Prince Albert’s political judgement, which made him a strong supporter of Peel and a Free Trader, may have been correct in the national interest, and was certainly genuine, but drew him into the maelstrom. He had deliberately chosen to make his first appearance in the Gallery of the House of Commons on the first day of the debate to hear Peel’s speech. This caused some critical private comment, but it was Bentinck who voiced it in his first speech on the issue, when he declared that ‘I would take leave to say that I cannot but think he listened to ill advice when on the first night of this great discussion he allowed himself to be seduced by the First Minister of the Crown to come down to this House to usher in, to give éclat, and as it were by reflexion from the Queen, to give semblance of the personal sanction of Her Majesty to a measure which, be it for good or evil, a great majority of the landlord aristocracy of England, of Scotland, and of Ireland imagine fraught with deep injury if not ruin to them’.
Surprise, and strong criticism, of Prince Albert’s presence in the Commons were not confined to Bentinck and the angry Tories, and the subsequent explanations by his official biographer that he merely attended ‘from the impulse of natural curiosity’ or by the Queen that he went ‘for once to hear a fine debate’ are defensive, lame, and wholly unconvincing. For one thing, there was no debate intended. Under the unwritten, but powerful, conventions of the House of Commons at that time the opening day of a debate without any time limit – the abomination of the Closure still thirty-five years ahead – was confined to the two principal speakers. If Disraeli had not seized his opportunity of a full House to launch the first of his assaults on Peel, there would only have been two speakers – Peel and Russell.
The fact was that Prince Albert totally supported Peel both personally and politically, and was determined to do all he could to assist him, as the deliberate visit to his home in 1843 had demonstrated. He was outraged that the Prime Minister, whose policies he warmly supported, was ‘abused like the most disgraceful criminal’; he admired his ‘boundless courage’, agreed with him that ‘he is at this moment playing one of the most important parts in the history of his country’, and considered his possible defeat ‘a great misfortune’. To accept that Prince Albert’s prominent appearance in the Gallery was a casual occurrence of no political significance is to wholly misunderstand not only the extent of his commitment to Peel and his policy, but his belief in the importance of the evidence of public Royal support for the Queen’s First Minister. It was a calculated symbol, was rightly seen as such, and could have had devastating consequences for the alleged impartiality of the Crown. It also showed how much Prince Albert had to learn about England and its politics.
By this stage the full horror of what Peel proposed had hit the Conservative Party in the House of Commons. At first, its members had assumed that his ambitions were confined to the Corn Laws, but they now realised that he intended to apply the principle to all manufacturers, and all commerce; the import duties on foreign cattle were to be abolished immediately; his purpose was the introduction of Free Trade by an elected Protectionist Government. Peel had totally miscalculated; in December he had felt, as Gladstone recorded, ‘glee and complacency’ and full confidence in carrying his Party. Now, assailed with unprecedented ferocity by Bentinck, Disraeli, and the Conservative Protectionists, his measures could only be carried in the Commons by the votes of the Whigs, the Radicals, the Manchester School, and the Irish.
Conservatives who supported Peel and, either through choice of the compulsion of their patrons, resigned their seats and stood for re-election in their constituencies fared badly. Captain Henry Rous, Royal Navy (retired), stood with great confidence in his Westminster constituency, only to find himself opposed by an official Whig candidate, a General Evans. Prince Albert wrote angrily on February 18th that ‘It appears that Lord Palmerston was the instigator of the Party move, which led Evans to stand, that most of the Whigs disapproved the step. General Evans is [a] personal adherent of Lord Palmerston, who is very much in want of a few friends in the House of Commons. Evans pledged himself to the support of the Government measures now under discussion.’ When Peel upbraided Rous for having given him false reports of his prospects and causing the Government such humiliation, Rous indignantly replied that ‘Westminster can never again be won by a Tory except in extraordinary times of excitements during a presumed national grievance or during a general despondency. D’Is-raeli in full Dress Uniform – Lord John Russell in simple Toga, & a Leaguer in Rags met & polled together for Evans at the same booth. This is the key to the position’. Peel blamed Rous for being a fool, Prince Albert blamed Palmerston for being a cynical opportunist.
