Littell's Living Age/Volume 126/Issue 1621/The Influence of the Court

From The Spectator.

THE INFLUENCE OF THE COURT.

The paper on the Court of Queen Victoria in the Contemporary Review for this month, if not so interesting as it was expected to be, has nevertheless a certain real importance. It is rumoured to be the work of Mr. Gladstone, the internal evidence of style is in favour of the rumour, and if it is written, or even inspired, by the late premier, it contains, amid much that must be accounted verbiage — we mean no disrespect by the phrase, great orators rarely can write concisely — a definite opinion by a statesman of unusual experience as to the precise position of the sovereign in our modern Constitution. This opinion is summed up in the statement quoted everywhere this week, that during the long reign of Queen Victoria the kingship has finally been transformed by the silent "substitution of influence for power." Not that the power in its more direct form has wholly departed. According to the essayist, "the whole power of the State periodically returns into the royal hands whenever a ministry is changed," the sovereign, though no longer able to reject a policy on which her counsellors have decided, as George III. and George IV. for many years rejected Catholic emancipation, being still able to delay, to prevent, or greatly to modify an impending change in the administration. This actually occurred in 1839, on the resignation of Lord Melbourne, when the queen, then a girl, did, says the essayist, by an exercise of will on what was known as the bedchamber question, delay the entrance of Sir Robert Peel to office for two and a half years. Of course Sir Robert Peel's position as premier, without a clear majority, was a special one; but still he might have formed a sufficiently stable ministry, but for the determined resistance of the queen, a resistance which on the point at issue was ultimately successful. It is rumoured also that a direct exercise of power was made when in 1858 the queen, by positively refusing to sign any more Indian commissions, forced the policy of amalgamation upon her advisers; and in 1851, when Lord Palmerston was so sharply expelled from place, the sovereign's displeasure was certainly the cause. As a rule, however, influence has been substituted for power, and the object of the essayist, apart from his eulogy on the Prince Consort which is just, but in this year of grace a little tiresome, is to show that this transformation, which is now, he believes, "matured," still leaves the throne a most important factor in the constitutional system.

