[1] Morley’s Life of Cobden.

[2] Greville’s Journal, Vol. III. p. 290.

[3] Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. I. p. 243.

[4] Letter from the Queen to Lord Melbourne, cited by Sir T. Martin in the Life of the Prince Consort.

[5] This is not quite accurate. The details were arranged by Lord Clarendon; the plan, or original idea, of the visit was the Queen’s.

[6] Greville’s Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria, Vol. III., p. 295.

[7] Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort.

[8] “This faithful and trusty valet nursed his dear master most devotedly through his sad illness in December, 1861, and is now always with me as my personal groom of the chambers or valet. I gave him a house near Windsor Castle, where he resides when the Court are there. He is a native of Coburg. His father has been for fifty years Förster at Fülbach, close to Coburg.”—Footnote by the Queen.

[9] “Who was very active and efficient. He is now a page.”—Footnote by the Queen.

[10] Greville’s Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria, Vol. III., pp. 296, 297.

[11] Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort.

[12] Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. XXXVIII.

[13] Greville’s Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria, Vol. III. p. 335.

[14] Memorials of an Ex-Minister, by Lord Malmesbury, Vol. I. p. 261.

[15] This, of course, applies only to States within the European comity of nations. Semi-barbaric Asiatic or African States—e.g., Turkey and Tunis—by special treaties or “capitulations,” surrendered to England extra-territorial jurisdiction over cases in which her subjects resident in their territories were concerned.

[16] The details of this intrigue, it is understood, were recorded by Mr. Greville, but the publication of them was withheld by the editor of his “Journal,” for reasons which may easily be guessed. The whole story will probably not be told during the lifetime of the Queen.

[17] Had the Bill passed, Lord Clarendon would have been Irish Secretary.

[18] See a curious letter of Croker’s in the third volume of “The Croker Papers.”

[19] He was beaten only by a majority of 3.

[20] See the Queen’s letter to King Leopold, cited in Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, Ch. XXXIX.

[21] It is commonly called “the Queen’s Reading Lamp,” but it may be said that Sir Theodore Martin is not quite correct in assuming that this type of lamp was introduced into England by Prince Albert. A similar lamp was in use in Cambridge long before the Prince came to this country, and was known as the “Cambridge Reading Lamp.”

[22] Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. XXXI.

[23] Punch, Vol. XVIII., p. 229.

[24] Mr. Cobden always said that such a protest would have deterred Russia from stamping out Hungarian liberty.

[25] Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort.

[26] Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort.

[27] “One of our keepers since 1851. An excellent, intelligent man, much liked by the Prince. He, like many others, spit blood after running the race up that steep hill in the short space of time, and he has never been so strong since. The running up-hill has in consequence been discontinued. He lives in a cottage at the back of Craig Gowan (commanding a beautiful view) called Robrech, which the Prince built for him.”—Note by the Queen in “Leaves from a Journal.”

[28] The allusion here is to the Ritualists or Puseyites, or Tractarians, as they were called then.

[29] Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort.

[30] Morley’s Life of Cobden.

[31] Morley’s Life of Cobden.

[32] It is but right to say that Mr. Herries was now over seventy years of age, and had been virtually shelved for twenty years.

[33] According to Mr. Greville, it was Mr. Thomas Baring.

[34] Letters of the Right Hon. Sir George Cornewall Lewis, Bart., to various friends, edited by the Rev. Sir Gilbert Frankland Lewis, Bart., p. 240.

[35] Mr. Disraeli did not support the Tory opposition to the Jews.

[36] Greville’s Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria, Vol. III., p. 407.

[37] The Editor of the Times.

[38] Greville’s Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria, Vol. III., p. 415.

[39] Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. XLII.

[40] Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught.

[41] Quoted by Sir Theodore Martin in his Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. XLII.

[42] Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. I. pp. 284 and 288.

[43] Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. XLIII.

[44] Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. XLIV.

[45] See p. 479.

