then confessed that for the coming year he could not expect a surplus of more than £260,000,[191] which admitted only of a small reduction in the Carriage Duties. The unexpected costliness of the Parcel Post caused Mr. Childers to abandon in the meantime the scheme for introducing sixpenny telegrams; but he made proposals for the reduction of the National Debt and the withdrawal of light gold coin from circulation, that led to some controversy. Mr. Childers’ method of dealing with the Debt was to give holders of Three per Cent. Stock the option of taking Two and Three-quarters per Cent. or Two and a Half per Cent. Stock at the rate of £102 and £108 respectively for every £100 of Stock so exchanged. Mr. Childers argued that he would thus reduce the annual burden of the charge for the Debt (after providing for a Sinking Fund to cover the nominal increase in the capital cf the converted Stock) by £1,310,000. His Coinage Bill was lost because the Tories roused popular prejudice against it. Mr. Childers proposed to demonetise the half-sovereign by putting in it a certain amount of alloy and giving it a mere token-value. The charge that he was “debasing the currency” wrecked his project. A Bill strengthening the hands of the Privy Council in excluding diseased cattle was passed. But the great measure of the Session was the Reform Bill, which was introduced on the 28th of February. By it Mr. Gladstone extended household franchise to the counties, and a vigorous effort was made to compel him to introduce along with the Franchise Bill, a Bill for the Redistribution of Seats. The Second Reading of the Reform Bill was carried on the 7th of April, a majority of 340 to 210 having rejected the hostile amendment of the Conservatives, which was moved by Lord John Manners. The Tories then made many futile efforts to coerce Mr. Gladstone into disclosing his Redistribution Scheme, which he had, however, sketched in outline in his speech introducing the Franchise Bill. Ultimately the Third Reading was carried on the 26th of June—nemine contradicente. The Bill was read a first time in the House of Lords on the 27th of June, where Lord Cairns and the Tory Peers opposed it by an amendment, in which they refused to assent to any extension of the Franchise, without any provision for a redistribution of seats. The country began to murmur against this attitude of the Tory Peers, many of whom even deprecated the policy of supporting Lord Cairns’s amendment. It was, however, carried by a majority of 205 against 146. After that the Peers, by way of conciliating public opinion, agreed, on the motion of Lord Dunraven, to assent “to the principles of representation in the Bill.” Ministers immediately announced that they would take steps to prorogue Parliament in order to hold an autumn Session for the reintroduction of the Measure. This involved the sacrifice of all their projects of legislation, including Sir William Harcourt’s Bill for reforming the Government of London, Mr. Chamberlain’s Merchant Shipping Bill (prohibiting shipowners from making a profit out of the wreck of over-insured ships), the Railway Regulation Bill (which prevented railway companies from burdening traders and farmers with extortionate transport rates), the Scottish Universities Bill, the Welsh Education Bill, the Police Superannuation Bill, the Medical Acts Amendment Bill, the Corrupt Practices at Municipal Elections Bill, the Law of Evidence Amendment Bill, the Irish Sunday Closing Bill, and the Irish Land Purchase Bill. These, as well as many useful measures, perished in the legislative holocaust of the 10th of July, which the opposition of the Peers had brought about.
The Recess was spent in violent agitation. Party leaders on both sides strove to rouse public opinion against or on behalf of the action of the House of Lords. The country, on the whole, seemed day by day to gravitate towards the Liberals, and the general opinion soon came to be that the time had come for settling the question of Parliamentary Reform, and that, the Peers having accepted the principle of Mr. Gladstone’s Bill, a compromise as to details ought to be effected. The monster procession which passed through London on the 21st of July, together with Mr. Gladstone’s political campaign in Midlothian, did much to strengthen the hands of the Reformers. As might be expected, the Radicals took advantage of the occasion to direct a fierce and violent attack against the House of Lords as an institution. When the Session opened on the 23rd of October party spirit ran high, and both sides took “No Surrender!” as their watchword. Lord Randolph Churchill attempted to fix on Mr. Chamberlain a charge of inciting a Radical mob to break up a great Conservative demonstration which had been held in Aston Park, Birmingham, on