The Young Melbourne & Lord M

by The Young Melbourne

  The next few months were mainly occupied in settling the legal position of the Prince and making arrangements for the wedding. Both involved some ructions. The Opposition was in a cantankerous humour and sought to embarrass the Government by making every difficulty they could. There was a row because it was not categorically stated in any official document that the Prince was a Protestant: there was a row because the Government, following precedent, asked that he should have an income of £50,000 a year. There was also a row over the question of his precedence. The Queen wanted him to have first place in the kingdom after herself. But her royal uncles, notably the Duke of Sussex, objected to this; and they were supported in their objections by the more factious section of the Tory Party. Melbourne did not show his old skill in dealing with these difficulties. Here we notice that he was losing his grip. Considering the strength of anti-Papal feeling in England, he should have taken more care to do nothing that might stir it up; and rather than run the risk of letting the Queen’s wishes become a Party issue, he ought to have tried to settle the questions of the Prince’s income and precedence in private consultation with the Opposition leaders before bringing it up in Parliament. Instead he let things slide and inertly trusted that all would go right on the day. The result was that they got out of hand. After some public and distressing wrangling, the Prince’s income was reduced to £30,000 and the Bill establishing his precedence looked so likely to be defeated that Melbourne had hurriedly to withdraw it and arrange that the matter should be settled later by an Order in Council.

  The Queen did not make his task any easier. Her engagement, though it had raised her spirits, had not softened her temper. On the contrary, she felt more indignant than ever with the Tories for their impudence in opposing her will. “As long as I live,” she burst out to Melbourne, “I never will forgive those infernal scoundrels with Peel—nasty wretch—at their head;” and she alluded to one of the venerable prelates who had voted for reducing the Prince’s income as “that fiend, the Bishop of Exeter!” On New Year’s Day in her diary she solemnly recorded her thanks to God for delivering her from her enemies during the Government crisis of May. She added a petition; “From the Tories, good Lord deliver us.”

  The controversy over the Prince’s precedence especially aroused her wrath. Originally she wanted to make him King Consort by Act of Parliament, “For God’s sake, Ma’am,” exclaimed Melbourne, “let’s have no more of it. If you get the English people into the way of making Kings, you will get them into the way of unmaking them!” With such an idea of what her husband’s position ought to be, she was not likely to be pleased by the proposal that he should yield first place to her uncles. She would rather he had no legal precedence at all, she said, than one so ignominious. “Oh no!” said Melbourne with robust good sense, “That’s the foolishest thing. You should always get what you can.” In spite of his fatigue, he had not lost his skill in dealing with her. Mingling firmness, sympathy and a sort of gay tact, he generally managed to keep her in check. When one Sunday he got a letter from the Duke of Sussex asserting his claim to precedence over the Prince, “I did not show the Duke of Sussex’s letter to Your Majesty before you went to church,” he told her with a smile, “I thought it would discompose you for devotion.” The Queen still responded to Melbourne’s arts. Once again she apologized deeply to him for losing her temper and promised with a touching artlessness not to do it again.

  It was not easy for her though. Being engaged is notoriously trying to the nerves; and struggle as she might, the Queen remained irritable. She was annoyed by the Duchess of Kent who had again begun bouncing into her apartments uninvited; she was annoyed by King Leopold who continued to plague her with unasked-for political advice; at times she could even be a little irritated by the Prince himself. Her relations with him at this time show what an extraordinary mixture the Queen was. There was no doubt that she was violently in love with him. In her diary she rapturously records every detail of his caresses, his kisses, his tender words. Yet, even in the full flood of youthful passion, she never forgot that she was Queen and must maintain her position as such, even in relation to the object of her adoration. She disliked the idea of his taking any part in political business. So far as the official organization of his life was concerned, she required him to submit to her will without question. She chose all the officers of his Household without consulting him, including his confidential secretary, a Mr. George Anson, who had once been secretary to Melbourne. The Prince protested. Not only did he object to being ruled in this way, but Anson’s appointment in particular conflicted with his views. He thought the Crown should be a neutral moderating power and that a Royal Household should therefore be composed of people with no marked political affiliations. The Queen reacted sharply and unfavourably to these signs of independence in her future husband. So far as English politics were concerned, she had no confidence in the Prince’s judgment. For all she knew he might, if left to himself, fall, in his ignorance, under the sinister influence of the Tories. He must learn to trust her to know what was best for him in these matters. She spoke her mind to him. Anson was appointed.

