1909] on The Letters of Queen Victoria. 507 



best men to govern her country and her people, and to watch carefully 

 lest in foreign affairs or domestic politics, or in administration or in 

 legislature, or in the choice of instruments, her Ministers — as she 

 deemed them — should betray her confidence or swerve from the paths 

 of their predecessors. She laid strong stress on precedent, and although 

 she rarely expressed views on domestic affairs, she believed herself to 

 be responsible for continuity in the forms of government and for 

 stability in foreign policy. 



"Sovereign of These Realms." 



There are in the Archives at Windsor, of which I have charge, 

 1050 volumes of papers, the correspondence of Queen Victoria, bound 

 in large folio volumes, and there will be another 200 volumes to be 

 added when the arrangement of these papers is complete. Through 

 them all, from the earliest letters to and from Lord Melbourne, some 

 of which have been included in the l^ook published last year, to the 

 last letters to and from Lord Salisbury, there appears the sentiment 

 and convictions I have described. The Queen, with unconscious 

 heroism, not only was always herself, but thoroughly believed in her- 

 self, as Sovereign of these Realms. From the passages I have quoted 

 it can be seen how thoroughly, as a young girl — almost a child — she 

 " took herself seriously," to use a homely phrase, and her point of 

 view never changed as time rolled on. On the very day of her 

 Accession, and ever afterwards, she never seemed to doubt that the 

 country was hers, that the Ministers were her Ministers, and that the 

 people were her people. Ministers and Parliaments existed to assist 

 her to govern. She was the Ruler of her Kingdom, and the Crown 

 was, in her eyes, not the coping-stone of the fabric, but the founda- 

 tion upon which the fabric rested. 



This outlook, with its pathetic earnestness, and at times almost 

 tragic persistence, was the source of the Queen's influence, and some- 

 times the cause of her few mistakes. It helped her to safeguard the 

 regal tradition, and it enhanced in her eyes the virtue of precedent. 

 She became cautious in the selection of confidants, and wary in grant- 

 ing assent. She wished to know everything that her Ministers pro- 

 posed to do in good time, so that she might consider l)ef ore approving. 

 Slie became insatiable for detail. In foreign affairs, and whenever 

 interests affecting the Navy or the Army were under discussion, she 

 expected to be consulted, and indeed insisted upon it. The Prince 

 Consort, with that intense earnestness that breathed through every 

 fibre of his nature, became her willing partner and helpmate. Un- 

 doubtedly to the influence of Baron Stockmar, who had been the 

 travelling companion of Prince Albert, and who showed himself to 

 be a profound student of English social and political life, can be 

 traced these convictions, so strongly held by the Queen and by the 

 Prince. 