Lord Lincoln, appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, ran into the ferocious wrath and opposition of his father, the Duke of Newcastle, when he sought re-election in South Nottinghamshire. Lincoln wrote to Peel that ‘The nomination is over and I got the show of hands, but I fear many of them were too dirty to do me any further good – there being no votes under them’. This forecast turned out to be entirely accurate. Albert, noting that The Times had turned against the luckless Lincoln, wrote that ‘The Duke of Newcastle had issued a most violent address against his son, calling upon the County to reject that swindler who had come to disturb the peace of the County! This of course had much weight with the Duke’s tennants [sic]’. On top of these reverses there was another wave of resignations from the Royal Household as Tories either voluntarily, or under intense pressure from their parents, relatives, or colleagues, relinquished their posts.
Prince Albert followed the debates41 and developments intently, and the correspondence with Peel became very substantial. To his dismay, the analysis of the key vote on February 27th after ‘a debate of unexampled duration’ in which 102 Members took part, revealed that only 112 Tories had voted for Peel’s motion, while 231 had voted against, with 28 absent. This, he wrote to Peel, ‘does not look like a strong Government!’, but he was hopeful that its ‘moral strength’ would impress the country: ‘Your position is an anxious one, but you have passed the worst day on Friday, I hope, & your Followers will soon increase’. This was not to be.
On the same day that the Corn Law repeal passed the Lords – June 25th – the hostile alliance against the Ministry, joined by the embittered Conservatives, swept Peel’s Government aside on the issue of Irish Coercion by seventy-three votes. It had been a cruel and passionate debate, and Bentinck and Disraeli led into the lobbies over seventy Conservatives, while some eighty others abstained. Wellington called it ‘a blackguard combination’, but it was sufficient. Peel’s Government was wrecked; his Party was shattered into angry and warring fragments for a generation; Russell and the Whigs were back in Office. Free Trade had triumphed, but at a heavy cost and with many victims, one of the most conspicuous of whom was Prince Albert.
It is now an accepted truism that, in the words of Cecil Woodham-Smith, the principle that ‘the Crown is disassociated from party and above party, is Prince Albert’s contribution to British politics’,42 but it requires some qualification. Albert’s dominant purpose was not to reduce, but significantly to increase, the real power and influence of the Monarchy within the new conditions of British politics and society. It was his judgement in the winter of 1845–46 that the Corn Laws must be repealed, not only because of the crisis and the Irish famine but as a result of his internationalism, and deep feeling for the moral, as well as the strictly practical, arguments for Free Trade. This was to be the theme and inspiration for the 1851 Great Exhibition, with England as the leader in a crusade to destroy trade and fiscal barriers as evils in themselves, and obstructive of the ultimate goal of the community of nations. Thus, in this matter he was a keen partisan, although not linked to any political Party – Russell’s conversion to Free Trade should, logically, have led him to support the Whigs – but to Peel personally, and to his Government. By making this so obvious, he made it evident that the Monarch was not impartial; by accepting Peel’s
over-sanguine estimates of his probable total success he made the same major miscalculation as did the Prime Minister of the passions that existed on the other side of the argument against the Anti-Corn Law League. Thus, he had become a participant in the utter disruption of the Conservative federation which Peel had so carefully created and had now destroyed. Out of this turmoil at least one lesson had been learned. Prince Albert never entered the gallery of the House of Commons again. But his political ambitions burned undimmed.
