The Public Life of Queen Victoria Part 8

he proceeded to say, "that their savings are capital, that capital will only return a certain interest, and that any advantage offered beyond that interest has to be purchased at a commensurate risk of the capital itself."

Such is a view, but all too summary and inadequate, of some of the obligations which the English, as his fellow-citizens, owed to that Prince whose life was so intertwined with and influential on that of their Sovereign.

CHAPTER XVII.

FOREIGN TRAVEL AND HOME VISITS.

Visit to King Louis Philippe at Eu--A Loyal Corporation--Splendid Reception of the Queen in France--Anecdote of the Queen's Regard for Prince Albert--Visit of the Czar Nicholas--Home Life in Scotland--Visit to Germany--Illuminations of the Rhine--A Rural Fete at Coburg.

In August, 1843, the Queen and Prince Albert made a yachting excursion round portions of the south coast and the Isle of Wight. Thence they steamed over to Treport, on the French coast, the nearest port to the Chateau d'Eu, a rural residence of Louis Philippe. On the arrival of the Queen and Prince from Windsor at Southampton, they were met at the end of the pier by the Duke of Wellington and other n.o.ble and official personages. It rained heavily, and as there was not sufficient covering for the stage intended to run on to the yacht _Victoria and Albert_, the members of the Corporation, like so many Raleighs, stripped off their red gowns in a moment, and the pathway was covered for Her Majesty's use, so that Queen Victoria, like Queen Elizabeth, walked dry-footed to her vessel. The undergraduates at Cambridge acted precisely similarly on the occasion of a visit in wet weather by the Queen and Prince to that university in this year.

[Sidenote: VISIT TO FRANCE.]

The subsequent visit to France was wholly unexpected in England; and it was even said, and with some show of truth, that the Ministers were unaware of the intention. Of course we cannot speak with any certainty, but it seems but too likely that Louis Philippe intrigued to secure the aid, or at least the condonation, of the Queen of England in those astute enterprises which his busy brain was even now concocting, with which the phrases "Pritchard and Tahiti," and the "Spanish Marriages" will ever remain a.s.sociated, and which ultimately, and retributively, cost him his throne. Mr. Raikes, who, be it remembered, was the intimate and bosom friend of the Duke of Wellington, then a Minister of England, has at this date the following entry in his Journal, which was published in 1857, and is an acknowledged, and if not absolutely an indisputable, yet a most weighty authority:--

_Tuesday, 19th._--Much conversation after dinner about the Queen's visit to Eu. I said, that the day before I left Paris, Kisseleff, the Russian Minister, scouted the idea of this visit, and betted that it would never take place. Lord Canning remarked, as a singular coincidence, that Brunow, the Russian Minister in London, a.s.serted positively, on the very morning that the Queen embarked at Southampton, that she had no intention of going to Eu. They both spoke, I suppose, as they wished.

This, it may be said, is mere club gossip. Not so what we are about to quote, and which was written under the Duke of Wellington's roof:--

_Sat.u.r.day, 23rd._--I went down to Walmer Castle, and found the Duke walking with Mr. Arbuthnot on the ramparts, or, as it is called, the platform, which overlooks the sea.... After the company had departed at ten o'clock, I sat up with the Duke and Arbuthnot till twelve o'clock, talking on various topics.... I see that the Government was evidently opposed to the Queen's visit to Eu. It was a wily intrigue, managed by Louis Philippe, through the intervention of his daughter, the Queen of the Belgians, during her frequent visits to Windsor with King Leopold, and was hailed by him with extreme joy, as the first admission of the King of the Barricades within the pale of legitimate sovereigns. The Duke said, "I was never let into the secret, nor did I believe the report then in circulation, till at last they sent to consult my opinion as to forming a regency during the Queen's absence.

