“My Priam filly, three-year old, out of Gallopade’s dam, has won the only two races she has started for; one at Stockbridge, and the Queen’s Plate at Guildford; and she may win a stake this week at Southampton.”
We must here for awhile go back, before we finish the story of Mehemet Ali, to two circumstances, one of which had a considerable interest among the political quidnuncs of the day, and the other a more lasting influence on the life of Lord Palmerston himself. In the spring of 1839 the Government was nearly beaten on the question of the Jamaica Constitution, having been supported by a majority of only five. They resigned in consequence, and Sir Robert Peel, having been desired to form a Government, broke down under the difficulties imposed upon him in reference to the ladies of the household. “They insisted on the removal of the Ladies of the Bedchamber. The Queen declared she would not submit to it; that it would be too painful and affronting to her; that those ladies have no seats in Parliament; that the object in view in dismissing them was to separate her from everybody in whom she could trust, and to surround her with political spies, if not with personal enemies.” “The Queen, alone and unadvised, stood firm against all these assaults, showed a presence of mind, a firmness, a discrimination, far beyond her years.” “We shall, of course, stand by the Queen, and support her against this offensive condition which the Tories wanted to impose upon her, and which her youth and isolated condition ought to have protected her from.”
In all this Lord Palmerston takes the part of his Cabinet against Sir Robert Peel’s, with all the eagerness of a partisan, and did, no doubt, feel as he wrote. But it was thought at the time that there was much to be said for Sir Robert’s view of the case, and that however well he might have been able to contest political questions with a Whig Cabinet, he could not have done so with any chance of success against the wives and sisters of Whig Ministers. The ladies, however, won the battle, and the Whigs patched up their majority again, sufficiently to enable them to go on. The other event was the marriage of Lord Palmerston with the Countess Cowper, which took place on December 11, 1839. This lady, who had been left a widow in June, 1837, was sister to Lord Melbourne. She immediately took the name of her second husband, though in a rank inferior to that which she at the time enjoyed, and is still remembered as the most popular woman in London. She brought to her husband a considerable accession of fortune, and, among other things, Brocket Hall, in Hertfordshire, which had been the seat of her brother, and in which he died, and in which Lord Palmerston, another Prime Minister, was fated to die also. Lord Palmerston, we may imagine, had but few things to regret in the world; but this marriage, which he did not achieve till he had reached the ripe age of fifty-five, certainly was not one of them.