The Queen and Prince Albert, with their children and new baby, went to Osborne at the beginning of July 1846 in considerable gloom,43 not wholly relieved by the ‘beautiful weather for this truly enjoyable place; we drive, walk, and sit out – and the nights are so fine’, as Victoria wrote to Leopold on July 14th. Peel’s valedictory speech in the Commons – ‘a smothered volcano of emotions’, the new Bishop of Oxford reported to Anson – had included a glowing tribute to Cobden which startled and upset Prince Albert, but when they spoke on the matter on July 5th, Peel, in Albert’s account, ‘was not inclined to enter upon the subject’. The Queen described the loss of Peel and Aberdeen as ‘irreparable to us and the Country . . . We felt so safe with them’. To Lord Hardinge she wrote that ‘one of the most brilliant Governments this country ever had has fallen at the moment of victory!’
But there was sunshine, as well. On May 25th the Queen had given birth to her third daughter, Princess Helena. When her husband went to Liverpool in July to inspect the new Albert Dock he sent a loving letter to her, ending ‘May we soon meet and embrace each other again!’, and she wrote to Stockmar:
I feel very lonely without my dear Master; and though I know other people are often separated for a few days I feel habit could not make me get accustomed to it. Without him everything loses its interest. It will always be a terrible pang for me to separate from him even for two days; and I pray God never to let me survive him. I glory in his being seen and loved.
In her Journal for June 8th she wrote that ‘Really when one is so happy & blessed in one’s home life, as I am, Politics (provided my Country is safe) must only take a 2nd place’.
* * *
31 Peel and the Conservative Party, p. 463.
32 Fulford, op. cit., p. 67, repeated by Longford, op. cit., p. 156, states that the Queen did not know. In fact she had told Melbourne on May 5th, who reported the fact to Anson, that ‘she was prepared to give way upon the ladies if required, but much wished that that point might be previously settled by negotiation with Sir R. Peel, to avoid any discussion or difference’. (Memorandum by Anson, May 5th 1841). On May 12th Queen Victoria wrote in her Journal that Melbourne ‘gave me the copies of Anson’s conversations with Peel’. Thus, although Anson was the intermediary, both the Queen and the Prime Minister were fully informed.
33 In September 1842 Peel had responded immediately and favourably to the Queen’s tentative suggestion that a ship might be provided by the Navy for her use on her Royal visits abroad, and to Scotland and Ireland. In February 1843 the matter was put to the House of Commons, and approved without opposition. The ship was named the Victoria and Albert, and as the Royal Yacht served the Queen and the Prince on many of their visits. Always prone to sea-sickness, even in the most mild conditions, Albert was never as enthusiastic about new acquisition as the Queen.
34 There were to be other more tentative attempts on her life. She was fired on by an Irishman called Hamilton on Constitution Hill in May 1849, although the pistol had no ball; she was hit by a stick wielded by Robert Pate in May 1850; an unloaded pistol was aimed at her in London in February 1872 by Arthur O’Connor; and a shot was fired at her in Windsor by Roderick MacLean in March 1882. In fact, none of these episodes, not even the last, were as serious as the endeavours of Oxford and Francis.
35 J. H. Plumb and Huw Wheldon: Royal Heritage, p. 255.
36 Author’s italics.
37 The 1841 census figure was 8,175,124, but this was almost certainly too low, giving considerable justification for Disraeli’s claim that Ireland was the most densely populated country in the world (C. Woodham-Smith: The Great Hunger, p. 31).
38 In fact, at the Queen’s request, he had not formally resigned, so that she could ‘keep his ministry until a new one can be got’. He remained Prime Minister while the negotiations within the Opposition were continuing. As Russell had not accepted the Queen’s invitation to form an Administration this was perfectly proper.
39 Lord George Bentinck.
40 There was another cause of happiness for him. Queen Victoria was pregnant again, and although Lady Palmerston noted that she was ‘very large and looks drawn’ she was ‘in good spirits’.
41 These were extensive and detailed for the principal speakers, but somewhat harsh on the others. Thus, this report in the Corn Law debate: ‘Lord Charles Churchill made his maiden speech, but it was not well heard. He was understood to claim protection on account of the peculiar difficulties to which the farmers of this country were subjected, compared with the facilities enjoyed by the foreign producer’. And that was all!
