[24] Bismarck would have let the French keep Metz for a milliard more of war-indemnity. Then with this money he would have built a fortress to mask it somewhere about Falkenberg, or towards Saarbrücken. “I do not like,” he said one day at dinner during the peace negotiations, “so many Frenchmen being in our house against their will.”—Lowe’s Life of Bismarck, Vol. I., p. 631.
[25] The terms of peace proposed by Germany to France were an indemnity of six milliards of francs (£240,000,000), the cession of all Alsace, including Strasburg and Belfort, a third of Lorraine including Metz. The German Emperor, however, reduced the fine to five milliards. Von Bismarck induced the German generals to let France keep Belfort, in consideration of the French submitting to the triumphal march of the German troops through Paris as far as the Arc de Triomphe.
[26] The Agincourt, an ironclad of 6,000 tons, was run aground on the Pearl Rock, off Gibraltar, on the 2nd of July. The accident occurred in broad daylight. The court-martial blamed the captain, staff commander, and one of the lieutenants, but public opinion condemned Vice-Admiral Wellesley, whose signals had, it was said, caused the disaster. Mr. Goschen and the Lords of the Admiralty decided that the Admiral was to blame for ordering an unsafe course to be steered, and compelled him to strike his flag. The Megæra was a transport ship which had been sent to sea with her bottom honeycombed with rotten plates. On the 19th of June the captain had to beach her to save her crew. Yet the Admiralty officials had reported her quite seaworthy when her bottom was, as one of her officers said, “as full of holes as an old tea-kettle.”
[27] The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council had been reorganised so as to constitute a competent Court of Appellate Jurisdiction for India and the Colonies. A certain number of judges was appointed to it, but the Act laid it down that it was necessary for a man to be a judge before he got one of these appointments. In November, 1871, Mr. Gladstone was desirous of promoting Sir Robert Collier, then Attorney-General. The Lord Chancellor accordingly made Sir Robert a Puisne Judge so as to give him a technical qualification, and then immediately appointed him to the Judicial Committee. It is only right to say that personally and professionally Sir Robert Collier was well qualified for the post.
[28] These were Mr. Peter Taylor, Professor Fawcett, and Sir Charles Dilke. The vote for it was 352, but half of the House was absent from the division which Mr. Taylor challenged. Mr. Taylor declared that the people were getting tired of the Monarchy. Sir Robert Peel suggested that if more money were granted to the Royal Family, it ought to go to the Prince of Wales, who was doing most of the Queen’s ceremonial duties. He had also the bad taste to sneer at the Queen’s alleged parsimony, and insinuated that she saved for her private purse the money voted to defray her State expenses.
[29] Some of the comments of the Press on the wedding were instructive. The Times said: “To-day a ray of sunshine will gladden every habitation in this island, and force its way even where uninvited. A daughter of the people, in the truest sense of that word, is to be married to one of ourselves. The mother is ours, the daughter is ours.” Vanity Fair, a “Society” journal, considered that it was “an additional claim of the dynasty on our loyalty that means should have been found to enable us to keep so charming a Princess in the country.” The Daily Telegraph, in describing the history of the marriage, said: “The old dragon Tradition was routed by a young sorcerer called Love, who laughs at precedents as heartily as at locksmiths, and has an equal contempt for etiquette and armour cap-à-pie.”
[30] “When the time came for putting on the ring, the bride took off her glove, which, with the bouquet, the Queen offered to take. The Princess, however, evidently did not observe the gracious attention, and handed them to Lady Florence Lennox, who let them drop. May this be an omen that flowers may strew the ground wherever the Princess’s future life may lead her!”—(Standard, 22nd March, 1871.)
[31] It may be worth while to note the precedents for marriage between English Princesses and subjects:—Princess Elizabeth, daughter of James I., and widow of the King of Bohemia, was supposed to have privately married Lord Craven. Princess Mary, sister of Henry VIII., married Charles Brandon, who was sent to escort her from France, when her husband Louis XII. died. Three of the daughters of Edward IV. married the heads of the families of Howard, Courtenay, and Welles; but though Henry VI. recognised these alliances, he did not quite recognise the title of Edward IV. Of the House of Hanover, William Henry, Duke of Gloucester, in 1766 married the widow of Earl Waldegrave, who was the illegitimate daughter of Sir Robert Walpole, a match which infuriated King George III. Henry Frederick, Duke of Cumberland, in 1771 married Lady Anne Luttrell, daughter of Earl Carhampton, and widow of Mr. Charles Horton, of Catton Hall, Derbyshire. The Royal Marriage Act was passed in 1772, after which time there have been some Royal marriages with subjects in spite of the law: (1), The Duke of Sussex married first Lady Augusta Murray, daughter of the Earl of Dunmore. After she died, his Royal Highness married his second wife, Lady Cecilia Letitia Buggin, daughter of Arthur, Earl of Arran, and afterwards Duchess of Inverness. (2), George IV., while Prince of Wales, married Mrs. FitzHerbert. (3), The present Duke of Cambridge married some years ago Mrs. FitzGeorge.
[32] This gave rise to a curious incident. A clerk by mistake had given the Minister the message meant for the Lords. When Mr. Gladstone read out the words “Her Majesty relies on the attachment of the House of Peers to concur,” the House buzzed with excitement, and the Tories wrathfully whispered to each other that some new insult had been devised by Mr. Gladstone for the Hereditary Chamber. Mr. Gladstone had to explain how the mistake had been made, before tranquillity could be restored.
[33] Mr. Bruce’s management of this affair did much to bring the Government into contempt. When the promoters of the meeting defied him he withdrew his prohibition. On being questioned in the House of Commons on the subject, he explained that when he issued it he thought that the meeting was called to petition Parliament, and no meeting can legally be held within a mile of Parliament for that purpose. But, he added, having found that the meeting was merely going to discuss the grant he considered it to be a legal one, and therefore withdrew his prohibition.