which served to embitter Austro-Italian relations. On the 9th of January 1878, Victor Emmanuel died of fever in Rome, and was buried in the Pantheon. He was succeeded by his son Humbert. Bluff, hearty, good-natured and simple in his habits, yet he always had a high idea of his own kingly dignity, and his really statesmanlike qualities often surprised foreign diplomats, who were deceived by his homely exterior. As a soldier he was very brave, but he did not show great qualities as a military leader in the campaign of 1866. He was a keen sportsman and would spend many days at a time pursuing chamois or steinbock in the Alpine fastnesses of Piedmont with nothing but bread and cheese to eat. He always used the dialect of Piedmont when conversing with natives of that country, and he had a vast fund of humorous anecdotes and proverbs with which to illustrate his arguments. He had a great weakness for female society, and kept several mistresses; one of them, the beautiful Rosa Vercellone, he created Countess Mirafiori e Fontanafredda and married morganatically in 1869; she bore him one son. BIBLIOGRAPHY.-Besides the general works on Italy and Savoy see V. Bersezio, Il Regno di Villorio Emanuele II. (8 vols., Turin, 1869); G. Massari, La Vita ed il Regno di Vittorio Emanuele II. (2 vols., Milan, 1878); N. Bianchi, Storia della Diplomazia Europea in Italia (8 vols., Turin, 1865). (L. V.*) generation, so uncertain that the three unmarried sons of George III., the dukes of Clarence (afterwards William IV.), Kent and Cambridge, all married in the following year, the two elder on the same day. All three had children, but the duke of Clarence's two baby daughters died in infancy, in 1819 and 1821; and the duke of Cambridge's son George, born on the 26th of March 1819, was only two months old when the birth of the duke of Kent's daughter put her before him in the succession. The question as to what name the child should bear was not settled without bickerings. The duke of Kent wished her to be christened Elizabeth, and the prince regent wanted Georgiana, while the tsar Alexander I., who had promised to stand sponsor, stipulated for Alexandrina. The baptism was performed in a drawing-room of Kensington Palace on the 24th of June by Dr Manners Sutton, archbishop of Canterbury. The prince regent, who was present, named the child Alexandrina; then, being requested by the duke of Kent to give a second name, he said, rather abruptly, "Let her be called Victoria, after her mother, but this name must come after the other."1 Six weeks after her christening the princess was vaccinated, this being the first occasion on which a member of the royal family underwent the operation. In January 1820 the duke of Kent died, five days before his brother succeeded to the throne as George IV. The widowed duchess of Kent was now a woman of thirty-four, handsome, homely, a German at heart, and with little liking for English ways. But she was a woman of experience, and shrewd; and fortunately she had a safe and affectionate adviser in her brother, Prince Leopold of Coburg, afterwards (1831) king of the Belgians, who as the husband of the late Princess Charlotte had once been a prospective prince consort of England. His former doctor and private secretary, Baron Stockmar (q.v.), a man of encyclopaedic information and remarkable judgment, who had given special attention to the problems of a sovereign's position in England, was afterwards to play an important rôle in Queen Victoria's life; and Leopold himself took a fatherly interest in the young princess's education, and contributed some thousands of pounds annually to the duchess of Kent's income. Prince Leopold still lived at this time at Claremont, where Princess Charlotte had died, and this became the duchess of Kent's occasional English home; but she was much addicted to travelling, and spent several months every year in visits to watering-places. It was said at court that she liked the demonstrative homage of crowds; but she had good reason to fear lest her child should be taken away from her to be educated according to the views of George IV. Between the king and his sister-in-law there was little love, and when the death of the duke of Clarence's second infant daughter Elizabeth in 1821 made it pretty certain that Princess Victoria would eventually become queen, the duchess felt that the king might possibly obtain the support of his ministers if he insisted that the future sovereign should be brought up under masters and mistresses designated by himself. The little princess could not have received a better education than that which was given her under Prince Leopold's direction. Her uncle considered that she ought to be kept as long as possible from the knowledge of her position, which might raise a large growth of pride or vanity in her and make her unmanageable; so Victoria was twelve years old before