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The short Whitsuntide holiday was spent in settling in at Pembroke Lodge.
Lady John Russell to Lady Mary AbercrombyPEMBROKE LODGE,October29, 1847... You would not wonder so much at his [Lord John's] silence lately, if you knew what nobody but English Ministers' wivescanknow or conceive, how incessantly either his mind or body or both have been at work on financial affairs.He has gone to town every morning early, Sunday included; worked hard the whole day in Downing Street, writing long letters and seeing one man and one deputation after another, on these most difficult and most harassing subjects--only returning here for tea, and with no time for any other correspondence but that between tea and bed, when a little rest and amusement is almost necessary for him--then waking in the night to think of bullion and Exchequer Bills till time to get up. Now this great anxiety is partly over; for when once he has taken a resolution, after all the reflection and consideration he can give to a subject, he feels that he has done his best, and awaits its success or failure with comparative ease of mind.
The difficulties of this Ministry have been briefly stated at the close of the last chapter; working with a precarious majority, they had to cope with starvation and revolt in Ireland, Chartism in England, and disturbances abroad.
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In December, 1847, they passed their Irish Coercion Bill.33The passing of this Bill was one of the few occasions on which Lady John could not convince herself that her husband's policy was the wisest one.
Subsequently, during the enforcement of the Act, the bitterness of the attacks upon her husband, who, she knew, wished Ireland well, and the sight of his anxiety, made her for a time less sympathetic with the Irish; but she did not, and could not, approve of the Government's action at the time. Among Irishmen, a Government which had first opposed a Tory Coercion Bill, and when in power proposed one themselves, might well excite indignation. Ireland was already in a state so miserable that the horrors of a civil war with a bare chance of better things beyond must have seemed well worth risking to her people, now the party which had hitherto befriended them had adopted the policy of their oppressors.
On February 26, 1848, the news that Louis Philippe had been deposed reached the House of Commons. "This is what would have happened here," said Sir Robert Peel, "if these gentlemen [pointing to the Protectionists] had had their way." The astonishment was great, and the fear increased that the Chartist movement and Irish troubles would lead to revolution at home.
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The immediate cause of the revolution in France had been Louis Philippe's opposition to electoral reform; only one Frenchman in about a hundred and fifty possessed a vote under his reign. "Royalty having been packed off in a hackney coach," the mildest of Parisian mobs contented itself with smashing the King's bust, breaking furniture, and firing at the clock of the Tuileries that it might register permanently upon its face the propitious moment of his departure. He had embarked the next day for England, shaven and in green spectacles, and landed upon our shores under the modest pseudonym of "William Smith." England did not welcome him. His Spanish marriage intrigues had naturally not made him a favourite, and his enemy, Palmerston, was at the Foreign Office. Two days afterwards Louis Napoleon Bonaparte left England to pay his respects to the Provisional Government. "I hasten," he wrote in memorable words, "I hasten from exile to place myself under the flag of the Republic just proclaimed. Without other ambition than that of being useful to my country, I announce my arrival to the members of the Provisional Government, and assure them of my devotion to the cause which they represent." He was, however, courteously requested to withdraw from France, since the law banishing the Napoleon family had not yet been repealed, a circumstance which enabled him to return to England in time to enrol himself in the cause of law and order as a special constable at the Chartist meeting.
LONDON,February26, 1848We and everybody much taken up with the startling and in some respects terrible events in France. The regency of the Duchess of Orleans rejected by the Chambers, or rather by the Côté Gauche, and a republic proclaimed. Sad loss of life in Paris--the King and Queen fled to Eu--Guizot, it is said, to Brussels. We dined at the Palace, and found the Queen and Prince, the Duchess of Kent, Duke and Duchess of Saxe Coburg, thinking of course of little else--and almost equallyof course, full of nothing but indignation against the French nation and Guizot, nothing but pity for the King and Queen and royal family, and nothing but fears for the rest of Europe from the infection of such an example. I sat next the Duke of Coburg, who more particularly took thisclassview with very little reasoning and a great deal of declamation. Said he should not care if Guizot lost his head, and much in the same spirit. The Queen spoke with much good sense and good feeling, if not with perfect impartiality.
