e great are painful, there is
some compensation in the firmness, patience, and benignity with which a
man like Lord Aberdeen strove to appease them. Some of his colleagues
actually thought that Lord John would make this paltry affair a plea for
resigning, while others suspected that he might find a better excuse in
the revival of convocation. As it happened, a graver occasion offered
itself.

FOOTNOTES:

[331] Northcote, _Financial Policy_, p. 242; Buxton, _Mr. Gladstone: A
Study_, pp. 154-5.

[332] Greville, Part III. i. pp. 150, 151, 157.

[333] Not many years before (1838), Talleyrand had surprised the French
institute by a paper in which he passed a eulogy on strong theological
studies; their influence on vigour as well as on finesse of mind; on the
skilful ecclesiastical diplomatists that those studies had formed.

[334] See Appendix.

[335] 17 and 18 Vict., c. 50.

[336] Walpole's _Russell_, ii. p. 243 _n_.

CHAPTER VI

CRISIS OF 1855 AND BREAK-UP OF THE PEELITES

(_1855_)

Party has no doubt its evils; but all the evils of party put
together would be scarcely a grain in the balance, when compared
with the dissolution of honourable friendships, the pursuit of
selfish ends, the want of concert in council, the absence of a
settled policy in foreign affairs, the corruption of certain
statesmen, the caprices of an intriguing court, which the
extinction of party connection has brought and would bring again
upon this country.--EARL RUSSELL.[337]

The administrative miscarriages of the war in the Crimea during the
winter of 1854-5 destroyed the coalition government.[338] When
parliament assembled on January 23, 1855, Mr. Roebuck on the first night
of the session gave notice of a motion for a committee of inquiry. Lord
John Russell attended to the formal business, and when the House was up
went home accompanied by Sir Charles Wood. Nothing of consequence passed
between the two colleagues, and no word was said to Wood in the
direction of withdrawal. The same evening as the prime minister was
sitting in his drawing-room, a red box was brought in to him by his son,
containing Lord John Russell's resignation. He was as much amazed as
Lord Newcastle, smoking his evening pipe of tobacco in his coach, was
amazed by the news that the battle of Marston Moor had begun. Nothing
has come to light since