. The walls of the house of lords and of the painted
chamber remained standing, while the house of lords library, the
parliament offices, and Westminster Hall escaped. The king offered the
parliament the use of Buckingham Palace, but it was found possible to
fit up the house of lords for the commons and the painted chamber for
the lords. When the legislature reassembled on February 9, 1835, a
conservative ministry was in office, though not, indeed, in power.

It is difficult for a later age to understand why the accession of
Althorp to a peerage should have afforded even a plausible reason for a
change of ministry. The position which Althorp held in the house of
commons is puzzling to a later generation.[122] It is well known that
Gladstone recorded the very highest estimate of his public services. Yet
he was not only no orator but scarcely in the second order of speakers,
he made no pretence of far-sighted statesmanship, he was not a
successful financier, and he made several blunders which must have
damaged the authority of any other man. The influence which he obtained
in leading the unreformed as well as the reformed house of commons was
entirely due to his character for straightforward honesty, perhaps
enhanced by his social rank, and his reputation for possessing all the
virtues of a country gentleman. The national preference for amateurs
over professionals in politics, no less than in other fields of energy,
found an admirable representative in him, and he was all the more
popular as a political leader because it was believed that he had no
desire to be a political leader at all. At all events, he inspired
confidence in all, and it was no mere whim of the king which treated his
removal from the commons to the lords as an irreparable loss to
Melbourne's administration.

[Pageheading: _MELBOURNE'S RESIGNATION._]

It is often stated that "without a word of preparation" the king got rid
of his whig ministers on November 14, 1834, and it must be admitted that
he afterwards took credit to himself for their dismissal as his own
personal act. But this view is not altogether borne out by contemporary
evidence. A published letter, of the 12th, from Melbourne to the king
shows that, as premier, he took the initiative in representing that,
whereas "the government in its present form was mainly founded upon the
personal weight and influence possessed by Earl Spencer in the house of
commons," it was for the king to consider w