Prince Albert

by Robert Rhodes James

  The fundamental problem was how to remove Palmerston without giving him the opportunity to implicate the Queen in his downfall. Prince Albert even raised with Russell in July the question of Palmerston’s morals, and his attempt to seduce one of the Queen’s ladies at Windsor several years before.54 Russell, to whom the episode came as no surprise, did not regard it as an acceptable reason for dismissing the Foreign Secretary. Albert knew enough of Palmerston to appreciate that he would not depart pacifically, and his henchmen were already hinting broadly in Parliament and in his favoured newspapers at ‘whispers of mysterious influence’ and ‘backstairs intrigue’. The Queen had written to Russell (the letter drafted, as usual, by her husband) that ‘she cannot allow a servant of the Crown and her Minister to act contrary to her orders, and this without her knowledge’. The Don Pacifico affair had prompted Prince Albert to describe Palmerston as ‘our immoral one for foreign affairs’ to Ernest, adding that ‘We are still more weakened by it, we and all those who advise Christian straight-forwardness, peace, and love’.

  For a Sovereign to summarily dismiss a Foreign Secretary would have been difficult in any event, but one riding a crest of patriotic popularity, and upon whom the Prime Minister considered himself totally dependent, was a practical political impossibility. Stockmar produced the answer. Palmerston had consistently denied information to his Sovereign on vital matters, had acted on several occasions without her knowledge, had treated her with deliberate casualness, and must now heed his ways or face legitimate dismissal as her Secretary of State. This was the genesis of the memorandum that the Queen sent to Russell from Osborne on August 12th, which related Palmerston’s deficiencies and omissions, and set down the rules for the future. It was, in reality, the product of Stockmar and Albert.

  Palmerston’s reaction was to ask for a personal interview with Albert, which took place on the 14th. The Prince was startled that Palmerston ‘was very much agitated, shook, and had tears in his eyes’, but when he expressed his pain at the severe rebuke he had received he was coldly reminded of ‘the innumerable complaints and remonstrances which the Queen had had to make these last years’. Sticking closely to the theme of the memorandum, Albert said that the fact that the Queen disagreed ‘almost invariably’ with his policies was one thing, and not insignificant; what was wholly intolerable was that she was inadequately informed. The discussion then moved to the raging conflict over Schleswig-Holstein, but did not lead to any closing of the gulf in attitudes between them. It was not a satisfactory discussion, but at least Palmerston had expressed his regrets for his treatment of the Queen, and seemed to accept the validity of the memorandum.

  It was not a happy summer. In spite of the Commons vote the problems of organising the Exhibition remained incessant and heavily burdensome, there was a Royal visit to Edinburgh, where Victoria paid the first Royal visit to Holyrood since Mary, Queen of Scots, and Albert laid the foundation stone of the National Gallery. He remained dismayed by the bitter war over Schleswig-Holstein, and by the condition of Germany, which, he wrote to Stockmar on August 25th, ‘appears to me to be going utterly to the deuce under the miserable policy of its rulers, and to be becoming a still readier toy for the next revolution. Are there no longer in it men of heart and head, who might avert the disaster? It is altogether too sad’. The death of Louis Philippe on the next day was a chilling reminder of the mortality of monarchies and monarchs.

  But Palmerston was incorrigible. In September General Haynau, popularly depicted in sections of the English Press as the ‘Butcher of Austria’ and ‘General Hyaena’, and certainly with an evil reputation for the suppression of the Hungarian revolution, unwisely visited London and was mobbed when he was recognised at Barclay’s Brewery. Indeed, having narrowly escaped to refuge in a nearby public house he was only rescued from possible lynching by the police. Palmerston seized the popular mood by a letter of formal apology to the Austrian Chargé d’Affaires that was notably insulting about Haynau, all his works, and the illiberal Empire he served. By the time the Queen and Prince read it, it had already been sent.

