Chapter VII: Part II: The Social Fabric (1)

THE COURT

At the time of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in 1897, Caran d'Ache, the famous French artist--perhaps the greatest genius in his peculiar _genre_ that our age has produced--published a wonderful design in which the parallel histories of France and Great Britain, during our Queen's reign, were summed up at a glance with masterly insight. Great Britain was represented by one person under two aspects: Queen Victoria as a girl and as an old woman; France by a long procession of figures: King, Prince President, Emperor, and the series of Presidents of the Republic. The stability of England and the fluctuations of France could not have been pictorially symbolized with greater point. The Victorian age is rightly named, for Queen Victoria in her virtues, her prejudices and limitations was, in many ways, its most commanding figure, and the personal devotion and respect she inspired in men differing so widely in temperament and outlook as Melbourne and O'Connell, Peel and Russell, Disraeli, Lord Salisbury and Lord Roberts, to mention no others, counted for much in securing the country against the violent upheavals from which our nearest neighbour suffered. Yet, when the wave of sentiment created by the romantic conditions under which a girl of eighteen was summoned to wear a crown had died down, the light that beat upon the throne was far from genial; it was often fierce. The controversy over the Ladies of the Bedchamber threatened to drag the Crown into the arena of party politics. The contention of the Tories was, in the main, sound and constitutional--that these appointments should not be made or maintained in such a way as to expose the Sovereign to influences hostile to the Government in power; and the Queen cannot be acquitted of a certain obstinacy in the assertion of her rights. But the cry that the Tories were forcing her hand was vigorously taken up, and strange cross currents of feeling were developed, O'Connell's passionate outburst of loyalty being the strangest of all. It was one of the ironies of circumstance that, in the early years of her reign, the Queen's relations with Whig Ministers--always excepting Lord Palmerston--were far more cordial than with the Tories. Yet this was no guarantee for the popularity of the Court, and only those who are familiar with the history of the time can appreciate how unpopular it was. The middle-class element were not enamoured of the Whigs, but whatever they thought of the influence exerted by Lord Melbourne as the Queen's Mentor, they were not prepared to recognize any improvement when, on his retirement, the post was informally, but none the less effectually, filled by a German prince. The Queen's marriage was one of affection rather than policy, and Prince Albert had many excellent qualities. He was a highly educated, in some ways even a learned man; he was industrious, and his private character was without stain. It was not in human nature to expect that he should entirely efface himself in affairs of State; but he played the game better than he was given credit for, and on at least one occasion his intervention was quite contrary to that ascribed to him. At the same time he was lacking in charm and geniality; his manner was stiff, his conversation academic and occasionally _gauche_. His notions of sport were not those of an English sportsman, and he had a passion for devising new military uniforms. To put it bluntly, he was a foreigner, and the chief ground of the unpopularity of the Court was that it gave an unfair preference to everything foreign--language, art, music, letters--and consistently declined to encourage native talent. Satiric references to the royal patronage of foreigners begin in _Punch's_ first volume. "Ride-a-cock horse" is turned into a florid Italian _cavatina_, and the words translated into Italian--"Su Gallo-Cavallo a Banburi Croce"--for the benefit of the nurse of the Princess Royal, Mrs. Ratsey, referred to as "a lady equally anxious with ourselves to instil into the infant mind an utter contempt for anything English." This sets the keynote to a series of complaints which re-echo over many years. For the moment we may turn to _Punch's_ extraordinarily frank comments, cast in the form of a burlesque of the ultra-loyal press, on the rapid growth of the royal nursery, _à propos_ of the birth of the Prince of Wales:--

THE LORD MAYOR AND THE QUEEN

By the Correspondent of the _Observer_

The interesting condition of Her Majesty is a source of the most
agonizing suspense to the Lord Mayors of London and Dublin, who, if
a Prince of Wales is not born before their period of office
expires, will lose the chance of being created baronets.

According to rumour, the baby--we beg pardon, the scion of the
House of Brunswick--was to have been born--we must apologize again,
we should say was to have been added, to the illustrious stock of
the reigning family of Great Britain--some day last month, and of
course the present Lord Mayors had comfortably made up their minds
that they should be entitled to the dignity it is customary to
confer on such occasions as that which the nation now ardently
anticipates. But here we are at the beginning of November, and no
Prince of Wales. We have reason to know that the Lord Mayor of
London has not slept a wink since Saturday, and his lady has not
smiled, according to an authority on which we are accustomed to
rely, since Thursday fortnight. Some say it is done on purpose,
because the present official is a Tory; and others insinuate that
the Prince of Wales is postponed in order that there may be an
opportunity of making Daniel O'Connell a baronet. Others suggest
that there will be twins presented to the nation, one on the night
of November 8, the other on the morning of the 9th, so as to
conciliate both parties; but we are not disposed at present to
pronounce a decided opinion on this part of the question. We know
that politics have been carried most indelicately into the very
heart of the Royal Household.[11] But we hope, for the honour of
all parties, that the confinement of the Queen is not to be made a
matter of political arrangement.

[Sidenote: _Ultra-Loyalty Burlesqued_]

[Footnote 11: The imbroglio of the Ladies of the Bedchamber had been settled in 1840. But Scribe's _Verre d'Eau_, under the title of _The Maid of Honour_, with the real incident turned into farce, had been adapted to the English stage and produced at the Adelphi.]

