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raging. If Holstein were attacked also, which was likely, the Germans would not be restrained from flying to her assistance. Russia had menaced to interfere with arms, if the Schleswigers were successful. What would Lord Palmerston do, when this emergency arose (provoking most likely an European war), and which would arise very probably when we should be at Balmoral, and Lord John in another part of Scotland? The Queen expected from his foresight, that he had contemplated this possibility, and required a categorical answer as to what he would do in the event supposed.

'Lord Palmerston entered into a long controversy about the Protocol and the complicated state of the Danish question, called the contingency a very unlikely one, &c. &c. After a full hour's conversation on this subject, we were, however, interrupted, without my being able to get a positive

answer.

I spoke to Lord John Russell the following day of our interview, and told him how low and agitated I had found Lord Palmerston, almost to make me pity him. Lord John answered, that he thought what had passed had done a great deal of good.'

CHAPTER XL.

IN proroguing Parliament, which was done by Her Majesty in person (15th August), the Queen was able to refer with satisfaction to several measures, as the result of their labours. Among these, not the least important was one for the abolition of Interments within the limits of the Metropolis, and another for extending the jurisdiction of the County Courts. The first of these was a Government measure, and an important step in the system of sanitary improvement, to which public attention was now seriously directed. The second, introduced by a private Member, had been forced upon the Government by immense majorities, in which they were compelled to recognise the prevailing current of opinion in favour of cheaper and simpler means of obtaining legal redress.

War was at this time raging between Denmark and the Schleswig-Holstein Duchies, and the Royal Speech could express no more than a hope, that the treaty which had been concluded between Germany and Denmark under the mediation of England might lead, at no distant period, to the restoration of peace in the north of Europe.' The hope was, however, a very shadowy one. Germany had set her heart upon the incorporation of these Duchies. To her they were of the last importance, as securing an outlet to the sea, and enabling her to realise her cherished dream of one day becoming a great naval Power. The German people viewed, therefore, with extreme bitterness the combined action of England and the other great maritime Powers of Europe,

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SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN.

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which seemed to have for its object to defeat this very natural and deep-seated ambition. The Protocol of 4th of July referred to in the previous chapter, embodying the views of England, Austria, Denmark, France, Russia, Sweden and Norway, could not fail to provoke the suspicion, that the dispute between Denmark and the Duchies was to be settled not so much with reference to the just claims of the Duchies, or to the rights of the respective parties to the dispute, as to the interests and the jealousies of the parties to the Protocol. The very terms of the Protocol seemed to argue a foregone conclusion on their part, that their efforts would be directed to the severance of the Duchies from Germany.

Prussia, it was true, had concluded a peace with Denmark on the 2nd of July, but this left the whole question unsettled. The hands of her Government might be tied; but this did not prevent her German subjects from volunteering into the ranks, or her generals from taking the lead, of the Holstein insurgents. A terrible defeat which they had sustained at Idstedt on the 25th of July had not crushed their hopes. Rallying what remained of their forces, they moved forward again early in September, to attack the strongly fortified town of Frederickstadt in Schleswig, and it was only after a protracted, but abortive bombardment, that they were compelled to abandon the attack, and to retreat into Holstein.

Meanwhile Denmark, sorely pressed, was doing her best to engage the other Great Powers to put pressure upon Austria and Prussia, or themselves to take active measures, to put down the movement of the national party in the Duchies. Any step in this direction, however, could scarcely be taken without the risk of provoking a war, so long as Prussia refused her sanction to the terms of the London Protocol, and more than once during the autumn of this year the apprehensions of such a contingency, expressed by the Prince in his interview with Lord Palmerston, seemed on the point of

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THE OLMÜTZ CONVENTION.

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being realised. It was, indeed, only averted by the Convention come to between Prussia and Austria at Olmütz on the 29th of November, one of the stipulations of which was that Holstein should be disarmed, and peace restored, if necessary, by their united forces.

This Olmütz Convention restored peace for the time in the Duchies, as it for the time averted war between Prussia and Austria, which had been for some time imminent; but it left the questions undetermined, on the settlement of which alone a permanent peace could be established. Whether the Duchies should be incorporated with Denmark or with Germany was an issue which manifestly must sooner or later be forced to a decision. So too, Prussia might, as she did by the arrangement at Olmütz, renounce her adherence to the movement for the unity and constitutional representation of Germany, agree to the re-establishment of the old Diet, and fall back upon the state of things as they existed before the Revolution of 1848. But manifestly such an arrangement contained the seeds of destruction within itself. It was a settlement in the interest, not of the nation, but of the different reigning powers. It left open the burning question, whether Austria was, as heretofore, to dominate the counsels and control the free growth of Germany; and accomplished as it was under the direct pressure of Russia, it deepened the determination of the national party not to relax their efforts until Germany should become a power capable of deciding and acting by and for itself, and not to be disposed of at the will and for the convenience of alien Powers, or merely dynastic interests.

On the 21st of August the Queen and Prince left Osborne on a short yachting excursion, in the course of which they ran into Ostend to meet the King of the Belgians, with whom they spent the day. The pleasure of this meeting, which the Queen, in writing to her uncle (24th August),

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LETTER BY THE PRINCE.

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describes as a delightful happy dream,' for which she was yery thankful, was marred by the absence of the Queen Louise, whose illness had now assumed a very serious aspect. On his return to Osborne the Prince writes to Baron Stockmar :

'Dear Stockmar,-We returned yesterday from Ostend, into which, as the papers will have told you, we ran with the yacht for a night.

'We found Uncle Leopold well and cheerful, and much delighted at our visit. Our Aunt was unable to bear the fatigue of a journey to Ostend. We sent Clark to her at Laeken. He has a bad opinion of her state, and urgently recommended change of air from Laeken to the Ardennes. The children still have the hooping-cough, so they did not come. On the other hand, we had our four eldest children with us, and they were greatly interested by the foreign. town and population.

To-morrow I am thirty-one. The day after we go to Lord Carlisle at Castle Howard; on the 29th to Edinburgh, where we shall put up at our new halting place in Holyrood, and I am to lay the foundation stone of the National Gallery; and on the 31st to Balmoral.

'I received while in town your letter about Gervinus; at the prorogation of Parliament I saw Gervinus and had a long conversation with him. I agree entirely with all you say about the Protocol policy, but it is impossible to make any impression here upon that subject. The fixed idea here is, that Germany's only object in separating Holstein with Schleswig from Denmark is to incorporate them with herself, and then to draw them from the English into the Prussian commercial system. Denmark will then become a State too small to maintain a separate independence, and so the division of European territory and the balance of power will be disturbed.