The season of 1868 was one of the hottest that had ever been experienced, and the Queen has all through life suffered so much from sultry weather, that in summer she has to do most of her work in the open air under the shade of a verandah or a tent. The heat, together with the worry of Ministerial crises, again broke down her nerves and brought on fainting fits, which alarmed her physicians. When Parliament was prorogued they urged her to go to Switzerland, and on the 6th of August she reached the Lake of Lucerne, travelling privately under the title of the Countess of Kent. Writing on the 10th of August to the Queen, the Princess Louis of Hesse says:—“I have just received your letter from Lucerne, and hasten to thank you for it. How glad I am that you admire the beautiful scenery, and that I know it, and can share your admiration and enjoyment of it in thought with you.” Her Majesty and her companions—the Princess Louise, Prince Arthur, and Lord Stanley—went up the Righi and Mount Pilatus, and made a short stay on the Furka Pass. “How, too, delightful,” writes the Princess Louis of Hesse, “your expeditions must have been! I do rejoice that, through the change of weather, you should have been able to see and enjoy all that glorious scenery. Without your good ponies, Brown, &c., you would have felt how difficult such ascents are for common mortals, particularly when the horses slip, and finally sit down. I am sure all this will have done you good; seeing such totally new beautiful scenery does refresh so immensely, and the air and exertion—both of which you bear so well now—will do your health good.” She returned to England on the 11th of September, having broken her journey at Paris, where she stayed with Lord Lyons at the British Embassy. “I am so grieved,” writes the Princess Louis, “that you should have been so unwell on the journey home. Dear, beautiful Scotland will do you good.” But the return to Balmoral was not a return to rest. The preparation for the General Election involved much harassing business, and Mr. Disraeli, Minister in attendance, was not always in the sweetest humour. On a great many points he found the Queen rather more difficult to “educate” than his Party. This gave a tone of acerbity to many of his communications written at the time, which was quite foreign to his character. In a letter, dated Balmoral Castle, 28th September, written to Bishop Wilberforce, Mr. Disraeli, while scolding some High Churchmen for following Dr. Hook, Dean of Chichester, whom he terms a “provincial Laud,” because he intrigued with the Party of Disestablishment, apologises for not having sent it sooner. “I have delayed writing to you,” he says, “several days because I wanted to get a quiet half-hour; and there is not a sentence in this in which I have not been interrupted. Carrying on the government of a country six hundred miles from the metropolis doubles the labour. The stream of telegrams and boxes is really appalling.”[287] A collision of will, if not a conflict of opinion, now occurred between the Queen and Mr. Disraeli regarding the disposal of certain Church patronage. Dr. Longley, the Archbishop of Canterbury, had died in October, and the Queen has always claimed the right of controlling appointments to the see of Canterbury, on the ground that the Primate is, in a sense, the chief of the Court Chaplains. At coronations, royal marriages, baptisms, and funerals he is, of course, the principal celebrant. It was felt all over England that the time had come for appointing to this great office a man of strong individuality and firm character, not merely a “Benevolent Smile,” as one of Dr. Longley’s predecessors—the amiable Howley—had been called. At the same time, though the public desired to see in the new Primate a real leader of men, they did not desire a bigot or a brilliant intriguer, whose life had been consecrated to strategy and finesse. The Queen not only sympathised with this general feeling, but she had, with singularly sound judgment, selected as her favourite candidate perhaps the only prelate in England whose appointment could satisfy it. Unfortunately Mr. Disraeli ignored the general sentiment of the nation, and what was still worse, he did not seem to be capable of suggesting any candidate for the Primacy whose personal qualities corresponded with the desire of the people. There was a strong party, headed by the Dean of Chichester (Dr. Hook), who favoured the candidature of the Bishop of Oxford, far and away the ablest Anglican ecclesiastic whom England has produced during the Queen’s reign. But at the time he was, despite his marvellous gifts, “an impossible” aspirant. His daughter and her husband, Mr. and Mrs. Pye, had just “gone over to Rome,” and his enemies unjustly insinuated that the Bishop himself was at heart “a Papist.” His public life had been, to a great extent, one of finesse and intrigue. He had offended Mr. Disraeli by supporting Mr. Gladstone’s candidature at Oxford, and it was feared his appointment would cause the Tory party the loss of many votes in the General Election then pending. It was said at the time that the Queen, remembering the argument between Wilberforce and the Prince Consort as to the miracle of the swine, was personally opposed to his selection. This, however, was not true. She would have accepted Wilberforce, whose brilliant intellect, flashing wit and charm of manner fascinated every one with whom he came in contact, though her personal preferences were in favour of another prelate. But Mr. Disraeli having expressed his personal antipathy to the Bishop of Oxford, her Majesty forbore to hint at his claim. But, in the end, she insisted on the
THE CATHEDRAL, LINCOLN.
