In March, the Queen’s refusal to permit the persons who represented England at the French Exhibition of 1867 to accept decorations, was made the subject of debate by Lord Houghton in the House of Lords. Her Majesty’s prejudice against introducing Foreign Orders and titles into England had often given offence to naturalised stockjobbers and pushing parvenus. She never even took kindly to the use of the title of “Baron” by the Rothschilds, though she tolerated it for reasons of an entirely exceptional nature. But if the Orders were admitted the titles must soon follow, and society might be inundated some day with Russian “Counts,” who, as the French say, had “a career behind them,” or with Austrian “Barons,” who had bought their honours out of the profits of financial gambling. The English Court, for this reason, has such strong opinions on the point that even English nobles, inheriting foreign titles, conceal them so successfully that few people ever suspect that the Duke of Wellington is a Portuguese prince, the head of the House of Hamilton a French duke, or Lord Denbigh a Prince of an uncrowned branch of the Imperial House of Hapsburg. It need not be said that Lord Houghton’s complaints were generally admitted to be frivolous, and that the Queen’s feeling that she must be the sole fountain of honour in England, was shared by the nation. If the services which an individual has rendered abroad have benefited England or mankind, or if it is possible to form a correct estimate of their value in England, the Queen held she must either reward them herself, or retain the right to permit the individual to receive a foreign decoration for them. There never has been any practical difficulty in dealing with such cases, and no self-respecting person has ever felt aggrieved because he was debarred from accepting Foreign Orders.[58]
On the 4th of January the Queen was grieved to hear of the death of the ex-Emperor of the French, at Chislehurst. Her tender sympathy was freely bestowed on the ex-Empress, who was prostrated by her misfortunes and her sorrow. Five years before, the death of this strange man, whose Imperial life seemed ever shadowed by the great crime of the coup d’état, would have convulsed Europe. Now the world seemed quite indifferent to it, and when politicians spoke of it, all they said was that by disorganising the Imperialist party in France, it lessened the labours of M. Thiers in founding the Third Republic. The English people, whom Napoleon III. had kept in feverish dread for two decades, and whose support and friendship he had rewarded with the perfidy of the Benedetti Treaty, did not pretend to mourn over his grave. They spoke of his character, which was a moral paradox, and his career, which was a political crime, without prejudice or ill-feeling. But as they thought of the horrors of the Crimean War, the wasted millions which Palmerston spent in fortifying the South Coast, and the final act of treachery which the German Government had revealed in July, 1870, there were some who considered that the Queen might have been less demonstrative in her manifestations of sorrow. But Her Majesty has never been free from the defects of her qualities. Quick to resent betrayal, her anger passes away as swiftly, when the betrayer broken by an avenging Destiny, and prostrate amid the wreck of his fortunes and his reputation, appeals to her sympathies. When Louis Philippe stood before her as a hunted fugitive, the Queen forgot the Spanish marriages. When Charles Louis Bonaparte fled for refuge to Chislehurst, she was too generous to remember his scheme for stealing Belgium.
THE QUEEN’S VISIT TO VICTORIA PARK.
When spring came round, “the great joyless city,” as Mr. Walter Besant calls the East End of London, was gladdened by the Queen, for on the 2nd of April her Majesty went there to visit Victoria Park. She was accompanied by the Princess Beatrice, and drove from Buckingham Palace to the park in an open carriage. Her route was along Pall Mall, Regent Street, Portland Place, Marylebone Road, and Euston Road to King’s Cross, up Pentonville Hill to the “Angel” at Islington, beyond which point along Upper Street, Essex Road, Ball’s Pond Road, through Dalston and Hackney, surging crowds of people lined both sides of the entire way. Streamers of gaudy bunting floated overhead from house to house across Islington Green. The Dalston and Hackney stations of the North London Railway, the Town Hall, and shops of Hackney were conspicuously decorated, and it was noticed that the Queen went among the poor of the East End without any military escort, a feat that few European Sovereigns would have dared to emulate. At the Town Hall she halted and received a bouquet, while the people sang the National Anthem. At the temporary entrance to Victoria Park a triple arch, of triumph had been erected, deep enough to resemble a long marquee in three compartments, open at both ends. It was handsomely fitted up in scarlet and gold, and here was stationed a guard of honour of the Fusiliers, while an escort of Life Guards was in waiting to conduct her Majesty round the park. Even the slums in this dismal quarter exhibited meagre decorations, eloquent alike of loyalty and indigence. A poor shoemaker, having nothing better to show, hung out his leather apron, on which the Queen saw with a thrill of interest that he had chalked up in flaming red letters, “Welcome as flowers in May. The Queen, God bless her.” The enthusiasm of the populace on this occasion was due to a curious idea that prevailed all over the East End. This visit, they said, was no ordinary one, because the Queen had come of her own free will to see the East End—a very different thing from the East End going westwards to see her. Hence a hurricane of cheers greeted the Queen wherever she went, and was more gladsome to her ears than the ornate language of the loyal addresses which she received. Her Majesty returned by Cambridge Heath Road, and when she came to Shoreditch the way was rendered almost impassable by an eager crowd. From Bishopsgate Street to the Bank she was hailed with passionate loyalty, which seemed to lose all restraint when on passing the Mansion House she rose in her carriage and smilingly bowed to the Lord Mayor, who stood in his State robes under the portico and saluted her. She then drove along the Embankment to the Palace, having charmed the sadder quarters of London with a visit which the people took to mean that they were not forgotten or ignored by their Queen.