the 13th of October. Mr. Chamberlain proved his innocence by quoting affidavits made by certain men, who swore that “Tory roughs” had provoked the riot. The genuineness of those affidavits was questioned, but to no purpose. When, however, they were made the basis of legal proceedings, it was noted as a curious coincidence that, with one exception, all the witnesses who had supplied Mr. Chamberlain with his exculpating affidavits, somehow vanished from the scene. The Franchise Bill was rapidly passed through the House of Commons, and the enormous majority of 140 in favour of the Second Reading brought the Tory Peers to a more reasonable state of mind. Moderate Conservatives began to build a golden bridge of retreat for their lordships. Nor was the task hard. It was soon discovered, as the result of private communications, that there was now no substantial difference of opinion between Conservatives like Sir Richard Cross and Liberals like Mr. Gladstone on the general principles of Redistribution. Nobody, in fact, had the courage to defend the continued enfranchisement of petty boroughs while large towns were not represented in Parliament save by the county vote. It was finally arranged by plenipotentiaries representing both parties that Mr. Gladstone’s draft Redistribution Bill should be submitted confidentially to Sir Stafford Northcote and his friends—that they should suggest, and in turn submit to Mr. Gladstone their amendments to it—that when both Parties agreed, Mr. Gladstone should receive from the Tories “an adequate assurance” that they meant to carry the Franchise Bill through the House of Lords, that upon the strength of this assurance Mr. Gladstone should introduce the Redistribution Bill in the House of Commons, and carry it to a Second Reading while the Peers were passing the Third Reading of the Franchise Bill. The whole understanding rested simply on an exchange of “words of honour” between the leaders on both sides, and it was loyally adhered to. Lord Salisbury, Sir Stafford Northcote, Mr. Gladstone, Lord Hartington, and Sir Charles Dilke, met and settled all serious disputes over the question of redistribution, and the Bill was introduced on the 1st of December. On the 4th of the month the measure was read a second time, the House of Lords having passed the Franchise Bill. On the 6th of December Parliament adjourned till the 19th of February, 1885, when the Redistribution Bill was to be finally dealt with in Committee, de die in diem.
The autumn Session did not close till the Government obtained a vote of credit of £1,000,000 for military operations in Egypt. The decision to send an expedition to Khartoum by way of the Nile was arrived at with manifest reluctance by the Ministry, and of all the courses open to them, including those which had been suggested by Gordon and rejected by Mr. Gladstone and Lord Granville, it was the most objectionable and hazardous.[192] Lord
Wolseley arrived at Cairo early in September, and the Mudir of Dongola not only held back the Mahdi, but furnished a base of operations to the English force. Down to the end of 1884 Lord Wolseley contrived to shroud his proceedings in a veil of mystery. Beyond the facts that he had railway transport to Sarras, that after that point, the expedition and its transport were conveyed up the falling river in whaleboats guided by Canadian boatmen,[193] that Lord Wolseley’s sanguine anticipation of a rapid advance had been falsified, that dangers and difficulties, which he ought to have foreseen, had been encountered, that it had been necessary to stimulate the
energies of the Army by offering a money reward to the first detachment which reached Debbeh, and that by the first week of January, 1885, Lord Wolseley would have about 7,000 men at Ambukol, of whom, perhaps, 2,000 might be ready to dash across the desert to Shendy, from whence the decisive blow at the Mahdi must be struck—beyond these facts and conjectures nothing was known. Dim rumours of Gordon’s futile sorties, of his feeling of disgust at being abandoned, and tidings that could not be doubted of the wreck of the steamer in which he had sent his gallant lieutenant, Colonel Stewart, and the British Consul at Khartoum, Mr. Frank Power, down to Berber, filled the minds of the people with the deepest anxiety. Gordon had sent Stewart to Berber with instructions to appeal to private munificence in the United States and British Colonies for funds with which to organise the relief expedition which he had ceased to beg from England. Stewart and his companions were murdered by natives after their steamer was wrecked. Hence the journals and diaries which Stewart carried were conveyed to the Mahdi, who, finding from them that Gordon was in dire straits, pressed the siege with redoubled energy.