  The outside world put her insistence down to the influence of Melbourne who was suspected of wishing to get the Prince into his power. It was true that Melbourne did not sympathize with the Prince’s political ideas. The conception of a neutral moderating monarchy was likely, in his view, to lead to the Crown taking an active line independent of the Government; whereas, according to the orthodox English doctrine, it was the King’s duty to back whatever Party was in power. Moreover, Melbourne feared that whatever his intentions the Prince would, in practice, tend to choose Tories as his servants. Foreign princes in his experience had an instinctive bias against English Liberals. “They think our Liberal influence rough and disagreeable,” he told the Queen. All the same, when he heard that the Prince objected strongly to have Anson as his secretary, Melbourne told the Queen she ought to give in to him. It was not a good thing that a wife should domineer over a reluctant husband in this fashion. Further, Melbourne himself did not want to appear responsible for any step that might alienate the Prince from him. From the moment of the Queen’s engagement he made it an important part of his business to get on good terms with the Prince.

  At first he had to feel his way, for he knew little about him. “He seems a very agreeable young man,” he wrote to John Russell. “Certainly he is a very good looking one—and as to character, that we must always take our chance of.” It was a safe enough chance had Melbourne known it. The Prince was eminently, even alarmingly, respectable. This did not mean that he would necessarily be easy for Melbourne to get on with. In fact, the two men made a comical contrast to each other; Melbourne a casual, ironical, pleasure-loving Englishman of the eighteenth century world, the Prince a stiff, conscientious, serious-minded German, not above relaxing for an hour’s innocent merriment in the bosom of his family, but with his spirit already shadowed by the anxious earnestness, so typical of the nineteenth century. His affinity with the Queen lay precisely on that side of her nature which had least in common with Melbourne’s. She was sufficiently aware of this to get a little feminine fun by playing off her fiancé against her Prime Minister. The Prince, she said, thought she should not receive anyone at Court whose reputation was doubtful. “The Prince is much severer than me,” she announced to Melbourne. Melbourne could not suppress his surprise and vexation. Not only did the Prince’s views strike him as intolerant, but, considering the free and easy morals of the English aristocracy, they seemed likely to get the Queen into disfavour with some of her most influential subjects. “That is a very bad thing,” he said bluntly. “Albert thinks I should set an example of propriety,” pursued the Queen. Melbourne was still sufficiently ruffled to disclose the worldly-wise nature of his approach to social morality in a manner more frank that prudent. “That is shown by your own conduct,” he blurted out, “character can be attended to when people are of no consequence. But it will n
ot do when people are of a very high rank.” A day or two later the Queen laughingly told Melbourne that she feared he did not like Albert so much as he would, if he were not so strict. By this time Melbourne had recovered his self-command. “Oh no! I highly respect him,” he answered discreetly.

  Sometimes it was his turn to tease the Queen. She said triumphantly that Albert did not care for fashionable beauties, indeed that in general he took no interest in women. From what he had seen of royal princes, Melbourne judged this to be improbable. “That Will come later,” he mischievously remarked. The Queen was so outraged by the implication of these words that he hastily withdrew them and later took occasion to reassure her by telling her that from what he had observed of the Prince he seemed in these respects to be a glorious exception to the general run of young men.

