Mistress of the Robes

Manawatu Times, Volume 62, Issue 29, 4 February 1937, Page 10

Mistress of the Robes

THE QUESTION IN 1839 One appointment arising out of the return of a Queen to our monarchial system will bo that of a Mistress of the Itobes. So important is it in the case of a Queen Regent that it is the only office among the Ladies of the Household which is expected to carry sufficient political flavour to require a change, if asked for, with a change of Government. All this was fought out nearly a century ago, when the “Queen’s Ladies” produced a first-class political crisis and kept Pcol and the Tories out of the Government. When Melbourne and the Whigs went out iu 193.9 Peel told the Queen that it would bo necessary to change some of the chief ladies of her Household. “The young Queen,” writes Bright in '‘The Growth of Democracy,” probably misunderstood the amount of the change intended/She had grown attached to those who had surrounded her since her accession to the throne and on whose friendship she could rely. She took fright at tho idea of being left iu tho midst of strange surroundings and consulted tho outgoing Ministry as to the constitutional necessity of the change.” She was specially concerned with the ladies of the bedchamber, but the advice of the Whigs was that while office of the Household held by mem-

bers of Parliament should be changed, they did not think that “a similar principle should be extended to offices held by ladies in Her Majesty’s Household.” But they can hardly have extended this opinion to the Mistress of the Robes, because, though Melbourne ’■ opinion became the accepted rule lor , the future for all other ladies in the Household, the special position of tho Mistress of the Robes continued to class her among tho “politicals.”