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Lady John Russell to Lady Mary AbercrombyLONDON,March3, 1848How anxious you must be as to the effect which the extraordinary events in France will have upon Italy. They have been so rapid and unexpected that all power of reasoning upon them has been lost in wonder. Some pity must inevitably be felt for any man "fallen from his high estate"; but if, as I trust, the report of Louis Philippe's safety and arrival in England is true, his share of it will be as small as ever fell to the lot of a King in misfortune; for the opinion that he has deserved it is general. It is seldom that history gives so distinct a lesson of retribution. You know what London is in a ferment of exciting events, and can therefore pretty well imagine the constant succession of reports, true and false, from hour to hour, the unceasing cries of the newsmen with 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th editions of all the newspapers, the running about of friends to one another's houses, the continual crossing of notes in the streets, each asking the same questions, the hopes and fears and the conjectures one hears and utters during the course of the day, and the state of blank, weary stupidity to which one is reduced by the end of it. WhatImind most in it all is the immense additional anxiety and responsibility it brings upon my poor husband, who feels it even more than he would have done any other year from being still, I grieve to say, less strong and well owing to his influenza still hanging about him.Lady John Russell to Lady MintoPEMBROKE LODGE,March29, 1848John returned to dinner, but some hours later than I expected him, which in times like these, when each hour may bring an account of anewrevolutionsomewhere, or worst of all, of a rebellion in Ireland, is a trial to a Minister's wife. However, the reason was simply that Prince Albert had detained him talking. ... Of course we talked a great deal with our visitors of France, Italy, Germany, and Ireland; but happily, engrossing as these topics are, the bright sun and blue sky and shining river and opening leaves and birds and squirrelswouldhave their share of attention, and give some rest to our minds.Lady John Russell to Lady Mary AbercrombyPEMBROKE LODGE,March31, 1848The preparations for rebellion in Ireland are most alarming, and John's usually calm andhopefulspirit more nearly fails him on that subject than any other. The speeches and writings of the Young Ireland leaders are soextravagantlyseditious, and so grossly false as to the behaviour of England generally, and the present Ministry in particular to Ireland, that I cannot but hope they may defeat their own objects.... Poor people, the more deeply one feels for the starving and destitute millions among them and admires their patience and resignation, and the more bitterly one resents the misgovernment under which the whole nation suffered for hundreds of years, the fruits of which we are now reaping, the less one can excuse those reckless ones who are now misleading them, who must anddoknow that the present Ministers have not looked on with indifference and let famine and fever rage at will; that the subject of Ireland isnotone to which the Houses of Parliament never give a day's or an hour's thought, but that on the contrary,herinterests and happiness are daily and nightly the object of more intense anxiety and earnest endeavours on the part of her rulers than any portion of the Empire. We have had a week of such real spring with all its enjoyments, and to-day is so much finer and milder than ever, that the notion of streets and smoke and noise is odious. However, we have enough to go for, private and public. May God prosper the good cause of peace and freedom all over Europe.
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The European revolutionary movement of 1848 did not prove serious in England. What actually took place was a mild mass meeting on Kennington Common, well kept within the bounds of decorum by an army of citizen police. In Ireland, a rough-and-tumble fight between Smith O'Brien's followers and the police was all that came of the dreaded rebellion. But before these events took place the future looked ominous, especially to those responsible for what might happen.
Lady John Russell to Lady Mary AbercrombyApril8, 1848John had a late night in the House, and made two speeches on the unpleasant subjects of the Chartist meeting next Monday and Sir George Grey's "Security of the Crown" Bill; both of which ought to do good, from their mild andwhiggishtone, in spite of the sadlyun-whiggish nature of the topics; the very, last to which one would wish a Whig Government to have to turn its attention. All minds are full of next Monday, and at this moment we have not a manservant in the house, as they are summoned to a meeting to learn their duties as special constables for that day. I find it difficult to be in the least frightened, and I trust I am right. The only thing I dread is being long without knowing what John is about, and as he would be equally unwilling to know nothing about me, in case of any march upon this house or any other disagreeable demonstration against the Prime Minister, we have arranged that I am to go to Downing Street with him in the morning and remain all day there, as that is the place he will most easily come to from the House of Commons. My spirits have been much lowered about the whole thing this morning, as Mr. Trevelyan has been here and persuaded John that it would be madness for me either to remain in this house or go to Downing Street, both of which would bemarksin case of a fight.
