Buckingham Palace, May 10, 1839.
The Queen, having considered the proposal made to her yesterday by Sir Robert Peel, to remove the Ladies of her Bedchamber, cannot consent to adopt a course which she conceives to be contrary to usage and repugnant to her feelings.
On receipt of this, Sir Robert Peel, acting in perfect concert with the Duke of Wellington, communicated with Her Majesty in a remarkably courteous letter, of which this was the concluding and decisive paragraph:—
Having had the opportunity, through your Majesty’s gracious consideration, of reflecting upon this point, he humbly submits to your Majesty that he is reluctantly compelled, by a sense of public duty and of the interest of your Majesty’s service, to adhere to the opinion which he ventured to express to your Majesty. He trusts he may be permitted, at the same time, to express to your Majesty his grateful acknowledgments for the distinction which your Majesty conferred upon him, by requiring his advice and assistance in the attempt to form an Administration, and his earnest prayers that whatever arrangements your Majesty may be enabled to make for that purpose, may be most conducive to your Majesty’s personal comfort and happiness, and to the promotion of the public welfare.
WELLINGTON AND LORD MELBOURNE.
It was generally believed at the time, as Sir Archibald Alison himself confesses, that Peel did not regret this royal rebuff; for “he was by no means sanguine,” says the Tory historiographer, “as to the success of his mission, nor annoyed at the failure of the attempt to fulfil it.” The pro and con were put with equal terseness and skill by Lord Melbourne and the Duke of Wellington. The words of the latter were:—“It is essential that the Minister should possess the entire confidence of Her Majesty, and with that view should exercise the usual control permitted to the Minister by the Sovereign in the construction of the Household. There is the greatest possible difference between the Household of the Queen Consort and the Household of the Queen Regnant—that of the former, who is not a political personage, being comparatively of little importance.”
Lord Melbourne, on the other hand, thus justified the advice which his Royal Mistress had received from him and adopted:—“I frankly declare that I resume office unequivocally and solely for this reason, that I will not abandon my Sovereign in a situation of difficulty and distress, and especially when a demand is made upon Her Majesty with which, I think, she ought not to comply—a demand inconsistent with her personal honour, and which, if acquiesced in, would render her reign liable to all the changes and variations of political parties, and render her domestic life one constant scene of unhappiness and discomfort.”
The public at large, even those who thought her action wrong, accorded to the Queen sympathy rather than blame. It was well known that she had been dexterously surrounded by the wives and sisters and daughters of the great Whigs, and that on these ladies all her ardent and girlish affections were bestowed. This made the people all the more angry that the male heads of the Whig houses now gave her unconstitutional advice. Not only her youth and inexperience, but the very warmth of the affection which she had displayed, and, above all, the fact that she was the chief sufferer on the occasion, all pleaded for her. Indeed, it may be said that the quickly-forgotten “Bedchamber Plot” rather endeared the Sovereign to her subjects than otherwise. Both of her uncles who preceded her on the throne had been exceedingly capricious and disloyal to their ministers. Under these reigns there was a constant sense, in the breasts of ministers and in the breasts of the people, of the precariousness of the existence of even the most popular cabinets. It certainly cannot be said that in the early summer of 1839 Lord Melbourne’s cabinet was popular. Nevertheless, though the ministers were blamed, the people were charmed by the Queen’s ingenuousness, bravery, and steadiness of attachment. It is but just to state that on every future occasion of the change of an Administration, the Queen has, without the slightest demur, conceded the point, the consideration of which we now dismiss. And with the transparent candour of her nature, Her Majesty has caused it to be made known that the Prince Consort had much to do with producing this result.