If this is put to him by your Majesty, Lord Melbourne does not see how he can resist it.
B.—Queen Victoria to Viscount Melbourne. Buckingham Palace, May 9, 1839.
The Queen writes one line to prepare Lord Melbourne for what may happen in a very few hours. Sir Robert Peel has behaved very ill, and has insisted on my giving up my Ladies, to which I replied that I never would consent, and I never saw a man so frightened. He said he must go to the Duke of Wellington and consult with him, when both would return, and he said this must suspend all further proceedings, and he asked whether I should be ready to receive a decision, which I said I should; he was quite perturbed—but this is infamous. I said, besides many other things, that if he or the Duke of Wellington had been at the head of the Government when I came to the Throne, perhaps there might have been a few more Tory Ladies, but that then if you had come in Office you would never have dreamt of changing them. I was calm but very decided, and I think you would have been pleased to see my composure and great firmness; the Queen of England will not submit to such trickery. Keep yourself in readiness, for you may soon be wanted.
C.—Viscount Melbourne to Queen Victoria. May 9, 1839.
Lord Melbourne presents his humble duty to your Majesty. This is a matter of so much importance, and may have such grave results, that any advice which Lord Melbourne could give would be of little importance unless it coincided with the opinions of others, and particularly of all those who were and intend still to continue to be his colleagues.
It will depend upon their determination whether your Majesty is to be supported or not. The best course will perhaps be that you should have Sir Robert Peel’s determination, say nothing, but send for Lord Melbourne, and lay the matter before him. Lord Melbourne will then summon a Cabinet to consider of it.
II. The Tory Side of it.
A.—Source.—The Croker Papers, vol. ii., p. 346. (London: 1884.)
J. W. Croker to the King of Hanover. May 11.
The mission of Sir Robert Peel failed upon what I may call an abstract principle—the right of the Minister to interfere at all in the female household. No lady’s name was mentioned by Sir Robert, for on his saying to the Queen, “As to ladies of the household” her Majesty is said to have interrupted him at once by saying: “Oh, I do not mean to make any change among them.” This is the sum of the whole affair. Sir Robert Peel could not admit the broad principle that all were to remain. Lady Normanby (whom the Queen particularly wishes for), for instance, the wife of the very Minister whose measures have been the cause of the change, two sisters of Lord Morpeth, the sisters-in-law of Lord John Russell, the daughter of the Privy Seal and Chancellor of the Exchequer. Your Majesty sees that though Sir Robert might, and I have no doubt would, have left the great body of the female attendants, he could not possibly have submitted to have the hostile party thus in possession of the personal favour, friendship, and confidence of the Queen. The general opinion is that this scheme was prepared even before the resignation, and that the whole has been a trick, though for my part I cannot see how it betters the position of the Whigs....