she VICTORIA (ALEXANDRINA VICTORIA), Queen of the knew that she was to wear a crown. Until she became queen United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Empress of she never slept a night away from her mother's room, and she India (1819-1901), only child of Edward, duke of Kent, fourth was not allowed to converse with any grown-up person, friend, son of King George III., and of Princess Victoria Mary Louisa tutor or servant without the duchess of Kent or the Baroness of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (widow of Prince Emich Karl of Lein-Lehzen, her private governess, being present. Louise Lehzen, ingen, by whom she already had two children), was born at Kensington Palace on the 24th of May 1819. The duke and duchess of Kent had been living at Amorbach, in Franconia, owing to their straitened circumstances, but they returned to London on purpose that their child should be born in England. In 1817 the death of Princess Charlotte (only child of the prince regent, afterwards George IV., and wife of Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, afterwards king of the Belgians), had left the ultimate succession to the throne of England, in the younger VICTOR EMMANUEL III. (1869- ), king of Italy, son of King Humbert I. and Queen Margherita of Savoy, was born at Naples on the 11th of November 1869. Carefully educated by his mother and under the direction of Colonel Osio, he outgrew the weakness of his childhood and became expert in horsemanship and military exercises. Entering the army at an early age he passed through the various grades and, soon after attaining his majority, was appointed to the command of the Florence Army Corps. During frequent journeys to Germany he enlarged his military experience, and upon his appointment to the command of the Naples Army Corps in 1896 displayed sound military and administrative capacity. A keen huntsman, and passionately fond of the sea, he extended his yachting and hunting excursions as far east as Syria and as far north as Spitsbergen. As representative of King Humbert he attended the coronation of Tsar Nicholas II. in 1896, the Victorian Jubilee celebrations of 1897, and the festivities connected with the coming of age of the German crown prince in 1900. The prince's intellectual and artistic leanings were well known; in particular, he has made a magnificent collection of historic Italian coins, on which subject he became a recognized authority. At the time of the assassination of his father, King Humbert (the 29th of July 1900), he was returning from a yachting cruise in the eastern Mediterranean. Landing at Reggio di Calabria he hastened to Monza, where he conducted with firmness and tact the preparations for the burial of King Humbert and for his own formal accession, which took place on the 9th and 11th of August 1900. On the 24th of October 1896 he married Princess Elena of Montenegro, who, on the 1st of June 1901, bore him a daughter named Yolanda Margherita, on the 19th of November 1902 a second daughter named Mafalda, and on the 15th of September 1904 a son, Prince Humbert. a native of Coburg, had come to England as governess to the Princess Feodore of Leiningen, the duchess of Kent's daughter The question of her name, as that of one who was to be queen, remained even up to her accession to the throne a much-debated one. In August 1831, in a discussion in parliament upon a grant to the duchess of Kent, Sir M. W. Ridley suggested changing it to Elizabeth as 44 more accordant to the feelings of the people "; and the idea of a change seems to have been powerfully supported. In 1836 William IV. approved of a proposal to change it to Charlotte; but, to the princess's own delight, it was given up. The coro by her first husband, and she became teacher to the Princess | requesting an increase of the grant formerly made to the duchess Victoria when the latter was five years old. George IV. in 1827 of Kent. Government recommended an addition of £30,000 a made her a baroness of Hanover, and she continued as lady-in-year, which was voted, and before the close of the year a Civil attendance after the duchess of Northumberland was appointed List Bill was passed, settling £385,000 a year on the queen. official governess in 1830, but actually performed the functions The duchess of Kent and her brothers, King Leopold and the first of governess and then of private secretary till 1842, when duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, had always hoped to arrange that she left the court and returned to Germany, where she died in the queen should marry her cousin, Albert (q.v.) of Saxe-Coburg1870. The Rev. George Davys, afterwards bishop of Peter- | Gotha, and the prince himself had been made acquainted with borough, taught the princess Latin; Mr J. B. Sale, music; this plan from his earliest years. In 1836 Prince Albert, who Mr Westall, history; and