Sons, Servants and Statesmen (11 page)

D
uring the first three decades of her reign, from her accession to his death twenty-eight years later, the Queen’s relations with Lord Palmerston went from warm regard to intense irritation and finally to grudging admiration. While he was Foreign Secretary, she and Albert found ‘Pilgerstein’ (a nickname devised by Albert and King Leopold, a German pun on the words ‘palmer’ or ‘pilgrim’, and ‘stone’) extremely trying. Although it could not be denied that he was very knowledgeable and hardworking, they found him too impetuous, too ready to bluster and threaten other countries, and rude and undiplomatic. When he failed to keep the Queen informed of what was happening, he sent despatches before she had time to approve them, or delayed passing on boxes of papers for several days at a time, then sending her so many at once that she could not possibly go through them all in time. If taken to task, he would apologise, blaming his subordinates in the Foreign Office, and then carry on unrepentantly as before.

Palmerston’s wife tried to impress on him that he must handle the Queen more carefully. She warned her husband that the sovereign did not have the intellectual capacity to respond to reason; he always thought he could convince people by arguments, and she did not have reflection or sense to feel the force of them. ‘I should treat what she says more lightly & courteously, and not enter into argument with her, but lead her on gently, by letting her believe you have both the same opinions in fact & the same wishes, but take sometimes different ways of carrying them out.’
¹

That he strove to interfere in what the Queen and Albert regarded as their own province, that of foreign affairs, did not assist friendly relations. Throughout the first ten years or so of Victoria’s reign, much of Europe was troubled with constitutional and national aspirations. Lands without constitutions were demanding them, while territories such as Hungary and the Italian dependencies of the Austrian empire were seeking independence from what they saw as oppressive foreign rule.

As a Whig, Palmerston believed wholeheartedly in constitutional restraints on monarchs, rather than absolutism. He supported the attempts of Sardinia and France to drive the Austrians out of northern Italy. While he stopped short of believing in active armed interference in the internal affairs of other states, he tended to offer unsolicited advice, often expressed in trenchant language. As Prime Minister, Russell was often obliged to admit that in many ways his Foreign Secretary was not showing his sovereign sufficient courtesy and respect, which she had every right to expect. Yet Palmerston was popular with the public, seen as an unflinching upholder of British prestige abroad, and one who was never afraid to stand up to over-mighty foreign despots when necessary.

Several attempts were made to try to keep him out of mischief. It was suggested that he might be sent to Ireland as Lord Lieutenant, or offered the office of Home Secretary instead of Foreign Secretary, but to no avail. In August 1850 differences between monarch and minister came to a head, and after a heated conversation with Russell, the Queen demanded from him a promise in writing as to what she expected from her Foreign Secretary in future: that he would ‘distinctly state what he proposes in a given case, in order that the Queen may know as distinctly to
what
she has given her Royal sanction’ and that ‘having once given her sanction to a measure, that it be not arbitrarily altered or modified by the Minister; such an act she must consider as failing in sincerity towards the Crown, and justly to be visited by the exercise of her Constitutional right of dismissing that Minister’. She expected to be kept informed of what passed between him and the Foreign Ministers before any important decisions were taken, to receive all foreign despatches in good time and to have drafts for her approval sent to her in sufficient time for her to make herself acquainted with their contents before they were finally sent.
²

It was a reminder that the high-handed Palmerston would have to mend his ways in future. There would inevitably be a clash of wills between the sovereign and her husband, who saw foreign affairs as a kind of family trust, and a popular minister who had the support of the Commons and of the nation. Neither the Queen nor her husband were fully aware that power had almost imperceptibly slipped out of the hands of the Crown.

