Schleswig-Holstein question in which Great Britain became involved in 1863. Indeed, as Palmerston once remarked, Prince Albert was one of the three men who had ever understood it, another was a Danish statesman who had lost his mind, and he himself, who was the third, had forgotten it. Certainly it was a question complicated enough for anyone to lose his mind over if he did not forget it. In the fifteenth century the Kingdom of Denmark and the Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, which lie at the base of the Danish peninsula, came under one ruler, on condition that the Duchies should never be incorporated. Moreover, the line of succession was different; the Danish allowed transmission through females, while, in the Duchies, the Salic law prevailed. In 1848 Frederick VII came to the throne. Frederick, who was the last of his immediate line, chose as his successor a remote connection - Prince Christian of Glücksburg. The Duke of Augustenburg, a claimant to the succession in Schleswig-Holstein, was bought off, in 1852, for a substantial sum of money. Holstein was preponderatingly German and belonged to the German Confederation, while in Schleswig there was a strong Danish element attached to Denmark. Contrary to the ancient stipulation and contrary to assurances which he had given, a Danish Parliament, in the last year of Frederick's reign, adopted a new Constitution incorporating Schleswig into his Kingdom, and granting, at the same time, autonomy to Holstein. On his death in 1863 the question was brought to an issue. Under the energetic direction of Bismarck, who had recently became President of the Prussian Ministry and who was determined to weld Germany together by a policy of "blood and iron," Prussia entered into an agreement with Austria to drive the Danes out of these Duchies and to hold them jointly. As it subsequently developed, his two aims were to secure both Schleswig and Holstein which separated the main part of Prussia from her territories along the Rhine1-and to pick a quarrel with Austria, the chief obstacle to Prussia's leadership in German unification. On the other hand, the smaller German States, supported by a liberal minority in Prussia, aimed to make the Duchies an independent member of the German Confederation; for they feared the growing power of Prussia. So they backed the Duke of Augustenburg, who, regardless of the fact that he had been bought off, revived his claim for his son. Bismarck, however, bore all before him. Backed by Austria he sent an ultimatum to Christian I demanding that the recent Constitution be reversed within fortyeight hours, a condition manifestly impossible, since the late Parlia

Moreover, he wished to acquire Kiel, now the chief naval station in the Baltic and the eastern terminal of the Kiel canal, built in 1895.

ment had been dissolved and a new one had not been elected. When the demand was not complied with, Prussia and Austria proceeded to make war.

Aside from the possible effect on the European balance of power, the British were interested on dynastic grounds. Alexandra, the daughter of Christian IX, had just married the Prince of Wales, while Victoria, the Queen's eldest daughter, had, in 1858, become the wife of Frederick, heir to the throne of Prussia. The sympathies of the British Queen were with the Germans as against the Danes, and with the Prussians as against the Augustenburg party; not only did she feel that Great Britain was bound by the treaty of 1852 in which the Augustenburg claim had been annulled, but she wanted to see Prussia grow strong in Germany. Her Cabinet and her people, on the contrary, were strong for the Danes. This was due partly to the popularity of Princess Alexandra and partly to the feeling that Denmark was a weak State oppressed by a strong and bullying combination. Palmerston and Russell talked loudly of intervention in the Danish behalf. While Queen Victoria took no pains to conceal her strong German sympathies, she strove, though in vain, to avert a war. After the Danes had been defeated by the joint forces of the Prussians and Austrians, she arranged, in 1864, a Conference at London, which, however, came to nothing. When Palmerston and Russell continued to talk of intervention in behalf of the Danes, she insisted upon neutrality, and even threatened to dissolve Parliament and appeal to the people if the Ministers continued their belligerent course. She had her way, and Great Britain kept her hands off when Prussia and Austria, after the failure of the Conference, proceeded to secure their hold on the Duchies. Palmerson had led on the Danes in their futile resistance by holding out hopes which he could not realize, and he and the Foreign Secretary had made themselves ridiculous in Europe by what Derby very effectively termed their policy of "meddle and muddle." Yet it was not their fault that they had to back down. It was due partly to the Queen and partly to the French Emperor on whose support they had counted. Napoleon III, however, owing to the fact that Great Britain had refused to give him anything more than moral support, had recently been forced to submit to a contemptuous rebuff from the Russians when he had ventured to remonstrate with them for their treatment of the Poles, who had been driven to rebellion in January, 1863. Consequently, he declined to take any decided step unless the British Government bound itself to go to war if necessary.

The Death of Palmerston and the End of an Epoch (1865). — The death of Palmerston, 18 October, 1865, when he was within two days

of eighty-one, ended an epoch. In domestic politics he was an oldfashioned Whig who with his tremendous prestige succeeded, so long as he lived, in blocking grave problems of social and political reform that were pressing for solution. He would hear of no further extension of the franchise, and his attitude toward the suffering peasantry in Ireland may be summed up in his famous phrase: "Tenant right is landlord's wrong." Conservative as he was in Home politics he was hated by European Governments as a "patron of revolution and a disturber of the relations between subjects and their sovereigns." In his handling of foreign questions he had often embarrassed the Queen, he had made many blunders, and he was too prone to consider more the "honor of Great Britain than the merits of the question involved," his political integrity was not always beyond reproach, he was wanting in the qualities of constructive statesmanship, he was irrepressible, overbearing, and flippant. Nevertheless, he was the friend of national liberal aspiration, he was courageous, industrious, witty and good-natured, and very popular because he was the embodiment of ideals which the average Englishman could understand. The country, however, was now ready for new men and new measures.

