“Above all things the Prince seems to have had no doctor attending him who was capable of recognising the gravity of the disease in time. Unfortunately, his physician, Dr. Bayly, had been killed in a railway accident the year before. Sir James Clark, fifty years before a distinguished physician of the old school, had virtually retired from practice, and probably had but a limited knowledge of the advance made by modern science in the treatment of typhoid diseases. As physician to the Queen his position had been for twenty years a sinecure. Her Majesty enjoys such excellent health that she does not know what it is to be ill. Hence to the last moment she clung to vain hopes in regard to the condition of her husband, which Sir James very possibly confirmed. In consequence of the urgent representations of Ministers,[117] Dr. Watson and Sir Henry Holland were summoned in addition to Dr. Jenner. Sir Henry Holland is said to have been the first to have had the courage, when it was too late, to tell the Queen the truth.

“The news of the death of King Dom Pedro, whom the Prince had loved as a son, had deeply affected him.... As he himself confessed, he hardly closed his eyes from the time he received the news till the fever actually set in. The troubles with America also embittered his last hours. He was so tired that at times he nodded off to sleep when standing. He felt always cold, and ate scarcely anything. Already in the autumn at Balmoral he had a presentiment of his death. So strong was this feeling ten days before he died that he enjoined Princess Alice, having ascertained that the Queen was not in the room, to write and tell her sister in Berlin that their father would not recover. The next day he asked the Princess whether she had done so, and she replied that she had not. On the 13th, the day before his death, he got up and transacted some business with his private secretary, Mr. Ruland. The Queen drove out, and during the drive appeared much easier about her husband’s condition. On her return she found him in bed, unconscious, and with the extremities ice-cold. Now for the first time they all realised the danger. Princess Alice, on her own responsibility, sent for the Prince of Wales, who was then at Cambridge. Sir Charles Phipps telegraphed during the night for the Duke of Cambridge, who left London by the first train on the 14th, and arrived at Windsor at 8 o’clock in the morning. The alarming symptoms had increased, and the doctors did not conceal that the Prince had only a few hours to live. The Queen alone still deceived herself with hopes, and telegraphed early on the 14th to Berlin, ‘Dear Vic., Papa has had a good night’s rest, and I hope the danger is over.’” These details are important, because they partially explain the secret of what has been to many inexplicable—the extreme sorrow that has clouded the Queen’s life during her long widowhood. It has been bitter to look back on the past and see how much might have been done that was left undone to save the life which was far dearer to her than her own.

As to the public aspects of the Queen’s married life, Count Vitzthum was favoured with many disclosures from the Duchess of Cambridge. “She spoke,” writes the Count, “with tears in her eyes, of the almost unparalleled happiness of his (the Prince Consort’s) twenty years of married life, now brought to such a sudden end. In all that clear and sunny sky there was only one cloud. How gladly would the Queen have shared her crown with the husband who helped her to wear it, and was her all in all! In vain already, in Sir Robert Peel’s time, had she expressed her wish to bestow the title of King upon her husband. The constitutional scruples of the deceased Tory Minister were urged still more emphatically by Lord Palmerston when, later on, the question was again mooted. The promotion of the Prince to the title of ‘Prince Consort’ was the consequence of a compromise. Prince Albert was naturalised in 1840, and obtained, in the same year, by letters patent, precedence next to the Queen. Nevertheless, he was not a British prince, and both at Court and the Privy Council his eldest son, on attaining his majority, must have taken precedence of him. ‘For the Prince of Wales,’ as the Duke of Cambridge says, ‘is and remains Prince of Wales.’”

“The value which the Queen attached to her husband’s precedence is explained by the submissive veneration she invariably showed him in great as well as small affairs. He was complete master in his house, and the active centre of an Empire whose power extends to every quarter of the globe. It was a gigantic task for a young German prince to think and act for all these millions of British subjects. All the threads were gathered together in his hands. For twenty-one years not a single despatch was ever sent from the Foreign Office which the Prince had not seen, studied, and, if necessary, altered. Not a single report of any importance from an Ambassador was allowed to be kept from him. The Secretary of State for the Colonies, the Secretary for War, the Home Secretary, the First Lord of the Admiralty—all handed to him every day just as large bundles of papers as did the Foreign Office. Everything was read, commented upon, and discussed. In addition to all this, the Prince kept up private correspondence with foreign Sovereigns, with British Ambassadors and Envoys, with the Governor-General of India, and with the Governors of the various colonies. No appointment in Church and State, in the Army or the Navy, was ever made without his approbation. At Court not the smallest thing was done without his order. No British Cabinet Minister has ever worked so hard during the Session of Parliament—and that is saying a good deal—as the Prince Consort did for twenty-one years. And the Ministers come and go; or at any rate, if frequently and long in office, as was the case with Palmerston and Russell, they have four or five months’ holiday every year. The Prince had no holidays at all. He was always in harness.

