dependent 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 utmost vehemence 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 extreme politeness,
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 positively
unbearable. He became anxious above all things to get Palmerston out of
the Foreign Office. But then--supposing Palmerston refused to go?

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