surrounded by violent Whigs; very likely, but he would not understand that the

only alternatives to violent Whigs were violent Tories; and it would be
preposterous if his Lords and Gentlemen were to be found voting against the

Queen's. He wanted to appoint his own Private Secretary. But how could he
choose the right person? Lord M. was obviously best qualified to make the

appointment; and Lord M. had decided that the Prince should take over his own
Private Secretary--George Anson, a staunch Whig. Albert protested, but it was

useless; Victoria simply announced that Anson was appointed, and instructed
Lehzen to send the Prince an explanation of the details of the case.

Then, again, he had written anxiously upon the necessity of maintaining
unspotted the moral purity of the Court. Lord M's pupil considered that dear

Albert was strait-laced, and, in a brisk Anglo-German missive, set forth her
own views. "I like Lady A. very much," she told him, "only she is a little

strict awl particular, and too severe towards others, which is not right; for
I think one ought always to be indulgent towards other people, as I always

think, if we had not been well taken care of, we might also have gone astray.
That is always my feeling. Yet it is always right to show that one does not

like to see what is obviously wrong; but it is very dangerous to be too
severe, and I am certain that as a rule such people always greatly regret that

in their youth they have not been so careful as they ought to have been. I
have explained this so badly and written it so badly, that I fear you will

hardly be able to make it out."
On one other matter she was insistent. Since the affair of Lady Flora

Hastings, a sad fate had overtaken Sir James Clark. His flourishing practice
had quite collapsed; nobody would go to him any more. But the Queen remained

faithful. She would show the world how little she cared for their disapproval,
and she desired Albert to make "poor Clark" his physician in ordinary. He did

as he was told; but, as it turned out, the appointment was not a happy one.
The wedding-day was fixed, and it was time for Albert to tear himself away

from his family and the scenes of his childhood. With an aching heart, he had
revisited his beloved haunts--the woods and the valleys where he had spent so

many happy hours shooting rabbits and collecting botanical specimens; in deep
depression, he had sat through the farewell banquets in the Palace and

listened to the Freischutz performed by the State band. It was time to go. The
streets were packed as he drove through them; for a short space his eyes were

gladdened by a sea of friendly German faces, and his ears by a gathering
volume of good guttural sounds. He stopped to bid a last adieu to his

grandmother. It was a heartrending moment. "Albert! Albert!" she shrieked, and
fell fainting into the arms of her attendants as his carriage drove away. He

was whirled rapidly to his destiny. At Calais a steamboat awaited him, and,
together with his father and his brother, he stepped, dejected, on board. A

little later, he was more dejected still. The crossing was a very rough one;
the Duke went hurriedly below; while the two Princes, we are told, lay on

either side of the cabin staircase "in an almost helpless state." At Dover a
large crowd was collected on the pier, and "it was by no common effort that

Prince Albert, who had continued to suffer up to the last moment, got up to
bow to the people." His sense of duty triumphed. It was a curious omen: his

whole life in England was foreshadowed as he landed on English ground.
Meanwhile Victoria, in growing agitation, was a prey to temper and to nerves.

She grew feverish, and at last Sir James Clark pronounced that she was going
to have the measles. But, once again, Sir James's diagnosis was incorrect. It

was not the measles that were attacking her, but a very different malady; she
was suddenly prostrated by alarm, regret, and doubt. For two years she had

been her own mistress--the two happiest years, by far, of her life. And now it
was all to end! She was to come under an alien domination--she would have to

promise that she would honour and obey... someone, who might, after all,
thwart her, oppose her--and how dreadful that would be! Why had she embarked

on this hazardous experiment? Why had she not been contented with Lord M.? No
doubt, she loved Albert; but she loved power too. At any rate, one thing was

certain: she might be Albert's wife, but she would always be Queen of England.
He reappeared, in an exquisite uniform, and her hesitations melted in his

presence like mist before the sun. On February 10, 1840, the marriage took
place. The wedded pair drove down to Windsor; but they were not, of course,

entirely alone. They were accompanied by their suites, and, in particular, by
two persons--the Baron Stockmar and the Baroness Lehzen.

