THE INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF HEROISM IN BRITAIN 41
War Office were in agreement as to the wording of the warrant and the
design of the award.^80
Chief among Victoria and Albert’s desires was to make sure the Cross
remained a purely royal award, that parliament could not take credit for
its creation nor meddle in its administration. Panmure assured the Queen
that the warrant ‘Must declare throughout the Royal Will and Pleasure of
the Queen – and bear the stamp of an act of Her Own prerogative. The
sovereign is the fountain of all honours, and commands their institution
as well as their revocation.’^81 This remained an active issue in the Queen’s
eyes; in 1857, writing on the subject of the first bestowals of the VC, she
instructed Panmure:
The Queen would wish the first notice of these awards to be in the
Gazette & to have the explanations of the grounds upon which they are
granted appended to each case as is done in the list submitted to her. To
make such a report to Parliament by laying it on the table of the Houses,
would look like an appeal to its discussion on a matter which clearly
belongs solely & entirely to the discretion of the Crown.^82
The Victoria Cross warrant was duly worded in such a way as to put as
much of the selection process in military hands as possible, with final
authority vested in the Queen as to who did and did not qualify.^83 Panmure’s
assurances were welcomed, but the suspicious Albert wanted to make doubly
sure parliament could not interfere. Consequently the warrant was signed
by the Queen and the Secretary for War on Saturday, 26 January 1856,
while parliament was not in session. Even that was not enough to reassure
Albert fully; on Monday he dashed off a note to Panmure demanding that
he publish the warrant before parliament convened on Thursday, so as to
present the House of Commons with afait accompli.^84 The Warrant was thus
published on Tuesday, 29 January 1856. By coincidence, this was the first
anniversary of the fall of the Aberdeen Ministry.
The public had cried out for heroes; Victoria and Albert got the link
to the soldier they wanted, and in the process created perhaps the most
discriminating gallantry award in the world. From its inception it was
determined to make the Cross an exclusive community and keep it free of
political dilution. In Victoria’s mind it was to be an award earned in the
blazing moment of glory when one of her red-coated avatars performed a
deed that, like the charge at Balaclava, made her ‘tremble with emotion,
as well as pride, in reading the recital of the heroism of these devoted
men.’ The official recognition of heroism had been formalized with the
lily
(lily)
#1