THE OFFICEOFCOMMANDER-IN-CHIEF.

The foregoing is simply an Introduction to the Prince Consort’s Speeches, with some outlines of the Prince’s character. It is in no respect meant to anticipate the publication of his Life; and, consequently, no documents have been inserted, or even alluded to, which would be required for the illustration of that life.

One exception, however, to this rule the Queen has graciously consented to make. Amongst the manuscripts left by the Prince, there is a memorandum in his own handwriting on a subject of great importance in itself. But now, alas! the memorandum is of more importance still, as illustrating, in a remarkable manner, the Prince’s character and conduct. In this document he clearly defines his own position, and lays out as it were the main scheme and purpose of his life. His words on this occasion are like a lamp raised up high on a vessel,which casts long lines of light upon the waves before and after, showing the course which has been passed over, and that which will be passed over, as the ship speeds right onwards through the dark waters of the uncertain sea.

In the Introduction a character has been drawn, which might be cavilled at from its having so much that is bright in it, and so little that affords any contrast whatever of darkness. The Prince is there depicted as a most self-denying man. Those who lived with him knew that it was so; they knew that the habit of self-denial pervaded his whole life. But it might be difficult for the rest of the world to be assured of the full extent of this self-denial.

After reading the document in question, there will no longer be any doubt upon this point. It can hardly be imagined that anything could be more tempting to a young man, placed as the Prince was, than to have almost within his grasp such a grand and distinct position as that of the Commander-in-Chief of the British Army. Throughout the memorandum it is evident that the Prince felt the temptation deeply while he abjured it. It was not the cold refusal of a person indifferentto what was offered to him; but it was the stern self-sacrifice of one who, abounding in noble ambition, would dearly like to take the honour and the labour which he feels it his duty to decline.

The circumstances portrayed in the memorandum are very dramatic, and are exceedingly interesting, if only on that account. We cannot but picture to ourselves the tender wife already but too justly anxious for her Consort’s health; the aged Duke, with his well-known and long-tried devotion to the Throne, urging, in his decided manner, upon the Prince the acceptance of this much-coveted post; and the Prince modestly and decisively putting it from him as a thing he must not have. There was wisdom in the motives which led the old warrior and statesman to make the proposal. But there was a higher wisdom in those of the young Prince who steadily refused to entertain the offer: a wisdom not proceeding from a nice perception of what was safe for self-interest, or from a skilful balancing of consequences, but from an instinct of goodness cultivated by chivalry into the highest self-devotion.

The resolution which the Prince announces in this memorandum—to sink his own individualexistence in that of the Queen—had long been acted upon by him even then, and was never afterwards departed from. It was not repented of: it gave a colour to his whole career: it sustained him in long days of wearisome, commonplace labour: it became a part of his being; and he never surrendered it but with his last breath.

Many a reader of the foregoing Introduction, not having met with anything like the Prince’s character in ordinary life, might naturally imagine it to have been drawn by too partial a hand. But this thought will vanish, when he sees the Prince unconsciously depicted by himself, and thus learns, from undoubted authority, what was the object, what the meaning, and what the settled purpose of his well-spent life.

In allowing this Memorandum of the Prince to be published, the Queen is also actuated by another motive in addition to those which have already been mentioned. It affords Her Majesty a fitting opportunity for expressing, in the most clear and ample manner, that which for many years she has desired to express. During the Prince’s life, the Queen often longed to makeknown to the world the ever-present, watchful, faithful, invaluable aid which she received from the Prince Consort in the conduct of the public business. Her Majesty could hardly endure even then to be silent on this subject, and not to declare how much her Reign owed to him. And now the Queen can no longer refrain from uttering what she has so long felt, and from proclaiming the irreparable loss to the public service, as well as to herself and to her family, which the Prince’s death has occasioned.

The position of Her Majesty, for many years accustomed to this loving aid, and now suddenly bereft of it, can with difficulty be imagined to the full extent of its heaviness and its sadness. Desolate and sombre, as the Queen most deeply feels, lies the way before her;—a path, however, of duty and of labour, which, relying on the loyal attachment and sympathy of her people, she will, with God’s blessing, strive to pursue; but where she fears her faltering steps will often show they lack the tender and affectionate support which, on all occasions, Her Majesty was wont to receive from her beloved husband, the Prince.

The circumstances which preceded the drawingup of this Memorandum by the Prince, are as follows:—

On the death of Sir J. Macdonald, the Adjutant-General, in March, 1850, a suggestion was made to amalgamate the two offices of Adjutant and Quartermaster-General under a single head, to be called Chief of the Staff. The Duke of Wellington was in consequence summoned to Windsor, and several conversations ensued, in the course of which the Duke proposed that arrangements should be made with a view to the Prince’s ultimately succeeding himself as Commander-in-Chief.[2]

2.The circumstances narrated above, and the conduct of the Prince Consort upon them, were related by Earl Russell very succinctly and accurately in his speech in the House of Commons, Jan. 31, 1854.

