(*)"The Turkish war both far and near Has played the very deuce then, And little Al, the royal pal, They say has turned a Russian; Old Aberdeen, as may be seen, Looks woeful pale and yellow, And Old John Bull had his belly full Of dirty Russian tallow.”

     Chorus: 
     “We’ll send him home and make him groan,
     Oh, Al! you’ve played the deuce then;
     The German lad has acted sad
     And turned tail with the Russians.”

* * * * *

     “Last Monday night, all in a fright,
     Al out of bed did tumble. 
     The German lad was raving mad,
     How he did groan and grumble! 
     He cried to Vic, ’I’ve cut my stick: 
     To St. Petersburg go right slap.’ 
     When Vic, ’tis said, jumped out of bed,
     And wopped him with her night-cap.”

From Lovely Albert! a broadside preserved at the British Museum.

In January, 1854, it was whispered that the Prince had been seized, that he had been found guilty of high treason, that he was to be committed to the Tower.  The Queen herself, some declared, had been arrested, and large crowds actually collected round the Tower to watch the incarceration of the royal miscreants.(*)

(*)"You Jolly Turks, now go to work, And show the Bear your power.  It is rumoured over Britain’s isle That A------ is in the Tower; The postmen some suspicion had, And opened the two letters, ’Twas a pity sad the German lad Should not have known much better!” Lovely Albert!

These fantastic hallucinations, the result of the fevered atmosphere of approaching war, were devoid of any basis in actual fact.  Palmerston’s resignation had been in all probability totally disconnected with foreign policy; it had certainly been entirely spontaneous, and had surprised the Court as much as the nation.  Nor had Albert’s influence been used in any way to favour the interests of Russia.  As often happens in such cases, the Government had been swinging backwards and forwards between two incompatible policies—­that of non-interference and that of threats supported by force—­either of which, if consistently followed, might well have had a successful and peaceful issue, but which, mingled together, could only lead to war.  Albert, with characteristic scrupulosity, attempted to thread his way through the complicated labyrinth of European diplomacy, and eventually was lost in the maze.  But so was the whole of the Cabinet; and, when war came, his anti-Russian feelings were quite as vehement as those of the most bellicose of Englishmen.