The Queen to Mr. Gladstone.
Mr. Gladstone mentioned in his last letter but one, his intention of proposing some honours. But before she considers these, she wishes to offer him an Earldom, as a mark of her recognition of his long and distinguished services, and she believes and thinks he will thereby be enabled still to render great service to his sovereign and country—which if he retired, as he has repeatedly told her of late he intended to do shortly,—he could not. The country would doubtless be pleased at any signal mark of recognition of Mr. Gladstone's long and eminent services, and the Queen believes that it would be beneficial to his health,—no longer exposing him to the pressure from without, for more active work than he ought to undertake. Only the other day—without reference to the present events—the Queen mentioned to Mrs. Gladstone at Windsor the advantage to Mr. Gladstone's health of a removal from one House to the other, in which she seemed to agree. The Queen trusts, therefore, that Mr. Gladstone will accept the offer of an earldom, which would be very gratifying to her.
The outgoing minister replied on the following day:—
Mr. Gladstone offers his humble apology to your Majesty. It would not be easy for him to describe the feelings with which he has read your Majesty's generous, most generous letter. He prizes every word of it, for he is fully alive to all the circumstances which give it value. It will be a precious possession to him and to his children after him. All that could recommend an earldom to him, it already has given him. He remains, however, of the belief that he ought not to avail himself of this most gracious offer. Any service that he can render, if small, will, however, be greater in the House of Commons than in the House of Lords; and it has never formed part of his views to enter that historic chamber, although he does not share the feeling which led Sir R. Peel to put upon record what seemed a perpetual or almost a perpetual self-denying ordinance for his family.
When the circumstances of the state cease, as he hopes they may ere long, to impose on him any special duty, he will greatly covet that interval between an active career and death, which the [pg 210] profession of politics has always appeared to him especially to require. There are circumstances connected with the position of his family, which he will not obtrude upon your Majesty, but which, as he conceives, recommend in point of prudence the personal intention from which he has never swerved. He might hesitate to act upon the motives to which he has last adverted, grave as they are, did he not feel rooted in the persuasion that the small good he may hope hereafter to effect, can best be prosecuted without the change in his position. He must beg your Majesty to supply all that is lacking in his expression from the heart of profound and lasting gratitude.
To Lord Granville, the nearest of his friends, he wrote on the same day:—
I send you herewith a letter from the Queen which moves and almost upsets me. It must have cost her much to write, and it is really a pearl of great price. Such a letter makes the subject of it secondary—but though it would take me long to set out my reasons, I remain firm in the intention to accept nothing for myself.
Lord Granville replied that he was not surprised at the decision. “I should have greatly welcomed you,” he said, “and under some circumstances it might be desirable, but I think you are right now.”
Here is Mr. Gladstone's letter to an invaluable occupant of the all-important office of private secretary:—
To Mr. E. W. Hamilton.