In 1837 the Queen mounted the throne. It was a time of misgiving and of discontent. The passing of the Reform Act of 1832 had not as yet produced the results expected of it; there were other and more sweeping reforms in the air: the misery and the oppression of the factory hands, the incredible cruelty practised on the children of the mill and the mine, the deep poverty of the agricultural districts, the distress of the trading classes, formed a gloomy portal to a reign which was destined to be so long and so glorious. Thus, in turning over the papers then circulated among the working-classes of the time, one observes a total absence of anything like loyalty to the Crown. It has vanished. A blind hatred has taken its place. What is loyalty to the Crown? To begin with, it is something more than an intelligent adhesion to the Constitution; it regards the Sovereign as personifying and representing the nation; it ascribes to the Sovereign, therefore, the highest virtues and qualities which the nation itself would present to the world. The King, among loyal people, is brave, honest, truthful, the chief support of the Constitution, the Fountain of Honour. To obey the King is to obey the country. To die for the King is to die for the country. The Army and the Navy are the King’s Army and Navy. The King grants commissions; the King is supposed to direct military operations. The King is the First Gentleman in his country. When one reads the words which used to be addressed to such a man as Charles the Second one has to remember these things. Charles the Second, unworthy as he was in his private life, was still the representative of the nation. Therefore, to ascribe to that unworthy person these virtues which were so notoriously lacking was no more than a recognition of the fact that he was King. Has, then, personal character, private honour, truth, principle, nothing to do with kingcraft? Formerly, nothing or next to nothing. Now, everything. Another George the Fourth would now be impossible. But he has been made impossible by the private character of his niece.

Consider a little further the question of loyalty. I say that in 1837 among the mass of the people, even among the better class, there was none. Indeed the loyalty of the better sort had suffered for more than a hundred years many grievous knocks and discouragements. The first two Georges, good and great in official language, were aliens; they spoke a foreign tongue; they saw little of the people; yet they were tolerated, and even popular in a way, because they steadfastly upheld the Constitution and the Protestant religion. The third George began well; he was a Prince always of high moral character, strong principle, and great sincerity. Since Edward the Confessor or Henry the Sixth there had been no Sovereign so virtuous. But his constant endeavours to extend the Royal Prerogative, his obstinate treatment of the American Provinces against the impassioned and reiterated entreaties of Chatham, Burke, and the City of London, his stubborn refusal to hear of Parliamentary Reform, his desire to govern by a few families, his long affliction and seclusion, destroyed most of the personal affection with which he began. His successor, the hero of a thousand caricatures, a discredited voluptuary, never commanded the least respect except in official addresses; nor did William the Fourth, old, without force or character, without dignity. Wherefore, in 1837, when the cry of “Our Young Queen” was raised, it met with little response from the great mass of the people.

In its place there was an eager looking forward to Revolution and a Republic. There can be no doubt that in the thirties and the forties there were many who looked forward to a Republic as actually certain; that is to say, as certain as the next day’s sun. The Chartists numbered many strong Republicans in their body, though the Law of Treason forbade them to put forward the establishment of a Republic as one of their aims. There were newspapers, however, which spoke openly of a Republic as a matter of time only. The great European upheaval of 1848, save for the miserable fiasco of the Chartist meeting, left this country undisturbed. Not a single Republican rising was attempted in Great Britain. Those living men who can remember thirty or forty years back, can very well recall the Republican ideas which were floating about in men’s minds. Where are those ideas now? They are gone; they exist no longer, save, perhaps, among a very small class. I do not know even if they have an organ of their own. The reason is, that as the Chartist movement—the agitation for Reform—was due mainly to the widespread distress and the discontent of the country, so, when the distress vanished, the desire for change vanished also.

In this account of transformation the return to loyalty must be noted first. It is not only loyalty to the Queen herself, though that is universal, but to the Crown. There is a general feeling that the Leader of the Nation—not the Imperator, Dictator, or Emperor, but a nominal Leader, such as our own, one under whose presidency the Government is carried on, who is not, however, the Government—is more conveniently the heir of a certain family rather than a person elected by the country at large at regular intervals. The United States think differently. This, however, is what seems to us. We do not want a great popular election convulsing the country once every four years with a desperate party struggle; we have already quite as many elections as we want; we are quite satisfied if our President succeeds when his time comes, gives his name to the events of his reign, and continues in the Presidential chair for life. We ask of him only to make himself as good a figure-head as he can; we expect him to observe his coronation oath; and we beg him, if he wishes to stay where he is, not on any account to intrigue or scheme for the extension of the Royal Prerogative.

