Volume Iii Part 37 (1/2)
She concludes with every wish for his welfare and success.
[Footnote 96: Considerable difficulty had been found in appointing a successor to General Simpson, who had resigned a task which he found overtaxed his powers. Sir William Codrington was junior to three other Generals, who might have felt aggrieved by being pa.s.sed over. The sagacity of the Prince found a way out of the difficulty by appointing two of the three to the commands of the two _corps d'armee_ into which the Army had, at his instance, been subdivided. See _ante._ 22nd November, 1855, note 92.]
[Pageheading: VISIT OF KING OF SARDINIA]
_Queen Victoria to the King of the Belgians._
WINDSOR CASTLE, _5th December 1855_.
MY DEAREST UNCLE,--I must make many excuses for not writing to you yesterday, to thank you for your kind letter of the 30th, as on Friday and Sat.u.r.day my time was entirely taken up with my _Royal_ brother, the King of Sardinia,[97] and I had to make up for loss of time these last days. He leaves us to-morrow at an extraordinary hour--four o'clock in the morning (which you did once or twice)--wis.h.i.+ng to be at Compiegne to-morrow night, and at Turin on Tuesday. He is _eine ganz besondere, abenteuerliche Erscheinung_, startling in the extreme in appearance and manner when you _first_ see him, but, just as Aumale says, _il faut l'aimer quand on le connait bien_. He is so frank, open, just, straightforward, liberal and tolerant, with much sound good sense. He never breaks his word, and you may rely on him, but wild and extravagant, courting adventures and dangers, and with a very strange, short, rough manner, an exaggeration of that short manner of speaking which his poor brother had. He is shy in society, which makes him still more brusque, and he does not know (never having been out of his own country or even out in Society) what to say to the number of people who are presented to him here, and which is, I know from experience, a most odious thing. He is truly attached to the Orleans family, particularly to Aumale, and will be a friend and adviser to them. To-day he will be invested with the Order of the Garter. He is more like a Knight or King of the Middle Ages than anything one knows nowadays.
On Monday we go to Osborne till the 21st.
One word about Vicky. I must say that she has a quick discernment of character, and I have never seen her take _any_ predilection for a person which was _not motive_ by personal amiability, goodness, or distinction of some kind or other. You need be under no apprehension whatever on this subject; and she has, moreover, great tact and _esprit de conduite_. It is quite extraordinary how popular she is in Society--and again now, all these Foreigners are so struck with her sense and _conversation_ for her age.
Hoping soon to hear from you again, and wis.h.i.+ng that naughty Stockmar may yet be brought to come, believe me ever your devoted Niece,
VICTORIA R.
[Footnote 97: King Victor Emmanuel was received with great cordiality by the English people, grateful for his co-operation and for the gallantry of his soldiers at the Tchernaya. Count Cavour accompanied him, and drafted the reply read by the King at Guildhall to the address of the Corporation.]
[Pageheading: GARTER FEES]
_Viscount Palmerston to Queen Victoria._
DOWNING STREET, _11th December 1855_.
Viscount Palmerston presents his humble duty to your Majesty and submits a letter which he received a few days ago from the Duke of Newcastle declining the Garter. Viscount Palmerston on his return from Woburn, where he was for two days, saw the Duke of Newcastle, but found that the enclosed letter expressed the intention which he had formed. Viscount Palmerston would propose to your Majesty the Earl of Fortescue as a deserving object of your Majesty's gracious favour; Lord Fortescue held the high office of Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, and is a person highly and universally respected.[98]
Viscount Palmerston cannot refrain from saying on this occasion that he is not without a misgiving that the high amount of fees which he understands is paid by persons who are made Knights of the Garter may have some effect in rendering those whose incomes are not very large less anxious than they would otherwise be to receive this distinction; and he cannot but think that it is unseemly in general that persons upon whom your Majesty may be disposed to confer dignities and honours, either as a mark of your Majesty's favour or as a reward for their public services, should on that account be subject to a heavy pecuniary fine; and he intends to collect information with a view to consider whether all such fees might not be abolished, the officers to whom they are now paid receiving compensation in the shape of adequate fixed salary.[99] ...
[Footnote 98: Earl Fortescue received the Garter; he died in 1861.]
[Footnote 99: This reform was effected in 1905.]
_Queen Victoria to Lord Panmure._
WINDSOR CASTLE, _22nd December 1855_.
The Queen has received Lord Panmure's answer to her letter from Osborne, and is glad to see from it that he is quite agreed with the Queen on the subject of the Land Transport Corps. She would _most strongly_ urge Lord Panmure to give at once _carte blanche_ to Sir W. Codrington to organise it as he thinks best, and to make him personally responsible for it. We have only eight weeks left to the beginning of spring; a few references home and their answers would consume the whole of that time! The Army has now to carry their huts on their backs up to the Camp; if it had been fighting, it would have perished for want of them, like the last winter. If each Division, Brigade, and Battalion has not got within itself what it requires for its daily existence in the field, a movement will be quite impossible.