A Wirepuller Of Kings

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Title:     A Wirepuller Of Kings
Author: Goldwin Smith [More Titles by Smith]

[Footnote: Memoirs of Baron Stockmar. By his son, Baron E. Von Stockmar. Translated from the German by G. A. M. Edited by F. Max Muller. In two volumes. London: Longman's, Green and Co.]

Some of our readers will remember that there was at one time a great panic in England about the unconstitutional influence of Prince Albert, and that, connected with Prince Albert's name in the invectives of a part of the press, was that of the intimate friend, constant guest, and trusted adviser of the Royal Family, Baron Stockmar. The suspicion was justified by the fact in both cases; but in the case of Baron Stockmar, as well as in that of Prince Albert, the influence appears to have been exercised on the whole for good. Lord Aberdeen, who spoke his mind with the sincerity and simplicity of a perfectly honest man, said of Stockmar; "I have known men as clever, as discreet, as good, and with as good judgment; but I never knew any one who united all these qualities as he did." Melbourne was jealous of his reputed influence, but testified to his sense and worth. Palmerston disliked, we may say hated, him; but he declared him the only disinterested man of the kind he had ever known.

Stockmar was a man of good family, who originally pursued the profession of medicine, and having attracted the notice of Prince Leopold of Saxe Coburg, the husband of Princess Charlotte, and afterwards king of the Belgians, was appointed physician in ordinary to that Prince upon his marriage. When, in course of time, he exchanged the functions of physician in ordinary for those of wirepuller in ordinary, he found that the time passed in medical study had not been thrown away. He said himself, "It was a clever stroke to have originally studied medicine; without the knowledge thus acquired, without the psychological and physiological experiences thus obtained, my _savoir faire_ would often have gone a-begging." It seems also that he practised politics on medical principles, penetrating a political situation, or detecting a political disease, by the help of single expressions or acts, after the manner of medical diagnosis, and in his curative treatment endeavouring to remove as far as possible every pathological impediment, so that the healing moral nature might be set free, and social and human laws resume their restorative power. He might have graduated as a politician in a worse school.

He was not able to cure himself of dyspepsia and affections of the eye, which clung to him through life, the dyspepsia producing fluctuation of spirits, and occasional hypochondria, which, it might have been thought, would seriously interfere with his success as a court favourite. "At one time he astonished the observer by his sanguine, bubbling, provoking, unreserved, quick, fiery or humorous, cheerful, even unrestrainedly gay manner, winning him by his hearty open advances where he felt himself attracted and encouraged to confidence; at other times he was all seriousness, placidity, self-possession, cool circumspection, methodical consideration, prudence, criticism, even irony and scepticism." Such is not the portrait which imagination paints of the demeanour of a court favourite. But Stockmar had one invaluable qualification for the part-- he had conscientiously made up his mind that it is a man's duty in life to endure being bored.

The favour of a Prince of Saxe Coburg would not in itself have been fortune. A certain Royal Duke was, as everybody who ever had the honour of being within earshot of him knew, in the habit of thinking aloud. It was said that at the marriage of a German prince with an English princess, at which the Duke was present, when the bridegroom pronounced the words: "With all my worldly goods I thee endow," a voice from the circle responded, "The boots you stand in are not paid for." But as it was sung of the aggrandizement of Austria in former days--

"Let others war, do thou, blest Austria, wed,"

so the house of Saxe Coburg may be said in later days to have been aggrandized by weddings. The marriage of his patron with the presumptive heiress to the Crown of England was the beginning of Stockmar's subterranean greatness.

The Princess Charlotte expressed herself to Stockmar with regard to the character of her revered parents in the following "pithy" manner:--"My mother was bad, but she could not have become as bad as she was if my father had not been infinitely worse." The Regent was anxious to have the Princess married for two reasons, in the opinion of the judicious author of this memoir--because he wanted to be rid of his daughter, and because when she married she would form less of a link between him and his wife. Accordingly, when she was eighteen, hints were given her through the court physician, Sir Henry Halford (such is the course of royal love), that if she would have the kindness to fix her affections on the hereditary Prince of Orange (afterwards King William II. of the Netherlands), whom she had never seen, it would be exceedingly convenient. The Prince came over to England, and, by the help of a "certain amount of artful precipitation on the part of the father," the pair became formally engaged. The Princess said at first that she did not think her betrothed "by any means so disagreeable as she had expected." In time, however, this ardour of affection abated. The Prince was a baddish subject, and he had a free-and-easy manner, and wanted tact and refinement. He returned to London from some races seated on the outside of a coach, and in a highly excited state. Worst of all, he lodged at his tailor's. The engagement was ultimately broken off by a difficulty with regard to the future residence of the couple, which would evidently have become more complicated and serious if the Queen of the Netherlands had ever inherited the Crown of England. The Princess was passionately opposed to leaving her country. The Regent and his ministers tried to keep the poor girl in the dark, and get her into a position from which there would be no retreat. But she had a temper and a will of her own; and her recalcitration was assisted by the Parliamentary Opposition, who saw in the marriage a move of Tory policy, and by her mother, who saw in it something agreeable to her husband. Any one who wishes to see how diplomatic lovers quarrel will find instruction in these pages.

