Mr. Punch's History of Modern England (Vol. 1-4). Charles L. Graves
their accustomed rounds.
With them, to bear them company,
Prince Leiningen he went,
And with the other royal three,
The Duchess, eke, of Kent.
His Royal Highness Prince of Wales
Went forth to take the air;
The Princess Royal, too, ne'er fails
His exercise to share.
On the young members of the flock
Was tenderest care bestowed,
For two long hours by the clock
They walked—they ran—they rode.
Calmly away the hours wear
In Osborne's tranquil shade,
And to the dinner-party there
Was no addition made.
Judge-Advocate Sir D. Dundas
Having returned to town,
The Royal family circle has
Settled serenely down.
It is not too much to assume that Punch's ridicule assisted in eliminating some, at least, of these excrescences on the official record of life at Court.
We may pass over the chaff of Prince Albert as a farmer, and of his prize pigs and oxen. The bestowal of the D.C.L. degree at Cambridge in October, 1843, is treated with acidulated satire, and in his imaginary speech in dog-latin the Prince presents the University with a new academic cap (novus pileus academicus) of his own designing. A month later the Prince's gratuitous distribution, through the clergy, of Professor Buckland's pamphlet on the treatment of the potato—on the eve of the Irish famine—is described as a mockery to hungry people, "but then Princes are such wags," adds Punch. The much-canvassed appointment of the Prince as Chancellor of Cambridge University in 1847 led to sardonic comment:—
Nothing in England has been thought too good for the members of this happy family; but really it is rather too humiliating when we begin to express our doubts whether we can find anything, among the most venerable of our institutions, good enough to place at the feet of a Prince of Saxe-Gotha.
The Prince of Bricklayers
But though the compliment is left-handed, there are symptoms of a friendlier tone in the parallel between Prince Hal (Henry V) and Prince "Al." Punch, furthermore, congratulates the Prince on giving up the hat-business, interesting himself in the welfare of the working classes, and contributing by his speeches and subscriptions to the advancement of social reform. A year later he is saluted as the Prince of Bricklayers:—
His Royal Highness is now always laying the foundation stone of some charitable institution or other. … The services of Her Majesty's Consort ought to be duly requited, and Punch, in order to reward him in kind, hereby spreads the mortar of approbation with the trowel of sincerity, upon a Prince who really appears to be coming out like a regular brick.
But, as we have noted elsewhere, it was the Exhibition of 1851 which, more than anything else, tended to enhance the Prince's repute and popularity. It was a great and fruitful idea—and the Prince was its only begetter. The speech of the Prince Consort in explaining the significance of the Exhibition as the realizing of the solidarity of the world, Thackeray's May Day Ode, which appeared in The Times, and other utterances in the Press show, as Professor Bury points out in The Idea of Progress, that "the Exhibition was, at the time, optimistically regarded not merely as a record of material achievement and technical progress, but as a demonstration that humanity was at last on its way to a better and happier state. … A vista was suggested, at the end of which far-sighted people might think they discerned Tennyson's 'Federation of the World.'" Punch never failed to give the Prince the credit of initiating the scheme, and, after a little wavering, gave it his enthusiastic support. The change in public opinion towards the Prince is well reflected in the frank but friendly palinode which appeared in the issue of November 26, 1853, as a result of the suggestion made by City magnates to erect a statue to the Prince in Hyde Park:—
PRINCE PUNCH TO PRINCE ALBERT
Illustrious and excellent brother,
Don't consider me rude or unkind,
If, as from one Prince to another,
I give you a bit of my mind—
And I do so with all the more roundness,
As your conduct amongst us has shown
A propriety, judgment and soundness
Of taste, not surpassed by my own.
You've respected John Bull's little oddities,
Never trod on the old fellow's corns;
Chose his pictures and statues—commodities
Wherein his own blunders he mourns.
And if you're a leetle more German
In these than I'd have you—what is't
Beyond what a critic may term an
Educational bias or twist?
You have never pressed forward unbidden;
When called on you've never shown shame,
Not paraded, nor prudishly hidden
Your person, your purse, or your name;
You've lent no man occasion to call you
Intruder, intriguer, or fool;
Even I've not had often to haul you
O'er the coals, or to take you to school.
All this, my dear Prince, gives me boldness—
Which, au reste, our positions allow—
For a hint (which you'll not charge to coldness,
After all I have written just now):
Which is to put down certain flunkies,
Who by flatt'ry your favour would earn,
Pelting praise at your head, as at monkeys
Tars throw stones—to get nuts in return.
Then silence your civic applauders,
Lest better men cease from applause.
He who tribute accepts of marauders,
Is held to be pledged to their cause.
Let no Corporate magnates of London
An honour presume to award:
Their own needs, till ill-doings be undone,
Little honour to spare can afford!
Prince Punch to Prince Albert
A little later on, on the eve of the Crimean War, Punch was evidently impressed by the alleged interference of the Prince in high affairs of State. The cartoon of January 7, 1854, represents the Prince skating on thin ice marked "Foreign Affairs—Very Dangerous," and Mr. Punch shouting to him; and in the same issue the lines "Hint and Hypothesis" warn the Prince against shifting his tactics and adopting the rôle of an intriguer. These rumours were so persistent that Lord Aberdeen felt it necessary to allude to them in the House of Lords at the opening of the Session, declaring that not only was there no foundation for the charge that the Prince had interfered with the Army or the Horse Guards, but that he had declined the suggestion of the Duke of Wellington that he should succeed him as Commander-in-Chief. His interest in the Army was naturally keen, but it was general. That he was the adviser of the Queen, in his capacity of husband and most intimate companion was beyond all doubt, but Lord Aberdeen vigorously maintained that he had never uttered a single Syllable in the Council which had not tended to the honour, the interest, and