Mr Thomas Steward, the writing was born in the same year as his future wife, had come on a visit master of Westminster School, instructed her in penmanship. to England with his father and with his brother, Prince Ernest, In 1830 George IV. died, and the duke of York (George III.'s and his handsome face, gentle disposition and playful humour second son) having died childless in 1827, the duke of Clarence had produced a favourable impression on the princess. The became king as William IV. Princess Victoria now became the duchess of Kent had communicated her projects to Lord Meldirect heir to the throne. William IV. cherished affectionate bourne, and they were known to many other statesmen, and to feelings towards his. niece; unfortunately he took offence at persons in society; but the gossip of drawing-rooms during the the duchess of Kent for declining to let her child come and live years 1837-38 continually represented that the young queen at his court for several months in each year, and through the had fallen in love with Prince This or Lord That, and the more whole of his reign there was strife between the two; and imaginative babblers hinted at post-chaises waiting outside KenPrince Leopold was no longer in England to act as peacemaker. sington Gardens in the night, private marriages and so forth. In the early hours of the 20th of June 1837, William IV. died. The coronation took place on the 28th of June 1838. No more His thoughts had dwelt often on his niece, and he repeatedly touching ceremony of the kind had ever been performed in said that he was sure she would be "a good woman and a good Westminster Abbey. Anne was a middle-aged married queen. It will touch every sailor's heart to have a girl queen woman at the time of her coronation; she waddled nation. to fight for. They'll be tattooing her face on their arms, and and wheezed, and made no majestic appearance upon I'll be bound they'll all think she was christened after Nelson's her throne. Mary was odious to her Protestant subjects, Elizaship." Dr Howley, archbishop of Canterbury, and the marquis beth to those of the unreformed religion, and both these queens of Conyngham, bearing the news of the king's death, started in succeeded to the crown in times of general sadness; but the a landau with four horses for Kensington, which they reached youthful Queen Victoria had no enemies except a few Chartists, at five o'clock. Their servants rang, knocked and thumped; and the land was peaceful and prosperous when she began to and when at last admittance was gained, the primate and the reign over it. The cost of George IV.'s coronation amounted marquis were shown into a lower room and there left to wait. to £240,000; that of William IV. had amounted to £50,000 only; Presently a maid appeared and said that the Princess Victoria and in asking £70,000 the government had judged that things was" in a sweet sleep and could not be disturbed." Dr Howley, could be done with suitable luxury, but without waste. The who was nothing if not pompous, answered that he had come traditional banquet in Westminster Hall, with the throwing on state business, to which everything, even sleep, must give | down of the glove by the king's champion in armour, had been place. The princess was accordingly roused, and quickly came dispensed with at the coronation of William IV., and it was downstairs in a dressing-gown, her fair hair flowing loose over resolved not to revive it. But it was arranged that the soveher shoulders. Her own account of this interview, written the reign's procession to the abbey through the streets should be same day in her journal (Letters, i. p. 97), shows her to have made a finer show than on previous occasions; and it drew to been quite prepared. London 400,000 country visitors. Three ambassadors for different reasons became objects of great interest on the occasion. Marshal Soult, Wellington's old foe, received a hearty popular welcome as a military hero; Prince Esterhazy, who represented Austria, dazzled society by his Magyar uniform, which was encrusted all over, even to the boots, with pearls and diamonds; while the Turkish ambassador, Sarim Effendi, caused much diversion by his bewilderment. He was so wonder-struck that he could not walk to his place, but stood as if he had lost his senses, and kept muttering, "All this for a woman!" The privy council assembled at Kensington in the morning; and the usual oaths were administered to the queen by Lord Chancellor Cottenham, after which all present did homage. There was a touching incident when the queen's uncles, the dukes of Cumberland and Sussex, two old men, came forward to perform their obeisance. The queen blushed, and descending from her throne, kissed them both, without allowing them to kneel. By the death of William IV., the duke of Cumberland had become King Ernest of Hanover, and immediately after the ceremony