Her Majesty, fully aware of the reasons that rendered Lord John Russell an impossible Premier, now saw her way to organising the strong Government of capable and experienced statesmen which, ever since 1846, she had held could only be formed by a coalition of the Whigs and the Peelites. She accordingly summoned Lord Aberdeen and Lord Lansdowne to assist her out of the Ministerial crisis. Gout prevented Lord Lansdowne from attending at Osborne. His ill-health, together with his loyalty to Lord John Russell, and the disinclination of the Peelites to serve under him, rendered it impossible for him to accept the Premiership. It was equally impossible for the Queen to ask Lord Palmerston to become Prime Minister, after the recent events which had led to his dismissal from the Foreign Office. Hence Lord Aberdeen, though the head of the smallest faction, was the candidate for the Premiership who least divided the Opposition. He was therefore charged with the task of forming a Cabinet.[69] On the 28th of December the famous Coalition Ministry was organised—Lord Cranworth was Lord Chancellor; Lord Aberdeen, Prime Minister; Mr. Gladstone, Chancellor of the Exchequer; Lord Palmerston, Home Secretary; Lord John Russell,[70] Foreign Secretary; the Duke of Newcastle, Colonial Secretary; Mr. Sidney Herbert, War Secretary; Sir J. Graham, First Lord of the Admiralty; Lord Granville, President of the Council; Sir C. Wood, President of the Board of Control; the Duke of Argyle, Lord Privy Seal; Sir W. Molesworth, Chief Commissioner of Works; the Marquis of Lansdowne, a Minister without office. “The success of our excellent Aberdeen’s arduous task,” writes the Queen to the King of the Belgians, “and the formation of so brilliant and strong a Cabinet would, I was sure, please you. It is the realisation of the country’s and our own most ardent wishes, and it deserves success, and will, I think, command support.”[71] The Queen here simply reflected public opinion. Never had a Cabinet of abler men, individually speaking, ruled England since the Ministry of “All the Talents” fell from power. But the Sovereign and her people both forgot that in our strange and anomalous constitution no Cabinet is, as a rule, so weak as a Cabinet of strong men. This Ministry, which started on its career on the flood-tide of Court and popular favour, was destined, by its vacillation in foreign policy, to lead the country into the terrible calamity of a European war. It was doomed to fall amidst the execrations even of those who, like Mr. Cobden, declared that to his dying day he could never sufficiently regret giving one of the votes that brought it into power.
After the formation of the Government, the usual explanations of the position of affairs were given in both Houses of Parliament, Lord Derby attempting to show that the destruction of his Ministry had been plotted by an unprincipled combination of hostile factions. On the contrary, as Sir George Cornewall Lewis says in one of his letters, “there was no real anxiety on the part of the Opposition to turn out the Government; the sections of it were divided, and there was none of that ‘coalition’ which Lord Derby spoke of. The Budget, however, was more than human flesh and blood could bear. The promises of a substitute for Protection which Disraeli had made at the Elections rendered it necessary that the Government should propose something which appeared for the benefit of the agriculturists. They sounded some of their supporters among the county members as to a transfer from the local rates to the Consolidated Fund; but I believe the answer they got was, that a measure which destroyed the power of the magistrates and the local authorities would not be acceptable to their party. They had nothing then to propose but a reduction of the Malt Tax, which created a large deficit, and rendered an increase of taxation necessary. This latter object was effected by doubling and enlarging the House Tax. Disraeli was evidently very confident of the success of his Budget, and impatient to produce it. But when it had been out a week it was clear the country would not agree to it. The farmers did not care about the reduction of the Malt Tax; but the towns did care very decidedly for the increase of the House Tax, and showed a strong objection to it.... Having made their Budget a means of redeeming their promise to give their party an equivalent for Protection, they could not modify it, and therefore defeat on it was vital.”[72] On the 31st of December all the appointments under the new Government were filled up, and Parliament was adjourned till the 10th of February, 1853.
VIEW IN BRAEMAR.
In the early part of the year the Queen was much distressed by reason of her husband’s anxieties in connection with the affairs of the Great Exhibition. His idea was to apply the surplus in the hands of the Exhibition Commissioners
QUEEN VICTORIA.
(After the Equestrian Portrait by Count D’Orsay)