appointment of Dr. Tait, then Bishop of London. Dr. Jackson, Bishop of Lincoln, was in turn appointed to the see of London, to which Wilberforce had the strongest claim. To the see of Lincoln, Archdeacon Wordsworth, a nephew of the poet, and a theological antiquarian of great repute among the High Churchmen, was preferred. The selection of Dr. Tait procured for Mr. Disraeli the cordial congratulations of all parties, and it was admitted even by the Radicals that it immensely increased the popularity of a moribund Ministry. As a matter of fact, however, the credit was really due to the Queen, and not to the Minister. During November Wilberforce was at Blenheim, and in his Diary he records a conversation which he had with the Duke of Marlborough on this subject. “The Duke,” writes Bishop Wilberforce, “told me of Disraeli’s excitement when he came out of the royal closet. Some struggle about the Primacy. Lord Malmesbury also said that when he spoke to Disraeli he said, ‘Don’t bring any more bothers before me; I have enough already to drive a man mad.’” Then a few days later (18th November) Dr. Wilberforce had a conversation at Windsor with Dean Wellesley, an ecclesiastic deep in Court secrets, who said to him, with reference to the struggle for the Primacy, “The Church does not know what it owes to the Queen. Disraeli has been utterly ignorant, utterly unprincipled: he rode the Protestant horse one day; then got frightened that he had gone too far, and was injuring the county elections, so he went right round and proposed names never heard of. Nothing he would not have done; but throughout he was most hostile to you [Wilberforce]; he alone prevented London being offered to you. The Queen looked for Tait,[288] but would have agreed to you.... Disraeli recommended[289] ... for Canterbury!! The Queen would not have him; then Disraeli agreed, most reluctantly and with passion, to Tait. Disraeli then proposed Wordsworth for London. The Queen objected strongly; no experience; passing over bishops, &c.; then she suggested Jackson and two others, not you [Wilberforce], because of Disraeli’s expressed hostility, and Disraeli chose Jackson.... Disraeli opposed Leighton with all his strength on every separate occasion. The Queen would have greatly liked him, but Disraeli would not hear of him. You cannot conceive the appointments he proposed and retracted or was over-ruled in; he pressed Champneys for Peterborough;[290] he had no other thought than the votes of the moment; he showed an ignorance about all Church matters, men, opinions, that was astonishing, making propositions one way and the other, riding the Protestant horse to gain the boroughs, and then when he thought he had gone so far to endanger the counties, turning round and appointing Bright and Gregory; thoroughly unprincipled fellow. I trust we may never have such a man again.”[291] The importance of Dr. Tait’s appointment to the Primacy could hardly be exaggerated. In the great Church controversies he had distinguished himself by his intrepid and masculine good sense. His orthodoxy was unimpeachable, but whenever a heretic was being prosecuted his voice was always loud in demanding fair play and in pleading for toleration. He had congratulated the Church on being able to utilise Professor Jowett’s irrepressible “love of truth” and Dr. Pusey’s “personal holiness.” In short, he represented the national principle of comprehension—the national desire to include within the State Church all good men, no matter what their theological views might be, who recognised the divinity of Christ, and were prepared to abide by the legal ritual of the Reformed Anglican Communion.
On the 3rd of October the infant son of the Princess Mary of Teck was christened in the dining-room of Kensington Palace, among the sponsors being the Queen and the Princess of Wales. On the 21st the Crown Princess of Prussia, travelling as the Countess Lingen, visited England, and was very warmly greeted wherever she went. Most of her time was spent at St. Leonards-on-Sea.
On the 5th of December the Queen was informed that Mr. George Peabody had presented £100,000 to the poor of London. This was his second gift, so that his whole donation came to £350,000. It was felt that it was somewhat unfortunate that it had been left to a foreigner to point the path of duty out to English millionaires. On the other hand, there were critics who tried to depreciate the practical value of Mr. Peabody’s charity. The money was to be expended in housing the poor. “But,” said these critics when the first blocks of Peabody Buildings were built, “it was not the poor who were housed in them, for clerks and young middle-class people took the new rooms.” It was apparently not noticed that the clerks must, in that case, leave their dwellings empty for others, so that the housing of the poor would in any case be facilitated by reduced pressure on house accommodation.
The 14th of December was the seventh anniversary of the Prince Consort’s death. Accordingly the Queen and her family proceeded to the Mausoleum at Frogmore, which had now been completed, and where a special service was held. It was a matter of great regret that the Princess Louis of Hesse had been unable to be present, and she gives expression to that feeling in one of her letters (20th of November). But she was recovering from her accouchement, and it was impossible for her to leave her home.
As the year ended, the mind of the country was disturbed by tales of impending war. The Princess Louis of Hesse and the Crown Prince of Prussia both warned the Queen of the dangers which menaced Europe. France had arranged to withdraw her troops from Rome in order to attack Germany, and a Spanish garrison was to be substituted as the Pope’s guard. From the letters of the Princess, it is plain that the Queen comforted her relatives by assuring them that, from her information, it was clear there would be no war. Napoleon’s scheme for garrisoning Rome by Spanish troops was upset by the sudden outbreak of a revolution in Spain, provoked partly by the reactionary policy, but mainly by the personal misconduct of the Queen Isabella. Violent measures of repression were adopted to crush the conspiracy. On the 18th of September a revolt broke out at Cadiz, and the Queen and her dynasty were dethroned. General Prim and Marshal Serrano formed a Provisional Government, which, however, relegated to the Cortes the task of determining the destinies of the nation. Much more serious was the sudden rupture between Greece and Turkey at the end of the year. It was remembered that Lord Clarendon—who had been appointed Foreign Secretary in deference to the Queen’s partiality for him—was the Minister