ajority in the House of Commons; since then, they had been
in constant difflculties--abroad, at home, in Ireland; the Radical group
had grown hostile; it became highly doubtful how much longer they could
survive. The Queen watched the development of events in great anxiety.
She was a Whig by birth, by upbringing, by every association, public and
private; and, even if those ties had never existed, the mere fact that
Lord M. was the head of the Whigs would have amply sufficed to determine
her politics. The fall of the Whigs would mean a sad upset for Lord M.
But it would have a still more terrible consequence: Lord M. would have
to leave her; and the daily, the hourly, presence of Lord M. had become
an integral part of her life. Six months after her accession she had
noted in her diary "I shall be very sorry to lose him even for one
night;" and this feeling of personal dependence on her Minister steadily
increased. In these circumstances it was natural that she should have
become a Whig partisan. Of the wider significance of political questions
she knew nothing; all she saw was that her friends were in office and
about her, and that it would be dreadful if they ceased to be so. "I
cannot say," she wrote when a critical division was impending, "(though
I feel confident of our success) how low, how sad I feel, when I think
of the possibility of this excellent and truly kind man not remaining my
Minister! Yet I trust fervently that He who has so wonderfully protected
me through such manifold difficulties will not now desert me! I should
have liked to have expressed to Lord M. my anxiety, but the tears were
nearer than words throughout the time I saw him, and I felt I should
have choked, had I attempted to say anything." Lord Melbourne
realised clearly enough how undesirable was such a state of mind in
a constitutional sovereign who might be called upon at any moment to
receive as her Ministers the leaders of the opposite party; he did what
he could to cool her ardour; but in vain.

With considerable lack of foresight, too, he had himself helped to bring
about this unfortunate condition of affairs. From the moment of her
accession, he had surrounded the Queen with ladies of his own party; the
Mistress of the Robes and all the Ladies of the Bedchamber were Whigs.
In the ordinary course, the Queen never saw a Tory: eventually she took
pains never to see one in any circumstances. She disliked the whole
tribe; and she did not conc