There can be no doubt that the Queen’s view was the correct one, and it is now known that Lord Eversley, the ablest Speaker who has in her Majesty’s reign presided over the House of Commons, actually advised Mr. Speaker Denison to rule Mr. Gibson’s motion out of order, on the very grounds which seemed to the Queen to justify Lord Palmerston in ignoring the censure.[12] On the other hand, her Majesty had to admit the fact that Lord Palmerston and Lord Clarendon had been maladroit in their handling of the whole affair. They should have answered Walewski’s despatch more formally than in a private letter from Clarendon to Cowley. They ought at the outset to have pleaded the constitutional privilege of the Executive, and refusing to produce the despatch in Parliament, have challenged the Opposition to a vote of censure. Moreover, the Queen knew only too well by this time that if Palmerston refused to resign on Mr. Gibson’s motion, he would be turned out on one to abolish the office of Lord Privy Seal, Lord Clanricarde’s appointment to which had given great offence.[13] Thus, though it was in some respects objectionable to sanction a Ministerial resignation because the House of Commons censured, not the policy of the Government, but an administrative act of the Executive,[14] the Queen bent to circumstances, and sent for Lord Derby to form a Cabinet. Lord Derby, though he took office, did not desire it, because he could only reign on sufferance. His party, strictly speaking, was in a minority of about two to one in the House of Commons, and his Government would be at the mercy of casual combinations among the factions of the Opposition. He had to fall back on his old Administration (minus Sir E. B. Lytton).[15]