The place left vacant by the rejected William was taken by Prince Leopold, with whom Stockmar came to England. In Stockmar's Diary of May 5th, 1806, is the entry:--"I saw the sun (that of royalty we presume, not the much calumniated sun of Britain) for the first time at Oatlands. Baron Hardenbroek, the Prince's equerry, was going into the breakfast- room. I followed him, when he suddenly signed to me with his hand to stay behind; but she had already seen me and I her. '_Aha, docteur_,' she said, '_entrez_.' She was handsomer than I had expected, with most peculiar manners, her hands generally folded behind her, her body always pushed forward, never standing quiet, from time to time stamping her foot, laughing a great deal and talking still more. I was examined from head to foot, without, however, losing my countenance. My first impression was not favourable. In the evening she pleased me more. Her dress was simple and in good taste." The Princess took to the doctor, and, of course, he took to her. A subsequent entry in his Diary is:--"The Princess is in good humour, and then she pleases easily. I thought her dress particularly becoming; dark roses in her hair, a short light blue dress without sleeves, with a low round collar, a white puffed out Russian chemisette, the sleeves of lace. I have never seen her in any dress which was not both simple and in good taste." She seems to have improved under the influence of her husband, whom his physician calls "a manly prince and a princely man." In her manners there was some room for improvement, if we may judge from her treatment of Duke Prosper of Aremburg, who was one of the guests at a great dinner recorded in the Diary:--"Prosper is a hideous little mannikin, dressed entirely in black, with a large star. The Prince presented him to the Princess, who was at the moment talking to the Minister Castlereagh. She returned the duke's two profound continental bows by a slight nod of the head, without looking at him or saying a word to him, and brought her elbow so close to him that he could not move. He sat looking straight before him with some, though not very marked, embarrassment. He exchanged now and then a few words in French with the massive and mighty Lady Castlereagh, by whose side he looked no larger than a child. When he left, the Princess dismissed him in the same manner in which she had welcomed him, and broke into a loud laugh before he was fairly out of the room."

Stockmar's position in the little court was not very flattering or agreeable. The members of the household hardly regarded the poor German physician as their equal; and if one or two of the men were pleasant, the lady who constituted their only lawful female society, Mrs. Campbell, Lady-in-Waiting to the Princess, was, in her ordinary moods, decidedly the reverse. Stockmar, however, in drawing a piquant portrait of her, has recorded the extenuating circumstances that she had once been pretty, that she had had bitter experiences with men, and that, in an illness during a seven months' sea-voyage, she had been kept alive only on brandy and water. Col. Addenbrooke, the equerry to the Princess, is painted in more favourable colours, his only weak point being "a weak stomach, into which he carefully crams a mass of the most incongruous things, and then complains the next day of fearful headache." What a power of evil is a man who keeps a diary!

Greater personages than Mrs. Campbell and Colonel Addenbrooke passed under the quick eye of the humble medical attendant, and were photographed without being aware of it.

"_The Queen Mother_ (Charlotte, wife of George III.). 'Small and crooked, with a true mulatto face.'

"_The Regent._ 'Very stout, though of a fine figure; distinguished manners; does not talk half as much as his brothers; speaks tolerably good French. He ate and drank a good deal at dinner. His brown scratch wig not particularly becoming.'

"_The Duke of York_, the eldest son of the Regent's brothers. 'Tall, with immense _embonpoint_, and not proportionately strong legs; he holds himself in such a way that one is always afraid he will tumble over backwards; very bald, and not a very intelligent face: one can see that eating, drinking, and sensual pleasure are everything to him. Spoke a good deal of French, with a bad accent.'

"_Duchess of York_, daughter of Frederick William II. of Prussia. 'A little animated woman, talks immensely, and laughs still more. No beauty, mouth and teeth bad. She disfigures herself still more by distorting her mouth and blinking her eyes. In spite of the Duke's various infidelities, their matrimonial relations are good. She is quite aware of her husband's embarrassed circumstances, and is his prime minister and truest friend; so that nothing is done without her help. As soon as she entered the room, she looked round for the Banker Greenwood, who immediately came up to her with the confidentially familiar manner which the wealthy go-between assumes towards grand people in embarrassed circumstances. At dinner the Duchess related that her royal father had forced her as a girl to learn to shoot, as he had observed she had a great aversion to it. At a grand _chasse_ she had always fired with closed eyes, because she could not bear to see the sufferings of the wounded animals. When the huntsmen told her that in this way she ran the risk of causing the game more suffering through her uncertain aims, she went to the King and asked if he would excuse her from all sport in future if she shot a stag dead. The King promised to grant her request if she could kill two deer, one after the other, with out missing; which she did.'

"_Duke of Clarence_ (afterwards King William IV.). 'The smallest and least good-looking of the brothers, decidedly like his mother; as talkative as the rest.'

"_Duke of Kent_ (father of Queen Victoria). 'A large, powerful man; like the King, and as bald as any one can be. The quietest of all the Dukes I have seen; talks slowly and deliberately; is kind and courteous.'

"_Duke of Cumberland_ (afterwards King Ernest Augustus of Hanover). 'A tall, powerful man, with a hideous face; can't see two inches before him; one eye turned quite out of its place.'