I immediately referred to precedents as the only proper guide. I told them that George I., George II. (George III. never went abroad), and George IV. had all been obliged to appoint councils of regency; that Henry VIII., when he met Francis I. at Ardres, was then master of Calais, as also when he met Charles V. at Gravelines; so that, in these instances, Calais being a part of his dominions, he hardly did more than pa.s.s his frontier--not much more than going from one county to the next. Upon this I decided that the Queen could not quit this country without an Act of Regency. But she consulted the crown lawyers, who decided that it was not necessary, as courtiers would do." I myself (resumes Raikes) did not believe in her going till two days before she went. Peel persisted afterwards that he had told me of it; but I knew I never heard it, and it was not a thing to have escaped me if I had.

As for the reception at the Chateau d'Eu itself, it was of the most splendid character. One state ceremonial, however, is so very like another, that after those, the descriptions of which we have already furnished, a recital of the gay doings at Eu would hardly be palatable.

The purport of the whole may be summed up very briefly. The French monarch endeavoured to allure the Queen into compliance with his wishes, by every seduction which nature and art, and the most refined and gallant courtesy, could supply. Everything that wealth, luxury, and taste could furnish was to be found amid scenes of more than royal magnificence, o'ershadowed by elms that dated back to the times of Henri Quatre.

But there was business to be done, and the Queen was fortunate in having with her such trusty counsellors as Lords Aberdeen and Liverpool. A compact about the Spanish marriages was then and there made between France and England; a compact for the terms of which we are dependent, not alone upon English state papers, but upon the unimpeachable testimony of MM.

Guizot and Regnault. As the starting-point of the one court was that the Queen of Spain should marry a Prince of the House of Coburg, and of the other that she should marry a Prince of the reigning French house, of course no settlement could be come to except by an unequivocal compromise.

Thus did Lord Aberdeen and M. Guizot arrange it:--The King of France renounced all pretensions, on the part of any of his sons, to the hand of the Queen of Spain. It was stipulated that the Queen should choose her husband from the princely descendants of Philip V.; this stipulation excluding the dreaded compet.i.tion of a Coburg. As to the projected marriage of the Duc de Montpensier, the son of Louis Philippe, with the Infanta Donna Maria, sister of the Queen of Spain, Louis Philippe agreed that it should not take place "till the Queen was married and had had children." On these conditions, the Queen of England and her counsellors waived all objections to the marriage of the Duc de Montpensier. Louis Philippe kept his word by having his son married to the Infanta on the very same day, and at the same altar, as that on which her elder sister the Queen was married.

In the summer of this year, the Princess Augusta of Cambridge, the Queen's first cousin, was married to the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. The following extract from the diary of Mr. Raikes will be admitted to be far from the least amusing and characteristic anecdote of the Queen which we present in these pages:--

_Tuesday, 26th September._--This morning at breakfast, the Duke said to me, "Did you hear what happened at the wedding?" [meaning that of the Princess Augusta of Cambridge]. Replying in the negative, he continued, "When we proceeded to the signatures, the King of Hanover was very anxious to sign before Prince Albert, and when the Queen approached the table, he placed himself by her side, watching his opportunity. She knew very well what he was about, and just as the Archbishop was giving her the pen, she suddenly dodged around the table, placed herself next to the Prince, then quickly took the pen from the Archbishop, signed and gave it to Prince Albert, who also signed next, before it could be prevented. The Queen was also very anxious to give the precedence at Court to King Leopold before the King of Hanover, and she consulted me about it, and how it should be arranged. I told Her Majesty that I supposed it should be settled as we did at the congress of Vienna. "How was that," said she, "by first arrival?" "No ma'am," said I, "alphabetically, and then, you know, B comes before H." This pleased her very much, and it was done.

[Sidenote: THE CZAR NICHOLAS.]

In June, 1844, the Queen was visited by her handsome and colossal G.o.dfather, the Czar Nicholas of All the Russias. The Queen received him with great magnificence, and there was a splendid series of entertainments at Windsor. The Czar made himself immensely popular with the female s.e.x, by his magnificent gifts of jewels to the ladies of the Court; with the sterner s.e.x, by the gift of a cup of uncommon splendour, to be annually run for at Ascot. "Every one who approached him," says Sir Archibald Alison, "was struck by the manly dignity of his figure, his n.o.ble and serene countenance, and the polished courtesy of his manner, which threw a l.u.s.tre even over the stately halls of Windsor."

