And
she kept to all these resolves. Her will was indomitable. So
was her sense of duty. Yet in politics, in particular, there
were things that she could not do. She could not compel her prime
ministers to reveal to her what was going on inside the political
parties which now provided the main basis of her strength. She
could not resist a united cabinet. Her influence was greater
than Bagehot's assessment of it when he drew what became a famous
distinction between the "dignified" aspects of the constitution
and the "efficient" and circumscribed powers of the
monarch by singling out as the Sovereign's rights the right to
be consulted, the right to encourage and the right to warn. One
interesting example of what the Queen could do related to the
royal speech which the Sovereign delivers at the opening of each
Parliament. It was prepared by the prime minister and set out
the agenda for the coming Parliament which the government wished
to follow. In 1893 when the aged Gladstone proposed to reintroduce
his Home Rule for Ireland bill and stated in the draft of the
royal speech that it was for the "better government"
of Ireland the Queen told him flatly that she could not use the
word "better". It was left out. Relations with Gladstone
had been difficult for both sides since the mid-1870s, and on
one occasion he wrote after one interview with the Queen that
it was of the kind that took place between Marie Antoinette and
her executioner.
The aged Queen, troubled by bad eyesight and hearing, survived
the aged Gladstone who suffered from the same complaints, and
she could not bring herself to say flattering or even friendly
things about him after his death in 1898. No expression of royal
regret appeared in the Court Circular. "I am sorry for Mrs.
Gladstone, the Queen wrote, "as for him, I never liked him,
and I will say nothing about him." In writing to Mrs. Gladstone,
whom she did not dislike, she concentrated characteristically
on family matters: "I shall always gratefull remember how
anxious he always was to help and serve me and mine in all that
concerned my personal comfort and welfare ... as well as that
of my family.
There was a complete contrast between Victoria's attitudes and
behaviour towards Gladstone and Disraeli, accountable for in part,
but only in part and at the beginning by Disraeli's praise of
Albert who, he said, "had governed England for twenty-one
years with a wisdom and energy such as none of our kings have
ever shown".
