Footnote 22: Near Twickenham, formerly the residence of Horace Walpole, and filled with his collection of pictures and objets de vertu.
Footnote 23: The Duke of Gloucester, brother of George III., married in 1766 Maria, Countess-Dowager Waldegrave, illegitimate daughter of Sir Edward Walpole, and niece of Horace Walpole. This, and the Duke of Cumberland's marriage in 1771 to Lady Anne Horton, occasioned the passing of the Royal Marriages Act.
Footnote 24: Lord Adolphus FitzClarence (1802-1856), a Rear-Admiral, brother of the Earl of Munster.
Footnote 25: The Earl of Munster had held the office of Governor and Constable of Windsor Castle, with a salary of £1,000 a year.
Footnote 26: To the Royal children. Lady Lyttelton was ultimately appointed.
Viscount Melbourne to Queen Victoria.
PARTY POLITICS
Brocket Hall, 6th April 1842.
Lord Melbourne presents his humble duty to your Majesty, and has this morning received your Majesty's very kind and confidential letter, for which he greatly thanks your Majesty. Your Majesty may depend upon it that Lord Melbourne will do everything in his power to discourage and restrain factious and vexatious opposition, not only on account of your Majesty's wish, but because he disapproves it as much as your Majesty can possibly do. But everything in his power he fears is but little. The leaders of a party, or those who are so called, have but little sway over their followers, particularly when not in Government, and when they have it not in their power to threaten them with any very serious consequences, such as the dissolution of the Administration. Mr Pulteney, afterwards Earl of Bath, is reported to have said that political parties were like snakes, guided not by their heads, but by their tails. Lord Melbourne does not know whether this is true of the snake, but it is certainly so of the party. The conduct of the Opposition upon the resolution respecting the Income Tax is rendered peculiarly ridiculous by the result. They forcibly put it off until after the holidays, and then upon the first day of the meeting they vote it without a division. What is this but admitting that they looked to a movement in the country which they have not been able to create? Moreover, all Oppositions that Lord Melbourne has ever seen are more or less factious. The Opposition of Mr Fox to Mr Pitt was the least so, but these were great men, greater than any that exist at the present day, although Lord Melbourne is by no means inclined to depreciate his own times. The factiousness of one Opposition naturally produces the same in the next. They say, "They did so to us; why should we not do so to them?" Your Majesty may rest assured that Lord Melbourne will do everything he can to prevent delay, and to accelerate the transaction of the public business.
Lord Melbourne sends a letter which he has received this morning from the Duke of Sussex, and which expresses very right and proper feeling. Lord Melbourne has written in reply that, "Your Majesty was no doubt influenced principally by your natural affection for him, and by your sense of the generosity of his conduct towards Lord Munster, but that if any thought of Lord Melbourne intervened, your Majesty could not have given a higher or a more acceptable proof of your approbation and regard."