"_Duke of Cambridge_ (the youngest son of George III.). 'A good- looking man, with a blonde wig; is partly like his father, partly like his mother. Speaks French and German very well, but like English, with such rapidity, that he carries off the palm in the family art.'

"_Duke of Gloucester._ 'Prominent, meaningless eyes; without being actually ugly, a very unpleasant face, with an animal expression; large and stout, but with weak, helpless legs. He wears a neckcloth thicker than his head.'

"_Wellington_, 'Middle height, neither stout nor thin; erect figure, not stiff, not very lively, though more so than I expected, and yet in every movement repose. Black hair, simply cut, strongly mixed with grey: not a very high forehead, immense hawk's nose, tightly compressed lips, strong massive under jaw. After he had spoken for some time in the anteroom with the Royal Family, he came straight to the two French singers, with whom he talked in a very friendly manner, and then going round the circle, shook hands with all his acquaintance. He was dressed entirely in black, with the Star of the Order of the Garter and the Maria Theresa Cross. He spoke to all the officers present in an open friendly way, though but briefly. At table he sat next the Princess. He ate and drank moderately, and laughed at times most heartily, and whispered many things to the Princess' ear, which made her blush and laugh.'

"_Lord Anglesea_, (the General). 'Who lost a leg at Waterloo; a tall, well-made man; wild, martial face, high forehead, with a large hawk's nose, which makes a small deep angle where it joins the forehead. A great deal of ease in his manners. Lauderdale [Footnote: Lord Lauderdale, d. 1339; the friend of Fox; since 1807, under the Tories, an active member of the Opposition.] told us later that it was he who brought Lady Anglesea the intelligence that her husband had lost his leg at Waterloo. Contrary to his wishes she had been informed of his arrival, and, before he could say a word, she guessed that he had brought her news of her husband, screamed out, "He is dead!" and fell into hysterics. But when he said, "Not in the least; here is a letter from him," she was so wonderfully relieved that she bore the truth with great composure. He also related that, not long before the campaign, Anglesea was having his portrait taken, and the picture was entirely finished except one leg. Anglesea sent for the painter and said to him, "You had better finish the leg now. I might not bring it back with me." He lost that very leg.'

"_The Minister. Lord Castlereagh_. 'Of middle height; a very striking and at the same time handsome face; his manners are very pleasant and gentle, yet perfectly natural. One misses in him a certain culture which one expects in a statesman of his eminence. He speaks French badly, in fact execrably, and not very choice English. [Footnote: Lord Byron, in the introduction to the sixth and the eighth cantos of "Don Juan" says, "It is the first time since the Normans that England has been insulted by a minister (at least) who could not speak English, and that Parliament permitted itself to be dictated to in the language of Mrs. Malaprop."] The Princess rallied him on the part he played in the House of Commons as a bad speaker, as against the brilliant orators of the Opposition, which he acknowledged merrily, and with a hearty laugh. I am sure there is a great deal of thoughtless indifference in him, and that this has sometimes been reckoned to him as statesmanship of a high order.'"

In proof of Castlereagh's bad French we are told in a note that, having to propose the health of the ladies at a great dinner, he did it in the words--"Le bel sexe partoutte dans le monde."

Though looked down upon at the second table, Stockmar had thoroughly established himself in the confidence and affection of the Prince and Princess. He had become the Prince's Secretary, and in Leopold's own words "the most valued physician of his soul and body"--wirepuller, in fact, to the destined wirepuller of Royalty in general.

Perhaps his gratification at having attained this position may have lent a roseate tint to his view of the felicity of the Royal couple, which he paints in rapturous terms, saying that nothing was so great as their love--except the British National Debt. There is, however, no reason to doubt that the union of Leopold and Charlotte was one of the happy exceptions to the general character of Royal marriages. Its tragic end plunged a nation into mourning. Stockmar, with a prudence on which perhaps he reflects with a little too much satisfaction, refused to have anything to do with the treatment of the Princess from the commencement of her pregnancy. He thought he detected mistakes on the part of the English physicians, arising from the custom then prevalent in England of lowering the strength of the expectant mother by bleeding, aperients, and low diet, a regimen which was carried on for months. The Princess, in fact, having been delivered of a dead son after a fifty hours' labour, afterwards succumbed to weakness. It fell to Stockmar's lot to break the news to the Prince, who was overwhelmed with sorrow. At the moment of his desolation Leopold exacted from Stockmar a promise that he would never leave him. Stockmar gave the promise, indulging at the same time his sceptical vein by expressing in a letter to his sister his doubt whether the Prince would remain of the same mind. This scepticism however did not interfere with his devotion. "My health is tolerable, for though I am uncommonly shaken, and shall be yet more so by the sorrow of the Prince, still I feel strong enough, even stronger than I used to be. I only leave the Prince when obliged by pressing business. I dine alone with him and sleep in his room. Directly he wakes in the night I get up and sit talking by his bedside till he falls asleep again. I feel increasingly that unlooked for trials are my portion in life, and that there will be many more of them before life is over. I seem to be here more to care for others than for myself, and I am well content with this destiny."