On the other hand, we willingly agree to attribute to a Sovereign all the glories of the reign; as if he himself commanded the armies and the fleets; as if he himself enlarged Science and Learning and Philosophy; as if he himself were a leader in Literature, Science, and Art. This is because the Sovereign is the representative of the Nation. In the same way the disasters and miseries of the reign must also be placed to his account, as if he himself were the author and the cause of everything. Thus by far the greater part of the distress and discontent which prevailed during the first years of the Reign (1837–48) was attributed in the minds of the people as due to the Sovereign and the monarchical forms of Government.

With the gradual return of loyalty gradually grew quieter the old clamours for the abolition of the House of Lords. I will show you some other reasons why this clamour ceased. First of all, in times of prosperity political changes are never demanded. A revolution presupposes a time of want, distress, or humiliation. We have enjoyed a time of general prosperity for many years.

I believe that Americans find it hard to understand the continued existence of our Upper House. Well, but something may be said for that. Thus, the House of Lords contains about 650 possible members; of these about thirty, or even less, and those including the Law Lords, do the whole work of the House. These thirty are in a sense representatives of the whole number, not regularly elected, but allowed to be the representatives. It is quite conceivable—even by the strongest advocate of popular election—that a body of 650 gentlemen, all of the best possible education, nearly all advanced in years, all independent in their circumstances, all wealthy, with no private interests to advance, unconnected with commercial enterprise, with no companies to support, no schemes of money-making in the background, might elect out of their own body a Second Chamber of much greater weight and moral authority than any body elected by the multitude. In such a House, one would argue, there is no place for bribery, jobbery, or corruption. In fact, there are none of these things.

But, it is objected, a caste is created, and there should be no such thing as a caste. Perhaps not; if we were to start anew, we would have none. Australia has none, nor New Zealand; in our case, however, the caste is two thousand years old and more. It is venerable by reason of its age; it would be extremely difficult to remove it; moreover, it is a caste rendered innocuous by the simple provision that the younger sons do not belong to it; none but the Head has any power or authority by reason of belonging to it; it is a caste, not of so many families, but of so many men. Moreover, English people like old institutions; this House of Peers, therefore, is not only kept on, but is rendered popular by the continual infusion of new blood—the continual election to the House of new men with no family connection or influence. Among the recently made Peers there are successful men of business: engineers, physicians, manufacturers. Tennyson, Lister, Leighton, Kelvin, show that a peerage is at last open to literature, science, and law.

Again, it is objected that the House of Lords can oppose a popular measure. So can every Upper House. But the Peers, though they often send back measures amended, never refuse to assent to measures which are understood to be desired by the mass of the people.

Again, any profligate may sit in the House. This is an objection which is met by the simple fact that a Peer of well-known bad character would not dare to present himself in the House of Lords. But the Peers represent Norman blood and feudal ideas. Nothing of the kind. Most of the Lords are of quite recent creation, and are sprung from families obscure and even humble. Here is an instance. I was once conversing with a bricklayer, an elderly man, who had formerly been a prize-fighter. He began to talk of a certain noble family. “My father,” he said, “used to go poaching with his grandfather. They were both employed on the same farm. His grandfather went into the town of —— and set up a shop for game—hares and rabbits and such—which my father poached for him till he got took and went to prison.” The sequel is obvious. The man who started the shop and made the other man do the work and undergo the risk for him, got on; his son started life in a higher plane, showed abilities, grew rich, and was eventually created the first Peer of his family. This is perhaps an extreme case; but the point is that Englishmen are constantly working their way to the front by sheer ability and without any family influence whatever; that when they are well to the front they receive Peerages; that the whole family is thereby raised in the social scale; and that every Peer represents a network of cousins, nephews, and relations, who rejoice in his rank because it lends them too a certain social superiority.

For these and other reasons, the outcry against the House of Lords has ceased. It will perhaps revive again, but in some milder form; for the old assertion of rank, the former haughtiness of the aristocrat, has been greatly mitigated: in the last century it was complained at Bath that noble Lords would not even enter the society of plain gentlemen; it is now understood that whatever may be a man’s rank, he cannot be any more than a gentleman. Rank gives him precedence: a seat in the House of Lords, but no more; this is all he can claim. A third cry, which used to be loud and general, but is now greatly reduced in volume, is the disestablishment of the Church of England. A large and powerful society has been working for this end for many years. Members have been sent up to the House, pledged to bring about these results. Yet the Church remains. When the Irish Church was disestablished, nearly thirty years ago, every one said that the English Church would go next. What excellent prophets we are. How many similar predictions do I remember! The Irish Church was disestablished because it was not the Church of the people, but of a small section. The English Church remains, because it is the Church of the majority, and is without doubt becoming more so every year. The Churches are crammed with people—of the better sort: the working-man, though as a rule he does not go to Church, has learned during the last sixty years to regard the Establishment with friendliness and respect, if not with gratitude and affection.

