Within two years of her accession, the storm-clouds which, from the first, had
been dimly visible on the horizon, gathered and burst. Victoria's relations

with her mother had not improved. The Duchess of Kent, still surrounded by all
the galling appearances of filialconsideration, remained in Buckingham Palace

a discarded figure, powerless and inconsolable. Sir John Conroy, banished from
the presence of the Queen, still presided over the Duchess's household, and

the hostilities of Kensington continued unabated in the new surroundings. Lady
Flora Hastings still cracked her malicious jokes; the animosity of the

Baroness was still unappeased. One day, Lady Flora found the joke was turned
against her. Early in 1839, travelling in the suite of the Duchess, she had

returned from Scotland in the same carriage with Sir John. A change in her
figure became the subject of an unseemly jest; tongues wagged; and the jest

grew serious. It was whispered that Lady Flora was with child. The state of
her health seemed to confirm the suspicion; she consulted Sir James Clark, the

royal physician, and, after the consultation, Sir James let his tongue wag,
too. On this, the scandal flared up sky-high. Everyone was talking; the

Baroness was not surprised; the Duchess rallied tumultuously to the support of
her lady; the Queen was informed. At last the extraordinaryexpedient of a

medical examination was resorted to, during which Sir James, according to Lady
Flora, behaved with brutal rudeness, while a second doctor was extremely

polite. Finally, both physicians signed a certificate entirely exculpating the
lady. But this was by no means the end of the business. The Hastings family,

socially a very powerful one, threw itself into the fray with all the fury of
outraged pride and injured innocence; Lord Hastings insisted upon an audience

of the Queen, wrote to the papers, and demanded the dismissal of Sir James
Clark. The Queen expressed her regret to Lady Flora, but Sir James Clark was

not dismissed. The tide of opinion turned violently" target="_blank" title="ad.强暴地；猛烈地">violently against the Queen and her
advisers; high society was disgusted by all this washing of dirty linen in

Buckingham Palace; the public at large was indignant at the ill-treatment of
Lady Flora. By the end of March, the popularity, so radiant and so abundant,

with which the young Sovereign had begun her reign, had entirely disappeared.
There can be no doubt that a great lack of discretion had been shown by the

Court. Ill-natured tittle-tattle, which should have been instantly nipped in
the bud, had been allowed to assume disgraceful proportions; and the Throne

itself had become involved in the personal malignities of the palace. A
particularly awkward question had been raised by the position of Sir James

Clark. The Duke of Wellington, upon whom it was customary to fall back, in
cases of great difficulty in high places, had been consulted upon this

question, and he had given it as his opinion that, as it would be impossible
to remove Sir James without a public enquiry, Sir James must certainly stay

where he was. Probably the Duke was right; but the fact that the peccant
doctor continued in the Queen's service made the Hastings family

irreconcilable and produced an unpleasantimpression of unrepentant error upon
the public mind. As for Victoria, she was very young and quite inexperienced;

and she can hardly be blamed for having failed to control an extremely
difficult situation. That was clearly Lord Melbourne's task; he was a man of

the world, and, with vigilance and circumspection, he might have quietly put
out the ugly flames while they were still smouldering. He did not do so; he

was lazy and easy-going; the Baroness was persistent, and he let things slide.
But doubtless his position was not an easy one; passions ran high in the

palace; and Victoria was not only very young, she was very headstrong, too.
Did he possess the magic bridle which would curb that fiery steed? He could

not be certain. And then, suddenly, another violentcrisis revealed more
unmistakably than ever the nature of the mind with which he had to deal.

VII
The Queen had for long been haunted by a terror that the day might come when

she would be obliged to part with her Minister. Ever since the passage of the
Reform Bill, the power of the Whig Government had steadily declined. The

General Election of 1837 had left them with a very small majority in the House
of Commons; since then, they had been in constant difflculties--abroad, at

home, in Ireland; the Radical group had grown hostile; it became highly
doubtful how much longer they could survive. The Queen watched the development

of events in great anxiety. She was a Whig by birth, by upbringing, by every
association, public and private; and, even if those ties had never existed,

the mere fact that Lord M. was the head of the Whigs would have amply sufficed
to determine her politics. The fall of the Whigs would mean a sad upset for

Lord M. But it would have a still more terrible consequence: Lord M. would
have to leave her; and the daily, the hourly, presence of Lord M. had become

an integral part of her life. Six months after her accession she had noted in
her diary "I shall be very sorry to lose him even for one night;" and this

feeling of personal dependence on her Minister steadily increased. In these
circumstances it was natural that she should have become a Whig partisan. Of

the wider significance of political questions she knew nothing; all she saw
was that her friends were in office and about her, and that it would be

dreadful if they ceased to be so. "I cannot say," she wrote when a critical
division was impending, "(though I feel confident of our success) how low, how

sad I feel, when I think of the possibility of this excellent and truly kind
man not remaining my Minister! Yet I trust ferventIy that He who has so

wonderfully protected me through such manifold difficulties will not now
desert me! I should have liked to have expressed to Lord M. my anxiety, but

the tears were nearer than words throughout the time I saw him, and I felt I
should have choked, had I attempted to say anything." Lord Melbourne realised

clearly enough how undesirable was such a state of mind in a constitutional" target="_blank" title="a.法治的；体质的">constitutional
sovereign who might be called upon at any moment to receive as her Ministers

the leaders of the opposite party; he did what he could to cool her ardour;
but in vain.