This is followed up in the next issue by an equally audacious comment from the same fictitious correspondent:--

THE BIRTH OF THE PRINCE OF WALES

(By the _Observer's_ own Correspondent)

It will be seen that we were not premature in announcing the
probability of the birth of a Prince of Wales; and though it was
impossible that anyone should be able to speak with certainty, our
positive tone upon the occasion serves to show the exclusive nature
of all our intelligence. We are enabled now to state that the
Prince will immediately take, indeed he has already taken, the
title of the _Prince of Wales_, which it is generally understood he
will enjoy--at least if a child so young can be said to enjoy
anything of the kind--until an event shall happen which we hope
will be postponed for a very protracted period. The Prince of
Wales, should he survive his mother, will ascend the throne; but
whether he will be George the Fifth, Albert the First, Henry the
Ninth, Charles the Third, or Anything the Nothingth, depends upon
circumstances we are not at liberty to allude to _at present_, nor
do we think we shall be enabled to do so in a second edition.

Our suggestion last week, that the royal birth should take place on
Lord Mayor's Day, has, we are happy to see, been partially attended
to; but we regret that the whole hog has not been gone, by twins
having been presented to the anxious nation, so that there might
have been a baronetcy each for the outgoing and incoming Lord
Mayors of London and Dublin.

"There was a Royal Lady who lived in a shoe,
She had so many children she didn't know what to do."]

This vein is further developed in burlesque bulletins of the progress of the infant Prince. _Punch's_ serious views as to the Prince's future are to be found in his "Pæan to the Princelet" and its sequel, inspired by the Royal Christening in February, 1842:--

_PUNCH_ AND THE PRINCELET

* * * * *

The little Prince _must_ love the poor,
And he will heed the cry
Of the pauper mother, when she finds
Her infant's fountains dry.
He'll fill the cruse, and bruise the ear,
To make those founts o'erflow,
For they have vow'd our little Prince
No "vanities" shall know.
And we will rattle our little bell,
And laugh, and dance, and sing as well--
Roo-too-tooit! Shallaballa!
Life to the Prince! Fallallalla!

And death's dark bones will then become
Like iv'ry pure and white!
His blood-dyed robe will moulder off,
And his garments be as light;
For man will slaughter man no more
For wrong begot by wrongs,
For our little Prince will say--"To me
Nor life nor death belongs."
So we will rattle our little bell,
And laugh, and dance, and sing as well--
Roo-too-tooit! Shallaballa!
Life to the Prince! Fallallalla!

But while taking the Prince's future very seriously, _Punch_ could not emulate those writers in the Press who, with goose-quill in hand, could not approach the ordinary trials from which even Royal infants are not exempt, save on their knees:--

It has been announced to the public, through the medium of the
Press, that a most important epoch has arrived in the life of the
Prince of Wales. It is a strange fact, that this "important epoch"
has not been noted in the biography of any previous Prince of
Wales; for we look in vain through the pages of Hume and Smollett,
Rapin, Lingard, Miss Julia Corner, and indeed every other corner
within our reach, without being able to ascertain when Edward the
Black Prince was driven from the breast to the bottle. The Heir
Apparent to the English throne has, we are told, been lately
subjected to this frightful vicissitude; and though his Royal
Highness is said to have borne it tolerably well, it will appear
that while he took to the pap-spoon with princely fortitude, there
was something of the infant perceptible in his mode of first
receiving it.

When another Princess was born in 1843, we read that "there were some apprehensions that the nasal organ of the Heir Apparent might be affected by the birth of a younger sister, but we are happy to say that there are no symptoms of a derangement of the Prince's proboscis at present," also that Donizetti had been requested to arrange a series of concertos for the penny trumpet, and had sent to the Prince one on the noble theme of "This little pig went to market" to the Italian words:--

Questo piccolo porco
E andato al mercato.
Questo piccolo porco
E a casa restato.
Questo piccolo porco
Ha avuto del rosbief per pranza.
Questo piccolo porco
Niente ebbe nel sua stanza.

These familiar jocularities, redeemed by their general good humour from the charge of disrespect, are harmless compared with the sustained campaign of ridicule directed against Prince Albert as tailor and sportsman. German sovereigns and princes have always been great on uniforms, and Prince Albert undoubtedly suffered severely from this hereditary failing. A concise biography in the _Almanack_ for 1842 states that he was born on August 26, 1819, and afterwards invented "a shocking bad hat for the British Infantry, but England refused to put her Foot in it." From this time onward the attacks are constant and malicious. The Prince's bell-shaped hat repeatedly figures in cartoons. He "bresents his gompliments" to Herzog Jenkins (of the _Morning Post_), for whom he has "gomposed a dugal goronet."

[Sidenote: _Prince Albert as Tailor_]

In the following year there is a cartoon representing the Prince in his sartorial studio surrounded by designs and models; the following comment is associated with the cartoon:--

Ever since the accession of Prince Albert to the Royal Husbandship
of these realms, he has devoted the energies of his mind and the
ingenuity of his hands to the manufacture of infantry caps, cavalry
trousers, and regulation sabretaches. One of his first measures was
to transmogrify the pantaloons of the Eleventh Hussars; and as the
regiment alluded to is Prince Albert's Own, His Royal Highness may
do as he likes with his own, and no one could complain of his
bedizening the legs of the unfortunate Eleventh with scarlet cloth
and gold door-leather. When, however, the Prince, throwing the
whole of his energies into a hat, proposed to encase the heads of
the British soldiery in a machine which seemed a decided cross
between a muff, a coal scuttle, and a slop pail, then _Punch_ was
compelled to interfere, for the honour of the English army. The
result has been that the headgear has been summarily withdrawn by
an order from the War Office, and the manufacture of more of the
Albert hat has been absolutely prohibited.

