Prince Albert

by Robert Rhodes James

  This particular crisis passed, but it was deeply ominous. By this stage Prince Albert, with his modest team of Anson, Charles Grey and Charles Phipps44 had a firm grip on foreign affairs, which he did not intend to relinquish. He conducted a voluminous correspondence with Stockmar, King Leopold, his brother Ernest and the King of Prussia. When Cracow was absorbed by Austria in the summer of 1846, the strong criticisms in England were met by Prince Albert himself, who arranged for a Times leader-writer, Henry Reeve, to write a lengthy defence of the Austrian action for the influential Edinburgh Review, the final version being edited and corrected by Albert himself. When the issue of the Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein arose Prince Albert supported their incorporation into the much coveted united Germany, while Palmerston supported the Danish claim. Palmerston was immensely sympathetic to the cause of Italian independence; the Prince was strongly hostile to the dismemberment of the Austrian Empire. Prince Albert believed in Anglo-French amity and the entente cordiale; Palmerston did not. The Prince was becoming seriously concerned about the condition and training and equipment of the British Navy and Army; Palmerston believed that they were quite adequate. Both on policy and in personality the gulf between them was substantial, and was remorselessly to widen. Lord Clarendon is an unreliable and embittered commentator, but there was some truth in his subsequent complaint that ‘the Queen and Prince are wrong in wishing that courtiers rather than Ministers should conduct the affairs of the country. They labour under the curious mistake that the Foreign Office is their peculiar department and that they have a right to control, if not to direct, the Foreign Policy of England’.

  This was an exaggeration, although only marginally so. What Prince Albert sought, and certainly had from Aberdeen, was the right for the Queen to be consulted, to be fully informed, to see all the important despatches, and to have the opportunity for influence. In principle, neither Palmerston nor Russell disputed any of this, but Palmerston had never brooked any interference by colleagues in his conduct of foreign affairs, and saw no good reason why Prince Albert should be a solitary exception.

  In addition to having views of his own on the proper conduct of foreign policy, Prince Albert told Russell firmly that he disagreed ‘totally’ with the doctrine that the Queen could not and should not involve herself actively in the work and decisions of her Government. In his own words, the Sovereign had ‘an immense moral responsibility upon his shoulders with regard to his Government and the duty to watch and control it’. This was a substantial, and very significant, claim. The real divide between him and Palmerston lay not so much in their characters and differences over foreign policy, important though they were, but in the fact that Palmerston did not accept this definition of Royal authority. From the earliest days of the Russell Administration the Prince and Palmerston were on a collision course, and the difference in their approach can be clearly seen in this letter, in 1847, from Albert to Stockmar:

  I am very anxious that England should declare in time that she will not allow independent states to be prevented by force from introducing such internal reforms as may seem to them good. This appears to me to be the right standpoint vis-à-vis Germany, Switzerland and Italy. We are often inclined to plunge states which have no wish for them into constitutional reforms – this I regard as quite wrong (vide Spain, Portugal, Greece) although it is Lord Palmerston’s hobby horse. I, on the other hand, regard England’s true position to be that of a protecting power for those states whose independent development may be hindered from without.

  The hard political fact was that Russell was weak, his Government was shaky, and Palmerston was by far his greatest political and personal asset. Russell was in awe of his formidable and popular Foreign Secretary, and although he often lamented Palmerston’s impulsiveness and theatricality, and his capacity for getting the Government into dangerous and sometimes ludicrous situations, a Russell Administration without Palmerston seemed an impossibility. Thus, in his own words, the Prime Minister found himself ‘as umpire between Windsor and Broadlands’ (Palmerston’s Hampshire mansion and estate), a hapless and somewhat undignified mediator between two men of strong will, high position, and unquestionable ability. Thus did matters stand at the end of 1846.

  At this moment, Prince Albert became embroiled in an embarrassing and unwelcome political and academic maelstrom, yet which was to have momentous results for him and for English higher education.

