advertise his participation in their promotion and presentation. But his Ministers remonstrated, memoranda were written, and protests pressed home. In the result, the King reluctantly withdrew from the field; while his advisers boasted of their victory and of their professed knowledge of the Constitutional system. Nevertheless, the King's influence was felt in many important departments of public business, and an audience was no perfunctory affair. In 1909, when the Lords rejected the Budget, His Majesty was so persuaded that a tactical error had been committed that he let the nation know that he had addressed himself to the leaders of both Parties in order to avert a catastrophe. It had been well for the nation had he prevailed. His foresight was superior to that of his servants, his acumen to that of the Party Press. The blunder once committed, the King abstained from further action. The Government submitted their resolutions for limiting the powers of the House of Lords, and brought in their Bill. The King simply acquiesced. He died before the fatal day when the Peers assisted in their own destruction as a legislative chamber. His death was perhaps the greatest occasion of national mourning in the history of the country. A great figure had passed away, and democracy for a while forgot the politicians.

In any review of the attitude of the sovereign in relation to his Ministry it is necessary to bear in mind the position and authority of the palace secretariat. An interesting chapter might be

written on this subject, for the matter is not really obsolete. Until the reign of George III none of the English monarchs ever had a private secretary. The duty of assisting the sovereign in dealing with official business devolved upon the Principal Secretary of State. But when about the year 1805 the King became

so blind that he was unable to read communications from his Ministers the appointment of a private secretary was found to be absolutely necessary. On the recommendation of Mr. Pitt, Col. Taylor was appointed to the office with a salary which was paid out of the Privy Purse, and was therefore never voted by Parliament. Not a word of complaint appears to have been uttered against Col. Taylor in the discharge of a novel and delicate duty. At the same time the office itself was regarded with grave dislike and suspicion in many Parliamentary quarters, and it only escaped challenge from consideration for the pitiable condition of the aged sovereign. On the establishment of the Regency in 1810, the Prince of Wales appointed a personal friend, a Member of the House of Commons, to be his private secretary with a salary charged on the Treasury Vote. Thereupon the storm broke, and a heated debate took place in the House of Commons upon the appointment. Ministers were closely pressed as to the facts of the case. A motion was put down for a copy of the appointment with a view of founding on it a vote of censure. The debate is well worth perusal, even in these days. The greatest objection was urged to the appointment on Constitutional grounds. Lord Castlereagh and the Chancellor of the Exchequer endeavored to allay the storm by belittling the office and by describing its duties as nothing more than those of an ordinary amanuensis. The Opposition, however, contended that it was a most irregular proceeding to allow the secrets of the Council to pass through a third person, thereby subjecting the advice of Ministers to the revision of a private secretary, even though he was a Privy Councilor. * Defeated by a majority

*Downing Street appears to have been as little popular in those days as it is now. Mr. Tierney in this debate observed that, for his part, if he were to have any transactions with

of seventy-six the Opposition renewed their attack on the appointment. They repeated their protest against the office being made a public charge with such effect that Lord Castlereagh had to give way and to announce in the House that the Prince Regent had been pleased to direct that the salary should be defrayed from his Privy Purse. The matter then dropped. Subsequent appointments to the place were only mildly questioned, some controversy arising as to whether the King's private secretary should be a Privy Councilor. When George IV desired to admit Sir William Knighton into the Privy Council, the proposal was opposed by Lord Liverpool as being most objectionable in principle and precedent. The Prime Minister relied on the opinion of George III, "who understood these matters better than anyone," that the King's private secretary "should be put exactly on the footing of an Under-Secretary of State," a functionary who is never a Privy Councilor.*

Greville notes a delightful episode in connection with this appointment. When Sir William Knighton, whose principal business appears to have been to extricate the King from his debts, was appointed to the office of private secretary, he called at Apsley House to announce his good fortune to the Duke of Wellington, and to express the hope that his appointment would not be displeasing to His Grace. The Duke said he would give him a piece of advice: this was that he should confine himself to the discharge of the functions belonging to his own situa

His Royal Highness he would not apply to him through the medium of the right honorable gentleman opposite. He would prefer the intervention of the private secretary to going through all the tedious frivolities of Downing Street.

tion, that he should not in any way interfere with the Government, that as long as he should so conduct himself, he would do very well, but that if ever he were to meddle with the concerns of Ministers he would give them such offense that they would not suffer him to remain in a situation which he should thus abuse. The private secretary humbly thanked the great man, and then trotted off to inform the King, who subsequently told the Duke that he might depend upon Knighton to follow his advice!*

Upon the accession of Queen Victoria it was determined that she should not have the services of a private secretary, on the ground that such an official might exercise undue influence upon her inexperienced mind, and thus might prove prejudicial to the State. Such was the opinion of Lord Melbourne, who, however, assumed the duties of the office himself in spite of the protest of Lord Aberdeen that the acceptance by the Prime Minister of such a position was an unconstitutional proceeding, "being calculated to impair the free exercise of the royal judgment." After the Queen's marriage the Government agreed that the functions of the private secretary should devolve upon the Prince Consort. Upon his death Sir T. Biddulph, General Grey, and Sir Henry Ponsonby, successively filled the office, and as in the case of subsequent holders of the appointment their tenure of the place attracted but little attention or criticism.

