FOR MONEY, MONEY’S WORTH

“Our faithful Commons, ’tis a story To say you’re Radical or Tory. You vote your Queen such generous doles, You are all Liberal, bless your souls.” _Contemporary verse._

“The fact is there are too many of us.”--_The old Duchess of Gloucester._

That children bring sorrow as well as joy is a trite saying of which Queen Victoria experienced the truth. She was most disappointed in the Prince of Wales, whom she had laboured so hard to develop on her own lines, only to find him resolutely bent on running on his own. Princess Louise did not marry a German Serene Highness, and therefore was scarcely satisfactory. Prince Alfred was more promising, as he was showing a remarkable carefulness in money matters and an extensive knowledge of stock-exchange fluctuations which must have pleased her, in spite of the fact that he gave rise to many facetious paragraphs in the Press. Prince Arthur was much beloved and was also popular with the public. But poor Prince Leopold appealed most to his mother’s heart, and was at the same time a great anxiety, for he was very delicate, being liable to fits and suffering from external hæmorrhage, which showed an abnormal thinness of the skin. Thus he was always liable to take illnesses, such as typhoid, sciatica, etc.

The Prince of Wales, however, tried her most, for his name was before the public in a scandalous way. Yet the people insisted upon liking him better than all the rest, and, whatever comments they might pass upon him, the whole nation was agreed in lauding his princess. These two did their utmost to make up for the social deficiencies of the Queen. They held levees and drawing-rooms, laid foundation-stones, dedicated wards, named ships, visited hospitals, opened bridges, and occasionally did work still more domestic, for there was no limit to the demands of charitable and public companies. Thus in 1865 the Prince had to start the engine which for the first time delivered the contents of the Southern Main Drainage Works into the Thames; a complimentary loyalty somewhat similar to that which named one of the London sewers near Buckingham Palace the Victoria Sewer. It was in June 1872 that the Prince and Princess opened the Bethnal Green Museum, and found among the mottoes displayed along the route some with these kindly messages: “Long wished for, come at last.” “Come again and bring your mother with you!” “Thank you for your kind visit.”

For years the papers gave such constant paragraphs to this young couple’s good deeds that people began to realize that they were very hard at work. Most of this work, however, was attended by a sameness which eventually brought dullness with it, and needed an antidote one way or another. The Princess found it in bearing a succession of children; the Prince, devoid of such resource, became _épris_ with the bright eyes of one lady after another. This was scarcely astonishing, seeing the stock from which he sprung; it would, in fact, have been unreasonable not to expect somewhere in the Queen’s family a throwback to an earlier generation. But what a prince does cannot be hidden; so while, on the one hand, a cartoon was issued showing Alexandra as Joan of Arc before the throne, carrying the sword of popularity and the banner of self-sacrifice, trampling the while on the Fenian flag and the rod of discontent, the Prince in another was drawn running after the shade of George IV.

In 1867 the Court Circular announced that Alexandra had given birth to “a princess,” which gave occasion for good-humoured scoffing, it being pointed out how interesting would be the then first columns of the newspapers if every titled person made such announcements as “Lady So-and-so of a baronet” or “of an honourable,” etc. This birth took place during a painful illness of acute rheumatism, the disease becoming eventually localized in the knee. The Princess’s condition caused so much anxiety that the Queen went several times quietly up to London to see her, which was in itself an event. In September, when Alexandra went to Hesse-Darmstadt to meet her nation’s enemy, King William of Prussia, the knee, having been treated, in the manner of those times, by splints, bandages and lying-up, was rigid, and she walked with two sticks.

Of the meeting Princess Alice said: “Alix was pleased with the civility and kindness of the King. It is an amusing trait with the Prussian ‘kulturist’ that when he has successfully robbed a nation, he declares that he has done it for that nation’s good and does his best to make it believe it and ‘kiss and be friends.’”

Albert Edward had some accidents during these years which perhaps added to the excitement of his existence, being spun off his horse by a heavily antlered stag when shooting in Germany, but without receiving injury; later in Rotten Row a runaway steed cannoned into him, sending his horse down like a rabbit struck with shot and apparently rolling over his rider, the intruder jumping clear over both. But again he was not hurt, and remounted and rode away before much of a crowd could gather. A volunteer was arrested for threatening to shoot the Prince, and carrying on parade ball cartridges in his pocket for that purpose. Thus when Albert Edward was in Russia and a report was sent to his wife that he had been killed there, she at once believed it. It was, however, false, though other dangers to which he laid himself open were true enough.