  The Chancellor of Cambridge University, the Duke of Northumberland, died on February 12th 1847, and with indecent speed a group of Fellows of St. John’s at once publicly proposed the candidature of the second Earl of Powis, himself a John’s man, a former Tory M.P. for Ludlow for twenty-three years, and a hero in certain quarters in the Universities for his vehement and successful opposition to the proposed merger of the Sees of Bangor and St. Asaph into a new Bishopric of Manchester. So intense had been the feelings aroused over this controversy that when Powis’ campaign ended in victory over £5,000 was raised to him as a testimonial of gratitude. A High Churchman, a High Tory, the grandson of Robert Clive, a Cambridge man, and a contemporary of Palmerston at St. John’s, Powis was regarded by St. John’s as a very strong candidate.

  These manoeuvrings were viewed with intense distaste and dismay in Trinity College and elsewhere in the University, where the alleged merits of Lord Powis were regarded as positive disadvantages. Thus, on February 13th the Master of Trinity, Dr Whewell, wrote urgently to Anson to enquire whether the Prince would be willing to respond to an invitation to stand for the Chancellorship from a number of heads of College. It is not precisely clear who originally proposed Albert, but it is certainly the case that Whewell was the most active and determined of his supporters, and the chronic feud between Trinity and St. John’s can hardly have been a totally insignificant factor.

  The Prince, the Queen, and Stockmar were greatly attracted by the proposal, none being aware of the fact that the office was generally regarded as ceremonial and honorary. Albert agreed (February 15th) to accept if the invitation were indeed ‘the unanimous desire of the University’. The Vice-Chancellor, Dr. Henry Philpott, Master of St. Catharine’s, assured him – quite wrongly – that it was indeed the unanimous wish of the heads of College, and a deputation waited upon Prince Albert on the 17th. His acceptance of the invitation was, Whewell told Phipps, received ‘with the most lively satisfaction throughout the University’, and Lord Powis would now certainly withdraw.

  Lord Powis, St. John’s, and the High Tories had no intention whatever of withdrawing, and indeed a Tory M.P., F. H. Dickenson, publicly called for Prince Albert to withdraw in favour of Powis. Even worse, a Powis election committee was established in London after a dinner at the British Hotel, Cockspur Street which included the Master and President of St. John’s, the President of Queen’s, and the Public Orator. In these circumstances, and angered by the false information given to him by Whewell and Philpott, Prince Albert resolved to withdraw his candidature on February 18th. But his name was now in contention as a candidate, and his supporters were determined to persevere. Anson and Phipps were appalled by the prospects of ‘a disagreeable Encounter, & one which those who support YRH ought not to have subjected you to’, as Anson wrote to him on February 22nd.

  Prince Albert wisely consulted Peel on February 22nd whether he should ‘take a further step in order to stop the possibility of my name appearing in the Contest, and what ought that step to be? If I remain quiet, and my election is carried by a majority, am I to accept or refuse the honor proposed to me?’ Peel, in a firm memorandum on the 23rd, advised ‘strongly in favour of permitting the Election to take its course’ and to accept the Chancellorship if elected. With considerable reluctance and unease, Albert accepted Peel’s advice.

  Meanwhile, Phipps and Anson were determined to protect their master, and when Whewell submitted his election circular on behalf of the Prince to Phipps for transmission to the Prince Phipps took it upon his own responsibility n
ot to forward it on the grounds that Albert should have no knowledge of it nor of any campaign being waged on his behalf. With some reluctance, and surprise, Whewell accepted this decision on February 24th, about which Prince Albert did not know for some time.

  The judgement of Anson and Phipps was very sound, as the contest was livening up in Cambridge. The Master of Clare Hall publicly called for Albert to withdraw, and Powis’s committee stated ‘that it is very desirable that the Chancellor of the University of Cambridge should have been educated at the University, in order that he may be acquainted with its interests and privileges, and that he should be a member of the Legislature, in order that he may watch over and maintain them in Parliament’. Earl Nelson now joined the list of activists on Powis’s behalf, and Whewell further raised the temperature with a fiery pamphlet declaring that ‘In Lord Powis we should only have a Chancellor of St. John’s’, which stung the Master of St. John’s mightily.

