Lord Palmerston at this time was sixty-one years old. The elder son of the second Viscount Palmerston, he had been born on the family's estate, Broadlands in Hampshire, and had passed much of his childhood in Italy - where he learned to speak Italian fluently - before going to Harrow, then to Edinburgh to board with Dugald Stewart, the philosopher, before entering St John's College, Cambridge and taking the degree of Master of Arts without examination as at that time noblemen were permitted to do. Vivacious, self-confident and even-tempered, walking into rooms with brisk and jaunty step, he was a handsome man, very attractive to women and well meriting his nickname 'Cupid'. At Windsor one night he had entered the bedroom of one of the Queen's ladies in the unfulfilled hope of seducing her. George Anson, putting a slightly different interpretation on Palmerston's visit, suggested that, having been accustomed to sleeping with another lady in that bedroom, he had 'probably from force of habit floundered in'. Whatever his motives and intentions, the Queen found it difficult to forget Palmerston's conduct, while Prince Albert found it impossible to forgive.11
Before her marriage, however, when Palmerston had been Foreign Secretary in Melbourne's Cabinet, the Queen had been won over by Palmerston's charm and the trouble he took to instruct her in the intricacies and formalities of foreign politics, the supervision of which Prince Albert, like Baron Stockmar, was to persuade her to believe was 'peculiarly within the Sovereign's province'. Palmerston had taught her how to address her fellow sovereigns and how to end letters to them in her own hand, writing the appropriate endings for her in pencil so that she could write over them before the pencil marks were carefully rubbed out. He had also advised her as to what kinds of presents to give to these fellow sovereigns and to their most distinguished subjects. He gave her tutorials on foreign relations and provided her with specially drawn maps and an annotated Almanac de Gotha. She had found these lessons both instructive and enjoyable and Palmerston's company most agreeable: he was, she considered, both clever and amusing. After sitting next to him at dinner one evening she had told the King of the Belgians how 'pleasant and amusing' she had found Palmerston's conversation. They had subsequently had so much talk regarding Middle Eastern problems when she was pregnant with her first child that she had agreed the forthcoming baby would have to be called 'Turko-Egypto'. When Palmerston had left office upon Melbourne's resignation, the Queen had written of his 'valuable services', which he had performed in 'so admirable a manner' and which had 'so greatly promoted the honour and welfare of this Country in its relations with foreign powers'.
But slowly her attitude towards Palmerston had begun to change. In December 1839 he married Lord Melbourne's beautiful sister, Emily, whose first husband had been the fifth Earl Cowper; and the Queen, who disapproved of widows remarrying, had confided to an amused Lord Melbourne that 'somehow or other' she did not thereafter like Lord Palmerston as much as she had done in the past.
As Lord John Russell's Foreign Secretary he gave her constant cause for irritation. It could not be denied that the man was extremely knowledgeable and extraordinarily hard-working. Yet he was too impetuous in his determination to strengthen Britain, to assert the country's rights and maintain her influence, too prone to bluster and threaten, too highhanded. On occasions, he was astonishingly rude and undiplomatic. He sent despatches before the Queen had time to approve of them; he delayed sending boxes of papers for days on end and then sent so many at once that she could not get through them all; when obliged to do so he would apologize, blaming unnamed subordinates in the Foreign Office - over which he exercised what Charles Greville described as 'an absolute despotism' - and then carry on just as before.
The Queen was all the more annoyed at being sidetracked by Palmerston because not only had she been taught to believe by Baron Stockmar that it was the Crown's inalienable right to supervise foreign policy, but she believed also that Prince Albert had a far clearer grasp of the realities of foreign politics than any British politician, particularly such a politician as she now found Palmerston to be, with his insouciant, arrogant manner, his manipulation of the press, and his facile excuses. While she and Prince Albert were inclined to sympathize with the various monarchies of Europe, being related by blood or by marriage to so many of them, Palmerston was openly sympathetic towards the liberal movements striving to undermine them. Prince Albert's lengthy memoranda setting out his views on foreign relations were either completely ignored, or glanced at and set aside as though of no interest or account - a manifestation of disdain which the Queen found unforgivable. A case in point was the revolutionary movement for a united Italy. Whereas Palmerston could not regret the expulsion of the Austrians from Italy, as he told King Leopold, since their rule was 'hateful to the Italians', the Queen sympathized with the Emperor and felt ashamed of the policy which 'we are pursuing in this Italian controversy'. By the summer of 1848 she was so exasperated by what she took to be the overbearing conduct of the Foreign Office that she wrote to Lord John Russell to say that she was 'highly indignant' and 'would have no peace of mind' so long as Lord Palmerston remained at its head, the cause of 'no end of troubles'. Later, in September at Balmoral, she told Lord John that she could 'hardly go on with' Palmerston; she was 'seriously anxious and uneasy for the welfare of the country and for the peace of Europe in general'. Russell had to agree with her; yet, mindful of the undoubted fact that his Government could scarcely survive if Palmerston were to be dismissed, he assured the Queen that the Foreign Secretary was 'a very able man', 'entirely master of his office'.12
Europe was in turmoil that year. Twelve months before, the Queen had expressed herself as being 'very anxious for the future', while Prince Albert had written to Stockmar, 'The political horizon grows darker and darker.' Greece, Spain and Portugal were all 'in a state of ferment'. Now the Austrian Empire and Germany, as well as Italy, were in uproar too; while in Ireland the sufferings of the poor were, in the Queen's words, 'too terrible to contemplate'.
