Page:Dictionary of National Biography. Sup. Vol III (1901).djvu/421

 Green and Hyde Parks. Next morning a great ' coronation ' fair was opened by permission of the government for four days in Hyde Park ; and on the second day the queen paid it a long visit. The coronation festivities concluded with a review by her of five thousand men in Hyde Park (9 July), when she again shared the popular applause with Marshal Soult. A month later (16 Aug.) she prorogued parliament in person, and, after listening to the usual harangue on the work of the session from the speaker of the House of Commons, read her speech with customary clearness.

A few months later the queen was to realise that her popularity was not invulnerable, and that, despite Melbourne's parental care, her position was fraught with difficulty and danger, with which she was as yet hardly fitted to cope. With both the crises through which the queen and her court passed in the first half of 1839, her youth and inexperience prevented her from dealing satisfactorily. In January 1839 Lady Flora Hastings, daughter of the Marquis of Lady of Hastings, was lady-in-waiting to the Duchess of Kent at Buckingham Palace. On account of her appearance, she was most improperly suspected by some of the queen's attendants of immoral conduct. Neither the queen nor her mother put any faith in the imputation, but Lady Tavistock informed Melbourne of the matter, and the queen assented to his proposal that the unfortunate lady should be subjected by the royal physician, Sir James Clark, to a medical examination. Clark afterwards signed a certificate denying all allegations against Lady Flora (17 Feb. 1839). The incident was soon noised abroad. The lady's family appealed directly to the queen to make fitting reparation. Lady Flora's brother, the Marquis of Hastings, obtained an interview with her. Lady Flora's mother wrote her passionate letters and begged for the dismissal of Sir James Clark. The queen made no reply. Melbourne stated that she had seized the earliest opportunity of personally acknowledging to Lady Flora the unhappy error, but that it was not intended to take any other step. Lady Hastings published her correspondence with the queen and Melbourne in the 'Morning Post,' and Clark circulated a defence of his own conduct A general feeling of disgust was roused, and the reputation of the court suffered, especially with the conservative section of the nobility to which the Hastings family belonged. The situation was rendered worse by the tragic ending of the episode. Lady Flora was suffering from a fatal internal disease the enlargement of the liver. On 4 July she was announced to be dying at Buckingham Palace. A royal banquet which was to take place that evening was countermanded ( Memoirs, p. 77). The lady died next day. The queen was gravely perturbed. Society was depressed and shocked. The blunder which the queen's advisers had committed was bad enough to warrant an unmistakable expression of her personal regret, and her innocent supineness, for which the blame was currently laid on the Baroness Lehzen, was a calamity.

The second court crisis of 1839 was due to a precisely opposite cause to the queen's peremptory exercise of her personal authority without consulting any one. During the session of 1839 the whig ministry finally lost its hold on the House of Commons. The recent emancipation of the slaves in Jamaica had led the planters into rebellion, and the government was driven to the disagreeable necessity of inviting parliament to suspend the constitution. The proposal was carried by a majority of only five (7 May). Melbourne felt the position to be hopeless, and placed the resignation of himself and his colleagues in the queen's hands. The queen was deeply distressed. When Lord John, leader of the House of Commons, visited her to discuss the situation, she burst into tears. But she soon nerved herself fully to exert for the first time the sovereign's power of choosing a successor to the outgoing prime minister. Her grief at parting with Melbourne was quickly checked. She asked him for no advice, but, after consulting Lord Spencer, she sent for the Duke of Wellington, and startled him by her self-possession (8 May). He declined her offer to form a ministry on the ground of his age and of the desirability of the prime minister being in the House of Commons. Accordingly she summoned Sir Robert Peel, the leader of the conservative opposition in the lower house. She feared his coldness and severity of manner, but her personal demeanour at their first interview was dignified, although very frank. She deprecated a dissolution of parliament at so early a date in the life of the existing parliament. Peel vaguely expressed sympathy with her view, but declined to pledge himself not to advise a dissolution. He, however, accepted without demur her commission to form the government, and, on leaving her, set about selecting members of the cabinet. There was already a strong feeling among the conservatives that the queen, who had hitherto