SIR ROBERT PEEL AND THE COURT.

THE extraordinary letter of Sir Robert Peel, published in Vanity Fair, and which has appeared with comments in almost every newspaper in England, will, we hope, give a timely and very much-needed warning to the English Court, and we trust attract the attention of the Queen. It reveals a social danger which might, if suffered to grow, become very serious, and greatly affect the popularity of the Monarchy. Sir Robert Peel recently, in his place in Parlia- ment, attacked Lord Chelmsford, as an officer who ought not to be retained in command in South Africa, and would not be retained, but for the favouritism of the Commander-in-Chief the Duke of Cambridge. He introduced, moreover, rather a propos of nothing, some animadversions on George IV., whom he pictured, after Thackeray, as blubbering with

curaeoa while talking of his scruples about the Coronation Oath. The speech, though rambling and ill-considered, as Sir Robert Peel's speeches often are, was full of rough, brusque humour and point, and could hardly be said to transcend the limits allowed in Parliamentary dis- cussion, ever since Parliaments were. If the personages con- cerned had been great officials of the ordinary kind, the attacks would have passed without notice, or with the remark that the Member for Tamworth spoke as bitterly as if he had been per- sonally aggrieved by Isandlaua. The words, however, gave

great offence to Royal personages, who appear to have expressed it in the form of some threat to take no further notice of Sir Robert Peel, so publicly uttered that the words were published in Vanity Fair, one of the now endless list of " society" papers.

Sir Robert Peel, irritated to a degree hardly comprehensible to men outside the sacred circle of the Court, immediately fired off to the Editor of Vanity Fair the following amazing letter, which, apart altogether from any question of taste and judg- ment, is saturated in every line with fury against the Royal personages who, he supposed, had condemned him :— " Sir R. Peel, to the Editor of Vanity Fair.

" Whitehall, April 15th, 1879. "Sir,—My attention has been called to the following statement,

which appears in your print of April 12th Sir R. Peel's recent speech in the House of Commons has very naturally given great offence, in consequence of his disrespectful allusion to George IV., and his personal remarks upon the Queen, and several members of the Royal Family have declared their intention never to take any notice of Sir Robert for the future.' It is superfluous to observe that such a statement is a very impudent expression of the latest develop- ment of the ridiculous Imperialism of the present day ; and in the official attempt to gag Members of Parliament in the free debate of questions of public interest in the House of Commons by the published menace of the Royal displeasure, there is a clear breach of Privilege, recalling the most stupid exhibitions of Royal misconduct. Royal displeasnre ! Imperial censure ! And because a Member of the House of Commons dares to express his opinion in his place in Par- liament, and to quote Thackeray and history iu support of that opinion ! After all, it is notorious that two members of the Royal Family indulged in similar threats, and a great deal worse, I am sorry to say, as regards Mr. Gladstone, while the language of the Commander-in-Chief with respect to the late Government is too well known to need further comment at this present moment. You appear to be instructed to make me a challenge, which, notwith- standing the channel through which it comes, I accept with great pleasure ; and as you invite me to a game which two can play at, one of the parties in the contest may prove a pungent critic of the coming K— and Co.; and, by the way, I would advise you strongly, as you profess to be the depository of the Imperial confidence, to be a little more discreet in the circulation of your authorised ver- sions of Royal messages, or they may get you into trouble. Like many others, I have put np With a good deal of your insolence from time to time, and as your personalities have nothing in common with the honourable and legitimate duties of journalism, you will find me now quite equal to the occasion. But as in the present instance

you net as the Plenipotentiary of Royalty, go and tell your master that I am not the sort of man to be smothered by Imperial menaces; and unless I receive the most ample satisfaction from the Royal sources which have made you their most impudent mouthpiece, I shall send a copy of your statement, together with a copy of my reply, to the Prince of Wales and to the Duke of Cambridge. And as you have published and circulated such a declaration of the intentions of the Royal family with respect to my remarks in the House of Com- mons, I shall also avail myself of a fitting opportunity to publish and to placard in London and the provinces, under the heading of ' Sir Robert Peel and the Rest of the Royal Family,' both your official notification of the Royal message and my contemptuous acknowledg- ment.—I urn, Sir, your obedient servant."

The Editor of Vanity Fair did not publish the letter, and the whole affair might have dropped into oblivion, but that the

Prince of Wales, hearing, in* some way, of Sir Robert Peel's

annoyance, forwarded to him an assurance that the statement in Vanity Fair had not been inserted "either by his Royal Highness's authority, or by his knowledge." As nobody ever suspected the Prince of Wales of editing Vanity Fair, the

statement seems superfluous ; but Sir Robert Peel, evidently under the impression that if Royalty condemned him his social

position was in danger, and he must stand at bay, forwarded the Prince's assurance to the Times. Thereupon the Editor of Vanity Fair, irritated in his turn, first called on Sir Robert

Peel to withdraw his letter unconditionally, and then receiving no reply, published it, for the admiration of the world.