After the failure of the Conference to adjust the financial difficulties of Egypt, England “regained her freedom of action.” Lord Northbrook, as we have seen, was sent to Cairo to report on the situation, which in reality was a very simple one. Egypt could not pay the annual interest on her debt, and the Foreign Powers would not, in the interests of the bondholders, submit to have it reduced unless better security were given for the principal. The only course open, therefore, was either repudiation, or the acknowledgment of British responsibility for the financial administration of Egypt, which would have enabled Mr. Gladstone to have cut down, not only the bondholders’ interest, but also the taxes extorted from the Egyptian people. Lord Northbrook’s appointment was caustically criticised by the Tory Opposition, who connected his family name of Baring with a mission undertaken in financial interests. His mission thus did much to destroy the confidence of the populace in the Government, and when he returned, his recommendations, so far as they could be discussed, still further discredited Mr. Gladstone’s Government. For Lord Northbrook had discovered a third course open to him in Egypt. It was to leave the interest of Shylock untouched, but to meet the deficit in the Egyptian Budget, caused by the payment of Shylock’s bond, by transferring from Egypt to England the burden of supporting the Army of Occupation.[194] As for the existing emergency, Lord Northbrook suggested temporary repudiation, and his suggestion was adopted. The Law of Liquidation was suspended, and the creditors of Egypt were asked to be satisfied with less than their due, till matters could be set right. The Queen’s Government early in December attempted to meet the financial difficulty, by proposing to advance a 3-1/2 per cent. loan to Egypt on the security of the Domain lands,[195] or personal estate of the Khedive. The Powers did not receive this proposal cordially. Necessity, which knows no law, having compelled the Egyptian Government, with the sanction of England, to suspend for the moment the Sinking Fund of the Unified Debt, a distinct violation of the Liquidation Law, the Debt Commission prosecuted the Egyptian Government before the International Tribunals. They of course gave judgment in favour of the Commission. Germany and Russia at this juncture insisted on their representatives sharing all the rights and powers of the Debt Commission, indeed, Germany, irritated by the Foreign and Colonial policy of England, showed signs of supporting certain inconvenient claims to the Domain lands which the ex-Khedive, Ismail Pasha, put forward.[196]
The coolness between Germany and England which marked the last half of 1884 arose out of what was at the time termed the “scramble for Africa.” The regions opened up by Mr. H. M. Stanley on the Congo had been practically occupied by an International Association, the head of which was the King of the Belgians. In fact, General Gordon was under an engagement to take up the government of this vast tract of land when he went to Khartoum. England, however, in order to exclude dangerous rivals, recognised the obsolete claims of Portugal to hold the outlet of the Congo; but, as Portuguese officials were alleged by commercial men to be obstructive and corrupt, this policy was not very popular. Germany, indeed, united the Powers in quashing it, and finally it was agreed that an International Conference should meet at Berlin to determine the conditions under which the outlet of the Congo should be controlled. But at this point Germany was sorely irritated by the provokingly vacillating policy of Lord Derby. There was a strip of territory, extending from Cape Colony to the Portuguese frontier on the Congo, in which a Bremen firm had established a trading settlement at Angra Pequena. They applied to Prince Bismarck for protection. He, in turn, asked Lord Granville if England claimed any sovereignty over this region (in which there was only a small British settlement at Walwich Bay), and whether the British Government could give the German traders the protection which they sought. Lord Kimberley, in his despatch to Sir Hercules Robinson of the 30th of December, had warned him that the Government refused to extend British jurisdiction north of the Orange River. But Lord Granville now told Prince Bismarck that, though English sovereignty had only been proclaimed formally at certain points along this coast, any encroachment on it by a foreign Power would be regarded by England as an encroachment on its rights. Again (31st of December, 1884) Prince Bismarck repeated his question—Did England propose to give the German traders protection, and, if so, what means had she at her disposal for that purpose? This despatch was referred to Lord Derby. He left it unanswered for six months, whereupon Prince Bismarck, stung by the affront, answered it in his own way by annexing Angra Pequena to Germany. Englishmen were indignant; but what was there to be said? The British Government refused at first to recognise the annexation. Then they said they would recognise it if Germany would pledge herself not to establish a penal colony on the coast, a demand which Prince Bismarck bluntly refused. Finally, when Lord Derby induced the Cape Colony to retaliate by annexing the coast round Angra Pequena between the Orange River and the Portuguese frontier, Prince Bismarck declined to recognise such an act of annexation. After this event Germany, concealing her designs, despatched an expedition to seize the Cameroons, over which the British Government, in response to the desire of the native chiefs, had already decided to extend a British Protectorate. Disputed land-claims, which German subjects in Fiji preferred in 1874, were also revived. In 1874 England had refused even to investigate them. Now, however, Lord Granville agreed to submit them to a mixed Commission. The British Government surrendered to Germany on these questions, by a curious coincidence, at the very time they issued their invitations to the London Conference on Egypt, in which they were expecting the support of Germany for their Egyptian policy.[197] As a matter of fact, this support was not obtained. In the Conference Count Münster, on behalf of Germany, stood neutral between France and England, who were unable to reconcile their interests. But he persisted in thrusting before the meeting the question of the imperfect administration of quarantine in Egypt by English officials, and on the 5th of August Lord Granville abruptly dissolved the Conference, because this matter was beyond the scope of its discussion. Nor was Prince Bismarck wrathful against England merely because he imagined that Lord Derby had some deep design of thwarting the sudden desire of Germany for colonial expansion.
In a moment of weakness, and when the laurels of victory had not quite faded from the brows of the heroes of Tel-el-Kebir, the British Government had applied to Prince Bismarck for hints and suggestions as to what they should do in Egypt. According to Lord Granville, Prince Bismarck’s advice was “Take it.”[198] According to Prince Bismarck, whilst he assured Lord Ampthill that Germany would not oppose the British annexation of
(From a Photograph by G. W. Wilson and Co.)