[46] These were Morny (a natural son of the Prince-President’s mother, the Queen Hortense, by Count Flahault), Persigny, Fleury, Maupas, Marshal Mangan, and probably Rouher.

[47] Correspondence and Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior, edited by W. C. M. Simpson, Vol. II., p. 5.

[48] De Tocqueville’s Conversations and Correspondence with Nassau W. Senior, Vol. II., p. 6.

[49] Greville’s Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria, Vol. III., p. 447.

[50] Lord Malmesbury’s Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. I., p. 309.

[51] The corresponding office in our day is Secretary of State for India.

[52] Letters of the Right Hon. Sir George Cornewall Lewis, Bart., to various persons, edited by the Rev. Sir Gilbert Frankland Lewis, Bart., p. 251.

[53] Mr. Greville’s Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria, Vol. III., p. 448.

[54] Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. I., p. 332.

[55] On coming into office, Lord Derby announced that it was the mission of his Government to “oppose some barrier against the democratic influence that is continually encroaching, which would throw power nominally into the hands of the masses, but practically into the hands of the demagogues who lead them.”

[56] This was the occasion, not the cause. The Americans and the French were beginning to show themselves in the Eastern seas. According to Mr. Arnold, it was because they were casting covetous eyes on the Delta of the Irawaddy that Lord Dalhousie determined to forestall them by annexing that region. See Arnold’s Administration of Lord Dalhousie, Vol. II., p. 14; Papers of the House of Lords, 1856, No. 161.

[57] Lord Derby and Mr. Herries admitted that Lambert acted without instructions. Hansard, Vol. CXX., p. 656; Memoirs of Herries, Vol. II., p. 250; Parl. Papers relating to Burmah, 1852. Cobden also accused Fishbourne of provoking the Governor. See Cobden’s Political Writings, Vol. II., p. 57.

[58] Life and Correspondence of Lord Palmerston, by the Right Hon. Evelyn Ashley, Vol. II., p. 247.

[59] Morley’s Life of Cobden, Chap. XX.

[60] Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. XLVI.

[61] Morley’s Life of Cobden, Chap. XXI.

[62] Spencer Walpole’s History of England. London: Longmans, Green, and Co. 1886. Vol. V., p. 43.

[63] Reminiscences and Opinions of Sir Francis Hastings Doyle, Bart. London: Longmans, Green, and Co. 1886. Pages 321-330.

[64] Hansard, Vol. CXXIII., p. 351.

[65] Ibid., p. 411.

[66] Letters of the Right Hon. Sir George Cornewall Lewis, Bart., to Various Persons, p. 259.

[67] T. P. O’Connor’s Life of Lord Beaconsfield, p. 441; Hickman’s Beaconsfield, p. 183.

[68] Hansard, Vol. CXXIII., p. 1693.

[69] It is worth while to recall this fact. After the resignation of Mr. Gladstone in 1886, when the Tory Party attempted to form a Coalition Ministry under Lord Hartington as Premier, and Lord Salisbury as Foreign Secretary, the project was defended on the plea, that just as the Whigs in 1852 bought up a small but powerful faction of Peelites, by giving their leader the Premiership, so should the Tories in 1886 buy up the small but powerful section of Liberal “Unionists” by putting Lord Hartington at the head of affairs. The argument, it will be seen, was based on a complete ignorance of party history and of the ideas and policy of the Court in 1852, because it was for other reasons altogether that Lord Aberdeen was elevated to the Premiership.

[70] It was partly by Macaulay’s persuasion that Lord John permitted himself to be embalmed in history as the fourth Prime Minister of the century who, after serving as Premier, accepted an inferior rank. The other three were Sidmouth, Goderich, and Wellington. “Russell’s example,” says Mr. Spencer Walpole, “indicates that a man who has once served in the highest place had better refuse all subordinate offices.” Cf. Walpole’s History of England, Vol. V., p. 61; and Trevelyan’s Life of Macaulay, Vol. II., Chap. XIII.

