to sign a paper without having first, not
merely read it, but made notes on it too. She would do the same. She
sat from morning till night surrounded by huge heaps of despatch--boxes,
reading and writing at her desk--at her desk, alas! which stood alone
now in the room.

Within two years of Albert's death a violent disturbance in foreign
politics put Victoria's faithfulness to a crucial test. The fearful
Schleswig-Holstein dispute, which had been smouldering for more than a
decade, showed signs of bursting out into conflagration. The complexity
of the questions at issue was indescribable. "Only three people,"
said Palmerston, "have ever really understood the Schleswig-Holstein
business--the Prince Consort, who is dead--a German professor, who
has gone mad--and I, who have forgotten all about it." But, though the
Prince might be dead, had he not left a vicegerent behind him?
Victoria threw herself into the seething embroilment with the vigour of
inspiration. She devoted hours daily to the study of the affair in all
its windings; but she had a clue through the labyrinth: whenever the
question had been discussed, Albert, she recollected it perfectly, had
always taken the side of Prussia. Her course was clear. She became an
ardent champion of the Prussian point of view. It was a legacy from the
Prince, she said. She did not realise that the Prussia of the Prince's
day was dead, and that a new Prussia, the Prussia of Bismarck, was born.
Perhaps Palmerston, with his queer prescience, instinctively apprehended
the new danger; at any rate, he and Lord John were agreed upon the
necessity of supporting Denmark against Prussia's claims. But opinion
was sharply divided, not only in the country but in the Cabinet. For
eighteen months the controversy raged; while the Queen, with persistent
vehemence, opposed the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary. When at
last the final crisis arose--when it seemed possible that England would
join forces with Denmark in a war against Prussia--Victoria's agitation
grew febrile in its intensity. Towards her German relatives she
preserved a discreet appearance of impartiality; but she poured out
upon her Ministers a flood of appeals, protests, and expostulations. She
invoked the sacred cause of Peace. "The only chance of preserving peace
for Europe," she wrote, "is by not assisting Denmark, who has brought
this entirely upon herself. The Queen suffers much, and her nerves
are more and more totally