“The Continental notion that Royalty in England is a sinecure was signally refuted by the example of Prince Albert. As for the charge sometimes alleged against him, that owing to his Liberalism he yielded too much to the Ministers—in other words, to Parliament—it is wholly groundless. The influence exercised on the Government by the Crown is a power which makes itself felt, not merely in crises at home and abroad, but continually. This influence is, however, indirect, and wears a different garb in England to that which it assumes, for example, in Russia and France. Prince Albert’s task was all the more difficult, since his decision depended on unknown data, and he had to reckon with the changing factors of a constitution the foundations of which have been undermined for years by the rising waves of democracy. If, in spite of all this, the Crown’s game, as Prince Metternich expressed it, has been well played, this result is doubly creditable to the late Prince, inasmuch as he could only direct the game—not play it himself. With what tact and skill he did so is proved by the fact that, with the exception of the British Ministers and a few intimate friends, no one had any idea of the actual position of the Prince during his lifetime. Those who knew it were pledged to keep the secret, which now for the first time since his death has been revealed to the nation.

“As truth appears to have been the most prominent attribute of the Prince, this necessary game of concealment must have been all the more painful to him. The daily regard for public opinion gave rise to misunderstandings, to overcome which required an amount of elasticity which was bound gradually to weaken. Sparing as the deceased was of sleep, it is difficult to understand how he found time to grapple with the mass of business. He could never call an hour his own. The continual receptions, notwithstanding the uniformity of an almost cloister-like Court life, no less than the mere physical strain caused by the continual change of residence, cut up the day into pieces and left scarcely any time for rest and reflection. The wonder is how he found it possible, in the midst of these occupations, to attend with labouring conscientiousness to the cares of government; to conduct personally the education of nine children; to prosecute his studies in all branches of human knowledge; to astonish men with the results of these studies; and at the same time to live, as he did, for art, himself a student, and constant patron of music, painting, and poetry.”[118]

From these disclosures the following conclusions can now be drawn. The Prince Consort really killed himself by overwork. The Windsor fever, which was the proximate cause of his death, was neglected at the outset. Even when the symptoms were recognised as serious they were misunderstood and treated feebly by his physicians. Finally, when competent medical advice was sought, it was sought too late.

Of the Prince Consort’s character, much that is interesting and curious might be written. “The silent father of our kings to be” was respected rather than appreciated during his life by the nation he served so well. Save for the fact that he had no special aptitude for military science, we might have traced a curious parallelism between the work he did for England, and that which was done by William of Orange. Prince Albert’s strength, and perhaps his weakness, really lay in his capacity for looking at affairs from other than merely conventional British points of view. His serene intellect had scarcely any bias traceable to prejudice or vanity. His conclusions were always based on the application of a finely tempered logical mind, to all the facts of a given case that could be collected by patient and unceasing industry. A natural love of justice and truth informed his convictions. Instinctive

