tually collected round the Tower to watch the
incarceration of the royal miscreants.(*)

(*)"You Jolly Turks, now go to work,
And show the Bear your power.
It is rumoured over Britain's isle
That A------ is in the Tower;
The postmen some suspicion had,
And opened the two letters,
'Twas a pity sad the German lad
Should not have known much better!"
Lovely Albert!

These fantastic hallucinations, the result of the fevered atmosphere of
approaching war, were devoid of any basis in actual fact. Palmerston's
resignation had been in all probability totally disconnected with
foreign policy; it had certainly been entirely spontaneous, and had
surprised the Court as much as the nation. Nor had Albert's influence
been used in any way to favour the interests of Russia. As often happens
in such cases, the Government had been swinging backwards and forwards
between two incompatible policies--that of non-interference and that of
threats supported by force--either of which, if consistently followed,
might well have had a successful and peaceful issue, but which,
mingled together, could only lead to war. Albert, with characteristic
scrupulosity, attempted to thread his way through the complicated
labyrinth of European diplomacy, and eventually was lost in the
maze. But so was the whole of the Cabinet; and, when war came, his
anti-Russian feelings were quite as vehement as those of the most
bellicose of Englishmen.

Nevertheless, though the specific charges levelled against the Prince
were without foundation, there were underlying elements in the situation
which explained, if they did not justify, the popular state of mind. It
was true that the Queen's husband was a foreigner, who had been brought
up in a foreign Court, was impregnated with foreign ideas, and was
closely related to a multitude of foreign princes. Clearly this, though
perhaps an unavoidable, was an undesirable, state of affairs; nor
were the objections to it merely theoretical; it had in fact produced
unpleasant consequences of a serious kind. The Prince's German
proclivities were perpetually lamented by English Ministers; Lord
Palmerston, Lord Clarendon, Lord Aberdeen, all told the same tale; and
it was constantly necessary, in grave questions of national policy, to
combat the prepossessions of a Court in which German views and German
sentiments held a disproportionate place. As for Palmerston, his
language on this topi