h of Mr. Perceval were
impeded by a doubt which was felt in some quarters whether the new
ministers would be allowed to remove one or two officers of the
household, to whom the Regent was generally understood to be greatly
attached, but who were hostile to the party which hoped to come into
power, though it was afterward known that these officers had felt
themselves bound to retire as soon as the arrangements in contemplation
should be completed.[246] Sir Robert Peel was now met by a difficulty of
the same kind, but one which the retiring ministers had the address to
convert into a real obstacle. The Queen, who had warm affections, but
who could not possibly have yet acquired any great knowledge of
business, had become attached to the ladies whom Lord Melbourne had
appointed to the chief places in her household. It had never occurred to
her to regard their offices in a political light; and, consequently,
when she found that Sir Robert considered it indispensable that some
changes should be made in those appointments, she at once refused her
consent, terming his proposal one "contrary to usage and repugnant to
her feelings." Sir Robert, however, felt bound to adhere to his request
for the removal of some of the ladies in question; for, in fact, they
were the wives and sisters of his predecessors, and a continuance of
their daily intercourse with the Queen might reasonably be expected to
have some influence over her Majesty's judgment of the measures which he
might feel it his duty to propose. Such a difficulty could not have
arisen under a male sovereign; but Lord Melbourne himself had departed
from the ordinary practice when he surrounded his royal mistress with
ladies so closely identified with his cabinet. It is very possible that
he had originally made the appointments without any such design, from
the careless indifference which was his most marked characteristic; but
he cannot be so easily acquitted when, in reply to the Queen's
application to him for advice on the subject, he, being joined in his
assertion by Lord John Russell, assured her that Sir Robert Peel's
demand was unjustifiable and unprecedented. Supported by the positive
dictum of the ministers on whose judgment she had hitherto been bound to
rely, the Queen naturally adhered to her decision of refusing to permit
the removal of the ladies in question, and the result was that Sir
Robert Peel declined to take office under circumstances of difficulty
beyond