These were the dangers of gossip, scandal and fierce anger in various circles, which all culminated in 1871, when not only was his name publicly used in what was known as the Mordaunt Divorce Case, but he himself was called as a witness.

Sir Charles Mordaunt wanted a divorce from his wife, she having owned to him that “she had done very wrong” with several people, among them being the Prince of Wales. What would have been divulged had the case taken its normal course it is not easy to say, but the onus of embroiling the Prince was too much for all but the defendant’s counsel. So the convenient question was raised as to whether Lady Mordaunt was sound enough mentally to plead a defence, and upon this point the trial took place. Sir Charles’s counsel indignantly repudiated the assertion that he had subpœnaed the Prince, whereupon counsel on the opposite side subpœnaed him. Part of Sir Charles’s examination ran--

“I believe you had no personal acquaintance with his Royal Highness?”

“I can’t say that I knew him well. I had a slight acquaintance and had spoken to him, but he was not a friend of mine.”

“Did he ever come to your house upon any invitation of yours?”

“Never.”

“Did you ever have any conversation with your wife about him?”

“I did. I warned her against continuing her acquaintance with him.”

He further said that he knew nothing of frequent visits paid by the Prince, and did not know that his wife had received letters.

However, eleven letters were brought into Court, and on February 23 the Prince himself was called. His share in the trial was small, however, the last question asked him being--

“Has there ever been any improper familiarity or criminal act between you and Lady Mordaunt?” To which he answered--

“There has not.” Applause followed this, but was instantly checked, and the _Daily Telegraph_ commented, “The words, though given without special emphasis, carry along with them an earnest of their honest truthfulness.”

Lady Mordaunt was pronounced insane, and Sir Charles was left to bring up as his heir a boy who, though bearing his name, was not his son.

Six weeks later there was another scandal, an application for a criminal information against the proprietors of the _Sheffield Daily Telegraph_ being made. This paper had published “A Startling Rumour” to the effect that the Prince was likely to appear again in the Divorce Court, this time as a co-respondent. The case came before the Queen’s Bench six months afterwards, and a fine of £50 was imposed, it having been shown that part of the paragraph had been lifted from the _Echo_ and the names which had been added had been secured from an usher of the Divorce Court. The people implicated by the paragraph all swore that it was entirely without truth.

Thus for ten months the name of the future ruler of England was dragged in the mud, and the distress and anger of the Queen were very deep, for the scandals struck a blow at her most cherished ideal for her children.

All in all the spring of 1871 was perhaps the most wretched of the Queen’s widowhood, for there seemed to be no form of public annoyance to which she was not exposed. That it was to a great extent her own fault did not, and, from her supreme belief in the inviolability of her position, could not, occur to her. She blamed her Government and her people alone, and so found further reason for ignoring England and expanding the warmth of her affections over Scotland. Had she not alienated the great mass of the public there might have been discussion over her new demands for dowries and incomes, but there would not have been the general excitement that was shown.

The marriage of Princess Louise was the first centre of attack, and then came the majority of Prince Arthur.

Louise was pretty and gay, desiring the admiration of her kind, and, like other girls, she flirted with any charming man in her proximity, which for a queen’s daughter was perhaps not “quite discreet.” The papers announced once that she was to marry a bishop, and it was a matter of open comment that she was much inclined to a “handsome, brilliant divine,” Canon Ainger. On the other hand, she was never accused of any partiality for impecunious German princelings, her last flirtation being with the Marquis of Lorne, whom the Queen said she remembered in his babyhood as “a dear, white, fat, fair little fellow with reddish hair.”

Whatever her Majesty’s private feeling about this marriage, she said no word publicly against it, and it may well be believed that if a Briton were to be chosen, she would prefer a Scot to any other. The Prince of Wales was strongly against it, but then he was not in the habit of approving of his brothers-in-law, his disregard for the Crown Prince being a matter of comment in Germany. When “Fritz” and his wife came to London in 1871 it was remarked in Germany that “they made a great impression, Society and the Press recognizing his importance,” and “the Prince of Wales and his Princess were themselves more civil this time, and even put in an appearance at the German legation.”