  This was a clear breach of the August Memorandum, and for once Russell showed some spirit and demanded the recall of the Note. Palmerston threatened resignation, Russell insisted, and it was Palmerston who climbed down. Albert was accordingly once more deprived of his quarry, but again it had been Palmerston and not he who had judged the public mood correctly. As he and Victoria recognised, ‘General Hyaena’ was not a popular cause. Nonetheless, another major international uproar had occurred, and the Queen had been slighted again.

  The Queen and the Prince could have been forgiven for believing that Palmerston was determined to precipitate his removal. When the Hungarian leader, Kossuth, arrived in London it was on Russell’s insistence – strongly supported by the Queen – that he should not be officially received; Palmerston complied reluctantly, but then received a Radical deputation that presented him with an address of thanks for accomplishing Kossuth’s freedom and which also contained some withering observations on the tyrannical rulers of Austria and Russia, with which Palmerston patently did not disagree. Then he proceeded to express approval of the coup d’état of Louis Napoleon in France who had proclaimed himself Emperor, and this was a last straw for Russell. To the delight of the Royal couple and to the astonishment of all in politics, Palmerston was asked for his resignation.

  What had happened was that Palmerston considered that Louis Napoleon had prevented an Orleanist counter-coup, and told the French Ambassador that he approved. The British Ambassador in Paris, Lord Normanby, was highly indignant to be informed of this by the French Foreign Minister, and gave the details to his brother, Charles Phipps, who immediately alerted Albert to this latest example of Palmerston’s perfidy. ‘What an extraordinary and unprincipled man Lord P. is’, Victoria wrote, ‘and how devoid of every feeling of honour and consistency’. On December 20th she received ‘great and most unexpected news’ at Windsor that Russell had at long last acted decisively. ‘Our relief was great’, the Queen wrote, ‘and we felt quite excited by the news, for our anxiety and worry during the last five years and a half, which was indescribable, was mainly, if not entirely, caused by him! It is a great and unexpected mercy, for I really was on the point of declaring on my part that I could no longer retain Lord Palmerston, which would have been a most disagreeable task, and not unattended with danger, inasmuch as it would have put me too prominently forward’.

  The appointment of Granville in Palmerston’s place was one of the factors that led Palmerston not to appear in person at Windsor to surrender the Seals. For the whole of the afternoon of December 26th the Royal couple and Russell waited for him at Windsor, making conversation with Lord Lansdowne and Granville, but ‘no Lord Palmerston appeared’. They then discussed whether it was possible for the Queen to receive the Seals – sent separately to Windsor – from another Minister. Russell, who at one stage had left to check the railway timetables, had a useful precedent, and so formally handed them over to the Queen on Palmerston’s behalf. She did not particularly mind Palmerston’s deliberately insulting behaviour, so relieved was she and Prince Albert to see him gone.

  They believed, as did everyone else, that this was the end of Palmerston, and the annus mirabilis of 1851 ended with great, but premature, rejoicing at Windsor.

  Prince Albert had made for himself a very formidable enemy. The word was swiftly put out that the popular and courageous Foreign Secretary had been brought down by the Court, and specifically by the Prince. Politicians and newspapers particularly supportive of Palmerston began by hinting at excessive Royal influence, Court intrigues, and Prince Albert’s malign role. ‘Lady Palmerston says she can neither eat nor sleep’, Greville recorded, ‘and they raise already the cry of “Foreign influence” ’. She did not conceal her view that the Queen and the Prince wanted her husband’s removal and Granville’s appointment ‘because they thought he would be pliable and subservient and would let
Albert manage the Foreign Affairs, which is what he had always wanted’. The trouble was that there was some truth in the charge.

