While Afghanistan was distracted by a vengeful war, the general state of England continued even worse than in the earlier part of the year. Parliament was prorogued on the 12th of August, 1842, by the Queen in person, and in the Speech from the Throne her Majesty expressed a hope that the members of the two Houses “would do their utmost to encourage, by example and active exertions, that spirit of order and submission to the law without which there [Illustration: THE QUEEN’S ENTRY INTO EDINBURGH. (_See p. 127._)] can be no enjoyment of the fruits of peaceful industry, and no advance in the career of social improvement.” Sedition was indeed becoming more ripe every day. In the manufacturing towns, mills were violently entered by disorderly mobs, their machinery was destroyed, and those who were willing to work were compelled to abandon their labours. Manchester was in so disturbed a state that a regiment of the Guards was despatched thither to overawe the malcontents; and in many of the northern towns collisions, attended by bloodshed and loss of life, occurred from time to time. The demand of the workpeople was for increase of wages; but political ideas also were mixed up with the purely social question. The Chartists joined the discontented artisans, and for a while the Government was seriously alarmed. But the arrest of the leaders struck terror into the rest, and, as the autumn advanced, the worst of the danger was at an end. In the west of Scotland, however, disturbances continued for some time longer; yet it was at this period that the Queen and Prince Albert paid their first visit to the Northern Kingdom.