Mr. Punch's History of Modern England (Vol. 1-4). Charles L. Graves
we cast a glance at the illustrious witnesses to the solemnity. There was our gracious Queen, beaming with youth and beauty, through which is ever discernible the eagle glance and the imposing air of command so well suited to her high station. Next to the Queen, the Royal Consort, one of the handsomest Princes of the age, in whom the spirit of youth is so remarkably tempered by the judgment and wisdom of age. The Queen Adelaide, living model of every Virtue which can adorn a Woman either in private life or on a throne."
So far the Morning Post. What says (perhaps?) an equal authority, The Times?
"The Queen Dowager was prevented from being present at the Ceremony in consequence of indisposition."
The old Duke Adolphus Frederick of Cambridge was another target of never-ending ridicule. He was a great diner-out, and his fatuous after-dinner speeches are cruelly parodied. He was also "the Duke who thinks aloud," whether at the play or at the Chapel Royal:—
A few Sundays ago, the Minister and the Duke proceeded as follows:
Minister. From all evil and mischief; from sin, from the crafts of the devil——
(Duke. To be sure; very proper—very proper.)
Minister. From all sedition, conspiracy, and rebellion——
(Duke. Certainly; very right—very right.)
And thus Parson and Duke proceeded together almost to the end. However, the worthy clergyman had to offer a prayer for the sick. Proceeding in this pious task, he thus commenced:
Minister. The prayers of this congregation are earnestly desired for——
(Duke. No objection—no objection!)
A Royal Duke's Household
One certainly does not gather from Punch's pages what was none the less a fact, that the Duke was extremely popular, that he was charitable and benevolent, and an enlightened patron of science and art, or that he was emphatically recognized as "a connecting link between the throne and the people."
On the Duke's death in 1850, Punch, with his usual vigour, attacked the grant of £12,000 a year to his son, the late and last Duke of Cambridge, at a time when the claims of Horatia (Nelson's daughter) and Mrs. Waghorn, widow of the pioneer of the Overland Route, were neglected. The immediate sequel led to further caustic remarks:—
FOUR EQUERRIES AND THREE CHAPLAINS
What can a quiet, kind, manly, and simple gentleman, Prince though he be of the British Blood Royal, want at this present period of time with four Equerries and three parsons in the Gazette? Are these ceremonies nowadays useful and decorous, or absurd and pitiable; and likely to cause the scorn and laughter of men of sense? When the greatest and wisest Statesman in England [Sir Robert Peel] dying declares he will have no title for his sons, and, as it were, repudiates the Peerage as a part of the Protective system which must fall one day, as other Protective institutions have fallen—can't sensible people read the signs of the times and be quiet? When Lord John comes down to the House (with that pluck which his Lordship always shows when he has to meet an unpopular measure) and asks for an allowance, which the nation grudgingly grants to its pensioners—when the allowance is flung at his Royal Highness with a grumble, is it wise to come out the next day with a tail of four Equerries and three clergymen?
THE MODERN DAMOCLES
Louis Napoleon stands apart from the other European sovereigns of the mid-nineteenth century in virtue of his origin and his career. But he ran the Tsar Nicholas close, if he did not equal him, as Punch's pet aversion. As early as 1849 his imperialistic ambitions led to the hostile comment that "empire" meant empirer. The Coup d'État was the signal for the fiercest attacks on his policy of "homicide." His matrimonial ventures prompted the ribald suggestion that the Emperor Louis should marry Lola Montez! His persistent gagging of the Press in France, and his attempts to subsidize or manipulate that in England, are vehemently denounced. Punch's attacks ceased during the Crimean War, but it was a reluctant truce, and they broke out again after the Peace was signed. Douglas Jerrold cordially detested the Emperor, and was responsible for the hardest of the many hard things said against him in Punch.
By a strange irony of fate it was Douglas Jerrold's own son, William Blanchard Jerrold, who, working upon materials supplied him by the Empress Eugénie, produced in the four volumes of his Life of Napoleon III the chief apologia in English of the Second Empire.
But to return to the Queen and the English Royal Family. Amongst Punch's unconscious prophecies room must certainly be found for his reference, in a satire of the Queen's speech when Peel was Premier, to Her Majesty as "Victoria Windsor" nearly seventy-five years before the surname was formally adopted by her grandson. The suggested statue to Cromwell at the new Houses of Parliament gave rise to a long and heated controversy in 1845 in which Punch ranged himself militantly among the partisans of the Protector. He published mock protests from various sovereigns; he considered Cromwell's claim side by side with those of the "Sexigamist" murderer Henry VIII and other kings, and printed a burlesque design of his own, with a sneer at Pugin for his "determined zeal in keeping up the bad drawing of the Middle Ages."
SHOULD CROMWELL HAVE A STATUE?
The Queen's visit to Ireland in 1849 is treated in considerable detail, and in an optimistic vein. Punch never believed in the Repeal Agitation or in Daniel O'Connell, whom he regarded as a trading patriot and a self-seeking demagogue, contrasting him unfavourably with Father Mathew. Nor had he any sympathy with "Young Ireland," or Thomas Davis, or the romantic leaders of the movement of 1848; as for Smith O'Brien, an immortality of ridicule was conferred on him in Thackeray's famous ballad on "The Battle of Limerick." The terrible ravages of the potato famine had evoked Punch's sympathy; but his hopes of an enduring reconciliation were small, and he quotes the tremendous saying of Giraldus Cambrensis that Ireland would be pacified vix paulò ante Diem Judicii—or only just before the Day of Judgment. Still, the Queen's visit was hailed as of good omen, though Punch reminds her that she had only seen the bright side of the dark Rosaleen—palaces and not cabins. "Let Erin forget the days of old" is the burden of his song; at least he refrained from quoting—if he ever knew of it—that other terrible saying that "Ireland never forgets anything except the benefits that she has received." The Queen's magnanimity and clemency to her traducer Jasper Judge in the same year called forth a warm eulogium. Judge was a thief and a spy, yet the Queen, on the petition of his wife, paid the costs of her vilifier.
The Princess Royal's Betrothal
In 1849, also, Punch, evidently still in mellower mood, published an enthusiastic tribute to the memory of the Dowager Queen Adelaide, who died on December 2. Punch specially refers to her generosity to Mrs. Jordan, the mistress of William IV, when he was Duke of Clarence, and the mother of ten of his children. "Let those who withhold their aid from the daughter of Nelson, because the daughter of Lady Hamilton, consider this and know that the best chastity is adorned by the largest charity." Queen Adelaide had long outlived the unpopularity caused by her supposed interference in politics at the time of the Reform Agitation, and Punch's homage was well deserved. It is a sign of the times that Punch begins to allude to the Queen as "our good Queen," or more affectionately as "our little Queen," and this growth of her popularity continues (with occasional setbacks) throughout the 'fifties. At the close of 1852 Punch ridicules as absurd the rumour of the betrothal of the Princess Royal to Prince Frederick William of Prussia, the Princess being only twelve years old. The report appeared in a German paper, and proved true. Punch's chief objection was sentimental: "The age is past when Royalty respected its family at the rate of live stock," and he could not believe that such a principle would govern the Court, seeing that it was "adorned now at last with the domestic graces." Besides, Punch in the summer of 1844 had published his own New Royal