Mr. Punch's History of Modern England. Volume 2 of 4.—1857-1874

England is completely prepared to become Republican, but the undoubted personal popularity of the Queen will probably sustain the effete monarchy until the time arrives for transmission of the Crown. But as for an Edward the Seventh, that is out of the question.

Whereon Punch observes "are there twenty republicans in England, deducting Bedlam?" On February 6 the Queen opened Parliament in person: —

The Queen has not performed this ceremony during the last five years, and the reason for the Sovereign's seclusion would render it unbecoming for Mr. Punch to say any word upon the subject of Her reappearance, except that it greatly rejoiced the nation and himself.

This emergence was welcome, but it was not followed up and did not satisfy public opinion, as we gather from an appeal made in the following year: —

The Pall Mall Gazette, inviting Her Majesty to resume her personal sway over society, says: —

"During the first twenty years of Queen Victoria's reign the salons of London did not reek with tobacco smoke, neither did the noble, the pure, and the young stagger under red wigs, glare with rouge and pearl-powder, or leer with painted eyes."

No. Neither do the noble and the pure stagger, glare or leer now. But if the ignoble, the impure, and some of the young do these things, and can be deterred from them by royal displeasure, manifested in the dignified way in which the First Lady would mark it, we should rejoice to know that the Queen intended to come forward and do an unwelcome duty. No worthier homage can be offered to the dead than a painful sacrifice for the sake of the living. The Crown has direct power over the court-class, and as for the idiots who parody their patrons, the parody, as we firmly believe, would be pursued even if great folks took to virtue and going to church. Which considerations, with the deepest respect, Mr. Punch submits to the notice of his Royal Mistress.

Many of us thought that the lavish use of paint and dye by the young was a portent of Georgian post-war days: it is something of a surprise, possibly a relief, to find it was prevalent more than fifty years ago.

From this point onwards one may notice a disposition to acquiesce in the self-imposed seclusion of the Queen, though any movement towards breaking it down is at once recognized and welcomed – even such a small thing as the publication of her Journal of our Life in the Highlands. Thus we read that its issue "on the advice of Mr. Arthur Helps is likely, if such a thing were possible, to endear her still more to the loving hearts of her people," and in a set of verses on "The Queen's Book" the Queen is applauded for her wise and womanly thought: —

What Queen like this was ever knownTo take her people to her heart?When was Queen's household-life so shownWith modest truth and artless art?The Royal Widow has done wellThus on her people's love to call,Her simple wifely tale to tellAnd trust her joys and griefs to all.

The writer was evidently well aware that cynics and literary critics would make fun of the book, but the defence of sincerity comes with added weight from one who was always on the look out for ineptitudes in high places.

The announcement of the betrothal of the Princess Louise to the Marquis of Lorne gave Punch a fine opportunity in the autumn of 1870 of vindicating his prescience, and simultaneously revealing Thackeray in the light of a political prophet: —

Thackeray among the Prophets

Mr. Punch begs leave to make a distinguished bow to his excellent (if Conservative) contemporary, the Bath Chronicle. That admirable journal, the studies of whose Conductor are so evidently in a right direction that the success of the paper is a matter of course, has turned back to a somewhat remote Number of Punch, and has been amply rewarded by lighting upon an article, which has been transferred to the columns of the Bath Chronicle, with appropriate remarks, a portion of which Mr. Punch has the utmost pleasure in reproducing: —

"Twenty-one years ago, in the Number of Punch for February 3, 1849, the late Mr. Thackeray drew an imaginary picture of 'England in 1869,' in supposed extracts from the newspapers of the period. One of these, under the heading of 'Marriages of the Royal Family,' is so applicable to the circumstances of 'England in 1870' that it is worth reproducing. The humourist would have been amused himself had he lived to see how nearly he hit the mark. The following is the paragraph we refer to: —

