Evening Post. SATURDAY, JANUARY 19, 1924. THE KING'S HOUSEHOLD

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 16, 19 January 1924, Page 6

Evening Post. SATURDAY, JANUARY 19, 1924. THE KING'S HOUSEHOLD

A problem of a kind from which the politicians of this country are fortunately free was mentioned a few days ago as requiring the attention of the incoming British Government. The filling of certain offices in the Royal Household will be one of its cares, and it is actually suggested that the simplest and best solution of the problem i. would be to leave the matter to " the unfettered personal choice of the. King." " The Times," which is responsible for this audacious suggestion, argues for it as follows : The old reason why this choice could not be left to the Crown no longer exists. There was a time when Household appointments were used as a means of recruiting the King's Friends in Parliament, when those who held them were sometimes employed in intrigue against the King's Ministers.' All dangers and abuses of that kind, are long past. The King would .choose whom he thought best fitted for the posts, and future Ministries would be relieved from the temptation of assigning them to place-hunters and using them for strengthening party interest. Though the Labour Party is ambitious of power, it has, probably ho desire to fill the King's Household with people who are sound on the capital levy and saturated with the right kind of class-consciousness, and even Mr. Jack Jones may not feel that the foundations of democracy will be sapped i| the Mistress of the Robes and the Ladies of the Bedchamber are not of his colour nor even of his selection. "The Times" is indeed quite right in its contention that wirepulling and place-hunting and partisanship have a scope under the present system which would completely disappear if these appointments were left to the personal choice of the King. The tables have been completely turned since the days of which "The Times" speaks. These Household appointments were then a potent enginp of corruption, used by the King not merely to promote his own interests in- Parliament but even to thwart the policy of his Ministers. It was said of the Earl of But© that he was " unfit to be Prime Minister of England, because he was (1) a Scotchman, (2) the King's friend, (3) an honest man." Two of these disqualifications have not prevented other statesmen from rendering brilliant service to Great Britain, but as the chief of the "King's Friends " Bute was an even more powerful instrument than as Prime Minister. It was as Groom of the Stole and Gentleman of the Bedchamber that Bute entered politics, and he was 'George lll.'s Prime •Adviser when somebody else was Prime Minister. In 1765 Rockingham would only take office on condition # that "some of the particular friends of the Earl of Bute should not, either publicly or privately, directly or indirectly, havo. W. fiPijeern, or interest » public

affairs." But the King's Friends survived the fall of Bute, and withont their support in Parliament the King could not have proceededwith that attempt to dragoon the American colpnists which drove them out of the Empire. In those days^ if we remember rightly, the King's Turnspit was a member of Parliament ; or was it merely men^ tibned as one of the possibilities 1 In these times of a punctiliously constitutional monarchy double-harnessed with fi^-brown democracy those days when a Parliamentary party owing their places to the-King's favour and drawing .his pay could determine the fate of Ministers seem as little likely to return as the moa or the mastodon. But not far from the middle of the nineteenth century the exercise of the Royal patronage m regard to this very matter of the Household appointments became for a while a burning question, and decided the faie of a Ministry, tyhen Queen Victoria came to the Throne at the,age of eighteen the Whigs were in possession, with Lord .Melbourne as Prime Minister, and it was under his wise, tender, and fatherly care that, in the absence of any other counsellor, she served her apprenticeship in public affairs. This training gave her as strong a bias m favour of the Whigs as she afterwards acquired against their successors, the Liberals. It was there- ( fore a great blow to her when in 1839 the Melbourne Ministry was defeated, and she had to send for Sir Robert Peel. Peel was a statesman of a higher type than Melbourne, but he was cold and stiff and tactless,' and differences ot temperament and policy brought him at once into conflict with the young Queen. "He is such a cold odd man," she wrote to Melbourne ■ she can't make out what he means. She probably had a very good idea of what Peel meant on the mam point at issue even when she wrote these words. If not she certainly knew all about it a few hours later. Peel naturally did not' like that the environment of a young, inexperienced, and susceptible Queen should continue to be dominated by Whig influences as it had hitherto been He therefore claimed the right as Prime Minister to appoint the Ladies of the Bedchamber, and the Queen objected. Their second interview on the subject is thus described by Mr. LyttonStracW: began by detailing the Cabinet appointment*, 'and Then L added JNow, Ma'am, about the Ladies'" -when the Queen sharply nterrupted him. ;" I cannot g i veu p any of the Ladies," she g" WhaT Ma'am!" said Sir RoWt .. d J™^ S,^ TH to^ Tetain them <& ?" Ail, said the Queen. Sir Robert's face worked strangely- he couid not conceal hie agitation. "The Mistress of the Robes and the Ladies of the Bedchamber ( he brought out at last. "All " replied once more Her Majesty It was in. vain that Peel pleaded and •-irgaen; m va ; s tfcaj . „c j ing every mrmei.t- more pompous and une.it,j, 01. the constitution, and Queen's ■Kegnant, and J,he public interest. She was adamant; but he, too, through all his embarrassment showed no sign of yielding; and when at last hi left her nothing had been decided— the whole formation of the Government was hangOn , Lord Melbourne's advice Queen Victoria's decision was conveyed to Sir Robert Peel in the following memorandum: 'm" n 10th May, 1839. Ibe Queen having considered the proposal made to her yesterday by Sir Robert Peel to remove the Ladies of Her Bedchamber cannot consent to adopt a course which she conceives to be contrary to usage, and which is repugnant to her feelings. For the time the Queen's obstinacy prevailed. Sir Robert Peel declined to form a Ministry, and Melbourne remained in office. But Peel's turn came, two years later, and a compromise was made which meant that he had won. In the official edition .of "The Letters of Queen Victoria," a note is appended to the memorandum above cited which records that sixty years afterwards the Queen said: '" I was very young then, and perhaps I should act differently if it was to be done again." She had put the .matter much more bluntly in a conversation with Lord John Russell. "It was entirely my own foolishness," she said. The Labour Government need not fear any Bedchamber plot if they take the advice of " The Times."