The Letters of Queen Victoria Volume I Part 91

_Viscount Melbourne to Queen Victoria._

BROADLANDS,[1] _5th January 1842._

Lord Melbourne presents his humble duty to your Majesty, and begs to return to your Majesty and to His Royal Highness his thanks for all the kindness shown him at Windsor. He was very happy to find himself there again and in your Majesty's society. He has seen many fine places and much fine country, but after all there is nothing like Windsor and the Park. Twenty very fine places might easily be made out of the latter. Lord Melbourne as he drove to Bagshot was very glad to see the plantations at and about c.u.mberland Lodge and onwards so well and judiciously thinned. He had a very prosperous journey here. It is a lovely place, with the greatest beauty that a place can have, a very swift, clear, natural stream, running and winding in front of the house. The whole place is much improved since Lord Melbourne saw it last; a great deal of new pleasure-ground has been made. The trees, cypresses, elders, planes, elms, white poplars and acacias are very fine indeed....

Lord Melbourne thinks of staying here six or seven days, and then returning to London and going to Brocket Hall and Panshanger, but he has not fixed his plans decidedly, which he is never very fond of doing.

Lord Melbourne was delighted at thinking that he left your Majesty in good health, which he earnestly hopes and fervently prays may, together with every other blessing, long continue.

[Footnote 1: The house of Lord Palmerston in Hants.]

_The Earl of Aberdeen to Queen Victoria._

FOREIGN OFFICE, _6th January 1842._

... Sir Robert Peel has informed Lord Aberdeen that he had mentioned to your Majesty the suggestion of the King of Prussia to confer the Order of the Black Eagle[2] upon the Prince of Wales, immediately after the christening of his Royal Highness. Lord Aberdeen therefore abstains from troubling your Majesty with any observations on this subject.

[Footnote 2: Founded by Frederick I. in 1701.]

[Pageheading: DISASTERS IN AFGHANISTAN]

_Lord Fitzgerald to Queen Victoria._

_8th January 1842._

Lord Fitzgerald, with his most humble duty to your Majesty, begs leave humbly to inform your Majesty that despatches have been this day received at the India House from the Earl of Auckland, Governor-General of India, which most officially confirm to too great an extent the disastrous intelligence contained in the public journals of yesterday, the particulars of which the editors of these journals had received by express messengers from Ma.r.s.eilles.[3]

This intelligence is of a most painful character, and though the details which have arrived do high honour to the courage and the gallantry of your Majesty's forces, as well as of the East India Company's Army, yet the loss sustained has been very great, and many valuable officers have fallen the victims of a widespread conspiracy which seems to have embraced within its confederation the most warlike tribes of the Afghan nation.

Lord Fitzgerald begs leave most humbly to lay before your Majesty an interesting despatch from Lord Auckland, comprising the most important details of the late events in Afghanistan.

It is very satisfactory to Lord Fitzgerald to be enabled humbly to acquaint your Majesty that Lord Auckland has decided on waiting the arrival of his successor, Lord Ellenborough, and states to Lord Fitzgerald that he will feel it to be his duty to remain in his [Government], in the present critical state of affairs, until he is relieved by the new Governor-General.

All of which is most humbly submitted to your Majesty, by your Majesty's most dutiful Subject and Servant,

FITZGERALD AND VESCI.

[Footnote 3: _See_ Introductory Note, 1841, _ante_, p. 254.

The rebellion broke out at Cabul on 2nd November, and Sir Alexander Burnes was murdered. (Intro Note to Ch. X)]

[Pageheading: THE OXFORD MOVEMENT]

_Viscount Melbourne to Queen Victoria._

BROADLANDS, _12th January 1842._

Lord Melbourne presents his humble duty to your Majesty. He has this morning received your Majesty's letter of the 10th inst., and is glad to infer from it that your Majesty and the Prince are both well and in good spirits.

