The unpopularity of Albert in high society had not diminished with time.  Aristocratic persons continued to regard him with disfavour; and he on his side, withdrew further and further into a contemptuous reserve.  For a moment, indeed, it appeared as if the dislike of the upper classes was about to be suddenly converted into cordiality; for they learnt with amazement that the Prince, during a country visit, had ridden to hounds and acquitted himself remarkably well.  They had always taken it for granted that his horsemanship was of some second-rate foreign quality, and here he was jumping five-barred gates and tearing after the fox as if he had been born and bred in Leicestershire.  They could hardly believe it; was it possible that they had made a mistake, and that Albert was a good fellow after all?  Had he wished to be thought so he would certainly have seized this opportunity, purchased several hunters, and used them constantly.  But he had no such desire; hunting bored him, and made Victoria nervous.  He continued, as before, to ride, as he himself put it, for exercise or convenience, not for amusement; and it was agreed that though the Prince, no doubt, could keep in his saddle well enough, he was no sportsman.

This was a serious matter.  It was not merely that Albert was laughed at by fine ladies and sneered at by fine gentlemen; it was not merely that Victoria, who before her marriage had cut some figure in society, had, under her husband’s influence, almost completely given it up.  Since Charles the Second the sovereigns of England had, with a single exception, always been unfashionable; and the fact that the exception was George the Fourth seemed to give an added significance to the rule.  What was grave was not the lack of fashion, but the lack of other and more important qualities.  The hostility of the upper classes was symptomatic of an antagonism more profound than one of manners or even of tastes.  The Prince, in a word, was un-English.  What that word precisely meant it was difficult to say; but the fact was patent to every eye.  Lord Palmerston, also, was not fashionable; the great Whig aristocrats looked askance at him, and only tolerated him as an unpleasant necessity thrust upon them by fate.  But Lord Palmerston was English through and through, there was something in him that expressed, with extraordinary vigour, the fundamental qualities of the English race.  And he was the very antithesis of the Prince.  By a curious chance it so happened that this typical Englishman was brought into closer contact than any other of his countrymen with the alien from over the sea.  It thus fell out that differences which, in more fortunate circumstances, might have been smoothed away and obliterated, became accentuated to the highest pitch.  All the mysterious forces in Albert’s soul leapt out to do battle with his adversary, and, in the long and violent conflict that followed, it almost seemed as if he was struggling with England herself.