The Letters of Queen Victoria Volume I Part 72

My Coiffeur will be quite at Louise's disposal, and he can _coiffer_ in any way she likes, if her dresser tells him how she wishes it.

[Pageheading: LORD BROUGHAM]

[Pageheading: LETTER FROM LORD BROUGHAM]

_Lord Brougham to Queen Victoria._[58]

GRAFTON STREET, _19th June 1841._

MOST GRACIOUS SOVEREIGN,--I crave leave humbly to approach your Majesty and to state in writing what I should have submitted to your Royal consideration at an Audience, because I conceive that this course will be attended with less inconvenience to your Majesty.

In the counsel which I ventured with great humility, but with an entire conviction of its soundness, to tender, I cannot be bia.s.sed by any personal interest, for I am not a candidate for office; nor by any Parliamentary interest, for I have no concern with elections; nor by any factious interest, for I am unconnected with party. My only motive is to discharge the duty which I owe to both the Crown and the country. Nor am I under the influence of any prejudice against your Majesty's servants or their measures; for I charge your Majesty's servants with nothing beyond an error, a great error, in judgment, and I entirely approve of the measures which they have lately propounded (with a single exception partially applicable to one of them), while I lament and disapprove of the time and manner of propounding them, both on account of the Government and of the measures themselves.

I feel myself, Madam, under the necessity of stating that the dissolution of the Parliament appears to me wholly without justification, either from principle or from policy. They who advise it must needs proceed upon the supposition that a majority will be returned favourable to the continuance of the present Administration and favourable to their lately announced policy. On no other ground is it possible that any such advice should be tendered to your Majesty.

For no one could ever think of such a proceeding as advising the Crown to dissolve the Parliament in order to increase the force of the Opposition to its own future Ministers, thus perverting to the mere purposes of party the exercise of by far the most eminent of the Royal prerogatives; and I pa.s.s over as wholly unworthy of notice the only other supposition which can with any decency be made, when there is no conflict between the two Houses, namely, that of a dissolution in entire ignorance of the national opinion and for the purpose of ascertaining to which side it inclines. Your Majesty's advisers must, therefore, have believed, and they must still believe, that a majority will be returned favourable both to themselves and their late policy.

I, on the other hand, have the most entire conviction that there will be a considerable majority against them, and against their policy a majority larger still, many of their supporters having already joined to swell that majority. Whoever examines the details of the case must be satisfied that the very best result which the Government can possibly hope for is a narrow majority against them--an event which must occasion a second dissolution by whatever Ministry may succeed to the confidence of your Majesty. But those best acquainted with the subject have no doubt at all that the majority will be much more considerable.

I beg leave, Madam, humbly to represent to your Majesty, in my own vindication for not having laid my opinion before your Majesty as soon as I returned from the Continent, that when I first heard of the course taken by the Government early in May, I formed the opinion which I now entertain, but conceived that I must have mistaken the facts upon which they were acting; and when I arrived twelve days ago I was confirmed in the belief (seeing the fixed resolution taken to dissolve) that I must have been under an erroneous impression as to the probable results of the elections. But I have since found ample reason for believing that my original conviction was perfectly well founded, and that no grounds whatever exist sufficient to make any one who considers the subject calmly, and without the bias of either interest or prejudice, really believe that this ill-fated proceeding can have any other result than lasting injury to your Majesty's service, to the progress of sound and just views of policy, and to the influence of those in whom the Crown and the country alike should repose confidence.

That a number of short-sighted persons whose judgments are warped by exclusive attention to a single subject, or by personal feelings, or by party views (and these narrow and erroneous), may have been loudly clamorous for the course apparently about to be pursued, is extremely possible, and affords no kind of excuse for it. Many of these will be the slowest to defend what they have so unfortunately called for; some will be among the first to condemn it when a manifest failure shall have taken place, and general discomfiture shall throw a few local successes into the shade.

My advice is humbly offered to your Majesty, as removed far above such confined and factious views; as the parent of all your people; as both bound and willing to watch over their true interests; and as charged by virtue of your exalted office with the preservation of the public peace, the furtherance of the prosperity, and the maintenance of the liberties of your subjects.

I am, with profound respect, Madam, your Majesty's faithful and dutiful Subject,

BROUGHAM.[59]

[Footnote 58: Mention has been made earlier of the resentment which Brougham cherished against his late colleagues, after his exclusion from the Whig Cabinet, and this letter, on the proposal to dissolve Parliament, was, no doubt, prompted by that feeling.]