[71] Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. LXVII.

[72] Letters of the late Sir G. C. Lewis, Bart., p. 260.

[73] Lord Malmesbury, who was at Balmoral at the time, is the authority for this statement. Vide Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. I., p. 377.

[74] Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. XLVI.

[75] Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. I, p. 347.

[76] “Persigny,” writes Lord Malmesbury, “whose real name was Fialin, was one of those adventurers who looked forward with confidence to the success of Louis Napoleon’s fatalism and dreams of ambition, and proved it by the most absolute devotion, and, I must add, personal affection for his master, whom he always accompanied through his failures and imprisonments. Faithful to the Emperor, the Emperor was faithful to him, and loaded him with honours. He was a courageous and impetuous man, and his hot temper was against him as ambassador.”—Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. I., p. 300.

[77] Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. I., p. 310.

[78] Morley’s Life of Cobden, Chap. XXI.

[79] On hearing of the coup d’état, the Queen, without waiting for Ministerial advice, personally directed the Cabinet to follow a policy of strict neutrality. Lord John Russell replied: “Your Majesty’s directions respecting the state of affairs in Paris shall be followed.” Note that the relations of the Crown and the Minister were identical in this case with those which obtained under the Tudor Sovereigns. It is a curious instance of a policy being initiated by specific “directions” from the Queen in an age when, according to constitutional practice, the functions of the Crown are supposed to be limited to suggestion, criticism, and sanction.

[80] Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. XLVII.

[81] English Ambassador at Paris.

[82] Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. I., p. 379.

[83] This person wielded an influence that few people suspected at the time. For example, in September, 1852, Lord Malmesbury, then Foreign Secretary, set a gang of police spies to watch the outraged victims of the coup d’état in London. Having put together all the information he could get, he illustrated the spirited foreign policy of the day by sending his private secretary and relative, Mr. George Harris, to convey this information secretly to Charles Louis Bonaparte. But that potentate did not deign to give Mr. Harris an interview. For three days he was kept dancing attendance, and at last by a private letter of introduction to an aide-de-camp of the President’s, he got access to Canrobert, Tascher, and Roquet, who loftily told him that in a week’s time perhaps he might have an audience. “Then,” writes Mr. Harris to Lord Malmesbury, “I returned to Paris, and called on Mrs. Howard, toadied and flattered her, stating that I was in a great hurry to get back to London, and only wanted to see his Highness the President for two minutes. She sent off an orderly at once, and before night, I received an invitation from Louis Napoleon to accompany him out shooting to say my say, at 5.30, and dine afterwards.”—Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. I., p. 346. That the Foreign Minister of England should act the part of a Bonapartist spy, is curious. That his relative and private secretary should have accepted the mission of a subordinate mouchard, and, in carrying it out, should have “toadied and flattered” a Parisian cocotte to get an audience from the Prince-President, gives one a quaint glimpse of diplomatic manners and customs in 1852.

[84] Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. I., p. 379.

[85] The Imperial marriage took place—the civil ceremony on the 29th, and the religious ceremony on the 30th of January, 1853.

[86] Compare with such comments a passage in a letter written by Mr. Nassau Senior, to M. de Tocqueville. “Mrs. Grote tells me that you rather complain that the English papers approve the marriage, a marriage which you all disapprove. The fact is that we like the marriage because you dislike it. We are, above all things, desirous that the present tyranny should end as quickly as possible. It can end only by the general alienation of the French people from the tyrant; and every fault that he commits delights us, because it is a step towards his fall.”—Correspondence and Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville, Vol. II., p. 34. Cf. also Palmerston’s opinion from another point of view. Ashley’s Life of Lord Palmerston, Vol. II., p. 7.

[87] Mr. Disraeli reckoned the revenue of 1852 at £51,625,000. It actually reached £53,089,000. He set down the expenditure at £51,164,000, whereas it came only to £50,782,000.