Sir Richard Croft, the accoucheur of the Princess, overwhelmed by the calamity, committed suicide. "Poor Croft," exclaims the cool and benevolent Stockmar, "does not the whole thing look like some malicious temptation, which might have overcome even some one stronger than you? The first link in the chain of your misery was nothing but an especially honourable and desirable event in the course of your profession. You made a mistake in your mode of treatment; still, individual mistakes are here so easy. Thoughtlessness and excessive reliance on your own experience, prevented you from weighing deeply the course to be followed by you. When the catastrophe had happened, doubts, of course, arose in your mind as to whether you ought not to have acted differently, and these doubts, coupled with the impossibility of proving your innocence to the public, even though you were blameless, became torture to you. Peace to thy ashes, on which no guilt rests save that thou wert not exceptionally wise or exceptionally strong."

Leopold was inclined to go home, but remained in England by the advice of Stockmar, who perceived that, in the first place, there would be something odious in the Prince's spending his English allowance of L50,000 a year on the Continent, and in the second place, that a good position in England would be his strongest vantage ground in case of any new opening presenting itself elsewhere.

About this time another birth took place in the Royal Family under happier auspices. The Duke of Kent was married to the widowed Princess of Leiningen, a sister of Prince Leopold. The Duke was a Liberal in politics, on bad terms with his brothers, and in financial difficulties which prevented his living in England. Finding, however, that his Duchess was likely to present him with an heir who would also be the heir to the Crown, and being very anxious that the child should be born in England, he obtained the means of coming home through friends, after appealing to his brothers in vain. Shortly after his return "a pretty little princess, plump as a partridge," was born. In the same year the Duke died. His widow, owing to his debts, was left in a very uncomfortable position. Her brother Leopold enabled her to return to Kensington, where she devoted herself to the education of her child-- Queen Victoria.

The first opening which presented itself to Leopold was the Kingdom of Greece, which was offered him by "The Powers." After going pretty far he backed out, much to the disgust of "The Powers," who called him "Marquis Peu-a-peu" (the nickname given him by George IV.) and said that "he had no colour," and that he wanted the English Regency. The fact seems to be that he and his Stockmar, on further consideration of the enterprise, did not like the look of it. Neither of them, especially Stockmar, desired a "crown of thorns," which their disinterested advisers would have had them take on heroic and ascetic principles. Leopold was rather attracted by the poetry of the thing: Stockmar was not. "For the poetry which Greece would have afforded, I am not inclined to give very much. Mortals see only the bad side of things they have, and the good side of the things they have not. That is the whole difference between Greece and Belgium, though I do not mean to deny that when the first King of Greece shall, after all manner of toils, have died, his life may not furnish the poet with excellent matter for an epic poem." The philosophic creed of Stockmar was that "the most valuable side of life consists in its negative conditions,"--in other words in freedom from annoyance, and in the absence of "crowns of thorns."

The candidature of Leopold for the Greek Throne coincided with the Wellington Administration, and the active part taken by Stockmar gave him special opportunities of studying the Duke's political character which he did with great attention. His estimate of it is low.

"The way in which Wellington would preserve and husband the rewards of his own services and the gifts of fortune, I took as the measure of the higher capabilities of his mind. It required no long time, however, and no great exertion, to perceive that the natural sobriety of his temperament, founded upon an inborn want of sensibility, was unable to withstand the intoxicating influence of the flattery by which he was surrounded. The knowledge of himself became visibly more and more obscured. The restlessness of his activity, and his natural lust for power, became daily more ungovernable.

"Blinded by the language of his admirers, and too much elated to estimate correctly his own powers, he impatiently and of his own accord abandoned the proud position of the victorious general to exchange it for the most painful position which a human being can occupy--viz., the management of the affairs of a great nation with insufficient mental gifts and inadequate knowledge. He had hardly forced himself upon the nation as Prime Minister, intending to add the glory of a statesman to that of a warrior when he succeeded, by his manner of conducting business, in shaking the confidence of the people. With laughable infatuation he sedulously employed every opportunity of proving to the world the hopeless incapacity which made it impossible for him to seize the natural connection between cause and effect. With a rare _naivete_ he confessed publicly and without hesitation the mistaken conclusions he had come to in the weightiest affairs of State; mistakes with the commonest understanding could have discovered, which filled the impartial with pitying astonishment, and caused terror and consternation even among the host of his flatterers and partisans. Yet, so great and so strong was the preconceived opinion of the people in his favour, that only the irresistible proofs furnished by the man's own actions could gradually shake this opinion. It required the full force and obstinacy of this strange self-deception in Wellington, it required the full measure of his activity and iron persistency, in order at last, by a perpetual reiteration of errors and mistakes, to create in the people the firm conviction that the Duke of Wellington was one of the least adroit and most mischievous Ministers that England ever had."

Stockmar formed a more favourable opinion afterwards, when the Duke had ceased to be a party leader, and become the Nestor of the State. But it must be allowed that Wellington's most intimate associates and warmest friends thought him a failure as a politician. To the last he seemed incapable of understanding the position of a constitutional minister, and talked of sacrificing his convictions in order to support the Government, as though he were not one of the Government that was to be supported. Nor did he ever appreciate the force of opinion or the nature of the great European movement with which he had to deal.

