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Lord Campbell relates in his Diary that in 1859, as the members of the Palmerston Administration, in which he held the office of Lord Chancellor, were going down to Windsor by special train, they passed another express returning to London with the outgoing Premier, Lord Derby, and his colleagues. What an opening for aspiring young statesmen if a wicked wag of a railway director had ordered the two trains to be put on the same line, was the genial comment of the Lord Chancellor! Sir Stafford Northcote, who was a Minister in the next Derby Administration, formed in July 1866, also gives some interesting glimpses of the proceedings associated with a change of Government. He writes: “Queen’s carriages met us at the terminus and took us to Windsor Castle. As we went upstairs we met the late Ministers coming down, and shook hands with them. While we were waiting in the long room there was a sharp thunderstorm, and there was another while we were at luncheon, after taking office. The slopes of the Terrace looked as if there had been a fall of snow. Some thought this a bad omen for us. Disraeli had a bad omen of his own as we came down, for, thinking there was a seat at the end of the saloon carriage, he sat down there, and found himself unexpectedly on the floor.” This Administration lasted scarcely two years; but, despite the ill-omened accident to Disraeli, it was for that statesman a fortunate Administration. In it he first filled the great office of Prime Minister, to which he succeeded on the resignation of Lord Derby, on account of failing health, early in 1868.
But to return to Windsor Castle. Sir Stafford Northcote goes on to say: “Lord Derby was first sent for by the Queen, and had a short audience. We were then all taken along the corridor to the door of a small room, or, rather, closet. Lord Derby, Lord Chelmsford, and Walpole were called in; then the five new members of the Privy Council—Duke of Buckingham, Carnarvon, Cranborne, Hardy, and I—were called in together, and knelt before the Queen while we took the oath of allegiance; then we kissed hands, rose, and took the Privy Councillor’s oath standing. The Queen then named the Duke of Buckingham Lord President of the Council, and we all retired. The Prince of Wales and Duke of Edinburgh were in the room. We were then called in one by one and kissed hands on appointment to office, Lord Derby going first, then the Lord Chancellor, the Lord President, the Lord Privy Seal, the Secretaries of State (all together), the Chancellor of the Exchequer, etc. The seals were delivered to all these, except the Lord President. Lord Derby then had a long audience with the Queen, while we went to luncheon. Returned by special train at four o’clock.” John Bright was the only Minister who, so far as I know, was relieved of the obligation to kneel and kiss the Sovereign’s hands on receiving the seals of office. When he went to Windsor on his appointment as President of the Board of Trade, Queen Victoria, a great admirer of his speeches, sent Helps, Clerk to the Privy Council, to tell Bright she would dispense with the ceremony if that was more agreeable to his feelings as a Quaker, and he availed himself of this “considerate permission,” as he regarded it.
How a Minister (Henry Chaplin, afterwards Lord Chaplin) held the seals of the Secretary of State for War, for the briefest period possible, is mentioned in the diary of Lord Cranbrook, when he enters the visit to Windsor of the Conservative Ministry of 1885 upon taking office. “There was no contretemps but the careless omission of the kissing hands by Northcote, which was soon set right; and her Majesty gave Chaplin the War Office seals by mistake, easily rectified. Still, there should be some distinctive mark on each set.”