No event in many years has created such keen interest amongst, and been so closely followed by, the Royal family of Great Britain as the war in South Africa. Apart from Queen Victoria's natural and life-long dislike of the horrors of war, there was the earnest sympathy which she felt in the last two years of her reign with thousands of her subjects who had suffered in the loss of husband, or brother, or father, or friend; and the womanly sorrow which she herself felt for the many promising young officers whom she had personally known or liked, or whose relations and friends had been upon terms of intimacy with members of the Royal circle. The matter was still more brought home to her, in a personal sense, by the death of her grandson, Prince Christian Victor, who, after months of hard campaigning and with the reputation of an able, modest and hard-working officer, succumbed in the autumn of 1900 to enteric fever, and was buried, at his own request, upon the South African veldt. But these personal considerations had never been so potent with the Queen as had her broader sympathies for her people, and there can be no doubt the gloomy days of Colenso and Spion Kop told severely upon the sensibilities of a Sovereign who was as proud of the nation's position and as keen to feel national humiliation, or sorrow, as was the humblest and most loyal of her subjects. And the fact that her duty to the people and the Empire lay in supporting her Ministers and pressing, if necessary, for a still more vigorous prosecution of the struggle, could not but have its effect upon the constitution of a Queen who felt her responsibilities very keenly and who was an aged woman as well as a great ruler. Where she could help in keeping behind her Ministers a united people Queen Victoria did her utmost. Early in March, 1900, the Royal recognition of Irish valour in South Africa, shown in the order to the soldiers of the Empire to wear the Shamrock on St. Patrick's day, was as tactful and wise a step as statesmanship ever initiated. The ensuing postponement of Her Majesty's spring visit to sunny Italy and her prolonged stay in Dublin during the month of April were pronounced appeals to Irish loyalty. Her Christmas present of chocolate to the troops in the field, her ever-thoughtful telegrams, and occasional letters and speeches upon public occasions, were also of great value to the cause of national unity and action in differing degrees. Meantime, the Duke of Connaught had volunteered early in the period of trouble which eventually developed into war, but the Queen did not wish him to go to the front and, though he had offered to waive his rank and seniority in order to do so, his mother's wishes, of course, prevailed. DUTIES OF THE HEIR APPARENT