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race. The Democrats’ turmoil had naturally boosted the morale of the Republican Party by the time its delegates gathered in Chicago in mid-May to choose their presidential candidate. Seward was so certain of victory that he departed for his hometown of Auburn in upstate New York with his farewell speech to the Senate already prepared. But once the balloting began, his supporters realized they had made a tactical mistake in allowing the convention to take place in Illinois, Abraham Lincoln’s home state, instead of in New York. Seward’s campaign was outmaneuvered at every turn. Lincoln’s supporters successfully portrayed their candidate as an American success story. Lincoln was “honest Abe,” the humble rail splitter turned prominent lawyer, whose moderate views on slavery would do more to unite the country than Seward’s radical rhetoric. Seward’s campaign manager, Thurlow Weed, spent too much time doing deals and not enough assuaging the fears of the doubters. After a blazing start, Seward’s camp began to lose supporters, and by the third ballot, Lincoln emerged as the clear winner.

Seward was crushed. He had refrained from running for the presidency in 1856 on Thurlow Weed’s advice. Now he looked back and saw it as his squandered opportunity. His loss to Lincoln seemed inexplicable to anyone who had not attended the convention. “Seward went away from Washington a few days ago feeling perfectly certain of being named as the Candidate of the Republicans,” Lyons reported on May 22, 1860. “I never heard Lincoln even mentioned by the heads of the Party here.” Lyons could provide only scant details: “He is, I understand, a rough farmer who began life as a farm labourer and got on by a talent for stump speaking. Little more is known of him.”39 Charles Sumner sent a letter of commiseration to Seward expressing his shock at the surprise result, although he wrote to the Duchess of Argyll “that, while in England, I always expressed a doubt whether Seward could be nominated.”40

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The British government was pondering the meaning of Seward’s defeat for Anglo-American relations when President Buchanan issued an invitation for the Prince of Wales to tour the United States.2.9 The president had heard that Queen Victoria was sending the eighteen-year-old Prince Edward to Canada, in fulfillment of a long-standing request from the Canadians for a royal visit. Buchanan suggested that the prince’s trip could be extended by a further six weeks to include a stay at the White House.

Although the Queen was initially doubtful whether her son was up to the job, Prince Albert and the cabinet realized that Britain had been presented with a rare opportunity to improve the transatlantic relationship. Lyons, who was awarded the daunting task of deciding the prince’s itinerary, was delighted to have something other than the island of San Juan to discuss with Buchanan. Together with the Queen and the Foreign Office, Lyons devised an arrangement whereby the prince would travel to the United States in an unofficial capacity, as if on holiday, though accompanied by himself and the Duke of Newcastle at all times. There were to be no official deputations, delegations, or ceremonies. This, Lyons hoped, would dampen any attempts by Irish agitators to whip up local Anglophobia. Furthermore, in a nod to republican sentiment, the prince would use the least of all his titles, Baron Renfrew, allowing him to be treated as an ordinary British subject while “incognito.” Except for a passing visit to Virginia, Lyons simply left the South off the prince’s itinerary.

Naturally, in all the cities on the prince’s route, the request for “Baron Renfrew” to be treated as a private citizen was ignored. Almost every inhabitant of Detroit was at the docks when the royal party clambered off the ferry Windsor on September 20, 1860. The same was true at the train station in Chicago. “Bertie,” as his family called him, was taken aback by the enthusiasm that greeted his arrival. The Americans seemed to like him even more than the Canadians did. At his every stop there were parades,