On the 11th of September, Prince Albert was made a member of the Privy Council, and, having been recently appointed to the Colonelcy of the 11th Hussars, he went out from time to time with a squadron of the 1st Life Guards in Windsor Park, in order to make himself acquainted with the forms of English drill, and the words of command. During the same autumn months, he was much occupied with a series of readings on the laws and Constitution of England, under the care of Mr. Selwyn, a distinguished writer on jurisprudence. He and the Queen were then residing at Windsor, the green and woody surroundings of which were an endless source of delight to the Prince. But an event was now approaching which rendered a return to Buckingham Palace advisable. The London residence of her Majesty was re-entered on the 13th of November, and, during the same month, Baron Stockmar, who had left England for his home in Coburg at the beginning of August, returned to London at the urgent solicitation of the Prince, who desired to have that admirable friend and counsellor at hand during a period of natural anxiety. On the 21st of November, 1840, the Princess Royal was born, and, although the Prince was a little disappointed at the infant not being a son, the feeling was but momentary. His devotion to the Queen during her confinement was constant, and beyond all praise. He generally dined with the Duchess of Kent, refused to go out in the evening, and was always at hand if anything were required. “No one but himself,” says a memorandum by her Majesty in an official work on the Prince’s early life, “ever lifted her from her bed to her sofa, and he always helped to wheel her on her bed or sofa into the next room. For this purpose he would come instantly when sent for from any part of the house. As years went on, and he became overwhelmed with work (for his attentions were the same in all the Queen’s subsequent confinements), this was often done at much inconvenience to himself; but he ever came with a sweet smile on his face. In short, his care of her was like that of a mother; nor could there be a kinder, wiser, or more judicious nurse.”11 Her Majesty recovered so rapidly that the Court removed to Windsor Castle for the Christmas holidays. The Prince was always much interested in the ceremonies of that season, and it was now that the pretty German custom of setting up Christmas-trees, as a graceful means of distributing little presents both to old and young, was introduced into England. The Court returned to Buckingham Palace on the 23rd of January, 1841, and Parliament was opened by the Queen in person on the 26th. Her Majesty had but recently told the Prince that in former days she was only too happy to be in London, and felt wretched at leaving it; but that since the hour of their marriage she was unhappy at leaving the country, and could be content never to go to town. This pleased him, as showing an increasing solidity of mind, which found greater pleasure in the quiet yet joyous delights of the country than in the giddy amusements of the metropolis.
The baptism of the Princess Royal took place on the 10th of February, the first anniversary of the Queen’s marriage, when the infant was christened Victoria Adelaide Mary Louisa. The Prince, in writing, on the 12th of February, 1841, to his grandmother, the Dowager Duchess of Gotha, said that the christening had gone off very well. “Your little great-grandchild,” he added, “behaved with great propriety, and like a Christian. She was awake, but did not cry at all, and seemed to crow with immense satisfaction at the lights and brilliant uniforms, for she is very intelligent and observing. The ceremony took place at half-past six P.M.; and after it there was a dinner, and then we had some instrumental music. The health of the little one was drunk with great enthusiasm.” The sponsors at the christening were the Duke of Saxe Coburg and Gotha (represented in his absence by the Duke of Wellington), the King of the Belgians, the Queen Dowager, the Duchess of Gloucester, the Duchess of Kent, and the Duke of Sussex. Only the day before, the Prince had met with an accident, which might have proved fatal. He was skating on the ornamental water in Buckingham Palace Gardens, when a piece of ice, which had been recently broken, and had thinly frozen over again, gave way as he was passing across it. He had to swim for two or three minutes, in order to get out; but her Majesty, who was standing on the bank, showed great presence of mind, and afforded valuable assistance.
During the last two years, the Queen had been rendered anxious by
CHRISTENING OF THE PRINCESS ROYAL. (After the Painting by C. R. Leslie, R.A.)
complications in the East, which at one time threatened to involve us in a war with France. The Pasha of Egypt, Mehemet Ali, had for some years made himself almost independent of the Turkish Sultan, Mahmoud II., and had annexed the whole of Syria to his recognised dominions. He had an able, energetic, and martial son (or rather an adopted son) named Ibrahim Pasha, who repeatedly worsted the Ottoman forces, overran the larger part of the Turkish dominions in Asia, and even threatened Constantinople itself. After a while, a compromise was effected, by which the Egyptians withdrew from their more advanced positions, but were suffered to retain the province of Syria. This arrangement was concluded in 1833; but, six years later, Mehemet Ali again rose against his suzerain. Mahmoud II. expired on the 1st of July, 1839, shortly after a great battle in Syria, which had ended in the discomfiture of his army, but of which he had not received intelligence at the time of his decease. A few days later, the Capitan Pasha, or Lord High Admiral, Achmet, deserted to Mehemet Ali with the whole of the Turkish fleet, and the Ottoman Empire might have been rent into fragments, had it not been for the interposition of England, Russia, Austria, and Prussia, which, in July, 1840, gave Mehemet Ali to understand that he would not be permitted to proceed in his career of rebellion and conquest. Thus assisted, the young Turkish Sultan, Abdul-Medjid, pronounced the deposition of his Egyptian vassal. Beyrout was bombarded by a combined English, Austrian, and Turkish fleet, and captured in October. Other successes followed, and old Mehemet Ali made his submission to superior power. He was deprived of all his conquests, but permitted to retain Egypt; and thus a very difficult state of affairs was brought to a peaceful conclusion about the close of 1840. There had been no little danger of a rupture with France, owing to the very different views of the Eastern Question taken by that Power and by England. France dreaded the establishment of British influence in Egypt, where she desired to affirm her own superiority; and in the spring of 1840 M. Guizot was sent on a special mission to London, in the hope of composing matters. The Queen received him graciously; yet he has left an account of a dinner at Buckingham Palace, which confirms other descriptions as to the dulness and languor of those entertainments. His negotiations did not proceed very happily; but at length the clouds passed off, and, shortly after the birth of the Princess Royal, all menace of a European war had entirely disappeared.
A minor but still important incident, belonging to the same period, tended to the creation of a better feeling between England and France, and, in a not distant future, helped forward a striking change in the political condition of the latter country. In May, 1840, during the reign of Louis Philippe, the body of Napoleon I. was removed, by permission of the English Government, from the island of St. Helena to the dominions where the great conqueror had once held such brilliant, yet disastrous, sway. On the 15th of December, the remains were buried with solemn pomp in the Hôtel des Invalides, in Paris. A magnificent monument has since been erected over the grave, and it cannot be doubted that the enthusiasm awakened by the reception of the mighty soldier’s ashes had much to do with the subsequent revival of the Napoleonic Empire.
A question of great importance, which had been growing up for years, was now acquiring a degree of prominence which renders it advisable that some notice should be taken of its rise and development. The Corn Laws of England had long operated not only as a serious interference with the trade of the country, but as an artificial aggravation of the price of food. From time to time, various attempts had been made to lighten the burden by making the tax dependent on the price of native wheat; but the injury to the populace