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help artists and men of learning and science, to which he had been looking forward with delight, would be necessarily more restricted than he had hoped.

On the same day (27th January) on which this mortification was prepared for the Prince by the House of Commons, the Ministry sustained a defeat in the other House, which was calculated to affect much more deeply the feelings of his expectant Bride, as well as of himself, concerning as it did the question of rank and precedence which he was to enjoy as her husband.

The miscarriage of the measure proposed for this purpose was also probably due in a great degree to want of management and reasonable foresight on the part of the Government. It involved a question of much nicety and of general importance, quite beyond the special case with which it proposed to deal, and therefore no ordinary care was demanded for its preparation. No provision had been made by the English Constitution for the title and precedence of the husband of a Queen Regnant, while the wife of a King has the highest rank and dignity after her husband assigned to her by law. Whether this arises from oversight, or whether the question has been deliberately left to be regulated by the law and usage, which in England gives to the wife the status of her husband, with all its incidents, but does not give the husband the rank or status of his wife, it is unnecessary to inquire. Clearly the exceptional circumstances of the marriage of a Queen Regnant demanded an exceptional treatment. It can neither be consistent with her happiness nor her dignity, that the status or precedence of her husband should be so undefined, as to expose herself, on the one hand, to the possible inconvenience and pain of having it disputed by her own children, or by other members of the Royal Family; or to subject her Consort, on the other, to the embarrassment of holding his position in this country solely by her grace and favour, while out of the country he may find it altogether ignored, and himself separated from her, by whose side it should be his right, as it is his duty, to stand. It is no doubt always in the power of a Queen Regnant to give to her Consort precedence, at home, over all her subjects by placing him next her person, but here her power stops. The status is due to her personal favour, and, if acknowledged by other Royal personages, it is so by courtesy merely.

It is obvious that such a state of things must give rise, as

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in the case of Prince Albert it did give rise, to serious inconvenience; and that it would have been well, once and for all, to have fairly met the question, and settled it by statute. This course, however, was not pursued. No pains were even taken by the Ministry to ascertain the views of the House, and to remove whatever objections might be felt to the measure, imperfect as that was, on which they had resolved. Nay, they committed the grave mistake of not meeting the question frankly and openly, but dealt with it incidentally in what professed to be simply a Bill for the Naturalisation of the Prince. To such a bill, had it enacted no more than was expressed in its title, no objection could possibly have been raised. But it also contained a clause giving to the Prince precedence for life next after Her Majesty in Parliament or elsewhere as Her Majesty might think proper. The omission in the title of the Act was, no doubt, merely an oversight, but it was sufficient to justify the Duke of Wellington in moving the adjournment of the discussion on the Bill because of the very large powers which it proposed to confer on the Queen, of which the House had no previous notice. The Duke was supported by Lord Brougham, who went further and opposed the principle of this part of the measure, on the ground that the power to fix the Prince's rank, according to constitutional precedent, rested not with the Crown, but with Parliament. Here, moreover, he contended, if the measure passed, this anomaly might arise, that the Prince, supposing him to survive the Queen without issue, might take precedence of a Prince of Wales. These objections were felt to be so serious, that the postponement of the discussion was agreed to by the Ministry.

When I first married, we had much difficulty on this subject, much bad feeling was shown, several members of the Royal Family showed bad grace in giving precedence to the Prince, and the late King of Hanover positively resisted doing so.. When the Queen was abroad, the Prince's position was always a subject of negotiation and vexation: the position accorded to him the Queen had always to acknowledge as a grace and favour bestowed on her by the Sovereigns whom she visited. While, in 1856, the Emperor of the French treated the Prince as a Royal personage, his uncle declined to come to Paris, because he would not give precedence to the Prince; and on the Rhine, in 1845, the King of Prussia would not give the place to the Queen's husband, which common civility required, because of the presence of an Archduke, the third son of an uncle of the reigning Emperor of Austria, who would not give the pas, and whom the King would not offend. The only legal position in Europe, according to international law, which the husband of the Queen of England enjoyed, was that of a younger brother of the Duke of Saxe-Coburg, and this merely because the English law did not know of him. This is derogatory to the dignity of the Crown of England.'-MEMORANDUM BY THE QUEEN, May, 1856.

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When the discussion was resumed four days afterwards, the second of Lord Brougham's objections was met, by the intimation that the precedence to be given to the Prince was intended to be 'next after the Heir Apparent.' This, however, Lord Brougham wished to be still further limited by its being confined to the lifetime of Her Majesty; and although the Bill passed the second reading with little further discussion, it was thought expedient, when it went into Committee on the 3rd of February, to confine it to the object expressed in the title the simple naturalisation of the Prince-leaving the question of precedence to be dealt with by the exercise of the Royal Prerogative. It was so dealt with a few days afterwards (5th March), with the concurrence of the leaders of both parties, by Letters Patent, which provided that the Prince should thenceforth upon all occasions, and in all meetings, except when otherwise provided by Act of Parliament, have, hold, and enjoy place, preeminence, and precedence next to Her Majesty.' No distinctive title was, however, assigned to the Prince; and it was not till 1857 (2nd July) that the title and dignity of Prince Consort were granted to him by the spontaneous voice of the nation.