On the 3rd of April, at three o’clock in the afternoon, the Duke of Cambridge, as President of Christ’s Hospital—the famous Blue-coat School—visited the Queen at Buckingham Palace to present the boys of the Mathematical School, who had come to exhibit their drawings and charts to her Majesty. A number of gentlemen connected with the Hospital had the honour of being presented by the Duke to the Queen when she entered the Drawing-room. Her Majesty then inspected, apparently with great interest, the maps and charts which were held before her by each boy separately.
The foreign curiosity of the London season in 1873 was the Shah of Persia. Soon after the Queen’s visit to the East End ceased to be discussed, the coming of the Shah was the favourite topic of talk. At the end of April his departure from Teheran amidst the blessings of an overawed crowd of 80,000 subjects was chronicled. On the 12th of May he was heard of, painfully navigating the waters of the Caspian in a Russian steamer, and wonderful tales of his progress were told. He had three wives, and nobody knew how many other ladies in his train holding brevet-matrimonial rank. Was he going to bring them to England? If so, could more than one of them be received, and in that case how were the rest to be disposed of? A cloud of despondency began to settle over the subordinates in the Lord Chamberlain’s department. Would it be possible, it was asked, to persuade the Queen to invite each of the Shah’s wives separately—one to Buckingham Palace, one to Windsor, and one to Osborne? Later on it was reported that not only was the Shah bringing his harem, but his Cabinet Ministers also. Was his visit likely to be free from danger? Might not people begin to cherish strange fancies, if the Shah thus gave them ocular proof that an ancient country could get on wonderfully well without a sovereign and without a government? Gradually astounding rumours of his wealth were sent round. He had brought only half a million sterling for pocket-money, because there had just been a famine in Persia; still the sum would meet the modest wants of his exalted position. Indeed, through a telegraphic blunder, the sum was first stated as £5,000,000. He was said to be covered with jewels and precious stones, and he wore a dagger which blazed with diamonds, so that one could only view it comfortably through ground glass. In June the officials of the Court were relieved from a supreme anxiety. Ere he got half-way over Europe the Shah had sent his harem back to Persia. As he approached England he was described as looking terribly bored, and his black velvet doublet, covered with diamonds, and ornamented with emerald epaulettes, was said by one irreverent journalist to give him the appearance of “a dark shrub under the early morning dew.” To the good English people he was a mighty Asiatic potentate, representing an ancient dynasty, and the popular cry was that he must be impressed with the power of England. Had they understood that his great grandfather was a petty chief, who at a time of revolution established a dynasty, and promptly began, with the aid of his relatives, to ruin Persia, and that their visitor himself ruled over a country with the population of Ireland and twice the area of Germany, they might have made themselves less ridiculous. Mr. Gladstone was even pestered on the subject, and had to turn the matter off with a smiling suggestion that it would be well to let the Shah fix his own programme, and not put him in chains when he landed on our shores. But in Court circles it was whispered with dread that it might be well to fetter the bedizened barbarian, for he had odd notions of etiquette, and had even rudely poked the august arm of the German Empress, when he wanted to call her attention at the theatre to something on the stage. On the 18th of June, however, the long-expected guest landed at Dover from Ostend. The cannon of the Channel fleet thundered forth a salute, and the Duke of Edinburgh and Prince Arthur welcomed him as he stepped