sagacity and wise tolerance characterised his judgments. The good sense—which, according to Sainte-Beuve, gave form and substance to the ideas of Louis XIV.—never deserted Prince Albert in any crisis of his life. His policy was seldom at fault, because its sole aim was to conserve national as distinguished from dynastic interests. If he erred during the Crimean War he erred with some of the wisest men of his time. If he undervalued the promise and potency of the great movement which led to Italian independence, his mistake was excusable. It was wrapt up in the tortuous policy of Napoleon III. and Cavour, which was hateful to him just because it was tortuous, and, moreover, he dreaded any movement on the Continent which, by letting loose the ungovernable ambition of the Bonapartist dynasty and giving free play to the aggressive instincts of France, might again convert Belgium and Germany into “the cockpit of Europe.” Arnold has said of Sophocles, “He saw life steadily and saw it whole.” The Prince Consort was almost alone among his contemporaries by reason of his capacity to see organised society steadily and to see it whole. He was an omnivorous, desultory reader, and his education was fortunately neither academical nor technical, neither exclusively literary nor exclusively scientific. His thirst for knowledge was unquenchable, and it was gratified under the guidance of a singularly correct taste. He was constantly corresponding with all sorts of interesting people, in all ranks of life, who happened to know anything that was worth knowing. Every business, or pursuit, or calling, that made men useful to each other, or added comfort, grace, beauty, and dignity to existence, had an irresistible fascination for him. A clever critic has said of Edmund Burke what might well be said of Prince Albert, whose mind, though less imaginative was more reflective. “Burke’s imagination,” writes Mr. Augustine Birrell, “led him to look out over the whole land: the legislator devising new laws; the judge expounding and enforcing old ones; the merchant despatching his goods and extending his credit; the banker advancing the money of his customers upon the credit of the merchant; the frugal man slowly accumulating the store which is to support him in old age; the ancient institutions of Church and University, with their seemly provisions for sound learning and pure religion; the parson in his pulpit; the poet pondering his rhymes; the farmer eyeing his crops; the painter covering his canvases; the player educating the feelings.”[119] Similarly, when Prince Albert thought of England or her interests, her aims, and her mission in the world, it was not the England of St. James’s or St. Giles’s, of Piccadilly or the slums, or of any special class or order, that presented itself to his mind. It was the England which the eye of the historian will see—the England which has been built up and is maintained by the toil, the self-sacrifice, the enterprise, the leadership, and the genius of all who in their several stations work for her with brain and hand. To give these workers peace and security—that was to the Prince Consort the fundamental problem of statecraft, and the only true touchstone of policies. His finger was always on the pulse of the nation, and to every change in its feverish throbbing he was as sensitive as a physician. His “catholicity of gaze” has done for his writings and his speeches, what originality of thought and brilliancy of style have done for those of other men. It has enabled them to stand the test of time. If he failed to win unbounded popularity during his lifetime, it was because, as the French say, he had the defects of his qualities. His lot was not with the idlers of the earth, and he had little in common either with an aristocracy of pleasure or a democracy of noisy but futile activities. “Society,” says Dr. Martineau, “has reason for dismay where there is an ever-widening chasm between the two summit levels of thought and character.” The Prince Consort’s public life seemed as if it were planned in order to bridge this chasm. As for his private life, it is perhaps enough to say that the veneration and love with which his family, his friends, and his servants regarded him sufficiently attest its unblemished worth. Of the calumnies that pursued him almost to the verge of the grave, there is little to add to what has been already stated in preceding chapters. They never touched his honour as a gentleman, or his conduct as the head of an illustrious family. All the attacks which were directed against him were ostensibly directed against his supposed interference with affairs of State—in the interests of foreign despots. These attacks were, however, made by the Iagos of politics, from mixed motives of malignity and self-interest. As the late Mr. Albany Fonblanque once remarked, they came from those who had distinguished themselves by their unfailing championship of every form of despotism, and by their inveterate hatred of liberty “in every province of politics, and in every part of the world.”[120] Calumny from such quarters never needed any explanation, and the Prince met it, not with a defence, but with disdain.

It was on the 23rd of December that the Prince Consort’s remains were removed from Windsor Castle, and temporarily deposited in the entrance to the Royal Vault in St. George’s Chapel, where they were to lie until the completion and consecration of a mausoleum for their reception. Shortly before noon the gloomy pageant began to file through the gate of the Norman Tower. It was headed by mourning coaches, containing four of the Prince’s old servants, followed by an array of coaches with officials of his suite and household. One of the Queen’s carriages preceded the hearse. In it was Lord Spencer, who, as the Prince’s Groom of the Stole, carried his “crown.” His bâton, sword, and hat were borne by Lieut.-Colonel Lord George Lennox, the Prince’s Lord of the Bedchamber. The hearse, decorated in quiet, good taste with the Prince’s escutcheons, was escorted by the Second Life Guards, followed by the Queen’s carriage, the carriages of the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Cambridge, and the Duchess of Cambridge. The line of route was kept by the Second Life Guards and Scots Fusiliers with arms reversed. Long ere the procession reached St. George’s Chapel, the choir was filled by those who were invited to the ceremony, but not to join in procession, and the Knights of the Garter were in their stalls. The Royal Family met in the chapter-room at noon, from which, when the funeral procession was re-formed, on the arrival of the corpse at the South Park, they were conducted to their places by the Lord Chamberlain. As before, the servants and dependents of the Prince headed the procession. They were followed by servants and officers of the Royal household, in order of rank, the bâton, sword, hat, and crown

