It is worthy of note that at the first dinner-party given to her new Ministers the programme of the evening was changed. The Queen was very gracious and good-humoured with Aberdeen, Peel, the Duke, and others. But when they went into the drawing-room Melbourne’s chair was gone, and, instead of showing herself interested in her guests, all the Ministers were set down to whist, so that there was no possibility of conversation. Victoria herself sat at her round table with Lady de la Warr and Lady Portman, and there was practically silence. That an exchange of ideas, not on political matters, might have been pleasant to the gentlemen, did not enter the little lady’s head.
Melbourne behaved with great courtesy to Stockmar, but he did not promise not to write to the Queen nor to answer her letters. Of all the people he knew, he loved her best; for four years he had been her constant companion and adviser; he had watched her with fatherly care through her trials, her mistakes, and her good fortune, and he took a pride in the development of character which he detected. He was ambitious for her, and believed that she was capable of greatness, and he did not in the least share Stockmar’s Teutonic hope that the Queen would be gradually absorbed in the nursery and leave affairs of State to other minds. The letters that passed between them had little or no reference to State affairs, and could have in no way been objected to by Peel if he had seen them.
From this time until his death there was an element of tragedy in the life of the ex-Premier. He was given by Stockmar—who first instructed the Prince as to his decisions and what he should say, and then acted as the mouthpiece for the Prince’s borrowed sentiments—the alternative either of obliterating himself as a politician, or of banishing himself entirely from the Queen’s friendship. A short time after the change of Government Victoria asked him to come and stay a few days at Windsor, and not knowing how this would be regarded, yet wishing to accept, Melbourne wrote to Prince Albert to know if such a visit would be feasible. Albert was afraid to accept the responsibility, and consulted Stockmar, who wrote a memorandum charging the late Prime Minister with committing an essential injustice to Sir Robert Peel by continuing to correspond with the Queen, and also by asking the Prince to give an opinion upon this suggested visit.
He sent Anson, who admired and loved his old master, to deliver this condemnation. Melbourne read the memorandum twice attentively with compressed lips. Then Anson repeated the lesson Stockmar had taught him in addition, saying that he had better meet the Queen first in general society in London, that the Prince thought that Melbourne’s own sense of right should have enabled him to decide about his visit, and that his recent speech in the House of Lords, which identified him with the Opposition, added another impediment to his seeing Her Majesty.
Melbourne had been sitting on a sofa, and at this he jumped up, striding up and down the room exclaiming “in a violent frenzy,” I quote from Baron Stockmar, “God eternally damn it!—&c., &c. Flesh and blood cannot stand this. I only spoke upon the defensive, which Ripon’s speech at the beginning of the session rendered quite necessary. I cannot be expected to give up my position in the country, neither do I think that it is to the Queen’s interest that I should.”
Melbourne continued to lead the Opposition, and when affairs were more settled he occasionally went to see the Queen, but after he had a slight stroke he seemed a broken man, never recovering his strength. In December, 1843, Georgiana Liddell wrote of him: “Lord Melbourne goes away to-day. He was not well yesterday, and had a slight touch of gout; it always makes me sad to see him, he is so changed.” When the Queen visited Chatsworth Melbourne was invited to make one of the guests, which gave him great pleasure, though it was doubtful whether the excitement was good for him, for a dreadful depression seized upon him afterwards, for he knew that his day was over, and chafed and fretted under the knowledge.
Another man who was beginning to show many signs of age was the Duke of Wellington, of whom Greville said, I think erroneously, that “he was a great man in little things, but a little man in great matters.” All through the years from about 1834 Society seems to have been watching for the Duke’s collapse. In June, 1838, one diarist remarked: “It is a sad thing to see how the Duke is altered in appearance, and what a stride old age has made upon him. He is much deafer than he was, he is whiter, his head is bent, his shoulders are raised, and there are muscular twitches in his face, not altogether new, but of a more marked character.”
Prince Albert had the good sense to make a personal friend of this the most remarkable man in the kingdom. Someone gives an account of the two pacing the garden together in earnest conversation, and on passing them being amused to find that the Duke was giving a long discourse about larders, “it might have been a French cook instead of the great hero of Waterloo.” When the changes of administration occurred in 1841, it was the Duke who gave expression to Albert’s desire that those who came into office should be of “spotless character.” However strongly Wellington at one time opposed the repeal of the Corn Laws, he lived to be proud of the deed, for his death did not take place until 1852.
THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON.