He then suggested my having Lord Ashley,[36] which I said I should like, as Treasurer or Comptroller.

Soon after this Sir Robert said: 'Now, about the Ladies,' upon which I said I could _not_ give up _any_ of my Ladies, and never had imagined such a thing.

He asked if I meant to retain _all_.
'_All_,' I said.

'The Mistress of the Robes and the Ladies of the Bedchamber ?' I replied, '_All_,'-- for he said they were the wives of the opponents of the Government, mentioning Lady Normanby[37] in particular as one of the late Ministers' wives.

I said that would not interfere; that I never talked politics with them, and that they were related, many of them, to Tories, and I enumerated those of my Bedchamber women and Maids of Honour; upon which he said he did not mean _all_ the Bedchamber women and _all_ the Maids of Honour, he meant the Mistress of the Robes and the Ladies of the Bedchamber; to which I replied _they_ were of more consequence than the others, and that I could _not_ consent, and that it had never been done before.