Part 2 (1/2)
”BALMORAL, _Sept. 30, 1869_.
”The Queen rejoices to think that the great character of her dear old Baron will be known now as it ought to be. Indeed, the greatest worth is often not known.[8] No one feels this so strongly as the Queen has done and does. What worth, what talent, what real greatness exist, unknown and unimagined, though not by the Great Judge of all men!”
I had made my selection of Stockmar's letters and memoranda for my purpose, when a volume by his son, the Baron Ernest von Stockmar, was published in the autumn of 1872, of _Memorabilia_ from his father's papers, which threw not a little additional light upon the life and character of this remarkable man.[9] As he was to form a prominent figure in my book, and, though little known to the general public, had been frequently misrepresented as a dangerous influence at the Queen's Court, I made his son's book the text for a careful monograph of the Baron for the _Quarterly Review_.[10] I was the more impelled to do so, as the Queen, the Princess Royal (Empress Frederic), and others of the Baron's friends thought the book had failed to do justice to the lovable and more attractive features of the Baron's character. His wisdom and great political sagacity spoke for themselves in the extracts from the published doc.u.ments, but the finer qualities were not brought out which endeared him to his friends. His son had not, perhaps, had so many opportunities as his English friends for judging the Baron, for a large part of Stockmar's life had been spent away from his home in Coburg, first in attendance on Prince Leopold (King of the Belgians), and afterwards in long visits at the English Court. This might well have been, seeing that ”Stockmar,” as M. Van de Weyer, who had known him long and intimately, wrote to me, ”concealed the tenderness of his heart, his loving nature, his sweet temper, his devotion to his friends, under a stoical appearance which deceived none of those who knew him well; and to know him was to love him.” His son had, somehow, failed to appreciate this side of his character, and his book, therefore, left an impression of hardness and austerity which did injustice to his father, and which it was my endeavour to remove.
That his influence upon the Queen and Prince was all for good, they were the first and always most eager to acknowledge. No one knew England and its people--what they would bear and what they would not bear in their sovereigns--better than he. Sir Robert Peel, Lords Aberdeen, Derby, Clarendon, John Russell, and Palmerston all deferred to his judgment as that of the wisest and most far-seeing politician of the day. Having very fully expressed my opinion of him from this point of view elsewhere, it only concerns me to say here, that the Queen considered that she owed much of the success of her reign to the sound const.i.tutional principles which he had impressed upon her, and to the warnings, almost prophetic, as to how the changes of circ.u.mstance and of opinion were to be dealt with, which his statesmanlike sagacity foresaw were likely to arise in the epoch of transition into which England and Europe were, in his view, rapidly advancing.
Stockmar, who had watched the Queen from childhood, wrote of her in 1847: ”The Queen improves greatly. She makes daily advances in discernment and experience; the candour, the love of truth, the fairness, the considerateness with which she judges men and things are truly delightful, and the ingenuous self-knowledge with which she speaks about herself is amiable to a degree.” Of that rare quality of ingenuousness I saw many ill.u.s.trations. Thus, for example, how few would be ready to make so frank a confession as to any portion of their past lives as this, in a letter to me (February 18, 1869), which Her Majesty gave as a reason why she could not send, for the purpose of the Prince's biography, her letters during the first years after her accession:--
”OSBORNE, _Feb. 18, 1869_.
”The Queen's own letters between 1837 and 1840 are not pleasing, and are, indeed, rather painful to herself. It was the least sensible and satisfactory time in her whole life, and she must therefore destroy a great many. That life of constant amus.e.m.e.nt, flattery, excitement, and mere politics had a bad effect (as it must have upon any one) on her naturally simple and serious nature. But all changed in 1840 [with her marriage].”
The Queen's candour and love of truth, too, made her impatient at being praised where praise was not due, especially where praise should have been given to the Prince Consort. Thus she writes to Lord John Russell (November 18, 1860), on reading in a Cape journal a speech of Sir George Grey's extolling the nature of the education given to her eldest sons: ”She feels, she must say, _pained_ at such constant praise of _her_ education of our sons, when it is _all_ due to the Prince, and when his untiring and indefatigable exertions for our children's good is the chief, indeed sole, cause of the success which till now has attended our efforts.... The praise so constantly given to the Queen, and the popularity she enjoys, she knows and feels are due, in a great measure, to the guidance and a.s.sistance of the Prince, to be whose wife she considers so great a privilege, and she feels it almost wrong when praise is given to _her_ for what she knows _he_ deserves.”
Every inch a Queen as she was, and careful that the Royal authority which she inherited should suffer no detriment in her hands, there ran through Her Majesty's nature a vein of modest humility as to her own knowledge and powers in things of common life, a seeking for guidance and help, which was infinitely touching. She made no secret to herself of her own faults and shortcomings. One does not expect queens to make acknowledgments of these, but even these were made upon occasion. Thus in her anxiety to throw light for me upon the Prince's character, she sent me a copy of a letter (July 13, 1848) in which he rebuked her, tenderly but firmly, for writing to him when he had gone from home on a public occasion, in what she calls ”a very discreditable fit of pettishness, which she was humiliated to have to own,” to the effect that he could do without her, and did not take her miniature with him.