With respect to the Oxford affair, your Majesty is aware that for a long time a serious difference has been fermenting and showing itself in the Church of England, one party leaning back towards Popery, and the other either wishing to keep doctrines as they are, or, perhaps, to approach somewhat nearer to the dissenting Churches. This difference has particularly manifested itself in a publication, now discontinued, but which has been long going on at Oxford, ent.i.tled _Tracts for the Times_, and generally called the Oxford Tracts. The Professorship of Poetry is now vacant at Oxford, and two candidates have been put forward, the one Mr Williams, who is the author of one or two of the most questionable of the Oxford Tracts, and the other Mr Garbett, who is a representative of the opposite party. Of course the result of this election, which is made by the Masters of Arts of the University, is looked to with much interest and anxiety, as likely to afford no unequivocal sign of which is the strongest party in the University and amongst the clergy generally. It is expected that Mr Garbett will be chosen by a large majority....

[Pageheading: THE MORNING CHRONICLE]

_Viscount Melbourne to Queen Victoria._

SOUTH STREET, _17th January 1842._

Lord Melbourne presents his humble duty to your Majesty, and begs to acknowledge your Majesty's letter of the 15th, which he has received here this morning.

Lord Melbourne does not think this Puseyite difference in the Church so serious or dangerous as others do. If it is discreetly managed, it will calm down or blow over or sink into disputes of little significance. All Lord Melbourne fears is lest the Bishops should be induced to act hastily and should get into the wrong. The Puseyites have the most learning, or rather, have considered the points more recently and more accurately than their opponents.

Lord Melbourne hopes that the Spanish affair will be settled.

Lord Melbourne cannot doubt that the French are wrong. Even if the precedents are in their favour, the Spanish Court has a right to settle its own etiquette and its own mode of transacting business, and to change them if it thinks proper.[4]

Lord Melbourne was at Broadlands when the Article to which your Majesty alludes appeared in the _Morning Chronicle_, and he talked it over with Palmerston. He does not think that Palmerston wrote it, because there were in it errors, and those errors to Palmerston's disadvantage; but it was written by Easthope under the impression that it conveyed Palmerston's notions and opinions. Your Majesty knows very well that Palmerston has long had much communication with the _Morning Chronicle_ and much influence over it, and has made great use of it for the purpose of maintaining and defending his own policy. In this sort of matter there is much to be said upon both sides. A Minister has a great advantage in stating his own views to the public, and if Palmerston in the Syrian affair had not had as devoted an a.s.sistant as the _Morning Chronicle_, he would hardly have been able to maintain his course or carry through his measures. It has always been Lord Melbourne's policy to keep himself aloof from the public press and to hold it at arm's-length, and he considers it the best course, but it is subject to disadvantages. You are never in that case strongly supported by them, nor are the motives and reasons of your conduct given to the public with that force and distinctness which they might be.

Lord Melbourne has no doubt that your Majesty's a.s.surance is well founded, and that the present Government are anxious for the welfare and prosperity and tranquillity of Spain. It cannot be otherwise.

Palmerston dislikes Aberdeen and has a low opinion of him. He thinks him weak and timid, and likely to let down the character and influence of the country. Your Majesty knows that Lord Melbourne does not partake these opinions, certainly not at least to anything like the extent to which Palmerston carries them.

Lord Melbourne is going down to Panshanger to-morrow, where he understands that he is to meet Lord and Lady Lansdowne and Lord and Lady Leveson.[5] Lord Melbourne will take care and say nothing about Brighton, but is glad to hear that your Majesty is going thither.

[Footnote 4: An Amba.s.sador, M. de Salvandy, had been sent from France to Madrid. Espartero, the Regent, required the credentials to be presented to him and not to the young Queen.

The French Amba.s.sador having refused to comply, an unseemly dispute arose, and M. de Salvandy left Madrid.]

[Footnote 5: The late Lord Granville and his first wife, only child of the Duc de Dalberg, and widow of Sir Ferdinand Acton.]

_Queen Victoria to the King of the Belgians._

WINDSOR CASTLE, _18th January 1842._