The smaller measures of the Session included a Bill for strengthening the appellate branch of the Court of Chancery by appointing two extra judges. The Bill to legalise marriage with a deceased wife’s sister, though carried in the House of Commons, was, as usual, rejected in the Lords. Parliament was prorogued by the Queen in person on the 8th of August, and the occasion
THE GREAT EXHIBITION, HYDE PARK.
was interesting, for the representatives of the people for the first time went into her presence from the new House of Commons, which had at last been made ready for occupation. The long procession through the grand corridors, between the two chambers, was accordingly a little more orderly than usual. The Royal Speech was devoted to a brief review of a barren but not unimportant Session.
Legislation, in fact, had been brought to a standstill by the anti-Papal Bill, which had been obstinately obstructed. The prestige of the Ministry was gone, and their natural strength completely abated by the mutiny of the Irish Whigs. And yet, when Lord John Russell resumed office after his resignation, he gained rather than lost in power, and the attack on him became more and more languid every day. The truth is that the people did not think much about politics after May, 1851. The Ministry was safe after the failure of the Tories to take their places. But it was no stronger than when it had been beaten on Mr. Locke King’s motion, and its lease of office depended largely on the tolerance of disdain. The people were indeed preoccupied with the Great Industrial Exhibition of All Nations to such an extent that they paid no more attention, during the latter half of the Session, to the doings of the Government, than to the debates of a local vestry. “There is,” writes Mr. Greville on the 8th of June, “a picture in Punch of the shipwrecked Government saved by the ‘Exhibition’ steamer, which really is historically true, thanks in great measure to the attractions of the Exhibition, which has acted on the public as well as upon Parliament.... There has been so much indifference and insouciance about politics and parties that John Russell and his Cabinet have been released from all present danger. The cause of Protection gets weaker and weaker every day; all sensible and practical men give it up as hopeless.”[36] That he had been saved by the “Great Exhibition” steamer evidently did not satisfy Lord John Russell. Hence he seems to have been ever hankering after a plan for strengthening his Cabinet by the addition to it of a Peelite element. Sir George Cornewall Lewis was sent down to Netherby in September to intrigue with Sir James Graham for this purpose, but Graham, though offered the Board of Control, or as it would now be called the India Office, refused to join the Cabinet because he was afraid lest Lord John Russell might make dangerous concessions to the Party who were agitating for Parliamentary Reform. It is interesting to note that Lord Palmerston strongly opposed this project of inviting Graham to join the Whig Cabinet, and strove hard to induce his colleagues to make their overtures to Mr. Gladstone. It is impossible to blame Sir James for the course he took. Lord John Russell’s incurable antipathy to statistical research induced him to hand over the question of Reform to a small Ministerial Committee, consisting of Lord Minto, Lord Carlisle, and Sir C. Wood, and so little did the Whigs love Reform, that some of them, like Lord Lansdowne, had resolved to leave the Cabinet if a strong Reform measure were proposed.
Another circumstance helped to weaken the Ministry. Lord Palmerston, as usual, succeeded during the autumn in again irritating the Queen and his own colleagues by one of his singular freaks at the Foreign Office. When Louis Kossuth, the Hungarian patriot, arrived at Southampton on the 23rd of October, he was welcomed by a popular demonstration, and some leading Radicals took part in it. Lord Palmerston immediately resolved to receive him, and it became known that if he did this the Austrian Government would recall their Ambassador. Lord John Russell pointed out the impropriety of the step which Lord Palmerston obstinately insisted on taking. Palmerston’s last word on the subject to the Prime Minister was that he considered he had a right to receive M. Kossuth privately and unofficially, and that he would not be dictated to as to the reception of a guest in his own house, though his office was at the disposal of the Government. A meeting of the Cabinet was immediately summoned, and the matter was laid before those present by Lord John Russell. It was agreed that Lord Palmerston could not with propriety receive Kossuth, and he promised to submit to the decision of his colleagues. Up to this point everything went smoothly, and the Queen was greatly relieved in mind to learn that the Foreign Secretary had been so reasonable as to promise not to insult a friendly Power. Her feeling on the subject was that, being at peace with Austria, we had no right to get up demonstrations in favour of persons who had been endeavouring to upset the Austrian Government. “I was at Windsor,” writes Mr. Greville on the 16th of November, “for a Council on Friday. There I saw Lord Palmerston and Lord John mighty merry and cordial, talking and laughing together. Those breezes leave nothing behind, particularly with Palmerston, who never loses his temper, and treats everything with gaiety and levity. The Queen is vastly displeased with the Kossuth demonstrations, especially at seeing him received at Manchester with as much enthusiasm as attended her own visit to that place.... Delane[37] is just come from Vienna, where he had a long interview with Schwarzenberg, who treated, or at least affected to do so, the Kossuth reception with contempt and indifference.”[38] Two days after Mr. Greville made this entry in his Diary, to the amazement of the Queen and Lord John Russell, Lord Palmerston, addressing a deputation that waited on him from Finsbury and Islington, expressed on behalf of England his strong sympathy with the cause of the Hungarian revolutionary leaders. He had kept the word of promise to the ear, but had broken it to the hope. What he had said was infinitely more irritating to Austria than his reception of Kossuth could have been. The breach of faith with his indignant colleagues was inexcusable, and it prepared the way for Palmerston’s expulsion from the Cabinet, which followed his recognition of the coup d’état in December.
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE FESTIVAL OF PEACE AND THE COUP D’ÉTAT.
The World’s Fair—Carping Critics—Churlish Ambassadors Rebuked by the Queen—Opening of the Great Exhibition—A Touching Sight—The Queen’s Comments on “soi-disant Fashionables”—The Duke of Wellington’s Nosegay—Prince Albert among the Missionaries—The Queen’s Letter to Lord John Russell—Her Pride in her Husband—The London Season—The Duke of Brunswick’s Balloon “Victoria”—Bloomerism—The Queen at Macready’s Farewell Benefit—The Queen’s Costume Ball—The Spanish Beauty—An Ugly “Lion”—The Queen at the Guildhall Ball—Grotesque Civic Festivities—Royal Visits to Liverpool and Manchester—A Well-Dressed Mayor—The Queen on the “Sommerophone”—The Coup d’État—The Assassins of Liberty—The Appeal to France—The Queen’s Last Quarrel with Palmerston—Palmerston’s Fall—Outcry against the Queen—A “Presuming” Muscovite—The Queen’s Vindication.