  When the Prince was actually present, Melbourne seems to have taken more pains to curb his tongue. Even so, now and again a remark slipped out which revealed the gulf between their points of view. One evening in Windsor, they were playing a letter game. Melbourne was given the word “pleasure” to guess. “It is not a common thing,” explained the Prince in order to help him. “Is it truth or honesty?” enquired Melbourne.

  “This made us all laugh,” says the Queen relating the incident: and, in fact, whatever fundamental difference there might be between them, Melbourne and the Prince during these months contrived to get on pleasantly enough together. Melbourne’s manner to the Prince was remarked on as perfect in its blending of respectful politeness with informal ease. The Prince responded to it: he speaks of Melbourne always as a kindly distinguished old gentleman devoted to the Queen’s service. Melbourne reciprocated his goodwill. The difficulty of the Prince’s position as a young foreigner suddenly pitchforked into the intricate hurly-burly of English public life stirred his sympathy: and he took pains to give him hints as how best to conduct himself in it. As he got to know him better, too, his opinion of him steadily improved. Melbourne meant what he said when he told the Queen that he respected the Prince. No doubt he was a bit of a prig like most Germans, but he was clearly a good young man who could be trusted to make the Queen happy. Since her happiness mattered to Melbourne more than anything else in the world, he felt growingly friendly towards the Prince.

  This confidence in her future happiness may have helped him to keep up an appearance of good spirits. Certainly he managed wonderfully to do so. The accounts of him during the last weeks of her engagement are all sparkling and sunshiny. It was as though he was determined to extract every ounce of pleasure from his last days with her as an unmarried woman. Her diary is as full as ever of his conversation, and though once or twice he refers to his fatigue and depression, for the most part he is at his most delighted and delightful. He cajoled her into asking the Duke of Wellington to her wedding in spite of the shameful way she considered he had behaved over the Prince’s precedence: he gave her his views on Scottish history—“There are too many Jameses and all murdered, the Scottish are a dreadful people;” he gaily gossiped to her about the appearance of her ladies, “Miss Montague,” he observed, “has a peculiar way of carrying her nose;” he expatiated on the splendour of the new coat he was having made for the wedding. “I expect it will be the thing most observed,” remarked Melbourne humorously.

  One evening three days before the wedding he allowed his deeper feelings a little more play. The Queen noticed that his manner was unusually affectionate, even for him. She told him that she felt nervous. He comforted and encouraged her. “Depend upon it, it’s right to marry,” he said; “if ever there was a situation that formed an exception, it was yours; it’s in human nature, it’s natural to marry; the other is a very unnatural state of things; it’s a great change—it has its inconveniences . . . After all,” he continued, “how anybody in your situation can have a moment’s tranquillity!—a young person cast in this situation is very unnatural. There was a beautiful account in a Scotch paper of your first going to prorogue Parliament; ‘I stood close to her, to see a young person surrounded by Ministers and Judges and rendered prematurely grave was almost melancholy’; a large searching eye, an open anxious nostril, and a firm mouth’ . . . a very true representation,” he said, “can’t be a finer physiognomy.” The Queen smiled at his earnestness. “I am sure none of your friends are as fond of you as I am,” she said. “I believe it,” he answered. He spoke with deep emotion.

  On 11th February the great day came. The Prime Minister was observed to be much affected, as he stood in his smart new coat watching the ceremony. Afterwards, at Buckingham Palace, when she had changed her dress, she sent for him for a final private interview. He kissed her hand. They remained a moment or two talking of how well everything had gone off. “You look very tired,” said the Queen anxiously. Once more he gave her a long, loving look. His hand clasped in hers, “God bless you Ma’am,” he said. Then the Prince appeared. Together he and the Queen went downstairs and drove away.