[88] Dowell’s History of Taxation, Vol. II., p. 322; Smith’s Wealth of Nations, Vol. III., p. 337.

[89] These bore interest at £1 10s. per cent., but were in future to bear interest at £2 15s. up to 1864, and £2 10s. up to 1891.

[90] Walpole’s History of England, Vol. V., p. 68.

[91] Students of financial history may be referred to Hansard, Vol. CXXL, p. 11, for Mr. Disraeli’s first Budget, and to Hansard, Vol. CXXV., pp. 818, 1355, 1399, and 1423, for Mr. Gladstone’s. Cf, also Report of the Commissioners of Inland Revenue, 1870.

[92] This was the principle which Mr. Fox and the “old Whigs” advocated.

[93] Walpole’s History of England, Vol. V., p. 45.

[94] Walpole’s History of England, Vol. V., p. 49.

[95] For facts bearing on this point, see Fawcett’s Manual of Political Economy, p. 490.

[96] In 1847 the Mint coined £5,000,000, in 1850 £11,000,000, and in 1858 only £1,200,000.

[97] Wheat which in June, 1853, stood at 45s. a quarter, on the 25th of November went up to 72s. 9d. The 4-lb. loaf rose from 10½d. to 1s. Annual Register, Vol. XCV., p. 165.

[98] “You know,” said the Emperor on the 14th of January, to Sir Hamilton Seymour, “the dreams and plans in which the Empress Catherine was in the habit of indulging: these were handed down to our time; but, while I inherited immense territorial possessions, I did not inherit those visions—those intentions if you like to call them so.” And again on the 22nd of February, “I will not tolerate the permanent occupation of Constantinople by the Russians; having said this, I will say that it never shall be held by the English, or French, or any other great nation.” Secret Correspondence between Sir G. H. Seymour, British Chargé d’Affaires at St. Petersburg, and Her Majesty’s Government. Eastern Papers, Part V.

[99] Secret Correspondence, Eastern Papers, Part V., p. 204.

[100] Diplomatic Study of the Crimean War, from Russian Official Sources, Vol. I., p. 115.

[101] Consult on this subject Mr. Nassau Senior’s article in North British Quarterly Review for February, 1851, on “The State of the Continent.”

[102] Louis Philippe, it must be stated in justice to Napoleon III., also claimed for the Latin Church the right of repairing the dome of the Holy Sepulchre in the Latin instead of the Byzantine form, a claim which was indescribably offensive to the Greek priests.—North British Quarterly Review, February, 1851.

[103] Dip. Stud. Crimean War, Vol. I., p. 134.

[104] Spencer Walpole’s History of England, Vol. V., p. 79.

[105] Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. XI.

[106] Russian Ambassador in London.

[107] Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. I., pp. 402, 403.

[108] Mr. Disraeli’s Speech at Manchester, April 3, 1872.

[109] See Count Nesselrode’s Memorandum embodying the views which, according to the Czar, were agreed on in the conversations he held with the Tory Ministers in 1844.—Eastern Papers, 1854, Part VI. This document, probably the one referred to by Lord Malmesbury, was transmitted to England on the Czar’s return to St. Petersburg, and deposited unchallenged in the secret archives of the Foreign Office.

[110] Eastern Papers, 1852, Part VI. pp. 10, 11.

[111] Afterwards Lord Strathnairn.

[112] Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. I., pp. 387-389. It is right to state the fact as communicated to Lord Malmesbury by the French Emperor in conversation, because Mr. Walpole rather unfairly asserts that the Emperor of the French saw in Rose’s fear “a fresh excuse for embroiling France.”—Walpole’s History of England, Vol. V., p. 84.

[113] Russia argued that she might fairly exercise the same kind of protectorate that France had always asserted over Roman Catholics and England over Protestants in Turkey. Against this it was urged that there was a difference in degree between the two cases which amounted to a difference in kind, for, whereas the Catholic and Protestant subjects of the Sultan were only a few thousands, his Greek subjects were 12,000,000.

