to her own personal initiative, contrary to the
wish of Lord Beaconsfield, but most fully justified by the result--and
it was largely due to the intervention of the Queen that the Church
Bill was not thrown out in the House of Lords. She acted in a
somewhat similar way with reference to the Franchise Bill of 1884,
though on this occasion she does not seem to have disliked the
measure, which she urged the House of Lords to accept.

On three very memorable occasions the intervention of the Queen had
probably a great effect on English politics. It is well known that at
the time when the issue of peace or war with the United States was
trembling in the balance on account of the seizure of the Southern
envoys on the 'Trent,' the Queen, acting in accordance with the Prince
Consort, by softening and revising the language of an English despatch
to America, did very much to prevent the dispute from leading to a
great war; that in the proclamation which was issued to the Indian
people after the Sepoy Mutiny, she insisted on the excision of some
most unfortunate words that seemed to menace the native creeds, and on
the insertion of an emphatic promise that they should in no wise be
interfered with, and thus probably prevented a new outburst of most
dangerous fanaticism; that at the time of the Schleswig-Holstein
dispute she contributed powerfully and actively to give a turn to the
negotiations that averted a war with Prussia and Austria, which, as is
now almost universally recognised, could only have led to a great
catastrophe.

Whatever opinions may be formed of the merits of the dispute between
Denmark and the German powers about Schleswig-Holstein, few persons
who judge by the event can doubt that an isolated intervention of
England on behalf of Denmark against the combined forces of Austria
and Prussia would have been absolutely impotent to effect the object
that was desired, and that even if France had consented to join in the
struggle it would have led to a military disaster hardly less than
that of the war of Sedan. If, contrary to all probability, the
combined forces of France and England had proved stronger than those
of Austria and Germany, the result could have hardly failed to be that
France would have been established on the left bank of the Rhine, and
that the treaty of Vienna, which it was one of the great objects of
English policy to maintain, would have been torn into shreds.

The dangers, however, of conflict