"'Marriages of the Royal Family. – Why should our Princes and Princesses be compelled always to seek in Germany for matrimonial alliances? Are the youths and maidens of England less beautiful than those of Saxe and Prussia? Are the nobles of our own country, who have been free for hundreds of years, who have shown in every clime the genius, the honour, the splendour of Britain – are these, we ask, in any way inferior to a Prince (however venerable) of Sachs-Schlippenschloppen, or a Grand Duke of Pigwitz-Gruntenstein? We would breathe no syllable of disrespect against these potentates – we recognize in them as in ourselves the same Saxon blood – but why, we ask, shall not Anglo-Saxon Princes or Princesses wed with free Anglo-Saxon nobles, themselves the descendants, if not the inheritors of kings? We have heard in the very highest quarters rumours which under these impressions give us the very sincerest delight. We have heard it stated that the august mother and father of a numerous and illustrious race, whose increase is dear to the heart of every Briton, have determined no longer to seek for German alliances for their exalted children, but to look at home for establishments for those so dear to them. More would be at present premature. We are not at liberty to mention particulars, but it is whispered that Her Royal Highness The Princess Boadicea is about to confer her royal hand upon a young nobleman who is eldest son of a noble peer who is connected by marriage with our noble and venerable Premier, with the Foreign and Colonial Secretaries, and with H.G. the Archbishop of Canterbury. The same "little bird" also whispers that His Royal Highness, Prince Hengist, has cast an eye of princely approbation upon a lovely and accomplished young lady of the highest classes, whose distinguished parents are "frae the North," whose name is known and beloved throughout the wide dominions of Britain's sway – in India, at the Admiralty, at the Home and Colonial Offices and in both Houses of Parliament.'

"The first part of the prediction is being accomplished with a literalness that should drive Zadkiel to despair. The Princess Louise, then a baby not quite a year old, is betrothed to the eldest son of a nobleman actually in office, who comes 'frae the North,' and whose name is certainly known in India, seeing that he is and has for some time been the Secretary of State for India. Moreover he is connected by marriage with the Foreign Secretary, Earl Granville, for he married a Gower, the Earl's first cousin, while as the head of the Campbells he may claim cousinship with the Earl's second wife, Miss Campbell, of Islay, as well as with the Archbishop of Canterbury, whose mother was a Campbell."

Opposition to Royal Grants

When the question of the Princess's dowry and annuity came up in the House of Commons early in 1871, Parliamentary opposition to Royal grants reared its head, and Punch's summary of the debate is worth quoting: —

Mr. Gladstone, in a long speech, proposed, and Mr. Disraeli, with a gesture, seconded the proposal for granting £30,000 as dowry to Princess Louise, and £6,000 as H.R.H.'s annuity. There was loud acclamation from all parts of the House, and when Mr. Peter Taylor rose, hat in hand, to oppose the grant, the resolution had been carried. Here it may be convenient to add that, at a later stage, Mr. Taylor, rising amid groans from all sides, opposed the grant, and Sir Robert Peel expressed regret that a Princess had, by the advice of Ministers, been allowed to contract herself to the son of a Minister. Mr. Disraeli, as might be expected, treated the matter in a much more graceful way, paid a pleasant compliment to the Marquis of Lorne, and was glad that a Princess had accepted a Member of the House of Commons. Mr. Gladstone corrected Sir Robert, saying that deviation from the established rule of Royal marriage had been advised upon about eighteen months ago, and long before the engagement to the Marquis. The division was the most amusing which Mr. Punch has ever chronicled. There were, for the grant, 350; against it, 1. This unit was Mr. Fawcett, but there were really Three against the grant, namely, himself and two Tellers, Sir Charles Dilke and Mr. Peter Taylor. The Commons roared lustily, and the nation echoed the roar.

With a backing which though minute in numbers was strong in intellect, it was not to be expected that this opposition would disappear. It was again manifested over the grant to Prince Arthur in the same year, when Punch advised Sir Charles Dilke to renounce his title if he persisted in his opposition to royalties, and in 1872 Shirley Brooks gives a lively account of the debate on the proposed inquiry into the Civil List on the night of March 19, when Mr. Gladstone treated Sir Charles Dilke as Ulysses did Thersites: —

