THE RELATIONSHIPS OF KINGS.
WE wonder whether a "family compact" now exists any- where in Europe, whether, that is, any two dynasties are allied by private agreements of which their subjects know nothing, and pursue at intervals a policy intended in the main, if not solely, to aggrandise or to protect their own family interests, as distinct from the interests of their States. Professor Seeley not only believes that such a compact once existed in Europe, but in the first number of the new English, Historical Review he endeavours to show that it was for the best part of a century the main factor in European history, the cause of almost all wars, and especially of all wars against Great Britain. He believes that from 1700 to the fall of the Bourbon dynasty in France, an arrangement—sometimes formulated, as in 1733, but always well understood—was in existence by which the Bourbon Princes bound themselves to each other to aggrandise their family when possible, to defend the Colonies of Spain and France as well as their Continental dominions, and generally to break down the maritime power and influence of Great Britain. This last object was mainly Spanish, the Court of Madrid being terrified for its North-American possessions, full of the tradition of its old maritime preponderance, and un- changeably anxious to recover Gibraltar, which, says Mr. Seeley, Pitt in 1757 offered as a bribe to Spain to depart from the Compact. France, on the other hand, was anxious to restrict "the Empire," and to carve out for Bourbon Princes small Kingdoms within Italy. Under this alliance, all the wars of that period were fought, the regular plan being to make double wars, one on -land, in which France was principal, and one at sea, in which Spain was the motive power. The Compact gave the Bourbons of Spain nothing, not even Gibraltar ; but it gave the Bourbons generally Lorraine and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, and enabled them to exercise an ascendancy which "Bourbonised " Europe, and paved the way for the successes of Revolutionary France; while Napoleon, who knew the history of the Compact, owed to it the idea of his own scheme of placing his brothers upon subordinate thrones. His policy, in fact, was Bourbonism made effective.
Mr. Seeley's defect as a historical critic always seems to us the same. He discerns with great clearness of insight some strong motive at work in historic events, liking it all the better if it has escaped general attention,—and then attributes to it rather too much power, makes it, in fact, the master-key to all the problems before him. He does this in his recent sketch of Napoleon, in which he represents that conqueror as mainly moved not by a general desire of ascendancy in Europe, and the wish to found a grand historic dynasty, but by a desire to defeat, and if possible conquer, England. Napoleon had that desire, no doubt, as was natural, he never ceasing to long for transmarine empire and supreme influence in Asia ; but it did not dominate him in that way, and we suspect that the Bourbon policy was often guided by motives with which no con- sistent or far-reaching policy had much to do. Statesmen, even in foreign affairs, live a good deal from hand to mouth, and there must often be violent differences, as well of sentiment as of interest, between allied Cabinets, which, again, are much guided by statesmen whose inner feeling for dynastic aggrandisement is not always favourable. No Spanish states- man can have wished to make France so powerful as to leave to Spain only the semblance of independence. Still, that a Bourbon Compact existed is beyond doubt, and it is interesting to speculate whether a similar alliance could by possibility exist now. The English feeling is that it could not. The peoples, it is said here, are too powerful, interests have become too complex, and Parliaments enforce too much publicity. The bond of relationship, too, between Sovereigns has grown weaker than it was, owing partly to the decline of the idea that States are the property of their rulers—which was the old idea, and produced all the Wars of Succession—and partly to the fact that no throne is quite secure enough to allow of far-reaching and permanent dynastic combinations. There is no use in a compact between cousins if one cousin is going into the Gazette. The idea, therefore, that a country is absorbed by another State because the two draw their Sovereigns from the same Royal clan is rather scouted in London, and Louis Philippe is held to have made a great blunder in kingcraft when he plotted so deeply and so shamelessly to secure to a grandchild the reversion of the throne of Spain. The English held, we imagine, that the French were either fanciful or acting when they made such a fuss about the possible succession of a Hohen- zollern to the throne of Spain, and still hold that the birth of the King of Roumania, and the family conneations of the House of Brunswick, exercise no influence on European politics. The English may be right, and it will certainly be impossible to prove them wrong, for the memoirs which might demonstrate the facts will hardly appear for another fifty years, and then will probably not be frank. Royal people seldom write autobiographies, or publish records of Royal visits, and the essential documents—the autograph letters of Kings to each other—are most jealously kept secret. No King would allow a confidence of that kind to be broken, even as regards an ancestor, lest he should be himself distrusted ; and revolutionary leaders have not yet seized many letters of the first importance, those which must have been preserved in the Vatican having for the most part escaped. We remember but one King's autograph letter which came out against his will, though that one—a strangely able and satirical remonstrance addressed by King Ferdinand of Naples to Louis Philippe—rather whetted the appetite for more, and certainly showed that the Bourbon Compact, if it existed then, was getting strained. Still, the English opinion is not altogether the opinion of the Continent. Diplomatists are very suspicious there, and affirm that the great dynasties are as deeply concerned for their houses as the great nobles ; that they like to see their cadets prosper, hoping for assistance from them ; and that they often allow " family " considerations to affect policy. The relationship between the Hohenzollerns and the Romanoffs, they say, has repeatedly and greatly affected modern European policy ; has, in fact, helped more than any other cause to stave off the inevitable struggle between the German and the Slay. But for that relationship, France could not have been conquered in 1870; and but for that relationship, the partition of Poland must have led in modern days to a great Eastern war. They consider that in that struggle, should it ever come, the position of the Hohenzollerns at Bucharest will be of importance, and believe the French quite right in dreading the advent of a Hohenzollern King in Spain. He would have sided, they think, to the extent of his influence, with the Hohenzollerns, rather than with France. They point, this time with justice, to the anxiety felt both at Berlin and Vienna to protect the Queen- Regent of Spain, who is a Hapsburg Archduchess, as proof that among Royalties family connections have still great weight, and they refuse altogether to believe that the connection of Alexander of Battenberg with the British Royal family, and his romantic relation to the Hohenzollerns, have not materially affected his recent efforts to increase his territories. Indeed, they say that dread of English relationships has helped to settle the succession to the Brunswick throne, and that the leading Coburgs are at this moment in Berlin anxiously seeking to avert a sentence which would exclude the Duke of Edinburgh from his promised succession to the Principality of Saxe- Coburg-Gotha. "The Coburgs," such diplomatists say, always act together, and a truly Germanic policy can, therefore, never be expected from a Coburg. Modern history would seem to sanction in part the Continental idea, the rise of a family outside the caste to a Royal position being nearly unprece- dented, and the dynasties fighting hard to fill vacant thrones, even when they are as small as that of Greece. The Bourbons appear, at least, to arrange their marriages very much as a separate caste, as do also the large clan of Hapsburg Arch- dukes and Archduchesses; and there is at least one reason why Royal relationships should be influential with Royal minds. They take greatly the place of friendship. Kings have few intimates except relations and mistresses, and no friends outside their own blood with whom they can feel on terms of affectionate equality. They dread and distrust rival houses too much for true friendship to arise, and they are separated from subjects by a wall which, though im- palpable, is to their own thoughts not only real, but im- passable. They have lost much power, but we do not see why, to the extent of their power, relationship should not weigh with them in politics, or why a " connection " should not grow up between, say, all who have the German or English throne for their centre of honour, as strong as that which often binds the members of a great English family. Every Cavendish and Russell and Grosvenor is an independent entity ; but you will find that when the Duke in each elan acts strongly, there is a tendency to act with him, and a tendency, too, which does not die with one generation.
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