In spite of all remonstrance Victoria gave her sanction to the marriage--all that was needed to make the Royal Marriage Act a dead letter--and the wedding was fixed for March 1871, during Lent.

Society, instead of upholding its own order, followed the example of Albert Edward, but then it always follows the bell-wether on the sheep track and does little thinking on its own account. The people were considerative at first, for if an income were granted the Princess, they hoped it would be spent in the British Isles, perhaps even in London.

As money was wanted once again, Victoria once again screwed up her courage to face her loyal Parliament, and in February drove quickly through the streets to the peers’ entrance of the House of Lords to declare Parliament open. She was received with little enthusiasm, for the people knew now that she was only ready to humour them when she wanted something, and they resented it. When she entered the throne-room it was seen that some modification had been made in the sombreness of her dress. The material was less heavy, and a small diamond crown was worn above her widow’s cap. She also was preceded by Lord Granville carrying the sword of state, the Marquis of Winchester with the cap of maintenance, and Lord Bessborough with the crown. For a brief moment the assembled multitude hoped that she would herself read the speech. But no; the Lord Chancellor accomplished the task, while his royal mistress sat with downcast eyes on the throne, the robes of state being loosely cast around her.

With the meeting of Parliament the most extraordinary discussion on royalty began. To a student of events it was not astonishing that the spirit of revolution was still strong. France had declared a republic, and for more than seventy years France had greatly influenced England. Now high and low alike were asking why something like a million pounds of public money should go to keep up a Monarchy and a Court which for two-thirds of the year lived at the two extremes of the kingdom and for the other third, though within reach of London, steadily refused to appear there. Though public suspicion and criticism were as keen now as before, it had become somewhat muzzled, for Gladstone stood as a buffer between royalty and the people; and, much as Victoria disliked him, he was her strongest protector, his policy of domestic reform alone being a safeguard to her. The feeling among the workmen that at last a friend was at the helm of State, that at last their dire needs were to receive consideration, had by 1870 reduced the tendency to violent speech. But now it all broke forth again.

After the official announcement of Louise’s engagement meetings were held in many large towns to protest against the money grant that every one knew would be demanded. At Nottingham it was condemned and the crowd separated shouting for a republic. Birmingham would not give a hearing to the two members who spoke in its favour, and a deputation was sent to them demanding that they should oppose it in the House. At Wellington Music Hall, Holborn, a packed meeting passed with acclamation a resolution that the time had come to “demand the withdrawal of all annuities now paid out of the taxes to German princes, and also that no further endowments be made to any of the royal family.” Brighton demanded the opposition of its member, Professor Fawcett, and other towns too numerous to mention followed suit.

The _Pall Mall Gazette_, in a remarkably outspoken leader, declared that to be a worthy representative at the head of the State was a difficult part, “and yet a ruler of real intellect and force of character might produce incalculable effect upon the country.” It rang the note of warning against indifference and neglect, adding, “Nine men in ten would preserve the monarchy, but not one in ten would express warm personal devotion to it. Thus if vehement political agitation arise, those institutions which have ceased to cause lively enthusiasm may go to the wall more quickly than any one expects.”

When Gladstone proposed the usual grants many petitions were laid on the table against them, Professor Fawcett, Mr. Peter Taylor and Sir Robert Peel speaking as opposers. The last-named questioned the use to which Victoria put the money granted by the nation to support the dignity and representation of the Crown: “When foreign sovereigns come to England it is painful to Englishmen to find the enormous income is not devoted in the way contemplated by Parliament.... I would double the income of the Prince of Wales. He lives among us and does that for which £385,000 is voted to the Crown.” He added that when a princess lays aside royalty she should accept other conditions, and her Majesty should be left to make provision for her.

The same note was struck in the Upper House by Lord Oranmore and others, yet in both Houses every one knew that the grants were assured, so when it came to a division the protestors, knowing themselves in a minority, stayed away. Two objectors, Peter Taylor and Auberon Herbert, were tellers in the division, and Professor Fawcett walked in stately solitude into the “No” lobby, provoking peals of laughter. This result gave the historians the chance of ignoring the whole agitation and enlarging upon the great satisfaction felt by the House and the country over the match.

