After his brother's death on March 12th Sir Charles Dilke, in his reply to a very kind letter from the Prince of Wales in the name of himself and the Princess, mentioned Lord Rosebery and the Scotch agitation. The Prince wrote back:
"I quite agree. If Rosebery was not to be President of the Council, he ought at least to be Privy Seal. It seems very hard, as he has every claim, especially after the Midlothian election."
Several matters relating to the Queen and Royal Family appear at this time in the Memoir. At the Cabinet of March 5th
'a letter from the Queen was read as to her strong wish to have an Indian bodyguard, consisting of twenty noncommissioned officers of the native cavalry. I did not say a word, and Chamberlain not much, but all the others strongly attacked the scheme, which they ended by rejecting. Lord Derby said that the Empress title had been forced on the former Conservative Cabinet, of which he had been a member, in the same way. It was pointed out that if India consented to pay the men, and they only carried side-arms, they might be treated as pages or servants, not soldiers, and need not be voted at all as "men" in the Army Estimates.'
'A day or two later Villiers, our military attach. in Paris, reported the existence of a military plot, said to have been got up by General Billot, the Minister of War: the plan being that fifteen commanders of corps were to turn out Grévy and put in the due d'Aumale. The story was probably a lie.'
'On March 18th there was to have been a "forgiving party" at Windsor, for Lord Derby was commanded as well as I. The Harcourts were to have gone, but the Queen sent in the morning to say she had slipped down, and must put off her Sunday dinner.'
'At this time peace was restored between Randolph Churchill and the Royal Family. The reconciliation was marked by Lady Randolph attending the Drawing-Room held on March 13th at the Queen's special wish.'
'At the Marlborough House dinner on May 27th, the Prince spoke to me about the allowance for his sons as they came of age, and told me that he thought the money might be given to him as head of the family. My own view is very much the same, but I would give it all to the Crown, and let the King for the time being distribute it so that we should not deal with any other members of the family.'
'At Claremont I found, from the conversation of the Duke of Albany and of his secretary, that if the Duke of Cambridge resigned speedily, as then seemed probable, the Duke of Connaught had no chance of obtaining the place; but it was hoped at Court that the Commander-in-Chief would hold his position for five or six years, and then might be succeeded by the Duke of Connaught.'
Later Sir Charles mentions the Duke of Albany's conversation with him as to Canada, of which he wished to be Governor, but the Queen opposed the project, and Lord Lansdowne was eventually sent out.