In France, King Louis-Philippe was forced to abdicate and to seek refuge in England where he and his Queen, having assumed the titles of the Count and Countess of Neuilly, were given shelter at Claremont. They, together with other refugees from France, were so welcomed and so generously treated by the Queen that the Government felt it necessary to hint that she might be in danger of antagonizing the provisional government of republican France. It seemed in April that revolution might break out in England, too.
Chapter 25
CHARTISTS
'Working people met in their thousands to swear devotion to the common cause.'
Radicals had long had cause to complain that the progress of reform in England was not proceeding fast enough. Lord Ashley's Factory Act of 1833 had limited the hours which children could be made to work and made it illegal to employ them under the age of nine in most textile mills, while the Mines and Collieries Act of 1842 had gone some way towards dealing with the exploitation of women and children in coal mines. But the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 had done little to ameliorate the miseries of the destitute who, by the abolition of outdoor relief, were obliged to seek shelter in workhouses as squalid as the one described in Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist. There was also widespread dissatisfaction with the Reform Act of 1832 which, while welcomed by the propertied middle class, was a profound disappointment to radicals and the militant working class. There was dissatisfaction also with the failure of attempts to develop trade unionism; and this general discontent ensured that unrest had continued throughout the 1830s and well into the 1840s and helped to increase support for the movement for political reform known as Chartism.
The movement took its name from a People's Charter drawn up by a group of radicals who demanded of the Government universal male suffrage, annual parliaments, equal electoral districts, voting by ballot, an end to property qualifications for Members of Parliament, and the introduction of salaries for them. Support for these demands was loudly voiced at meetings held both day and night all over the country. One such ga
thering at Halifax attracted a crowd of 200,000. 'It is almost impossible to imagine the excitement caused,' one Chartist wrote of these rallies. 'Working people met in their thousands to swear devotion to the common cause. '1
The Queen, as an impressionable young woman, had been urged by Melbourne to believe that the country was in a far better state than some would have her believe and that, in any case, social reform was not to be encouraged. All change was likely to be for the worse and to be advocated by hypocrites. Why, look at Lord Ashley (later Lord Shaftesbury) and his concern for little workers: he disliked his own children! Discontent was being aroused by a few troublesome malcontents, particularly in Ireland. The Queen, who was inclined to pity 'the poor Irish' who had been so 'ill treated', had once been amused by Melbourne's flippant remarks, but in later life she refused to dismiss hardship with merriment. Influenced by Melbourne she had once referred to a Bill intended to set further limits upon the hours spent by workers in factories as 'undesirable'; yet after a later visit to a workhouse she felt she would like to devote her life to the poor and downtrodden.
When alarmed by the violence on the Continent in 1848 which threatened to overthrow the established order, she did, to be sure, talk of the 'insubordination of the poor'; and when told of a family that slept seven in a single bed, she commented in her matter-of-fact way that she would have chosen to sleep on the floor. But she was capable of being moved to pity and grief by distress; and she maintained, without undue exaggeration after Prince Albert's death, that 'more than ever' did she 'long to lead a private life tending the poor and the sick'. She was also generous in her charities and did not shrink from facing the unpalatable as Lord Melbourne had done.[xxxii] She was concerned that her children should show a sympathy for the poorer of her subjects. She was pleased when Prince Albert became President of the Society for Improving the Condition of the Labouring Classes; she encouraged him in his interest in Working Men's Clubs, Public Libraries and Reading Rooms, was proud of his designs for artisans' dwellings, two of which were built as models; and she encouraged him in his efforts to improve the lot and housing of the people who lived and worked on their estates at Osborne and Balmoral. If all the cottage property in the United Kingdom were to be kept in the same condition as that of Her Majesty and the Prince Consort, Sir Edwin Chadwick, the social reformer, declared, the death rate would be reduced by nearly one half.2 After the Prince's death, the Queen remained faithful to his example. 'The Queen has been much distressed by all that she has heard and read lately of the houses of the poor in the great towns,' she was to write to the Prime Minister in 1883. 'The Queen will be glad to learn ... whether the Government contemplate the introduction of any measures, or propose to take any steps to obtain more precise information as to the true state of affairs in these overcrowded, unhealthy and squalid' houses.3
Yet there was always a firm line to be drawn between sympathy and charity for the poor and the kind of agitation proposed on their behalf by the Chartists, both those who were prepared to work within the law and those who advocated the use of violence in pursuit of their aims. 'I maintain that Revolutions are always bad for the country,' she declared, 'and the cause of untold misery to the people ... Obedience to the laws & to the Sovereign is obedience to a higher Power.'4
She feared that violence might be unleashed upon London when the Chartists announced that on 10 April 1848 a petition, listing their demands and said to contain almost five million signatures, would be presented to Parliament by 150,000 demonstrators marching to Westminster from Kennington Common.