  Palmerston swiftly humiliated his former colleagues by defeating the Government in the Commons on the grounds that defence proposals were inadequate – ‘I have had my tit for tat with John Russell’, he commented with satisfaction, having effectively and so quickly proved that he had been indispensable after all – and an extremely weak Government led by Derby and dominated by Disraeli was the consequence. Palmerston lost no opportunity of defending his record, either covertly through anonymous articles or the arranged support of his friends in the Press and Parliament. One very long article in the Westminster Review rhapsodising Palmerston’s policies – and whose true author was only too obvious to the Queen and Prince – particularly enraged the latter, who wrote searing comments, notably on the clear indictment of the inability of the Sovereign to adopt ‘a passive indifference’ because of the ‘high interests’ of the Coburg family. On this, the Prince minuted:

  Nowhere does the Constitution demand an indifference on the part of the sovereign to the march of political events, and nowhere would such indifference be more condemned and justly despised than in England. There was no interest of the House of Coburg involved in any of the questions upon which we quarrelled with Lord Palmerston, neither in Greece nor Italy, Sicily, Holstein, Hungary etc.

  Why are Princes alone to be denied the credit of having political opinions based upon an anxiety for the national interests and honour of their country and the welfare of mankind? Are they not more independently placed than any other politician in the State? Are their interests not most intimately bound up with those of their country? Is the sovereign not the natural guardian of the honour of his country, is he not necessarily a politician? Has he no duties to perform towards his country?

  Few documents that Prince Albert wrote are more revealing than this. What had been at stake had been the position and authority of the Queen, put in the position of being considered either to support Palmerston’s words and actions, whatever his judgement, or constitutionally too weak to influence them, ‘both suppositions equally derogatory to her honour and dignity’. Thus, it had all been a challenge to the political authority of the sovereign, a battle that had to be won.

  But it had been won very dearly. The Prince had never been widely popular until the Exhibition, but even then his public position could not be compared to that of Palmerston, the Liberal Patriot and Defender of the Realm. An extraordinary national panic about a possible French invasion by the new Emperor Napoleon was given greater apparent emphasis by the death of Wellington in September 1852, lauded by Tennyson as ‘the last great Englishman’, and whose funeral was a martial and patriotic parade of great emotion. Prince Albert and Cole were responsible for the design of Wellington’s elaborate funeral carriage, and the Prince for the music at the service. But Tennyson intoned:

  Remember him who led your hosts;

  He bade you guard the sacred coasts.

  The Derby Ministry had little chance, and eventually fell in December when Gladstone destroyed Disraeli’s Budget in a speech that established his already impressive reputation. The political situation was so confused as to be chaotic, but it was obvious that a Whig-Peelite coalition was the only one that had the possibility of survival, and would be impossible without Palmerston. His position was now so strong that he could successfully deny Russell the Premiership on the grounds that he would not serve under him. There was nothing that the Queen and the Prince could do to prevent Palmerston’s return, but even he recognised that he could not become Foreign Secretary so soon after the bitter battles with the Royal couple and which had left such deep wounds. Thus, Aberdeen became Prime Minister, Russell went to the Foreign Office, Palmerston was Home Secretary, and Cabinet places were found for Sir James Graham and Gladstone. The Prince hopefully noted that ‘Lord Palmerston looked excessively ill, and had to walk with two sticks’, and he and Queen Victoria were reconciled to his very unwelcome return by the consolation that he was not Foreign Secretary and was so obviously old and ill.

  Once again, they had misjudged their man. He hurled himself into the work of the Home Office with enthusiasm and dedication. But dark clouds were gathering, and Palmerston’s eyes never lost their attention on the looming crisis in the East.

  Prince Albert believed in the value of reason, and its capacity to resolve most difficulties. He was a realist, and also a passionate and impatient man by character, but the romanticism that inspired the Great Exhibition, his music, and his artistic and architectural enthusiasms did not extend to politics, and especially to European politics. Where others – notably Palmerston – saw excitement and opportunities, he saw dangers. When popular feeling became bellicose, he was pacific. He now entered the darkest and most difficult period of his life.