In September of the same year the Queen renewed her acquaintance with Scotland and the Scots; this time again enjoying the ducal hospitality of Blair Athole. This visit was entirely dissociated from all State paraphernalia. The Queen was up before the sun. The mists were hardly cleared away ere she and the Prince were to be seen walking in the grounds. They were generally accompanied by the Princess Royal, mounted on a Shetland pony. The Queen's piper played under her bed-room window at dawn, and every morning a bunch of heather, with some icy-cold water from the celebrated spring in Glen Tilt, was laid on her dressing-table. One morning a lady, plainly dressed, left the Castle; who, though observed by the Highland guard on duty, was allowed to pa.s.s unnoticed, until after she had proceeded a considerable distance. But somebody having discovered that it was the Queen, a party of Highlanders turned out as a royal body-guard.

She, however, signified her wish to dispense with their services, and they all returned to their stations. The Queen, meanwhile, moved onward through the Castle grounds alone, until she reached the lodge, the temporary residence of Lord and Lady Glenlyon, where, upon calling, with the intention, it was understood, of making some arrangements as to a preconcerted excursion to the Falls of Bruar, she was informed that his lords.h.i.+p had not yet arisen. The surprise of the servant may be conceived when Her Majesty announced who was to be intimated as having called upon his lords.h.i.+p. On her return, having taken a different route, and finding herself bewildered by the various roads which intersect the grounds in every direction, she asked some reapers to direct her to the Castle by the nearest way. They, not being aware to whom they spoke, immediately did so, by directing her to go through one of the parks, and across a paling which lay before her, and which she at once pa.s.sed, and reached the Castle, a good deal amused, doubtless, with her morning's excursion. In 1847 the Queen visited, for the first time, the Western Isles and Hebrides. In 1848 she rented Balmoral, which she shortly afterwards purchased, and from the date of its acquisition it has been her place of regular resort for at least one period of every year.

On the 9th of August, 1845, the Queen and Prince Albert embarked at Woolwich to visit the land of her maternity and his natal spot. In the Belgian and Prussian territories, and in the Duchy of Coburg itself, they were rapturously welcomed. At Bonn, they were serenaded by a monster orchestra, consisting of no fewer than sixty military bands. At the same city they a.s.sisted at the inauguration of the statue of Beethoven. The same evening they witnessed at Cologne an illumination and pyrotechnic display which turned the Rhine into a _feu-de-joie_. As darkness closed in, the dim and fetid city began to put forth buds of light; lines of twinkling brightness darted, like liquid gold and silver, from pile to pile, then along the famous bridge of boats, across the river, up the masts of the s.h.i.+pping, and all abroad on the opposite bank. Rockets now shot from all parts of the horizon. The royal party embarked in a steamer at St. Tremond, and glided down the river; as they pa.s.sed, the banks blazed with fireworks and musketry. At their approach they glared with redoubled light; and, being suspended, let the vessel pa.s.s to Cologne, whose cathedral burst forth a building of light, every detail of the architecture being made out in delicately coloured lamps--pinkish, with an underglow of orange. A few days afterwards the Queen steamed up the Rhine.

At Stoltzenfelz there was another magnificent illumination and display of fireworks. The whole river, both its banks, its crags, ravines, and ruins, were simultaneously lighted up; showers of rockets and other fireworks besprinkled the firmament, while repeated salvoes of artillery called the grandeur of resonant sound to the aid of visible beauty.

[Sidenote: VISIT TO COBURG.]

