Life of Her Majesty Queen Victoria/Chapter 8

by Millicent Garrett Fawcett

Chapter VIII.

Stockmar.

One of the strongest influences, personal and political in the Queen's earlier life was that of Baron Stockmar. This remarkable man attained, simply by dint of character, the position of being one of the chief of the unseen political forces of Europe. Without any official political position, he was the friend and confidant of statesmen and princes, and acquired extraordinary influence by his clearness of view and tenacity of purpose in political concerns, joined with personal honesty and disinterestedness, and also in a remarkable degree with a singularly firm grasp of "the inexhaustibly fruit truth that moral causes govern the standing and falling of States."

The formative influences on his character had been the political misfortunes of Germany under the first Napoleon, in the early part of the century. As a youth he witnessed the bitter humiliation of his country, and later the downfall of her oppressor; and from henceforth the bed-rock of his character was the belief in the existence of a moral power ruling over the fate of nations and individuals. His son and biographer narrates an event which influenced Stockmar deeply. During the Napoleonic tyranny in Germany, he formed one of a group of enthusiastic young Germans, some of whom broached the possibility of delivering their country by murdering her oppressor. An old Prussian officer who was present reproached the lads for their folly: "This is the talk," he said, "of very young people;" and he went on to express his firm confidence that the rule of the French in Germany was in its very nature evanescent, and must come to an end. His counsel was: "Trust in the natural course of events," and be ready to take advantage of them. Things that are rotten and hollow decay; those that are sound and healthy flourish and grow. Stockmar saw the crumbling to dust within a few years of what then appeared the overwhelming strength of Napoleon, and never forgot the lesson he had learned. All through his life he really believed what most people profess to believe, that the wages of sin is death.

From this standpoint of a belief in moral causes as governing the standing and falling of States, he sought to understand the source of the political humiliation of Germany, and he found it in the petty jealousies and childish narrow-mindedness of the little German States. Once convinced of this, long before the unity of Germany came within the sphere of practical politics he labored earnestly to bring it about. He was not slow to perceive that the arrogance of Napoleon and the shame and despair of Germany brought with them the germ of a better state of things. In the first place, Napoleon reduced the number of small German States from something like three hundred to thirty. This in itself was no small step towards national unity. In the second place, the anguish and humiliation endured in common by the German populations animated them with a common purpose to throw off the yoke of their oppressor. This was a beginning of a new national life. As Stockmar expressed it, "The people had come to know that hitherto they had had no Fatherland; and from that hour they cherished the resolve to have one."

Stockmar never believed that bad morals could be good politics. It was his creed that wrong-doing brings with it its own inevitable retribution. Immediately after the Coup d'état in December, 1851, he said that out of the elements with which its success had been secured, the devil only could form a stable Government, and that he did not believe in the possibility of a permanent rule for his black majesty. His biographer, writing early in 1870, remarks that it yet remained to be seen whether Stockmar's prediction would be fulfilled. Within a few months all doubt on the subject was ended by the cannon of Sedan and the downfall of the Second Empire.

A character like Stockmar's, with a fixed political and wholly impersonal end in view, is never lacking in self-confidence; he never for a moment swerved from his aim, though after 1848 he realized that he would never probably live to see it accomplished. The fact that practical statesmen thought his dream of German unity under the leadership of Prussia a "bee in his bonnet," did not in the least disturb him. He went on diligently "laying the seed corn," as he himself described it, in other minds, quietly, almost secretly, knowing that once planted it would grow. After the downfall of the hopes of German unity in 1848, Stockmar was not discouraged, nor would he allow discouragement in others. He used to say, "The Germans are a good people, easy to govern; and the German Princes who do not understand this, do not deserve to rule over such a people. Do not be frightened, for younger ones are quite unable to estimate how great is the progress which the Germans have made towards political unity. I have lived through it, and I know this people. You are marching towards a great future. You will live to see it, not I; but then think of the old man."

Stockmar's policy was constantly directed towards:—

1. German unity under the headship of Prussia; and subsidiary to this:—
2. A cordial understanding and alliance between England and Germany;
3. The harmonizing of democracy with the throne through constitutional monarchy.

