Page:Dictionary of National Biography. Sup. Vol III (1901).djvu/449

 with her to the opera, the theatre, and Ascot. A suggestion made to them that Portugal should join England in the Crimean war was reasonably rejected by their advisers. The chief spectacular event of the season was the opening by the queen at Sydenham, on 10 June, of the Crystal Palace, which had, much to the prince's satisfaction, been transferred from Hyde Park after the Great Exhibition.

Through the summer the queen shared with a large section of the public a fear that the government was not pursuing the war with requisite energy. When Lord Aberdeen, in a speech in the House of Lords on 20 June, argumentatively defended Russia against violent assaults in the English press, the queen promptly reminded him of the misapprehensions that the appearance of lukewarnmess must create in the public mind.

Whatever were the misrepresentations of the tsar's policy, she said, it was at the moment incumbent on him to remember that 'there is enough in that policy to make us fight with all our might against it.' She and the prince incessantly appealed to the ministers to hasten their deliberations and to improve the organisation of the Crimean army. A hopeful feature of the situation was Napoleon Ill's zeal. In July the prince accepted the emperor's invitation to inspect with him the camp at St. Omer, where an army was fitting out for the Crimea. The meeting was completely successful, and the good relations of the rulers of the two countries were thus placed on a surer foundation. While at Balmoral in September the queen was elated to receive 'all the most interesting and gratifying details of the splendid and decisive victory of the Alma.' On leaving Balmoral (11 Oct.) she visited the docks at Grimsby and Hull, but her mind was elsewhere. From Hull (13 Oct.) she wrote to her uncle Leopold, ' We are, and indeed the whole country is, entirely engrossed with one idea, one anxious thought the Crimea.' News of the victories of Inkermann (25 Oct.) and Balaclava (5 Nov.) did not entirely relieve her anxiety. 'Such a time of suspense,' she wrote on 7 Nov., 'I never expected to see, much less to feel.'

During the winter the cruel hardships which climate, disease, and failure of the commissariat inflicted on the troops strongly stirred public feeling. The queen initiated or supported all manner of voluntary measures of relief. With her own hands she made woollen comforters and mittens for the men. On New Year's day, 1855, she wrote to the commander-in-chief, Lord Raglan, expressing her sympathy with the army in its 'sad privations and constant sickness,' and entreated him to make the camps 'as comfortable as circumstances can admit of.' No details escaped her, and she especially called his attention to the rumour 'that the soldiers' coffee was given them green instead of roasted.' Although the queen and the prince grew every day more convinced of the defective administration of the war office, they were unflinchingly loyal to the prime minister, Lord Aberdeen, who was the target of much public censure. Before the opening of parliament in January 1855, by way of proof of their personal sympathy, she made him a knight of the garter.

But it was beyond her power, had it been her wish, to prop the falling government. The session no sooner opened than Lord John insisted on seceding in face of the outcry against the management of the war. The blow was serious, and Lord Aberdeen was with difficulty persuaded by the queen to hold on. But complete shipwreck was not long delayed. On 29 Jan. the government was hopelessly defeated on a hostile motion for an inquiry into the management of the war. Aberdeen's retirement was inevitable, and it was obvious that the queen was face to face with the distasteful necessity of conferring the supreme power in the state on her old enemy, Palmerston. The situation called for all her fortitude. She took time before submitting. A study of the division lists taught her that Lord Derby's supporters formed the greater number of the voters who had destroyed Lord Aberdeen's ministry. She therefore, despite Aberdeen's warning, invited Lord Derby to assume the government. Derby explained to her that he could not without aid from other parties, and a day later he announced his failure to secure extraneous assistance. The queen then turned to the veteran whig, Lord Lansdowne, and bade him privately seek advice for her from all the party leaders. In the result she summoned Lord John Russell on the ground that his followers were in number and compactness second to Lord Derby's. But she could not blind herself to the inevitable result of the negotiations, and, suppressing her private feeling, she assured Lord John that she hoped Palmerston would join him. But she had not gone far enough. Lord John was not strong enough to accept the queen's commands. A continuance of the eadlock was perilous. The queen confided to her sympathetic friend Lord Clarendon her reluctance to take the