Stockmar was deeply involved in German politics; and he had a multitude of

relatives among the ruling German families, who, from the midst of the
hurly-burly of revolution, wrote him long and agitated letters once a week.

Having considered the question of Germany's future from every point of view,
he came to the conclusion, under Stockmar's guidance, that the great aim for

every lover of Germany should be her unification under the sovereignty" target="_blank" title="n.主权；君权">sovereignty of
Prussia. The intricacy of the situation was extreme, and the possibilities of

good or evil which every hour might bring forth were incalculable; yet he saw
with horror that Palmerston neither understood nor cared to understand the

niceties of this momentous problem, but rushed on blindly, dealing blows to
right and left, quite--so far as he could see--without system, and even

without motive--except, indeed, a totallyunreasonabledistrust of the
Prussian State.

But his disagreement with the details of Palmerston's policy was in reality
merely a symptom of the fundamental differences between the characters of the

two men. In Albert's eyes Palmerston was a coarse, reckless egotist, whose
combined arrogance and ignorance must inevitably have their issue in folly and

disaster. Nothing could be more antipathetic to him than a mind so strangely
lacking in patience, in reflection, in principle, and in the habits of

ratiocination. For to him it was intolerable to think in a hurry, to jump to
slapdash decisions, to act on instincts that could not be explained.

Everything must be done in due order, with careful premeditation; the premises
of the position must first be firmly established; and he must reach the

correct conclusion by a regular series of rational steps. In complicated
questions--and what questions, rightly looked at, were not complicated?--to

commit one's thoughts to paper was the wisest course, and it was the course
which Albert, laborious though it might be, invariably adopted. It was as

well, too, to draw up a reasoned statement after an event, as well as before
it; and accordingly, whatever happened, it was always found that the Prince

had made a memorandum. On one occasion he reduced to six pages of foolscap the
substance of a confidential conversation with Sir Robert Peel, and, having

read them aloud to him, asked him to append his signature; Sir Robert, who
never liked to commit himself, became extremely uneasy; upon which the Prince,

understanding that it was necessary to humour the singular susceptibilities of
Englishmen, with great tact dropped that particular memorandum into the fire.

But as for Palmerston, he never even gave one so much as a chance to read him
a memorandum, he positively seemed to dislikediscussion; and, before one knew

where one was, without any warningwhatever, he would plunge into some
hare-brained, violentproject, which, as likely as not, would logically

involve a European war. Closely connected, too, with this cautious,
painstaking reasonableness of Albert's, was his desire to examine questions

thoroughly from every point of view, to go down to the roots of things, and to
act in strictaccordance with some well-defined principle. Under Stockmar's

tutelage he was constantly engaged in enlarging his outlook and in
endeavouring to envisage vital problems both theoretically and

practically--both with precision and with depth. To one whose mind was thus
habitually occupied, the empirical activities of Palmerston, who had no notion

what a principle meant, resembled the incoherent vagaries of a tiresome child.
What did Palmerston know of economics, of science, of history? What did he

care for morality and education? How much consideration had he devoted in the
whole course of his life to the improvement of the condition of the

working-classes and to the general amelioration of the human race? The answers
to such questions were all too obvious; and yet it is easy to imagine, also,

what might have been Palmerston's jaunty comment. "Ah! your Royal Highness is
busy with fine schemes and beneficent calculations exactly! Well, as for me, I

must say I'm quite satisfied with my morning's work--I've had the iron hurdles
taken out of the Green Park."

The exasperating man, however, preferred to make no comment, and to proceed in
smiling silence on his inexcusable way. The process of "brushing on one side"

very soon came into operation. Important Foreign Office despatches were either
submitted to the Queen so late that there was no time to correct them, or they

were not submitted to her at all; or, having been submitted, and some passage
in them being objected to and an alteration suggested, they were after all

sent off in their original form. The Queen complained, the Prince complained:
both complained together. It was quite useless. Palmerston was most

apologetic--could not understand how it had occurred--must give the clerks a
wigging--certainly Her Majesty's wishes should be attended to, and such a

thing should never happen again. But, of course, it very soon happened again,
and the royal remonstrances redoubled. Victoria, her partisan passions

thoroughly aroused, imported into her protests a personal vehemence which
those of Albert lacked. Did Lord Palmerston forget that she was Queen of