FOR ADDITIONAL READING

Narrative. Marriott; Bright, IV; Maxwell, II; Martineau (to 1846); Cambridge Modern History, X, XI; Walpole, The History of Twenty-five Years (1904), I, and England, IV-VI, to 1856. J. McCarthy, History of Our Own Times (vols. I-III, 1880) is a "popular" work and a very readable account. Herbert Paul, History of Modern England (5 vols., 19046) I, II, journalistic and partisan, Liberal standpoint.

Biography. S. Lee, Queen Victoria (1902), an excellent brief sketch. Sir T. Martin, Life of the Prince Consort (5 vols., 1875-1880). J. Morley, The Life of W. E. Gladstone (3 vols., 1903), the standard life of Gladstone. Monypenny and Buckle, Life of Disraeli (vols. I and II, go to 1846), the most complete and best biography. T. P. O'Connor, Lord Beaconsfield (6th ed., 1884), hostile estimate. T. E. Kebble, Lord Beaconsfield and other Tory Memoirs (1907). G. B. Hill, Life of Rowland Hill (2 vols., 1880). J. Morley, Richard Cobden (2 vols., 1881). J. A. Hobson, Richard Cobden, the International Man (1919), a sketch emphasizing Cobden's pacifist activities. G. M. Trevelyan, John Bright (1913). W. M. Torrens, Memoirs of Lord Melbourne (2 vols., 1878). G. Saintsbury, Life of the Earl of Derby (1892). S. J. Reid, Life of Lord John Russell (1886). J. B. Atlay, Victorian Chancellors (2 vols., 1908). For Russell, Peel, and Palmerston, see above, chs. XLVIII-L.

Special Works. T. Carlyle, Chartism (1839). R. G. Gammage, History of Chartism (1854, revised in expanded form, 1894). W. Lovett and J.

Collins, Chartism (1840). P. W. Slosson, The Decline of the Chartist Movement in England (1916); F. F. Rosenblatt, The Chartist Movement in its Social and Economic Aspects (pt. I, 1916); and H. W. Falkner, Chartism and the Churches (1916); three useful studies. Mark Hovell, The Chartist Movement (1918); excellent. B. Holland, The Fall of Protection, 18401850 (1913), traces effect on Empire, Protectionist in sympathy. The authority on the Crimean War is A. W. Kinglake, The Invasion of the Crimea (8 vols., 1863-1887). M. Bernard, A Historical Account of the Neutrality of Great Britain during the American Civil War (1870).

Contemporary. The Greville Memoirs. B. Disraeli, Bentinck, a Political Biography (1852). Papers of Lord Melbourne (ed. L. C. Sanders, 1889). Baron Stockmar, Memoirs (tr. M. Müller, 2 vols., 1872). Queen Victoria, Letters (eds. A. C. Benson and Viscount Esher, 3 vols., 1907), to 1861; throw a flood of light on early Victorian statesmen and politics. Esher, The Girlhood of Queen Victoria, 1836–40 (1912), selections from her diary, abbreviated in The Training of a Sovereign (1914). John, Earl Russell, Recollections and Suggestions (1875).

Selections from the sources. Adams and Stephens, nos. 266–267. Robertson, pt. II, nos. XXVII-XXVIII, app. p. 438.

CHAPTER LIII

A NEW ERA IN DEMOCRACY. THE POLITICAL RIVALRY OF GLADSTONE AND DISRAELI (1865-1880)

The Second Russell Ministry (1865–1866) and the State of the Franchise. - While the death of Palmerston removed the chief obstacle to progress in domestic legislation, some years were yet to elapse before either of the two men, Gladstone and Disraeli, who were to dominate the political situation for the next generation, came to head a Cabinet; for Lord John Russell (created Earl Russell in 1861) succeeded Palmerston, with whom, except for occasional intervals of rivalry, he had worked for more than thirty years. The Russell Administration was confronted with many acute problems-on the Continent a war involving tremendous issues, at Home parliamentary reform, again a burning question. Since the passage of the celebrated Act of 1832, numerous Reform bills had been introduced; but none of them had even succeeded in passing the Commons. The right of voting was still greatly restricted and the representation unevenly distributed. In 1865, out of 5,300,000 adult males, there were only 900,000 voters. Thus only one man in six was entitled to vote and the working classes were practically excluded. Many anomalies in the representation, left untouched in 1832, had been much accentuated by the amazing growth of the industrial population during the past thirty-five years. The borough of Totnes with 4000 inhabitants returned as many members as Liverpool with a population of 443,000, and the thinly populated county of Cornwall had a larger representation than, the populous Middlesex.

The Awakening of Democracy. Russell's Reform Bill of 1866 and Its Defeat. While the majority of both Houses was still opposed to change and the public seemed indifferent, such inequalities could not go on forever. Moreover, the country was on the eve of a great democratic awakening. The people were going to insist more and more that it was the proper function of the State to educate them, to provide for the public health, and to regulate their relations with their employers. Yet if the powers of the Government were to be thus en