of the Prince being carried immediately before the coffin, which was preceded by Lord Sydney, her Majesty’s Lord Chamberlain. The pall-bearers were Sir Charles Phipps, General Grey, General Wylde, Colonel Francis Seymour, Lord Waterpark, Colonel Hood, Lieut.-Colonel Dudley de Ros, and Major du Plat, who were respectively Treasurer, Private Secretary, Groom of the Bedchamber, Lord of the Bedchamber, Clerk Marshal, and equerries to his Royal Highness. Immediately after the coffin came Garter King-at-Arms, followed by the Prince of Wales as chief mourner, who was supported by Prince Arthur, the Duke of Saxe-Coburg-and-Gotha, and attended by General Bruce, the Crown Prince of Prussia, the Duke of Brabant, the Count de Flandres, the Duke de Nemours, Prince Louis of Hesse, Prince Edward of Saxe-Weimar, the Count Gleichen, and the Maharajah Dhuleep Singh. They were followed by their suites. On arriving within the choir, the Prince’s crown, bâton, sword, and hat were reverently laid on the coffin, at the head of which stood the Prince of Wales, with Prince Arthur and the Duke of Saxe-Coburg-and-Gotha on either side of him. The other illustrious mourners formed a group behind them. At the foot of the coffin the Lord Chamberlain stood, and the pall-bearers stood on each side of it. When the first part of the

service was over, the coffin was lowered into the vault. The Dean of Windsor having concluded the ritual, Garter-King-at-Arms proclaimed the style and titles of the Prince, and then the mourners left the chapel, while the “Dead March” in Saul was played on the organ. Lord Palmerston’s absence was accounted for by an attack of gout, which had been aggravated by his grief for the Prince’s death. Severe illness confined the Duke of Cambridge to his room. The absence of Dr. Jenner, which was remarked, was due to a melancholy cause. He was detained at Osborne in constant attendance on the grief-stricken Queen. For during the first agony of grief that followed the death of the Prince Consort serious fears were entertained lest the Queen should herself fall ill and die. “How you suffered,” wrote the Princess Alice to her mother many long years afterwards, “was dreadful to witness. Never shall I forget what I went through for you then; it tore my heart in pieces.”[121] Although the Princess took on herself the management of the household, and both verbally and by writing strove to transact her mother’s business, it was obvious that something must be done to rouse her Majesty from the lethargy of sorrow. King Leopold accordingly insisted on an immediate change of surroundings, and decided that she must be taken to Osborne. For a time the Queen resisted this decision. Even the Princess Alice remonstrated with Sir Charles Phipps against a step which seemed to her to be cruel. But she yielded at last to King Leopold’s wishes, and it was indeed through her influence that the Queen was finally induced to quit Windsor before her husband’s remains were laid in the grave.[122] “What a blow this has been,” wrote Bishop Wilberforce to the Hon. Arthur Gordon when describing the scene at St. George’s Chapel; “all my old affection for him (the Prince Consort) has revived over his tomb—and for our poor Queen.... The funeral was most deeply affecting; you saw old dry political eyes, which seemed as if they had long forgotten how to weep, gradually melting and running down in large drops of sympathy. The two Princes and the brother (the Duke of Saxe-Coburg-and-Gotha) and the son-in-law intended (Prince Louis of Hesse) were all deeply moved.”[123]

CHAPTER V.

WAR AND FAMINE.

