Nevertheless, though the specific charges levelled against the Prince were without foundation, there were underlying elements in the situation which explained, if they did not justify, the popular state of mind.  It was true that the Queen’s husband was a foreigner, who had been brought up in a foreign Court, was impregnated with foreign ideas, and was closely related to a multitude of foreign princes.  Clearly this, though perhaps an unavoidable, was an undesirable, state of affairs; nor were the objections to it merely theoretical; it had in fact produced unpleasant consequences of a serious kind.  The Prince’s German proclivities were perpetually lamented by English Ministers; Lord Palmerston, Lord Clarendon, Lord Aberdeen, all told the same tale; and it was constantly necessary, in grave questions of national policy, to combat the prepossessions of a Court in which German views and German sentiments held a disproportionate place.  As for Palmerston, his language on this topic was apt to be unbridled.  At the height of his annoyance over his resignation, he roundly declared that he had been made a victim to foreign intrigue.  He afterwards toned down this accusation; but the mere fact that such a suggestion from such a quarter was possible at all showed to what unfortunate consequences Albert’s foreign birth and foreign upbringing might lead.

But this was not all.  A constitutional question of the most profound importance was raised by the position of the Prince in England.  His presence gave a new prominence to an old problem—­the precise definition of the functions and the powers of the Crown.  Those functions and powers had become, in effect, his; and what sort of use was he making of them?  His views as to the place of the Crown in the Constitution are easily ascertainable; for they were Stockmar’s; and it happens that we possess a detailed account of Stockmar’s opinions upon the subject in a long letter addressed by him to the Prince at the time of this very crisis, just before the outbreak of the Crimean War.  Constitutional Monarchy, according to the Baron, had suffered an eclipse since the passing of the Reform Bill.  It was now “constantly in danger of becoming a pure Ministerial Government.”  The old race of Tories, who “had a direct interest in upholding the prerogatives of the Crown,” had died out; and the Whigs were “nothing but partly conscious, partly unconscious Republicans, who stand in the same relation to the Throne as the wolf does to the lamb.”  There was a rule that it was unconstitutional to introduce “the name and person of the irresponsible Sovereign” into parliamentary debates on constitutional matters; this was “a constitutional fiction, which, although undoubtedly of old standing, was fraught with danger”; and the Baron warned the Prince that “if the English Crown permit a Whig Ministry to follow this rule in practice, without exception, you must not wonder if in a little time you find the majority of