It seems clear from Stockmar's statement, that Wellington used his influence over Charles X to get the Martignac Ministry, which was moderately liberal, turned out and Polignac made Minister. In this he doubly blundered. In the first place Polignac was not friendly but hostile to England, and at once began to intrigue against her; in the second place he was a fool, and by his precipitate rashness brought on the second French Revolution, which overthrew the ascendency of the Duke's policy in Europe, and had no small influence in overthrowing the ascendency of his party in England. It appears that the Duke was as much impressed with the "honesty" of Talleyrand, as he was with the "ability" of Polignac.

A certain transitional phase of the European Revolution created a brisk demand for kings who would "reign without governing." Having backed out of Greece, Leopold got Belgium. And here we enter, in these Memoirs, on a series of chapters giving the history of the Belgian Question, with all its supplementary entanglements, as dry as saw-dust, and scarcely readable, we should think, at the present day, even to diplomatists, much less to mortal men. Unfortunately the greater part of the two volumes is taken up with similar dissertations on various European questions, while the personal touches, and details which Stockmar could have given us in abundance, are few and far between. We seldom care much for his opinions on European questions even when the questions themselves are still alive and the sand-built structures of diplomacy have not been swept away by the advancing tide of revolution. The sovereigns whose wirepuller he was were constitutional, and themselves exercised practically very little influence on the course of events.

In the Belgian question however, he seems to have really played an active part. We get from him a strong impression of the restless vanity and unscrupulous ambition of France. We learn also that Leopold practised very early in the day the policy which assured him a quiet reign--that of keeping his trunk packed and letting the people understand that if they were tired of him he was ready to take the next train and leave them to enjoy the deluge.

Stockmar found employment especially suited to him in settling the question of Leopold's English annuity, which was given up on the Price's election to the Crown of Belgium, but with certain reservations, upon which the Radicals made attacks, Sir Samuel Whalley, a physician leading the van. In the course of the struggle Stockmar received a characteristic letter from Palmerston.

"March 9,1834

"MY DEAR BARON,--I have many apologies to make to you for not having sooner acknowledged the receipt of the papers you sent me last week, and for which I am much obliged to you. The case seems to me as clear as day and without meaning to question the omnipotence of Parliament, which it is well known can do anything but turn men into women and women into men, I must and shall assert that the House of Commons have no more right to enquire into the details of those debts and engagements, which the King of the Belgians considers himself bound to satisfy before he begins to make his payments into the Exchequer, than they have to ask Sir Samuel Whalley how he disposed of the fees which his mad patients used to pay him before he began to practise upon the foolish constituents who have sent him to Parliament. There can be no doubt whatever that we must positively resist any such enquiry, and I am very much mistaken in my estimate of the present House of Commons if a large majority do not concur in scouting so untenable a proposition.

"My dear Baron,

"Yours sincerely,

"PALMERSTON

"The Baron de Stockmar"

That the House of Commons cannot turn women into men is a position not so unquestioned now as it was in Palmerston's day.

Stockmar now left England for a time, but he kept his eye on English affairs, to his continued interest in which we owe it seems, the publication of a rather curious document, the existence of which in manuscript was, however, well known. It is a Memoir of King William IV., purporting to be drawn up by himself, and extending over the eventful years of 1830-35 'King William's style,' says the uncourtly biographer, "abounds to overflowing in what is called in England Parliamentary circumlocution, in which, instead of direct, simple expressions, bombastic paraphrases are always chosen, which become in the end intolerably prolix and dull, and are enough to drive a foreigner to despair." The style is indeed august; but the real penman is not the King, whose strong point was not grammatical composition, but some confidant, very likely Sir Herbert Taylor, who was employed by the King to negotiate with the "waverers" in the House of Lords, and get the Reform Bill passed without a swamping creation of peers. The Memoir contains nothing of the slightest historical importance. It is instructive only as showing how completely a constitutional king may be under the illusion of his office--how complacently he may fancy that he is himself guiding the State, when he is in fact merely signing what is put before him by his advisers, who are themselves the organs of the majority in Parliament. Old William, Duke of Gloucester, the king's uncle, being rather weak in intellect, was called "Silly Billy." When King William IV. gave his assent to the Reform Bill, the Duke, who knew his own nickname, cried "Who's Silly Billy now?" It would have been more difficult from the Conservative point of view to answer that question if the King had possessed the liberty of action which in his Memoir he imagines himself to possess.

The year 1836 opened a new field to the active beneficence of Stockmar. "The approaching majority, and probably not distant accession to the throne, of Princess Victoria of England, engaged the vigilant and far- sighted care of her uncle, King Leopold. At the same time he was already making preparations for the eventual execution of a plan, which had long formed the subject of the wishes of the Coburg family, to wit, the marriage of the future Queen of England with his nephew, Prince Albert of Coburg." Stockmar was charged with the duty of standing by the Princess, as her confidential adviser, at the critical moment of her coming of age, which might also be that of her accession to the throne. Meanwhile King Leopold consulted with him as to the manner in which Prince Albert should make acquaintance with his cousin, and how he "should be prepared for his future vocation." This is pretty broad, and a little lets down the expressions of intense affection for the Queen and unbounded admiration of Prince Albert with which Stockmar overflows. However, a feeling may be genuine though its source is not divine.