The Queen held personally two Courts at Buckingham Palace in February, thus necessitating only one night’s stay in the capital, which was felt to be but a poor return to her hungry and generous Londoners.

There was trouble over the date of the wedding. Instead of going abroad, Victoria chose to spend April at Osborne, leaving Windsor on the 5th; the earlier part of May was absorbed by glad anticipations of Balmoral; the latter part of that month and the greater part of June was passed in Scotland; therefore the only time left was March. So, though she was the head of the Church, she chose a date in Lent, much to the horror of those subjects who regarded that period as a time for soberness. Agitations were set afoot to get the day altered, and to petition the Archbishop to declare it lawful for the clergy to dispense for the day with the Church’s ordinary rule, and there was an attempt to institute in London High Churches a special penitential service at the hour of the wedding.

Victoria was quite unmoved, and the marriage took place at St. George’s Chapel, the Queen taking a prominent part in it by walking up the aisle with the bride, perhaps that she might publicly show her sanction. The Duke of Argyll was in full Campbell apparel--kilt, philibeg, sporran, claymore and scarf--while the Marquis and his two supporters were in Volunteer Artillery uniform. Every one was there, even the Gladstones, in their very best clothes; and the _Daily Telegraph_, reporting the gorgeousness of it all, added that the heralds who were busy about the discharge of their duties looked like “enormous human remains from some strange island where the missing link is to be found between man and birds.”

When the newly wedded drove away rice and satin shoes were thrown after them, also a new broom which the muscular arm of John Brown sent slithering on to the stones. Being a Scotch marriage, he was surely privileged. Scotch sentiment on the event was amusingly expressed by the Campbell crofter who said that the Queen must be a proud woman that day because she was marrying her daughter to the son of the great Duke of Argyll.

In July, when a grant was asked for Prince Arthur, the whole monetary discussion was again raised, and even more bitterly. A demonstration in Trafalgar Square was attended by the largest crowd that had ever met there, reaching from the steps of St. Martin’s Church to the barracks which then stood at the west side, to listen to Bradlaugh protesting, in the name of the men of Lancashire, Yorkshire and other counties, against “princely paupers” taking the people’s money, some one else saying that such grants tended to encourage idleness and the evils which sprang from it. At the same time in the House, every approach to which was closely guarded by police, half a dozen members protested against the grant, and though the motion was passed with an overwhelming majority, there remained “an uneasy feeling that the prolonged eclipse of the splendour of royalty had effectually damaged the popularity, not only of the Queen, but of the Crown.”

The Queen herself, fortified by her usual attitude, could see no danger in the universal discontent and no justice in the appeal of her people; she saw nothing but a wicked persecution of herself, and blamed her ministers for not putting it down with a high hand, for not eloquently and publicly proclaiming that all that she did was right.

Disraeli might have found some means of diverting public attention, he would certainly have softly sympathized with his sovereign; but the strenuous Gladstone, who defended her strongly both in and out of the House, showed her that he wanted her to help in safeguarding herself. He begged her to conform to the demands of her position, to open Parliament, to delay a journey to Balmoral for the public good, or to carry out some other royal function; and this made her angry. She accused him of being inimical to her, of not recognizing the weight of work which hung over her, and she made the absurd charge that he was trying to force her to do work which was not so much hers as his. Her feeling for him became actively resentful, and, to quote from the article in the _Quarterly Review_--

“The surface of her mind had received an impression unfavourable to the approach of that particular minister, and nothing could ever in future make her really pleased to welcome him.”

Disraeli had little sympathy with representative government or the English Constitution, and he made matters worse in a speech at Hughenden when he said that the Queen’s duties were multifarious, weighty and unceasing, that she read every dispatch received or sent; adding, “The whole internal administration of the country greatly depends on the sign manual; and of our present Sovereign it may be said that her signature has never been placed to any public document of which she did not know the purport and _of which she did not approve_.”

Seeing how very conservative Victoria had become, this declaration raised wide indignation, for it described personal government, autocracy. Indeed, the reiteration of the assertion that the Queen was unceasingly at work on State affairs and had no time for mere functions was breeding an angry suspicion that there was more to be feared than desired in her activity.

