The Letters of Queen Victoria Volume I Part 66

The Prince says the Queen always sees what is right at a glance, but if her feelings run contrary she avoids the Prince's arguments, which she feels sure agree with her own, and seeks arguments to support her wishes against her convictions from other people.

[Pageheading: DISSOLUTION OR RESIGNATION]

_Viscount Melbourne to Queen Victoria._

SOUTH STREET, _7th May 1841._

Lord Melbourne presents his humble duty to your Majesty, and laments much the prospect that lies before us, more especially as it is so repugnant to your Majesty's feelings. Your Majesty has often observed that these events must come in the course of affairs at some moment or another, but Lord Melbourne knows not whether it is much consolation to reflect that what is very disagreeable is also natural and unavoidable. Lord Melbourne feels certain that your Majesty will consider the situation calmly and impartially, will do that which shall appear the best for your own interests and those of the country, which are identical.

Everything shall be done that can be; the questions which may arise shall be considered well, and upon as full information as can be obtained. But Lord Melbourne has little to add to what he wrote to your Majesty yesterday. So many interests are affected by this Sugar question, the West Indian, the East Indian, the opponents of Slavery and others, that no small number of our supporters will be induced either to stay away or to vote against us, and this must place us in a minority upon the main points of our Budget. In this we can hardly acquiesce, nor can we adopt a different policy and propose other taxes, when in our opinion the necessary revenue can be raised without imposing them. This state of things imposes upon us the alternative of dissolution or of resignation, and to try the former without succeeding in it would be to place both your Majesty and ourselves in a worse situation than that in which we are at present.

_Viscount Melbourne to Queen Victoria._

SOUTH STREET, _8th May 1841._

Lord Melbourne presents his humble duty to your Majesty. We have been considering this question of dissolution at the Cabinet, and we have had before us a general statement of the public returns for England and Wales. It is not very favourable, but Lord Melbourne fears that it is more favourable than the reality would prove. The Chancellor,[23]

Palmerston, and Hobhouse are strongly for dissolution, but the opinion of the majority is the other way, and in that opinion Lord Melbourne is strongly inclined to agree.

Lord Melbourne will have the honour of waiting upon your Majesty to-morrow at three.

[Footnote 23: The Earl of Cottenham.]

[Pageheading: SIR ROBERT PEEL]

_Memorandum by Mr Anson._

NOTES UPON AN INTERVIEW WITH SIR ROBERT PEEL (NO. 1).[24]

_9th May 1841._

Told Sir Robert that I had wished to have sought him through the medium of a common friend, which would have given him a greater confidence than I had now a right to expect at his hands, but I felt upon so delicate a mission it was safer, and would be more in accordance with his wishes, to come direct.

That the Prince had sent me to him, with the object of removing difficulties upon his coming into office.

That Her Majesty was anxious that the question of the removal of the Ladies of the Bedchamber should not be revived, and would wish that in any personal communication with Sir Robert this question might be avoided.

That it might be arranged that if Sir Robert would not insist upon carrying out his principle, Her Majesty might procure the resignation of any Ladies whom Sir Robert might object to; that I thought there might be a disposition to yield to the removal of the Mistress of the Robes, Lady Normanby, and the d.u.c.h.ess of Bedford, as being connected with leading political persons in Government.

Endeavoured to impress upon Sir Robert that if he acts fairly and kindly towards the Queen, he will be met in the same spirit.

Sir Robert said he had considered the probable object of my interview, and thought, from my former position with Lord Melbourne, that Lord Melbourne would be aware of my coming. He must be a.s.sured of this before he could speak confidentially to me.

Upon this I admitted that Lord Melbourne had knowledge of my intention, but that I was not authorised to say that he had.

Sir Robert said, "I shall put aside all form, and treat you frankly and confidentially. You may depend upon every word you say being held as sacred. No part, without further permission, shall be mentioned even to the Duke, much less to any of my other colleagues.

"_I would waive every pretension to office, I declare to G.o.d! sooner than that my acceptance of it should be attended with any personal humiliation to the Queen._"

He thought that giving in the names of those Ladies whom he considered obnoxious was an offensive course towards the Queen.

For the sake of office, which he did not covet, he could not concede any const.i.tutional principle, but it was not necessary that that principle should be mooted.

"It would be repulsive to my feelings that Her Majesty should part with any of her Ladies, as the _result of a forced stipulation on my part_; in a party sense it would doubtless be advantageous to me to say that I had demanded from the Queen, and the Queen had conceded to me the appointments of these three Ladies."

The mode he would like, and which he considered as least objectionable for Her Majesty, was for Her Majesty to say to him, "There is no occasion to revive this const.i.tutional question, as those ladies immediately connected with prominent members of the Administration have sent in their resignation."

The vacancies existing before Sir Robert Peel sees Her Majesty, there is no necessity for discussion.

On the one hand, by this means, there was less appearance of insult to the Queen, and on the other, there was no appearance of concession of principle upon his.

Sir Robert was ready to make any personal sacrifice for Her Majesty's comfort, except that of his honour. "Can the Queen for an instant suppose that I would permit my party to urge me on to insist upon anything incompatible with Her Majesty's dignity, which it would be my great aim and honour to defend?"

[This was his indignant reply to my remark upon the rumours that his party would press him to coerce and subdue Her Majesty.]

Sir Robert thinks it better for the Queen to avoid anything in the shape of a stipulation. He would like what he would have done upon a former occasion (and upon which, on the honour of a gentleman, his views had undergone no change) to be taken as a test of what he would be ready to concede to.

Nothing but misconception, he said, could in his opinion have led to failure before. "_Had the Queen told me_" (after the question was mooted, which it never need have been) "_that those three ladies immediately connected with the Government had tendered their resignation, I should have been perfectly satisfied_, and should have consulted the Queen's feelings in replacing them."

Sir Robert said this conversation shall remain sacred, and to all effect, as if it had never happened, until he saw me again to-morrow morning.

There is nothing said, he added, which in any way pledges or compromises the Queen, the Prince, or Lord Melbourne.

[Footnote 24: See Parker's _Sir Robert Peel_, vol. ii. p. 455, _et seq._, where Peel's memorandum of the interview is set out.]

[Pageheading: SIR ROBERT PEEL]

[Pageheading: HOUSEHOLD APPOINTMENTS]

_Memorandum by Mr Anson._

INTERVIEW WITH SIR ROBERT PEEL (No. 2).

_10th May 1841._