Intimidated by the prospect of enormous crowds of menacing people marching through the streets, a number of noblemen summoned servants and retainers from their country estates to defend their London houses; while the Commander-in-Chief, the Duke of Wellington (whom Charles Greville on a visit to Apsley House found 'in a prodigious state of excitement' as he formulated plans to deal with the menace), advised the Queen and her family to leave for Osborne before the demonstration took place.5 The Queen had recently given birth to her sixth child, Princess Louise, and was suffering from what, in years to come, would be diagnosed as post-natal depression, from time to time dissolving into tears and clearly frightened. She readily agreed to go. Already the lamps outside Buckingham Palace had been smashed to shouts of "Vive la Republique!' and who could tell what might happen when immense crowds marched past on their way to the Palace of Westminster, organized by a leadership which Prince Albert described as 'incredible', having 'secret signals' and corresponding 'from town to town by means of carrier pigeons'?
On the morning of 8 April the Royal Family were driven to Waterloo Station which had been cleared of spectators and surrounded by special constables. As soon as they had all boarded it, the train steamed off for Gosport, the Queen lying on her sofa, worrying about the three-week-old Princess Louise, but no longer crying. 'I never was calmer & quieter & less nervous,' she told King Leopold without her usual strict regard for the truth. 'Great events make me quiet & calm; it is only trifles that irritate my nerves.'6
The Duke of Wellington arranged that the nine thousand troops called upon to deal with troublemakers should be kept out of sight, concerned that there might possibly be riots if they were seen, while 170,000 special constables were enrolled to ensure that the march did not get out of hand.
All the 'enormous preparations' were unnecessary, however. The day of the march 'passed off with surprising quiet' and the 'intended tragedy was rapidly changed into a ludicrous farce,' Charles Greville commented. 'Feargus O'Connor [the Irish orator and journalist, a leading figure in the Chartist movement] harangued his rabble, advising them not to provoke a collision, and to go away quietly - advice they instantly obeyed, and with great apparent alacrity and good-humour. Thus all evaporated in smoke ... But everybody rejoices that the defensive demonstration was made, for it has given a great and memorable lesson which will not be thrown away, either on the disaffected and mischievous, or the loyal and peaceful; and it will produce a vast effect in all foreign countries, and show how solid is the foundation on which we are resting. We have displayed a great resolution and a great strength, and given unmistakeable proofs that if sedition and rebellion hold their heads in this country, they will be instantly met with the most vigorous resistance, and be put down by the hand of authority, and by the zealous co-operation of all classes of the people.'7
The Queen expressed her profound relief that the workmen, misled by professional agitators and the 'criminals and refuse of London' ('such wanton & worthless men'), remained loyal after all. Five months later, in her speech from the throne at the prorogation of Parliament on 5 September 1848, after several Chartist leaders (whose meetings had been infiltrated by Government agents) had been arrested on charges of sedition, she declared, 'The strength of our institutions has been tried, and has not been found wanting. I have studied to preserve the people committed to my charge in the enjoyment of that temperate freedom which they so justly value. My people, on their side, feel too sensibly the advantages of order and security to allow the promoters of pillage and confusion any chance of success in their wicked designs.' Some four months later she wrote to King Leopold, 'I write to you once more in this old & most dreadful year ... But I must not include myself or my country in [its] misfortunes ... On the contrary I have nothing but thanks to offer up for all that has happened here.'8
Yet the Queen was more than ready to agree with Prince Albert that there were those amongst her people, poor and distressed, who were deserving of help. Within a fortnight of the collapse of the Chartist protest in April 1848, Lord Ashley was invited to Osborne where, during a walk in the grounds with Prince Albert, the condition of the poor was discussed. Some years earlier, the Prince had written to Ashley to congratulate him on a speech he had made denouncing the employment of young children in coal mines, and to assure him that the Queen supported him in his views for which she had the 'deepest sympathy'. Now Ashley urged him to demonstrate the interest which the Royal
Family took in the welfare of the working classes by visiting such London slums as those by the river south of the Strand. This Prince Albert did; and afterwards at Exeter Hall he made a speech which the Queen had helped him to rehearse and in which he stressed the importance of the more affluent and better-educated classes of society supporting and contributing to plans to ameliorate the hardships of the less fortunate, calling upon the Government to care for those who were in no condition to care for themselves.9
The Queen considered it unlikely that the Prime Minister, who had opposed the Prince's visit to the slums, would respond with any enthusiasm to her husband's plea. Indeed, the more she saw of Lord John Russell, the deeper was her sorrow at losing her 'kind and true friend', Sir Robert Peel.
QUEEN VICTORIA A Personal History Page 23