The incident is not an edifying one from any point of view, and we do not wonder that it has led to somewhat severe comments, both on Royal personages, for whom the dignified part is to treat all newspaper reports with calm in- difference ; and ou the language of Sir Robert Peel, who seems, in his hardly intelligible rage at the injustice he assumed to be done him, to have lost sight altogether of some useful social restraints ; but the moral we desire to draw is a somewhat different one. It will be well if the attention of the Queen is called, as the attention of the Prince Consort, had he been alive, would certainly have been called, to the danger which attends the formation, and still more, the public recognition, of anything like a Court party in politics. There is such a danger now existing. All through the struggle upon the Eastern Question,

which interested and excited "society" as it has never been ex- cited or interested of late years, there has been a great deal too much whispering that the " Court," as apart from the Sovereign—that is, a certain number of members of the Royal Family, their attendants, dependants, and friends—were strongly upon one side or the other ; that this or that slight had been passed to indicate their opinion about great per- sonages in the State, and that social " consequences " would be felt by persons markedly in opposition to.their view. It is not necessary to enter into the question how far these whispers were well founded or ill founded, or pure inventions—probably each of the three epithets was justified about some of them— the object being to point out that they are all alike bad and dangerous, for all alike tend to bring the Royal Family, which, if it is to retain the special privileges it claims, must remain in political seclusion, into the full glare of politics, and accumu- late on them the likings and the hatreds which make and break great institutions. The influence of the " Court," as apart from the Queen, is still very considerable indeed. One Royal personage will be Sovereign. Another is Commander-in-Chief, or, as he is called, with amusing constitutional pedantry, " the Field-Marshal Commanding-in-Chief." Another, it is believed, will shortly command in Ireland, as a training for his future position at the Horse Guards. All stand very close to the dis- pensers of patronage, and have a necessary weight with them ; while in whole Services their opinion makes, or is believed to make, the difference between neglect and rapid, or at all events unchecked, promotion. In spite of all the purity of modern administration, persons acceptable to the Court rise much more rapidly in all departments of work than persons detesO,ble, and that is a very great influence. It needs, to be safe, to be used with very great discretion, and with an entire avoidance of parade. It is opposed in theory to the English method of government. It is opposed to that desire of efficiency which ought to govern all appointments. And it is opposed to that popular sense of justice in harmony with which the Services, if they are to be either popular or contented, must ultimately be governed. As regards the Sovereign herself or himself, the jealousy of Court favour is not, it is true, acute. Not to mention the profound national confidence in the Queen, which even this Government

has been unable to shake, it is felt that the Sovereign, even when ill-advised, can intend nothing but what is well for the

Services ; that she is theoretically the mistress of all employes, and that she possesses a vast fund of experience of persons, as well as of events. And Great Britain is a Monarchy, after all is said, and not a Republic. But as against the " Court," there does exist a deep and latent jealousy, which could be stirred into active bitterness in a moment, and by very trivial circumstances. The Duke of Cam- bridge must feel that every day, being every day scolded ar taunted for acts which, done by a Duke of Wellington or a Lord Hardinge, would never be noticed, or if noticed, com- mented on only as slight mistakes, inseparable from the routine of a great Department. A Court favourite is still presumably, in the public imagination, a person unduly favoured. So sharp is the dislike, so wide-spread the impression that such favourites are promoted, not for their qualities, but for their servility, that Court favour, unless redeemed by very great acts or very great personal charm, distinctly lowers the public confidence in its possessor. Under these circumstances, a circle so influential and so distrusted—justly or unjustly, matters nothing—cannot be too cautious, too reticent, or too dignified in holding aloof from political squabbles, and especially from squabbles certain to be noticed in the newspapers. Every word its members say is sure to be exaggerated, every act misunderstood, till both devo- tion and dislike are exaggerated to the last degree,—and the world being what it is, the dislike is sure to be the larger in volume. Those who come in contact with the Royalties, like their influence; those who do not, hate it ; and the latter form the nation. Take this very incident as proof of what we say. Here is Sir Robert Peel, the son of one of the greatest of English Premiers, a man of large fortune and high position, who has lived his life in the very centre of society, a man, too, of Old-Tory proclivities, and he the very moment he thinks himself affronted by the Court circle, strikes out with a rage which hardly any Radical would display. He exaggerates the blow he has received, till he feels as if he were the victim of some hideous oppression, and grows savage with his wrongs. That may strike those above him as ridiculous, but suppose Sir Robert Peel wanted a seat for Stoke-upon-Trent, and stood for it as the man who could be trusted to fight the Court, and destroy that Court influence to which he would attribute the disasters of our South- African campaign. Does anybody doubt that he would be returned, or can any sensible person question that this must always be the result of any obtrusion, real or fancied, of Court influence,—still more, of the existence of anything approaching ever so distantly to a Court party in politics ? The Court will have its own opinions, of course, and is entitled to have them ; but un- less it is to be hated as an influence outside the Constitution, it must keep them and. itself in the background, behind the veil in which every modern statesman, except Lord Beaconsfield, has kept the Monarchy. Princes and their friends, if they wish to remain lofty personages, not open to the pitiless criti- cism which rains upon Ministers of State, should keep out of the Arena. There is always mud there, and the gladiators are always stronger than they.