The effect of the Queen's personal preferences in the selection of the Prime Minister and his colleagues has already been discussed, and it may be added that on two or three occasions a cabinet, instead of resigning on a defeat in the Commons, dissolved Parliament in deference to her wishes;[44:2] but except for this it is hard to find definite traces of her influence upon the general domestic policy of the country. Yet in some departments, at least, of the public service she took a very lively interest. At times she was prodigal of suggestions and advice, which bore, as far as one can see, no positive fruit. She held her opinions strongly, expressed them boldly, and was frank in her criticism of measures, but did not succeed apparently in persuading her ministers to abandon or even to modify them. On more than one occasion she used her personal influence over the peers to prevent a disagreement between the Houses, but this was never done to give effect to her own personal views, and in the case of the Irish Church Disestablishment Bill it was done to secure the passage of a government measure with which she was not herself in sympathy.[45:1] In short her personal influence in domestic affairs, either in the form of initiating policy, or of effecting changes in that of her ministers, seems to have been very slight. To this statement, however, a couple of exceptions must be made, which relate to the Army and the Church. The Queen, who regarded the Army as peculiarly dependent upon the sovereign, procured the appointment of a royal duke as Commander-in-Chief, and for a time she resisted successfully all attempts to change the vague relation of that office to the Crown,[45:2] although in the end it was made completely subordinate to the minister responsible to Parliament.[45:3] In the matter of ecclesiastical appointments her opinions were expressed with still greater effect, bishops and deans having in several cases been selected by her, sometimes in preference to candidates proposed by the Prime Minister. [Sidenote: In Foreign Affairs.]