At Coburg the Queen, as might be supposed, was still more cordially welcomed than at any of her previous stopping places. She and the Prince stopped at the Castle of Rosenau, and they occupied the room in which he had been born. A magnificent stag-hunt was got up for their entertainment; but what pleased the Queen most was being present at a festival ent.i.tled "The Feast of Gregorius." This was a species of carnival, in which the burghers and rustics, their wives and children, disguised in masks, indulged in innocent and exuberant gaiety. The Queen and her relatives freely mixed with the revellers. She talked to the children, to their great astonishment, "in their own language." Tired of dancing and processions, and freed from all awe by the ease of their ill.u.s.trious visitors, the children took to romps, "thread-my-needle," and other pastimes, and finally were well pelted by the royal circle with bon-bons, flowers, and cakes.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE QUEEN IN IRELAND.

First Visit to Ireland--Rapturous Reception at Cork--Queenstown so Denominated--Enthusiasm at Dublin--Its Graceful Recognition by the Queen--Visit to the Dublin Exhibition--Encouragement of Native Industry--Visit to the Lakes of Killarney--The Whirligig of Time.

For twelve years after her accession to the throne, the Queen was a personal stranger to the sh.o.r.es of Erin. Amongst the numerous fruits of the tranquillity restored to Ireland, after the disturbances and sedition which had culminated in the "Young Ireland" rising of 1848, was a visit paid by the Queen to her subjects on the west of St. George's Channel in the autumn of 1849. Immediately after the prorogation of Parliament, the Queen and Prince Albert proceeded to Cowes, where a Royal squadron was ready to receive them. Under its escort, and being accompanied by their two eldest children, they steered for Cork. The Queen selected as the first spot of Irish ground on which to land, the port which, up to the date of her disembarkation, had been known as the Cove of Cork. She gave a command that, in commemoration of the circ.u.mstance, the Cove should thenceforth be designated Queenstown. Having re-embarked, the Royal party steamed up the beautiful bay to the city of Cork itself, where a magnificent reception awaited them. The squadron proceeded at a slow rate. In spite of its arrival at a much earlier date than had been antic.i.p.ated, the news spread like wildfire, and the country people a.s.sembled in prodigious numbers on the sh.o.r.es of the Cove, which were crowded with mult.i.tudes of excited Celts, whose wild shouts, mingled with the firing of cannon and small arms, and the ringing of bells, made the whole scene animated beyond description. From Cork, the Queen proceeded to Dublin. There her reception was described by an eye-witness as "a sight never to be forgotten."

[Sidenote: FIRST VISIT TO IRELAND.]

The Queen, turning from side to side, bowed low repeatedly. Prince Albert shared in and acknowledged the plaudits of the people; while the Royal children were objects of universal attention and admiration. Her Majesty seemed to feel deeply the warmth of her reception. She paused at the end of the platform for a moment, and again making her acknowledgments, was hailed with a tremendous cheer as she entered the terminus of the short railway line which connects Kingston with Dublin. On her departure, a few days later, an incident still more gratifying to the Irish people occurred. As the Royal yacht approached the extremity of the pier near the lighthouse, where the people were most thickly congregated, and who were cheering enthusiastically, the Queen suddenly left the two Ladies-in-waiting with whom she was conversing, ran with agility along the deck, and climbed the paddle-box to join Prince Albert, who did not notice her till she was nearly at his side. Reaching out to him, and taking his arm, she waved her hand to the people on the piers. She appeared to give some order to the captain: the paddles immediately ceased to move, and the vessel merely floated on. The Royal Standard was lowered in courtesy to the thousands cheering on sh.o.r.e, and this stately obeisance was repeated five times.

This gracious and well-timed visit to Ireland was a very significant proof of the Royal confidence in the unshaken allegiance of the bulk of the Irish people; and it likewise showed a just appreciation of the prudent energy and humane moderation with which her Ministers had so fortunately composed the recent unhappy tumults. Nearly thirty years had elapsed since a British sovereign had appeared in Ireland; and between the visit of George IV. and that of Queen Victoria, there was in common only the circ.u.mstance that both were royal visits. George, as King of Ireland, in 1821, was not the king of a free nation; the victory of civil and religious liberty had yet to be achieved for and by the Irish; a minority engrossed the national Government and monopolised its emoluments of every degree; the very existence of the people as a people had not been recognised, and the King himself was peculiarly and bitterly identified with the faction which held the race and their creed in thraldom. Thus, in 1821, the Crown of England possessed for Ireland little l.u.s.tre or utility, nor did it evoke any well-grounded loyalty and devotion from its people.

