A certain fleeting effect was produced in England by the erection of a New Republic in France in place of the fallen Empire, while the family of the defeated ruler—rejected by his realm more for lack of success than for his bad government—escaped to the safety of this country from the angry hatred of their own. A few people here began to talk republicanism in public, and to commend the "logical superiority" of that mode of government, oblivious of the fact that practical Britain prefers a system, however illogical, that actually works well, to the most beautifully reasoned but untested paper theory. But the wild excesses of the Commune in Paris, outdoing in horror the sufferings of the siege, quickly produced the same effect here that was wrought in the last century by the French Reign of Terror, and English republicanism relapsed into the dormant state from which it had only just awakened. The dangerous illness that attacked the Prince of Wales in the last days of 1871, calling forth such keen anxiety throughout the land that it seemed as if thousands of families had a son lying in imminent peril of death, showed at once that the nation was yet loyal to the core. True prayers were everywhere offered up in sympathy with the mother, the sister, the wife, who watched at the bedside of the heir to the throne; and when, on the very anniversary of the Prince Consort's death, the life that had seemed ebbing away turned to flow upward again; a sort of sob of relief rose from the heart of the people, who rejoiced to be able, at a later day, to share with their Queen her solemn act of thanksgiving for mercy shown, as she went with her restored son, her son's wife, and her son's sons, to worship and give praise in the great cathedral of St. Paul's.
Princess Alice, who had shared and softened the grief of her mother ten years before, had been again at her side during all the protracted anxiety of this winter, and had helped to nurse her brother. The Princess's experience of nursing had been terribly increased during the awful wars, when she had been incessantly busied in hospital organisation and work, suffering from the sight of suffering as a sensitive nature must, but ever toiling to lighten it; and she had come with her children to recover a little strength in her mother's Highland home. Thus it was that she was found at Sandringham when her brother's illness declared itself, "fulfilling the same priceless offices" of affection as in her maiden days, and endearing herself the more to the English people, who grieved for her when, in the ensuing year, a mournful accident robbed her of one darling child, and who felt it like a personal domestic loss when in 1878 the beautiful life ended. Other royal marriages have from time to time awakened public interest, and one, celebrated between the Princess Louise and the Marquis of Lorne, heir of the dukedom of Argyll, had just preceded the illness of the Prince and was regarded with much more attention because no British subject since the days of George II's legislation as to royal alliances had been deemed worthy of such honour. But not even the more outwardly splendid match between the Queen's sailor son, Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, and the daughter of the Czar Alexander, could eclipse in popularity the quiet marriage, overclouded with sorrow, and the tranquil, hard-working life of the good and gifted lady who was to die the martyr of her true motherly and wifely devotion.
Lord Beaconsfield
Lord Salisbury
From these glimpses of the joys and troubles affecting the household that is cherished in the heart of England, we return to the more stormy records of our public doings. A sort of link between the two exists in the long and very successful tour which the Prince of Wales, some time after his restoration to health, made of the vast Indian dominions of the crown. Extensive travels and wide acquaintance with the great world to which Britain is bound by a thousand ties have entered largely into the royal scheme of education for the future King. No princes of England in former days have seen so much of other lands as the sons of Queen Victoria; and this particular journey is understood to have had an excellent political effect.
Mr. Gladstone's five years' lease of power, which had been signalised by so many important changes, came to an end in 1874, just before the time when Sir Garnet Wolseley, sent to bring the savage King of Ashantee to reason, returned successful to England, having snatched a complete victory "out of the very jaws of approaching sun and fever" on the pestilent West Coast of Africa in the early days of 1874. The last Ministry of Mr. Disraeli, who now assumed office, was marked by several noticeable events: the proclamation of the Queen as "Empress of India," in formal definite recognition of the new relation between little England and the gigantic, many-peopled realm which through strange adventure has come directly under our Sovereign's sway; the Russo-Turkish war, following on the evil doings in Turkey known as the "Bulgarian atrocities," and terminating in a peace signed at Berlin, with which the English Premier, now known as Lord Beaconsfield, had very much to do; and the acquisition by England of the 176,000 shares in the Suez Canal originally held by the Khedive of Egypt—a transaction to which France, also largely interested in the Canal, was a consenting party. To this period belong the distressful Afghan and Zulu wars, the latter unhappily memorable by the tragic fate that befell the young son of Louis Napoleon, a volunteer serving with the English army. Deep sympathy was felt for his imperial mother, widowed since 1873, and now bereaved of her only child; and by none was her sorrow more keenly realised than by the Queen, who herself had to mourn the loss of the beloved Princess Alice, the first of her children to follow her father into the silent land. The death of the Prince Louis Napoleon at the hands of savage Zulus was severely felt by the still strong Bonapartism of France; but Englishmen, remembering the early melancholy death of the heir of the first Napoleon, were struck by the fatal coincidence, while they could honestly deplore the premature extinction of so much youth, gallantry, and hope-fulness, cast away in our own ill-starred quarrel.
An agitation distinctly humanitarian and domestic had been going on during the early years of this Ministry, which resulted in the passing of the Merchant Shipping Bill, intended to remedy the many wrongs to which our merchant seamen were subject, a measure almost entirely procured by the fervent human sympathy and resoluteness of one member of Parliament, Samuel Plimsoll; and other measures belonging to this period, and designed to benefit the toilers of the land principally, were initiated by the energy of the Home Secretary, Mr. Cross. But neither the imposing foreign action of Lord Beaconsfield's Government, nor the domestic improvements wrought during its period of power, could maintain it in public favour. There was great and growing distress in the country; depression of trade, severe winters, sunless summers, all produced suffering, and suffering discontent. An appeal to the country, made in the spring of 1880, shifted the Parliamentary majority from the Conservative to the Liberal side. Lord Beaconsfield resigned, and Mr. Gladstone returned to power.