Egypt, his advice was that England should “establish a certain security of position in this connecting link between her European and Asiatic possessions” by administering Egypt as a leaseholder from the Sultan. In this way England, he thought, would attain her purpose, and yet escape a conflict with existing treaties, and “avoid putting France and other Powers out of temper.”[199] His counsel was not followed, which was the first affront. The feeble course actually adopted—that of attempting to govern Egypt by advice—had ended in a financial crisis that alarmed all the German bondholders, and they in turn put pressure on Prince Bismarck, that still further increased his irritation against England. Hence, when towards the end of 1884 he meditated a stroke of Colonial policy at the Antipodes, he showed little respect for British susceptibilities. In this new departure he was materially assisted by the incredible folly of Lord Derby. At the end of 1883 the Government of Queensland had sent a police magistrate to annex New Guinea, or rather that portion of it not claimed by the Dutch. It had already been annexed by wandering British navigators, but rumours of foreign designs on the island had quickened the apprehensions and action of the Australians. Lord Derby repudiated this act of annexation. As Lord Derby had been sedulous in warning the Colonists that in war they must defend themselves, it was not easy to understand why he objected to their occupying a territory which, if held by a foreign enemy, would give him a good base of operations against Australia. Ultimately, he nerved himself to the hazard of annexing the southern portion of New Guinea, east of the Dutch possessions, provided the Australian Colonies would enter into a federal engagement to bear part of the expense of holding and governing the country. Lord Derby had not, however, taken care in proclaiming in October, 1884, his intention of annexation to warn foreign Powers off other portions of the island and adjacent archipelago. He virtually invited rival Governments to slip in and seize what he had left untouched. The end of the year, therefore, saw the German flag flying over the unoccupied portion of New Guinea, and the archipelago of New Ireland and New Britain, and all Australia was in an uproar. These events stirred the sluggish heart of Lord Derby. He promptly forestalled a project of German annexation in South Africa by hoisting the British flag at Saint Lucia Bay and over the region between Cape Colony and Natal, known as Pondoland.
On the 25th of January the Marquis of Hertford, one of the ornaments of the Queen’s Court in her happier days, passed away from the scene. Lord Hertford had distinguished himself as an ideal Lord Chamberlain from 1874 to 1879, and he had won the confidence of her Majesty whilst serving as Equerry to the Prince Consort. This, he used to say, was the most interesting part of his career, and among his friends he occasionally told many curious stories, brightly illustrative of Court life in the Victorian period. He had a profound and warm regard for the Prince Consort, who talked more freely to him than to most men, chiefly, he said, because he knew his Equerry kept no diary. Lord Hertford’s stories all tended to throw light on the singularly unselfish nature of his Royal master. One of them, for example, was to the effect that when the Queen and the Prince were crossing the Solent, Lord Hertford, on appearing on deck, found the Prince pacing about and enjoying the fresh breeze, whereas the Queen had been compelled to retire to her cabin. He said to the Prince he was surprised to find him on deck in such a breeze, as he had always heard that his Royal Highness was a bad sailor. The Prince replied, “I know people say that about me, and imagine that the Queen never suffers from sea-sickness. It is better it should be so. The English laugh so much at sea-sickness, that I prefer the laugh should be against me rather than against the Queen.”
In the second week in February the Queen published a continuation of her “Leaves from the Journal of a Life in the Highlands,” the dedication of which was in these words:—“To my loyal Highlanders, and especially to the memory of my devoted personal attendant and faithful friend, John Brown, these records of my widowed life in Scotland are gratefully dedicated.”[200] In this volume she displayed much of the latent Jacobitism which one is apt to develop in the atmosphere of the northern mountains, and again and again, when she records her visits to the scenes, rich in the storied memories of “the ’15 and the ’45,” she expresses her feeling of pride and gratitude that she has inherited, not only the throne of the Stuarts, but the fervent loyalty that bound so many gallant hearts to the cause of “bonnie Prince Charlie.” Her reminiscences are somewhat tinged with melancholy, but the great and motherly loving-heartedness of the book is its chief charm, and secured for it an amazing popularity. It was said that the circulating libraries ordered copies by the ton, and the Press teemed with favourable reviews, in which her Majesty took great interest. As usual, however, she only read those that were marked for her perusal by her ladies. The cover was designed by the Princess Beatrice, and was in every way tasteful and artistic. But the portraits which embellished the work were badly reproduced. That of Brown, however, it may be noted, was an exception, for he was “flattered” by the artist out of all recognition.