  (5)

  Meanwhile the Government muddled its way ineffectively and uncomfortably along, frustrated by the Tories, sniped at by the Radicals and disturbed by the wranglings of its own members, notably Howick. At last in June he was so exasperated that he resigned. Melbourne accepted his resignation with easy indifference and made Macaulay minister in his stead. This made for a more peaceful atmosphere: for Macaulay was not temperamental. But neither was he restful. Brilliant, dogmatic, voluble and tireless, he at once dazed and dazzled his colleagues by the uninterrupted flow of his discourse. “I wish I was as cocksure about anything,” said Melbourne, “as Macaulay is about everything!” However, he was not bored by Macaulay. On the contrary he sat listening to him “with an air of complacency and as if for instruction.” Melbourne was unusually ready to tolerate monologists, so long as there was something original about them. This propensity got him into trouble about this time. In the summer, Robert Owen, celebrated in history as a pioneer of socialism, had persuaded him to present him officially at Court. It was surprising that Melbourne should have agreed because Owen, in addition to being universally recognized as one of the greatest bores alive, was a militant Left Wing atheist who had taken a leading part in attacking Melbourne for his treatment of the Dorset labourers. However, Melbourne never disliked anyone for attacking him, and had a strong objection to punishing a man, otherwise harmless, simply because he held unorthodox opinions. His respectable contemporaries did not share this view: presentation at Court, in their view, implied approval of a man’s ideas. Melbourne was violently criticised for his action by important people at Court and by his opponents in the House of Lords. Though professing himself sorry if he had acted without due consideration, he took these attacks very lightly. “I beg to assure you,” he wrote to a correspondent, “that you may most safely and in the most decisive manner contradict the notion that there may be any approbation on my part of Mr. Owen’s opinions . . . I have more than once heard Mr. Owen’s statements and I have always told him that his doctrines appeared to be the most absurd, and he himself one of the most foolish men I ever conversed with. I always considered that his principles were too ridiculous to be dangerous.” In Parliament, after a few perfunctory words of explanation and apology, he proceeded to air his views on the subject of free speech in general. It was no good advocating it, he said, on the ground that it led in the end to truth prevailing: mankind was far too foolish for that. But on the other hand he thought repression equally useless, for it was impossible to make it effective.

  These characteristic and inconclusive reflections showed that Melbourne had not lost his taste for speculation. However, less than ever did this influence his practical activities as a statesman. These were solely directed to keeping the Government together until such time as he judged the Queen had learned to manage without his help. To achieve this end he employed his old tactics of combined obstruction and concession. Two important new measures were introduced during the latter part of 1839; one for an Education Bill and one
for establishing the Penny Post. Melbourne did not believe in either. The Penny Post would do no good, he told the Queen: but he thought it sufficiently uncontroversial to be ready to back it in order to please his colleagues. There is an amusing account of Rowland Hill, the chief promoter of the measure, coming to coach him for his speech in the debate on the subject. He found Melbourne in his dressing room; and, running through the chief points, mentioned a Mr. Warburton who had views on the matter. “Warburton, Warburton,” said Melbourne, “he is one of your moral force men isn’t he? I can understand your physical force man, but as to your moral force men I’ll be damned if I know what they mean!” A few minutes later Hill was shown into another room while Melbourne interviewed Lord Lichfield, the Postmaster General who opposed the Bill because, oddly, he thought that the Post Office buildings would collapse under the weight of letters likely to be put in them, if postage became so cheap. Melbourne soothed him. “Lichfield has been here,” he remarked to Hill after ushering the excited Postmaster General out of the room. “I cannot think why a man cannot talk of Penny Postage without going into a passion!”

  Melbourne made more difficulties about the Education Bill. Not only did he disbelieve in educational schemes as such, but he rightly thought that they always raised trouble with the Church, who considered that no one else should have any control over them. Howick was still in the Government when the question was first discussed. “Thank God there are some things which even you cannot stop, and this is one of them!” he broke out furiously to Melbourne. Melbourne merely smiled and went on making objections. As he expected, the Church, supported by the Tory Party, did oppose the Government Bill violently. In the end a compromise was reached which left the control of education in Church hands.