Page:Dictionary of National Biography. Sup. Vol III (1901).djvu/506

 fidence in the loyalty, despite political agitation, of the Irish people to the crown. The days were spent busily and passed quickly. She entertained the leaders of Irish society, attended a military review and an assembly of fifty-two thousand school children in Phoenix Park, and frequently drove through Dublin and the neighbouring country. On 5 April she gave orders for the formation of a new regiment of Irish guards. On her departure on 26 April she thanked the Irish people for their greeting in a public letter addressed to the lord lieutenant.

After her return to Windsor on 2 May 1900 she inspected the men of H.M.S. Powerful who had been besieged in Ladysmith, and warmly welcomed their com- mander, Captain Hedworth Lambton. On the 17th she visited the wounded at Netley. Lord Roberts's successes in South Africa at the time relieved her and her people of pressing anxieties, and ordinary court festivities were suffered to proceed. On 4 May she entertained at Windsor the king of Sweden and Norway, who had often been her guest as Prince Oscar of Sweden. On 10 May she held a drawing-room at Buckingham Palace ; it was the only one she attended that season, and proved her last. Next day she was present at the christening of the third son of the Duke of York, when she acted as sponsor. After the usual visit to Balmoral (22 May to 20 June) she gave several musical entertainments at Windsor. On 11 June there was a garden party at Buckingham Palace, and on 28 June at Windsor a state banquet to the khedive of Egypt, who was visiting the country. Her old friend the Empress Eugenie was her guest at Osborne in September.

Apart from the war, she was interested during the session in the passage through

the House of Commons of the federation of Australian commonwealth bill, Australia, which was to create a federal union among the Australian colonies. She received at Windsor on 27 March the delegates from Australia, who were in England to watch the bill's progress. When in the autumn the bill received the royal assent, she, on 27 Aug., cordially accepted the suggestion that her grandson the Duke of York, with the duchess, should proceed as her representative to Australia in 1901, to open in her name the first session of the new commonwealth parliament. She was especially desirous of showing her appreciation of the part taken by colonial troops in the Boer war, and she directed that the duke should be attended in the Australian parliament house by a guard of honour representing every branch of the army, including the volunteers.

But the situation in South Africa remained the central topic of her thought, and in the late summer it gave renewed cause for concern. Despite Lord Roberts's occupation of the chief towns of the enemy's territory, fighting was still proceeding in the open country, and deaths from disease or wounds in the British ranks were numerous. The queen was acutely distressed by the reports of suffering that reached her through the summer, but, while she constantly considered and suggested means of alleviating the position of affairs, and sought to convince herself that her ministers were doing all that was possible to hasten the final issue, she never faltered in her conviction that she and her people were under a solemn obligation to fight on till absolute victory was assured. Owing to the prevailing feeling of gloom the queen, when at Balmoral in October and November, allowed no festivities. The usual highland gathering for sports and games at Braemar, which she had attended for many years with the utmost satisfaction, was abandoned. She still watched closely public events in foreign countries, and she found little consolation there. The assassination of her friend Humbert, king of Italy, on 29 July at Monza greatly disturbed her equanimity. In France a wave of strong anti-English feeling involved her name, and the shameless attacks on her by unprincipled journalists were rendered the more offensive by the approval they publicly won from the royalist leader, the Due d'Orleans, great-grandson of Louis Philippe, to whom and to whose family she had proved the staunchest of friends. Happily the duke afterwards apologised for his misbehaviour, and was magnanimously pardoned by the queen.

In October a general election was deemed necessary by the government—the existing parliament was more than five years old—and the queen was gratified by the result. Lord Salisbury's government, which was responsible for the war and its conduct, received from England and Scotland overwhelming support. The election emphatically supported the queen's view that, despite the heavy cost of life and treasure, hostilities must be vigorously pursued until the enemy acknowledged defeat. When the queen's fifteenth and last parliament was opened in December, Lord Salisbury was still prime minister ; but he resigned the foreign secretaryship to Lord Lansdowne, formerly