The year 1884 was one that brought much sorrow to the Royal Family. During the months of January and February, whilst the Court was at Osborne, though her Majesty’s health had visibly improved, yet she was still suffering from the effects of her accident, and was quite unable to remain long in a standing position. On the 19th of February the Court removed to Windsor, and it was rumoured that the Queen would spend Easter in Germany. She was, in truth, desirous of being present at the marriage of her granddaughter, the Princess Victoria of Hesse, to Prince Louis of Battenberg. On the 26th of March she received Lieutenant W. Lloyd, R.H.A., at Windsor, when he presented to her one of the Mahdi’s flags which had been taken at Tokar, and just as preparations for the German tour were being made, the Royal Household was plunged into grief by sudden tidings of the death of the Duke of Albany, on the 28th of March. He had been living at Cannes for a few weeks. He had taken part with great glee in the festivities of the gayest season that had ever been witnessed in Nice. He returned to Cannes on the 27th, and it seems he had, in mounting the stairs of the Naval Club in the afternoon, fallen and hurt his right knee. He was attended to by Dr. Royle, and, though he went to bed, conversed quite gaily with those round him. At half-past two on the morning of the 28th Dr. Royle was roused by the sound of his stertorous breathing, and, on going to his bedside, found him dying in a fit. The news of his death reached Windsor at noon, and Sir H. Ponsonby broke it gently to the Queen, who was at first so prostrated with grief that her condition alarmed her attendants. As soon as she rallied her Majesty sent the Princess Beatrice to Claremont House to
comfort the Duchess of Albany, then in a delicate state of health. In the afternoon the ex-Empress Eugénie, clad in the deepest mourning, visited the Queen, and stayed till about seven in the evening. She informed those to whom she spoke when she left that her Majesty had apparently obtained some relief by giving expression to her anguish in the sympathetic presence of a friend who had herself suffered many sorrowful bereavements. To none did the sad news convey so severe a shock as to the Prince of Wales. The telegram was handed to him whilst he was chatting with some friends in Lord Sefton’s box on the Grand Stand at the Aintree Race-course, and at first the Prince seemed dazed with the message. He was only able to mutter to Lord Sefton in broken accents, “Albany is dead.” Having retired to his private room to compose his nerves, he drove off immediately to Croxteth. The rumour of the Duke’s death flew round the race-course, but at first was disbelieved. Then the sports were stopped, and the stampede of the pleasure-seekers to Liverpool, where it was hoped that the news would be contradicted, will long be remembered. In London the event was the theme of sympathetic discussion in every train and omnibus and tramcar in the afternoon, as men were returning home from business. The workmen’s clubs at night adjourned their political debates as a mark of sympathy for the Queen. On the following day her Majesty and the Princess Beatrice visited the Duchess of Albany, and the meeting was most touching and mournful. All the details of the funeral arrangements were superintended by the Queen, but the body of the Prince was brought back to England under the personal direction and care of the Prince of Wales, and buried on the 5th of April with solemn pomp in St. George’s Chapel, Windsor. Six of the pall-bearers—Lord Castlereagh, Lord Brook, Lord Harris, Mr. Sidney Herbert, Mr. Walter Campbell, and Mr. Mills—were undergraduates with the dead Prince at Christ Church.
The Duke of Albany once said, “I do not understand why people should always be so kind to me.” The reason was not far to seek. He was a young man with an interesting and amiable personality. He had a pensive turn that recalled his father, but with a dash of gaiety of heart which rendered him more acceptable to society than the Prince Consort ever managed to become. His long life of suffering and pain secured for him the sympathies of the people. Despite his ill-health he was even in childhood a bright and promising boy. Professor Tyndall has spoken highly of his capacity at this period, and Dean Stanley, one of his early mentors, so deeply influenced him that at one time the Prince indicated a desire to take Orders in the Anglican Church. At Oxford he was prohibited by the physicians from reading for honours, and after he became a member of the House of Lords, the Queen, noticing his eager interest in politics, had some trouble in dissuading him from plunging into the debates, as a free lance who loved to “drink delight of battle with his peers.”
When he was thwarted in this design, the Prince suggested that his services might be utilised in another direction. At the time Lord Normanby resigned the Governorship of Victoria Prince Leopold applied to Mr. Gladstone for the post, and the Tory newspapers and orators of the period heaped the most extravagant abuse on Mr. Gladstone for refusing the offer. Mr. Gladstone was even challenged in the House of Commons on the subject, but his lips being sealed by the Queen, he was unable to defend himself, or do more than make an evasive and ambiguous statement. The truth, however, was that Mr. Gladstone did not refuse the Prince’s offer. He referred it to Mr. Murray Smith, Agent-General for Victoria in London, with a request for his opinion. Mr. Smith replied that the appointment would give great satisfaction in Australia, but when the matter was laid before the Queen she peremptorily vetoed the project, assigning as a reason her fear that the Prince’s ill-health unfitted him for the duties of the position to which he aspired. Obvious reasons of State have, however, always made the Sovereigns of the Hanoverian dynasty reluctant to permit Princes of the Blood-Royal to serve as satraps in distant colonies where aspirations to independence are not always dormant.
