In a public speech, Beaconsfield
said: "There is not a dispatch received from abroad, or sent from this
country abroad, which is not submitted to the Queen. The whole of the
internal administration of this country greatly depends upon the sign-
manual of our Sovereign, and it may be said that her signature has never
been placed to any public document of which she did not know the purpose
and of which she did not approve. Those cabinet councils of which you all
hear, and which are necessarily the scene of anxious and important
deliberation, are reported, on their termination, by the Minister to the
Sovereign, and they often call from her critical remarks requiring
considerable attention; and I will venture to say that no person likely
to administer the affairs of this country would be likely to treat the
suggestions of Her Majesty with indifference, for at this moment there is
probably no person living who has such complete control over the
political condition of England as the Sovereign herself."
I have come upon few incidents of that first sad year. The Princess Alice
was married very quietly at Osborne, and went away to her German home,
where she lived for seventeen happy years, a noble and beneficent life.
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