“‘Now, about the Ladies?’
“Upon which I said I could not give up any of my Ladies, and never had imagined such a thing. He asked if I meant to retain all.
“‘All,’ I said.
“‘The Mistress of the Robes and the Ladies of the Bedchamber?’
“I replied, ‘All!’—for he said they were the wives of the opponents of the Government, mentioning Lady Normanby in particular as one of the late Ministers’ wives. I said that would not interfere; that I never talked politics with them, and that they were related, many of them to Tories, and I enumerated those of my Bedchamber Women and Maids of Honour; upon which he said he did not mean all the Bedchamber Women and all the Maids of Honour; he meant the Mistress of the Robes and the Ladies of the Bedchamber; to which I replied they were of more consequence than the others, and that I could not consent, and that it had never been done before. He said I was a Queen Regnant, and that made the difference! ‘Not here,’ I said—and I maintained my right. Sir Robert then urged it upon public grounds only, but I said here that I could not consent.”
In Victoria’s letter to Melbourne she said: “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 was quite perturbed—but this is infamous. I said, besides many other things, that if he or the Duke of Wellington had been at the head of the Government when I came to the Throne, perhaps there might have been a few more Tory ladies, but that if you had come into office you would never have dreamt of changing them. 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 such trickery.”
Peel felt it to be a deadlock; the Queen’s autocratic tendency had already made itself sufficiently felt for him to know that argument was of no use for him. He said that he must consult his colleagues, and so backed out.
Victoria sent at once for Lord John Russell, and asked if she could rightfully refuse this demand. There was no precedent for Sir Robert Peel’s decision, though from his party’s point of view there was every necessity for it. Queen Anne had kept her beloved Sarah Churchill all through the changes of administration until she wearied of her. When the Government changed under William IV., Lord Grey (the Whig) not only left Queen Adelaide’s Household of Ladies untouched, but did not change an equerry or groom; though later, when Lord Howe voted against him on a vital question, he insisted upon his removal. When that was done Peel and his party asserted that an unheard-of outrage had been offered the Queen, and Adelaide did not speak to Lord Grey for more than a year, and then had to be keenly persuaded before she would enter a room where he was closeted with King William.
Lord John Russell told Queen Victoria that she had right on her side, and she said that, in that case, she expected the support of himself and his colleagues as she had supported them in the past. She sent for the Duke, who told her that she was wrong, and that she ought, being Queen Regnant, to regard her ladies in the same light as her lords.
“No,” replied Her Majesty; “I have lords besides, and these I give up to you.”