QUEEN-EMPRESS

“In the fulness of years and of successful management the Lady of the House was buried, and her memory is cherished still--but it is the memory of the manager of the ‘Queen’s Head;’ and not of the ‘Empress’s Crown.’ Under the former she had won her high repute; the other could add nothing to it.”--_The Blot on the Queen’s Head._

“Those who were present at dinner when Disraeli proposed the Queen’s health as Empress of India, with a little speech as flowery as the oration of a Maharajah, used to describe the pretty smiling bow, half a curtsey, which the Queen made as he sat down. It is still remembered how much more she used to smile in conversation with him than she did with any other of her ministers.”--‘_Quarterly Review_,’ April 1901.

Disraeli, having found himself obliged to give much attention to domestic affairs, was yet dreaming of wider glory. Like Bismarck, he did not find the highest place in his nation’s councils enough; he wanted to have the world as a playground, to feel that _his_ mind had influenced great affairs in great countries, that he was not only a power in England, but in Europe, in Asia and in Africa. It was at least a great ambition, and so long as his work was beneficent it was worthy of praise. He began by turning his attention to the truculent country near home, for Germany had been behaving in a very suspicious way.

In 1874 the Germans were fortifying without stint Strasburg and Metz, and adding a chain of detached forts of incredible strength. France’s only new frontier work was Epinal, and later Toul, Paris being made the strong place of the country. Bismarck, afraid, or pretending to be afraid, of France attempting retaliation, was preparing for a second Franco-Prussian war.

The Queen heard much of what was going on in Berlin and Darmstadt from her daughters and others, and she and her minister did their best to put an end to the mischief. She implored the Tsar to do what he could to prevent such a calamity, and the Tsar wrote to Emperor William, which gave Bismarck a fine opportunity for uttering spiteful things about Victoria. She also wrote personally to William, and he, like the pious hypocrite he was, answered in pained surprise that she could deem him capable of such an enormity as plunging Europe into war; altogether, had not facts proved all her contentions, the Queen might have experienced the mortifying feeling of having been an interfering busybody over nothing. But she knew and all the others knew that she was right, and though, had Germany been thoroughly prepared and ready to surprise the world with some false charge of French treachery, the war would not have been delayed because of Victoria, it is certain that the detection of their only half-completed plans destroyed them for the time.

Disraeli’s next good deed was to send the Prince of Wales to India, a plan which synchronized with some public criticisms of the Prince, who, being tired of his occupation of making embroidery for the royal reputation, had broken out in a new place. He had begun to vary his public good deeds by displaying an intense interest in horse-racing and horse-rearing, which shocked the unco’ guid. The _Daily News_ warned him against following the devious ways of his great-uncle, “who, if the first gentleman in England in manners, was also the most vulgar ruffian in Europe in morals,” and advised him--without any reference to what might have been the Queen’s wishes--to fill that vacant place of confidential agent of the monarchy between the sovereign and her ministers which so badly needed filling. Others followed this lead, and Albert Edward was much in the position of the men and the donkey, though he never allowed himself to be driven to the extremity of carrying the donkey himself.

The journey to India relieved him from this affectionate care, and it placed him for the first time before the world in an important way as the representative of the English Crown. Alexandra had to stay at home in accordance with the charming Victorian custom concerning husbands and wives; and the enthusiastic Mary of Teck, meeting the Princess, wrote--

“I thought her lovelier than ever. She is a great darling, and I _just adore her_. Though I am quite in favour of Wales going to India, I grieve for her at the long separation, and wish she could have gone with him, if only for a part of the time.”[17]

The Prince and Princess were at Balmoral just before the departure for the East, and the Queen arranged “various details of this anxious journey to India.” In making his adieux Albert Edward said good-bye to Löhlein, ex-valet to his father, also to Brown; and the Queen wrote--

“I saw how that began to try him, and I felt nearly upset myself when Brown shook him by the hand and said, ‘God bless your Royal Highness, and bring you safe back!’”

One wonders if the Prince appreciated the initiative being taken by the servant as much as he welcomed the good wish.

