Another of the incidents of 1839 was as much domestic as political. The famous Bedchamber question excited the Houses of Parliament and the country to a degree which it is difficult now to understand. It was one of _Life’s little poems_ that the course which events took in this matter led the Whigs to champion Tory principles, and _vice versa_. Lord Melbourne’s Government was virtually defeated on his Jamaica Bill, in May, 1839. Lord Melbourne resigned, and advised the Queen to send for the Duke of Wellington. His opinion had been expressed on a former occasion, that he and Peel would not make good Ministers to a Sovereign who was a young girl. “I have no small-talk,” he had said, “and Peel has no manners.” The sturdy old lion had yet to learn that a woman could appreciate something beyond small-talk. When he saw the Queen after Melbourne’s resignation, she told him she was very sorry to lose Lord Melbourne, who had been almost like a father to her since her accession; the Duke was greatly pleased with her frankness, but excused himself from serving her, on the grounds of his age and deafness. He also said that the Prime Minister ought to be leader of the House of Commons, and advised her to send for Peel, which she accordingly did. The want of manners proved more serious than the want of small-talk, for Sir Robert Peel, mainly through a misunderstanding, presently found himself involved in what almost amounted to a personal quarrel with the Queen about the appointment of the ladies of her household. She thought he wanted to dismiss all her old friends, and even her private attendants. She imagined that it might be proposed to deprive her of the services of her former governess, Baroness Lehzen, who had now become one of her secretaries. She felt bound to make a stand against what she considered an encroachment on her independence. The Duke of Wellington and Peel saw her again together, but made no impression on her. If they had explained that Peel only wished to remove the ladies who held the offices that are now recognized as political, the dispute would never have arisen; but as it was there was a deadlock. The Queen wrote to Melbourne: “Do not fear that I was not calm and composed. They wanted to deprive me of my ladies, and I suppose they would deprive me next of my dressers and my housemaids; they wished to treat me like a girl, but I will show them that I am Queen of England!” Lord Melbourne and Lord John Russell advised the Queen that she was quite right, and supported her in her determination not to give way; so that the Whigs found themselves defending the principle that the will of the Sovereign is paramount over the advice of her Ministers and public considerations; while the Tories were defending the opposite doctrine. Angry discussions took place in both Houses; Lord Brougham in the House of Lords opening the sluice-gates in a three hours’ speech that Greville calls “a boiling torrent of rage, disdain, and hatred.” The