Queen Victoria by Lytton Strachey (sites to read books for free TXT) 📕

had never, she declared, had such letters in her life, and had never before known everything.328 In return, she sent him, when the spring came, several bunches of flowers, picked by her own hands. He despatched to her a set of his novels, for which, she said, she was “most grateful, and which she values much.” She herself had lately published her Leaves from the Journal of Our Life in the Highlands, and it was observed that the Prime Minister, in conversing with Her Majesty at this period, constantly used the words “we authors, ma’am.”329 Upon political questions, she was his staunch supporter. “Really there never was such conduct as that of the Opposition,” she wrote. And when the Government was defeated in the House she was “really shocked at the way in which the House of Commons go on; they really bring discredit on Constitutional Government.”330 She dreaded the prospect of a change; she feared that if the Liberals insisted upon disestablishing the Irish Church, her Coronation Oath might stand in the way.331 But a change there had to be, and Victoria vainly tried to console herself for the loss of her favourite Minister by bestowing a peerage upon Mrs. Disraeli.

Mr. Gladstone was in his shirtsleeves at Hawarden, cutting down a tree, when the royal message was brought to him. “Very significant,” he remarked, when he had read the letter, and went on cutting down his tree. His secret thoughts on the occasion were more explicit, and were committed to his diary. “The Almighty,” he wrote, “seems to sustain and spare me for some purpose of His own, deeply unworthy as I know myself to be. Glory be to His name.”332

The Queen, however, did not share her new Minister’s view of the Almighty’s intentions. She could not believe that there was any divine purpose to be detected in the programme of sweeping changes which Mr. Gladstone was determined to carry out. But what could she do? Mr. Gladstone, with his daemonic energy and his powerful majority in the House of Commons, was irresistible; and for five years (1869⁠–⁠74) Victoria found herself condemned to live in an agitating atmosphere of interminable reform⁠—reform in the Irish Church and the Irish land system, reform in education, reform in parliamentary elections, reform in the organisation of the Army and the Navy, reform in the administration of justice. She disapproved, she struggled, she grew very angry; she felt that if Albert had been living things would never have happened so; but her protests and her complaints were alike unavailing. The mere effort of grappling with the mass of documents which poured in upon her in an ever-growing flood was terribly exhausting. When the draft of the lengthy and intricate Irish Church Bill came before her, accompanied by an explanatory letter from Mr. Gladstone covering a dozen closely-written quarto pages, she almost despaired. She turned from the Bill to the explanation, and from the explanation back again to the Bill, and she could not decide which was the most confusing. But she had to do her duty: she had not only to read, but to make notes. At last she handed the whole heap of papers to Mr. Martin, who happened to be staying at Osborne, and requested him to make a précis of them.333 When he had done so, her disapproval of the measure became more marked than ever; but, such was the strength of the Government, she actually found herself obliged to urge moderation upon the Opposition, lest worse should ensue.334

In the midst of this crisis, when the future of the Irish Church was hanging in the balance, Victoria’s attention was drawn to another proposed reform. It was suggested that the sailors in the Navy should henceforward be allowed to wear beards. “Has Mr. Childers ascertained anything on the subject of the beards?” the Queen wrote anxiously to the First Lord of the Admiralty. On the whole, Her Majesty was in favour of the change. “Her own personal feeling,” she wrote, “would be for the beards without the moustaches, as the latter have rather a soldierlike appearance; but then the object in view would not be obtained, viz. to prevent the necessity of shaving. Therefore it had better be as proposed, the entire beard, only it should be kept short and very clean.” After thinking over the question for another week, the Queen wrote a final letter. She wished, she said, “to make one additional observation respecting the beards, viz. that on no account should moustaches be allowed without beards. That must be clearly understood.”335

Changes in the Navy might be tolerated; to lay hands upon the Army was a more serious matter. From time immemorial there had been a particularly close connection between the Army and the Crown; and Albert had devoted even more time and attention to the details of military business than to the processes of fresco-painting or the planning of sanitary cottages for the deserving poor. But now there was to be a great alteration: Mr. Gladstone’s fiat had gone forth, and the Commander-in-Chief was to be removed from his direct dependence upon the Sovereign, and made subordinate to Parliament and the Secretary of State for War. Of all the liberal reforms this was the one which aroused the bitterest resentment in Victoria. She considered that the change was an attack upon her personal position⁠—almost an attack upon the personal position of Albert. But she was helpless, and the Prime Minister had his way. When she heard that the dreadful man had yet another reform in contemplation⁠—that he was about to abolish the purchase of military commissions⁠—she could only feel that it was just what might have been expected. For a moment she hoped that the House of Lords would come to the rescue; the Peers opposed the change with unexpected vigour; but Mr. Gladstone, more conscious than ever of the support