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 ascendency, within certain limits, which under the constitution a ministerial crisis assured the crown, if its wearer cared to assert it. The revelation was in the main to the advantage of the prestige of the throne. It conflicted with the constitutional fallacy that the monarch was necessarily and invariably an automaton. But the queen had no intention of exceeding her constitutional power, and when, immediately after the settlement of the ministerial difficulty, the House of Commons, by an irresistible vote of the opposition, petitioned her to suspend new appointments in the Irish church in the crown's control, and to place royal patronage at the parliament's disposal, she did not permit any personal predilections to postpone her assent for a day.

On 10 March 1868 the queen, for the first time since her widowhood, held a drawing-room at Buckingham Palace. On 20 June she reviewed twenty-seven thousand volunteers in Windsor Park, and two days later gave a public 'breakfast' or afternoon party in the gardens of Buckingham Palace. She appeared to observers to enjoy the entertainment, but she had no intention of introducing any change into her habitually secluded mode of life. By way of illustrating her desire to escape from court functions, she in August paid a first visit to Switzerland, travelling incognito under the name of the Countess of Kent. She forbade any public demonstration in her honour, but accepted the Emperor Napoleon's courteous offer of his imperial train in which to travel through France. On the outward journey she rested for a day at the English embassy in Paris, where the Empress Eugenie paid her an informal visit (6 Aug.) Next day she reached Lucerne, where she had rented the Villa Pension Wallace near the lake. She stayed there, engaged in the recreations of a private pleasure-seeker, till 9 Sept., when she again passed through France in the emperor's train. She paused at Paris on 10 Sept. to revisit St. Cloud, which revived sad memories of her happy sojourn there thirteen years before. The emperor was absent, but courteous greetings by telegraph passed between him and the queen. Removing, on her arrival in England, to Balmoral, she there gave additional proof of her anxiety to shrink from publicity or court formality. She took up her residence for the first time in a small house, called Glassalt Shiel, which she had built in a wild deserted spot in the hills. She regarded the dwelling as in all ways in keeping with her condition. 'It was,' she wrote, 'the widow's first house, not built by him, or hallowed by his memory. On 14 Dec. 1868 a special service was held in her presence at the Frogmore mausoleum, where a permanent sarcophagus had now been placed. It was destined to hold her own remains as well as those of the prince. The whole cost of the completed mausoleum was 200,000l.

While she was still in Scotland the general election took place, and Disraeli's government suffered a crushing defeat. The liberals came in with a majority of 128, and Disraeli, contrary to precedent, resigned office without waiting for the meeting of parliament. His last official act excited a passing difference of opinion with the queen, and showed how actively she asserted her authority even in her relation to a minister with whose general policy she was in agreement. The archbishopric of Canterbury became vacant on 28 Oct., owing to the death of Archbishop Longley. The queen at her own instance recommended for the post Archibald Campbell Tait, bishop of London, in whom she had long taken a personal interest. Disraeli had another candidate. But the queen persisted; Disraeli yielded, and Tait received the primacy. He was the first archbishop of Canterbury with whom she maintained a personal intimacy. Neither with Archbishop Howley, who held office at her accession, nor his successors, Archbishops Stunner and Longley, had she sought a close association. Disraeli's experience in regard to the appointment of Tait was not uncommon with preceding or succeeding prime ministers. Throughout her reign the queen took a serious view of her personal responsibilities in the distribution of church patronage; and though she always received her ministers' advice with respect, she did not confine herself to criticism of their favoured candidates for church promotion; she often insisted on other arrangements than they suggested. In 1845 she refused to accept Sir Robert Peel's recommendation of Buckland for the deanery of Westminster, and conferred the post on a personal acquaintance, Samuel Wilberforce. Subsequently Dean Stanley owed the same benefice to the queen's personal regard for him. To the choice of bishops she attached an 'immense importance,' and the principles that in her view ought to govern their selection were sound and statesmanlike. She deprecated the display of religious or political partisanship in the matter. 'The men to be chosen,' she wrote to Archbishop Benson, 3 Jan. 1890, 'must not be taken with reference to satisfying one or the other party in the church,