III
Albert had foreseen that his married life would not be all plain sailing; but

he had by no means realised the gravity and the complication of the
difficulties which he would have to face. Politically, he was a cipher. Lord

Melbourne was not only Prime Minister, he was in effect the Private Secretary
of the Queen, and thus controlled the whole of the political existence of the

sovereign. A queen's husband was an entity unknown to the British
Constitution. In State affairs there seemed to be no place for him; nor was

Victoria herself at all unwilling that this should be so. "The English," she
had told the Prince when, during their engagement, a proposal had been made to

give him a peerage, "are very jealous of any foreigner interfering in the
government of this country, and have already in some of the papers expressed a

hope that you would not interfere. Now, though I know you never would, still,
if you were a Peer, they would all say, the Prince meant to play a political

part. I know you never would!" In reality, she was not quite so certain; but
she wished Albert to understand her views. He would, she hoped, make a perfect

husband; but, as for governing the country, he would see that she and Lord M.
between them could manage that very well, without his help.

But it was not only in politics that the Prince discovered that the part cut
out for him was a negligible one. Even as a husband, he found, his functions

were to be of an extremelylimited kind. Over the whole of Victoria's private
life the Baroness reigned supreme; and she had not the slightest intention of

allowing that supremacy to be diminished by one iota. Since the accession, her
power had greatly increased. Besides the undefined and enormous influence

which she exercised through her management of the Queen's private
correspondence, she was now the superintendent of the royal establishment and

controlled the important office of Privy Purse. Albert very soon perceived
that he was not master in his own house. Every detail of his own and his

wife's existence was supervised by a third person: nothing could be done until
the consent of Lehzen had first been obtained. And Victoria, who adored Lehzen

with unabated intensity, saw nothing in all this that was wrong.
Nor was the Prince happier in his social surroundings. A shy young foreigner,

awkward in ladies' company, unexpansive and self-opinionated, it was
improbable that, in any circumstances, he would have been a society success.

His appearance, too, was against him. Though in the eyes of Victoria he was
the mirror of manly beauty, her subjects, whose eyes were of a less Teutonic

cast, did not agree with her. To them--and particularly to the high-born
ladies and gentlemen who naturally saw him most--what was immediately and

distressingly striking in Albert's face and figure and whole demeanour was his
un-English look. His features were regular, no doubt, but there was something

smooth and smug about them; he was tall, but he was clumsily put together, and
he walked with a slight slouch. Really, they thought, this youth was more like

some kind of foreign tenor than anything else. These were serious
disadvantages; but the line of conduct which the Prince adopted from the first

moment of his arrival was far from calculated to dispel them. Owing partly to
a natural awkwardness, partly to a fear of undue familiarity, and partly to a

desire to be absolutely correct, his manners were infused with an
extraordinary stiffness and formality. Whenever he appeared in company, he

seemed to be surrounded by a thick hedge of prickly etiquette. He never went
out into ordinary society; he never walked in the streets of London; he was

invariably accompanied by an equerry when he rode or drove. He wanted to be
irreproachable and, if that involved friendlessness, it could not be helped.

Besides, he had no very high opinion of the English. So far as he could see,
they cared for nothing but fox-hunting and Sunday observances; they oscillated

between an undue frivolity and an undue gloom; if you spoke to them of
friendly joyousness they stared; and they did not understand either the Laws

of Thought or the wit of a German University. Since it was clear that with
such people he could have very little in common, there was no reason whatever

for relaxing in their favour the rules of etiquette. In strictprivacy, he
could be natural and charming; Seymour and Anson were devoted to him, and he

returned their affection; but they were subordinates--the receivers of his
confidences and the agents of his will. From the support and the solace of

true companionship he was utterly cut off.
A friend, indeed, he had--or rather, a mentor. The Baron, established once

more in the royal residence, was determined to work with as wholehearted a
detachment for the Prince's benefit as, more than twenty years before, he had

worked for his uncle's. The situations then and now, similar in many respects,
were yet full of differences. Perhaps in either case the difficulties to be

encountered were equally great; but the present problem was the more complex
and the more interesting. The young doctor who, unknown and insignificant, had

nothing at the back of him but his own wits and the friendship of an
unimportant Prince, had been replaced by the accomplished confidant of kings

and ministers, ripe in years, in reputation, and in the wisdom of a vast
experience. It was possible for him to treat Albert with something of the

affectionate authority of a father; but, on the other hand, Albert was no
Leopold. As the Baron was very well aware, he had none of his uncle's rigidity