PRINCE CONSORT

Evening Star, Issue 23124, 25 November 1938, Page 11

PRINCE CONSORT

REVEALING LETTERS INFLUENCE ON POLITICS DISTRUST RECALLED If the Prince Consort has had to wait a long time —lie died in December, 1861—for justice to be dmie to his eminent abilities and political foresight, at any rate the recognition is now generous and complete, writes J. B. Firth in the ‘ Daily Telegraph and Morning Post.’ His political influence grew steadily from the time of his marriage to Queen Victoria until the day of liis death. And justly, for he gauged the changed conditions of the time better than most of the leading men in English politics. The leading English statesmen disliked the presence and influence of Count Stockmar at Windsor, and were suspicious of the correspondence which the Prince carried on with his German relatives. They had no means, of course, of discovering its nature, but they made shrewd guesses which were not far out. We are now able to form a more exact estimate, for the Ducal archives at Coburg and the Brandenburg-Prus-sian archives at Charlottenburg have recently been investigated by Dr Kurt Jagow with valuable results which have taken shape in a volume, ‘ Letters of the Prince’Consort.’ Most of the 350 letters and memoranda see the light for tlie first time. LETTERS FROM WINDSOR. Among them are several letters from the Windsor archives, which the King has given permission to publish. They were written by the Prince to _ tho Queen during their engagement, when he was enjoying a sunshine which was only clouded by the forboding that he would have to assert his independence very vigorously if he was to be master of the house as well as husband of tho Queen. Dr Jagow’s editing is very well done. But he writes from a foreign angle of vision, and few English readers will be willing to allow bis bold claim that “ it is in essence due to the merits of the German Prince who for less than two decades sat upon, or rather stood by, the throne of England as the faithful guardian of the Crown, that today the British Monarchy is able to command the power, prestige, and internal strength required by the British Empire to hold together its self-govern-ing nations and to take rank as a world Power.” That is Teutonic exaggeration; Dr Jagow’s suggestion that the British Constitutional Monarchy is really tho handiwork of the Prince Consort is fantastic. The Prince himself, in a letter to Stockmar, written in 1854, deals very frankly with the unpleasant experiences through which he had passed:— “ The British nation, slow of thought and uneducated, never gave itself the trouble to consider what really is the position of tho husband of a Queen Regnant. When I first came over here I was met by this want of knowledge and unwillingness to give a thought to the position of this luckless personage. “AN INTERLOPER.” ‘‘ Peel cut down my Wellington refused mo my rank. The Royal Family cried out against the foreign interloper, the Whigs in office were only inclined to concede to me just as much space as I could stand upon. “ The Constitution is silent as to the Consort of the Queen; yet there he was, and not to be done without. As I kept quiet and caused no scandal, and all went well, no one has troubled about me and my doings.

“ Now that it has been brought to light that 1 have for years taken an active interest in all political matters, tho public fancied itself betrayed because it felt it had been self-deceived. It also rushed all at once into a belief in secret correspondence with foreign Courts, intrigues, etc.” Nor, as this volume shows, was such a belief ill-founded, and in the contents of some of these letters, notably those addressed to King Frederick William IV. of Prussia, had been made known to Lord Palmerston they would asuredly have aroused bis fierce indignation. The second letter of the series begins by assuring the King that “ in all our views and opinions on English policy, as well as on European and world policy, Victoria and ! are one, as beseems two faithful married people.” “A GERMAN PRINCE.”' It continues : “ If, however, in my communications to your Majesty there appears .a certain excess, as in my last letter, of purely British feeling, you will (knowing, as I do, your truly German sentiments) see in it in future nothing unseemly, but will freely admit though I am incidentally the Queen of England’s husband, 1 am also one German Prince speaking to another. “ It goes without saying that all such outpourings, whether they come from your Majesty or are addressed to you, are to bo tieated by us both with the l strictest of secrecy, and to be withheld, from everyone, including our Govern- 1 ments.” In this same letter some exceedingly derogatory references are made to Sir Edmund Lyons, the British Minister at Athens. “ We know very well,” writes the Prince, “ that his despatches are written in a spirit of obstinate partisanship, and your Majesty may rely on me watching Sir E. Lyons with anxious attention and seizing upon any action of his not in conformity with his* duties to demand bis immediate recall.” Manifestly, therefore. Downing Street’s dislike of the Prince’s foreign correspondence was not wholly without foundation. ENGLAND’S INTERESTS. Such passages, however, are rare. Most of these letters show the Prince’s sterling political judgment, and he did not often make such a gaffe as he made in 1845, when he wrote to Wilberforce on his appointment to the Bishopric of Oxford, giving him detailed instructions as to how a Bishop of the State Church should comport himself in the House of Lords, on what subjects he should vote and on which refrain. After the anxieties of the Revolutionary year (1848), when his friend, Prince William of Prussia, grandfather of the Kaiser, was for a time an exile in London, the Prince Consort advocated a cautious policy of non-interven-tion in Continental affairs. “However differently,” he wrote in 1850. “ parties here may judge the fact's of Continental happenings, all agree absolutely in desiring that England’s interests and welfare shall not be dragged into the whirlpool. This desire only strengthens the general determination" against, any Continental war and against taking any part in one. “In face of this national feeling no Minister could dare pledge England’s name to a measure involving a likelihood of participation in a fresh Continental war—without consent of Parliament. Such consent would never be granted, even if it were made clear to Parliament that great interests were at stake.” ■ Yet the events even then were already in train which produced the Crimean War, when the Prince Consort was" highly incensed by what he and the Queen considered the “ moral cowardice ” of Prussia in refusing to join England and France-in their war against Russia for the protection of Turkey. ADVICE TO PRUSSIA. On the thorny question of how best to secure German unity tho Prince oventuallv came round to the opinion that Austria should be excluded from a United Germany, and remain a sepa-