When the United States formed themselves into a Federal Republic each State dealt as it pleased with the question of slavery. But when new Territories were annexed it was difficult to say whether slavery should or should not be recognised in them. The people of the slave States argued that under the Federal Constitution a citizen of any State had the right to settle in and transfer his property to any of the partially organised Territories which were owned in common by all the States. Slaves were property. Therefore a citizen who had slaves had a right to hold them in any of the Territories. Soon, however, Territories became sufficiently populous to be admitted as States. In that case was slavery to be recognised in them? During the Presidency of Mr. Monroe (1816) this difficulty became acute. A Bill authorising the Territory of Missouri to form itself into a State was introduced. Mr. Talmage, of New York, proposed to insert a clause converting the Territory into a Free State. The controversy raised on the point was settled in 1820 by the adoption of what was called “The Missouri Compromise” by which slavery was prohibited in new States north of latitude 36° 30´. The slave-owners’ party endeavoured, by making war on Mexico, to increase the territory available for slavery, and under the Presidency of General Taylor, who was elected in 1849, they persuaded Congress to virtually abandon the Missouri Compromise, and permit all Territories, in the event of becoming States, to decide for themselves whether or not they should recognise slavery. They based their hopes on the aggressive activity of their squatters. It was supposed that they would pour more rapidly into the new Territories than emigrants from the Free States, and thus in every plébiscite turn the scale in favour of slavery. And but for an accident the policy of the Southern leaders would have triumphed, and slavery would not only have been established in the new Territories contiguous to the Southern States, but even in the North-West itself. This accident was the discovery of gold in California. The “gold rush” from the Free States to the Pacific Coast was not a migration but an exodus, and long ere the Southern squatter could settle in force in these regions, they were swarming with citizens from New England. In the Pacific Territories, where slavery must have been legalised had the Missouri Compromise not been upset by Southern politicians, it was prohibited by popular vote, and in 1850 California joined the Union as a Free State. Meanwhile the Fugitive Slave Law had created much ill-feeling between the Free and other Slave States.[124] Some of them, like Massachusetts, prohibited its enforcement. But the two great parties were agreed in abiding by the Fugitive Law, and maintaining slavery in statu quo. During the administration of President Pierce (who was elected in 1852) the conflict over the organisation of Kansas and Nebraska into Territories disturbed the status quo. Their people had it in their power to determine the question of slavery for themselves, and to control the popular vote in favour of slavery. Missouri, which was a Slave State, therefore poured pro-slavery emigrants into both Territories. It was alleged that most of these were sham settlers, and that the pro-slavery vote was tainted by terrorism and fraud. But be that as it may, a Territorial government in favour of slavery was organised in Nebraska and Kansas, and President Pierce appointed Governors pledged to secure the ultimate admission of these Territories to the Union as Free States. To defeat this policy settlers from the Free States migrated to Nebraska and Kansas—“bleeding Kansas,” as it was called in the North—and they were supplied with arms and money to defend themselves against the “border ruffians” from Missouri, who naturally objected to their company. Ultimately there came to be two rival governments in the Territories, and when in 1856 the anti-slavery party elected their own State officers, and repudiated all that had been done in the interests of slavery, President Pierce ordered the Governor to call on Federal troops to enforce the pro-slavery laws of the Territory.

During the debates in Congress on this subject, Senator Sumner happening to make a strong speech in favour of the anti-slavery party in Kansas, was brutally assaulted in his place in the Senate by a slave-owner called Brooks, a senator from South Carolina. “To me,” said Sir George Cornewall Lewis of this outrage, writing to Sir Edmund Head, “it seems the first blow in a civil war,” and it was. In 1857 Mr. Buchanan was elected President. The Supreme Court of the United States, in the famous Dred Scott case, decided that negroes had no rights save those which the Government gave them, and that Congress could no more prohibit a citizen from taking his slave into any State, than it could prohibit him from taking there any kind of property whose safe possession was guaranteed to him by the Constitution.[125] This, of course, intensified the struggle between North and South for the control of Nebraska and “bleeding Kansas.” Southern slave-owners saw that they must have an outlet for their surplus slave population. If they lost Kansas and Nebraska they must seize Cuba or Mexico, or both, or secede from a Union in which the Slave States would be in a minority, and at the mercy of the Free States. The struggle went on till, in 1859, Kansas adopted, by a majority of 4,000, the Wyandotte Constitution, prohibiting slavery. President Buchanan seems to have prepared for the worst, because he now began secretly to pour munitions of war and arms, which were the common property of the North and the South, into Southern strongholds. The Democratic party split into a Southern and a Northern wing over the Dred Scott case, so that in November, 1859, the Republicans elected Mr. Abraham Lincoln as President, pledged to maintain the principle that freedom was the normal condition of the Territories, which Congress must preserve and defend—though slavery in the old Slave States was not assailed as a domestic institution.

