On the 6th of October, 1854, the Queen had issued a Royal Warrant for regulating promotion and retirement in the army, which now caused her much vexation. The warrant enabled lieutenant-colonels, after three years’ service, to become by right full colonels. This privilege was confined to line regiments, and the officers of the Guards accordingly sent a memorial to the Crown begging that it should be extended to them also. Prince Albert, as Colonel of the Grenadiers, had signed their petition, and in the middle of December the _Times_ attacked him with great acrimony for pampering the Guards, and charged him with using his influence over the Queen for purposes of military jobbery. The old story, accusing the Prince of interfering with the army and of having intrigued to become Commander-in-Chief, was vamped up again. It has already been seen that these accusations were absolutely false, and the impossibility of contradicting them publicly gave her Majesty great pain. She knew nothing about the Guards’ memorial, and all the Prince knew about it was that he had signed it as a matter of formality, because it was only through him as their colonel, that the officers of his regiment could, according to the regulations, forward any petition to the Government. The memorial was dealt with by the Secretary of State, Lord Panmure, who, as a matter of fact, did _not_ grant its prayer. That the Prince sometimes interfered with military administration was quite true. When the War Department broke down he toiled hard to help the Duke of Newcastle to set it on its legs again. When the Queen began to fret over the meagreness of Raglan’s despatches, he showed the Department how to draw up a series of forms that would compel Raglan to keep the Secretary of State fully aware from day to day of the state of the Crimean army. When the Prince of Prussia wrote to him warning him that the conduct of the English officers in the Crimea, who were supposed to be deserting their posts “on urgent private affairs,” was bringing disgrace on the name of England, Prince Albert did what ought to have been done by Lord Panmure, when the story was promulgated in the press--that is to say, he sifted the facts, and gave the lie direct to the slanderous fable.[253] To these attacks the Prince had become indifferent; but they irritated the Queen, who resented their injustice, and chafed against her powerlessness to give them public denial. [Illustration: BALACLAVA: AT PEACE. (_From a Drawing made Twenty-Five Years after the Crimean War._)] [Illustration: CATHCART’S HILL, CRIMEA.] CHAPTER XXXIII. THE END OF THE WAR.