he made haste to reach his kingdom. Had Queen Victoria died without issue, this prince, who was arrogant, ill-tempered and rash, would have become king of Great Britain; and, as nothing but mischief could have resulted from this, the young queen's life became very precious in the sight of her people. She, of course, retained the late king's ministers in their offices, and it was under Lord Melbourne's direction that the privy council drew up their declaration to the kingdom. This document described the queen as Alexandrina Victoria, and all the peers who subscribed the roll in the House of Lords on the 20th of June swore allegiance to her under those names. It was not till the following day that the sovereign's style was altered to Victoria simply, and this necessitated the issuing of a new declaration and a re-signing of the peers' roll. The public proclamation of the queen took place on the 21st at St James's Palace with great pomp. The queen opened her first parliament in person, and in a well-written speech, which she read with much feeling, adverted to her youth and to the necessity which existed for her being guided by enlightened advisers. When both houses had voted loyal addresses, the question of the Civil List was considered, and a week or two later a message was brought to parliament The "Bedchamber Plot." Within a year the court was brought into sudden disfavour with the country by two events of unequal importance, but both exciting. The first was the case of Lady Flora Hastings. In February 1839 this young lady, a daughter of the marquis of Hastings, and a maid of honour to the duchess of Kent, was accused by certain ladies of the bedchamber of immoral conduct. The charge having been laid before Lord Melbourne, he communicated it to Sir James Clark, the queen's physician, and the result was that Lady Flora was subjected to the indignity of a medical examination, which, while it cleared her character, seriously affected her health. In fact, she died in the following July, and it was then discovered that the physical appearances which first provoked suspicion against her had been due to enlargement of the liver. The queen's conduct towards Lady Flora was kind and sisterly from the beginning to the end of this painful business; but the scandal was made public through some indignant letters which the marchioness of Hastings addressed to Lord Melbourne praying for the punishment of her daughter's traducers, and the general opinion was that Lady Flora had been grossly treated at the instigation of some private court enemies. While the agitation about the affair was yet unappeased, the political | described, in the queen's declaration to the privy council, as a Protestant prince; and Lord Palmerston was obliged to ask Baron Stockmar for assurance that Prince Albert did not belong to any sect of Protestants whose rules might prevent him from taking the Sacrament according to the ritual of the English Church. He got an answer couched in somewhat ironical terms to the effect that Protestantism owed its existence in a measure to the house of Saxony, from which the prince descended, seeing that this house and that of the landgrave of Hesse had stood quite after this certain High Churchmen held that a Lutheran was a dissenter," and that the prince should be asked to subscribe to the Thirty-Nine Articles. The queen was particularly concerned by the question of the prince's future status as an Englishman. It was impractic able for him to receive the title of king consort; but the queen naturally desired that her husband should be placed by act of parliament in a position which would secure to him precedence, not only in England, but in foreign courts. Lord Melbourne sought to effect this by a clause introduced in a naturalization bill; but he found himself obliged to drop the clause, and to leave the queen to confer what precedence she pleased by letters-patent. This was a lame way out of the difficulty, for the queen could only confer precedence within her own realms, whereas an act of parliament bestowing the title of prince consort would have made the prince's right to rank above all royal imperial highnesses quite clear, and would have left no room for such disputes as afterwards occurred when foreign princes chose to treat Prince Albert as having mere courtesy rank in his wife's kingdom. The result of these political diffi crisis known as the "Bedchamber Plot " occurred. The Whig ministry had introduced a bill suspending the Constitution of Jamaica because the Assembly in that colony had refused to adopt the Prisons Act passed by the Imperial Legislature. Sir Robert Peel moved an amendment, which, on a division (6th May), was defeated by a majority of five only in a house of 583, and ministers thereupon resigned. The duke of Wellington was first sent for, but he advised that the task of forming an administration