We see in this country at the present day a loyalty to the Crown, to equal which we must go back to the reign of Queen Elizabeth; and for the same principal reasons, a Sovereign personally respected and beloved, a period of marvellous expansive prosperity and advancement of every kind. We see the Republican form of Government no longer advocated; the House of Lords no longer attacked; the old cry for the disestablishment of the Church growing daily weaker; the See of Canterbury extending everywhere its authority, and promising to become the Rome of the Episcopal Church.

I call attention to another point. Everybody knows that a great part of the history of this country consists of the long and never-ending struggles of the King to extend his prerogative, and of the people to maintain their rights. To observe that the reign of Queen Victoria presents not one single instance of a desire on the Queen’s part to extend her powers—those powers are much less than those of the President of the United States—she has been contented with them. Again, she has welcomed every act of reform; she has always shown a perfect trust in the whole people; she has clung to no small clique of families; she has admitted no reservation of aristocratic caste; she has willingly received as her ministers such men as Gladstone, Disraeli, John Morley, James Bryce, and others who have no pretensions whatever to aristocratic descent; she has been, in a word, entirely loyal to the Constitution: she has lived, not for herself, but for the Empire.

It is impossible here to avoid saying—what every one else writing on this subject has already said—something about the extent and population of the British Empire. Under the Union Jack at this moment there lie the British Islands, Egypt, India, Burmah, a part of Borneo, Australia, New Zealand, the Dominion of Canada, the West Indies, South, East, and West Africa, with innumerable islands scattered over the face of the whole globe. A great deal of this territory has been acquired since the year 1837: at that time vast tracts of it were worthless deserts, for which no one ventured to predict a future. Australia contained a few thousand whites; New Zealand, not half a dozen; South Africa was the Cape and nothing more; Canada contained only the two divisions; there was no emigration—there was no thought of emigration. The exports and imports of the country, though they were thought large at the time, were only worth a hundred millions sterling, against four hundred millions at the present day. The national debt in 1837 amounted to 30 per cent of the wealth of the whole country: at present it is 7¼ per cent on that wealth. In 1837 there were 28,000 merchant ships belonging to Great Britain and her colonies: at present there are about the same number, but with four times the tonnage. And so on with tables of figures which show the advance made by the country in every branch of industry and enterprise. Above all things, we may look round and observe that, just as on the site of Fort Dearborn of 1837 now stands the splendid city of Chicago of 1897, so, where there was nothing in 1837 but wild plain and lonely hill, there now stand crowded and busy cities like Melbourne and Sydney: there now lie bathed in the golden sunlight populous colonies like Manitoba and British Columbia: there now look upward in their youth of hope nations like New Zealand. Great Britain in sixty years has become the mother of four nations. Yet a little while, a few years, and these nations—federated Canada, federated Australia, federated South Africa, United New Zealand—will be four independent nations, proud, strong, eager to meet whatever fortune may send them, with the prayers and the blessings of the little Island whence they sprang.

It remains to be seen what reception they will get from the United States; whether there will be only five independent Anglo-Saxon countries allied with each other and the mother country by bonds never to be broken, while the sixth still holds aloof; or whether the five shall become six, all independent, neither one before nor after the others, and so the unity of the race be preserved, and its destiny as the leader of the world be assured.

As for the public and the private life of the Queen I have told you that I know no more than you yourselves. That she ascended the throne, a young girl of eighteen; that she married happily; that she has been blessed with many children; that she has lost her husband and two of her children, and more than two of her grandchildren, you know already. Despite the fierce light that beats upon the throne, there is nothing—absolutely nothing—in her long occupation of that seat which has to be concealed or defended. No prince has ever occupied a throne with greater loyalty to his people’s liberties; nay, those liberties have increased and broadened without a word from the Queen to stay their advance. Religious disabilities have vanished: the Catholic, the Dissenter, the Jew, the Atheist are on the same level with the Anglican; the Franchise has widened, without a sign of opposition from the Queen. It may be said that she has been admirably advised. Perhaps you will acknowledge, however, that it is the first characteristic of a noble mind that it can understand, and will listen to, advice.

Foreigners cannot, perhaps, fully understand the depth and the reality of that loyalty of which I have spoken—it is a personal as well as constitutional loyalty—they can, however, understand, and they will acknowledge, that there has never lived upon the earth a woman who in her lifetime has created, and has inspired, and has possessed so much affection, respect, and confidence from all parts of the world.

Of the good woman what sayeth the wise King Lemuel—who wrote too little—from the oracle which his mother taught him?