In her letter to me she says, that she would not have written as she did had she not been spoilt by his never really leaving her. The Prince's reply is too sacred to quote in full; but what wife's heart would not leap with joy to read the concluding words? ”Dein liebes Bild trage Ich in mir; und die Miniaturen bleiben stets weit hinter diesen zuruck; eine solche auf meinem Tisch zu stellen um mich _Deiner_ zu _erinnern_ bedarf es nicht.”[11]
CHAPTER III.
The dominant quality in the Queen's character, it seemed to me, was her strong common-sense. It enabled her to see things in their just proportion, to avoid extremes, as a rule, in her estimate of persons, of opinions, and events; to accept the inevitable without futile murmur or resistance. Very early this quality must have been developed, and it will account for that perfect self-possession on the announcement of her accession and at her first Privy Council, which created surprise and admiration in all who witnessed it. Those who read of it were often incredulous, and stories of her agitation on these occasions have found a place from time to time in newspapers and elsewhere. One of these, which appeared in a respectable journal so late as November 1886, drew from the Queen the following very suggestive remark in a letter to me: ”The Queen was _not_ overwhelmed on her accession--rather full of courage, she may say. _She took things as they came, as she knew they must be._” It was so with her through life. She met trial, difficulty, or danger ”with courage,” and reconciled herself with a thoughtful constant spirit, and without pa.s.sionate remonstrance, to what she ”knew must be.” What but this quality of mind, and her strong sense of the claims of duty upon her as Sovereign, could have enabled her within a few days after the loss, which for a long time took all suns.h.i.+ne out of her life, to resume her active duties as Queen, and to continue them unbrokenly through feeble health and the many domestic anxieties and bereavements which during her long life pressed frequently and heavily upon her? The Queen's historian will have much to tell in ill.u.s.tration of her breadth of view, her prompt decision, and undaunted spirit in times of political difficulty. At these times, the truly Royal spirit within her answered to the call. A judgment enlightened by a vast experience, and unwarped by prejudice, then came into play. Her sole thought was for the good of her people, and to see that neither this, nor the position of her Empire before the world, should be in anywise impaired. To this end she brought into play the well-balanced judgment, which begets and is alone ent.i.tled to the name of common-sense.
The same quality was equally conspicuous in her judgment of the affairs of ordinary life. Of this I might have been able to give many examples, had I not made it my rule never to make a memorandum of any remarks on men and things that fell from Her Majesty at any of my interviews with her. In her letters to me, acute and characteristic remarks like the following frequently occurred: ”The wisest and best people are sadly weak and foolish about Great Marriages. The Queen cannot comprehend it.”
With her experience of the private history of the many homes of both the n.o.ble and the rich, who so able as she to judge how little of the true happiness of life results from the gratification of such an ambition?
”Her sagacity in reading people and their ruling motives and weaknesses”
was remarkable. This was noted by Archbishop Benson, and it often broke into remarks touched more with kindliness and humour than with sarcasm.
The Archbishop also remarks, truly, that the Queen ”was shrewder and fuller of knowledge than most men.” ”She had not much patience with their follies and the pettiness of their desires.” One recognises as very characteristic a remark of hers which the Archbishop quotes: ”I cannot understand the world--cannot comprehend the frivolities and littlenesses. It seems to me as if they were all a little mad.”[12]
Here, too, may be noted the gentleness of her judgments, even in cases where not to condemn would have been impossible. One was often reminded that the axiom, _Tout comprendre c'est tout pardonner_, was habitually present to her mind. If a kind construction could be put upon an action rather than a severe one, she was prompt to seize it. But at the same time her condemnation of falsehood, cant, party intrigue, egotistical ambition, or proved unworthiness was swift and stern.
The time had been when Mr Disraeli's attacks on her friend Sir Robert Peel had prepossessed her greatly against him. In one of my letters on the subject of the Prince's _Life_, I must have had occasion to refer to these attacks. This was her reply (7th of June 1870):--
”The Queen quite agrees with what Mr Martin says about Mr Disraeli's conduct to Sir R. Peel. It was and is a great blot, and it is to her the more extraordinary, as he seems a very kindhearted and courteous man.
But he was at that time very young, bitterly disappointed, not thought much of, and probably urged on by others.”
As the years went on Mr Disraeli won for himself a very high place in Her Majesty's regard. In him she recognised the patriotic statesman, free from all mean ambition, superior to the prejudices of party, looking with keen sagacity beyond ”the ignorant present,” his every thought directed to the weal, the safety, the expansion of the Empire.
She also found in him a man of generous instincts, on whom she could depend for consideration and sympathy. Among the other qualities for which she admired him were the constancy of his devotion to Lady Beaconsfield, and the honour which he paid to her memory upon her death.
”How touching,” she writes to me (December 26, 1872), ”is the account of Lady Beaconsfield's funeral! _He_ is a _very fine_ example to set before us in these days of _want_ of affection and devotion, and of belief in what is true, unselfish, and chivalrous.”
When in 1870 the land was deafened by the outcry about ”Woman's Rights,”
which has not yet wholly subsided, the Queen writes to me (29th May):--
”The Queen is most anxious to enlist every one who can speak or write to join in checking this mad, wicked folly of 'Woman's Rights,' with all its attendant horrors, on which her poor feeble s.e.x is bent, forgetting every sense of womanly feeling and propriety. Lady ---- ought to get a _good whipping_.