An apparent accident enabled him to obtain a place in the world of European politics, from which he could work for these ends. Born in 1787, the son of a lawyer in the little German town of Coburg, nothing could have appeared less likely than that Christian Friedrich Stockmar would have any weight in settling the affairs of nations. But having been trained for the medical profession, and having distinguished himself for courage and organizing capacity as an army surgeon, he was appointed physician in the household of Prince Leopold on the occasion of his marriage to Princess Charlotte in 1816. This introduced him to political personages in England. From henceforth we have flashes on the bull's-eye lantern of Stockmar's letters on the great world of English politics. Nothing escaped his notice, and he gives a series of vignettes of the Royal circle very different in tone from the formal adulation which often characterized such productions. The Mulatto countenance of the Queen-mother, Queen Charlotte; the hideous face of the Duke of Cumberland, with one eye turned quite out of its place; the quiet kindliness of the Duke of Kent; the erect figure, with black hair simply cut, immense hawk's nose, tightly compressed lips, strong, massive under-jaw of the Duke of Wellington, with his easy, simple, friendly manners, and his moderation at table, are all noted; so are Castlereagh's bad French and not very good English; the Grand Duke Nicholas (afterwards the Emperor Nicholas of the Crimean War), "a singularly handsome, attractive young fellow, … very well mannered, with a decided talent for flirting. … When Countess Lieven played after dinner on the piano he kissed her hand, which struck the English ladies present as peculiar, but decidedly desirable." Those who are apt to take alarm at the advent of "The New Woman" will perhaps learn with surprise that she is not so very new after all. Mrs. Campbell, Lady-in-Waiting to Princess Charlotte "opposes everything she sees and hears, and meets everything that men can say or do with such persistent contradiction that we can tell beforehand what will be her answers to our questions. This lady, however, professed man-hater though she was, thought with the rest of the women that the Grand Duke Nicholas was charming." Mrs. Campbell could not cease praising him. "What an amiable creature; he is devilish handsome. He will be the handsomest man in Europe," &c. Stockmar notes the hoidenish manners, good heart, and strong will of Princess Charlotte. "Handsomer than I expected, with most peculiar manners, … laughing a great deal, and talking still more." He was, evidently, rather shocked by her want of decorum, but he noted with satisfaction the simplicity and good taste of her dress. He was devoted to his master, and predicts that the Princess's impressionable, generous nature will develop and improve under his influence and that of a refined and affectionate home, which the poor child had never known. The Princess herself said to Stockmar: "My mother was bad, but she would not have become as bad as she was if my father had not been infinitely worse." Stockmar was devoted to Leopold, and spoke of him in a private letter as "My glorious master, a manly prince and a princely man." Leopold, on his side, spoke of Stockmar as "the most valued physician of his soul and body." In the Royal household at Claremont he was treated by both the Prince and Princess as a friend, and he fulfilled the duties of private secretary as well as physician to his master. His good sense made him decline to act as medical adviser to Princess Charlotte. This office should, he felt, devolve on an English doctor. This may have been either fortunate for himself or unfortunate for the poor Princess,—probably the latter; as there are several reasons to believe that he would have prescribed a rational treatment in the place of the purging, bleeding, and general lowering of the system which caused her death within a few hours of the birth of her stillborn son. In that dark hour of the loss of all his hopes of domestic happiness and political ambition, Leopold leant on the firm devotion of Stockmar. He made Stockmar promise never to forsake him. Kneeling at the bed where his young wife lay dead, Leopold said, "I am now quite desolate. Promise me always to stay with me." He promised. Again later the Prince reminded him of his promise, and asked him if he had considered all that it meant. He renewed the promise; but even in this moment of supreme emotion he was not carried away, for he did not promise unconditionally. "I said I would never leave him as long as I saw that he confided in me and loved me, and that I could be of use to him." He added, in writing an account of all that had happened to his sister, "I did not hesitate to promise what he may perhaps claim forever, or, perhaps, even next year, may find no longer necessary to him." Without building too much on his being permanently necessary to the Prince, he knew that he was necessary to him at the moment. No elder brother was ever more tender than Stockmar to Leopold at the time of his bereavement. He never left him, he slept in his room; if the Prince woke in the night Stockmar got up and talked him to sleep again. He watched over him morally and physically, and devised remedies and occupations for him. He encouraged him to stay in England and to devote himself to the study of the English language and literature and constitutional history, and to interest himself in the social and political questions of the day. It is probably a universal experience that love and service go together. One never loves, either human beings or causes, till one has done something for them. Therefore the more Stockmar served Leopold the more he loved him; and the relation between them became almost unique in Royal annals.