Upon her the painful events of the first half of 1871 had a not unusual effect. She fell ill with neuralgia and rheumatic gout, which she attributed to worry. The news of the illness at once caused a modification of public comment; people began to think they had been hard upon her, and they atoned by showing sympathy and concern; and though this pleased her Majesty, she put it down to remorse for the cruel way in which the nation had treated her, saying “that she thought it very hard that it was necessary to have this severe illness and great suffering to make people feel for her and understand her.” She was not to blame for this in one way: it was the result of the rigidity of her nature; as has been said, she regarded herself as right, and nothing could shake that conviction.

The Queen probably suffered from what is now known as neuritis. In 1869 she had “a violent attack of neuralgia” in the leg, and it is more than likely that the long, wearing lameness which afflicted her in 1883 and the following year was due to the same thing, rather than to an accidental tripping on the stairway.

It was November before she could walk up and down stairs again, just about the time when discontent broke out afresh, started by Sir Charles Dilke in a speech at Newcastle-on-Tyne. His subject was the Civil List and the sums voted to the Crown, such as £131,000 in yearly annuities to daughters, sons and relatives, £7000 for steam packets to take visitors to and from Osborne, and for insignia and presents when a royal prince went abroad, £20,000 in military and naval pay to members of the royal family, £100,000 for the yearly upkeep of the royal yachts, and other sums, bringing the total to £1,000,000 of public money. Concerning the yachts, Sir Charles added, “As an instance of the decorative character of these yachts I may say that I found an able-bodied seaman who was maintained all the year round to paint the lion and the unicorn on the five brackets. He commented upon the freedom of these annuities from all taxes, and of the Queen from income tax. From this he discussed the sinecures in the Household, declaring that among the officials retained were twenty-one doctors, dentists and chemists, a lithographer-in-ordinary, an historical painter to the Queen, a portrait painter to the Queen, the Lord High Almoner, Sub-Almoner, Hereditary Grand Almoner, Clerk of the Check, Clerk of the Closet, Master of the Buckhounds, Exons-in-waiting and Hereditary Grand Falconer.

The real brunt of his attack lay in the question: “Now that no Court is kept £100,000 is saved on tradesmen’s bills, and where does that money go? Has it not been diverted from its just use into the pocket of the Queen?” The speech concluded with--

“Show me a fair chance that a Republic will be free from the political corruption that hangs about the Monarchy, and I will say, ‘Let it come!’”

The public was so inured, and in a great respect so sympathetic, to these attacks on the woman who flouted it that the speech raised little surprise or horror, and comment upon it would have been kept alive, but that across the strained feeling fell a misfortune which, though quite extraneous to the trouble, diverted every one’s attention.

The Prince of Wales, temporarily unpopular and in social disgrace, fell ill. He had been staying at Londesborough Lodge, Scarborough, and after his return to Sandringham developed the complaint of which his father died, typhoid fever. At the time there were many stories of domestic estrangement in the princely home, but the next three months healed these, made people forget the Queen’s shortcomings, and reinstated royalty once more in its high position.

Alexandra, Helena and Alice became Albert Edward’s devoted nurses, but his death was expected daily. On December 1 he recovered consciousness for a short time, and, hearing the date, murmured, “It is Alexandra’s birthday.” A relapse followed this moment of hope, and a member of the household wrote that the end was not far distant. The Queen went down to Sandringham for the second time, her face wet with tears as she left Windsor; and she stayed there eleven days, dreading that terrible 14th, not daring to hope that it would not again bring death to her family. But to her joy on that very day the first sign of improvement took place, and she left Norfolk on the 19th consoled and hopeful, paying a high tribute to the doctors and royal nurses when she said--

“Had my Prince had the same treatment he might not have died.”

There was a great discussion as to how the disease had been contracted, for Lord Chesterfield, who was at Londesborough Lodge at the same time, also took typhoid and died. On the other hand, Blegg, the Prince’s groom, who had not left Sandringham, succumbed to typhoid on December 18. Expert examination showed that while the drainage of Sandringham was passable, its water supply was flavoured by cesspools, and the disease was rampant at a village near the Prince’s house. Londesborough Lodge was condemned without extenuation as “a vessel inverted over the mouth of a drain-pipe,” so judgment had to be withheld.