[Sidenote: _Prince Albert as Sportsman_]

The campaign reached its height in 1845 when _Punch_ was given an irresistible opportunity on the occasion of the Prince being entertained by the Merchant Tailors. The Prince, _Punch_ averred, was a born tailor, the Prince of Tailors, the true British tailor. He sought to make the British Army invincible by rendering them so comical that, by coming rapidly on the enemy, they might convulse him with laughter and paralyse his defence. He had fraternized with the Goose of Great Britain, and might sit cross-legged in the eyes of posterity. After this outburst of derision _Punch_ gave the Prince a rest as tailor, but took up the running--or baiting--with renewed energy against his sportmanship. _Punch_, it may be noted, was not an unmitigated admirer of field sports; he denounced otter hunting as cruel, and more than once protested against officers and others who rode their horses to death for a wager. It was part of the humanitarianism which impelled him to support the abolition of capital punishment, though here his argument was based on the view that death was a release for the murderer, who was more effectually punished by being kept in life-long penance for his crime. _Punch_ was never an enemy of fox hunting. Doubtless the influence of Leech counted for something. But the organized slaughter of game filled him with disgust, and the exploits of the Prince in the Highlands in the autumn of 1842 prompted the first of many tirades.

The pheasant battues at Drayton, when the Queen and Prince Albert were the guests of Sir Robert Peel, are treated in the same spirit, and the Ballad of Windsor Chase, with its grotesque illustration of fat beagles and obese hares, the Prince on horseback, and the Queen in her pony phaeton, carries on the satire in this fashion:--

Six hares alive were taken out
Each in its canvas sack;
And five as dead as mutton, in
The same were carried back.

The battue of hares at Stowe during the Prince's visit to the Duke of Buckingham in January, 1845, is the subject of another derisive ballad modelled on _John Gilpin_, and of a cartoon showing the Prince shooting down the tame quarry point-blank from an easy chair. The grand climax to this raillery, however, was reached during the Royal visit to Germany in September, when the stag hunt at Gotha was scarified with pen and pencil. In two parallel cartoons of "Court Pastimes" are contrasted the bear-baiting under Elizabeth with the butchery of stags under Victoria; and the hand of Thackeray is unmistakable in the "Sonnick, sejested by Prince Halbert gratiously killing the Staggs at Sacks-Cobug-Gothy":--

Some forty Ed of sleak and hantlered dear
In Cobug (where such hanimmles abound)
Were shot, as by the nusepapers I hear,
By Halbert Usband of the British Crownd.
Britannia's Queen let fall the purly tear;
Seeing them butchered in their silvn prisns;
Igspecially, when the keepers, standing round,
Came up and cut their pretty hinnocent whizns.
Suppose, instead of this pore Germing sport,
This Saxn wenison which he shoots and baggs,
Our Prins should take a turn in Capel Court
And make a massyker of English Staggs.[12]
Pore Staggs of Hengland! Were the Untsman at you,
What avoc he _would_ make and what a trimenjus battu!

JEAMS.

[Footnote 12: In reference to the then prevalent mania for railway speculation.]

[Sidenote: _Stag Slaughter at Gotha_]

Even more lacerating is the use made in the same number of the comment of a loyal eye-witness quoted by the _Standard_:--

TEARS AT GOTHA

The _Standard_ gives the following extract of a letter from Gotha
to a gentleman in London:--

"This (the deer killing) was very shocking. The Queen wept _I saw
large tears in her eyes_: and Her Majesty tells me that she with
difficulty kept the chair during what followed. When the Queen saw
the otter hunt in Scotland, the pity that she _naturally felt_ at
the death of the animal was _counterbalanced by a knowledge of his
propensities_, so that it is almost as meritorious _to destroy an
otter as it is a snake_; but this was a totally different case; nor
is Her Majesty yet recovered. _For the Prince_, the deer were too
numerous, and _must_ be killed. _This_ was the German method; and
no doubt the reigning Duke will distribute them to his people, who
will thank Prince Albert for providing them venison."

"Tell me, oh tell me, dearest Albert, have _you_ any Railway Shares?"]

This incident marked the high-water level of _Punch's_ anti-Albertianism--at any rate, in the domain of sport; we find an address of condolence to the Prince on the conclusion of the shooting season a year and a half later, but, in the main, the criticisms of the Royal Consort henceforth are founded on other grounds of dissatisfaction. What infuriated _Punch_ even more than the ineptitudes of the Court was the fulsome adulation of the _Lickspittle-offs_ of the Press, who were prepared, not only to defend, but to eulogize them. "The amount of good that Royalty can effect in this country is astonishing," _Punch_ frankly admits, while caustically adding: "only less astonishing than that which it has yet to do." But between a generous acknowledgment of what could be done by royal example (as, for instance, its discouragement of gambling) and the "insanity of loyalty," there was an immense gulf, and _Punch_ was never weary of gibbeting those writers in and out of the Press who thought they "could best oppose the questioning spirit of the time--questioning, as it does, the 'divinity' that hedges the throne--by adopting the worse than foolish adulation of a bygone age." Assuredly, the absolute _reductio ad absurdum_ of this courtiership was reached when the Queen was extolled for behaving as any reasonable woman would:--

The excessively loyal man has the ugliest manner of paying a
compliment. He evidently takes his king or queen as a carved log
dropped from the skies, or he would not marvel as he does when the
aforesaid image shows any touch of life or human sympathy. If his
idol perform the commonest act of social courtesy, he roars--"what
condescension!" If it display the influence of affections, he
screams--"a miracle!" Her Majesty, on her arrival at Windsor from
Scotland, has her babies immediately brought to her: whereupon,
says _The Atlas_--"The woman and the mother _for a moment_
proclaimed the supremacy of nature over the etiquette of a court,
and the _splendour of a diadem_!"

What very ill-breeding on the part of "nature"--but then, we
presume, she is such a stranger at courts! Was there no Gold Stick
in Waiting to show the baggage to the door?

The same offender is brought to book in the following issue for deprecating royal excursions by railway:--

_The Atlas_ thus sermonizes upon Royalty "by the rail":--

"We are aware that every precaution is taken by the directors and
managers of the Great Western Railway, when Her Majesty makes use
of a special train, and we are not less acquainted with the courage
and absence of all fear from the mind of the Queen. But a long
regency in this country would be so fearful and tremendous an evil,
that we cannot but desire, in common with many others, that these
royal railway excursions should be, if possible, either wholly
abandoned or only occasionally resorted to."

