y stated the difficulty he was
in with Sir A. B., whose wife had never been received at Court or
in society, although she had run away with him when he was still at
school, and was nearly seventy years old. The Queen said it would
not do to receive her now at Court, although society might do in that
respect what it pleased; it was a principle at Court not to receive
ladies whose characters are under a stigma.

We now proceeded to the Council, which was attended only by three
Councillors, the other seventeen having all had to be sworn in as
Privy Councillors first.[20]

[Footnote 20: _See_ Disraeli's _Endymion_ (chap. c.) for a
graphic description of this remarkable scene.]

After the Council Lord Hardinge was called to the Queen, and explained
that he accepted the Ordnance only on the condition that he was not
to be expected to give a vote which would reverse the policy of Sir
R. Peel, to which he had hitherto adhered. He had thought it his duty,
however, not to refuse his services to the Crown after the many marks
of favour he had received from the Queen.

Lord Derby then had an Audience to explain what he intended to state
in Parliament this evening as the programme of his Ministerial Policy.
It was very fluent and very able, but so completely the same as the
Speech which he has since delivered, that I must refer to its account
in the reports. When he came to the passage regarding the Church,
the Queen expressed to him her sense of the importance not to have
_Puseyites_ or _Romanisers_ recommended for appointments in the Church
as bishops or clergymen. Lord Derby declared himself as decidedly
hostile to the Puseyite tendency, and ready to watch over the
Protestant character of the Church. He said he did not pretend to give
a decided opinion on so difficult and delicate a point, but it had
struck him that although nobody could think in earnest of reviving the
old Convocation, yet the disputes in the Church perhaps could be most
readily settled by some Assembly representing the laity as well as
the clergy. I expressed it as my opinion that some such plan would
succeed, provided the Church Constitution was built up from the
bottom, giving the Vestries a legislative character in the parishes
leading up to Diocesan Assemblies, and finally to a general one.

On Education he spoke very liberally, but seemed inclined to support
the views of the bishops against the so-called "management clauses"
of the Privy Coun