The following are extracts from the minutes made by the Prince of those conversations, as far as they related to that proposal:—

Windsor Castle, April 3, 1850.

I went yesterday to see the Duke of Wellington in his room after his arrival at the Castle,our conversation soon turning to the question of the vacant Adjutant-Generalship. I asked the Duke what he was prepared to recommend. He said he had had a letter on the subject recommending the union of the two offices of Adjutant-General and Quartermaster-General, and he placed his answer to it in my hands. He then proceeded to say that he thought it necessary that we should cast our eyes a little before us. He was past 80 years, and would next month enter upon his 82nd. He was, thank God! very well and strong, and ready to do anything; but he could not last for ever, and in the natural course of events we must look to a change ere long. As long as he was there, he did the duty of all the offices himself.... To form a new office by uniting the duties of Adjutant-General and Quartermaster-General in the person of a Chief of the Staff, as was the practice in some foreign armies, would be to appoint two different persons to do the same duty, which would never answer. The Chief of the Staff would again have to subdivide his office into an Adjutant-General and Quartermaster-General’s Department, and nothing would be gained.

However, the Duke saw the greatest advantage in having a Chief of the Staff, if, after his death, that arrangement should be made which he had always looked to, and which he considered the best, viz.that I should assume the command of the army.

He was sure I could not do it without such a Chief of the Staff, who would be responsible before the public, and carry on the official communications with the other Government Departments. For this contingency he was prepared to organize the machinery now, and he would answer for its success....

I answered to the Duke that I should be very slow to make up my mind to undertake so great a responsibility—that I was not sure of my fitness for it, on account of my want of military experience, &c. (to which the Duke replied, that with good honest intentions one could do a great deal, and that he should not be the least afraid on that score)—whether I could perform the duties consistently with my other avocations, as I should not like to undertake what I could not carry through, not knowing what time or attention they would require.

The Duke answered, that it would certainly require both time and attention, for nothing could be done without my knowledge, or without my order, but that the detail would be worked out by the Chief of the Staff. He had thoroughly considered that, and would make it work.... He always stood up for the principle of the army being commanded by the Sovereign; and he endeavoured to make the practice agree with that theory, by scrupulously taking, on every point, the Queen’s pleasure before he acted. But, were he gone, he saw no security, unless I undertook the command myself, and thus supplied what was deficient in the constitutional working of the theory, arising from the circumstance of the present Sovereign being a lady. Strictly constitutionally I should certainly be responsible for my acts, but before the world in general the Chief of the Staff would bear the responsibility, and for that office the man of the greatest name and weight in the army ought to be selected. He repeated that he thought this the most desirable arrangement, and would at once work it out to the best of his ability.... I begged him to leave me time to consider the proposal.

In the evening the Queen gave the Duke of Wellington an audience, I being present. After having set out by saying he was most anxious to let the Queen know and feel all he knew and felt about it—in fact, tothink aloud—the Duke repeated what he had said to me in the morning, and we discussed the question further. I said that there were several points which still required to be considered.... The offer was so tempting for a young man, that I felt bound to look most closely to all the objections to it, in order to come to a right decision.... The Queen, as a lady, was not able at all times to perform the many duties imposed upon her; moreover she had no Private Secretary who worked for her, as former Sovereigns had had. The only person who helped her, and who could assist her, in the multiplicity of work which ought to be done by the Sovereign, was myself. I should be very sorry to undertake any duty which would absorb my time and attention so much foroneDepartment, as to interfere with my general usefulness to the Queen.... The Queen added, that I already worked harder than she liked to see, and than she thought was goodfor my health,[3]which I did not allow—answering, that, on the contrary, business must naturally increase with time, and ought to increase, if the Sovereign’s duties to the country were to be thoroughly performed; but that I was anxious no more should fall upon her than could be helped.

3.The anxiety of the Queen lest the Prince should injure his health by his excessive attention to public business, naturally continued to increase.In 1860, when the Society of Arts renewed the proposal for holding a second International Exhibition, the Queen wrote to Lord Granville, without the knowledge of the Prince, expressing Her earnest hope that he (Lord Granville) would do all that in him lay to prevent the responsibility and labour of conducting the undertaking being thrown in any way on His Royal Highness.The Queen felt deeply the necessity for averting any addition to the heavy work already entailed on the Prince by the assistance and support (every day more needful to Her) which he gave Her in the transaction of all public business; and Her Majesty was convinced that he could not again undertake the labour he had gone through in conducting the first Exhibition to its successful termination, without injury to that health which was not only most precious to Herself and his family, but to the country, and even to the world.

3.The anxiety of the Queen lest the Prince should injure his health by his excessive attention to public business, naturally continued to increase.