Having demolished his man, our Ulysses sat down amid astounding cheers from the Opposition as well as from his own party. Then another Aristocrat followed in the wake of the Baronet. The Honourable Auberon Herbert announced his preference for a Republic. The row then set in fiercely, and Mr. Punch inclines to draw a veil over proceedings that did not greatly redound to the credit of the House of Commons. It is true that they were an index of public opinion in the matter, but Parliament is expected to be decorous, and not to allow cock-crowing as an argument. Even the Gallic Cock could not have behaved worse. The Speaker said that the scene gave him great pain. Counts were attempted, and then strangers and reporters were excluded for an hour, and then there was a division on an attempt at adjournment – negatived by 261 to 23. Mr. Fawcett opposed the motion in a spirited and sensible speech, and denounced the mixing up the question of Republicanism with "huckstering and haggling over the cost of the Queen's household." Finally, there was division on the motion itself, and the voters for it, including Tellers, were three Aristocrats, namely, Baronets Dilke and Lawson, and Mr. Herbert, son of an Earl, and they had one friend, Mr. Anderson, of Glasgow. Against these Four were, without Tellers, Two Hundred and Seventy-Six. The House roared with laughter, and soon went away. The Republican attack on the Queen was about as contemptible as that by the lad who presented the flintless and empty pistol the other day; but in the latter case as in the former, the affair was one for the police, and Constable Gladstone A1, was quite equal to the occasion.

In the same number appears the cartoon, "Another Empty Weapon," in which "Little Charley Dilke," with a large horse-pistol labelled "Motion," is seized by the scruff of the neck by Constable Gladstone A1 as a Royal State coach is passing by.

Britannia: "Is that the sort of thing you want, you little idiot?"

Dilke returned to the charge again on the marriage of Prince Alfred (the Duke of Edinburgh) in 1874. How strongly Punch felt on this point may be gathered from the statement in the Life of Sir Charles Dilke that Shirley Brooks refused to meet him on account of his Republican speeches. The subject may be dismissed for the present with the excellent, if apocryphal, anecdote in rhyme which appeared in Punch under the heading, "A Problem Solved": —

About the Queen the Bart. C. DilkeVents talk as acid as sour milk.Punch wants to know if this be trueWhich, told to him, he tells to you —How a great Lady deigned to wonderAt Charley's anti-Windsor thunder"His father was so kind and mild —I knew this gentleman a child:I've stroked his hair. I sometimes sayI must have stroked it the wrong way."

The Albert Hall was opened on March 28, 1871, and the occasion is seized to administer a comprehensive rebuke to those who found it easy to laugh at the Queen, the Prince Consort, King Cole (Sir Henry Cole) and the Kensington "Boilers." That there were grounds for discontent, and that it was unwise to overlook the existence of industrial unrest, militant Radicalism and Republicanism Punch freely admits in the vigorous doggerel entitled, "Looking Facts in the Face," in which he plays the part of candid friend to Queen, Lords and Commons alike. After examining the just causes for discontent at home, the activities of Bradlaugh and Odger, and the ominous warnings furnished by the Commune and the spread of the new doctrines of Karl Marx and the Internationalists, Punch continues: —

So we, who don't hold that the worldTo come right must be set topsy-turvy,Those now at the helm from it hurled,And their place taken crassâ Minervâ,Had better look squalls in the face,Make snug for a douche and a drenching,And – Queen, Lords, and Commons – embraceThe supports that will stand the most wrenching.Were I Queen, I'd not so play my rôle,As if bent to prove those right who flout me,And show, while folks pay the Crown toll,How well things can go on without me.Were I Lord, Folly's gales I would thwart,Not by spreading my sails, but by furling 'em:Nor expose my prestige to be caughtIn the traps of the Gun Club and Hurlingham.Were I in the Commons, I'd striveMore than one Bill a Session to carry;Nor abreast all my 'buses to drive,Till all in a block have to tarry.As Queen, Lords, or Commons, in fine,My course by the chart were I making,I should take just the opposite lineTo that Queen, Lords, and Commons are taking.

This was the first time that Karl Marx was mentioned in Punch. As for Odger, who is alluded to in the same verses, it may be recalled that at a meeting at Leicester held in this autumn he was credited with the statement that "me and my colleagues have resolved that the Prince of Wales shall never ascend the throne."

