ABSTRACT
Even before the Education and Irish Land Bills of 1870 had been inscribed upon the Statute Book the Franco-Prussian hostilities had begun, which were fated to absorb the country’s attention increasingly until Paris surrendered on January 28, 1871. Plebeian Ultra-Radicals had long seized upon the fact that Queen Victoria’s eldest daughter was the wife of the Prussian Crown Prince as a ground for their suspicions that Court influence had prevented the English Government from vigorously opposing Prussia’s proposed “dismemberment” of the French Republic against the wishes of the populations concerned. Conducted though it was under the heavy frowns of the bulk of the “respectable classes” and the bitter hostility of all the “influences,” the “Republican” agitation had certainly not been without its effects so far. The Queen and her family had undoubtedly been taught a certain amount of caution to ensure the maintenance of all the old prerogatives of the Crown’s Commander-in-Chief.