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Mr. Trevelyan is very seriously alarmed, and talks of the effect the sound of thecannonmight have upon me, and has persuaded Lady Mary Wood to go to his house on Clapham Common. I do not yet know what the other Ministers' wives are going to do, but Idoknow that I think Milton quite right in saying:"The wife, where danger or dishonour lurks,Safest and seemliest by her husband bides."However, I must do as I am bid, or at least I must do what makeshimeasiest.LONDON,April9, 1848Hardly knew how much I had been thinking of to-morrow till I had to read aloud the prayers for Queen, country, and Parliament.Lady John Russell to Lady Mary AbercrombyDOWNING STREET,Monday, 3o'clockWell, here we are after all, Lady Grey, Lady Mary Wood, and I, with much easier minds than we have had for many days.Everything has ended quietly; the meeting has dispersed at the persuasion of its leaders, who took fright. Fergus O'Connor especially has shown himself the most abject blusterer, and came pale and haggard and almost crying to speak to Sir George Grey--and told him how anxious he was that all should come to a peaceable end.It seems too good to be true, after the various alarming reports and conjectures. Of course there will still besomeanxiety until the night is well over, and till we see whether the Chartist spirit rises again after this failure. To begin at the beginning, I ought to tell you that hearing a great clattering at six this morning I got up, and looked out, and saw immense numbers of Lancers ride from the West into Belgrave Square, which they left to go to their destination somewhere about Portland Place, after performing many pretty manoeuvres which I did not understand. Many foot soldiers passed by. I admired the sight, but silently prayed that their services might not be required. We packed the brougham full of mattresses and blankets, as it seemed likely that we should have to sleep here. Now we have little doubt of getting home.
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Lady John Russell to Lady Mary AbercrombyLONDON,April12, 1848Yesterday was chiefly spent in receiving visits and congratulations without end, and very welcome they were. John and I had also a good long walk to freshen him up for a hard day in the House of Commons....April13, 1848Again many notes and visits of congratulation and mutual rejoicing yesterday. God grant that this triumph of the good cause may have some effect on unhappy, misguided Ireland; there is the weight that almost crushes John, who opens Lord Clarendon's daily letters with an uneasiness not to be told.Queen Victoria to Lord John RussellOSBORNE,April14, 1848The Queen has received Lord John Russell's letter of yesterday evening. She approves that a form of prayer for the present time of tumult and trouble be ordered. She concludes it is forpeaceandquietGENERALLY, which indeed wemay wellpray for. A thanksgiving for the failure of any attempts like the proposed one last Monday, the Queen would not have thought judicious, as being painful and unlike thanksgiving for preservation fromforeign war.Our accounts from Germany yesterday, from different quarters, were very distressing and alarming. So much fear of atotalsubversion ofallexisting things. But we must not lose courage or hope.
In the midst of these troubles and forebodings, on the day that the Queen wrote the above letter to Lord John, their second son, George William Gilbert, was born.
Lady John was touched by the following letter from Dr. James Simpson (the eminent physician, later Sir James Simpson), under whose medical care she had been in Edinburgh some years before.
EDINBURGH,March, 1848I heard from two or three different sources that your Ladyship was to be blessed by an addition to your family....Ioncemade a pledge, that I would gladly leave all to watch and guard over your safety if you desired me. I have not forgotten the pledge, and am ready to redeem it--but not for fee or recompense, only for the love and pleasure of being near you at a time I could possibly show my gratitude by watching over your valued health and life.... With almost all my medical brethren here I use chloroform in all cases. None of us, I believe, could now feel justified innotrelieving pain, when God has bestowed upon us the means of relieving it.
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May16, 1848With a thankful heart I begin my diary again. Another child has been added to our blessings--another dear little boy. John was with me. Oh! his happiness when all was safely over. This child has done much already to restore his health and strength. Summer weather and the success of all his political measures for the last anxious months have also done much.
But the Irish troubles were by no means over; on July 21st Lord John introduced a Bill for the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act in Ireland. His case rested on Lord Clarendon's evidence that a rebellion was on the point of breaking out, and circumstances seem to have justified this precautionary measure. The Bill was passed without opposition and with the support of all the prominent men in Parliament.
July21, 1848Irish news much the same. A Cabinet at which it was determined to propose suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act. John accordingly gave notice of it in the House. I had hoped that a Whig Ministry would never be driven to such measures. I had hoped that Ireland would remember my husband's rule for ever with gratitude.