Stockmar played his part adroitly. He came over to England, slipped into the place of private Secretary to the Queen, and for fifteen months "continued his noiseless, quiet activity, without any publicly defined position." The marriage was brought about and resulted, as we all know, in perfect happiness till death entered the Royal home.

Stockmar was evidently very useful in guiding the Royal couple through the difficulties connected with the settlement of the Prince's income and his rank, and with the Regency Bill. His idea was that questions affecting the Royal family should be regarded as above party, and in this he apparently induced the leaders of both parties to acquiesce, though they could not perfectly control their followers. The connection with the Whigs into which the young Queen had been drawn by attachment to her political mentor, Lord Melbourne, had strewn her path with thorns. The Tory party was bitterly hostile to the Court. If Sir Charles Dilke and Mr. Odger wish to provide themselves with material for retorts to Tory denunciations of their disloyalty, they cannot do better than look up the speeches and writings of the Tory party during the years 1835-1841. What was called the Bedchamber Plot, in 1839, had rendered the relations between the Court and the Conservative leaders still more awkward, and Stockmar appears to have done a real service in smoothing the way for the formation of the Conservative Ministry in 1841.

Stockmar, looking at Peel from the Court point of view, was at first prejudiced against him, especially on account of his having, in deference probably to the feelings of his party against the Court, cut down the Prince Consort's allowance. All the more striking is the testimony which, after long acquaintance, the Baron bears to Peel's character and merits as a statesman.

"Peel's mind and character rested on moral foundations, which I have not seen once shaken, either in his private or his public life. From these foundations rose that never-failing spring of fairness, honesty, kindness, moderation and regard for others, which Peel showed to all men, and under all circumstances. On these foundations grew that love of country which pervaded his whole being, which knew of but one object-- the true welfare of England of but one glory and one reward for each citizen, viz., to have contributed something towards that welfare. Such love of country admits of but one ambition, and hence the ambition of that man was as pure as his heart. To make every sacrifice for that ambition, which the fates of his country demand from everyone, he considered his most sacred duty, and he has made these sacrifices, however difficult they might have been to him. Wherein lay the real difficulty of those sacrifices will perhaps hereafter be explained by those who knew the secret of the political circumstances and the personal character of the men with whom he was brought in contact; and who would not think of weighing imponderable sacrifices on the balance of vulgar gain.

"The man whose feelings for his own country rested on so firm a foundation could not be dishonest or unfair towards foreign countries. The same right understanding, fairness, and moderation, which he evinced in his treatment of internal affairs, guided Peel in his treatment of all foreign questions. The wish frequently expressed by him, to see the welfare of all nations improved, was thoroughly sincere. He knew France and Italy from his own observation, and he had studied the political history of the former with great industry. For Germany he had a good will, nay, a predilection, particularly for Prussia.

"In his private life, Peel was a real pattern. He was the most loving, faithful, conscientious husband, father, and brother, unchanging and indulgent to his friends, and always ready to help his fellow-citizens according to his power.

"Of the vulnerable parts of his character his enemies may have many things to tell. What had been observed by all who came into closer contact with him, could not escape my own observation. I mean his too great prudence, caution, and at times, extreme reserve, in important as well as in unimportant matters, which he showed, not only towards more distant, but even towards his nearer acquaintances. If he was but too often sparing of words, and timidly cautious in oral transactions, he was naturally still more so in his written communications. The fear never left him that he might have to hear an opinion once expressed, or a, judgment once uttered by him, repeated by the wrong man, and in the wrong place, and misapplied. His friends were sometimes in despair over this peculiarity. To his opponents it supplied an apparent ground for suspicion and incrimination. It seemed but too likely that there was a doubtful motive for such reserve, or that it was intended to cover narrowness and weakness of thought and feeling, or want of enterprise and courage. To me also this peculiarity deemed often injurious to himself and to the matter in hand; and I could not help being sometimes put out by it, and wishing from the bottom of my heart that he could have got rid of it. But when one came to weigh the acts of the man against his manner, the disagreeable impression soon gave way. I quickly convinced myself, that this, to me, so objectionable a trait was but an innate peculiarity; and that in a sphere of activity where thoughtless unreserve and _laisser aller_ showed themselves in every possible form, Peel was not likely to find any incentive, or to form a resolution to overcome, in this point, his natural disposition.

"I have been told, or I have read it somewhere, that Peel was the most successful type of political mediocrity. In accepting this estimate of my departed friend as perfectly true, I ask Heaven to relieve all Ministers, within and without Europe, of their superiority, and to endow them with Peel's mediocrity: and I ask this for the welfare of all nations, and in the firm conviction that ninety-nine hundredths of the higher political affairs can be properly and successfully conducted by such Ministers only as possess Peel's mediocrity: though I am willing to admit that the remaining hundredth may, through the power and boldness of a true genius, be brought to a particularly happy, or, it may be, to a particularly unhappy, issue."

Of the late Lord Derby, on the other hand, Stockmar speaks with the greatest contempt, calling him "a frivolous aristocrat who delighted in making mischief. "It does not appear whether the two men ever came into collision with each other, but if they did, Lord Derby was likely enough to leave a sting.

