THE QUEEN OPENING HOLBORN VIADUCT.
In the autumn the Queen enjoyed a series of excursions from Invertrosachs, to which the Princess Louis of Hesse refers in one of her letters from Kranichstein. “What charming expeditions you must have made,” writes the Princess to her Majesty, “in that lovely country. What I saw of it some years ago I admired so intensely. You can well be proud of all the beauties of the Highlands, which, have so entirely their own stamp that no Alpine scenery, however grand, can lessen one’s appreciation for that of Scotland.... Many thanks for the grouse, which have just arrived—the first since two years ago!”[313]
During the year the Queen was subjected to considerable annoyance, owing to the mismanagement which seemed to mar the success of the Duke of Edinburgh’s tour in Australia. At the time he was shot at by O’Farrell the Legislature of New South Wales passed at one sitting a Treason-felony Bill, the provisions of which were of the drastic character enforced in modern times only by the autocrats of opera-bouffe. But after a while from across the sea whispers of heart-burnings and discontent were wafted, which first took definite form in spring, when an ugly item was discovered in the Civil Service Estimates. It was a sum of £3,500 for gifts and presents made by the Duke of Edinburgh while voyaging in Australian waters with the Galatea. The Colonists were, not unnaturally, irritated at what they considered the lack of taste shown in throwing on the Estimates the expense of those trifling gifts which the Prince had made to several of the most eminent Australians. Though no defence was formally made for the Prince, obviously his youth and inexperience accounted, to some extent, for the unfortunate error.
A visit paid by Prince Arthur to Ireland in summer also led to some unpleasantness. In Derry the Prince’s appearance seemed to suggest to the Orangemen the idea that the occasion was one for assailing Mr. Gladstone and the Ministry, and for making riotous attacks on the Catholics who retaliated after their kind. The Mayor of Cork, too, presiding at a dinner given to two released Fenians on the 28th of April, lauded O’Farrell’s motive in shooting the Duke of Edinburgh. The observations were so pointedly directed at Prince Arthur’s visit, that they constituted practically an invitation to assassinate him. The Government accordingly brought in a Bill on the 5th of May to dismiss Mr. O’Sullivan from office “as if he were naturally dead,” the first reading of which Mr. Disraeli, to the consternation of his followers, showed a desire to resist.[314] Mr. O’Sullivan, however, saved everybody further trouble by resigning his office.
On the other hand, if two of the Queen’s sons were a little unfortunate in their experience of popular demonstrations, the Heir Apparent was fast becoming the idol of Society. It was understood that he had used his influence in order to bring about a change in Court dress, which was taken as a concession to the democratic spirit of the age. What was the origin of the rule compelling unofficial persons to wear a distinctive dress when presented to the Queen? In the early Georgian period no such rule existed. Nobody but a gentleman could go to Court, and so people who were presented, as a matter of course, wore the ordinary dress of a gentleman, just as officers have always approached the Queen in uniform, which, in theory, is their ordinary dress. But in time persons who were not, technically speaking, gentlemen, were presented to the Sovereign. The introduction of what is now known as “evening dress” for persons of all grades abolished costume as a mark of rank. Yet the Court still adhered to the theory that any one presented to the Sovereign must bear about him an outward and visible sign that he was a gentleman, and as the ordinary “swallow-tail” coat was common to all classes, the rule was laid down at Court that what had been the peculiar costume of a gentleman down to the time of George III. should always be worn. The new Court costume, as sanctioned by the Lord Chamberlain in February, 1869, was, however, a compromise between the old fashion of the Georgian period and the conventional “swallow-tail.” In form and colour the levee dress resembled an ordinary evening dress. But the material was to be velvet and not broadcloth, and the collar of the coat was to be straight and embroidered with gold. The dress sword and cocked hat were still to be worn. As for the full-dress to be worn at Drawing Rooms, it was also a compromise. Trousers were not to be worn unless they were decked out with broad gold stripes down the sides.