[114] Official Note of the Porte to the Powers, 28th of May.

[115] On the 1st of June Menschikoff’s Note of the 18th of May, intimating his withdrawal from Constantinople and threatening Turkey with coercion, arrived in London.

[116] It would have been also more candid at this juncture to have warned Russia that England would object to any actual invasion of the Principalities, before the resources of European diplomacy were exhausted.

[117] When these events had passed into history, Earl Russell, in his Recollections and Suggestions, said that, if he had been Premier in 1853, he would have insisted on Turkey accepting the Vienna Note. He was not Premier, but he was one of the leaders of the War Party in the Cabinet which supported Turkey in rejecting it. Lord Russell was, in fact, not the only statesman of the period who grew “wise after the event.”

[118] Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. XLVIII.

[119] Prince Bismarck: an Historical Biography by Charles Lowe, M.A., Vol. I., p. 205.

[120] Eastern Papers, Part I., p. 169.

[121] In the 7th Article of the Treaty of Kainardji it is provided that “The Sublime Porte promises to protect constantly the Christian religion and its Churches, and also it allows the Ministers of the Imperial Court of Russia to make on all occasions representations as well in favour of the new Church at Constantinople, of which mention will be made in the 14th Article, as in favour of those who officiate therein.” The 14th Article provides that “it is permitted to the High Court of Russia, in addition to the chapel built in the house of the Minister, to construct in the Galata quarter, in the street called Bey Oglu, a public church of the Greek rite, which shall be always under the protection of the Ministers of that Empire, and shielded from all obstruction and all damage.” The first words in italics appear to give Russia the same general kind of pledge to protect the Greek Christians in Turkey, the insertion of which in the Vienna Note was supposed to vitiate it. The issue, however, was so close that diplomacy ought to have prevented the disputants from coming to blows.

[122] Ashley’s Life of Palmerston, Vol. II., p. 276.

[123] Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. XLIX. Compare this with Lord Salisbury’s statement at the Guildhall banquet on the 9th of November, 1886, that England’s Eastern policy is to pledge herself to fight on the side of Austria, when Austria thinks fit to go to war. By substituting “Austria” for “Turkey” in the first two sentences of this important State Paper of the Queen’s, very interesting deductions might be drawn by students of Constitutional history.

[124] Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. XLIX.

[125] Walpole’s History of England, Vol. V., p. 99.

[126] Lord Malmesbury says that it was Mr. Gladstone and Lord Aberdeen who begged Palmerston to come back.—Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. I., p. 418. But Prince Albert’s statement is the truer one, though it is not so palatable to those writers who have for a quarter of a century devoted themselves to the heroic idealisation of Palmerston’s character and career, and who at one time tried to persuade themselves that, as a condition of his return, he forced the Ministry to send a fleet to avenge Sinope. In the middle of September, however, Palmerston and Russell had already persuaded the Cabinet to warn Russia that any attack on the Turkish fleet would be met by the fleets of England and France. Palmerston resigned, however, on the 15th of December. Moreover, it has not been noticed by Palmerstonian partisans that Prince Albert’s statement is curiously confirmed by Sir George Cornewall Lewis. Writing to Sir E. Head on the 4th of January, 1854, he says:—“Since I last wrote to you there has been the strange escapade of Palmerston. He disliked the Reform Bill, partly as being too extensive to suit his taste. He therefore resigned solely upon this measure; but he probably expected that a threat of resignation would bring his colleagues to terms, and was surprised at being taken at his word. When he went out he found that the country took his resignation very coolly, and that he was so much courted by the Derbyites that he could not avoid becoming their leader in the House of Commons in the next Session. He could not hope to occupy a neutral place, and so, finding that his position was a bad one—that it was too late in life for him to set about forming a new party—he changed his mind, and intimated to the Government that he wished to return.”—Letters of the Right Hon. Sir George Cornewall Lewis, Bart., p. 275.