He lived with Leopold almost continuously in England till 1831, when his master was chosen King of the Belgians; the limited monarchy of the Belgian Constitution was as much the work of Stockmar as that of the King. Stockmar returned to England as soon as the birth of the Belgian monarchy was safely accomplished, to wind up the affairs consequent on Leopold's relinquishment of his English annuity; and when this completed he retired to Coburg, in 1834. Stockmar had strongly advised Leopold on ascending the Belgian throne to give up the £50,000 a year which the House of Commons voted him on his marriage with Princess Charlotte. Leopold consented to do so, charging it, however, with his debts, amounting to £83,000, and with the keeping up of Claremont, the residue to be repaid to the Treasury, and that Leopold would be back before the debts were paid. However, events proved that he had underestimated Leopold's capacity, and the durability of the Belgian monarchy. In the storms of 1848, the constitutional thrones of England and Belgium, both of them owing much to Stockmar's political genius, stood firm and strong when nearly every other in Europe was shaken.

In 1834 it was Stockmar's purpose to retire into private life at Coburg; however, we soon find him engaged in arranging a marriage between Prince Ferdinand of Coburg, a cousin of Prince Albert's, and the Queen of Portugal; and in May, 1837, he returned to England to furnish help and advice to Princess Victoria immediately upon her attaining her majority. This event took place on May 24th, 1837, and Stockmar arrived at Kensington on the 25th. The King was even then very ill, and it was certain that the Princess would soon become Queen. Stockmar had known her intimately from her birth, and his presence in England was of the greatest use and assistance to her. George IV. and William IV. had both employed private secretaries. Stockmar arranged that no similar appointment should be made by the young Queen, having in mind that when the time came the proper private secretary would be found in the person of the future husband. The duties of private secretary were therefore divided, as had been seen, between himself, Lord Melbourne, and Baroness Lehzen, formerly the Queen's governess.

Stockmar's chief work at this time was that of political tutor to the Queen. He drilled her in the principles of constitutional monarchy. In this he was not helped, but was thwarted, by Melbourne, who, as a strong party man, desired to enlist the Sovereign as a partisan of the Whigs. Stockmar's doctrine ever was that the Sovereign was chief, not of a faction, but of the whole nation; that her moderating influence should be brought to bear on successive party leaders, who from time to time might be tempted to sacrifice national interests to party triumphs; that for "the perfect working of the English constitution, the Sovereign should not only set the example of a pure and dignified life, but should be potential in Cabinet and Council, through a breadth of view, unwarped by the bias, and undistracted by the passions, of party, and also, in the case of a long reign, through the weight of an accumulated knowledge and experience, to which not even the most practised statesmen could lay claim."

It is needless to say that the eighteen-year-old Queen did not at once appreciate this lofty view of her position and functions. This was reserved for a later period, after she had learned from some of her own mistakes, and when she had associated with her as "permanent Minister," Stockmar's other pupil, the Prince to whom, in 1840, she gave her hand in marriage.

We know that Leopold had long ago settled who she Queen's husband should be; but it is characteristic of Stockmar's independence that he was at first by no means sure that his master had made the best choice. He had been so much away from Coburg that he did not know Prince Albert intimately. Leopold sent him as travelling companion to the young Prince on his journey to Italy in 1838, but Stockmar still had his doubts of Prince Albert's strength and energy. He found him him a certain lethargy of mind, and disposition to spare himself both physically and mentally; a tendency to impulsiveness, without the continuous motive-force to carry through what he had conceived. He was startled to find in the future husband of the Queen of England an almost entire want of interest in politics; the Prince, in 1838, wished there was only one newspaper, The Augsburg Times; and he did not even read that! Stockmar also found the Prince lacking in ease and grace of manner. He admitted the Prince's many good qualities and great intelligence, but wrote, "All this, however, does not yet suffice. He must not only have great capacity, but true ambition and great strength of will. … I will watch him closely, and endeavor to become better acquainted with him. If I find that at all points there is sufficient stability in him, it becomes a matter of duty that the first step taken should be to explain to him all the difficulties of the undertaking."

