It would create feeling, possibly lead to remonstrance, and throw a doubt upon the fairness and integrity of your Majesty's conduct.

All this is very painful both to do and to say, but it is unavoidable; it must be said, and it must be done.

Lord Melbourne will wait upon your Majesty at eleven.[31] [Footnote 31: Lord Melbourne had made the not unnatural mistake of recommending to the Queen, as members of her first Household, ladies who were nearly related to himself and his Whig colleagues.

No doubt these were the ladies whom he knew best, and in whom he had entire confidence; but he ought to have had sufficient prescience to see that the Queen would probably form strong attachments to the ladies who first served her: and that if the appointments had not in the first instance a political complexion, yet that the Whig tendencies which these Ladies represented were likely to affect the Queen, in the direction of allying her closely with a particular party in the State.] [Pageheading: THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON] [Pageheading: SIR ROBERT PEEL] _Queen Victoria to Viscount Melbourne._ _8th May 1839._ The Queen told Lord Melbourne she would give him an account of what passed, which she is _very_ anxious to do.

She saw the Duke for about twenty minutes; the Queen said she supposed he knew why she sent for him, upon which the Duke said, No, he had no idea.