The Queen and Lord M, page 21
‘It will not seem so bad tomorrow,’ said Lehzen.
‘It will never be the same,’ she answered. ‘All, all my happiness has gone! That happy peaceful life is destroyed. Lord Melbourne is no longer my minister.’
She stayed in her room. ‘Which will be noted,’ Lehzen reminded her.
‘I don’t care,’ cried the Queen; and indeed she was in no state to appear.
Lehzen imagined the sly comments that were no doubt being exchanged in the Duchess’s household; Conroy would be jeering, the Duchess gloating. But certainly the Queen could not appear with swollen eyes and silent grief, unable to eat.
In her own room Lehzen tried to tempt her with food but she could not touch it, but as the evening wore on she grew a little calmer.
‘Lord Melbourne expects me to be calm,’ she told Lehzen. ‘He says I must behave as if this is merely a change of Government which it is obvious I would rather not have taken place, but I must show that I am ready to work with these people.’
‘And Lord Melbourne is right. You used to say he always was.’
She sat brooding until midnight; then she went to bed and to Lehzen’s relief slept soundly.
As soon as she awoke next morning she wrote to Lord Melbourne.
‘The Queen thinks Lord Melbourne may possibly wish to know how she is this morning; the Queen is somewhat calmer; she was in a wretched state till nine last night when she tried to occupy herself and to think less gloomily of this dreadful change and she succeeded in calming herself till she went to bed at twelve and she slept well; but on waking this morning all – all that had happened in one short eventful day came forcibly to mind and brought back her grief; the Queen, however, feels better now; but she couldn’t touch a morsel of food last night nor can she this morning. The Queen trusts Lord Melbourne slept well and is well this morning; and that he will come precisely at eleven o’clock …’
She was sitting brooding in her room waiting for eleven to come when the Duke of Wellington was announced.
‘It is not a bad dream,’ she mourned. ‘It really has begun.’
The great Duke was seventy and seemed quite ancient to the young Queen. The idea of his taking the place of her beloved Lord Melbourne was grotesque – yet just a little better than horrid Peel’s doing so.
‘Your Majesty!’ said the Duke bowing.
‘Pray be seated,’ replied the Queen. ‘Now I suppose you know why I have sent for you?’
‘I have no idea,’ replied the Duke.
A fine future leader of Government, she thought, who doesn’t know what is going on!
‘Lord Melbourne’s Ministry, in which I had the greatest confidence, has resigned.’
‘I am grieved to hear it.’
‘As your party has been instrumental in removing them,’ said the Queen with a flash of temper, ‘I am obliged to look to you to form a new Government.’
‘Your Majesty, I have no power whatsoever in the House of Commons. I can only advise you to send for the leader of the Opposition there – Sir Robert Peel.’
The Queen’s lips tightened and the Duke went on: ‘Your Majesty will find him a man of honour.’
The Queen ignored this and said that she hoped the Duke would have a place in the Cabinet.
‘Your Majesty, I am seventy years of age. My prime is long past. I am so deaf that it is difficult for me to take part in any discussion.’
‘I have more confidence in you than in any other member of your Party. You understand the …’ her voice faltered … ‘the great friendship I feel for Lord Melbourne.’
‘I do understand that,’ replied the Duke, ‘and I have the utmost respect for Lord Melbourne. I believe that he can continue to be of use to Your Majesty.’
‘And now I suppose I have no alternative but to send for this Sir Robert Peel.’
The Duke assured her this was so.
When she saw Lord Melbourne at eleven she was less stubborn, he was glad to see. Her good sense was prevailing. She had been made extremely unhappy by what had happened but she saw that she would have to accept it.
‘I am proud of you,’ said Lord Melbourne with tears in his eyes.
