Government without the
removal of any of the difficulties which compelled them to
resign, for the purpose of enabling the Queen to exercise her
pleasure without any control or interference in the choice of the
Ladies of her household. This is making the private gratification
of the Queen paramount to the highest public considerations:
somewhat strange Whig doctrine and practice! With respect to the
question of unfettered choice, a good deal may be said on both
sides; but although it would be wrong and inexpedient for any
Minister to exercise the right, unless in a case of great
necessity, I think every Minister must have the power of advising
the Queen to remove a Lady of her Court, in the same way as he is
admitted to have that of removing a man. Notwithstanding the
transaction of 1812, and Lord Moira's protection of George IV. in
the retention of his household, it is now perfectly established
in practice that the Royal Household is at the discretion of the
Minister, and it must be so because he is responsible for the
appointments; in like manner he is responsible for every
appointment which the Sovereign may make; and should any of the
Ladies conduct herself in such a manner as to lead the public to
expect or require her dismissal, and the Queen were to refuse to
dismiss her, the Minister must be responsible for her remaining
about the Royal person.

The pretension of the Queen was not merely personal, _pro hac
vice_, and one of arrangement, but it went to the establishment
of a principle unlimited in its application, for she declared
that she had felt bound to make her stand where she did, in order
once for all to resist the encroachments which she anticipated,
and which would lead, she supposed, at last to their insisting on
taking the Baroness Lehzen herself from her. In a constitutional
point of view, the case appears to me to be much stronger than in
that of a Queen Consort, for the Minister has nothing to do with
a Queen Consort; he is not responsible for her appointments, nor
for the conduct of her officers, and she is a _feme sole_
possessed of independent rights which she may exercise according
to her own pleasure, provided only that she does not transgress
the law. It was a great stretch of authority when Lord Grey
insisted on the dismissal of Lord Howe, Queen Adelaide's
Chamberlain; but he did so upon an extraordinary occasion, and
when circumstances rendered it, as he thought, absolutely
necessary that