QUEEN VICTORIA

The great European powers were attending an International Congress—Summit Meeting of the heads of government and their diplomats to deal with the crisis of Tsarist Russian military expansionism. None of the other European powers of the time wanted or could afford war so Russia could only be thwarted by Great Britain. There were many in England who thought that the British should not even attend and should send troops immediately. The Queen and the Royal Family were among those. At the Congress Disraeli, who had much personal affection for Queen Victoria, wanted to reassure her. 1st Earl of Beaconsfield. If the Congress did not succeed the mainland of Europe would have been at war. Disraeli obtained everything England wanted. See Russian Ambassador Prince Gortchakoff’s observation.

This biblical passage was read to the young Queen Victoria by Prime Minister William Lamb (Viscount Melbourne), soon after her succession to the throne in 1837. She was eighteen at the time; Lamb was fifty-eight:

2nd Viscount Melbourne. This is a fascinating historical quotation for two reasons. First it shows the formality of address that is still used in England when communicating with the monarch. The queen would never be addressed by her name but by her title—“Your Majesty”. Rarely would the second person by used such s “you.” The Queen or King would also use the third person when referring t herself—“Her Majesty” Most fascinating is that the person writing to the monarch would also never use the first person—I. Nor would they use their family name like “William Lamb.” The correct form of address was to use their aristocratic title—“Lord Melbourne” or their Government title—“The Prime Minister. This quotation also reflects a very interesting thing about the Queen and her husband Prince Albert. They were both very young. At this time she was only 23. She was responsible for the largest empire in the world, yet had almost no experience and relatively little education in political and history. The Prince was better educated but came from Germany and did not know much of English history and politics. So they both devoted a part of each day to red together and learn. Victoria had asked Melbourne to recommend the books that he and the Prince would read. They took their responsibilities very seriously and unlike many rulers of heads f state, had no difficulty admitting their ignorance and worked hard to overcome them.

2nd Viscount Melbourne. The appointments to the Queen’s household was one of the powers that was contested by Parliament and the Monarchy. The Queen’s Ladies in Waiting or Secretary would seem to be very personal positions of which the Queen would make the decision, however these were very desirable positions that were used by the party in power to reward loyal supports of the party. As a practical matter, each of these appointments were the subject of negotiations between the Parliament and the Queen. The most competent people were not necessarily chosen—see {625949} . What is interesting to us today is the importance that the Queen and the Parliament placed on the spouse of the appointee. From the Queen’s point of view the character of the family of an appointee was extremely important to avoid scandal and have the queen support proper values as an example to the nation. To Parliament it was an issue of Patronage. A Lady in Waiting was an important member of the court and most upper class women coveted that position. The ruling party however did not want to see the wives of the opposition party members to get these plum positions and wanted to reward their own members by appointing their wives. Today, the character of a spouse of a potential appointee sometimes is a factor but there are many who believe that it should never be.

In the British Constitutional Monarchy of the Victorian Era, the Queen still possessed enormous power and many in Parliament was constantly trying to have Parliament assume many of the Queen’s powers. The Prime Minister was in an awkward position. On the one hand, he was the Queen’s Prime Minister and leader of HER government. At the same time he was the leader of the political party that had won the last Parliamentary election. His party was trying to usurp some of the Queen’s powers and Peel explained to the Queen’s assistant that he would generally side with the Queen against his own party. It is doubtful that Anson and the Queen believed Peel on this point as his position as Prime Minister depended not on his being elected by the voters but by his party members of Parliament. In modern times, the British monarch has few real powers but is still very influential so there are no struggles over power with Parliament.

2nd Viscount Melbourne. The pressure for appointments to key positions has always been a problem in modern America. What is surprising in this quotation is that the exact same problems existed in a constitutional monarchy in 19th century England. Note the formality of the form of address in letters to the Queen. Lamb refers to himself in the third person by his aristocratic title, “Lord Melboure”, rather than the first person “I” which would have been too familiar in the address of the monarch. Many English communications with the King or Queen, even in modern times, is this archaic form of address.

