shattered... But though all this anxiety is
wearing her out, it will not shake her firm purpose of resisting any
attempt to involve this country in a mad and useless combat." She was,
she declared, "prepared to make a stand," even if the resignation of the
Foreign Secretary should follow. "The Queen," she told Lord Granville,
"is completely exhausted by the anxiety and suspense, and misses her
beloved husband's help, advice, support, and love in an overwhelming
manner." She was so worn out by her efforts for peace that she could
"hardly hold up her head or hold her pen." England did not go to war,
and Denmark was left to her fate; but how far the attitude of the Queen
contributed to this result it is impossible, with our present knowledge,
to say. On the whole, however, it seems probable that the determining
factor in the situation was the powerful peace party in the Cabinet
rather than the imperious and pathetic pressure of Victoria.

It is, at any rate, certain that the Queen's enthusiasm for the sacred
cause of peace was short-lived. Within a few months her mind had
completely altered. Her eyes were opened to the true nature of Prussia,
whose designs upon Austria were about to culminate in the Seven Weeks'
War. Veering precipitately from one extreme to the other, she now urged
her Ministers to interfere by force of arms in support of Austria. But
she urged in vain.

Her political activity, no more than her social seclusion, was approved
by the public. As the years passed, and the royal mourning remained
as unrelieved as ever, the animadversions grew more general and more
severe. It was observed that the Queen's protracted privacy not only
cast a gloom over high society, not only deprived the populace of its
pageantry, but also exercised a highly deleterious effect upon the
dressmaking, millinery, and hosiery trades. This latter consideration
carried great weight. At last, early in 1864, the rumour spread that Her
Majesty was about to go out of mourning, and there was much rejoicing
in the newspapers; but unfortunately it turned out that the rumour was
quite without foundation. Victoria, with her own hand, wrote a letter
to The Times to say so. "This idea," she declared, "cannot be too
explicitly contradicted. The Queen," the letter continued, "heartily
appreciates the desire of her subjects to see her, and whatever she CAN
do to gratify them in this loyal and affectionate wish, she WILL do...
But there are other an