CHAPTER VII.

THE QUEEN AND PEEL.

FROM the time of the Queen's accession, the power of the Whig Government under Lord Melbourne had been steadily going down. It sank to zero when they resumed office, in 1839, after Peel had failed to form a Government in consequence of the dispute over the Ladies of the Bedchamber. They had been beaten in the Commons and were in a permanent minority in the Lords; and it was said with justice that they were holding on, in office but not in power, simply to please the Queen. It would have been a discreditable position for any Government, but it was particularly damaging to a Whig Government from the fact that their party was specially identified with the principle of ministerial responsibility and a resistance to personal government.

The result of their position was that they were powerless to pass their measures. They knew they had lost the confidence of the country, and that the House of Lords could therefore veto the Government Bills with a light heart. Perhaps this was not altogether painful to Lord Melbourne. The saying by which he is chiefly remembered by the present generation, "Why can't you let it alone?" is not indicative of the ardent spirit of the reformer. He may have found consolation in the assistance given by the House of Lords to letting things alone.

Given his position and all its difficulties, Melbourne behaved loyally and generously to the Queen and to his successors.

He knew the days of his own Govern

ment were numbered, and that Peel would succeed him, and he did his best to bring about a more cordial personal feeling between the Queen and Peel and the Tory party. The Queen tells us that to her his word constantly was, "Hold out the olive-branch to them a little; " with Peel, he tried to induce the shy, proud man to put on a little of the courtier and the man of the world. At a Court ball in 1840, "Melbourne went up to Peel and whispered to him with the greatest earnestness, For God's sake, go and speak to the Queen;' Peel did not go, but the entreaty and the refusal were both characteristic."

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When the long-anticipated fall of the Melbourne Administration came, and the election of 1841 resulted in the return of the Tories to power with a majority of over 80, Melbourne, who had worked unceasingly to reconcile the Queen to the impending change, did not desist from his good offices with her new Ministers.1 He could not approach them directly, but he took the opportunity after Peel's Government had been formed of giving them a few hints, through Greville. He met Greville at a dinner-party and took him on one side and said: "Have you any means of speaking to these chaps?' I said, Yes, I can say anything to them.' Well,' he said, 'I think there are one or two things Peel ought to be told, and I wish you would tell him. Don't let him suffer any appointment he is going to make to be talked about, and don't let her hear it through anybody but himself; and whenever he does anything, or has anything

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1 This generosity was thoroughly in keeping with his character. After Melbourne's death, Greville tells how he occupied his room at Brocket, and, "poking about" to see what he could find, came upon several MS. books of the late Prime Minister. In one of these was recorded Melbourne's settled determination "always to stand by his friend," and his conviction that it was more necessary to do so "when they were in the wrong than when they were in the right."

to propose, let him explain to her clearly his reasons. The Queen is not conceited; she is aware there are many things she cannot understand, and she likes to have them explained to her elementarily, not at length and in detail, but shortly and clearly; neither does she like long audiences, and I never stayed with her a long time. These things he should attend to, and they will make matters go on more smoothly."" Greville conveyed the message, which was taken in exceedingly good part, and from 1841 onwards till his death the relations between Sir Robert Peel and the Queen were all that could be desired. Her former antipathy was changed into cordial respect and admiration; when he lost his shyness and reserve, and was able to show himself in his real character, she soon appreciated the very fine qualities of the man, far transcending in real worth those of the Minister whom in the beginning of her reign she had so strongly preferred. When Peel's Ministry had been in office a few months, Greville asked Sir James Graham, the Home Secretary, how they were going on with the Queen. He said, "Very well. They sought for no favor, and were better without it. She was very civil, very gracious, and even on two or three little occasions, she had granted favors in a way indicative of good will." He said that they treated her with profound respect and the greatest attention. He made it a rule to address her as he would a sensible man, laying all matters before her, with the reasons for the advice he tendered, and he thought this was the most legitimate as well as judicious flattery that could be offered to her, and such as must gratify her, and the more because there was no appearance of flattery in it, and nothing but what was right and proper-so right and proper that it is not easy to see where the flattery comes in. The way of explaining business to

a sensible woman must be much the same; one would imagine, as the way of explaining it to a sensible man; but this simple view of the facts was by no means perceived intuitively in 1841, but was only arrived at by demonstration from actual experiment. However this may be, when Peel and his colleagues learned their lesson, they learned it thoroughly. In this second series of interviews between the Queen and the leaders of the Tory Party, when a new Ministry was being formed in 1841, all passed off most satisfactorily. Peel said the Queen behaved perfectly to him; he was more than satisfied with her bearing towards him. To the Duke of Wellington she was

equally gracious. She reproached him for not taking office himself, and he assured her that his one object was to serve her and the country in every way he could, and that he thought he could do this more effectually by making way for some of the younger men. It is true that there was still some talk about Peel's shyness making the Queen shy; and Greville has a little hit about Peel, after dinner at Windsor, talking to the Queen in the attitude of a dancingmaster giving a lesson, and says that the Queen would like him better if he would keep his legs still; but this gossip probably reflects Greville's sentiments rather than the Queen's. Her respect for Peel and attachment to him grew with her growing knowledge of his character and powers. In 1843 the Queen wrote of him to her uncle, the King of the Belgians, as "undoubtedly a great statesman, a man who thinks but little of party, and never of himself." In February, 1846, Lady Canning, who was then in Waiting on the Queen, notes in her journal, "The Queen is very keen about politics, and has an immense admiration for Sir Robert Peel."

Before the end of his Administration, she not only

loyally supported him in the face of his growing unpopularity with his own party, but showered every honor upon him that a Sovereign could bestow upon a Minister. She and the Prince visited him at his house at Drayton. She became godmother to his grandchild, and would have given him the Order of the Garter, but that Peel, with the characteristic pride of humility, intimated his desire that it should not be offered him. He said that if his acceptance of the honor would increase his power of serving the Queen he would not hesitate to accept it; but he could not believe this was the case. Personally, he would. prefer not to accept it; he was a man of the people, and the decoration in his case would be misapplied. "His heart was not set upon titles of honor or social distinctions. His reward lay in Her Majesty's confidence, of which by many indications she had given him the fullest assurance; and when he left her service the only distinction he coveted was that she should say to him, You have been a faithful servant, and have done your duty to your country and to

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When Peel's Ministry came to an end in 1846, both the Queen and the Prince expressed the hope that his leaving office would not interrupt the cordial relations that had been established between them. His tragic death, from a fall from his horse, in 1850, was bitterly mourned in the Palace. The Queen wrote at the time: "Peel is to be buried to-day. The sorrow and grief at his death are most touching. Every one seems to have lost a personal friend." The Prince on the same day wrote to the same correspondent: "Sir Robert Peel is to be buried to-day. The feeling in the country is absolutely not to be described. We have lost our truest friend and trustiest counsellor, the throne its most valiant defender, the country its