Note 56 — Introductory material (continued 3)

Prince Albert was at one time very unpopular in England. His advising the Queen, and consequent intimate and personal knowledge of all that was going on during the Russian war, coupled with the fact that he was a foreigner, led the unthinking to believe that he was secretly helping Russia—a report of which he seems to have been well aware (vide Sir T. Martin’s “Life of the Prince Consort,” vol. iii. p. 219, March, 1855). I recollect very well the rumour that he had been imprisoned in the Tower, and a comic paper had an engraving of two cabmen meeting, and one saying to the other, “Have yer ’eard the noose? Vhy, Prince Halbert along with two other Commander-in-Chiefs have been sent to the Tower; which Lewis Napoleon diwulged ’em a sending of five pound notes to the Emperor of Rooshia, and so he blowed the gaff” (told of them).