In September 1850 there was to be a further clash of opinions. The Austrian military commander, General Julius Haynau, known throughout Europe as ‘General Hyaena’, paid a visit to London as a private citizen. After his brutal repression in Hungary during the revolutionary fervour of 1848–9, his name was a byword for cruelty. He was easily recognised because of his long moustaches, and when he went to see the Barclays & Perkins Brewery at Southwark, a popular attraction among visitors to the city, the workmen physically attacked him, tore his clothes and pulled him by his moustaches through the gutter. He only escaped worse injury when he and his companions found refuge in a nearby tavern, eventually being rescued by the police. An Austrian exile, formerly editor of a liberal newspaper in Vienna and who had since taken a job as a clerk at the brewery, was probably behind the assault.

When she received a report of the incident, Queen Victoria told Palmerston that she thought ‘it would be proper if a draft were written to the Austrian government expressive of the deep regret of this government at the brutal outrage on one of the Emperor’s distinguished generals and subjects’.
³
Palmerston agreed and drafted a despatch, which he ended with a paragraph pointing out bluntly that somebody with Haynau’s reputation should have known better than to expose himself to public opinion in this way. Haynau had been warned in Austria to expect something of the sort if he did set foot in London. When the Austrian government replied to the despatch (which was not seen by the Queen, as the royal family had just departed for Balmoral), they demanded that the draymen should be prosecuted. Palmerston assured Baron Koller, the Austrian ambassador in London, that such a move was pointless, as the draymen would be bound to cite Haynau’s record of barbarities in Italy and Hungary as part of their case for the defence. When Palmerston replied to the government he firmly refused, adding that instead of striking him the draymen should have tossed him in a blanket, rolled him in the kennel and then sent him away in a cab.

When she read this despatch, the Queen was furious and demanded that it should be sent again with the ‘objectionable’ paragraph deleted. Palmerston told Russell, the Prime Minister, that such a despatch would need to be signed by a new Foreign Secretary. He then wrote a long explanatory memorandum to the Queen, praising the British people for their hospitable reception of foreigners and assuring her that feelings of indignation against Haynau were not confined to Britain. Thinking better than to send it, he decided that the issue was too trivial to merit resignation and sent a new, modified despatch.

The truce was clearly not going to last, and Palmerston’s overconfidence a year later proved his undoing. In December 1851 Louis Napoleon proclaimed himself President of the new Republic of France. The Queen and Russell agreed to adopt an attitude of neutrality at first but, to their annoyance, they soon found that Palmerston had already assured the French ambassador of British support. This was too much even for Russell to stomach, and he demanded his Foreign Secretary’s resignation. The Queen’s relief was short lived, for before long Palmerston had brought down Russell’s government over the question of a need for a national militia, bringing Lord Derby to power for an administration which would last only ten months in 1852, at the end of which year Palmerston returned to government as Home Secretary.

Queen Victoria liked and respected Derby, her new head of government, but had her doubts about the calibre of his new cabinet. ‘We have a most talented, capable, and courageous Prime Minister,’ she wrote to King Leopold, ‘but all his people have no experience.’
⁴
Derby’s administration was seriously weakened after elections in July, and following a defeat in the House of Commons in December he resigned, with the amenable, ‘safe’ Lord Aberdeen replacing him as prime minister.

In September 1853 Aberdeen sent Palmerston, his Home Secretary, to Balmoral as minister in attendance. Lady Palmerston did not accompany her husband there, but warned him to conduct himself as tactfully as possible in the presence of his sovereign. ‘Remember you have only one week to remain there, so you should manage to make yourself agreeable and to appear to enjoy the society.’
⁵
He evidently took her advice to heart, and when Queen Victoria and Prince Albert returned south later that year, they appeared to think more favourably of this maverick minister.

Unfortunately, the good impression he made was soon destroyed again when he provoked royal wrath by suggesting that the Queen’s cousin, Princess Mary of Cambridge, should marry Emperor Napoleon III’s cousin and heir, Prince Napoleon Jerome. The latter was thoroughly unsuitable, as he was not only a Bonaparte and therefore strictly a
parvenu
, but also a Roman Catholic. Lord Derby did not improve matters when he informed the Queen rather thoughtlessly that the French prince would probably make a far better husband than ‘some petty Member of a petty German Princes House’.
⁶
Neither Mary nor Napoleon showed any enthusiasm for such a match, and the scheme was quietly dropped.