There is danger by the railway; and therefore, says _The Atlas_,
the Queen should be only "occasionally" exposed to it. Say the
chances against accident are as nineteen to twenty, shall the Queen
"take a chance"? "Yes," says loyalty, "the Queen may _occasionally_
take a chance!"

_Punch_, as the accompanying cartoon shows, refused to take a serious view of railways where Royalty was concerned, and went to the length of maliciously insinuating that Prince Albert, wearying of his rose-leaf fetters, had been indulging in a "flutter" on the Stock Exchange.

[Sidenote: _Syncophancy Rebuked_]

Criticism of the Court on the one hand and obsequious toadyism on the other were much more pronounced eighty years ago. The later vice is well rebuked in the fictitious Royal Proclamation issued in connexion with the Queen's visit to Scotland in the autumn of 1844. It will be noticed that here, as on so many occasions, _Punch_ adopted the device of assuming that the exalted personages adulated resented the adulation:--

Her Majesty has just issued a Proclamation, of which _Punch_ has
been favoured with an early copy.

WHEREAS, on each and every of Our Royal Movements, it has been, and
is the custom of sundry weakly-disposed persons known as "our own
correspondents," "our private correspondents," and others, to
write, and cause to be printed, absurd and foolish language,
touching Ourself, Our Royal Consort, and Beloved Babies--it is Our
Will and Pleasure that such foolish practices (tending as they
really do to bring Royalty into contempt) shall be discontinued;
and that from henceforth, all vain, silly, and sycophantic verbiage
shall cease, and good, straightforward, simple English be used in
all descriptions of all progresses made by Ourself, our Royal
Consort, and Our Dearly Beloved Children. And FURTHERMORE, it shall
be permitted to Our Royal Self to wear a white shawl, or a black
shawl, without any idle talk being passed upon the same. AND
FURTHER, Our Beloved Consort shall, whenever it shall so please
him, "change his round hat for a naval cap with a gold band,"
without calling for the special notice of the Newspapers, AND
FURTHER, That Our Beloved Child, the Princess Royal, shall be
permitted to walk "hand in hand" with her Royal Father, without
exciting such marked demonstrations of wonderment at the
familiarity, as have been made known to Me by the public Press.

BE IT KNOWN, That the Queen of England is not the Grand Lama; and
FURTHER BE IT REMEMBERED that Englishmen should not emulate the
vain idolatry of speech familiar in the mouths of Eastern bondmen.

VICTORIA REGINA.

Given at Blair Athol,
September 16, 1844.

In this context should be noted the constant criticisms of the _Court Circular_--the ironical suggestions that it should be published in French or Italian,[13] and the castigation, under the heading "Genteel Christianity," of the announcement of the confirmation of the "juvenile nobility and gentry" by the Bishop of London in the Chapel Royal, St. James's.

[Footnote 13: ... "Buckingham Palace, where, it is said, if a person puts a question in English he is asked in German or French what he means."]

Five years later we come across a truly delightful suggestion, prompted by the vacancy in the Laureateship, for the employment of the new occupant of the post:--

... The chief difficulty we see about the office, is the fact of
there being nothing to do in it. The virtues of our Queen are of
too matter-of-fact a sort, and of too everyday occurrence, to be
the subject of mere holiday odes, or, indeed, of fiction in any
shape. If any duties are to be attached to the Laureateship, we
would propose that they should consist of the task of giving a
poetical turn to that otherwise very dull and uninteresting affair,
the _Court Circular_, which fills the somewhat contemptible duty of
Paul Pry in constant attendance on what ought to be the domestic
privacy of royalty. As an illustration of what we mean, we give the
following specimen:--

This morning at an early hour,
In Osborne's peaceful grounds,
The Queen and Prince--'spite of a shower--
Took their accustomed rounds.
With them, to bear them company,
Prince Leiningen he went,
And with the other royal three,
The Duchess, eke, of Kent.

His Royal Highness Prince of Wales
Went forth to take the air;
The Princess Royal, too, ne'er fails
His exercise to share.
On the young members of the flock
Was tenderest care bestowed,
For two long hours by the clock
They walked--they ran--they rode.

Calmly away the hours wear
In Osborne's tranquil shade,
And to the dinner-party there
Was no addition made.
Judge-Advocate Sir D. Dundas
Having returned to town,
The Royal family circle has
Settled serenely down.

It is not too much to assume that _Punch's_ ridicule assisted in eliminating some, at least, of these excrescences on the official record of life at Court.

We may pass over the chaff of Prince Albert as a farmer, and of his prize pigs and oxen. The bestowal of the D.C.L. degree at Cambridge in October, 1843, is treated with acidulated satire, and in his imaginary speech in dog-latin the Prince presents the University with a new academic cap (_novus pileus academicus_) of his own designing. A month later the Prince's gratuitous distribution, through the clergy, of Professor Buckland's pamphlet on the treatment of the potato--on the eve of the Irish famine--is described as a mockery to hungry people, "but then Princes are such wags," adds _Punch_. The much-canvassed appointment of the Prince as Chancellor of Cambridge University in 1847 led to sardonic comment:--

Nothing in England has been thought too good for the members of
this happy family; but really it is rather too humiliating when we
begin to express our doubts whether we can find anything, among the
most venerable of our institutions, good enough to place at the
feet of a Prince of Saxe-Gotha.