42 Woodham-Smith, op. cit., p. 199.
43 They had wanted – once again – to visit Ireland, but were dissuaded by Ministers, as in 1843.
chapter six
Crisis and triumph
The lamented departure of Peel and the return of the Whigs meant that Queen Victoria and Prince Albert had to deal with a Prime Minister, Russell, whom they considered as diminutive in intellect and political courage as he was in physical stature, and a Foreign Secretary, Palmerston, whom Albert especially regarded with doubt, and of whom the Queen had never really approved. She had certainly not approved of his marriage with Melbourne’s sister, Lady Cowper, and in spite of Melbourne’s entreaties had not ever been able to write a letter of congratulation. But Palmerston’s breezy manner, his political independence, his lecherousness, his acute desire for popularity, his close links with sections of the Press, and his brazen opportunistic populism and nationalism, all combined with great effectiveness to make him highly uncongenial to Prince Albert. The Queen had disliked his aggressive attitude in the 1840 crisis over Egypt and his unconcealed hostility to France in general and King Louis Philippe in particular. Albert considered Palmerston politically immoral, with a shallow understanding of Europe, and although an ingrained Whig at home a dangerous flirter with liberal causes abroad – in short, the exact opposite to Prince Albert. Eventual German unity was to him, as to Stockmar, his great ambition, but he had no sympathy whatever for popular movements encouraged from outside that were intended to bring down constitutional monarchies. Palmerston gave the clear impression that he would welcome them.
Initially, Prince Albert had a greater regard for Palmerston than the Foreign Secretary had for him. In 1846 Palmerston was sixty-two, had an unrivalled experience of politics, and was not disposed to pay much attention to a German consort of twenty-seven, with whom he had little in common. Their relationship was to veer from cold suspicion to open animosity, and then back to mutual regard and respect. At this stage Palmerston considered Prince Albert with condescension, an attitude that he was subsequently to amend. Albert saw him clearly, but with a dislike which he was also destined to qualify, and his attitude during this time was clearly expressed in a letter to Russell:
‘Lord Palmerston is an able politician with large views and an energetic mind, an indefatigable man of business, a good speaker; but a man of expediency, of easy temper, no very high standard of honour and not a grain of moral feeling’.
It was not an unfair assessment, but it omitted much. For his part, Palmerston did not realise that the Queen’s husband was not only powerful in title and position, but also in knowledge and ability.
Aberdeen, a seriously underrated Foreign Secretary, had been much to Albert’s liking. He was, like him, essentially a European and a pa
cifist. He wanted good relations with France, and had no sympathy for Palmerston’s rasping and erratic methods. Prince Albert’s unhappiness at losing Aberdeen was swiftly given justification.
After the meeting at Eu in the previous summer with Louis Philippe it had appeared that the Spanish Marriage issue had been satisfactorily settled, so that the British would not press the claims of Victoria’s cousin, Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Kohary, as the husband of Queen Isabella, and Louis Philippe would not advance those of any of his sons. Now, in July 1846, within a few weeks of taking office, Palmerston coolly included Leopold’s name in a list of possible husbands for the Spanish Queen, and naturally showed the dispatch containing the proposal to the French Ambassador, the Comte de Jarnac. Louis Philippe was enraged, there was a fierce Anglo-French storm, at the end of which Queen Isabella was married to the loathsome (and reportedly impotent) Duke of Cadiz, and her sister Fernanda married Louis Philippe’s son, the Due de Montpensier. It was a classic Palmerston venture, angrily denounced by Albert as a bock (blunder), and although Queen Victoria at first instinctively sided with Palmerston against the French, she quickly had her mind changed by her husband. Then, she discovered that Palmerston had little time for her cousins the King and Queen of Portugal and their government, and was willing to stir up trouble against them. As Albert described later in a particularly angry letter to Palmerston, this was representative of ‘that species of angry, irritating, Bullying which has long characterised our relations with Spain, Portugal, etc.’.
Prince Albert Page 24
