hey
looked round desperately for some hidden and horrible explanation of
what had occurred. They suspected plots, they smelt treachery in the
air. It was easy to guess the object upon which their frenzy would
vent itself. Was there not a foreigner in the highest of high places, a
foreigner whose hostility to their own adored champion was unrelenting
and unconcealed? The moment that Palmerston's resignation was known,
there was a universal outcry and an extraordinary tempest of anger and
hatred burst, with unparalleled violence, upon the head of the Prince.

It was everywhere asserted and believed that the Queen's husband was a
traitor to the country, that he was a tool of the Russian Court, that
in obedience to Russian influences he had forced Palmerston out of the
Government, and that he was directing the foreign policy of England in
the interests of England's enemies. For many weeks these accusations
filled the whole of the press; repeated at public meetings, elaborated
in private talk, they flew over the country, growing every moment more
extreme and more improbable. While respectable newspapers thundered out
their grave invectives, halfpenny broadsides, hawked through the streets
of London, re-echoed in doggerel vulgarity the same sentiments and the
same suspicions(*). At last the wildest rumours began to spread.

(*)"The Turkish war both far and near
Has played the very deuce then,
And little Al, the royal pal,
They say has turned a Russian;
Old Aberdeen, as may be seen,
Looks woeful pale and yellow,
And Old John Bull had his belly full
Of dirty Russian tallow."

Chorus:
"We'll send him home and make him groan,
Oh, Al! you've played the deuce then;
The German lad has acted sad
And turned tail with the Russians."

* * * * *

"Last Monday night, all in a fright,
Al out of bed did tumble.
The German lad was raving mad,
How he did groan and grumble!
He cried to Vic, 'I've cut my stick:
To St. Petersburg go right slap.'
When Vic, 'tis said, jumped out of bed,
And wopped him with her night-cap."

From Lovely Albert! a broadside preserved at the British Museum.

In January, 1854, it was whispered that the Prince had been seized, that
he had been found guilty of high treason, that he was to be committed
to the Tower. The Queen herself, some declared, had been arrested,
and large crowds ac