Part 17 (1/2)
In a letter written to Lady Mary Abercromby, more than two years before, she had expressed her feelings with regard to religious ceremonies. It is interesting that the word _mummeries_, which excited so much indignation in Lord John's Durham letter, occurs in this letter.
On January 13, 1848, she wrote:
Many thanks to you for the interesting account of the great ceremony on Christmas Day in St. Peter's, and of your own feelings about it. I believe that whatever is _meant_ as an act of devotion to G.o.d, or as an acknowledgment of His greatness and glory, whether expressed by the simple prayer of a Covenanter on the hill-side or by the ceremonies of a Catholic priesthood, or even by the prostrations of a Mahometan, or by the self-torture of a Hindoo, may and ought to inspire us with respect and with a devout feeling, at least when the wors.h.i.+ppers themselves are pious and sincere. Otherwise, indeed, if the _mummery_ is more apparent than the solemnity, I do not see how respect can be felt by those accustomed to a pure wors.h.i.+p, the words and meaning of which are clear and applicable to rich and poor, high and low....
_Lady John Russell to Lady Mary Abercromby_
LONDON, _April_ 11, 1851
I wonder what you will do with regard to teaching religion to Maillie when she is older. I am daily more and more convinced of the folly, or worse than folly, the mischief, of stuffing children's heads with doctrines some of which we do not believe ourselves (though we may think we do), others which we do not understand, while their hearts remain untouched.... Old as Johnny is, he does not yet go to church. I see with pain, but cannot help seeing, that from the time a child begins to go to church, the truth and candour of its religion are apt to suffer.... Oh, how far we still are from the religion of Christ! How unwilling to believe that G.o.d's ways are not our ways, nor His thoughts our thoughts!
How willing to bring them down to suit not what is divine, but what is earthly, in ourselves! Yet, happily, we do not feel or act in consistency with all that we repeat as a lesson upon the subject of our faith--for man cannot altogether crush the growth of the soul given by G.o.d--and I trust and believe a better time is coming, when freedom of thought and of word will be as common as they are now uncommon.
In May Lady John writes of a dinner-party in London where she had a long conversation with the Russian Amba.s.sador (Baron Brunow) on the Governments of Russia and England; she ended by hoping for a time ”when Russia will be more like this country than it is now, to which he answered with a start, and lifting up his hands, 'G.o.d forbid! May I never live to see Russia more like this country! G.o.d forbid, my dear Lady _Joan!'”_
To follow the events which led to the fall of the Ministry it is necessary to look abroad. The power of the Whigs in the House of Commons, such as it was, was the result of inability of Tories to combine, owing to their differences concerning Free Trade. The strength of Lord John's Ministry in the country depended largely upon the foreign policy of Palmerston, who was disliked and mistrusted by the Court. While Palmerston was defending his abrupt, highhanded policy towards Greece in the speech which made him the hero of the hour, a war was going on between Denmark and Schleswig-Holstein, in which the Prince Consort himself was much interested. It was a question as to whether Schleswig-Holstein should be permitted to join the German Federation. Holstein was a German fief, Schleswig was a Danish fief; unfortunately an old law linked them together in some mysterious fas.h.i.+on, as indissolubly as Siamese twins. Both wanted to join the Federation. Holstein had a good legal claim to do as it liked in this respect, Schleswig a bad one; but the law declared that both must be under the same government. Prussia interfered on behalf of the duchies; England, Austria, France, and the Baltic Powers joined in declaring that the Danish monarchy should not be divided.
The Prince Consort had Prussian sympathies, and he therefore disapproved of the strong line which Palmerston took up in this matter. It was not only Palmerston's policy, however, but the independence with which he was accustomed to carry it out, which annoyed the Court. He was a bad courtier; he domineered over princelings and kings abroad, and his behaviour to his own Sovereign did not in any way resemble Disraeli's. He not only ”never contradicted, only sometimes forgot”; on the contrary, he often omitted to tell the Queen what he was doing, and consequently she found herself in a false position.
