardinia marched to their assistance. A republic was proclaimed in Venice, but these successes were afterwards nullified, and a Sicilian rising against Ferdinand II. of Naples was suppressed. In France the revolutionary movement held steadily on its course, a National Assembly was elected, and national workshops established; Louis Bonaparte, who had been a fugitive in England, was allowed to return, and was elected President of the Republic by an immense majority of the popular vote.