should be entrusted to Sir Robert Peel. Sir Robert was ready to form a cabinet in which the duke of Welling-alone against Europe in upholding Luther and his cause. Even ton, Lords Lyndhurst, Aberdeen and Stanley, and Sir James Graham would have served; but he stipulated that the mistress of the robes and the ladies of the bedchamber appointed by the Whig administration should be removed, and to this the queen would not consent. On the 10th of May she wrote curtly that the course proposed by Sir Robert Peel was contrary to usage and repugnant to her feelings; the Tory leader then had to inform the House of Commons that, having failed to obtain the proof which he desired of her majesty's confidence, it was impossible for him to accept office. The ladies of the bedchamber were so unpopular in consequence of their behaviour to Lady Flora Hastings that the public took alarm at the notion that the queen had fallen into the hands of an intriguing coterie; and Lord Melbourne, who was accused of wishing to rule on the strength of court favour, resumed office with diminished prestige. The Tories thus felt aggrieved; and the Chartists were so prompt to make political capital out of the affair that large numbers were added to their ranks. On the 14th of June Mr Attwood, M.P. for Birmingham, presented to the House of Commons a Chartist petition alleged to have been signed by 1,280,000 people. It was a cylinder of parchment of about the diameter of a coach-culties was to make the queen more than ever disgusted with wheel, and was literally rolled up on the floor of the house. On the day after this curious document had furnished both amusement and uneasiness to the Commons, a woman, describing herself as Sophia Elizabeth Guelph Sims, made application at the Mansion House for advice and assistance to prove herself the lawful child of George IV. and Mrs Fitzherbert; and this incident, trumpery as it was, added fuel to the disloyal flame then raging. Going in state to Ascot the queen was hissed by some ladies as her carriage drove on to the course, and two peeresses, one of them a Tory duchess, were openly accused of this unseemly act. Meanwhile some monster Chartist demonstrations were being organized, and they commenced on the 4th of July with riots at Birmingham. It was an untoward coincidence that Lady Flora Hastings died on the 5th of July, for though she repeated on her deathbed, and wished it to be published, that the queen had taken no part whatever in the proceedings which had shortened her life, it was remarked that the ladies who were believed to have persecuted her still retained the sovereign's favour. The riots at Birmingham lasted ten days, and had to be put down by armed force. They were followed by others at Newcastle, Manchester, Bolton, Chester and Macclesfield. These troublous events had the effect of hastening the queen's marriage. Lord Melbourne ascertained that the queen's dispositions towards her cousin, Prince Albert, were unchanged, and he advised King Leopold, through M. marriage. Van der Weyer, the Belgian minister, that the prince should come to England and press his suit. The prince arrived with his brother on a visit to Windsor on the 10th of October 1839. On the 12th the queen wrote to King Leopold: "Albert's beauty is most striking, and he is so amiable and unaffected-in short, very fascinating." On the 15th all was settled; and the queen wrote to her uncle, "I love him more than I can say." The queen's public announcement of her betrothal was enthusiastically received. But the royal lovers still had some parliamentary mortifications to undergo. The government proposed that Prince Albert should receive an annuity of £50,000, but an amendment of Colonel Sibthorpa politician of no great repute-for making the annuity £30,000 was carried against ministers by 262 votes to 158, the Tories and Radicals going into the same lobby, and many ministerialists ing no part in the division. Prince Albert had not been The queen's Public affairs. the Tories. But there was no other flaw in the happiness of queen, after giving birth to a child, died before her son or daughter came of age. Attempts on the queen's Life. "The lord steward finds the fuel and lays the fire; the lord chamberlain lights it. The lord chamberlain provides the lamps; the lord steward must clean, trim and light them. The inside cleaning of windows belongs to the lord chamberlain's department, but the outer parts must be attended to by the office of woods and forests, so that windows remain dirty unless the two departments can come to an understanding." It took Prince Albert four years of firmness and diplomacy before in 1845 he was able to bring the queen's home under the efficient control of a master of the household. The Regency Bill had been hurried on in consequence of the attempt of a crazy pot-boy, Edward Oxford, to take the queen's life. On 10th June 