Mr.

One curious change in the organisation of the Ministry took place in 1854, which, however, does not seem to have greatly concerned the Court. The Secretaryship of State for War had hitherto been an appendage of the Colonial Office. It was now made a separate Secretaryship, and, in an unfortunate moment for himself, the Duke of Newcastle elected to take the appointment, letting Sir George Grey become Secretary of State for the Colonies. Sidney Herbert remained as "Secretary at War"-a Parliamentary secretary representing the War Office in the House of Commons,* Lord John Russell becoming President of the Council.† Lord John, however, who seems to have been the fly in the ointment pot of the Coalition, soon began to find fault with the readjustment of offices. In November he told Lord Aberdeen that the War Office ought to be put in stronger hands than those of the Duke of Newcastle. This suggestion, described afterwards by Mr. Disraeli as "a profligate intrigue" worthy of the "Memoirs" of Bubb Doddington, gave offence to the Queen. It seemed to her a treacherous attempt to disintegrate the Cabinet, and she did not conceal her sympathy with the statesman thus attacked. The Duke, however, generously offered to sacrifice himself so that Lord John Russell might not have a pretext for embarrassing the Crown by breaking up the Government at a critical moment; but the Cabinet would not permit the Duke to be sacrificed. Even Palmerston, to do him justice, repudiated the idea, and so Lord John again threatened to resign. Aberdeen met this threat by persuading the Queen to overcome her personal aversion to Palmerston, and obtaining her leave to appoint him Leader of the House of Commons, in the event of Lord John Russell deserting his post.

Lord John, now finding that he had made a mistake, succumbed on the 16th of December; and so the scandal was hushed up. The Queen, however, felt ill at ease, for, by this time, she knew that the Ministry had no stability, and that Lord John would soon again give his colleagues more serious trouble. But he remained in the Cabinet fully cognisant of everything that was done by the War Department, and never expressing the least disapproval of its management till Parliament met in January, 1855. Then, when Mr. Roebuck gave notice of his motion for inquiring into the conduct of the war, Lord John, without the slightest warning, resigned, saying that as he agreed with Mr. Roebuck he did not see how the motion could be resisted. The Duke of Newcastle

* Financial Secretary to the War Office is now the name of this post.

This change was brought about by Russell rudely turning out Lord Granville to make room for himself, and dismissing Mr. Strutt from the Duchy of Lancaster to make room for Lord Granville. Strutt got a Peerage as Lord Belper. Russell threatened to break up the Ministry if he did not get the Presidency of the Council, although there was no precedent--except a doubtful one in Henry VIII.'s reign-for appointing a commoner to the office. The Duke of Bedford told Mr. Greville that Lord John, being poor, was now determined to get an office carrying a high salary. The Duke had met his expenses, but was growing more miserly every day his colossal fortune was accumulating, and, says Mr. Greville, "he falls in very readily with his brother's notion of taking an office for the sake of its emoluments."-Greville Memoirs-Third Part, Vol. I., p. 148 (Longmans), 1887.

1855.]

MINISTERIAL COMPLICATIONS.

627

again offered to retire in favour of Lord Palmerston, if haply Lord John Russell could be thereby induced to withdraw his resignation. But again, his colleagues refused to sacrifice him, and so they all offered to resign. This was a cruel blow to the Queen. She protested that there was no precedent for a Ministry resigning in the midst of a war till they were dismissed. She implored Lord Aberdeen not to desert her at a moment when the very worst possible effect would be produced by the spectacle of the nation struggling through war without a Government. The Cabinet accordingly determined to face Mr. Roebuck's motion; but when he carried it against them, as has already been recorded, they were compelled to retire from office. Then the Queen had to meet one of the most perplexing and anxious Ministerial crises of her reign. Lord Derby was appealed to. But he found he could only obtain "independent support" from Lord Palmerston, Mr. Sidney Herbert, Mr. Gladstone, and Lord Aberdeen's friends-which, he observed cynically, was "support which could never be depended on." He did not seem to have much faith in his own colleagues, and he consequently declined to form a Ministry. But he sympathised with the Queen in her vexation at the turn which events had taken-quoting to her a remark of Walewski's"What influence can a country like England pretend to have without an army and without a Government?" Lord Lansdowne was next consulted.

