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 the sick poor in their own homes. Succeeding incidents in the celebration, in which she took a foremost part, included, apart from court dinners and receptions, a fete in Hyde Park on 22 June to twenty-six thousand poor school children ; a visit to Eton on her return to Windsor the same evening ; the laying of the foundation-stone of the Imperial Institute on 6 July ; a review at Aldershot on 9 July ; and a naval review on 29 July. The harmony subsisting between her and her prime minister she illustrated by attending a garden party given by him in honour of her jubilee at his house at Hatfield on 13 July. The processions, reviews, and receptions proved no transient demonstration. Permanent memorials of the jubilee were erected by public subscription in almost every town and village of the empire, taking the form of public halls, clock towers, fountains, or statues. The celebration had historic significance. The mighty outburst of enthusiasm which greeted the queen, as loudly in the colonies and India as in the United Kingdom, gave new strength to the monarchy. Thenceforth the sovereign was definitely regarded as the living embodiment of the unity not merely of the British nation but of the British empire.

VII

But amid the jubilee festivities a new cloud was gathering over the royal house. Since the autumn of 1886 the crown prince, to whose future rule in Germany the queen had for nearly thirty years been looking forward with intense hope, was attacked by a mysterious affection of the throat. Early in June 1887 he and the crown princess came to England and settled at Upper Norwood in the hope of benefiting by change of environment. He was well enough to play a conspicuous part in the jubilee procession, when his handsome figure and his white uniform of the Pomeranian cuirassiers attracted universal admiration. Subsequently he stayed in the Isle of Wight and at Braemar, and he did not return to Germany till 14 Sept. The winter of 1887-8 he spent at San Remo, and it there became apparent that he was suffering from cancer. The queen, who completely identified herself with the happiness of her eldest daughter, was constantly with her and her husband while they remained in England or Scotland, and she suffered greatly from the anxiety. Nor was it lessened when, on 9 March 1888, the queen's old friend, the Emperor William I, died, and the crown which she and her daughter had through earlier days longed to see on the crown prince's head was now at length placed there while he was sinking into the grave. But the queen did not abstain from rejoicings in another of her children's households. On 10 March she dined with the prince and princess of Wales at Marlborough House to celebrate their silver wedding, and at night, on her return to Windsor, she drove through London to witness the illuminations.

On 22 March she left England for a month's holiday at Florence. It was her first visit to the city, and it and its surroundings charmed her. King Humbert courteously paid her a visit on 5 April, and the attention pleased her. On 20 April she left for Germany, where she had resolved to visit the dying Emperor Frederick. On the journey at Innsbruck she was gratified by meeting the emperor of Austria. It was their second interview ; the first was now nearly a quarter of a century old. On 21 April she drove through Berlin to Charlottenburg, her son-in-law's palace. But it was not solely to bid farewell to the stricken prince that she had come. It was to mediate in a quarrel in her daughter's family, which was causing grave embarrassment in political circles in Berlin, and for which she was herself freely held responsible. Her own kindly interest in the young princes of Battenberg was shared by her eldest daughter. Of the three brothers, the eldest had married her granddaughter and the youngest her daughter. The second brother, Alexander, who was still unmarried, and was still no more than thirty-one, had had an adventurous career. For seven years he had been prince of Bulgaria, but he had incurred the distrust of the tsar, and in 1886, having been driven from his throne, retired to private life at Darmstadt. He, like his brothers, was personally known to the queen, whose guest he was at Windsor in 1879; she sympathised with his misfortunes, and she encouraged the notion that he also, like his brothers, might marry into her family. An opportunity was at hand. The second daughter of the Emperor Frederick, Victoria, fell in love with him, and a betrothal was arranged with the full approval of the young princess's mother and grandmother. But violent opposition was manifested at the German court. Prince Bismarck, chancellor of the empire, who had always been on terms with the crown princess, denounced the match as the work of Queen Victoria, who had taken the Battenbergs under her protection. He declared that such a union was injurious to the interest of the German