1840, the queen and Prince Albert were driving up Constitution Hill in an open carriage, when Oxford fired two pistols, the bullets from which flew, it is said, close by the prince's head. He was arrested on the spot, and when his lodgings were searched a At the general election of 1841 the Whigs returned in a quantity of powder and shot was found, with the rules minority of seventy-six, and Lord Melbourne was defeated on of a secret society, called "Young England," whose members the Address and resigned. The queen was affected Sir Robert were pledged to meet," carrying swords and pistols and wearing to tears at parting with him; but the crisis had been Peel's crape masks." These discoveries raised the surmise that fully expected and prepared for by confidential com- ministry. Oxford was the tool of a widespread Chartist conspiracy—munications between Mr Anson and Sir Robert Peel, who or, as the Irish pretended, of a conspiracy of Orangemen to set the duke of Cumberland on the throne; and while these delusions were fresh, they threw well-disposed persons into a paroxysm of loyalty. Even the London street dogs, as Sydney Smith said, joined with O'Connell in barking "God save the Queen." Oxford seems to have been craving for notoriety; but it may be doubted whether the jury who tried him did right to pronounce his acquittal on the ground of insanity. He feigned madness at his trial, but during the forty years of his subsequent confinement at Bedlam he talked and acted like a rational being, and when he was at length released and sent to Australia he earned his living there as a house painter, and used to declare that he had never been mad at all. His acquittal was to be deprecated as establishing a dangerous Birth describing the confusion fostered by this state of things, said- | now became prime minister (see Letters of Queen Victoria, of Wales, The court and the Meanwhile the year 1842 was ushered in by splendid fêtes in honour of the king of Prussia, who held the prince of Wales at the font. In the spring there was a fancy-dress ball at Buckingham Palace, which remained memorable owing to the offen. The queen's way Munich, Dresden and Budapest. The queen and Prince which it gave in France. Prince Albert was costumed as | left that of the United Kingdom unhurt. Revolutions broke Edward III., the queen as Queen Philippa, and all the gentle-out in Paris, Vienna, Berlin, Madrid, Rome, Naples, Venice, men of the court as knights of Poitiers. The French chose to view this as an unfriendly demonstration, and there was some talk of getting up a counter-ball in Paris, the duke of Orleans to figure as William the Conqueror. In June the queen took her first railway journey, travelling from Windsor to Paddington on the Great Western line. The master of the horse, whose business it was to provide for the queen's first rail ordinary journeys by road, was much put out by this innovation. He marched into the station several Journey. hours before the start to inspect the engine, as he would have examined a steed; but greater merriment was occasioned by the queen's coachman, who insisted that, as a matter of form, he ought to make-believe to drive the engine. After some dispute, he was told that he might climb on to the pilot engine which was to precede the royal train; but his scarlet livery, white gloves and wig suffered so much from soot and sparks that he made no more fuss about his rights in after trips. The motion of the train was found to be so pleasant that the queen readily trusted herself to the railway for a longer journey a few weeks later, when she paid her first visit to Scotland.queen was greatly pleased and touched. The project of estabA report by Sir James Clark led to the queen's visiting Balmoral in 1848, and to the purchase of the Balmoral estate in 1852, and the queen's diary of her journeys in Scotland shows what constant enjoyment she derived from her Highland home. Seven years before this the estate of Osborne had been purchased in the Isle of Wight, in order that the queen might have a home of her own. Windsor she considered too stately, and the Pavilion at Brighton too uncomfortable. The first stone of Osborne House was laid in 1845, and the royal family entered into possession in September 1846. with foreign Sove. In August 1843 the queen and Prince Albert paid a visit to King Louis Philippe at the château d'Eu. They sailed from Relations Southampton for Tréport in a yacht, and, as it happened to be raining hard when they embarked, the loyal members of the Southampton Corporation remembered Raleigh, and spread their robes on the ground reigns. for the queen to walk over. In 1844 Louis Philippe returned the visit by coming to Windsor. It was the first visit ever paid by a king of France to a sovereign of England, and Louis Philippe was much pleased at receiving the Order of the Garter. He said that he did not feel