In consequence of fever in the Isle of Wight her Majesty held her Christmas at Windsor for the first time since the death of the Prince Consort. On New Year's day, 1877, the Queen was proclaimed Empress of India at Delhi. Her Majesty opened Parliament on the 8th of February. In September, when the war between Russia and Turkey was raging, her Majesty, Princess Beatrice, the Duchess of Roxburgh, &c., spent a week at Loch Maree Hotel, enjoying the fine Ross-shire scenery, making daily peaceful excursions, to which such a telegram as told of the bombardment of Plevna must have been a curious accompaniment. In February, 1878, the Queen's grandchild, Princess Charlotte of Prussia, was married at Berlin to the hereditary Prince of Saxe- Meiningen, at the same time that her cousin, Princess Elizabeth of Prussia, was married to the hereditary Grand Duke of Oldenburg. On the 12th June the Queen's cousin, who had been the blind King of Hanover, died in exile at Paris. His body was brought to England and was buried in the royal vault below St. George's Chapel, Windsor. The Queen saw a naval review off Spithead in August. In the end of the month the Queen, with Princess Beatrice and Prince Leopold, stopped at Dunbar on the way north in order to pay a visit to the Duke and Duchess of Roxburgh at Broxmouth. During her Majesty's stay she heard of the death of Madame Van de Weyer at the New Lodge, and wrote in her journal, "Another link with the past gone! with my beloved one, with dearest Uncle Leopold, and with Belgium." In September a terrible accident occurred in the Thames off Woolwich, when the _Princess Alice steamboat_ on a pleasure trip was run down by the _Bywell Castle_, and about six hundred passengers perished. In the end of the month the Queen had the misfortune to lose her old and faithful servant Sir Thomas Biddulph, who died at Abergeldie Mains. When she went to see him in his last illness and took his hand, he said, "You are very kind to me," to which she answered, pressing his hand, "You have always been very kind to me." The Marquis of Lorne had been appointed Governor-General of Canada, for which he and Princess Louise sailed, arriving at Ottawa on the 23rd of November.