Meanwhile the Queen, still sad at heart and depressed in spirits, struggled bravely to perform her social duties. She held two Drawing-rooms and two Investitures before June was over. Visitors, too, came to comfort her in her sorrow. The King of the Belgians and his son, and the Crown Prince and Princess of Prussia and their children arrived in midsummer. They were followed in rapid succession by others, including some members of the Orleans family, the Archduke Maximilian, and the Archduchess Charlotte, the Princess
THE ROYAL TOUR IN IRELAND: THE VISIT TO ROSS CASTLE, KILLARNEY.
Charles of Hesse, and the King of Sweden, who arrived in August. But it was a year fruitful in sorrow for the Queen and her family. Mr. Sidney Herbert had early in the year accepted a peerage, and retired to the Upper House as Lord Herbert of Lea. In July he fell ill, and to the great grief of the Queen, who regarded him as the future Prime Minister, died in August. In him the Peelites lost the Bayard of their party. On the 25th of July a great gap was made in the ranks of the Ministry in the Lower House by the elevation of Lord John Russell to the peerage as Earl Russell of Kingston Russell.[102] “The comments of the newspapers,” wrote Count Vitzthum, “on Lord John Russell’s acceptance of a peerage read like funeral sermons,” and his farewell speech to the House of Commons, broadly hinting that England would make the cession of the island of Sardinia to France a casus belli, rang like a thunderclap through Europe. It was more effective than his farewell address to his constituents. In this document, when reviewing the exploits of his career, Lord Russell modestly compared himself to the Emperor Charles V., who, having been engaged in all the great affairs of his age, and desiring to see how the world would get on after his death, had the dark pageant of his funeral prepared, and officiated as his own chief mourner at the ceremony. One of the last events of the Session was a spirited debate on the 26th of June on the demand of the Government for £200,000 for new ironclads. Palmerston, by dwelling on the growth of the French navy, frightened Parliament into granting the money, and the Manchester Radicals were fain to hold their peace. Mr. Disraeli, however, rather leant to the Peace Party in this debate. He suggested that diplomacy might effect a friendly understanding with France which would fix the relative proportions between the two navies, but his followers, who were bellicose, listened to him with amazement and anger. It did not occur to them that he was already speculating on the prospect of being in office next year, and was preparing the way for a friendly reception at the Tuileries.
It was a tranquil Session, during which hardly one party division was challenged in the Lower House. Though Lord John (now Earl) Russell had virtually abandoned his Reform Bill, the artisans in some of the large towns still kept alive the agitation for Parliamentary Reform. The country, however, seemed apathetic on the subject. How to give the best of the working men votes without at the same time enfranchising those who were unworthy, seemed to most people an insoluble problem. The American Civil War and the triumph of the Protectionists in Australia also rendered Englishmen somewhat sceptical as to the beneficial results of a democratic franchise. A Bankruptcy Bill was carried. It was not a party measure, and it was the only Ministerial Bill bearing on domestic affairs the passing of which in 1861 calls for record. When Parliament was prorogued on the 6th of August, the only shadow on the horizon of the future discernible by the Queen was the prospect of a cotton famine in Lancashire. Her Majesty’s anxiety on this subject was also apparently shared by Lord Palmerston. Writing to Mr. Milner Gibson about the matter in June, Lord Palmerston wistfully asked if the Board of Trade or any other department had any means of helping the country to make good the deficiency in the cotton supply which the Civil War in America was sure to cause. “As to our manufacturers,” he writes, “they will do nothing unless directed and pushed on. They are some of the most helpless and shortsighted of men. They are like the people who held out their dishes and prayed that it might rain plum-puddings. They think it is enough to open their mill-gates, and that cotton will come of its own accord. They say they have for years been looking to India as a source of supply; but their looks seem to have had only the effect of the eyes of the rattlesnake, namely, to paralyse the object looked at, and as yet it has shown no signs of falling into their jaws.”[103]
On the 16th of August the Crown Prince and Princess of Prussia and their children left Osborne for Germany. Next day her Majesty, the Prince Consort, and the Princess Alice visited the grave of the Duchess of Kent at Frogmore, celebrating there in sorrow a birthday anniversary which had hitherto brought joy every year to the Royal circle. They placed wreaths on the tomb, and felt, writes the Queen to King Leopold, “that it was only the earthly robe of her we loved so much that was there—the pure, tender, loving spirit is above, and free from all suffering and woe.... The first birthday in another world, must have been a far brighter one than any birthday in the poor world below.”[104]
The time had now come when the Queen had to make preparations for a visit to Ireland which she had planned. On the 21st of August her Majesty, the Prince Consort, Prince Alfred—fresh from his West Indian cruise—and the Princesses Alice and Helena, started for Holyhead, which they reached at seven o’clock in the evening. They arrived at Kingstown at midnight, and next morning (22nd August), accompanied by Lord Carlisle, the Lord-Lieutenant, his Chief Secretary, Sir Robert Peel, and Sir George Brown, Commander of the Forces in Ireland, they proceeded to Dublin. Despite the wet and stormy weather, the populace gave their Royal visitors a cordial reception. Next morning (23rd August) the Prince Consort visited the Curragh Camp to see for himself how the Prince of Wales was progressing with his military studies there, and the Queen received a loyal address from the Lord Mayor and Corporation of Dublin. In the afternoon the Royal party drove through the city, where crowds cheered them loudly wherever they went, and in the evening they met at dinner the Duke of Leinster, the Marquis and Marchioness of Headfort, the Marquis and Marchioness of Kildare, and Lady Charlemont. On Saturday, the 24th, the Queen herself visited the Curragh Camp, and reviewed the troops there. As they passed the cavalry one of the bands began to play an air which had been a favourite with the Duchess of Kent, and repeated it on marching past. “This,” wrote the Queen in her Diary, “entirely upset me, and the tears would have flowed freely had I not checked them by a violent effort. But I felt sad the whole day till I came to Bertie (the Prince of Wales), who looked so well.”[105] Then came some field manœuvres, and a visit to “Bertie’s hut,” where the whole party, with Sir George Brown, General Ridley, Colonels Wetherell, Browning, and Percy—the latter of whom had the Prince of Wales under his care—partook of a comfortable luncheon. The Queen thanked Colonel Percy very warmly “for treating Bertie as he did like any other officer, for,” she says in her Diary, “I know he keeps him up to his work in a way, as General Bruce told me, no one else has done; and yet Bertie likes him very much.” On Sunday afternoon the Queen visited the Kilmainham Hospital, and on Monday (August 26th) celebrated her husband’s birthday. “Alas!” she writes to King Leopold, “there is so much so different this year—nothing festive, and we on a journey, and separated from many of our children, and my spirits bad.”