With considerable lack of foresight, too, he had himself helped to bring about
this unfortunate condition of affairs. From the moment of her accession, he

had surrounded the Queen with ladies of his own party; the Mistress of the
Robes and all the Ladies of the Bedchamber were Whigs. In the ordinary course,

the Queen never saw a Tory: eventually she took pains never to see one in any
circumstances. She disliked the whole tribe; and she did not conceal the fact.

She particularly disliked Sir Robert Peel, who would almost certainly be the
next Prime Minister. His manners were detestable, and he wanted to turn out

Lord M. His supporters, without exception, were equally bad; and as for Sir
James Graham, she could not bear the sight of him; he was exactly like Sir

John Conroy.
The affair of Lady Flora intensified these party rumours still further. The

Hastings were Tories, and Lord Melbourne and the Court were attacked by the
Tory press in unmeasured language. The Queen's sectarian zeal proportionately

increased. But the dreaded hour was now fast approaching. Early in May the
Ministers were visibly tottering; on a vital point of policy they could only

secure a majority of five in the House of Commons; they determined to resign.
When Victoria heard the news she burst into tears. Was it possible, then, that

all was over? Was she, indeed, about to see Lord M. for the last time? Lord M.
came; and it is a curious fact that, even in this crowning moment of misery

and agitation, the precise girl noted, to the minute, the exact time of the
arrival and the departure of her beloved Minister. The conversation was

touching and prolonged; but it could only end in one way--the Queen must send
for the Duke of Wellington. When, next morning, the Duke came, he advised her

Majesty to send for Sir Robert Peel. She was in "a state of dreadful grief,"
but she swallowed down her tears, and braced herself, with royal resolution,

for the odious, odious interview.
Peel was by nature reserved, proud, and shy. His manners were not perfect, and

he knew it; he was easily embarrassed, and, at such moments, he grew even more
stiff and formal than before, while his feet mechanically performed upon the

carpet a dancing-master's measure. Anxious as he now was to win the Queen's
good graces, his very anxiety to do so made the attainment of his object the

more difficult. He entirely failed to make any headway whatever with the
haughty hostile girl before him. She coldly noted that he appeared to be

unhappy and "put out," and, while he stood in painful fixity, with an
occasional uneasy pointing of the toe, her heart sank within her at the sight

of that manner, "Oh! how different, how dreadfully different, to the frank,
open, natural, and most kind warm manner of Lord Melbourne." Nevertheless, the

audience passed without disaster. Only at one point had there been some slight
hint of a disagreement. Peel had decided that a change would be necessary in

the composition of the royal Household: the Queen must no longer be entirely
surrounded by the wives and sisters of his opponents; some, at any rate, of

the Ladies of the Bedchamber should be friendly to his Government. When this
matter was touched upon, the Queen had intimated that she wished her Household

to remain unchanged; to which Sir Robert had replied that the question could
be settled later, and shortly afterwards withdrew to arrange the details of

his Cabinet. While he was present, Victoria had remained, as she herself said,
"very much collected, civil and high, and betrayed no agitation;" but as soon

as she was alone she completely broke down. Then she pulled herself together
to write to Lord Melbourne an account of all that had happened, and of her own

wretchedness. "She feels," she said, "Lord Melbourne will understand it,
amongst enemies to those she most relied on and most esteemed; but what is

worst of all is the being deprived of seeing Lord Melbourne as she used to
do."

Lord Melbourne replied with a very wise letter. He attempted to calm the Queen
and to induce her to accept the new position gracefully; and he had nothing

but good words for the Tory leaders. As for the question of the Ladies of the
Household, the Queen, he said, should strongly urge what she desired, as it

was a matter which concerned her personally, "but," he added, "if Sir Robert
is unable to concede it, it will not do to refuse and to put off the

negotiation upon it." On this point there can be little doubt that Lord
Melbourne was right. The question was a complicated and subtle one, and it had

never arisen before; but subsequentconstitutional" target="_blank" title="a.法治的；体质的">constitutional practice has determined
that a Queen Regnant must accede to the wishes of her Prime Minister as to the