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Lady John Russell to Lady Mary AbercrombyLONDON,July28, 1848I have another letter to thank you for. You really must not describe the beauties of that place to me any more. It must so perfectly satisfy the longing for what, after some years of such a life as ours, seems the height of happiness--repose. I struggle hard against this longing, but I doubt whether I should do so successfully without that blessed Pembroke Lodge, from which I always return newly armed for the turmoil. After all, I am much more afraid of my husband being overpowered by this longing than myself. He can so much seldomer indulge in it. He is so much older, and it is so much more difficult for him to portion out his employments with any regularity, which is his best preservative againstfuss. Yesterday was a most trying day for him, and the more so as he had looked forward to it as one of rest and enjoyment. It was Baby's christening-day, and we meant to remain at Pembroke Lodge after the ceremony to luncheon; but just as we were going to church came a letter from Sir George Grey with news of the whole South of Ireland being in rebellion, with horrible additions of bloodshed, defection of the troops, etc. As it has, thank God, turned out to be a hoax, a most wicked hoax, of some stockjobbing or traitorous wretch at Liverpool, I shall not waste your time and sympathies by telling you of the anxious hours we spent till seven in the evening, when the truth was made out.And now let us trust that real rebellion may not be in store. It is dreadful to think of bloodshed, of loss of life, of the desolation of one's country and of the many, many imaginable and unimaginable miseries of civil war; but one thing I feel would be more dreadful still, weak and womanly as I may be in so feeling--to see one's husband unable to prevent the miseries, perhaps accusing himself of them, and sinking, as I know minewould, by degrees under his efforts and his regrets. Let us trust and pray, then, that we are not doomed to see the reality of so gloomy a picture. It is always difficult to me to look forward to great political failures and national misfortunes, perhaps because I have never known any; but the alarm of yesterday has made them seem more possible.Lady John Russell to Lady Mary AbercrombyLONDON,August3, 1848... I do not care for my country or my husband's success a bit more than is good for me, and I often wonder at and almost blame myself for not being more disturbed about them.I know that he does his best, and that is all I care very deeply or very permanently about; though there may now and then be a more than commonly anxious day. If I thought him stupid, or mean, or ignorant, or thoughtless, or indifferent in his trade, I should not be satisfied with his doing his best even; but as I luckily think him the contrary of all these things, I am both satisfied and calm, and his own calm mind helps me to be so. Sometimes I think I care much more about politics at a distance than when I am mixed up in them. The fact is that I care very much for the questions themselves, but grow wearied to death of all the details and personalities belonging to them, and consequently of the conversation of lady politicians, made up as it is of these details and personalities. And the more interested I am in the thing itself, the more angry I am with the nonsense they talk about it, and had rather listen to the most humdrum domestic twaddle. Mind, I mean the regular hardened lady politicians who talk of nothing else, of whom I could name several, but will not.
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PEMBROKE LODGE,November24, 1848We have just had a visit from Louis Philippe. He spoke much of France--said that his wishes were with Louis Bonaparte rather than with Cavaignac for the presidency.John expressed some fear of war if Louis Bonaparte should be elected; the King said he need have none, that France had neither means nor inclination for war. His account of the dismissal of Guizot's Ministry was that he said to Guizot "What's to be done?"--that Guizot gave him three answers: "Je ne peux pas donner la Réforme. Je ne peux pas laisser dissoudre la garde nationale. Je ne peux pas laisser tirer les troupes sur la garde nationale." Upon this he had said to Guizot that he must change his Ministry: "Cela l'a peut-être un peu blessé--ma foi, je n'en sais rien. Il a dit que non, que j'étais le maitre."When he heard that the National Guard said, if the troops fired on the mob,theywould fire on the troops, he knew that "la chose était finie," and when he went out himself among the National Guard, to see what the effect of his presence would be, La Moricière called out to him, "Sire, si vous allez parmi ces gens-là je ne réponds pas de votre vie. Ils vont tirer sur vous." He answered whatever might come of it he would "parler à ces braves gens"; but they surrounded him, grinning and calling out "La Réforme, nous voulons la Réforme," pointing their bayonets at him and even over his horse's neck.Lady John Russell to Lady Mary AbercrombyWOBURN ABBEY,December10, 1848The great question of the French Presidency is decided, whether for good or for evil to other countries none can foresee, but certainly to the disgrace of their own. For here is a man, known only by a foolish attempt to disturb France, to whom no party gives credit for either great or good qualities, raised to the highest dignity in the new Republic, one of the advantages of which was to be that men should rise by their own merits alone. The common language of Frenchmen, or at least of French Royalists on the subject, is that they consider his election as a step to the restoration of Monarchy--but it is a shabby way of making the step, or it may prove a false one. You know we have had Louis Philippe and his family as near neighbours at the Star and Garter for some weeks, and we have seen him several times, to thank us for our inquiries after the poor Queen and Princes while they were so ill. Only think how strange to see this great King, this busy plotter for the glory of his own family and the degradation of England, taking refuge in that very England, and sitting in the house of one of those very Ministers whom he had been so proud of outwitting, giving the history of "ma chute." This he did with great bitterness; representing the whole French nation as a mass of place-hunters, without patriotism and without gratitude, and with no tenderness to Guizot. There is nothing noble and touching in his manner or conversation, or I am sure he would have inspired me with more pity in his fallen state, in spite of many faults as a King.34
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During the earlier part of 1849, Lord John suffered from the effects of overwork, and like most tired statesmen he began to think of taking a peerage. On July 11th their third son, Francis Albert Rollo Russell, was born at Pembroke Lodge. The parliamentary recess was an easier period than they had known since taking office, and they had time to attend to other projects, although the difficulties with Palmerston at the Foreign Office were meanwhile coming to a climax.
