to this kind friend,” she said, “who exercised such a beneficial influence on my religious views; yet people say so much that is cruel and unjust of him, and of my acquaintance with him.”[139] In Germany, her biographer[140] admits “her life and work were not easy,” and she had not the intrepid intellect, the ardent temperament, the caustic wit and the soaring ambition, which enabled her sister, the Crown Princess, to conquer for herself a position of dominant influence in the midst of an unsympathetic Court, and an antipathetic Society. Perhaps this explains why through life she had every year been drawn more closely to the land of her birth, where her worth was more justly appreciated than in the land of her exile. “How deep was her feeling in this respect,” writes the Princess Christian in her touching preface to her sister’s memoirs, “was testified by a request which she made to her husband, in anticipation of her death, that an English flag might be laid on her coffin; accompanying the wish with a modest expression of a hope that no one in the land of her adoption would take umbrage at her desire to be borne to her rest with the old English colours above her.” CHAPTER XXII. PEACE WHERE THERE IS NO PEACE. Ominous Bye-Elections--The Spangles of Imperialism--Disturbed state of Eastern Europe--Origin of the Quarrel with the Zulus--Cetewayo’s Feud with the Boers--A “Prancing Pro-Consul”--Sir Bartle Frere’s Ultimatum to the Zulu King--War Declared--The Crime and its Retribution--The Disaster of Isandhlwana--The Defence of Rorke’s Drift--Demands for the Recall of Sir Bartle Frere--Censured but not Dismissed--Sir Garnet Wolseley Supersedes Sir Bartle Frere in Natal--The Victory of Ulundi--Capture of Cetewayo--End of the War--The Invasion of Afghanistan--Death of Shere Ali--Yakoob Khan Proclaimed Ameer--The Treaty of Gundamuk--The “Scientific Frontier”--The Army Discipline Bill--Mr. Parnell attacks the “Cat”--Mr. Chamberlain Plays to the Gallery--Surrender of the Government--Lord Hartington’s Motion against Flogging--The Irish University Bill--An Unpopular Budget--The Murder of Cavagnari and Massacre of his Suite--The Army of Vengeance--The Re-capture of Cabul--The Settlement of Zululand--Death of Prince Louis Napoleon--The Court-Martial on Lieutenant Carey--Its Judgment Quashed--Marriage of the Duke of Connaught--The Queen at Baveno.