By this time, a new crisis was threatening to disturb the peace. England and France had long feared that Russia was proposing to dismember the Turkish Empire and take the Dardanelles under Russian control. In February 1854, when the outbreak of hostilities seemed all but certain, Queen Victoria admitted that her heart was ‘not in this unsatisfactory war’. When she discussed it with Lord Aberdeen, he warned her that whatever happened, Palmerston was likely to succeed him as prime minister before long. She told him she would never feel safe with the latter, whereupon Aberdeen replied sadly that he feared Her Majesty ‘would not be safe with me during war, for I have such a terrible repugnance for it, in all its forms’. Despite his pacifist caution, Victoria insisted that an immediate war would be the lesser of two evils, as it would prevent a worse one later; ‘patching up was dangerous’.
⁷

Aberdeen begged to differ, but in the end there was to be no patching-up. Three days later, on 28 February, Britain formally declared war against Russia in support of Turkey and in alliance with France. English and French warships were sent to the Black Sea to prevent Russian landings, and later that year troops were sent to the Crimea.

To those who knew him, it came as little surprise that Aberdeen proved an indecisive prime minister and reluctant head of government. In January 1855 the cabinet refused to accept a motion for a committee of inquiry into the management of the war, and a vote of no confidence was carried against the government. Aberdeen resigned and, as he had foreseen, only Palmerston was strong enough to form a ministry. He was accordingly appointed prime minister.

Despite the Queen’s reservations about accepting him in office, Palmerston proved as determined as his sovereign to give utmost support to the Army and win the war. The Queen noted in her journal that to change her ‘dear kind, excellent friend, Lord Aberdeen’ had been a trial, as the incoming Prime Minister ‘certainly does owe us many amends for all he has done, and he is without doubt of a very different character to my dear and worthy friend. Still, as matters now stand, it was decidedly the right and wise course to take, and I think that Lord Palmerston, surrounded as he will be, will be sure to do no mischief.’
⁸

After the conflict ended in victory for England and France, the Queen paid her head of government his due. She and Albert agreed that of all the prime ministers they had yet had, ‘Lord Palmerston is the one who gives the least trouble, & is most amenable to reason & most ready to adopt suggestions. The great danger was foreign affairs, but now that these are conducted by an able, sensible & impartial man [Lord Clarendon], & that he [Lord Palmerston] is responsible for the
whole
, everything is quite different.’
⁹
After a general election the following year, Palmerston increased his majority, and his grip on European politics seemed to Victoria indispensable. Yet this did not augur well for the future, as at seventy-three he seemed to be ageing fast. She was particularly anxious about his frail appearance, apprehensive as to what they would do if anything should suddenly happen to him.

Her concern for him was perhaps only increased when he went up in her estimation immeasurably by doing what each of his predecessors as prime minister had thought impossible. He persuaded a rather sceptical cabinet that they should assent to Prince Albert being made Prince Consort. On 25 June 1857 a Council was held at Buckingham Palace at which the delighted Queen conferred the title on her husband by Letters Patent.

In January 1858 there was an attempt in Paris on the lives of Emperor Napoleon III and Empress Eugenie. During their interrogation, the conspirators revealed that they were part of a group that had members in England and that their bombs had been made there. Palmerston was irritated by the political activities of some of the refugees who had settled in Britain and wanted to draft a Bill empowering the Home Secretary to expel anyone whom he suspected of plotting against a foreign head of state or government. The cabinet agreed it would be simpler to introduce a Conspiracy to Murder Bill instead, by which the crime of planning a murder was promoted from a misdemeanour to a felony and made punishable by a long term of imprisonment. The result, the Conspiracy to Murder Bill, resulted in a defeat for Palmerston on a vote on the second reading in February.