The Prime Minister followed this good idea with an astute stroke of business for which England should be ever grateful to him. The Khedive, who was on the verge of bankruptcy, held 175,000 shares out of the 400,000 in the Suez Canal, which he offered to France. The editor of the _Pall Mall Gazette_ at the time was Frederick Greenwood, of whom George Meredith once said--

“Greenwood was not only a great journalist, he had a statesman’s head. The national interests were always urgent at his heart.” He alone knew of the Khedive’s desire, and promptly communicated it to Disraeli. The latter wasted no time, but, with the secrecy that he loved, bought the shares for England for £4,000,000. He then astounded his Ministry and the world with his announcement. It is to be noted to Mr. Greenwood’s honour that he did not publish the startling transaction in his paper until it suited the Prime Minister’s plans. When people congratulated Disraeli on this brilliant stroke, it is said that he wagged his head in a mysterious way and hinted that this was only part of his scheme and there was more to follow.

At the beginning of the session 1876 some of the “more” was disclosed: the Queen was to have a new title, but what was for a time kept secret; then at last it was announced that she was to be an empress. The people of England were electrified, unpleasantly, for great things had been done through many centuries by kings or queens of England, and that these honoured names should be overlaid by an Eastern title, cheaply gained at the word of a minister of Eastern origin, annoyed people of all politics and classes. What, they asked, was there about the title to make it desired? Where were the emperors of France, where were the ancient emperors of Germany, whose regalia still lies uselessly in the treasure house of Austria? The Emperor in Germany but not of Germany got no reverence in England for his new semi-imperialism, the Emperor of Mexico had been shot, the Emperor of Brazil could give no weight to the word, the emperors of Russia, autocrats as they were, had often to pay with their lives for their title.

That Disraeli, with a majority of 105, could do just anything he pleased every one knew, but the sentiment of England was against the change. As Sir William Harcourt said, “Patriotism and loyalty--sentiments the strongest in our nature--are made of ancient associations. It is for these things that great men have been proud to live, and good men have dared to die.”

Every one quoted the passage from _King John_--

“You were crowned before And the high royalty was ne’er plucked off,

* * * * *

Therefore, to be possessed with double pomp, To guard a title that was rich before, To gild refined gold, to paint the lily, To throw a perfume on the violet, To smooth the ice, or add another hue Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish, Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.”

Disraeli was depicted as Aladdin’s magician offering new crowns for old; he was accused of intending to demand that a sum should be voted to whitewash Westminster Abbey; and Victoria was asked whether she would rather be “Victoria, Dei Gratia Angliæ Regina” or “Victoria, Disraeli Gratia Indiæ Imperatrix”?

Disraeli liked the jibes, but he saw that some limit must be put on the idea, and promised that it should in no circumstances be used except in reference to India. Victoria was as delighted as a child with a new toy. It would put her even with the Russian potentate anyhow, and Marie Alexandrovna would no longer have cause to regard the English family as inferior to her own, while Disraeli persuaded her that so new and great an added honour would, with her poorer and discontented subjects, repair the torn prestige of her royalty. To ensure this she consented to go in semi-state to open a new wing of the London Hospital, thus giving the East End a chance of seeing her; and _Punch_ published a cartoon showing her standing by the bedside of a little patient, and softly touching the child’s hair, saying--

“My darling, I hope you will be better now!”

“‘Queen of the East’ is the best title of all,” said _Punch_.

However, Victoria, prompted by Disraeli, thought that all who opposed the idea were doing so purely from party motives; she could not conceive that there was real loyalty and a dislike of snobbishness behind the opposition, even though many Conservatives joined it. She used her influence where she hoped it would be effective, and, to the intense astonishment of Lord Shaftesbury, invited him to dine at Windsor and stay the night of March 11, it being over twenty years since he had been her guest.

“He was satisfied that it must be for some especial object, and he had little doubt that it related to the question then uppermost in men’s minds--the Royal Titles Bill. Although the weather was inclement Lord Shaftesbury went to Windsor.

“‘I dread it,’ he wrote on the previous day; ‘the cold, the evening-dress, the solitude, for I am old, and dislike being far away from assistance should I be ill at night.... She sent for me in 1848 to consult me on a very important matter. Can it be so now?’

“‘_March 14th._--Returned from Windsor. I am sure it was so, though not distinctly avowed. Her Majesty personally said nothing....’

