you several times since the _crisis_,
[37] but not since you knew of our reinstatement in place and
power, toil and trouble.... I should hardly have thought it
possible that Ralph, hearing constantly from Lord Palmerston, had
not discovered the change that has come over him since last year,
when he took his stand and won his victory on the principles that
became a Whig Minister, of sympathy with the constitutionalists and
antipathy to the absolutists all over Europe. Ever since that great
debate he has gradually retreated from those principles.... I am
not apt to be politically desponding, but the one thing which now
threatens us is the loss of confidence of the House of Commons and
the country....

[37] The defeat of the Government on Mr. Locke King's motion for the
equalization of the county and borough franchise.

She was not right, however, in her estimate of the dangers which threatened
the Ministry; they came from the Foreign Office and the Court, not from the
Commons.

Kossuth, the leader of the Hungarian Revolution, had been received in
England with great enthusiasm. He made a series of fiery speeches against
the Austrian and Russian Governments, urging that in cases in which foreign
Powers interfered with the internal politics of a country, as they had done
in the case of the Revolution in Hungary, outside nations should combine to
prevent it. This was thoroughly in harmony with Palmerston's foreign
policy. He wished to receive Kossuth at his house, which would have been
tantamount to admitting to a hostile attitude towards Austria and Russia,
who were nominally our friends. Lord John dissuaded him from doing this;
but he did receive deputations at the Foreign Office, who spoke of the
Emperors of Austria and Russia as "odious and detestable assassins." The
Queen was extremely angry.

Windsor Castle, _November_ 13, 1851

The Queen talked long with me about Lord Palmerston and about
Kossuth.

After accusing Lord Palmerston of every kind of fault and folly,
public and private, she said several times, "I have the very worst
opinion of him." I secretly agreed with her in much that she said
of him, but openly defended him when I thought her unjust. I told
her of his steadiness in friendship and constant kindness in word
and deed to those he had known in early life, however separated
from him by time and station. She did not bel