The Duke, however, has not gone further than Malta, where, it is said, his health has not improved.
Footnote 4: The Hon. James Bosville Macdonald [1810-1882], son of the third Baron Macdonald, A.D.C., Equerry and Private Secretary to the Duke of Cambridge.
Queen Victoria to the Earl of Aberdeen.
THE ARMY BOARD
Windsor Castle, 22nd January 1855.
The Queen has received Lord Aberdeen's letter of yesterday, giving an account of the proceedings of the last Cabinet....
The Queen is quite prepared to sanction the proposal of constituting the Secretary of State for War, the Commander-in-Chief, the Master-General of the Ordnance, and the Secretary at War, a Board on the affairs of the Army, which promises more unity of action in these Departments, and takes notice of the fact that the powers and functions of the Commander-in-Chief are not to be changed. As these, however, rest entirely on tradition, and are in most cases ambiguous and undefined, the Queen would wish that they should be clearly defined, and this the more so as she transacts certain business directly with him, and ought to be secured against getting into any collision with the Secretary of State, who also takes her pleasure, and gives orders to the Commander-in-Chief. She would further ask to be regularly furnished with the Minutes of the proceedings of the new Board, in order to remain acquainted with what is going on.
Unless, however, the Militia be made over to the direction of the Secretary of State for War, our Army system will still remain very incomplete. The last experience has shown that the Militia will have to be looked upon as the chief source for recruiting the Army, and this will never be done harmoniously and well, unless they both be brought under the same control.
With reference to the Investiture of the Garter, the Queen need not assure Lord Aberdeen that there are few, if any, on whom she will confer the Blue Ribbon with greater pleasure than on so kind and valued a friend as he is to us both.