At the end of February 1872 a thanksgiving service was held at St. Paul’s Cathedral, to which the Queen went in semi-state, changing her mourning _crêpe_ for velvet and ermine. London people, diverted from their grumbling by sympathy with a great trouble, made a gala day of the event. They hung their banners and carpets over their house-fronts, smothered the window-frames with flowers, and made much money by letting those windows to cousins from the country. Some enthusiasts also spent enough to turn three hundred yards of the Strand into a perfumed pathway, strewn with violets.

Victoria was so happy that she had lost her self-consciousness and desire to hide, and she forgot to be mean over trifles of procedure. So the Lord Mayor shut the gates of Temple Bar in her face, that he, as King of the City, might command them to be opened for his Sovereign in the ancient fashion; and the people cheered frantically at this evidence of good feeling. Somewhere along the route a travelling circus got mixed up with the generals’ staff and could not be disengaged, at which the crowd went wild with delight, and, temporarily, loved their Queen and Prince with a boundless love.

In contrast to this gay, careless crowd, away in some dark corner sat a sour, disappointed residuum of Revolutionaries, the committee of which wrote that day--the letter getting into the hands of the police--

“These English are a nation of fools; they were all mad this morning and they will all be drunk to-night--but the Revolution is adjourned for fifty years.”

Yet republicanism was still much alive, and there were those who felt that though the Prince’s illness was a cast of the dice in the Queen’s favour, it was not at all the same thing as a personal attempt on her part to obtain her people’s affection, and many would have echoed the words of J. R. Green, had they known them--

“I am sorry when any young fellow dies at thirty, and am far more sorry when any mother suffers; but the sentiment of newspapers and town councils over ‘telegrams from the sick-bed’ is simply ludicrous. However, one remembers that all France went mad with anxiety when Lewis the Well-beloved fell sick in his earlier days, and yet somehow or other ’89 came never the later.”[12]

The Queen, however, felt very comforted by her people’s enthusiasm, and she wrote a letter to them, saying that their loyalty and sympathy had “made a deep and lasting impression upon her heart which could never be effaced”--a statement which they had opportunities of testing.

The day after the thanksgiving an incident happened which increased the general loyal feeling. As the Queen was driving into Buckingham Palace yard, a half-witted youth of sixteen, named O’Connor, presented a pistol at her over the side of the carriage with one hand and held out a paper with the other. The evidence given at Bow Street on March 1 was somewhat conflicting. John Brown said, “The prisoner ran round the back of the carriage to the side where the Queen was sitting and raised his hand. He placed his hand upon the carriage and I seized him by the neck.... I kept the boy in custody until the police arrived.”

General Harding, one of the two equerries, said, “I saw a commotion in the carriage and I went to the off side. The prisoner had already been seized by the other equerry in attendance.” The constable’s evidence was, “Afterwards I ran into the enclosure and received the prisoner in custody from Lord Charles Fitzroy (the other equerry).”

However, whether Lord Charles Fitzroy or John Brown caught the boy, the Queen gave all the credit to the latter, and regarded him as a hero. Exaggerated reports as to the danger the Queen had been in caused great excitement, but Lord Ronald Gower,[13] who went to the police station out of curiosity, saw only a harmless-looking boy and an old flintlock pistol which had not carried a ball for many a year, and had neither flint nor hammer. The paper was a petition for the release of some Fenian prisoners.

Victoria made such a fuss over John Brown and his share in the event that she cooled the enthusiasm of her subjects, who then became inclined to laugh the whole thing aside. She announced that she had long thought of rewarding her faithful domestic servants, and began by presenting the Scotsman with a gold medal and an annuity of £25, as a “mark of appreciation of his devotion on the occasion of the attack made upon her Majesty.”

Other awards of the same sort do not appear to have been made public, and it would be interesting to know if any other good servant was presented with the order of John Brown.

This superior man grew more and more burdensome to his colleagues and gave cause for much gossip. Every one had some story about his roughness of speech and rude manners. A man who for long superintended the details of the royal journeys to the north relates that on passing along the platform one night at Wigan he was surprised to find John Brown. On inquiring if all was right, he was further surprised by the answer--

“No; the Queen says the carriage is shaking like the devil.”[14]

Neele adds: “John Brown’s coarse phonograph had thus transmitted her Majesty’s gentle complaint.”

