But only for nine agitated months did he remain in power. The Ministry, in a minority in the Commons, was swept out of existence by a general election. Yet by the end of that short period the ties which bound together the Queen and her Premier had grown far stronger than ever before; the relationship between them was now no longer merely that between a grateful mistress and a devoted servant: they were friends. His official letters, in which the personal element had always been perceptible, developed into racy records of political news and social gossip, written, as Lord Clarendon said, 'in his best novel style,' Victoria was delighted; she had never, she declared, had such letters in her life, and had never before known _everything_.[6] In return, she sent him, when the spring came, several bunches of flowers, picked by her own hands. He despatched to her a set of his novels, for which, she said, she was 'most grateful, and which she values much.' She herself had lately published her 'Leaves from the Journal of our Life in the Highlands,' and it was observed that the Prime Minister, in conversing {243} with Her Majesty at this period, constantly used the words 'we authors, ma'am.'[7] Upon political questions, she was his staunch supporter. 'Really there never was such conduct as that of the Opposition,' she wrote. And when the Government was defeated in the House she was 'really shocked at the way in which the House of Commons go on; they really bring discredit on Constitutional Government.'[8] She dreaded the prospect of a change; she feared that if the Liberals insisted upon disestablishing the Irish Church, her Coronation Oath might stand in the way.[9] But a change there had to be, and Victoria vainly tried to console herself for the loss of her favourite Minister by bestowing a peerage upon Mrs. Disraeli. Mr. Gladstone was in his shirt-sleeves at Hawarden, cutting down a tree, when the royal message was brought to him. 'Very significant,' he remarked, when he had read the letter, and went on cutting down his tree. His secret thoughts on the occasion were more explicit, and were committed to his diary. 'The Almighty,' he wrote, 'seems to sustain and spare me for some purpose of His own, deeply unworthy as I know myself to be. Glory be to His name.'[10]