In August Lord and Lady John founded a school at Petersham, over which she watched with unflagging interest till her death. They were amused by the remark of an old gentleman in the neighbourhood, who said that to have a school at Petersham "would ruin the aristocratic character of the village"--education and aristocracy being evidently, in his eyes, opposing forces.
The classes were held at first in a room in the village; the present building was not erected till 1852.
On August 32nd Lady John wrote in her diary:
Our little school, which had long been planned, was opened in a room in the village the day before Baby's birthday, July 10th, and goes on well. We celebrated John's birthday last Saturday by giving the school-children a tea under the cedar, and a dance on the lawn afterwards, and very merry they were.
In August and September the Prime Minister spent some weeks at Balmoral, and wrote as follows on his last day there:
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Lord John Russell to Lady John RussellBALMORAL,September6, 1849I leave this place to-morrow.... No hostess could be more charming or more easy than the Queen has been--or more kind and agreeable than the Prince, and I shall leave this place with increased attachment to them.
The Queen had been to Ireland in August, and Lord Dufferin wrote an interesting account of her visit in a letter to Lady John.
Lord Dufferin to Lady John RussellSeptember10, 1849As the newspaper reporters have already described all, nay more than was to be seen on the occasion of the Queen's visit to Ireland, I need not trouble you with any of my own experiences during those auspicious days--suffice it to say that the people were frantic with loyalty and enthusiasm. Indeed, I never witnessed so touching a sight as when the Queen from her quarter-deck took leave of the Irish people. It was a sweet, calm, silent evening, and the sun just setting behind the Wicklow mountains bathed all things in golden floods of light. Upon the beach were crowded in thousands the screaming bother-headed people, full of love and devotion for her, her children, and her house, surging to and fro like some horrid sea and asking her to come back quick to them, and bidding her God-speed.... It was a beautiful historical picture, and one which one thought of for a long time after Queen and ships and people had vanished away. I suspect that she too must have thought of it that night as she sat upon the deck and sailed away into the darkness--and perhaps she wondered as she looked back upon the land, which ever has been and still is, the dwelling of so much wrong and misery, whether it should be written in history hereafter, that inherreign, and underherauspices, Ireland first became prosperous and her people contented. Directly after the Queen's departure, I started on a little tour round the West coast, where I saw such sights as could be seen nowhere else. The scenery is beautiful and wild.... But after one has been travelling for a little while in the far West one soon loses all thought of the scenery, or the climate, or anything else, in astonishment at the condition of the people. I do most firmly believe that in no other country under the sun are there to be found men so wretched in every respect.... All along the West coast, from North to South, there has been allowed to accumulate on land utterly unable to support them a dense population, the only functions of whose lives have been to produce rent and children. Generation after generation have grown up in ignorance and misery, while those who lived upon the product of their labours have laughed and rioted through life as though they had not known that from them alone could light and civilization descend upon these poor wretches. I had often heard, as every one has, of the evils of absenteeism, but till I came and saw its effects I had no notion how great a crime it is.... They [the absentee landowners] thought only of themselves and their own enjoyments, they left their people to grow up and multiply like brute beasts, they stifled in them by their tyranny all hope and independence and desire of advancement, they made them cowards and liars, and have now left them to die off from the face of the earth. Neither can any one living at a distance have any notion of the utter absence of all public spirit among the upper classes.... Legislation can do nothing when there is nothing for it to act upon. Parliament to Ireland is what a galvanic battery is to a dead body, and it is in vain to make laws when there is no machinery to work them. A people must be worked up to a certain point in their dispositions and understandings before they can be affected by highly civilized legislation.... It is only individual exertions, and the personal superintendence of wise and good men, that can ever drill the Irish people into a legislatable state.... One or two things, however, seem to me pretty certain--
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1. That under proper management the Irish peasant can be made anything of.2. That, generally speaking, the present class of proprietors must and will be swept from off the surface of the earth.3. That in the extreme West the surface is overcrowded, but not at all so a few miles inland.4. That reclaiming waste lands and bogs at present is to throw money away.I begin to fear I have written a strange rigmarole, but still I will send it, for though Irish matters cannot interest you as they do me, yet still a letter is always a pleasant thing to receive, even only that one may have the satisfaction of looking at the Queen's head and breaking the seal.
