This, then, was the state of affairs in Egypt towards the close of Lord Beaconsfield’s last Administration. The country had been redeemed from insolvency by the joint action of Great Britain and France, the arbitrary action of her rulers had been put under control, and her internal affairs had been started on such a footing as should protect the people from oppression and grievous taxation.
Sydney P. Hall.] [From the Royal Collection.
THE MARRIAGE OF H.R.H. THE DUKE OF CONNAUGHT AND PRINCESS LOUISE MARGARET OF PRUSSIA AT ST. GEORGE’S CHAPEL, WINDSOR, March 13, 1879.
The bridegroom, attended by the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Edinburgh, waits at the altar; Her Majesty, with the Princess Beatrice, and the Princess of Wales with her children, are included in the Royal group. The bride is escorted by the Crown Prince of Germany on her right, and her father, Prince Frederick Charles, on her left. The foremost figures on the left are the King and Queen of the Belgians; next them are Prince William (now the German Emperor) and his mother, the Princess Royal, and to her left Princess Frederick Charles, mother of the bride.
Meanwhile the course of domestic politics in Great Britain claimed the immediate attention of statesmen. On November 24, 1879, Mr. Gladstone, once more the actual, though not the nominal, leader of the Opposition, started from Liverpool on a memorable tour. The Earl of Dalkeith was then member for Midlothian. He was the eldest son of the Duke of Buccleuch, at that time the most notable Scottish peer, of immense influence north of the Tweed and leader of the Conservative Party in the North. Mr. Gladstone had conceived the chivalrous idea of doing battle with this doughty chief on his own ground. |The First Midlothian Campaign.| The first “Midlothian Campaign” lasted till December 5, and it took the country by storm. The failure of the City of Glasgow Bank in the previous year had not only brought disaster to thousands of persons in the North, but it had emphasised in a peculiar manner the end of a period of prosperity. Agriculture, especially, began to feel the full effects of foreign competition; farmers, whose rents had been gradually increasing as the value of land rose with favourable markets, now found it impossible to meet their obligations out of income. There was the usual tendency to lay the blame of individual misfortune on the Government, and Mr. Gladstone, though his attacks on the policy of the Cabinet were based principally on their foreign policy, which he denounced as aggressive, evoked an immense amount of sympathy and encouragement from those who listened to him or read his speeches.
G. Richmond,
R.A.] [From the “Life of
Archbishop Tait,”
by permission of
Messrs. Macmillan.
ARCHIBALD C. TAIT,
Archbishop of Canterbury,
1811–1882.