Page:Dictionary of National Biography. Sup. Vol III (1901).djvu/481

 she was mainly troubled by the government's resolve to begin the reorganisation of the army, which had been long contemplated. The first step taken by Cardwell, the secretary of state for war, was to subordinate the office of commander-in-chief to his own. Twice before the queen had successfully resisted or postponed a like proposal. She regarded it as an encroachment on the royal prerogative. Through the commander-in-chief she claimed that the crown directly controlled the army without the intervention of ministers or parliament; but her ministers now proved resolute, and she, on 28 June 1870, signed an order in council which deposed the commander-in-chief from his place of sole and immediate dependence on the crown (Hansard, ccii. 10 sq.; Parl. Papers, 1870, c. 164). Next session the government scheme for reorganising the army was pushed forward in a bill for the abolition of promotion by purchase which passed through the House of Commons by large majorities. In the House of Lords the Duke of Richmond carried resolutions which meant the ruin of the measure. Characteristically, the queen deprecated a conflict between the houses, but the government extricated her and themselves from that peril by a bold device which embarrassed her. They advised her to accomplish their reform by exercise of her own authority without further endeavour to win the approval of the upper house. The purchase of commissions had been legalised not by statute, but by royal warrant, which could be abrogated by the sovereign on the advice of her ministers without express sanction of parliament. In the special circumstances the procedure violently strained the power of the prerogative against one branch of the legislature, and the queen accepted the ministerial counsel with mixed feelings. She had small sympathy with the proposed reform, and feared to estrange the House of Lords from the crown by procedure which circumvented its authority; but the assertion of the prerogative was never ungrateful to her, and the responsibility for her action was her minister's.

Despite her industrious pursuit of public business, the mass of the people continued to deplore the infrequency of her public appearances; of the only two public ceremonies in which she engaged to take part in 1870, she fulfilled no more than one. She opened (11 May 1870) the new buildings of London University at Burlington House; but, to the general disappointment, indisposition led her to delegate to the prince of Wales the opening of so notable a London improvement at the Thames Embankment (13 July 1870). The feeling of discontent was somewhat checked by the announcement in October that she had assented to the engagement of her fourth daughter, Princess Louise, with a subject, and one who was in the eye of the law a commoner. The princess had given her hand at Balmoral to the Marquis of Lorne, eldest son of the Duke of Argyll. It was the first time in English history that the sovereign sanctioned the union of a princess with one who was not a member of a reigning house since Mary, youngest daughter of Henry VII and sister of Henry VIII, married, in 1515, Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk. James II's marriage to Anne Hyde in 1660 did not receive the same official recognition. The queen regarded the match merely from the point of view of her daughter's happiness. It rendered necessary an appeal to parliament for her daughter's provision; and as her third son Arthur was on the point of coming of age, and also needed an income from public sources, it seemed politic to conciliate popular feeling by opening parliament in person. Accordingly, on 9 Feb. 1871, she occupied her throne in Westminster for the third time since her bereavement. Although Sir Robert Peel, son of the former prime minister, denounced as impolitic the approaching marriage of a princess with 'a son of a member of Her Majesty's government' (the Duke of Argyll, the Marquis of Lorne's father, being secretary for India; Hansard, cciv. 359), the dowry of 30,000l. with an annuity of 6,000l. was granted almost unanimously (350 to 1). Less satisfaction was manifested when the Queen requested parliament to provide for Prince Arthur. An annuity of 15,000l. was bestowed, but although the minority on the final vote numbered only 11, as many as 61 members voted in favour of an unsuccessful amendment to reduce the sum to 10,000l. (Hansard, ccviii. 570-90). Meanwhile the court cast off some of its gloom. The marriage of Princess Louise took place at St. George's Chapel, Windsor, with much pomp, on 21 March 1871, in the presence of the queen, who for the occasion lightened her usual mourning attire. With unaccustomed activity in the months that followed the opened the Albert Hall (29 March), inaugurated the new buildings of St. Thomas's Hospital, and reviewed the household troops in Bushey Park, when the young prince imperial joined the royal party (30 June). At Balmoral that year, although