Page:Dictionary of National Biography. Sup. Vol III (1901).djvu/488

 which illustrated the strength of court feeling against Russia when the Crimean war was in progress. The 'Spectator,' a journal supporting Gladstone, censured the volume as 'a party pamphlet' in favour of Lord Beaconsneld, and Gladstone himself reviewed it in self-defence.

Domestic incident during 1878 was hardly less abundant than public incident. On 22 Feb. there took place at Berlin the first marriage of a grandchild of the queen, when Charlotte, the eldest daughter of the crown prince and princess, married the hereditary Duke of Saxe-Meiningen. But it was mainly death in the queen's circle that marked her domestic year. Her former ally, Victor Emanuel, had died on 9 Jan. Two attempts at Berlin to assassinate the old German emperor (11 May and 2 June) gave her an alarming impression of the condition of Germany, where she specially feared the advance of socialism and atheism. On 4 June died Lord Russell, and she at once offered his family, through Lord Beaconsfield, a public funeral in Westminster Abbey ; but the offer was declined, and he was buried at Chenies. A few days later (12 June) there passed away at Paris her first cousin, the dethroned and blind king of Hanover. She gave directions for his burial in St. George's Chapel, Windsor, and herself attended the funeral (25 June). But the heaviest blow that befell her in the year was the loss of her second daughter, Princess Alice, who had been her companion in her heaviest trials. She died of diphtheria at Darmstadt on 14 Dec., the seventeenth anniversary of the prince consort's death. It was the first loss of a child that the queen had experienced, and no element of sorrow was absent. The people again shared their sovereign's grief, and on the 26th she addressed to them a simple letter of thanks, describing the dead princess as 'a bright example of loving tenderness, courageous devotion, and self-sacrifice to duty.' She erected a granite cross to her memory at Balmoral next year, and showed the tenderest interest in her motherless family.

1879 brought more happiness in its train. Amid greater pomp than had characterised royal weddings since that of the princess royal, the queen attended on 13 March the marriage at St. George's Chapel, Windsor, of her third son, the Duke of Connaught. The bride was daughter of Prince Frederick Charles of Prussia (the red prince), a nephew of the German emperor, and the new connection with the Prussian house was thoroughly congenial to the queen.

Twelve days later the queen enjoyed the new experience of a visit to Italy. She

stayed for nearly a month till 23 April, at Baveno on Lago Maggiore. She delighted in the scenery, and was gratified by a visit from the new King Humbert and Queen Margherita of Italy. On her return to England she learned of the birth of her first great-graudchild, the firstborn of the hereditary princess of Saxe-Meiningen. Hardly had the congratulations The prince ceased when she suffered a terrible imperial's shock by the death, 1 9 June 1879, in the Zulu war of the prince imperial, the only child of the ex-empress of the French. He had gone to Africa as a volunteer in the English army, and was slain when riding almost alone in the enemy's country. He was regarded with much affection by the queen and by the Princess Beatrice, and all the queen's wealth of sympathy was bestowed on the young man's mother, the widowed Empress Eugenie. While the prince's remains were being interred at Chislehurst the queen was the empress's sole companion (12 July).

At the time the political situation was not promising, and was a source of grave anxiety to the queen. The Zulu war, in which the prince imperial met his death, was only one symptom of the unrest in South Africa which the high-handed policy of the governor of the Cape, Sir Bartle Frere, had brought about. Lord Beaconsfield did not conceal his disapproval of the action of the governor, but his preoccupation with Eastern Europe had not permitted him to control the situation, and he felt bound to defend the positions into which the government had been led by its accredited representative. Equal difficulties were encountered in India, where the rival pretensions of England and Russia to dominate the amir of Afghanistan had involved the Indian government, under Lord Lytton's viceroyalty, in two successive wars with the Afghans (November 1878 and December 1879). The strife of political parties at home greatly complicated the situation, and gave the queen additional cause of distress. Gladstone, during the autumn of 1879, in a series of passionate speeches delivered in Midlothian, charged the government with fomenting disaster by their blustering imperialism. The queen resented his campaign. His persistent attacks on Lord Beaconsfield roused her wrath, and in private letters she invariably described his denunciations of her favourite minister as shameless or disgraceful. Her faith in Beaconsfield was unquenchable. He acknowledged her sympathy