  Only senior members of the University could vote in the election, and urgent and elaborate measures were taken to alert and convey the scattered voters around the country to Cambridge on the three consecutive polling days. Those Cambridge members of the Government and others in high political station were strongly advised to interrupt their Parliamentary and other duties to travel to Cambridge to vote for Prince Albert; as the voting was public, this intimation of the certainty of grave Royal displeasure in a certain eventuality was perhaps superfluous to ambitious Ministers, but Lord Powis’ friends were also very active in both Houses. Although the undergraduates could not vote they had also captured the election fever, and vociferously crammed the Senate House throughout the voting.

  At the end of the first day of polling, Thursday February 25th, the voting was Prince Albert 582, Lord Powis 572, and well could Lord Ernest Bruce report to General Bowles that ‘It is a neck and neck race . . . I am rather an old hand at University elections, & I never saw anything like this . . . the excitement beats anything I ever saw’.

  The voting was conducted amidst scenes of considerable tumult and uproar. ‘There were cheers and groans for everybody and everything’, as The Times reported.

  At 12 o’clock an immense number of voters arrived by the London train, and the lower part of the building presented an enormously dense appearance. The general wish seemed to be to get towards the front, to vote and have done with it, and to get back to Town in time. Some not very feeble barriers placed in front of the Vice-Chancellor’s little hustings to keep back the flow of the tide, and the wands and staves of the attendants in office, shared the fate of all things fragile.

  At the close of poll on the second day Prince Albert was still ahead, by 875 to 789, and on that day the Directors of the Eastern Counties Railway made a somewhat opportunistic intervention by announcing that ‘In the event of the election of Prince Albert, the directors intend building a Royal carriage in a style of unsurpassed magnificence for the conveyance of His Royal Highness and suite to the University’. Lord Powis, it would appear, would have to make his own way in the event of his election.

  The excitement of the Friday, The Times reported, was no less than it had been on the previous day.

  The row was of a terrific character; missiles of all sorts were employed in assailing the voters, all of whom gladly retreated as soon as they had given in their voting cards, and some refrained from voting at all, after having travelled many miles for the purpose, rather than subject themselves to the fury of the storm raging within the Senate-house.

  From afar, the Prince, the Queen, and the distraught Phipps and Anson could only observe and receive Press and personal reports from the turbulent battle-front, and Albert’s grave doubts about having accepted Peel’s advice were now greatly augmented. Clearly, his majority would be small, if there was to be one at all, and the frenzy, fierceness, and closeness of the contest had come as an unpleasant surprise to those without experience of the intensity of academic politics – in this case intermixed with real politics, as the Tory Cantabridgians streamed down to the University and fought to enter the hubbub of the Senate House to vote for Powis.

  In the event, when polls closed on the Saturday evening, and the final count was announced, Prince Albert had triumphed by 953 to 837, but it was so modest a victory that he consulted Peel again as to whether he should accept the Chancellorship. Peel strongly advised him to do so: ‘The acceptance of the office without reluctance or delay has about it a character of firmness and decision, of supporting friends instead of giving a Triumph to Opponents’, and he submitted the draft of an acceptance speech to the Prince.

  This would have appeared to have been decisive, although Prince Albert’s own doubts were also robustly swept aside by the Queen, who recorded in her Journal that ‘all the cleverest men were on my beloved Albert’s side’. But perhaps even more significant in his final decision was the analysis of the voting, which revealed that he had obtained a clear majority of the heads of colleges, of the University Professors (16 out of 24), of the Senior Wranglers (19 out of 30), and of the Resident Members, who had voted three to one for him. On February 27th he conveyed his acceptance to the University.