England? How could she tolerate a state of affairs in which despatches written
in her name were sent abroad without her approval or even her knowledge? What

could be more derogatory to her position than to be obliged to receive
indignant letters from the crowned heads to whom those despatches were

addressed--letters which she did not know how to answer, since she so
thoroughly agreed with them? She addressed herself to the Prime Minister. "No

remonstrance has any effect with Lord Palmerston," she said. "Lord
Palmerston," she told him on another occasion, "has as usual pretended not to

have had time to submit the draft to the Queen before he had sent it off." She
summoned Lord John to her presence, poured out her indignation, and

afterwards, on the advice of Albert, noted down what had passed in a
memorandum: "I said that I thought that Lord Palmerston often endangered the

honour of England by taking a very prejudiced and one-sided view of a
question; that his writings were always as bitter as gall and did great harm,

which Lord John entirely assented to, and that I often felt quite ill from
anxiety." Then she turned to her uncle. "The state of Germany," she wrote in a

comprehensive and despairingreview of the European situation, "is dreadful,
and one does feel quite ashamed about that once really so peaceful and happy

country. That there are still good people there I am sure, but they allow
themselves to be worked upon in a frightful and shameful way. In France a

crisis seems at hand. WHAT a very bad figure we cut in this mediation! Really
it is quite immoral, with Ireland quivering in our grasp and ready to throw

off her allegiance at any moment, for us to force Austria to give up her
lawful possessions. What shall we say if Canada, Malta, etc., begin to trouble

us? It hurts me terribly." But what did Lord Palmerston care?
Lord John's position grew more and more irksome. He did not approve of his

colleague's treatment of the Queen. When he begged him to be more careful, he
was met with the reply that 28,000 despatches passed through the Foreign

Office in a single year, that, if every one of these were to be subjected to
the royal criticism, the delay would be most serious, that, as it was, the

waste of time and the worry involved in submitting drafts to the meticulous
examination of Prince Albert was almost too much for an overworked Minister,

and that, as a matter of fact, the postponement of important decisions owing
to this cause had already produced very unpleasantdiplomatic consequences.

These excuses would have impressed Lord John more favourably if he had not
himself had to suffer from a similar neglect. As often as not Palmerston

failed to communicate even to him the most important despatches. The Foreign
Secretary was becoming an almost independent power, acting on his own

initiative, and swaying the policy of England on his own responsibility. On
one occasion, in 1847, he had actually been upon the point of threatening to

break off diplomatic relations with France without consulting either the
Cabinet or the Prime Minister. And such incidents were constantly recurring.

When this became known to the Prince, he saw that his opportunity had come. If
he could only drive in to the utmost the wedge between the two statesmen, if

he could only secure the alliance of Lord John, then the suppression or the
removal of Lord Palmerston would be almost certain to follow. He set about the

business with all the pertinacity of his nature. Both he and the Queen put
every kind of pressure upon the Prime Minister. They wrote, they harangued,

they relapsed into awful silence. It occurred to them that Lord Clarendon, an
important member of the Cabinet, would be a useful channel for their griefs.

They commanded him to dine at the Palace, and, directly the meal was over,
"the Queen," as he described it afterwards, "exploded, and went with the

utmostvehemence and bitterness into the whole of Palmerston's conduct, all
the effects produced all over the world, and all her own feelings and

sentiments about it." When she had finished, the Prince took up the tale, with
less excitement, but with equal force. Lord Clarendon found himself in an

awkward situation; he disliked Palmerston's policy, but he was his colleague,
and he disapproved of the attitude of his royal hosts. In his opinion, they

were "wrong in wishing that courtiers rather than Ministers should conduct the
affairs of the country," and he thought that they "laboured under the curious

mistake that the Foreign Office was their peculiar department, and that they
had the right to control, if not to direct, the foreign policy of England."

He, therefore, with extremepoliteness, gave it to be understood that he would
not commit himself in any way. But Lord John, in reality, needed no pressure.

Attacked by his Sovereign, ignored by his Foreign Secretary, he led a
miserable life. With the advent of the dreadful Schleswig-Holstein

question--the most complex in the whole diplomatic history of Europe--his
position, crushed between the upper and the nether mill-stones, grew

positivelyunbearable. He became anxious above all things to get Palmerston
out of the Foreign Office. But then--supposing Palmerston refused to go?

In a memorandum made by the Prince, at about this time, of an interview
between himself, the Queen, and the Prime Minister, we catch a curious glimpse

of the states of mind of those three high personages--the anxiety and
irritation of Lord John, the vehement acrimony of Victoria, and the reasonable

animosity of Albert--drawn together, as it were, under the shadow of an unseen
Presence, the cause of that celestial anger--the gay, portentous Palmerston.

At one point in the conversation Lord John observed that he believed the
Foreign Secretary would consent to a change of offices; Lord Palmerston, he

said, realised that he had lost the Queen's confidence--though only on public,
and not on personal, grounds. But on that, the Prince noted, "the Queen