Victoria - 1851 - Palmerston's Departure
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 secretary on account of his expressing approval of Louis Napoleon's coup d'etat in Paris. The circumstances 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.
Lord Palmerston was English through and through; there was something in him that expressed, with extraordinary vigor, the fundamental qualities of the English. And he was the very antithesis of the Prince. By a curious chance it so happened that this typical Englishman was brought into closer contact than any other of his countrymen with the alien from over the sea. It thus fell out that differences which, in more fortunate circumstances, might have been smoothed away and obliterated, became accentuated to the highest pitch. All the mysterious forces in Albert's soul leapt out to do battle with his adversary, and, in the long and violent conflict that followed, it almost seemed as if he was struggling with England herself.
Palmerston's whole life had been spent in the government of the country. At twenty-two he had been a Minister; at twenty-five he had been offered the Chancellorship of the Exchequer, which, with that prudence which formed so unexpected a part of his character, he had declined to accept. His first spell of office had lasted uninterruptedly for twenty-one years. When Lord Grey came into power he received the Foreign Secretaryship, a post which he continued to occupy, with two intervals, for another twenty-one years. Throughout this period his reputation with the public had steadily grown, and when, in 1846, he became Foreign Secretary for the third time, his position in the country was almost, if not quite, on an equality with that of the Prime Minister, Lord John Russell.
Powerful, experienced, and supremely self-confident, Palmerston naturally paid very little attention to Albert. Why should he? The Prince was interested in foreign affairs? Very well, then; let the Prince pay attention to him— to him, who had been a Cabinet Minister when Albert was in the cradle, who was the chosen leader of a great nation, and who had never failed in anything he had undertaken in the whole course of his life.
Palmerston, busy with his plans, his ambitions, and the management of a great department, brushed all such considerations on one side; it was his favorite method of action. He lived by instinct—by a quick eye and a strong hand, a dexterous management of every crisis as it arose, a half-unconscious sense of the vital elements in a situation. He was very bold; and nothing gave him more exhilaration than to steer the ship of state in a high wind, on a rough sea, with every stitch of canvas on her that she could carry. But there is a point beyond which boldness becomes rashness. "England," he used to say, "is strong enough to brave consequences."
In 1846, in the question of the marriage of Isabella, the young Queen of Spain, Palmerston's attitude and their own had been in complete agreement. In every other foreign complication — and they were many and serious — during the ensuing years, the differences between the royal couple and the Foreign Secretary were constant and profound. There was a sharp quarrel over Portugal, where violently hostile parties were flying at each other's throats. The royal sympathy was naturally enlisted on behalf of the Queen and her Coburg husband, while Palmerston gave his support to the progressive elements in the country. It was not until 1848, however, that the strain became really serious. In that year of revolutions, when, in all directions and with alarming frequency, crowns kept rolling off royal heads, Albert and Victoria were appalled to find that the policy of England was persistently directed — in Germany, in Switzerland, in Austria, in Italy, in Sicily — so as to favor the insurgent forces. The situation, indeed, was just such an one as the soul of Palmerston loved. A disciple of Canning, with an English gentleman's contempt and dislike of foreign potentates deep in his heart, the spectacle of the popular uprisings, and of the oppressors bundled ignominiously out of the palaces they had disgraced, gave him unbounded pleasure.
Important Foreign Office despatches were either submitted to the Queen so late that there was no time to correct them, or they were not submitted to her at all; or, having been submitted, and some passage in them being objected to and an alteration suggested, they were after all sent off in their original form. The Queen complained; the Prince complained; both complained together. It was quite useless. Palmerston was most apologetic—could not understand how it had occurred — must give the clerks a wigging — certainly Her Majesty's wishes should be attended to, and such a thing should never happen again. But, of course, it very soon happened again, and the royal remonstrances redoubled. Victoria, her partisan passions thoroughly aroused, imported into her protests a personal vehemence which those of Albert lacked. Did Lord Palmerston forget that she was Queen of England?
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 12 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 Stock mar a few months earlier (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 she expects from the foreign secretory. She requires: 1 - That be will distinctly state what he proposes in a given order that the queen may know as distinctly to what she has given her royal sanction. 2 - Having given her sanction to a measure, that it be not be arbitrarily altered or modified by the minister. Such an act she must regard as failing in sincerity to the crown, and justly to be visited by the exercise of her constitutional right of dismissing that minister. She expects to be kept informed of what passes between him and the foreign ministers, before important decisions are taken, based upon that intercourse; to receive the foreign despatches in good time, and to have the drafts for her approval sent her in sufficient time to make herself acquainted with their contents before they must be sent off. The queen thinks it best that Lord John Russell should show this letter to Lord Palmerston."
Lord Palmerston took a copy of this letter, and promised to attend to its direction. But the queen thoroughly distrusted him, and in October 1851 his proposed reception of Kossuth nearly led to a crisis. Then finally she discovered (December 13) at the time of Louis Napoleon's coup d'etat, that he had, of his own initiative, given assurances of approval to Count Walewski, which were not in accord with the views of the cabinet and with the "neutrality which had been enjoined" by the queen. This was too much even for Lord John Russell, and after a short and decisive correspondence Lord Palmerston resigned the seals of office, by one account, or was dismissed by the Prime Minister, by another account.
Victoria was in ecstasies; and Albert knew that the triumph was his even more than Lord John's. It was his wish that Lord Granville, a young man whom he believed to be pliant to his influence, should be Palmerston's successor; and Lord Granville was appointed. Henceforward, it seemed that the Prince would have his way in foreign affairs.
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