[Sidenote: The Prince of Bricklayers]

But though the compliment is left-handed, there are symptoms of a friendlier tone in the parallel between Prince Hal (Henry V) and Prince "Al." _Punch_, furthermore, congratulates the Prince on giving up the hat-business, interesting himself in the welfare of the working classes, and contributing by his speeches and subscriptions to the advancement of social reform. A year later he is saluted as the Prince of Bricklayers:--

His Royal Highness is now always laying the foundation stone of
some charitable institution or other.... The services of Her
Majesty's Consort ought to be duly requited, and _Punch_, in order
to reward him in kind, hereby spreads the mortar of approbation
with the trowel of sincerity, upon a Prince who really appears to
be coming out like a regular brick.

But, as we have noted elsewhere, it was the Exhibition of 1851 which, more than anything else, tended to enhance the Prince's repute and popularity. It was a great and fruitful idea--and the Prince was its only begetter. The speech of the Prince Consort in explaining the significance of the Exhibition as the realizing of the solidarity of the world, Thackeray's May Day Ode, which appeared in _The Times_, and other utterances in the Press show, as Professor Bury points out in _The Idea of Progress_, that "the Exhibition was, at the time, optimistically regarded not merely as a record of material achievement and technical progress, but as a demonstration that humanity was at last on its way to a better and happier state.... A vista was suggested, at the end of which far-sighted people might think they discerned Tennyson's 'Federation of the World.'" _Punch_ never failed to give the Prince the credit of initiating the scheme, and, after a little wavering, gave it his enthusiastic support. The change in public opinion towards the Prince is well reflected in the frank but friendly palinode which appeared in the issue of November 26, 1853, as a result of the suggestion made by City magnates to erect a statue to the Prince in Hyde Park:--

PRINCE _PUNCH_ TO PRINCE ALBERT

Illustrious and excellent brother,
Don't consider me rude or unkind,
If, as from one Prince to another,
I give you a bit of my mind--
And I do so with all the more roundness,
As your conduct amongst us has shown
A propriety, judgment and soundness
Of taste, not surpassed by my own.

You've respected John Bull's little oddities,
Never trod on the old fellow's corns;
Chose his pictures and statues--commodities
Wherein his own blunders he mourns.
And if you're a leetle more German
In these than I'd have you--what is't
Beyond what a critic may term an
Educational bias or twist?

* * * * *

You have never pressed forward unbidden;
When called on you've never shown shame,
Not paraded, nor prudishly hidden
Your person, your purse, or your name;
You've lent no man occasion to call you
Intruder, intriguer, or fool;
Even I've not had often to haul you
O'er the coals, or to take you to school.

All this, my dear Prince, gives me boldness--
Which, _au reste_, our positions allow--
For a hint (which you'll not charge to coldness,
After all I have written just now):
Which is to put down certain flunkies,
Who by flatt'ry your favour would earn,
Pelting praise at your head, as at monkeys
Tars throw stones--to get nuts in return.

* * * * *

Then silence your civic applauders,
Lest better men cease from applause.
He who tribute accepts of marauders,
Is held to be pledged to their cause.
Let no Corporate magnates of London
An honour presume to award:
Their own needs, till ill-doings be undone,
Little honour to spare can afford!

[Sidenote: Prince Punch to Prince Albert]

A little later on, on the eve of the Crimean War, _Punch_ was evidently impressed by the alleged interference of the Prince in high affairs of State. The cartoon of January 7, 1854, represents the Prince skating on thin ice marked "Foreign Affairs--Very Dangerous," and _Mr. Punch_ shouting to him; and in the same issue the lines "Hint and Hypothesis" warn the Prince against shifting his tactics and adopting the _rôle_ of an intriguer. These rumours were so persistent that Lord Aberdeen felt it necessary to allude to them in the House of Lords at the opening of the Session, declaring that not only was there no foundation for the charge that the Prince had interfered with the Army or the Horse Guards, but that he had declined the suggestion of the Duke of Wellington that he should succeed him as Commander-in-Chief. His interest in the Army was naturally keen, but it was general. That he was the adviser of the Queen, in his capacity of husband and most intimate companion was beyond all doubt, but Lord Aberdeen vigorously maintained that he had never uttered a single Syllable in the Council which had not tended to the honour, the interest, and the welfare of the country. Still suspicion was not wholly appeased, and _Punch's_ references to the Prince during the Crimean War were none too friendly. In 1855 he is credited with the intention of heroically resigning his Field Marshal's bâton and pay, as a "noble beginning of Military Reform," in response to the public cry for the dismissal of "incompetent nobility." And at the end of the year his desire to go to the Crimea is made the subject of ironic remonstrance. As a matter of fact, the reader of to-day must be told, the intention and the desire were both inventions of _Punch_, who was playing his favourite game of attributing to exalted personages resolves and actions which they never contemplated, but which he wanted them to make or take, and which if they had taken, he would probably have criticized as unnecessary and injudicious. Even more malicious was the picture of _Punch_ regarding a portrait of the Prince, exhibited in the Academy of 1857, in Field Marshal's uniform, and saying to himself, "What sanguinary engagement can it be?" _Punch_ cannot be acquitted of treating the Prince Consort--as he only now began to be generally called--with less than justice in view of the difficult and delicate position he occupied. The impression was given that the Prince wanted to meddle in the conduct of the War, and that it was necessary to prevent him from making himself a nuisance by going to the front. And mixed with this was the impression, which these cartoons and comments prompted, that the Prince was making a request which he knew would be refused; that, in short, he was at once vain-glorious, insincere, and self-protective. It was not the first time _Punch_ had been unjust to the Prince: he had failed to recognize him as a powerful ally in the campaign against duelling in 1843. In the main, however, it may be urged that ridicule gave place to criticism in the latter years of the Prince's life; but the revulsion of feeling in _Punch_--and the public--did not set in until after his death. Like Peel, the Prince Consort had to die before his services to the country were recognized.

Queen Butterfly received by Lord Grasshopper--Monday, October 28, 1844.]