  The Inauguration of Prince Albert to accept the office of Chancellor of the University of Cambridge took place on March 25th in the Green Drawing Room at Buckingham Palace, when all the notables of the University – including the Master of St. John’s – waited upon him with proper solemnity, and to whose Address Albert responded with one of modesty and gratitude. The assembly, in the words of The Times, then moved to ‘a sumptuous déjeûner’ with the band of the Life Guards playing throughout the feast. The University dignitaries may well have reflected that Powis Castle would have been a somewhat inadequate alternative. Although the new Chancellor criticised the Latin letter of invitation which described him as dux de Saxe, he was deeply honoured and excited: ‘It is my first chance’, he wrote to Ernest, ‘to do something in my own name for my adopted country’.

  Unhappily, it has to be recorded that Lord Powis was a bad loser. Prince Albert invited him to the Inauguration, but Powis declined, replying acidly that March 25th immediately followed the day announced by the Queen as ‘a day of Prayer & Humiliation’ and that he would, accordingly, be with his family. In the following January, while pheasant shooting on his estates, he was shot and killed by one of his sons.

  In July 1847 Prince Albert and the Queen, in their roles as Chancellor and eminent Royal visitor, travelled to Cambridge, where the Prince read a formal address of welcome to his wife, which she described as ‘almost absurd’. The Poet Laureate, Wordsworth, had composed an Ode of such dismal banality that it gave clear evidence of failing powers or possibly – being a St. John’s man and a Tory – lack of personal commitment to his task. One evening the Royal couple walked together down the incomparable Backs – which the Queen, sadly, described as ‘the waterside’ – with Prince Albert in Chancellor’s cap and a mackintosh over his formal clothes, with Queen Victoria in full evening dress but ‘with a veil over my diadem’. Indeed, Cambridge had been astounded by her diamonds. Their only complaint, as they wandered together, quite alone and in deep happiness, was of the absence of music and singing.

  Each was twenty-eight years of age. She was the Queen of England, he had just been described – not felicitously – by Wordsworth as ‘the chosen lord’ of Cambridge. On that evening in Cambridge mid-summer they were a happy couple walking together by the Cam, deep in conversation. They laughed at the performance of the Heads of Houses when they had to kiss the Queen’s hand, and how they had done so ‘with an infinite variety of awkwardness’, as she described the scene. ‘It is very pleasant’, John Brown said to Queen Victoria of her husband, ‘to walk with a person who is always content’. The remark so struck her that she recorded it in her Journal, as she understood its truth so completely. It was certainly entirely appropriate to their walk along the Cambridge Backs in July 1847.

  Even before Prince Albert w
as formally inaugurated as Chancellor he received from Whewell on March 8th a letter proposing to enlarge the activities of the University ‘so as to include some of the most valuable portions of modern science and literature’ and enclosed a detailed paper prepared by himself and the geologist Charles Lyell,45 which described the condition of the University in very critical, and justified, terms. The situation of Cambridge was, indeed, lamentable. The dominant purpose of the University was to train men for the clergy, and the contemporary comment that it was simply ‘a vast theological seminary’ was not at all unmerited. The only main studies were classics and mathematics, over half the students were at Trinity and St. John’s, of which the Fellows were almost wholly clergymen; even the Professorships in the natural sciences tended to go to clerics, and their classes and lectures were virtually deserted. So low was the standard of tuition that the pernicious practice of private tutors had replaced it, and, as Peacock, a Fellow of Trinity and Dean of Ely, wrote in a paper full of mordant and unsparing criticism requested by Albert, ‘This unhappy system has contributed more than any other cause to the very general, &, in some respects, just complaints which have been made of late years of the paucity of works of learning & research which had issued from the University of Cambridge’.

  Modest advances had been made in the 1820s, but the fact remained that ‘the natural sciences, which were gaining a foothold in European and Scottish universities, only fitted into the Cambridge pattern when they could be treated mathematically, and the moral sciences, languages, literature and history, which could not be so treated, were considered to have little educational value’.46 Whewell regarded himself as a reformer, but was in fact deeply dedicated to the maintenance of the classics and mathematical domination of the University.