But before Gough could be recalled, he redeemed the disaster of Chillianwalla at Gujerat. The news of this successful battle, which was fought on the 21st of February, reached the Queen on the 1st of April. It meant that the crisis in India was over, and it lifted from her mind the burden of a supreme anxiety. Multan, too, had fallen, and finally the East India Company, admitting at last that it was impossible to protect their frontier from attack, annexed the Punjab on the 29th of March, 1849, thus closing the history of the Sikhs as an independent nation. England had found in them the most fearless and formidable of enemies. Since the annexation of their country, they have been the staunchest and the most loyal of the Queen’s Indian subjects.
One serious colonial dispute must be noticed, for it led to an early experiment in “boycotting.” Lord Grey, on the 4th of September, 1848, by an Order in Council, had turned the Cape of Good Hope into a convict settlement. The colonists resented this act with the hottest indignation. Angry meetings were held at Cape Town; and the Governor, Sir Harry Smith, was violently blamed because he refused to take on himself the responsibility of suspending the “injurious and degrading measure.” When the first convict ship, the Neptune, arrived in Simon’s Bay on the 19th of September, the church bells in Cape Town were tolled in half-minute time. The Municipality demanded that the vessel be sent back. The populace, in mass meetings, adopted what they called “the Pledge”—an obligation to “drop connection with any person who may assist convicted felons.” In fact, the process which in Ireland has recently been termed “boycotting” was resorted to, and supplies were refused to the army, navy, and all Government establishments. The law was impotent in face of such opposition, and very soon the Governor, Sir Harry Smith, was compelled to bake his own bread even in his own house. The colonists finally triumphed. The Order in Council was withdrawn, so far as it referred to the Cape, and the Neptune left, without having landed a single convict. The episode is one of the earliest instances on record of the successful application of “boycotting” to defeat an unpopular policy.
CHAPTER XXII.
FAMILY CARES AND ROYAL DUTIES.
Education of the Prince of Wales—Selection of Mr. Birch as Tutor—The Queen’s Jealousy of her Parental Authority—Her Letter to Melbourne on the Management of her Nursery—Her Ideas on Education—Prince Albert’s Plans for the Education of the Prince of Wales—Stockmar’s Advice—The Visit to Ireland—The Queen at Waterford—“Rebel Cork” en fête—The Visit to Dublin—Viceregal Festivities—The Visit to the National Model Schools—Shiel’s Speech—The Queen and the Duke of Leinster—Farewell at Kingstown—The Queen Dips the Royal Ensign—Loyal Ulster—The Visit to the Linen Hall—Lord Clarendon on the Queen’s Visit—A Cruise on the Clyde—Home in Balmoral—The Queen’s “Bothie”—The Queen’s University of Ireland—First Plans for the Great Exhibition—Opening of the London Coal Exchange—The Queen’s Barge—Death of Queen Adelaide.
In April, 1849, Prince Albert is found writing a letter to the Dowager Duchess of Gotha announcing a very important event in the Queen’s family. “The children,” he says, “grow more than well. Bertie (the Prince of Wales) will be given over in a few weeks into the hands of a tutor, whom we have found in a Mr. Birch, a young, good-looking, amiable man.” Mr. Birch, subsequently Rector of Prestwich, near Manchester, was eminently qualified for the grave and delicate duty for which the Queen selected him. He had taken high honours at Cambridge, and had been not only Captain of the School, but had also served as an under-master at Eton. Yet Mr. Birch can hardly be credited with the Scheme of Education adopted in the Royal Family. That had been arranged by the Queen herself, in consultation with her consort and Baron Stockmar. Her fixed idea was that the heart as well as the head must be trained, and that not only must the education of her children be truly moral, but it must be essentially English. She resolved to discover the kind of tutor whom she could trust, and then, having found him, to trust him implicitly.
The Queen, it may here be said, has ever set an example to women of exalted rank and station by reason of the undeviating support she has given to those who undertook the education of her children. But in doing this her Majesty has been most jealous in asserting her parental rights, and punctilious in recognising the high responsibilities which they involve. As far back as 1842, in a very pretty letter to Lord Melbourne, she asked him for advice about the reorganisation of her nursery, and a question came up as to the choice of the lady who should superintend it. The Queen, accepting the fact that her public duties prevented her from personally managing the education of her family as completely as she might have wished, fully admitted that it was necessary to appoint a lady of high rank and culture for that purpose. But then arose the difficulty of satisfying her Majesty’s desire to retain in her own hands the completest headship of her family. A governess of high rank really competent to do the work as the Queen meant that it should be done
VICTORIA CASTLE, KILLINEY—BRAY HEAD IN THE DISTANCE.
might choose to consider herself as an official responsible to the country first, and to the parents of the Royal children afterwards. Against such an idea the Queen most resolutely set her face. “I feel,” her Majesty writes, on behalf of herself and her husband, that “she (the Royal governess) ought to be responsible only to us, and we to the country and nation.”[4] It was in pursuance of this idea that her Majesty made great sacrifices to keep her children as closely as possible in contact with her. Many curious memoranda from her pen exist, and through them all there runs the same thought—simplicity and domesticity must be the leading characteristics of the training of the Royal family. For example, whenever it was possible, the Queen insisted on retaining in her own hands the religious education of her family, and it is now known that she did this from a dread lest their minds might at the most plastic period of life receive a sectarian bias. High Anglicanism was then militant, and many intrigues were set on foot by its professors to effect a lodgment in the Palace. The education of the Princess Royal, afterwards Princess Imperial of Germany, was almost entirely supervised and directed by the Queen herself, and with results much appreciated in Germany, where, through her tact, culture, high character, and strong common sense, her Imperial Highness has won for herself a position of unique political and social influence. The education of the Prince of Wales, however, now came more directly under the hands of Prince Albert; and one point of the highest importance to decide was whether it should be conservative or