that he belonged to the "Club" of European sovereigns until he received this decoration. As the father of King Leopold of Belgium's consort, the queen was much interested in his visit, which went off with great success and goodwill. The tsar Nicholas had visited Windsor earlier that year, in which also Prince Alfred, who was to marry the tsar's grand-daughter, was born. In 1846 the affair of the "Spanish marriages" seriously troubled the relations between the United Kingdom and France. Louis Philippe and Guizot had planned the marriage of the duke of Montpensier with the infanta Louisa of Spain, younger sister of Queen Isabella, who, it was thought at the time, was not likely ever to have children. The intrigue was therefore one for placing a son of the French king on the Spanish throne. (See SPAIN, History.) As to Queen Victoria's intervention on this question and on others, these words, written by W. E. Gladstone in 1875, may be quoted: "Although the admirable arrangements of the Constitution have now shielded the sovereign from personal responsibility, they have left ample scope for the exercise of direct and personal influence in the whole work of government.... The sovereign as compared with her ministers has, because she is the sovereign, the advantage of long experience, wide survey, elevated position and entire disconnexion from the bias of party. Further, personal and domestic relations with the ruling families abroad give openings in delicate cases for saying more, and saying it at once more gently and more efficaciously, than could be ventured in the formal correspondence and rude contacts of government. We know with how much truth, fulness and decision, and with how much tact and delicacy. the queen, aided by Prince Albert, took a principal part on behalf of the nation in the painful question of the Spanish marriages." The year 1848, which shook so many continental thrones, lishing a royal residence in Ireland was often mooted at this time, but the queen's advisers never urged it with sufficient warmth. There was no repugnance to the idea on the queen's part, but Sir Robert Peel thought unfavourably of it as an "empirical" plan, and the question of expense was always mooted as a serious consideration. There is no doubt that the absence of a royal residence in Ireland was felt as a slur upon the Irish people in certain circles. During these years the queen's family was rapidly becoming larger. Princess Alice (afterwards grand duchess of Hesse) was born on the 25th of April 1843; Prince Alfred (afterwards duke of Edinburgh and duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha) on the 6th of August 1844; Princess Helena (Princess Christian) on the 25th of May 1846; Princess Louise (duchess of Argyll) on the 18th of March 1848; and Prince Arthur (duke of Connaught) on the 1st of May 1850. merston. At the end of 1851 an important event took place, which ended a long-standing grievance on the part of the queen, in Lord Palmerston's dismissal from the office of foreign secre- The tary on account of his expressing approval of Louis queen and Napoleon's coup d'état in Paris. The circumstances Lord Pal are of extreme interest for the light they throw on the queen's estimate of her constitutional position and authority. Lord Palmerston had never been persona grata at court. His Anglo-Irish nature was not sympathetic with the somewhat formal character and German training of Prince Albert; and his views of ministerial independence were not at all in accord with those of the queen and her husband. The queen had more than once to remind her foreign secretary that his despatches must be seen by her before they were sent out, and though Palmerston assented, the queen's complaint had to be continually repeated. She also protested to the prime minister (Lord John Russell) in 1848, 1849 and 1850, against various instances in which Palmerston had expressed his own personal opinions in matters of foreign affairs, without his despatches being properly approved either by herself or by the cabinet. Lord John Russell, who did not want to offend his popular and headstrong colleague, did his best to smooth things over; but the queen remained exceedingly sore, and tried hard to get Palmerston removed, without success. On the 12th of August 1850 the queen wrote to Lord John Russell the following important memorandum, which followed in its terms a private memorandum drawn up for her by Stockmar a few months carlier (Letters, ii. 282): "With reference to the conversation about Lord Palmerston which the queen had with Lord John Russell the other day, and Lord Palmerston's disavowal that he ever intended any disrespect to her by the various neglects of which she has had so long and so often to complain, she thinks it right, in order to avoid any mistakes for the future, to explain what it is she expects from the I foreign secretary. |