Anti-Monarchical Sentiment

There was undoubtedly a strong wave of anti-monarchical sentiment in England in 1871. It was not confined to agitators or extremists, but found utterance in organs which represented moderate opinion. Lord Morley in his Life of Gladstone quotes from the Pall Mall Gazette of September 29, 1871, to illustrate the depth and wide range of this discontent. He might very well have quoted Punch also as documentary evidence. The Political History of England sums up the grounds of this resentment among friendly critics not unfairly: "Ten years' seclusion from social activity and public duty seemed an excessive indulgence in the luxury of sorrow." The sympathy stirred by the Queen's illness in September, 1871, marked the beginning of a reaction; the acute anxiety "aroused by the dangerous illness of the Prince of Wales in the following December, and the subsequent rejoicings on his recovery, did much to improve the relations between Crown and people"; and Punch quotes the Queen's message of thanks to the nation as the most "acceptable Christmas gift which could have been bestowed on a loyal and affectionate people." In the verses on the Thanksgiving Service in St. Paul's on February 27 he is at pains to meet the sneers of those who only saw: —

A Queen, and Prince and Princess, and their Court,And coaches passing to St. Paul's to prayer;To settle scores with Heaven in stately sort: —A Show for once! and our shows are so rare.

But the defensive tone is soon dropped for one of congratulation:

Happy the Queen that can, love-guarded, goStill, through a prayerful capital, to prayHappy among these million hearts to knowNot one but beats in tune with hers to-day.

It was reserved, however, for later historians to detect in the renewed political activity of the Queen evidence of her distrust in the foreign policy of Gladstone. Among the signs of the times which mark the close of this period and the great Conservative revival which followed, few are more curious than the cartoon headed, "A Brummagem Lion," inspired by the visit to Birmingham of the Prince and Princess of Wales and the courtesy displayed by Mr. Joseph Chamberlain as mayor, in spite of his Radical proclivities.

The references to foreign potentates and their relations with the British Court show little abatement of Punch's old distrust and hostility. Of the French Emperor's flying visit to Osborne in 1857 we read that it was "strictly private – none but policemen were admitted." The most friendly allusion to the Empress Eugénie refers to her having ridden in an ordinary hansom cab during a visit to England incog. in 1860. For the rest she is repeatedly attacked for her extravagance in dress, for dabbling in spiritualism, and for her interference in politics and support of the Papal pretensions. "Everyone has his oracle," says Punch late in 1862… "Didn't Numa Pompilius have his Egeria? Why, then, shouldn't Pius have his Eugenia?" In the same year she is abused for attending a bull-fight, and satirized in a cartoon representing the Emperor as Hercules and the Empress as Omphale. Punch waxes indignant at the patronage extended by the Emperor to the variety stage in 1866, and wonders whether the infection will reach our Court. But his imagination entirely failed to forecast the bestowal of decorations on the heroes of the music-hall. We have moved since then. A famous story is told of Queen Victoria in her later years sending an Equerry to inquire the name of a lively air which had been played by her Court band. The Equerry returned to say that it was a popular song of the day. The Queen was dissatisfied and instructed him to find out and let her know the words. The Equerry went back, returned and proceeded to recite the classic stanza: —

Come where the booze is cheaper;Come where the pots hold more;Come where the boss is a bit of a Joss,Come to the pub. next door.

There the story unfortunately ends, without the Queen's comment. But in the pages of Punch we read how in 1869, when the Constitutional régime had just been inaugurated in France under Emile Ollivier, the programme of one of the Queen's State concerts included "Heaven Preserve the Emperor, with variations," which prompts Punch to ask, "Would not this do for the French National Anthem?" In 1865 Punch devoted a cartoon to commemorate the completion of fifty years of peace between England and France, and in 1869 another on the centenary of the first Napoleon. With the catastrophe of 1870, Sedan and its sequel of exile and suffering, Punch's hostility changed to compassion, and his In memoriam verses on the Emperor, though too laboured and too frequently disfigured by inversions to attain to the dignity of poetry, form one of the best of contemporary summaries and estimates of the career and character of the dead ruler: —

Already scores of ready penmen draftOf his life's course to power their bird's-eye view,Through poverty and perjury and craft,And redder stains that the blurred track imbrue.Let whoso will count of his faults the cost,And point a moral in his saddened end;This is the thought in England uppermost —He who has died among us, lived our friend.If sinners may by suffering, too, be shriven,What penance those lost years had to sustain!The sting of fall and failure deeper drivenBy the dull stroke of slow and sleepless pain.The time to weigh him fairly is not now;Nor are the true weights any France can bring:That sprang to fix the crown upon his brow,And her own neck beneath his feet to fling.Heavily both have answered for their sin:Nor did the Emperor heavier fall undo,Than France, that backed him still while he could win,Nor turned against him till the luck turned too.13But now 'tis England, and not France that standsSilent beside an Exile's dying bed,Mindful of kindness received by his hands,Sorrowing with those that sorrow for their dead.