The difference between North and South was thus sharp and clear. The North desired to maintain the status quo with regard to slavery, and to prohibit the extension of its area. The South demanded the extension of its area into the Territories, and all new States that might be carved out of them. Lincoln’s election was followed, at the beginning of 1860, by the secession of South Carolina. By the end of February, 1861, her example was imitated by Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Georgia, and Alabama. Tennessee, North Carolina, Arkansas, Kentucky, and Missouri were wavering. When Congress met, President Buchanan, in his last Message, explained how events were drifting, denied the right of the Southern States to secede, but doubted the power of Congress to levy war on seceding States. The Crittenden compromise was now proposed, but it came too late.[126] Another attempt was made to conciliate the South by an amendment to the Constitution, prohibiting Congress from ever meddling with slavery in the United States. By this time the seceding States had met at Montgomery, and had organised the Government of the Confederate States of America. The constitution adopted differed from that of the United States in that it recognised slavery, extended the term of the President’s office, and prohibited tariffs for other purposes than raising revenue.[127] Being producers, not of manufactured goods, but of raw material, the governing class in the South were naturally Free Traders. Mr. Jefferson Davis was chosen President, and Mr. Alexander H. Stephen Vice-President, and their Government prepared to carry on war. In Congress, the withdrawal of the Southern representatives enabled the Republicans by large majorities to admit Kansas as a Free State, to organise Nevada, Colorado, and Dakota as Territories, and to adopt a new protective tariff mainly in the interests of the Eastern States and Pennsylvania.

With the exception of two or three small forts, the Government of the seceding States took quiet possession of all fortresses and places of arms in their territory. This was easily done, because in most instances the officers in command, though holding Federal commissions, betrayed their masters. Major Anderson, however, was an exception. He held Fort Sumter, in Charleston Harbour, for the Federal Government. Mr. Lincoln was inaugurated as President on 4th of March, 1861. In his Message to Congress he said that the Government was determined to relieve Fort Sumter, and whilst denying the right of the South to secede, he asserted the right of the Federal Government to preserve the Union. On the 13th of April, 1861, Fort Sumter was attacked by the rebel, or Confederate forces, and on the 14th it surrendered. On the 15th Lincoln issued his first call for troops, and by this time only an insignificant section of the Democratic Party remained true to their principle that secession was a constitutional right, and that the Federal Government had no legal authority to coerce a State. Within a fortnight after the first shot was fired, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas joined the South. Small majorities, however, held Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri for the North. The capture of Fort Sumter stirred up a war feeling in the loyal States which astonished the Confederate leaders. So eagerly did the Northern men respond to Lincoln’s call that the Federal Government, ere the end of the year, had half a million of troops at its disposal. As, however, most of the officers of the regular army had gone over to the South, the Federal troops chiefly consisted of armed mobs of volunteers.

In England up to this point the main current of public opinion set in favour of the North. Lord Shaftesbury gave expression to the general voice when he said, in a letter to the Times, “the triumph of the South meant the consolidation of slavery, and his sympathies, therefore, were wholly for the North.”[128] But the inflated language in which Northern partisans discounted their easy conquest of the South, and denounced the “unnatural rebellion” of the Confederate States, tended to strengthen the aristocratic faction who were in favour of the South. It was asked sarcastically if Secession could possibly be more illegal than the revolt of the Thirteen Colonies from which the Federal Union sprang? Had not Americans defended, with wearisome iteration, the sacred right of insurrection in Monarchical countries? Was it consistent with English Liberalism to scan too closely the legitimate origin of States, either in the Old world or the New, which having struck out an independent existence, were prepared to defend it? As for slavery, had not President Lincoln overruled General Fremont’s order liberating slaves in Missouri? In fact, the partisans of the South grew bolder every day. The asperity of the Northern Press and Government, when they found they could not command the unanimous support of England, favoured the progress of the Southern cause in England. In concert with the French Government, Lord Palmerston not only adopted a policy of neutrality, but recognised each party to the struggle as belligerents. He would indeed have been foolish to have treated the people of twelve organised States as a small mob of rioters, and armed ships flying their flags, as pirates. For this step England was as violently denounced in the North, as France was fulsomely praised. The classes who have no anchorage in principles for their plastic opinions were fast veering round to the side of the South, and Mr. Lincoln’s strong measures, which caused Habeas Corpus to be suspended in Washington, suppressed newspapers, and imprisoned persons suspected of disloyalty, helped to obscure the real issue in the eyes of the English people.