Queen Victoria and her visit, on the contrary, represented those popular principles and sympathies which are the brightest jewels of the British Crown, and are now set firmly in it for ever. Her visit, at once august and affectionate, was a visit to a nation which was not only loyal but free. "And joy came well in such, a needful time." The joy was exuberant and universal. As the loyalty was rendered to a young Queen, it partook of the romantic and strictly national nature of gallantry. To witness that joy must have been the fittest punishment for the disaffected.

"We do not remember," says an authority not given to rhapsody or exaggeration, "in the chronicles of royal progresses, to have met with any description of a scene more splendid, more imposing, more joyous, or more memorable, than the entry of the Queen into the Irish capital." The houses were absolutely roofed and walled with spectators. They were piled throng above throng, till their occupants cl.u.s.tered like bees about the vanes and chimney tops. The n.o.ble streets of Dublin seemed to have been removed, and built anew of Her Majesty's lieges. The squares resembled the interiors of crowded amphitheatres. Facades of public buildings were formed for the day of radiant human faces. Invention exhausted itself in preparing the language of greeting, and the symbols of welcome. For miles the chariot of the gay and gratified Sovereign pa.s.sed under parti-coloured (not _party_-coloured) streamers, waving banners, festal garlands, and triumphal arches. The latter seemed constructed of nothing else than solid flowers, as if the hands of Flora herself had reared them. At every appropriate point jocund music sent forth strains of congratulation; but banners, flowers, arches, and music were all excelled by the jubilant shouts which tore the empyrean, loud, clear, and resonant, not only above drum and trumpet, but above even the saluting thunders of the fleet.

[Sidenote: VISIT TO AN IRISH NATIONAL SCHOOL.]

Perhaps, apart from the mere loyal enthusiasm of the occasion, the most important and significant incident of the visit was the following. It did not fail to be remarked that the first inst.i.tution which Her Majesty visited in the capital was the central establishment of the Irish National Schools--the first-fruits of Irish liberty, and the n.o.blest possession of the Irish people. The Queen knew that in these excellent schools the youth of all persuasions were trained together, not in the love and pursuit of knowledge alone, but in the habit of tolerance and the spirit of charity.

The Queen, by this visit, pa.s.sed her personal approval and sanction upon a system which is equally the ant.i.thesis of sectarian discord and the promoter of religious independence. Here, also, she discovered (or already knew, as was much more likely) that there was imparted the most useful, solid, and practical instruction, one of a character most precisely adapted to the wants, pursuits, interests, and occupations of the cla.s.ses in whose behalf it was devised. In her survey and inspection of the Normal Schools, the Queen was attended by the Protestant and the Romanist Archbishops, and the representatives of other Christian denominations, friendly to the great scheme, stood beside and around her. That quite as much importance and significance as we have accorded to it was a.s.signed to this visit of the Queen to the Normal National Schools, sufficiently appears from these closing sentences of the Report of the Irish Education Commissioners for 1849:--

We cannot conclude our Report for 1849 without alluding with pride and grat.i.tude to the visit with which our Model Schools were honoured on the 7th of August, by Her Majesty Queen Victoria, and by her Royal Consort, Prince Albert, accompanied by your Excellency. We are convinced that this visit, so promptly and cordially made, has left an indelible impression upon the hearts of the poor of Ireland, for whose benefit our system has been established; and that they will ever regard the compliment as the most appropriate and decisive that could have been paid by Her Majesty to themselves. All reflecting men, whether friends or opponents of our inst.i.tution, have not failed to see the importance of the step. By the country at large it has been hailed as an eminent proof of Her Majesty's wisdom and goodness, and as peculiarly worthy of the daughter of that ill.u.s.trious Prince who was the ardent advocate of the education of the poor, when denounced by many as a dangerous novelty; and of their united education on just and comprehensive principles, when most men regarded it as impracticable.

