e nation felt that, but for the pluck
and persistency of Russell, and the judgment and tact of Althorp,
failure would have attended their efforts.

[Sidenote: LORD ALTHORP'S TACT]

It is difficult now to understand the secret of the influence which
Althorp wielded in the Grey Administration, but it was great enough to
lead the Premier to ask him to accept a peerage, in order--in the crisis
which was now at hand--to bring the Lords to their senses. Althorp was
in no sense of the word a great statesman; in fact, his career was the
triumph of character rather than capacity. All through the struggle,
when controversy grew furious and passion rose high, Althorp kept a cool
head, and his adroitness in conciliatory speech was remarkable. He was a
moderate man, who never failed to do justice to his opponent's case, and
his influence was not merely in the Commons; it made itself felt to
good purpose in the Court, as well as in the country. He was a man of
chivalrous instincts and unchallenged probity. It was one of his
political opponents, Sir Henry Hardinge, who exclaimed, 'Althorp carried
the bill. His fine temper did it!'

Lord John Russell, like his colleagues, was fully alive to the gravity
of the crisis. He made no secret of his conviction that, if another
deadlock arose, the consequence would be bloodshed, and the outbreak of
a conflict in which the British Constitution would probably perish.
Twelve months before, the cry in the country had been, 'What will the
Lords do?' but now an altogether different question was on men's lips,
'What must be done with the Lords?' Government knew that the real
struggle over the bill would be in Committee, and therefore they refused
to be unduly elated when the second reading was carried on April 14 with
a majority of nine, in spite of the Duke of Wellington's blustering
heroics. Three weeks later, Lord Lyndhurst carried, by a majority of
thirty-five, a motion for the mutilation of the bill, in spite of Lord
Grey's assurance that it dealt a fatal blow at the measure. The Premier
immediately moved the adjournment of the debate, and the situation grew
suddenly dramatic. The Cabinet had made its last concession; Ministers
determined, in Lord Durham's words, that a 'sufficient creation of Peers
was absolutely necessary' if their resignation was not to take immediate
effect, and they laid their views before the King. William IV., like his
predecessor, lived in a narrow world; he was surro