In August the Federal troops attacked the Confederate position south of the Potomac at Bull’s Run, and were defeated; but the Northern levies effectually protected Washington, and held down wavering States like Maryland. Then an incident happened which threatened to extinguish the small party which among the wealthier classes in England still favoured the North. On the 8th of November, 1861, Captain Wilkes, of the San Jacinto, a Federal man-of-war, stopped and boarded the English mail steamer, Trent, which had the day before sailed from Havannah with passengers for Europe. Among these were Messrs. Mason and Slidell, Envoys accredited by the Confederate Government to the English and French Courts. Captain Wilkes arrested them and carried them away to the San Jacinto, in spite of the protests of the Commander of the Trent. On the 27th of November, when the news reached England, the partisans of the Southern States strove hard to lash the country into fury. The arrest was an outrage, but instead of inquiring whether Captain Wilkes acted under orders, the sympathisers with the South, headed by the

Tory Press, clamoured for war against the United States. The popular excitement increased every day, and the Prince Consort, then sickening under his last illness, grew anxious as to the result. The Crimean War had taught him that with popular passions roused, and a bellicose Minister like Palmerston in power, there was no limit to the folly which Englishmen might perpetrate. The Queen, who had steadfastly opposed every suggestion which had been made in the direction of manifesting sympathy with the Southern Confederacy, became nervous lest her policy of scrupulous neutrality should be thwarted. She was informed on the 29th of November that the Cabinet were determined to demand reparation, and Palmerston had indicated that he was ready to assume Captain Wilkes had been positively instructed by Mr. Lincoln’s Government to insult the British flag. To the Queen this seemed an absurd assumption. But she knew that if the idea was in Palmerston’s mind it would most certainly appear in some offensive form in Lord Russell’s despatches. Yet, if it was offensively manifested there, it would tempt the United States Government to refuse reparation—for Mr. Lincoln had also to contend with a stupid, boastful party in the Northern States, who were as eagerly clamouring for war with England as the same stupid party in England were clamouring for war with America.

On the 30th of November, 1861, Lord Russell forwarded the despatches to Windsor, and they confirmed the Queen’s suspicions. She disliked their tone, and took them to the Prince Consort, who quite endorsed her opinion. Though he was so ill that he could hardly hold his pen, he drafted a Memorandum for the Queen, complaining of the dispatch to the American Government, and suggesting a more courteous and friendly way of stating the case against them. Even this draft the Queen herself revised and slightly toned down. The point on which she and the Prince Consort insisted was that all through Lord Russell should emphasise the assumption that as the United States Government could not have intended to wantonly insult England, they would naturally be desirous of offering reparation for any breach of international law Captain Wilkes had committed, either by disobeying or misunderstanding his instructions. The words of the royal draft were adopted, and with the happiest result. When the despatch arrived at Washington, Mr. Seward, the Secretary of State, told Lord Lyons, the British Minister, that the wording of it meant peace or war. He begged him, therefore, to let him see it privately before it was presented officially. It was sent to him. After reading it, Seward went immediately to Lord Lyons and told him that the tone of the despatch was so courteous and friendly that it would enable him to avert war, in spite of the recriminatory outcry of the press, the vote of thanks which Congress had passed to Captain Wilkes, and the ovations he had received in Northern cities. Seward was now able to extricate his Government from a false position, by the loophole of escape which the Prince Consort’s sagacity had opened for him. With some difficulty he reconciled the Government and people of the North to admit that Captain Wilkes acted without instructions, that a breach of international law had been committed, but that the prisoners must be “cheerfully liberated.” The difficulty of his task was unfortunately aggravated by the menacing warlike preparations of the English Government, and the departure of troops for Canada before he had an opportunity of answering the despatch. On the 9th of January, 1862, the news that the dispute was settled reached the Queen. She replied, in a note to Lord Palmerston, that she was sure he would recognise that the peaceful issue to which the quarrel had been brought was “greatly owing to her beloved Prince,” whose Memorandum altering the despatch to the American Government “was the last thing he ever wrote.”[129] Palmerston’s warlike preparations, which nearly rendered a diplomatic solution of the difficulty impossible, cost the country £5,000,000.