[Sidenote: VISIT TO THE LAKES OF KILLARNEY.]

Four years later, when the first International Exhibition was held at Dublin, the Queen renewed her acquaintance with her Irish subjects. Making a somewhat lengthened stay at the vice-regal residence, she charmed the people by the freedom with which she mingled amongst them, and by the special attention and the bounteous patronage which she bestowed upon the little-developed but beautiful specimens of their indigenous textile industries in the Exhibition building. A third and a much more prolonged visit was made in the autumn of 1861, the Queen having honoured Lord Castlerosse and Mr. Herbert of Muckross, two gentlemen whose seats and demesnes are situate on the sh.o.r.es of the beauteous Lakes of Killarney, by accepting their hospitable invitations. Over the lakes, their islets, and their surrounding mountains and mountain pa.s.ses, the Queen roved as freely and unrestrainedly as was her wont in the retreats in which she had year after year sojourned, after the turmoil of the London season, in the Scottish Highlands. It was observed with pleasure that, amongst other indications of change which the whirligig of time had brought round, Mr.

James O'Connell, the brother of the "Liberator," dined more than once with Her Majesty at the tables of her n.o.ble and gentle hosts; and the hounds that forced a stag to take to the Lake--one of the immemorial sports a.s.sociated with Killarney--formed a portion of the pack which belonged to his two sons.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE WORLD'S CONGRESS OF INDUSTRY.

Prince Albert the Inaugurator of International Exhibitions--Proposes, Unsuccessfully, his Scheme to the Government--To the Society of Arts, Successfully--First Steps towards Realisation--Objections to be Met--Perseverance of the Prince--The Royal Commission--The Prince's Speech at York--The Opening Ceremony--The Royal Procession.

As early as 1848 Prince Albert submitted to the Government a proposal to establish an exhibition of works of industry in this country; but the members of the Government could not be induced to afford to it any of that encouragement which it was sought to obtain. Despairing of acquiring a.s.sistance in this quarter, but hopeful, courageous, and unbaffled, the Prince, who was President of the Society of Arts, in the following year betook himself to that more likely and congenial quarter. Not content, however, with following in the wake of previous Expositions which had been held in Paris and elsewhere, he suggested the happy idea of so extending its range as to include within it the works of industry and the art treasures of all lands. He convened on his own responsibility a meeting at Buckingham Palace, on the 30th of June, 1849, where he proposed that the Exhibition should be divided into four sections: the first being raw materials and produce ill.u.s.trative of the natural productions in which human industry is employed; the second, machinery for agricultural, manufacturing, engineering, and other purposes, and mechanical inventions ill.u.s.trative of the agents which human ingenuity brings to bear upon the products of nature; the third, manufactures ill.u.s.trative of the results produced by the operation of human industry upon natural produce; the fourth, sculpture, models, and the plastic arts generally, ill.u.s.trative of the skill displayed in such applications of human industry.

When this proposal of a display so novel was first made, there existed no public enthusiasm to welcome the daring scheme, and all were in utter ignorance of those mechanical means of accomplis.h.i.+ng it which to the present generation are so simple and obvious. It was met by countless cavils and objections without end. But the Prince had insight enough to discriminate between the real body of public opinion, lethargic and slow to move, yet ductile and malleable, and the artificial clamour of the marplots. Fortunately for the success of the great enterprise, the Prince possessed within himself the happiest combination of the highest station with those indomitable qualities of hopeful perseverance which were necessary to overcome the innumerable impediments which threatened more than once to mar the success of the great work. He succeeded in getting a.s.sociated with him an active body of Commissioners, who, encouraged by the untiring industry which their ill.u.s.trious President displayed, persevered in their work; and one by one the practical difficulties disappeared before the clear and vigorous intellect which the Prince brought to bear upon their discussions.