The position of a private secretary is largely determined by the conduct of his chief, be he sovereign or Minister. Nothing is more difficult to trace than this invisible influence where it is permitted to have play. Nothing is more potent than this influence-this don fatal de familiarité—where timidity or indifference mark the character upon *Greville Memoirs," vol. i, p. 74.

which it is brought to bear. There have been occasions during the present reign when Ministers have found in the near neighborhood of the sovereign the means of persuasion to courses which they have recommended in the interest of place and faction. Independence of judgment, impartial appreciation of a situation, and a correct estimate of a problem have alike been disturbed by counsel based on political motives or largely determined by fear. When this combination of private secretary with Ministers is operative it is, perhaps, unreasonable to look to the Crown for any effort of resistance or remonstrance. Everything has to yield to the joint pressure of Downing Street and the Household, and the royal judgment to use Lord Aberdeen's phrase -is hopelessly stifled and checked.

The main strength of the Crown lies, no doubt, in its symbolic representation of the Imperial idea. It is the emblem of national unity: it is the inspiration of the national purpose. No originating faculties are required of the monarch in the field of legislation or in the conduct of public affairs. Under the Constitution he is not expected to encroach on Ministerial functions or to interfere in the complex machinery of Government. And yet although the kingly office has undergone complete transformation since Parliamentary Government has taken the place of the sovereign's personal responsibility, the duties of Royalty are still vital if less conspicuous. The Crown has this great advantage. The most enlightened Minister of the day has to think of his Party and the power and fortunes of his Party. His judgment is necessarily warped by such considerations. His conduct is insensibly determined by them. But the sovereign has no such cares. As the permanent head of the nation he is only concerned with its welfare, its honor, and its destiny. In a crisis he

can do much to moderate Party differences and to encourage patriotism, and as an impartial interpreter of public opinion he can exercise, if he will, a profound influence upon his advisers, and indirectly upon those agencies on which they depend.

In time of war the exalted situation of the sovereign calls for the performance of certain acts of State, which peculiarly appertain to the royal office. The presence of the King with his troops or with his naval forces: his constant appearance in his capital and the principal towns of the country: his public association with those engaged in every philanthropic effort for the alleviation of distress-these duties, while they entail heavy burdens and may involve some personal risks, become, if cheerfully discharged, the opportunity for stimulating a healthy expression of loyalty on the part of the people for their ruler. The display of pomp and circumstance of power, accompanied by the manifestation of kindly feelings, is never so necessary as in the crisis of a war. If by these means devotion is not stimulated and attachment to the dynasty attracted, there is left unfulfilled a part which no one can undertake in the sovereign's stead. No Prime Minister can rival the King in the glory of ceremonial; no one can vie with him in his unapproachable dignity. But the politicians of today will not have it. It seems as if they were bent on casting their bleak shadow over the Crown. So far from encouraging the King to take the first place before the eyes of his subjects, and to exhibit all the attributes of a manly and sympathetic sovereignty in the nation's life-and-death struggle, every effort is made to obscure the Throne. The Press are charged week by week with warnings against public reference to His Majesty's movements, and all the machinery of an obscurantist censorship is directed to

conceal his existence from his subjects at home and abroad.

If the Crown and its personal secretariat cannot prevail against the operations of the Press Bureau there are other spheres where issue might be joined with the political Mandarins of the hour. The real title to popular favor which the present Government obtained at the outset of its career was that to the exclusion of all else it would bend its energies and strain all its resources to the prosecution of the war. With this end in view it was hoped that all legislative projects would have been postponed, and that Home Rule, electoral reform, and other familiar pieces of the Party chessboard would have been decently laid aside. Not so, however. Playing the game of their disaffected and distracted opponents the Government have been seduced to engage in the familiar Party struggle. Ministers spend their days with the draftsman and occupy themselves with deputations, conferences, and committees. They complain of overwork, but their fatigue is largely due to the claims of the wire-puller and the clamor of the election agent. The necessities of the fighting forces, the insistent needs of a population in sight of hunger, are postponed to the detailed demands of the Party organization, and the mingled cajolery and terrorism of disloyal Nationalists below the gangway. Here was an occasion for the authority of the Crown. Is the idea too violent? Surely not. A royal message might have summoned to the palace the Prime Minister and the principal Secretaries of State. There the King would have firmly intimated to his advisers that in the interest of the nation he could approve none of their legislative schemes during the progress of the war, and that he must request his Ministers to concentrate their undivided attention upon those measures only which were

