: The Queen's Reign and Its Commemoration A literary and pictorial review of the period; the story of the Victorian transformation by Besant Walter - Great Britain History Victoria 1837-1901

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INTRODUCTION

When Sydney Smith, towards the close of his life, considered the changes which had passed over the country within his recollection, he said that he wondered how the young men of his time had managed to preserve even a decent appearance of cheerfulness. Sydney Smith died in 1845, just at the beginning of those deeper and wider changes of which he suspected nothing; for, though he was a clear-headed man in many ways, he was no prophet--he saw the actual and the present, but was unable to feel the action of the invisible and potent forces which were creating a future to him terrible and almost impossible. Had he possessed the prophetic spirit, he would have been another Jeremiah for the destruction of the old forms of society; the levelling up and the levelling down destined to take place would have been pain and grief intolerable to him.

I have always maintained that the eighteenth century lingered on in its ways, customs, and modes of thought until the commencement of Queen Victoria's reign, and I regard myself with a certain complacency as having been born on the fringe of that interesting period. I might also take pleasure in remembering that one who has lived through this reign has been an eyewitness, a bystander, perhaps in some minute degree an assistant, during a Revolution which has transformed this country completely from every point of view, not only in manners and customs, but also in thought, in ideas, in standards; in the way of regarding this world, and in the way of considering the world to come. I do not, however, take much pleasure in this retrospect, because the transition has taken place silently, without my knowledge; it escaped my notice while it went on: the world has changed before my eyes, and I have not regarded the phenomenon, being busily occupied over my own little individual interests. I have been, indeed, like one who sits in a garden thinking and weaving stories, nor heeding while the shadows shift slowly across the lawns, while the hand of the dial moves on from morning to afternoon. I have been like such a one, and, like him, I have awakened to find that the air, the light, the sky, the sunshine have all changed, and that the day is well-nigh done.

Do not expect in this volume a Life of Queen Victoria. You have her public life in the events of her reign: of her private life I will speak in the next chapter. But I can offer you no special, otherwise unattainable, information; there will be here no scandal of the Court; I have climbed no backstairs; I have peeped through no key-hole; I have perused no secret correspondence; I have, on this subject, nothing to tell you but what you know already.

W. B.

QUEEN AND CONSTITUTION

In 1837 the Queen mounted the throne. It was a time of misgiving and of discontent. The passing of the Reform Act of 1832 had not as yet produced the results expected of it; there were other and more sweeping reforms in the air: the misery and the oppression of the factory hands, the incredible cruelty practised on the children of the mill and the mine, the deep poverty of the agricultural districts, the distress of the trading classes, formed a gloomy portal to a reign which was destined to be so long and so glorious. Thus, in turning over the papers then circulated among the working-classes of the time, one observes a total absence of anything like loyalty to the Crown. It has vanished. A blind hatred has taken its place. What is loyalty to the Crown? To begin with, it is something more than an intelligent adhesion to the Constitution; it regards the Sovereign as personifying and representing the nation; it ascribes to the Sovereign, therefore, the highest virtues and qualities which the nation itself would present to the world. The King, among loyal people, is brave, honest, truthful, the chief support of the Constitution, the Fountain of Honour. To obey the King is to obey the country. To die for the King is to die for the country. The Army and the Navy are the King's Army and Navy. The King grants commissions; the King is supposed to direct military operations. The King is the First Gentleman in his country. When one reads the words which used to be addressed to such a man as Charles the Second one has to remember these things. Charles the Second, unworthy as he was in his private life, was still the representative of the nation. Therefore, to ascribe to that unworthy person these virtues which were so notoriously lacking was no more than a recognition of the fact that he was King. Has, then, personal character, private honour, truth, principle, nothing to do with kingcraft? Formerly, nothing or next to nothing. Now, everything. Another George the Fourth would now be impossible. But he has been made impossible by the private character of his niece.

Consider a little further the question of loyalty. I say that in 1837 among the mass of the people, even among the better class, there was none. Indeed the loyalty of the better sort had suffered for more than a hundred years many grievous knocks and discouragements. The first two Georges, good and great in official language, were aliens; they spoke a foreign tongue; they saw little of the people; yet they were tolerated, and even popular in a way, because they steadfastly upheld the Constitution and the Protestant religion. The third George began well; he was a Prince always of high moral character, strong principle, and great sincerity. Since Edward the Confessor or Henry the Sixth there had been no Sovereign so virtuous. But his constant endeavours to extend the Royal Prerogative, his obstinate treatment of the American Provinces against the impassioned and reiterated entreaties of Chatham, Burke, and the City of London, his stubborn refusal to hear of Parliamentary Reform, his desire to govern by a few families, his long affliction and seclusion, destroyed most of the personal affection with which he began. His successor, the hero of a thousand caricatures, a discredited voluptuary, never commanded the least respect except in official addresses; nor did William the Fourth, old, without force or character, without dignity. Wherefore, in 1837, when the cry of "Our Young Queen" was raised, it met with little response from the great mass of the people.

In this account of transformation the return to loyalty must be noted first. It is not only loyalty to the Queen herself, though that is universal, but to the Crown. There is a general feeling that the Leader of the Nation--not the Imperator, Dictator, or Emperor, but a nominal Leader, such as our own, one under whose presidency the Government is carried on, who is not, however, the Government--is more conveniently the heir of a certain family rather than a person elected by the country at large at regular intervals. The United States think differently. This, however, is what seems to us. We do not want a great popular election convulsing the country once every four years with a desperate party struggle; we have already quite as many elections as we want; we are quite satisfied if our President succeeds when his time comes, gives his name to the events of his reign, and continues in the Presidential chair for life. We ask of him only to make himself as good a figure-head as he can; we expect him to observe his coronation oath; and we beg him, if he wishes to stay where he is, not on any account to intrigue or scheme for the extension of the Royal Prerogative.

On the other hand, we willingly agree to attribute to a Sovereign all the glories of the reign; as if he himself commanded the armies and the fleets; as if he himself enlarged Science and Learning and Philosophy; as if he himself were a leader in Literature, Science, and Art. This is because the Sovereign is the representative of the Nation. In the same way the disasters and miseries of the reign must also be placed to his account, as if he himself were the author and the cause of everything. Thus by far the greater part of the distress and discontent which prevailed during the first years of the Reign was attributed in the minds of the people as due to the Sovereign and the monarchical forms of Government.

With the gradual return of loyalty gradually grew quieter the old clamours for the abolition of the House of Lords. I will show you some other reasons why this clamour ceased. First of all, in times of prosperity political changes are never demanded. A revolution presupposes a time of want, distress, or humiliation. We have enjoyed a time of general prosperity for many years.

I believe that Americans find it hard to understand the continued existence of our Upper House. Well, but something may be said for that. Thus, the House of Lords contains about 650 possible members; of these about thirty, or even less, and those including the Law Lords, do the whole work of the House. These thirty are in a sense representatives of the whole number, not regularly elected, but allowed to be the representatives. It is quite conceivable--even by the strongest advocate of popular election--that a body of 650 gentlemen, all of the best possible education, nearly all advanced in years, all independent in their circumstances, all wealthy, with no private interests to advance, unconnected with commercial enterprise, with no companies to support, no schemes of money-making in the background, might elect out of their own body a Second Chamber of much greater weight and moral authority than any body elected by the multitude. In such a House, one would argue, there is no place for bribery, jobbery, or corruption. In fact, there are none of these things.

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