Note 123 — Chapter IV · THE DEATH OF THE PRINCE CONSORT.

The allusion here to the “revival” of Wilberforce’s old affection may seem curious. The Bishop of Oxford enjoyed more influence and favour at Court than ever fell to the lot of any ecclesiastic in our time. He was one of the extremely small group of prominent public men—Sir Robert Peel, Lord Aberdeen, the Duke of Newcastle, Lord Clarendon, and Sir George Cornewall Lewis—who enjoyed the Prince’s close personal friendship. But suddenly, for no apparent reason, the Prince Consort dropped him, and in one of his letters to Miss Noel the Bishop gives utterance to his sorrow over his fall at Court. Knowing Lord Aberdeen’s intimacy with the Prince, he begged his son, the Hon. Arthur Gordon, to induce his father to intercede for him. The incident curiously illustrates the Prince Consort’s character. When Lord Aberdeen opened the subject with his customary tact and delicacy, the Prince detected his object at once, and stopped him by observing, “He (the Bishop) does everything for some object. He has a motive for all his conduct.” Lord Aberdeen replied, “Yes, sir, but when a bad motive?” which, however, did not lead the Prince to continue the discussion. Again Lord Aberdeen seized an opportunity of serving the Bishop, and this time the Prince Consort frankly said he had occasion to doubt the Bishop’s sincerity—a suspicion that invariably forfeited the Prince’s confidence. Being pressed by Aberdeen still further, the Prince said that in early life he detected Wilberforce intriguing for the preceptorship of the Prince of Wales. Nor was that all. In a discussion with the Prince on a certain miracle about which he had preached, the Bishop had unduly modified his views to suit those of the Prince. It is only fair to Wilberforce to say that, in a letter to the Hon. Arthur Gordon, he denies the assertion about the preceptorship, but admits there was some colour in the other part of the Prince’s case. “The swine sermon,” writes Wilberforce, “was preached in days when he (the Prince Consort) was most friendly, long before I was Dean or Bishop; the conversation followed, and a long one it was. He did not say how entirely he disbelieved in spirits of evil, but raised all possible objections, which I combated; and the only thing like ‘convenient’ averment I said was that it was far best to believe in a devil who suggested evil to us; for that otherwise we were driven to make every man his own devil; and I thought that this view rather touched him.” It did touch him, but not in the way intended. See Life of Wilberforce, by his son, Reginald G. Wilberforce, Vol. II., p. 226. For reference to the Prince’s funeral, see Vol. III., pp. 41-45.