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Home Politics and Parties from the Reform Bill of 1832 to that of 1867 The Whig Ministries of Lord Grey and Lord Melbourne, 1830-1841 1830-1841; Part 2 |
1830-1841; Part 2The second crisis, in 1839, was due to the so-called Bedchamber Question. Melbourne resigned because he had been almost beaten in the House of Commons over Jamaican affairs. Peel was called upon by Queen Victoria, who had succeeded to the throne in 1837, to become prime minister. But he and Wellington, the other Tory leader, insisted upon the ladies of the queen's household, who were Whigs, being replaced by those of a Tory character. No doubt Peel was constitutionally correct, but he showed some want of tact and discretion in his dealings with a young queen barely twenty years of age (There was some truth in the Duke of Wellington's remark:” Peel has no manners, and I have no small talk”). The upshot was that the queen refused to change her ladies, and that Melbourne, to the queen's great satisfaction, returned to power. For more than two years Melbourne lingered on, though there were some very close divisions in the House of Commons. Finally, in 1841, he was beaten by one vote, and dissolved Parliament. In the new House of Commons there was a decided Tory majority, and Lord Melbourne retired from office - this time for good.During Lord Melbourne's leadership the Whigs had lost their reforming zeal. The Municipal Corporations Act, indeed, had been passed in 1835, and Penny Postage introduced in 1839, But the ministry had adopted a very illiberal policy towards Canada, and failed to prevent a rebellion in 1839. Its policy towards the Jamaican planters who objected to the emancipation of their slaves aroused great opposition. Its administration in Ireland had, all things considered, been successful, and won for it the unusual support, during a greater part of its career, of O'Connell, the leader of the Irish party in the House of Commons; but the opponents of the ministry maintained, and with some reason, that it had not succeeded in keeping Ireland in order or in repressing agrarian outrages. On the whole, however, it was an advantage to the nation that Lord Melbourne remained in power for so long a period. He had not been, it is true, an inspiring leader for a reforming party. Though he supported in a lukewarm fashion the Reform Bill of 1832, he had prophesied that its result would be "a prevalence of the blackguard interest in Parliament"; and he was against "any tampering with the Corn Laws". A liberally minded and cultured man, he was yet too cynical and too indolent to be possessed of any enthusiasms. "Why not leave it alone?" was his invariable query to proposals emanating from the more advanced sections of his party. "It doesn't matter what we say, but we must all say the same thing'', was said to have been his remark at a cabinet meeting. But his shrewdness and humour, combined with his kindliness and tact, which kept his cynicism under control, made him just the sage and worldly-wise counsellor that a young queen who had been brought up in some retirement by a German mother required. He was in constant attendance upon the queen during the early years of her reign, acting as her secretary and spending often six hours a day in her company; and no one can read the correspondence between them without realizing the great debt which the country owes to the queen's first prime minister ("I have no doubt Lord Melbourne is passionately fond of her", wrote a contemporary, "as he might be of his daughter it" he had one. It is become his province to educate, instruct, and form the most interesting mind and character in the world"). In the words of the Duke of Wellington, it was Lord Melbourne "who taught the queen how to preside over the destinies of this great country". The singularly happy marriage, in 1840, of the queen with Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg made the further tutelage of Lord Melbourne unnecessary, and with his retirement, in 1841, the Prince Consort - as Prince Albert was called - became the queen's secretary and confidential adviser. |
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