Stockmar regularly spent a great part of each year with the English Royal Family. Apartments were appropriated to him in each of the Royal residences, and he lived with the Queen and Prince on the footing of an intimate, or rather of a member, and almost the father, of the family. Indeed, he used a familiarity beyond that of any friend or relative. Having an objection to taking leave, he was in the habit of disappearing without notice, and leaving his rooms vacant when the fancy took him. Then we are told, letters complaining of his faithlessness would follow him, and in course of time others urging his return. Etiquette, the highest of all laws, was dispensed within his case. After dining with the Queen, when Her Majesty had risen from table, and after holding a circle had sat down again to tea, Stockmar would generally be seen walking straight through the drawing-room and returning to his apartment, there to study his own comfort. More than this, when Mordecai became the King's favorite, he was led forth on the royal steed, apparelled in the royal robe, and with the royal crown upon his head. A less demonstrative and picturesque, but not less signal or significant, mark of Royal favor was bestowed on Stockmar. In his case tights were dispensed with, and he was allowed to wear trousers, which better suited his thin legs. We believe this exemption to be without parallel, though we have heard of a single dispensation being granted, after many searchings of heart, in a case where the invitation had been sudden, and the mystic garment did not exist, and also of a more melancholy case, in which the garment was split in rushing down to dinner, and its wearer was compelled to appear in the forbidden trousers, and very late, without the possibility of explaining what had occurred.

Notwithstanding the enormous power indicated by his privileged nether limbs, Stockmar remained disinterested. A rich Englishman, described as an author, and member of Parliament, called upon him one day, and promised to give him L10,000 if he would further his petition to the Queen for a peerage. Stockmar replied, "I will now go into the next room, in order to give you time. If upon my return I still find you here, I shall have you turned out by the servants."

We are told that the Baron had little intercourse with any circles but those of the court--a circumstance which was not likely to diminish any bad impressions that might prevail with regard to his secret influence. Among his intimate friends in the household was his fellow-countryman Dr. Pratorius, "who ever zealously strengthened the Prince's inclinations in the sense which Stockmar desired, and always insisted upon the highest moral considerations." Nature, in the case of the doctor; had not been so lavish of personal beauty as of moral endowments. The Queen was once reading the Bible with her daughter, the little Princess Victoria. They came to the passage, "God created man in his own image, in the image of God created He him." "O Mamma," cried the Princess, "not Dr. Pratorius!"

Stockmar's administrative genius effected a reform in the Royal household, and as appears from his memorandum, not before there was occasion for it. "The housekeepers, pages, housemaids, etc., are under the authority of the Lord Chamberlain; all the footmen, livery-porters and under-butlers, by the strangest anomaly, under that of Master of the Horse, at whose office they are clothed and paid; and the rest of the servants, such as the clerk of the kitchen, the cooks, the porters, etc., are under the jurisdiction of the Lord Steward. Yet these ludicrous divisions extend not only to persons, but likewise to things and actions. The Lord Steward, for example, finds the fuel and lays the fire, and the Lord Chamberlain lights it. It was under this state of things that the writer of this paper, having been sent one day by Her present Majesty to Sir Frederick Watson, then the Master of the Household, to complain that the dining-room was always cold, was gravely answered: 'You see, properly speaking, it is not our fault, for the Lord Steward lays the fire only, and the Lord Chamberlain lights it.' In the same manner the Lord Chamberlain provides all the lamps, and the Lord Steward must clean, trim and light them. If a pane of glass or the door in a cupboard in the scullery requires mending, it cannot now be done without the following process: A requisition is prepared and signed by the chief cook, it is then countersigned by the clerk of the kitchen, then it is taken to be signed by the Master of the Household, thence it is taken to the Lord Chamberlain's office, where it is authorized, and then laid before the Clerk of the Works under the office of Woods and Forests; and consequently many a window and cupboard have remained broken for months" Worse than this--"There is no one who attends to the comforts of the Queen's guests on their arrival at the Royal residence. When they arrive at present there is no one prepared to show them to or from their apartments; there is no gentleman in the palace who even knows where they are lodged, and there is not even a servant who can perform this duty, which is attached to the Lord Chamberlain's department. It frequently happens at Windsor that some of the visitors are at a loss to find the drawing-room, and, at night, if they happen to forget the right entrance from the corridor, they wander for an hour helpless, and unassisted. There is nobody to apply to in such a case, for it is not in the department of the Master of the Household, and the only remedy is to send a servant, if one can be found, to the porter's lodge, to ascertain the apartment in question." People were rather surprised when the boy Jones was discovered, at one o'clock in the morning, under the sofa in the room adjoining Her Majesty's bedroom. But it seems nobody was responsible--not the Lord Chamberlain, who was in Staffordshire, and in whose department the porters were not; not the Lord Steward, who was in London, and had nothing to do with the pages and attendants nearest to the royal person; not the Master of the Household, who was only a subordinate officer in the Lord Steward's department. So the King of Spain, who was roasted to death because the right Lord-in-Waiting could not be found to take him from the fire, was not without a parallel in that which calls itself the most practical of nations. Stockmar reformed the system by simply inducing each of the three great officers, without nominally giving up his authority (which would have shaken the foundations of the Monarchy), to delegate so much of it as would enable the fire to be laid and lighted by the same power. We fancy, however, that even since the Stockmarian reconstruction, we have heard of guests finding themselves adrift in the corridors of Windsor. There used to be no bells to the rooms, it being assumed that in the abode of Royalty servants, were always within call, a theory which would have been full of comfort to any nervous gentleman, who, on the approach of the royal dinner hour, might happen to find himself left with somebody else's small clothes.