Sir Robert was feeling very uneasy as he drove to the Palace in answer to the Queen’s summons. He was fifty-one years of age, a power in the House of Commons and a natural reformer; but he was well aware of the great success Lord Melbourne had had with the Queen – it had been the talk of the Court and the country and was even creeping into the press – and he knew that he lacked those suave social graces which Melbourne possessed. Moreover he was conscious that the Queen did not like him.
She could convey her disapproval by a glance and a cold nod and these had come his way on the rare occasions when he had been in royal company.
He had talked the matter over with his wife Julia that morning. With her he shared his innermost thoughts; she understood him as no one else did, and therefore was well acquainted with the idealist who existed beneath the cold façade.
‘I am inevitably being called to be asked to form a Government,’ he had told her.
‘Well, you will do exactly that,’ Julia had replied with a smile.
‘We shall be in a minority and the Queen will be against us.’
‘The Queen, Robert, is just a child.’
‘A child of some importance,’ he had replied with a smile. ‘And Melbourne is her god.’
‘Which shows what a child she is. But queen or child when one Government falls she must accept another.’
‘I fear it will be a rather trying interview.’
Julia had laughed. ‘Oh, come now, you are not going to be frightened of a chit of a girl.’
‘If we were strong. If we were an elected Government with a big majority it would have been another matter.’
‘Is this the great politician speaking – the man who revised the laws of offences against persons, and laws against forgers, who created the police force? Oh, come, Sir Robert Peel.’
‘Everyone doesn’t see me as you do, Julia.’
‘Because you won’t allow them to. You are going to see the Queen and you know that she will have to accept you. And if she is going to be annoyed with you because you have replaced Melbourne, well then she does not understand the Constitution which she is supposed to rule; and if she is wise she will very shortly learn that you are a greater statesman than Melbourne could ever be.’
‘Melbourne knows how to charm her.’
‘His job was to govern England not to charm the Queen.’
‘He managed to do both it seems.’
‘He certainly did not do both successfully for here he is forced to resign. What did Melbourne ever do but let things run along just as they were? You know very well he hates all change. That’s no way to govern. And if the Queen likes him, the people don’t. He’s made himself very unpopular over this Flora Hastings affair.’
Sir Robert was thinking of this as he drove along. It was true that Melbourne was not the most successful of Prime Ministers and Peel was convinced that he himself would make a better one. Julia was right. What did it matter if Melbourne could make more of a show in a drawing-room? It was statesmanship the country needed – and the Queen would learn that.
He was too sensitive, and for that reason he presented this cold façade to the world. He was painfully aware of his social inadequacies, but it was true as Julia had said that he was a good politician. He had the welfare of the people at heart which was more than could be said for some, including the sybaritic Lord Melbourne. He had put on court dress which he hoped would please the Queen, and in any case the etiquette of the occasion demanded it, and as his carriage drew up he noticed that little groups of people stood about near the Palace watching for callers.
He heard his own name mentioned amid a buzz of excitement. ‘That’s Sir Robert Peel.’ They knew why he had come.
They were not, of course, concerned about the Jamaican Bill. They were agog with excitement because the Queen’s name was being linked with that of Lord Melbourne and if Lord Melbourne was no longer Prime Minister the Queen could not – without causing a great deal of comment – see him so frequently as she had hitherto.
He was shown into the yellow closet where the Queen was waiting for him. She had refused to see anyone in the blue closet. That was sacrosanct because it was there that so many of her meetings with Lord Melbourne had taken place.
‘Sir Robert Peel.’
He bowed – so awkwardly, she noticed.
‘At Your Majesty’s service.’
He was tall, and his rather plentiful hair was untidy. Such a fidgety man, thought Victoria angrily.
‘You know, of course, Sir Robert Peel, why I have sent for you?’
He bowed his head in acquiescence.
‘I am grieved … beyond words,’ said Victoria coldly. ‘I am filled with the greatest regret to be obliged to part with Lord Melbourne’s ministry. Lord Melbourne served me well from the time of my accession.’
