THE MARCH OF THE CARAVAN 185

appeared inprobable that the young Prince of Wales, who in his
pleasures seemed reverting to the less decorous traditions of his
Hanoverian forebears, would ever succeed to the throne. The
spirit of a progressive age demanded a republic.

In one of his early political works Disraeli defined his life-long
attitude to the Crown. "The wisdom of your forefathers placed
the prize of supreme power without the sphere of human passions
. . . Whatever the struggle of parties, whatever the strife of
factions . . . there has always been something in this country
round which all classes and parties could rally, representing the
majesty of the law, the administration of justice and involving
.... the security of every man's right and the fountain of
honour.* More than any other institution, the hereditary throne
represented to Disraeli the continuing community as opposed to
the government of the hour. For it embodied his conception of
perpetual trusteeship. His wise and delicate conduct towards his
sovereign whom he encouraged to resume her traditional
functions in the pageantry of state was part of his political
creed. His unfailing defence of the royal prerogative1 ia
the Commons was another. It was not the least of his services
to posterity that he laboured to revive popular sympathy and
affection for the throne, and with the aid of his royal mistress
to re-establish it dn the firm foundation on which it had been the
pride of the great Tudor monarchs to rest it—the hearts of the
people.

In all that he did and advocated Disraeli strove to place the
government of Britain and its empire on a broad basis of in-
dependence and privilege. He believed it to be his mission todose
the breaches created by the Industrial Revolution and to blend the
diverse elements of the nation, not by levelling them but by
bringing them into sympathy with the spirit of a new age. "In
a progressive country," he declared in 1867, "change is constant,
and the great question is, not whether you should resist change
which is inevitable^ but whether that change should be carried
out in deference to the manners, the customs, the laws, the
traditions of the people, or in deference to abstract principles and
arbitrary and general doctrines."2 It was his aim therefore-
pursued for more than thirty years in the face of constant

ialt is not difficult to conceive an occasion when, supnprted by the sympathies of a
loyal people, its exercise might defeat an unconstitutional Ministry and a corrupt
Parliament." Disraeli, Lord George JSmtinck, Ck. /ft

•Montfenny & Buckk, //, 291.