The Life and Times of Queen Victoria (Illustrated Edition). Robert Thomas Wilson

and Resignation of the Melbourne Government—Ineffectual Attempt of Sir Robert Peel to Form a Cabinet—The Question of the Bedchamber Women—Reinstatement of the Melbourne Administration.

      Nothing could exceed the popularity of the Queen at the beginning of her reign. Her youth, her innocence, the novelty of her duties and the difficulty of her position, all appealed with a commanding tenderness to every manly instinct and every womanly sympathy. But after a while a change occurred in the national sentiment, which was not altogether inexcusable on the part of the public, though it did some injustice to the sovereign. Many enthusiasts expected more than they had any right to expect, and were disappointed because the Queen did not at once do wonders for the removal of grievances, and the cure of national distress. Beyond these vague impressions, however, there were some real causes of complaint, or at least of apprehension. It was seen very clearly that the young monarch had placed herself too unreservedly in the hands of one political connection. The offices about the Queen’s person were filled by ladies belonging to the families of the chief Ministers. People said that Lord Melbourne was too much at the Palace; that he sought to occupy the position of a

      THE EARL OF DURHAM.

      Mentor in all things; and that in the General Election the Queen showed a partiality for certain candidates who belonged to the faction then in power. Ministers and their supporters did really use the name and supposed leanings of her Majesty as a means of bolstering up a Cabinet which they knew to be generally unpopular; and persons were found to ask whether the English Court was always to be the appendage of an aristocratic coterie.

      Under the influence of these feelings, some men were unmanly enough to attack the Queen in public with shameful imputations. The excitement, which began during the elections of 1837, had become almost frantic in 1839. The Orangemen of Ireland, and the ultra-Protestants of England, believed, or affected to believe, that the sovereign was being influenced to destroy the reformed religion, and re-establish Papacy throughout her dominions. The Melbourne Administration supported religious liberty; to some extent, its members leant for support upon the Irish vote; the Queen favoured Lord Melbourne: therefore, her Majesty was inclined to Rome. Such were the stages by which these hot-headed reasoners

      THE THRONE-ROOM, BUCKINGHAM PALACE.

      arrived at their conclusion. Some placed their hopes in the Tory party; others openly declared that the Tories, could they only get possession of the sovereign, would poison her, and change the succession. Men recollected with an uneasy feeling that, in 1835, Mr. Joseph Hume, a conspicuous Radical member of Parliament, detected and unmasked an Orange plot for setting aside the rights of the Princess Victoria, and giving the crown to the Duke of Cumberland, on the ridiculous plea that, unless some such step were taken, the Duke of Wellington might seize the regal power for himself. The investigations which the Government were compelled to make raised a strong suspicion that the Duke of Cumberland was privy to this traitorous scheme. The English people were so delighted when he left for Hanover, after the death of William IV., that a cheap medal was struck to commemorate the event; and his despotic rule in the small German kingdom amply justified their fears. Nothing more, it would seem, was to be dreaded from the fifth son of George III.; yet apprehensions of a conspiracy still remained.

      It is a remarkable feature of the times that during all this commotion the Liberals were the loyal and courtly party, while many of the Tories indulged in fierce invectives against the monarch. On the one side, the Irish agitator, Daniel O’Connell, vaunted in the course of 1839 that he could bring together five hundred thousand of his countrymen to defend the life and honour of “the beloved young lady” who filled the English throne; on the other, a Mr. Bradshaw, member for Canterbury in the Tory interest, alleged, without any circumlocution, that the countenance of Queen Victoria, the ruler of Protestant England, was given to “Irish Papists and Rapparees,” her Majesty, he added, being “Queen only of a faction, and as much of a partisan as the Lord Chancellor himself.” This, indeed, was by no means the worst of the speaker’s utterances; but his wildest flights of vituperation were received with enthusiastic cheers. It is but fair, however, to add that he afterwards apologised for his bad manners. At a meeting held at the Freemasons’ Tavern, presided over by Lord Stanhope, a Chartist orator proposed to open a subscription for presenting the Queen with a skipping-rope and a birch-rod. Other persons spoke with equal violence, and in some instances the authorities even found it necessary to warn military officers, and civil servants of the Crown, against such disloyal utterances. One very painful incident occurred towards the end of June, 1839, when her Majesty was hissed on Ascot racecourse. It was represented to her that the Duchess of Montrose and Lady Sarah Ingestre were amongst the persons so acting; the Queen therefore showed her displeasure to those ladies at a State ball. The slander was apparently traced to Lady Lichfield, who denied it, first by word, and then by writing. With the letter in her hand, the Duchess went to the Palace, and required an audience of her Majesty, but, after being kept waiting a couple of hours, was refused, on the advice of Lord Melbourne. She was extremely angry, and insisted that a written statement should be laid before the Queen. These circumstances increased the unpopularity of the monarch, and she was coldly received at the prorogation of Parliament.

      Yet, if people could have set aside their prejudices and passions, they would have found abundant evidence that the nature of the Queen was instinct with just and honourable feelings. She had been accustomed from childhood to live strictly within her income, and to deny herself any little gratification which could not be at once paid for in ready money. The same habit of virtuous prudence continued after her accession to the throne; and out of her savings she was enabled, during her first year of regal power, to discharge the heavy debts of her father, contracted before she was born. With respect to this matter, however, it should be mentioned that, according to a statement in the Morning Post, the Duke of Kent’s executors had succeeded in Chancery in establishing their claim against the Crown to the mines of Cape Breton, which had been made over to his Royal Highness for a period of sixty years dating from 1826, and that therefore the Crown must either have paid the Duke’s debts, or suffered the mines to be worked for the benefit of the creditors. The Queen also paid her mother’s debts, which, however, were in some respects her own, since they had in the main been incurred on her behalf. With a truly liberal and generous feeling, she continued to the natural children of William IV. by Mrs. Jordan the allowance of £500 a year each which had been granted them by the King. What was really regrettable in the early part of the Queen’s reign was the completeness with which the new sovereign placed herself in the hands of Lord Melbourne and his clique, and which seemed for a time to set her in the light of a partisan. But what else could be expected of one so young, so inexperienced, so incapable by early training to assume all at once the full responsibilities of royalty? The fault was with the advisers, rather than with the advised.

      The General Election of 1837 failed to rescue the Government from the difficult position they had long occupied. Threatened by the Radicals, who considered they did not move fast enough, they were obliged to lean for assistance on the Conservatives, without whose help they would often have been left in a minority. Ministers felt the ignominy of their lot, but were unable to amend it; and a painful set of incidents in the spring of 1838 gave occasion for a sharp attack on the Home Office. A few years previously, a person called John Nicholls Thom left his home in Cornwall, and settled in Kent, where he described himself as Sir William Courtenay, Knight of Malta. He was in truth a religious madman, claiming to be the King of Jerusalem, or, in other words, the Messiah; and multitudes of persons, belonging for the most part, though not entirely, to the poor and ignorant classes, believed in his assertions. Dressed in a fantastical costume, he went about the country, haranguing the people, and violently denouncing the Poor Law. He persuaded many of the farmers and yeomen that he was entitled to some of the finest estates in Kent, and that he would shortly be established as a great chieftain, when all the people on his lands should live rent-free. To the still more credulous he spoke of himself as Jesus Christ, and pointed in confirmation to certain marks in his hands and side, which he described as the wounds inflicted by the nails of the cross. Crowds followed him about, believing in his foolish miracles; some actually paid him divine