In 1860, when the Society of Arts renewed the proposal for holding a second International Exhibition, the Queen wrote to Lord Granville, without the knowledge of the Prince, expressing Her earnest hope that he (Lord Granville) would do all that in him lay to prevent the responsibility and labour of conducting the undertaking being thrown in any way on His Royal Highness.

The Queen felt deeply the necessity for averting any addition to the heavy work already entailed on the Prince by the assistance and support (every day more needful to Her) which he gave Her in the transaction of all public business; and Her Majesty was convinced that he could not again undertake the labour he had gone through in conducting the first Exhibition to its successful termination, without injury to that health which was not only most precious to Herself and his family, but to the country, and even to the world.

The Duke seemed struck with this consideration, and said he had not overlooked it, but might not have given it all the weight it deserved, and that he would reflect further upon it.

We agreed at last that this question could not be satisfactorily solved unless we knew the exactduties which had to be performed; and the Queen charged the Duke to draw up a memorandum in which these should be detailed, and his general opinion explained, so that we might found a decision on that paper. This the Duke promised to do.

Windsor Castle, April 6, 1850.

After a good deal of reflection on the Duke of Wellington’s proposal, I went to pay him a visit yesterday morning in his room, and found him prepared with his memorandum, which he handed to me. After having read it, I said to him that I must consider my position as a whole, which was that of the consort and confidential adviser and assistant of a female sovereign. Her interest and good should stand foremost, and all other considerations must be viewed in reference to this, and in subordination to it. The question then was simply, whether I should not weaken my means of attending to all parts of the constitutional position alike—political, social, and moral—if I devoted myself to a special branch, however important that might be; and that I was afraid this would be the consequenceof my becoming Commander-in-Chief. It was quite true that the Sovereign being a lady naturally weakened her relation to the army, and that the duty rested upon me of supplying that deficiency, and would do so still more when the protection which the Duke afforded to the Crown should be unfortunately withdrawn. But I doubted whether this might not be accomplished without my becoming especially responsible for the command of the army. There was no branch of public business in which I was not now supporting the Queen, &c. &c.... The Duke replied he quite saw that my position ought to be looked at as a whole. He felt the extreme difficulty and delicacy of it, and was kind enough to add that he approved of, and the public did full justice to the way in which I had hitherto maintained it. I begged him to leave me a little time for consideration, that I wanted to study his memorandum, and would finally write to him upon the subject.

Two days afterwards the Prince wrote to the Duke a letter, of which the following are extracts:—

My dear Duke,

The Queen and myself have thoroughly considered your proposal to join the offices of Adjutant-General and Quartermaster-General into one of a Chief of the Staff, with a view to facilitate the future assumption of the command of the army by myself.... The question whether it will be advisable that I should take the command of the army or not, has been most anxiously weighed by me, and I have come to the conclusion that my decision ought entirely and solely to be guided by the consideration, whether it would interfere with, or assist, my position of Consort of the Sovereign, and the performance of the duties which this position imposes upon me.

This position is a most peculiar and delicate one. Whilst a female sovereign has a great many disadvantages in comparison with a king, yet, if she is married, and her husband understands and does his duty, her position, on the other hand, has many compensating advantages, and, in the long run, will be found even to be stronger than that of a male sovereign. Butthis requires that the husband should entirely sink hisown individualexistence in that of his wife—that he should aim at no power by himself or for himself—should shun all ostentation—assume no separate responsibility before the public—but make his position entirely a part of hers—fill up every gap which, as a woman, she would naturally leave in the exercise of her regal functions—continually and anxiously watch every part of the public business, in order to be able to advise and assist her at any moment, in any of the multifarious and difficult questions or duties brought before her, sometimes international, sometimes political, or social, or personal. As the natural head of her family, superintendent of her household, manager of her private affairs, soleconfidentialadviser in politics, and only assistant in her communications with the officers of the government, he is besides the husband of the Queen, the tutor of the Royal children, the private secretary of the Sovereign, and her permanent minister.

How far would it be consistent with this position to undertake the management and administration of a most important branch ofthe public service, and the individual responsibility attaching to it—becoming an Executive Officer of the Crown, receiving the Queen’s commands through her Secretaries of State, &c. &c.? I feel sure that, having undertaken the responsibility, I should not be satisfied to leave the business and real work in the hands of another (the Chief of the Staff), but should feel it my duty to look to them myself. But whilst I should in this manner perform duties which, I am sure, every able General Officer, who has gained experience in the field, would be able to perform better than myself, who have not had the advantage of such experience, most important duties connected with the welfare of the Sovereign would be left unperformed, which nobodycouldperform but myself. I am afraid, therefore, that I must discard the tempting idea of being placed in command of the British Army.

SPEECHESOFHIS ROYAL HIGHNESSTHEPRINCE CONSORT.

SPEECHES

HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS

THE

PRINCE CONSORT.

SPEECHES.

Back to Index Next