  The Tsar of Russia, informing the British Ambassador that the Ottoman Empire was ‘a sick man, a very sick man’ in January 1853, swiftly followed this statement by moving Russian troops into the Turkish principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia. The British fleet was dispatched to the entrance of the Dardanelles. The Four Powers – England, France, Austria, and Prussia – submitted a Note to the Russians from Vienna which was accepted by the Russian Government, but not by the Turks. Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, the British Ambassador at Constantinople, conducted a persistent and dedicated role as an implacable opponent of Russian ambitions, and engaged in a detailed and elaborate battle of wills with his Russian counterpart, Prince Menschikoff. The British Government, urged on by Palmerston, slithered inexorably into an indeterminate commitment to Turkey. In October Turkey declared war against Russia.

  The Queen and the Prince were appalled at these ominous developments. They asked for de Redcliffe’s immediate recall, but Aberdeen replied that ‘he could not answer for the effect it might produce in the country, and in the Government’ – particularly meaning Palmerston, who was calling for the English fleet, supported by the French, to move from the entrance to the Dardanelles to the Black Sea; as a timorous compromise, it was sent to the Bosphorus. Palmerston later wrote that ‘We crossed the Rubicon when we first took part with Turkey and sent our squadrons to her support’. Although nominally Home Secretary he was back in his element: ‘We must help Turkey out of her difficulties by negotiation, if possible’, he wrote, ‘and if negotiation fails we must, by force of arms, carry her safely through her dangers’. The Prime Minister became justifiably alarmed by the near-certainty of the Turks provoking conflict ‘in the presence of the British fleet’, but then he was completely overtaken by events and out-manoeuvred by Palmerston. As Graham remarked of the Aberdeen Government: ‘There are some odd tempers and queer ways among them’.

  ‘No doubt’, Aberdeen wrote to the Queen on October 6th, ‘it may be very agreeable to humiliate the Emperor of Russia; but Lord Aberdeen thinks that it is paying a little too dear for this pleasure, to check the progress and prosperity of this happy country, and to cover Europe with confusion, misery, and blood’. This was all very well, but in Cabinet he was weak, and Albert became deeply alarmed: ‘The Queen’, he wrote in a memorandum at Balmoral on October 10th, ‘might now be involved in war, of which the consequences could not be calculated, chiefly by the desire of Lord Aberdeen to keep his Cabinet together; this might then break down, and the Queen would be left without an efficient Government, and a war on her hands’. The bellicose tones of de Redcliffe’s dispatches ‘exhibit clearly on his part a desire for war, and to drag us into it’ the Queen wrote to Aberdeen on November 5th.

  But the tide of Russophobia was proving too strong for the Prime Minister and the increasingly worried Royal couple.

  On November 30th the Russian fleet achieved an overwhelming victory over the Turks off Sinope. This was a legitimate act of war between belligerents, but was inflamed by Palmerston and a significant element of the Press into a disastrous and outrageous massacre of the innoce
nts. Albert had foreseen the perils of encouraging the Turks to move their ships into the Black Sea by the arrival of the British warships: ‘This can only be meant to insult the Russian fleet’, he had written warningly, ‘and to entice it to come out in order thereby to make it possible for Lord Stratford to bring the fleet into collision’. Palmerston’s own newspaper, the Morning Post, was notably outraged, and The Times, now under the editorship of the remarkable and highly influential J. T. Delane, began to shift its anti-Turkish position.

  On the same day that it announced the Turkish defeat at Sinope (December 16th) it also carried the traumatic news of the resignation of Palmerston.

  The issue had been a draft Reform Bill that Palmerston allegedly found impossible to accept; the true cause was deeper, and had everything to do with the crisis in the East. The Queen and Prince were glad to see him go, although they had taken no direct part in his resignation, and the Queen was strongly opposed to his return in any capacity, as a result of ‘his unscrupulous dexterity’. But after Sinope, and the consequent anti-Russian uproar in Parliament and the newspapers, the Aberdeen Government joined with the French in a hostile Note to Russia about the action of the Black Sea fleet, Palmerston declared his satisfaction, and returned to Office with greater popularity than ever.