Although the houses of the grandes dames of politics were opened earlier than usual in 1862, and politicians flocked to town sooner than was their custom, it was generally known that the Session would be dull and uneventful. The death of the Prince Consort overshadowed Society, and the leaders of both parties generously agreed that political strife should be suspended till the Queen was better able to bear the anxieties of party conflicts which lead to Ministerial crises. Lord Russell was well pleased with the termination of the American quarrel, because it left the Foreign Office free to assert the ascendency of England in the councils of Europe. Lord Palmerston was not displeased that his Government had won a diplomatic victory, for which the public, ignorant of the true effect of his extravagant military preparations on American opinion, gave him credit. Rumours had at this time gone abroad that his health was seriously impaired by the death of the Prince Consort, but these he was at pains to disperse by his conspicuous energy in the hunting-field. Lord Derby did not complain of the settlement of the Trent affair, because he saw it would enable Lord Palmerston to hold office for life. But the rank and file of the Tory Party, and a small fringe of aristocratic Whigs, were disappointed, for a war in which England would have fought on the side of the Southern Confederacy had been averted. Mr. Disraeli, who has obtained great credit for never manifesting his sympathies in favour of the slave-holding confederacy, did not conceal them from his intimate friends. In conversation with Count Vitzthum he said, “The effects on England (of the American War) are incalculable. Considering the probable loss to English trade, we (the Tory leaders) cannot, of course, proclaim openly the satisfaction we naturally feel at the collapse of Republican institutions. But speaking privately, we can only congratulate ourselves if the monarchical principle comes into favour on the other side of the Atlantic.”[130]

Parliament was opened on the 6th of February, 1862. The Speech from the Throne touched on the death of the Prince Consort, the termination of the dispute with the United States, and on the Convention with France and Spain, the object of which was to obtain redress from Mexico for wrongs committed by the Mexican Government on foreign residents. It alluded to a Land Transfer Bill, and vaguely to “other measures of public usefulness” which would be submitted to Parliament. The debate on the Address mainly consisted of eloquent eulogies on the late Prince Consort—Lord Palmerston declaring that it was no exaggeration to say that so far as the word “perfect” could be applied to human imperfection, it was applicable to the character of the Prince. Out of respect to the Queen, politics were but lightly touched, Ministers promising to give full information as to the blockade of the Confederate ports, and the Mexican enterprise.

National education, curiously enough, was the first subject that produced anything like an earnest discussion in Parliament. During the Recess a Revised Code had been drawn up by Mr. Lowe, which had roused the wrath of those interested in sectarian education. The objection to the old system was that the State did not get value for the subsidies which Parliament voted for Primary Education. Subventions to the Training Colleges seemed to lessen rather than stimulate voluntary efforts to maintain them; in fact, 68 per cent. of their cost was now borne by the State. Of the 2,200,000 children who ought to be in inspected schools, only 920,000 attended them, and of these only 230,000 received adequate instruction in reading, writing, and arithmetic. The Revised Code proposed to pay by results. A penny a head was to be given for each attendance over 100, provided the children (grouped according to age) passed examinations in reading, writing, and arithmetic. Failure in any one branch was to lead to the loss of one-third of the grant. Failure in all was to cut off the whole grant. The sectarian party, alarmed at the application of Mr. Lowe’s stern practical test to their work, first of all raised the cry of “Religion in Danger.” But when Parliament met, the Opposition attacked the Code on the ground that the Government, by embodying it in an Order in Council, had tried to evade Parliamentary criticism. This was a futile objection, for the scheme was not only criticised but modified under the fire of sharp assaults in both Houses of Parliament. These attacks were ultimately concentrated in the Resolutions which Mr. Walpole laid before the House of Commons. He condemned (1), the individual examination of the pupils; (2), the system of paying exclusively by results; and (3), the plan of grouping by age. It was, however, admitted on all sides that the existing system could not be defended. The only point to be decided was as to what was the right method of altering it. The existing system was neither cheap nor efficient, but Mr. Lowe contended that his system, if not both, would be either the one or the other. Ultimately a compromise was arranged. It was agreed that 4s. a year was to be given on the average annual attendance of each pupil; that 8s. would be given for reading, writing, and arithmetic to every pupil who put in 200 attendances, 1s. 3d. being deducted in case of failure in attendance; and managers were to be permitted to group pupils for examination as they thought best. Neglect of religious instruction in Anglican schools would forfeit the grant, and any future revision of the Code was to be laid before Parliament for a month before it became operative. In this struggle the Tories, therefore, carried most of their points.