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 had rejected in the summer, whereupon the government announced their intention of passing it a second time through the House of Commons in an autumn session. A severe struggle between the two houses was thus imminent. The queen had adopted Lord Beaconsfield's theory that the broader the basis of the constitution, the more secure the crown, and she viewed the fuller enfranchisement of the labouring classes with benevolence. At and the the same time she always regarded a working harmony between the two houses of parliament as essential to the due stability of the monarchy, and in the existing crisis she was filled with a lively desire to settle the dispute between two estates of the realm with the least possible delay. In her private secretary, Sir Henry Pousonby, she had a tactful counsellor, and she did not hesitate through him to use her personal influence with the leaders of both parties to secure a settlement. Luckily it was soon apparent that the danger of conflict looked greater than it was. Before her intervention had gone far, influential members of the conservative party, including Lord Randolph Churchill and Sir Michael Hicks Beach, had independently reached the conclusion that the House of Lords might safely pass the franchise bill if to it were joined a satisfactory bill for the redistribution of seats. This view rapidly gained favour in the conservative ranks, and was approved by some of Gladstone's colleagues, although he himself at first opposed it. The queen urged on all sides a compromise on these lines, and her influence with leading conservatives of the House of Lords removed what might have proved to be a strong obstacle to its accomplishment. Before the end of the year (1884) the franchise bill and a redistribution of seats bill were concurrently introduced into parliament, and the queen had the satisfaction of seeing averted the kind of warfare that she most dreaded within the borders of the constitution.

The queen spent the spring of 1885 at Aix-les-Bains, and on her return journey visited Darmstadt to attend the confirmation of her grandchild, Princess Irene of Hesse-Darmstadt. But there were other reasons for the visit. Her care for the Hesse family had brought her the acquaintance of the grand duke's first cousins, the young princes of Battenberg. They were sons of the grand duke's uncle, Prince Alexander of Hesse, by a morganatic marriage with the Countess von Hauke, who was created countess of Battenberg in 1851. All the brothers were known to the queen, had been her guests, and found favour with her. The eldest, Prince Louis, joined the British navy, became a naturalised British subject, and in 1884 married Princess Alice's eldest daughter and the queen's granddaughter, Princess Victoria of Hesse. Thenceforth the relations of the three brothers with the royal family grew more intimate, with the result that in 1885 the third and youngest of them, Prince Henry of Battenberg, proposed marriage to the queen's youngest daughter, Princess Beatrice. The queen readily assented, and, in letters announcing the engagement to her friends, spoke of Prince Henry's soldierly accomplishment, although, she frankly added, he had not seen active service. The princess had long been the queen's constant companion, and it was agreed that the princess with her husband should still reside with her. Parliament, on Gladstone's motion, voted the princess the usual dowry of 30,000l., with an annuity of 6,000l. The minority numbered 38, the majority 337. But the match was not popular in England, where little was known of Prince Henry except his German origin, nor was it well received at the court of Berlin, where the comparatively low rank of the Battenbergs was held to unfit them for close relations with the queen.' The marriage took place in a simple fashion, which delighted the queen, at Whippingham church, near Osborne, on 23 July.

All the queen's nine children had thus entered the matrimonial state. The queen's mode of life was in no way affected by the admission of Prince Henry into the royal circle. She always enjoyed the society of the young, and in course of time she was cheered by the presence in her household of the children of Princess Beatrice.

Much else happened to brighten the queen's horizon in the summer of 1885. Princess Beatrice's marriage followed hard upon the fall of 1885. Gladstone's government. It had been effectually discredited by its incoherent Egyptian policy, and it was defeated on its budget proposals on 8 June 1885. Gladstone at once resigned, and the queen did not permit differences of opinion to restrain her from offering him, in accordance with her practice on the close of a minister's second administration, a reward for long service in the form of an earldom. This honour Gladstone declined. She invited the leader of the conservative party, Lord Salisbury, to form a ministry, and at his request