Three days after Lord Spencer's death, Lord Melbourne drove down to Brighton, where the King was staying, and submitted to him the arrangements necessary on Lord Althorp's retirement from the Commons. 'The concurrent opinion and advice of all his colleagues, and those most competent to suggest any opinion with respect to the feelings of the House of Commons, was that Lord John Russell should succeed Lord Althorp as leader.'

Lord John did not underrate the difficulty of the task which was thus proposed to him. But he thought it cowardly to refuse. He said, in joke, that if he were offered the command of the Channel Fleet, and thought it his duty to accept, he should not refuse it. What his relations thought of the offer, however, may be seen from the following note of Lord Tavistock:

Dreadful indeed! tremble for your health.

I suppose you must be leader, and yet I Then comes the difficulty about your seat and your office. Oh that you had provided for this long ago! There are two plans: you must either remain where you are, and make Abercromby or S. Rice Chancellor of the Exchequer, or you must boldly take your chance of re-election and fall back upon this county if you are defeated. Charles [Lord C. Russell] would, of course, resign, as I wished and proposed to do in 1830 after the Bedford election. It would make a noise for a short time. But I see no other course but one of these two.-Yours T.

affectionately,

Russell [Lord Russell, eighth Duke] might resign for you in case of defeat, But that would make a much greater noise.

His relations were soon relieved from their anxiety. The King had told Lord Melbourne two months before that he 'could not bear John Russell,' and now

His Majesty stated without reserve his opinion that he [Lord John] had not the abilities nor the influence which qualified him for the task, and observed that he would make a wretched figure when opposed by Sir Robert Peel and Mr. Stanley. . . . His Majesty had further objections. He considered Lord John Russell to have pledged himself to certain encroachments upon

the Church, which his Majesty had made up his mind and expressed his determination to resist.1

And so, to bring the long story to a short conclusion, the King, exercising his personal authority in a manner which the sovereign of England has never since employed, dismissed his advisers and sent for the Duke of Wellington.

It so happened that Lord John was far from well at this time, and was unable, in consequence, to attend the council at which the Ministers formally took their leave of the King. He wrote explaining the reasons of his absence to the King's private secretary, Sir Herbert Taylor, and received the following answer :

MY DEAR LORD,— your attendance at the

ST. JAMES'S PALACE: Nov. 17, 1834.

His Majesty wishes me to say that Council upon this occasion was not

His Majesty has com

necessary; but that he regrets that indisposition should have partly been the cause of your absence. manded me further to assure you of his entire satisfaction with the manner in which your Lordship has discharged the duties of your office, and of his sense of the zeal and assiduity which you have shown, as well as of your attention to his Majesty in every communication you have had to make to him.—I remain, &c., yours very faithfully, H. TAYLOR.

A more genuine expression of regret reached him a few days afterwards :

CHELSEA COLLEGE: Nov. 25, 1834.

MY LORD, I cannot resist the desire to express to your Lordship how deeply sensible almost every individual of this establishment feels for the zealous and constant interest which you have shown for their welfare and comfort during the short period which you have presided at the head of it. I regret I was not aware of your being here the other day, as I should have felt gratified in paying my respects to your Lordship, and in being a witness to the quiet ceremony of affixing as it were your hand and seal to the Old Men's Paradise 2 which has been so

1 Memoirs of Baron Stockmar, i. 329; and Greville, Memoirs, iii. 137.

2 For the Paradise vide supra, p. 162. Lord John received letters of the same cordial kind from other members of the establishment at Chelsea.

happily called into existence under your Lordship's kind and considerate auspices.-I have, &c., J. WILSON.

Among the other letters which Lord John received at the time was one from Lord Grey, declaring that he could not blame the King; that in his opinion it was impossible for the Government to go on; and that for the sake of the Ministers themselves, and particularly of Lord John, there was not much cause for regret. Lord Althorp in a much shorter note gave a different opinion:

MY DEAR JOHN,-This is the greatest piece of folly ever committed. It is, however, a great relief to me, and I think ultimately it will have a good effect on the state of parties in the country. We shall, however, have a little confusion at first.— Yours most truly, ALTHORP.1

ALTHORP: Nov. 16, 1834.