He tells how on another journey the Queen’s reading-lamp was required, and for some cause the candles could not be placed in the sockets. The attendant tried again and again to get over the difficulty, and at last said it must wait until they reached Carlisle. John Brown would not hear of it, and, “as I fancy was his wont, asserted as though her Majesty had heard the suggestion, ‘The Queen says the train shanna stir a fut till the lamps are put in.’ And it had to be done.”

It was John Brown who broke bad news to her Majesty, upon whose arm she leaned if feeling pain in her leg, who went with her in her walks, drives, excursions, visits, who stood by her chair and scolded if she did not eat enough or if she chose from a dish which he thought would disagree with her. “Brown, who superintends everything for me,” was the best description of this useful but unpopular person.

He was said to take large percentages from the tradesmen, and in return would, when possible, give them his help. Thus, when in 1878 the Court remained for Christmas at Windsor, the Mayor went to see his friend Brown to say that the town would sustain much loss if on Boxing Day there were no attraction for the visitors. So Brown promised to use his influence with the Queen, who, to the intense astonishment of all around her, ordered the state apartments to be open to the public on that day, though she was in residence. The day was wet, and _The Times_ reported that “the state apartments of the castle being opened proved a refuge to the unfortunate pleasure-seekers.”

This, however, is a digression.

A fortnight after the day of thanksgiving Sir Charles Dilke was ill-advised enough to repeat in the House the speech he had made in the autumn, on bringing forward a motion for an inquiry into the manner in which the income and allowances of the Crown were expended. As both he and Auberon Herbert announced themselves as republicans there was a terrible uproar, with booing and shouts of “Vide!” while one member from behind the Speaker’s chair gave loud cock-crows, a form of derision which had not been heard in that place for forty years. Professor Fawcett opposed the motion, saying that republicanism had nothing to do with huckstering and haggling over the cost of the Queen’s income.” It was lost by 276 to 4.

Victoria is reported as saying musingly of Dilke, whose father had received a baronetcy for his services in the Great Exhibition of 1851, “I have had him on my lap. I have stroked his hair. I suppose I stroked it the wrong way.”

But though sentiment was to the fore at the moment, this did not prevent a widespread conviction that great injustice was being done in the use of public money. The preceding autumn a pamphlet had been widely disseminated, entitled _What does she do with it?_ by “Solomon Temple, Builder.” It gave a statement of the case which, though exaggerated in financial details, which could only be guessed at, was just and temperate, showing how the Civil List was a public matter, and had always been treated as a public matter until about 1850, when, under the influence of the Prince Consort, the Lords of the Treasury had denounced Lord Brougham’s questions, to which he demanded answers, concerning the great savings made upon the Civil List, as improper, mischievous and disloyal. By the Civil List the Queen was allotted £60,000 a year for her own private use, concerning which no one had a right to criticize; further sums of £131,260 went for salaries and retired allowances for her Majesty’s household, £172,500 for household expenses, and £13,200 for alms and bounty. These sums were, as the Civil List Act stated, to enable the Queen to “defray the expenses of her royal household, and to support the honour and dignity of the Crown.” Now it had been admitted that the Prince Consort had by 1849 effected considerable savings on the salary list--savings which had gone on, and even been increased, yearly; thorough secrecy had been maintained as to what use the money had been put. The natural inference was that it had been diverted to swell the sum of £60,000 allotted to the Queen’s private use. It was further known that the Prince had left a very considerable sum of money by will; this again was treated with secrecy, only the Queen being aware of what the sum was or what had become of it. A miser named John Camden Neild had left Victoria a quarter of a million pounds as well as large estates, and others to a less degree had followed his example. And meanwhile it was believed by every one that in her secluded life the Queen made further great savings on the Civil List. It was therefore felt that the public should be assured that the money voted by them for the maintenance of state was not being diverted simply to add to the great riches of one who was already an immensely rich woman. But no assurance of the kind was given, and so almost to the day of her death this matter rankled in the minds of the Queen’s subjects, who felt that the refusal of ministers to treat the Civil List as a public matter meant that all the suspicions were true, and that the country had no right to be asked constantly to add by annuities and dowries to the wealth of one family.