She looked critically at Sir Robert as though implying that he could not fail to displease her. She was the Queen, as she knew so well how to be and although when he had left his home he had agreed with his wife that she was only a child, he was overawed by her regality in the yellow closet.
He murmured that it would be the earnest endeavour of Her Majesty’s new Government to serve her with all the power at its command.
The tilt of her slightly open lips suggested that she had no great confidence in his Party, and that she had in fact no great confidence in Sir Robert Peel, and she was wishing with all her heart that he had had the good sense not to oppose her dear Lord Melbourne.
‘We believed in our late Government,’ she said. ‘We approved all that they did.’
It was very difficult to talk to such an imperious Sovereign who had made up her mind so definitely, but Sir Robert must get down to the purpose of his visit.
‘I hope, Sir Robert,’ she said sternly, ‘that you are not going to insist on the dissolution of Parliament.’
‘Your Majesty will know that in the circumstances this seems a reasonable course of action.’
‘We should not wish that and I ask you to give me your assurance that you will not do so.’
Sir Robert was looking down at his feet and pointing his toe down on the carpet with his heels raised. He fidgeted. For all the world, thought Victoria maliciously, like some dancing master.
‘Your Majesty will understand that it is impossible for me to give you such an assurance.’
‘Impossible! Why impossible?’
‘It will be a matter for the Cabinet to decide.’
‘But if we do not wish it?’
Sir Robert continued to prance, as she called it. Lord Melbourne had told her that if they went to the country the Whigs would suffer a great defeat. At least, thought Victoria, they are not defeated yet; and she was going to resist this Sir Robert Peel with all her might.
‘I am afraid, Ma’am, I can give you no undertaking on this point.’
She was longing for the interview to end and when Sir Robert suggested that he form a list of likely Cabinet ministers and submit it for her approval, she seized the opportunity to bid him to do this and return later with it.
He took his awkward leave and she gave an exaggerated sigh of relief.
She went at once to Lehzen. ‘The dancing master has gone,’ she said. ‘What an unattractive creature! I still hope and pray that he will never be my Prime Minister.’
‘But the interview went off well, I hope?’ said Lehzen.
‘It went off,’ retorted Victoria with a burst of laughter.
‘At least he has made you laugh.’
‘With anger and horror to think that he should dare attempt to take Lord Melbourne’s place.’
‘It won’t be very easy for Sir Robert holding office without a majority.’
Victoria was almost gleeful. ‘That will show him! Oh, how dare he! I don’t like his manner. How different … how dreadfully different to the frank, open and most kind and warm manner of dear Lord Melbourne!’
After Peel had left Victoria did what she always did in moments of stress. She wrote to Lord Melbourne. Her facile pen flew over the paper; she was as effusive and impulsive in correspondence as her uncle King George IV. She told Melbourne how different Sir Robert Peel was from himself, how she disliked him, despised him and deeply resented his daring to take over from her dear Lord M.
Melbourne replied cautiously and tactfully. He begged her to try to overcome her dislike of Sir Robert, who was a very skilful politician. Her conduct, he wrote, was very proper and judicious but he must also admit that Sir Robert and Wellington appeared to have conducted themselves with propriety and sincerity. As for the dissolution of Parliament, he advised Her Majesty to reserve her opinion on that and not to give a promise to dissolve. At the same time she could scarcely say that she would not. He begged her not to judge Sir Robert by his manners. She must understand that he might in his consultations with her seem to harbour an animosity towards Lord Melbourne. This was not the case. When Sir Robert discussed Lord Melbourne – if he did – he spoke of him as the Leader of the Party to which he was in opposition. There was nothing personal. Sir Robert was cautious and very reserved. Few people really knew him but of one thing Lord Melbourne was sure – he was neither deceitful nor dishonest, and many people who appeared to be sincere were most definitely not so.
‘Dear Lord Melbourne!’ said the Queen on the verge of tears. ‘He is so gracious to his enemies. But nothing even he can say would make me like Sir Robert Peel.’