rate realm, but in cordial friendship and alliance. Prussia, in his view, as the only Great Power 'in Germany, ought to lead the movement, but it was essential that Prussia should act in a German and not in a Prussian spirit. “ Prussia’s position,” he wrote on one occasion, ‘‘ is a weak one and will continue to be so, so long as she does not morally dominate Germany, and to be herself German is the way to bring this about.” What the Prince did not foresee was that Prussia would 'so soon adopt Bismarckian ideas and policies—the very antithesis of his own—under the rule of the King whom he had sought to indoctrinate with his own Liberal tendencies. , As one of his dearest objects was to establish cordial relations between England and Germany, he heartily welcomed the suggestion of a matrimonial alliance between the Princess lloyal and Prince William’s eldest son. She was his favourite daughter;,and no son-in-law could have been more amiable—and amenable to the Prince Consort s ideas—than tho future • Emperor Frederic. . , While “ Vicky ” was an apt and willing pupil, her brother Bertie, the Prince of Wales, was reluctant and unpromising from the start. The future King Edward VII. was not interested in self-improvement on the lines laid down by the Prince Consort, and the father ‘had a keen eye for the sons faults. v finding a bride. Parental anxieties were renewed when, it came to finding the Prince a bride. He had already noted a photograph of Princess Alexandra of Denmark in the rooms of one of his relations at Kew, and his eager desire to make her acquaintance caused his parents to look about for alternative choices. They did not desire a Danish connection, tor the question of the succession to the Danish Duchies was already becoming acute, and a Damsu marriage would ' range the Prince s sympathies on the Danish and not on the German side in the coming trouble. The father was hi a dilemma, for ‘to name the Princess to Bertie as one whom he must not be tempted into marrying ” would merely “ call his attention to the forbidden fruit.” “We have explained to him,” he .wrote to Coburg, tbp difficulties in the way of such a choice, and be has taken it in as far as a youth of his age and disposition can do. Since, however, these views are shared by no one else in England, and we have against us the Ministers, the Press, and the public, all we could do in practice was to discover some other party that Bertie would accept (for he wishes to marry early, and it will be for his good morally as well as socially and politically). , , “ There is, however, a complete lack of competition for the honour. We made opportunities for Bertie to see two others, and he took a dislike to both, Vicky has racked her brains to find someone for us, but without success. Princess is not pretty enough, and there is no one else. . . .” In the bloom of her girlish beauty Princess Alexandra was. indeed, a formidable competitor, and the Prince did not allow stuffy considerations of German State politics to weigh in the balance against his happiness. He followed the dictates of his heart, and the whole nation approved his choice. POLITICS AND PERSONALITY. The Prince Consort worked too hard and overtaxed his physical powers. He aged verv prematurely. In one of his last letters to “ Vicky ” at Berlin he wrote: . , “ One’s feelings remain under the influence of the treadmill of never-end-ing business. The donkey in Carisbrooke, which, you will remember, is my live counterpart. He, too, would much rather munch thistles in the castle moat than turn round in the wheel at the castle wall, and small are the thanks that he gets for his labour.” That sounds a pathetic note of selfpity. But in truth he was worn out, and said to the Queen some time before his last illness; “ I am sure that if 1 had a severe illness 1 should give up at once and not fight for my life.”

These letters will add to the Prince'' Consort’s reputation for political insight, but .they _ also explain why ho never really gained the affections of Englishmen. It was because, he did not seriously try to become an Englishman. He faithfully did his duty to England as became the husband of th© Queen: but German he was born and “ loyal Courger and Gothaner ” he remained in spirit to the end!