THE ALBERT MEMORIAL CHAPEL, WINDSOR.
(From a Photograph by G. W. Wilson and Co.)
On the 3rd of December her Majesty at Windsor personally presented several seamen and marines with the medals which they had won for conspicuous gallantry in the Ashanti War. A few days after this ceremony the attention of the country was absorbed in the first volume of the biography of the Prince Consort, which had been compiled with sedulous care, delicate tact, and refined feeling by Mr. (afterwards Sir) Theodore Martin. The verdict of the public was one of immediate and unreserved approval. They were delighted with Mr. Martin’s idyllic picture of Prince Albert’s domestic life, and of the tender companionship in which he and the Queen lived lovingly together. Glimpses, too, of the Queen’s own strength of character and of her shrewd judgment in politics, such as, for example, her letters and memoranda on the affair of the Spanish marriages, and her keenly-etched portrait of the Czar Nicholas after his visit in 1844, suggested very plainly that the Sovereign was not exactly a cipher in the State. If in some of its lines Mr. Martin’s portrait recalled memories of William III., it reminded the people that, like William III., the Prince, though unable from his intellectual detachment to inspire the people with love, won their confidence and respect through his unpretending, but unswerving fidelity to the interests of his adopted country. But the frankness and absence of reserve with which the book was written displeased a few of the Queen’s foreign relatives; indeed, this feature of the biography had been commented on by some who thought it was derogatory to the dignity of the Royal Caste. The Princess Louis of Hesse, if she did not share this opinion, felt it her duty to convey it to the Queen. In a letter to her mother at the beginning of 1875, the Princess says, “It is touching and fine in you to allow the world to have so much insight into your private life, and allow others to have what has been only your property, and our inheritance.... For the frivolous higher classes how valuable this book will be if read with real attention, as a record of a life spent in the highest aims, with the noblest conception of duty as a leading star.” To this letter the Queen replied from Osborne, 12th of January, 1875:—“If,” she wrote, “you will reflect a few minutes, you will see how I owed it to beloved papa to let his noble character be known and understood, as it now is, and that to wait longer when those who knew him best—his own wife, and a few (very few there are) remaining friends—were all gone, or too old and too far removed from that time, to be able to present a really true picture of his most ideal and remarkable character, would have been really wrong. He must be known for his own sake, for the good of England and of his family, and of the world at large. Countless people write to say what good it does and will do. And it is already thirteen years since he left us! Then you must also remember that endless false and untrue things have been said about us, public and private, and that in these days people will write and will know; therefore the only way to counteract this is to let the real full truth be known, and as much be told as can be told with prudence and discretion, and then no harm, but good, will be done. Nothing will help me more than that my people should know what I have lost!... The ‘Early Years’ volume was begun for private circulation only, and then General Grey and many of papa’s friends and advisers begged me to have it published. This was done. The work was most popular, and greatly liked. General Grey could not go on with it, and asked me to ask Sir A. Helps to continue it; and he said that he could not, but recommended Mr. Theodore Martin as one of the most eminent writers of the day, and hoped I could prevail on him to undertake this great national work. I did succeed, and he has taken seven years to prepare the whole, supplied by me with every letter and extract; and a deal of time it took, but I felt it would be a national sacred work.”
CHAPTER XX.
EMPRESS OF INDIA.
Mr. Disraeli recognises Intellect—Lord Hartington Liberal Leader—The Queen’s Speech—Lord Hartington’s “Grotesque Reminiscences”—Mr. Cross’s Labour Bills—The Artisans’ Dwellings Act—Mr. Plimsoll and the “Ship-knackers”—Lord Hartington’s First “Hit”—The Plimsoll Agitation—Surrender of the Cabinet—“Strangers” in the House—The Budget—Rise of Mr. Biggar—First Appearance of Mr. Parnell—The Fugitive Slave Circular—The Sinking of the Yacht Mistletoe—The Loss of the Vanguard—Purchase of the Suez Canal Shares—The Prince of Wales’s Visit to India—Resignation of Lord Northbrook—Appointment of Lord Lytton as Viceroy of India—Outbreak of the Eastern Question—The Andrassy Note—The Berlin Memorandum—Murder of French and German Consuls at Salonica—Lord Derby Rejects the Berlin Memorandum—Servia Declares War on Turkey—The Bulgarian Revolt Quenched in Blood—The Sultan Dethroned—Opening of Parliament—“Sea-sick of the Silver Streak”—Debates on the Eastern Question—Development of Obstruction by Mr. Biggar and Mr. Parnell—The Royal Titles Bill—Lord Shaftesbury and the Queen—The Queen at Whitechapel—A Doleful Budget—Mr. Disraeli becomes Earl of Beaconsfield—The Prince Consort’s Memorial at Edinburgh—Mr. Gladstone and the Eastern Question—The Servian War—The Constantinople Conference—The Tories Manufacture Failure for Lord Salisbury—Death of Lady Augusta Stanley—Proclamation of the Queen as Empress at Delhi.
