Chapter III.
The King’s Boyhood

In view of all that has been said in the last chapter to show how anxiously Queen Victoria and Prince Albert considered the education of the future King of England, it is amusing to record that the latter was quite five years old before it occurred to the public to take an interest in the question. It was then that a pamphlet was published, entitledWho should educate the Prince of Wales? This contribution to the subject was carefully read by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, and Baron Stockmar drew up another long memorandum, dealing this time with the question of the Prince’s education alone. He was fully sensible of the importance of the subject.

“On the choice of the principles on which the Prince of Wales shall be educated,” he wrote, “will in all probability depend whether the future Sovereign of England shall reign in harmony with, or in opposition to, the prevailing opinions of his people. The importance of the selection of principles is increased by the consideration that opinion in Europe is at this moment obviously in a state of transition, and that by the time the Prince shall ascend the throne many of the maxims of government and institutions of society now in the ascendancy will, according to present probabilities, have either entirely passed away, or be on the very verge of change.”

After enlarging on this topic, the Baron lays down that the great and leading question is—whether the education of the Prince should be one which will prepare him for approaching events, or one which will stamp, perhaps indelibly, an impression of the sacred character of all existing institutions on his youthful mind, and teach him that to resist change is to serve at once the cause of God and of his country. Baron Stockmar recommends the former course, but he utters the warning that:—

“The education of the Prince should, however, nowise tend to make him a demagogue or a moral enthusiast, but a man of calm, profound, comprehensive understanding, imbued with a deep conviction of the indispensable necessity of practical morality to the welfare of both Sovereign and people. The proper duty of the Sovereign in this country is not to take the lead in change, but to act as a balance-wheel on the movements of the social body. When the whole nation, or a large majority of it, advances, the King should not stand still; but when the movement is too partial, irregular, or over-rapid, the royal power may with advantage be interposed to restore the equilibrium. Above all attainments, the Prince should be trained to freedom of thought and a firm reliance on the inherent power of sound principles, political, moral, and religious, to sustain themselves and produce practical good when left in possession of a fair field of development.”

As regards the religious faith in which the future King was to be brought up, the law prescribed that of the Church of England, and Baron Stockmar therefore does not discuss that point, but he does put a question arising out of it, which naturally seemed in that year—1846—more difficult than it would seem nowadays. The Baron asks in effect whether the Prince should be made acquainted with the changes then going on in public opinion in regard to matters of faith, and the important influence on the minds of educated men which the discoveries of science were likely to exert in the future? Without suggesting a definite answer to his own question, the Baron goes on to say:—

“The Prince should early be taught that thrones and social order have a stable foundation in the moral and intellectual faculties of man; that by addressing his public exertions to the cultivation of these powers in his people, and by taking their dictates as the constant guides of his own conduct, he will promote the solidity of his empire and the prosperity of his subjects. In one word, he should be taught that God, in the constitution of the mind and in the arrangement of creation, has already legislated for men, both as individuals and as nations; that the laws of morality, which he has written in their nature, are the foundations on which, and on which alone, their prosperity can be reared; and that the human legislator and sovereign have no higher duty than to discover and carry into execution these enactments of Divine legislation.”

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert also consulted the Bishop of Oxford (Dr. Wilberforce) and Sir James Clark, both of whom recorded their views in long and carefully considered papers, in which they came to conclusions substantially the same as those of Baron Stockmar. On these principles, therefore, King Edward VII. was educated, namely, that the best way to build up a noble and princely character was to bring it into intelligent sympathy with the best movements of the age.

After some further discussion Prince Albert opened negotiations with Mr. Henry Birch, afterwards rector of Pre