These incidents were no pleasant prelude to the Prince's appearance in England. They could not fail to cause considerable pain and vexation to the Queen at the time. But so far as the Prince was concerned, as has been truly said, he soon understood the nature of our political parties, and that the proceedings in Parliament were only the result of high party feeling, and were by no means to be taken as marks of personal disrespect, or of want of kind feeling, towards himself' (Early Years, p. 289). His anxiety to assure the Queen, that what would occur would cause him no permanent chagrin, is apparent by what he wrote to Her Majesty from Brussels (1st February, 1840) while still smarting under the first painful impression: You can easily imagine the very unpleasant effect produced upon me by the news of the truly most unseemly vote of the House of Commons about my annuity. We came upon it in a newspaper at Aix, where we dined. In the House of Lords, too, people have made themselves needlessly disagreeable. All I have time to say is, that, while I possess your love, they cannot make me unhappy.'

If any trace of disquietude as to the popularity of the marriage had remained in his mind, it must have been thoroughly

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dispelled by the enthusiastic welcome which awaited him from the moment he set foot upon English ground. It met him at Dover, where he landed on the 6th; it followed him along the route to Canterbury, where he passed the evening of the 7th, and continued with ever-increasing ardour until he alighted at Buckingham Palace on the afternoon of the 8th. The greetings of the English people are never given in a halfhearted way; and if the cheers of the crowds, who streamed out from every town, village, and hamlet along the route, and who thronged the avenues of the Palace all that day and the next, had a more cordial ring than usual, what wonder, when all saw in the well-graced and distinguished presence of the Prince the fairest promise for the home happiness of their Queen and for the prosperity of her reign? Un beau visage est le plus beau de tous les spectacles,' says La Bruyère; and this is never more strongly felt than by a multitude, especially if predisposed to yield to the charm, as in the present case it was sure to be, by the knowledge that this marriage was not one of political convenience, but of pure affection. It is this,' as Lord Melbourne afterwards said to the Queen, which makes your Majesty's marriage so popular;' and it was this which, kindling a response in every heart, gave the warmth of a direct personal interest to the feeling with which the Prince was everywhere regarded.

The favourable impression spread still more widely, as what was seen of him, both in public and in private, within the next few days, became generally known; and Stockmar was able to record a few days afterwards, as the result of his anxious observation: The Prince is liked.' 'Those who are not carried away by party feelings like him greatly.' All hearts, in particular, were won by the calm grace and thoughtful dignity of his deportment during the trying ordeal of the ceremony on the 10th at the Chapel of St. James's Palace."

4 It is thus the Prince writes to the Queen from Dover (7th February, 1840): Now am I once more in the same country with you. What a delightful thought for me!.... It will be hard for me to have to wait till to-morrow evening. Still our long parting has flown by so quickly, and to-morrow's dawn will soon be here. Our reception has been most satisfactory. There were thousands of people on the quays, and they saluted us with loud and uninterrupted cheers. Torrington thought he had not for many a day seen a heartier reception. To-day we proceed as far as Canterbury.' 5 How it was with the Queen we are told by an observer of no common penetration, the Dowager Lady Lyttelton, who, in her capacity of one of Her Majesty's Ladies in Waiting, had peculiar facilities for observation: The Queen's look and manner,' she writes, a few days after the ceremony, 'were very pleasing; her eyes much swollen with tears, but great happiness in her

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On the morning of that eventful day-rich in what it brought in successful love and in the promise of a noble future-the Prince's thoughts reverted for a time to her, to whose affection his youth had owed so much; and, as though he were once more a child at her knee, his heart found relief in imploring her blessing on the most solemn act of his life, in these few and pregnant words:

'Dear Grandmama,-In less than three hours I shall stand before the altar with my dear Bride. In these solemn moments I must once more ask your blessing, which I am well assured I shall receive, and which will be my safeguard and my future joy! I must end. God help me!

'London, 10th February, 1840.'

'Ever your faithful

'GRANDSON.'

The Prince wrote a similar letter to his stepmother. There is surely something peculiarly touching in the 'God help me!' of this letter. How completely it speaks of that habit of living consciously in the great Taskmaster's eye,' by which the Prince was distinguished. Not many weeks before (22nd December, 1839), in writing to the Queen, that in an hour he was to take the Sacrament in the church at Coburg, he had written, 'God will not take it amiss, if in that serious act, even at the altar, I think of you, for I will pray to Him for you, and for your soul's health, and He will not refuse us his blessing.'

The morning of the marriage had been wet, foggy, and dismal, but the day was not to want the happy omen of that sunshine which came afterwards to be proverbially known as Queen's weather.' Soon after the return of the bridal party from the Chapel, the clouds passed off, the sun shone out with unusual brilliancy, and the thousands who lined the roads from Buckingham Palace to Windsor Castle, to see the Sovereign and her husband as they passed, were more fortunate than those who had crowded the avenues of St. James's Palace countenance; and her look of confidence and comfort at the Prince, when they walked away as man and wife, was very pleasing to see. I understand she is in extremely high spirits since. Such a new thing for her to dare to be unguarded in conversing with anybody; and with her frank and fearless nature the restraints she has hitherto been under, from one reason or another, with everybody, must have been most painful.' For this and other valuable extracts from Lady Lyttelton's letters, to be hereafter cited, we are indebted to the kindness of her family to whom they were addressed.