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 in avowals of the strongest personal attachment to her. He was ambitious, he told her, of securing for her office greater glory than it had yet attained. He was anxious to make her the dictatress of Europe. 'Many things,' he wrote, 'are preparing which for the sake of peace and civilisation render it most necessary that her majesty should occupy that position.' But there were ominous signs that Beaconsfield's lease of power was reaching its close, despite all the queen could do to lengthen it. For the fourth time while he was prime minister the queen opened the last session of his parliament on 5 Feb. 1880. The ceremonial was conducted with greater elaboration than at any time since the prince's death. On 24 March parliament was dissolved, and the future of Lord Beaconsfield was put to the hazard of the people's vote.

Next day the queen left on a month's visit to Germany. She spent most of her time at her late half-sister's Villa Hohenlohe at Baden-Baden, but went thence to Darmstadt to attend the confirmation of two daughters of the late Princess Alice. In the

family circle of her daughter, the crown princess, she found while abroad much to gratify her. Her grandson, Prince William of Prussia (now Emperor William II), was just betrothed to Princess Victoria of [Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg] Augustenburg, daughter of Duke Frederick, the claimant to the duchy of Holstein, who had fared so disastrously in the Schleswig-Holstein struggle, and had died in the previous January. She sympathised with the sentiment of the young man's parents that poetic justice was rendered to Duke Frederick, whom Bismarck's Prussian policy had crushed, by the entrance of his daughter into the direct line of succession to the imperial crown of the Prussian ruler's consort. But, in spite of her joy at her grandson's betrothal, her keenest interests were absorbed in the progress of the general election in England. Telegrams passed constantly between her and the prime minister, and her spirits sank when the completeness of the defeat of the conservative party proved to her that he could serve her no longer. Liberals and home rulers had in the new House of Commons no less a majority over the conservatives than 166. On 21 April she was back at Windsor, and next day had two hours' conversation with her vanquished minister. As in 1855 and 1859, when a ministerial crisis brought her in view of the mortifying experience of making prime minister one whom she distrusted, she carefully examined all possible alternatives. As soon as Lord Beaconsfield left her she summoned by his advice Lord Hartington, who was nominal leader of the liberal party; for Gladstone had never formally resumed the post since his retirement in 1875. She invited Lord Hartington to form a ministry (22 April). He told her, to her own and Lord Beaconsfield's disappointment, that Gladstone alone had won the victory and that he alone must reap the rewards. Beaconsfield said that Lord Hartington showed want of courage in hesitating to take office; he 'abandoned a woman in her hour of need.' On returning to London Lord Hartington called on Gladstone. Next morning (23 April) he went back to Windsor with the queen's old friend, Lord Granville, the liberal leader of the House of Lords. Against her will they con- vinced her that Gladstone alone was entitled to power, and, making the best of the difficult situation, she entrusted them with a message to him requesting an interview. Gladstone hurried to Windsor the resumes same evening, and after a few office, 1880. minutes' conversation he accepted the queen's commission to assume power. Gladstone's second government was soon in being, and, although some of its personnel was little to the queen's taste, she received her new advisers with constitutional correctness of demeanour.

Two acts due to the queen's kindness of heart involved her in some public censure as soon as the new liberal government was installed. She felt lifelong compassion for the family of her exiled cousin, the king of Hanover, and showed great tenderness to his daughter Frederica, whom she called 'the poor lily of Hanover.' She not only countenanced her marriage with Baron von Pawell-Rammingen, who was formerly her father's equerry, but arranged for the wedding to take place in her presence in her private chapel at Windsor (24 April 1880). A few months later she, as visitor of Westminster Abbey, assented to a proposal to place there a monument in memory of the late prince imperial. The House of Commons, in spite of Gladstone's remonstrance, condemned the scheme on the ground of the prince's nationality (16 July 1880). The queen at once appointed a site for the monument in St. George's Chapel, Windsor (21 July).

The misgivings with which the queen's new advisers inspired her stimulated her critical activity. She informed Gladstone and his colleagues that she insisted on a full exercise of her right of 'commenting on all proposals before they are matured.' Ministers