He tried, and, of course, failed ignominiously. No man trusted him or cared to serve under or with him. The Queen, however, in her letter to Lord John, very shrewdly and gracefully held out the olive branch to Palmerston by saying that it would give her great pleasure if he would join the new Government. Palmerston, feeling that the crisis was one which also called for sacrifices on his part, offered to serve even under Lord John as Secretary for War, if he could thereby extricate the Crown from its difficulties. But he deemed it imperative that Lord Clarendon should join the Ministry, and this Lord Clarendon stoutly refused to do. His colleagues, he said, had all been loyal to him, and he would not serve under a man who, from the time he entered the late Ministry, had persistently embarrassed it, and intrigued for its destruction. Lord John found that he had attempted the impossible, and on the 4th of February the country was still without a Government, to the infinite damage [Illustration: HENRY VIII.’S GATEWAY, WINDSOR CASTLE.] of its prestige in the eyes of foreign nations. The Czar rejoiced grimly at our embarrassments. The French Emperor began to doubt whether a stable alliance could be formed with a nation whose organic institutions were so unstable. The Queen accordingly put an end to Russell’s intrigues, which had wrought all this mischief, in a very summary manner. Lord Palmerston’s public-spirited behaviour in the crisis had obliterated all recollection of his faults in the past. Her Majesty therefore called on Palmerston to organise a Government. The Whigs who had served in the Coalition Cabinet agreed to serve under him. The Peelites would have done so, but they declined because of their deep personal regard for Aberdeen and Newcastle, who, they declared, had been most unjustly and spitefully attacked by the majority that had destroyed the Coalition Government.[202] Aberdeen and Newcastle, however, remonstrated with them, and the result was that Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Sidney Herbert, and the Duke of Argyle consented to take office under Palmerston. When Lord Palmerston informed the Queen of this fact she felt that for a time her troubles were over, that again she was indebted to the disinterested devotion of Lord Aberdeen for a happy release from her difficulties. Palmerston himself also expressed his gratitude to Aberdeen in strong and cordial terms.[203] [Illustration: REFRESHMENT ROOM, HOUSE OF LORDS.]