As the Prince Consort was, often without just grounds, the chief cause of the unpopularity of the Court and the favourite target of satire, we have given him priority in this survey. But, quite apart from the influence which he exerted, or was supposed to exert, upon her, the Queen was by no means exempt from direct censure, remonstrance, and exceedingly frank criticism. In one respect, however, the Queen was treated with invariable consideration. Even in his most democratic days _Punch_ never caricatured the Sovereign. The portraits of the Queen are always pleasant, even flattering. Witness the delightful picture of her visit to the City in 1844. Though _Punch's_ pen was sharp his pencil was kind, though at times extremely familiar, as in the prophetic cartoon published under the heading, "A Royal Nursery Rhyme for 1860[14]":--

There was a Royal Lady who lived in a shoe,
She had so many children she didn't know what to do.

[Footnote 14: See Illustration.]

As early as the Christmas number of 1842 _Punch_ had given "the arrangements for the next ten years of the Royal family," with the names and titles of eleven princes and princesses! In the spring of 1843 he comments, with mock sympathy, on the Queen's liability to income tax. More serious is the charge, brought in his favourite oblique fashion, against the Queen for the neglect of her duties.--

TREASONOUS ATTACK ON HER MAJESTY

_Punch_ has been greatly shocked by a very treasonable letter in
the columns of _The Times_. Whether _Punch's_ friend, the Attorney
General, has had the epistle handed over to him, and contemplates
immediate proceedings against "C. H.," the traitorous writer,
_Punch_ knows not; but after this information, the distinguished
law-officer cannot plead ignorance of the evil, as an apology for
future supineness. The letter purports to be a remonstrance to our
sovereign lady, the Queen; in a measure, accusing Her Gracious
Majesty of a certain degree of indifference towards the interests
of London trade, of literature, the arts and sciences. The rebel
writes as follows:--

"Buckingham Palace is neither so agreeable nor salubrious a
residence as Windsor, but neither is the crown so pleasant to wear
as a bonnet. I trust it is not necessary to remind Queen Victoria
that royalty, like property, has its _duties_ as well as its
_rights_. One of these duties is to reside in the metropolis of the
kingdom, the presence of the sovereign in the capital being
essential on many occasions. I could enumerate other duties of the
sovereign, such, for instance, as conferring fashion on public
entertainments that deserve to be encouraged by attending such
places of amusement, and countenancing science, literature and the
arts, by honouring distinguished professors with marks of
approbation; in which respect it is much to be regretted there is
too much room for those remarks on the remissness of Her Majesty in
these respects that are so frequently made in society. When we know
how much discontent, engendered by widely spread and deeply-felt
distress is expressed by persons not to be numbered among 'the
lower classes,' it is not without alarm that the influence of these
acts of omission on the part of Queen Victoria can be regarded; and
it becomes the duty of every friend of the monarchy and the
constitution to warn the Sovereign of the danger, not merely to her
personal popularity, but to the feeling of loyalty to the throne,
that is likely to accrue from such neglect."

In these years, and for a good many years to come, _Punch_ hunted in couples with _The Times_.

[Sidenote: _Neglect of Native Talent_]

The neglect of native talent and the encouragement of foreign artists, musicians, men of letters, is harped upon in number after number for year after year. Here again the method is sometimes direct, sometimes oblique, as in the fictitious list of people invited to the Court: Dickens, Hood, Mrs. Somerville, and Maria Edgeworth. Another opportunity was when it was announced that the Danish Royal family had attended the funeral of Thorwaldsen in deep mourning, _Punch_ exclaims, "imagine for a moment English Royalty in deep mourning for departed genius!" The often-repeated visits of "General Tom Thumb" to Court in 1844 made him very angry. At the second "command" performance the General "personated Napoleon amid great mirth, and this was followed by a representation of Grecian statues, after which he danced a nautical hornpipe, and sang several of his favourite songs" in the presence, as _Punch_ notes, of the Queen of the Belgians, daughter of Louis Philippe. But _Punch_ had his revenge on this curious and deep-rooted interest of Royalty in dwarfs--Queen Isabella of Spain had one permanently attached to her staff--by indulging in a delightful speculation on the happy results that would have ensued if George IV, like General Tom Thumb, had stopped growing at the age of five months:--

How much we should have been spared had George IV only weighed 15
lbs. and stopped at 25 inches! How much would have been saved
merely in tailors' bills, and how many pavilions for his dwarf
majesty might have been built at a hundredth part of the cost that
was swallowed by the royal folly at Brighton!

The Georges, it may be remarked, were no favourites of _Punch_, nor was this to be wondered at when one recalls their treatment at the hands of Thackeray, the least democratic member of the staff. _Punch_ considered that Brummell was a better man than his "fat friend," and consigned the latter to infamy in the following caustic epitaph, one of a series on the Four Georges:--

GEORGIUS ULTIMUS

He left an example for age and for youth
To avoid.
He never acted well by Man or Woman,
And was as false to his Mistress as to his Wife.
He deserted his Friends and his Principles.
He was so ignorant that he could scarcely spell;
But he had some skill in cutting out Coats,
And an undeniable Taste for Cookery.
He built the Palaces of Brighton and of Buckingham,
And for these Qualities and Proofs of Genius,
An admiring Aristocracy
Christened him the "First Gentleman in Europe."
Friends, respect the KING whose Statue is here,
And the generous Aristocracy who admired him.

In the same year _Punch_, with malicious inventiveness, represented Queen Victoria in the act of unveiling a great statue to Shakespeare on Shakespeare Cliff, adding as her epitaph: "She rarely went to the Italian Opera and she raised a statue to Shakespeare." In these agilities _The Times_ again proved a useful ally, for in the same number we find the following:--

HIGH TREASON

A traitor, who signs himself "Alpha," and writes in _The Times_, writes thus:--

"It is no use to conceal the fact--British high art _is hated at
Court, and dreaded by the aristocracy_. They don't want it; they
can't afford it; they think any art, which does not cultivate their
vanity or domestic affections, can have no earthly use!"