The Princess was Victoria who was to become the Sovereign of England but at the time was only 11 years old. The Duchess was her mother and guardian and responsible for her upbringing and education. However, note that because a future sovereign was involved, the official Church of England was required by the existing law to provide oversight to her upbringing, and this memo was one of the Duchess’s periodic report to the Church. Also it is interesting that this young princess, destined to be the most powerful person in the world at the time, was brought up to “live for others” and not to be pompous or dazzled with power. The Duchess did a terrific job because not only was Victoria to reign over the British Empire for 62 years, but Queen Victoria is regarded by many historians as one of the best, if not the best, monarch who ever reigned anywhere.

Marquis of Lansdowne. What makes this quotation so noteworthy is the illustration of a political rarity. The leader of the country calls in a leading politician and asks for advice on a current political problem. Politicians almost always have advice to give even when it is not wanted or asked for. But the total number of occasions where the Politician had no good advice could be measured on the fingers of one hand. This is the most classic. The problem was that the previous government had collapsed for want of a majority of Parliament, and the Queen was seeking advice on which of the leading politicians she should ask to try and put a government together. However, no one was sure that any of the politicians could muster enough support to form a government, but everyone had an opinion except Lord Lansdowne.

This absolute ruler concluded that single person judgment with advisors has not as sound as a system of open discussion and institutions affecting policy decisions and administration. She herself had made errors and admitted it—see {641730}.

Queen Victoria

This was another of the radical reforms of Queen Victoria. Most counties were terribly sensitive about the language used by their citizens. Where there were different ethnic language groups, the dominant group tended to make the use and teaching of other languages illegal. So it was in Great Britain where Gaelic, traditionally spoken in Scotland and Welsh, spoken in Wales, were discouraged and not taught in the schools. The Queen shocked the right wing language nationalists with this letter making a major language and cultural reform in Great Britain. Victoria herself had learned a number of languages when she was a young girl and realized that the schools were the ideal place to develop multiple language facilities. Lansdowne promptly instituted the queen’s desired language reforms to the delight of the Scots and the Welsh. Rather than create disunity, the Scots and Welsh became more loyal to the Nation that recognized them, their culture and their rights.

Czar Nicholas II was a relative of Queen Victoria and her uncle, King Leopold. They were both skilled and popular monarchs. In contrast, the Czar was not only hated by his own people, but as this private letter shows, was not thought very well of by his own more accomplished relatives and fellow monarchs. Nicholas II was so bad, that he was the last of the Czars as the Communist Russian Revolution forced him to abdicate and then he was murdered.

This quotation illustrates another political advancement instituted by Queen Victoria. In this case it was Merit Appointments which were almost unheard of. The Foreign Secretary, Lord Palmerston, was notorious for his crony appointments and the use of appointments to gain political support for himself. (He was good at it and became prime minister 4 years later.0 However, under the Queen’s constant insistence and pressure, merit began to be the major factor in selection and appointments. Ironically, even in the United States, diplomats though often very qualified, are one of the last vestiges of patronage appointments with many ambassadorships going to campaign contributors.

Hong Kong was not always a successful city or colony. In 1844 the British were thinking of swapping it for a better colony. However, in a rare combination of synergistic development of a colony, the great strengths of the Chinese and that of the English combined to make Hong Kong one of the best and well developed cities in the world. Few imperial colonies turned out as well.

The Boers were the decedents of the original Dutch farmers who came to South Africa. They were uneducated, lower class emigrants from Holland who, unlike the British who came later and were primarily interested in trade, were farmers and wanted to acquire the rich South African land for permanent settlement with no place for the blacks who were emigrating from Central Africa to acquire the same land. The result was a conflict between the whites of South Africa—the Boers who wanted to own as much land as possible and wanted the Blacks to be their slaves or very low wage workers with no rights at all, and the English whose laws made the Blacks citizens with rights. When the English ended up controlling South Africa the Boers with their own Afrikaner language and culture felt that the English whites were selling them out. The lower class Boers were insulted that under the English law, they were no better than Black farmers. They wanted to separate from the English so they could totally dominate the Blacks and strived for independence which led to the Boer Wars. Although the Boers lost to the English, they bred and populated South Africa and eventually came to dominate it politically. It was the Boers—also called Afrikaners—who were the ones who introduced Apartheid and created the racist society that caused so much difficulty in the late 20th century.

The queen was reacting to the so called “Rebecca Riots” in Ireland. She was a very gentle and forebearing woman, but if pressed and the government was in her view in the right, she would crack down on seriouslawbreakers. This balance is one of the hardest things for a ruler to attain and she was masterful at it.