calculated to secure an early victory for our arms. He would have asserted that to move in these political matters only provokes futile and irritating discussions at a time when the union of the nation is the first necessity, and that it was absurd to discuss a franchise with the enemy at our gates. Ministers might have remonstrated. They might even, mirabile dictu, have threatened resignation: but His Majesty's decree would have rested on the secure foundation of the nation's approval. He would have rightly gauged the mind of his subjects. He would have had his people at home and of every clime behind him. A royal rescript announcing His Majesty's commands would have been welcomed by a nation which recognized that the Throne was still an operative part of the Constitution, and that it had a title to their affection superior to the troubled and ambiguous designs of the political representatives of a decaying and discredited Parliament.

Again, when Ministers applied to the Crown as the fountain of honor the sovereign might surely have taken a decision which would have commanded well-nigh universal approbation. It had been well if at the beginning of the war the politicians had been informed that the moratorium extended to their political debts. That Garters, Ribands, Peerages, Privy Councilorships, Baronetcies, and Knighthoods must all wait, and that peace for the time must be made with the hungry parvenu and the jobbing mediocrity. "Business as usual” was a bad motto: "Honors as usual" almost worse. It has been sickening to peruse the Honors lists during the war, and to read of the rewards bestowed upon the crawling race of toadies and placehunters in newspapers crammed with casualty lists and the records of shattered homes. Here the sovereign would have been on safe ground. He would

have informed the Prime Minister that the only Honors he could undertake to consider would be those assigned to distinguished officers of the Fighting Services: that expectant peers, and peers expectant, bello durante, must stand aside, and that it was useless to press him with the claims of some persistent nobleman or the ambition of a

loquacious commoner. It is an open

secret that some show of resistance was lately made to a peerage which rested only on the undisclosed services rendered to the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. If only that resistance had been maintained, it had been an easy and popular victory for the sovereign. Ministers might have threatened and blustered, but the King held all the cards. He could have taught the politicians a salutary lesson: he would have shown them that he was not afraid of the public judgment on his refusal to oblige them. But in truth there would have been no crisis over the Beaverbrook peerage. There was, moreover, some humor in the situation, and the public would have laughed it away.

So far the instances given are those where it is submitted that the sovereign might have asserted an authority he undoubtedly possessed alike for the benefit of his country and for the proper discipline of the Ministry. He would have met the initiative of the politicians with a negative which would have been endorsed by his subjects. He would have proved the value of the kingly office in a limited monarchy. But the war provided yet another opportunity for the display of the royal authority. At the very outset of the national crisis expulsions from the Garter and the annulment of the peerages of German princelets should have been undertaken without waiting for the prompting of irresponsible individuals. It only required the co-operation of Ministers with the

Crown for the abatement of the scandal and the public would have hailed with rapture a step of signal justice to the nation, and one of striking testimony to the credit of the Throne. But the politicians were indifferent, if not averse, to the policy. When hostile critics have made play with stories of dynastic influences in high places, a graceless Ministry have never discouraged the insinuations. On the contrary, they have found in them a specious excuse for their own failures, and they have allowed the gossip of the irresponsible to prejudice the reputation of the Royal Family. Such conduct is, of course, not alien to the Ministerial mind; but it would have been of no effect had the Crown recognized its true supremacy in the matter and had asserted an independence calculated to serve the popularity of an illustrious house, and to prove its sympathy with the reasonable expectations of the people.

The lessons of adversity, like other unwelcome lessons, are learned but slowly, and in that stern lore the English people may have been but inept scholars. But resolute and active spirits among them may be trained by circumstances of alarm and danger to appreciate the consequences arising out of the uncontrolled actions of professional politicians. The long neglect to provide for the defense of the realm against the foreign enemy, the undue pre-eminence acquired by men whose title to office rests upon the reputation for debating loquacity, and the corrupt arrangements for maintaining and developing the secret machinery of political organizations have combined to shake the general credit of the Parliamentary system.

In England it is not the Crown which is on its trial, rather is it the professional politicians who claim to draw their authority from the suffrages of an indifferent democracy, and who rate