He was willing to form a Cabinet, but then he was old and broken in health. He could not possibly serve for more than a few months, and obviously his enforced retirement would again cast everything into confusion. Lord John Russell, of course, had long been under the hallucination that he could form an Administration without the aid of the Peelites. His cantankerous treachery to his colleagues, and his unscrupulous pertinacity in disintegrating the Coalition Cabinet in circumstances most damaging to the country, rendered him objectionable to the Queen. But still acting on Lansdowne's advice, she determined to let him try, so that the mortification of failure might perchance dispel his delusion that he had still a name to conjure with as a Party leader. He tried, and, of course, failed ignominiously. No man trusted him or cared

to serve under or with him. The Queen, however, in her letter to Lord John, very shrewdly and gracefully held out the olive branch to Palmerston by saying that it would give her great pleasure if he would join the new Government. Palmerston, feeling that the crisis was one which also called for sacrifices on his part, offered to serve even under Lord John as Secretary for War, if he could thereby extricate the Crown from its difficulties. But he deemed it imperative that Lord Clarendon should join the Ministry, and this Lord Clarendon stoutly refused to do. His colleagues, he said, had all been loyal to him, and he would not serve under a man who, from the time he entered the late Ministry, had persistently embarrassed it, and intrigued for its destruction. Lord John found that he had attempted the impossible, and on the 4th of February the country was still without a Government, to the infinite damage

-was Secretary of State for War. This seemed rather to disconcert the factious place-hunters. "The Whigs at Brooks's," wrote Lady Palmerston to her sonin-law, were all up in arms at the Government not being formed on more Liberal principles, or rather with more of the Whig Party. They are disappointed at the Peelites joining, and at under people of that party keeping their places, so that, in a manner, there are hardly any places to fill up. They press, therefore, very much for a Whig in the Duchy of Lancaster, so as to make the Peelite division in a greater minority." But the anger of the Tories could scarcely be kept within bounds. They argued that, as Aberdeen and Newcastle had not been evicted from office till after they had pretty nearly succeeded in setting the War Department in order, their successors would not only have a comparatively easy task, but would also win all the glory and prestige of finishing a victorious war. Lord Derby had missed a golden opportunity by refusing to form a Ministry; nay, he had done something that was still more damaging to them. In his explanation to the House of Lords he admitted that he could not govern without the aid of the Peelites. This implied that, having tried his colleagues in the work of administration, he had so little confidence in their capacity, that he did not dare to trust to them alone. "Disraeli," writes Lord Malmesbury, "is in a state of disgust beyond all control. He told me he had spoken his mind to Lord Derby, and told him some very disagreeable truths."+ No sooner had the new Cabinet been formed than it was seen that another effort would be made to break it up. What was to be done with Mr. Roebuck's Committee of Investigation? It was somewhat unconstitutional to vest it with the functions of the Executive, and Palmerston, on the 16th of February, appealed to the House not to appoint the Committee, or at least to suspend its judgment till the new Ministry had time to reform the War Department. Mr. Roebuck denied that the Ministry was really a new one, and insisted on the appointment of the Committee. The Peelites objected to the Committee as a dangerous and unconstitutional precedent. Palmerston agreed with them, but, like the majority of the Cabinet, he felt that to resist was to court another defeat in the House of Commons; and so he decided to yield. Sir James Graham, Mr. Sidney Herbert, and Mr. Gladstone accordingly tendered their resignations, and in a fortnight after it was formed the new Ministry was wrecked. On the 28th Sir George Cornewall Lewis took Mr. Gladstone's place as Chancellor of the Exchequer, Lord John Russell re-entered the Cabinet as Colonial Secretary, and Sir C. Wood succeeded Sir J. Graham as First Lord of the Admiralty. Things have gone mad here, the political world is quite crazy, and the Court is the only institution which does not lose its tranquil bearing "-thus

* Palmerston wanted Lord Shaftesbury to be Chancellor of the Duchy. He had to withdraw his offer of the post, and in this letter Lady Palmerston explains why.-Life and Work of the Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, K.G., by Edwin Hodder, Vol. II., p. 493 (Cassell and Co.).

+ Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. II., P. 8.