She wrote at once to thank him and tell him that as soon as Sir Robert had returned with his suggestions for his new Cabinet she would write and tell him who had been selected.
Sir Robert Peel was ushered into the yellow closet.
Victoria regarded him imperiously and bowing he told her he had come in accordance with her command to prepare a list of his Cabinet. He now presented this to her.
She took it from him and scanned it. She noted with relief that the Duke of Wellington’s name was mentioned as Secretary for Foreign Affairs. The Lord Chancellor was to be Lord Lyndhurst who had never been a friend of hers because he had supported the Duchess over the Regency Bill before her succession. Sir James Graham was the Home Secretary. A man I never liked, she had once told Lehzen, because he looks almost exactly like Sir John Conroy.
But of course, she thought, how could I possibly like any people who are trying to replace my Government.
She handed the list back to Sir Robert with a disdainful air and was delighted to see how embarrassed he was.
‘Your Majesty approves the list?’
She nodded faintly.
Sir Robert looked relieved and ceased to point his toe at the carpet for a moment.
‘Then I must broach the subject of Your Majesty’s household.’
‘My household?’ she cried.
‘The ladies, Ma’am.’
‘You mean my personal household … my bedchamber ladies?’
‘Precisely, Ma’am. The ladies of your household were chosen by Lord Melbourne and they all belong to Whig families. Your Majesty will see that it is impossible to continue with such a household.’
‘I see no such thing,’ said the Queen, her temper rising.
Sir Robert stood his ground firmly.
‘Your Majesty’s Government would require you to show your confidence in them, and a change of household would be necessary.’
‘Am I to understand, Sir Robert Peel, that you look to ladies for support in the House of Commons?’
Sir Robert looked as though she had struck him, and she immediately went into the attack.
‘I will not give up any of my ladies,’ she declared. ‘Please understand this. I have never imagined such a thing.’
‘Does Your Majesty intend to retain all?’ he asked in a shocked whisper.
‘All,’ retorted the Queen imperiously.
‘Your … Your Majesty means the Mistress of the Robes and the Mistress of the Bedchamber?’
‘All,’ repeated the Queen.
‘But they are the wives of the opponents of Your Majesty’s new Government.’
‘I cannot see that this is important and I never talk politics with my ladies. Some of them, in fact, are related to prominent Tories. This procedure has not been asked for before. It was never asked of Queen Adelaide.’
‘Your Majesty is a Queen Regnant. This makes a difference.’
‘I would never consent, and has it occurred to you, Sir Robert Peel, that in this hint that I should allow my ladies to interfere in politics there is an implication that I would intrigue against my own Government? That seems to me a gross insult and I cannot understand how anyone could suggest such a thing.’
Sir Robert Peel, amazed at the vehemence, seemed temporarily unable to stem the flood of royal indignation.
‘This is a matter which I feel I should convey to my colleagues,’ he said. ‘Would Your Majesty grant me leave to retire that I may consult the Duke of Wellington?’
‘With pleasure,’ said the Queen emphatically.
When he had gone she immediately sat down to write to Lord Melbourne:
‘The Queen writes one line to prepare Lord Melbourne for what may happen in a very few hours. Sir Robert Peel has behaved very ill and has insisted on my giving up my ladies to which I replied that I never would consent, and I never saw a man so frightened. He said he must go to the Duke of Wellington and consult him … This is infamous …
I was calm but very decided and I think you would have been pleased to see my composure and great firmness; the Queen of England will not submit to trickery. Keep yourself in readiness …’
‘Lehzen,’ she cried, ‘what do you think that … that dancing master is trying to do now?’
She hastily gave Lehzen an account of what had happened. Lehzen’s face turned pale.
‘You know what they are trying to do. They are trying to take me away from you.’
‘Oh, no, Lehzen! That can’t be. You are not one of the Ladies. You have no official post. How wise we were not to give you a label! You are just my dearest friend.’