“The views that Lord Shaftesbury expressed at Windsor he was requested by the Lord-in-waiting to communicate to Mr. Disraeli, and this was accordingly done. These views were in every way opposed to the proposed title,” and Lord Shaftesbury moved an address in the House of Lords, praying her Majesty not to take it.[18]

It was evident from Disraeli’s reply in the House that he himself did not look upon the matter as of dignified importance, but rather as a pretty present to the Queen, for he treated it with great levity. He assured the members that Milton’s Satan twice addressed Eve as Empress, that Spencer had dedicated his _Faerie Queene_ to the “magnificent Empress Elizabeth,” and added further that a twelve-year-old schoolgirl had written him that in _Whitaker’s Almanack_ the Queen was already described as Empress of India. Robert Lowe asked with contempt whether he wished the House to think as meanly of the subject as he did himself, and the number of dissentients greatly increased.

The bill passed, of course, under the promise that, instead of the limitation of the title being inserted in the bill, the proclamation should declare that the title of empress was to be localized in India alone. But the proclamation declared nothing of the sort, the only condition being that Victoria should not call herself Empress of England, which led to the raking up of the whole question again. A lively scene occurred through a rash speech of Bob Lowe’s at a dinner at Retford, in which he voiced his strong suspicion that “at least two previous ministers have entirely refused to have anything to do with such a change. More pliant persons have now been found, and I have no doubt the thing will be done.”

Gladstone wrote to say that the Queen had never made any such suggestion to him, but Disraeli was furious, as much for himself as for his monarch, as he said it held him up to public infamy as servile. Victoria entrusted him with a definite contradiction of the statement, and Disraeli violently denounced Lowe, thundering at him and banging the table, and losing himself in a really fine spell of rhetoric gone mad. Justin MacCarthy suggested that it would have been better had the Prime Minister contradicted the charge quietly, and not, by “this boisterous and furious denunciation,” have dragged the dignity of the Crown through the mud of a parliamentary squabble.

Victoria allowed herself little restriction in the use of the new title, for within the year she signed all English documents as Victoria R. and I., and in 1893 caused Ind. Imp. to be engraved on British coins. However, to the people of England the imperial title is still unfamiliar and almost non-existent.

Disraeli had given the Queen her wish, and she in return made him a lord, he becoming Lord Beaconsfield at the end of the session of 1876. The Queen was proclaimed Empress of India on May 1, and on the following 1st of January Lord Lytton made the proclamation in that country at a Durbar. In far places the colonels of regiments announced it to assembled crowds. One is said to have insisted upon doing it in Hindustanee in honour of the occasion, and part of his speech ran--

“Pigs! The Queen-Empress has sent to me a number of cats, which I will now distribute among you. She requests that you will hang them round your necks and continue to wear them in that manner.”

This affair had kept Victoria’s name well before the public, which forgot to grumble, and she, being pleased with her ministers, forgot in her turn to feel irritated and perverse with her people. Thus, demand being withdrawn, she was more ready to give, and appeared several times in London. She attended a great concert at Albert Hall, went to inspect the elaborate Albert Memorial, in which had been placed the gilded figure of the Prince Consort: “My gilty dad,” as Albert Edward was reported to have flippantly said. She also attended the funeral in Westminster Abbey of Lady Augusta Stanley.

Another of her ladies, Lady Caroline Barrington, had died suddenly at Kensington Palace, and the Queen went up from Windsor, carrying many flowers, that she might once again look on her waiting-woman’s face. In this decade she lost Dr. Norman Macleod and her stepsister Feodore, while in 1876 died a woman to whom she had early in her reign been kind, the wife of the Duke of Sussex, whom she had created Duchess of Inverness. Of her Princess Mary wrote--

“I, alas! no longer have my kind neighbour, the dear little Duchess, to fall back upon.” For her was opened the tomb in Kensal Green in which lay the old royal Duke.

Lord John Russell died in 1878 at Pembroke Lodge, and the next year the Prince Imperial was killed in South Africa. But there were two other deaths, more dreadful and intimate, which brought her much sorrow: one in 1873, when a little son of Princess Alice’s fell out of a window before his mother’s eyes, and, falling twenty feet upon the stones below, died in a few hours; the other was five years later, on the melancholy 14th of December, when Princess Alice, having nursed her family through diphtheria, succumbed herself to that disease. There was a peculiar sympathy between Victoria and this daughter, and the blow was very heavy. The whole country grieved with her, for it had been much impressed with the Princess’s fine qualities. She was buried in Germany, but at her desire her body was wrapped in the Union Jack.