At last the following peremptory reproof was addressed to him:
_Queen Victoria to Lord John Russell,_ [36]
Osborne, _August_ 12, 1850
... The Queen requires, first, that Lord Palmerston will distinctly state what he proposes in a given case, in order that the Queen may know as distinctly to what she has given her royal sanction; secondly, having once given her sanction to a measure, that it be not arbitrarily altered or modified by the Minister. Such an act she must consider as failing in sincerity towards the Crown, and justly to be visited by the exercise of her const.i.tutional right of dismissing that Minister. She expects to be kept informed of what pa.s.ses between him and Foreign Ministers before important decisions are taken, based upon that intercourse: to receive foreign dispatches in good time; and to have the drafts for her approval sent to her in sufficient time to make herself acquainted with their contents before they must be sent off. The Queen thinks it best that Lord John Russell should show this letter to Lord Palmerston.
[36] ”Letters of Queen Victoria,” vol. ii, chap. xix.
Palmerston apologized and promised amendment, but he did not resign, nor did the Prime Minister request him to do so. His foreign policy had hitherto vigorously befriended liberty on the Continent, and although the Queen and Prince Consort never strained the const.i.tutional limits of the prerogative, these limits are elastic and there was a general feeling among Liberals that the Court might acquire an overwhelming influence in diplomacy, and that certainly at the moment the Prince Consort's sympathies were too largely determined by his relations.h.i.+p to foreign royal families.
It is clear, however, that as long as the Crown is an integral part of the Executive, the Sovereign must have the fullest information upon foreign affairs. Palmerston had gone a great deal too far.
_Lady John Russell to Lady Mary Abercromby_
LONDON, _March_ 14, 1851
We have now heard from you several times since the _crisis_, [37] but not since you knew of our reinstatement in place and power, toil and trouble.... I should hardly have thought it possible that Ralph, hearing constantly from Lord Palmerston, had not discovered the change that has come over him since last year, when he took his stand and won his victory on the principles that became a Whig Minister, of sympathy with the const.i.tutionalists and antipathy to the absolutists all over Europe. Ever since that great debate he has gradually retreated from those principles.... I am not apt to be politically desponding, but the one thing which now threatens us is the loss of confidence of the House of Commons and the country....
[37] The defeat of the Government on Mr. Locke King's motion for the equalization of the county and borough franchise.
She was not right, however, in her estimate of the dangers which threatened the Ministry; they came from the Foreign Office and the Court, not from the Commons.
Kossuth, the leader of the Hungarian Revolution, had been received in England with great enthusiasm. He made a series of fiery speeches against the Austrian and Russian Governments, urging that in cases in which foreign Powers interfered with the internal politics of a country, as they had done in the case of the Revolution in Hungary, outside nations should combine to prevent it. This was thoroughly in harmony with Palmerston's foreign policy. He wished to receive Kossuth at his house, which would have been tantamount to admitting to a hostile att.i.tude towards Austria and Russia, who were nominally our friends. Lord John dissuaded him from doing this; but he did receive deputations at the Foreign Office, who spoke of the Emperors of Austria and Russia as ”odious and detestable a.s.sa.s.sins.” The Queen was extremely angry.
Windsor Castle, _November_ 13, 1851
The Queen talked long with me about Lord Palmerston and about Kossuth.
After accusing Lord Palmerston of every kind of fault and folly, public and private, she said several times, ”I have the very worst opinion of him.” I secretly agreed with her in much that she said of him, but openly defended him when I thought her unjust. I told her of his steadiness in friends.h.i.+p and constant kindness in word and deed to those he had known in early life, however separated from him by time and station. She did not believe it, and said she knew him to be quite wanting in feeling. This turned out to mean that his political enmities outlasted the good fortune of his enemies. She said if he took the part of the revolutionists in some countries he ought in all, and that while he pretended great compa.s.sion for the oppressed Hungarians and Italians, he would not care if the Schleswig-Holsteiners were all drowned. I said this was too common a failing with us all, etc. I allowed that I wished his faults were not laid on John's shoulders, and John's merits given to him, as has often been the case--and that it was a pity he sometimes used unnecessarily provoking language, but I would not grant that England was despised and hated by all other European countries.