The next entry from Lady John's Diary is dated October 9, 1849.
After tea John told me that he had informed the Cabinet of his plan for the extension of the suffrage--to be proposed next session. All looked grave. Sir Charles Wood and Lord Lansdowne expressed some alarm.... To grant an increase of weight to the people of this country when revolutions are taking place on all sides, when a timid Ministry would rather seek to diminish that which they already have, is to show a noble trust in them, of which I believe they will nobly prove themselves worthy.
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Lord John's determination to carry through this measure himself, rather than to leave it in the hands of others, was afterwards the cause of the first defeat of the Whig Government.
Lady John Russell to Lady Mary AbercrombyLONDON,February19, 1850The weeks are galloping past so much faster even than usual that there is no keeping pace with them.I neither read, write, teach, learn, nor do anything--unless indeed revising visiting books and writing invitations is to be called something. I want to be with my Mama, to be with my husband, to be with my children, to be with friends, and to be alone, all at the same time. I want to read everything, and to write to everybody, and to walk everywhere, in no time at all. And what is the result? Why, that I lose the verypowernot only ofdoing, but ofthinking, to a degree that makes me seriously uneasy and unfits me to be a companion to anybody older or wiser than Wee-wee, or Baby, whose capacities exactly suit mine. All this sounds as if I led a life of bustle, which I donot--but it istoo full,and there is an end of it. I dare say it is mistaken vanity to suppose that if it was emptier I should do anything worthier of record in the political, literary, or educational line--and at all events it would be hard to find a happier or, I trust, more thankful heart than mine, my troubles being in fact the result of many blessings.
The next session opened with the Greek crisis, which Greville described as "the worst scrape into which Palmerston has ever got himself and his colleagues. The disgust at it here is universal with those who think at all about foreign matters: it is past all doubt that it has produced the strongest feelings of indignation against this country all over Europe, and the Ministers themselves are conscious what a disgraceful figure they cut, and are ashamed of it."
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Palmerston had ordered the blockade of the Piraeus to extort compensation from the Greek Government on behalf of Mr. Finlay (afterwards the historian of Greece), whose land had been commandeered by the King of Greece for his garden, and on behalf of Don Pacifico, a Maltese Jew (and therefore a British subject), whose house had been wrecked by an Athenian mob. The Greek Government had been prepared to pay Compensation in both cases, but not the figure demanded, which turned out, indeed, on investigation, to be in gross excess of fair compensation. Palmerston's action nearly threw Europe into war; Russia protested, and France, who had offered to mediate, was aggravated by a diplomatic muddle to the verge of breaking off negotiations. A vote of censure was passed by the Opposition in the House of Lords, which had the effect of making Lord John take up the cause of Palmerston in the Commons. The question was discussed in a famous four days' debate. "It contained," says Mr. Herbert Paul, "the finest of all Lord Palmerston's speeches, the first great speech of Gladstone, the last speech of Sir Robert Peel, and the most elaborate of those forensic harangues, delivered successively at the Bar, in the Senate, and on the Bench, by the accomplished personage best known as Lord Chief Justice Cockburn." Lord John, who was always good at a fighting speech, spoke also with great force. Mr. Roebuck's motion of confidence in the Ministry was carried, but this success was largely due to the fact that a coalition between the Peelites and the Protectionists seemed impossible. Had it not been carried the Whigs would have resigned, and neither of the other two parties feeling strong enough to succeed them, they did not oppose in force the motion of confidence.