Punch, as was made clear in the previous volume, was no lover of Prussian rule. On the eve of the war on Denmark he published a truly ferocious attack on King Wilhelm: —

THE SONG OF HOHENZOLLERNAir – "The Standard Bearer."

French Emperor and Prussian King

I am a King; I reign by Right Divine,As did my sires some hundred years before me;Howe'er their crown was got, I came to mine,Obey me then, O people, and adore me.My seat I plant upon mine ancient Throne,And order back the waves of Revolution.My will the law, I sit supreme, alone,My footstool is the Prussian Constitution.Tsar Alexander's cause mine own I've made,Regardless of the blame of any journal.To crush the Poles I render him my aid;Help him enforce his discipline paternal.I lend a hand to catch the runaway,The fugitive hand over to the slaughter;And, on my mind, whatever you may sayMakes no more mark than what blows leave in water.I'm called the Hangman's Cad, and I don't careFor that dishonourable appellation.I carry Poland's garbage to the Bear,Serene amid the loudest execration.My mind is bent on arbitrary rule;In policy I copy my late Brother.If you presume to say he was a fool,You'll very likely dare call me another.

Hostility to Prussia did not abate in the succeeding years, and in 1866 indignation is expressed at a rumour that the Queen was about to visit Germany. A general friendliness towards King Victor Emmanuel did not prevent Punch from insinuating that he had sold his birthright to the French Emperor, and from expressing the fear that Sardinia as well as Savoy would be ceded to France. The most that can be said of his treatment of the Tsar Alexander II is that it was not quite so vehemently hostile as that meted out to his father. As early as January, 1862, we read that "the Russian Empire, with its body of brass and its feet of clay, will, if it does not take care, be requiring some support some day, to keep it up, on account of the extreme 'weakness of its legs.'"

The annals of Royalty, outside England, certainly afforded little scope for admiration. But the year 1865 was enlivened by a humorous instance of misplaced monarchical ambition. The King of Abyssinia, who had detained certain British subjects as prisoners, "was said to have favoured Queen Victoria with an offer of marriage, and to have imprisoned her lieges in revenge for her non-appreciation of his dusky love."

GENERAL SOCIAL LIFE

From a variety of causes, most of which have been already discussed, reformers, humanitarians and critics of the established order generally display less resentment and acrimony throughout the mid-Victorian period. We have already hinted that the mellowing of Punch's temper may have been due in part to the death of Douglas Jerrold. But the fact remains that Punch had already begun to find less incentive to and less excuse for the saeva indignatio which animated his earlier tirades against the aristocracy, and the selfish detachment of the titled classes. The spectacle of the Cream of Society disporting themselves at Cremorne to the exclusion of the general public is satirized in 1858, but the satire is tempered by the admission that this aristocratic "jamboree" was organized for a charitable purpose and brought in substantial proceeds. An analysis of the special butts of Punch's satire reveals the interesting fact that, while not enjoying a complete immunity from criticism, the dukes are not only displaced from their unenviable pre-eminence, they almost disappear as targets for invective. We find attacks on the promotion of "well-connected politicians" à propos of Lord Clanricarde's appointment as Privy Seal in 1858; and verses in the same year on the worship of the peerage, with "John Bull loves a lord" as text, but the flunkeydom of the Press is already a far less frequent theme of scarifying comment. Punch's favourite occupation as the reviler of "Jenkins" was gone by the 'sixties, but snobbery in high places was not dead. Sir Benjamin Brodie, Sergeant-Surgeon to William IV and Queen Victoria, had been made a baronet in 1834; in 1858, when he was President of the Royal Society, there was some talk of his being made a peer, and Punch in December of that year bitterly attacked the influences and prejudices which he believed were effectual in preventing the bestowal of the honour.