[Footnote 59: Parliament, however, notwithstanding this rescript of Lord Brougham, was dissolved, and the Ministry went to the country with the cry of a fixed duty on corn, as against a sliding scale, and they attacked, as monopolists, at once the landowner, who enjoyed protection for his wheat, and the West Indian proprietor, who profited by the duty on foreign sugar. The Conservatives impugned the general policy of the Whig Administration. The result, a majority of seventy-six, was an even greater Conservative triumph than the most sanguine of the party antic.i.p.ated.--_See_ Introductory Note, _ante_, p. 253. (Intro Note to Ch. X)]

[Pageheading: VISIT TO WOBURN]

_Memorandum by Mr Anson._

WOBURN ABBEY, _27th July 1841._

Arrived here last night with the Prince and the Queen; this is now the second expedition (Nuneham being the first) which Her Majesty has taken, and on neither occasion has the Baroness accompanied us.

The Prince went yesterday through a review of the many steps he had made to his present position--all within eighteen months from the marriage. Those who intended to keep him from being useful to the Queen, from the fear that he might ambitiously touch upon her prerogatives, have been completely foiled; they thought they had prevented Her Majesty from yielding anything of importance to him by creating distrust through imaginary alarm. The Queen's good sense, however, has seen that the Prince has no other object in all he seeks but a means to Her Majesty's good. The Court from highest to lowest is brought to a proper sense of the position of the Queen's husband.

The country has marked its confidence in his character by pa.s.sing the Regency Bill _nem. con._ The Queen finds the value of an active right hand and able head to support her and to resort to for advice in time of need. Cabinet Ministers treat him with deference and respect. Arts and science look up to him as their especial patron, and they find this encouragement supported by a full knowledge of the details of every subject. The good and the wise look up to him with pride and grat.i.tude as giving an example, so rarely shown in such a station, of leading a virtuous and religious life.

_Queen Victoria to the King of the Belgians._

WINDSOR CASTLE, _3rd August 1841._

... Our little tour was most successful, and we enjoyed it of all things; nothing could be more enthusiastic or affectionate than our reception _everywhere_, and I am happy to hear that our presence has left a favourable impression, which I think will be of great use.

The loyalty in this country is certainly _very striking_. We enjoyed Panshanger[60] still more than Woburn; the country is quite beautiful, and the house so pretty and _wohnlich_; the picture-gallery and pictures very splendid. The Cowpers are such good people too. The visit to Brocket naturally interested us very much for our excellent Lord Melbourne's sake. The park and grounds are beautiful.

I can't admit the Duke of Bedford[61] ever was radical; G.o.d knows! I wish everybody now was a little so! What _is_ to come hangs over me like a baneful dream, as you will easily understand, and when I am often happy and merry, comes and damps it all![62]

But G.o.d's will be done! and it is for our best, we _must_ feel, though we can't feel it. I can't say _how_ much we think of our little visit to you, G.o.d willing, next year. You will kindly let our good old Grandmother[63] come there to see her dear Albert _once again_ before she dies, wouldn't you? And you would get the Nemours to come? And you would persuade the dear Queen[64] to come for a little while with Clementine?

Now farewell! Believe me, always, your most devoted Niece,

VICTORIA R.

[Footnote 60: The house of Earl Cowper.]

[Footnote 61: The Duke, who had formerly been M.P. for Bedfords.h.i.+re, was inclined to go further in the direction of Reform than Lord John, yet he applauded the latter's att.i.tude on the occasion of the speech which earned him the nickname of "Finality Jack."]

[Footnote 62: Alluding to the Ministerial defeat at the polls.]

[Footnote 63: The Dowager d.u.c.h.ess of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg.]

[Footnote 64: Marie Amelie, Queen of the French.]

[Pageheading: LORD MELBOURNE AND THE GARTER]

_Memorandum by Mr Anson._

WINDSOR CASTLE, _7th August 1841._

I went to Lord Melbourne this morning in his room as he had desired me. He said: "The Prince has been urging me to accept the Blue Riband before I quit office, and I wished to tell you that I am very anxious that this should not be pressed upon me by the Queen; it may be a foolish weakness on my part, but I wish to quit office without having any honour conferred upon me; the Queen's confidence towards me is sufficiently known without any public mark of this nature. I have always disregarded these honours, and there would be an inconsistency in my accepting this. I feel it to be much better for my reputation that I should not have it forced upon me. Mr Pitt never accepted an order, and only the Cinque Ports on being pressed to do so. Lord Grenville accepted a peerage, but never any other honour or advantage, and I wish to be permitted to retire in like manner. If I was a poor man, I should have no hesitation in receiving money in the shape of place or pension; I _only don't wish_ for place, because I do not _want_ it."

In the course of conversation Lord Melbourne said that he considered it very improbable that he should ever again form a part of any Administration.

He did not think that a violent course was at all to be apprehended from Lord John Russell; he said Lord John had been far more of a "finality" man than he had, and in the Cabinet had always been averse to violent change. He added, "I think you are in error in forming the opinion which you have of him."

Lord Melbourne thought the Queen very much disliked being talked _at_ upon religion; she particularly disliked what Her Majesty termed a _Sunday face_, but yet that it was a subject far more thought of and reflected upon than was [thought to be?] the case.