As the session of 1843 advanced, the Queen and Prince Albert conceived a yet higher opinion of the great qualities exhibited by Sir Robert Peel. Her Majesty described him to the King of the Belgians as “a man who thinks but little of party, and never of himself.” The Prince, with his remarkable keenness of judgment, anticipated that it would not be long ere Peel would quit the Conservative party, or the Conservatives, in the main, would desert him. In a Memorandum of Mr. Anson’s, dated April 30th, 1843, we read:--“The Prince said yesterday, that Sir Robert Peel was certainly far from popular with the Conservative party. He, for his part, had the greater confidence in Sir Robert for the very cause to which he attributed the want of confidence with which his party regarded him. It was that Sir Robert was determined to adopt his own line, and not to be turned aside by the fear of making political enemies, or losing support. He was determined either to stand or fall by his own opinion; and the Prince felt that in such a man’s hands the interests of the Crown were most secure.” In little more than three years it was seen that Peel did in truth “fall” by devotion to what he considered necessary to the well-being of the [Illustration: WESTMINSTER HALL.] country. By his conversion to Free Trade he lost the support of the Conservative party, and was expelled from office by a combination which placed him at a hopeless disadvantage. That he would once more have risen to the head of affairs, had not an accident cut short his life, cannot be doubted; but, with the change of Ministry in 1846, his official existence came to a close.