It is hardly necessary to say that the young Queen was exceedingly popular with the blue-jackets. In the course of a visit to Portsmouth she had gone over one of her ships. She was shown through the men's quarters, the sailors being under orders to remain perfectly quiet and abstain from cheering. Her Majesty tasted the men's coffee and pronounced it good. She asked if they got nothing stronger. A glass of grog was brought to her. She put it to her lips, and Jack could contain himself no longer; a burst of enthusiastic huzzas made the ribs of the ship ring.
At Woolwich a discharge of artillery announced the moment when the great vessel slipped from her stays, and "floated gallantly down the river" till she was brought up and swung round with her stern to London.
The King and Queen of the Belgians paid their second visit this year, the Queen remaining six weeks, detained latterly by the illness of her son in England. The long visit confirmed the tender friendship between the two queens. "During this stay, which had been such a happiness for me, we became most intimate," Queen Victoria wrote in her Journal, and she grudged the necessity of having to set out with Prince Albert on a royal progress before the departure of her cherished guest. "To lose four days of her stay, of which, I repeat, every hour is precious, is dreadful," her Majesty told King Leopold.
The short summer progress was otherwise very enjoyable. The Queen and Prince Albert visited the Duke of Bedford at the Russells' stately seat of Woburn Abbey, with its park twelve miles in extent. From Woburn the royal couple went to Panshanger, Earl Cowper's, and Brocket Hall, Lord Melbourne's, returning by Hatfield, the Marquis of Salisbury's. At Brocket the Queen was entertained by her Prime Minister. At Hatfield there were many memories of another Queen and her minister, since the ancient country-house had been a palace of Queen Elizabeth's, passing, in her successor's reign, by an exchange of mansions, from the hands of James I into those of the son and representative of Lord Burleigh, little crooked, long-headed Robert Cecil, first Earl of Salisbury. In Hatfield Park there is an oak still standing which bears the name of "Queen Elizabeth's Oak." It is said Princess Elizabeth was sitting in its shade when the news was brought to her of the death of her sister, Queen Mary, and her own accession to the throne of England.
The only difficulty—a pleasant one after all—which was experienced in these progresses, proceeded from the exuberant loyalty of the people. At straw-plaiting Dunstable a volunteer company of farmers joined the regular escort and nearly choked the travellers with the dust the worthy yeomen raised. On leaving Woburn Abbey the same dubious compliment was paid. In the Queen's merry words, "a crowd of good, loyal people rode with us part of the way. They so pressed and pushed that it was as if we were hunting."
The recent election had returned a majority of Conservative members, and soon after the reassembling of Parliament in August a vote of non-confidence in Lord Melbourne's Ministry was carried. The same evening the Prime Minister went to Windsor to announce his resignation. He acted with his natural fairness and generosity, giving due honour to his adversaries, and congratulating the Queen on the great advantage she possessed in the presence and counsel of the Prince, thus softening to her the trial of the first change of Ministers in her reign. He only regretted the pain to himself of leaving her. "For four years I have seen you every day; but it is so different from what it would have been in 1839. The Prince understands everything so well, and has a clever, able head." The Queen was much affected in taking leave of a "faithful and attached friend," as well as Minister, while her words were, that his praise of the Prince gave her "great pleasure" and made her "very proud."
In anticipation of the change of Ministry it had been arranged, with Sir Robert Peel's concurrence, that the principal Whig ladies in the Queen's household—the Duchess of Sutherland, the Duchess of Bedford, and Lady Normanby—should voluntarily retire from office, and that this should be the practice in any future change of Ministry, so that the question of Ministerial interference in the withdrawal or the appointment of the ladies of the Queen's household might be set at rest. [Footnote: The retirement from office is now limited to the Mistress of the Robes.]
On the 3rd of September the new Ministers kissed hands on their appointment at a Cabinet Council held at Claremont. Lord Campbell gives some particulars. "I have just seen here several of our friends returned from Claremont. Both parties met there at once. They were shown into separate rooms. The Queen sat in her closet, no one being present but Prince Albert. The exaunters were called in one by one and gave up the seals or wands of their offices and retired. The new men by mistake went to Claremont all in their Court costume, whereas the Queen at Windsor and Claremont receives her Ministers in their usual morning dress. Nonnanby says taking leave of the Queen was very affecting."
Whatever momentary awkwardness may have attended the substitution of Sir Robert Peel as Prime Minister, it did not at all interfere—thanks to the candid, liberal nature of all concerned—with the friendly goodwill which it is so desirable should exist between sovereign and minister. We read in the "Life of the Prince Consort," "Lord Melbourne told Baron Stockmar, who had just returned from Coburg, that Sir Robert Peel had behaved most handsomely, and that the conduct of the Prince had throughout been most moderate and judicious."
Sir Robert had experienced considerable embarrassment at the recollection of his share in the debates on the Royal Annuity Bill, but the Prince did not show an equally retentive memory. His seeming forgetfulness of the past and cordiality in the present did more than reassure, it deeply touched and completely won a man who was himself capable of magnanimous self-renunciation.