Lord John soon came round to Lord Grey's opinion that the dismissal of the Ministry was no misfortune either for himself or his colleagues. To Mr. Moore, who told him how much he was rejoiced at the turn-out of the Ministry, and that, in his opinion, nothing could be more fortunately contrived for the future interests of the party than the moment and the manner of their ejection, Lord John replied

SALTRAM: Dec. 6, 1834.

MY DEAR MOORE,-I was, like Mrs. Moore, a little at a loss to understand the cause of your great joy. But I must own that since I came into the country I have been so well received by a great many old friends who were not satisfied with the Ministers that I am inclined to think with you that the King's resolution. was the most fortunate thing that could happen to us. But how is the country to be governed, by Tories, Whigs, or Radicals, for the next two years? . . . However, I am only a passenger, as Tierney used to say, and as a passenger my position is as good as possible. I mean to go to Bowood on my way to town in January or sooner.-Yours truly, J. RUSSELL.

1 The letter to which this is a reply is published in the Life of Lord Spencer, p. 525. In it Lord John says, 'I suppose everything is for the best in this world; otherwise the only good which I should see in this event would be that it saves me from being sadly ponimelled by Peel and Stanley, to say nothing of O'Connell.'

CHAPTER IX.

MARRIAGE AND MINISTER.

On the dismissal of the Whig Ministry in the autumn of 1834, the King sent for the Duke of Wellington. But the Duke, realising that the struggle of the future would have to be fought in the House of Commons, and thinking that the General in command should be present at the brunt of the engagement, advised his Majesty to send for Sir Robert Peel. Here, however, arose a fresh dilemma. Sir Robert, occupied with anything rather than a Ministerial crisis, was spending the winter in Italy, and more than three weeks passed before 'the great man summoned from Rome to govern England' arrived in London. In the interval the whole conduct of the Executive Government was lodged in the hands of the Duke of Wellington; and politicians were amazed and amused to see one man discharging the business which ordinarily occupied the attention of half a dozen Ministers.

On Sir Robert Peel's arrival on December 9, this provisional system terminated. Sir Robert was enabled to form a Conservative Cabinet; and, on December 17, he startled his colleagues and the country by issuing a document known in history as the Tamworth Manifesto, in which, avowing himself favourable to Reforms both in Church and State, he appealed to a great and intelligent body' of electors to approve the principles on which his Ministry was founded.

In the general election which ensued, the Conservatives gained a considerable number of seats. Lord Palmerston was defeated in Hampshire; and, though Lord John was re-elected for the Southern Division of Devonshire, he had the mortification of receiving a Conservative colleague. Nor was this

circumstance due to any lack of vigour on his part. At the end of November he went down to Devonshire, and on December 2 addressed a great meeting of his constituents at Totness. His speech was generally accepted as an excellent exposition of the views of the Whigs at the time it was thought so successful that it was reprinted from the local papers and placarded throughout the county. It was Lord John's object to show that the position which the Conservatives were assuming as Reformers could not be reconciled with their past conduct. To do so he cast a retrospective glance at the policy of parties since 1828. He showed how his own action had compelled the Wellington Administration to consent to the repeal of the Test Acts.

But, gentlemen, I think you will agree with me that it was not the Duke of Wellington that repealed the Corporation and Test Acts. To mistake him for the person who repealed them was as if one were to mistake the governor who surrenders a town by capitulation for the general who takes it. In the next year the Duke of Wellington proposed another large measure in favour of religious liberty. . . . Although entirely approving his concession, I shall always lament that that concession had not been made sooner to justice rather than later to fear.

...

Lord John went on to show how the Duke had opposed the little measure of Reform he had himself introduced in 1830; and how his Grace had actually proposed himself to introduce a larger measure of Reform as the price of office in 1832. He showed how the Lords, under his guidance, had either amended or rejected many of the measures which the Ministry had been anxious to carry; and that any professions of Reform which the Tories might now make were wrung from them by the necessities of their position, and were not due to the sincerity of their convictions. The newspapers, indeed, reported that the Duke had seen a great bank director and a member for the City, and assured them that he was favourable to Reform.

I confess the interview puts me in mind of that scene in Richard III.' when Richard, anxious to put the crown on his