We trust that the writer of the above will be immediately committed
to the Tower, there, in due season, to be brought to the block.

It was a letter in _The Times_ that again prompted _Punch's_ remonstrance, in July, 1845, against the Queen's preference for French milliners, and an historical contrast is rubbed in by the article on the imaginary "Royal Poetry Books," or didactic poems, for the benefit of the Royal infants, of which two specimens may be quoted:--

THE NEW SINGER OF ITALY

There was a new Singer of Italy
Who went through his part very prettily;
"Mamma tinks him so fine,
We must have him to dine!"
Papa remarked slily and wittily.

THE OLD SINGER OF AVON

There was an old Singer of Avon,
Who, Aunty Bess thought, was a brave one;
But Mamma doesn't care
For this stupid swan's air,
Any more than the croak of a raven.

[Sidenote: _Royal Visits and Visitors_]

Calypso, Q----n V----a; Ulysses, K--g of the F----h.]

The Court was certainly not addicted to extravagance, but the Queen's "bal poudré" in June is heavily ridiculed, largely, no doubt, because of _Punch's_ frequently expressed conviction that the British never shone as masqueraders. Cobden's speech in 1848, attacking highly-paid sinecures in the Royal Household, is approved, but _Punch_ was no advocate of parsimony. The new front of Buckingham Palace is severely criticized in March, 1849: its only beauty is that of hiding the remainder of the building like "a clean front put on to make the best of an indifferent shirt." The "mountainous flunkeydom" at Royal levées is a frequent incentive to ridicule with pen and pencil; _Punch_ is happy in pillorying the _Morning Post_ for the use of the phrase, "the dense mass of the nobility and gentry" at one of Lady Derby's receptions; while he applauds the Queen for setting a good example by giving early juvenile parties in the season of 1850. Her visits and visitors were carefully scrutinized and freely criticized, beginning with the Royal tour in Belgium and France in the autumn of 1843, when Queen Victoria is represented as mesmerizing Louis Philippe with a Commercial Treaty. _Punch_ was in frequent hot water with Louis Philippe--whom, by the way, he once represented as Fagin--and the impending visit of the French Sovereign, at the close of 1844, led to some plain talk on his folly in proscribing and impounding _Punch_, followed up by a burlesque account of his arrival at Portsmouth, with an ironical reference to the omission of all literary men, painters, musicians, sculptors, etc., from the invitations to meet him at Court. When the French King left, _Punch_ burlesqued the situation by representing the Queen as Calypso. _Punch_, like the _Skibbereen Eagle_, always kept his eye on the Tsar of Russia--and, indeed, upon all foreign potentates. The Tsar Nicholas stood, to him, for all that was evil in "the King business." His attacks began in 1842 and never ceased in the Tsar's lifetime. The visit to England in the summer of 1844 was the signal for an explosion of bitter hostility. Readers of _Punch_ are advised to carry every penny of the largess he drops to the Polish Fund. They should be polite, but avoid any approval of his looks or manners. The Tsar's misdeeds and acts of harshness to Poles and Jews are minutely recalled. Queen Victoria is shown in a cartoon offering Poland as a bun to Nicholas the Bear at the Zoo. The Tsar's lavish presents are flouted and condemned. A design for the 500-guinea cup he offered for Ascot is made a hideous memento of savage repression. His subscription to the Polish Ball is compared to the action of Claude Duval fiddling to his victims. The Tsar, in short, was "good for Knout"; and John Bull was being led by the nose with a diamond ring in it. Nor has _Punch_ a single good word to say for the King of Prussia right from 1842 to 1857. His visit in the former year, "to strengthen the cast of the Prince of Wales's christening," met with anything but a friendly welcome. When he returned in the year 1844, _Punch_ profoundly distrusted the King's humility when he visited Newgate with Mrs. Fry and knelt and prayed in the female prisoners' ward; and his suspicions were confirmed by his treatment of the refugee Poles, who were handed back to the mercies of Tsar Nicholas. Throughout the entire period the King of Prussia figures as "King Clicquot," from his alleged fondness for the bottle. The King of Hanover comes off even worse. Witness the truly amazing frankness of the comments on his visit in June, 1843:--

TRIUMPHAL RETURN OF THE KING OF HANOVER

The King of Hanover is once more among us. After a painful absence
of six years--intensely painful to all parties--the monarch returns
to the country of his birth, a country to which he will leave his
name, as Wordsworth says of Wallace, "as a flower," odorous and
perennial. He arrives here, it is said, to be present at the
marriage of his niece, the Princess Augusta, with a German Prince,
who is not only to take an English wife, but with her three
thousand pounds per annum of English money; of money coined from
the sweat of starving thousands; money to gild the shabby Court of
Mecklenburg with new splendour. Sir Robert Peel has been, it is
said, under a course of steel draughts, and other invigorating
medicine, the better to fortify himself in his address to the
Commons for the cash. Sir Robert, however, acutely alive to our
fallen revenue, is still very nervous. It is reported that, on the
evening when the demand upon the patience and the rags of John Bull
was made, the Prime Minister blushed "for that night only."

* * * * *

Herein is the extreme value of the numberless scions of Royalty
with which England is over-blessed. The Duke of Cumberland (we mean
the King of Hanover) has £23,000 a year from the sweat of
Englishmen. And does not his Highness, or his Kingship, whilst
taking a salary, exercise a most salutary effect upon Britons? Does
he not practically teach them the beauty of humility--of long
suffering--of self-denying charity and benevolence? Why, he is a
continual record of the liberality and magnanimity of Englishmen,
who, if ever they fall into an excess of admiration for royalty,
will owe the enthusiasm to such bright examples as the monarch of
Hanover. In the East there are benevolent votaries who build
expensive fabrics for the entertainment of the most noisome
creatures. Englishmen are above such superstition; and in the very
pride and height of their intelligence, allow £23,000 to the King
of Hanover.