It is characteristic of Stockmar that even after he was convinced that he had at first underestimated the Prince, and that it would be impossible to make a better choice of a husband for the Queen, he did not allow politics did not exclude morals; the next step after a suitable education for the Prince was that he should win the affection of the Princess, so that the marriage should be founded on a stable basis of mutual love.

Nothing could be more erroneous than to suppose that Stockmar gained his great influence with the Queen and Prince by judicious flattery. Affection and admiration he had in abundance for both of them; the Prince especially he came to love as a son; but his rule of conduct with them and with all other Royal personages was to speak out fully and frankly what was in his mind, not at all to echo what he thought was in theirs. He did not in this nor in other things act so much by instinct as by settled rule. "If you are consulted by princes to whom you are attached," he wrote to the Belgian Minister, M. Van de Weyer, "give your opinion truthfully, boldly, and without reserve. Should your opinion not be palatable, do not, to please or conciliate him, deviate for a moment from what you think the truth." It was this absolute sincerity which gave his advice its weight and value. His early letters to the Prince are characterized by sharp criticism, such as few young men in any position would take in good part; and it is very much to the credit of the Prince that he was able to do so; for instance, on leaving England in 1841, Stockmar wrote a long letter to the Prince, in the course of which he dwells on the tendency he had observed in him to be carried away "by impulses and predilections for men and things which spring from mistaken or perverted feeling. This tendency, which on a close self-scrutiny you will find to be the result either of weakness or vanity, should because of its very origin be most strenuously subdued. The same defect too often leads your Royal Highness, even in matters of moment, to rest satisfied with mere talk, where action is alone appropriate. It is, therefore, not merely unworthy of you, but extremely mischievous."

Later, in 1847, although his affection for the Prince had grown greatly, and his confidence in his character still more, he calls him sharply to task for regarding the movement in German politics from a too exclusively dynastic standpoint, and also, with imperfect information, for expressing an opinion at all; he tells the Prince that he fails, from lack of knowledge and dynastic prejudice, rightly to grasp and appreciate the actual present condition and wants of the German people; that the current of opinion among thinking people in all classes in Germany was running strongly towards the conviction that the chief impediments to German national life were the dynastic sentiments, the pride and self-seeking of the numerous German princes; he declares that no men are so ignorant as the German princes of what was going on around them, and that their ignorance, arising from class prejudice, blinds them to their own true interests, which really lay in the direction of the development of political liberty among their people. He implores the Prince not to come out with a ready-made plan for the regeneration of the Fatherland, which would only betray his ignorance of the vital facts of the situation, and show him to be out of harmony with the spirit and tendency of the age. Nothing could be more outspoken than the whole of the letter, which covers more than seven pages of the biography of the Prince Consort. It shows Stockmar at his best as political preceptor to the Prince, and the Prince at his best as pupil, accepting the lecture with frankness and humility, and without a trace of resentment.

It appeared from time to time that the Queen was extremely sensitive as to the precedence of the Prince, especially in relation to foreign Sovereigns, and that she desired to confer on her husband the title of King Consort. Stockmar was strongly opposed to this. On a report reaching him in Coburg in 1845, that the matter was about to be broached, he wrote to the Prince: "What can it be which has led to the reopening of that report? … Meanwhile on this head I write a word of warning and entreaty. Never abandon your firm, lofty, powerful, impregnable position in order to run after trifles. You have the substance; stick by it, for the good of your wife and children, and do not suffer yourself to be seduced even by the wishes of affection into bartering substance for show." It was not till 1857 that effect was given to the wishes of the Queen and the title of Prince Consort was conferred on her husband by Letters Patent. In the letter from the Prince conveying this news to Stockmar he remarks that for nearly nineteen years he has valued above all others his old friend's judgment on matters concerning himself, and he had the satisfaction of learning that Stockmar's objection to a change in his title had been abandoned. Stockmar's independence of Court forms and ceremonies was illustrated by his habit of slipping away after his numerous and prolonged visits to the Queen and her husband, without telling any one he was going or bidding farewell to his Royal hosts. They would come to his rooms to find him gone. The same disposition was also shown towards the close of his life by his entirely ceasing to reply to the Prince Consort's constant letters. Stockmar, though not by any means very old, had many of the infirmities of age, and was disinclined to write; therefore he did not write, though the Prince frequently begs quite pathetically for "one little line."

