In the afternoon.—Peel’s speech was not so good as usual; it was laboured, and some say tame. In the morning I met him and walked with him; he seemed in very good spirits, talked of the thing as over, said he could not endure any meddling with the Tithe Bill, that he considered great good had been done by the dissolution, which had created a party strong enough to obstruct any violent measures on the part of their opponents, said he understood they had sent for Lord Spencer did not believe Lord Grey would have any concern with it. I said that it was clear after Stanley’s speech that he would have nothing to do with the Whigs. He said he conceived so, but that it was very odd that Lord John Russell did not see it in that light, and had said that Graham could not join them, but he did not see why Stanley might not. I told Peel that in my opinion the best thing that had been done was the proof that he had been enabled to exhibit that he was indispensable to the government of the country, and that if he could infuse some firmness and courage into the King, and persuade His Majesty stoutly to resist any requisition to swamp the House of Lords, and rather to appeal to the country than consent to it, in a very short space of time he must come back. I asked him if he thought the King was capable of any such firmness. He said he thought he was, that he was in a miserable state of mind at the prospect before him, and all the more so from feeling how much there was in it which fell personally upon himself. In the meantime it does not seem that the Ministers have come to any positive resolution, or even conviction, as to the moment of their retirement, nor as to its absolute, unavoidable necessity. Peel evidently considers the contest at an end. Lord Rosslyn this morning thought he would resign immediately; the Duke, on the other hand, appears by no means so certain that the Tithe Bill will be mutilated, and that they shall be compelled to go out at all. Stanley and Graham are angry that they don’t resign directly; they think Peel would retire more brilliantly at once than by waiting for more defeats. They forget that he is bound to satisfy his own party. Stanley, with that levity which distinguishes all his conduct, talks of him as of ‘a hunted fox, who, instead of dying gallantly before the hounds in the open, skulks along the hedgerows, and at last turns up his legs in a ditch.’ This he said to George Bentinck, who told it to me; it is not the way that Lord Stanley ought to speak of Sir Robert Peel. What I certainly do regret is that he condescended repeatedly to entreat John Russell to put off bringing up the report till Monday, and SIR R. PEEL’S RETIREMENT. exposed himself to a refusal. He should have invited the decision of the contest rather than have tried to protract it.
April 4th, 1835
I told Jonathan Peel last night that Stanley and Graham blamed Sir Robert for not resigning at once. He said that Sir Robert would, as far as his own feelings were concerned, have preferred resigning long ago, but that a vast number of his supporters were furious at the idea of his resigning at all, and wanted him to persist at all hazards, and he was compelled to resign only upon such a point as might enable him to satisfy them that he had abided by the pledge which he gave at the beginning to persevere while perseverance could be useful or honourable. He then told me (which I certainly did not attach the slightest credit to[7]) that he should not be at all surprised if his brother were now to retire from public life. Such an idea in some moment of disgust may have crossed his mind, but if he were to do so in the vigour of his age and at the climax of his reputation, it would be the most extraordinary retirement that history ever recorded. Men of the most splendid talents have often shrunk from entering public life, but I am not aware of any instance of a man who had attained the eminence and the fame of Peel who has withdrawn from the theatre of his glory and power without some stronger motive than any that can be found for him.
[7] A great fool indeed I should have been if I had.—1838.
I was told last night that the scene of noise and uproar which the House of Commons now exhibits is perfectly disgusting. This used not to be the case in better, or at least more gentlemanlike, times; no noises were permissible but the cheer and the cough, the former admitting every variety of intonation expressive of admiration, approbation, assent, denial, surprise, indignation, menace, sarcasm. Now all the musical skill of this instrument is lost and drowned in shouts, hootings, groans, noises the most discordant that the human throat can emit, sticks and feet beating against the floor. Sir Hedworth Williamson, a violent Whig, told me that there were a set of fellows on his side of the House whose regular practice it was to make this uproar, and with the settled design to bellow Peel down. This is the reformed House of Commons. Peel told Lord Ashley the other day that he did not think it possible for the same man to be Prime Minister and leader in the House of Commons (he meant to be First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer), that no physical strength was adequate to the labour of both employments. He may therefore hereafter put some Peer at the head of the Government, but it is equally indispensable, as it seems to me, that the real substantial power should be vested in the leader of the House of Commons, especially when he is a man so superior as Peel must always be to any colleagues he may be associated with.
April 5th, 1835
I understand now what Jonathan Peel meant by talking of the possibility of his brother’s retiring from public life. He is no doubt thoroughly, heartily disgusted with his own associates. It appears that they (the Tories, or many of them) are indignant at his declaration the other night that on the Tithe Bill being altered he would go out, so that while others are blaming him for not going out at once his own followers are enraged that he will not set the House of Commons at defiance and stick to his post. It is very evident that many of them are desirous (if Peel does resign) of continuing the fight under the Duke of Wellington, if they could prevail on him to try it, and to dissolve Parliament and get up a ‘No Popery’ cry. They say that ‘the country’ (by which they mean their own faction) looks up to the Duke, and that Peel has really no interest there. The fact is that they cannot forgive him for his Liberal principles and Liberal measures, and probably they never believed that he was sincere in the professions he made, or that he really intended to introduce such measures as he has done. They feel (not without reason) that they cannot follow him in the broad path he has entered upon without abandoning all their long-cherished maxims of exclusion and ascendency, and that in so doing they would incur much odium and disgrace. Peel sees and knows all SIR R. PEEL AND THE TORIES. this, and cannot fail to perceive that he is not the Minister for them and they no longer the party for him. It is no wonder that he is anxious to break up this unmanageable force, and he probably would rather trust to that increasing feeling and opinion about himself, which is so apparent among all classes of politicians, to place him by-and-by at the head of a party formed upon Conservative principles and embracing a much wider circle of opinions. Still this Tory body, obstinate and bigoted as they are, have no other chief, and can find none, and it is essential to Peel to keep them if possible under his influence and direction, and therefore (I believe very reluctantly) he defers his resignation.
April 6th, 1835
Yesterday Wharncliffe came here; very low indeed; he says he never thought they were safe, though he owns that he was surprised and disappointed that there were no defections—not one—from the enemies’ ranks when these measures were brought forward. He says he was with the King the other evening, and asked him if he was going back to Windsor. His Majesty said ‘he could not go back, that he could not bear being there; there he had none of them (his Ministers) to talk to, and day and night his mind was absorbed in public affairs.’ Poor wretch! he suffers martyrdom, and has more to suffer yet, for I expect they will have no mercy on him. Yesterday I had more proofs of the animus of the Tories. One of them, a foolish, hot-brained fellow certainly (but there is no such enormous difference between the best and the worst), told me that if Peel really did go out upon the Tithe Bill he would abandon his party; that he ought to let them alter the Bill as they pleased, wait till the House of Commons threw it out, and then dissolve Parliament.