In 1854 came the outbreak of public feeling against Prince Albert and Stockmar, as his friend and adviser, to which we have referred at the beginning of this article. The Prince's lamented death caused such a reaction of feeling in his favor that it is difficult now to recall to recollection the degree of unpopularity under which he at one time laboured. Some of the causes of this unpopularity are correctly stated by the author of the present memoir. The Prince was a foreigner, his ways were not those of Englishmen, he did not dress like an Englishman, shake hands like an Englishman. He was suspected of "Germanizing" tendencies, very offensive to high churchmen, especially in philosophy and religion. He displeased the Conservatives by his Liberalism, the coarser Radicals by his pietism and culture. He displeased the fast set by his strict morality; they called him slow, because he did not bet, gamble, use bad language, keep an opera dancer. With more reason he displeased the army by meddling, under the name of a too courtly Commander-in-Chief, with professional matters which he could not understand. But there was a cause of his unpopularity scarcely appreciable by the German author of this memoir. He had brought with him the condescending manner of a German Prince. The English prefer a frank manner; they will bear a high manner in persons of sufficient rank, but a condescending manner they will not endure; nor will any man or woman but those who live in a German Court. So it was, however, that the Prince, during his life, though respected by the people for his virtues, and by men of intellect for his culture, was disliked and disparaged by "Society," and especially by the great ladies who are at the head of it. The Conservatives, male and female, had a further grudge against him as the reputed friend of Peel, who was the object of their almost demoniac hatred.

The part of a Prince Consort is a very difficult one to play. In the case of Queen Anne's husband, Prince George of Denmark, nature solved the difficulty by not encumbering his Royal Highness with any brains. But Prince Albert had brains, and it was morally impossible that he should not exercise a power not contemplated by the Constitution. He did so almost from the first, with the full knowledge and approbation of the Ministers, who had no doubt the sense to see what could not be avoided had better be recognised and kept under control. But in 1851 the Court quarrelled with Palmerston, who was dismissed from office, very properly, for having, in direct violation of a recent order of the Queen, communicated to the French Ambassador his approval of the coup d'etat, without the knowledge of Her Majesty or the Cabinet. In 1854 came the rupture with Russia, which led to the Crimean war. Palmerston, in correspondence with his friend the French Emperor, was working for a war, with a separate French alliance. Prince Albert, in conjunction with Aberdeen, was trying to keep the Four Powers together, and by their combined action to avert a war. Palmerston and his partizans appealed through the press to the people, among whom the war feeling was growing strong, against the unconstitutional influence of the Prince Consort and his foreign advisers. Thereupon arose a storm of insane suspicion and fury which almost recalled the fever of the Popish Plot. Thousands of Londoners collected round the Tower to see the Prince's entry into the State Prison, and dispersed only upon being told that the Queen had said that if her husband was sent to prison she would go with him. Reports were circulated of a pamphlet drawn up under Palmerston's eye, and containing the most damning proofs of the Prince's guilt, the publication of which it was said the Prince had managed to prevent, but of which six copies were still in existence. The pamphlet was at last printed _in extenso_ in the _Times_, and the bottled lightning proved to be ditchwater. Of course Stockmar, the "spy," the "agent of Leopold," did not escape denunciation, and though it was proved he had been at Coburg all the time, people persisted in believing he was concealed about the Court, coming out only at night. The outcry was led by the _Morning Post_, Lord Palmerston's personal organ, and the _Morning Advertiser_, the bellicose and truly British journal of the Licensed Victuallers; but these were supported by the Conservative press, and by some Radical papers. A debate in Parliament broke the waterspout as quickly as it had been formed. The people had complained with transports of rage that the Prince Consort exercised an influence unrecognised by the Constitution in affairs of State. They were officially assured that he _did_; and they at once declared themselves perfectly satisfied.

Our readers would not thank us for taking them again through the question of the Spanish marriages, a transaction which Stockmar viewed in the only way in which the most criminal and the filthiest of intrigues could be viewed by an honest man and a gentleman; or through the question of German unity, on which his opinions have been at once ratified and deprived of their practical interest by events. The last part of his life he passed in Germany, managing German Royalties, especially the Prince and Princess Frederick William of Prussia, for whom he had conceived a profound affection. His presence, we are told, was regarded by German statesmen and magnates as "uncanny," and Count K., on being told that it was Stockmar with whom an acquaintance had just crossed a bridge, asked the acquaintance why he had not pitched the Baron into the river. That Stockmar did not deserve such a fate, the testimony cited at the beginning of this paper is sufficient to prove. He was the unrecognised Minister of Constitutional Sovereigns who wanted, besides their regular Parliamentary advisers, a personal adviser to attend to the special interests of royalty. It was a part somewhat clandestine, rather equivocal, and not exactly such as a very proud man would choose. But Stockmar was called to it by circumstances, he was admirably adapted for it, and if it sometimes led him further than he was entitled or qualified to go, he played it on the whole very well.

[The end]
Goldwin Smith's essay: A Wirepuller Of Kings

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