LORD CAMPBELL’S AUDIENCE OF THE QUEEN. (See p. 290.)
expression—nay, almost of the gift of articulate speech itself.” The reporters of the old school used to tell merry tales of their difficulties in making sense of his financial speeches, but with some of his colleagues he was popular. He showed courage in fighting the Irish famine, and he did not flinch in the monetary crisis of October which followed it. But his brusquerie of manner and indistinctness of speech made many enemies, especially among deputations who waited on him. He was not, therefore, the fittest person to make heavier demands on the national purse than had been heard of for many years—and yet that was just what he did. But there was one consoling fact on which he dwelt. In spite of distress, the revenue from customs and excise during 1846 had far exceeded Mr. Goulburn’s estimates. It had left Sir C. Wood with a balance of £9,000,000 in hand, and though it showed no signs of falling off, yet a commercial crisis was to be looked for similar to those of 1825 and 1836. Sir C. Wood therefore estimated for a forthcoming revenue of £52,065,000; but then he said he had to provide for an expenditure which, owing to the changes wrought by the introduction of steam power into the navy and the arsenals, must rise to £57,570,000. Still, as £10,000,000 would be wanted as extraordinary expenditure on Irish distress, there was a deficit to be made good. This he proposed to meet by borrowing £8,000,000—the other £2,000,000 consisted of advances to local authorities, and would be repaid—fresh taxation being ill adapted to hard times. His surplus was £489,000, and to it would be added £450,000 he hoped to get from China. The Famine Loan was floated at £3 7s. 6d. per cent., but so eager were the Government to get the money that a discount of 5 per cent. was by a resolution of the House of Commons ordered to be given to those who paid in their contributions before the 18th of June.
During the early part of the Session the Queen’s interest seems to have been chiefly limited to the ceremonial side of affairs, though, of course, foreign policy, which she made a constant study, the affairs of the Duchy of Lancaster, and, in some degree, the measures for relieving famine, engaged her attention. As to ceremonies, her Majesty and Prince Albert were always curious, and keen to trace out the origins of the old customs to which she had to defer. “On Thursday,” writes Lord Campbell in a letter, dated 6th February, 1847, “I went down to Windsor and shook hands with Prince Albert, the Prince of Wales, and their Royal Highnesses the Princess Royal and the Princess Alice. By-the-by, there was an amusing scene in the Queen’s closet. I had an audience that her Majesty might prick a Sheriff for the county of Lancaster, which she did in proper style with a bodkin I put into her hand. I then took her pleasure about some Duchy livings and withdrew—forgetting to make her sign the parchment roll. I obtained a second audience, and explained the mistake. While she was signing, Prince Albert said to me, ‘Pray, my Lord, when did this ceremony of pricking begin?’ Campbell: ‘In ancient times, Sir, when sovereigns did not know how to write their names.’ Queen (as she returned me the roll with her signature): ‘But we now show that we have been to school.’”
Her Majesty’s interest in the affairs of the Duchy was abiding. Writing on the 9th of March to his brother, Lord Campbell says:—“I have been to Osborne attending a Council. Had it not been so bitterly cold I should have enjoyed it. I had a private audience of her Majesty; and when my business was over she said, ‘How you were attacked in the House of Lords the other night, Lord Campbell—most abominably.’ I gave a courtier-like answer,” adds this unblushing old political comedian, “without telling her Majesty of the dinner I am to give an Saturday to Lord Stanley and Lord Brougham” (who had attacked him), “for she was excessively angry with them; and she would not understand the levity with which such matters are treated among politicians of opposite parties.”73 The attack, it may be explained, was due to an indiscreet proposal made by Lord John Russell to appoint new Councillors for the Duchy without a view to Party, who should serve permanently. Lords Lincoln, Hardwicke, Spencer, Portman, and Sir James Graham were named, and the whole project was attacked as a Whig job, designed to conciliate the Peelites, whose precarious alliance was worth purchasing. When the fight was over, Campbell invited all the combatants to dine with the Councillors, old and new; and he gives a most amusing account of the banquet—telling how all these public enemies met on the easiest of convivial terms in private; how Brougham “shook hands with the Premier, and called him John;” and “Stanley said to Sir James Graham, ‘Graham, how are you?’” and how Brougham “related a supposed speech of Sir Charles Wetherell’s, complaining that death is now attended with a fresh terror from Campbell writing the life of a deceased person as soon as the breath was out of his body.” One wonders if the Queen would have wasted much sympathy on Campbell, or much indignation on his enemies, had she known that they “sat at table till near eleven,” and that, as “Lyndhurst was stepping into his carriage, he was overheard to say to Lord Brougham, ‘I wish we had such a Council as this once a month.’”
It is pleasing, however, to record that those who had to deal not only with the hereditary but private revenues of the Sovereign had proved themselves this year able and faithful servants. On that topic Mr. Charles Greville writes in his Journal, on the 8th of March, 1847:—“George Anson told me yesterday that the Queen’s affairs are in such good order, and so well managed, that she will be able to provide for the whole expense of Osborne out of her revenue without difficulty; and that by the time it is finished it will have cost £200,000. He said also that the Prince of Wales, when he came of age, would have not less than £70,000 a year from the Duchy of Cornwall. They have already saved £100,000. The Queen takes for his maintenance whatever she pleases, and the rest, after paying charges, is invested in the Funds or in land, and accumulates for him.”
The death of Lord Bessborough in June left the Viceroyalty of Ireland vacant; and there was some difficulty about selecting his successor. Lord John Russell would have abolished the office and appointed a Secretary of State for Ireland, but for the menaces of the Repealers and Orangemen. The two favourite candidates for the post were the Duke of Bedford, who was afraid to take it, and Lord Clarendon, who was anxious to have it; but who desired to make the world believe that he was making a great sacrifice
THE CUSTOM HOUSE, DUBLIN.
in accepting the office. He was ultimately appointed, and for five years ruled Ireland well, with a firm and neutral hand.
The death of O’Connell on the 15th of May, at Genoa, “made little or no sensation here,”74 says Mr. Greville. He had quarrelled with half his followers, and the younger Repealers had grown sick of his policy of fruitless agitation. But in Dublin, when the news was posted in Conciliation Hall, vast crowds of mournful patriots assembled and silently read the placards. The Catholic chapels tolled their dismal death-knells, and the Corporation met and adjourned for three weeks as a mark of respect for the Liberator’s memory. In the famine-stricken districts the anguish of public sorrow sharpened the pangs of popular distress. His remains were laid in Glasnevin cemetery with imposing funereal pomp and pageantry. Indeed, no funeral in Ireland has ever been more numerously attended, for it was reckoned that at least 50,000 persons marched in the procession of mourners. Few people of high rank and station were there; but the middle and lower classes of the populace
THE GRAND STAIRCASE, BUCKINGHAM PALACE.
were conspicuous. Even many afflicted persons from the poorest quarters were found struggling at daybreak round the mortuary chapel in Marlborough Street, to catch one glimpse of the remains of a man whom they believed to have been sent on earth with a divine mission, whose ultimate translation to the saints was to them a certainty, and a sight of whose very corpse might perchance work a miracle that would cure their infirmities.