In the earlier years of the Queen's married life Stockmar watched her development and that of her husband with eyes partly parental and partly pedagogic. He wrote to Bunsen in 1847:—

"The Prince has made great strides of late. … Place weighty reasons before him, and at once he takes a just and rational view, be the subject what it may. … He will not and then run against a post and bruise his shins, but a man cannot become an experienced soldier without having been in battle and getting a few blows. … His temper is thoroughly free from passion, and he has so keen and sure an eye that he is not likely to lose his way and fall into mistakes. His mind becomes every day more active, and he devotes the greater part of his time to business, without a murmur. The relations between husband and wife are all one could desire. The Queen also improves greatly. She gains daily in judgment and experience. The candor, truthfulness, honesty, and fairness with which she judges of men and things are really delightful, and the impartial self-knowledge with which she speaks of herself is thoroughly charming."

It was Stockmar's habit, rarely departed from between 1840 to 1856, to spend the winter months of each year with the Queen and Prince, and the reset of the year with his own family in Coburg. His political activity and interests were vigilantly kept up from his own home, but he compares the outlook on politics in Coburg and London with strong preference for the latter. London, he says, is a high watch-tower, from which he could command the whole of Europe, and Coburg, "a little hole in an old stove."

He was equally at home in organizing a nursery establishment for the Queen and Prince, in directing the religious and general education of the Royal children, in planning and carrying out extensive reforms in the Royal household, in setting the private financial affairs of the Sovereign on a sound footing, and in far-reaching schemes of political development. He often combined the domestic with the political in a manner that was almost feminine. His chief political object in life was the unity of Germany under the leadership of Prussia, and secondary to this, the development of a good understanding between England and Prussia, and the spread of Constitutional monarchy all over the Continent. It was indirectly to serve all these ends that he strongly advised, on the birth of the Prince of Wales, that the King, Frederick William IV., of Prussia, should be invited to England to be godfather to the young heir. The King of Hanover, we learn, was furious at this. But Stockmar hoped that the visit of the King of Prussia would promote friendly personal relations between the two Royal Houses; it is probable that he already had his eye on the little Princess Royal as the future bride of Prince Frederick William of Prussia; he also expected that the King of Prussia would be favorably impressed by the free political institutions of England, and become less averse to their establishment in his own country. Stockmar's method of recommending Constitutional government to foreign princes was to use every suitable opportunity for having them invited to the English Court, so that the advantages of free institutions might insensibly commend themselves by way of object lessons. Palmerston was also a great admirer of the free institutions of his country; but his way of recommending them to foreign governments was to write despatches from the Foreign Office in London to the English ambassadors in various capitals of Europe, with instructions that these documents were to be communicated to the respective governments to which the ambassadors were accredited, to say how vastly superior the English system of government was to that pursued by the benighted foreigner. To have the same end in view and to pursue it by diametrically opposite methods is an almost certain receipt for personal animosity; and it is not too much to say that Stockmar and Palmerston were actively hostile to each other all through the former's participation in English political life. Yet Palmerston, along with other English statesmen, cordially acknowledged Stockmar's absolute honesty and disinterestedness, and also his great political capacity. Palmerston spoke of Stockmar to Bunsen as the only perfectly disinterested character he had ever met with in the political world; and again on another occasion he said Stockmar had one of the best political heads he had ever met with. Stockmar did not return the compliment. He could not forgive Palmerston for pursuing good ends by wrong methods; he accused him of a narrow insularity, of being flippant and obstinate at the same time; one good quality he allowed him,—that he was not a Frenchman. The antagonism between these two opposing forces in the great world of politics had an important bearing on the personal history of the Queen and her husband, which will be the subject of a future chapter.