There can be no doubt that the essayist is correct as to the fact, but the explanations he advances for the fact do not, we confess, content us. That Queen Victoria has great power in Great Britain, much greater power than she is popularly believed to have, is, we imagine, a statement which will be accepted or denied in exact proportion to the questioner's experience or ignorance of the inner political life of this country during the last thirty years; and this power is not derived entirely from either her history, which is only half remembered by the new generation, or her character, which is only partially understood. Any sovereign who would work must, while the throne endures, have in this country a considerable share of power. After all the changes and transformations which have taken place in the authority of the English kings, the occupant of the throne has still a right of secret supervision of the most effective kind. He must be told, often at an immense expenditure of energy, the secret history of everything that occurs. If he objects, he must be persuaded. If he remonstrates, he must be conciliated. If he argues, he must have a reason; and if he writes, he must have an intelligible and adequate reply. Moreover, all these necessities must be complied with in a deferential manner, by men who would lose power if considered to have treated the sovereign with disrespect, and by men who either feel for themselves or recognize that others feel that mystical influence of the kingship, of its traditional superiority to all other positions, which certainly is neither dead nor dying. Then the sovereign, if a worker, not only gathers more experience than any minister, even a premier, can, seeing all departments, as well as all the jealousies and differences among all their chiefs, but possesses, as the essayist admits, personal means, through relationships, friendships, and accidents, of knowing what is going on abroad, and some special means of influencing current events. Europe is governed by persons who are still invested with power as well as influence, and those persons are greatly moved by the representations of their own caste, of the few human beings with whom they feel on an equality, who do not offend them by plainness — witness the queen's letters on the Spanish marriages — and towards whom they feel bound to maintain an attitude of deferential courtesy. Caste opinion is a great power, and Louis Philippe did not at all like to feel that Queen Victoria thought him in relation to the Spanish intrigue a scamp or worse, while Louis Napoleon did feel himself raised several inches in Europe by the equality to which he was admitted by the queen. Add that the precise limits of power in a constitutional country are almost imperceptible to foreign statesmen, and that the most experienced kings are constantly tempted to forget that prerogative and power are not always conterminous — witness the king of Prussia's request for a reprieve of Müller — and we perceive a genuine source of authority vested indestructibly in any sovereign who will use it. Then there is the weight of the sovereign in all questions of the higher patronage. The essayist notes this as equivalent to actual power during a ministerial interregnum, but we conceive that it is in one way a power even when a ministry is in office. The sovereign can no longer make a minister, or a bishop, or a peer by mere fiat, as George III. and at times even George IV. could do, but the range of persons who could be elevated to high posts in spite of a fixed dislike on the part of the crown is very limited. No bishop could be so made, for no bishop can have the support which would make it worth the while of a cabinet seriously to annoy the sovereign in order to secure his nomination. Scarcely any peer could be so made, for the same reason, unless absolutely required for purposes of debate, and scarcely any minister except of the first class. In every cabinet there are three or four men whom the premier must have, and probably one more whom he will have, but amongst the ruck of aspirants to office, always so much more numerous than the posts to be distributed, the favour or disfavour of the crown would act as a great make-weight or retarding force. A working sovereign who takes trouble, and who recollects careers, has in this influence upon patronage an immense source of authority, which is not the less because the premier through whom it is exercised does not forget that, when parties become equal, the throne holds a deciding voice, or that any king can merely by his privileges of etiquette make any minister brought daily into contact with him very uncomfortable. Finally, there is the influence over the people which resides permanently in the sovereign simply as such, and the extent of which is almost incalculable. The essayist, be he Mr. Gladstone or not, describes and analyzes this influence, so far as it affects society, with great acumen: — "With us, society is passing under many subtle, yet vital changes. It must never be forgotten that wealth is now in England no longer the possession of a few, but rather what is termed a 'drug.' That is to say, it is diffused through a circle so much extended, and so fast extending, that to be wealthy does not of itself satisfy; and the keenness of the unsatisfied desire, aspiring selfishly not to superiority, but rather to the marks of superiority, seeks them above all in the shape of what we term social distinction. But the true test of the highest social distinction in this country is nearness to the monarch; and all this avidity for access, for notice, for favour, expresses an amount of readiness to conform, to follow, to come under influence, which may often be indifferent enough in quality, but is very large in quantity." He does not, however, add, and the reticence may be wise, that the influence of the sovereign over the masses is possibly much greater than his influence over society. No occasion for its exercise and no opportunity has arisen since the accession of the House of Hanover, and it is impossible, therefore, to offer evidence of the correctness of an opinion on either side; but we should be much inclined to question whether Lord Brougham's test of the British Constitution was the hardest to which it could possibly be subjected. He dreaded the appearance of a political genius on the throne, who might burst the constitutional withes. We should dread far more the appearance there of a popular philanthropist, who should enlist the personal devotion of the populace.

The condition, however, upon which all this power accretes to the sovereign seems to us to be work. As we view it, the gradual transformation of the kingship of which Mr. Gladstone speaks has not merely been the substitution of influence for power, but the substitution of a baton for a sceptre, — of a symbol, that is, which it requires effort to wield, for a symbol which expresses itself. An unpopular king might have great power in England, for he might have great weight upon the minds of her governing men. A Mr. Ayrton on the throne is quite conceivable, and would certainly be no lay-figure. A vicious king, if genial, might have power, for popularity and character are by no means quite so closely allied as moralists would wish. But an idle king would, we conceive, exercise very little power in Great Britain. A king who did not keep up a suffocating correspondence would soon find himself politically forgotten. A king who did not watch careers would at once lose his influence on politics. A king who did not study the information placed before him would soon find his remonstrances turned aside, or if he were troublesome as well as ignorant, would soon receive respectful representations telling him in humble language that the State coach must go on. The influence over the people might be given up, as it was never acquired by any of the Georges but the Third. The influence over society is not essential, and has, in fact, been surrendered by the reigning monarch under a passion for seclusion. But the habit of work — work in order not only to perform duty, but to retain weight — is indispensable, and it is this necessity of labour which seems to us likely to become the burden of the English kingship. A king must work, as a premier must work, or the throne will be what the essayist so justly argues it is not now, an illusion. What has departed from the throne is not influence, not even power, though power has to be exercised through a heavy resisting medium, but inherent force, the force which makes itself felt without exertion or effort, the force which in Asia and in Europe during genuinely monarchical times has resided in men as insensible as statues or as feeble as children. Reigning, as well as governing, has in England become a business, and like any other business, can suffer from fitful industry or neglect.