As time went on, the Tory section of the Press grew more emphatic in its utterances, and the extreme Tory clique expressed itself in plainer and more violent and libellous language. With them the Baroness was anathema. They affirmed that having in her youth been a milkmaid, she was now only fit for the housemaid’s table; her sister had been Queen Caroline’s maid, and she had come as such to the Duchess of Kent for a few pounds a year. “Yet now she insults the good Duchess, who is beloved by everyone.” “She has broken up the mother’s influence, and deliberately taught the child to look coldly on one who has nobly done her duty to the country by educating that child suitably, and, having gained the needed ascendency, had come to an understanding with Leopold and his friends as to the use to be made of her power.” The Duchess of Kent, who they said was insulted by her ci-devant servant, should have their protection, they vowed, but did not explain how it would be given.

A story went around that once at Windsor the Baroness mislaid her keys, and that in consequence the Queen could not open any of her dispatch boxes, and thus everyone averred that the secrets of the Empire were entrusted to “this German spy.” “We demand to know what office this woman bears about the Sovereign? She may rest assured that this question will not only be asked, but a reply peremptorily demanded when Parliament meets.” Her position was denounced as unconstitutional and dangerous to the personal comfort of Her Majesty, it was said—though the real meaning was “to the dying hope that the Tories would ever regain their influence.” When some hireling about the Court made known the fact that Lehzen had changed her bedroom, taking the next room to that occupied by Victoria, there being no door but a curtain between the two rooms, a terrible fear arose, and all the exaggerations about complete ascendency over the mind of the Queen were started afresh. “The Constitution does not permit the Sovereign to have an irresponsible adviser, and if anyone under the guise and specious title of friend obtains possession of State matters and controls State proceedings, is a foreigner and in communication with a foreign Court, that same Constitution will vindicate its outraged fences and expel the intruder even from the Royal footstool.” To heighten the indignation, it was said that Louis Philippe was fostering a plot in favour of the Catholics, and through Leopold was making the Baroness his tool, so that the “exasperated Protestants of the Empire” were losing their hope of favour, but “were determined to wrest a satisfactory certainty from the Crown as their ancestors had done before them.”

Melbourne was naturally blamed, though his influence was by no means strong enough to allow him to interfere in the Queen’s private friendships, and he more or less knew that the suggestion that Lehzen was consulted in State matters was unfounded.

In all this lies the inner cause of that difficulty which arose in 1839 and convulsed politicians, the “Bedchamber Squabble,” as it has been called. It burst forth without warning, no one probably being more surprised than the two chief actors, the Queen and Sir Robert Peel. Though it will be necessary to go back again to events of 1838, it is better perhaps to detail here the intricacies of this knotty question, which had such an important, if temporary, effect on politics.

CHAPTER IX
QUEEN VICTORIA’S LADIES AND LOVERS

“The war with China—the price of sugar—the Corn Laws—the fourteen new Bishops about to be hatched—timber—cotton—a property tax, and the penny post—all these matters and persons are of secondary importance to this greater question—whether the female who hands the Queen her gown shall think Lord Melbourne ‘a very pretty fellow in his day’; or whether she shall believe my friend Sir Robert to be as great a conjurer as Roger Bacon or the Wizard of the North.... It is whether Lady Mary thinks black, or Lady Clementina thinks white; whether her father who begot her voted with the Marquis of Londonderry or Earl Grey—that is the grand question to be solved before my friend Sir Robert can condescend to be the Saviour of his country.”—Punch.

It was in the very nature of things that the Melbourne Ministry should be weak. Its majority was not great, and as the House of Lords was almost solidly against it, Bills could not be passed. In the Lords was Brougham, angry at being denied the Great Seal, at heart a lover of the aristocrat, yet making a bid for the favour of the Radicals. He once brought up a mischievous subject for discussion in the Peers, drawing upon himself the refusal of the Duke of Wellington to be merely factious, and a declaration from Melbourne against the motion. At this, Brougham said furiously of the former, “Westminster Abbey is yawning for him,” but he had to drop his motion. Commenting upon this, Greville says that “Brougham cares for nothing but the pleasure of worrying and embarrassing the Ministers (his former colleagues), whom he detests with an intense hatred; and the Tories, who are bitter and spiteful, and hate them merely as Ministers and as occupants of the place they covet, and not as men, are provoked to death at being baulked in the occasion that seemed to present itself of putting them in a difficulty.”

There is on record another occasion on which Brougham began to attack the Duke of Wellington in the House of Lords, and Wellington, lifting his finger, said, loud enough to be heard across the House, “Now take care what you say next!” As if panic-struck, Brougham broke off and began to talk of another matter. The Duke of Wellington, in fact, with his larger view and his international sense, generally refused to do stupid things from party feelings; and as leader of the House of Lords, he knew the weakness of the Tories at that juncture, and saw little hope of their forming a Government.

However, given opposition such as Brougham’s, and a majority depending upon doubtful Radicals, it was not surprising that there was little real work accomplished in the Commons, and that the Government was always in danger of being overturned. It was on May 6th, 1839, that Lord John Russell brought in a Bill for the suspension for five years of the Constitution of Jamaica, because its Assembly had refused to accept the Prisons Act in connection with the slave trade passed by Parliament. The majority was only five in a House of 583, therefore the Government decided to resign. In July, 1837, Fraser’s Magazine had a sonnet in facetious vein upon the Princess’s birthday, which might have been written for this event, it is so appropriate, though the particular allusion I cannot explain:—

“Great was the omen on the auspicious night