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

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ the Cumbraes, and up the romantic Firth of Clyde, with its great sea fiords eating their way northwards into the heart of the Highlands, to Greenock, where, embarking in the Fairy, they flew along to Dumbarton, “pursued in the literal sense by upwards of forty steamers.” The castle on the old rock here was explored, and the party then returned to Rothesay Bay, where the people were delighted to see their young Duke (the Prince of Wales). On the 18th they ran through the far-famed Kyles of Bute, on to Inverary, where an old-fashioned Highland welcome awaited them from the Duke and Duchess of Argyll, and a large family party of old friends. “Outside,” writes the Queen, “stood the Marquess of Lorne, just two years old, a dear, white, fat, fair little fellow, with reddish hair, but very delicate features, like both his mother and father; he is such a merry, independent little child. He had a black velvet dress and jacket with a sporran, scarf, and Highland bonnet.” There was luncheon in the castle, stalwart clansmen in their tartans lining the fine feudal hall with halberts in their hands.

      The Royal yacht then glided down Loch Fyne, whose waters sparkled in the mellow sunshine, the Queen watching, with keen enjoyment, the long swathes of golden light that fell athwart the mighty shoulders of the mountains. Lochgilphead, the Sound of Jura, and Staffa were all reached in turn, and, the weather being fine, they ran into Fingal’s Cave in the Royal barge, with the Royal standard floating at the stern. “On me,” observes Prince Albert, “the cave produced a most romantic impression, on the ladies a very eerie and uncomfortable one.” The Queen writes:—“At three we anchored close before Staffa, and immediately got into the barge, with Charles, the children, and the rest of our people, and rowed towards the cave. As we rounded the point, the wonderful basaltic formation came into sight.... It (the cave) looked almost awful as we entered, and the barge heaved up and down on the swell of the sea.... It was the first time the British standard, with a Queen of Great Britain and her husband and children, had ever entered Fingal’s Cave.” Next day rain confined the Queen to her cabin, but in the afternoon she was able to come on deck and see Loch Linnhe, Loch Eil, and the entrance to Loch Leven. At Fort William the yacht anchored, and Prince Albert, with the Prince of Leiningen, went up the grim and gloomy Pass of Glencoe, haunted by the wraiths of the massacred Macdonalds.

      When they returned the Queen landed from the yacht. In a drenching Scotch mist she was enthusiastically welcomed by a vast gathering of clansmen in characteristic tartans, and wearing their tribal badges, who turned out to receive her. By a rough and dreary road the Royal tourists drove through the mist to their destination—the lonely shooting-lodge of Ardverikie, by the wildly-beautiful but desolate shores of Loch Laggan. Ardverikie belonged to Lord Henry Bentinck, but at the time of the Queen’s visit it was let to Lord Abercorn: its great charm lay in its being, as the Prince said, a most “un-come-at-able” place, and here the Royal family, despite the atrocious weather, enjoyed a pleasant time of freedom and peace. Lord Grey and Lord Palmerston visited them in turn, and with both the Prince talked gravely on foreign politics—with the latter more especially, on impending troubles in Italy.

      It was on the 28th of August that the Queen and Prince Albert were startled by a letter from Lord John Russell, intimating that Lord Palmerston and he were desirous of sending Lord Minto to Italy as an unofficial envoy to strengthen and encourage Pope Pius IX. in his reforming policy. This step, one may say in passing, was the one at which Mr. Disraeli jeered when he ridiculed the Whigs for sending their emissary to teach politics to the countrymen of Machiavelli. Her Majesty and her husband were of opinion that great caution would be necessary in arranging this mission, as it was illegal for the English Government to hold direct diplomatic intercourse with the Vatican; but they fully agreed that the time had come for England to adopt an independent line in foreign policy. “England’s mission,” wrote the Prince to Lord John Russell, “is to put herself at the head of the diffusion of civilisation and the attainment of liberty,” and they felt that it was no longer possible to adopt a purely passive attitude in the growing contest between Absolutism, as represented by Austria, and the forces of Liberalism which were beginning to strain the fetters in which the policy of Metternich confined them. But England, in the opinion of the Queen and her husband, was to wisely act the part of a sympathetic guide, and not push any nation beyond its own march, nor “impose on any nation what that nation does not itself produce.” But, says the Prince, boldly, “let her declare herself the protector and friend of all States engaged in progress, and let them acquire that confidence in England that she will, if necessary, defend them at her own risk.” Long and anxiously had these matters been debated between the Queen, her husband, and Lord Palmerston, who was with them. It was, however, agreed that on these lines Lord Minto’s instructions should be drawn up, and that similar instructions should be sent to all our diplomatic agents abroad for their guidance. The main idea of the new departure in foreign policy, according to the Prince, was that, whilst England should foster the cause of constitutional progress abroad, there must be no “pressing upon any State an advance which is not the result of its own impulse.” In carrying out this policy Lord Palmerston contrived to embroil England with every great Power in Europe. That, however, does not prove that the policy was bad. It merely shows that Lord Palmerston’s methods of dealing with foreign Governments were deficient alike in tact and taste—that his diplomacy, in fact, was

      PRINCE ALBERT DEER-STALKING IN THE HIGHLANDS.

      tainted with the taquinerie, of which M. Bastiat complained so bitterly to Mr. Cobden some years afterwards, and which ultimately rendered him as obnoxious personally to the Queen as he became to his own colleagues. About the end of September the Royal Family returned home, the Queen carrying with her, despite the bad weather, the brightest memories of lonely Ardverikie.

      How complete, restful, and enjoyable the change of scene and occupation must have been for the Queen is brightly indicated by Lord Palmerston. He

      HIGHLAND COTTAGES IN LOCHABER.

      told Lord Campbell that her Majesty was greatly delighted with the Highlands, in spite of the bad weather, and “that she was accustomed to sally forth for a walk in the midst of a heavy rain, putting a great hood over her bonnet, and showing nothing of her features but her eyes. The Prince’s invariable return to luncheon at two o’clock, in spite of grouse-shooting and deer-stalking, is explained by his voluntary desire to please the Queen, and by the intense hunger which always assails him at this hour, when he likes, in the German fashion, to make his dinner.”87 One is not surprised, then, that in some of her Majesty’s letters to her relatives abroad, a note of regret is sounded over the exchange of this life of perfect freedom, for the ceremony, constraint, and semi-publicity which make up the daily round of life at Court.

      Out of the conversations and discussions with Lord Palmerston and Prince Leiningen at Ardverikie grew projects for a policy of alliance with Germany, and foreshadowings of the great movement towards Unity which the Fatherland was, in the opinion of the Prince, bound to make under the leadership of Prussia. Nothing can be clearer than the Prince’s prevision in discussing this theme, or sounder than his arguments for an Anglo-German alliance, based on geographical and ethnical considerations. Lord Palmerston apparently agreed that England and Germany had reason to fear the same enemies, France and Russia, and that they had therefore an obvious interest in strengthening each other. But the German Zollverein, excellent as it was as a means of paving the way for German Unity, imposed prohibitory duties on English goods, and Lord Palmerston stoutly held that an English Minister would neglect his duty to his country if he did not use his influence to prevent every German State not yet in the Customs Union from joining it. To sacrifice the Zollverein was to destroy the germ of German Unity, and here the divergence between Palmerston’s views and those of the Court became patent. He was quite prepared to sacrifice the Zollverein in the cause of Free Trade. The Court was not.

      CHAPTER XVIII.

       REVOLUTION.

СКАЧАТЬ