The day after Peel made his speech he was thrown from his horse on Constitution Hill, and on July 2nd he died.
Lady John Russell to Lady Mary AbercrombyJune20, 1850... Day of great political excitement. After dinner I took John to the House and have utterly regretted since that I did not go up to hear him--for he made what I am quite sure you and Ralph will agree with me and all whom I have yet spoken to, was a most perfect answer; and I should have dearly liked to hear the volleys of cheering which he so well deserved. Now we shall either go out with honour or stay in with triumph--welcome either.
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Lord Charles Russell35to Lady John RussellJuly13, 1850As you were not here to hear John move the monument [of Sir Robert Peel], I must tell you that he succeeded in the opinion of all. Dizzy has just, in passing my chair, said, "Well, Lord John did that to perfection. My friends were nervous, I was not; it was a difficult subject, but one peculiarly fitted for Lord John. He did as I was sure he would, and pleased all those who sit about me."PEMBROKE LODGE,July17, 1850For the first time since the session began John spent a whole weekday here, and such a fine one that we enjoyed it thoroughly. Our roses are still in great beauty, but it is a drying blaze. In the evening we cried over "David Copperfield" till we were ashamed.Lady John Russell to Lady MelgundMINTO, October 5, 1850This whole morning having been spent fox-hunting, and the afternoon doing something else, I do not exactly remember what, I am obliged to write to you at the forbidden time (after dinner), instead of making myself agreeable. What a quantity I have to say to you, and what a pity to say it all by letter, or, rather, to say a very small part of it by letter, instead of having you here, as I had hoped and looked forward to, enjoying dailygloomytalks with you, such as we always find ourselves indulging in when we are together.... Though I have scarcely walked a step about the place from obedience to doctors, I have driven daily with Mama--and such lovely drives! Oh! the place is in such beauty. I think its greatest beauty--the trees red, yellow, green, brown, of every shade, so that each one is seen separately, and the too great thickness on the rocks is less perceived. This was one of the brightest mornings, and you know what a hunt is on the rocks when the sun shines bright, and the rocks look whiter against a blue sky, and men and horses and hounds place themselves in the most picturesque positions, and horns and tally-hos echo all round, and everybody, except the fox, is in spirits. The gentlemen had no sport, but the ladies a great deal, and I saw more foxes than I had ever seen before....
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Our time here is slipping away fearfully fast--there are so many impossibilities to be done. I am hungry to see every brother and sister comfortably and alone, and hungry to be out all day seeing every old spot and old face in the place and village, and hungry to be always with Papa and Mama, and hungry to read all the books in the library--and none of these hungers can be satisfied. We are all much pleased with Mr. Chichester Fortescue. He is agreeable and gentlemanlike and good, and Lotty and Harriet got on very well with him, which is more than I am doing with my letter, for they are singing me out of all my little sense--"Wha's at the window" was distracting enough, but "Saw ye the robber" ten times worse.
In September the Papal Bull dividing England into Roman Catholic sees threw the country into a state of needless excitement. The year had been a very critical one for the Church of England. The result of the Gorham case, which marked the failure of the High Church clergy to get their own way within the Church, hastened the secession to Rome of Manning, James Hope, and other well-known men. Lord John's letter to the Bishop of Durham, in which he expressed his own strong Protestant and Erastian principles, increased his popularity; but it was unfortunate in its effect. It encouraged the bigoted alarmist outcries which had been started by the Papal Bull, although his own letter differed in tone from such protests. The Ecclesiastical Titles Bill, which the Government brought forward in response to popular feeling, seems to have been one of the idlest measures that ever wasted the time of Parliament. It remained a dead-letter from the day it passed, yet at the time no Minister had a chance of leading the country who was not prepared to support it.
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The Budget made the Ministry unpopular at the beginning of the session; and in February Mr. Locke King succeeded in passing, with the help of the Radicals, a measure for the extension of the franchise, in spite of opposition from the Government. Lord John had a measure of his own of a similar nature in view, as we have seen; but, in spite of his assurance that he would introduce it during the following year, the Radicals voted against him on Mr. King's motion, and on February 20th he resigned.
