Sir Robert Peel replied to the Queen’s communication in a long letter, in which he resigned the charge she had imposed upon him; and as all England was discussing the Bedchamber question, Victoria, who really felt that she had justice on her side, allowed him to read her letter and his own in Parliament that the true facts of the matter might be known. For the public believed that Peel had planned to separate the Queen from all the friends of her childhood, and to force her to accept as servants a completely new set, all especially imbued with Tory principles, and Peel felt that he should publicly justify his action. But as the Queen would not move an inch from the position she had taken up, the old Whig Ministry was reinstated.
As for the opinion expressed by contemporaries on this matter, I should say that the balance was against the Queen, not so much because of the justice of the matter as because she was a young woman, and therefore incapable presumably of understanding affairs. People said that she was an inexperienced girl who wanted her own way though the heavens fell; she upset her Government that her private comfort might not be assailed; the whole thing was planned so that she could again have the Whigs in power! Scarcely any of them, except perhaps Lord Grey, cast their vote for her. But these writers were all men, and mostly Tories—that is to say, they were the people who suffered. They talked about the principle involved, but they only cared about the idea in practice. Then they did not look beyond the Queen’s words, nor remember the violent and exaggerated statements which they themselves had made about Baroness Lehzen.
LADY TAVISTOCK.
Victoria naturally felt that if she conceded the principle she would be giving over into the hands of the enemy the friend whom she most valued. She knew that some of the Tories had clamoured for Lehzen’s dismissal, had threatened to ask questions about her in Parliament. Then, too, she had a real liking for Lady Normanby, of whom one of the Maids of Honour said later, “She is so clever and well-informed, and yet there is that about her which prevents one feeling ashamed of one’s ignorance”; for Lady Tavistock; and probably for other of her ladies. Think of the position of a girl of twenty, who is suddenly called upon, not to dismiss her attendants, but to send away all those who were, by the nature of their duties, admitted to the most intimate relations with her, the Ladies of the Bedchamber. It is quite comprehensible that she should resist.
Peel said afterwards that he did not mean all, and it was a pity that the Queen was too hasty to listen to his propositions to the end; though it is certain, if we may judge by the expression he used, “that his Government could not be carried on if ladies attached to Whig leaders remained about the Queen,” that he did at the outset mean all the Bedchamber ladies; indeed, he said as much as that to Croker when he wrote that there were only nine of them, while there were twenty-five women of the Household altogether. He further said what—in view of all the attacks on Lehzen—lets some light into his feelings: “The paid spy of a foreign enemy might be introduced into the Household—might have access to every Cabinet secret.”
Had Peel been in a strong position he probably would have been less obstinate on the point, for though he was perhaps right in a strictly constitutional sense, he could have yielded without any real sacrifice of principle; but he feared even the attempt to form a Government, for it would be a Government with a minority, an odious position for any Minister. There was, in fact, some analogy between the position of Peel then and that of Melbourne when he accepted office under the Queen. In 1837 the Whig Ministry was struggling for its life, and it would have been expecting something impossible to have expected that Melbourne should have put Tory ladies about Her Majesty. When Peel’s turn came he was equally anxious not to have Whig ladies.
So Peel made an able speech on the matter in the House, Brougham made a violent one, Wellington a thoughtful and moderate one, Russell a feeble one, and Melbourne’s, they say, was the best of all. In the course of his speech Peel referred to the Lehzen matter, saying that he had not meant to turn out the Baroness, which annoyed that lady very much, she remarking with much asperity that he had no right to say such a thing; he should have said that he could not turn her out, for she was in no public post or service, and Peel had nothing to do with her. It is said that the Duke of Sussex advised his niece not to accede to Peel’s request about the Ladies of the Bedchamber, but Victoria herself affirmed that she took no advice on the matter.
Some wag called the resuscitated Cabinet the Jupon Cabinet, and Justin McCarthy said of its leaders that Peel could not govern with Lady Normanby, and Melbourne could not govern without her. “What is it keeps the present Ministers in office? Two women in the Bedchamber and two rats in Parliament,” was another little pleasantry. Macaulay added as his comment: “The month of May, 1839, saw the leaders of the great party, which had marched into office across the steps of the Throne, standing feebly at bay behind the petticoats of their wives and sisters. Whether the part they played was forced upon them by circumstances, or whether it was not, their example was disastrous in its effects upon English public life.”
While the excitement was at its height the papers were full of gibes and personalities, and one published the following lines upon Melbourne, whose constant attendance at Windsor, as has been pointed out, led to a running comment upon his method and place of dining:—