For many weeks these accusations filled the whole of the press; repeated at public meetings, elaborated in private talk, they flew over the country, growing every moment more extreme and more improbable.

While respectable newspapers thundered out their grave invectives, halfpenny broadsides, hawked through the streets of London, re-echoed in doggerel vulgarity the same sentiments and the same suspicions( *).

At last the wildest rumours began to spread.
(*)"The Turkish war both far and near Has played the very deuce then, And little Al, the royal pal, They say has turned a Russian; Old Aberdeen, as may be seen, Looks woeful pale and yellow, And Old John Bull had his belly full Of dirty Russian tallow." Chorus: "We'll send him home and make him groan, Oh, Al! you've played the deuce then; The German lad has acted sad And turned tail with the Russians." * * * * * "Last Monday night, all in a fright, Al out of bed did tumble.
The German lad was raving mad, How he did groan and grumble! He cried to Vic, 'I've cut my stick: To St.Petersburg go right slap.' When Vic, 'tis said, jumped out of bed, And wopped him with her night-cap." From Lovely Albert! a broadside preserved at the British Museum.
In January, 1854, it was whispered that the Prince had been seized, that he had been found guilty of high treason, that he was to be committed to the Tower.

The Queen herself, some declared, had been arrested, and large crowds actually collected round the Tower to watch the incarceration of the royal miscreants.( *) (*)"You Jolly Turks, now go to work, And show the Bear your power.
It is rumoured over Britain's isle That A------ is in the Tower; The postmen some suspicion had, And opened the two letters, 'Twas a pity sad the German lad Should not have known much better!" Lovely Albert! These fantastic hallucinations, the result of the fevered atmosphere of approaching war, were devoid of any basis in actual fact.

Palmerston's resignation had been in all probability totally disconnected with foreign policy; it had certainly been entirely spontaneous, and had surprised the Court as much as the nation.