On Saturday, the 23rd of October, Lord Derby died in the seventy-first year of his age, forty-nine years of which had been spent in political life. For a quarter of a century his name and influence had worked like a wizard’s spell on the minds and hearts of the Tory Party, and yet, as a statesman and a legislator, he had done comparatively little. Passionate unwisdom was too often the leading trait of his policy, but his impetuous and imperious self-confidence, his stately presence, his eager spirit, fiery partisanship, and irrepressible pugnacity rendered him an invaluable Party leader. He passed away amid the wreckage of most of his political idols, conscious that he had failed in what he had haughtily asserted was his mission—to stem the tide of democracy. That a superb air of aristocratic distinction surrounded even his blunders was perhaps the secret of his success as leader of the House of Lords. As a fluent, stimulating, passionate speaker, with a style at once incisive, stately, and sonorous, he ranked as one of the last of the rhetoricians among the Peers of England.
On the 11th of September the Queen lost a good friend, in whose widowed life she had frequently displayed her sympathetic interest. That friend was Lady Palmerston, who had long reigned as the leader of Whig society in London, and who died at Brocket Hall in her eighty-third year. She was the last of four great ladies of quality whose social influence did much to shape the fortunes of their country and the course of politics—Lady Jersey, Lady Willoughby, Lady Tankerville, and herself—and who, by a curious coincidence, not only began life together, and married at the same time, but were firm allies and friends to the end, and died at the same age.[315] She was, when Countess Cowper, one of the first six patronesses of Almack’s. She kept at Panshanger the most brilliant political salon of the time when the Princess de Lieven, the Duchess de Dino, Talleyrand, Pozzo, Alvanley, Luttrell, and Lord and Lady Holland were among her closest and most confidential friends. She was Lord Byron’s patron in 1814, and as the sister of Melbourne, and the wife of Palmerston, she was the social centre of Whiggery till within four years of her death. Mr. Hayward has done ample justice to the pure refinement and sweetness of her disposition, to the constancy of her friendships, and the easy placability of her resentments. “For myself,” writes her son-in-law, Lord Shaftesbury, “I may say that until I lost her, I hardly knew how much I loved her.”[316] And again in his Diary, Lord Shaftesbury writes, “forty years have I been her son-in-law, and during all that long time she has been to me a well-spring of tender friendship and affectionate service.... Few great men, and no women, except those who have sat on thrones, have received after death such abundant and sincere testimonies of admiration, respect, and affection. The Press has teemed with articles descriptive of her life and character, all radiant with feeling and expression of real sorrow.”[317] Lady Palmerston, in fact, reaped the reward of a long career, which she spent for the sole purpose of making everybody with whom she came in contact, happy. Her second husband, Lord Palmerston, who to his last hour treated her with the tender gallantry of a lover, was the hero of her career, and one of the prettiest stories told of her is to the effect that she once said his death had prolonged her own existence. Her explanation of the paradox was, that latterly she had been pursued by the fear that his strength would give way without his being conscious of it, and that she looked with horror to the possibility of the man she worshipped sinking into senility.[318]
On the 6th of November the Queen visited the City of London for the purpose of opening the new bridge over the Thames at Blackfriars and the new Viaduct over the Fleet Valley, from Holborn Hill to Newgate Street. When it was announced in October that this visit would take place, a rumour was spread abroad to the effect that the unemployed poor of London were to be organised by agitators so as to line the route which was to be traversed by the Queen. Curiously enough, the representatives of the unemployed, greatly to their honour, discouraged this proposal on the ground that the spectacle would pain the Sovereign deeply at a moment when she was striving, in spite of her shattered nerves and sorrowing heart, to do her public duty to the best of her power. Then it was rumoured that Fenians would interfere with the Royal procession, but, as a matter of fact, no mishap marred the double ceremony. The great concourse of people who received the Queen was unusually enthusiastic, and she herself was obviously charmed with the warmth of her reception.