The state of parties was such that no rival coalition was possible. Lord Stanley was for widening the franchise, but being a Protectionist he could not work with the Peelites; while Lord Aberdeen would not consent to the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill, and was impossible as a leader so long as the anti-Catholic hubble-bubble continued. Lord John was therefore compelled to resume office.
Lady John Russell to Lady Mary AbercrombyPEMBROKE LODGE,November22, 1850I am very glad you and Ralph liked John's letter to the Bishop of Durham. It was necessary for him to speak out, and having all his life defended the claims of the Roman Catholics to perfect toleration and equality of civil rights with the other subjects of the Queen, I should hardly have expected that they would take offence because he declares himself a Protestant and a despiser of the superstitious imitation of Roman Catholic ceremonies by clergymen of the Church of England. Such, however, has not been the case: and Ireland especially, excited by her priests, has taken fire at the whole letter, and most of all at the word "mummeries." The wisest and most moderate of them, however, here, and in Ireland with Archbishop Murray I hope at their head, will do what they can to put out the flame. No amount of dislike to any creed can, happily, for a moment shake one's conviction that complete toleration to every creed and conviction, and complete charity to each one of its professors, is the only right and safe rule--the only one which can make consistency in religious matters possible at all times and on all occasions. Otherwise itmightbe shaken by the new proofs of the insidious, corrupting, anti-truthful nature and effects of the Roman Catholic belief.They have shown themselves for ages past in the character and conditions of the countries where it reigns, and now the Pope's foolish Bull is the signal for double-dealing and ingratitude among his spiritual subjects--and consequently for anger and intolerance among Protestants--wrong, but not quite inexcusable.
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Lady John Russell to Lady Mary AbercrombyPEMBROKE LODGE,November29, 1850Far from wondering at your vacillations of opinion about John's letter, both he and I felt, on the first appearance of Wiseman's pastoral letter, that the whole scheme was so ridiculous, the affectation of power so contemptible, the change of Vicars Apostolic into Bishops and Archbishops, so impotent for evil to Protestants, while it might possibly be of use to Roman Catholics, that ridicule and contempt were the only fit arms for the occasion. But when he came to consider the chief cause of the measure--that is, the great and growing evil of Tractarianism--of an established clergy becoming daily less efficient for the wants of their parishioners, and more at variance with the laity and with the spirit of the Church to which they outwardly belong; when the whole Protestant country showed its anger or fear; when such a man as the Bishop of Norwich (Hinds), a man so tolerant as to be called by the intolerant a latitudinarian, came to him to represent the necessity for some expression of opinion on the part of the Government, and the immense evils that would result from the want of such an expression; when, after a calm survey of the state of religion throughout the country, he thought he saw that it was in his power to prevent the ruin of the Church of England, not by assuming popular opinions, but merely by openly avowing his own--then, and not till then, he wrote his letter--then, and not till then, I felt he was right to do so.It has quieted men's fears with regard to the Pope, and directed them towards Tractarianism. And we are told that a great many (I think one hundred) of the clergy omitted some of their "mummeries" on the following Sunday. That word was perhaps ill-chosen, and he is willing to say so--but I doubt it. Suppose he had omitted it, some other would have been laid hold of as offensive to men sincere in their opinions, however mistaken he may think them.The letter was a Protestant one, and could not give great satisfaction to Roman Catholics, except such as Lord Beaumont, who prefers the Queen to the Pope. John has all his life showed himself a friend to civil and religious liberty, especially that of the Roman Catholics--and would gladly never have been called upon to say a word that they could take as an insult to their creed. But it was a moment in which he had to choose between a temporary offence to a part of their body and the deserved loss of the confidence of the Protestant body, to which he heart and soul belongs. He could scarcely declare his opinion of the Tractarians, who remain in a Church to which they no longer belong, without indirectly giving offence to Roman Catholics. But it is against their practices that his strong disapprobation is declared, and of the mischief of those practices I dare say you have no idea. I believe many of them, most of them, to be as pious and excellent men as ever existed; but their teaching is not likely to make others as pious and excellent as themselves; and their remaining in the Church obliges them to a secrecy and hesitation in their teaching that is worse than the teaching itself, which would disappear if they became honest Dissenters. I could write pages more upon the subject but have no time, and I will only beg you not to confound John's letter with the bigotry and intolerance of many speeches at many meetings. I am keeping the collection of letters, addresses, etc., that he has received on the subject--a curious medley, being from all ranks and degrees of men, some really touching, some laughable.