Baron H. von Angeli.] [From the Royal Collection, by permission of
Mr. Franz Hanfstaengl.
HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN WEARING THE SMALL IMPERIAL CROWN, 1885.
It is necessary at this point to revert to the session of 1884. Mr. Gladstone had resolved on a further extension of the Parliamentary electorate by carrying out the equalisation of the county and borough franchise. |Mr. Gladstone’s Reform Bill.| His Bill was received by the Conservative Opposition with that half-hearted resistance which comes of inward disapproval, tempered by dread of alienating the new electors, whom they were not strong enough to exclude. In the end they took their stand on the ground that no such Reform Bill should pass without a corollary measure redistributing seats. It passed the Commons, but the House of Lords declined to consider it until they had the redistribution scheme before them. In vain Lord Granville pledged the Government to introduce a Redistribution Bill the following year, if their Lordships would allow the Franchise Bill to pass at once. Lord Salisbury declared that he was not going to discuss redistribution with a rope round his neck. At last, after much wrangling, after the usual denunciations of the House of Lords on public platforms, and after sundry processions and demonstrations in London, it was agreed to hang up the Franchise Bill, prorogue Parliament, and call it together in the autumn to consider the complete scheme. This was done accordingly; the Franchise Bill was passed, and the Redistribution Bill read a second time, and the Committee stage postponed till after the Christmas recess.
But before that subject could be taken up again, the troubles of the Government had multiplied. Not only had Khartoum fallen, thereby rendering the Nile expedition as fruitless as it was costly, but the violation by the Russians of the Afghan frontier, seemed to render war with Russia all but inevitable, if our treaty engagements were to be held sacred. |The Afghan Frontier.| “The House will not be surprised,” said the Prime Minister, referring to the defeat of the Amir’s troops by General Komaroff, “when I say, speaking with measured words in circumstances of great gravity, that to us ... this attack bears the appearance of an unprovoked aggression.” Still more profound grew the conviction that the country was on the eve of a great war when, on April 27, Mr. Gladstone came down to the House to ask for a vote of credit for £11,000,000. But he did not tell the House, in the course of a magnificent and most stirring speech, that the Government practically had averted the danger by recalling Sir Peter Lumsden, the British Commissioner in Afghanistan, thereby condoning the offence of the Russians which he (Mr. Gladstone) had denounced already as “unprovoked aggression.”
All Parliamentary business, it was understood, including, the redistribution of seats, was to be speedily disposed of in order to make an early appeal to the constituencies under the new franchise. |Defeat and Resignation of Ministers.| But, in an unlucky hour for his colleagues, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Childers, decided to include in his Budget provision for increasing the duties on beer and spirits. There is no more perfectly organised body than the Licensed Victuallers; none whom ordinary members are more unblushingly anxious to conciliate on the eve of a general election. Early in June the Government were beaten on Mr. Childers’ proposal by a majority of twelve votes, and resigned.
R. Caton Woodville.] [From the Royal Collection.
MARRIAGE OF THE PRINCESS BEATRICE TO PRINCE HENRY OF BATTENBERG, AT WHIPPINGHAM CHURCH, July 23, 1885.
The Queen and the bride are accompanied on either side by the Prince and Princess of Wales. The bridegroom is supported by Prince Francis Joseph of Battenberg and Prince Alexander of Bulgaria. The Bridesmaids are the Princesses Louise, Victoria and Maud of Wales, Princesses Marie, Victoria and Alexandra of Edinburgh, Princesses Irene and Alix of Hesse, and Princesses Victoria and Louise of Schleswig-Holstein. The Archbishop (Benson) of Canterbury and Canon Prothero officiate.
The Queen accepted Mr. Gladstone’s resignation by telegram, and entrusted Lord Salisbury with the task of forming a new Cabinet. No easy duty on the brink of a general election, even had the Conservative Party been at Peace within itself. |Lord Salisbury’s First Administration.| But it was far from being so: a determined revolt was being conducted by Lord Randolph Churchill and his sympathisers—the “rapier and rosette” Tories—against Sir Stafford Northcote’s ineffective leadership. Amiable, cultivated, experienced, and sagacious as he was, Northcote had failed to gain the confidence of the combative spirits in his party, who recognised their real captain in the brilliant but erratic Churchill. Lord Salisbury solved the difficulty of uniting these discordant elements by removing Northcote to the Lords, with the title of Earl of Iddesleigh and the office of First Lord of the Treasury, placing Churchill in the Cabinet as Secretary of State for India, and committing the leadership of the Commons to Sir Michael Hicks-Beach as Chancellor of the Exchequer.