[Sidenote: Royal Parasites]

The wedding of the Princess Augusta, daughter of the Duke of Cambridge, to the Prince of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, was the occasion of a wonderful explosion in the _Morning Post_:--

Jenkins was present at the ceremony. He was somehow smuggled into
the Royal Chapel, and stood hidden in a corner, hidden by a huge
_bouquet_, quite another Cupid among the roses. Let us, however,
proceed to give the "feelings" of Jenkins, merely premising that
we should very much like to see Jenkins, when he feels "proud,
elated and deeply moved." He says:

"We felt alternately proud, elated, and deeply moved during the
ceremony as _in turn_ we cast a glance at the illustrious witnesses
to the solemnity. There was our gracious Queen, beaming with youth
and beauty, _through which is ever discernible the eagle glance_
and the imposing air of command so well suited to her high station.
Next to the Queen, the Royal Consort, _one of the handsomest
Princes of the age_, in whom the spirit of youth is so remarkably
tempered by the _judgment and wisdom of age_. The Queen Adelaide,
living model of every Virtue which can adorn a Woman either in
private life or on a throne."

So far the _Morning Post_. What says (perhaps?) an equal authority,
_The Times_?

"The Queen Dowager was prevented from being present at the Ceremony
in consequence of indisposition."

The old Duke Adolphus Frederick of Cambridge was another target of never-ending ridicule. He was a great diner-out, and his fatuous after-dinner speeches are cruelly parodied. He was also "the Duke who thinks aloud," whether at the play or at the Chapel Royal:--

A few Sundays ago, the Minister and the Duke proceeded as follows:

_Minister._ From all evil and mischief; from sin, from the crafts
of the devil----

(_Duke._ To be sure; very proper--very proper.)

_Minister._ From all sedition, conspiracy, and rebellion----

(_Duke._ Certainly; very right--very right.)

And thus Parson and Duke proceeded together almost to the end.
However, the worthy clergyman had to offer a prayer for the sick.
Proceeding in this pious task, he thus commenced:

_Minister._ The prayers of this congregation are earnestly desired
for----

(_Duke._ No objection--no objection!)

[Sidenote: _A Royal Duke's Household_]

One certainly does not gather from _Punch's_ pages what was none the less a fact, that the Duke was extremely popular, that he was charitable and benevolent, and an enlightened patron of science and art, or that he was emphatically recognized as "a connecting link between the throne and the people."

On the Duke's death in 1850, _Punch_, with his usual vigour, attacked the grant of £12,000 a year to his son, the late and last Duke of Cambridge, at a time when the claims of Horatia (Nelson's daughter) and Mrs. Waghorn, widow of the pioneer of the Overland Route, were neglected. The immediate sequel led to further caustic remarks:--

FOUR EQUERRIES AND THREE CHAPLAINS

What can a quiet, kind, manly, and simple gentleman, Prince though
he be of the British Blood Royal, want at this present period of
time with four Equerries and three parsons in the Gazette? Are
these ceremonies nowadays useful and decorous, or absurd and
pitiable; and likely to cause the scorn and laughter of men of
sense? When the greatest and wisest Statesman in England [Sir
Robert Peel] dying declares he will have no title for his sons,
and, as it were, repudiates the Peerage as a part of the Protective
system which must fall one day, as other Protective institutions
have fallen--can't sensible people read the signs of the times and
be quiet? When Lord John comes down to the House (with that pluck
which his Lordship always shows when he has to meet an unpopular
measure) and asks for an allowance, which the nation grudgingly
grants to its pensioners--when the allowance is flung at his Royal
Highness with a grumble, is it wise to come out the next day with a
tail of four Equerries and three clergymen?

Louis Napoleon stands apart from the other European sovereigns of the mid-nineteenth century in virtue of his origin and his career. But he ran the Tsar Nicholas close, if he did not equal him, as _Punch's_ pet aversion. As early as 1849 his imperialistic ambitions led to the hostile comment that "empire" meant _empirer_. The _Coup d'État_ was the signal for the fiercest attacks on his policy of "homicide." His matrimonial ventures prompted the ribald suggestion that the Emperor Louis should marry Lola Montez! His persistent gagging of the Press in France, and his attempts to subsidize or manipulate that in England, are vehemently denounced. _Punch's_ attacks ceased during the Crimean War, but it was a reluctant truce, and they broke out again after the Peace was signed. Douglas Jerrold cordially detested the Emperor, and was responsible for the hardest of the many hard things said against him in _Punch_.

By a strange irony of fate it was Douglas Jerrold's own son, William Blanchard Jerrold, who, working upon materials supplied him by the Empress Eugénie, produced in the four volumes of his _Life of Napoleon III_ the chief _apologia_ in English of the Second Empire.

But to return to the Queen and the English Royal Family. Amongst _Punch's_ unconscious prophecies room must certainly be found for his reference, in a satire of the Queen's speech when Peel was Premier, to Her Majesty as "Victoria Windsor" nearly seventy-five years before the surname was formally adopted by her grandson. The suggested statue to Cromwell at the new Houses of Parliament gave rise to a long and heated controversy in 1845 in which _Punch_ ranged himself militantly among the partisans of the Protector. He published mock protests from various sovereigns; he considered Cromwell's claim side by side with those of the "Sexigamist" murderer Henry VIII and other kings, and printed a burlesque design of his own, with a sneer at Pugin for his "determined zeal in keeping up the bad drawing of the Middle Ages."