The year 1875 opened less gloomily for the Ministry than for the Opposition. Mr. Disraeli had sanctioned the despatch of a Polar Expedition, and in a curious letter, since published by Mr. Froude, he had tendered Mr. Carlyle the Grand Cross of the Bath on the ground that “a Government should recognise Intellect.”[80] He had also offered Mr. Tennyson—“if not a great poet, a real one,” to use his own phrase—a baronetcy. Both offers had been refused, but the scientific and literary classes—potent agencies for influencing public opinion—sang loud the praises of a Ministry that was so obviously in sympathy with them. As for the Opposition, Mr. Gladstone’s definite refusal to lead them any longer, compelled them to elect a successor, whereupon an infinite amount of dissension, heartburning, and jealousy was stirred up in their ranks. Mr. Goschen, Sir William Harcourt, and Mr. W. E. Forster were the candidates who had most partisans, and the last was undoubtedly the one on whom the public choice would have fallen, if the public had been permitted to arbitrate between the rivals. The Nonconformists, however, had not yet forgiven Mr. Forster, and Mr. Bright put him out of the field by using his powerful influence in favour of Lord Hartington, who was finally selected. According to one of the ablest of Liberal political critics, Lord Hartington “succeeded in making the whole party content, if not enthusiastic, with their choice.”[81] Lord Hartington had, in the course of the Session, virtually nothing to do, and, like the Peers in Mr. Gilbert’s opera, he “did it very well.” The Queen’s Speech outlined a temperately progressive policy, and when the Opposition leader taunted Ministers with failing to carry out the scheme of reaction to which they stood pledged on the hustings and in the Conservative Press, Mr. Disraeli, with demure gaiety, protested against his “grotesque reminiscences.” Lord Hartington, he complained, sought out “the most violent speeches made by the most uninfluential persons in the most obscure places, and the most absurd articles appearing in the dullest and most uninfluential newspapers,” and took these as the opinions of “the great Conservative Party.”[82] The opinions of the Conservative Ministry, he added, were now expressed from the front Ministerial Bench, and for these alone did he hold himself responsible.
Mr. Cross was the popular Minister of the Session. His Artisans’ Dwellings Bill embodied a resolution which Mr. U. Kay-Shuttleworth and Sir Sidney Waterlow had induced Mr. Gladstone’s Government to accept, and though in practice it proved disastrous to local ratepayers, it was taken as a kindly recognition of claims which Liberal Cabinets had too often ignored.[83] Mr. Cross was much more successful with his Labour Bills, drafts of which, it was said, had been prepared by Mr. Lowe. The Home Secretary had framed his Bills to conciliate Tory members who had eloquently denounced Trades Unions during the General Election. But in Committee he accepted amendments which removed from the law every trace of the evil spirit that punished breach of contract by a workman, not as a civil offence, but as a crime. Though he fought hard against the repeal of the Criminal Law Amendment Act, he finally surrendered to Mr. Lowe, and not only accepted his definition of “molestation” or “picketing,” but further agreed to his proposal to make that offence punishable when committed by anybody—be he master or servant. The growth of a Conservative spirit among the Trades Unions dates from the passing of Mr. Cross’s Employers and Workmen Bill, and his Conspiracy Bill. Mr. Gathorne-Hardy’s Regimental Exchanges Bill was a reactionary concession to “the Colonels,” for it gave rich officers facilities for bribing poor ones to relieve them from arduous foreign service. Lord Cairns, however, did much more harm to the Government by withdrawing his Judicature Bill under the menaces of a secret Junta of Peers, headed by the Duke of Buccleuch, who had resolved to restore to the House of Lords its Appellate Jurisdiction. Whilst independent Peers protested against this course as a slight to the Upper House, the country considered that it indicated a deplorable want of courage. For when Lord Cairns’ new Bill, postponing till the 1st of November, 1886, the provisions of Lord Selborne’s Act (1873),[84] and establishing an Intermediate Court of Appeal as a kind of judicial makeshift, came before the House of Commons, Sir John Holker, with indiscreet frankness, explained why the Government had dropped their own measure. The Peers, he said, meant to retain their jurisdiction in spite of the House of Commons, and it was, therefore, futile to resist them. This admission that the Cabinet, which ought to be responsible only to the Queen and to Parliament, was really controlled by a small caucus of Peers, whose very names were kept secret, was one which Government could now-a-days survive. The Bill, however, passed before the Session closed.
MR. PLIMSOLL ADDRESSING THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.