Prince Leopold was a pleasing and polished orator, and being the only member of his family who spoke the English tongue without any trace of a German accent, his platform performances were always successful. His addresses reflected the thoughtful, cultivated mind of a young man who had lived much in the companionship of books, and who had read discursively without studying deeply. He was never commonplace, and his merely formal utterances were usually marked by a distinction of style, that well became a princely scholar. In the singularly beautiful preface which the Princess Christian wrote for the “Biographical Sketch and Letters” of her sister, the Grand Duchess of Hesse (Princess Alice), she says that as the Duke of Albany was the last to see her gifted sister in life, so he was the first of the Queen’s children “to follow her into the silent land.” It is a curious fact that, as with her, the shadow of early death seems to have cast itself in the form of presentiment over his young life. Mr. Frederick Myers, in his eulogistic reminiscences of the Duke of Albany, alludes to this circumstance in the following passage:—“The last time I saw him [the Duke of Albany] to speak to,” writes a friend from Cannes, March 30th, “being two days before he died, he would talk to me about death, and said he would like a military funeral, and, in fact, I had great difficulty in getting him off this melancholy subject. Finally, I asked, ‘Why, sir, do you talk in this morose manner?’ As he was about to answer he was called away, and said, ‘I’ll tell you later.’ I never saw him to speak to again, but he finished his answer to another lady, and said, ‘For two nights now the Princess Alice has appeared to me in my dreams, and says she is quite happy, and that she wants me to come and join her. That’s what makes me so thoughtful.’”[201]
The death of the Duke of Albany hushed the gaiety of a highly promising season, and West End tradesmen were full of lamentation when it was rumoured that the Court would shroud itself in gloom during the whole summer, though the official period of Court mourning was to end in May. But it was not alone in London that the Prince was mourned. His neighbours at Esher, rich and poor alike, felt his loss severely. They all spoke well of him and of his young wife, and recalled pleasant memories of his kindliness—how he joined the local chess club, sang at local concerts, and interested himself in the Duchess’s schemes for boarding out pauper children. After the death of the Duke the Queen announced her intention of maintaining Claremont as a residence for the widowed Duchess, a generous act, because Prince Leopold used to say that even with £20,000 a year to live on, Claremont kept him a poor man. But for the £20,000 which the Queen spent on the property during 1883 and 1884, this residence would in truth have seriously embarrassed him.[202] As a matter of fact, the favourite dwelling of the Duke of Albany was not Claremont but Boyton Manor, near Warminster in Wiltshire, of which place he was tenant when he died, and in the neighbourhood of which his memory is still lovingly cherished.[203]
Soon after the funeral of the Duke of Albany the Queen was recommended by Sir William Jenner to go to Germany, and she thus resolved to visit her son-in-law and grandchildren at Darmstadt, where the marriage of the Princess Victoria of Hesse with Prince Louis of Battenberg was to be celebrated at the end of the month (April). Sir William believed that the change of scene and surroundings would do the Queen more good than a mournful sojourn at Osborne, where everything must recall reminiscences of her dead son. Her Majesty accordingly left Windsor on the 15th of April for Port Victoria, whence she embarked on the Osborne and arrived at Flushing next morning. Therefrom she went by rail to Darmstadt, arriving early on the morning of the 17th. The voyage was unpleasant, and the weather between the Nore and the Scheldt so heavy that the Queen had to remain in her cabin during the greater part of her journey. Only the Grand Duke of Hesse and his daughters were on the platform to meet her Majesty, who had desired her reception to be as private as possible. Ere she left England she forwarded to the newspapers through the Home Secretary a letter expressing her gratitude to the people for their loving sympathy with her and the Duchess of Albany in their bereavement.
