gave his support to the progressive elements in the
country. It was not until 1848, however, that
the strain became really serious. In that year
of revolutions, when, in all directions and with alarming
frequency, crowns kept rolling off royal heads, Albert
and Victoria were appalled to find that the policy
of England was persistently directed—in
Germany, in Switzerland, in Austria, in Italy, in
Sicily—so as to favour the insurgent forces.
The situation, indeed, was just such a one as the soul
of Palmerston loved. There was danger and excitement,
the necessity of decision, the opportunity for action,
on every hand. A disciple of Canning, with an
English gentleman’s contempt and dislike of foreign
potentates deep in his heart, the spectacle of the
popular uprisings, and of the oppressors bundled ignominiously
out of the palaces they had disgraced, gave him unbounded
pleasure, and he was determined that there should
be no doubt whatever, all over the Continent, on which
side in the great struggle England stood. It
was not that he had the slightest tincture in him
of philosophical radicalism; he had no philosophical
tinctures of any kind; he was quite content to be inconsistent—to
be a Conservative at home and a Liberal abroad.
There were very good reasons for keeping the Irish
in their places; but what had that to do with it?
The point was this—when any decent man read
an account of the political prisons in Naples his
gorge rose. He did not want war; but he saw that
without war a skilful and determined use of England’s
power might do much to further the cause of the Liberals
in Europe. It was a difficult and a hazardous
game to play, but he set about playing it with delighted
alacrity. And then, to his intense annoyance,
just as he needed all his nerve and all possible freedom
of action, he found himself being hampered and distracted
at every turn by... those people at Osborne.
He saw what it was; the opposition was systematic and
informed, and the Queen alone would have been incapable
of it; the Prince was at the bottom of the whole thing.
It was exceedingly vexatious; but Palmerston was in
a hurry, and could not wait; the Prince, if he would
insist upon interfering, must be brushed on one side.
Albert was very angry. He highly disapproved
both of Palmerston’s policy and of his methods
of action. He was opposed to absolutism; but in
his opinion Palmerston’s proceedings were simply
calculated to substitute for absolutism, all over
Europe, something no better and very possibly worse—the
anarchy of faction and mob violence. The dangers
of this revolutionary ferment were grave; even in
England Chartism was rampant—a sinister
movement, which might at any moment upset the Constitution
and abolish the Monarchy. Surely, with such dangers
at home, this was a very bad time to choose for encouraging
lawlessness abroad. He naturally took a particular
interest in Germany. His instincts, his affections,
his prepossessions, were ineradicably German; Stockmar