On the 30th of April the marriage of the Queen’s granddaughter, the Princess Victoria of Hesse, with Prince Louis of Battenberg, was solemnised in the small whitewashed Puritanical-looking chapel at Darmstadt, which was thronged with a brilliant crowd of specially invited guests, among whom the Queen, in her sombre mourning, was one of the most striking figures. With the Queen there were present, besides the family of the bride and bridegroom, the young Princess of Wales. The German Crown Prince led in the Princess of Wales, and the German Crown Princess was escorted by her brother, the Prince of Wales; Prince William of Prussia led in the Princess Beatrice, and the dark, Jewish-looking Prince of Bulgaria (brother of the bridegroom) escorted with obsequious gallantry the Princess Victoria of Prussia. The ceremony was short, simple, and touching; but the sermon on the duties of marriage which the Court preacher delivered was long and prosy. The Queen, after the ceremony was over, retired to the Palace, and did not attend the wedding banquet in the Schloss. The weather, which had been cold and bleak when the Queen arrived, suddenly became fine and mild, and she was, therefore, able to amuse herself in the public gardens. She had gone to Darmstadt rather reluctantly, but was now glad that she had taken Sir William Jenner’s advice. By her own wish she was lodged in the Neue Schloss, which she had built, at a cost of nearly £25,000, as a palace for the Princess Alice and her husband, and in the beautiful grounds of this place she drove about every morning in a pony-carriage with the Princess Beatrice. She took long drives every afternoon, and visited Auerbach (the chief country seat of the Grand Duke) and his shooting-lodge at Kranichstein. The ex-Empress Eugénie had offered to lend Arenenberg (a charming villa near Constance) to the Queen, but she did not desire to extend her tour beyond Darmstadt, and so the offer was not accepted. Accompanied by the Princess Beatrice, the Grand Duke, and the Princess Elizabeth of Hesse, her Majesty returned to Windsor on the 7th of May.
London was still dull and gloomy. Court mourning and the absence of the Prince of Wales (who was visiting his sister in Berlin) made the season of 1884 melancholy. On the 10th of May the Queen, the Grand Duke of Hesse, and the Princess Elizabeth paid a visit of condolence to the Duchess of Albany at Claremont, and on the 22nd her Majesty left Windsor for Balmoral. That she was much improved in health was evident, because not only were the public admitted to the railway-station at Perth, and Ferryhill, Aberdeen, but at the former she was able to walk from her carriage to the reception-room with a firm step and without assistance. It was a lovely warm day when her Majesty and suite drove along the north side of the Dee from Ballater to Balmoral. The sixty-fifth anniversary of her Majesty’s birthday was observed in London officially on the 24th of May, but Ministerial State dinners were not given owing to the Royal Family being in mourning. The anniversary was not to be kept at Balmoral, but at last the Queen directed that her servants, with those from Abergeldie and Birkhall, should dine in the Ball Room of the Castle, under the presidency of her Commissioner, Dr. Profeit. In the morning Mr. Boehm’s life-size statue of John Brown arrived, and it was placed on a pedestal in the grounds of Balmoral at a spot about two hundred yards north-west of the Castle, the site being selected by the Queen. The great sculptor superintended the ceremony of unveiling his work. On the 15th of June the Queen attended Crathie Church, for the first time since October, 1882, greatly to the relief of her God-fearing neighbours, who had begun to entertain a shocking suspicion that she had given up attendance at “public worship.” On the 25th the Court returned to Windsor, after a delightful holiday spent in the brightest and sunniest of weather. Every afternoon the Queen had been able to drive about Deeside, and she had even visited, though she had not stayed at, her cottage at the Glassalt Shiel. Though the return of the Prince of Wales to town from Wiesbaden early in June had given a fillip to a chilling season, Society was dull in the summer of 1884. Lord Sydney and Lord Kenmare had gently suggested to the Queen that her refusal to permit Drawing Rooms and State Concerts to be held was causing much disappointment at the West End, but without avail. Her Majesty, however, showed much tenacity in forbidding these functions, the proposal of which by the great officers of the Household she deemed disrespectful to the memory of her dead son. Nor was she conciliated by being reminded that during the season of 1861, after the death of the Duchess of Kent, she had held Drawing Rooms herself, whereas now she had the Princess of Wales ready to relieve her of the burden of attending them. Londoners, however, had their compensations. They discovered, in the gay and glittering gardens of the Health Exhibition at South Kensington, with their English and German bands and their brilliant combinations of Chinese lanterns and electric lamps, a delightful al fresco lounge. Here in the summer evenings the pursuit of pleasure was combined with a chastened homage to the cause of scientific enlightenment and social improvement. This was one of a series of specialised exhibitions, the organisation of which had been the work of the Prince of Wales, who also earned the gratitude of the town at this time by persuading the Queen to let him hold two Levees on her behalf. On the 20th of July the Queen and Princess Beatrice were at Claremont, where the Duchess of Albany gave birth to a son; after which her Majesty proceeded to Osborne on the 30th of the month, where she was visited by the German Crown Prince and Princess. An interesting event in the life of the Court in the season of 1884 was the reception given by the venerable Duchess of Cambridge at St. James’s Palace on the 25th of July to celebrate the completion of her eighty-seventh year. The season of 1884 virtually ended with the Garden Party which the Prince of Wales gave at Marlborough House on the same day. It ended, as it began, gloomily, and the social chroniclers lamented the poorness of the entertainments, the badness of the dinners, the mournfulness of the balls. They only brightened up when they recorded, with a transient gleam of joy, that, though all the “great houses” attended by Royalty had been closed, three had opened their doors since Easter, namely, Devonshire House, where Lord Hartington entertained guests twice; Norfolk House, where Lord and Lady Edmond Talbot gave a ball that was endurable; and Stafford House, where, at a small party in the middle of July, the Prince and Princess of Wales made their first appearance in Society since their mourning.
During August the Queen was much troubled as to the issue of the political crisis arising out of the Reform Bill debates, and the threatened conflict between the democracy and the House of Lords. She earnestly deprecated an attack on the Peers during the Recess, and Mr. Gladstone and his colleagues paid due deference to her opinions. She sent twice for Lord Rowton—better known, when Mr. Disraeli’s private secretary, as Mr. Montagu Corry—whom she regarded as the inheritor of Lord Beaconsfield’s ideas, to consult him on the situation. She made it clear to him that she was unwilling to use her Prerogative for the purpose of creating new Peers to force the Reform Bill through the Upper House. From this it was inferred that if the House of Lords resisted to the bitter end, the Queen would prefer to coerce them by a dissolution rather than by Prerogative. Lord Wolseley and Lord Northbrook were also summoned about this time to consult with her on the prospects of a campaign in Egypt. These anxious conferences were held after she had received the Abyssinian Envoys on the 20th of August. They had come to England bearing copies of a Treaty which had been concluded at Adowah with King John of Abyssinia. They were received by the Queen at Osborne, and at their audience they presented her Majesty with letters from King John and with various gifts, among which were a young elephant and a large monkey. Ere the Court left Osborne the Queen surprised the country by announcing her decision to confer the Order of the Garter on Prince George of Wales, for there was no precedent for giving the Garter to a junior member of the Royal Family in his minority. When the Queen came to the Throne there were only four Royal Knights of this Order, and pedants of heraldry now complained that there were twenty-eight, and that the Royal Knights outnumbered the ordinary ones.
On the 1st of September the Court proceeded to Balmoral, the Queen being accompanied by the Crown Princess and Princess Beatrice. The arrival of the Court at Balmoral, and the visit of Mr. Gladstone to Invercauld, had filled Braemar to overflowing. On the 18th of September the Queen held a Council at
Balmoral, at which Mr. Gladstone, Lord Fife, and Sir H. Ponsonby were present, Mr. Gladstone afterwards dining with her Majesty. Lord Ripon having resigned office as Viceroy of India, his successor, Lord Dufferin, visited the Queen at Balmoral in October. One by one the Royal guests fled southwards, and finally the Queen and Princess Beatrice left the Highlands for Windsor on the 20th of November—her Majesty’s return being hastened by grave political anxieties caused by the threatened collision between the two Houses of Parliament. Mr. Gladstone had at Balmoral so earnestly deprecated the obstinacy of the Peers, and so clearly pointed out to the Queen the difficulty of avoiding this collision whilst they persisted in their anti-Reform policy, that her Majesty subsequently used all her influence to bring about a compromise. It was with a view to renew her efforts in this direction that she returned to Windsor at the time when Lord Granville was offering to submit a draft Redistribution Bill for friendly but private inspection by the Tory leaders, provided the Peers would give a pledge to pass the Franchise Bill during the autumn Session. The appearance of Mrs. Gladstone’s name among the list of those who were at Lady Salisbury’s reception in Arlington Street on the 19th of November, was taken as an auspicious omen, and as indicating that the Conservative chiefs had not been insensible to the advice which the Queen had given to the Duke of Richmond in the Highlands. The supreme difficulty of bringing about the Reform compromise lay in breaking down the resistance of Lord Salisbury and the Tory Peers, who were resolved to force a dissolution on the basis of the old franchise. This resistance gradually weakened after Mr. Gladstone’s visit to Balmoral. That it finally disappeared was mainly due to the firm but gentle pressure which the Queen put on the Duke of Richmond in order to induce him and his colleagues to accept a compromise. The actual details of the Treaty between Mr. Gladstone and the Peers were settled in London. But the preliminaries of Peace were really negotiated by the Queen and the Duke of Richmond in Aberdeenshire, after the memorable “gathering of the clans” at Braemar in the autumn of 1884. After the return of the Court from Scotland many guests were received at Windsor, among whom Lord Sydney—who audits her Majesty’s private accounts, and, since the death of the Prince Consort, has been her confidential adviser—was one of the most favoured. On the 17th of December the Court removed to Osborne.